(Part 2) Best products from r/classicalmusic

OMG, that is such a fabulous CD. You started at the top.

What got me started was Maria Bayo, Opera Arias and Cantatas.

Lorraine Hunt recorded a couple of Handel albums earlier in her career, these are also fabulous: Handel Arias and Arias for Durastani

If you get really interested in Handel's vocal music, you are going to have to get used to high male voices, "countertenors", who substitute for the "Castratos" that took the heroic roles in Baroque opera. A good place to start would be David Daniels.

Philippe Jaroussky is another great countertenor singing today.

Complete operas? There are 37 of them, some of which do not yet have satisfactory modern recordings. Generally speaking, the more recent the recording, the better. Some of the old ones are awful. One great exception is Rene Jacobs' 1992 recording of Giulio Cesare, Handel's greatest opera, and by extension the greatest Baroque opera. It's long, and there's a lot of "recitative" that can get a bit tedious on repeated listening, but it's a fabulous performance of a great work. Every aria and duet is a masterpiece.

Speaking of duets, one of my absolute favorite Handel albums is Love Duets by Suzie LeBlanc and Daniel Taylor. The duet from Rodelinda is phenomenal.

Great complete operas include Rodelinda,
Orlando and Radamisto.

Great dramatic oratorios include Hercules and Theodora, although the best recording of it is a DVD featuring Lorraine Hunt in a mind-blowing performance.

Good luck! This is some of the most beautiful music ever composed, and it's still not well-known enough.

I was in the classical recording business for a long time, and often was called on to make recommendations for newbies. For someone who is brand new, I always recommend Beethoven's Nine Symphonies, and I love this one the best:

Beethoven: Symphonies Nos 1-9 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000095IUM/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_HPo3Ab1Y4808P

This is performed by the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt. It runs about $28, and is well worth it for what is arguably the greatest music ever composed.

In general, when people picture classical music in their head, they are thinking of the music of Beethoven. Start with the odd numbered symphonies. The Fifth Symphony is the most famous with the great opening (Dit Dit Dit Daaah!), and is thrilling from start to finish. The Ninth is probably the greatest and most influential music in history. It intimidated and guided literally every composer who followed for the rest of the 19th century. The Seventh is my favorite piece of music in any genre. The second movement is beyond beautiful. The third symphony re-wrote the rules of music and was instrumental in transitioning music from the classical era to the romantic era. The rest may not be as influential, but they are all incredible works and well worth getting to know.

Start with Beethoven, and then start trying some other stuff, like Mozart, or Bach, or Vivaldi, or Mahler, or Stravinsky, etc. It's all worth listening to.

A little advice, when you are trying to introduce a new genre of music to your life, try to dedicate at least several weeks to listening to nothing but that kind of music. It seems to rewire your brain so that it starts to make sense, and once that happens, you'll always be able to listen to and enjoy that style of music. I've done that many times in my life, and now I can enjoy almost any kind of music there is. I once spent a couple of months listening to nothing but traditional Chinese music, but now whenever I hear something like that I slip right into it and love it.

A collection of thoughts

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As has been said

> Don’t be afraid to build up a giant stack of half formed ideas on top of your piano.

Beethoven is notorious for his sketch books, and for playing with and developing ideas for years and years and years after the initial thought.

The original ideas for the 5th symphony are junk, for example. but he kept playing with it

get this book for more on this

https://www.amazon.com/Beethovens-Sketches-Analysis-Style-Sketch-Books/dp/0486230422/

part of music is the actual musical architecture and structure of the music. This is covered in the subject of "musical form" but this goes deeper

see this short video by whitacre on the subject

"Discovering the Golden Brick"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwjqptQ5R-w

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for more general instruction on the basics and the bigger issues of music composition, see this YT channel by Alan Belkin

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUQ0TcIbY_VEk_KC406pRpg

for a more popular music perspective, see Rick Beato and related channels

https://www.youtube.com/user/pegzch

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One of the longest traditions in music education is the making of arrangements and transcriptions of other people's music. This seems to far more effective if you do it by hand, and copy out all the parts yourself (again by hand)

Bach arranged Vivaldi, Mozart arranged Bach, Beethoven arranged Handel, etc.

If these masters did this as part of their own musical studies, maybe you could so this for your own education, using the music you admire most.

Even if it is arranging the music to a new key or mode (major to minor, etc)

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As a general thing I recommend books by Charles Rosen for music of the Classical era

https://www.amazon.com/Sonata-Forms-Revised-Charles-Rosen/dp/0393302199

https://www.amazon.com/Classical-Style-Mozart-Beethoven-Expanded/dp/0393317129/

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Probably the best place to start is by writing "etudes" which basically means "Studies" You could also call them "Experiments".

These would be shortish pieces where you try out different things. Thus if you do not know which way to go with something, you try them all or most of them, and flesh them out into separate things. Each is an experiment.

one idea might give a dozen experiments (major vs minor, slow vs fast, 3/4 vs 4/4 vs 5/4 = 12 combinations)

As experiments, not everything has to work. (but you might come back to it later)

Nothing has to be perfect, They are experiments

Later own, you experiment with ways to make it better. (see the Beethoven sketches again)

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part of the musical problem of form is to how to continue something in order to maintain interest, without it getting boring for a variety of factors. Traditional forms are solid solutions to the problem but you can come up with your own.

As an example, check out the old popular songs of John Denver (!) many of which do not follow a conventional common practice song format. What is he doing there?

The initial question was vague, but this makes it a lot easier! There are several different (but related) forms/techniques within baroque music which use a bass line similar to this.

Firstly, ostinato (plural: ostinati). This just means a short, repeating phrase. It was very commonly used in bass parts in the baroque. To give you a slightly strange but hopefully still appealing example, here's a piece by the modern minimalist(ish) composer Michael Nyman. Minimalism uses a lot of repetition anyway, but the entire soundtrack from which this piece comes is based on little snippets of works by the baroque composer Henry Purcell. I've just chosen this piece because the ostinati are very clear (clearer than most baroque pieces, in fact), but also because it shows that the thing you found appealing about the Marais piece doesn't just occur in pieces of "similar period and musical style". Sibelius is another composer who uses this technique, but again in a completely different way.

Secondly, passacaglias and chaconnes. These forms have been interpreted differently by a variety of composers across different eras, so it's hard to give many specific examples, but hopefully those two pages should give you some pointers.

Thirdly, La Folia, which is basically a famous chord progression that various composers have used as the basis for certain works. Vivaldi's version and Corelli's version are some of the best-known examples. I also like this version.

I'm not really a Baroque expert so it's hard to list many more specific pieces, but I would suggest this extract from Monteverdi's Vespers, and I would thoroughly recommend this album, this album and this album, all of which are by Jordi Savall. They're all available on spotify as well if that's easier.

Mstislav Rostropovich is the man you need. He was an absolute master of the cello and could do impossible things with the instrument. Here are a few of my favorite of his CDs:

• Schubert: Arpeggione Sonata and Frank: Cello Sonata - Amazon link and Youtube link (side note: the accompanist is the famous composer Benjamin Britten)
  
• Brahms: Cellos Sonatas - Amazon link and Youtube link
  
• Haydn: Cello Concertos - Amazon link and Youtube Link
  
• Bach: Cello Suites - Amazon link and Youtube link
  
• Anything where he does Shostakovich. Here's one Amazon link and a Youtube link, though he made plenty more.
  
  Mischa Maisky is another very skilled cellist whose recordings tend to be rather consistent. Most of what he recorded with Martha Argerich is wonderful. This is one of his strongest CDs; here's an excerpt.
  
  Pablo Casals is also fantastic, though I'm less familiar with his discography. His version of Bach's cello suites is fantastic, though: Amazon link
  
  I'd also recommend looking into Yo Yo Ma, Jaqueline DuPre, Janos Starker, and Pierre Fournier's discographies, though I can't think of any particular albums off the top of my head to recommend.
  

As far as your point about lyrics, in my experience what makes it hard to get into music without lyrics is probably one of two things (or both):

(1) the lack of a melody that is easy to follow.

(2) the lack of an explicit meaning given to the music.

For me, I tend to have problem #2 to some extent, because when I listen to popular music I tend to have visions about the music in my mind. And those visions stem to some extent from the title of the song and the lyrics (both of which are often lacking in classical music). So not having lyrics makes it hard to picture something onto which your imagination can latch. It's just sounds, with little to no indication by the composer on what the music might be about. Heck there's a lot of classical musicians that adopt the "Absolute Music" doctrine, wherein music is about nothing in particular.

What a lot of people like to do to "remedy" this is make up their own "story" about the music (e.g. think of a loved one when listening to a slow movement). Sometimes I do this but to be honest it just happens naturally (in other words, I don't consciously tell myself Ok let's think about this or that).

I know I'm not offering concrete advice, but perhaps all of this might give you something to think about.

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As far as where to begin, I'm sure you'll easily find some advice on the web. For what it's worth I remember starting with this collection back in th day. https://www.amazon.com/Masters-Classical-Music-Johann-Sebastian/dp/B000001VU5

I still think it's a nice little starting point.

There are some books that provide overviews like this. A few decades ago I relied on the book "The Essential Canon of Classical Music" by David Dubal ( https://www.amazon.com/Essential-Canon-Classical-Music/dp/0865476640 ) to help me get a sense of who the big composers were and what were their most representative works. It may be a bit dated now, at least in terms of its recording recommendations, but I'm sure there are others that are more recent.

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Since you mention Bach specifically, the major works definitely include the St. Matthew Passion, the Mass in B minor, selected cantatas, the Well-Tempered Clavier, the Goldberg Variations, the cello suites, the violin sonatas and partitas, the Brandenburg Concertos, the orchestral suites, the violin concertos, the Musical Offering, and the Art of the Fugue. There are more, but you get the idea!

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In my opinion, you ultimately have to decide for yourself what is "worth listening to." You might turn out to enjoy Bach so much that you choose to explore his less-important compositions. Similarly, you might turn out to dislike some of the "big" composers. It's a good idea, though, to at least become familiar with the canon and understand the progression of classical music.

Like many Amazon sales, this is a "sale". Check out this product's price history on Camel Camel Camel. Same $24.99 since it was first added for "sale" months ago. You can put whatever you like as the product's "real price" and then set an offering price when creating an Amazon listing. This creates the illusion of a massive discount. Just a tip for older users of this sub-forum who may rush to purchase a product when there really is no special deal at all. This user's account is 7 days old and so far has only posted links to a Twitter account that is no doubt earning them referral cash. I would highly encourage people interested in this Blu-Ray to instead purchase through a smile.amazon.com link that will donate a percentage of profits to a charity of your choosing instead of using the link in this post.

Source: I'm a high-volume Amazon third-party marketplace seller.

If you like Folia, he has two CDs of it. (Sorry for amazon links, I don't know how else to refer to them. Find them elsewhere if you are so inclined)

For standard repertoire works, I like his Brandenburgs and Orchestral Suites as well as his Royal Fireworks/Water Music.

He likes to push the envelope which can sometimes be fun. His Eroica is interesting, but I wouldn't want that to be my only recording. Same with his Mozart Serenades CD. It sounds like an exciting concert, but the unexpected parts don't work as well on repeat listens.

He's mostly known for early music and early baroque though. I enjoy these recordings but this is not my era of expertise, so I don't know how it compares to other performances.

OKAY SO RITA STEBLIN!!!!!!!! https://www.amazon.com/History-Characteristics-18th-Early-Centuries/dp/1580460410 I love her book and you can read about the history, and then there's a catalog in the back of prime quotes for each key.

Specifically about Beethoven, Dr. Paul Ellison, who is one of the genuinely nicest and secretly sassy human beings, wrote the following: https://www.amazon.com/Key-Beethoven-Connecting-Tonality-American/dp/1576472027/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=paul+ellison&qid=1564783071&s=books&sr=1-3

What's so cool about the history of it, is it has so much to do with tuning systems and temperament of key-instruments. There is also a whole paper on E-flat major and hunting horns in German music by John. D. Wilson, I'd check on JSTOR for that.

A master's seminar I took on key characteristics in Beethoven got me all interested in Musicology so much that I'm pursuing it as a career. (still singing, but whatever, this is also a passion of mine).

Happy reading, enjoy!!!!

These two albums are cornerstones of my collection:

• Muti/PO: Symphonies 1-3, Poem of ecstasy, P. of fire - PoE and Symph1 (esp. mvmt 6) are two of my favorite pieces. no other recording of PoE keeps the second half as tense nor does the coda as perfectly as this one.
  
• Lettberg: Solo piano works - I have to highlight her op. 18 and op. 4, two large piano works that mostly predate the sonatas. Great great romantic, virtuosic passionate pieces that lie somewhere between Brahms more violent intermezzos (eg, 76/1) and Chopin ballades. The rest is all quality.
  
  Others to supplement, that I don't feel as strongly about.
  
  
• Ashkenazy: Piano sonatas - older recordings, but he captures the more eccentric side so essential to Scriabin, like the frenetic no. 2 and the disturbing no. 9. I still think Ashkenazy is more at home with Rach (ossia pc3!!) though.
  
• Diev: Preludes - simply a great value, for the 48 short pieces you get here. Solid playing, I don't think he has quite the edge needed to pull off the more hairy pieces, but he nails the tender side of 11/11 and 16/3.

I agree with everybody, you have to listen, listen, listen! It's like any other genre of music, you need to listen to a bunch of stuff before you find a style that you enjoy and then it is easier (in my opinion) to dig deeper and listen to other composers related to the style you enjoy. I would suggest you get an anthology like this one for example https://www.amazon.ca/Grands-Classiques-Dedgar-Fruitier-Various/dp/B000N3AVPS (that's the one I had but there are many more!). It is divided by genre so you know what period you are listening to and its has a lot of different composers for you to discover. You could also try to listen to classical radio once in a while just so you don't have to think about choosing a song to listen to (they sometimes make a list of what's been played on their site so you can go back to check what you were listening in your car for example). Finally, keep it fun! You won't like classical music if you make yourself listen to everything Bach wrote in one sitting ;)

\> This composition was focused on the balance and elegance of the Classical era (like Mozart and Haydn).

It doesn't quite achieve that either, mind you. The following paragraphs sound harsh but aren't intended to be.

There are lot of what I would call mechanical mistakes. Take the second bar. You shift an E-major chord up a second to F#-major, all voices moving in parallel. And then you compound it by the F#-C# to B-F# parallel fifths in the cello, viola and second violin. You will not find anything like this in the body of works of Haydn or Mozart. It's just a simple violation of rules that cannot happen when you strive to write in the Classical style.

Aside from these types of formal issues, there is something that takes much longer to get right and it has to do with all these unwritten rules that you would find implemented in every Mozart and Haydn sonata movement. The second theme appears to be presented in bar 17 and it is according to the standard rules in the dominant. So far so good. The problem is that you are missing the transition from first to second theme. The first section is just a repeat and alternation of two-bar motives. The 16 bars entirely consist of three chords: B-major, E-major and F#-major. And then, after ending on the tonic B-major, you introduce the second theme in the dominant F# but you never established that key, and it needs to be.

According to classical rules it requires either a cadence on the dominant, often introduced via vi which in the case of B-major would be like a g#-minor chord with the third in the base but more correctly denoted as B^(6), or a half-cadence on the double-dominant C#-major. You have neither and you don't have a single reference to the new leading tone E#, and you kind of do need it to convincingly present the second theme in the new key.

Whole books have been written specifically about how Classical composers treated the sonata form. I recommend Charles Rosen's Sonata Form or The Classical Style by the same author. These are incredible books and eye-opening. I keep repeating this and a lot of people don't believe it but the Classical era was the height of formalism in music. Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven were the most comprehensively trained composers in history. They had to be. They knew everything that Bach did but in addition to that they had mastery of the far richer structural and harmonic principles and rules of the Classical era (which, actually, they created themselves). That's why a scholar such as Charles Rosen spend his whole life (well, apart from performing as a pianist) on studying what made Classical music Classical.

But not to worry. It seems this competition that you won is for young (as in teen) composers. I've taken part in various composition competitions myself decades ago (and never really won anything). You'll figure it out. But do get these Charles Rosen books. When I read them for the first time they elevated my appreciation and understanding of classical music to an entirely new level.

Nice score! Philips Classical vinyl can be found by the truckload and surfaces are the most silent in the business.

Their stable of artists runs the gamut from great to a bit blah, just grab your smartphone the next time you run into a stash of Classical and Google the composer, (in this case, "Haydn"), conductor ("Jochum"), and then type "review." Reviews will tell you whether or not the conductor and musicians nail the performances and if not, will give you examples better ones. There are "pro" reviews (Gramophone and Musicweb), and amateur reviews, (such as can be found on Amazon).

Here are some Amazon reviews:

https://www.amazon.com/Haydn-Symphonies-Jochum-Staatskapelle-Dresden/dp/B000025U45

The two Haydn Symphonies on your Lp have four movements (not songs) The first mov't introduces a few melodies, then Haydn plays with them for awhile, (like going on a journey), before they get repeated at the end. The second mov't, is typically slow, reflective and a bit quieter, while the 3rd mov't is typically a dance. (Sometimes character of the 2nd and 3rd mov'ts are reversed.) The final mov't brings everything together in new and hopefully smile-inducing ways.

The missing works are good but shouldn't make your decision one way or the other. You can get all his unpublished works on this CD which is very good and cheap:

https://www.amazon.com/Inedits-Messiaen/dp/B00000JLND

So if you are leaning toward the performers on Warner's box I would go with that.

The big difference makers for me are:

• The 5 CDs of Messiaen playing his organ music and Loriod's Catalogue d'Oiseaux are essential and hard to find elsewhere
  
• The "landmark interpretations" CDs on the Warner box contain some really good performances
  
  A note on the 5 organ works CDs on the Warner box: 4 of them were recorded in the 1950's in mono. More recent versions in better sound exist, which may or may not be important to you. But if you want to hear OM himself, this is the way to hear it.

Since you're coming from romantic music you may connect with Bach's concertos. Find performance of his "piano" concertos, and for ease of listening, performed on piano, not harpsichord or fortepiano. You may also enjoy his double concerto for two violins.

Works like the solo keyboard or solo violin/cello may be further down the road for you. They are often incredibly dense (keyboard fugues) or too seemingly simple for your tastes. For instance I disagree with the recommendation fo the 1st Cello suite. The opening movement is a long sequence of arpeggiated chords. Appreciating the structure of that takes a little more work than romantic strings pieces which have their appeal more on the surface.

If you like vocal music, find a collection of arias. Sitting through a whole cantata you can do later.

Suggestion: https://www.amazon.com/BWV82-Aria-Schlummert-matten-Augen/dp/B0011ZW9P2

There is always the Bach Cello Suites but you're probably aware of them already.

I've been really enjoying these Brahms Cello Sonatas Rostropovich for the win. :-)

Copland's What to listen for in Music was really good, but more geared to the classical novice; still worth the read, nonetheless.

Toch's The Shaping Forces of Music was a serious eye opener for me as a composer. It really out everything I was learning in school into perspective and helped me make sense of the purpose of all that I was being taught.

Rimsky-Korsakov's Principles of Orchestration was a very good book that showed me all the idiosyncrasies of writing for symphony in a very clear manner.

I actually don't know that particular one. (Five Picturesques, I guess?) I'll have to go and find it, though! Thanks for the tip.

Here's the playlist for that CD. A huge highlight is the Sonata No. 1. And the Suite Dansant en Jazz.

Harnoncourt / Chamber Orchestra of Europe / 1991.

Amazon / Spotify