My limited knowledge of classical music-a "Totally Shuffled" extract

Dipping my toes into the ocean of classical music-an extract from "Totally Shuffled"

February 12^th

Beethoven-Symphony No 4 in B Flat, Op 60-4^th Movement-Gianandrea Noseda/BBC Philharmonic

Sometimes music gets just too much; there is too much music and I end up flitting from one thing to another, never fully satisfied. Thankfully, this doesn’t happen that often as there is usually something that fits. 

But when it does, I have developed two different solutions. 

The first is to listen to Bob Dylan’s “John Wesley Harding” album. This blows the cobwebs away and clears the palate (to stitch a couple of metaphors together). There’ll probably be some Dylan cropping up later-I wonder if it’ll be a track off John Wesley Harding? The second solution I have is to listen to some classical music. 

This was originally just a solution, just a way of getting back into music, but recently I have found myself listening to classical music for pleasure and not just a means to an end.

Classical music, like jazz and reggae, appears to be such a massive and wide-ranging genre that it is seemingly so difficult to find a way in. I don’t wish to be one of those people who start off with a classical-music-for-dummies mindset or with some horrible compilation e.g. that’s what I call classical music CDs.

Neither does anything like Classic FM appeal: the only time I have heard that was when I was at the dentist, and for that reason alone it has enough bad connotations, let alone the idea of popular little snippets of classical “hits”. 

So I dipped a toe in the water through Radio 3, a couple of classical blogs, reviews in the papers and half-remembered ideas of what might be interesting. This meant that I ended up with about 250 or so classical CDs, including the one above. I suppose to anyone who is well-versed in classical music that I have maybe picked my selections at random, magpie-like or only gone for the obvious. I know that there is a whole world of other stuff there and that such a small amount cannot even be representative but for now, it’s enough for me. 

I suppose over time, different things will pique my interest and take me in fresh directions. Looking at what there is here now though- Beethoven’s symphonies, Tchaikovsky, Schubert, Bach, Bruckner, there’s plenty to be getting on with.

After reading Alex Ross’ “The Rest is Noise” book, I developed an overarching interest in Mahler, and downloaded a few complete sets of his symphonies, as well as some audience recordings of highly praised concerts. 

For someone coming from a “rock” background, it always strikes me as odd that there can be some many different interpretations of classical music and massive arguments about what is the best or definitive version. It’s a bit like searching for the Holy Grail, but never getting there-it’s unattainable by its very nature. I don’t think that in popular music that there is the same debate-cover versions are just that and they are all are different. 

Maybe it’s because we know what the first recorded version sounds like but that you can’t get back to that in classical music; it’s impossible to know even what the first performance sounded like.

Anyway, back to something else tomorrow no doubt.

extracted from "Totally Shuffled- A Year of Listening to Music on a Broken iPod" available here as a Kindle e book http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00CJYZ3CA and here in paperback should you prefer http://www.amazon.co.uk/Totally-Shuffled-Listening-Broken-iPod-The/dp/149495687X