Quote:
Originally Posted by CJ  It depends on what your view of "Classical" music is.
For example, would you consider "Tango to Evora" as a classical piece? Then there are of course contemporary classical music pieces: anything from Cage to the compositions from "Stomp". Any music from film scores, etc could also be termed as classical music.
There would be many pieces from the "Classical" era (approx 1745 to 1810) which would be great for MJ. Whilst I've never played one whilst DJing, I have MJ'd to this kind of music: The first movement to Mozart's 40th Symphony would be an obvious example.
Pieces from what is called the "Romantic" period (c1800- 1900) would be more challenging in terms of musicality and expression as they tend to have wider variations in tempi, dynamic and mood within one piece. Before the Romantic era, most music existed as a whole: a piece of music for it's own sake. The Romantic period introduced us to the notion of a piece of music actually being about something.
Beethoven's "Eroica" Symphony (number III) was one of the first examples. It was originally dedicated to Napoleon, and if U see the original manuscript, you can see where Beethoven scored it off the manuscript. Other early examples were Berlioz' "Symphany Fantastique", etc... Because they were "about" something, they were much more exprerssive. So, space for interpretation would be vast, if somewhat challenging.
Most of the intellectual modernist contemporary classical pieces could be dismissed as dancable, if only for the fact that, aurally, they are not very accesible. However, composers such as Jenkins, Einaudi, etc have brought form and melody very much back to the fore.
As I'm getting close to my 10,000 words I refer the honorable gentleman to my earlier answer: which was yes.  |
Superb post.
I'd love to dance MJ to pre 1940 music, although I don't know how I'd cope with the Romantic stuff. For me, nothing two people holding hands can do would come close to doing justice to a Beethoven in full swing.
Saying that, I'd love to dance to contempory minimalistic composers such as CJ suggests (Einaudi et al.). I think I've already said how much of a revelation dancing to the music from The Piano was. It's so refreshing to dance to something where the beat is a much more integral part of the music, rather than a groove upon which the rest of the music is built on (Don't get me wrong, I love the textures and layerings of modern pop as well).
I see what most people would call 'classical' composers as a very frustrated bunch, always trying to push the boundaries and break the mold. Some of the results of that are, while fantastic pieces of music, pretty undanceable. I'd hate to try modern jiving to Wolf's "Prometheus", so I guess I'd say no, you can't MJ to any music at any function. However, there is a
lot of scope for dancing to classical music which just isn't explored. DJs don't even have to be that adventurous - there's enough 'opera-pop' going round to get away with throwing in an Andrea Bocelli or two every now and then.
Dan