Learn more about Classical Music

Constructive criticism is very useful, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to take. So I was a bit upset yesterday that my editor basically told me I was doing it all wrong after reading my Bach article. We ended up having an interesting conversation about what the role of music critics is though. And I decided to try to get over my desire to just give up on it after that (which tends to be my first response to being criticized), and instead learn as much as I can and keep trying.

So today, I handed over my review of yesterday’s concert, feeling rather nervous and scared that he might just say “Nope, still all wrong”. But my editor read it and said “This is good, wow, you’ve learned so much from our conversation yesterday”. Yay! Very happy about that!
Now if his squirrel theory is right, I’ll probably mess it up again next time or the time after and feel back at square one, but I guess trying harder is the way to deal with it, and grow from the experience.

And today, a special treat, I get to go to another lovely, lovely baroque concert, and we’ve decided not to write about that one, so I can just sit back and enjoy a lovely and free concert. :)

and so far (I think I’m roughly halfway through) I’ve tranferred 268 tracks onto my MP3 player. The composers are both old and modern, so far:

Bach
Bernstein
Beethoven
Brahms
Britten
Copland
Elgar
Gershwin
Liszt
Puccini
Mozart
Rachmaninov
Shostakovich
Vaughan Williams
Vanessa Mae

I also had the inspiration to borrow music from the library to save me a small fortune on buying stuff new. That way it only costs a few pounds at a time!

as I was working on a review from the chamber music festival, that this is my one year anniversary of music reviews. I wrote my first review from the same festival last year. And it is good to feel that even though I still consider myself a beginner in this, I do feel that I have learned a lot since then, and I think my reviews this year will be a lot better in every way.
Which doesn’t mean they are great, I am still in awe when I read reviews by people who really know this stuff, such as my editor. It will take me years to get to that level. But I have developed a lot since my first, not exactly impressive attempts at this at least. Must keep listening to classical music, reading about it and going to concerts and try to improve my music writing further, because this is seriously an amazing field to work in!

I’m really enthusiastic about this goal, because I forsee it not only as the opportunity to learn something new, but for reclaiming a part of myself that got lost somewhere in my childhood and has remained rather deprived and underdeveloped ever since.

My mum’s side of the family is very musical- her Dad was a conductor and she got a scholarship to study piano and violin at the Royal College of Music in London as a child. I grew up with classical music and always had a piano in the house although I never really wanted to learn particularly. Before my exams this summer I started listening to classical music whilst writing essays finding that it helped me concentrate, and then got enthused to look through a lot of the music I used to listen to (got hooked on Verdi’s Requiem!)

There’s so much to learn about classical music that apart from continuing to reacquaint myself I wasn’t really sure where to start since I have no technical knowledge whatsoever. I saw that lots of people here ordered the “Classical music for Dummies” book which looked quite good, and I’m burning a copy of the CD to my MP3 player as I type. It should be a good way to start off, and then hopefully when I’m at Uni I’ll know a little more about which type of concerts to seek out…

So, since I am lucky enought to know people here who know more about Bach than I do, I though I’d ask if you have any ideas for questions for people I’ll interview while I’m at the Bach festival!

I won’t know until I get there who I’ll get to talk to, I’ll give them my list of who I would like to talk to, and they will see what they can do I guess. But it will be musicians, conductors, possibly a music historian.

Any ideas?
My editor said to ask them what it is about Bach that makes him so popular throught the centuries. That’s one. I think I will also ask them something about the period instruments versus modern instrument debate, there will be both sorts of performances there. Hm. More?

especially early music, which is definitely my favorite. But I feel that I´m missing out on a lot since my knowledge of the music and composers is very limited. Plus, I would very much like to write more music reviews in time. I have written some concert reviews already, which was fun, but also very scary. I felt way out of my comfort zone, and was constantly scared that I was either misunderstanding the whole thing, or making a big point out of things that are just obvious and not interesting to readers who knows more about classical music.

My first sub-goal here is to get through the book “All you have to do is listen”, which I bought in London. So far it´s brilliant. The author breaks great works into tiny pieces and discuses what´s going on, and there is a website where you can listen to all the examples. It´s a bit of work to read it since I constantly have to stop reading and go to the computer to listen to another example, but still, it´s very good.
Second sub goal is to read a book I already have about baroque music, that works in the same way, with a website to listen to the music along the way.

today I went to pick up my tickets for Beethoven’s 9:th on friday and saw that they are playing Vivaldi’s 4 seasons and Mozart’s clarinet concerto (^^ 28d! ;) tonight! I havn’t heard Vivaldi in concert ever I think :/ Pondered wikipedia a little:
”.. in them [the 4 seasons] Vivaldi represented flowing creeks, singing birds (of different species, each specifically characterised), barking dogs, buzzing mosquitoes, crying shepherds, storms, drunken dancers, silent nights, hunting parties (both from the hunter’s and the prey’s point of view), frozen landscapes, children ice-skating, and burning fires.” Im psyched!! Vivaldi was a red head btw for those interested :)

I have made two interesting friends who together have many years of higher musical education. I expect to learn much from them.

Besides that Im going to concerts every now and then; last week I saw London Symphony Orchestra on tour, on saturday I will go to a “composer’s evening” where a swedish composer talks a bit about his peaces before playing them, and on tuesday I will go see Mozart’s clarinet concerto.

And the greatest thing saved for last.. next weekend me and a friend will go to Amsterdam to enjoy Beethoven’s fifth and hear Lang Lang play Tchaikovsky’s first piano concerto. :)

I think I like that I can just close my eyes, listen and be carried away by the emotion of it all..and I think that is enough for me for now…

Went to the Seattle Symphony on Friday. I liked it a lot. i think i want to go to the symphony at least once a year, if not more. Not all the time, but I did like it.

Done with this goal for now.