Baroque and classical

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I cannot and will not ever say that anyone should believe in G d, let alone in my kind of belief. My culture does not allow such a thing and there are lined I cannot and will not cross. When I say that playing Baroque music was for me a form of prayer I only speak for myself.I played in chamber and full symphony orchestras and that was all I knew how to do. I got paid as of age fourteen to play and to me it was always a form of prayer,to reflect the concept of beauty as created by the G d I believe in.

I too see something otherworldly and uplifting in the music of the pre-Enlightenment. I posted this on another, similar one of your threads by way of explanation:

Prometheus18, I apologize for not replying to your first post before posting anything else at all. I feel remorse for that.

Your post did move me, and I felt what you said about Baroque music in my heart. I agree with what you said, and in addition, I feel about it as my two most recent posts say. They should not have appeared before a direct reply to you, however.

Who are your favourite composers of the Baroque period?

My own top six favourites are Johann S. Bach, George F. Handel, Georg P. Telemann, T. Albinoni, W. Boyce, and Jean-Baptiste Lully.

Your story moves me, and I'm glad that you responded. I'm sorry to say that, with no disrespect to anybody else intended, you seem to be the only person here who understands just how powerful and important real music is. I don't know of anybody else here with a serious interest in classical music, which is why nobody else has responded to your posts about music. I think true music is simply a language that most people fail to understand now, having been brought up with the instant coffee version of music.

But real music - music which can touch the soul - I think is something that, once experienced, leaves everything else sour. You're right in thinking that there's something spiritual about it. I know you're Jewish and, while I'm a gentile, I have immense respect for Jewish culture and history. Nevertheless, despite coming from a religious background, I lost my faith (involuntarily) when I was a teenager. I think the experience of the spirituality of Bach or the haunting indictment of modernity and Dostoyevsky-esque longing for lost innocence in composers like Shostakovich - I think these things are as close as I can get to an experience of the spiritual.

I am glad you're here, and yet I worry for you, because I think that somehow one, as it were, loses a piece of his soul when he takes to trying to resolve his loneliness over the internet. And since you seem to have a better soul than anybody else I know of online, I don't want this to happen to you. Addiction, dependence and self hatred just seem to come so much easier online. The internet also promotes extremely nasty things like ill-will towards and arguments with others. I think you're better than this, but the internet brings out the worst in people.

My favourite pre-Classical composers are Bach, Vivaldi, Albinoni, William Boyce and Thomas Tallis.

Trust me....there are many people here who are into "serious" music.

I like the classics myself. I like Vivaldi, Bach, others from the Baroque period---the harpsichord period.

I didn't grow up with it---but I have a tremendous respect for it.

I hope others respond, and let this guy know that there is "culture" here on WP!

My people on WP love "real music", Prometheus.

AuntBlabby, ASS-P, Trogluddite, DeepHour, High Llama, Redxk and RiversongK are all experts in Classics (music and / or the arts), and kraftiekortie and I also enjoy baroque and classical. I'm sure there are many more, but these are just the first people who come to mind.

Please realise that just because some people don't discuss the Classics on a daily basis, it doesn't mean they aren't knowledgeable or extremely talented. Many of us use WP just to socialise and have fun without the distinctions of our education or our special interests.

I didn't mean to offend or disparage - only, I think Mr Kohoutek has a view of life, shared by me, which nobody else here has. It's more than just music, and I may be completely mistaken, but someone who can see Bach as more than JUST music is somebody who understands a part of my soul that nobody else - on or off line - does.

Maybe that's so. If you found a sort of a "soul mate," that's fine. I don't mean in a romantic/sexual sense. I mean a friend.

But I believe you are grossly underestimating at least some of us. There are some of us who KNOW that Bach is not "just music." They have more of a "sensitivity" to music than you think they have.

I really don't know what to say to that post from Prometheus18. All I knew was how excited I was to find out about the existence of WP and its different forums. I hoped to learn from others on the spectrum how they have lived and coped with the NT world we don't fit in with.

I was willing to reveal myself and my life bit by bit. I'm frankly scared on that score, so what I tried to do was to enter into a general topic, ask a question, and see what other musicians and music lovers had to say. The Baroque and Classical periods' music and their composers are so generalized; there is so much that can be said.

I'm nobody special. I'm just a guy who never fit inside the box---any box. I'm very new to the site and not too good with words, let alone using them on electronic devices, so I hope you folks will be patient with me.

I get you, Anton.

And I get Prometheus, too.

I'm glad you two have found you have something in common. It's hard for as autistic/Aspies to make friends. When we get a connection, it's something to be treasured.

I wish Who Am I was still here. She's a violinist who tours around the world.

We all hope to hear more from you - in your own time.

The Baroque is immensely important to me, especially as interpreted by coloratura mezzo-soprano Cecilia Bartoli. She has been my obsession since I was 14.

Tomorrow is Mozart's birthday. I want to say---and I haven't yet written much on this forum of myself, which is due to fear of letting out much of my way-off-the-charts life---that all through it, I have considered Mozart a teacher and inspirer. I refer to his attitude, even with his difficult, short life on Earth, of never giving up.

I truly believe in the "G-d of Jacob" and His "laws and statutes" and in this belief system of fundamental Judaism, more fundamental than those who claim to be "fundamentalists" of the Jews, so I can only speak for myself. I strictly observe the taboo in our culture against proselytising. I was desperate enough to actually try to kill myself on two occasions in my life. This horrifies me. I have made a particular study of Mozart, and these days, I feel inspired by his example of living with the attitude of never giving up, no matter what.

Yes, I have revealed something nasty in my life. Yes, I am scared as heck to put myself out there to that extent. Mozart was/is a hero to me. I also want to say that I have studied Mozart's writings, the ones in words as well as in his music, and I am comforted. The Austrian hero to this Jew-boy was not at all anti-Semitic, so it's okay to have him be my hero.

I'm a former professional musician, now on disability, of chamber and full symphony orchestras. I loved playing Baroque and Classical music; to me, it was a form of prayer. Music felt in the soul is a reflection of the beauty in this world that G-d created, along with all that's on the other side of the coin.

Happy birthday, Wolfgang. It's way beyond 1756, but you are remembered and appreciated now.

The length, breadth and scope of time I've been involved in classical music cannot be illustrated here because, well, who'd have the time to read about my fascination with it? Here's a little about it, though.

1. My favorite movie of all time, and I've seen quite a few over the years, is still 'Amadeus' which I saw at Hartsdale Theatre in NY when it first came out in September, 1984. I was 22 at the time.

2. At one point, when I lived in Manhattan, I had 2200 cassettes of music, mostly classical, arranged in alphabetical order up on the walls of my apt in racks I'd bought from Tower Records. There were 22 racks in all, each containing 100 spaces for the cassettes.

3. These days, my music collection is all digital. My largest collection is still classical (baroque, rococo, classical, romantic, neo-romantic, etc) of which I have the music of 548 composers with the emphasis being on the symphonic and solo piano music of the romantic era. Since I'm a completionist, my collection includes things like all the solo piano and symphonic music of Liszt (106 CD's), Chopin (17 CD's), Beethoven (42 CD's), Mozart (41 CD's) and many others, many of which are barely known to the masses such as Malling, Risager, Hamerik, etc.

4. I've dabbled with notation programs like Sibelius and Finale and even composed and recorded a few sketches including this orchestral piece written for the Miroslav Philharmonik:



5. Using computer software (Cubase, Kontakt Steinway, Pianoteq, etc) I've created and recorded piano transcriptions of symphonic music like Tchaikovsky's 6th and the overture to Wagner's Tannhauser, my favorite piece of music of all time.

Commoner is a musical prodigy who had much of his inspiration stifled by many things.

The question is: how can we prevent this sort of stifling in the future?