Staid, stuffy, formal, boring, old - these are some of the misconceptions held by the uninitiated. In truth, the aegis of classical music covers a vista of inspiration, ecstasy, innovation, tradition, and departure so vast as to establish it forever as... [more]

Staid, stuffy, formal, boring, old - these are some of the misconceptions held by the uninitiated. In truth, the aegis of classical music covers a vista of inspiration, ecstasy, innovation, tradition, and departure so vast as to establish it forever as the West's colossal monument to art. Fiery erotic passion, religious devotion, mourning of the dead - every human passage is transmogrified into astral, aural gold. It is no coincidence that the earliest music that we call classical in the West emerged at the same dawn-breaking moment that the shroud of the Dark Ages began to fall away, a millennium ago. From the sacred polyphony of Medieval visionary Hildegard von Bingen came a spark. Later, that bright pinpoint was ignited by Franco-Flemish innovators into a contrapuntal explosion of light and fascinating complexity. This European Renaissance transitioned to Baroque ornament and color and the prolific genius Bach. Classicism countered with emphasized form, melodic concision, and Mozart. Beethoven's expansion of our emotional, spiritual vocabulary spawned Romanticism. This movement was the soil for Impressionism's flower, Debussy -- who was in turn a harbinger of Stravinksy's dissonant beauty. Which each generation of composers classical music twisted and turned, exploring musical innovations while honoring time-tempered structures. In the last century of the second millennium, the subdivisions of musical imagination have exponentially blossomed into strains as diverse as Schoenberg's twelve-tone serialism and John Cage's random minimalism. Classical music today is a mutable beast, nevermore restricted to acoustic instruments or standard repertoire, as cross-disciplinary violin virtuoso Nigel Kennedy demonstrated in 1999s brilliantly refreshing "Hendrix Variations." Meanwhile, our legacy is constantly enriched by heroes like The Women's Philharmonic who tirelessly unearth more hidden treasures of the past. [show less]