Classic FM Made A Stupid List - Reaction
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 5 เม.ย. 2024
- This video is a purely reactive one. Matthew King, without any prior knowledge, checks over the top 50 items (this is part 1) in the Classic FM 'Hall of Fame’ and reacts spontaneously to them. The reaction includes various attempts to play and ‘sing’ extracts from some of them on the spur of the moment (and inevitably there are quite a few lapses of memory and inaccuracies!)
This is really an exercise in instantaneous reaction. Feel free to react spontaneously (if politely!) in the comments below.
Thank you for watching.
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#ClassicFM #Top50 #The MusicProfessor
Rumour has it Classic FM might buy another CD later this year.
... and I bet it'll be called "Adagio II"
😂
Is Classic FM run by the same guy who does userbenchmark?
☠️☠️☠️☠️ excellent comment
But that’s not for certain
The fact that none of the Chopin ballades or the Liszt Sonata in b minor is in this list, but a bunch of film score is straight up baffling
The term “Classical Music” is quite ambiguous and people might consider those orchestral film music to be in classical style just because it is using an orchestra.
Funny you mention. I just learned the Scherzo 1 and part of the liszt sonata lol
"Liszt is trash" - Dave Hurwitz.
@@tt-ew7rx It seems like context is meaningless this day and age, sadly
@@deividfost That seemed to be a non-context remark meant as a global view by the speaker of that sentence - my understanding. I watched the whole video where that remark was made and there were no ifs or buts.
I believe the Shostakovich Jazz Suites were called that because they were written for a jazz orchestra (in the soviet sense).
I’ve seen them billed as “Variety Suites for Jazz Orchestra” before and I think it’s a much better term!
Unfortunately, Shostakovich wasn’t terribly jazzy. His writing for piano (for example the cadenza of his 1st piano concerto) seems to show the influence of ragtime & stride, but I’m not terribly sure, I’ll be honest.
It’s actually just a complete mistitle all together. A publisher incorrectly titled the work “Suite for jazz orchestra no. 2” when the actual name is “suite for variety orchestra no. 1”.
@@jacobbass6437 Ah, got it. Thank you for clarifying!
Thank you for pointing this out. Apparently its correct title is 'Suite no. 1 for Variety Orchestra'. There was an editorial error in the tenth volume of the Shostakovich collected works edition published in 1984 which resulted in the Suite for Variety Orchestra No. 1 being misidentified as the "Suite for Jazz Orchestra No. 2" or "Jazz Suite No. 2". The score was first published with the correct name in 2001.
I do insist on a part 2! Also, I agree with your hot takes: Rach 2 is absolutely genius (especially the counterpoint in that 3rd movement), and The Phantom Menace is epic and unfairly gets a lot of hate.
Ashokan Farewell is a fiddle tune written for a documentary. Not classical music. It’s very popular for fiddle players.
The version Classic FM plays is too sanitised, too "tamed". Listen to the original played by Jay Ungar to hear what it should sound like.
@@gingercat6128 it’s in the folk tradition now, everyone (myself included) plays it a little differently.
I'm loving the thoughtful but endlessly polite critique of this list, and want more!
Ashokan Farewell according to Wikipedia “The piece is a waltz in D major, composed in the style of a Scottish lament (e.g., Niel Gow's "Lament for His Second Wife").[3] Jay Ungar describes the song as coming out of "a sense of loss and longing" after the annual Ashokan Music & Dance Camps ended.[3] The most famous arrangement of the piece begins with a solo violin, later accompanied by guitar and upright bass. Another arrangement, featuring Ungar, Mason, and their family band, is performed with two violins, an acoustic guitar, and a banjo, with the piece beginning with a solo violin.” It was used in the Ken Burns Civil War Documentary.
his recordings with his wife are wonderful…fab fiddler
"I love democracy" - Palpatine
I love the Republic
imagine if the voters of this list were given the opportunity to engage with 'classical music' on a level beyond the most superficial possible?
What does exactly demonstrate that the voters were superficial? Actually, it looks like a quite good list to my eyes.
Go for it. I'm Radio 3 more then Classic FM, but more than both my own ability to explore via TH-cam. No - I won't pay for a subscription service, and have collected CDs, and will continue to do so, since these days, in charity shops you can get them for 50 pence, and even complete opera sets for 2£.
Classic FM are on to something though.
Just one observation from me: Saint Saens Organ Symphony 1980s - RFH - tremendous. One of those pieces you have to be there for. All music is like that, but I wonder how many of the voting audience of Classic FM had actually heard it, in its concert -hall - encompassing reality. I think Radio 3 still points the listener to performances. Classic FM commodifies the marketable, the already recorded.
I TOTALLY AGREE!! Bach should’ve been in top 3
Ashoken Farewell is a wonderful Americana piece played in the series The Civil War. They read the death letter of Sullivan Ballou through it and it is touching, ethereal. Guitar, violin, bass. It's good to see a traditional American folk piece of beauty represent here.
yes please release the 2nd half. I really enjoyed this reaction.
looking forward to part 2 of your responses to this list
Looking forward to part 2!
Beethoven's 'Moonlight' sonata only voted in because every ClassicFM listener knows the 1st movement, a few know the last movement and hardly any of them know the 2nd movement.
Except those of us who have played it. Yes, you are right!
Can you demonstrate that they don't know the entire sonata?
@@ClassicalMusicAndSoundtracks Chances are they don't know what sonata form is. I bet you a fiver if you play the 2nd movement to them in isolation and ask them what piece (or 'song' as they probably call it) is, they won't have a clue.
@@chrisperyagh I don't see why shouldn't they know the sonata form, considering that they are fans of classical music. You treat them as if they were idiots... and why? Perhaps only because they create lists that you don't like.
For me, the list I see in this video is good, and I ensure you that I'm perfectly aware of the structure of classical music.
@@ClassicalMusicAndSoundtracks You really are taking this far too seriously for your own good. You do realise Classic FM is a commercial radio station and rarely ever plays entire works in full, unless they're really short like the Baroque era symphonies by Boyce which are shorter than a Romantic era scherzo movement. Have you even heard of Classic FM?
Even for most of the classical music on this list, I could name a film for you.
Please I beg of you good sir, I do insist that you release the second part immediately! Having been shocked myself I am dying to see your reaction.
Thanks for your encouragement. We are planning on releasing it after all of the insistent comments though it will have to be edited first so cannot be released immediately!
The prelude from Suite Bergamasque is excellent. Love it from the first bar, the grand opening Gm/F disolving into a delecate run of semiquavers. Lovely harmony. Easy enough to play the opening, though my rendition falls into shreads when you have the demi-semiquavers and the fast hand postion change - I failed my Grade 5 piano, and I have a feeling this is harder than grade 5.
Thamks for this list! I just watched Gladiator a couple of days ago. Zimmer echos a bit of Don Giovani in it, which works realy well with the revenge themes
I'm not against including film scores but Hans Zimmer making it into the list kind of devalues it.
Absolutely not. The score of Gladiator is one of the best things ever written for a film. Its place in the TOP50 is really deserved.
Part 2 please - and with the same humour (see last sentence)!😀
I generally find these lists interesting but fundamentally depressing as they don't push the boundaries but tend to exist in their own cocoons - being harsh, the music largely described in Part 1 could be seen as 'easy listening' or 'muzak' (... or 'furniture music'??!!)
That said, a genuine 'hats off' to your instantaneous improvisation ... I loved the Eric Carmen impression on the second Rach 2 ... and did you really mean to say 'Onegin' for 'Onedin' at ~2:33-2:37?! (or that's what it sounded like on this computer!) 😉 Cheers - thanks as ever!
Which pieces are muzak?
@@ClassicalMusicAndSoundtracks Thanks - any of the pieces which could be played in the background whilst you're going round a store or supermarket or lift or while hanging on the end of a phone - they may be (very) pleasant but not challenging - as I said, they don't push the boundaries, they exist ... the 'furniture music' is a reference to a previous video (see Erik Satie on this channel). Hope this helps. 😀
@@myouatt5987 I know what is muzak. I was asking which are the pieces of the list that you see as muzak.
So nice to hear you pronounce "Dives and Lazarus" correctly, something you will never hear on Classic FM, even though listeners such as myself have pointed it out to them.
I was a talk given by the Vaughan Williams Society a few years ago when this point was mentioned!
Please release the next lot. I listened to the top 50...spent a good while in despair...
it was refreshing to hear a musical academic not just, as you put it, denegrate rachmaninoff. its only now that those in academia are starting to appreciate rachmaninoff’s genius. his harmony is a personal influence on my own compositions.
thanks for this, sir! more!!
Your wish is granted
Einaudi is 'Classical' music for people who don't like Classical music.
Yes, I think that's probably a fair assessment (with all due respect to Einaudi lovers!)
I stopped caring when I realised the Bach Brandenburg concertos is one entry, Beethoven's nine symphonies get nine entries and that stupid Karl Jenkins crap thing got too high.
Pachelbel Canon is probably in the list as it is often played at weddings. Over the last two years, I have heard it played on the organ, played by a small quartet and even streamed from the internet and played using the church sound system.
Or maybe because it's a beautiful piece, and I'm speaking about the modern version released in the 20th century (the original version is not so great).
I insist vehemently for a part 2!
Perhaps a part 2 is very much in the works...
Basically if it's been used in a modern film then it makes the list.
considering its fame (but not to the point where it's overplayed) I was actually suprised that Handel's Messiah didn't place higher
Part 2 please!
Why no Women composers?
Prokovieff influenced John Willuams "Star lWsrs" that has matchbox enlarged Space ships crashing into each other
Shoshtakovich era had "purges"
Soviet styles: of social.. in Music
Jamming of Capitalist western music on Radio
Morricone.. Rota should be on the list!
The absence of some amazing women composers (and also quite a few amazing male composers) is bizarre.
EVERYBODY has influenced John Williams! Holst, especially. And it's great. If you. can, find Dmitri Tiomkin's Oscar speech, wherein he thanks all the classical composers he gleefully stole from.
Does anyone else hear "Stormy Weather" every time they play that Khachaturian "Spartacus" bit? (It was used to fine effect in a Coen Brothers movie I liked though nobody else did: "The Hudsucker Proxy"). And that Pachelbel Canon got popular when a fellow named Remo Giazzoto did his version back in the '60s. Nobody would have picked up on it otherwise. (I'm old--that's why I remember this.)
The way I became aquainted with the Adagio from Spartacus was from the movie Caligula… I was in high school and watched it for a theater project (had to do fake movie reviews and perform them like a radio show). Let’s just say my teacher did not do a Google search on that movie before or after I presented on it because I saw things that were probably not advisable for a 16 year old, but hey, exposed me to an amazing piece by Khachaturian.
Also, I agree about Handel’s works. Solomon is my favorite.
keep it up!
Part 2! Part 2! Part 2! 🙏🙏🙏
Do come back to Ashakan's Farewell in part 2. I would love to hear your opinion of it. I encountered it from Burn's American Civil War Epic, as has already been pointed out here. I thought it was a traditional melody until I read up on it.
Greetings. I have been watching your videos for a while now. I have learned quite a lot from you now. I have learned quite a lot from this stupid list video. Am I a stupid watcher ?
No. You are an intelligent watcher!
It seems that there are only two types of classical music listeners left. The ones that listen to this station and think movie scores are classical music and the ones that only listen to stuff that is at least as weird as Stravinsky. If it doesn't make your ears bleed, they don't like it.
I wouldn't listen to Classic FM anyway. Radio Swiss Classic is my online radio station of choice, when it comes to classical music.
I wouldn’t take this list to generalize all classical listeners. Boulez and penderecki pieces have 100,000+ views here on TH-cam.
@@Ploist lol I think ur proving his point
Seems like most "Classical" music listeners
Only likes film scores, new age, and "Classical crossover"
Only likes Romantic era, and maybe also Bach or Mozart.
i like it all, from beethoven to phantom menace to rach and shostakovich. i don't give a flying flip what you call it, classic, romantic, baroque, film score. most of it just sounds beautiful in different and interesting ways, made by extremely gifted and hard working people. can't stand all the snobs who first categorize everything and then look down on people who have certain "deemed inferior"- preferences among these made up categories. silly humans...
@@Ploist That's the exact sort of drivel he was talking about with the Stravinsky bit 😂
Shostakovich's jazz suite no 2 was actually originally titled Suite for Variety Orchestra! I don't know who gives it 'jazz suite' as the title, but that explains why it doesn't sound jazz at all
Please continue.
Some piece I expected some not, like I expected Mozart, And Vivaldi but not Vaugh Williams
Spartacus was used in the Oneidin Line (thanks to which it became one of my earliest true musical loves - along with Tubby the Tuba). This list was clearly compiled to reflect that earlier self.
Whose fingers russelled the corn? Good question. If there was a scarecrowe in the field, yup, probably not his.
Strange how many of the top-of-the-list film scores are ones that left zero imprint on my memory. No Morricone?
From his outstanding symphonies and concertos (and preludes & fugues), the Jazz Suite is one of Shostakovich's feebler offerings. It's disappointingly staid, jazz-less and uninteresting. I would love to have heard him accompanying silent films to really capture his spontaneity, stride technique etc.
Like all Shostakovich, it's got something! The melodies/harmonies are strong and the orchestration gives it a unique quality.
Hans Zimmer develops the Gladiator score into a more extreme version in the score for Dune - which in context is fantastic
Our next video is on this very topic!
@@themusicprofessorFantastic
It’s got amazing noises in it
Canon probably so interesting because of wedding music?
I like how you still respect film scores and their composers, unlike in some of the comments. Of course one can’t put them on the same level with the all time greats as this list does, but why must people be so spiteful and negative? We definitely need part 2!
I don't agree. Many film scores deserve to be placed in lists of "best music ever composed". I see Gladiator and Lord of the Rings in the list. Two examples of film scores that I consider to be masterpieces like Mozart's pieces.
I insist on a part 2! I want to see if the list continues to be as ridiculous as the list in part 1.
I absolutely insist you release part 2. Now.
Marvelous scene in the phantom menace? Really?
You're not getting any pizza rolls. 😂😂😂
Actually, that particular scene is rather impressive (although the film in general is a curate's egg).
Ah, the great Hollywood pastiche top 50...
Pastiche of what? If the Lord of the Rings and Gladiator were ispired to already existing classical pieces, I want to know their titles!
Not Russell Crow's fingers but Theresa May's
Naughty fingers!
I think Einaudi just took some orchestration classes with Berio, but I could be wrong…
Museum? I think that was just tongue in cheek mockery. A nuclear lab would be cool though.
One cannot help but think that had BBC Radio 3 or Radio France run such a popularity poll, the results might be somewhat different. This is, after all, merely a reflection of the tastes of Classic FM listeners and for whom these pieces resonate well. Anyway, more please. I insist!
More!
I agree that Messiah is a mid tier Handel oratorio. My favorites are Alexander’s Feast, Israel in Egypt and Saul.
4:29 that is wheat not corn
Yes. 'l'Allegro, Il Penseroso e Il Moderato' is one of the best. In the UK “corn” can mean either wheat or all traditional cereal crops (wheat, barley, oats, etc).
@@themusicprofessor well I’ll be damned, yet another funny difference with British and American English.
Which oratorios have you seen w the Monteverdi Choir?
'l'Allegro, Il Penseroso e Il Moderato', 'Israel in Egypt' and 'Semele' (which I should have mentioned above - an amazing piece). I also saw Acis and Galataea with John Butt's ensemble quite recently. All marvellous pieces.
To be fair, Classic FM isn't for people who appreciate good music, but for those who like a cuddle - an undemanding experience of familiar favourites. Radio 3 is there and still pretty good, despite concessions to chatty populism.
I suppose I'm a bit of a snob, but I can't stand adverts, jingles, phone-ins and inane chatter. And the very idea of a "hall of fame" seems ludicrous.
you know, M. Strakosch 'Yankee doodle concert variations' Is really hard on piano, If you play to this piece in 5:12 I mean, It's more harder than la campanella! Sorry Lisit.
Surely, among many others appearing with wearying frequency in the list, none of John Williams' Ennio Morricone's nor John Barry's film scores can be described as 'classical music' by any stretch? Every time I switch to Classic FM, the theme from 'Dances with Wolves', Gabriel's Oboe, or a piece from the Star Wars series never seem far away (neither do 'Spiegel im Spiegel nor Pachelbel's Canon in D major, btw). For obvious reasons, Classic FM is a no-go area for me every Easter weekend, when the entire 'Hall of Fame' has taken residence for the last 28 years!
Insofar as pieces like Gabriel's Oboe seem to be high up on a list that excludes Beethoven's Late quartets or Bach's St. Matthew Passion or composers like Bartok altogether, it's certainly weird and mystifying, but I guess all the list demonstrates is that a certain rather odd bunch of pieces are enduringly popular among the demographic who listen to the station. Personally, i take quite a broad view. I remember Ligeti used to say that he wasn't so much interested in genre as in whether the music was good or bad, and I tend to agree. There's plenty to admire in the composers you mention above, even though a list that elevates their music above other more interesting music is a problematic one!
@@themusicprofessor All to their own tastes, I suppose!
@@themusicprofessor I bet you could sneak in individual movements of the Beethoven quartets or some choruses from the St. Matthew Passion. I gather that this audience likes a good tune and for things to move on after a few minutes.
You mention Pachelbel Canon during this talk, for a very differnt take on this piece of music take a listen to this version. It's described as Canon in D - Hungarian Dance Style (Pachelbel meets Brahms) th-cam.com/video/BFpjbckH-hY/w-d-xo.html
Consider yourself insisted.
This list is fucking grim
You can tell Americans made that list if Ashokan Farewell is even on it, let alone that high.
Its basically a short instrumental with violin playing the melody from the early 80s. It acheived fame here in the states during the 90s when it was used as the theme for Ken Burns documentary about the American Civil War. The graphic next to the song in the list showed both the Union and Confederate flags.
I think it's actually based on votes from the listeners of classic FM (so UK based)
Rachmaninoff was a genius 👍🏻
Nothing from the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britian?
How about the Osipov Balalaika Orchestra? It was a thing!
Well it is all subjective isn't it? I detest most Debussy! My list would be largely Bach, Mozart and Haydn plus a lot of piano concertos and sacred choral music, with a few other one-offs interspersed. And if someone, let alone a lot of people, likes a work, then the composer has surely won. But I'm afraid you and I fell out the moment you rated Berio above Einaudi, Professor. The grotesque above the lovely, even if somewhat simple at times, can never work. As Mozart said: "Ich möchte alles haben, was gut, ächt und schön ist" - and schön is hardly a word one could use with Berio, in my view! But at least you didn't mention S****hausen...
Definitions of beauty are notoriously subjective. Even Mozart's music was thought grotesque by some of his contemporaries!
Where is the dog? I was expecting to see the dog. I want my money back 😑
He'll be back
Anyone else think that movie scores and the likes of Einaudi should NOT be included in crap like these lists? Let's be honest - people haven't a clue what's good or not.
What is bad on this list?
I despise lists. This is better than that or this is a masterpiece over this. Classic FM is a commercial radio station designed to do what it's mean't to do. Provide music to the masses. All of the film composers pay lip service to the classical composers, and even some of the classical composers pay lip service to other classical composers like Beethoven, Bach and Mozart, Haydn. The real masters were these four composers. Brahms, Schubert, Wagner and even Mahler all took nods from the master Beethoven. The world of music today encompasses newer works that are inspired by past masters. John Williams has Aaron Copland and Holst to thank for Star Wars and Dvorak for Jaws. Seeing that all film composers are trained by people with the knowledge of what the classical masters achived.
Moonlight Sonata only at 44 is pure BS!
Ashoken Farewell was used as the theme for the Ken Burns documentary “The Civil War”. It’s a wonderfully evocative bluegrass tune that sounds like a 100 year old folk song, a bit like Mark Knopfler’s “Local Hero” theme. Not sure why it’s on a “classical” list though.
Bring on part 2! (And big 👍 for mentioning Berio!)
I hate these lists, if only becuase they suggest that one piece of music is better than another. Also no top 50 Bach? They are all good in their own way - maybe the Hall of Fame should be refined by referring to what is popular with the audience at any moment in time. Sadly I don't listen to the radio for Classical music anymore - maybe I am a snob but hopefully not closed minded. Am happy to run with the odd surprise that Spotify mght have for me from time to time.
BBC Radio 3 can be worth turning on occasionally
@@themusicprofessor I quite like Music Matters 🙂 Seriously, I love this channel. Keep up the great work!
Classic FM is a joke. I stopped listening to the commercial station back in the mid 00s. The music selected by listeners is often heard in films, including classical music. The rest of the composition by the composer is best forgotten. It does no service to what classical music is all about. That Jazz Suite by Shostakovich was used in Eyes Wide Shut. It's been in the Hall of Fame for decades since the film was released in 1999, and its inclusion . I rest my case.
You're preaching to the converted!
@@themusicprofessor That's good then. The choir must sing louder to evoke change. But do Classic FM REALLY want to change? That is the question.....
Not a source to be taken seriously. They made a list of gay composers and everyone was gay :D chopin, schubert, handel, lully, corelli...
Nonsense, most of it. Tchaikovsky, Barber, Copland--yes, we know for sure. Further back, we don't know, and never will, barring the unearthing of some dusty document nobody's known about before.
Absolute bullshit from the classicFM. Jurassic park over Rach 3 is just nonsense. Objectively it makes absolute no sense. These deaf people gotta listen to the second movement and the finale of the this concerto, maybe it will enlighten them. Absolute shame
Classic fm just recycle the same pieces over and over again,! I listen to Scala radio now, as tired of hearing the same ones. How many times must you endure the Ruddy Grieg piano concerto for goodness sake? Play some more different masterpieces out there classic fm!
You're right. I don't listen to the station very often but there there seems a worrying lack of he lack of curiosity, even interest really...in music. At least BBC Radio 3, for all its faults, has always felt like a station that has some interest in the subject!
@themusicprofessor The BBC is no different now. Local radio stations play the same pop music over and over again each month. I went to Wiltshire just recently, and the BBC Radio Station played vertually the same pop music as BBC Radio Cornwall. We are regressing backwards with everything these days. Progression is sadly lacking.
Same old regurgitated pieces every day and night. Shallow and manipulating the listeners with safe bets to bow to the non highbrow classical fans.
Film scoring music? Ha ha, ludicrous. GTFO.