Building a Library?

I wish for a thread as envisioned by the OP, and would certainly find it more helpful than a thread in which people simply argue about the approach. As a newb here, I expect surprises, and one of those I've encountered in a few threads is the opinion by some that recommendations defeat the joy of personal discovery as opposed to listening, as if these are incompatible endeavors.

In my view, a certain egocentric perspective is required on someone's part to think that I won't form my own opinions based on what I hear, prefer and enjoy (or not). A rec is just that, and if/when I find someone with whom I agree often - after listening - then I regard his input more than someone whose preferences are different than my own. Still doesn't stop me from taking a flier on something else now and then, either.

I realize that it is human nature to shoot down someone's idea; seems we have quite a few naturals on board. I wish the OP luck finding participants, and would suggest not arguing with detractors. I certainly won't; had my two-cent say - just one newb's opinion. If wrong, wouldn't be my first time.

What is "essential" will likely be very controversial, especially at TC (where everything seems to be controversial).

I might suggest trying for a list of essential works, then worry about what performances later.

I suppose we can begin with a fairly safe recommendation for all of Beethoven's symphonies (and can argue about the best complete cycle or collection cobbled together from individual performances).

Also at least Beethoven's piano concertos 4 and 5?

For Haydn, at least the London symphonies?

For Mozart, the later symphonies?

All four of Brahms' symphonies.

For Bach, what are the "essentials"? Goldberg? Brandenburg?

For violin concertos, the Beethoven, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Bruch 3rd, Mendelssohn?

For piano concertos (in addition to the Beethoven noted), the Tchaikovsky, the Grieg?

For choral works, I suppose Handel's Messiah

Some people might or not not consider any opera to be "essential" or any "ballet" music, depending on whether or not they are fans of those genres.

This is, obviously, just a starting point, and put together somewhat hastily.

JAS said:

What is "essential" will likely be very controversial, especially at TC (where everything seems to be controversial).

I might suggest trying for a list of essential works, then worry about what performances later.

Click to expand...

I think that is OK, but I don't really see a need to dodge the issue. This is only going to be a problem if people forget why the post is being made in the first place: trying to help, teach and point others along a route. If they use it as an ego exercise, showing how clever and erudite they are, then yes, it won't go anywhere except down the usual bun-fight plug-hole.

I don't think a beginner's guide to getting up to speed with Composer X need become a bun-fight, though. Sure, someone might really think, "That 1934 electric recording of piece A is essential!", but hopefully, putting ego to one side, they might recognise it as a bit of a ludicrous suggestion for a complete newbie! We'd instead end up with a list of "acceptable" recordings, not "must have, because I adore..."

Maybe I'm too much an optimist, though. The reaction to this thread generally suggests that it's not going to get the buy-in it needs from enthusiasts about composers X, Y and Z...

JAS said:

I suppose we can begin with a fairly safe recommendation for all of Beethoven's symphonies (and can argue about the best complete cycle or collection cobbled together from individual performances).

Click to expand...

See, that's a no-no! It's no good saying to a newbie "Listen to everything!". You have to be selective, distinguishing between "core" and "complete'. I would suggest Symphonies 1, 2 and 4 are nowhere near core (which is not the same thing at all as saying they're no good). I could live with a recommendation for 3, 5, 7... but even then, I think you really want no more than 2 exemplars of a 'genre' for any composer (though exceptions, of course, can be made where necessary). I'd say it would have to be #5, if we got really selective about it!

JAS said:

Also at least Beethoven's piano concertos 4 and 5?

Click to expand...

I think those would be fine selections.

JAS said:

For Haydn, at least the London symphonies?

For Mozart, the later symphonies?

All four of Brahms' symphonies.

Click to expand...

Any time anyone thinks "all of...", they should stop, because that's not being selective enough. Especially when they're are only four... pick one and make it stand for the others. You're trying to get someone "into" Brahms, at the end of the hook. You can direct them to the other 3 once they're properly hooked

JAS said:

For Bach, what are the "essentials"? Goldberg? Brandenburg?

Click to expand...

It's up for debate and for a true Bachian to propose, I think. Personally, I would say St. John, B minor, Goldbergs, Brandbenburg 5, and maybe a concerto and one cantata.

JAS said:

For violin concertos, the Beethoven, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Bruch 3rd, Mendelssohn?

For piano concertos (in addition to the Beethoven noted), the Tchaikovsky, the Grieg?

For choral works, I suppose Handel's Messiah

Click to expand...

Well, this was meant to be 'Building a Library by Composer', not 'build a thematic library by composition type'. I don't think it helps to do 'Choral Works': what can possibly be 'core' (and hence a gateway) if you pick one or two choral works out of 600 years of choral composing? I don't think a Classical Music newbie comes to the party in any case thinking, "I like choral" or "I like string quartets". They are more likely to say, I think, "I like the tune to that advert I heard the other day... what else did that guy write?"

JAS said:

Some people might or not not consider any opera to be "essential" or any "ballet" music, depending on whether or not they are fans of those genres.

This is, obviously, just a starting point, and put together somewhat hastily.

Click to expand...

Again, it's not about types of compositions. It's about 'if I want to get to grips with Puccini, what should I listen to first?'. If someone's not a fan of opera, they're not going to be a fan of Puccini... so they won't ask the question about him in the first place. But maybe, having listened to a Britten 'core' because of his choral works, they might have appreciated a couple of his operas and thus now fancy listening to some proper 'grand operas' -and at that point, they'd want to know to listen to Tosca and not start with, say, Il Trittico.

Anyway. I appreciate your thoughts, even if I might disagree with some of them. At least they were all constructive!

For my conception of the idea, and to take Simplicissimus' helpful suggestions earlier about Charles Ives, I threw this page together. A (very) little bit of biography. A tiny bit of characterisation of the man's output. Then the recommended core works, linked to Youtube performances so you can hear them immediately; and the recommended recordings of them, linked to somewhere you can buy the things. A one-stop shop for someone wanting to get started with Ives, with options for minimal (cash) investment, and other options for full-on commitment of the purchasing kind, too.

Follow the link on that page to 'Back to other composers' and there's 500 potential essays that could be written by one champion or another of any of them.

Maybe it requires too much of a single-editor approach to make it work here. I don't know: I can't see why it wouldn't technically be possible for one contributor to be editor for one (or more) composer's Building a Library pages, so you get strong single-minded shaping of the recommendations, but still open to input from others.

Bulldog said:

Just a couple of thoughts about how to make this process go smoothly:

1. Discuss the composers to be included starting with the surname "A".

2. After agreeing on a composer, discuss the works/recordings to be included.

There will be plenty of differences of opinions, and that's where the manager makes final decisions. Who's the manager? My pick would be AbsolutelyBaching. He started this thread and certainly has the enthusiasm to carry forward.

I'm thinking right now of the challenges of just one work - Bach's Goldberg Variations. It's certainly a "core" Bach work, but what recordings to pick? Instrument - harpsichord or piano or combination? Perahia? - some folks love him, others feel he's just Perahia playing Perahia. Tureck? Bach's Queen or an antiquated style not appropriate for the library?

Click to expand...

And when mulling that recommendation, I think you'd just say to yourself, 'What would I recommend to my young nephew/niece who's 13 and just getting his/her toes wet in these waters?' I don't think it needs to be over-thought more than that. Simply: what's a good, readily-available, reasonably-priced recording that's easy to link to on a purchasing site and/or a Youtube performance.

Since you perhaps would be allowed to declare something like BWV 1053 a 'core' work, too, you'd perhaps be able to suggest a harpsichord version of that... in which case, a piano version of the Goldbergs would make the recommendations sufficiently rounded so that our prospective neophyte is exposed to the beginnings of the debate about piano v. harpsichord, without getting sucked into it wholesale at the outset.

I think proposing we draw up lists and only deal with 'A' composers before moving on to the Bs is way more rigid an approach than I had in mind. I thought we would have mad-keen fans of all sorts of composers hereabouts (I spotted some Boulez fanatics just the other day, for example). If they're mad-keen, chip in. No need to wait for the list to get round to their pet projects, after all! Besides, I know my composers by first name: I'd hate to return to Edwardian school-room surname drill, personally.

I also don't think a 'manager' is particularly required. I think if, for example, there was a special area of the forum to which anyone could post the start of a new Building a Library thread (say: Building a Library: Johann Sebastian Bach) then someone else could start a new thread at any time called Building a Library: Pierre Boulez. Each thread can then look after its own debate and, maybe, the thread initiator can ask the mods to lock the thread if they think it's getting unwieldy? We might need someone to point out when duplicate threads have been created and nip them in the bud, merge them, re-direct them etc.

More than a project manager, we just need keen enthusiasts for one composer or another to step up and propose a 'core' for someone whose work they love, with performances that meet the cheap and readily purchaseable/linkable criteria.

Personally, I would like to see any such posts in the general form I've previously indicated: a tiny bit of biography and background, a vanishly quick overview of the sort of music you can expect from this composer, then a choice of genres in which that composer worked, with one or two (sometimes more, but not often) works in each genre. What a thread initiator thinks of as appropriate genres is again pretty much up to them: it makes no sense to make a list when Chopin didn't write a ballet and Mozart didn't write film scores! So whatever's most appropriate to the composer and the post-initiator.

Once we've got maybe half-a-dozen of these themed posts, maybe the mods will create a special forum where they can be moved to, and then that becomes the place for new 'Building a Library' posts for new composers to be made from that point on. Don't know if that's workable, though.

JAS said:

I think all nine of Beethoven's symphonies are core. You will note that I was more selective with others.

And the reason to start with works first, and specific performances second, is that for many works, there are at least roughly comparable performances. I think you will find argument about the core works (indeed you have already argued with me), and forcing it to the point of performances makes argument even more inevitable.

Click to expand...

Well, I can't explain the concept any more than I have, I fear. I'm not arguing over what is core. I'm trying to explain to you the concept of being selective, so that rather than tell your 13-year old god-daughter "You've got to listen to all 9", you can tell her 'Well, try that one -and if you like that one, there are 8 others you will probably like too. But if you hate it, well, maybe try some other type of music he wrote instead'.

We honestly do this sort of thing all the time, so I just don't get why some (rather many, actually!) people seem to have difficulty with it! When I did English Literature A-Level, I studied Romeo and Juliet and Anthony and Cleopatra. They did not make me read all 39 plays and every single one of the 154 Sonnets before I could make an intelligent case about Shakespeare, his dramatic technique and his world-view!

I think the technical term we might be looking for is synedoche: where a part of something is taken as referring to the whole of something. If the whole of something is taken as referring to the whole of something, however, well... we haven't really progressed anywhere!

And I wasn't arguing with you, either, about "start with works first". My disagreement with your earlier post was you started to talk about 'Choral Works' as a corpus you'd have to select a core from. My point was simply no: Composer is king, not genre (for this particular idea, anyway). So pick a composer, find the choral works he wrote and pick something from that body to declare as 'core' for him (or her). Repeat for any other composer you care to mention. Not, think of hundreds of choral works from every age from the 1300s to the 21st century and pick 2 as 'core', which is what you appeared to be suggesting.

Specifically, Messiah would (might) be included on Handel's core, but there'd be plenty of room for The Creation on Haydn's, Rejoice in the Lamb on Britten's, Belshazzar's Feast on Walton's and so on.

If I've misunderstood what you were driving at before, my apologies.

But really: rather than us faffing around wondering what horrors of debate might be occasioned by this project, just think of a composer you love... and draft something along Simplicissimus' Charles Ives post from earlier, or even my own Britten one. Just have a go. Imagine only that you've got someone who hasn't a clue what X wrote or was capable of: what would you suggest to that someone as a way of getting 'the gist' of a composer. Throw it together, stick it up here and let's have a look at it! Seems more productive than worrying about whether someone will want to dispute your efforts.

annaw said:

I've thought about your idea and I must say that I quite like it. I haven't grown up in a musical family or anything and got into classical music independently. Although I had some basic knowledge and knew quite a few things about music history, it was still very difficult to figure out how to listen and what to listen to. Even now, I sometimes struggle with composers I'm not that well acquainted with or with composers (especially those who composed in the 20th century) who didn't focus on the conventional genres of classical music, such as string quartets, piano sonatas or symphonies. That's why I also asked you about Britten's "most recommended" works some time ago and the recommendations have been very good and eye-opening. So, yes, I think it's a great idea!

Click to expand...

Thank you.

It seems to me that it requires vastly more energy to dismiss the idea as absurd on its face than it does to throw a couple dozen lines of thought into HTML form and see what constructive people will do with it.

The absurdity is none of the people claiming the idea is absurd do so in any other walk of life. Faced with a small mechanical issue with their car, they reach for the Haynes manual and a wrench (or appeal to the local garage that knows these things), not acquire a 7-year apprenticeship in mechanical engineering! Simplifying, distilling, condensing is the essence of teaching. It has rather disappointed me to think TC is more about list games and league tables than it is about helping people to discover what it is we all claim to love. Maybe I misjudged.

Anyway: I expect your Wagner homework on my desk by close of business Monday!!

(I jest... but Wagner is an interesting one: you can't have all his operas. You're not even allowed all the Ring. So what are you going to pick as 'essential', 'respresentative', 'proxy for the whole'? What do you reckon: Siegfried Idyl, Götterdämmerung and the Wesendonck Lieder?)

Edited to add: I reckon it might be Meistersingers after all that. Not the Ring at all. Don't know how that goes down with the Wagner afficionadi, however!

musichal said:

I don't think there should be a goal or an expectation of reaching a consensus for a composer's core compositions. Rather, let each contributor post his own opinion.

For instance, the person who opined that if he were expected to delete one or more Beethoven symphonies from his core list then he would not participate, did, in fact participate. He feels strongly that all nine are at Beethoven's core, which seems a perfectly valid position to me.

Click to expand...

Well, of course: it's a valid opinion. But it's not a terribly useful opinion in this context.

I am inescapably reminded of Blackadder inspecting a 'map' of captured territory in General Melchett's offices (2'19 in). 'What's the scale, Darling?' says Melchett. "Oh, ah, um. 1:1", replies Darling.

A map of New York that is as big as New York isn't, functionally, a map. It's just a bloody awkward piece of paper!

musichal said:

I might follow up his post by agreeing with him, but suggest Sym #3, 5 and 6 as good initial choices for a newbie.

Click to expand...

I wouldn't disagree. 3 seems OK to me, and I love 3 and 5, and 6 is the only piece of music that has ever physically cheered me up. So no problems. But you get the essence of selectivity, which is key.

musichal said:

Others may suggest differently, and I rather suspect that all nine would get a mention - which would tend to reinforce the "non-participant's" stand, to my way of thinking, and would likely be all the consensus reachable, and maybe even desirable.

Then maybe I'd mention Piano Sonata #8. I don't think each poster should seek to be any more exhaustive than he wants (or has time) to be.

Click to expand...

I think you're right. You wouldn't believe how much I chucked out of Britten that I would be heartbroken to be without, but which simply doesn't meet the brief of getting across the essence of his work without being a 1:1 representation of it. Even now, I think I might have been a bit heavy on the operas, but in my defence, there are 'grand(ish)' ones, chamber ones, church ones and so on. So...

Anyway, I don't think this is going anywhere unless advocates of the likes of Boulez, Shostakovich and so on are prepared to step up and say, 'This is the essence of the man'. I love Shostakovich dearly... but I wouldn't have a clue as to what String Quartets to mention, for example. I'm simply not a SQ man.

Oldhoosierdude said:

Look at the stickies, baby. Top of each forum board.

Click to expand...

There's actually a one small problem with those lists, although I've found them to be super useful as well - they are the favourite works of experienced listeners and thus great for a person who's already a bit more acquainted with specific composers. But is Mahler's 9th the first Mahler symphony you'd recommend someone to listen to?

I had the exact experience when I first "properly" listened to Wagner. I read one of the many "rank Wagner operas" thread in the opera subforum. Consequently, I listened to Die Walküre without any proper understanding of the plot. The idea of following the libretto probably didn't even enter my mind... The genius that I am (/s), I decided to continue with Götterdämmerung because many TCers had put it to the very top of their lists. While this worked very well for me, it could scare away a few people. I think I would have given up the idea of liking Wagner for some time if I had started with Tristan, which took me long to appreciate even after I was quite familiar with Wagner's operas - it's simply musically challenging and very intense.

Now that I've listened to Wagner significantly more, I'd say that it's, in my opinion, much wiser to start with either Lohengrin or Das Rheingold. The former is sweet and beautiful, dreamlike (a quality that will reach its climax IMO in Parsifal) and the latter is fun and musically more adventurous than Wagner's early operas. Neither are too long on the scale of Wagner and both give a relatively good understanding of Wagner's compositional language. I myself adore Die Meistersinger but it's one of his longest operas and that can (but might not) make it difficult for a newcomer. Although there's also the possibility to listen to it one act at a time. I think Siegfried's Idyll and Wesendonck Lieder are great beginner recommendations too. Götterdämmerung really requires one to know the whole Ring to truly appreciate and understand.

Or this weird little polka :lol:: It's just so awkward.