You're nineteen.  You love rock music, you need to feel the beat,
but lately you've been wanting to listen to some classical music.
Where do you start?

46 responses total.

Well, sixx, since you asked...

You said you like percussion and someone suggested Stravinsky's
Rite of Spring (which you might find in CD stores under the title
of "Le sacre du printemps").  Excellent choice, although the only
percussion you're going to hear is kettledrums.  Very loud
kettledrums, though.

You might also give a listen to Symphony #3 by the American composer
William Schuman.  (That's Schuman with one n and rhymes with "human."
Not to be confused with 19th century tunester Robert Schumann, with
two n's and rhymes with "bloom on," whom you should probably save
for later, although you never know.)  Anyway, William Schuman's
3rd symphony has a full complement of percussion instruments which
he uses like a pro -- he was a pop composer before he started
writing symphonies.  The symphony is in four connected movements.
The first two are faily fast, the third is a slow bluesy number, and
the last movement starts off fast and gets even faster after a
slow interlude.  It ends with a full-tilt boogy complete with
rim-shots and a final chord that'll knock your fillings out.

Any other suggestions?

Bartok's "Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celeste".

So far, all the suggestions have been 20th century works,
for which the term "classical", although standard, is perhaps
a misnomer. I don't know of a better term, though.

There's immense variety within classical music, some of which
will probably appeal to you and some of which will not. It's
hard to predict what you'll like until you've sampled a variety
of works from different genres -- baroque (JS Bach, Couperin, etc),
classical (in the narrow sense) (Mozart, Haydn, CPE Bach, etc),
romantic (Schumann, Mendelsohn, Lizst, Tchaikovsky, etc),
modern (Stravinsky, Bartok, Schoenberg, Ives) -- to name a few
major classifications.

If there's a good classical music radio station in your area --
and these are unfortunately becoming scarcer -- one way to start
is to spend some time listening to it and getting a feel for what
you like.

My own tastes run to Baroque and other early music forms, the
classical era, and a few 20th century composers, especially Bartok.
Your mileage may differ.

[I see I mischaracterized the Rite of Spring up there.  Its
percussion section isn't limited to just kettledrums at all.
It has a rumbling bass drum at key moments, a tambourine,
cymbals, and bodacious tam-tams.]

Another piece a rocker might learn to love is Beethoven's 9th,
especially the last movement.  

(Didn't I just see this question in the last item?)

Well, being as I haven't changed my mind in the past few seconds, I still
recommend Bach - the organ fugues especially - for Fire-and-brimstone
value, Steve Reich's _drumming_ for the driving but bearable rhythm, and
Stravinsky.  (Try looking beyond the _Rite_, though, much as I like it too.
The _Symphony of Psalms_, for instance, has some wonderful moody stuff)

CRI's "Emergency Music" label has put out some great collections of
'modern classical' music, often with a fairly heavy influence from rock -
these might be a good way to bridge the gap between rock & classical, although
they range between pretty accessible and very difficult to listen to.

There are a few pieces that I grew up with even before I really got into
classical music - Dvorjak's bagatelles for strings and harmonium, Menotti's
opera _Amahl and the Night Visitors_, and a couple others - that seem to me
like the sort of thing even non-classical-fans should like.  Of course,
chances are that's because _I_ liked them back when I didn't like most
classical, not because anyone else would necessarily.

(Oh, and the 1812 Overture, of course.  Can't forget those cannons...)

Another good starter would be the Saint-Saens Symphony #3 
(Organ Symphony).

As someone already said, for starters it's going to be listening to enough
variety to find stuff that appeals to you.  I really don't think that trying
to find stuff that happens to be rock-like in some way is necessarily the best
approach, though it may turn up some things.  Anyway, I have some rather
scattered suggestions.
Tchaikovski's Fantasy Overture for Romeo & Juliet
Beethoven's Eroica (or most any Beethoven symphony)
Saint-Saens's Carnival of the Animals
Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition
Bach.  Most anything instrumental, for a start.

(I admit that I happen to love Bach (& the baroque generally) enough to
suggest him to anyone any time.  But Bach was also, many years ago, my own
entry point from tastes basically running to rock into a love of classical
music.  (But what I liked in rock probably was not what most people who
like it hear in it.))

One thing you might want to do is rent Disney's "Fantasia."
I suspect many people can trace their love of classical
music back to that movie.  

I might suguesst Seblius' (is that how you spell it?  I think I've probably
got it wrong... anyone who knows, please correct me... ) second symphony....
maybe some post-minimalisim like John Adams...

Sibelius.

Shoot, if you want to start with popular classical, i'd sugest say, John
Williams, which is _very_ accessable.  Benstiens _Chechester Psalms are also
pretty cool, IMHO.

Well, if we're going into teh relm of movie soundtracks, then I'd personally
rather reccomend Danny Elfman than John Williams, though Williams' scores are
much more well known.  I would agree that Bernstien is pretty acessable....
most of his music... I might particularly plug the symphonic suites from "On
the Waterfront" and "West Side Story."
Thank you, Keesan... my spelling is terrible.  

You are welcome,  it is Bernstein and realm, in case you care.  And recommend.
(I used to work as a professional proofreader, boring job.)  Accessible.
I am sure you know much more than I do about music, but I did once proofread
something interesting about the chalumeau (spelling?), or ancestor of the
clarinet.  They issued us a green felt-tipped pen to make corrections.

  ((( classical #31 is linked to music #124, where some rock fans might 
      see it...  :)     )))

Thanks again.... maybe I should send my responses through you, before I post
them.... *grin*

Does Pico have a spell checker?  Now that grex is working faster, it might
be worth learning to use, if so.  Only problem is with proper names.
What were we talking about here, I forget.

(We were suggesting classical "starter pieces" for someone whose
musical background is mostly limited to rock.

If you've forgotten the topic of an item, you can type "h;0" at
the "Respond or pass" prompt to see the header and item text. Or
you can type "-10" to see the last 10 responses, etc. (Omit the
quotes when you type those commands.

If you use the "gate" editor -- it has an interface to the Unix
"ispell" spell checker program. Just type ":spell" at the ">"
prompt.)

(Hey, that's set up to work really nicely!  Thanks, jan!)
(Is there a way to do that in vi, other than just replacing one's entire
text by a list of words not in the speller's dictionary?)

Honestly, I'm in the boat of I hate all classical, because I really can't sing
to it....but I waive that for Russian composers...:)  Go for anything Russian
for something moving.  :)

Prokofiev: Peter and the Wolf
Camilee Saint-Saens:Carnival of Animals (I know he's not not Russian...but
it's really cool stuff anyway.  :)
Rimsky-Korsakov: Anything!  :)
Tchikovsky: 1812 Overture

Alos try Hooked on Classics...it's random bits of classical songs pasted
together with a STRONG disco beat....laugh all you wnat at me, but it's GREAT
cleaning-the-house music.  :)

 Call me a snob, but that's about all its good for. I find it annoying and
headache producing. 

ok, omni, you're a snob.

re #19: yes, I find Russian composers of the Romantic era quite enjoyable.
Let's see-- is Dimitri Shostakovich (sp?) Romantic or modern?  I'm also
thinking of another composer during Stalin's era who subtly warned Russians
of Stalin's atrocities in his compositions-- what is his name?!? 
eerrrrggghhh..I can't remember-- I studied him a little bit in high school.

Shostakovich was a very Mahlerian composer, ie late-late romantic,
but with many elements we think of as modernist, such as wrong-
note dissonance, sarcasm, parody.  He did some tremendous stuff.
His 5th symphony might appeal to rockers.

        P.D.Q Bach's Symphony for Two Unfreindly Groups of Instruments.

re #20 Scriabin?

Shotakovich's 5th symphony is really considered the last of the great romantic
symphonies.  It begins to bring in the elements of atonality and stuff that
they would later go gaagaa for.... but the symphony itself is essentially
tonal-- it cneters mostly around D.... and it pretty much retains the
traditional forms.....

re #23 nope...his name just escapes me, nor can I remember the works of his
I played.  He died only two decades ago, I think.

The Stalin-era Soviet composers everyone remembers are Prokofiev,
Shostakovich, Khachaturian, and Kabalevsky.  Who else?

it must have been Shostakovich.

You can sing along with Dvorak, I can't imagine anyone not liking his music.

I pprefer to sing along with P.D.Q. Bach. Especially his rounds (see The Art
Of The Ground Round).

Peter Schiekle is very humorous, but sometimes it's humor only a music major
could love.  (For example, there's the recording where he and another person
go through a sonata like sports announcers-- you have to know the form to
appreciate).

Now hold on, I've heard that one, and I thouroughly enjoyed it, yet I'm no
music major.  Seriously, knowing some of that stuff might help, but it's still
funny to the less knowledgable.  
BTW: has anybody heard PDQ Bach's spoof of (sorry about the spelling) "Eine
Kine Nocht music", entitled "Eine Kine Nicht Music"?  

"Eine Kleine Nachtmusic", I believe.

Yeah, that.  Thanks, my spelling isn't really up to snuff.  Or even chewing
tobacco, for that matter.

A German friend always laughed when I said Nachtmusic because I pronounce
it like Naktmusic.

("Nachtmusik")

Loving is as easy as falling off a log...

To get the *full* benefit of Peter Schickele's "New Horizons in Music 
Appreciation" (the first movement of Beethoven's fifth symphony with 
sports-type "announcement"), you should have some acquaintance not only
with the music but also (much more necessary) with sports announcers in 
their usual venue.

"Well, Bob, it's a beautiful night for a concert. Not a cloud in the ceiling!"

Yes.  When I first heard it, I thought it was outrageously dumb - but my
impression was that it was a parody of Beethoven.  When I heard it a few years
later, I immediately recognized it as a parody of sports announcing, with
occasional jabs at the classical music culture (not the music, I think), and
was ROTFL.

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