Philistine in need.

onlyrocknroll

Hey.
I've recently decided that I'd like to broaden my horizons a little with regards to music. Learning about classical music is little daunting though as there's so much out there. Can anybody please suggest a good book, or site, or best of all some compilation CD's that I could turn to as a good introduction. Thanks

onlyrocknroll

Hey.
Sorry looking around I can see that there a lot of other threads on this subject. I should have done that first, hope I haven't wasted anybody's time. I'd still like to know of any good books written for the classical newbie. Preferably something broad, maybe a book that charts the history of classical music up to (roughly) the present. Thanks again.

Doshea3

Stephen Fry has an "Incomplete and Utter History" of classical music, but I wasn't too fond of it to be honest. The Rough Guide to Classsical Music is an excellent book!

The Mad Hatter

Doshea3 wrote: »

Stephen Fry has an "Incomplete and Utter History" of classical music, but I wasn't too fond of it to be honest. The Rough Guide to Classsical Music is an excellent book!

Ah now - for beginners, I think it's perfect.

You're better off starting with enough theoretical knowledge and historical knowledge to get by; if some of it turns out to be inaccurate, then you can correct that information later.

onlyrocknroll: If you're interested in modern classical (and, if you're into rock music, then a lot of modern classical will probably appeal to you), I can recommend no book higher than The Rest is Noise by Alex Ross.

As for websites, www.classiccat.com is a resource of most of the classical music that's posted on the internet. http://freealbums.blogsome.com/ is an excellent blog for all types of music (not just classical) that links to freely (legally) available internet albums on average once a week. You can search for classical in the search function, but I'd recommend reading as much of the blog as you can anyway.

Edit: Annnnd I've just gone and downloaded about ten albums from the second one...

onlyrocknroll

Thanks guys.
I wasn't looking to get a book on exclusively twentieth century music but the reviews on Amazon for The Rest is Noise look very good and there is a copy in my local library so I'll definitely check it out.
Mad Hatter- When you said "for beginners, I think it's perfect" were you referring to Stephen Fry's book or the rough guide?
A good bit of historical and theoretical knowledge is exactly what I'm looking for, the rough guide sounds great for that.
Cheers.

The Mad Hatter

onlyrocknroll wrote: »

Thanks guys.
I wasn't looking to get a book on exclusively twentieth century music but the reviews on Amazon for The Rest is Noise look very good and there is a copy in my local library so I'll definitely check it out.
Mad Hatter- When you said "for beginners, I think it's perfect" were you referring to Stephen Fry's book or the rough guide?
A good bit of historical and theoretical knowledge is exactly what I'm looking for, the rough guide sounds great for that.
Cheers.

Was referring to Fry's book, but either should be fine.

onlyrocknroll

Hey guys thanks for the recommendations.
The rest is noise is pretty interesting. Reading it while using youtube to listen to what reading about a pretty good way to learn about classical music. Haven't gotten around to either of the others yet but definitely will.
Thanks again.

The Mad Hatter

onlyrocknroll wrote: »

Hey guys thanks for the recommendations.
The rest is noise is pretty interesting. Reading it while using youtube to listen to what reading about a pretty good way to learn about classical music. Haven't gotten around to either of the others yet but definitely will.
Thanks again.

I don't know why I didn't think of that. >.< I've been looking for quite a few pieces from that book.

Still, glad you're enjoying it.

Edit: If you'd like to download and keep them, you can get several (well, at least two) of the pieces talked about in The Rest is Noise at www.archive.org, including Stravinsky's original Rite of Spring recording and the 1930 recording of The Threepenny Opera. I'm just downloading the latter now, so I can't really say if it's any good, but the Stravinsky is superb.

Doshea3

I haven't read "The Rest is Noise" but was put off it by a certain academic who said it's full of bad research which tries to prove an agenda...

Rough Guide is apolitical, which suits me fine. It's not trying to make any point (I recall Fry tried very hard at being a Wagner apologist in his book).

The Mad Hatter

Doshea3 wrote: »

I haven't read "The Rest is Noise" but was put off it by a certain academic who said it's full of bad research which tries to prove an agenda...

I really don't think that's true - a lot of the research is glossed over, yes, and he focusses a little on his preferred composers, but that shouldn't surprise. The only agenda is getting people to listen (at long last) to twentieth century music, and so far it's proved extremely capable at that - more so than any other book yet published.

Doshea3

Fair enough. As I said, I haven't read it, but was put off by the description given by said person. Perhaps I should give it a read anyway.

Treebeard

Hi, the book that made me familiar with the major figures in classical music was "Lives of the Great Composers" by Harold C. Schonberg. I'm not sure what the general concensus on this book is but I found it very helpful when I was initially getting into classical music. Its not great on the music from latter part of the twentieth century though.

Libertine2002

Hi. Classical newbie here! I may come across as a little ignorant to all the experts here but I found a great torrent that someone had put together with all the well known compositions (there are loads of them, just do a quick search in google). I was surprised by how much of it I recognised from adverts, cartoons, films etc. When I found a composition I particularly liked I googled the composer and found other compositions by them. This way I'm educating myself step by step while enjoying some amazing music along the way. This is probably the wrong way to go about it if you want to become an expert but if you just want to expose yourself to some great music I recommend my method! (I'm suggesting a torrent presuming that copyright doesn't apply to classical music btw)

The Mad Hatter

Libertine2002 wrote: »

Hi. Classical newbie here! I may come across as a little ignorant to all the experts here but I found a great torrent that someone had put together with all the well known compositions (there are loads of them, just do a quick search in google). I was surprised by how much of it I recognised from adverts, cartoons, films etc. When I found a composition I particularly liked I googled the composer and found other compositions by them. This way I'm educating myself step by step while enjoying some amazing music along the way. This is probably the wrong way to go about it if you want to become an expert but if you just want to expose yourself to some great music I recommend my method! (I'm suggesting a torrent presuming that copyright doesn't apply to classical music btw)

There are two issues with the legality of this, though:

First (contrary to popular opinion), not all classical music was written hundreds of years ago - it's still being written now.

Second, while the piece itself may not be covered by copyright, the recording may be copywritten by whoever recorded it.

That said, there's some very good sources of free classical music online. Particularly www.archive.org (which is a bit hard to navigate...) and www.classiccat.net

I think your method has a lot of merit, but I'll talk more about that later. (Have to go to work now...)

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

Libertine2002

The Mad Hatter wrote: »

There are two issues with the legality of this, though:

First (contrary to popular opinion), not all classical music was written hundreds of years ago - it's still being written now.

Second, while the piece itself may not be covered by copyright, the recording may be copywritten by whoever recorded it.

That said, there's some very good sources of free classical music online. Particularly www.archive.org (which is a bit hard to navigate...) and www.classiccat.net

I think your method has a lot of merit, but I'll talk more about that later. (Have to go to work now...)

Hadn't thought of that! Those links were great by the way, thanks!

OP, I was in my local library this morning and they have loads of very well recorded classical CD's there with some lit to go along with them. Maybe try your local library and see what they have.