Comment by y7 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by y7 | Hacker News Reader

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> I’m a classical neophyte and struggle with composer/orchestra/conductor fit.

If you're new to classical music you really don't need to worry about this. Almost all available professional recordings are of high quality, and the differences between interpretations are relatively subtle.

What is important is to get a sense of which composers you enjoy. Classical music spans a large period of time with very different styles, so try a few well-known composers from different time periods to see what you like. I greatly enjoy classical music and I regularly attend(ed) concerts, but my interests are very narrow and I don't get a lot of enjoyment out of Mozart and Beethoven for instance.

In my opinion, classical music is best enjoyed when you devote your full attention to listening to the music, i.e. when you're not doing anything else (or something with a very low cognitive load, like walking/driving/etc). Focus on how the music makes you feel, but it's okay to let your thoughts wander off a bit.

I kind of disagree with this. For the post-Beethoven era, sure, but the standard way of playing Beethoven and before tends to be heavily biased towards an uninformed modern idea of what classical music "should" be, which is stodgy, slow, smooth, heavily refined, overcooked with crescendoes and decrescendos, and quite inauthentic. Almost as though it's shameful for music to be immediate and exciting at the risk of being unrefined. If you compare Furtwängler's[1] Beethoven symphonies to Christopher Hogwood's... one sounds like music for wealthy old people at a concert hall. The other sounds like music. (Don't get me started on the routine butchering of Bach...)

But that's just my opinion. The point is it really pays to try different conductors, performers and performances before the 1830s or so. I'm not sure why that time changes things, but I'd guess the romantic style that came after more closely aligns with artsy-fartsy performance practices, and that composers also became more careful about marking how their works should be performed. Anyway, trying different things is also a good exercise in developing personal taste, which is a key ingredient of music appreciation.

[1] I originally had von Karajan here, but I went back to have a listen and it wasn't as bad as I remembered. Substituted Furtwängler's inexplicably famous recordings, which sound like the entire orchestra took Valium: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bOxcryX1VE . Compare to Beethoven's recommended tempo and historical style: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Y07M8e5g-Y

I wonder if this is a similar effect as the “classic white marble” impression of Greek & Roman architecture - we have an entire aesthetic (both artistic and cultural) built off of the “purity” of the white marble remains; meanwhile it turns out in their time they were garishly colored and decorated because the Greeks and romans, like all other humans, actually enjoyed living in places and looking at things.

That’s a great point.

I wonder if in future there will be slow, dignified recordings of Nicky Minaj et al

You can find those all over Spotify already ;) More so if the artist does not have any music on there.

Exactly! Furtwängler is just Beethoven chopped and screwed

It's quite similar. There's definitely a "white marble effect" coming from the original sources, that tend to be a very barebone notation of the music with basically no indications on how to perform it. But we know from written discussions that creative improvisation was key to performance in that era, and regarded as the very peak of music instruction even more so than composition itself! Sometimes we get lucky and have more detailed sources, that tell us how some pieces might have been performed in detail.

Between the two examples, the historical style feels much more alive, vibrant, dynamic. There's a real energy there.

I went back to the Furtwängler version and it felt like what my mind feels like when my depression kicks in. It's flattened out and lethargic, like it's lost the will to live.

I'm no classical music connoisseur, I rarely listen to it. But the difference is night and day to my untrained ears. One is boring and the other captures my attention.

I have [this CD](https://www.allmusic.com/album/vivaldi-the-four-seasons-conc...) from 1990 of Vladimir Spivakov and the Moscow Virtuosi playing Vivaldi's Four Seasons. I have never heard a version of the Four Seasons that was so vibrant. Unfortunately I've never been able to find the exact recording on a streaming service, but I cherish that album.

How is Bach routinely butchered, and do you have recommended recordings of Bach's keyboard works (let's say WTC and the inventions/sinfonias)?

Glenn Gould was unsurpassed.

It's indisputable that he was a virtuoso on the keyboard, but unfortunately he accompanied that with annoying humming that many recordings pick up way too much of.

Maybe try Nikolayeva's recordings?

WTC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNpwAZf6thY

Inventions and sinfonias: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bL7oyuqEwA

Lots of people recommend Gould in this thread. Check out the difference of the first invention in the link above with the first invention of Gould, and see what you prefer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQot-jM6FSw

I don't have an opinion about whether anyone has butchered Bach or not, but, after listening to a half-dozen interpretations of the WTC (all on piano), I find that I like Zhu Xiao-Mei's the best.

Harpsichord parts played on piano...

I totally agree with this. I used to listen to a lot of classical music (radio, vinyl, in concert). There seems to be something about the mid-20th century conductors where all their recordings are slow, ponderous and somnolent. Beethoven in particular, but many other composers get the same treatment. Hogwood's recordings are great. IMHO the best recording of Beethoven's 9th that I've heard is Leonard Bernstein's.

I went to a performance by the Seattle Symphony back when Gerald Schwartz was conducting and he managed to make Beethoven's 9th symphony sound dull. It was an impressive feat. He explained, for reasons I've forgotten, that he even muted the violins. I went to a second performance a few years later by the same conductor, and it was equally devoid of spirit. It was enervated by far more than just the plodding tempo.

On the other hand, John Eliot Gardiner's Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique plays Beethoven on period instruments at the tempo the composer indicated, and it's absolutely gripping.

As someone who doesn't listen to classical music, I'd say I prefer Furtwängler's recording to your other link. It sounds more epic, like an action movie, while the other one sounds more like the backdrop to some village festival. But I was surprised for sure how different the two sounded, and that's not something I had ever really considered before, so thanks for showing me this.

I was with you up until you mentioned Christoper Hogwood. Not that there's anything wrong with him just that that wouldn't be the first name to pop up in my head when I think music vs 'stodgy music for wealthy old people'. It makes me think what you're trying to say in so many words is that you prefer music played on period instruments using something close to the orchestra that would have been available to the composer in their own time. That would limit you to music from sometime before the mid 1800's since composers since then pretty much have had the modern orchestra we have today so 'period' orchestras would be anachronistic and not what the composer intended. If you like period orchestras you should check out recordings of the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra in San Francisco. They also play 'Hogwood' style on authentic period instruments.

I agree with this answer. I listen to classical constantly but still don't really feel like I understand it well.

What I did was just listen..listen..listen and then look for patterns in what I liked.

I love Vivaldi and Bach, but I tend not to love too many of the other "big names". Turns out I really love most anything from the Baroque period! And I literally just used that Wikipedia entry as a starting part to continue looking for more composers.

If you like Baroque keyboard music, try something like Scarlatti. It's a bit difficult finding good interpretations (I have a CD somewhere), but here's an example

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTi-QXenilQ

Rameau is a different kind of beast from Bach:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbIGcj_Avb8 https://youtu.be/NK3-URQntcg?t=1383

I also really recommend giving Bach's cello suites a try:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGgG-0lOJjk

> If you're new to classical music you really don't need to worry about this. Almost all available professional recordings are of high quality, and the differences between interpretations are relatively subtle.

Agreed, but it's also important to understand that what's truly distinctive about Western classical music (as opposed to other music traditions) is it being a written art form first and foremost, with sheet music as the "standard" form for a piece and performance being subsequent to that. If you're "new" to serious/cultivated music, you really should start by learning to read the sheet music and follow along when listening to a performance. Everything else in music appreciation is downstream of that.

>what's truly distinctive about Western classical music (as opposed to other music traditions) is it being a written art form first and foremost

I find this hard to believe, music score can be copied down the generation with some degree of lost-in-translation, they might not be the full materialization of the composer's idea, some copier may write down their own idea on the sheets.

I would agree that music score is the only means of accessing composer's works for Western classical music, and thereby became the "standard". But this would also likely be true for other culture's music, and therefore it's not unique.

Hi, I find this useful https://old.reddit.com/r/classicalresources/

Also, I have used Idagio in the past, which has a mood-based suggester.

Related, I would recommend the book "1001 Classical Recordings You Must Hear Before You Die" [0]. The works are neatly arranged by chronological order, so you can easily discover new works from a period you like. And it gave me plenty of ideas just browsing it.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1214513.1001_Classical_R...

>best enjoyed when you devote your full attention to listening to the music, i.e. when you're not doing anything else

Reminds me of going to live concerts, and my guest being surprised that I spend most of my time with my eyes closed - so that I can focus on the music.

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