Do you want to feel like you're a classical music connoisseur?
Well, welcome!
You found the right channel.
And more precisely, you found the right video.
Today we're going to dive into 10 really underrated classical music
that will make you feel like you know everything
about the classical music world.
You'll be able to name-drop some pieces
that will earn you instant respect from the classical community.
This is a chance to flex your knowledge.
You walk into a concert hall, you'll be like...
- "Tsk. The third movement, the fourth phrase means this." - Eddy: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
To be honest, it was really hard to come up with this list,
'cause there's so much good music.
And there's also such a...
- ...wide range of like, - Brett: Wide range. Yeah.
the most obscure classical music to like,
stuff that's still very popular within the classical world,
- but just not mainstream. Right? - Yeah.
- So we tried to balance it out. - Eddy: Mm-hmm.
This doesn't mean these are the only ones.
It's just... If you don't know these pieces,
- definitely check them out, 'cause they're amazing music. - Oh... Pfft.
- Alright. - So nice.
Number one, starting off.
My favorite composer, Debussy.
Not many people know...
I mean, people do know this piece,
but it's a slightly less well-known piece.
- I don't know if I'm pronouncing it correctly. - Yeah, I'll pronounce it right. Ready?
- "...for harp and strings." - Yeah.
Which is a very interesting combination.
But it sounds amazing.
I'll play for you some of my favorite bits.
- That's such a good opening. - Yeah, it's so like, peaceful.
- Welcome, to the world of Debussy. - Eddy: Mmm. Yeah.
That texture, kind of...
...hazy texture, it's so Debussy.
But I also find one of Debussy's signature composition things is,
- he would use parallel chords. Right? - Mm-hmm.
So, before then, it was kind of like, functional harmony. Like...
You had the melody, and the harmony would serve
to move the music from a harmonic sense, like...
- Tension, resolution, traveling between keys, right? - Brett: Yes.
But here, the chords are just moving in line with the melody.
- It's like a color thing. - Yeah, that... That broke the rules.
- There's rules, like you can't write consecutive... - Parallel fifths.
- Parallel fifths, parallel octaves. Yeah. - Yeah.
You're not supposed to write it, but...
- Yeah. - Debussy really... made it happen.
I just gotta show you that last bit.
It's so epic bro, like...
Can I just say...
I think I picked the wrong recording.
Like, it's still epic, but my favorite recording...
They play that last bit better.
- But no, it's still epic. - Yeah, yeah, it is. Yeah.
It's not often that you hear epic harp stuff.
Just kidding, just kidding.
- Ohhh...! - Just kidding! Nah.
- Some harp representation. - Brett: Yeah.
- What's next? - So...
- Prokofiev, for the piano gang! - Piano gang, I've been obsessed with this piece recently.
- I've been running to it, actually. It's pretty epic. - Brett: Oh... nice.
'Cause it's like...
It's... not super unknown.
- Like, people in the classical world know it. - Brett: Yeah.
- But it's not like Moonlight Sonata. - They won't be like... Yeah, okay.
You gotta check out this part, it's crazy.
- Yeah, this part's messed up, man. - Oh yeah.
- I love this part. - And Yuja Wang is just like...
- Oh my god. - She nailed it.
- I played this. - Yeah.
Can I say, Prokofiev overall, it's got a very particular taste?
- He has his own sound, right? - Yeah, it's not something...
For me anyway, it wasn't something I got into straightaway.
Prokofiev... definitely has his own space
in your heart, I would say.
- I think "taste" is a good word, it's like... - Brett: Yeah.
If you're eating different foods,
there's just this one particular taste
- that only Prokofiev has. - Yeah, yeah!
And no other composer has that music taste.
I don't know what it is.
It's a combination, I think, of...
His rhythm.
- He has, always, this pulse in his music. - Brett: Yes. Yeah.
He has that kind of, flavorful dissonance.
But yet, it's less like...
Shostakovich dissonance, it's more like...
- ...fantasy, and like, colorful dissonance, right? - Yeah, it's not... I know what you mean.
- It's not as... harsh. - Eddy: Mmm!
- And it's very hard, like... - It's so hard.
What she did on piano, I can imagine is insanely hard,
- but even the orchestral part is hard. - Brett: Oh yeah, that part is hard. Yeah.
If you're playing, accompanying a Prokofiev concerto,
- usually the orchestra has hard parts. - Yeah, Prokofiev doesn't let you off the hook.
- You're playing. - Eddy: Yeah. Exactly.
Next one! Some chamber music.
Yeah, and can I just say, this theme comes back a lot.
- Mmm. - I got goosebumps.
It's a bit like Prokofiev, it's a bit weird at the beginning.
- Mm-hmm. - But I think this was actually one of the...
- ...pieces that kind of got me to appreciate Britten more. - Mmm.
We were meant to play it together,
- but then I got injured in uni. - Yeah.
- Yeah, I remember, right. Yeah, yeah. - So I... someone subbed out.
It's got a really particular feel to it.
And it was actually written when he was late in his life.
He took some parts of this from Bartók as well.
- Mmm, I can hear that! - You can hear it a bit, right?
It's like... It reminds me of Bartók.
It's such an interesting use...
...of the interval with the second.
It's such a dissonant...
Like, it's not something you usually have so much
- in the listener's ears. - Yeah.
And the way he kind of like, inverts the melody.
Without becoming a music theory lesson, I wanna show...
What's that epic violin solo bit?
- You see, it comes back, right? - Ohhh...
- Yeah. - Yeah. That solo is pretty good.
To be honest, I remember it was really hard
to get the right colors as well.
It's a string quartet, so it's more exposed.
So you really want to get the color with just four instruments.
In that part, I've noticed also, a lot of parts...
...there's only two instruments.
They could've easily gave the double stops
- to two instruments, but they chose to keep it... - Brett: Yes. One.
- ...one, for the viola part. - Brett: Yes. Yeah.
- Violas get to shine. - Yeah.
Yeah, Britten. English composer, I think,
doesn't get as much cred as he should.
- His War Requiem is also pretty epic. - Oh, yeah.
Alright, so we've had a piano concerto,
a harp piece, a string quartet, chamber music...
- Time for a symphony. - Oh, yes.
If you already name-drop Mahler...
- You're the top 5%. - Yeah yeah yeah...!
It's like, you already know your stuff.
But... even amongst the famous Mahler 9 Symphonies,
10 if you want, the incomplete one...
There's a lot of internal debate
- about which one is the best, right? - Brett: Mm-hmm.
Some people love No. 2, some people love No. 5.
I personally love No. 9 the most.
No. 1 is also great, No. 7, 8, a bit more indie.
But, No. 4, the one I'm talking about now,
stands out because it's...
- ...very different from all his other symphonies. - Mm-hmm.
Usually Mahler's last movements are
heavy and epic, and so much orchestration.
In this symphony, the last movement is really light.
Pastoral.
It's like, suddenly you're in the European countryside.
- Not very typical. Yeah. - Yeah, it's just very...
It's unexpected, but it's amazing writing.
He even puts a cowbell
in the instrumentation, like, it's the...
- It just sounds like there's cows in the background. - Yeah.
I'll play the fourth movement, 'cause...
I mean, the whole thing's epic,
but the fourth movement is probably the most iconic.
- Ohhhh! - Brett: It's so good.
I want to listen to it now, yeah.
- I think I'm gonna have to listen to it. It's so nice. - It's so good, hey.
- Mahler somehow makes an orchestra sing. - Mmm.
You know what I mean? Like a...
It's an orchestra, but it sounds like all the instruments,
when they have their solos, they just sing.
- The melodies, the writing. - Brett: Yep.
There's also a part in here that
- the concertmaster has to tune their violin up. - Oh, yeah!
Brett: The concertmaster plays two violins, yeah.
Next one is another piano piece.
I discovered this piece about like, six months ago.
- And holy moly, like... - Oh, yeah.
It's Sibelius, and it sounded like Sibelius, but...
It wasn't something I'd expect Sibelius to write.
Dude.
Okay, where the he... Like...
Where did this come from, right? It's like...
You'd think, with all the Sibelius symphonies and violin concertos...
To hear something so simplistic, it almost sounds like...
...the precursor of like, modern film piano music.
Someone once had a theory,
there was like, a publishing crisis? Or some...
Some crisis happened.
To make money, the composers there had to write
more music that people in their homes can play.
Maybe this was like, that?
I would try to learn it!
- Yeah! And it doesn't look hard. I mean... - Yeah.
- To play it well, it would be hard. - To play it well, it's hard. But I'll try to learn it.
Yeah. It's beautiful.
And it's only 4 minutes, it's a small piece.
This to me could be like, "pop music," right?
We got one last one from us,
and then three recommendations from our...
Just like, our team, actually.
- So we'll go over them in a sec. - Yes.
Last one from us is...
Isn't that like, just the most romantic thing?
Like, talk about romantic expression.
- It's just all there, in one pack. - It's just...
Like...
Everything.
Like... Yeah, I don't know.
If you want to impress a potential lover,
hire a piano quartet, and serenade them with this.
And they'll be a lot more impressed than Pachelbel Canon in D.
- This is the one, yeah! - Yeah.
So good, check it out.
This recording, obviously, has Janine, Argerich.
- Big, legendary musicians. - Brett: Mm-hmm.
Maisky playing the cello there.
Alright!
Three recommendations from our team.
- 'Cause we also asked them. - Brett: Yes.
First one is from Jordon.
He sent me this really interesting one
- he said he's been listening to recently. - Kapustin.
- Kapustin. It's a... Russian composer, - I know.
- who has a lot of jazz influences. - I think I played something by Kapustin.
- Really? - Yeah, it rings a bell.
During, um... my time with the Sydney Symphony.
I didn't know Kapustin existed.
I remember this name Kapustin, it was like "Ooh!"
Everyone was like, "Ooh! Kapustin!"
- I was like... - Yeah.
- "Who's this? Ooh, Kapustin!" - Yeah.
- Well, there you go! - Yeah. I wonder...
Sonata Fantasia, in the words of Jordon He...
Around 11 minutes, it sounds like anime.
So I want to check it out.
Yeah... That sounds like anime right there!
It's so good!
Yes.
Okay, it was something like this. I heard...
Kapustin, I can't remember off the top of my head,
it was something that sounded like this.
- That's so epic. - And I was like, it was just going at it on strings.
I was like, "This is so cool!" Yeah, yeah.
- I would not expect this to be a Russian composer, right? - Yeah. Out of nowhere.
If I was blind and listening to this,
- I would've thought it was a Japanese composer. - Yep, same.
- The rhythms, the melodies, the harmonies. - Yeah.
So cool, check it out!
Two from other team members.
I don't know this piece, but it sounded epic.
Hubert Parry. Never heard of this composer,
but it's an English composer.
- Yeah. - I don't want to stop it, I'm like...
It's nice, it's really nice.
That C sharp, like...
That. Ohhh.
The harmony's that...
I don't know, it's just...
I think it's amazing.
I feel like it's one of those pieces where...
I can imagine you going through life,
and something big or impactful, terrible happened.
And you're just like, sitting by yourself in a forest.
And then you play this.
- It would just be like, this... - Brett: Something meaningful, yeah.
...spiritual thing. Anyway.
(both) Last one!
Yeah, just had to put two Debussy pieces in this list.
Debussy is superior.
I mean, I don't know that much vocal works.
But... this piece, I love it.
- It was great. - Yep.
This song... It's technically a song.
- It's a song. Yeah. - This song is really nice. It's beautiful.
- It's got the Debussy traits. - Mmm.
(both) Yeah.
Alright, there you go, 10 underrated classical pieces.
Let us know if you enjoy this type of video.
Definitely, we think it's important to listen.
To be able to hear and understand the tastes
- of every composer. - Yeah, for sure.
It's also, we're trying to share this with you guys,
so you guys get a chance to explore
these types of music, in the classical world.
- Happy listening. - Happy listening, and if you want to play these
pieces and songs, you have to...
...practice.
- Bye-bye! - Bye.