Classical novice...help

What you're asking for is a recommendation for music composed over several hundred years - in which time large changes took place to instruments, orchestra size, fashions and the very reasons for composing music itself.

So, if you ask for a recommendation from my area of taste I'd have to say stay away from any of the dodgy modern stuff like Beethoven. Anything composed after 1800 is a disaster.

Deane

Try some Vivaldi. He's a very enjoyable composer for most people - even if they don't like "classical".

Remember, the very best music seldom rewards a single listen.


Deane

Beethoven symphonies are good too! Who doesn't get a thrill at the 5th or the 9th? Mozart's Jupiter Sym? Maybe even some early Stravinsky, Petrushka, Rite of Spring, or Firebird? (for more modern works)

Life is analogue

Listen to Radio 3.

Here's an old list, but it may help.

"The universe is change, life is opinion." Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Try getting things you've heard of on the Naxos label. Most HMV's have a wide selection. They tend to be very well recorded and are a budget range (approx 4 or 5.99).

As a specific recommendation to try first I'd go for Carmina Burana (available on Naxos #8550196) by Carl Orff. There's loads of tunes you'll recognise in amongst it (remember the Old Spice adverts?) and its got great dynamics and drama not to mention an interesting story behind its origins which the inlay booklet will no doubt go into. Great fun!

Other good labels are Decca, EMI and Deutshe Grammophon. I'd avoid other budget labels generally speaking as the sound quality can let them down.

Jonathan

My 5 suggestions

1. Romeo & Juliet - Prokofiev (for example Wung Chung on DG)
2. Carmen Suite - Schedrin (Pletnev, also on DG)
3. 6th Symphony - Tjajkovski (Askenaszy on Decca)
4. 3rd Piano Concerto - Rachmaninov (Horowitz on RCA or Janis on Mercury)
5. Goldberg Variations - Bach (Glenn Gould - the late recording on Sony)

Anders

Hi Webke,

Great to see that you have an interest in being introduced to Classical Music! Of course, the genre is vast and there are introductory lists out there that perhaps others on this forum might point you to. I'd like to share some of the titles that see heavy rotation in my system. This will by no means be an exhaustive list, but should all be quite approachable to the new listener.

Deane's recommendation of Vivaldi's Four Seasons is spot on. See my entries in the "Tsuyoshi Yamamoto" thread below this thread for a link to First Impression Music. FIM's version is the best I own. While you are at FIM's web site, be sure to buy T. Yamamoto's "Autumn in Seattle". Anne-Sophie Mutter's recent version of the Four Seasons also is very dynamic.

I also second Wolf's recommendation of Stravinsky. Of the three he listed, I think that the Firebird Suite is the most approachable. The solo horn entrance opening the last section always makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. The Telarc recording CD-80039 is my favorite.

An excellent cost effective introduction to the violin concerto form is Anne-Sophie Mutter's four CD set on DGG 415 565-2 that includes the Mendelssohn, Bruch, Beethoven, Brahms and two Mozart concertos. This is early ASM and very fresh. Hilary Hahn is a sublime young violinist and her Brahms/Stavinsky CD is exceptional (sorry, my copy is a SACD and Amazon.com doesn't list the CD catalog number). I also recently bought her Barbar/Meyer Sony SK89029 and Elgar/Vaughn Williams' The Lark Ascending DGG B0003026-02. Both are excellent, but not necessarily a slam dunk for a someone new to classical music.

Piano: I also second Ander's recommendation of Glenn Gould's Goldberg Variations (Bach), though there was a thread here a couple of months back about Gould that was a very spirited interchange. He did make his reputation essentially overnight on the basis of his Carnegie Hall recital of that piece. The Sony release "A State of Wonder" S3K 87703 is a three CD set that includes his original 1955 version and the 1981 version right before his death. That is a must have, in my opinion, even if you don't agree with his interpretation. However, my favorite Goldberg is Angela Hewitt's Hyperion CD CDA67305. For the Mozart piano sonatas, buy any, nay ALL, of Mitsuko Uchida's Cds on Phillips. I bought them individually but now I see on Amazon.com's web site that there is a box set for $39.95.

Orchestral show pieces: I second Jonathan's recommendation of Carl Orff's Carmina Burana. My favorite is Slatkin's St Louis Symph on RCA 09026-61673-2. Moussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition is a must have also. The JVC XRCD version of Reiner's classic Chicago Symph recording JMCXR-0016 is excellent. Speaking of XRCDs, check out the Reiner recording of Rimsky-Korsakoff's Scheherazade JMCXR-0015, Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet with Munch and the Boston Symph JMCXR-0022 and Tchaikovsky's 6th Symphony again with Reiner JMCXR0021.

The New York Times prints a best of list at each year end here and from last year's list I got a great gem in Yundi Li's CD of Liszt piano pieces on DGG B0000851-02. The New York Times list of "Best of culture" including best Jazz, Popular music and movies is here

Well, I've only included about half of the CDs I pulled out to reference in this posting; the thought of introducing a newbie to something I feel so passionately about really got me going. However, I really need to get to work. Maybe I'll get back to this tomorrow.

Happy hunting, I hope this helps.

Norman

Webke,

The Brahms Violin Concerto got me hooked; check out the two piano concertos if you like it. Beethoven's 3rd, 5th, 6th and 9th Symphonies are a good next port of call. Try some great chamber music early on too - Beethoven String Quartets (start with the three Razumovsky quartets) and piano sonatas (start with the Appassionata and Waldstein etc), see if you take to the Lied with Schubert's Winterreise and/or Die Schone Mullerin... and then perhaps something from the 20th century... I'd start with Alban Berg's Violin Concerto. Lending libraries are a good way of getting started and saving money.

Hope you find what you're looking for, let us know how you get on!

As Basil pointed out, get yourself listening to Radio 3 - you've got a wealth of classical music (and Jazz and World to wind up the traditionalists) to try out - all for free - before you launch a raid on Amazon.

Broadcast schedule here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/schedule/index.shtml
And programme background here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/programmes/index.shtml

Being a relative newcomer to the classical world myself, I've learned a lot about what I like and don't like from these.

Do you have any orchestras close to where you live? I'm lucky enough to have the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra (www.bsolive.co.uk) on my doorstep - cheapest seats are £8 - and the experience of hearing a full orchestra play live far exceeds anything my system can reproduce. It's also led to a few buying spress when I've seen a piece I've liked.

Enjoy,

Steve.

It's a grand old team to play for...

Webke

The recommendation to listen to classical stations on the wireless is a good one. I've come across some very obscure stuff this way that I'd never have heard of otherwise.

If you listen to it enough you might just have a "road to Damascus" experience (as Tom Alves said of Chopin) and the right piece will hit you at the right moment and your musical tastes will never be the same again. I'm waiting for a road to Damascus experience to happen for me with Romantic period composers.

Oh, and if you buy any classical CDs read the sleeve notes.

Deane

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For the Mozart piano sonatas, buy any, nay ALL, of Mitsuko Uchida's Cds on Phillips.

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I have the five disc set mentioned by Norman. They are my desert island CD's, absolutely brilliant and a real bargain.

Hi Bazz-

Glad to see you agree. I think I'm in love with Mitsuko Uchida, though my wife would have something to say about that!

Hi Webke,

Thoughts about another segment of classical music: Chamber Music. Chamber music can be an acquired taste, arugably a more meaningful experience for the performers than the listeners. However, if you go to Stereophile's web site here you can get an excellent introduction and branch out from there. All of the CDs in the list recorded at the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival are wonderful in every way: the acoustic space is captured perfectly by John Atkinson and while the performers are, for the most part, not household names, all of the performances are wrenchingly musical and deeply moving. You won't find better performances/recordings anywhere this side of Naim's own recording projects. I particularly like the performance of Dvorak's Serenade in d for winds and strings on the "Serenade" CD. The dynamic range of Liszt's Sonata in b on Silverman's "Sonata" CD drove my previous amp into hard clipping even when I thought I was listening at fairly civilized levels. (The obvious solution was to replace the amp ) While you are there, you might as well buy the rest of Stereophile's offerings, though I have to admit that the Silverman set of Beethoven piano sonatas don't get as many spins as they deserve.

Hey, I'm really starting to get into this. Todd: I can see why your excellent earlier posting went on for so long.

Norman

Get a good tuner (if you haven't already got one), tune it to BBC Radio 3, have a listen and see what you like. There is a reason this is being given as advice by several people...

"Building a Library" (Saturday mornings) is a good programme for taking you through pieces and showing the differences between different interpretations of the same piece: there's more to listening to Mozhoven's Nth Symphony than just going and getting a disc with it on...

There's also plenty of live music broadcast on R3, especially during the Proms with every concert going out live (but you'll have to wait until the back end of summer for Proms 2005).

Though listening through the PC or a basic radio will give a taste, it just isn't the same as listening in proper naim-o-scope. Note that an uncompressed live FM broadcast landing in a good tuner via a good aerial is potentially better fidelity than a CD. Even if it turns out classical doesn't do much for you then a good tuner will repay the investment just by listening to Late Junction (also R3...)!

The best way to get into classical is go and see the Real Deal live, but your access to a major metropolitan area is usually the limit on this one. If you've a city with a concert hall handy then go and use it: worth a stack of CDs for showing you what it's all about.

Pete.

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Note that an uncompressed live FM broadcast landing in a good tuner via a good aerial is potentially better fidelity than a CD.

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No "potentially" about it, I caught a live broadcast of Das Rheingold from the New York Met a few months ago. Simply amazing how close to "being there" it was.

P.S. I saw Mitsuko Uchida at the RFH a few years back, she is utterly captivating.

Webke,

It's funny. I just started such a threath as this one a few minutes ago, about jazz music. Then I saw yours.

First of all I'll give you my shortlist of favourite composers and some of their best music:

1. JS Bach (Bass in B Minor, directed by John Eliot Gardiner)
2. JS Bach (loads of cantatas; a VERY good start is a 3 cd box "les plus belles cantates", directed by Philippe Herreweghe)
3. JS Bach (Goldberg variations; marvelous piano piece; try the recording played by Andras Schiff)
4. JS Bach (The art of Fugue, for example for strings; check out the recording made by the Emerson String Quartet)
5. JS Bach (Cello Suiten - Mstislav Rostropovich is very good on this one).

An even better advise is to check out books like The Rough Guide Classical Music (see Amazon.com for example). A very thorough guide with hundreds of commentaries on cd's is the Penguin Guide to Compact Discs & DVDS. Best buys in classical music (get the main work, not the yearbooks - also on Amazon).

Good luck & have fun! (And never dismiss a piece of music after having listend to it only once).

Martijn

Hi Webke,

Your original query asked for "good sounding CDs" and you should check out HP's (of The Absolute Sound) Super CD list here

Basil: OK, I'm reallyjealous. Can I score any points by mentioning that I heard David Oistrach and Andre Segovia when I was in college in the 70s in Baltimore? Both stand out as life altering events.

Norman

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OK, I'm reallyjealous.

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Norman/Cosmo: Oh well, if we're name-dropping, I saw Hilary Hahn playing with the Bmth Symphony Orchestra in Poole last month. Second-row wings seats, great view. The music wasn't really my cup of tea (Brahms V/C as I recall) but no doubting that the playing was fantastic.

Steve.

It's a grand old team to play for...

Steve,

Hilary Hahn, eh? OK, now I am uncontrollably jealous. I now live well away from any major metropolitan area and have little hope of catching her in concert.

Sorry you don't like the Brahms; that is what David Oistrach played and I have approached it differently ever since. He started the third movement with an Up Bow! When he swung the bow around to the tip in the silence between second and third movements, I still remember thinking he could lift the whole concert hall with that movement of his bow. If Hilary's interpretation of it didn't move you (I have that one on SACD) then you really must not like the music.

Bmth SO: isn't that Zehetmair's ensemble?

Norman

[This message was edited by Cosmoliu on Thu 06 January 2005 at 20:18.]

Hi guys,

I first heard the Brahms Violin Concerto when I was about 15 - in a recording with (I think!) Arthur Grumiaux & Sir Colin Davis. It changed my life completely, and unlike a lot of other "classical" music I explored and came to love at the time, the Brahms is still VERY dear to me. (There's a new(ish) live recording by Gidon Kremer & Nicolaus Harnoncourt I'd recommend.) I went through the inevitable Tchaikowsky phase, but I took some pills and I'm better now!!!

PS Hillary Hahn is pretty good, and cute too
PPS M Uchida is great but ISN'T cute!

My mistake... HH was playing the Elgar VC. Perhaps I'll track down a recording of the Brahms VC given reccs from yourself and Mr Ear.

Not familiar with Zehetmair - care to enlighten me?

Marin Alsop is BSO's Princpal conductor, though there is a conatant stream of guest conductors. Shameless plug: www.bsolive.co.uk if you're interested in finding out more.

Interesting that a relatively small and new town (there was nothing here until the very late Victorian era, though neighbouring Poole where the BSO are now based has been a port for centuries) supports an orchestra like this, when far larger and older places (Southampton, Bristol) don't. It leaves the BSO with most of the south-west as their playground.

Webke: sorry about sort-of hijacking this thread, but perhaps you can pick up some hints on decent recordings from what we're discussing?

Steve.

It's a grand old team to play for...

Oh yeah, I've heard HH's recording of the Elgar; it's a fine romantic concerto (love the "windflower" theme and accompanied cadenza), but HH's recording of it is not a good day out. Suggest Sitkovetsky with Menuhin or the classic Heifetz recording with Sir Malcom Sergent.

More about Thomas Zehetmair later - a great artist in his prime. (Has his own string quartet, does lots of chamber music & concerti too. Definitely one to watch.)


*** Every silver lining has a cloud ***

My father had put me onto Thomas Zehetmair, also indicating that he was a violinist in his prime. I bought the Elektra 2 CD set of Mozart concertos but found them both to be hopelessly icepick-in-your-ears bright; the first purchase in I don't know how long that suffers from that. I have since heard his recording of the Beethoven concerto, where he does his own cadenza. I thought the whole thing was self indulgent and not at all to my liking. However, I see that he is a collaborator in the Beethoven triple concerto listed in the NY Times list of best classical CDs of 2004 I posted earlier in this thread, so I don't know what to think. Maybe the other two collaborators keep him reeled in. I just google'd him and he conducts the Northern Sinfonia.

Ear- I recently had bought HH's Elgar and rather like it, so I need to be sure to check out the Heifetz and Menuhin recordings.

I don't think we have hijacked Webke's thread. Surely this information is useful to him.

Norman

Dear Webke

Even if I don´t share the radical view of Deane F, I find it strange, that your advisers above completely forget, that the western music history covers a span from ca 1200 to 2005. And I don´t understand, why classial music for many people is synonymous with romantic music.

So try for instance the following to get a broader view upon the western music history, and the examples constitute eminent listening too:

Machaut: Messe de Nostre Dame
Dufay: Any secular music e.g. Vergine bella or Bon jour bon mois
Anon: Llibre Vermell
Italian medieval dances "Istampittas"
Josquin de Pres: some mass
Dowland: Lacrimae
Giovanni Gabrieli: Canzonas
Vivaldi: L´Estro Armonico op.3 or even The four seasons op.8

If you are interested in opera, don´t forget
Monteverdi e.g Orfeo,
Haendel e.g. Rinaldo
and
Mozart e.g. Don Giovanni
or Die Zauberfloete.

I agree fully with some of your advisers, that
J S Bach is mandatory, try
The Brandenburg concertos
Violin concertos, especially the "double concerto" for two violins
h-minor mass
Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue (for harpsichord)
Some organ music e.g. the Triosonatas

I think The Art of Fugue and The Cellosuites
are not easily acessible for a Bach beginner,
but they are mandatory at a later stage.

Venlig hilsen

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Originally posted by Deane F:
So, if you ask for a recommendation __from my area of taste__ I'd have to say stay away from any of the dodgy modern stuff like Beethoven. Anything composed after 1800 is a disaster.

Deane

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Hahahaha!

Actually, I'd agree about that generally (I do love Ludwig Van though). Romantic stuff sounds (generally) shapeless to me; I love the wiry, rhythmic drive of the Baroque. J.S. Bach's "Brandenburg Concerti" a great place to start.