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Classical Music Thread

Staraptor Call

Staraptor Call

Since other kinds of music have their own threads, why not classical music? Post what composers and pieces you like, what you've listened to lately, what you're currently playing, etc.

I recently went to a performance of Jennifer Hidgon's percussion concerto (here's an excerpt from it) performed by Colin Currie, the percussionist Higden wrote it for. Higden was there too, and afterward I got Currie and Higden to sign my program.

As for what I'm playing, I'm playing a lot of Bach right now, including the theme from the Goldberg Variations and Invention #13. Bach is my favorite composer, so I'm glad I'm playing so much by him.

Here are some of my favorite pieces (or parts of pieces). I have too many to list here, so here's just a sampling:
Chopin's Polonaise-Fantaisie in A Flat Major
Koyaanisqatsi by Philip Glass
The third movement of Shostakovitch's 6th Symphony
The fifth movement of Lalo's Symphonie Espagnole
 
franz liszt's mephisto waltz #1 is one my favourite classical piece i think.

i also listen to vitamin string quartet covers of shit like muse, radiohead, etc and they are very good but don't really count as classical (do they?).
 
currently playing vitali's chaconne for violin. after I finish that I might learn the dvorak violin concerto. unsurprisingly most of my classical music interests lie in violin pieces. tchaikovsky's violin concerto is inspirational. I really enjoyed playing mussorgsky's pictures at an exhibition (ravel orchestration) in orchestra; it's a bunch of small movements and that's just one of them. lalo's symphonie espagnole and mendelssohn's violin concerto are the two pieces I play while practicing when I want to blitz through a piece and just have fun! every time I have to play a passage that's 3 against 2 I get a mental image of myself rehearsing the rhythm in the 1st mvt of the lalo way back when I first learned it...
 
I've listened to Beethoven's Bagatelles a lot lately, as well as various Puccini arias.

The bagatelles are such weird little things, what amazes me about Beethoven well, a lot does.. But in this instance in particular, it's the humour he can bring to music writing without it seeming crass or without it being pastiche or ironic.

Puccini is just for the craft, I feel a little silly linking to something as ubiquitous as Un Bel Di, Vedremo. But I picked this recording, even though it is a bad recording (1919 jesus) because it has the english translation, which, aside from being the most tragic fucking thing ever, it allows you to see the way the lyrics are painted in the music.

Have a nice day.
 
Some of my favorites (in no particular order):

Chopin Nocturne Op 27 no 2
Chopin Waltz in E minor

Debussy Claire de Lune
Debussy The Snow is Dancing

Beethoven Pathetique Sonata: 1st movement, 2nd movement, 3rd movement

Brahms Sonata no. 2 for Clarinet and Piano: 1st movement, 2nd movement, 3rd movement

Mozart Clarinet Concerto 1st Movement, 2nd movement, 3rd movement

Carl Maria Von Weber Concertino

Grieg Peer Gynt

Maurice Ravel Bolero

I love classical music in general, so this is by no means an exhaustive list! I play piano and clarinet, though, and I've played a lot of these pieces, hence the bias toward those instruments :)
 
I don't know if this exactly counts but Rhapsody in Blue definitely has a classical feel, with ragtime as well. Maybe you could say a transition piece into 20's jazz from late 19th century classical rhythms and tunes? Probably not, but it's an interesting thought tbh. Really hard to find a good version with the full orchestra, but that's just me. The Slavonic Dances by Dvorak are also pretty interesting

1 2 3 4

5 6 7 8

9 10 11 12

These are based off of many Czech folk dances, and originally written for fourhands.

 
whistle said:
currently playing vitali's chaconne for violin
Click to expand...


:O

I was actually kinda surprised to see a piece in the thread I hadn't heard before.

Have links to you playing by chance?


anywho here's my favorites lately.

Dmitri Shostakovich is my all around favorite composer for pretty much all genres of classical music.

The Gadfly Suite is nice (neo) romanticism on his part and was apparently part of a famous soviet play/movie or something. Trio No 2 has a kick as cello entrance followed by violin entrance (yea it's a cello at the begining I promise :B ). Quartet No 6 the passacaglia movement is awesome, and of course quartet 8 is pretty epic in history and sound (supposedly movement IV is programatic in nature based on the bombing of Dresden with the violin drone the plane flying over and the interruption via stravinskian chords representing the bombshells going off. Um, jazz suite is fun, and I'm still waiting for Tim Burton to use it in a movie :P Symphony 6 is pretty fun too with a great cello sectional opening. Quartet no 15 is perhaps my all around favorite quartet by him (mvt II , mvt VI ) as the handling of textural layering is brilliant between the four voices. The piano quintet is like the one thing by him I haven't got to perform yet that I've really been wanting too <_< It is very fucking excellent. <== I like how they handle the entrance better than the standard 'let's play it fast and make all the notes over-articulated at the beginings' approach. I think it should take it's time, like brahmsian symphony or something because it is epic and epic should not be rushed, but that's just me ^_^

oh yea and he penned two cello concertos :B here's no. 1 (best recording ever is by Heinrich Schiff, tutor of Daniel Mueller-Schott who's Walton Concerto is very acceptible.)

and that's my favorite shostakovich stuffs.

everybody else:

JS Bach
Chaconne
Mass B minor
The cello suites
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Haendle-Halversohn duo
William Walton Cello Concerto (meh cellist <_< )

Beethoven Op 131 quartet No. 14
Beethoven cello sonata D major mvt II
Beethoven Symphony 7 mvt II

Emil Burian string quartet No. 4(?) (wow it's on youtube now...)
John Corigliano, Symphony 1 - Of Rage and Remembrance
here's some Villa-Lobos
Krzysztof Penderecki - Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima
John Cage - 4:33
György Ligeti - metronome symphonyx100
Pierro Lunair - Arnold Schoenberg
Verklaerte Nacht (transfigured night, based on poem) A. Schoenberg

umm.... that's all I have time to list
 
erasmus said:
Have links to you playing by chance?
Click to expand...

heh nope i'm not nearly good enough to have myself on youtube, sorry. the most i have is some homemade recordings of me at recitals/competitions but i doubt they would be very impressive. p.s. the chaconne from partita #2 is probably my favorite out of bach's works for unaccompanied violin!
 
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