Everything
starts with Bach...
Before
Bach, people produced some beautiful music (especially Purcell) but He is the
father of Western classical music. He wrote lots and lots of music, much of it
very serious and designed to be heard in church but all of it very complex.
When music is as complex as this you can hear it many, many times and still
hear something different in it every time. He was probably the greatest musical
genius that ever lived, even greater than Mozart who might have bettered him
but who died too young. For a long time he was known as a wonderful keyboard
player rather than as a composer until the 19th century when Mendelssohn began
to conduct and promote his music again to the public. Many of the melodies are
very familiar and appear on TV commercials and are known by the 'Man in the
Street'. It was Bach who first tuned a piano so that it sounds
"tuned" to us. (If you tune a piano in exact steps it sounds out of
tune to us.) Don't try to listen to all of Bach's output at once. It will take
you weeks to get through it and you will find there's lots you don't like. If
you like intelligent music with great tunes introduce yourself to Bach with the
choruses from the St Matthew Passion, (he wrote five 'passions' but only two
have survived) some movements from the Brandenburg Concertos and the Orchestral
Suites and some of his organ music (The famous Toccata and Fugue in D Minor are
attributed to Bach but he didn't write them and what's more they weren't
written for the organ! - We don't know who wrote them, possibly Buxtehude whose
music Bach loved). Once you've got used to Bach's music explore the Oratorios,
the Cello suites, the Goldberg Variations and the Well-Tempered Clavier to name
but a few. Nietzsche, that most ungodly of men, said of Bach's music that when
he listened to it he thought God might exist after all. Sadly, Bach went blind
in old age. Both he and Handel were operated on, both unsuccessfully, by the same
surgeon for their impending blindness.
Beethoven
For many
people Beethoven is the greatest musical genius who ever lived. He spent most
of his life a deeply unhappy man, writing music as a kind of musicaholic and
living in scruffy, untidy rooms with dirty plates lying around on the floor. He
wrote nine symphonies and as you listen to them, from 1 to 9 they get steadily
bigger, more dramatic, more powerful and more exciting, finishing in the Ninth
with a huge choir as well as orchestra. The symphony had been invented by Haydn
and developed by Mozart but the symphonies by these composers were meant to be
heard in a sitting room. They're well-behaved although clever and pretty.
Beethoven's music was written for a bigger stage - The World. You can imagine
Beethoven's symphonies blasting from the speakers at Bernabeu Stadium; Mozart's
would sound ridiculous played like this. You have to know the symphonies, all
the 38 movements, yes all of them. Beethoven's music came from the age of
revolutions. It's BIG music designed to move you and inspire you. Before
Beethoven it was said, "I think therefore I am." Beethoven changed
this to "I feel therefore I am". Not naturally a happy person, he got
steadily angrier over the years as he lost his hearing. I understand this
anger. It's easy to understand it if you think about it. Most people were
scared of his tempers. He kept composing even when he was totally deaf because
he could hear the music in his head as he wrote the notes on the paper. He
wrote not just powerful music but also the most delicate and emotional music
which always tries to appeal to your feelings. Apart from the symphonies you
should listen to his piano concertos and piano sonatas. There are some very
famous tunes in these. He was conscious all his life of being compared to
Mozart (whom he met once when he, Beethoven, was young). Although he became as
fine a pianist as Mozart had been, he did not have Mozart's natural talent and
had to work and practise more than Mozart did. His early symphonies sound like
Mozart's late ones but much better. As you progress through the 3rd an onwards
the music like the orchestra just gets bigger and bigger.
Mozart
Mozart
was the greatest composer who ever lived. Yes, but you've already said that
about Bach AND Beethoven. The truth is no one of them can claim the prize of
the best and everyone rightly has their favourite. (Mine is Bach). A child
prodigy he was pushed by his father to perform all over Europe and was
brilliant from a young child onwards. The most important thing about Mozart is
that he died much, much too young. Too young to become the undisputedly best
composer ever. In his 34 years he produced everything - symphonies (41 but they
all sound the same), masses for church, concertos, sonatas and operas. His
music is immensely complex but not passionate. He was writing for a different
age than Beethoven's. An age of tidy thoughts, well decorated palaces, pretty
rooms, perfect balance and harmony. We are still living in the last stages of
the Romantic Age and that began with Beethoven. Mozart wrote dozens of tunes
you will recognize. He wrote and wrote and it seemed it would just go on
getting better and better, until he caught suddenly a kidney disease and died,
just as his popularity was coming back after some bad times. He had the almost
perfect ability to compose and could hold whole symphonies in his head. He was
able to go to musical concerts, come home and write down all the music he had
heard from memory! There's much to listen to by Mozart and it's easier to
listen to than Beethoven or Bach's music. Most of his 27 piano concertos sound
similar but you should listen to number 21. Also, try the Clarinet Concerto,
especially the adagio movement, the Horn Concertos, the violin concertos, Eine
Kleine Nachtmusik. The tunes are light and pretty; they're there: then they're
gone, but you will find yourself humming them later.
Tchaikovsky
Tchaikovsky
spent most of his life a deeply unhappy man. Perhaps this was because he
couldn't find true love (like Beethoven couldn't) and perhaps this was because
he was a homosexual in an age when it wasn't fashionable to be one. This was
also dangerous in Russia where homosexuality was punishable by death. After two
unhappy love affairs with women to try to 'cure' his sexual feelings he
eventually committed suicide. He was the one of the best composers of melodies
ever and the best ever composer for the ballet with no other composer even
coming near his ability. He wrote 6 symphonies and they're pleasant enough, nothing
to really move you as Beethoven had. He wrote the most famous piano concerto
ever, number 1 in B flat minor and a beautiful violin concerto. Violin
concertos are just about the hardest things to write in music; Beethoven,
Brahms, and Mendelssohn could only manage one each. Mozart wrote 5 but they're
very repetitive. But it is his ballet music that makes him so important. The
Nutcracker Suite, Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty. The ballet tunes you know so
well are those by Tchaikovsky. He also wrote the most exciting 15 minutes in
the whole of classical music - the 1812 overture. His music sounds Russian so
try to listen to Russian orchestras and conductors who do this so much better.
Brahms A man with a beard like a bird's nest. He is unusual in classical music
because he was quite a pleasant man to know and meet. He wrote 4 symphonies but
they'll take some listening to until you begin to appreciate how good they are.
They are like the continuation of Beethoven's symphonies.
Brahms
was a traditional composer not like the radical new composers such as Wagner
and Liszt. He wrote lovely piano concertos. My number one very favourite piece
from the whole of classical music is the Adagio from Piano Concerto No 2. His
music is never as violent as Beethoven's nor as soppy as Tchaikovsky's. He was
a virtuoso pianist like so many of the great composers. He was pretty hopeless
with girls but finally achieved happiness with one called Clara Schumann, a
fine pianist herself and sister of the composer, Robert Schumann.
Chopin
One of
the best composers for the piano who ever lived. He belongs to a romantic age;
dreamy Sunday afternoons in the countryside, rain pattering against the
windowpane, you sighing deeply about the one you love...His weakness was that
he wrote well only for the piano. He never attempted any symphonies and his
piano concertos are not very good. He lived for a time in Majorca with George
Sand, a woman who enjoyed dressing as a man. They had a strange, troubled life
together. It was he who wrote the 'Death March'. To introduce yourself to
Chopin try listening to the Nocturnes or the Etudes.
Elgar
An
English catholic gentleman who wrote stirring tunes that make you feel heroic.
He's a sort of poor man's Beethoven. However, do not miss Nimrod from The
Enigma Variations. Beethoven would have been proud to write it.
Handel
Now let's
get two things straight. His name and nationality. He was born in Germany BUT
became a British citizen. Someone once said to him "You're not really
English because you were born in Germany." His reply was "I was made
English by Act of Parliament: You were born here by accident." He dropped
the umlaut from his name and wrote Handel but pronounced it "Hendle".
If you're still not convinced about the nationality thing then, I'm afraid,
you'll have to accept Bob Hope was English (born in London), John McEnroe is
German (born in Wiesbaden) and Cliff Richard is Indian (born in Lucknow). So
there you have it. He is the greatest English composer of all time with the
possible exception of Purcell. He wrote music at the same time as Bach and his
music sounds similar. While no one would argue that Bach wasn't the better
composer overall, Handel wrote the best oratorio ever. Messiah - note no 'the'
just one word. No other piece of religious music approaches this, not even
Bach's B Minor Mass. Listen to Handel's Water Music and his Music for the Royal
Fireworks for examples of Handel's talent.
Haydn
Not one
of my favourite composers. I always feel I should like his music but frankly I
can't. It's boring, repetitive and uninspiring. He wrote 104 symphonies. Yes
104. They all sound the same. He was Beethoven's tutor for a time but Beethoven
said he learnt nothing from him. He was a friend of Mozart's and a much nicer
man than Mozart.
Franz
Liszt
(AKA
Liszt Ferenc) Hungary's greatest composer couldn't speak Hungarian. He spoke,
wrote and thought in German. He is at his best in the Preludes an orchestral
suite that sounds like Beethoven and in some beautiful piano music like
Liebestraum. He composed violent pieces for the piano as well and was a
thunderous, brilliant pianist. (He was a mentor to Edvard Grieg and played
Grieg's famous Piano Concerto at first sight.)
Mahler
Like
Mendelssohn he was born a Jew but converted to Christianity. A conductor in
Vienna he went to America where the Americans adopted him as one of their own.
The Americans LOVE Mahler and some Americans idiotically place him up there
with Beethoven, Bach and Mozart. He is nothing of the sort. He wrote 9
symphonies and got very sticky and panicky when he started writing his tenth
because both Beethoven and Bruckner (and Dvorak) wrote nine and died before
they could write the tenth... He died before he finished the tenth. There's lots
of lovely music to listen to in Mahler's symphonies but it's always someone
else's. At one moment he sounds like Tchaikovsky, then he sounds like Brahms,
then he sounds like Wagner. The symphonies are great sprawling rambling,
entertaining things but Mahler never has his own voice. He was obsessed with
death and feared it all his life. Try the Adagietto from Symphony No 5.
Schubert
Music for
a by-gone age. This is music for the parlour and little old ladies. It's
clever, intricate and very old-fashioned. This is music for people who enjoy
playing bridge and board games. His 'Unfinished' symphony is marvellous, as
good as a symphony by Beethoven. You need to be very patient and old to enjoy
his chamber music. For a famous (and boring) example of this try The Trout
Quintet.
Purcell
One of
the genuinely nice men of classical music and from a family of royal musicians.
Some say he is England's greatest composer. He died tragically young like
Mozart (at 36). His music sounds like a less complicated version of Bach's or
Handel's but it has lots of simple charm. I am a big Purcell fan. Listen to The
Funeral Music for Queen Mary II. It's tense and moving.
Richard
Strauss
He wrote
some thrilling music. Also Sprach Zarathustra was used by NASA as the theme
tune for the missions to the Moon. (But it's completely boring apart from the
first bit.) His operas are difficult to listen to at first because the melodies
are so unusual but when you have listened a few times you will recognize the
beauty of the tunes and strange harmonies. He was unusual in classical music
because he made money from it. To introduce yourself to Strauss try some arias
from Ariadne Auf Naxos.
Mendelssohn
Mendelssohn
was Queen Victoria's favourite composer and he's a neat and tidy composer whose
music has some lovely orchestration. His music will never thrill you. It isn't
meant to. It's entertainment for after dinner when you want some pleasant
sounds to relax to. Try The Hebrides Suite. Mendelssohn went there and felt inspired
by the bleak islands. He also painted them. Like Victoria he was a very
talented artist.Amongst other things he wrote "The Wedding March"
(Not The Bridal March - 'Here comes the Bride' - that was Wagner).
Vivaldi
The Red
priest. That is, a priest with red hair, which is what he was. Stravinsky
described Vivaldi's music as the same concerto four hundred times. Vivaldi
taught music at girls' schools and we think he had affairs with some of the
young girls there. He was fascinated by the violin and developed the music that
can be played on it. You'll recognise "The Four Seasons" if only from
the car adverts on television that use it all the time. By the time of his
death he had become, like Mozart, unpopular and was buried outside Vienna in a
poor person's grave. (One of the choir boys at his funeral was Joseph Haydn).
Vivaldi was liked very much by Bach who came later. Vivaldi was rediscovered in
the 20th century having been forgotten for hundreds of years.
Dvorak
Pronounced
De-vor-jark. A Czech nationalist composer. His masterpiece is the Ninth
Symphony - From the New World (9 again) which has a beautiful brass melody
spoiled only a little by being used to advertise bread on television.
Bartok
A
Hungarian composer who loved folk tunes. His music is quite light and tuneful.
Try his Hungarian Sketches.
Vaughan-Williams
An
English Bartok. Do not miss the Tallis Fantasia. This was the very atmospheric
music used in the recent film 'Master and Commander' where the warships were
drifting menacingly towards each other.
Rachmaninov
Completely
different from all the other composers here because you can actually hear him
playing things. There are CDs in MediaMarkt of Rachmaninov playing his own and
other people's works (though the recordings are old and not very good). He was
one of the last of the great classical composers and made beautiful romantic
music. He was also probably one of the best pianists in history and
had...enormous hands. You simply must listen to Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini
and his piano concertos. The first was so badly received by the critics he
nearly gave up composing. The third is notoriously difficult to play. Music for
you to close your eyes and float away by.
Ravel
One of a
few French composers to become famous. Late 19th century and fascinated by the
use of the orchestra. Try his Bolero.
Debussy
French.
Again late 19th century. Sleepy drifting music but you have to be in the mood
for it. He loved inventing strange chords and produced music to mirror
impressionist art. Try La Mer, written in England (in Eastbourne in fact) while
he was hiding there from his wife, with his mistress.
Offenbach
He wrote
light operas in France in the mid-19th century and composed the famous Can-can
dance. Dar dar da-da da-da dar-dar da-da da-da...Yes that's the one.
Prokofiev
A
Ukrainian who wrote 7 (not nine this time) symphonies. Lots of inventive music
that gets on your nerves after a time. Try listening to Lieutenant Kije a few
times to experience this effect. However, Peter and the Wolf is lots of fun and
the music for his ballet Romeo and Juliet is dramatic indeed.
Puccini
Puccini
is the darling of opera lovers and many of the most popular arias and choruses
are by him. On the plus side some of his arias are truly melodic and lovely. On
the minus side his orchestration sounds very old-fashioned and melodramatic.
We've had bucketfulls of dramatic film music since his time and we've got used
to high quality here. The 'dramatic' brassy chords in Tosca are hilarious. It
is bad form to laugh at the 'mock' execution scene. His best and most tuneful
opera is Manon Lescaut. His worst is Madama Butterfly which meanders and is
very boring. To T or not to T. Incredibly the debate on whether to pronounce
the final T in Turandot continues. In the red corner, saying 'no' you have
Puccini himself amongst others (e.g. generations of adults who remember a
little French from school and remember something about not pronouncing the
final T in foreign words.) In the blue corner saying 'yes' you have some
performers who say the rhythm of the singing means you should sound the T and
those who say Puccini didn't have a clue about pronunciation of foreign words
and didn't write the story anyway. They have a point here as the
English/American surname 'Sharples' in Madama Butterfly became Sharpless
according to Puccini's mangled mispronunciation.
Rossini
You can't
help liking Rossini. He was quite lazy and on several occasions left the
writing of his famous overtures until the very last minute when they were
wildly overdue. (At one opera house the impresario imprisoned Rossini in a room
and on the day of the premiere of the opera Rossini was handing manuscripts of
the overture out of the window to copyists for them to take to the waiting
orchestra to practise.) Amazingly this approach produced some of the best opera
music ever. The Barber of Seville is full of melodies, (Feeegaro, Feeegaro,
Feeeeeegaro) much more than Puccini could ever manage. But for the best
representation of his art listen to the opening of William Tell. The most
delicate cello melody gives way to the exciting overture ever and one
recognised by everyone over the age of seven.
Rodrigo
Warrants
a listen if only for his guitar concerto, Concierto de Aranjuez. It reminds you
of the sweeping plains of Andalusia (if you've seen them). It was written by
Rodrigo (on the piano because Rodrigo couldn't play the guitar) for the famous
guitarist Andres Segovia.
Wagner
for some people is not a composer but more a way of life. His fans are more
fanatical than anyone else's. Some people listen to Wagner and nothing else. He
wrote very, very, very long operas. A short opera by Wagner lasts 4 hours. His
operas have no episodes. One scene smoothly becomes the next. His longest opera
lasts 16 hours and is usually performed on 4 consecutive evenings. Wagner wrote
the biggest epic themes you can remember (E.g. 'The Ride of the Valkyries') and
the most beautiful and delicate tunes you can imagine, all joined up together
in a big line. Much of the 20th century's film music derived from Wagner's
influence. He was the last of the "Great" composers. Some people put
him on a level with the big three, Bach, Mozart and Beethoven. Lovers of
Wagner's music are basically mad. I love Wagner's music. In 'real life' he was
a completely selfish, arrogant and unpleasant man without any sense of humour.
At one time he wanted to flatten half of medieval Munich (pretty little antique
houses and all) to build a huge road leading people to his great opera house
(he planned to make it the biggest in the world and it would show nothing but
HIS operas one after another). It was never built.
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