Occasionally a thread on classical music crops up on otf and there seem to be a few people who are intrigued and would like to develop a little more understanding of the music, and to develop the equipment that leads to a slightly better appeciation. So I'm proposing that we try to start a rolling thread where we can share our impressions of pieces, batting around what we hear and gently getting into a way of listening that enables us to experience the music a little more fully and more fulfillingly.

I'm thinking along the lines of the format of book-of-the-month clubs: if you will, a Bruch-of-the-Month Club.

So the way I'm proposing that it works is that around the start of each month somebody nominates a piece of music, we all listen to it and discuss our reactions to it. Along with the piece of music, the suggester will also nominate another poster to come up with the next month's suggestion so they have a little time to think about it. There's no specific reason for suggesting a piece - it could be something you know well, something that you want to share your enthusiasm for; equally, it could be something you're curious about and would like to investigate in the company of others.

When nominating, I guess we should endeavour to select pieces that are freely available for download. There's quite a lot on YouTube, and there's places like classiccat.net which seem to provide a decent breadth. There are also places where you can get scores for free if you want to go into the internal workings of pieces.

When posting about the music, anything goes. Any point of view is fine, as is any point of reference. If you compare Haydn with Mozart, that's great - if you're more comfortable relating the way you hear Rossini to what the Ramones do for you, that's equally good. Compare it to painting, or, erm, cookery. Or just talk about the music in isolation from anything.

OK, that's my scheme for OneTouchPolyphony. Anybody up for it?

I'm in.

Me too!

Sounds good to me.

Cool.

My, this is encouraging. Looks like it's a goer. OK, I'll have a little think about the work that'll kick this off.

Me too. More as a reader than a poster, I suspect.

Food was like music, wasn't it?

wingco, can I ask you a question? How far does knowledge of classical music help you with your day job?

How about, When Saturday Brahms?

Yeah, I’d like to be involved in this too. As it happens I was listening to my Wagner’s Greatest hits CD yesterday when my mate came to pick me up to go play football. As “Ride of the Valkyries” was on he moved through the house to the back kitchen where I was preparing espressos chanting “ I can see you, Arnold Pear…” reprising one of the great cinematic moments from “Moving”, criminally unavailable on DVD.

Righto. We'll start off with something in the canon.

February's piece is Beethoven's Symphony No. 3 ("Eroica").

You can get pretty serviceable MP3 downloads of the complete work by following the links from here, although you might need to search about a bit on the pages that those download links point to. Not A-list performers, but I think they'll do well enough.

And the curator for the piece we consider in March will be Bruno, if it's OK with him.

Good question, Tubbs. Not very much, really. Although I obviously discussed classical music in Fear of Music in a broader cultural context, I consider myself precluded from writing about it professionally because I'm not musically trained, can't read music and I do think you need that sort of musicological toolkit in order to review classical.

It looks like they have Herbie von K conducting the Eroica on YouTube, one of those hilarious studio films he did with the Berlin Phil.

As my computer is crap I'll be listening to the recording on my Karajan Philharmonia set from the late 50's.

I became obsessed with the first symphony, found the second not so amazing and should really be moving on to the third right about now anyway. Nice one, Andy.

I'm in. Mainly because I feel I might learn something.

I'm up for this, I love Messiaen about on my computer.

I'm up for this too, I love some stuff but have a much too limited repertoire, so I'm happy both to wax lyrical about anything I do know and like and to discover stuff that I currently don't.


And, for me, music pretty much starts with Beethoven 3 so it's a good first choice.

count me in too

... and me.

I hope Andy C will forgive me for throwing this out there-

When you listen to the last movement, which is a theme and variations, ask yourself two questions: What is the theme, and What is unusual about it?

This is a great idea and I definitely want to join in. It will be good for me to listen to the Beethoven with some effort, too, because really I just don't get it because I don't get on with this sort of orchestral music. so it will be healthy for me to try.