Classical Music

Anyone here listen to classical music? I've never really gotten into classical music. Recently however, I've started to listen to Sibelius and Prokofiev and they have awakened something in me. I must confess that I've hated everything I've heard from Mozart and the usual suspects. >What do you like? >How do you listen and in what mood? >Do you view classical as having special status within the existing spheres of music?

I listen to it on occasion. Honestly I should listen to it more. But actually I have a problem with the term "classical music" because it lumps all the music from a very long time period and large geographic area into one "genre". If you say you like classical you can run into the same problems as someone who says they like classic rock: people assume you like anything and everything from that period when most of it, like anything, is actually garbage. idk just my ramblings. I get what you mean about mozart though, his stuff is way too light and kinda retarded. He was the boyband of his era, he was the Drake, the Sabrina Carpenter Now put me on some Beethoven...heavy soykaf. He's probably the "popular" composer I like the most. On another note, if you'd like to hear to hear something crazy, listen to this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlE_HK1QZLI Scriabin's Mysterium...or at least what we have of it. This was supposed to be an all-consuming inferno of a performance that included the entire population of earth or something and would conclude with the end of the world. He died before he finished composing it

>>14615 I do, and I've been getting into it lately, mostly for it having kind of a different, more sophisticated vibe, and for most compositions being a more relaxing chaser to the rock music I usually listen to; usually I listen to it for a more relaxing or thoughtful atmosphere. I mostly like romantic composers like Schumann and Chopin. As for the final question, I would say yes, with an asterisk. If we're talking about classical music as artistic music of Western Canon, then, yeah, it would by definition have a special status as 'high art' over 'low art' in the same way the opera would have special status over the cinema. There's an element of sophistication and culture to the production and the environment in which it is made, and listened to. People don't go to conservatories to learn how to rap. But, if you're just asking about it in terms of something to listen to, then not really; at the end of the day it's another genre of music. >>14616 >But actually I have a problem with the term "classical music" because it lumps all the music from a very long time period and large geographic area into one "genre" This is also technically correct since "classical music" as Western art music has gone through a series of distinct phases: The Baroque, Classical, Romantic, Modern, and Contemporary periods of art music. So, "classical" can be a catchall for all of these periods, but like how Rock encompasses both The Turtles and Nirvana, the distinction is important. Anyways here's a piece I've been listening to on repeat for a while: https://youtu.be/0pOXhAF7L0I?si=iQsyvWSVVJHzW_bf

>>14615 Sibelius 5 was one of my favorite pieces I performed in college. Sounds like you might like late Romantics and early Modernists. I wonder if you wouldn't also enjoy someone like Bartók? At this point, I find a lot of things interesting if not always great listening. Schoenberg and Xenakis don't have to be soothing pastoral works to be engaging experiences. I find myself most at home with the Modernists these days. I also found myself having to sit down and listen rather than have it in the background. My relationship with Western art music changed a ton (for the better) when I made that change. A few pieces -- My favorite cellist interpreting one of my favorite composers (Starker/Kodály): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWDxPSUXhqk One of my favorite conductors leading one of the first pieces that broke me out of not caring about classical music (Bernstein/Ives): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XovpSv62w8 But I must have said it before, since I say it now. Keep going!: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCuSy31jvYA I think art music has a "special" status, in the sense that we are called to engage with it differently than pop music. It can offer a different experience, engagement, and aesthetic insight. It should not be treated the same, but in turn it should not be considered the "only" music worth anything. I love four-on-the-floor and embarrass myself all the time to singing along with trashy emo. It's dangerous and reductionist to not recognize that there are different means, manner, and modes of music. >>14623 I'm not sure I like or really understand the use of 'sophistication' in this kind of discussion beyond the social identifiers associated with the action of listening to classical music. That's not to say that element does not exist when we talk about things we display about ourselves, but I think the social belonging or demonstration element is almost wholly separate from the aesthetic nature and relationship of the work and medium.

>>14615 I've been properly listening to some symphonies for the first time in my life, following this list https://www.talkclassical.com/threads/compilation-of-the-tc-top-recommended-lists.17996/ I usually listen to the stuff you (would) find on our radio, so dnb breakcore, ambient and similar. But nothing can really make me feel the same emotions as some symphonies do so i' listen to them when my soykafty mood requires it. I think i'm also developing some preferences, i mostly like Tchaikovsky, Mozart, Rachmaninoff, Dvorak and Debussy and i'm not really liking most popular german composers like Wagner, Mahler, Schubert, Brahms.. though I'm not really sure if there's a difference between these or a correlation can be made. I think i noticed that many german composers like to go all over the place and explore many "paths" in short period of times, while the ones i listed mostly keep to the same emotions or tone, at least in a single movement. keep in mind i'm just making up stuff because i don't know any musical theory and I only did some contests as a classical guitar solist as a teen, so maybe someone can help me figure it out. I wish i had the clarity to say what moods i have when i listen, but it's mostly when there's a theme of dissonance that i start to really enjoy it. Not literally dissonant as in a schizophrenic piece or musically dissonant but something like Tchaikovsky's no.6; or a more sad/proud contrast in some beethoven and mozart compositions. Once i have some more time i will also start listening to operas. I've only listened to Carmen in full so far (because i literally just found Nietzsche's recommending it in one of his books) and i love most of it. There's also some performances (mainly symphonies) done near my town by the national orchestra, but i've never been to one alone and i'm kinda scared to go. One thing i noticed is how downloading quality recordings is a pain in the ass compared to everything else. I usually go to nicotine+ and download FLACs for every other genre but it's really hard to (1) choose good performances of a classical piece and (2) find the recording. Right now i've just been downloading and ripping the opus files from youtube with yt-dlp, but as someone who's used to soulseek, urgh..

>>14624 >the social belonging or demonstration element is almost wholly separate from the aesthetic nature and relationship of the work and medium. Art does not exist in a vacuum; the cultural and social elements surrounding art influence and contextualize art. The culture which an art exists in is an important element of the art itself. Participation in that culture isn't mandatory to appreciate that art; you can be a straight-laced investment banker who likes to listen to punk rock, but to say it's wholly separate would be incorrect. Just as an example, you can't really divorce all of those experimental 60's folk and psychadelic rock music from the experimental, hippie, crazy 1960's culture that it existed in.

>>14625 I need to know what character that is

>What do you like? Shostakovich 5 4 Dvorak 9 4 >How do you listen and in what mood? However available. As to the second question, not entirely sure, I just need it sometimes. >Do you view classical as having special status within the existing spheres of music? Not in an exclusive way. It's meaningful and valuable to me but it isn't the only genre that I've found moving or creativity-sparking or whatever. I suppose the successful, uh, orchestration of so many musicians playing in, uh, concert is remarkable

>>14627 No one is saying art exists in a vacuum, but if you are claiming that the social claims of sophistication are not only a compelling but a central feature for understanding their aesthetic facets, I have to disagree. There's certainly interest in understanding how those facets intersect with how people who engage with it are perceived and how our values inform that assessment, but what I was trying to get at is that reducing ones analysis to be primarily concerned with those parts misses (what I think) is the spirit of OP's question. I know marmots need to breathe, but that's not a particularly insightful means of understanding their courtship rituals.

>>14628 dorothy from the big o

>>14615 Personally, I've never enjoyed Mozart very much either. I'm most interested in the Baroque period, the others I have a casual interest. It is likely the same in them though, that you must make an effort to find good performances. A poor or inaccurate performance will deprive a piece of all effect, and then many pieces were not specified enough to say exactly how the composer wished it be played. Compare any work of Scarlatti played on the piano with a more accurate performance by Scott Ross. Then again, compare him with Pieter-Jan Belder, who though striving for accuracy, interprets the same piece quite differently. My listening is not so frequent as I'd like. I want to focus when I listen, without doing other things, but don't find much time to. I attend performances when they are cheap, so usually chamber and solo work. Once I saw Orff's Carmina Burana, it was amazing in person, and there was some visual performance from the singers that highlighted the humor and feeling of the work you wouldn't otherwise notice, especially a white-trash know-no-Latin lackey like me. I don't see classical music as a genre of music. Genre is a way to categorize music borne in the era of 'fixed music', which is musical work that has made use of recording technology and distribution. The effect is that a song is created, changed, and then made fixed by recording, thus making the recording the source of truth for the song. Classical music has remained unfixed though, for instance, the late twentieth-century had a pique of interest in historically-accurate performance, which has in some way transformed our understanding of these pre-existing pieces, yet we understand the complete truth is never attained, thus there is room for deviation. In other genres, deviation may be less acceptable, though in the Baroque period improvisation and variation was the norm. Another exception is folk music, as many folk tunes predate recording technology, though the process of communal change and contribution would be impeded by the era of 'fixed music'. One contradiction may be modern or contemporary classical. I've not enough knowledge about these periods to determine whether they maintain the unfixed quality of historical music, but I believe enough emphasis exists on the interpretation of a performer to allow this. Altogether, my belief is that the attributes of classical music are far out of line with everything else usually described as being under a genre.

>>14625 >One thing i noticed is how downloading quality recordings is a pain in the ass compared to everything else. I usually go to nicotine+ and download FLACs for every other genre but it's really hard to (1) choose good performances of a classical piece and (2) find the recording. Right now i've just been downloading and ripping the opus files from youtube with yt-dlp, but as someone who's used to soulseek, urgh.. Rutracker is surprisingly good for music. Be sure to check them out too!

>>14641 Why didn't i think of that? thank you!

i enjoy shostakovich's work deeply, especially his more personal work, e. g. 24 preludes op. 34. i have also been learning to play some of these preludes, they are quite a challenge. the string quartets are also nice. >>14615 >I must confess that I've hated everything I've heard from Mozart and the usual suspects. pretty normal, i feel the same way about beethoven, way too much dramatic emotion.

>>14649 My god I got my hands on a recording of Shostakovich's Violin Concerto No. 1 in A minor, Op. 99 and this is the best classical I've ever heard. Nocturne (Moderato) is such an eerie piece and captures exactly what I want from classical