The complete idiot's guide to classical music (4 page)

Think of music as Picasso or Rembrandt for the ears. You don’t have to be refined, elegant, or artistic to enjoy classical music, but listening to it will elevate your mind and soul.

The German expressionist Wassily Kandinsky painted to music. Or more accurately, he painted music: his canvasses are the visual illustrations of sounds that he heard. A composer like Scriabin, on the other hand, wrote music evoking specific colors, and Sir Arthur Bliss wrote an entire
Color Symphony.
These expressions, whether visual or aural, convey emotions, enhance our sense of artistic awareness, and even produce a burst of energy within us. It’s no accident that Olympic skaters do all of their incredible jumps and turns to music, or that civil rights workers found new strength and confidence when they sang “We Shall Overcome.”

Beauty is in the eye—or ear—of the beholder. Music that is considered enchanting in one culture may be seen as ugly in another; similarly, we, as individuals, have widely varying musical judgments. One man’s meat, as the saying goes. Some of us, for instance, may groan at the repetition in Baroque concertos, yet Vivaldi’s
The Four Seasons
is among the most popular pieces ever written. And when a Paris critic wrote that “these chromatic meows of an amorous cat will never replace an expressive tonal melody,” he wasn’t referring to some avant-garde symphony, but to Bizet’s
Carmen.
Moral: give classical music a chance; without a doubt you’ll find some form or style that will make you feel better about yourself and the world you live in.

 
Bet You Didn’t Know
George Philipp Telemann, who was born four years before Bach, wrote 44 oratorios, 60 overtures, hundreds of chamber pieces and at least 3,000 songs. “A proper composer should be able to set a placard to music,” he said.

Lots of scary terms—“heavy,” “serious”—were coined by people who didn’t understand classical music and were afraid to admit it. Can you imagine anything lighter than a Strauss waltz, anything less serious than Mozart’s “Musical Joke”? It used to be that you could tell a classical piece from some other kind because it was written for orchestra, but even that doesn’t work any more: lots of pop musicians feel naked without a full symphonic ensemble behind them and some, such as The Moody Blues, have created their niche creating full-length works backed by classical orchestras.

In this chapter we have begun to introduce you to the terms of classical music—timbre, color, harmony, concerto, and the like. Look, we’re not talking about modems, mother-boards, or mice (except possibly the three blind sort). There’s nothing in this book that hasn’t stood the test of time. Wagner and Beethoven, not to mention Callas and Caruso, may have intimidated the conductors and impresarios they worked for, but they always enchanted their audiences. The more you know about classical music, the less threatening it becomes. In the end, it’s all about rhythm and color, tunes and textures, comfortable concepts with which we’re all familiar. And that’s not scary at all, is it?

 

• A knowledge of classical music will add to your listening enjoyment.
  
 

• Classical music differs from other kinds of music in form and structure.
  
 

• The basic elements of classical music are rhythm, melody, texture, harmony, color, and form.
  
 

• There are two kinds of music, instrumental and vocal; sometimes these two can be combined.
  

Chapter 2
 
Where Do You Find Classical Music?

 

• Concert halls
  
 

• Church
  
 

• Radio and TV
  
 

• Recordings
  
 

• At the movies
  

You can run, but you can’t really hide from classical music. You know “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star,” right? Well then, congratulations: You also know the theme for a piano piece by Mozart and a whole set of variations for piano and orchestra by Dohnanyi. If you watch television, you’ve heard opera arias and symphonic excerpts in commercials for everything from airlines to anniversary diamonds. If your kids go to the movies, they can probably tell you all about Beethoven—not only the shaggy dog, but the famous da-da-da-dum opening of the Fifth Symphony that infiltrates the soundtrack of the movie
Beethoven
. It drives some folks crazy, but you’ll hear symphonic bits and pieces in banks,
in elevators, and in restaurants. Yes, classical music has very decidedly departed the castles of royalty to thrive on the media airwaves, in public concert halls, and on the green lawns of summer.

Concert halls have lessened their lock on the classics. However, as recently as 1938, it was a front-page shocker when Benny Goodman brought his swing band to Carnegie Hall in New York, that holy of holies for every classical musician. Well, playing Carnegie Hall is still the dream of classical artists in every part of the world, but the house on 57th Street has also been home to rock and rap, not to mention folk and funk, and a host of other styles as well.

The rigid lines of earlier eras, in other words, have melted away. Jazz pianist Chick Corea and pop vocalist Bobby McFerrin can go on a 0national tour playing Mozart, while classical violinist Itzhak Perlman cooks up two CDs and a TV special with a klezmer band. At the 1996 Kennedy Center Honors, jazz saxophonist Benny Carter and country singer Johnny Cash stood alongside classical ballerina Maria Tallchief—and a grateful country paid them homage in equal measure.

We can, of course, hear music anywhere—in the car, while shopping, at the dentist—but nothing can replace the joy of experiencing great music “live,” in a hall designed for maximum acoustical effect. The fortissimos (loudest sounds) arrive without distortion, while the softest passages waft their way cleanly to the last row in the balcony. Especially in more recently constructed buildings, the seats are designed to be nonthreatening to your neck or neighbor, and the sound in the peanut gallery is as good (often better) than it is front row center. If you’re intent on seeing the maestro’s hair flying or want to keep a closer eye on that cute concertmaster, an up-close ticket may be right for you after all.

In short, concert halls are accessible. If you’ve never attended a classical concert, give it a try. It can be a superb introduction to music at its most eloquent, and a wonderful way to expand your tonal horizons. Concert hall prices are usually on par with or less than the cost of a Broadway play. In New York City, the cost of an orchestra seat varies from $35 to $70 for a major orchestra and range down to $15 for the balcony. Tickets to lesser-known orchestras can cost as little as $10 or be entirely free. Check the music listings in your newspaper to see is there are free or low cost performances in your area.

Be daring. Pick a program where you haven’t heard of some of the composers. Try one that offers music from different centuries, including our own. You may be pleasantly surprised to find that your musical tastes are more varied than you imagined. It might actually be fun.

Opera houses are just like concert halls, only more so. They’re usually bigger, seating 2,000 or more persons, fancier, more expensive, and they have much larger backstage areas where the horses can wait for their cue to join the Triumphal March in
Aida
. Red drapery, gold fluting, and glittering chandeliers frequently go with the territory, although some opera houses function quite happily in more austere settings.

The operas themselves, needless to say, cover the stylistic waterfront as well. You’ll find high tragedy (
Madame Butterfly
), low comedy (
Die Fledermaus
), fairy tales for children (
Hansel and Gretel
), legends definitely not for children (
Salome
), epics of ancient history (
Moses and Aron
), and pages torn from modern headlines (
Nixon in China
). You name it, opera has it.

Opera houses sometimes are used for concerts, too—especially if the performer is famous enough to fill up all those seats—and when the opera is out of town, the house will frequently resound to the pitter-patter of dancing feet. Like their operatic counterparts, classical ballet companies need stages large enough to encompass extended casts, exotic scenery, and special lighting effects. Oddly enough, there doesn’t seem to be any such thing as a “ballet house,” but since the dancers haven’t complained, let’s not make a fuss about it either.

Whether the hall hosts song or dance, though, whether Carmen is vamping the toreador or Sleeping Beauty is waltzing off with her Prince Charming, it’s all happening to the glorious sounds of music by the best composers of the past three centuries and more. And if it costs a bit more (orchestra seats for an opera can cost upward of $150 with balcony seats going for $35 or more), well
somebody
has to pay for all those sets and costumes and special lighting effects. Don’t be intimidated by all the red velvet, though. Just smile nicely at the ushers, avoid the overpriced drinks in the lobby, and enjoy the performances on stage. Whatever the price, a great opera is worth the price, even if you have to save up for it.

 
Important Things to Know
There are basically two types of operas—comic operas and dramatic operas. Comic operas are just that—operas with a comic element to laugh at. In a comic opera virtually nobody dies. A dramatic opera is a serious tragedy where most of the leading characters are dead at the end.

 
Bet You Didn’t Know
The first official radio opera broadcast did not emanate from the Met: It was a Covent Garden
The Magic Flute
transmitted from London in 1923. Less than a year later, though, New Yorkers would hear a broadcast of
Aida
from the Metropolitan.

The church is where Western classical music all began. The monks in the Middle Ages expressed their devotion to God through chants, hymns, motets, and eventually such more extended compositions as the Mass, the principal service of the Roman Catholic Church. Texts of the so-called “Ordinary” or “Common” of the Mass—consisting of the Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus (with Benedictus), and Agnus Dei—have remained constant to modern times, though composers of every generation have put their own stylistic stamp on the music. The pattern continues today, with the proliferation of folk, jazz, and even rock masses.

Ritual music of the Jewish Synagogue, the Greek Orthodox Church, and other faiths followed similar paths. Some chants are still performed in forms very similar to those that moved worshippers centuries ago, while others bear the imprint of modern compositional styles.

Have you heard Richard Strauss’ “Thus Spake Zarathustra”? How about Mozart’s Piano Concerto no. 21 or Giordano’s
Andrea Chenier
? Two bucks says you have! All we have to do is put those pieces in cinematic context: Zarathustra helped the sun rise in
2001: Space Odyssey
; the slow movement of the Mozart swept the lovers away in
Elvira Madigan
; and, if you saw
Philadelphia
, you’ll never forget Tom Hanks’ heartrending translation of the aria “La Mama Morte” as the Callas recording played on-screen.

The list of movie borrowings from the classics is endless, dating back to silent days, when theater pianists swiped everything from the
William Tell
Overture to
The Ride of the Valkyries
as they scrambled to keep up with the heroes and villains on-screen. Many of us learned to love “Second Hungarian Rhapsody” from our old friend Bugs Bunny, and now that
Fantasia
has been reissued on video, a whole new generation knows that Mickey Mouse shook hands with Leopold Stokowski before doing battle with all those multiplying mops and buckets.

In more recent years, the haunting strains of Samuel Barber’s “Adagio for Strings” was used to shockingly ironic effect in
Platoon
, accompanying scenes of horror during the Vietnam War; the music of Beethoven—authentic and synthesized—heightened the bizarre futurism of
A Clockwork Orange
, and Bo Derek could never have finished counting to
10
without Ravel’s
Bolero
.

Then we have all the musical biographies. Liszt, Chopin, Beethoven, Brahms, Johann Strauss, Schumann and—of course,
Amadeus
have all been enshrined on the silver screen—and their music appropriated for background (and frequently foreground) service. If you’ve been to the movies lately, you’ve undoubtedly had a first fling with classical music. For some folks, this experience can be the start of a beautiful love affair. At least it’s enough to try going steady for a while.

 
Bet You Didn’t Know
More than 80 years before the film (and play)
Amadeus
, Rimsky-Korsakov tackled the same subject in his opera
Mozart and Salieri.