Current Events > I have a real love/hate relationship with Classical music.

(+) Yeah! (+)

Love: classical music
Hate: the world of classical music, audiences, critics, the format, the pomposity, the seriousness with which people take it, the obsession with everything having to be perfect.

This article on a "controversy" really sums it up for me:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Philharmonic_concert_of_April_6,_1962

Basically what happened is that a slightly eccentric painist (glenn gould) decided to play a piece of music unconventionally. He deviated from the score, took liberties with the notes and played it in a way that was unorthodox in tempo/phrasing/colour etc.

This was such a HUGE controversy that it became a legendary moment in classical music history. The conductor deliberately distanced himself in a speech before the performance. The audience booed during the performance. People walked out. Critics panned the pianist in every press article. It's still being examined to this day in historical review.

Just a reminder, no one died. There wasn't a fire. He didn't pull a GG Allin and eat feces on stage. He didn't punch an audience member. Literally the only thing that happened is he...played a piece a little unusually.

This is everything I hate about classical music. There's such an elaborate level of purity around it all. And don't get me started on how serious people are about having absolute silence at all times during a performance and between movements. That is a relatively modern invention and I've never understood it.

This music is composed in such a a manner that it makes the artists out to be a composed flawless human themselves no vulnerability

You've seen Tar?

Music snobs can be the worst and every genre has them. Classical is probably the worst when it comes to that. There's so much rigidity and pompousness in it. I just ignore all of that and just listen to the music.

Now that you mention it, some GG Allin type of madness during a classical concert would be interesting to see.

My one hate bullet point for classical music is the dynamic range. Makes it amazing to listen to in person, but add the wind from a car, or a baby sleeping in the next room and you can forget about hearing most of it.

A lot of that is similar to issues I have w/ classical music, though, I'm also just not a huge fan of most of it. It's not bad, I respect the artists, but it's not something I'd sit around the house and listen to.

That said, much of the metal I listen is very classical influenced. I just prefer a lot of the other stuff that comes along w/ metal.

See: Ne Obliviscaris - "And Plague Flowers the Kaleidoscope"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNuVdsx7qJY

There are huge parts of classical songs that are boring, LONG buildup, and then the good stuff which lasts 1/4 the amount of time the boring shit did

There's my professional opinion

Smackems posted...

There are huge parts of classical songs that are boring, LONG buildup, and then the good stuff which lasts 1/4 the amount of time the boring shit did

There's my professional opinion

A lot of c music is like a story in that it has your exposition, rising action, climax structure. I may be on the snobbish side on this particular topic (sorry guys) but it kinda irritates me when you see this stuff trimmed out, like a track/video that's JUST the chorale from Holst's Jupiter. It's absolutely the best part of the tune, but it makes so much more sense in the context of the piece. It's like skipping to the punchline of Nate the Snake, which I am fully aware most people did.

Though I guess to cut myself some slack, I haven't taken it to the extreme that I would expect everyone to listen to the whole Planets suite, the way it was intended, lol. There are some pieces I insist should be done that way, like Peer Gynt, but the Planets just for some reason isn't one of them.

Anyway, you also have pieces where the intensity level is just lower, and honestly those can be really good too.