What is clas­si­cal music? It may seem like a reme­di­al ques­tion, but it is a seri­ous one. Leonard Bern­stein took it seri­ous­ly enough to design an entire pro­gram around it. His “Young People’s Con­certs” with the New York Philharmonic—broadcast on TV from Carnegie Hall in 1959—began with an admis­sion of how unclear the ter­m’s usage had become in pop­u­lar cul­ture. “You see,” he told his young audi­ence, “every­body thinks he knows what clas­si­cal music is… Peo­ple use this word to describe music that isn’t jazz or pop­u­lar songs or folk music, just because there isn’t any oth­er word that seems to describe it bet­ter.”

Clas­si­cal music is often thought of in even more neb­u­lous, and per­haps elit­ist, terms as “art music,” over and above these oth­er forms. Yet Bern­stein goes on to define clas­si­cal music in more pre­cise ways: A clas­si­cal com­pos­er “puts down the exact notes that he wants, the exact instru­ments or voic­es that he wants to play or sing those notes—even the exact num­ber of instru­ments or voic­es; and he also writes down as many direc­tions as he can think of” about tem­po, dynam­ics, etc. What might sound like a straight­jack­et for musi­cians instead offers an inter­pre­tive chal­lenge: “No per­for­mance can be per­fect­ly exact.… But that’s what makes the per­former’s job so exciting–to try and find out from what the com­pos­er did write down as exact­ly as pos­si­ble what he meant.”

This work­ing def­i­n­i­tion, while devoid of tech­ni­cal jar­gon for the sake of Bern­stein’s untrained audi­ence, still man­ages to give us a good sense of the para­me­ters he set for the “clas­si­cal.” They do not stretch wide­ly enough to include impro­visato­ry mod­ernism (though he had a high regard for jazz as a sep­a­rate cat­e­go­ry). But they do include much instru­men­tal and choral Euro­pean music from the start of the medieval peri­od into the 20th cen­tu­ry. The def­i­n­i­tion could be a much nar­row­er one. “One of the first things you learn when you’re intro­duced to clas­si­cal music,” Jay Gabler writes at online radio sta­tion Clas­si­cal MPR, “is that the term ‘clas­si­cal’ most prop­er­ly describes music com­posed from about 1750 to 1820.”

This means Mozart and Haydn, most of Beethoven, but not Bach, Wag­n­er, Debussy, or Cop­land. And cer­tain­ly not aleato­ry exper­i­men­tal­ists like John Cage, min­i­mal­ists like Steve Reich, or aton­al odd­balls like Arnold Schoen­berg. While Bern­stein seems to set­tle the issue with rel­a­tive ease, “musi­col­o­gists,” Gabler notes, “can stay up all night talk­ing about the shape and tra­jec­to­ry of clas­si­cal music, debat­ing ques­tions like the impor­tance of the score, the role of impro­vi­sa­tion, and the nature of musi­cal form.” These are the kinds of dis­cus­sions one might have over the 1200-track Spo­ti­fy playlist above, “The His­to­ry of Clas­si­cal Music–From Gre­go­ri­an Chant to Górec­ki.” (If you need Spo­ti­fy’s soft­ware, down­load it here.)

We begin with the 11th cen­tu­ry church music of Leonin and Per­otin, two com­posers asso­ci­at­ed with Notre Dame who are cred­it­ed with “the begin­ning of mod­ern music” for their use of polypho­ny and var­i­ous rhyth­mic modes. (Hear the espe­cial­ly haunt­ing “Viderunt Omnes” by Leonin at the top of the post.) The playlist, cre­at­ed by a cura­tor who goes by Ulysses Clas­si­cal, then takes us through the late Medieval and Renais­sance peri­ods and into the Baroque, exem­pli­fied by Han­del, Bach, Vival­di, Pachel­bel, Scar­lat­ti, and oth­ers. Beethoven and Mozart get their due, but not more so than Dvořák and Tchaikovsky.

By the time we reach the 20th cen­tu­ry, we begin to move quite far from the for­mal­ism of Bern­stein’s def­i­n­i­tion and into the strange realms of Schoen­berg, Mes­si­aen, Ligeti, Reich, and Philip Glass, with whom this his­to­ry ends. Obvi­ous­ly the strict peri­odiza­tion Gabler men­tions can­not con­tain all of what we mean by clas­si­cal music, but just how much can the des­ig­na­tion encom­pass aton­al exper­i­men­tal mod­ernism and still be a coher­ent con­cept? Let the musi­col­o­gists debate. For those of us who approach this music as a form of pure plea­sure, it’s enough just to sit back and lis­ten.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Leonard Bernstein’s Mas­ter­ful Lec­tures on Music (11+ Hours of Video Record­ed at Har­vard in 1973)

Stream 58 Hours of Free Clas­si­cal Music Select­ed to Help You Study, Work, or Sim­ply Relax

The World Con­cert Hall: Lis­ten To The Best Live Clas­si­cal Music Con­certs for Free

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

Lou Reed was a vora­cious lis­ten­er. Rather than con­sume music, he imbibed it, drank it down in draughts, then sweat­ed it out through his pores. His inex­haustible thirst for songs result­ed in a body of work that has always sound­ed inti­mate­ly famil­iar, even when it takes us to places no song­writ­ers had before: the bit­ter, ten­der, vio­lent under­side of glam­our, art, and romance.

But where, exact­ly, did Reed’s wry, bleak, yet ten­der sen­si­bil­i­ty come from? How did he man­age so much com­plex emo­tion­al res­o­nance in such seem­ing­ly sim­ple songs as “Sun­day Morn­ing” and “Per­fect Day”? Part of the answer comes from his ven­er­a­tion of Beat poets and writ­ers like Allen Gins­berg and William Bur­roughs, as well as his one-time men­tor Del­more Schwartz. “I thought if you could do what those writ­ers did,” he said, “and put it to drums and gui­tar, you’d have the great­est thing on earth.”

This was no easy accom­plish­ment. It took some­one like Reed, steeped in pop, folk, rock, and jazz songcraft, to pull it off in such a way that Rolling Stone could call the Vel­vet Under­ground “the most influ­en­tial Amer­i­can rock band of all time”—largely, writes the Dai­ly Dot, “because of Reed’s son­ic and lyri­cal con­tri­bu­tions.” For most of Reed’s career, how­ev­er, dis­cov­er­ing the sources of his mag­ic could be dif­fi­cult.

Reed’s inter­view moods ranged from iras­ci­bly con­fronta­tion­al to dis­dain­ful­ly tac­i­turn to face­tious­ly gar­ru­lous. “Every­thing is jokes to this bibu­lous bozo,” remarked Lester Bangs in a 1973 inter­view. “He real­ly makes a point of havin’ some fun!” But age, it seems, and the inter­net, mel­lowed him out and made him more like­ly to share. He opened up about his love for Kanye West’s Yeezus and oth­er things. He appeared on Sat­ur­day Night Live to dis­pute inter­net rumors that he had died in 2001.

And when he did die, in 2013, he left behind the Spo­ti­fy account “he was curat­ing… him­self,” keep­ing “playlists of songs he liked from the radio,” and show­ing both seri­ous and casu­al stu­dents of Lou Reed that “the best online source on Lou Reed is… Lou Reed.” In the two vol­ume playlist above called “What I’m Lis­ten­ing To,” Reed shows us just how seri­ous he was about soak­ing up all of the sounds around him.

Nic­ki Minaj, Prince, Way­lon Jen­nings, indie funk/soul Cana­di­ans King Khan & BBQ, psy­che­del­ic indie cham­ber pop band Of Mon­tre­al, Tom Waits, Miles Davis, Deer­hoof, post-hard­core band Fucked Up, bril­liant neo-soul singer/rapper/songwriter Geor­gia Anne Muldrow, Cap­tain Beef­heart… and that’s just vol­ume one. Name a genre—Reed has found what he clear­ly con­sid­ers its per­fect exem­plar. You can almost see him tak­ing notes, scowl­ing with envy, smirk­ing with appre­ci­a­tion for how his own influ­ence has per­me­at­ed the past few the decades.

Famous musi­cians aren’t always the most inter­est­ing peo­ple, though Reed’s pri­vate life was sen­sa­tion­al enough to war­rant retelling. But many fans will find it much more inter­est­ing to get into the mind of Reed the artist. And for that, you’ll need to try and hear what he heard. Or, at least, lis­ten to what he lis­tened to.

If you need Spo­ti­fy’s free soft­ware, down­load it here. Here are the direct links to the two Spo­ti­fy playlists: Playlist 1 — Playlist 2.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Lou Reed Cre­ates a List of the 10 Best Records of All Time

Teenage Lou Reed Sings Doo-Wop Music (1958–1962)

An Ani­ma­tion of The Vel­vet Underground’s “Sun­day Morn­ing” … for Your Sun­day Morn­ing

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

You know Ennio Morricone’s “The Ecsta­sy Of Gold,” a musi­cal com­po­si­tion first made famous in Ser­gio Leone’s 1966 spaghet­ti west­ern The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. It has since been cov­ered by every­one from Metal­li­ca, to Yo-Yo Ma. And now you can add Ger­man elec­tron­ic musi­cian Car­oli­na Eyck to the list.

Above, watch Eyck take “The Ecsta­sy Of Gold” in new, intrigu­ing direc­tions, using a theremin and a voice loop­er. It’s pret­ty mes­mer­iz­ing.

Below, watch Car­oli­na’s intro­duc­tion to the theremin. And down in the Relat­eds, find much more on the theremin, includ­ing vin­tage footage of Russ­ian inven­tor Leon Theremin giv­ing a demo of the new­fan­gled elec­tron­ic instru­ment.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Sovi­et Inven­tor Léon Theremin Shows Off the Theremin, the Ear­ly Elec­tron­ic Instru­ment That Could Be Played With­out Being Touched (1954)

Watch Jim­my Page Rock the Theremin, the Ear­ly Sovi­et Elec­tron­ic Instru­ment, in Some Hyp­not­ic Live Per­for­mances

Beethoven’s Ode to Joy Played With 167 Theremins Placed Inside Matryosh­ka Dolls in Japan

“Some­where Over the Rain­bow” Played on a 1929 Theremin

Most of us remem­ber Antho­ny Burgess not as the author of dozens of nov­els, as well as short sto­ries, essays, and poems, but as the author of A Clock­work Orange. This owes, for bet­ter or for worse, to Stan­ley Kubrick­’s 1971 film adap­ta­tion of the “bad­ly flawed” Amer­i­can edi­tion of Burgess’ 1962 dystopi­an satire, although even if A Clock­work Orange did­n’t over­shad­ow the rest of his lit­er­ary career, his lit­er­ary career would prob­a­bly still over­shad­ow what he con­sid­ered his life’s tru­ly seri­ous endeav­or: music.

“I wish peo­ple would think of me as a musi­cian who writes nov­els,” Burgess once went so far as to say, “instead of a nov­el­ist who writes music on the side.” Since even those of us who’ve read wide­ly in his bib­li­og­ra­phy may nev­er have heard any of the over 250 pieces of music he wrote in his life­time, today we offer you a lis­ten as well as a look at his orches­tral com­po­si­tions.

In the Spo­ti­fy playlists embed­ded here (and if you don’t have Spo­ti­fy’s free soft­ware, you can down­load it here), you can hear the albums Burgess: Orches­tral Music, The Piano Music of Antho­ny Burgess, and the anthol­o­gy Antho­ny Burgess: The Man and His Music (the title of that last a ref­er­ence to This Man and His Music, the book that brought togeth­er his two great pur­suits most direct­ly).

“Music was at the heart of Antho­ny Burgess’s cre­ative life,” says the site of The Burgess Foun­da­tion, who there have made “scores of his music avail­able free of charge to any­body who wish­es to study or play it.” Pro­lif­ic in his writ­ing as well as his com­pos­ing, Burgess’ music includes a piece only dis­cov­ered in 2012, near­ly twen­ty years after death; the news clip at the top of the post briefly tells the sto­ry of Burgess’ “lost sonata,” his ear­li­est sur­viv­ing com­plete musi­cal work.

Many of Burgess nov­els, includ­ing but hard­ly lim­it­ed to A Clock­work Orange, sug­gest a deep inter­est and under­stand­ing of music, but they also (recall the Droogs’ wide lex­i­con of invent­ed slang) reveal a sim­i­lar capac­i­ty for lin­guis­tics. Call no Burgess fan a com­pletist, then, unless they’ve read his books, heard his music, and also read his trans­la­tions. “Trans­la­tion is not a mat­ter of words only,” the man once said. “It is a mat­ter of mak­ing intel­li­gi­ble a whole cul­ture.” Prac­ticed in fields as “untrans­lat­able” as poet­ry and as trans­la­tion-inde­pen­dent as orches­tral music, he should know. But one won­ders: what oth­er lit­tle-known cul­tur­al side career remains hid­den in the depths of the Burgess archives?

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Antho­ny Burgess Names the 99 Best Nov­els in Eng­lish Between 1939 & 1983: Orwell, Nabokov, Hux­ley & More

A Clock­work Orange Author Antho­ny Burgess Lists His Five Favorite Dystopi­an Nov­els: Orwell’s 1984, Huxley’s Island & More

Antho­ny Burgess’ Lost Intro­duc­tion to Joyce’s Dublin­ers Now Online

Hunter S. Thomp­son Writes a Blis­ter­ing, Over-the-Top Let­ter to Antho­ny Burgess (1973)

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities and cul­ture. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer, the video series The City in Cin­e­ma, the crowd­fund­ed jour­nal­ism project Where Is the City of the Future?, and the Los Ange­les Review of Books’ Korea Blog. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.