i’m listening to a banger classical music playlist right now and once again i’m confronted with the question: how do i refer to them to others? how do i even look them up on youtube? for example, i love a piece by vivaldi that i believe is fairly popular. spotify and youtube list it as “Violin Concerto in G Minor, RV 315 “L’estate””. that’s not exactly catchy, and just looking for “vivaldi g minor” brings up a ton of stuff on YouTube. it’s no different with all the other big boys – bach, mozart, brahms… do people who regularly have to do with classical music actually memorise those absurd strings of seemingly random numbers? if i want to tell someone i love a piece by Bach, do i say “check out Bach’s 1st Prelude in C Major, BWV 846!”? that can’t be right, can it?
In: Other
Well, yes. That’s the full citation of the work. The BWV stands for “Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis” which is the “notebook” where he published this prelude and the page (?) number.
But mostly you could instead ask Spotify for the “Vivaldi violin Concerto In G minor” or “bachs 1st prelude in c major” and get the right one. Of course there are also different orchestras and stylistic interpretations of each of these. But just asking for either “violin concerto” or “Vivaldi violin concerto in g” isn’t going to get you there, since that isn’t specific enough.
Sadly, the masters didn’t use unique catchy titles like, “Vaseline” or “welcome to the jungle”. So Vivaldi or Bach has lots of violin concertos. And lots of works in G minor. Lots of preludes. Etc.
Latest Answers