5 minutes to make a newcomer fall in love with classical music

[Brian]

Feel free to share your own, of course. But the idea for this thread comes with a very interesting NY Times project asking bigtime musicians for their nominees. Esa-Pekka Salonen, Yannick Nezet-Seguin, John Eliot Gardiner, Caroline Shaw, Nico Muhly, and more share their choices:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/06/arts/music/5-minutes-that-will-make-you-love-classical-music.html

[Karl Henning]

Feel free to share your own, of course. But the idea for this thread comes with a very interesting NY Times project asking bigtime musicians for their nominees. Esa-Pekka Salonen, Yannick Nezet-Seguin, John Eliot Gardiner, Caroline Shaw, Nico Muhly, and more share their choices:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/06/arts/music/5-minutes-that-will-make-you-love-classical-music.html

Nice.

[mc ukrneal]

I wouldn't have picked any of those, but then choosing one that would engage everyone equally is impossible. I think age is an important consideration too though. There's a reason so many of us liked Tom and Jerry, Woody Woodpecker or Bugs Bunny (to name a few), and I always liked the episodes where they had classical music (often Liszt or Rossini).

[Karl Henning]

I wouldn't have picked any of those, but then choosing one that would engage everyone equally is impossible.

There is that, indeed, indeed.

[Capeditiea]

i can agree with most of the list mentioned.

However i would like to add one that personally would be more applacable for the ones who say, "I don't like classical music, ________ (an excuse of some variation upon being sleepy.)


my first response would be a HIP recording of the first movement of Winter. (which i feel is what made me fall back in love with Vivaldi...'s music.)

But, after consideration i would pick the first movement of Stravinsky's Song of the Nightingale. it will effectively wake most folk up with in seconds. then just let Song of the Nightingale to do it's work on captivating them. :3

[SymphonicAddict]

It definitely depends on the age and I'd add it also depends on the other musical tastes people like.

I mention these ones:

Beethoven - Moonlight Sonata - 1st movement or 3rd movement (thesis and antithesis)
Dvorák - Symphony No. 8 - 1st movement or 4th movement (some of the funniest movements I know)
Respighi - Pini di Roma - Pini della Via Appia (because of its ineffable excitement), Belkis - War Dance (it lasts much less than 5 minutes, though).
Chopin - Ballade No. 4 (because of its sheer poetry)
Strauss - An Alpine Symphony (lots of different 5 minutes to let yourself to get marveled)
Sibelius - Symphony No. 2 - 4th movement (especially the minutes near the ending)
Ravel - String quartet - 2nd movement (I attended a concert and people got crazy with this movement that is out of this world)

[Daverz]

I like the suggestion of selections from Mother Goose, Firebird (those make a good coupling), and Janacek's Sinfonietta.

Prokofiev: Lt. Kijé - Troika.  Selections from R & J are also good.
Wiren: Serenade - Andante expressivo
Grieg: Symphonic Dance in D major
          Peer Gynt - In the Hall of the Mountain King
Ives: The Unanswered Question
Chabrier: España
Selections from Dvorak's Slavonic Dances, not sure which.  Perhaps the ones that Szell coupled with the 8th on EMI.
Moncayo: Huapango
Bruckner: Symphony No. 9 - Scherzo

Of course, this is the sort of thing that turned me on.  I had a friend who could not connect to any kind of classical music but solo harpsichord.

[EddieRUKiddingVarese]

I can do it in under 5 minutes

4'33' even 

[lisa needs braces]

The burden (or curse) of knowledge applies to classical music.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse_of_knowledge

[Capeditiea]

The burden (or curse) of knowledge applies to classical music.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse_of_knowledge

so very true. *nods.

[Karl Henning]

We don't know what we don't know.

[relm1]

The last 5 minutes of Mahler's Resurrection or 3rd symphony.  Maybe the last 5 minutes of Shostakovich's 5th.

[Cato]

I wouldn't have picked any of those, but then choosing one that would engage everyone equally is impossible. I think age is an important consideration too though. There's a reason so many of us liked Tom and Jerry, Woody Woodpecker or Bugs Bunny (to name a few), and I always liked the episodes where they had classical music (often Liszt or Rossini).

You 'n' me both, brother!   

Von Suppe overtures are always fun!

[prémont]

We don't know what we don't know.

Yes, I know that.

[Elgarian Redux]

We don't know what we don't know.

I'm not sure about that.

My choices would be:

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28bkMgDsAvw
50% of those to whom it was offered would be in tears. The other 50% would run for cover.
2.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_0FHyF3Pyk
If this didn't work, there would be no hope.

[vandermolen]

It definitely depends on the age and I'd add it also depends on the other musical tastes people like.

I mention these ones:

Beethoven - Moonlight Sonata - 1st movement or 3rd movement (thesis and antithesis)
Dvorák - Symphony No. 8 - 1st movement or 4th movement (some of the funniest movements I know)
Respighi - Pini di Roma - Pini della Via Appia (because of its ineffable excitement), Belkis - War Dance (it lasts much less than 5 minutes, though).
Chopin - Ballade No. 4 (because of its sheer poetry)
Strauss - An Alpine Symphony (lots of different 5 minutes to let yourself to get marveled)
Sibelius - Symphony No. 2 - 4th movement (especially the minutes near the ending)
Ravel - String quartet - 2nd movement (I attended a concert and people got crazy with this movement that is out of this world)

V much agree with this list although unfamiliar with Chopin and not a great fan of R. Strauss.

[Florestan]

Much more interesting than the choices are the reasons behind them: these people seem to have generally missed the point big time, with Nico Muhly winning the first prize by a very large margin:

Steve Reich's "Duet," for two violins and orchestra, is a wonderful distillation of his processes. There is a clear pulse, moving through a series of chords, each lasting just a few seconds. Each chord feels like it's finding repose from the previous one, creating a sense of release without feeling repetitive. On top of this, two violins play politely interlocking canons and patterns. A minute before the end, he lands on a sort of jazzed-up F-major chord, which, after a brief move to a minor key, resolves itself back into F — a moment of deep structural satisfaction.

Oh yeah, I'm absolutely sure that what a newcomer to classical music look for is first, a distillation of Steve Reich's processes and second, a moment of deep structural satisfaction.

No Vivaldi, Handel, Bach, Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven (with one exception), Schubert, Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti, Verdi, Puccini, Paganini, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Chopin, Brahms, Bizet, Tchaikovsky, Grieg, Dvorak, Rachmaninoff, Faure etc etc etc  --- ie, not a single one of those works which have been loved and cherished for centuries by the general audiences and which require no academic knowledge of music in order to be enjoyed. Looks like for the professionals of music everything that's eminently hummable and immediately appealing to the heart is anathema.

[Karl Henning]

Much more interesting than the choices are the reasons behind them: these people seem to have generally missed the point big time, with Nico Muhly winning the first prize by a very large margin:

Steve Reich's "Duet," for two violins and orchestra, is a wonderful distillation of his processes. There is a clear pulse, moving through a series of chords, each lasting just a few seconds. Each chord feels like it's finding repose from the previous one, creating a sense of release without feeling repetitive. On top of this, two violins play politely interlocking canons and patterns. A minute before the end, he lands on a sort of jazzed-up F-major chord, which, after a brief move to a minor key, resolves itself back into F — a moment of deep structural satisfaction.

Oh yeah, I'm absolutely sure that what a newcomer to classical music look for is first, a distillation of Steve Reich's processes and second, a moment of deep structural satisfaction.

On the one hand, your point is taken.

On the other, however Nico Muhly may have missed the point—there is of course no reason why that five minutes should not enrapture a listener new to classical music.  (It may, it may not.)

So the problem, which is orthogonal to the actual request, was Muhly's need to overexplain his choice.

[Karl Henning]

I'm not sure about that.

I'm sure I didn't know that you were unsure!

[Sergeant Rock]

ie, not a single one of those works which have been loved and cherished for centuries by the general audiences and which require no academic knowledge of music in order to be enjoyed. Looks like for the professionals of music everything that's eminently hummable and immediately appealing to the heart is anathema.

Did you miss the Berlioz selection? and the Stravinsky? the Strauss? the Janacek? the 2x Ravel? the Couperin? the Gibbons? the Wagner? All "hummable and appealing to the heart." The one choice you complain about, and damn the entire article for, is actually an attractive piece of music (and that's coming from someone, me, who generally dislikes minimalism). Muhly has convinced me to give Reich a closer listen.

My 5 minute choice would be the piece that led me into classical music: Wagner, The Ride of the Valkyries.

Sarge