Re: New Thread: Classical Music Influences on Us

["Stephen P. Goodman" <spgoodman@earthlight.net>]

Yep.  Introduced to Beethoven at 10, mainly because I was into Peanuts
(besides being the only kid in school who could draw the characters), and
Schroeder of course was Ludwig Von's devotee.  When my parents bought the
Time-Life Beethoven Bicentennial collection - all Deutche Grammophon, 
Berlin
Philharmonic - I truly fell in love with that work.  I can't sit and listen
to the 6th without tissues, nor the 10th.  Wagner's work speaks to me on a
level I still don't understand, somehow encapsulating the feelings of 
people
without requiring an operatic company to be there.  If I ever get a chance
to see the Ring again - I missed it when it came through in the early
1980s - I'll go with several handkerchiefs.  (My mother-in-law says that
this is being "simpatico".)

It provided a basis for further listening to other classical composers, and
when I got my first paper route money at 11, started buying not the
classical stuff, which was too expensive - my parents got that stuff for
me - but movie soundtracks.  Some of it really interesting stuff.  It
developed my taste for what I term "situational music".  Little did I know
that, when I turned back in my 30s and began seriously listening to Mahler,
Max Steiner, and forward to Jerry Goldsmith (I still like his stuff better
than John Williams').  I love Samuel Barber's work, his 2nd movement of
Adagio for Strings makes me weep.  Most folks have heard it in the main
soundtrack to the film "Platoon", and have thought that it was just part of
the soundtrack (a step down for its use in my opinion, because it nearly
rendered the piece into a cliche, thankfully not quite).

The final night of the BBC Proms - a several month long program at the
Albert Hall involving a huge array of music and talent - usually involves a
lot of British flag-waving and singing of Good Old British Songs.  This 
year
it was scheduled for September 15.  I don't need to tell you what happened
that week.  As a coincidence, for the first time an American conductor -
can't remember his name - did the honors.  They changed the entire program
to be one of mourning, but not just that, reflection, and the program
included the many old and new orchestral pieces, as well as the good old
Adagio for Strings.  It finished with the final movement of Beethoven's 
9th,
the infamous "Song/Ode to Joy", and the encore, as a bow to where the Proms
of course were, was "Jerusalem", which truly sounds incredible when sung by
the entire audience and choir, folks.

Music heals, it transports, it helps us transcend pain and trouble in this
world, and perhaps give us a hint of another.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Rick Walker (loop.pool)" <GLOBAL@cruzio.com>
To: <Loopers-Delight@loopers-delight.com>
Sent: 24 September 2001 23:40 PM
Subject: New Thread: Classical Music Influences on Us


>
> jim palmer wrote:
>
> "love bartok.
> listen to the string quartets regularly."
>
> I'm glad to hear you say it.  I love that music...........also the
> exquisitely dynamic and melancholy  'Concerto for Orchestra'.  Because of
> it's dynamic range, it was the first piece of classical music that I was
> glad to have a CD player for reproduction.
>
>
> Also, it is more abstract (please pardon my loose definition, Tom ;-)
> but have you guys/gals checked out 'Threnody for the Victims of 
>Hiroshima'
> by Krzysztof Penderecki?
>
>
>
>