# What next?



## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

You know what you like but you are getting the feeling that you have heard it all. I guess that has happened to most of us several times in our listening careers. 

Suppose you mostly like orchestral music from Baroque to late Romanticism but you feel you know all the great works of that description. Do you 

-	Explore the chamber music of the same composers? 
-	Move into the modern?
-	Explore more and more different recordings of the works you know and love?
-	Start exploring the great operas from the periods you like? 
-	Start exploring the lesser (perhaps “neglected”) composers from “your” eras? 

For me, once I knew the great orchestral works (symphonies, concertos, suites etc. by Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Berlioz, Brahms, Mahler, Sibelius, Stravinsky, Bartok, Prokofiev and so on – works that are still central to my taste and habits), I got into the same composers’ chamber music (for those who distinguished themselves in that area) and I also started to explore lesser composers’ masterworks and to move forward into more modern music. 

Expanding into chamber music by the same composers was greatly rewarding. Moving forward into more modern music was also rewarding but was harder work because the language was both less familiar and more varied. The discovery of great music that is more modern, though, was especially rewarding in its “freshness” (its "total newness"). I have been less excited by exploring the music of lesser composers. I think there is a law of decreasing returns in that exercise. 

What I have done less is explore the operas of great composers. They tend to be long and not always to work well as “pure music”. But these days I find myself exploring operas more and more and with a good success rate in terms of discovering lots of great music. 

How about you? Where do you turn when you feel that your current “taste formula” (or comfort zone) has little left to yield up to your hungry ears?


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## Guest (Sep 5, 2019)

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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

I go wherever my moods take me, and that applies to all the arts not just classical music or music in general. Some days I'm in the mood for a beloved familiar, some days I'm in the mood for something completely different. I may get into extended moods where I explore a composer, or an era, or a genre. It just depends, and I try not to be too systematic about it, so as not to get burnt out. Whatever my mood, I don't worry about ever running out of new things to hear. There's just too much out there. Even if I go longer periods between finding new favorites, that's just a consequence of there being so much out there and great music being difficult to produce in comparison to mediocre and bad music.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

I usually just zigzag from one composer to another - they may be from the same era or maybe they are 150 years apart. The only time I felt like I was reaching some kind of saturation point was when I played the symphonies of Bruckner and Mahler at least three times a week, mainly due to getting numerous different recordings of them over a short period of time - I realised I was in too much of a hurry to 'bed them in', so I eased off. I have stuff on my shelves which I probably haven't listened to in at least five years (including some recordings by Mahler and Bruckner, no doubt...), but I see to it that everything gets its day eventually.

As regards adding to my collection, I'm now at a point where I'm content to plug gaps with the composers I know rather than venture into unknown territory - after twenty or so years my collection is, I think, sufficient in both size and diversity to sustain me from here on in.


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

I listen to whatever I just feel like listening to, and I try to listen as great variety as I can, because I tire of music quite fast. Sometimes I feel like I haved had enough music, so I just enjoy silence.


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## Orfeo (Nov 14, 2013)

That's a thought provoking thread. To answer the question, it is definitely:


Exploring more and more different recordings of the works I know and love,
Starting to explore the great operas from the periods I like, and 
Starting to explore the lesser (perhaps "neglected") composers from "my" era
For instance, since June, I've been revisiting the music of Russian and Soviet composers (including composers of satellite nations such as the Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia, Belarus, Latvia, Estonia, etc.), and re-listened the works for the first time in years (with a huge collection, there are instances where I simply forgot that I have the recordings of them). Needless to say, it has been something of a revelation, for I rethought certain works while wondering how I shelved some others in the first place (as a history buff, putting certain works into context is often intriguing, if not enriching). The journey has not been totally on the composers of the region, however vast it was (some French music was interjected here and there as well as the wonderful music of Puccini and Lehar).

So, as with elgars ghost, I too was zigzagging from one composer to the next. But as the journey comes to an end (within a month from now), then it will the matter of what's next. Not sure, since I virtually know the recordings I have by now. But thankfully, I have a plethora of Jazz and reggae albums as well, so I'll explore them next.

And then onto the next cycle of, well, whatever.


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

If a cd doesn't leap from my shelf into my hand, I'll often scan a blog/magazine--Alex Ross' cd picks, 5against4, Gramophone.co.uk, Fanfare, this site (of course), etc.—for suggestions.


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## Fabulin (Jun 10, 2019)

I can't imagine running out of classical music that I still do not know well enough. I do listen to every type of music though: solo, chamber, orchestral, operas etc...


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

I often profit from exploring the chamber works and also the lesser-known works of composers I am already partial to.


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

The Blind listening #2 which I recently posted demonstrates, as I have often found for myself, that there are still lots of works to discover. Works and/or composers who are obscure but still interesting. And when I encounter previously unknown contemporary composers such as Steve Elcock, or those who I am vaguely aware of but have never listened to such as David Matthews, I am reminded yet again to keep looking!


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## Merl (Jul 28, 2016)

I get what you're saying, Enthusiast but I just go with the flow and how I feel. Sometimes I like the familiar and at other times I try something new. I also try and listen to as many newer recordings as possible. I'm always on the lookout for better versions of my favourites or new insights into familiar music. I also listen to chamber music new and unfamiliar. I've recently started listening to more recordings of composers whose works I own but have neglected (eg Langgaard). I have little time for those who think that everything recorded since the turn of the century has been crap.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

My problem has been that I don't find lesser or more obscure composers or works from the past to be very worthwhile. There are so many good works that are quite enjoyable but they seem to me to be a mere shadow (or should I say echo) of the greater music and composers of their time.

Listening to contemporary music inevitably involves listening to quite a lot that will not survive as major works but at least it is new and fresh and stimulating and every so often you come across a composer or a work that seems special. But even then I find contemporary music so different (and yet so related) to earlier music that it doesn't really satisfy my urge to hear more top flight Baroque, Classical, Romantic and Modern music. Early music is another area when I have found recent exploration very worthwhile but, again, the rewards are very different. So completely new eras give me something new but don't replace my need for more new examples of the music I have spent more of my life listening to.

I must confess that one thing on my mind in asking the question in the OP has been my slowly becoming more interested in _listening_ to opera, particularly from favourite composers who seemed not to have written enough for me! There are some composers who you can't really begin to know unless you know their operas. Obviously these include Wagner and Verdi and also many others but to a lesser extent (Britten?). I have long known and enjoyed many of their operas. And there is Mozart. I have long known many of his operas very well and they have long been absolute favourite pieces of music for me.

But other composers who I revere wrote many great operas that I somehow haven't yet found time to really explore. I did explore Handel operas (and the dramatic oratorios) a decade or two ago but only listened a lot to two or three of them at that time. I bought many more but didn't really get to know them so well before I moved on. So I have been (re)discovering several of them. I don't think you can really say you "know Handel" until you know his seven or eight best musical dramas.

Then there is Janacek. I have had a passing interest in his operas but never really listened to them in any depth. I have long had a particular liking for Janacek's music but had been considering him as a composer who didn't compose that much. Of course, though, he was mostly great as an opera composer. Spending a lot of time listening to his operas has been particularly rewarding over the past month.

I wonder if there will ever come a time when I am very familiar with most of the really great music that there is? What will I do then? Discovering new pieces is really important to me. But they have to be great. Good, well-crafted music is all very well but I can only go so far with it!


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

> There are some composers who you can't really begin to know unless you know their operas. Obviously these include Wagner and Verdi and also many others but to a lesser extent (Britten?).


Britten was primarily an opera and vocal composer. Sure, there are some other pieces worth exploring including his violin concerto, string quartets, cello symphony, and suites. But opera was his meat and potatoes.

I've only bought a lot of classical recordings in the past 10 years from Bach to Ligeti, and in all genres so I'm no where close to having absorbed all of this music. I'm pretty much set for life. Can anyone who owns 50-100 operas honestly say they've absorbed all the music? Or a couple hundred string quartets? It's impossible to my mind.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Enthusiast said:


> Suppose you mostly like orchestral music from Baroque to late Romanticism but you feel you know all the great works of that description. Do you
> 
> -	Explore the chamber music of the same composers?
> -	Move into the modern?
> ...


There was a time when I had lots of time to explore new composers and new music. Whenever I purchased a recording, I would go to my university library and read books and copy scores or outright purchase them, and I really got to know the pieces.

Nowadays, I have very little free time, and it frustrates me. So I've found myself collecting different interpretations of the pieces that I've studied. That is more fulfilling to me than listening to something I've never heard before and realizing that I'm probably missing at least half of what's really going on. (Of course, I'm still an open listener, and I'm always willing to hear something new, despite the frustration factor.)


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Enthusiast said:


> My problem has been that I don't find lesser or more obscure composers or works from the past to be very worthwhile. There are so many good works that are quite enjoyable but they seem to me to be a mere shadow (or should I say echo) of the greater music and composers of their time...
> 
> I wonder if there will ever come a time when I am very familiar with most of the really great music that there is? What will I do then? Discovering new pieces is really important to me. But they have to be great. Good, well-crafted music is all very well but I can only go so far with it!


I just don't know if what you desire is possible. The simple fact is that great music is rare enough without considering how even more rare "among the greatest music ever composed" is. If you do endeavor to hear new music it's inevitable that you will encounter a great deal that's good and mediocre, and much less that's great, and even much less that's among the greatest ever. The only way to ensure that you hear the later is to keep listening to pieces you've already heard that you feel fall into that category. Branching out means inevitably encountering the also-rans. Personally, I don't mind that process, perhaps because I love music enough that even when something isn't great I can still find it enjoyable enough to think it worthy of having heard it at least once.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

starthrower said:


> Britten was primarily an opera and vocal composer. Sure, there are some other pieces worth exploring including his violin concerto, string quartets, cello symphony, and suites. But opera was his meat and potatoes.
> 
> I've only bought a lot of classical recordings in the past 10 years from Bach to Ligeti, and in all genres so I'm no where close to having absorbed all of this music. I'm pretty much set for life. _Can anyone who owns 50-100 operas honestly say they've absorbed all the music? Or a couple hundred string quartets? It's impossible to my mind._


Totally agree. Familiarity has obvious merits but I also think that there is always something enjoyable about listening to something once in a blue moon - the work stays fresh and there is the added pleasure in incrementally discovering new elements within it.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

starthrower said:


> I'm pretty much set for life. Can anyone who owns 50-100 operas honestly say they've absorbed all the music? Or a couple hundred string quartets? It's impossible to my mind.


A lifetime is a lot of time! And as you listen and get to know a composer it becomes much easier to absorb his/her music. I consider that I know a piece when I can recognise and identify it from hearing a couple of minutes from it. On the other, hand I agree that there is always more to discover in a great piece, no matter how many times you hear it and how many interpretations you have heard. Still, part of me as a listener needs to explore and find new music and I find it particularly rewarding to discover a new major piece by one of my absolute favourites.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> Branching out means inevitably encountering the also-rans. Personally, I don't mind that process, perhaps because I love music enough that even when something isn't great I can still find it enjoyable enough to think it worthy of having heard it at least once.


I guess that is how it is supposed to be and it works best for me with contemporary music. I do sometimes do what you describe and enjoy doing it to some extent but it doesn't come close to my earlier experience when even major works were unfamiliar to me. Take Mozart. He is a god to me! I find his mature music easy to listen to and to get to know but immeasurably rewarding. I can remember some time ago (perhaps 15 or more years) discovering Idomeneo. I had neglected it because I had it in my mind that it is somehow less than a success. But the joy of finding a new major piece (more than 3 hours of great music) by my god was incredible for me!


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Manxfeeder said:


> There was a time when I had lots of time to explore new composers and new music. Whenever I purchased a recording, I would go to my university library and read books and copy scores or outright purchase them, and I really got to know the pieces.
> 
> Nowadays, I have very little free time, and it frustrates me. So I've found myself collecting different interpretations of the pieces that I've studied. That is more fulfilling to me than listening to something I've never heard before and realizing that I'm probably missing at least half of what's really going on. (Of course, I'm still an open listener, and I'm always willing to hear something new, despite the frustration factor.)


You are very thorough and systematic, Manxfeeder. I would find that difficult and almost like my preparation for a piece was coming between me and the music! We each have very different listening styles, clearly, and ways that work best for us. Are there any major pieces that you got to know and love just by repeated listening, perhaps in the car on the way to work?


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

I'm pretty sure _big_ discoveries in the realm of classical music are years behind me. I still seek out new stuff in the areas I'm most interested in but I've heard too much for any more big revelations. Those have more recently come in other genres.


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## Fabulin (Jun 10, 2019)

Ultimately, if you run out of music that is good enough for you, learn to compose your own.


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## Luchesi (Mar 15, 2013)

Enthusiast said:


> You are very thorough and systematic, Manxfeeder. I would find that difficult and almost like my preparation for a piece was coming between me and the music! We each have very different listening styles, clearly, and ways that work best for us. Are there any major pieces that you got to know and love just by repeated listening, perhaps in the car on the way to work?


"Are there any major pieces that you got to know and love just by repeated listening, perhaps in the car on the way to work?"

That reminds me of the year I bought my first video camera. My kids asked me what I was going to do with it. I thought about it. There were many possibilities, including videotaping my Life (as Jay Leno used to say).

I mounted it on the dashboard of my car, put on a classical radio station, turned it up and began recording. I was very lucky that the Sibelius String Quartet op56 came on. I wasn't familiar with it. So much drama. It fit so well with the passing scenery, driving from the mountain forest into the busy town traffic. Music has the power to create these associations and interesting juxtapositions. We all know that.

Our imagination does the rest. The string quartet became a favorite of mine to explore in detail. Serendipity!


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## Dimace (Oct 19, 2018)

I have my favourite works, which I often listen, and the other, which are coming seldom to action. As the years are passing, new works became favourites and old, which were beloved, went out. Generally speaking, I like exploiting new composers and works, add them to my collection, but to go deeper isn't always the case. To the moment I don't like something, how can I go deeper, without to make musical pleasure an unpleasant obligation? To me also the patient to explore music I don't like is very restricted. This is bad...


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

Enthusiast said:


> Are there any major pieces that you got to know and love just by repeated listening, perhaps in the car on the way to work?


There are many works that I discovered through repeated listening in my car. Medtner's violin sonatas, courtesy of Naxos, come to mind. I do believe I've only listened to them while driving.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

isorhythm said:


> I'm pretty sure _big_ discoveries in the realm of classical music are years behind me. I still seek out new stuff in the areas I'm most interested in but I've heard too much for any more big revelations. Those have more recently come in other genres.


Really? So you have already discovered the great operas, quartets, sonatas etc. I'm wondering if you are old or if your focus in on relatively few composers or genres?


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## Luchesi (Mar 15, 2013)

Fabulin said:


> Ultimately, if you run out of music that is good enough for you, learn to compose your own.


Yes, but you don't have to go that far <grin>. Compare the scores of Mozart string quartets with those of Cherubini. Try to uncover why, in the squiggles on the page, the Mozart has more value as human expression. This is an easy introduction, and it's fun..


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

Enthusiast said:


> Really? So you have already discovered the great operas, quartets, sonatas etc. I'm wondering if you are old or if your focus in on relatively few composers or genres?


By big discoveries I meant "This is like nothing I've ever heard before and I'm going to be listening to it obsessively for weeks" kind of discoveries. There are still great pieces I haven't heard, of course, and I look forward to hearing them.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

^ Ah OK. But I was mostly talking about another masterpiece by a composer you already know some works from.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

I've ordered some strange new music on the Kairos label by two composers I've never heard of before. And I'm just getting into the Bach Cantatas and masses, so this will keep me listening all through the winter. And I've got loads of piano music and string quartets by various composers. I'm always looking for great choral music. I'd say finding new an interesting symphonies is the hardest. A good deal of music I'm interested in exploring is not currently available so I have to do the streaming thing.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Enthusiast said:


> You are very thorough and systematic, Manxfeeder. I would find that difficult and almost like my preparation for a piece was coming between me and the music! We each have very different listening styles, clearly, and ways that work best for us. Are there any major pieces that you got to know and love just by repeated listening, perhaps in the car on the way to work?


I guess we are different in that respect. At least we both have ended up in the same place, here together.

But major pieces that I love but haven't studied, sure, there are a ton, like the Brahms and Sibelius symphonies. And there are composers that just click with me, like Morton Feldman, Per Nørgård, Edgard Varese, and David Diamond, where I don't know a whole lot about mechanically what they're doing, but they just sound good.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

starthrower said:


> And I'm just getting into the Bach Cantatas and masses, so this will keep me listening all through the winter.


I have the complete cantatas. Once I listened to one cantata a night with the libretto until I got through all of them. It made an impression on me. Sure, these are on their face religious, but underneath, he deals with just about every emotion a person will face and ends each one in hope.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

I want to listen to them all so I don't miss out on any good music. But starting out this late in life I may not get around to all 200 + Cantatas.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

starthrower said:


> I want to listen to them all so I don't miss out on any good music. But starting out this late in life I may not get around to all 200 + Cantatas.


As they say, you move a mountain one shovel at a time.


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## NightHawk (Nov 3, 2011)

I apologize, this is long - don't read it: As a professional instrumentalist (retired/Liberal Arts Univ), I 'discovered' the entire world of vocal music in Vienna in Dec of 1972, when by utter chance I bought a 'stehplatz' (standing room) ticket for a performance of R. Strauss's _Der Rosenkavalier_. I only knew RStrauss's great Tone Poems. So how lucky was that? And Christa Ludwig was one of the great trio that took the top off the Staastoper before the incredible 'afterglow' of the duet between Sophie and Oktavian. Afterwards, I was a speechless 25 y/o who wandered around the inner city from coffee shop to coffee shop in record freezing temperatures trying to assimilate what I had heard. I didn't immediately jump into opera or art song. But within a few years I had obtained Solti's wonderfully over the top studio recording of _Rosenkavalier_ and then in the late 80's I purchased Mozart's _Le Nozze di Figaro_ (also Solti's). I had heard the original studio recording of Bartok's _Bluebeard's Castle_, as well, but did not own it. And then, I discovered Puccini through Mehta's recording of _Turandot_. My instrumental chops by my late 20's and early thirties included such chamber works as the Schubert String Quintet in C major (two cellos), the Six String 4tets of Bartok, as well as the Beethoven Rasoumovsky's and the Op. 130 in Bb and 131 in C# minor. I owned all the major symphonies beginning with Dorati's set of the complete Haydn Symphonies through Mahler, Sibelius, and later Alfred Schnittke. I had the great solo concertos beginning with Mozart through...well, those of Prokofiev, particularly #'s 2 and 3 with John Browning, Boston and Leinsdorf. I had everything Brahms had ever penned except the works for choral groups (i.e.,_Liebeslieder Waltzer?_ etc.,). I had everything I wanted from the 2nd Viennese School including the 5 Pieces for Orchestra by Schoenberg, the 3 by Berg and the 6 by Webern and _Wozzeck_. I had Ligeti, Stockhausen, Xenakis and then Riley, Glass (opera! _Einstein OTB...Akhanaten...Satyagraha_ and Reich. Then I hit a wall. I loved the great Standard Orchestral and Chamber Music Repertoire (including countless sonatas) but I wanted more. So I headed for Dufay, Ockeghem, Obrecht, Josquin, _et al_ through Palestrina, Victoria and finally Monteverdi. Monteverdi brought me back to opera as I became instantly absorbed with _Orfeo_ and (_L'Incoranazione_...). After that, opera just grew and grew - I became interested in particular singers, conductors, "LIVE" performances versus 'Studio' recordings, and finally I became mired in Wagner - (I own all of the big 10 with 4 Ring Cycles) 2 _Parsifals_, and 2 _Meistersingers_. I discovered art song through one of Fischer-Diskau's _Winterreise_ recordings. I believe in tonal music, vocal and instrumental. It issues from the natural overtone series and will always be valid IMO, but sometimes I crave such works Schoenberg's Piano Suite Op. 25. So, I too, just continue to pan for gold wherever I find it. I really injoyed your post and you are to blame for this, haha


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## Merl (Jul 28, 2016)

I've not reached saturation point (even with Beethoven symphony recordings) with the music I love yet as I have limited time to play it. Now Im back at the chalkface, finding time to play my music is even more challenging (I sneak it in where I can). Like you, Enthusiast, I've tried to branch out into opera on numerous occasions but I just cant take to a lot of it (I do like some). There's still plenty of chamber music I need to discover, though, so I'm heading further in that direction these days.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Enthusiast said:


> I guess that is how it is supposed to be and it works best for me with contemporary music. I do sometimes do what you describe and enjoy doing it to some extent but it doesn't come close to my earlier experience when even major works were unfamiliar to me. Take Mozart. He is a god to me! I find his mature music easy to listen to and to get to know but immeasurably rewarding. I can remember some time ago (perhaps 15 or more years) discovering Idomeneo. I had neglected it because I had it in my mind that it is somehow less than a success. But the joy of finding a new major piece (more than 3 hours of great music) by my god was incredible for me!


We share Mozart as a musical deity! However, I think it's been many years since I've heard every note Mozart composed. I was crazy enough to purchase the Philips Complete Edition of his oeuvre in my teens and I spent many blissful years listening to it all. Few composers, however, have a body as work as rich and deep as Mozart's, though! Once you get outside the 10-20 major composers you're mostly talking about composers whose highlights are limited to maybe 1/10 of what there is in Mozart!

For me, I've found exploring other genres a great alternative to just endlessly digging through the cosmos that is classical music. Jazz, rock, pop, folk, metal, alternative, world music... I've found masterpieces and favorites in all of them, and other genres are able to scratch itches that classical doesn't (the reverse is, of course, also true). I've also found that I enjoy classical more when I take breaks from it, even if it's just a month or so. I always come back with a refreshed appreciation of what I've been missing (and the same is also true of other genres). Heck, sometimes it's even good to give music a break sometimes, explore film or literature or the visual arts or comics or video games. There's a big world of artistic experiences out there waiting to be discovered, and I've never been one to limit myself.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

^ Yes, opera might need time although I did listen every day to a bit more of Handel's Alcina on my daily 15 minute (x2) drives. But I had listened to it all the way through twice before that. I can often find it difficult to listen to a long piece in short installments as I find my immediate interest rarely lasts the whole work ... but it has worked fine with Alcina.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

The OP's assumption is that music can be explored in the abstract, as in chamber works, or approaching music as if were defined by its genre, instrumentation, as "ideas" which exist as potentialities.

Music is only made "real" by performers. Therefore, If you're a Mozart fan, you should listen to different Mozart players.

Like someone who has heard all the Mozart sonatas, but all by Alfred Brendel, should try Glenn Gould. That'll shift your paradigm.


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## Roger Knox (Jul 19, 2017)

Enthusiast said:


> I have been less excited by exploring the music of lesser composers. I think there is a law of decreasing returns in that exercise.


I think a number of the approaches mentioned in your thoughtful post could be valuable, as long as you also leave time for music that you enjoy regardless of category. That helps avoid "exhaustive listening," which dulls the passions. Re music of lesser composers, my take is that there are many degrees of lesser. Now, please let me blow my own horn a little.:trp: The best of the "lesser" might even be "near great." That is why I started the thread "Neglected German and Austrian orchestral composers ... ," which includes brief discussions of their orchestral works to show what I find good about them. My favourite composers from that thread are then summarized in the "Favourite Neglecteds" thread. The point is that at least some of their works should get more attention, e.g. in live performance, recording, criticism, teaching. But only the most deserving.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Enthusiast said:


> My problem has been that I don't find lesser or more obscure composers or works from the past to be very worthwhile.


Nearly all composers before Bach are obscure, it would be just wrong to say that they're not worthwhile.

If I look at the last 10 recordings I bought, these are the composers

Hassler
Compère
Pachelbel
Lübeck
Busnois
Susato
Narváez
Erbach
Giaches de Wert

That's about 300 years of music, all composers who wrote entertaining music IMO.



Enthusiast said:


> There are so many good works that are quite enjoyable but they seem to me to be a mere shadow (or should I say echo) of the greater music and composers of their time.


You mean they're derivative? I don't see why that's a problem as a listener.

If you were at a concert of minor derivative music very well played, you'd be up on your feet shouting bravo at the end. What I mean is, if the music's well made and the performances are inspired, that can be very enjoyable. Why ask for more from a recording, especially when it's just a stream? There's no need to hear it twice after all, any more than there's need to go to hear the same concert twice.

Here's an example - wonderful CD, minor music though some of it admittedly by important and imaginative composers, played in a thoroughly engaging way.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> I just don't know if what you desire is possible. The simple fact is that great music is rare enough without considering how even more rare "among the greatest music ever composed" is. If you do endeavor to hear new music it's inevitable that you will encounter a great deal that's good and mediocre, and much less that's great, and even much less that's among the greatest ever. The only way to ensure that you hear the later is to keep listening to pieces you've already heard that you feel fall into that category. Branching out means inevitably encountering the also-rans. Personally, I don't mind that process, perhaps because I love music enough that even when something isn't great I can still find it enjoyable enough to think it worthy of having heard it at least once.


I think all this talk about greatness is just stupid and probably baseless. The only sensible criterion for it is social rather than intrinsic, and the controlling forces of the evaluation - critics, professors etc - are conservative because they have a vested interest in preserving their own status.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Roger Knox said:


> I think a number of the approaches mentioned in your thoughtful post could be valuable, as long as you also *leave time for music that you enjoy regardless of category*. That helps avoid "exhaustive listening," which dulls the passions. Re music of lesser composers, my take is that there are many degrees of lesser. Now, please let me blow my own horn a little.:trp: The best of the "lesser" might even be "near great." That is why I started the thread "Neglected German and Austrian orchestral composers ... ," which includes brief discussions of their orchestral works to show what I find good about them. My favourite composers from that thread are then summarized in the "Favourite Neglecteds" thread. The point is that at least some of their works should get more attention, e.g. in live performance, recording, criticism, teaching. But only the most deserving.


Oh yes, it is *all *about music that I enjoy. For the rest I fear my language might have been a little lazy. I wanted to avoid saying words like "favourite" too much but words like great are not only subjective but also used differently by each of us. I did want to refer to (or invoke) music that really does something to me or that is "great" (sorry) enough to invoke a physical reaction in me. Such works might be "big-great" or more slight (but, nevertheless, perfect). I include quite a number of composers and works in this. In general, though, my greats - the pieces that invoke such a strong reaction in me (and go on doing so for decades!) - do tend to be those widely acknowledged as "great", at least as far as music from the Baroque to the Modern (before 1940).


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## Roger Knox (Jul 19, 2017)

Enthusiast said:


> ... In general, though, my greats - the pieces that invoke such a strong reaction in me (and go on doing so for decades!) - do tend to be those widely acknowledged as "great", at least as far as music from the Baroque to the Modern (before 1940).


... which is all fine by me. And I would use "great," "best," except that on TalkClassical some posters make an issue of it. It is the particular temperament and type of background I have that leads to spending time with lesser-known works and writing appreciatively about certain ones. Here's hoping you share your specific enthusiasms with others -- that would be valuable.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Curiosity about the unknown leads some of us on. Sometimes just reading about a work or composer draws us to them almost against our will as part of a lifetime of adventure with necessary breaks between them.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Mandryka said:


> Nearly all composers before Bach are obscure, it would be just wrong to say that they're not worthwhile.
> 
> If I look at the last 10 recordings I bought, these are the composers
> 
> ...


You are probably right. Early music (say from before Monteverdi) is a world I have still not come close to having a good understanding of. That will take me years yet. It is like quantum physics to me and just as the physics that applies to the very small is totally different to the physics of the world we know so the patterns in what I feel about Baroque and later music probably don't apply to earlier music.



Mandryka said:


> You mean they're derivative? I don't see why that's a problem as a listener.
> 
> If you were at a concert of minor derivative music very well played, you'd be up on your feet shouting bravo at the end. What I mean is, if the music's well made and the performances are inspired, that can be very enjoyable. Why ask for more from a recording, especially when it's just a stream? There's no need to hear it twice after all, any more than there's need to go to hear the same concert twice.
> 
> Here's an example - wonderful CD, minor music though some of it admittedly by important and imaginative composers, played in a thoroughly engaging way.


I don't think that is right except as a theoretical construct. I haven't noticed that music that uses old ideas is as enjoyable (meaningful, inspired) to me as the best (to me) music that used the ideas while they were current or in fashion. Most of the music I love most was not necessarily innovative but did use ideas that were still new and often did a lot more with them (it seems to me) than the original innovators had done. But, once the ideas have become old, it seems to me that they cannot be used for music that is as enjoyable. In any case, though, what I meant by "a shadow of" was referring to how strongly the music affects me rather than how new it ever was. I am merely talking about how music seems to me and how it affects me. That puts me at the centre - sorry about that - but I am talking about patterns in how I explore music and what I want to get out of music to find it worthwhile (to me).


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

You've got a narrow experiential conception of the value of exploring music. You're basically looking for the sort of high you got when you encountered Mozart or Beethoven. Maybe that's something to reassess. You could start looking for a different sort of experience -- like the pleasure of hearing a engaged recital. Or something more cognitive -- deepening your grasp of the context.

Imagine someone who approached drama looking for the same sort of experience he got on discovering Sophocles, Shakespeare and Beckett. And complaining that he wasn't finding it very much.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

^ Thanks for the diagnosis. But is there anything I have said that means I do not look for different sorts of experiences in different music? Quite the contrary. Every time I come across a new composer that I like a lot that is what happens. It also happens when I listen to a lot of contemporary music (and early music). But, yes, I want the experience to be somehow equivalent to my much earlier "discovery" of Mozart and Beethoven. 

I am not greatly interested in context. At least, not until I like the music a lot. 

I don't get your point about an "engaged recital". I do greatly enjoy exploring different performances of music I like.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Enthusiast said:


> But, yes, I want the experience to be somehow equivalent to my much earlier "discovery" of Mozart and Beethoven.
> 
> .


That's the problem IMO, that's what I would work on if I were you. You're like the guy looking for more Sophocles and Shakespeare! But I think it's an absurd endeavour.



Enthusiast said:


> I don't get your point about an "engaged recital". I do greatly enjoy exploring different performances of music I like.


Like that Pandolfo CD I posted an image of.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Enthusiast said:


> You are probably right. Early music (say from before Monteverdi) is a world I have still not come close to having a good understanding of. That will take me years yet. It is like quantum physics to me and just as the physics that applies to the very small is totally different to the physics of the world we know so the patterns in what I feel about Baroque and later music probably don't apply to earlier music.


I think you're totally exaggerating the differences of music from the c15 and after. I just don't see, for example, why anyone who can enjoy Schubert's songs shouldn't also enjoy Dufay's. Or why someone who can listen to a mass by Brahms and Beethoven couldn't also enjoy one by Josquin. Especially given that these composers are, rightly or wrongly, presented in a baroque way (voice projection, textures, harmonies which could work in something by Rameau.)

Maybe what you say is true for music from the c14. I don't know.

Buy yourself this


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

^^ I didn't say there is a huge difference but that there is a huge difference _to me_. I am enjoying exploring early music but it will be years before I know my way around even a small part of it in the way I do for music written between, say, 1580 and 1940. It is a huge area and one I more or less neglected for much of my listening life. Dufay is certainly a composer I enjoy a lot.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Mandryka said:


> That's the problem IMO, that's what I would work on if I were you. You're like the guy looking for more Sophocles and Shakespeare! But I think it's an absurd endeavour.


You misunderstand. I am not looking for another Shakespeare and I enjoy and revere a lot of literature by different authors and from different times!

To say more and to make things more clear, though, would involve me in getting into another of those discussions that we have about ranking composers or works. My purpose here was just to explore what we do when we feel the need for something new and worthwhile to us. I do seem to have an implied ranking (in the form of broad groupings of composers/works that seem to me to be similarly "great" but in very different ways) and there is a point quite high up in that ranking where I would rather explore a new period or genre than dig deeper in the periods and/or genres that I have explored extensively. That's all I'm saying. I'm not even saying that my approach is best or is right. I think we all have different but valid approaches to the situation I am envisioning. I have followed your posting for a long time and do know that you have greatly expanded your listening and enjoyment over the last fifteen years. How do you go about that?

BTW I am not terribly interested in articulating or solidifying what my ranking is and do acknowledge that it is probably somewhat fluid.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

L


Enthusiast said:


> I have followed your posting for a long time and do know that you have greatly expanded your listening and enjoyment over the last fifteen years. How do you go about that?
> 
> .


By finding music which sounds disorienting or uninteresting and then trying to find a way of making sense of it which reveals why it is special. It's an active thing.

The other thing I did was let myself be led by people I met on the web who were clearly passionate, scarecrow was an example on the old amazon website, premont another.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Mandryka said:


> I think all this talk about greatness is just stupid and probably baseless. The only sensible criterion for it is social rather than intrinsic, and the controlling forces of the evaluation - critics, professors etc - are conservative because they have a vested interest in preserving their own status.


My usage of "greatness," however, is completely subjective. I simply mean "the music that one considers to be the the best or among the best they've ever heard."


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## MusicSybarite (Aug 17, 2017)

What your heart dictates on you. It's good to be authentic and take risks for oneself.


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## Orfeo (Nov 14, 2013)

elgars ghost said:


> Totally agree. Familiarity has obvious merits but I also think that there is always something enjoyable about listening to something once in a blue moon - the work stays fresh and there is the added pleasure in incrementally discovering new elements within it.


Very true (the same argument is applicable to public performances of the overly familiar versus the relatively obscured/overlooked works).


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