an attempt at a general "What are you currently digging re. classical music" thread

Ettore De Carolis - Ciociaria - A Land Of Ancient Silences (one of my finds of the year. and why i will always love the musical heritage society. they put out so much stuff that NOBODY would have put out in the states. Italian folk stuff. children chanting. hurdy-gurdy. guitar. harmonium. mandolin. lutes. trombones. evocations of ancestral rituals. this record has it all.)

^^ This record scott wrote about five years ago is B L O W I N G MY M I N D

I'm taking note.

I'm a little disconcerted at how few classical albums I've been able to get into. Maybe something like 4 out of 15? I've heard people say it takes a bit more patience than most music, but even 20 listens hasn't been able to crack a lot of them. And most of it seems totally up my street. All the scarier is how long it takes to cover all the big boys and girls before you branch out.

How did people get into this stuff before recorded music was available? Is it just a case of being familiar enough with the genres?

Actually playing the music and seeing it live; probably still the best ways.

My only suggestion would be to listen to lots of different stuff from all periods, rather than intensely trying to crack individual pieces. I find that learning about art is often about learning how to situate things in contrast with each other. You may learn more about how to hear a Mozart piece by hearing how it's different from a Beethoven piece.

If you can read music, following scores can help. Otherwise, it might help to try to identify melodic themes and motives and follow how they are developed and transformed; also looking for points of harmonic resolution might serve to guide your listening. Hard to say more without knowing what you're listening to and looking for.

xp Yeah, reading a book on music appreciation will probably be helpful. This one is good: https://www.amazon.ca/Music-Appreciation-Roger-Kamien/dp/0078025206

Sorry, "yeah" = jmm's idea is a good one and it made me think that reading up on the music in general may supplement it well. I've used the Kamien in an intro music appreciation course and it worked well ime.

http://www.cdbiblio.com/eingang/cdimages/img_ravel/ravel0008.jpg

check this beauty out RAG, you don't need to try and like it but you might!

I always tell people to start by thinking about what kind of instrumentation they feel the most instinctively attracted to. Solo piano? String quartets/chamber combos? Orchestral? Vocal + orchestra? Vocal + piano? Go with your gut and fuck around in that area for awhile, checking out stuff from different centuries - composers of every era from the 18th c to today have worked in these more or less stable formats (well an “orchestra” for Mozart and an “orchestra” for Lutoslawski are quite different in scale and variety but you know what I mean)

Also for beginners I am a big fan of Michael Steinberg’s two books The Symphony and The Concerto - he does a wonderful job of writing you through a piece without getting too technical but without resorting to lame ass poetics either.

Calzino- Thanks

For the record, the stuff I did get into was Bach organ stuff, first disc in the big Mahler box (might have benefitted from having long breaks between listens), Havergal Brian's Gothic. Enjoying bits of Delius right now.

Surely Glen Branca's Ascension doesn't count? Just felt like enjoying a rock album to me.

4 out of 15 is a pretty good hitting percentage! do you like a quarter of the rock albums you listen to?

anyway, if you listen to something 20 times and don't like it you should probably take a break from that recording. it's taken me 25 years to get into classical, that's the beauty of it, you can take your time with it.

What got me into classical in my late teens was program music or pieces that had a strong association with movies or books, or evoked pictures in my mind of historical periods and cultural scenes. So like, the Clockwork Orange soundtrack got me into Beethoven's Ninth, then other Beethoven symphonies, then Schubert, Brahms and so on. Meanwhile, Wendy Carlos led me to Bach keyboard works and the Brandenburgs, then Scarlatti, Vivaldi and them boys.

At no time was I seeking this stuff out in a conscious effort to appreciate classical music. It all just sounded good to me in spite my instinctive rock music bias.

A few of the more obvious starting points that I was drawn to along these lines: Symphonie Fantastique, Scheherazade, Peer Gynt and Holberg Suites, Also Sprach Zarathustra, The Planets, La Mer, Le Tombeau de Couperin, Rite of Spring. I soon moved beyond a need for any programmatic tie-in. That's the last type of thing I go for anymore, or when I do, it's not for the pictures or storylines it is meant to conjure up.

Based on what you're already liking, most of this could seem a bit unsophisticated. Yeah, well...

I actually do like most of my rock purchases. Funnily enough I cant think of many albums I've actively disliked. But I comprehend most of them well.

I forgot to mention the role that weed played in my listening. People are right that it can take patience. Sometimes a little smoking helps to crack into these things. Not to be a bad influence, mind you.

Surely Glen Branca's Ascension doesn't count? Just felt like enjoying a rock album to me.

At the last job, my late 20th century music students thought that even Branca's 13th symphony just sounded like a rock band without the singing.

I've also got Branca's Symphony 1 which sounds a lot more like classical to me and I didn't dig it quite as much.

it helps to branch out from music you already like, e.g. I loved Aphex Twin and loads of other synth music and naturally explored the history of it, going back to the first academic experiments from modern classical composers, which led to classical music that might not be electronic but showcases some elements like Messiaen, Kagel, Berio etc. which led to exploring music of the previous generations, and so on

I'm a big fan of symphonic prog and metal, so symphonies seems natural. Also pipe organs, so Bach.

the bartok string quartets are pretty metal.

for symphonies try prokofiev. start with the 3rd.

I would recommend 'Weather' by Michael Gordon, it's pretty symphonic and brooding.

mahler's 6th is a really good un. not really metal but so full of tragedy and bombastic apocalyptic doom, apparently he was quite astutely feeling that very bad times were coming back for European Jewry and I think one of his children was dying when he composed it.

^^^ Based on what RAG has said I think that’s an excellent recommendation. The most visceral thing GM did

And a real example of catharsis in abstract music

Extremely basic stuff everyone knows here, but I'm currently listening to this 1926 recording of The Planets by the LSO conducted by Holst himself, and it is really very good.

https://youtu.be/lsBdREh9UEw

TBH classical warhorses fucking rule for the most part. There’s a reason they’re warhorses; it’s not good to condescend to them. (particularly the planets which is both a warhorse and a masterwork)

I'm a big fan of symphonic prog and metal, so symphonies seems natural. Also pipe organs, so Bach.

― Robert Adam Gilmour

seconding the bartok string quartet suggestion, last movement of the fourth string quartet is a key influence on "larks tongues in aspic ii"

if you like pipe organ you need to hear widor's fifth symphony ("symphony" in pipe organ terms doesn't mean the same thing as "symphony" for orchestra, it's just pipe organ)

Also the big Liszt organ pieces: Ad Nos, the variations on BACH, the wienen klagen sorgen zagen variations, and the transcription of Orpheus

Hunnenschlacht also has a fun organ part.

Yeah, was going to recommend Bartok's 4th string quartet. Fwiw, liking the style of rock music descibed as 'symphonic prog' does not necessarily mean you will prefer symphonies to chamber or solo works imo. A rock band, even a progressive one, is arguably more like a chamber group. Have you looked into much guitar repertoire btw? The Ginastera Sonata for Guitar and Villa-Lobos's Douze Etudes are good places to start for 'rocking' modern guitar music.

TBH classical warhorses fucking rule for the most part. There’s a reason they’re warhorses; it’s not good to condescend to them. (particularly the planets which is both a warhorse and a masterwork)

Actually can I hijack the thread slightly to ask if anyone has any good reccomendations of classical recordings from the early electronic recording era, say 1926-1938?

Elgar’s own recordings of his symphonies

hmmm, what do i have from that era

the cortot, thibaud, casals trio is great, i have their recording of beethoven's "archduke" and schubert's piano trio no. 1

the early recordings of rhapsody in blue are nice (if abbreviated) - i prefer the acoustic version to the subsequent electric version though

haven't heard elgar conducting his symphonies, but the violin concerto with yehudi menuhin from 1932 is great

pushing bast '38, but schonberg's recording of pierrot lunaire and stravinsky's second rite of spring (both from 1940) are great shit

gieseking's first recording of the emperor concerto (i think it's from '35?) is nice

RAG, are you a fan of Sunn O)))? If yes, I recommend Anna Thorvaldsdottir, a living composer whose albums Aerial, In The Light Of Air and Aequa are all amazing. They don't sound like "classical music" in the Bugs Bunny sense at all; at times they remind me of Autechre or Einstürzende Neubauten.

https://burningambulance.com/2018/12/28/anna-thorvaldsdottir-2/

https://burningambulance.com/2015/09/08/anna-thorvaldsdottir/

willem mengelberg's beethoven symphonies are fantastic (for old recordings)

i've only heard aequa but it rules

Thanks for all the recs.

I really think Havergal Brian's Gothic and Mahler's Das Klagende Lied fit into my "prog rock epic" orifice very nicely. They have that dramatic panoramic quality, big awesome landscapes traversed in exciting ways.

Bartok has long been on my list, Art Zoyd comparisons helped that along.

Went to a performance of Mahler's 9th last night. It was incredible and worth checking out. Surprised how lengthy it was and how fast it blew by.

1st movement of Mahler 9 is about as good as music gets imo

the first person i ever read repping for Mahler was C Bukowski!

Are there many "show must go on" stories like this one?

Five weeks after the outbreak of the Gulf War, 23.2.1991, the audience filled the Jerusalem Theatre: Jewish-American violinist Isaac Stern arrived in Israel as an act of solidarity with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Zubin Mehta.

A deafening alarm sounded in the hall, disrupting Mozart's Concerto No. 3 for violin and orchestra. The orchestra players went offstage to wear their masks, and Stern stepped off the stage, too, wanting to continue with the concert, but it was impossible to continue playing the concerto while the musicians wore masks. He decided to play the Adagio from Bach's Sonata Violin No. 1 in Bach Minor, with the alarm still wailing in the background, and the audience stood up and burst into applause, which was accompanied by a siren. Stern wore no mask. He later said that he did not believe that Saddam Hussein would launch Scud missiles at Jerusalem, its mosques and the extensive Arab population
– (Jerusalem Theatre)

The concert was filmed – while he plays, many of the audience are in gas masks, so it's slightly disturbing to watch

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZFWV0UIuNM

Another famous concert in adversity was Shostakovich's 7th symphony in 1942.

keep coming back to kyle gann's hyperchromatica

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wW_ZBcqe5KQ

was listening to DJ Rupture/Julius Eastman Memory Depot the other day - sick album.

I’ve gotten obsessed with Ştefanu Nicolescu since hearing Ison II on a BBC Radio 3 concert and made my own YouTube playlist since so little is officially available to stream

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjXRMRMaO8qd5234s3IZiQHy35gVGPR3j&si=CXA7QZkslXvxcewG

wow, this certainly justifies your enthusiasm

soooo many ads tho

https://kamdzhalov.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/G%C3%B3recki_Symphony_No_3-bigger-grey-1080x675.jpg

This is a good, if mournful, listen. Lisa's voice is pretty understated in this recording, no doubt in service to the material.