User:Daphoenyx/sandbox/Music

=Baroque Era (1600-1750)=

Brandenburg Concertos

 * Brandenburg Concerto No. 1 in F major, BWV 1046
 * 1) Allegro moderato
 * 2) Adagio
 * 3) Allegro
 * 4) Menuet – Trio I – Menuet da capo – Polacca – Menuet da capo – Trio II – Menuet da capo


 * Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 in F major, BWV 1047
 * 1) (Allegro moderato)
 * 2) Andante
 * 3) Allegro assai


 * Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 in G major, BWV 1048
 * 1) (Allegro moderato)
 * 2) Adagio
 * 3) Allegro
 * Brandenburg Concerto No. 4 in G major, BWV 1049


 * 1) Allegro
 * 2) Andante
 * 3) Presto


 * Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 in D major, BWV 1050
 * 1) Allegro
 * 2) Affettuoso
 * 3) Allegro


 * Brandenburg Concerto No. 6 in B flat major, BWV 1051
 * 1) (Allegro)
 * 2) Adagio ma non troppo
 * 3) Allegro

Cello Suite no. 1 – Prelude

 * Cello Suite no. 1 – Prelude

Toccata and Fugue in D Minor

 * Toccata and Fugue in D Minor

=Classical Era (1730-1820)= Mozart – ''Symphonies Nos. 40 and 41''


 * Symphony No. 40
 * 1) Molto Allegro
 * 2) Andante
 * 3) Menuetto. Allegretto – Trio
 * 4) Finale. Allegro assai


 * Symphony No. 41
 * 1) Allegro vivace
 * 2) Andante cantabile
 * 3) Menuetto: Allegretto - Trio
 * 4) Molto allegro

=Early Romantic (1800-1850)= Beethoven – ''Symphony Nos. 5 and 7''
 * Symphony No. 5
 * 1) Allegro con brio
 * 2) Andante con moto
 * 3) Scherzo. Allegro
 * 4) Allegro


 * Symphony No. 7
 * 1) [Poco sostenuto – Vivace]
 * 2) [Allegretto]
 * 3) [Presto – Assai meno presto (trio)]
 * 4) [Allegro con brio]

Choose the 5th for a heavier, more in your face experience. You’ll have certainly heard the first few bars about five thousand times already, but the rest of it (especially the third and fourth movements) are golden. It’s a classic example of Beethoven’s ability to mesh delicate, introspective music (3rd movement) with boistrous, glorious, triumphant excess (4th movement). On the other hand, if you’d prefer listening to something totally unfamiliar, symphony number 7 is lighter, more fun, much more rhythmic, and chances are you haven’t heard any of it before.

=Middle Romantic (1830-1870)=

Mendelssohn – Symphony No. 4 “Italian”

Liszt – Hungarian Rhapsodies

The Mendelssohn piece is a reasonably conservative but fantastic piece. It’s got bounding, driving rhythms, beautiful orchestration and melodies, and a cyclic ending that finishes with a transformed version of the start of the whole thing. The latter is wild, crazy, over the top romantic piano at it’s best. you might know the rhapsody No. 2 from the Tom and Jerry cartoon “Cat Concerto”

=Late Romantic (1850-1910)=

Tchaikovsky – Symphony No. 6 “Pathetique”

Brahms – Symphony No. 4

Dvorak – Symphony No. 9 “From the New World”

Tchaikovsky is exceedingly sweeping and heart-stringy. Brahms is a little more serious, cultured, grand and imposing, especially the excellent last movement. Dvorak is more rhythmic, more jazzy, more modern sounding. All of them are big-R Romantic: big, emotional, expressive.

=Atonal (1910-present)=

Berg – Violin Concerto

The atonalists (Schoenberg, Berg, Webern) didn’t believe in scales and keys (Like A minor, B flat, etc.), and they gave every note equal importance. Unsurprisingly this makes a lot of their stuff very hard to enjoy, unless you are being all scholarly (or pretentious) about it. Although it does sound very interesting. This piece, however, is a unification of their techniques with “regular” tonal composition. It’s a painfully emotional effect, especially if you read about the circumstances it was composed under.

=Modern (1900-1975)=

Symphony No. 10

 * 1) Moderato
 * 2) Allegro
 * 3) Allegretto
 * 4) Andante - Allegro

Piano Concerto No. 2

 * 1) Andantino-Allegretto
 * 2) Scherzo: Vivace
 * 3) Intermezzo: Allegro moderato
 * 4) Allegro tempestoso

Stravinsky – The Rite of Spring

These are all great examples of how many modern composers pulled back a bit from the extremes of the atonalists. They kept tonality, but pushed at its boundaries. Shostakovich uses melodies which are morbidly stuck between keys, Prokofiev makes it sound like someone is hitting the wrong notes (but, you know, in a good way) and Stravinsky caused riots with the primeval rhythms of the “Rite of Spring”. The first is big, touching, driving, sarcastic and sly. The second is similar but more percussive, and in places more playful. The third is wild and syncopated.

=Contemporary (1975-present)=

Adams – Chamber Symphony (Buy CD or DRM free MP3 or John Adams & London Sinfonietta - Chamber Symphony/ Grand Pianola Music) Schnittke – Viola Concerto (Buy CD or DRM free MP3 or Christoph Eschenbach, Philharmonia Orchestra & David Aaron Carpenter - Elgar: Cello Concerto - Schnittke, A.: Viola Concerto)

And he we are today. This is music composed in the last couple of decades, and it is very far from the stereotypical ideas of classical music. The former is nothing like a traditional chamber symphony: it’s a self-described marriage of atonal music with Looney Tunes cartoons. The second is one of Schnittke’s many attempts at unifying “low” and “high” music. He’ll switch from very classical, to ridiculous fairground music, to Psycho style stabs over just a handful of bars, while being horribly, wonderfully, screechingly microtonal (playing the spaces in between “regular” notes).