Slaxxor

Maurice Duruflé, click for bio, composed my new favorite piece of music. I got an extremely high quality recording of Duruflé’s Requiem. I’ve been a fan of Requiems and choral music for some time now, but this work surpasses everything I had heard before it. Mozart’s Requiem is fantastic, and few pieces can rival the Confutatis or the Lacrimosa, but Duruflé’s Requiem, the Domine Jesu Christe and the Agnus Dei in particular, blow it to pieces. For a decent recording of Duruflé’s Agnus Dei, watch this video. It is one of the most moving and beautiful pieces I’ve ever heard. Over the last few weeks I’ve listened to it probably twenty times each day, and I haven’t gotten tired of it at all. It’s difficult to describe music of this emotional depth and beauty in a blog, so I beg you to listen to them, even if you don’t normally enjoy classical music, but if you don’t, seriously, rethink your life. Honestly. Here we go, rant time:

What is it with people these days and music. Obviously some people still have the common sense to recognize good music when they hear it, as there are some people in the country that attend orchestra concerts, the opera, etc, but these people are massively outnumbered by my generation, largely ignorant of the beauty and variety of classical music. Even in my high school’s orchestra, almost none of the players, even the principle players, would claim classical music as one of their favorites. Too often I see people leave orchestra rehersal and immediately begin playing loud hip hop in their cars. It’s ridiculous, and it’s disgusting. Hip hop may have cultural significance to some people, but in my opinion its cultural significance is analogous to that of saggy pants. It symbolizes a lower class, urban, violent lifestyle, where going to prison isn’t an embarrassing thing, it’s a feather in one’s proverbial cap. Why anyone would want to listen to rich black men rapping about what it’s like to be a poor black man, I can’t understand. Aside from cultural critiquing, rap doesn’t even sound like music. In most cases (yes there are a few exceptions), rap is a badly written song, usually lacking completely in grammar, that has no melody, merely a simple, boring rhythm. Rock isn’t much better. I admit, there are a very few rock groups that I enjoy (Dave Matthews, Coldplay, and Muse), but on the whole, it’s low quality over amplified trash that people enjoy only because it’s popular. None of this music will be looked back on in 50 years as the Beatles are now, and in 250 years will not even have a place in the most detailed of textbooks. This is the musical equivalent of pulp fiction, and listening audiences need to wise up to this fact. Ok, rant over. Point is, LISTEN TO CLASSICAL AND JAZZ! Thank you!

Sorry about that, but that rant has been waiting to get out for about ten years. If you’ve never explored choral music before, or even if you have, give Faure, Mozart, and Duruflé a try, and I can guarantee that if you keep an open mind and try to appreciate the natural beauty of this music instead of its pop cultural appeal, you will find a new and exciting genre unfold before you.