Suggestions for a Newbie

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Hello,

I've just started trying to really get into classical music. But, I want to listen to pieces I'd most likely enjoy rather than those I wouldn't, so I figured I'd give you some information on my musical tastes, and go from there.

The genre I most love is heavy metal, mostly for its passion, intricacy, and musicianship. I like music that displays good musicianship and is well-written and more complex, rather than simplistic. I like music that is powerful. After metal, I love progressive rock (i.e., the 70s prog-rock bands like Genesis, Yes, King Crimson, and Pink Floyd). Progressive metal is my favorite particular genre (bands like Opeth and Between the Buried and Me toping my list). I also like to listen to jazz and jazz-fusion. Aside from that (and usually in small doses), I like classic rock, contemporary rock, and a few indie bands.

I have listened to some Stravinsky and enjoyed it, mainly Firebird. It's a bit too meandering in sections, but the ending climax is just awesome. I've also listend to Gustav Holst's Planets suite, and really love that, especially the first piece inspired by Mars.

So, where do you suggest I go from here?

[Daverz]

Try some more Stravinsky like Petrouchka and The Rite of Spring.

Some other things to try:

Janacek: Sinfonietta
Mussorgsky: Pictures at an Exhibition
Prokofiev: Romeo & Juliet (suites or excerpts)
Bartok: Concerto for Orchestra
Bizet: Carmen Suites
Rimsky Korsakov: Russian Easter Overture
Rachmaninoff: Symphonic Dances
Ravel: La valse

[Opus106]

Wagner?

http://www.youtube.com/v/r3Q2IhEUCNE#t=279s


Welcome aboard.

[knight66]

Prokofiev wrote a piece called Romeo and Juliet. Highlights of it fit onto a single disc. This might be something you would enjoy. It has lyrical passages, but here are two dramatic ones.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljOMXgfflRI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sz8i68lpBpc

A possible recording:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Prokofiev-Royal-Scottish-National-Orchestra/dp/B002EYBNT2/ref=sr_1_10?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1296390540&sr=1-10

Prokofiev also wrote film music, some of the best. His music to the silent film Alexander Nevsky was turned into a cantata that is now often performed. There is a long sequence called 'Battle on the Ice', very exciting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xy84N_U5jw0

Possible recording

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Prokofiev-Alexander-Nevsky-Lieutenant-Kij%C3%A9/dp/B000001GQC/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1296391089&sr=1-1

Mike

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Thanks for the recommendations, everyone. And thanks for that awesome Vid, Opus. Very interesting.

[jochanaan]

If you're into metal, you'd probably like the music of the Second Viennese School: Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern; and you'll like Varèse even more.  Varèse in particular makes some of your "metal masters" look tame. This is not your "average" classical music!

[bhodges]

And definitely check out Iannis Xenakis, whose work seems to be very popular with metal fans. Here's a fine version of Metastasis, one of his early works.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZazYFchLRI

--Bruce

[bigshot]

It isn't what newbies want to hear, but the music isn't boring... The problem is their tastes. Music is a language and you can't expect to be fluent right off the bat. Sometimes you have to extend yourself andwork to fully understand a piece. Read the liner notes. Google up info on the piece and the composer. Listen carefully several times. Think about what you hear.

If you do that you'll be richly rewarded because with each piece you master the understanding of, it will be easier to master the next. Yourtastes will open up, which is a lot better than trying to pinpoint what you initially like.

[Daverz]

I don't think that knowing someone likes Metal really gives you any idea what they might respond to.  My own list is pretty much the same one I give every time. 

But maybe he'll respond more to Vivaldi or Monteverdi or Dufay.

I also suggest listening to internet radio stations.  I like KUSC.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

I don't think that knowing someone likes Metal really gives you any idea what they might respond to.  My own list is pretty much the same one I give every time. 

True, but I do say more than just, "I like metal."

And I agree completely, bigshot, but if I'm going to get into classical, I want to start where I will find the most enjoyment. I guess that sounds fickle, but it is what it is. If I start with something I don't like, chances are I won't continue, especially since I can't devote a ton of time to studying classical music (or, I guess I should say I don't really want to).

[bigshot]

If you don't intend to study the music, classical isn't for you. This stuff is generally over 100 years old. It's a part of a totally different place and time. If you don't want to expend the effort to understand it in its own context, you're not going to get much out of it, and it will likely seem pretty boring. If you just want nice orchestral background music, the best source for that is the radio.

Perhaps later in life you might see the value in addressing classical music on its own terms, but until then, I'd recommend saving your money and just listen to the radio.

[mc ukrneal]

If you don't intend to study the music, classical isn't for you. This stuff is generally over 100 years old. It's a part of a totally different place and time. If you don't want to expend the effort to understand it in its own context, you're not going to get much out of it, and it will likely seem pretty boring. If you just want nice orchestral background music, the best source for that is the radio.

Perhaps later in life you might see the value in addressing classical music on its own terms, but until then, I'd recommend saving your money and just listen to the radio.

I have to disagree here. He doesn't say he won't expend effort but that he doesn't have a lot of time to devote and that is something many of us face at one time or another.  But there is certainly a lot you can get out of the music with a relatively small amount of 'poking around' shall we say. More important is to just enjoy listening to the music. Even as a kid, I used to love the imagery that many songs created in my mind as I listened. His knowledge of other genres will help him too. And when we like something, we tend to spend more time on it anyway. I've rarely researched a piece before listening to it, and that hasn't stopped me from loving the music.

[Rinaldo]

More important is to just enjoy listening to the music.

Amen to that. All you need is a spark, something you overhear and love and then follow its trail, wherever it leads you. The context is usually helpful and might open your ears to something you didn't find interesting at first, but music is abstract – one can go crazy about a 5 or 500 year old piece without knowing a single thing about its origin.

[Lethevich]

True, but I do say more than just, "I like metal."

No worries, it does help a little - it's amazing how many metal fans wash up on the shores of Classical Island: me included. I would suggest the tone poems of Richard Strauss and Jean Sibelius - here are a few samples:

http://www.youtube.com/v/Ht5x83HYPLU http://www.youtube.com/v/bxsvU2fBJgA
http://www.youtube.com/v/yGA867V2EvA http://www.youtube.com/v/KqNyhAGz1oI

The fourth I link is a piece of chamber music for piano and string quartet. When I was initially exploring classical I completely ignored this medium, much to my later regret. Welcome to the forum, by the way!

[The Diner]

BEETHOVEN
BRAHMS
\m/

[The Diner]

Also and especially...
Beethoven Symphonies 5, 7 and 9
Prokofiev's Alexander Nevsky
Sibelius's violin concerto
A disc of Wagner's orchestral highlights
Brahms' German Requiem and Symphony 4
Bach Mass in B Minor
Saint-Saens' Danse Macabre

[post 666] 

[The Diner]

Dude, that was post 666. 

Very metal. 

[bigshot]

The way people listen to popular music is entirely different than the way people listen to classical. Popular music is all about riffs and hooks that grab you on first hearing. The music is designed to be listened to informally. Most people multitask with their iPod on shuffle. The length rarely exceeds a casual attention span- under five minutes. People usually have favorites that change with the mode of the day. A lot of popular music that is over a year or two old is forgotten, replaced by current hits.

None of that applies to classical music. In fact, if you attempt to listen to classical music that way, you'll end up bored and impatient for the music to hurry up and get to the "good parts".

The main reason newbies have trouble figuring out how to get into classical music is because they try to listen to it like other types of music. That just doesn't work. Although there is an emotional level to the music that is direct and immediate, there is also a structural and contextual level to the music that is absolutely necessary to try to grasp if you are going to appreciate it.

The great pianist, Schnabel once explained that he resisted recording because his respect for Beethoven was so great that he couldn't bear the thought that someone might listen to the Hammeklavier in their bathrobe at the kitchen table eating a ham sandwich. That's a really funny idea, but there's a germ of truth to it too.

We all want to share our passion for music with others, but we need to be honest with them that there is more involved with an appreciation of classical music than just finding some classical tunes that sound like heavy metal. Structurally, the nursery rhyme repetition of power riffs is a million miles away from the rigid form of the sonata or the long form architecture of a Mahler symphony. If one tries to address these sorts of pieces in the same way, one is bound to be disappointed.

Learning about anything new in this world requires effort. You don't sit down at a piano and automatically know how to play, and just because you can hold a pencil doesn't mean you know how to draw. Understanding and appreciating classical music, fine art, ballet or any other sophisticated and multilayered art form requires a willingness to put in the time and effort to learn about what you're looking at.

Listening to classical music with ignorance about what it really is can only lead to an ignorant reaction to it.

[mc ukrneal]

The way people listen to popular music is entirely different than the way people listen to classical. Popular music is all about riffs and hooks that grab you on first hearing. The music is designed to be listened to informally. Most people multitask with their iPod on shuffle. The length rarely exceeds a casual attention span- under five minutes. People usually have favorites that change with the mode of the day. A lot of popular music that is over a year or two old is forgotten, replaced by current hits.

None of that applies to classical music. In fact, if you attempt to listen to classical music that way, you'll end up bored and impatient for the music to hurry up and get to the "good parts".

The main reason newbies have trouble figuring out how to get into classical music is because they try to listen to it like other types of music. That just doesn't work. Although there is an emotional level to the music that is direct and immediate, there is also a structural and contextual level to the music that is absolutely necessary to try to grasp if you are going to appreciate it.

The great pianist, Schnabel once explained that he resisted recording because his respect for Beethoven was so great that he couldn't bear the thought that someone might listen to the Hammeklavier in their bathrobe at the kitchen table eating a ham sandwich. That's a really funny idea, but there's a germ of truth to it too.

We all want to share our passion for music with others, but we need to be honest with them that there is more involved with an appreciation of classical music than just finding some classical tunes that sound like heavy metal. Structurally, the nursery rhyme repetition of power riffs is a million miles away from the rigid form of the sonata or the long form architecture of a Mahler symphony. If one tries to address these sorts of pieces in the same way, one is bound to be disappointed.

Learning about anything new in this world requires effort. You don't sit down at a piano and automatically know how to play, and just because you can hold a pencil doesn't mean you know how to draw. Understanding and appreciating classical music, fine art, ballet or any other sophisticated and multilayered art form requires a willingness to put in the time and effort to learn about what you're looking at.

Listening to classical music with ignorance about what it really is can only lead to an ignorant reaction to it.

Again, I must disagree. We are all able to appeciate much music knowing little to nothing about it. How do you get into classical without listening to it first? You are suggesting that one must study it first, and that is not the way it usually happens. I would say that studying 'sonata form', for example,  doesn't mean anything until one has heard it.

For example, I knew nothing about Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony (#6) the first time I heard it. But I came away with all sorts of impressions and ideas. Most importantly, I came away motivated, interested, impassioned, and excited. Music is not just an intellectual exercise (although it can be that too), but an emotional one. That is why I think anyone can love classical music. Knowing jazz in itself (as the OP lists as a liked genre) is an 'in' as one can immediately appreciate composers who incorporate elements of jazz in their writing. From there, one can appreciate the precursors of jazz and so on.

But one can also hear a piece that is totally new and have a new world open. This is where the OP and many people are today. Even many of us that love classical music are still there in some of the sub-genres of classical such as the Second Viennese School or Baroque for example.

Even people with a short attention span can love classical music, listening to waltzes and mazurkas or marches. A short attention span is something we accuse people of across a wide range of the arts (or younger generation), and this is something that can be learned. But one must begin somewhere. And with all the people that like film scores and other genres, I don't think it is such a difficult issue that you seem to feel it is.

[bhodges]

Again, I must disagree. We are all able to appeciate much music knowing little to nothing about it. How do you get into classical without listening to it first? You are suggesting that one must study it first, and that is not the way it usually happens. I would say that studying 'sonata form', for example,  doesn't mean anything until one has heard it.

Yes, I have to disagree, as well (and agree with the above). I have many friends whose entry into classical music was through very nontraditional portals, e.g., a rock drummer who discovered the second Viennese school. After falling in love with Berg, Schoenberg and Webern, he is now working his way back (and forward), catching up on other composers. But he's not a scholar; he just likes the way the music sounds.

And then there are people who really don't care for Beethoven or Bach, or Mendelssohn or Mahler (at least, at first), who are totally enthralled by Ligeti, or Gesualdo, or Berio, or David Lang. I think there are many different entry points into the universe of "classical" music--perhaps as many as there are listeners.

--Bruce