Classical Music For Dummies
Overview
Classical music was never meant to be an art for snobs!
In the 1700s and 1800s, classical music was popular music. People went to concerts with their friends, they brought snacks and drinks, and cheered right in the middle of the concert.
Well, guess what? Three hundred years later, that music is just as catchy, thrilling, and emotional.
From Bach to Mozart and Chopin, history's greatest composers have stood the test of time and continue to delight listeners from all walks of life. And in Classical Music For Dummies, you'll dive deeply into some of the greatest pieces of music ever written. You'll also get:
- A second-by-second listening guide to some of history's greatest pieces, annotated with time codes
- A classical music timeline, a field guide to the orchestra, and listening suggestions for your next foray into the classical genre
- Expanded references so you can continue your studies with recommended resources
- Bonus online material, like videos and audio tracks, to help you better understand concepts from the book
Classical Music For Dummies is perfect for anyone who loves music. It's also a funny, authoritative guide to expanding your musical horizons—and to learning how the world's greatest composers laid the groundwork for every piece of music written since.
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About The Author
David Pogue is a six-time Emmy-winning “CBS Sunday Morning” correspondent, a New York Times bestselling author, and a former Broadway conductor and arranger.
Scott Speck is an internationally acclaimed conductor and author who has delighted audiences in London, Paris, Moscow, Beijing, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and countless other cities.
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classical music for dummies
CHEAT SHEET
The world of classical music becomes quite a bit less mysterious when you know the names and functions of all the musical instruments, and a basic timeline of the music itself. This Cheat Sheet will help you discuss classical music with confidence.Meet the classical orchestraLet’s meet the Classical orchestra.
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Chamber music is music originally written for a small group of instruments, to be played in someone’s living room (or “chamber”) instead of a concert hall. These days, you’re most likely to hear it in a small public venue — a university recital hall, perhaps, or maybe even a coffeehouse or subway platform. In general, any group of instruments that can play without a conductor is chamber music.
General Music
Antonio Vivaldi (1678–1741), Italian classical music celebrity of the Baroque period, worked for the Catholic Church. Talk about prolific: This guy wrote more music in his lifetime than just about anyone else on the planet. Aside from his 50 operas, more than 40 pieces for choir and orchestra, and 100 works for orchestra alone, he wrote nearly 500 concertos for various solo instruments with orchestra.
General Music
One bit of weirdness strikes you the first time you go to a classical music concert, guaranteed: Nobody claps when the playing stops! “What the heck is wrong with this audience?” you think. “That was great playing!”
Why nobody claps
The crowd, having followed along in the program, knows that the piece isn’t over yet — only one movement, or section of a piece, has ended.
The world of classical music becomes quite a bit less mysterious when you know the names and functions of all the musical instruments, and a basic timeline of the music itself. This Cheat Sheet will help you discuss classical music with confidence.Meet the classical orchestraLet’s meet the Classical orchestra.
General Music
Classical music notation be confusing. If you sit down at the piano and plunk out one of Ludwig van Beethoven’s incredible sonatas, you have only his written score to work from. The notes are all there, along with the rhythms and dynamics. However, it’s impossible to say how closely this written music mirrors the brilliant ideas in the composer’s head.
Classical music is daunting to some. Here’s a little orchestration made easy. In addition to volume and speed, another important factor in determining how classical music sounds is who’s playing it. That doesn’t mean people; it means instruments.
Playing with sound colors
Orchestration is the art of assigning all the notes in a particular piece of music to the different players of the orchestra.
In classical music, a ballet is a story that’s told in music and dance, with no speaking and no singing. In the old days of ballet, the dance was the only important thing. The composer’s job was to write music that let the dancers show off.
Musical considerations such as drama, pacing, and even beauty of sound were secondary to the spectacle of the dance: young men and women with great legs.
The earliest classical music was composed primarily for singing (for example, in church) or dancing. Very little “easy listening” took place in ancient times. If you go to a concert and hear a minuet, you’re hearing a form that was originally meant strictly for dancing. In the old days, the only people who simply listened to minuets were people without dates.
In olden days, classical music composers were expected to fit their works into a predetermined structure — sonata form, for example, or rondo form. These forms were fixed, rigid, and considered almost sacred. If composers felt the urge to let their imaginations run wild, their only recourse was to write in yet another form: the most formless of all forms, the fantasia.
No classical music discussion is complete without the Lieder. In German, the word Lied (pronounced “leed”) means song; Lieder means songs or art songs. In the 1800s especially, Lieder came to great prominence, particularly in private salon concerts.
In classical-music discussions, salon doesn’t refer to hairstyling emporiums.
General Music
The word symphony has two meanings in classical music, and for the sake of your cocktail-party reputation, you’d better get them straight. Symphony usually refers to a musical work written in a certain form. But the term can also refer to a symphony orchestra, meaning a group of musicians who perform that kind of music.
General Music
Violins are considered to be essential in classical music. Most people think of a violinist using the bow across the strings to create music. However, there are multiple techniques for playing the violin that can create a variety of sounds.
Vibrating the string
When a violinist fingers a note with her left hand and draws the bow with her right, she doesn’t leave her finger in one place for the duration of the note.
General Music
Despite stereotypes of old, long-haired, dead composers (and an even older audience), the art of creating classical music is still very much alive. Composers continue to write for soloists, chamber ensembles, and orchestras, and their works continue to carve new paths in the cultural landscape.But classical music in the 21st century differs from classical music of the 20th century in one important respect: It sounds less modern than the older music did.
General Music
Felix Mendelssohn (1809–1847) was a child of privilege, but his contribution to classical music is undeniable. His father was a banker; his grandfather (Moses Mendelssohn) was a philosopher. After his parents discovered Felix’s immense natural abilities, they helped Felix begin developing his great potential.
Like Mozart, he started composing early, but Mendelssohn’s childhood music is even more mature-sounding — especially the Octet for Strings (written at age 16) and the Overture to Shakespeare’s play A Midsummer Night’s Dream (written at age 17).
General Music
No discussion of classical music would be complete without Schubert. Beethoven was 20 when his future pallbearer Franz Schubert (“SHOE-bert”) was born. Shrewdly observing that every great composer of the Classical period eventually moved to Vienna, Schubert chose to save the plane fare and just be born there.
As with Mozart, melodies poured from Schubert like honey from the bottle; after one piece was finished, he simply began another.
General Music
Because the piano is such an important element in classical music, the influence of Frédéric Chopin is undeniable. Frédéric Chopin (1810–1849), a thin, frail virtuoso pianist from Poland. Chopin (“sho-PAN,” except that you don’t really pronounce the final N; instead, you send it flying through your nose) single-handedly revolutionized the world of piano music.
General Music
While Vivaldi was composing away in Venice, another composer was turning heads in Germany and England: George Frideric Handel (1685–1759). He too had a great influence on the direction that music took during and after his lifetime. Keep reading to get a handle on Handel.
Credit: Source: Creative CommonsGeorge Frideric Handel, composer of Messiah and other great oratorios.
General Music
Now, if melody were the only worthwhile component of classical music, humans would be born with only one finger. But music, even on the page, has more than one dimension. At any moment, you hear more than the melody note; underneath, you hear a specific group of additional notes that form the harmony — the chord.
General Music
The orchestra world is a slowly evolving beast. At its heart, a classical concert is the same animal that your grandparents may recognize. However, the past two decades have seen developments that have brought the audience closer to the music. Here’s a look at what’s changed — and what’s not.
Identifying what’s new
First, much more new music is being performed, which is due primarily to one factor: new music is gorgeous again.
General Music
Most musicians count Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750) among the handful of greatest classical musicians who ever lived. And some would nominate him as The Greatest of Them All. Not just because every one of his compositions is a knockout, but also because every subsequent composer owes a great debt to him.
Credit: Source: Creative CommonsJohann Sebastian Bach, master of the organ.
General Music
Like Mozart and Beethoven before him, German-born Johannes Brahms (1833–1897) was a classical music child prodigy. Luckily for him and for us, his father (a bass player) recognized and nurtured his talent during the formative years.
Credit: Source: Creative CommonsJohannes Brahms, one of the greatest of all composers of classical music.
Let’s meet the Classical orchestra. It’s the big night: You show up at the concert hall. But holy smokes, there are almost 100 people up on that stage. Here’s what they’re playing:
Violin: The instrument is made of wood; the bow is made of horsehair; the four strings are made of metal; the sound is sweet, singing, and divine.
General Music
The best Russian composer made significant contributions to classical music. He was a self-absorbed, neurotic, vulnerable, intense guy whose entire life consisted of suffering. So that’s gotta count for something. His name was Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky (“chai-KOFF-skee”; 1840–1893).
Credit: Source: Creative CommonsPeter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, the best of the Russian Romantic composers.
General Music
Liszt liked to call his daring style of music, filled with unusual harmonies and structures, “Music of the Future.” (Perhaps it’s a good thing for classical music that he never heard gangsta rap.) But the prime proponent of “Music of the Future” was Richard Wagner (1813–1883).
Wagner (pronounced “VAHG-ner”) became Liszt’s friend and brother in arms — or, more precisely, son-in-law in arms: Wagner married Liszt’s daughter Cosima (after courting her away from her first husband).
General Music
Robert Schumann (1810–1856) was one of the foremost German Romantic classical music composers, although not everybody knew it at the time. His life story, punctuated as it was by periods of great emotional trauma, would have been number one on the self-help bestseller list. Here’s all you need to know about this certifiable eccentric.
General Music
No one can deny that Rachmaninoff was a significant influence to classical music. Although he lived until 1943, Sergei Rachmaninoff (“rock-MAHN-i-noff”; 1873–1943) was a true Russian Romantic. He grew up in St. Petersburg and studied at the conservatory there, absorbing everything that the great Russian masters such as Tchaikovsky and the Mighty Fistful had to offer.
Ah, the cello. It’s difficult to even write about this instrument without sighing. Classical music wouldn’t be what it is without the cello. What a beautiful, rich, singing sound this instrument makes. Of all the string instruments, the cello is the one that sounds most like the human voice.
The name cello is short for violoncello, which is Italian for “small double bass.
The clarinet looks somewhat like an oboe, but it makes a very different sound in classical music: full, but without the edge of the oboe’s sound. One important reason for this difference is that, whereas the oboe has a double reed (a piece of shaved cane doubled over on itself), the clarinet has a single reed.
General Music
Now you’re settled into your seat and you’ve read your program book. If this is your first classical music concert, you’ll notice one empty seat on the stage — just to the left of the conductor’s podium. This seat is that of the first violinist — the concertmaster (known in England as the Leader).
The concertmaster has many essential duties.
General Music
Don’t be ashamed if you find yourself wondering what the big deal about the conductor is. Classical music novices wonder. Audience members wonder. Even the orchestra musicians sometimes wonder. It requires an explanation.
A professional orchestra is a highly skilled group of individuals. But put a bunch of these musicians in a room together, and you’re guaranteed to get at least 50 different ideas of how the music should go.
General Music
The double bass provides a unique sound in classical music. The lowest of all string instruments, the double bass (pronounced “base,” not like the fish) is enormous, bigger around than the average human being. The instrument can play much lower than anyone can sing, and it provides the foundation for the orchestra’s sound.
General Music
The most noble-sounding of the brass instruments in classical music is the French horn. With a full, round, dark tone, the French horn sounds both powerful and elegant. Because the French horn actually is a horn (unlike the English horn, which isn’t), it’s often called the horn. (It’s not, however, actually French.
The piccolo provides a unique sound in classical music. This instrument works like a teeny weeny flute — actually, it’s half the size of a normal flute. Thus the column of air inside the piccolo is also half as long as that inside a flute. What this means is, when you press the same keys that you would press on a flute, the notes come out sounding one octave higher than those of the flute.
The trombone offers a special sound to classical music. Every red-blooded American of a certain age knows what a trombone is, thanks to a famous song that has 76 of them. The trombone is the quintessential parade instrument; no marching band would be complete without it. It’s a powerful low brass instrument. But this characteristic is just one of the trombone’s many sides.
From the very beginning of classical music, the violin has played an extremely prominent role in all orchestral music. In fact, the violin section plays much of the melody in every piece of classical orchestra music you’re likely to hear.
Whereas a piano has 88 sets of strings, a violin has only 4. These strings stretch all the way down the length of the instrument, fastened on top by the pegs and on the bottom by the tailpiece.
You may think that nobody writes classical music anymore — but they do! New “classical music” is being written all the time. Here are some of the most famous pieces of orchestral music, along with rough guides to the stylistic periods (Baroque, Classical, Romantic, or Modern) into which they fall.
General Music
The program booklet you receive at a classical music concert is critical to enjoying the experience. You can expect to see all the following elements in any self-respecting program book:
A list of the pieces of music you’re going to hear
A short explanation of each piece and its composer, including some history
A biography of the conductor and any guest soloists in the concert
A list of the players
An advertisement for a bank
The typical concert format
For reasons that are almost unfathomable, the vast majority of symphony orchestras use one constant, tried-and-true format for 90 percent of their concerts.
General Music
Woodwind instruments in general are known for their versatility of sound in classical music; none is more versatile than the bassoon. This beautiful instrument is capable of sounding completely different in all its registers.
Credit: Source: Creative CommonsThe bassoon.
In the highest register, the sound of the bassoon can be strained, throaty, even other-worldly.
General Music
Unlike all other woodwind instrument you’ll find in classical music, the flute isn’t blown into, but blown across, just like a cola bottle. But the flute is much prettier to look at than the bottle — and sounds better, too. As you set that column of air inside the flute moving, it produces a beautiful, silvery sound.
General Music
Every instrument plays a role in classical music, including the harpsichord. Not all keyboard instruments are touch-sensitive like the piano. Your basic cheapo portable $75 electronic keyboard isn’t, for example. Nor was the piano’s predecessor, the harpsichord. On this keyboard, every note comes out at a medium volume, no matter how hard you hit the key.
General Music
You will likely recognize the sound of the oboe when you hear it in classical music. Like the flute, the oboe produces sounds by causing a column of air to vibrate. But instead of a hole to blow across, the oboe has a reed to blow into.
Credit: Source: Creative CommonsStill life: Oboe, with reed.
If you were an oboe player (or a bassoonist), you’d spend much of your time making reeds.
General Music
The organ is an important instrument in classical music. In modern times, you hear the pipe organ at every wedding (and simulated at every baseball game) you attend. Pipe organs have a varying number of pipes, ranging from dozens to thousands.
The largest organs in the world have enough pipes to fill several walls of a cathedral.
General Music
In sheer sonic force, the trumpet is the strongest of all orchestral instruments. As the highest-pitched brass instrument in classical music, the trumpet can be heard over the rest of the orchestra; it’s also the instrument from which wrong notes are the most noticeable. The trumpet is the most fleet and agile brass instrument.
General Music
If you’re a typical product of American pop culture, you may be surprised to find the tuba listed in a discussion of classical music. You’re likely to associate the tuba with the fat kid in movie versions of high-school marching bands.
But the tuba should get more respect. This massive instrument is capable of producing a wall of sound that can blow you away.
General Music
What’s the difference between a violin and a viola in classical music? Size — the viola’s slightly bigger. But from the audience, seeing this subtle size difference isn’t easy. The sound of the viola is distinctive, however. Compared to the violin, the sound is breathier and throatier. The high notes on a viola sound less effortless than on a violin, and the low notes are powerful and rich.
General Music
Nearly every classical orchestra belongs to one particular city — and as such, it spends the vast majority of its season performing for people in that community. But now and then, an orchestra gets the extraordinary opportunity to present its classical music in another part of the world on tour.
Orchestras love touring.
General Music
No discussion of classical music is complete without scales. Technically speaking, a musical scale is a way of dividing up an octave into various intervals. Now, in the Western world, all the intervals within a scale are seconds — major and minor seconds, that is. The characteristic sound, feel, and identity of any scale are determined by the arrangement of those major and minor seconds.
General Music
A classical music concert is a wonderful event for lovers. Think of all the love songs that refer to orchestral music: “I hear violins.” “I hear a symphony.” “It’s music to my ears!” Orchestral music has been synonymous with romance for decades. Just think: Violins! Harps! Tubas!
Well, okay — violins and harps.
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