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Introduce me to classical music please

PaulMB said:
Keep a classical music playing radio station on all the time, at home, at work, in the car, and make a note of what grabs you, then take it from there.

That's the nicest idea. There are a good variety of Internet stations around now that play whole pieces of music.
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1. Slavonic dances, opt 72 in e major dvorak
2. pavane in f sharp minor op.50 gabrial faure
3. Vaughan Williams dives and lazerus
4. piano concerto no 2 Shostakovich
5. the gadfly Shostakovich
6. the waltz goes on Anthony Hopkins
7. eric satie gymnopedies or gnossienne
8. dvorak tempo de valse
9. dvorak allegretto grazioso
10 Vaughan Williams the lark assending
11 gorecki Joanna koslowska symphony no3 sorryful songs
12 Romanian folk dances bartok
 
Radio 3 and CDs from the charity shop :) 3 for a £1 helps and "best of" certain composers

Play radio 3 for every waking hour over a week and you will soon get an idea what you are into. I like religious choral music and Im an atheist :)

My primary school headmaster was very keen on introducing us to classical music. 44 years later I finally bought some of his suggestions :)
 
oceanobsession said:
1. Slavonic dances, opt 72 in e major dvorak
2. pavane in f sharp minor op.50 gabrial faure
3. Vaughan Williams dives and lazerus
4. piano concerto no 2 Shostakovich
5. the gadfly Shostakovich
6. the waltz goes on Anthony Hopkins
7. eric satie gymnopedies or gnossienne
8. dvorak tempo de valse
9. dvorak allegretto grazioso
10 Vaughan Williams the lark assending
11 gorecki Joanna koslowska symphony no3 sorryful songs
12 Romanian folk dances bartok
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Do you want to turn the poor man right off classical before he's even begun?
 
I'll repeat my list from the thread I linked earlier:

Beethoven's 9th (I daren't even put up a favourite for this!))
Vivaldi - The Four Seasons (On original instruments - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Vivaldi-Seas...easons+hogwood)
Bruch - Violin concerto (here with Beethoven - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Beethoven-Br...concerto+chung)
Elgar - Cello Concerto (must be Du Pre's! - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Elgar-Concer...cello+concerto)
Handel - Messiah (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Handel-Messi...ds=the+messiah)
Tallis - Spem in Aium (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tallis-Schol...=spem+in+alium)

Hopefully a good spread.
 
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Leave Classic FM on in the car and as background at home etc. Find out what grabs you and buy CDs

Once hooked then listen to Radio 3
 
Some really essential piano/keyboard repertoire:

Bach: Goldberg variations, Das Wohltemperierte Klavier, Partitas, English and French Suites
Chopin: Nocturnes, Waltzes, Preludes
Debussy: Preludes, Images
Rachmaninoff: Preludes, Etudes
Tscaikovsky: Seasons
Bartok: Mikrokosmos
Schubert: Impromptus, Moments musicaux

...and of course a lot of sonatas from Beethoven and everyone else, but maybe easier to start with the smaller forms.
 
Radio3 breakfast programme, play it over breakfast or in the car on the way to work.
A good range of short pieces of every sort,style and era and intelligently introduced without being highbrow
Every now and then a new gem. This morning as part of 'best of British music' a wonderful piece by Farrar as its rememberance day piece. Absolutely wonderful.
Find what you like and off you go.
Personally I don't get lieder. Always sounds to me as though singer and accompanist are playing different songs.
I love church music and opera and almost everything else
Everyone has their favourites and favourite performances. Often the version uou hear first will forever seem the correct or best one.
Enjoy the ride
John
 
Colonel_Mad said:
I'd recommend trying composers from a variety of eras to see what you like. Too often all classical music seems confusingly lumped together as one entity to the uninitiated and you are likely to have a preference to the style of a certain era.

Try a few key composers from each of the Early/Renaissance/Baroque/Classical/Romantic/20th Century periods.

By doing this I now largely stick with with composers from the late 19th and early 20th Century. I love Debussy, Ravel, Grieg, Bartok, Prokofiev, Vaughan Williams, Delius, Copland, Ives etc.

It's fun to explore the era once you know what sort of thing you like. I personally am not keen on early classical and can't stand the Baroque era eg. Handel, Vivaldi, Bach (apart from maybe his Organ works) etc. All the staccato violins and piercing high pitch trumpet drives me mad.
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This is a super post - I would have said exactly the same myself. There's no such thing as "classical music". It is as diverse or more as rock, pop and rap and the first order of business is to find what you like the most. "Classical music" spans 400+ years and has changed a lot during that time.

I've found that I'm a hopeless romantic, so Tchaikovsky, Chopin, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, some Brahms do it for me. Some Mozart works for me, but most leaves me cold, as does most early classical. Here in the US my local library has classical CDs, so if I were you I'd just start listening to a few a week until you zero in on a list of composers who do it for you.
 
Perart1 said:
Leave Classic FM on in the car and as background at home etc. Find out what grabs you and buy CDs

Once hooked then listen to Radio 3
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Once the Classic FM adverts and presenters start to annoy you to death, switch to Radio 3. It probably won't take long.
 
If Mozart, then try Mackerras' 2 sets of the late symphonies with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra on Linn, especially the 38-41 set.

As one who came to much "classical" from rock, it was things like Janacek's Sinfonietta, Stravinsky's Rite of Spring and Firebird which caught my attention first. Then chunks of Vaughn Williams (Lark, Tallis, Dives & Lazarus) and Walton (1st Symphony), Debussy (Preludes), Satie (Gymnopedies and Gnossienes), before I dived headlong into Bach and Beethoven...
 
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