How many Opeth fans enjoy "classical" music?

soundave said:
Sweet! Another Schoenberg fan! I was a little reluctant to include him as he's a seriously acquired taste. His early tonal stuff, like Transfigured Night (sounds like an Opeth song title!:headbang: ) is great...sort of like Mahler (very cool), but it's of course the serial, pantonal (atonal, though he hated that phrase) that I really like. Especially the paino pieces. Moses and Aron is pretty intense, too. Pierrot Lunaire is pretty wacky. Can't quite get into the whole sprechstimme (sp?) thing. Sounds sort of goofy to me.

Have you listened to Berg (Wozzeck is crazy:devil: ...would make a good theme for a metal album, actually)? I think he is a bit more accessible. Also Webern is good for people with short attention spans. Not sure he wrote a single piece longer than 5 minutes... I love second viennese school. I like that it's unpredictable but has a really carefully planned out underlying structure.
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I have not heard any Alan Berg, but I've read that his stuff is influenced by Schoenberg. any songs you recommend to download?
And I have not heard of Webern at all. But yeah, Peirrot Lunair, love it, even the really experimental parts like Der Mondfleck.
 
soundave said:
And I use the term "classical" very loosely (as in, like string quartets and symphonies, not as in the period during which Mozart composed).

My guess is that Opeth fans are probably more likely than many metal fans to like some "classical" music (more so than, say pop or rap fans to be sure). Especially those fans that enjoy opeth for the reasons I do: the musicality, the contrasting light and dark... not necessarily because it's heavy (although, I certainly enjoy that, too...)

If you don't know any good classical music (or think it might be too boring), I have a few recommendations for Opeth fans:

Bartok's string quartets (or anything else, really). Beethoven (duh). Listen to the string quartets (I generally think that string quartets are places to hear some sick musicianship, but I'm a guitarist, so I probably have preference for string sounds...). Stravinsky's Rite of Spring and Petrushka (evil clown puppet...), Holst's "Mars Bringer of War" from The Planets, Paganini's 24 Caprices.

I could go on, but I'm interested what others think.
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(you use a lot of parentheses)
 
angelofdeath9308 said:
I have not heard any Alan Berg, but I've read that his stuff is influenced by Schoenberg. any songs you recommend to download?
And I have not heard of Webern at all. But yeah, Peirrot Lunair, love it, even the really experimental parts like Der Mondfleck.
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Don't know about downloading it, but Wozzeck is creepy. The Chamber Concerto is very cool. Try to find that (Boulez conducting, if possible)

If you like scary, nerve-jarring music, try out Penderecki's "Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima". Yikes. Kubrick used it in The Shining. Maybe the scariest music ever.

I think everything Webern ever did is on a 2 CD set. Pretty sparse, but interesting nonetheless.
 
Ecto said:
I grew up listening to classic music due to my mother. She teaches piano. I love Bach - Passacaglia (for organ). Give it a try folks. I guess you will love too.
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I also grew up with classical music due to my mother. Although she does not play and instrument, she constantly had the apartment blasting with the sweet sounds of Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Vivaldi...etc

But to answer the question, I really love classical music. Triumphant, beautiful, good stuff.
 
soundave said:
Don't know about downloading it, but Wozzeck is creepy. The Chamber Concerto is very cool. Try to find that (Boulez conducting, if possible)

If you like scary, nerve-jarring music, try out Penderecki's "Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima". Yikes. Kubrick used it in The Shining. Maybe the scariest music ever.

I think everything Webern ever did is on a 2 CD set. Pretty sparse, but interesting nonetheless.
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I love that Penderecki piece.

I really enjoy a lot of the modern composers, which i guess by most accounts is blasphemy... but i just can't get enough of Arvo Part, Giacinto Scelsi, Gyorgi Ligeti, Iannis Xenakis, and Per Norgard. Something about modern classical just strikes a chord with me. Must be the dynamics :p
 
Mumblefood said:
I love that Penderecki piece.

I really enjoy a lot of the modern composers, which i guess by most accounts is blasphemy... but i just can't get enough of Arvo Part, Giacinto Scelsi, Gyorgi Ligeti, Iannis Xenakis, and Per Norgard. Something about modern classical just strikes a chord with me. Must be the dynamics :p
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A kindred spirit! I am unfamiliar with Scelsi and Norgard... what are they like (I get the basic gist of course...)

How about Witold Lutoslawski? The Chains are very cool and extremely dynamic. Ever hear Ecstatic Orange by Michael Torke (he's synesthetic, so he hears colors and composes pieces that are a "color"...people I've heard who have this often say it's a curse, but it sounds cool to me!)

Charles Ives's Unanswered Question is really haunting and sad and worth checking out, though I think there may only be like 1 recorded version of it.
 
soundave said:
A kindred spirit! I am unfamiliar with Scelsi and Norgard... what are they like (I get the basic gist of course...)

How about Witold Lutoslawski? The Chains are very cool and extremely dynamic. Ever hear Ecstatic Orange by Michael Torke (he's synesthetic, so he hears colors and composes pieces that are a "color"...people I've heard who have this often say it's a curse, but it sounds cool to me!)

Charles Ives's Unanswered Question is really haunting and sad and worth checking out, though I think there may only be like 1 recorded version of it.
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i haven't heard ANY of those actually! thanks for the reccomendations, i'll surely check them out. It's hard for me to find people to discuss classical music with, as most are interested more in the "classics" and can't stand modern.... that, and since i hang at mostly metal and ambient boards, a lot of the people aren't into that anyway.

Scelsi is INSANE, man... i don't know how to descrive his works. I assume you know Ligeti's Requiem, right? well Scelsi predated Ligeti, and was one of the craziest (and first) guys to be so totally obsessed with microtones. He wrote entire symphonies revolving around single notes, it's microtonal influctions, and the harmonic overtones. It's really overbearing hearing some of his works. The first i heard was Hymnos, and it literally terrified me. Something about the microtones, he really had that shit figure out. Reccomended pieces are Konx-Om-Pax, Uaxuctum, and Hymnos (all of which were conducted by Jurg Wyttenbach, if you want the best versions).

As for Per Norgard, he's kind of hard to describe... the music is pretty dark and brooding, and not entirely atonal, though there are some pretty distinct sections which give that "ugly" scary feel of atonal (think Penderecki's Threnody). I've only heard his symphony #3 and #6, but both are fantastic, and highly reccomended. I'm actually listening to the #3 right now.
 
Excellent! I will try to find them.

Yeah, people don't realize how insane "classical" music can be...they always think Bach, Mozart, Beethoven (all great, but it's like thinking that all metal is pretty much the same). I love some pretty weird shit. At least that's what my friends and family think. I compose atonal music, too. I wrote a piece for string orchestra and timpani that I would love to actually have played at some point. It needs some work (some passages aren't playable the way I've written them), but I think it's pretty cool. Most people who hear it forget that it's atonal. I tried to acclimate the listener to the tritone so much that they feel like it's actually a resolution...timpanis banging out tritones instead of perfect fifths, for example. Very metal.

I assume you've heard Penderecki's Stabat Mater? Atonal choruses are just sick. I can't imagine how they do it...perfect pitch?

Just as a warning, the Torke piece is modern, but more Romantic and tonal... but still a cool thing to listen to.

Rautavaara's Cantus Arcticus is interesting (pretty mellow compared to the other stuff I've mentioned) as is John Tavener's Protective Veil. In that vein there's Oliver Messaien...Lou Harrison's Koro Sutro....
 
soundave said:
Excellent! I will try to find them.

Yeah, people don't realize how insane "classical" music can be...they always think Bach, Mozart, Beethoven (all great, but it's like thinking that all metal is pretty much the same). I love some pretty weird shit. At least that's what my friends and family think. I compose atonal music, too. I wrote a piece for string orchestra and timpani that I would love to actually have played at some point. It needs some work (some passages aren't playable the way I've written them), but I think it's pretty cool. Most people who hear it forget that it's atonal. I tried to acclimate the listener to the tritone so much that they feel like it's actually a resolution...timpanis banging out tritones instead of perfect fifths, for example. Very metal.

I assume you've heard Penderecki's Stabat Mater? Atonal choruses are just sick. I can't imagine how they do it...perfect pitch?

Just as a warning, the Torke piece is modern, but more Romantic and tonal... but still a cool thing to listen to.

Rautavaara's Cantus Arcticus is interesting (pretty mellow compared to the other stuff I've mentioned) as is John Tavener's Protective Veil. In that vein there's Oliver Messaien...Lou Harrison's Koro Sutro....
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ahh yes, i've heard Stabat Mater. Damn cool. Rautavaara, Tavener and Messaien i do like, but was never completely floored by them. Sometimes it takes a special "moment" though for me to really click with the music and get into it. In fact, almost all the time that happens with this kind of stuff hehe. Cool that you wrote a piece too! i would love to start doing that, but i'm just too ignorant when it comes to understanding how the instruments are to be played and even just understanding how to properly notate what i hear in my head.
 
Shadows Skulk said:
eh I'm a classical noob for the most part but I like Chopin and Stravinsky more than anyone I've heard
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check out some ravel...i'm kind of a noob too...but, if you like chopin...you might dig some of his stuff too.
 
LadyValerie said:
Jean Sibelius is the man
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Dude yes, first Symphony I ever played in was Sibelius' 2nd. Still my favourite (I'm a French Horn player)

Am into more romantic-era than classical-era, Mozart kinda put me off with his insanely repetitive an poppy Horn Concertos (athough the second mvt. to the 3rd is quite nice)

Otherwise, Beethoven, Schoenberg, Shostakovich, Stravinsky, Tchaikovsky. The really passionate stuff, you know. Oh and I like Messiaen's Turangalila for the sheer jazziness. And Duruflé. I've sung and played Horn in the Royal Albert Hall (I sung bass in Verdi's Requiem)

And yes, I was a metaller by this point. I think if people who are into Opeth weren't into it because of the whole light/dark, classical/folk influence and musicality, they'd have rejected Damnation as a "sell-out". Opeth are lucky to have some pretty cool fans!:headbang:
 
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