Gareth Malone’s Guide to Classical Music: The Perfect Introduction to Classical Music

Shakespeare: If you were a student of drama in the 1990s then you must have been transfixed, as I was, by Patrick Doyle’s score for Kenneth Branagh’s film of Henry V, in particular the stirring Non nobis domine sung on the battlefield by the composer himself.3 Listening to this version of the Shakespeare play led me to the discovery of the music from the Olivier film of Henry V from 1944. This was composed by William Walton (1902–1983) whose work has the edge over the younger composer. In fact it ignited a passion for the music of Walton which took in the inimitable choral work Belshazzar’s Feast and culminated with a performance where Sam West recited the text whilst the LSO played the music. Thrilling.

Sci-fi: Apparently it was LSO principal trumpet Maurice Murphy’s first day at work when the orchestra sat in the world-famous Abbey Road studios to record the music for Star Wars by John Williams. If you don’t know the score to Star Wars it begins with a blistering trumpet line which repeatedly hits the top of the trumpet’s range. Maurice dispatched the part with characteristic brilliance and subsequently played on all six of the Star Wars movies. John Williams is one of my favourite film composers because his knowledge and love of classical music is evident in every score. Homages to the great composers can be heard everywhere: Wagner, Mahler, Strauss and particularly Holst’s The Planets Suite in the case of Star Wars. If you are looking for an easy way into classical music then I suggest getting to know his many soundtracks.

I think it’s the emotional scope of an orchestra as well as the fearless playing of individuals such as Maurice Murphy that keeps film directors coming back to this traditional method of scoring a film – even when music technology offers cheaper alternatives: nothing can compete with hearing a full orchestra swell as a film reaches its emotional high point. The influence of film is as important to composers of the twentieth century as literature was in the nineteenth.

There is a commercial drive in film that simply doesn’t exist in the world of ‘art music’. A new commission for an orchestral piece is likely to be funded by philanthropic organisations hoping to encourage composers to innovate. A director who commissions for a film score is often hoping to add box-office numbers. This has in some cases led to what can only be described as flagrant plagiarism with rehashed versions of previously successful scores. It takes a composer of great personality and vision to create something truly original in this commercial environment, and when they do it’s what I call ‘classical’.

Pieces of music that you know but don’t know the title

If you watch television or listen to the radio then you might not know who wrote a piece or where it sits in the pantheon of great composers, but you will recognise it on first hearing. From the soundtrack of the BBC series The Apprentice (which is remarkably varied, featuring not only an atmospheric score by Dru Masters but many classical pieces by composers such as Stravinsky, Satie, and perhaps most famously its theme tune, ‘Dance of the Knights’ from Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet) to the British Airways adverts (‘The Flower Duet’ from Delibes’ Lakmé) there are countless examples of the plundering of classical music for the benefit of television. Long may it continue.

The following pieces (and those in Appendix I) are those I consider that anybody well versed in this sort of music will most probably have heard. It’s the sort of stuff you’re likely to hear on the radio, in the background on TV or films or played at shopping centres to prevent the local teenagers from loitering. I’m not saying that any of these pieces on their own will change your life but I believe that if you work your way through some of them then you’ll have a sense of the range of classical music that is considered popular. This is first base in your relationship with music and there are at least three more bases to go.

These are the pieces that bring so many people to classical music every year. They get in through the back door on a TV advert and they stick around, bothering you until you find out what they are. That’s when you succumb to the power of advertising and shell out for a ‘best of’ classical CD, and that isn’t a bad starting point because chances are there will be something else on that CD that catches your ear.

Dip into this list. It’s all available on the internet so you can try before you buy. I use a variety of sources to listen to music before settling on a purchase. Sometimes you can get lucky with YouTube; there are, for instance, videos of Glenn Gould playing the piano before his untimely death in 1982 or a very strange-sounding recording of the last castrato (look it up). There’s a brilliant piece of Swedish software called Spotify, though I believe it’s not available outside Europe at the moment.4 It enables you to listen to almost any music for free (periodically you have to suffer some fairly ghastly adverts unless you pay for their premium service). If you are feeling more flush then iTunes and Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com offer short excerpts to listen to before you download.

Or you could go to a shop. Retro. If you can find one …

Classical big hitters

Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana: This has seeped into our popular culture; ‘O Fortuna’ in particular has powered along behind adverts for Guinness, Old Spice, Reebok and Spicy Pringles, opened Ozzy Osbourne’s stage show, and was used on Michael Jackson’s ‘Dangerous’ tour. Recently it accompanied the entrance of Simon Cowell and the other judges on ITV’s X Factor. Carmina Burana has been used in many films, including, to name just a few:

Excalibur, 1981

Glory, 1989

Hunt for Red October, 1990

The Doors, 1991

Natural Born Killers, 1994

The Bachelor, 1999

Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik: This piece is constantly in use on film and TV, in everything from The Simpsons to X-Men 2, Batman and Alien, Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle, Ace Ventura: Pet Detective … The list goes on.

Ravel’s Boléro: Torvill and Dean, of course, made this the piece to ice skate to, but Futurama, Dr Who and Dudley Moore (in the film Ten ) have also been accompanied by its motoric, repeated theme.

Prokofiev’s ‘Dance of the Knights’ from Romeo and Juliet: Given that contestants have to be polite to each other even though they’d probably like to kill one another, the use of this courtly dance with murderous undertones from Romeo and Juliet seems an entirely appropriate choice as the theme for The Apprentice.

Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9 in E Minor, Op. 95, From the New World, Largo: Even though that small child stopped peddling up Gold Hill in Shaftesbury, Dorset, some time in the 1970s; even though he was accompanied by a brass band who were presumably (and incongruously) from the north of England; and even though they were playing music by a Czech composer who was writing while on tour in America, this piece is one of Britain’s favourites. Multiple Oscar winner Ridley Scott directed this piece of ersatz nostalgia for a Hovis bread commercial and through what might have been a total mess brought the piece to the attention of the wider public.

Other pieces you may already know – or which

won’t cause you much trouble if you don’t

Grieg: Peer Gynt Suites, ‘In the Hall of the Mountain King’/‘Solveig’s Song’/‘Morning’

Grieg: Lyric Pieces, ‘Wedding Day at Troldhaugen’

Tchaikovsky: Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture

Wagner: Ride of the Valkyries

Pachelbel: Canon in D Major

Rimsky-Korsakov, arranged by Rachmaninov: ‘Flight of the Bumblebee’

Barber: Adagio for Strings, Op. 11

Bizet: ‘Au Fond du Temple Saint’ from The Pearl Fishers

Massenet: ‘Meditation’ from Thaïs

Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 in D Minor, Op. 125, ‘Choral’, Ode an die Freude (final movement)

Beethoven: Symphony No. 5 in C Minor, Op. 67, first movement

Verdi: ‘Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves’ (‘Va’, Pensiero, Sull’ali Dorate’) from Nabucco

Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No. 1 in B Flat Minor, Op. 23

Berlioz: ‘March to the Scaffold’ from Symphonie Fantastique

Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue, Andante (or the whole piece if you’ve time)

Beethoven: Piano Sonata No. 8 in C Minor, Op. 13 (‘Pathétique’)

Vivaldi: The Four Seasons, Op. 8, ‘Spring’, Allegro

Boccherini: String Quintet in E Major, Op. 11, No. 5

Verdi: Messa da Requiem, Dies Irae – Tuba Mirum (only if you are a Take That fan – it’s the beginning of ‘Never Forget’ … only it doesn’t have Robbie Williams in Verdi’s version)

Hopefully you’ve found something which you recognise on this list. Familiarity is a useful tool with all music and I advise giving new pieces a couple of listens before giving up on them. For some more starting points for broadening your listening from the mainstream classical repertoire, see Appendix I.5

From here on in you may not recognise the pieces I mention or if you do then you won’t have heard them on a TV advert. But just because they haven’t been plucked from obscurity to be used as a theme tune or to sell cars doesn’t mean they aren’t worth listening to. There is so much great music that you’ll already have heard … imagine how much more there is to discover.

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