Explain naming of classical music to me please.

[TipseyTorvey]

I occasionally love listening to classical music but despite some botched attempts to learn how to play anyself (piano and flute grade 2), I don't really know much about it. I occasionally hear the most beautiful pieces on the radio but when I try to listen to hear what it's called it's usually something totally impossible to remember like Bach symphony in e minor second string. I've made that up obviously but why don't the songs have names I can remember like 'where sheep may safely graze'(like that one) and how does an ignoramus like me find music to listen to? I've bought compilations etc but is there some kind of naming convention I'm missing?

If you like swooping and melodic try:

Vaughan Williams. The Lark Ascending is his most famous but I love five variants on Dives and Lazarus too.
Butterworth's Banks of green willow
Beethoven 'Emperor' piano concerto
Faure requiem for some choral gorgeousness.

Personally Einaudi just goes rounding circles for me but that's just my taste!

tbh I think each epoche has some real gems.
one for each mood.
last year at the proms we had an incredible concert with a 'light' mozart concerto for 3 (I think) orchestras placed all over the concert hall, followed by a modern piece with alp horns and finished with r. strauss alpensinfonie.

Yay! I'm so glad you like it! I know less than nothing about classical music but my favourites are: Yiruma - River Flows in You, Jeux Interdits by Rahel Senn and Song for Sienna by Brian Crane. They all feel kind of magical and lofty.

OMG larks ascending is amazing!! That's a pitiful adjective but it's just lovely. I can't believe I hadn't heard it before. Thanks team classical!

Great thread! Thanks to all the musically knowledgable!

On a tangent but I really love where singers have collaborated with orchestras- Jonny Cash doing bird on a wire & Bjork's hyperballad with the Brodsky quartet come to mind. I guess I like something to sing along to! Anything else similar that anyone would recommend or something?

the programme for this summer's bbc proms will be available from 17 april.
worth a look.
the cheapest tickets are about 12£ and it's a great experience.
www.royalalberthall.com/tickets/proms/bbc-proms-2019/

A few more ideas for you OP:

Concertos:
Piano - Chopin (wrote 2), Mozart (wrote loads, take your pick, the 23rd is gorgeous)
Violin - Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Tchaikovsky, Bruch, Brahms, Vivaldi Double
Clarinet - Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto is amazing (Out of Africa music)
Cello - Elgar

Choral works (if we can convert you to a fan!)

Bach’s St John Passion
Mozart’s Requiem, and Ave Verum Corpus
Faure’s Cantique de Jean Racine (plus his Requiem which pp recommended)

I think you'd like Chopin - try his ballades. Also, try Schubert's piano impromptus.

Bach - hard to go wrong. One of my favourite albums is Kennedy plays Bach - got the double violin concerto and the oboe and violin concerto on it.

Try Mozart piano concertos no. 21, 23 and 24 for pure gorgeous piano music.

I'm pretty sure I can't think of a single Mozart or Vaughan Williams piece I don't like.

If you want calming and contemplative then Allegri Miserere Mei is beautiful. Or Fantasia on a theme of Thomas Tallis by Vaughan Williams.

I love the Lark Ascending, it nearly makes me cry. I know it’s akin to Bryan Adams’ ‘Everything I do, I do it for you’, with the hardcore classical fans shouting ‘Not again!!!’, but I just love it!

Try Debussy, Eric Satie “gymnopedie”, Beethoven Moonligjt Sonata, or anything called “Romantic piano”. Classic FM is a really good place to start to get to know which composers/periods you like.

You’ve had lots of good info, but this is a bit confusing /wrong:
“String Quartet - 4 movements for two violins, viola and cello
Quintet - 4(?!) movements for solo instrument and string quartet”

A quartet just means four instruments. A quintet is five instruments. String quartets and quintets, or woodwind ones are popular. They might play any kind of music with any number of movements, or pieces without movements.

If you like the birds swooping around thing then I loooove Christopher Tin’s Sogno di Volare (The Dream of Flight). It’s a modern piece but really lovely.

Totally agree with a previous poster about Einaudi - really not keen at all.

Oh and if you're in a non classical mood the band that most matches what you like is Elbow.

The Seldom Seen Kid is a great album to start with.

More piano-based gorgeousness:

Liszt/Schubert: Ständchen
Debussy: Clair de Lune

Wigeon oops yes you're right! I used to be a music teacher and I got stuck in curriculum definition mode... we only did string quartet and piano quintets for some bizarre reason, everything else was only referred to as "chamber music" . I was referring to types of works rather than the instruments involved but it was definitely confusing, sorry Just as well I gave up teaching!

You might like a podcast by Clemency Burton Hill. It’s called classical fix - she makes a playlist of classical music for guests who don’t know classical music. She puts some really interesting, varied things on and they talk about it in general terms - you don’t have to know all the terms etc. I think the playlists might be on Spotify.

@BellMcEnd you might not like Einaudi but OP said she likes rippling piano! To be fair I don't listen to Einaudi but I love playing it, calms me right down!

I love classical music but I am pretty uneducated. Shazam is your friend! I will listen to Classic FM then Shazam the ones I love. I've known some of them for years but not composer or title. Here's some I've found using the app.

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tipsey if you like delicate rippley piano try some Chopin! And one of my favourite rippley piano pieces is la Campanella by Liszt.

This thread has been so interesting, thank you! I’ve been listening to Classic FM constantly recently (Brexit fatigue has me avoiding r4 these days) and I was trying to work out what opus etc means.

I play the piano (badly now, although passed grade 7 many moons ago), however have only recently started to really enjoy varied classical music rather than just piano stuff and thinking ‘cor, that sounds hard!’

I’m not really into classical music, but a couple of people on Facebook mentioned Ludovico Enuidi i as he’s coming on tour to the U.K.(never heard of him before ). i’ve Found him on Spotify and actually quite like him. I think he will fit into what you like.

One of my favourite playlists on Spotify is called "Reading Soundtrack" - lots of lovely contemporary classical music

This is a lovely thread. OP you might like Smetana’s Vltava, which is the journey of a river from its source to the sea - it starts out as a trickling steam and you can hear the theme transformed into a country dance, water nymphs, a broad river through the city etc

sipperskipper snap on radio4! I used to really enjoy being educated and informed of a morning but since 2016 with Brexit and Trump I just can't take it anymore. Far better to listen to talented clever people making beautiful music. Thanks so much to everybody for all the suggestions, I'm taking note and will be listening to all of them through the week now.

Yes Smetana's Vltava is fabulous.
On a similar theme is Mendelssohn's Hebrides overture- also known as Fingal's Cave (after the actual Dave).