# Newbie



## claus_soegaard (Dec 13, 2007)

Hello. I'm kind of new to classical music. That is, I've always loved classical music but I don't know anything about composers etc. So I'm asking for recomendations of where to begin. 

Right now I'm searching for something with the same melancholic tone as the very famous Johann Sebastian Bach - Air. 

Do you have any recomendations as to where to start looking?


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## Rondo (Jul 11, 2007)

Hi Claus...welcome to TC!

If you enjoy Bach, there are others to recommend. You can try Mozart, and, if you dont find anything you enjoy there, you can go with Beethoven or Brahms. As far as other composers of the same era as Bach...possibly other members could lead you in the right direction.


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## claus_soegaard (Dec 13, 2007)

Thank you! Do you have specific works of the artists you mentioned that you could recommend? Digging into stuff like Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms seems so immense if you don't know what to look for.


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## Rondo (Jul 11, 2007)

Assuming that you mean Air on the g String ... I would recommend Beethoven's symphonies (I may be a bit biased here, though). If you are looking for something melancholic I would try Beethoven's first, fourth or possibly, the "Allegretto" mvt from his seventh. For Brahms, his first or third symphonies (he only wrote 4). Or Brahms' _Variations of a Theme by Joseph Haydn_.


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## Ephemerid (Nov 30, 2007)

Hello Claus!

Here's a few recommendations, in more-or-less the same vein of Bach's lovely air (showing my biases too!). Bach was my first real love in classical music too and I found music from the Baroque era (like Bach) was a good doorway in...

I don't really think of Bach's air from (Orchestral Suite No. 3) as being "melancholy"-- I would say its got a wistfulness or bittersweet sort of feeling more than melancholy myself (there is some sunlight mixed in it so to speak).

Here's some good places to start I'd recommend:

Pachelbel: Canon in D (but, as I always insist, it really should be Jean Francois Paillard's recording, specifically this recording here There's a good deal of other wonderful music on there as well.

Vivaldi: The Four Seasons

And its hard to go wrong with Bach, though certainly not all of his stuff is in the vein of the air...

I find this makes a good springboard for further exploring Mozart and Beethoven (the musical vocabulary expands dramatically), and then go from there.

As far as out and out "melancholy" goes, here are some really good places to look:

Barber: Adagio for Strings (I'm partial to the original string quartet version myself)
Shostakovich: the 2nd movement (andante) from his Piano Concerto No. 2 
Sibelius: Valse Triste (the title says it all!)
Beethoven: Piano Sonata No 14 in C# minor "Moonlight" (an obvious choice, but wonderful, especially if the performer takes his/her time in the first movement)

In some instances, you might be able to find this music online, like say YouTube.com just to listen to some of these pieces, just to get an idea.

I hope you have fun exploring! 

~josh


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## Ephemerid (Nov 30, 2007)

*Melancholia*

A couple links for you Claus:

Barber's Adagio for Strings
(oh, and its Bernstein's recording too!!)

From Shotakovich's Second Piano Concerto

Sibelius: Valse Triste

Beethoven: first movement from the "Moonlight" Sonata 

~josh


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## Mark Harwood (Mar 5, 2007)

There's a 10 CD box set of Luigi Boccherini's works on the Capriccio label that's wonderful & costs very little indeed.
On the Brilliant label, try Telemann's Tafelmusik, played by Musica Amphion. That's a nice set of four discs.
I can recommend Paul Galbraith's recordings of some Haydn keyboard sonatas without reservation: DELOS DE 3239.
As for Bach, several lutenists have done fine things with his compositions.


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## MJTTOMB (Dec 16, 2007)

Bach: Brandenburg Concerto No. 3

I also hear that the first movement of No. 5 is good as well, but I can't say I've honestly ever heard it.


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## Ephemerid (Nov 30, 2007)

MJTTOMB said:


> Bach: Brandenburg Concerto No. 3
> 
> I also hear that the first movement of No. 5 is good as well, but I can't say I've honestly ever heard it.


Its marvellous! (as are the other two movements)

Here's a performance of the first movement...

~josh


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