Where to start...

[Hoym]

op:

 

[Klassik]

I definitely think I enjoy & appreciate music more now I am old(er).

It's certainly easier, much easier, to find obscure music with streaming than it was in the old days.  Klassik still likes buying classical CDs, but Klassik discovers things via streaming first in most cases. 

One nice thing about streaming is that it pretty much eliminates ridiculous arguments about which recordings are 'the best'.  First off, that cannot really be judged, but now if someone wants to know what to buy, they can listen for themselves and make their own judgements.  That said, on some less enlightened corners of the Internet, the wonders of modern listening has not stopped certain fools from vigorously defending their album purchasing decisions from 1971.  :S

 

[audio_PHIL_e]

Try also the Building a library programme on R3 (Sat AM, iirc).  he contrasts various recordings of the same piece - and some of them are remarkably different, even though they are all being played by good players under good conductors from the same dots - everyone has their own view of how a piece should sound.

If you like form and counterpoint, try the baroque stuff, of which JS Bach is IMO the best example. Otherwise just try a bit of everything, see what you like most, then get more of the same.

 

[Klassik]

Try also the Building a library programme on R3 (Sat AM, iirc).  he contrasts various recordings of the same piece - and some of them are remarkably different, even though they are all being played by good players under good conductors from the same dots - everyone has their own view of how a piece should sound.

This is quite true, but Klassik suggests that completely new listeners not worry too much about performances.  At-home classical music listening is in a completely different world than it was even 15 years ago.  Back in the day, there was a lot of emphasis on buying the 'right' performance of a particular work, but today someone can pull up hundreds of different performances of a popular work and listen to them all just the same and make comparisons themselves without consulting with the usually flawed opinions of others.  Klassik is pleased to have noticed that younger listeners of classical music (meaning anyone under the age of ~60 xD ) today are much more interested in surveying a large amount of different classical works than listening to the same work over and over again via different performances.

This is not to say that there isn't a use for programs comparing recordings because they can still be very useful for learning the nuances of performance interpretation, but for an absolute beginner, Klassik would not worry too much about performances other than to be aware that there can be significant differences due to interpretation, modern vs. time period instruments, modern vs. time period performance style, and so forth.  Because of this, one should not necessarily write off something that they don't enjoy hearing the first time (though there are a lot of reasons to take that mentality even aside from performance differences).  With 'early music', music was generally written without the composer calling for specific instruments.  Even if a specific instrument was called for, it was not unusual for music to be performed on other instruments.  A lot of early music, and even later/modern music, is written for amateur performers and so music was performed with what was on hand.  Anyway, all of this is to say that new listeners' understanding of things will evolve and they'll start to learn these things.

 

[audio_PHIL_e]

Addendum to previous post

You might find it useful to classify "classical" music by period, eg Renaissance, Elizabethan, Baroque, Classical, Impressionist etc. I prefer stuff written between 1500 and 1750, which probably limits composers to working between 3PM and 10 to 6  ...otherwise its like saying you like "rock" but can't tell the difference between Led Zeppelin and SoundGarden

 

[audio_PHIL_e]

This is quite true, but Klassik suggests that completely new listeners not worry too much about performances.  At-home classical music listening is in a completely different world than it was even 15 years ago.  Back in the day, there was a lot of emphasis on buying the 'right' performance of a particular work, but today someone can pull up hundreds of different performances of a popular work and listen to them all just the same and make comparisons themselves without consulting with the usually flawed opinions of others.  Klassik is pleased to have noticed that younger listeners of classical music (meaning anyone under the age of ~60 xD ) today are much more interested in surveying a large amount of different classical works than listening to the same work over and over again via different performances.

This is not to say that there isn't a use for programs comparing recordings because they can still be very useful for learning the nuances of performance interpretation, but for an absolute beginner, Klassik would not worry too much about performances other than to be aware that there can be significant differences due to interpretation, modern vs. time period instruments, modern vs. time period performance style, and so forth.  Because of this, one should not necessarily write off something that they don't enjoy hearing the first time (though there are a lot of reasons to take that mentality even aside from performance differences).  With 'early music', music was generally written without the composer calling for specific instruments.  Even if a specific instrument was called for, it was not unusual for music to be performed on other instruments.  A lot of early music, and even later/modern music, is written for amateur performers and so music was performed with what was on hand.  Anyway, all of this is to say that new listeners' understanding of things will evolve and they'll start to learn these things.

Even if you ignore the presenter's opinion of which recording is "the best" (ie his preference) it's still a good way to check out what's available and see if you like it without having to buy it first.

 

[Klassik]

Even if you ignore the presenter's opinion of which recording is "the best" (ie his preference) it's still a good way to check out what's available and see if you like it without having to buy it first.

Sí señor, listening to a good classical music radio station (one which does not play the same ~15 'hits' on a loop  :S ) is a good way to sample a lot of different music in general.

 

[audio_PHIL_e]

Sí señor, listening to a good classical music radio station (one which does not play the same ~15 'hits' on a loop  :S ) is a good way to sample a lot of different music in general.

or one which thinks "classical" music is only for relaxing to after taking the kids in the chelsea tractor for the school run (and intersperses every other track with adverts for pensions or other "investments") (English listeners will know which one I mean)

 

[Klassik]

or one which thinks "classical" music is only for relaxing to after taking the kids in the chelsea tractor for the school run (and intersperses every other track with adverts for pensions or other "investments") (English listeners will know which one I mean)

Classic FM?  Klassik has never heard Classic FM, but Klassik has seen some daft things on their website.  xD  

Commercial classical music stations are virtually dead in the US or else they'd be full of similar ads for mutual funds and for medical insurance/medicines.   :S   Most classical music stations here are public radio stations run by universities and such.  Dallas is a rare exception, they have a municipally-run commercial classical music station.     Klassik believes that's the only municipally-run commercial radio station of any genre in the country.  Houston, well, we don't even have a classical music station anymore.  What we had was pretty London anyway so Klassik reckons it's not a big loss.  Well, the local NPR station does have a classical radio station feed, but it only airs on digital HD radio, which hardly anyone has in their homes, and online. 

The local classical music station in Houston did have a program called 'Classical Classroom' where they did have some informative shows where they talk to performers and break down classical works.  These shows are available online.  One show was where famed American violinist Rachel Barton Pine compared several recordings of Mendelssohn's violin concerto and discussed the evolution of the performance of it and her mentality when performing it.  It's quite a good show and Klassik reckons it's similar to what you mentioned earlier.  Klassik has a link to the post Klassik made about this last year:

 

[audio_PHIL_e]

Classic FM?  

You know more about English FM radio than I was giving you credit for! Spot on.

 

[Le Baron]

or one which thinks "classical" music is only for relaxing to after taking the kids in the chelsea tractor for the school run (and intersperses every other track with adverts for pensions or other "investments") (English listeners will know which one I mean)

This reminds me of the time I had a lady round for dinner and she said 'oh..put on some classical music.' Which I thought was a bit odd because she never listened to any, but of course as with the quote above quite a lot of people think 'classical music' is a sort of background music and that it is by default soothing. So I put on Alberto Ginastera's Concerto For Strings (I actually prefer the quartet it was based upon, but whatever). And as we were eating she was visibly uncomfortable and said 'this music is making me unhappy, I feel upset!' So I turned it off and put some Chet Baker on instead.

More people like the idea of classical music than actually like it.

This is quite true, but Klassik suggests that completely new listeners not worry too much about performances.  At-home classical music listening is in a completely different world than it was even 15 years ago.  Back in the day, there was a lot of emphasis on buying the 'right' performance of a particular work, but today someone can pull up hundreds of different performances of a popular work and listen to them all just the same and make comparisons themselves

Yes I agree, though I think both listening yourself through easy streaming services (like YT) and also listening to choices by a good radio curator can both be beneficial. For general listening I go to France Musique or two Swiss stations: RTS or Radio Swiss Classic. They're in-between popular classics and more adventurous stuff and tend to choose good recordings. I think I already stressed the point, but the obsession with multiple comparisons of recordings of the same work was one of the biggest irritations at the unnamed classical music sewer of a website. It's not that I don't think there are good/bad performances of e.g. Bruckner 7, there are. Haitink and Klemperer are my choices for that, but other people may like other performances. It's just that I think those two hit the rhythm properly on the opening staccatos of the scherzo. Others seem sloppier.

However, do I really want to compare 10 different versions of all of Nielsen's symphonies, get into a frenzied argument about the conductors because I didn't say Karajan is a god, and then make a symphony knockout game out of them using some unfathomable numbering system? Do I fcuk. (You may have to have been a member of that website to appreciate this).

 

[Klassik]

This reminds me of the time I had a lady round for dinner and she said 'oh..put on some classical music.' Which I thought was a bit odd because she never listened to any, but of course as with the quote above quite a lot of people think 'classical music' is a sort of background music and that it is by default soothing. So I put on Alberto Ginastera's Concerto For Strings (I actually prefer the quartet it was based upon, but whatever). And as we were eating she was visibly uncomfortable and said 'this music is making me unhappy, I feel upset!' So I turned it off and put some Chet Baker on instead.

Klassik would have out on Ravel's Bolero, :shaggers: , but perhaps that might have been too suggestive.  Knowing Klassik, Klassik would have put on one of Albrechtsberger's (Beethoven's teacher) concertos for Jew's Harp.  If this isn't good date music, what else is? 




The problem with the unnamed classical music forum (aka 'The Classical Music Igloo') wasn't their sewer.  The state of the sewer there was excellent.  xD   The rest of the place was quite Krummy.  Well, that's downplaying the rot at that place.  :S

Classical music is not unlike Hi-Fi in many ways.  There are classical music 'fans' who have been hit in the head with a 2"x4" of corporate marketing repeatedly to the point of inanity.  Granted, most of the corporate marketing in classical music died in around the 1990s, but there are still people who are suffering from the corporatized nature of classical music marketing from the major record labels during the ~1950s-1990s.  This is to say that some people believe that some conductors or soloists are automatically superior to others regardless of the type of music.  :doh:   Idiots even try to rank composers, conductors, and orchestras they have not even heard into many different tiers (literally hundreds of tiers in the case of the classical music igloo :fight: ).  So, yeah, to OP, don't be like that. 

Fortunately, many of the popular classical record labels these days are publishing music by a wide variety of composers and are doing so in sometimes interesting ways such as the growing use of historically-informed performance and instruments.  Some may or may not like this, but at least it's not a case of the same works being recorded over and over again using the same old mid-20th century performance standards.  Between all of this and the ease of listening to almost anything on streaming services (even free YouTube) means that these are good times for classical music listeners and CD buyers.