Starting with the avant guard is a bit like trying to build a house by starting with the roof. For really great music it's necessary to go back the the giants of composition but it helps if you take on some of the more popular pieces first, because some music is quite difficult to relate to. Here's one of Mozart's most famous compositions played by Yuja Wang who is just having fun before a concert. You might notice that it's had over a million visits. http://youtu.be/j1fgo7hp-Ko
One reason for a start is that I heard some classical music can be hard to "get" at firdt. I've hard that experience with avant-garde artists like Frank Zappa , Don Van Vliet, and Robert Wyatt. I actually found that piece you recommended to me very exciting. The musicians were even thrilling to watch.
It's never easy to recommend great music to someone who perhaps hasn't experienced it on a serious level. One person will hear a piece by Bach and be bowled over by it whereas another will find it unappealing. It's the same with books, we all have our favourite writers regardless of the general consensus that says Shakespeare is the greatest literature anyone can read. I posted this some time ago on the forum because it is a well known piece but played brilliantly by a young orchestra. So maybe this is the sort of thing that I would recommend but there's no guarantee that you will find it as stunning as I do because great music is a very subjective thing. http://youtu.be/RcAGFgPCigw If you like the piano try Yuja Wang the brilliant young Chinese with an amazing technique or, for the violin, try Sarah Chang another great Chinese artiste. You can get their performances on YouTube.
So I was thinking about getting into classical music, who is a good artist to start with?
I haven't much much experience in literature yet, but so my favorite book is One Hundred years of solitude. Were you born in a well of family?
Well it's a complicated subject and economists have very different views about it. I became interested in it through politics: a closely related subject. I also used to deal in a small way in shares listed on the London Stock Exchange, but I guess it really began when I was on holiday in Rome years before and I wanted something to read, so I bought a copy of Theodore Dreiser's The Financier, based on the life of Charles T. Yerkes a major US financier who financed Chicago's public transport system and also the London underground during the early years of the last century. Anyone who thinks money is a boring subject should read Dreiser's book and also another American novel called The Pit by Frank Norris about dealing in wheat on the commodities exchange in Chicago, it's thrilling stuff.
What is a good place to learn the basics of Finance?
Well people do what interests them. In my case it's politics, finance and a few other things, but if somebody wants to spend their time watching sport or doing nothing in particular, that's what they will do. However, they may not be as interesting to people like myself as those who have similar interests. The only way to be well informed is to take an interest in what's happening, but being well informed is not essential if one finds it easier to remain in ignorance of what is going on.
I mostly skim through the headlines. I have a feeling that I should make myself more well informed, but I'm pretty damn lazy.
I tend to get most of my news from French newspapers because I am interested in their politics but they also cover world events very well. Sometimes I watch BBC news on the computer and also listen to the radio but I don't watch television. Sometimes I buy the Wall Street Journal for the financial news and occasionally watch US news broadcasts about important issues posted on You Tube.
