Classical Star TV programme

harmless_little_f***

I saw this last night on the BBC (I think!). It was quite like Fame Academy but with young classical musicians. I'm not normally a classical fan but I loved it. One of the students' tasks was to play their instrument in front of a bar full of students who've never listened to classical in their life before. The musicians had to make the music relatable. Over all, the students were amazed how much they liked it, but in particular, there was a pianist who - after explaining about the piece she was going to play (without naming the title) and what it meant to her, emotions it made her feel etc. - played Chopin's 'The Funeral March' on the piano. It was one of the most intensely emotional things I've seen in a while, and had most of the bar of students in tears.

Methinks I need to buy me some Chopin.

dunkman

someone should invent a Chopin Board... the design would be piano keys and every time you slice an onion it would play one of those tunes that make you cry... then you can blame the onion for being a nonce..

ok, maybe not.

harmless_little_f***

dunkman wrote:

someone should invent a Chopin Board... the design would be piano keys and every time you slice an onion it would play one of those tunes that make you cry... then you can blame the onion for being a nonce..

ok, maybe not.

You heard any Chopin, dunk? I haven't yet. Hmmm I wonder if HMV have a Classical music 'listening post'?

dunkman

harmless_little_f*** wrote:

You heard any Chopin, dunk? I haven't yet. Hmmm I wonder if HMV have a Classical music 'listening post'?

tell you what though matey... classical music is pretty cheap to purchase, i once bought La Boehme and some compilation that had the theme tune to Raging Bull on it for about £5 all in.

Barbers Adagio for Strings was on it as well... otherwise known as Platoon them tune

harmless_little_f***

dunkman wrote:

tell you what though matey... classical music is pretty cheap to purchase, i once bought La Boehme and some compilation that had the theme tune to Raging Bull on it for about £5 all in.

Barbers Adagio for Strings was on it as well... otherwise known as Platoon them tune

Hehe cool. Other than my newfound love for the Funeral March (I'm so EMO!) I always knew I liked Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, but not much else. I like my music melancholic. I once thought classical music had to all be happy and spritely.

ScotInAmsterdam

Chopin is unbelievable. I could harp on about him all day.

That period of Classical music is full of anti-establishment "rock stars"as we know them today. Riots after gigs, women tearing apart hankercheifs thrown into the crowd and getting hospitalised in the process.(Rare vedder pic anyone), playing to crowds of people unheard of before for a public performance, and altering the medium accordingly. Adding an extra pedal to the piano to kick off pyrotechnics(Keith moon anyone)

They were the first people to tour extensively as one guy and his instrument, so created musical fame as we know it today.

Most of them died young through sifilis and opium addictions.

....Oh and then there's the music. It's all out of copyright, so you shouldn't have to go to HMV to find a CD, just wikipedia the person in question and there should be links to creative commons mp3s of the major stuff.

For Chopin check out the Nocturnes(Music for making women's knickers fall off), and also the revolutionary etude which is Opus 10 Number 12. Kind of Hendrix for the piano if you will, but dripping with emotion when played properly

ScotInAmsterdam

harmless_little_f*** wrote:

Hehe cool. Other than my newfound love for the Funeral March (I'm so EMO!) I always knew I liked Mozart's Moonlight Sonata, but not much else. I like my music melancholic. I once thought classical music had to all be happy and spritely.

Moonlight sonata is by Beethoven - no pub quiz prizes for you!

harmless_little_f***

ScotInAmsterdam wrote:

Moonlight sonata is by Beethoven - no pub quiz prizes for you!

Ahhhhhhhhfffffrrrrrrraaaaaaaaaaagggggggghhhhhhhhh

Changed.

harmless_little_f***

ScotInAmsterdam wrote:

Chopin is unbelievable. I could harp on about him all day.

That period of Classical music is full of anti-establishment "rock stars"as we know them today. Riots after gigs, women tearing apart hankercheifs thrown into the crowd and getting hospitalised in the process.(Rare vedder pic anyone), playing to crowds of people unheard of before for a public performance, and altering the medium accordingly. Adding an extra pedal to the piano to kick off pyrotechnics(Keith moon anyone)

They were the first people to tour extensively as one guy and his instrument, so created musical fame as we know it today.

Most of them died young through sifilis and opium addictions.

....Oh and then there's the music. It's all out of copyright, so you shouldn't have to go to HMV to find a CD, just wikipedia the person in question and there should be links to creative commons mp3s of the major stuff.

For Chopin check out the Nocturnes(Music for making women's knickers fall off), and also the revolutionary etude which is Opus 10 Number 12. Kind of Hendrix for the piano if you will, but dripping with emotion when played properly

That's some pretty informative stuff, thanks. Now I'll have to check the era out, won't I? The Nocturnes... sounds good, I'll go there first methinks.

ScotInAmsterdam

Try here:

http://innig.net/music/betts-chopin/

and

here:

http://www.lisztonian.com/download/index.html?quick=1&composer=3

The biggest problem with classical music is how it's presented. It's presented as some stuffy thing thats only for intelligent experts and refined company. The truth is that the piano only came into existance in the 1800's. Previously keyboard instruments had no ability of sustain(a la Spinal Tap guitars), so everything keyboard wise only lasted for a fraction of a second, and it could only be used to compose twiddley things like mozart. After the piano came along there was an extra sound in the soloists musical palette - the one at the end of "A day in the life" by The Beatles.

I would compare it's effect on music to the addition of the distortion pedal to a guitarists arsenal or even the creation of the electric guitar. Once Chopin and Liszt came along, they started to use this property to provide music with a lot more depth. Beethoven had started it before, and moonlight sonata is pretty much a nocturne, but the bohemian parisians of the mid 1800's did it with ego arrogance and a little bit of rock and roll, drinking absinth in Brothels with many now famous writers and painters and discussing the nature of beauty.

I love this painting which shows the artists, writers and composers of the day :

http://www.musee-delacroix.fr/UserFiles/pages_glossaire_images/glossaire/20061123154252.jpg



It was a "scene" very much like the seattle scene in terms of both hype and the number of great artists it produced.

They were looked down upon by stuffy older people in the same way as punk was and rock and roll was. They were playing a new kind of music on new instruments which only appealed to the lowest common denominator, they were cheapening art etc. etc. etc.

I'd better get back to work.