# Getting Started with Classical (specifically Orchestral) music



## perfectchaos180

Hello all,

I have recently started to appreciate orchestral music. This all happened to stem from listening to video game soundtracks and I just love listening to the big orchestras put together beautiful, layered, and complex music. 

There is a lot of it out there, and I have no idea where to start. Again I really like orchestral music but you can recommend other types of classical music that fit my likes as long as they don't have vocals (or have minimal), I just can't get into vocals. 

Again I like layered and complicated music, I appreciate long songs, and I LOVE recurring motifs and reprises. One thing I like about some video game soundtracks is that they have a main theme, and then the main theme will be a recurring motif in many of the songs, played with different instruments in different tones, I just love it.

While the song isn't really complicated one song I really loved was Bolero by Ravel. I also really liked Dvorak's Largo and Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2 - Adagio Sostenuto.

I have liked almost everything I have heard that doesn't have a lot of vocals, those are some examples of pieces that I loved. I like orchestras working together to come together and create beautiful pieces but feel free to recommend Piano works and Chamber works. 

Thanks a lot!


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## Toccata

The internet is awash with sites recommending classical music for beginners. There are dozens of threads here too.

Here is a selection (first one is a recent T-C thread, see post # 2 for further links):

http://www.talkclassical.com/9705-recommend-best-recordings-composers.html.

http://www.classicalcdguide.com/main/intro.htm

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/3670355/100-classical-albums-you-must-hear.html

http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/100.jsp

http://www.cduniverse.com/search/xx/music/pid/1491913/a/100+All-Time+Classical+Favorites.htm

http://digitaldreamdoor.nutsie.com/pages/best-classic-record.html

http://www.amazon.com/Top-Masterpieces-Classical-Music-Vol/dp/B000001W11

http://www.classicfm.co.uk/music/album-recommendations/100-cds-you-must-own-a-b/


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## Ukko

*Classical can do this!*



perfectchaos180 said:


> Hello all,
> Again I like layered and complicated music, I appreciate long songs, and I LOVE recurring motifs and reprises. One thing I like about some video game soundtracks is that they have a main theme, and then the main theme will be a recurring motif in many of the songs, played with different instruments in different tones, I just love it.
> Thanks a lot!


The process you describe in the quote and before is common in symphonies, especially in music from the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Try any or all of Haydn's "London" symphonies.

The layout known as 'theme and variations' will probably please you too. Many compositions have that wording in the title, just look around for them.

BTW, straight orchestral music doesn't have 'songs' in it - according to the classical music crowd. You can use the term 'theme' or 'melody' without causing eyes to roll or the condescending smirk to appear. Probably wouldn't happen in this forum anyway, but... you never know.


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## perfectchaos180

Thanks guys I'll check it out!

And I know everything has its cultures and all but, 
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/song
I would say that a lot of classical music fits the definition of songs very well. Yeah yeah I know they are pieces, its like saying "zero" in soccer instead of nil, but I definitely don't think its inappropriate to call them songs.


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## Meaghan

If you liked Dvorak's Largo (I'm guessing the one from his _9th Symphony_?), you might also like the 2nd movement of his _Cello Concerto._ Do check out Chopin in general, and his ballades, nocturnes, and concertos in particular if you liked that Rachmaninoff movement. Also listen to variation 18 from Rachmaninoff's _Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini_ and the 3rd movement of his _2nd Symphony_ for more gorgeous melodies. Other good theme and variation pieces are Brahms' _Variations on a Theme by Haydn_, Elgar's _Enigma Variations_, and the last movement of Mozart's K 297 _Sinfonia Concertante_. If you really like layered and complex, the finale of Mahler's _7th Symphony_ is VERY layered and complex and also kind of nutty. It made me a little dizzy the first time I listened to it, but now I love it, and maybe you will warm to it faster than I did.

Just something to keep in mind, though it isn't of terribly great importance: some classical pieces are actually called "songs" (most often shortish pieces with a vocalist). The song is a loose genre of classical music, which is why applying this label to any piece could be seen as a misnomer, sort of akin to calling all books stories. Though I agree that many pieces not generally considered songs do fit the broader definition you reference.

Best wishes on your voyage of discovery, and I hope you find lots more music you love!


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## Ukko

perfectchaos180 said:


> Thanks guys I'll check it out!
> 
> And I know everything has its cultures and all but,
> http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/song
> I would say that a lot of classical music fits the definition of songs very well. Yeah yeah I know they are pieces, its like saying "zero" in soccer instead of nil, but I definitely don't think its inappropriate to call them songs.


Hell, call them anything you want. Your call, your responsibility.


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## World Violist

Haydn symphonies are wonderful, in my opinion. Also, you might want to try listening to concerti (Mendelssohn violin concerto, Dvorak's and Elgar's cello concertos, etc.) for an exciting and very moving experience.

Just keep listening to more and more music, branch out, and don't be afraid of some stranger composers or pieces.


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## superhorn

There are a lot of colorful and exiting programmatic works,that is, music which tells a story or describes things in nature etc. which you should enjoy.

La Mer(The Sea) by Claude Debussy will make you feel as though you're right in it ,but won't make you seasick! 
Pictures at an exhibition by Modest Mussorgsky,orchestrated by Maurice Ravel as it was originally for piano, will conjure up all kinds of vivid paintings for you in a museum,
The Moldau by Bedrich Smetana,the great Czech composer, conjures up a great river flowing through the Czech countryside and finally ending up in Prague, the Ride of the Valkyries from the opera Die Walkure by Richard Wagner conjures up the Valkyries of Germanic myth riding their flying horses and gathering the bodies of slain warriors for Valhalla, Night on Bald Mountain by Modest Mussorgsky conjures up a witches sabbath at night and is really scary, 
Scheherezade by Nilolai Rimsky-Korsakov is an exotic four movement suite which conjures up 
the Arabian nights and Sinbad's voyage, etc.
The tone poems of Richard Strauss(no relation to Johann Strauss the waltz king) are also very colorful andf exiting.
Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks is about a medieval prankster,a sort of grown up Bart Simpson who gets into all kinds of crazy misadventures, Death and Transfiguration describes the death struggles of a dying man and his release from suffering when the end comes, 
Don Quixote describes the misadventures of Cervante's crazy knight vividly, Ein Heldenleben is a kind of autobiographical work about the heroic life, and Also Sprach Zarathustra has much more than the famous opening used in the classic fil 2001 a Space Oddysey.
An Alpine symphony vividly describes what it's like to go mountain climbing in the Bavarian alps and even includes a torrential thunderstorm.
The Symphonie Fantastique by Hector Berlioz describes the weird and crazy nightmares of a lovesick young man after he takes an overdose of opium to forget his misery but doesn't die. 
These are just a few of the gret descriptive works written. Check classicstoday.com for recommended recordings and arkivmusic.com has the best selection of classical CDs and DVDs on the internet.


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## Ukko

superhorn said:


> These are just a few of the gret descriptive works written. Check classicstoday.com for recommended recordings and arkivmusic.com has the best selection of classical CDs and DVDs on the internet.


Lots of excellent suggestions. You are on the ball, superhorn.

I do suggest looking for used CDs at Amazon. Fewer $$.


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## PicklePepperPiper

Video-game music, that means you would like something really thematic.

Sibelius has an excellent 1st Symphony, and even better (IMO) 2nd Symphony. 

The Finale of Tchaikovsky's 4th Symphony is perhaps not... the sweeping, epic orchestral score you're looking for but it certainly is something worth listening to.

Bartok's Concerto For Orchestra, especially the amazing last movement.

As has been mentioned before, Smetana's The Moldau from Ma Vlast. Also try the first movement, Vyshrad (eurgh, spelling that one always killed me).

Of course, you can't go wrong with Copeland's Fanfare for the Common Man. You would have heard it before, and quite rightly so!

-PPP


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## World Violist

PicklePepperPiper said:


> Sibelius has an excellent 1st Symphony, and even better (IMO) 2nd Symphony.


Sibelius wrote much better than those two symphonies; check out the 5th and 7th, as well as some of the tone poems, particularly Pohjola's Daughter and Tapiola. Some really thrilling stuff in there.


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## Ukko

*for later?*



World Violist said:


> Sibelius wrote much better than those two symphonies; check out the 5th and 7th, as well as some of the tone poems, particularly Pohjola's Daughter and Tapiola. Some really thrilling stuff in there.


I see you skip the 6th. Probably not a good recommendation for a beginning listener, true. Wonderful, 'concentrated' music though, when one can 'get into' it. Focused, in a way similar to Bartók's 4th string quartet.

Music that attracts both the rational and the sub-rational areas of the mind.

There, that should satisfy my need-for-whimsy for awhile.


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## World Violist

Hilltroll72 said:


> I see you skip the 6th.


Actually, my favorite Sibelius symphonies are 3, 4, 6, and 7. I did skip them because of the "beginning" thing, though maybe the 3rd symphony would be a very good beginning Sibelius symphony also...


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## superhorn

That should read Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov,not Nilolai.Finger slip.
I remember a professor in college who used to call him "Rimsky's corsett's off"!"


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## PicklePepperPiper

_Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis_ by Ralph Vaughan Williams is also quite accessible to the new listener, it's very thematic and even by a the new listener's fresh perspective, extremely beautiful. Once you've chewed on that, try the fourth movement of Mahler's 5th Symphony.

-PPP


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## perfectchaos180

Wow thanks a lot guys, some of this stuff sounds very very interesting I will most definitely look into it. 

And yes thematic is a very good definition of what stuff I like

Thanks again


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## bassClef

I'm not too keen on vocals either, but I wouldn't rule them out completely - try Mahler's second symphony (The Resurrection) - the orchestration is wonderful, there are recurring themes, and what vocals there are will give you goose-bumps.


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