Which classic music do you prefer?

[D_Jared Padalicki]

Hèhè, maybe not a normal question from a young guy, but yeah, I like some classic music very much.

So, what do you guys and gals like?

I like Tchaikovsky very very much, especially 'Valse des fleurs' from the Nutcracker and 'Waltz of sleeping beauty' (thanks Dodge!).
But I also like 'La Traviata' from Verdi and 'Le beau Danube Bleu' from Strauss.

 

[Catchoftheday]

I like the beatles :biggrin1:

 

[morsecode]

Chopin!, Wagner, Beethoven, Bach

 

[Qua]

Faure's Requiem is my all time favorite romantic piece. As far as trueclassical, Handel and Mozart (though classical is not my favorite period, I prefer later periods and baroque), and as for baroque...it's gotta be Bach.

Classic rock, now that's a whole nother story, and much more familiar to me.

 

[Pecker]

I go for Baroque.

 

[cockoloco]

Chopin and Bach

I love opera too!

 

[tripod]

Impressionists and Expressionists are my faves!!!

Debussy, Ravel, Stravinsky, Satie, Williams, Respighi, Berg, and Schoenberg get me going. I also have a soft spot for the Romantics as well. Phillip Glass and Charles Ives are probably my favorite modern composers, but I will have to admit that I don't know shit about the contemporary scene.

 

[ballsaplenty2156]

Ravel's "Bolero" is perhaps, the sexiest piece of music ever written. Beethoven, Mozart, Bach and Chopin are in the top 5 for me.
Classical music really stirs one's soul. It can be relaxing or exciting, depending on which piece of music you're taking in.
Classical music, to me, is true music; it doesn't depend on some catchy word phrase to draw you into the music. It is man's emotions played out on instruments, no words necessary.

 

[morsecode]

The organ solo from Highway Star \m/ \m/

 

[koval]

I like most classcal music but especially early Baroque music like Claudio Monteverdi's 'Confetibor Tibi'.

 

[2322]

Hmmm.....

I enjoy Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, and really like Debussy and Ravel. Grieg and Sibelius are high on my list as well. Copeland is my favorite American composer for that sort of thing, though I also like the avant garde.

Of them all though, I have a soft spot for Richard Strauss, believing that, "Und die Seele unbewacht," (at 2:33) is the single most lovely phrase in all of music. At the end of all things, aliens should hear that to know humans were not incapable of touching the face of God.

While not strictly classical, I am a fan of opera, particularly Italian.

What I'm REALLY enjoying these days are orchestral pieces produced for film. I think film scoring these days is unusually good and there are zillions of film scores I truly love. I'm in absolute awe of Howard Shore's pieces for Lord of the Rings. From one of my favorite scenes. I have two other favorite passages of music. The Illumination of the Dwarrowdelf fits so completely not only the image, but the history of the place, that I get all teary-eyed every time I hear it. The other piece I love for its total subtlety, great beauty, wistful air of sadness, and exceptional building of tension is the extended version of the Fellowship's audience with Galadriel and Celeborn. Listen carefully because it's just stunning. Shore's not always about the details but he surely is here.

I have a lot of favorite film scores besides this. There's Edward Scissorhands, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Peggy Sue Got Married, How the West Was Won, Lawrence of Arabia, A Beautiful Mind, Apollo 13, The Third Man, Gone With the Wind, Laura, The Omen, Requiem For A Dream, Star Wars, Jurassic Park, and many, many, others. If I had to name a favorite it would be, and sorry for repeating it, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir. It's the loveliest film theme yet written and yes I just completely lose it when I listen to it. It seems, sadly, I'm verly susceptible to beautiful haunting melodies.

 

[SteveHd]

Vivaldi, Beethoven, Mozart, Handel, and to a lesser degree, Bach, Copeland.

 

[bigmoochie]

I go for Baroque.

Pecker . . . You know what it means to be baroque, don't you? It's when you're out of Monet!

To answer your question, Piet . . . I'm a huge Mozart fan, especially the piano concertos. I really like the recordings Chris Hogwood made with the Academy of Ancient Music. His Mozart, Beethoven & Vivaldi are really beautiful. They use only the original insturmentations & instruments so it's like hearing what the composers heard. I also like 20th century composers like Rutter. To a lesser degree, I like Tchykovsky & Stravinsky, but they're still way up there.

And I was much younger than you are now, Piet, when my folks turned me on to classical & opera My dad was a classically trained clarinetist & worked as a session musician a lot so we all played at least 1 insturment (that was me, I liked sports too much) & learned to like classical as young kids. But . . . (SIGH) I have a jazz heart!

 

[D_Gunther Snotpole]

Chopin and Bach!

Bravo. Some will call it a funny combo, but Chopin was much influenced by Bach.
Bach is my notion of the greatest of all composers.
Chopin, perhaps less great, was still the greatest composer for the piano and a melodist without peer.
(I like many others too, but these are two faves.)
Here's a Chopin performance I like ... Vladimir Horowitz at 64, still in peak form, playing a Polonaise. (He no doubt overplays it, but what a wowzer of a performance.)
Here's something more incontrovertibly superb: Ignaz Friedman playing the E-flat major nocturne, in many peeps' opinion the greatest performance of a nocturne ever consecrated to recording.

I have a soft spot for Richard Strauss, believing that, "Und die Seele unbewacht," (at 2:33) is the single most lovely phrase in all of music. At the end of all things, aliens should hear that to know humans were not incapable of touching the face of God.

You ain't just whistlin' Dixie, Jace.
I think Richard Strauss was the most consistently inspired of all the 20th Century composers. (Of course, he had some fine output during the tail end of the 19th Century, too.)
The tone poems are ravishing.
The operas Elektra and Der Rosenkavalier and Die Frau ohne Schatten are wonderful.
Four Last Songs is perhaps one of the two or three most satisfying works that I know of.
(Oh shit, no. By the time I compiled a list, there'd probably be twenty works or so, but FLS would certainly be in the circle of the imcomparable musical mountaintops.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elektra_(opera)

 

[deleted213967]

Hèhè, maybe not a normal question from a young guy, but yeah, I like some classic music very much.

Oh hush puppy!

So-called "classical" music is timeless. It's not as though your age would prevent you from appreciating it.

Nobody's saying that you have to only listen to that genre or never listen to it. I am crazy about drum-and-bass and electro house but I can play Chopin too.

As you know, many symphonic pieces now 3 centuries old are even scientifically-speaking more advanced than some of the trite Top 40 crapola saturating the airwaves.

Since you like valses, may I suggest "La Valse" by Maurice Ravel: very ethereal and nice clean ending.

 

[vergax]

Since I am a classical musician, this question is very difficult, I think the only answer for me is, that it changes with the times I live, meaning if I find a composer i like, I dwell on it and in that moment is my favourite.

Baroque: Johann Sebastian Bach is GOD
Empfindsamer Stil: Carl Phillip Emmanuel Bach (The Great Bach, as he was known), I prefer this to Romantic music. They share many of the same overly qualities.
Classical: Franz J. Hayn (Il Maestro) is my definite favourite.
XXth century's late Romantic: Agustin Barrios and Manuel Maria Ponce
Modern music: Stockhausen, Varese and since being introduced to him, Salvatore Sciarrino, probably the closest to JSBach I have encountered, nobody makes me feel what I feel upon listening alone and extremely quiet to his musical silences and powerful sounds at times.

 

[rbkwp]

EVERYTHING Handel
All Operas
Most Classicals
enz

 

[Pecker]

*posts and runs away as fast as he can*

• Sign on a music store window: 'Come in and pick out a drum -- then beat it!'
• You can tune a piano but you can't tuna fish.
• A music store was robbed. The police say the thief got away with the lute.
• I tried playing the shoehorn but only got footnotes.
• Find a piano thrown into an army trench and I'll show you a flat major.
• My flute teacher is a tutor.
• Those who hate classical music have my symphony.
• Listening to Mormons sing at the Tabernacle is an a-choir-ed taste.
• They end every concert with a cello solo. There's always room for cello.
• Old musicians never die, they are just disconcerted.
• Beethoven doesn't want us to hear his music. He's decomposing.

 

[Qua]

Oh, and my favorite piece of all time is by a contemporary composer named Eric Whitacre. The song is entitled "A Boy and a Girl," to the poem by Octavio PazIt is dissonant and amazingly complex, but gorgeous besides. Incredible song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eg7kOOkP8wo

The only song I've ever heard that can move me to tears. It is perfectly written to the poem

EDIT: I think I have to throw Eric Whitacre out there for my list of composers.He's awesome, but that song is just...wow. I wish I could find a better performance of it; here's an incredible version of his song "sleep"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhCS7etNEbU&NR=1

EDIT 2: here we go, better version on here (as one would expect)

http://www.myspace.com/ericwhitacre

 

[Gl3nn]

Bach, Chopin, Mozart, ...

Lots of classic music. I can't make a choice