Classical music overview for n00bs

[arkanaut]

This is a follow-up to a Facebook conversation with Jamie: here are the pieces that I feel people just getting into Classical music (somewhat loosely defined) should know. Some of them may be considered boring these days, but if you're going to show off at a cocktail party and opine on how, for example, you tried Vivaldi but you prefer to stick

Comments

[mythomanic]

everything I know about classical music I learnt from ballet... ;) Stravinsky and Tchaikovsky ftw. (I'm thinking Rites of Spring, Swan Lake, Nutcracker.)
Puccini heroines tend to be floppy, fragile little things: DON'T TRUST THEM.
For some reason when I was a kid I really liked Holst's Planets and Saint-Saens' The Carnival of the Animals (my sister and I used to prowl around the living room to the animal songs).

[metallian]

"Everybody knows that a decent supervillain has an encyclopedic knowledge of classical music."

Very true for a certain subset of villain.

[doogly]

You can't do opera with four people! I'd happily add, at the expense of Mozart and Puccini. You certainly need some bel canto
Rossini - Il barbiere di Siviglia (1816)
Donizetti - Lucia di Lammermoor (1835)
And you mustn't ignore Wagner! Clearly not for everyone, but I'd be open.
Wagner - Die Walkure (2nd in ring cycle) (1870)
A nice restrained (more listenable) use of many of Wagner's innovations occurs in all of R. Strauss's works, for example
Strauss - Salome (1905)

I definitely get the majority of my classical music via opera. It is interesting in that there are some, like Verdi, who write fabulous music but it is really only in this genre. Then there are others whose symphonic output completely dwarfs their operatic. Vivaldi and Dvorak, for example.I do very much recommend Dvorak's Rusalka. And if you can find it, Massanet's Thais is my favorite. Much less popular, but because it is too difficult to sing, not because it is shitty.