Where to go next?

[Que]

Thanks for replying Que. Interesting that you say this as I have often found Classical and Baroque more difficult to appreciate. I think this has a lot to do with the way that I experience the music, which is mainly an aesthetic and emotional response for me. It is difficult to explain, but when listening to music, I tend to see images, colours or come to apprehend ideas and sensations in my mind. This happens more often with Romantic era music. That is to say that I find this music has a greater tendency to move me in this way. That is not to say that I don't find Classical or Baroque music to be pleasant and enjoyable. But I'm sure that this fault lies with me and that I am missing out on something somewhere along the line.

I was interested by this comment. Why do you think that pre-Romantic music in particular would help me in my current predicament?

D.

Well, as you might have guessed I was talking from experience. Baroque music and Early music do connect us to not only a different aesthetic world but also to different emotions - assuming the listener is able to connect to what is beyond the pleasent and enjoyable surface. I found music by, for instance Bach, soothing during my own experience, it's sometimes called "balm for the soul" for a reason!  Visiting a Mahler concert is basically paying to feel utterly depressed for almost two hours, which is an invigorating experience for someone with a happy state of mind, but not advisable in other circumstances because it will extrapolate, and deepen anxieties during listening. I didn't listen to Mahler for years - came all much too close...

So some Desprez, Bach, Händel, Vivaldi, Haydn and Mozart will give you the opportunity to "get out" of your own state of mind - be it briefly - instead of enhancing it.

Q

[Daedalus]

Bjorn--the absence of Bach's name from your list suggests the obvious "next place to go."  Not knowing Bach in music is like not knowing Newton in physics.  I suggest hastening to listen slowly and reflectively to his Sonatas & Partitas for solo violin, his Suites for solo cello, solo keyboard music starting with the Goldberg Variations, then to ensemble music like the beloved violin concertos and the Brandenburgs, and then to the cantatas and great choral works like the SMP.

Bjorn?  

My list of composers in the first post was just a list of my more recent listening.

I have listened to, and enjoyed, Bach in the past, especially the Goldberg Variations and the Cello Suites.

Well, as you might have guessed I was talking from experience. Baroque music and Early music do connect us to not only a different aesthetic world but also to different emotions - assuming the listener is able to connect to what is beyond the pleasent and enjoyable surface. I found music by, for instance Bach, soothing during my own experience, it's sometimes called "balm for the soul" for a reason!   Visiting a Mahler concert is basically paying to feel utterly depressed for almost two hours, which is an invigorating experience for someone with a happy state of mind, but not advisable in other circumstances because it will extrapolate, and deepen anxieties during listening. I didn't listen to Mahler for years - came all much too close...

I don't find Mahler in the least bit depressing actually.

Indeed, I usually find his most depressing and chaotic music to be cathartic, enabling me to purge my negative emotions. I find a connection in some of the ideas and sensations I experience when listening to the music, which I find strangely uplifting even when it is at its darkness point. Sometimes it can be extremely satisfying because the music says more than I can ever say in words, which part of the horror of my blackness.

Conversely, I actually find that music by Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart - to name a few from your list - to be best to listen to when I am feeling 'high' emotionally. They reflect the way that I feel and lift my spirits even more.

That's not to say that you might be right. Perhaps I will try listening to some Bach for a change this evening and see how I get on.

D.

[ChamberNut]

Why's that ChamberNut?

D.

Baroque and Classical Era music tends to be sunnier, more cheerful music than Romantic Era music.  Certainly not always and in all cases, but more often than not.

[Que]

I don't find Mahler in the least bit depressing actually.

I dare say that Mahler himself might have been surprised.

Of course Mahler has his uplifting moments as well, but even those are defined by the underlying tragedy. To me Mahler comes accross as highly intelligent, sophisticated, hyper sensitive and... depressed. I'm not fooled by his brief moments of extreme exaltation - they are in effect rather a confirmation.

Q

[DavidRoss]

I dare say that Mahler himself might have been surprised.

Of course Mahler has his uplifting moments as well, but even those are defined by the underlying tragedy. To me Mahler comes accross as highly intelligent, sophisticated, hyper sensitive and... depressed. I'm not fooled by his brief moments of extreme exaltation - they are in effect rather a confirmation.

And to me Mahler is essentially uplifting, drenched in warm appreciation of and even awe at the soul's tightrope dance between nature's sensuous beauty and humankind's baffling insanity.  "Proof," I suppose, that though music may be a language, it is a language of Babel, speaking differently to each depending upon his proclivity to hear.

[Que]

And to me Mahler is essentially uplifting, drenched in warm appreciation of and even awe at the soul's tightrope dance between nature's sensuous beauty and humankind's baffling insanity.  "Proof," I suppose, that though music may be a language, it is a language of Babel, speaking differently to each depending upon his proclivity to hear.

The fascination of music!

Q

[vandermolen]

Aaron Copland: Symphony No 3, William Walton Symphony No 1 are must hear works too.

[Daedalus]

My Vaughan Williams order arrived this morning. I am currently listening to Symphony No. 4, picked at random from the set I have bought.

Can anyone recommend any good biographical and/or critical literature to go alongside my listening?

I actually think I'm going to copy Grazioso and spend some time going through the Symphony genre. I like that this will add a structure to my listening but also send me off in new directions too.

D.

[Grazioso]

My Vaughan Williams order arrived this morning. I am currently listening to Symphony No. 4, picked at random from the set I have bought.

Can anyone recommend any good biographical and/or critical literature to go alongside my listening?

I actually think I'm going to copy Grazioso and spend some time going through the Symphony genre. I like that this will add a structure to my listening but also send me off in new directions too.

D.

Have fun! To recommend just a few symphonists off the beaten path: Atterberg, Boccherini, Bax, Holmboe, Korngold, Lilburn, Madetoja, Martinu, Mathias, Norgard, Onslow, Pettersson, Ries, Rubbra...

These 25-CD symphony sets from Naxos/Arkivmusic are more than worth while, btw:

[Lethevich]

I was tempted to recommend Martinů at the start of the thread, but I didn't want to risk going too obscure. But I will happilly second him now that he has been mentioned here!

[Grazioso]

I was tempted to recommend Martinů at the start of the thread, but I didn't want to risk going too obscure. But I will happilly second him now that he has been mentioned here!

He creates a unique, highly distinctive sound from the orchestra, and his 6th, Fantaisies Symphoniques, has one of those arresting openings that will just stop you dead in your tracks.

[DavidRoss]

Guess it's time for me to give those Martinů symphonies another try.  The 6th, you say?

[Daedalus]

Thanks Grazioso,

These 25-CD symphony sets from Naxos/Arkivmusic are more than worth while, btw:

They look like really interesting sets. I can't seem to find them anywhere to buy from UK sites though.

I've checked the Naxos website and used their catalogue search and nothing is coming up.  

D.

[not edward]

Guess it's time for me to give those Martinů symphonies another try.  The 6th, you say?

If the 6th doesn't grab you--it is an unusually loosely structured piece for this composer--try the 3rd (gripping, one of this composer's darkest works), or the 4th (joyous, like a 20th century Dvorak).

[vandermolen]

My Vaughan Williams order arrived this morning. I am currently listening to Symphony No. 4, picked at random from the set I have bought.

Can anyone recommend any good biographical and/or critical literature to go alongside my listening?

Hope you enjoy it. Symphony 6 is my favourite. This book is a good, inexpensive, introduction to Vaughan Williams.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Vaughan-Williams-Illustrated-Lives-Composers/dp/0711965269/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1245774712&sr=1-4

[ChamberNut]

Hope you enjoy it. Symphony 6 is my favourite. This book is a good, inexpensive, introduction to Vaughan Williams.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Vaughan-Williams-Illustrated-Lives-Composers/dp/0711965269/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1245774712&sr=1-4

Vandermolen, I absolute ADORE the Illustrated Lives of the Great Composers series.  They are short, simple and have lots of photos. Terrific reading for the less "musically educated" minds.    I've read Shostakovich, Tchaikovsky, Mahler and Wagner's, all from the public library.

[vandermolen]

Vandermolen, I absolute ADORE the Illustrated Lives of the Great Composers series.  They are short, simple and have lots of photos. Terrific reading for the less "musically educated" minds.    I've read Shostakovich, Tchaikovsky, Mahler and Wagner's, all from the public library.

ChamberNut, me too. I have the ones on Elgar, Sibelius, Bliss, VW, Holst and Rachmaninov. They are great introductions to these composers and brilliantly illustrated, well written and featuring discographies and recommendations for further reading. I don't think that they are in print anymore which is a pity.

[ChamberNut]

ChamberNut, me too. I have the ones on Elgar, Sibelius, Bliss, VW, Holst and Rachmaninov. They are great introductions to these composers and brilliantly illustrated, well written and featuring discographies and recommendations for further reading. I don't think that they are in print anymore which is a pity.

Like I said, all of the ones I've read in the past have been very interesting reads, but probably the most interesting of the bunch so far has been the Shostakovich one.

[Elgarian]

The period of history which particularly excites me is the period around the fin de siècle and the early 20th Century. I am fascinated by the kinds of questions that were being asked both intellectually and artistically during this period (the kind of adumbration of modernism to come

I'm going to be somewhat predictable in the first instance and - noting that you've made a start on Vaughan Williams who is basically on one side of the divide that you mention - suggest a bit of Elgar, who is, in spirit at least, on the other side. There you have an essentially nineteenth century composer (Elgar) confronted by the run up to the Great War, to compare with RVW a generation later. Elgar's The Spirit of England (a woefully neglected masterpiece) gives one (deeply moving) perspective on the tragedy of WW1; RVW's 3rd symphony gives a very different (and equally moving) response to it. The Elgar/Vaughan Williams pairing drops right into your period of interest and, given your wish to have a kind of theme to get your teeth into, could be what you're looking for. (If you find you hate the RVW you're listening to, of course, then maybe not.)

[jwinter]

Based on your original list, the 3 missing names that immediately leap to mind for me are Bach, Brahms, and (based on what else you like) Bruckner. 

For a start, I'd suggest:

Bach - Well-Tempered Clavier or cello suites (or the violin concerti if you prefer orchestral)
Brahms -- Piano Concerto #1, 1st or 4th symphonies
Bruckner -- 4th, 7th, 8th, or 9th symphonies

If you like the Bach, try some Vivaldi or Handel next.  If you like the Brahms, try some Dvorak or Tchaikovsky.  If you like the Bruckner, buy more Bruckner.