Classical Convert

Ringtonetime

I get real pissy when music is used as a cellphone ringtone. It still jars the hell out of me when a song abruptly sputters out of a tinny cellphone speaker, and the absolute worst is when no-one answers and so it repeatedly loops through the first 5 seconds. Don’t even get me started on ringtones which are actually supposed to be played on an orchestra.

However, after complaining about all that in a somewhat uptight and snobby fashion, if I absolutely HAD to choose a piece of classical music to use as a ringtone I think the first 30 seconds or so of this would be pretty swell:

And that’s because… DUN DUN DUN… it sounds like a freakin’ telephone.

That’s the second movement of Nielsen’s Symphony No. 6, by the way.

Shouldn’t they force him to ADD an audio track?

It took a while, but unfortunately the copyright police are now rampaging all over the YouTube classical music community. I first noticed this while checking up on the status of the embedded videos I used over at GetIntoClassical, and finding that half of them were “unavailable due to terms of use violation”. Basically, If an orchestra or record label finds out that one of their performances is on YouTube without their authorization, it’s gonna get wiped. This is really unfortunate — they are losing a wonderful way to reach a potential audience — but it’s not exactly unexpected either. Sometimes if it is not a video of an orchestra they will just disable the soundtrack.

A hilariously appropriate incident of this was just brought to my attention via the always awesome reddit:

This is a “recording” of John Cage’s 4’33″. If you try to play this video you will see that:

NOTICE: This video contains an audio track that has not been authorized by WMG. The audio has been disabled.

Hah! The joke’s on you, Warner Music Group!

Of course, this wasn’t the first time that 4’33″ has been the subject of copyright dispute. You can read about how Mike Batt was sued for infringing on the same copyright here.

Not the 9th

Beethoven is a tough little nut to crack. I remember once reading that you should get through all of Shostakovich’s string quartets before even attempting to understand Beethoven’s. Beethoven is so famous that it’s sort of overwhelming when you first start listening to classical music, because it seems like all of his music should sound amazing right away.  And a lot of it doesn’t. I remember it sounding surprisingly… old fashioned. I suspect that at a lot of people claim they think the 9th is the epitome of great music, when in fact they don’t like it that much at all, they’re just playing to its reputation.

I’ve been listening to classical music for just over six years now, and I still only know a small portion of Beethoven’s stuff well. Every couple months I’ll inch into a new (“new”!) one of his pieces, either deliberately or accidentally. The latest incarnation of this was the 24th piano sonata, in particular the second movement:

This came through my headphones halfway up the march up the slope to work. It grabbed my attention because the first few bars instantly made me think of “Rule Brittania” in a somewhat cheesy fashion, and then right as I was about to skip the track  it abruptly slipped into that crunchy dissonance. I love that kind of contrast, especially when it was composed such a long time ago. This is the kind of piece that makes me truly appreciate what a pioneer Beethoven was: things like the last movement of the Hammerklavier sonata, and the Grosse Fugue. Not the 9th.

Symphony in C++

Every now and then I can’t keep my classical music and science nerd parts apart.

Today was one of those days.

I present: A Symphony in C++:

key get_secondary_key(key home_key){
    if (home_key.minor == TRUE){
        secondary_key=relative_major(home_key);
    }else{
        secondary_key=home_key+5;
    }
}
 
void sonata_form(key home_key,tempo base_tempo){
    //Calculate secondary key
    secondary_key=get_secondary_key(home_key);
 
    //First get people in the mood
    intro.play(home_key,base_tempo--);
 
    //start exposition, introduce the two main themes
    theme_1.play(home_key);
    transition.play(home_key,secondary_key);
    theme_2.play(secondary_key);
    codetta.play();
 
    //development, mix the themes up
    for(int i=0;i<development_length;i++){
        combine_themes(theme_1,theme_2,key=rand()).play()
    }
 
    //Recapitulation: repeat the themes but in the home key
    theme_1.play(home_key);
    transition.play(home_key,home_key);
    theme_2.play(home_key);
 
    //Finish up
    if(composer == "beethoven"){
        coda.length_in_min=10
    }else{
        coda.length_in_min=1
    }
    coda.play();
}

Want to learn more about classical music but without the code? Go to getintoclassical.com.

Choose Your Own Damn Mahler Adventure

Do you love Mahler? Do you want to marry him and have his babies? Well it’s a bit late for that, but it’s not too late to participate in Deutsche Grammophon and Decca’s latest foray into the classical music social media scene. They’ve done a bang-up job arranging this one.

The idea is that they are putting together a new Mahler boxset. “But Ben! Those are a dime a dozen — well maybe a grand a dozen, but you can definitely buy 12″  I can hear you verbosely shouting at me through the internet. Well yes, but the difference here is that every symphony in the set is from a different conductor and orchestra, and it’s the voting public who get to decide which ones go in the set. “But Ben! I don’t own every single boxset, how will I compare renditions without shelling out thousands of dollars?” comes your next, sensibly thrifty proclamation.

Well that’s the best bit: you can stream — for free! — what appears to be their entire Mahler catalog, in order to confirm your decision.

So go get your Gustav on.