Classical music tends to get a bad rap, especially among the younger generations often, but the truth is that without it our music today would either not exist at all, or would be very much different. Classical music laid the building blocks for everything from dance music to rock and everything in between, and there's probably no musician anywhere who does not owe something to the likes of Beethoven, Holst, Chopin, Berlioz and a host of other composers who blazed a trail from the fifteenth century and popularised not only music as a genre, but as a public spectacle, holding the first real concerts and getting people talking about music among themselves. Classical music often survived on the patronage of kings and lords, which could be a double-edged sword: you would certainly have access to anything you needed but at the same time you might very well be under tremendous pressure to, for instance, come up with a special piece to celebrate the birthday, coronation or other event important to the monarch, or to mark a great victory, anniversary etc. And it was never advisable to disappoint the king or queen!
But classical music gave us some timeless, amazing melodies that have stayed as fresh and accessible to we in the twenty-first century as they were when they were written. Of course, with the rise of so many different and varying genres in music, classical often gets overlooked, and that's one of the reasons why I'm writing this. My own appreciation and knowledge of classical music is quite limited, and in this thread I hope to share with you what I know of it, and learn more as I go along. Don't expect album reviews – that would be pointless – but I will be going as deeply as I can into the life and works of the great composers – and some of the less great, or at least, less well known – as well perhaps as those who play their music today. I hope to gain a better appreciation of this often forgotten art form this way, and in the process perhaps educate a few of you on the way, or rekindle an interest in classical music.
After all, no matter what genre you follow, there's no escaping the very concrete fact that, as the title of this thread asserts, every rock or pop star you've ever heard has built his on her career by essentially standing on the shoulders of these giants. All of which will be explored here.
I'm under no illusions here that this will interest everyone; after all, I'm going to be talking about dead guys here, most of the time. It's not like you can run out and purchase the latest Beethoven or Facebook about how great Delius is. Well, you can but, you know… You won't find these guys in the charts, or likely on Last.FM or Pitchfork. But if you can put your doubts and your prejudices aside and just listen, you will find music that is moving, beautiful, powerful and stirring. There's no question that a lot of classical can be boring: there are no words usually, so no lyrics to grab you (unless we’re talking about opera, and that’s invariably in a language other than English) and the pieces are often quite long, but I will be trying to direct you towards the better stuff in classical, and there's a hell of a lot of that.
The thread is called the History of Classical Music so obviously there'll be a timeline, but I will not be sticking rigidly to this, but will divert from it regularly to take in artists and pieces I like, talk about composers and even those soloist and players regarded in the field today, and basically talk as much as I can in as varied a way as I can manage about the whole genre. There’s also a good chance I may look at particular monarchs or nobles who became patrons of music, as, as mentioned above, it was often only on this very patronage - or at the very least, support - that artists could survive. What were these men and women like? Did they truly love and, more importantly, understand music, or did they give their stamp of approval to, and often provide the funds for, the composers more as a way of building up their own esteem?
It will probably be incredibly boring for a lot of you, and I understand that, but for those who want to either get into classical music or share their love of it, this thread may provide a small service and a place to talk about a genre often relegated to the domain of the elderly and the never-hip. Classical music is, has been and unfortunately probably always be looked down upon by the young, who find it tedious, pointless and, well, dead. Some of these accusations could be supported, if you listen to too much of the wrong classical - chamber music can be very taxing on the attention if it goes on too long, and I’m no fan of opera - but as with all musical genres, there are good and bad, and this blanket dismissal of classical is as blinkered and ignorant as saying all punk is terrible because it’s loud and has no melody or that reggae all sounds the same or that there’s no beauty in black metal, and so on. One thing my musical explorations over the last ten-odd years has taught me is that nothing is black and white, and that you can’t judge a book by its cover, especially if you haven’t bothered to look inside it.
As always, I invite comment and discussion, and while there are, I am quite sure, those of you here who are far better versed in classical music than I am, and while those people are very welcome to disseminate their knowledge here, I would also love to see those who either don’t understand or have been put off by classical wander in here to see what it’s all about. If you like, and to probably use a flawed analogy, we’ve all become at least aware of classical music through a process of osmosis. What I mean by this is that no matter what age you are, assuming you are old enough to be reading this, ie old enough to be a member of this forum, and even if you hate classical music, there is a one hundred percent chance that you have heard at least one piece of classical. Whether it's been through the telly, the movies, on an ad, mashed up or sampled by some pop or rock artist, the process of osmosis means, in this case, that you have absorbed possibly more classical music than you even realise.
So everyone knows just a little bit of classical, and if you want to take the next step, join me on my journey.
As usual, my research tool of choice is Wikipedia, but I will be sourcing other articles and reading books on the subject, as well as watching any television documentaries I can. This will of course be slow progress, as we’re talking about hundreds of years of the development of music here, so I guess it’s even possible it could be a life’s work. It might never get finished, who knows, especially with all the other projects I have on and the others I have planned, to say nothing of the odd spot of real life here and there. As the old saying goes, it’s a marathon not a sprint, so don’t expect too much.
But if you stick with me, it could be very interesting and educational, and who knows, maybe even fun. Stranger things have happened.
If music be the food of love, let’s get stuck in; hope you brought your appetite, because there’s one hell of a banquet waiting!