"Happy Classical"

Oftentimes at parties/social gatherings down here, a friend of mine's iPod is often the main source of music, so I've become familiar with her taste in music, at least insofar as it applies to "party mixes." One of the songs on said party mix is John Adams's Short Ride in a Fast Machine, which generally provokes some small amount of conversation, as everyone in our smallish social circle eventually asks "what's this?" Answering this question often falls to me, as Jen isn't necessarily always available to answer for all the songs on her iPod (though she generally is) and I am the resident used-to-be-like-a-musician-or-something. In answering the question, I oftentimes just tell them what it is, pause, and then agree that, "Yip. Pretty great."

Of course, this is somewhat disingenuous of me, as readers of this blog may recognize, since I am the one of the four of us sibbloggerings that doesn't particularly care for Adams's music (beyond the usual exceptions (which does not include Naive and Sentimental Music)). Why? The answer to that question isn't worth blogging about (let's just agree to disagree (John Adams was educated stupid and evil)).

At any rate, since I am the resident UTBLAMOS in the program, and in talking to Jen about her tastes in music, I wound up burning her a CD (could've been (and may end up being) several CDs, but it's left at one for the time-being) of some "classical" music. My friend's taste in music is self-described as being limited to "happy" music, so below is the playlist of what I burned her as an initial offering of "happy classical" music (with the implicit message that there is (much) better music out there than early John Adams):

1. Thomas Adès: Chamber Symphony
2. Louis Andriessen: De Materie, Part 3 "De Stijl"
3. John Cage: Suite for Toy Piano
4. György Ligeti: Musica Ricercata, No. VII
5. Jean Sibelius: Symphony No. 5