What is the purpose of Classical music?

[Cuper]

Hi,

Many people love classical music for reasons I do not know, when I listen to it it just sounds like, "if this was in a film" it would make it dramatic, but the music purely on it's own I do not understand.

There are no singers, no lyrics, just music, what is the purpose of it? what are beethovens musicals about? what do they mean?

As you can tell, I know nothing about music of any kind , but I sat listening to a classical today and wondered "what am I supposed to be feeling?, what is this about?"

Why do you love it?

[spaceray]

Why do I love classical music?Because is has purity,clarity ,significance,intelligence and longevity for me. I feel engaged when I listen in a way that pop or rock or jazz or any other kind of music has not.
I have learned a lot about Classical music from listening to Beethoven.I listen to unfamiliar pieces quite a few times to let them sink in but a great deal of his music is familiar from my early childhood .I wonder if there is a list of Beethoven's most played /heard works it must begin with Symphony no 5.Beethoven covers a broad range of ideas in his music and there is something for everyone .Have you listened to B's ninth Symphony ?

[Amalie]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Cuper:
[b]Hi,

Many people love classical music for reasons I do not know, when I listen to it it just sounds like, "if this was in a film" it would make it dramatic, but the music purely on it's own I do not understand

Where to we begin?
It is very easy for all of us to live on the surface as it were, go to work, eat, sleep, converse with other people, enjoy social entertainments, but this is living on the surface and classical music immediately on listening to it, makes us aware of something deeper.
A lot of people are quite content and unthreatened by modern popular culture, tv,films, etc. and do not want to go on explore the depths within themselves, and that is fine if that is where they want to stop. But classical music, particularly Beethoven immesurably enriches ones life by giving it a fantastic aesthetic and spiritual depth.




[This message has been edited by Amalie (edited September 20, 2003).]

[Gurn Blanston]

Cuper,
Actually, this is a good question, and one which I had when I was younger. I have had casual affairs with every type of music you can name, but eventually I found them all to be unsatisying somehow. When I was older, I started to listen to "my father's music", and I realized that there was a good reason that Beethoven, for example, has been around for over 200 years and is still listened to by millions. There is a texture and depth to the music, it is not superficial, it reaches down and grabs you on an emotional level that lighter music cannot begin to do, really, does not attempt to do. One does not need to analyze it, or even know very much about it (although these "extras" add to the enjoyment), find something that is pleasant to your ear and really try to see if you can see why it is so. For me, the small ensembles that are called chamber music are my favorite, and it is because they are structured as a conversation between the instruments, who take turns making statements and replying, and passing the melody around among themselves. I find a good deal of satisfaction in this. The music itself provides intellectual stimulation for me, and that is what it takes to make me happy. It may be the same for you, or maybe entirely different, you can only try it and see.
Regards,
Gurn

[Cuper]

I've done a little research and found a few things that are interesting.

Classical music can also be known as pure music, they are pieces which concentrate purely on matters of musical form and style, this classical school lasted 1750 - 1800.

The other school is the Romantic movement, and whereas classical music is free from any particular emotion and is more concerned with HOW idea's and forms should be presented in form and style, artists of the Romantic school considered WHAT they had to say as more important than the way in which they said it.
Romantic music is concerned with themes such as joy, love or sorrow.

I would be more interested in the Romantic school, becuase I think that is what music is about, reaching your emotions, for your emotions, rather than the act of combining instruments to make a sound, the Classical school seems more interested in the technicality. This would also mean that the Romantic school is more for the intellectual, concerned with ideas.

It is also interesting that Beethoven identified his music with moral and political ideas, Specifically to do with Freedom from political tyranny.

Is it important to you, to know the ideas of the artist to get a better understanding of it, and therefore a better emotional response from it?.

OR

Can you get emotion from artists without knowing a thing about the ideas and the artist?

It seems to me that the Classic school is for people who love instruments and like the combination of the seperate instruments into a music, whilest Romantic school is for people who want to get an emotional response, from the ideas.

I would like to listen to music with a meaning, for a purpose, that is telling me something, which is the Romantic school, rather than listen to something and then get a subjective response, which I believe is the meaning for the last poster.

I guess this seems like a criticism of the Classical school, it was not my intention, my intention was only to discover why and how there is an emotional response to this type of music.

I would be gratefull if anyone can point me to some interesting websites on either Classical, Romantic or Beethoven where I can learn more.

Thank you

[spaceray]

Cuper,
You have already found the best Beethoven web site in existance.Have you looked around
on this site? the new picture gallery is fantastic.Download the music being offered and listen.There have been many discussions regarding Classical and Romantic music here.I'm sure your posting will begin another lively thread .You mentioned you were new to classical ,what kinds of music do you like?

[Marta]

Hi Cuper.

I think is great your interest and the research that you are doing.
I just wanted to mention that there are other music classifications of styles and each reflects the different cultural times as any other art.
There is the Pre-Barroque, Barroque, Pre-Classical, Classical, Romantic, Post-Romantic, Impressionistic, Neo-Classical, Nationalistic.
In the 20th Century also you will find many different musical styles and conceptions as Serial, Dodecaphonic, Pointillist, Avant-Agard.

Cuper, Music is one of the most ancient and natural subjective expressions of mankind and it's interpretation by the listener will be individual and subjective.
Is my opinion, that what makes a work of music to be great or a true *masterpiece* is when transcend it's own period of conception, and it really doesn't matter if the work is Classical, Romantic, Impressionistic, great Music always will stand and will touch and move mankind.

Cuper, we don't need to know the composer intentions, but to *feel* his music, just let the music talk to you, and you will have your own experience as no one else.
Music is a subjective art, and ALL music is an expression of emotions. Listen to the great works of Bach, Vivaldi, Boccherini, Teleman, Beethoven, Mozart, Haendel, Haydn, Schubert, Chopin, Brahms, Liszt, Bruckner, Debussy, Ravel, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninnov, Prokofiev, Stravinsky, Bartok..etc.
I just mentioned a few of the great composers, just listen to their music, and you will find how each talks to you differently, let the music talk by itself.

I'm glad that you are in this discovery, it will be a great one that will enrich your life tremendously. ENJOY IT!!!!

LOVE
Marta

[This message has been edited by Marta (edited September 21, 2003).]

[Gurn Blanston]

Cuper,
So, you have been doing homework. One problem though with trying to make definitions of whole schools of art as these references have done, is that they sometimes miss the point, so leading to inaccuracy of perception. It is not strictly accurate to say that Classical Style music is emotionless, rather it was not written with the intent of necessarily expressing some emotion that was weighing on the composer at the time. However, one could scarcely listen to the g minor string quintet of Mozart (K 515) or to Beethoven's Appassionata sonata and not feel the emotion that runs through these works. They are absolutely packed with it. However, to get back to your statement on "pure music", is the outward expression of a composer's emotional state a legitimate part of music, or is it a self-indulgence on the part of the composer? This is the basic philosophical difference between proponents of classical and romantic styles, IMHO. Classical composers provoke YOUR emotions, romantic composers share THEIR emotions. Just some thoughts, that's my opinion, I may be wrong.
Regards,
Gurn

[Cocchini]

Cuper, I just wanted to add that the NAXOS website: http://www.naxos.com/naxos/naxos_marco_polo.htm

contains downloads of their Complete Catalog (complete works, not just samples). I have always found this site extremely useful for sampling a wide variety of composers and styles of classical music.

Al Cocchini

[Steppenwolf]

Why do I like classical music? Let me firstly say that I do not draw a sharp distinction between 'classical' and 'modern' music. To put all 'classical' music into one box and label it with one name is actually a major error, because what we call 'classical' covers CENTURIES of different styles, composers, periods and cultures, and within this enormous range there is great diversity. It is difficult to think of a contrast more extreme than, say, a sonata by Scarlatti and a tone poem by Richard Strauss, or an opera by Purcell and an opera by Wagner. It is the modern equivalent of putting a song by Led Zeplin under the same category as a song by the Spice Girls, or comparing Abba with Marilyn Manson, or Gareth Gates with Bob Dylan. In fact, the contrast is even MORE extreme, and more absurd and ridiculous when you look at the diversity in 'classical' music. But the uncultured mob, brainwashed by MTV and American soda-pop commerical culture, lumps it all together in one, and the popular image of 'classical' music is of crusty old men in dinner suits playing long, boring adagios on violins in a dusty old concert halls. Eminem, Britney Spears and Dr Dre are MAINSTREAM ... 'classical' is dismissed as some obsure, specialist interest for boring old people (it is difficult to think of a more damning indictment of modern society and the mob mentality than this situtation).

But I don't think of myself as a 'classical' music lover, as if the word 'classical' really meant anything (unless we are speaking of the period of Western music from c.1750 - 1800, typified by Hadyn, Gluck and Mozart). I consider myself a MUSIC lover. There are different types of music, all with different merits, strenghts and weaknesses. I will listen to a song by Schubert on my CD player, enjoy it, then tire of it, then change over to a song by U2, then tire of that and play Madonna, then back to a Mozart Symphony. To me it is all just 'music' ... the only meaningful distinction is between good and bad music. However, while there is some merit in a lot of 'modern' (that is, post 1950s pop music, spanning all the different genres), and while I enjoy a lot of it, very little of it scales the lofty heights of the best of 'classical' music.

So, why do I like music? Music speaks directly to my heart. It opens up a whole new world of experience, inaccessible to ordinary, day to day consciousness. It reveals BEAUTY, it raises us above the wretched bell-jar of human individuality and connects us with the Eternal, and to that extent is an experience of ecstacy - it is one of the great pleasures and delights of my life, and the lives of many others, comparable to the delights of sexual love (in what words could the joys of that be described to a child, or a eunuch?). As Nietzsche said, music is a reason for which it is worthwhile to live in this world. It redeems life, it exults life, and it affirms life.

[This message has been edited by Steppenwolf (edited September 22, 2003).]

[urtextmeister]

There have been some excellent responses to this question. Steppenwolf's recent post reflects my opinion fairly well.
Let me just say that music for me has always been, first and foremost, an emotional, visceral experience. I can remember listening to Beethoven, Mozart and Bach as a child and having some of the most powerful emotional responses. It wasn't until later that I had the intellectual curiousity to find out about the composers, learn a musical instrument and study the music.
I suggest you take a big piece of repertoire from the classical/romantic era and really listen to it. Listen over and over again. I can almost guarantee that you the music will get under your skin. It will move you and you no longer wonder why people listen to classical music.