(Part 2) Top products from r/classicalmusic

Wow, playing Carnegie Hall is quite the accomplishment!

> On a side note, OP, can you talk a bit about how you got through your perf. anxiety?

Sure! The first thing I did was read The Inner Game of Music by Barry Green. The whole book is great and he gives a lot of exercises you can practice in and out of performing that really help.

I would say the biggest thing that helped me besides all of the great exercises I learned from the book was the preparation routine I created for leading up to performances. The routine I'll go into below really helps me feel secure in my knowledge of the music, as well as helps to eliminate any unknowns I have, which seem to be a big part of what slips me up and makes me nervous.

If I'm giving a solo recital, for example, my first step is to give myself deadlines for 1) having my music learned, 2) having my music memorized, and 3) having my entire program ready to perform. It's different for everyone of course, but I typically want to have my music memorized a month before the performance and have my program ready to perform 2 weeks before.

In the weeks leading up to the performance, I do several things. 3 weeks before the performance, I start visualization. I go into a quiet room, close my eyes, and visualize the entire performance - how I feel 10 minutes beforehand in the Green Room, walking out on stage, what the stage looks like, what the audience sounds like, sitting down and tuning, starting the first piece, etc. Even if I don't really know what the stage looks like, it helps for me to visualize and truly feel myself getting amped up before and during my imaginary performance. I naturally find that, over time, I'm less anxious with each visualization.

2 weeks before, I play through my entire program every day. I cut an hour off of my practice time to do this so I don't tire myself out, but at that point, I should be prepared enough that I'm just hitting spots. One of the absolute biggest triggers for a memory slip or disaster performance is not being able to recover from a mistake, so when I run my program, I always play through my mistakes and then look at them later. A lot of the mistakes are just flukes - when you're playing for an hour, it'll happen. But, in my opinion, being able to recover from them is one of the most important skills a performing musician can have.

On performance day, I have my little routine I like to do. I go for a run in the morning, make my favorite breakfast, listen to some music for an hour or so, and then practice for a couple of hours throughout the day. Some people like to take the whole day off, but I like to keep busy.

About 30 minutes before, I'll go into a quiet space and meditate for 5-10 minutes. When I start to get anxious, I use the techniques I learned in The Inner Game - one of my favorites is, when my palms inevitably start to sweat, I observe that it's happening and remind myself, "Yes my palms are sweaty, and that's okay because it won't cause my hands to slip or play the wrong notes." They usually stop sweating at that point, but if they don't, I'm okay with it.

I've been doing this routine for years and, coupled with the techniques in the Inner Game, I have no anxiety on stage, just excitement and what I consider normal nerves. It's also worth noting that I perform a lot, so while I absolutely believe in this routine and it has helped me with every single one of my performances, I think a lot of it also has to do with me getting more seasoned as a performer.

This became a lot longer than I intended it to be! I hope it was helpful. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to PM me. :)

For an update on that course by the same professor (Craig Wright), check out the Coursera page for it: https://www.coursera.org/learn/introclassicalmusic Still free (unless you want to take tests/quizzes and get a (of questionable use) certificate). In my opinion, it's 90% the same content as the OpenCourseWare videos, but more closely focused on the online student experience; e.g. better use of video, graphics, links.

As you'll hear from both the OpenCourseWare and Coursera's courses, Professor Wright recommends the textbooks to supplement the lectures. As a student of this course myself, I definitely agree. The textbook goes into much greater depth and is easier to reference than a video. The lectures are good summaries and affirm what you've read, but I find that I'm really learning from the textbook.

I don't think you need to buy the latest edition though. Professor Wright has been teaching this course for years and has many different books with different titles and numerous editions. I bought Listening to Music, 7th edition by the professor, used for $17. It's a couple years old. But the content is still applicable to the Coursera course. I was also lucky to have it come with the audio CD to use with the audio exercises (one of the best aspects of the book in my opinion), which can be a crapshoot with the secondary textbook market.

Good luck!

A collection of thoughts

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As has been said

> Don’t be afraid to build up a giant stack of half formed ideas on top of your piano.

Beethoven is notorious for his sketch books, and for playing with and developing ideas for years and years and years after the initial thought.

The original ideas for the 5th symphony are junk, for example. but he kept playing with it

get this book for more on this

https://www.amazon.com/Beethovens-Sketches-Analysis-Style-Sketch-Books/dp/0486230422/

part of music is the actual musical architecture and structure of the music. This is covered in the subject of "musical form" but this goes deeper

see this short video by whitacre on the subject

"Discovering the Golden Brick"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwjqptQ5R-w

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for more general instruction on the basics and the bigger issues of music composition, see this YT channel by Alan Belkin

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUQ0TcIbY_VEk_KC406pRpg

for a more popular music perspective, see Rick Beato and related channels

https://www.youtube.com/user/pegzch

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One of the longest traditions in music education is the making of arrangements and transcriptions of other people's music. This seems to far more effective if you do it by hand, and copy out all the parts yourself (again by hand)

Bach arranged Vivaldi, Mozart arranged Bach, Beethoven arranged Handel, etc.

If these masters did this as part of their own musical studies, maybe you could so this for your own education, using the music you admire most.

Even if it is arranging the music to a new key or mode (major to minor, etc)

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As a general thing I recommend books by Charles Rosen for music of the Classical era

https://www.amazon.com/Sonata-Forms-Revised-Charles-Rosen/dp/0393302199

https://www.amazon.com/Classical-Style-Mozart-Beethoven-Expanded/dp/0393317129/

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Probably the best place to start is by writing "etudes" which basically means "Studies" You could also call them "Experiments".

These would be shortish pieces where you try out different things. Thus if you do not know which way to go with something, you try them all or most of them, and flesh them out into separate things. Each is an experiment.

one idea might give a dozen experiments (major vs minor, slow vs fast, 3/4 vs 4/4 vs 5/4 = 12 combinations)

As experiments, not everything has to work. (but you might come back to it later)

Nothing has to be perfect, They are experiments

Later own, you experiment with ways to make it better. (see the Beethoven sketches again)

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part of the musical problem of form is to how to continue something in order to maintain interest, without it getting boring for a variety of factors. Traditional forms are solid solutions to the problem but you can come up with your own.

As an example, check out the old popular songs of John Denver (!) many of which do not follow a conventional common practice song format. What is he doing there?

Ok that helps! There is a book that the Minnesotan composer Carl Schroeder said I should get, that I think would benefit you too! It's around $6 give or take on amazon, and here it is:
http://www.amazon.com/Essential-Dictionary-Orchestration-The-Series/dp/0739000217/ref=pd_bxgy_b_text_z
There are others in the series that would help too, but this is the one I suggest. It has a list of many many instruments, both standard and non-standard, what the timbre is like, the range of the instrument, among other things. It's not really a good read, but more of a reference to go to. As for general orchestration. Do what I do (sometimes) just combine random instruments together, have them play together. Plug it into some software and see how it sounds. After awhile you get a sense of what works together and what doesn't. For example, flute and oboe sound nice. Clarinet and bassoon go well. Horn and Viola section are pretty decent. When high together, viola and cello sound very cool. All those sorts of things. If you say you've been listening and listening to music, then unfortunately I'm going to have to say you've probably been listening to them wrong. Get a score to read off of while you listen and highlight passages you find intriguing and find why it is. Is it the instrumentation? The melody? A combo of both? Best of luck, my friend!

Vladimir Horowitz's Chopin can be controversial, but this collection is widely accepted as being among his best (from what I've seen, at least) and is a personal favorite.

For the nocturnes, I'd go with Rubinstein, and he also had very good recordings of the waltzes. For Chopin, it's hard to go wrong with Rubinstein - his 11 disc Chopin Collection is a pretty essential collection and is one of the best overviews of Chopin's music.

I personally like Maurizio Pollini for the preludes, but there are some who think that his interpretation lacks emotion (I'd obviously disagree completely). His interpretation of the etudes is unmatched, I think.

EDIT: I'd also like to add a recommendation for Vladimir Ashkenazy, who interprets Chopin very intelligently, as well as Ivo Pogorelich (though the latter could be inconsistent throughout his career and his playing was very controversial and unconventional).

Sorry for replying so late. It's generally regarded that Karajan's earlier stereo recordings (late 50s-60s) are his best, with some exceptions. His Beethoven set from the 60s is often considered one of the greatest of all time. If you like Second Viennese School (Schoenberg, Webern, Berg) then you might like this CD. Karajan's Mahler is generally regarded as excellent, any of it really; his Mahler 6th is what got me into the composer. If you like Tchaikovsky, in my opinion Karajan was authoritative in that music—here is a CD that I enjoy very much. Bruckner, again, take your pick. There's a live recording he made of Bruckner 8 that is well liked. Karajan made about 900 recordings so it's hard to even remember some of them, but mostly he excelled in the Romantic composers. I think he was underrated in Mozart. This CD has my favorite performance of Mozart's 40th, bar none. Hope this post was helpful.

We have evidence, but a lot of guesswork and experimentation has been performed. Yes, we have the evidence xiaopb lists, but we also have to figure out what to make of it.

Performance practice is a complex thing to discuss... If you want to do some reading, these are good places to start:

• The End of Early Music: A Period Performer's History of Music for the Twenty-First Century. Great book by one of the guys who was part of the authentic performance revolution in the 60s.
  
  
• Early Music: A Very Short Introduction. A short book on the history of the "authentic performance" movement.
  
  
• Authenticities: Philosophical Reflections on Musical Performance. What exactly is "authentic"? Is it achievable? Is authentic performance a fad, just fashionable nonesense? Are we really listening to "what Bach intended"? Very nice book.
  
  Edit:
  
  
• Text and Act: Essays on Music and Performance. Written by a very well read man, who is not afraid to share his opinions, and who has a particular way to write. Consider these two ideas: 1) historical performance is not very historical, it's modernist thinking 2) Performance is about actions and not about texts. What now?
  

Thank you for posting this. While I have listened to Ives' symphonies at various times during my life, I am now just trying to really listen to them "hard" and try to gain a better understanding of the music. This essay is a wonderful entry point. I'm going to get Jan Swafford's book on Ives. His being an accomplished composer and a composition teacher who can discuss sophisticated musical concepts in clear, expository, English is a rare gift. None of the vague, subjective, woolly prose you so often see in reviews of Ives and other complicated music. Swafford is probably well-known to the people here who listen and study music less casually than me. I just mostly listen and attend concerts ... unless I happen to catch a fascination with some kind of music. Then I start to research a little.

Well, it depends how far into it you're looking to get. There are entire college courses on orchestration, i.e. the art of writing for one or more instruments to get a specific sound/effect. On a more basic level, which will work well for many of the ones I linked since they're already quartets, you can just assign parts that fit the range of the instrument - make sure you're transposing them!

http://andrewhugill.com/manuals/ranges/brass.html <- this is a nice chart of the ranges for most common brass instruments, and includes both the written pitch and the sounding pitch. It definitely is written with professional players in mind, though, so on the high and low ends it's a bit... overly generous. If you can spend a few bucks this book is a much better guide, I think, and covers every instrument you'd be likely to come across, ever!

http://www.abrsm.org/forum/lofiversion/index.php/t19096.html <- that's a good read as well, starts to get into some other concerns when writing for brass (like leaving space for breathing, for example).

I don't know what your level of experience is with music in general (or brass in particular), so these might not be a ton of help. Google is your friend. You can find the equivalent of a college education on most any subject you choose, you just might have to dig around a little and get it from multiple sources.

Good luck! Let me know if you have more specific questions, I'm not a masterful arranger but I've done a few charts when we needed something easy to read. A good first step is just to start doing it and learn as you go.

With Schubert, oh yes I do! The Fischer-Dishkau/Demus recording of Winterreise is a real treasure. Even people who aren't keen on lieder may find it appealing:

http://www.amazon.com/Schubert-Winterreise-Dietrich-Fischer-Dieskau/dp/B000001GQE

Kleiber's rendition of the "Unfinished" symphony is the best I've heard:

http://www.amazon.com/Schubert-Symphonies-Nos-3-8/dp/B000001GXE/

And I love the Takacs Quartet's take on the 13th and 14th string quartets:

http://www.amazon.com/Schubert-String-Quartets-Death-Maiden/dp/B000I5Y8W8/

Finally, the Emerson Quartet playing with Rostropovich (what a team-up!) for the String Quintet:

http://www.amazon.com/Schubert-String-Quintet-d-956/dp/B000001GFA/

As for Mahler you can't go wrong with Rattle's recording of the 2nd Symphony or Bernstein's recording of the 5th. Bernstein playing Rhapsody in Blue is terrific as well. Hope this helps :-)

Hey! Thanks! You're not the first person to ask - here's my reply to the last person that did :) hope it helps!

The manuscript I use is the Warner Bros 75-page A3 manuscript pad, 18 Stave Landscape. You can order it from Amazon here.

Also, manuscript choice is surprisingly important - I was gutted several years ago when my favourite manuscript paper company Panopus went into liquidation. Took me a while to find a good alternative :)

\> This composition was focused on the balance and elegance of the Classical era (like Mozart and Haydn).

It doesn't quite achieve that either, mind you. The following paragraphs sound harsh but aren't intended to be.

There are lot of what I would call mechanical mistakes. Take the second bar. You shift an E-major chord up a second to F#-major, all voices moving in parallel. And then you compound it by the F#-C# to B-F# parallel fifths in the cello, viola and second violin. You will not find anything like this in the body of works of Haydn or Mozart. It's just a simple violation of rules that cannot happen when you strive to write in the Classical style.

Aside from these types of formal issues, there is something that takes much longer to get right and it has to do with all these unwritten rules that you would find implemented in every Mozart and Haydn sonata movement. The second theme appears to be presented in bar 17 and it is according to the standard rules in the dominant. So far so good. The problem is that you are missing the transition from first to second theme. The first section is just a repeat and alternation of two-bar motives. The 16 bars entirely consist of three chords: B-major, E-major and F#-major. And then, after ending on the tonic B-major, you introduce the second theme in the dominant F# but you never established that key, and it needs to be.

According to classical rules it requires either a cadence on the dominant, often introduced via vi which in the case of B-major would be like a g#-minor chord with the third in the base but more correctly denoted as B^(6), or a half-cadence on the double-dominant C#-major. You have neither and you don't have a single reference to the new leading tone E#, and you kind of do need it to convincingly present the second theme in the new key.

Whole books have been written specifically about how Classical composers treated the sonata form. I recommend Charles Rosen's Sonata Form or The Classical Style by the same author. These are incredible books and eye-opening. I keep repeating this and a lot of people don't believe it but the Classical era was the height of formalism in music. Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven were the most comprehensively trained composers in history. They had to be. They knew everything that Bach did but in addition to that they had mastery of the far richer structural and harmonic principles and rules of the Classical era (which, actually, they created themselves). That's why a scholar such as Charles Rosen spend his whole life (well, apart from performing as a pianist) on studying what made Classical music Classical.

But not to worry. It seems this competition that you won is for young (as in teen) composers. I've taken part in various composition competitions myself decades ago (and never really won anything). You'll figure it out. But do get these Charles Rosen books. When I read them for the first time they elevated my appreciation and understanding of classical music to an entirely new level.

There is always the Bach Cello Suites but you're probably aware of them already.

I've been really enjoying these Brahms Cello Sonatas Rostropovich for the win. :-)

A basic music theory textbook sounds like what you're looking for; I think I used an older edition of this when I was in school.

If you're really interested in classical music, a basic history book might help as well. I'm a big fan of The Vintage Guide to Classical Music, which is interesting, informative, and very readable. It features chapters on a number of different composers and provides just the right amount of depth for a newcomer on each, ~20 pages each.

Copland's What to listen for in Music was really good, but more geared to the classical novice; still worth the read, nonetheless.

Toch's The Shaping Forces of Music was a serious eye opener for me as a composer. It really out everything I was learning in school into perspective and helped me make sense of the purpose of all that I was being taught.

Rimsky-Korsakov's Principles of Orchestration was a very good book that showed me all the idiosyncrasies of writing for symphony in a very clear manner.

I thought he studied with Haydn before Salieri? And then when Haydn buggered off to London, Beethoven was the music student harlot of Vienna, running between Salieri, Albrechtsberger Schuppenzigh et al?

Or at least thats what I remember from the biography I read.

PS this is the biography. I recommend it to everyone who even has a passing interest in music. Fantastic book. You dont become a Pulitzer finalist for nothing.

I read your comment and thought: "there are lots of commercially unknown orchestras with great recordings....". Then I went to the amazon page for the Beethoven collection pictured: http://amzn.com/B00012QMDG

Listen to the opening of Beet 5. Yuck. I'm not trying to be an elitist or anything. It just really really sucks even compared to other cheap CDs. Shit, you can get the entire 1963 Karajan Beethoven cycle used for about $15 on amazon: http://amzn.com/B000001GBQ

If you like classical music as background music while you work or whatever, fine. But if you want to hear it the way it's meant to be heard, you can do much better for the same amount of money.

EDIT:
I'll be constructive and recommend a few cheap and great recordings (buying used off amazon, nothing more than $5). Others might be able to do better....

Mozart Symphonies 40, 41

Mozart Symphonies 32, 35, 39

Beethoven 5, 7

Bach cello suites

Bach Brandenburg 1-3

You might be interested to know about Craig Wright he teaches music and he has a course at Yale on listening to music very much like what you teach :)

Jan Swafford's Beethoven: Anguish & Triumph was pretty great, and provided a nice balance of legibility and depth of information/background

I'm no music historian but I'm reading Jan Swafford's biography of Brahms, which I find is written well and makes for a good character study, so his book about Beethoven might suit you.

http://www.amazon.com/Beethoven-Anguish-Triumph-Jan-Swafford/dp/061805474X/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1406732554&sr=1-2&keywords=beethoven

i recommend:
Constantin Floros's Gustav Mahler: The Symphonies
for a good general overview, and Seth Monahan's Mahler's Symphonic Sonatas for a more technical investigation

I haven't tried beta blockers due to other health problems, but The Inner Game of Music helped me greatly. It takes a few months to really work through all of it properly, but now I can use that kick of adrenaline to perform even better. It's worth a read, even if you still decide to use beta blockers.

I use this book all the time its great

If you're looking for a great read on specifically 20th century music that talks about the analytical side of the actual music, try this book by Robert P. Morgan.

Charles Ives: A Life With Music was an amazing read.

Some classic texts on orchestration that you might find useful:

• Samuel Adler - The Study of Orchestration
  
• Walter Piston - Orchestration
  
• Rimsky-Korsakov - Principles of Orchestration
  
• Berlioz (plus Strauss) - Treatise on Instrumentation
  

Lewis Lockwood wrote several books on Beethoven.

I think the overview book would serve as a good introduction to Beethoven’s life and works:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0393326381/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1519488821&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=beethoven+lockwood&dpPl=1&dpID=51%2BrYLXXXIL&ref=plSrch

Search Amazon for:

A3 manuscript pad

Check this out at Amazon.co.uk
75-Page A3 Manuscript Pad, 18-Stave: (White Pad) https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0571527094/ref=cm_sw_r_other_apa_i_peNLDbZ7F45SH

Here are some to get you started. Unsystematically selective, and didn't include opera.

Beethoven String Quartets by the Tokyo String Quartet- Razumovsky and late Quartets.

Brahms and Schumann Piano Quintets.

Schubert String Quintet and Trout Quintet.

Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique and Requiem.

Chopin Ballades/Scherzos, Nocturnes, and the op. 28 preludes.

Dvorak Cello Concerto.

Mendelssohn orchestral works.

Wagner overtures/preludes.

Schumann symphonies.

Wolf Lieder.

Schubert Winterreise, Die schoene Muellerin, and Lieder.

Seconded. This book is a constant fixture on my coffee table, along with the Dover scores.

Gustav Mahler: The Symphonies

For Shostakovich, [I'd Check this out]. Beyond meaty. (http://www.amazon.com/Shostakovich-Remembered-Second-Elizabeth-Wilson/dp/0691128863/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1373162263&sr=1-1&keywords=shostakovich)

Decent bio:

https://www.amazon.com/Erik-Satie-Rollo-H-Myers/dp/0486219038/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1526654581&sr=8-4&keywords=erik+satie+biography

Fryderyk Chopin: a Life and Times

Source: Fryderyk Chopin: A Life and Times

I don't know much about Nigel Kennedy, but the idea that the 'cult of authenticity' is ruining classical music has also been made extensively by musicologist Richard Taruskin in the book Text and Act, among other places. Taruskin makes some good arguments, I think, albeit in a polemical manner.