Classical Music Has It All

In the “Love Classical Music” group on Facebook, someone asked this (one year ago): “Can someone tell me what there is to like about classical music?” Because this person joined the Classical Music group to ask this question, I took her seriously, that she really was trying to learn, why should she listen to classical music-and wasn’t just trying to be a troll in the group.

I will attempt to answer her question this way. For whatever your musical tastes are-rock, country, blues, soul, etc., classical music displays features of all of these genres of music. In other words, classical music has it all.

Some people like country music because of the different narratives of life it tells.  Some people like rock music for the sound, the beat and sometimes excitement it brings.  Some like pop music for a more light hearted mood. Some like blues music for the spiritual character and depiction of harsh realities of some life experiences.  Some like the Louisiana Cajun or Zydeco music for the upbeat fun nature that will put a smile on your face. Some people, like me, really love Motown music for its beautiful melodies and vocal harmonies. One of the reasons I love classical music, because you can get many of these same different moods somewhere in the classical genre. That mood won’t be spoken with words but rather with the music delivered by the symphonic orchestra. What is more, you can not only get a variety of moods – happiness, sadness, serious, light hearted, pensive, etc. but you can get those different moods with also many times a beautiful melodic sound. 

Please turn up the volume and enjoy all the various moods you can get from classical music that you can also find in the different genres of non-classical music.

1. For a rocking, boisterous, exciting sound that you might get from rock music-let’s turn to Richard Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries” from Act 3 of his opera,Die Walküre:

2. For a fun light-hearted piece that might put a smile on your face that you hear from Zydeco-Cajun music, listen to this piece from the great Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: “Marriage of Figaro Overture”:

3. For a romantic, beautiful piece that you might hear in a romantic rhythm and blues piece you might here from 50’s or 60’s or a romantic pops song, enjoy the slow movement of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto #5, “Emperor”:

4. For a piece with just some great beautiful melodies that you might hear from a soul and or Motown song, please listen to this beautiful piece from Felix Mendelssohn, “Hebrides Overture”:

5. For a more somber and pensive piece you might find in Blues music, here is Samuel Barber’s iconic, “Adagio for Strings”:

6. You may ask, I bet you can’t find something in classical music that comes close to rap music. Well for a beat thumping voice rhythmic constant pattern song, here is the first two movements of Carl Orff’s, Carmina Burana:

7. The final example is a piece of music that is called a program piece, written specifically to tell a story through music, not words [a country music song will tell it’s story through words]. One of the best examples is Maurice Ravel’s orchestration of the Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky’s “Picture at an Exhibition” which depicts walking through an art museum and depicting the different exhibits in that museum.  The walking through the museum is delivered by the main mesmerizing “promenade” theme [that you will hear open this program piece and throughout].  This is one of my favorite pieces of music.  The exhibits that are represented by the music: Promenade 1. The Gnome 2. The Old Castle 3. Tuileries (Children’s Quarrel after Games) 4. Bydlo: Cattle 5. Ballet of Unhatched Chicks: 6. Samuel Goldenberg and ‘Schmuÿle 7. Limoges. The Market (The Great News) 8. Catacombs (Roman Thomb) 9. The Hut an Hen’s Legs (Baba Yaga) 10. The Bogatyr Gates (aka: “The Great Gate of Kiev”):

In other words….or should I say, in other music….you can get it all from classical music!