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Classical Music

Crux

Crux

Banned deucer.
This is the thread for all things Classical (and baroque, romantic etc.)
Personally, I am a cellist so I’m quite partial to cello music, which this OP is going to be full of. I don’t actually like “Classical” music, because I find it far too flippant. I prefer music that feels more intense.


In terms of what I like, my favourite concerto would have to be the Elgar Cello Concert, my favourite movement is the first, which can be found here. The Lalo Cello Concerto is also fantastic.


There are some fantastic cello sonatas around, my favourite is the Sibelius.
My favourite piece from a ballet is Dance of the Knights from Romeo and Juliet.


My favourite Opera is Madame Butterfly by Puccini.


I have a lot more to say, because my collection is enormous, but I fear it’s boring for most people. If you have anything you think I should listen to post it. If you want to get into classical music, pm me on irc or something. Discuss.
 
Excited for this thread.
Please post more. I love classical music but have no idea about anything good/bad/whathaveyou.
Nor do I own any.
 
If you have never listened to classical music, start with some of the fun stuff like 1812 Overture, The Planets, Bolero, Aida, Moonlight Sonata, Firebird, Rhapsody in Blue, Pavane, ect, that will generally be fun to listen too. Also there was a thread for this a while back.
 
Crux you fool there's a thread about this

anyways, Concerto for Clarinet is nice

EDIT: MOzart
 
I lean toward the romantic period than any other period though I like the others too. Basically anything minor I will like. My favorite pieces to play on the violin as well as listen to would be:

Bruch concerto in G minor: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7q2Ge1KmaY

Mendelssohn Concerto in E minor: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p08izmpPy0s

Nocturne in C minor: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHex-NcqX6c

Vitali Chaconne: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4B1ifcWa9o&feature=related
^ was an audition song that was pre picked for students who wanted to get into a certain group in my school. I ended up liking it a lot.



I'm supposed to be practicing the second piece for my audition, but I find myself playing bruch's piece more.
 
My all time favorite classical musician is Beethoven, but Wagner is also up there for me

Ride of the Valkyries hell yes
 
I love Strauss so:
Don Juan
Also Sprach Zarathustra (everyone should know this even if you dont listen to classical)

Overtures:
Ruslan and Ludmilla
Candide
Bartered Bride (holy shit, could not find a professional recording of this so this is the best i could do)

Symphonies:
Shostakovich 11 (honestly most fucking incredibly moment in a symphony ever)
Shostakovich 7 & 9
Mahler 1
Mahler 5

too lazy to find good links to the other symphonies but yeah. i go to rice university (but not for music) and our music school is fucking awesome and gives free concerts so yeah. i honestly think they're as good as, if not better than the houston symphony
 
It's tough to really show the GREAT performances of good classical pieces, since the vast majority of those aren't on youtube or grooveshark or anywhere else streaming for free.

Anyway, I have played music my entire life and only started listening for fun a few summers ago. Before then, I always thought listening to a classical piece of music was "boring". Learning how to listen to and enjoy a piece of classical music is difficult. I don't know if I'll be able to convert anyone to classical music with this post, but this is what I did to convert myself:

(1) Listen to a piece that makes sense for you to listen to. If you're just starting listening to classical music, you're probably going to want something melodic based that you can sign along to, so instead of going for Shostakovich or Mahler, listen to Schubert or Dvorak. As you listen to more pieces, you can decide what you like (do you want to listen to music that's based on melody, harmony, texture, etc) and listen to those types of pieces.

(2) Play the music LOUD. When composers wrote, they expected their listeners to be in the same room as the instrument(s) that were being played. The loud climax the composer intended won't have an effect on you if your computer won't go loud enough to surprise you.

(3) Listen to the piece more than once. Most good classical pieces won't lend themselves to you on your first listen through. There are layers of understanding for each piece, and the more you know what melody is coming up, the more you'll hear the underlying harmonies.

(4) Actually listen to it. Try not to use it as background music while you pay attention to something else. Really devote the 8 minutes it takes to listen to the piece.

I mainly listen to piano music (since I play piano) and orchestral music.

Brahms 2nd piano concerto
- I swear to god I cannot listen to this song enough times. More melodic than most Brahms; he actually wrote it to be a "crowd pleaser" after his first piano concerto was a bust in his day. There's an unbelievable piano riff about 7 minutes in - blows me away every time. I have yet to find a recording on youtube that's satisfying....

Dvorak's 8th and 9th symphonies
- His 9th symphony was the piece that "converted" me. I loved this piece so much. After two months of listening to it on repeat, I eventually tired of it, so now I'll listen to the 8th when I need my Dvorak fix. Also, there is a great recording of the first movement of the 8th on youtube, which can be found here. (Just realized I have the next to top comment on that video. Don't judge me x_x)

Beethoven Sonata #7, Op 10 No 3
- Short, quick paced, and light. Perfect for the uninitiated listener. This is a pretty good recording.

Also, I've been listening to some Bruckner symphonies - does anyone know where to get good recordings of those?
 
My favorite period is the modern period, followed by the Romantic. I play the piano, and I'm also a composer. Here are some pieces I like:

Shostakovitch's 6th Symphony: Shostakovitch uses an unusual structure for a symphony and it's very effective. The first movement is the slowest, and is almost twice as long as the other two combined. The third movement is the best. It's catchy, it's inventive in its orchestration, and it pokes fun at the rules Soviet composers were supposed to follow.

Mendelssohn's Fifth Symphony: The second movement has some of the best melodic writing I've ever heard.

Philomel by Milton Babbitt: A creepy, atonal piece for synthesizer and voice.

Koyaanisqatsi by Philip Glass: A very ominous minimalist piece.

The Goldberg Variations by Bach: Thirty variations on a short keyboard piece. The main theme is beautiful, and the variations are highly inventive and range from humorous to tragic.

Mahler's Fifth Symphony: Probably Mahler's best. Leonard Bernstein was buried with a copy of the score.

Kodaly's Cello Sonata: Some of the best cello writing I've heard.
 
Umbreon Dan said:
piano loser here, chopin is the best composer

ballade #1 in g minor

nocturne #13 in c minor (not the one posted above)

i'm also learning this cool prokofiev toccata but it's kicking my ass :V

lastly i'm really into rachmaninoff's concerti, especially the second and third
Click to expand...
dan i love you so much now

i'm at the moment learning his ballade and i learned the prokofiev toccata last year

haven't played the nocturne before but i'll keep an eye out

also currently working on the rach 2 and it's kicking MY ass :V

other pieces which are pretty awesome:

liszt's paganini etudes no. 3 (la campanella) and no. 6 (variations)

saint-saens piano concerti no. 1 and no. 2

beethoven's op. 57 sonata no. 23 (appassionata)



other than that i've grown to just dislike the old "standard" classical pieces, like moonlight sonata, mozart's turkish waltz, fur elise, et cetera just because of how often they're played - or more accurately, how often poor players play them poorly ;_;
 
As some of you may have guessed by now, I am a tubist. As such, I absolutely adore a strong brass section. I'm fairly into Romantic and Classical literature, particularly of Russian and German origin. The excerpt from Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet posted by the OP is one of my favorites. It's hard to go wrong with anything Prokofiev has written.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y29V7c1k5xE

Holst is probably my favorite British composer. Mars is highly overrated IMO. I much prefer Jupiter:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3B49N46I39Y and Mercury: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yIKu3LSwcE
First Suite in E-flat: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hfde1QG7CFs

Pleased to see the mentions of Strausshttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VComW3RJqg8, Shostakovichhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogJFXqYEYd8&feature=BFa&list=PLFB65433D971D9BB6&index=6, and Mahlerhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5tVuoiysVg&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL itt.

Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_pkRH2DZuw&feature=mh_lolz&list=PLFB65433D971D9BB6

Berlioz's Symphony Fantastique:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bb7BJQ7LAlo&feature=BFa&list=PLFB65433D971D9BB6&index=13

Berlioz's The Damnation of Faust:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cr2x6mdDJlc&feature=BFa&list=PLFB65433D971D9BB6&index=15 (big black guy singing in French with a white conductor and Japanese orchestra FTW)

Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hd744RSVAb0&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL

Bruckner 8: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvpXqAjnBFI

I'm surprised nobody has brought up Mussorgsky or Tchaikovsky yet:
Night on Bald Mountain: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCEDfZgDPS8

Pictures at an Exhibition:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7Uz3qGsu5Q
/Mussorgsky

1812 Overture:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2W1Wi2U9sQ

Thchaik 4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLHj-eekdNU
/Thchaikovsky

Stravinsky's Firebird:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4x0fBIHR8wc&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL
Petrushka:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KOZzoSXrts

Wagner's Lohengrin:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqeqoxtTF_Q
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhpB3w585jI&playnext=1&list=PL8A7BB77EA8F76049


Gerschwin's An American in Paris: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUfI6v6SwL4&feature=BFa&list=PLFB65433D971D9BB6&index=11

I love music so much.
 
Personal favorites have mostly been mentioned, except Carmina Burana by Orff. Everything else (The Planets, Flight of the Valkyries, Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, 1812 Overture) are also awesome.
 
Eggbert said:
If you have never listened to classical music, start with some of the fun stuff like 1812 Overture, The Planets, Bolero, Aida, Moonlight Sonata, Firebird, Rhapsody in Blue, Pavane, ect, that will generally be fun to listen too. Also there was a thread for this a while back.
Click to expand...
Apparently my parents have a rather large library on a cd set that they got a while ago. It's currently uploading to itunes, and I'll look around and see if any of this is there. Thanks.
 
personally, i would not ever consider ravel's work "fun" nor is it really a good representation of classical music at all (assuming that's what you mean by "pavane" and "bolero")
 
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