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| Few art forms offer such a grand scale as a symphony orchestra. Here, Belgium's National Orchestra performs on stage during a rehearsal at the Henry Le Boeuf Great Hall at the center of Fine Arts . Photo: AURORE BELOT/AFP/Getty Images |
Classical music aficionados: Go away. This article is not for you. Instead, it is for everyone who sees classical music as a private club and who feels they’re standing outside the clubhouse. It’s for those who have been to one or two orchestral concerts but are still not quite sure what they’re supposed to be getting out of the experience. It’s for those who like the sound of a few classical pieces but want to move beyond Mozart’s “A Little Night Music” and Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony and the flower duet from “Lakme” — trust me, you’ve heard it; look it up — and take a deeper dive into the repertoire.
But concert programs list unfamiliar names, without much guidance into how to choose between them, and when you type Mozart into Spotify you get a wall of tracks, many of them different versions of the same thing. For anyone who relates to any part of this description, here’s a field guide with a few points to keep in mind as you exercise your classical muscles and seek out which territory, in this wide-ranging field, feels most like home.
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Source: Washington Post
