My Classical Music Journey through the Baroque Period

Late last year, I decided to embark on a classical music-listening journey in 2025, hopefully learning a little something along the way and getting a better sense of how music evolved and what composers or types of music particularly speak to me. Accompanying me on my journey are a couple of excellent books to help me understand the context of the music I’m listening to. I’m six weeks in, and since I’m taking my journey in chronological order, I knew that some of the front end of this effort was going to be a little tough. I just finished with Bach last week, which means the next stage includes composers like Mozart, Hayden, Beethoven and Schubert. This part of the journey excites me more than what preceded it, but I thought I should at least summarize my feelings thus far.

The initial recordings I listened to were by composers of the 1100s through the 1500s, and this was more out of curiosity than an expectation of truly enjoying the listening experience. From Hildegard, Dufay and Des Prez, to Palestrina and Tallis, none of the music is something I’d seek out again, but I was intrigued by some of the musical conventions of the time. For example, the scale Hildegard Von Bingen uses is generally mixolydian, but ever-so-often she inserts a major seventh and a minor second in the scale, giving it a flavor that’s a bit foreign to my ears, and likely yours as well.

Traveling a few centuries later, the music becomes more metered and more polyphonic, with distinct parts for bass, tenor, alto and soprano, and harmonic conventions begin to take shape – harmony which today seems rather mundane, but which at the time must have been quite trailblazing and perhaps even outlandish to some people’s ears. The piece I listened to from Palestrina from 1550 uses a lot of Vsus4 to V to I resolution, a convention which today sounds so common that it’s a little dull, but it works, and it must have worked beautifully at the time.

I then moved on the Monteverdi, considered the father of the opera, and listened to several movements of L’Orfeo from 1607. This offered the first piece of music that I genuinely liked: I found the “Ritornello” and its soprano aria (if indeed I’m getting my terms correct) truly gorgeous. The opera also offered some lovely trumpet and violin parts that almost sounded like the klezmer music that was to come out of Eastern Europe centuries later. But after listening to 20 minutes or so, I became uninterested in the basic harmonies – there were flashes, but not enough to return to the piece.

Similarly, the Vivaldi concerto I listened to was all very pleasant, but ultimately unfulfilling. It was Stravinsky three centuries later who is said to have quipped, “Vivaldi didn't write 400 concertos; he wrote one concerto 400 times.” I only listened to one, and it was fine, but I wouldn’t want to hear another 399 of them!

For Handel, I eschewed his compositions that I was already familiar with, and instead turned to his Ode for the Birthday of Queen Anne from 1713. Here I was quite taken with movement’s I and V, the former gorgeous and serene, and the latter movement in 3/4 delightful, with impressive vocal runs and prominent trumpet. I was less taken with two later pieces by Handel – Zodak the Priest and Ombra Mai Fu from the opera Serse. The latter is considered to be a measure of beauty rarely achieved in music, but for reasons unknown it didn’t reach me despite it being a very pretty piece. Zodak the Priest for me suffered from the bombastic quarter note accents, emphasized by the timpani, similar to sections for his Water Music and Royal Fireworks pieces that I find tiresome.

The remainder of my journey through the Baroque period centered on Bach, widely considered to be the genius from which all other composers sprouted. Aside from some obvious pieces that I’ve enjoyed through the years  (Prelude in C, minuets in G and G-minor, Sheep May Safely Graze) I’ve never gravitated toward his music, it being of a high contrapuntal nature and less devoted to melody, the musical component which has guided nearly all of my musical interests and aspirations since childhood. I was interested to see if my opinion might change through a more thorough examination of the master’s works.

For me, listening to parts of Bach’s major works – The Brandenburg Concertos, the Well-Tempered Clavier, The Goldberg Variations and The Art of the Fugue – I was more taken with Bach’s mastery of the form and the incredible musicianship exhibited in the recordings than the music itself, if that makes any sense. Hearing Rosalyn Tureck’s piano performance of the “C# Prelude” was awe-inspiring, as was Glen Gould’s playing of The Goldberg Variations. What players! But of course, what music as well, with shifting keys and flipping melodies and crazy-challenging runs of allegro sixteenth notes. And it all hangs together so well. I like moments for sure, perhaps even sections of these pieces, but listening for five minutes, ten minutes, and beyond, for me it all starts to sound similar, with sections meandering and no discernible melody to latch onto.

Now, I know full well that my inability to find the melody in these pieces is my own shortcoming, not Bach’s. Having been raised on Elton John, Paul McCartey and showtunes, the advanced counterpoint of Bach is not a natural fit for me. I was happy to hear some samples, and I would be happy to hear some again in small doses, but these long pieces are not my jam.

Of the Bach pieces I listened to, my favorites were movements one and four of The Art of the Fugue, largely because I listened to an orchestrated version of these pieces that were originally likely written for a keyboard instrument. Instead, I was directed to the Stuttgard Chamber orchestra’s take on this piece, and I think that part of my issue with enjoying works like The Well-Tempered Clavier and The Goldberg Variations is that I’m less drawn to piano solo music than orchestration, this despite being a piano player myself who once recorded a CD of original piano solos.

Go figure.

But I found section one of The Art of the Fugue to be beautiful as a string piece, and section four varied the melody and tempo just enough to keep my interest. Then, sadly, it waned as I listened to section 6. By this point I was looking at my watch and wondering if I could hear a palette cleanser of some melodic rock and roll!

Anyhow, that’s my journey so far, and I hope to summarize the next stage of my musical escapade in a month or two.

It's Time to Ditch Spotify

I know. You signed up for Spotify years and years ago, you’ve grown accustomed to the interface, you have friends and family who use the same service so that you can forward songs and playlists to each other.

I know.

But the bottom line is this: Spotify, Amazon, Apple and some other streaming services are paying musicians far, far less than others, and it seems to me that if you’re a fan of music – particularly newer music – you should want the musicians to benefit. (Let me note that I have no personal stake in this topic; my music has never earned me a cent and that’s not going to change.)

Exactly what streaming services pay is a complex topic and one that I’m not going to unravel in his blog, but according to dozens of websites and streaming calculators that I’ve visited over the past month, YouTube, Spotify and Amazon are at the bottom when comparing average rates per stream. Apple is a bit better. Tidal’s rates are about three times what Spotify pays. Qobuz pays even more.

I don’t want to put my stamp of approval on a particular streaming service over the other, but I encourage everyone to do his or her own homework, to check out rates and try out various streaming services, and then to make a decision that will benefit musicians the most while still giving you the access and convenience you’ve grown accustomed to.

As for me, I dropped Spotify last month and switched to Tidal after a trial period with both Tidal and Qobuz. (Qobuz was great, but their catalog wasn’t quite extensive enough for my tastes – it might be perfect for some listeners.) Switching to Tidal was a painless process. I transferred all of my playlists no problem, the interface is nearly identical, the sound quality is better, and the rates are similar. I’ve made the switch without any regret.

Streaming rates may not matter so much for legacy artists who were paid via the old model. The Eagles and Elton John are doing just fine. But for newer artists who are trying to make a go of it, who’ve put out maybe an EP or two and have enough of a following to tour at small clubs around the country, streaming rates matter. I want young artists who’ve amassed a decent following to make a decent living. No one is guaranteed anything, I know, and not everyone who can compose a song is entitled to the high life, but I’d like moderately successful musicians to at least make enough money to warrant recording their second album and not ditch their artistry for a full-time job at a corporation, you know what I mean?

Let’s say you’re a new artist who’s released an EP and an album and has managed to attract 100 million streams over the past five years. One hundred million streams! Not too shabby! You can probably hit the bigger cities in the U.S. and sell out clubs with a capacity of about 500. Touring is a tough way to make a living. You have to rent a van, hire a manager, pay a sound and merch person, stay in crappy motels or crash at fans’ homes, pay for insurance, pre-pay for merch, etc. It’s not easy (if you want to hear exactly how not easy it is – check out these YouTube videos). The likelihood of you making money on your tour is small. The likelihood of you making good money on your tour is even smaller.

But you’ve got 100 million streams! Surely, that’s going to provide you with a decent income, right?

Well…

On Spotify, these 100 million streams might have earned you somewhere around $400K. Not nothing, for sure, except that these streams were attracted over a five-year period, plus you’ve had to pay off studio expenses and share your income with the record label, your manager, your band, etc.  No one is getting rich under this scenario, which is fine, but I’d like this artist to not be destitute and to have enough money to pay the bills, take a few months off to write new material for another album, rent a decent apartment and maybe even set aside some cash for an IRA.

I think it’s important for music fans to put our money where it aligns with our values. The number one way has been and will always be to buy an artist’s merch and go to their shows. But we can also help by switching to streaming platforms that pay more to musicians. If we do this together, perhaps we can spur a sort of artistic renaissance.

2025: A Year of Classical Music

(note: to cut to the chase and read the list of classical music I’ll be listening to in 2025, scroll to the bottom)

Lately I’ve been fed up with talk radio and rock radio while driving around the Chicago area, and I’ve found myself absentmindedly tuning in to 98.7 WFMT, the local classical station, allowing me to appreciate what used to be a regular listening experience for me. My exposure to classical music has waned over the years, but it was significant during my childhood: between my parents’ listening habits and my piano lessons, band and choir concerts, solo and ensemble competitions and the like, not to mention an occasional concert in the park or local orchestral performance, classical music was very much a part of my life. As a young adult, when CDs became a thing, I’d buy the occasional classical CD, and I must have forty or so on the shelf today.

Although my active listening to classical music decreased when my children were young, my exposure to classical music was still significant, as my wife and I attended our children’s band, orchestra and choir concerts. It wasn’t until my children left home that this automatic exposure to classical music ceased, and I forgot to ramp up the intentional listening of my young adulthood. As a result, this music has mostly been absent from my life for the past decade or so.

It’s time to correct that, but I’d like to approach it in a concerted way (no pun intended). I’m going to devote 2025 to listening to classical music in a way I’ve never done before: consistently, repeatedly and intently. I’ve created a list of pieces to listen to over the course of the year, from some of the earliest choral works to musical pieces from the 21st century.

To what end? What’s the purpose? Mostly, I’d like to find additional pieces of music that I enjoy listening to. If I can find a few pieces that really wow me, or a composer or two I can explore further, then it’s mission accomplished. But I’d also like to have an overall better understanding of how music progressed over time, what the innovations were, and what some of the musical nomenclature of the classical world means. After all, I consider myself a musician, but there’s so little I know about classical music, and that shouldn’t be the case.

To help me with my cause, I’ve purchased three books on classical music:

1)      The Vintage Guide to Classical Music by Jan Swafford.

2)      The Rest is Noise by Alex Ross

3)      What to Listen for In Music by Aaron Copland.

I’ve completed the last book and was struck by a few observations by Mr. Copland:

“No composer can write into his music a value that he does not possess as a man.” (p. 212) This is very much a theme I considered when writing what is probably my favorite fictional piece that I’ve authored: “Nosebleed.” (2011, https://dc.cod.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1355&context=plr) I’d like to learn a bit more about the composers to help me understand their compositions.

Also from Copland: “When I hear a new piece of music that I do not understand, I am intrigued – I want to make contact with it again at the first opportunity. It’s a challenge – it keeps my interest in the art of music thoroughly alive.” (p. 199)  This is the spirit I’m going to try to tap into during my endeavor.

As always with these types of undertakings, there are some rules I’ll be following:

1)      I’ll only be listening to music that I don’t already know well. So, no Water Music, Eroica, Pictures at an Exhibition, The Planets, 1812 Overture, Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto, and the like. Sure, all of those pieces and many others could warrant another listen, but that will have to wait for another time. Of the pieces I’ve decided on, I think there are three or four I’ve heard before: Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7, Keith Emerson’s Piano Concerto No. 1, and Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony.

2)      I’ll be listening in chronological order, which should illuminate for me the progression of music through the centuries. 

3)      Each piece will be listened to, not watched. If the only way I can get a performance is on YouTube, I’ll stream the audio, not the video.

4)      I will listen to each piece initially without any knowledge of the piece aside from the year and the composer. Only after listening one time through will I consult the aforementioned books and a website or two to get some historical context.

5)      I will listen to each piece at least three times, allowing me to better absorb the music hopefully to the point of some degree of understanding.

I’d like to blog about my listening experience from time to time, though I’ll do so more from a layperson’s perspective, as my knowledge of music is mostly limited to the rock world. We shall see how this goes!

Without further ado, the following is the roadmap I intend to follow, though there could be some edits along the way. For many of the pieces, I’ll be listening to a particular movement or movements. My parents, my friend Uli and my daughter Jessica helped curate this list for me, along with several good websites devoted to the genre. The list below is color-coded to indicate which works I’ll be listening to in a given week.

Beato Gets Offended: Yacht Rock and Genre Labels

Few have done more to promote music education and music appreciation than Rick Beato. I’m a fan of his YouTube channels and I’m in awe of his talent. That said, he flew a bit off the handle in a recent video about the retroactively applied label of yacht rock to identify a specific type of music that was produced more or less in the late 70s through the early 80s and has been popular as of late. Every major city in America seems to have at least a few bands sporting captain’s hats and playing the smooth sounds of Christopher Cross, Kenny Loggins and Michael McDonald. A few months ago, the film Yacht Rock: a DOCKumentary dropped on MAX, and after close to a dozen of my musician friends recommended the film to me, I finally watched it a few weeks ago and enjoyed it, especially the ease with which the aforementioned musicians went along with the silliness of it all, recognizing that they’re lucky to still be relevant over forty years after their primes.

Beato watched the film as well, and while ultimately saying that he had no problem with the documentary, he claimed that the term yacht rock is “not only offensive and derogatory, but it’s a complete oversimplification of the diverse music that’s talked about in the movie.”

I’m going to overlook his conclusion that yacht rock is “offensive” because, well, that’s ridiculous. I’m offended by many things on Planet Earth, but the term “yacht rock” is not one of them, and I think if Beato were pushed, he’d probably back off on that. But the latter point of the genre being an oversimplification needs to be addressed.

What are genre labels for?

Genre labels are used to communicate with each other.  When I tell people about the fabulous band Black Pumas and they ask me what kind of music they play, I can’t just say “good music.” I have to communicate some kind of musical style so that my friends have a clue about whether this is a band they’d like to pursue. When asked about Black Pumas, I’ve always answered, “swampy Austin soul.” What does that mean, exactly? Well, hell, I don’t know, but somehow it seems to accurately convey the style of music they play. It may very well be that the band would disagree with this categorization, but that’s okay. It’s just a way to communicate. It’s why radio stations and record stores also identify genres. Just as you don’t want to tune into a station expecting to hear country only to hear a rap song instead, you don’t want to walk into a record store and have Metallica, Bing Crosby, Beyonce and Loretta Lynn all lumped in together. There is a point to all of this.

All genre labels are reductive. They’re all oversimplifications. Hell, the most reductive label of all is the term classical to describe over five centuries of extremely diverse music. Does a Bach prelude really have anything in common with a Stravinsky symphony? Not really. It probably has as much in common as Buddy Holly and Megadeath do. But it’s helpful to describe Buddy Holly’s music as 50s rock and roll and Megadeath’s music as metal. To call both of them “rock and roll” does us no good whatsoever. Genre labels help, as reductive as they might be.

I played in a yacht rock band for three years, and when people asked me what yacht rock was, I said, “smooth soft rock from the 70s and 80s.” THAT’S also an oversimplification! But what was I to say? We can’t perfectly describe music without being overly verbose and boring our audience. At some point we have to generalize. And to a lot of people, the term yacht rock is perfectly identifiable, allowing them to know exactly what type of music they can expect on a Saturday night at the local nightclub.

Prog rock is also an oversimplification. So are AOR, punk, easy listening, power pop, rap, hip hop, R&B, jazz, fusion, bebop and a dozen of other genres. On my podcast 1000 Greatest Misses, my partner and I often struggle to identify a band’s style: “It’s sort of punkish rockabilly with a little extra grit.” But at least the genre labels give us a place to start.

So I say to Rick Beato and others who’ve gotten their undies in a twist about something so inconsequential, just relax and go with it. The guys who coined the phrase yacht rock should be thanked and then thanked again by every artist who’s still making bank for songs they wrote in the 1970s.

Smartphone Addiction

A while back I read an essay by August Lamm, whose journey from social media influencer to ditching her smart phone struck a chord with a lot of people, including a book publisher. The plan was to write a short pamphlet called “You Don’t Need a Smartphone” and follow it up with a full-length book. By this point, Lamm was using a flip-phone, but that didn’t stop the publishing team from sending massive amounts of emails, texts, calls and Google invites about Zoom meetings, deadlines, Google docs, press releases, social media strategies, and the like. Lamm explains it far better than I do – she’s an excellent writer – but the upshot was that her efforts to write about downgrading and reclaiming her life was leading her to do the exact opposite; she was glued to an electronic device at all times, stressed out and not sleeping.

Ultimately, the pamphlet did get published, and I was intrigued enough with the topic to buy a copy, not because I feel like my smartphone has taken over my life, but because I wondered how she advised people on issues like how to enter sporting events or concerts without a phone, or how to pay bills or send people money? It’s no secret that a lot of things we used to do without smartphones are becoming increasingly reliant on smartphones.

Which is the point, says Lamm. It’s not an issue of self-control. Smartphones are designed to keep us on them, and there are powerful entities making sure that you do. But “screentime is not your time,” Lamm writes. “It’s an aggregate of other people’s time – their words and images, their pleas and ploys.”

My kids and I were some of the last people I knew to own a flip phone. I remember people making fun of me about it, asking me about how I could leave home without a phone. “I’m going shopping at Target,” I’d say. “Who do I need to talk to?” I finally acquiesced when familial logistics problems arose, and flip phones became useful tools in the interest of family harmony. Around three or four years later we purchased our first smartphones, which means I’ve owned a smartphone for less than twenty percent of my life, but that hasn’t stopped me from fully integrating it into my daily activity. And I’m not immune to picking up my phone to do one specific task, only to see that I’ve received a text message, and after checking the text completely forgetting why I picked up my phone in the first place. 

That’s a big part of the problem, says Lamm. The smartphone has combined dozens and dozens of everyday activities into one convenient package. Lamm is a big believer in disambiguation, restoring single-purpose devices into one’s life. Want to listen to music? Grab an old iPod, or better yet, play a CD or record (I still do!). Want to add some numbers? Get out the old calculator you left in your drawer a dozen years ago. Want to make a phone call? Get out your flip phone. Want to start dating? Join a club and socialize. Want to drive somewhere? Get out a map. Hell, I spent 45 years driving from place to place without the use of Google Maps, but I’ll be darned if it didn’t take just six months or so for me to become addicted to this tool.

“Precisely,” I can hear Lamm saying to me.

Lamm says that once she downgraded and broke the cycle of relying on her smartphone, a funny thing happened: she got her time back. She started doing things with more intent. Her book-reading increased, and sometimes she even started doing…nothing. Just being and not worrying about every minute of her day being productive. She writes, “As long as you are experiencing this time more vividly than you did screentime, you are reaping the benefits. Be bored. Be annoyed. At least you’re feeling something.”

Here's my quick take: smartphones are this grand experiment that we humans decided to enter into whole-hog without really understanding the repercussions (a common human trait), and I think it’s important that Lamm and others are discussing the issue of smartphone addiction, particularly for young people who’ve never known life without one. Her message has resonated with a lot of users.

As for me, I find that separating myself from my phone isn’t all that difficult for two big reasons: I don’t do social media or play games on my phone, and those to me are the biggest culprits of smartphone addiction. After all, these apps are designed to be addictive, and they lead to an incredible waste of time. And sure, I’ve wasted many hours on my phone, but most of the time I’m on it to do something specific, which is really what all of us should be striving for – do live with intent.

Reading Lamm’s pamphlet has inspired me to do two things: keep my phone out of my bedroom and keep it out of reach when I’m watching a movie or TV.  That will go a long way to keeping me engaged with what I’m doing.

For those who feel like their relationship with their phone has crossed a line, Lamm’s pamphlet may provide a roadmap for how to untangle oneself from this device. I wish her huge success with the publication, and I really do hope that one day she can write the book without it sucking her back into the world of electronics.