The wonder of classical music: where to start listening?
Part 2 of our short online course taking you into the world of classical music
Now that we know roughly what classical music is and what it's like in the concert hall, let's take a look at exactly what music is on the programme. What are the top hits in classical music? Where can you start listening?
Johann Sebastian Bach - St Matthew Passion
We cannot ignore 'the St Matthew'. The piece lasts about three hours, which for churchgoers in Bach's time was quite a burden: an hour-long sermon halfway through the piece, a broken organ and a low performance level. Today, thankfully, that is different and it is then that it really becomes apparent how wonderful the St Matthew Passion is. In a nutshell, the evangelist sings the Passion of Christ and, together with Christ himself, is the main soloist. They alternate with other soloists and the choir, and the orchestra accompanies. The whole Matthäus is beautiful, but Erbarme dich is surely the most popular part of the piece. Not for nothing is this aria always at the top of the Dutch Classical Top 400.
If you want to hear more choral works from Bach's time, also listen to music by Handel, such as the Messiah. Going for instrumental music? In Bach's Brandenburg Concertos, you can hear solo parts for just about any instrument of the time.
Ludwig van Beethoven - Fifth and Ninth symphonies
Pam-pam-pam-paaaam: you certainly know the beginning of the Fifth Symphony. As if the fate of his deafness is banging on the door. Beethoven immediately grabs you and doesn't let go for a moment. The symphony is full of storm and struggle and culminates in a great victory march in the final movement.
In the Ninth Symphony too, Beethoven saves the climax for the fourth movement. Orchestra, choir and solo singers, everything and everyone comes together in the Ode an die Freude. And even east and west: in the middle of the movement, Beethoven imitated a Turkish march. 'Alle Menschen werden Brüder', sings the chorus. We can still draw inspiration from that today.
A fun way to learn more about Beethoven is the film Immortal Beloved. And want to know how the symphony evolved after Beethoven? Then listen, for example, to Brahms' Fourth Symphony, Bruckner's Seventh Symphony and Mahler's Eighth Symphony.
Franz Schubert - Erlkönig
Death, the supernatural, the exciting... you could wake up a romantic like Schubert for that. And for songs: he wrote about six hundred of them and one of the most famous is Erlkönig. The singer in this song performs four roles: the narrator, the father, the child and the elf king. The narrator begins and describes how a father and child are riding on horseback through a dark forest. The elf king lures the child, who becomes increasingly frightened, while the father notices nothing. At the end of the song, the father holds the child, dead, in his arms. The increasingly desperate child, the pushy elf king and the thrilling piano part make this a spectacular song. Want to listen to more songs by Schubert? Die Schöne Müllerin and Winterreise are two wonderful song cycles: sets of songs with a continuous story. For French songs, turn to Fauré.
Frédéric Chopin - Nocturnes
Playing, composing, thinking and feeling: Chopin did everything on the piano. Large complex works and relatively simple short pieces, he wrote it all. Especially loved are the Nocturnes, or 'night pieces'. In these, the pianist's right hand plays beautiful melodies, which sometimes seem improvised, and the left hand plays the accompaniment. Some nocturne are more famous than others, but they are all gems. Are you ready for a larger work by Chopin? Then listen to his First Ballade. You might know that piece from the filmThe Pianist. A true piano lover should also have heard Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Concerto.
Claude Debussy - Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faun
Less is more, Debussy must have thought. While the German-Austrian music of Mahler and Wagner became increasingly grandiose in the course of the nineteenth century, Debussy came with a counter sound from France. A sound of subtlety, suggestion and atmosphere. He drew inspiration in Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune from a poem about a faun, a mythological creature. In it, the faun plays on a pan flute and this can be heard in the solo part for flute. The small orchestra also includes two other flutes and two harps. Debussy has thus created a colourful dream world in which it is not so much the precise text of the poem that matters, but the atmosphere.
More French sounds? Then also listen to Ravel's String Quartet.
Igor Stravinsky - The Rite of Spring
That was a bit of a shock! A bassoon playing so high that it hardly seems a bassoon any more, rough harmonies in the orchestra and solid rhythms. And that for a ballet! The dancers didn't know what hit them either: strange dance moves, weird costumes and a different time signature every time. And the story wasn't exactly about a nice magic world or a handsome prince either. No, about a prehistoric young woman who had to dance herself to death as a sacrifice to the gods. That was The Rite of Spring. When it was premiered in Paris, chaos broke out in the auditorium, but we now know how Stravinsky opened the doors to the new music with this piece. Not for nothing did Walt Disney use it in the film Fantasia. The film images of fire-breathing volcanoes and celestial bodies do indicate how powerful 'the Sacre' is.
After The Rite of Spring
Of course, there is much more. Especially in the 20th and 21st centuries, there are many different kinds of classical music. Do you like tango music? In Libertango by Astor Piazzolla, it comes together with classical. Jazz and classical fuse in Rhapsody in Blue by George Gershwin. A meditative, musical landscape can be heard in Canto ostinato by Simeon ten Holt. A composer like no other is Olivier Messiaen and the truly adventurous can turn to Pierre Boulez and Karlheinz Stockhausen.