How to learn to love classical music

Dear students,

Classical music is a wonderful world that is unfortunately still unfamiliar to many of you. Some told me they want to listen to it but are afraid they don't understand.

Well, actually classical music doesn't have concrete content to understand. Sounds, as you know, can not convey the meaning of words or notions. The matter is how you feel it. Feel with your heart. And nothing more.

Nevertheless, in order to be more at easy while listening, you should have some basic knowledge of what generally classical music is, particularly its forms, genres (the loai), structure and musical instruments. At the end of this letter I'll attach specific short articles about them. But for the moment, I'd like to tell you very briefly what you should do for the start. First you should know:

1. What you are listening to. It may be a symphony, with a whole orchestra of up to over 100 musicians playing. It, as a rule, has 4 movements (chuong) with such succeeding tempos - fast - slow - moderate fast and very fast. Other genres are concerto for orchestra and a solo musical instrument, usually piano, violin or cello; sonata, usually for two instruments, one of them the piano; a trio for three instruments and a quartet for four. All these genres have three movements of fast - slow and fast consecutively.

2. The composers. Here are some well-known names: Bach, Beethoven (Germany), Mozart, Strauss (Austria), Chopin (Poland), Tchaikovsky (Russia), Bizet (France) and so on.

3. The composers' schools (truong phai) that may be classical (roughly 18th century), romantic (19th century) or modern, as well as their times.

4. The nature of each musical instrument and its techniques.But the most important thing is that you should get used to classical music listening by doing this from easy things to more difficult ones, and little by little.

Following is a list of works recommended for beginners, in the order of difficulty. I can supply you with these works. Just give me a USB, preferably of large capacity.

1. The most famous classical music pieces (there is such a CD)

2. Waltz by Richard Strauss.

3. Some sonatas, concertos and symphonies by Mozart.

4. Tchaikovsky's ballet music and small pieces.

5. Beethoven: Most famous piano pieces, sonatas and symphonies.

6. Some other composers.

Unlike pop music, classical one requires much attention to listen to. And no one does it in a hurry. On the contrary, you should listen many times, until you learn them almost by heart.I am more than sure that once get used to it, you will enjoy a lot. It makes you feel very much different, that is happy, tranquil and life-loving.

So try, my dear students. Nothing to lose, and by the way it takes no pain, if not to say the opposite. And some day you will want to go to the concert hall to hear live music as I frequently do now. Very best regards and good success!

Your caring teacher Tan
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Classical Style (music), musical language developed by Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Ludwig van Beethoven, characterized by a supreme balance of musical form and content.

The term “Classical” was applied to the music of Haydn and Mozart even during the final years of the 18th century. Shortly after Mozart's death in 1791, his first biographer observed that his operas, concertos, quartets, and other works were praiseworthy because they could be listened to again and again without tiring. Even before 1800 it was already recognized that Mozart's works would repay continued study, by analogy with the masterworks of Greek and Roman art. During the Classical period universality of musical language was a declared aim, the theorist Johann Joachim Quantz remarking as early as 1752: “…A music that is accepted and recognized as good not by one country only…but by many peoples…must, provided it is based as well on reason and sound feeling, be beyond all dispute the best.” Though the Classical style effectively transcended national boundaries, its most celebrated proponents were in fact all associated with Vienna.

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Symphony (Greek, syn, “together”; phn, “sound”; hence, “a sounding together”), in music, orchestral composition consisting usually of four contrasting sections, or movements. The term was first applied in the 16th century to the instrumental interludes in such musical forms as the cantata, opera, and oratorio. A noteworthy example is the “Pastoral Symphony” from Handel's Messiah (1742). The symphony in the modern sense of the term arose in the early 18th century.

Germany and Austria

By 1740 the symphony had become the principal genre of orchestral music, and important centres of composition arose in Mannheim, Berlin, and Vienna. The Bohemian composer Johann Stamitz brought the orchestra at Mannheim to internationally acclaimed brilliance and used its resources to the fullest in his symphonies. He was one of the earliest to add a fourth movement, a rapid finale following the minuet, and in his sonata-form movements second themes are often of sharply contrasting character to first themes.

In Berlin the composers Johann Gottlieb Graun and C. P. E. Bach (son of J. S. Bach) wrote three-movement symphonies with few sharp thematic contrasts but with strong emphasis on development and emotional expressiveness.

Four-movement symphonies predominated in Vienna, with the first movement being given special prominence. Wind instruments were more fully exploited, and special care was given to melodic integration; for example, a transition between themes might make use of short segments from a main theme. Among important Viennese composers were Georg Matthias Monn and Georg Christoph Wagenseil. Also influential was another of J. S. Bach's sons, J. C. Bach, who studied in Italy and worked in London and whose symphonies are full of graceful Italian melody.

Haydn and Mozart

The Austrian composer Joseph Haydn, the first of the great Viennese symphonists, experimented continually with new devices and techniques in orchestral composition. He composed 107 symphonies in which he greatly lengthened and expanded the symphonic form. Slow introductions often precede first movements; sonata movements often avoid thematic contrast; finales, either in sonata or rondo form, have a vigour and weight not found in the works of earlier composers. He frequently used counterpoint (interwoven melodic lines), integrating it into symphonic style. These characteristic traits predominate even in symphonies known for a special feature, such as the gradual departure of the musicians in the Farewell (1772).

Haydn and his younger friend Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart considerably influenced each other in symphonic technique. One of the greatest masters of the symphony, Mozart displayed in his 41 symphonies unsurpassed richness of imagination. Among the most famous are the Linz (No. 36, 1783), Prague (No. 38, 1786), and Haffner (No. 35, 1782); his last three, the E-flat Major, G Minor, and Jupiter (all 1788), raised the symphony from an entertainment genre to a vehicle for profound expression.

Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven produced nine symphonies in which the symphonic form was vastly expanded and made capable of portraying an immense range of emotional conflict and expression. This power is present to a considerable degree in Beethoven's first two symphonies, but it becomes especially significant in his Third Symphony in E-flat Major (1805), known as the Eroica. This work consists of an immense first movement filled with creative energy, a profound slow movement in the form of a funeral march, an ebullient scherzo, and a finale in the form of variations on a theme. In his Fifth Symphony in C Minor (1808) Beethoven introduced a four-note melodic and rhythmic motif that unifies the contrasting sections of the work. The Sixth Symphony in F Major (1808), known as the Pastoral, describes the emotions aroused in the composer by the recollection of rural scenes. It uses some of the techniques of programme music, telling a simple story and imitating such sounds as birdcalls and thunder. The Ninth Symphony in D Minor (1824), considered one of Beethoven's greatest works, ends in a choral movement based on the poem An die Freude (Ode to Joy), by the German poet Friedrich von Schiller.

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Concerto, musical composition, typically in three movements, for one or more solo instruments with orchestra. The musical title concerto was first used in Italy in the 16th century, but it did not become common until about 1600, in Italy, at the beginning of the era later known as the Baroque. At first concerto and the related adjective concertato referred to a mixture of instrumental tone colours, voices, or both, and were applied to a wide variety of sacred and secular pieces that called for a mixed group of instruments, singers, or both. The group could be treated either as a unified but mixed ensemble, or as contrasting sounds set in opposition to one another. This “concerto style” was developed especially by the Italian composer Claudio Monteverdi, particularly in his fifth to eighth books of madrigals (1605-1638). Influenced partly by Monteverdi, the German composer Heinrich Schütz applied the new style to German sacred works. This meaning of concerto continued into the 18th century, as in Johann Sebastian Bach's many sacred cantatas entitled “Concerto”.

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Sonata (Italian suonare, “to sound”), musical composition for one or more instruments. The term sonata form refers to the musical form typical of the first movements of 18th- and 19th-century sonatas and related genres. Since the mid-18th century, the term sonata has generally been used for works in a three- or four-movement format for one or two instruments, as in the piano sonata (for solo piano) or violin sonata (for violin with a keyboard instrument). Terms other than sonata are used for works cast in the same overall format but composed for other combinations of instruments; for instance, a sonata for orchestra is called a symphony, a sonata for a solo instrument with orchestra is called a concerto, and a sonata for string quartet is called a string quartet.

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