Need a little help getting into Classical Music

Shadowfax

Shadowfax

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I would like to expand my listening with a little bit of Classical but have no idea where to start as there is a ton of different types.
The only real disk I have aside from a few low quality samplers is "Mark Gorenstein CD Russian Symphony Orchestra Schnittke Tikhon Khrennikov"

I would like to find music that has some flow to it and easy to follow and not the stuff that is all over the place with nothing to follow. I love Piano and Violin, the likes of Secret Garden although I know it is not classical.

I did just listen to Scheherazade from Renaissance Live at Carnegie Hall which is classical done rock style.

Please give me a starting point and TIA.


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IMHO - I am not an expert and am on the same journey. I am still learning and may always be. My advice, start with easy stuff. Don’t try to jump into the big guns. One of the confusing things to me was trying to understand which pieces I liked only to also have to learn which recordings and performances are ‘the best’.

So my advice is start with what music you like. Don’t worry if it’s the best recording or the the best performance. Figure out if you like Concertos, Symphonies, Chamber, etc.

Here’s something I was introduced to that gives me joy and a story to go with it.

Jacqueline DuPre, one of the best cellists of all time, playing the Elgar Cello Concerto. Her’s is a sad story, diagnosed with MS cutting her career short leading to her early death at age 42.

This is a fantastic recording of her.
 

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crwilli said:
IMHO - I am not an expert and are a n the journey. I am still learning and may always be. My advice, start with easy stuff. Don’t try to jump into the big guns. One of the confusing things to me was trying to understand which pieces I liked only to also have to learn which recordings and performances are ‘the best’.

So my advice is start with what music you like. Don’t worry if it’s the best recording or the the best performance. Figure out if you like Concertos, Symphonies, Chamber, etc.

Here’s something I was introduced to that gives me joy and a story to go with it.

Jacqueline DuPre, one of the best cellists of all time, playing the Elgar Cello Concerto. Her’s is a sad story when she was diagnosed with MS cutting her career short and which led to he early death at 42.

This is a fantastic recording of her.
Click to expand...
Thank you, I am not worried about best recorded, just something I can wrap my head around.
www.thestrad.com

Jacqueline du Pré performs the Elgar Cello Concerto

A chance to watch the first movement of the cellist's legendary 1967 performance, captured by Allegro Films
www.thestrad.com www.thestrad.com
 
Hey Brian. Start easy, listen to some great symphony's and then drill down to smaller, more intimate venue's if you like what you hear on a large scale. This is how I started...and quite honestly, still enjoy the "large scale". Here's a few starters that hooked me:

Berlioz - Symphonie fantastique (some performances are better than others)
Mozart - Symphony No. 41 (nicknamed Jupiter Symphony)
Haydn - Pretty much any of his Symphony's...and there are many. Easy to listen to and follow.

Boccherini: 6 Symphonies - Raymond Leppard
Boccherini.jpg
 
Schnittke is pretty far out!.. (not that there's anything wrong with that). Another suggestion is to listen to some string quartets. I'd suggest The Danish String Quartet, the PRISM series (on ECM New Series). They typically do a Beethoven quartet, then usually a 20th c. composer, and lastly a Bach quartet.
Also listen to Chopin! An incredibly beautiful composer for piano. Check out Evgeny Kissin playing the preludes and sonata #2, this one - easy to follow and be swept in by. Oh - and your Fynes will deliver a big rich timbre of the piano on this one :)

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When I listen to Classical I need something to keep my attention so I tend to not listen to full Symphony pieces. I like Concertos.

Any beginner should listen to Vivaldi's Four Seasons. There are hundreds of versions. I like the one done by the Society of Ancient Music who plays it on instruments actually from the period. Same fashion Mozart's violin concertos. In fact, Baroque in general.

I really like Dvorak's Dunky Piano Trios.

I have liked most anything Tchaikovsky. I find I tend to enjoy Russian composers in general.

Beethoven's 5th is probably a must for beginners.

John Williams does a lot of music for soundtracks like Star Wars you might enjoy looking up some of his work.

If you can find them there is a CD series called Thunderous Classics that is fun. It's various artists and composers the music is energetic hence the name.

I'm still a novice myself when it comes to Classical.
 
Here’s a fun start that is very well recorded. There is also a Reference Recordings version that sounds fantastic. It’s got a few lyrical musical themes repeated, and the organ parts will give your subwoofers something to chew on.

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I tend to like 19th and 20th century stuff. Early Bach and Beethoven can be a little slow, some of the later 20th and 21st century stuff can be a bit atonal and hard to follow. It’s a big genre, I’m sure you’ll find something to like.
 
Brian, if you love piano(I do as well), Peter Nero was one of the greatest 'Pops' conductors (Philly Pops)and a gifted pianist. Check out some of their works on what ever you stream with. IMO, Nero, Kunzel and Fiedler were the top 3 Pops conductors.

In the pure classical realm, Shostakovich and Tchaikovsky are my two favs.
 
Thank you all for the suggestions. I will start looking into them all. I did see the Kazakh String Quartet last year at a local church along with Timur Mustrakimov, Russian Pianist with many top awards. He married a woman 30 minutes away from me in a local church. When he and the quartet came to do their show at Carnegie Hall, they also booked a free show at the church they were married in. We were in the 3rd row. That aside from the opening show at the Kimmel Center in Philly, when it first opened, is my exposure to live classical.

The Gaziza Zhubanova State String Quartet (officially known as the Kazakh Quartet) is Kazakhstan's premier chamber music ensemble, resident at the Erkegali Rakhmadiyev State Academic Philharmonic in Astana.

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I really like classical music: I had lesson in playing piano and know what is going on between my left and right hand. When listening music like this: I try to separate everything Later I went to a school that had a teacher that explained and came with all parts of interesting music, with a lot of stories what is going on. My advise is to follow courses like that.


Beside of that: I advise to follow radio stations with a lot of music that is made for easy classical music. Here a few nice ones. I think you can pick up these stations with your streamer.

https://www.classic.nl/home
https://www.radioswissclassic.ch/en
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/live/bbc_radio_three
 
So -- piano, violin, accessible uncomplicated compositions. Some starting points:

Piano sonatas and concertos. Beethoven and Mozart. Murray Perahia or Alfred Brendel, pianists.

I'm not a huge fan of violin.

Piano trio combines the two and adds mellow cello. Haydn and Beaux Arts Trio.

You enjoyed string quartet. Haydn and Beethoven.

Chamber music by Bach, Handel, Mozart, Vivaldi is simple and pleasurable.

With classical music recordings, you'll need to know if performers are using modern or period instruments. Smaller ensemble pieces performed on harpsichord and period strings and horns will sound very different from same pieces performed on Steinway grand and modern strings and horns. Some people find period strings and horns to be annoying.
 
The trouble with Classical music (as you have already found out) is that is covers such a wide range of periods and styles, requires a variety of performers (orchestras, solo instruments, singers, choirs, etc) and was written over many hundreds of years. You really need to sample lots of pieces before you can decide what style of classical music you enjoy. Personally, I don't enjoy much Early Music, Renaissance, or Baroque, but others love this stuff. I listen mainly to music written since Beethoven's time, so what is known as the Classical, Romantic and Modern periods - music mostly written since about 1800.

Your best bet is to tune into a classical music radio station and listen to their varied offerings and you'll soon find what you like and what you don’t. I suggest Classic FM, a UK-based radio station that's available worldwide via internet services such as TuneIn that most streamer should be able to provide. This station plays constant, relatively "light" and popular classical music and each piece is introduced (without too much babble), but there are adverts to annoy you! Your streamer’s screen or control app should show you what’s playing at any time, so you can make notes of pieces you enjoy.

Other more serious stations such as BBC3 also play plenty of music but there are also long and often heavydiscussions on music or composer subjects - and much of that is rather too obscure for newcomers to classical music.

Good luck – there’s lots of truly great music out there to enjoy.
 
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Excellent suggestion. There are many classical stations that offer a wide variety of exposure to music of different composers from different eras. ABC Classic 2 in Australia (all music, no talk), King FM Classical in Seattle, MPR Classical, and probably many more that I’m not aware of. Just let them do the driving for a while, switching between them and you’ll get a feel for what moves you.
 
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