Art Music

Just curious if any one listens to Art Music. Also known as classical music (a misnomer, classical was a period of music). Well?

I’m listening to some Debussy right now.

I like some of it, but I am not a huge fan. I do like Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring.” That is a crazy piece. I also like some pieces done by Berlioz, Beethoven, Brahms, and Schubert. In my opinion, the Romantic Period was the best time for art music.

[quote]Geebus wrote:
I like some of it, but I am not a huge fan. I do like Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring.” That is a crazy piece. I also like some pieces done by Berlioz, Beethoven, Brahms, and Schubert. In my opinion, the Romantic Period was the best time for art music.[/quote]

I was just listening to the Rite of Spring actually, great piece. That piece was actually written as a Ballet (if you don’t know that already). The ballet itself caused a riot at it’s premier. His other work is good too. Check out Petrushka and the Firebird.

I have to disagree with you about the romantic period. 20th century “tonal” music is king to me (ala stravinsky and Debussy).

debussy makes me feel like i’ve eaten too much birthday cake.

[quote]boyscout wrote:
Just curious if any one listens to Art Music. Also known as classical music (a misnomer, classical was a period of music). Well?

I’m listening to some Debussy right now. [/quote]

Sssshhhhh since this T-Nation and I don’t think many people are reading this thread…

Um …yes… I started as a prodigy in music (string bass, later keyboards), got a degree in performance and was a professional musician for a couple of years. I then decided I didn’t like being poor and became a Mathematician. Love classical music.

I am working on some Debussy, actually. His Ballade for piano, FWIW (here is some random guy playing it on youtube --not half badly either: Debussy Ballade performed by Marshall Cuffe - YouTube).

Just ordered that old warhorse, the Rachmaninoff C# minor prelude, since I’ve never played it and figured I should at some point. (Great performance of that prelude: - YouTube done by the composer, recorded on a piano roll and being played back.)

The Rite of Spring is a lot of fun, especially to play. It is actually a ballet about pagans sacrificing a virgin to the bear god. My kind of music. :o)

Still write some now and then, play for friends and listen to it a lot. More power to you if you like classical music! If you want to chat about it, drop me a line.

Cheers,

– jj

Why bring up the term “art music” if you’re only going to talk about western classical music? =P

[quote]wfifer wrote:
Why bring up the term “art music” if you’re only going to talk about western classical music? =P[/quote]

any talk on western classical music should begin with bob wills imo…

[quote]jj-dude wrote:
I then decided I didn’t like being poor and became a Mathematician. Love classical music.

[/quote]

Oh, c’mon, we’re not all poor! You just have to teach guitar! Everyone wants to play guitar, and will parent pay ridiculous amounts of money for lessons.

I’m working on my Masters in performance right now, actually.

Cool videos. it’s been a while since I’ve listen to the Rachmaninoff recordings.

[quote]boyscout wrote:
jj-dude wrote:
I then decided I didn’t like being poor and became a Mathematician. Love classical music.

Oh, c’mon, we’re not all poor! You just have to teach guitar! Everyone wants to play guitar, and will parent pay ridiculous amounts of money for lessons.

[/quote]

When I was a kid in Boston in the 1980s, there were posters for this Berklee trained guitar teacher, Sam Davis, pasted all over the Mass Ave/Boylston Street area. Near as I can tell he’s still teaching. Fifty dollars an hour.

[quote]swivel wrote:
debussy makes me feel like i’ve eaten too much birthday cake.[/quote]

Classical gas.

[quote]Loose Tool wrote:
boyscout wrote:
jj-dude wrote:
I then decided I didn’t like being poor and became a Mathematician. Love classical music.

Oh, c’mon, we’re not all poor! You just have to teach guitar! Everyone wants to play guitar, and will parent pay ridiculous amounts of money for lessons.

When I was a kid in Boston in the 1980s, there were posters for this Berklee trained guitar teacher, Sam Davis, pasted all over the Mass Ave/Boylston Street area. Near as I can tell he’s still teaching. Fifty dollars an hour.

[/quote]

Personal trainers get more than that per hour, and they don’t have to listen to bad intonation from bratty kids.

[quote]Loose Tool wrote:
boyscout wrote:
jj-dude wrote:
I then decided I didn’t like being poor and became a Mathematician. Love classical music.

Oh, c’mon, we’re not all poor! You just have to teach guitar! Everyone wants to play guitar, and will parent pay ridiculous amounts of money for lessons.

When I was a kid in Boston in the 1980s, there were posters for this Berklee trained guitar teacher, Sam Davis, pasted all over the Mass Ave/Boylston Street area. Near as I can tell he’s still teaching. Fifty dollars an hour.

[/quote]

I make $36. Teaching privately can be a lucrative business.

[quote]boyscout wrote:
jj-dude wrote:
I then decided I didn’t like being poor and became a Mathematician. Love classical music.

Oh, c’mon, we’re not all poor! You just have to teach guitar! Everyone wants to play guitar, and will parent pay ridiculous amounts of money for lessons.

I’m working on my Masters in performance right now, actually.

Cool videos. it’s been a while since I’ve listen to the Rachmaninoff recordings.

[/quote]

Fantastic that you are making a living at music! Alas and alack I chose strings then keyboards. The reality there is some private teaching, a slew of orchestral and pickup jobs and it’s pretty much always hand to mouth.

You should post some of your performances on youtube. I really like guitar (classical and more recent stuff, go Yngwie Malmsteen – scandalize my more respectable friends). Sometimes youtube gets a good one on it.

Cheers,

– jj

[quote]boyscout wrote:
Geebus wrote:
I like some of it, but I am not a huge fan. I do like Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring.” That is a crazy piece. I also like some pieces done by Berlioz, Beethoven, Brahms, and Schubert. In my opinion, the Romantic Period was the best time for art music.

I was just listening to the Rite of Spring actually, great piece. That piece was actually written as a Ballet (if you don’t know that already). The ballet itself caused a riot at it’s premier. His other work is good too. Check out Petrushka and the Firebird.

I have to disagree with you about the romantic period. 20th century “tonal” music is king to me (ala stravinsky and Debussy).

Thanks for listing some of Stravinsky’s other works. I will definitely check them out.

I will agree that the “tonal” 20th century music is pretty good, although I haven’t been much of a fan of Debussy with the few pieces that I have heard.

What is your opinion on Schoenburg. I don’t know if his music counts as “tonal” music, but that might be some of the worst music of any genre that I have ever heard.

Also, I am not a fan of the Baroque or Classical Periods because their lack of dissonance made the music boring in my opinion. But, then again, I don’t know much about music so I would take my opinion with a grain of salt.

[quote]jj-dude wrote:
Just ordered that old warhorse, the Rachmaninoff C# minor prelude.
[/quote]

This was the last piece I ever played when taking piano lessons. I think I was in 8th grade and decided I hated playing the piano (had been playing since 1st grade…typical dopey mom that thought it would be great for her son to play the piano)…mom wouldn’t let me quit outright so I decided to force the piano teacher to quit on me…my plan involved being the worst piano play ever…I was helped immensely in this by having to play this piece…I could play the first 3 chords…(C#, G#, E?) and that was all I ever managed…I would show up for my lesson and rape the shit outta the piece…after about 2-3 months all parties agreed I was done.

I still bang out the first 3 chords anytime a piano is available…people sit up and expect something great to follow…I last did this at a ‘manager’s reception’ at an embassy suites.

There was about 100 people running in and out of the area…mainly dumbass tourists and some retarded pre-teen girls there for one of those dumbass slumber parties pre-teen girls now have to have in a hotel and ruin everything for everyone…I hit the chords and there was this expectant silence…lasted for about 10 minutes…it was great…I just got up and got in the line for free drinks…people kept congratulating me.

I like pretty much all ‘classical’ music. Bach’s always in heavy rotation, the Brandenburg Concerto #4 is a current favorite, Brahms is fighting for airtime on my ipod and Muggorsky - Pictures at an Exibition is having a rennaisance.

I’m nowhere near as good as boyscout, but I play a bit of classical guitar…guitar > piano.

[quote]jj-dude wrote:
Fantastic that you are making a living at music!
[/quote]

Tom Hess has an online Careers In Music class. I took online guitar lessons from him for a while. The class looked really good. It seemed kind of cultish…but…the people I talked to in his forums were happy with it.

Geebus, here are some other composers to check out:
Copland
Philip Glass (minimalist)
John Adams (minimalist)
Leo Brouwer (guy in the film)
Penderecki
Satie (like Debussy)
Britten
Ralph Vaughan-Williams
There’s many more, but those are a few off the top of my head. If you like techno, you’ll probably like Glass and Adams.

Schoenberg is interesting. His music is not tonal, it’s atonal actually. he goal was eliminate the tonal system and move forward into something new. So he came up with a ton of ideas about music and how to compose it using 12-tone rows and pitch class sets. Essentially his ideas can be summed up in saying that he wanted to eliminate the idea of hierachy of tones in western music. Eg. each tone of a scale has a tendency to do SOMETHING, but schoenberg wanted to make all tones equal. I like his music if I’m in the right mood, but it’s not normally my cup to tea.

It’s not that baroque and classical periods didn’t have dissonance, just that it was more tightly controlled. The musical syntax of the time didn’t allow for a lot of lee way. Romantics expanded and pushed the system. 20th century destroyed it, and now there’s not really any set “rules” of tonality.

If you don’t like Baroque, I would say you need to listen to The Chacconne by Bach. Could be the great piece of music ever written. It’s about fourteen minutes and is only one movement of a suite.

On solo violin (original)
Part 1: Bach 's Chaconne for Solo Violin / Itzhak Perlman (Part 1/2) - YouTube
Part 2: Bach 's Chaconne for Solo Violin / Itzhak Perlman (Part 2/2) - YouTube

On classical guitar (because we steal things)
Part 1: Andres Segovia Plays Bach Chaconne (Part 1) - YouTube
Part 2: Andres Segovia Plays Bach Chaconne (Part 2) - YouTube

[quote]sen say wrote:
guitar > piano.[/quote]

Amen, brother. Amen.

Gustav Holst’s “The Planets” is one of my faves.

Beethoven has some heavy stuff.

I’m a classical musician who have been playing the violin and piano since the age of 5. Paganini and Wieniawski are two of my favorite composers to listen to and to play. It’s a shame that not many people nowadays have the mind to appreciate and comprehend the intricacy of classical music.