MICHEAL F. ANDERS, a University of Findlay music professor, directs a rehearsal at the university. Anders, an aficionado of classical music who did his doctoral dissertation on Italian composer Giacomo Puccini, said fans of the musical genre tend to be “extremely passionate” about it and love talking about the music with each other. (Photo by Randy Roberts)
By SARA ARTHURS
Staff Writer
Centuries after they were composed, works of classical music are still very much alive in 2014.
Fans of the genre enjoy listening to symphonies and other pieces by composers like Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and Franz Joseph Haydn as well as opera by composers like Giacomo Puccini, Giuseppe Verdi and Richard Wagner.
Aficionados “are all extremely passionate about it,” and love to find others to discuss it with, said Micheal F. Anders, Ph.D., a University of Findlay music professor.
Opera lover Roger Fell’s favorite composers include Verdi and Wagner. He has been known to sit through a five- or six-hour performance of a Wagner opera.
“When it’s over, I’m ready to do it again. … There’s something about it and I don’t know what it is,” said Fell, husband of University of Findlay President Katherine Fell.
What keeps certain works alive?
Anders said it’s because the work of composers like Mozart and Johann Sebastian Bach are “so strong and so well-constructed that they have lasted the test of time.”
Anders completed his doctoral dissertation in musicology (music history) on Puccini, the Italian composer of the operas “Madame Butterfly,” “La Boheme” and “Tosca.” His interest in studying musicology came from wanting to learn about what makes certain composers’ work good.
He thinks that with composers, like with visual artists, works that last tend to be the works that were the very best. With visual artists “it’s because of the quality of the painting or the quality of the sculpture,” he said. “Well, the same is true of composers. It’s the quality of their music.”
There were many other Italian composers writing operas at the same time as Puccini, and their music was “extremely popular” during their lifetimes but interest faded over time, he said.
Even the works of some famous composers are considered better than others. Puccini’s second opera, “Edgar,” isn’t as good as “Madame Butterfly,” Anders said.
The term “classical” refers to music composed during the Classical period, from about 1750 to 1830. However, the term is used more generally to refer to music from a larger period of history. Anders prefers the term “art music” to refer to the genre, and noted that there are modern composers creating art music similar to that of centuries past.
Many movie soundtracks are composed in the “classical tradition,” said classical music lover Roger Kranz. Examples are the “The Adventures of Robin Hood,” starring Errol Flynn, in 1938 and “Star Wars,” composed by John Williams in 1977.
Kranz, production director at WFIN, used to host a classical music radio show at the University of Findlay years ago.
Gustav Mahler is Kranz’ favorite composer but there are others he likes such as Beethoven and Haydn.
“He’s so inventive,” Kranz said of Haydn.
Kranz likes following along with a musical score. Listening to different recordings, he can discern how different conductors create different interpretations of the music.
Anders’ favorite composers include Mozart, George Frideric Handel and Bach.
“I’m constantly watching operas,” he said. But he also enjoys popular music and particularly loves the Beatles.
Kranz, who prefers instrumental music to opera, said there are other musical genres he enjoys but, “given the choice, I’m going to listen to a Haydn symphony.”
Kranz said one of Bach’s sons, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, who is less famous than his father, wrote some “really unique” music. He also likes Romantic composer Franz Berwald.
“He wrote some symphonies that are pretty cool,” Kranz said.
Kranz listens to recordings but seldom attends live concerts.
“I’d really love to hear a Mahler symphony live,” he said.
For the last few years, a series of filmed operas and ballets from European opera houses have been shown at the Carmike Cinema in Findlay. Fell has enjoyed going although he is usually the only one there. He travels a few times a year to Chicago to see opera performed live and has seen, in Toledo, live film of operas performed at the Metropolitan Opera.
Anders grew up in a period where music was taught in the “conservatory” method, in which students learned certain pieces in a strict regimen. His daughter, a music major, is learning under a different approach.
“Young people” are what keeps classical music alive, said piano teacher Wendene Shoup. Shoup, 96, recently attended a music conference where she met other music lovers of all ages, including young composers, pianists and harpists.
When Fell had young children he would take them to a traveling “opera bus.” Fell recalled his son as a high schooler saying he had recognized a chorus in music class, but didn’t let on that he knew it because “I have a reputation to maintain!” Today the son, 31, lives in Houston and subscribes to the Houston opera. Fell said that, although he hears that the population of opera-goers is aging, there are still plenty of young people in the audience.
Many area classical music fans trace back their own love of the music to their youths. Fell grew up in a small town in Louisiana, where music was “a big deal” in the church he attended when he was young. But opera became his passion starting in his college years, when he first heard opera and thought it was “pretty terrific.” Kranz became interested in classical music in junior high school after hearing some Tchaikovsky.
Shoup, as a young woman, studied piano, violin and voice in New York at the insistence of her mother, who had grown up in an era when education was discouraged for girls.
“I loved it,” she said. “I was in seventh heaven.”
As a college student, Anders listened to popular music and did not “immediately embrace opera,” but the more he was exposed to it the more he grew to like it.
Shoup enjoys listening to records and tapes but said a live performance is “the most fun.” Her husband loved opera and the couple would drive to Detroit to see operas performed.
Patrons at the Findlay-Hancock County Public Library often check out classical music CDs after hearing a piece at a piano recital or preparing their child for one, said Lynnette Coppler, audiovisual manager at the library. She said Beethoven and Mozart are among the popular composers.
Anders’ recommendation to someone new to opera?
“I would certainly start with Puccini and specifically with ‘La Boheme,'” he said.
He counseled against starting with Wagner, whose operas are quite long.
“The music is glorious but it is not for the faint of heart,” he said.
In symphonic music “obviously you would start with Mozart, Haydn … Any of the symphonies, they’re lovely pieces,” Anders said.
Fell’s recommendations for those new to opera are to start with ABC, or “Aida,” “La Boheme” and “Carmen.” At one time “Aida” was the number one performed opera, Fell said.
Another opera he recommends is “La Traviata,” the story of a prostitute who falls in love.
Kranz recommends Tchaikovsky to classical music novices.
“He is incredibly popular. … Every Christmas you hear ‘The Nutcracker,'” Kranz said.
Other composers he recommended include Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Franz Schubert, Frederic Chopin and Robert Schumann.
Kranz said some listeners may be intimidated by classical music or think it’s “too complicated” or “highfalutin’.”
“But gosh, no,” he said. “It’s so beautiful and exciting.”
He said the availability of CDs at the public library allows newcomers to dip their toes into it.
Classical works are “still vital and people still believe in them enough to bring them to a whole new audience, a whole new generation,” Kranz said.
Online:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQbv1Ggk6Ic
Arthurs: 419-427-8494 Send an E-mail to Sara Arthurs