For some people, classical music is a product of other cultures, other times. For others, it is forbidding, difficult music. And for yet another group, it is something to be experienced passively, as background or as a sleep inducer.
Classical music is, or should be, none of the above.
Our classical music essentials, please note, are not so much for the experienced concertgoer as the interested beginner who needs help wending his or her way through a daunting maze of possibilities.
Many people think they cannot understand serious music without having a degree in music theory and history.
Recordings
— Bach: Mass in B minor.
The pinnacle of Johann Sebastian Bach’s sacred and choral works is in some respects a curious work, of a construction that fits neither the Catholic nor Protestant liturgy. But this is no barrier to experiencing the sublimities of what one critic, as early as 1817, called the “greatest work of music of all ages, of all peoples.”
Recommended recording: John Eliot Gardiner, Monteverdi Choir, English Baroque Soloists (DG Archiv).
— Beethoven: Piano Concertos Nos. 1-5.
Beethoven’s piano concertos stand as the finest such works after Mozart’s and before Brahms’. Nos. 4 and 5 are his most original works in the genre, but all five are essential to an understanding of how Beethoven’s love affair with the piano developed.
Recommended recording: Leon Fleisher, George Szell, Cleveland Orchestra (Sony Classical).
— Beethoven and Brahms: Violin Concertos.
If Beethoven is the king of violin concerti, then Brahms is archduke. Audiences never tire of hearing them, and virtuoso violinists everywhere are forever in the composers’ debt.
Recommended recording: Jascha Heifetz, Charles Munch and Fritz Reiner, conductors (RCA Victor).
— Beethoven: Nine Symphonies.
The most famous orchestral works ever written. The fact that they have become standard repertory with orchestras all over the world should not deafen us to the fierce, disturbing originality that made them so revolutionary to audiences of the early 19th Century.
Recommended recording: Herbert von Karajan, Berlin Philharmonic (1963 recordings, DG).
— Brahms: Four Symphonies.
Johannes Brahms built on the symphonic form he inherited from Beethoven, producing four masterpieces of “absolute” music that make an ideal introduction to this most classical of Romantic composers.
Recommended recording:Gunter Wand, North German Radio Orchestra (RCA Gold Seal).
— Chopin: Piano works.
The greatest composer of music for the piano? For more than a century, listeners have awarded that distinction to the Polish-born Frenchman Frederic Chopin. Chopin excelled in short Romantic forms like the prelude, polonaise and mazurka beneath whose surface prettiness lie vast expressive depths.
Recommended recording: Artur Rubinstein (various RCA discs).
— Copland: Appalachian Spring, suite; Barber: Adagio for Strings; Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue.
Perhaps no composers better represent 20th Century American concert music at its most popularly appealing than Aaron Copland, Samuel Barber and George Gershwin. If you don’t know these melodic works, what are you waiting for?
Recommended recording:Leonard Bernstein, Los Angeles Philharmonic (DG).
— Handel: Messiah.
Everything that makes Handel, along with J.S. Bach, one of the Baroque’s greatest composers is contained in his universally popular oratorio, long a beloved musical tradition of the holiday season. Everyone knows the stand-up-and-sing “Hallelujah” Chorus, but there are many more choruses, and arias, too, equally as stirring and memorable.
Recommended recording: Trevor Pinnock, English Concert and Choir (DG Archiv).
— Mahler: Symphony No. 4.
For the beginner, perhaps the safest entry into the rich symphonic realm of Gustav Mahler is this work, a sunny synthesis of Mahler the symphonist and Mahler the song composer.
Recommended recording: George Szell, Cleveland Orchestra (Sony).
— Mozart: The Marriage of Figaro.
Many insist that this is the greatest musical comedy ever written. Although the comic opera was written more than 200 years ago, it remains ever-fresh by virtue of its endless store of melody, delightful plot and timeless observations about the frailty of the human heart.
Recommended recording: Carlo Maria Giulini, Philharmonia Orchestra and Chorus (EMI Classics).
— Mozart: Symphonies Nos. 35-36, 38-41.
The last six symphonies of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart will always be on the short list of the greatest symphonies ever written. I defy anyone to come up with a body of works in which form and content are more finely poised.
Recommended recording: Bruno Walter, Columbia Symphony (Sony).
— Puccini: Tosca.
A “shabby little shocker,” author Joseph Kerman once called the opera. It was never shabby and is no longer shocking. The Italian composer’s most popular opera after “La Bohme” marries memorable music and convincing realistic melodrama, in many ways summing up the 19th Century Italian operatic tradition.
Recommended recording: Maria Callas, Giuseppe di Stefano, Tito Gobbi; Victor De Sabata, La Scala Opera Orchestra and Chorus (EMI Classics).
— Rimsky-Korsakov: Scheherazade; Debussy: La Mer.
An essential Chicago Symphony recording brings us two major symphonic poems draped in opulent and sophisticated orchestral colors. Rimsky’s magical distillation of Arabian-Nights fantasy epitomizes 19th Century Russian Nationalism, just as “La Mer” (The Sea) stands an an important gateway to 20th Century modernism.
Recommended recording: Fritz Reiner, Chicago Symphony Orchestra (RCA).
— Schubert: Symphonies Nos. 8 (“Unfinished”) and 9.
Franz Schubert was the most important symphonist between Beethoven and Brahms. To explain why these scores are so beloved, one must take into account their melodic bounty, magical harmonic structure and magnificent formal development. Let’s also not forget the obvious: Schubert was a genius.
Recommended recording: Gunter Wand, Berlin Philharmonic (RCA).
— Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring.
Igor Stravinsky shook early 20th Century music to its very foundation with his cataclysmic 1913 ballet, “The Rite of Spring.” Music has never been the same since. Although few listeners still find the score shocking, its primordial dissonances and rhythmic dislocations still exert a powerful fascination.
Recommended recording: Igor Stravinsky, Columbia Symphony (Sony).
— Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No. 1;
Rachmaninov: Piano Concerto No. 2.
From the time of their composition musical cognoscenti have sneered at the supposed cheapness and vulgarity of these concerti. But the concert public knows better. Russian Romanticism has given us no more exciting display pieces. Made soon after Van Cliburn’s stunning victory in the 1958 Tchaikovsky Piano Competition in Moscow, the recording proclaimed the lanky Texan’s enormous promise to the world.
Recommended recording: Van Cliburn, Kiril Kondrashin and Fritz Reiner, conductors (RCA).
— Vivaldi: The Four Seasons.
Along with Bach’s “Brandenburg” Concertos, this set of delightfully descriptive violin concerto stands at the pinnacle of Baroque instrumental music. Its frequent use in movies and TV commercials, and the fact that it has been recorded almost 90 times, show that its popularity has by no means abated.
Recommended recording: Andrew Manze, Ton Koopman, Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra (Erato).
— Wagner: Overtures, preludes and orchestral excerpts from operas.
Those who are intimidated by the prospect of listening to Richard Wagner’s long operas might approach these great works via this assortment of orchestral sound bytes played by one of the century’s great Wagnerians.
Recommended recording: Wilhelm Furtwaengler, Berlin Philharmonic and Philharmonia Orchestra (EMI References).
Publications
— BBC Music Magazine.
Newsy classical record review that each month comes packaged with a special-issue CD along with interesting music feature articles and listings of live concerts throughout the world.
— Building a Classical Music Library, by Bill Parker
That dreaded concept called “music appreciation” has perhaps never been as approachable as between the soft covers of this 286-page guide to the classical repertory on disc. Relaxed, informed and non-stuffy in style, the book is a boon to the musically uninitiated (Jormax Publishing).
— Ramophone.
The world’s largest magazine of classical record reviews is also the best. If you discount the British bias of some of the reviewers (the magazine is, after all, based in Britain), you’ll find this a savvy, informed guide to music and composers.
— The Norton/Grove Concise Encyclopedia of Music, edited by Stanley Sadie.
The first single-volume reference that tells the layman and occasional concertgoer what he or she needs to know, without talking down to music professionals. A goldmine of handy information (Norton).
Videos
— The Art of Conducting, Great Conductors of the Past.
Historic film footage documents 16 of the century’s most fabled and foibled conductors – from Arthur Nikisch to Leonard Bernstein – in rehearsal and performance. Anyone who ever wondered how, and why, conductors function as they do, and what distinguishes a great maestro from the rest of the pack, will profit from studying this extraordinary video documentary. (Teldec, VHS or laser).
— Leonard Bernstein Young People’s Concerts.
These 25 TV programs, newly released as a boxed set of 10 videotapes, turned on millions of children, as well as adults, to classical music when they were originally aired in the 1950s and ’60s. Bernstein, leading the New York Philharmonic, makes a charismatic tour guide, demystifying his subjects – which range from Mahler and Stravinsky to “What Is a Symphony?” and “Humor in Music” – without ever trivializing them (Sony Classical).
Live Perfomances
— Grant Park Music Festival.
There are a bewilderingly large number of concerts that someone can attend in the course of a Chicago music season. But there is no better combination of performance quality and affordability – all performances are free – than the series given by the Grant Park Symphony Orchestra, with one of the nation’s great cityscapes as backdrop. The lawn is fine if all you want is background Beethoven for picnicking, but if you want to concentrate on the musical action, grab a chair in the main seating area at the Petrillo Music Shell, Columbus Drive at Jackson Boulevard. The season runs through Aug. 24 (312-742-4763).
— Mozart: The Marriage of Figaro.
“Figaro” is one opera that really needs to be experienced in the theater. If you get your ticket order in promptly (the not-so-prompt must hope for ticket turnbacks), you can do just that next Feb. 11 to March 8, when Lyric Opera of Chicago will revive its charming production at the Civic Opera House (312-332-2244).
