Classical music...

Who in here is into Classical music? If you are, what is your favorite era, and who are your all time favorite composers? My favorite era is the Romantic period, but my favorite composers come from all different eras. My favorites in order of how I prefer them are:

1: Johann Sebastian Bach (German, Baroque period). This guy is the essential composer. He utilized, in my opinion, the most stunning of counterpuntal technique in any era of composers. His most famous peices were probably his fugues, the most famous of which being "Tocatta En Fugue", also known by many as simply the "halloween organ song" or his Brandenburg Concertos.

2:Richard Wagner (German, Romantic era). Wagner is actually up there for me with Bach, and I'm not even sure that he truely is out-weighed by Bach. It's a hard comparison to make because of how different the composure style is between the two . Wagner was a master of the opera and his most famous piece was "Flight of the Valkyries". Strange fact: Wagner was Adolf Hitler's favorite musician and the Nazis played his music at book burnings.

3:Frederic Chopin (Polish, Romantic Era). Chopin was a pianist who was known for his wide range and creativity on the piano. He was also known for nationalism to his home country, Poland, by writing many peices about Poland. He was known for incredible improvisation on stage (Miles Davis, eat your heart out) and a lot of his works, including what I would call his most famous work, came from these "out-bursts" of creativity. His most famous work was probably Fantasy Impromptu (hence the "impromptu").

4:Ludwig Van Beethoven (German, Classical Era). What is there to say about this genius of music? He wrote his best and most famous peices after going deaf in the middle of his life. If any of you have seen Mr.Holland's Opus (and unfortunately had to sit through Richard Dreyfus crying like a little girl!), you know how brilliantly he composed his music. Because he was hearing impaired at middle-age, many of his songs were written through a process of Beethoven putting his ear to the floor and playing notes to feel the vibration through the floor. He was such a genius that he could actually "transpose" music from vibrations on the floor;vibrations of notes he'd memorized while still in good hearing. His most famous works are his Symphonies, 2 of which gained incredible recognition, those being "Symphony #5" and "Symphony #9".

5:Robert Schumann (German, Romantic Era). Robert Schumann was a great pianist for a time but his hands failed him before he composed his most famous, and in my opinion, best peices. He went on to become a music critic in his Journal, Die Neune Zeitschrift für Musik (The New Magazine for Music) and composed his most famous peices, the Carnavals later in life without use of his hands.

I know this board is predominately hippies, but I have hippie friends who like classical music. Anyway, if it's your "bag", tell me who you like.

 

Well I play a lot of bassoon, and of course sax, so have done a fair bit of classical music

Hmm.. favourite composers?

That's a difficult one for me.

Probably Bach, Rachmaninov, Shostakovich, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Berlioz, Bartok, in no particular order.

Composers I cannot stand include Vivaldi, Mozart and Britten.

As far as eras go, well I like the Baroque and Romantic eras the most. The inventiveness of some Baroque composers (not just Bach, although he was the best), taking simple melodic ideas and turning them into so many different things whilst following the limits of the Baroque conventions is pretty special to me.

And the Romanticists really extended the harmonic language to the limits, and brought some real emotion into it. Going beyond that you get composers who still do that, but the emphasis is more on orchestration than harmony - and as a jazz player, harmony is everything to me.


Going beyond the Romantic period (and I also count Rachmaninov as a Romantic composer), Shostakovich however uses dissonance fantastically well and can really sound powerful and haunting. Stravinsky's orchestration is fantastic, especially in his smaller pieces - although I do like Firebird and Rite of Spring (as a fag player you HAVE to like Rite of Spring ) too. I've played in Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra and what I found with that was it took the whole week of rehearsal and basically right up to the final rehearsal before I really understood it - it's intellectual stuff and not easy to get into, but it is fantastic.

The classical period itself is ok, but I find Mozart just over does it paddingo out simple harmonies with overly full texture That's not to say I dispute his genius, I readily admit it was second only to that of Bach. I prefer Haydn who matches the light harmonies with light textures and makes it sound more fun.

I'm getting gradually more into Renaissance choral music as I've been singing in the church latin choir this summer, as my dad's been going for a few years and drafted me in to boost the bass section (I've since found myself covering tenor and even alto as well, which was interesting). I'm even writing a mass for them, just for fun. The Kyrie I've done is a sort of modern neo-classical style, the Gloria has lots of Baroque influences, I'm not bothering with a Credo since it won't get sung at mass, as they always either say it or sing Credo No. III. And my sanctus has some sort of modern smooth jazz (but not quite) feel to it, and I hope to bring it all together in the Agnus.

As far as impressionists go, or French 20th Century composers in general, well I'm a sax player so I've played a fair bit of Debussy, Ravel, Milhaud, Ibert, etc. I think Ravel's my favourite of the big two impressionists, not that I don't like Debussy though. It's all good fun, although sometimes it's a bit cheesy, especially Milhaud. Often there's some nice jazzy stuff in there as well though.


Other composers I've not had much to do with but quite like are Sibelius, Nielsen, Bruckner and Poulenc.

Any composers I've not mentioned I've either not heard of or think are pretty good but not my favourites.

I could really go on all day I suppose.

 

I like chopin, mozart, beethoven and wagner.

 

I love vivialdi and strauss they're so call, also love that version of 5th of beathoven from saturdaynight fever thats so groovy, do you know ozzy likes classical now that outta sight!

 

Sax - You sound like a very interesting person as well as a very well versed musician. Good thing you don't live in America. You can't say "fag" in America. Even a gay man can say "fag" in America. Not P.C., I suppose. A lot of the gay musicians I know like Tchaikovsky a lot... hmmm wonder why. haha!

Adiga - Short but sweet, very good choices. You failed to mention your favorite era, but I'm not much of a stickler! You apparently very much like the Classical and romantic eras, so I'll just go with that.

 

Purple, yeah. Those, too, are good choices. I have Saturday Night Fever, but I don't remember the version of Beethoven's 5th. There's another neoclassical guitar arrangement done by my favorite guitarist Yngwie J. Malmsteen of Beethoven's fifth. His structure is not so great, but gotta love a guitarist for trying! It's still a beautiful arrangement. You should check it out. He played it at the 2004 G3 concert that I attended. I have pictures of him playing in my gallery. I also have Steve Vai, Neal Schon, and Joe Satriani pics from that show. It was Incredible. Yngwie puts on shows like you'll never believe.

 

Interesting. I don't smoke (as a wind player I don't think it'd be a good idea), but even so if I ever find myself in yankland I'd be very tempted to go into a shop and ask for a packet of fags.


So does that mean in every orchestral score where the instrument names have the italian or german abbreviations, the American editions replaces fag. with bsn.?

 

haha, I'm not certain. I strongly doubt it. I thought you meant you were gay, though, I'm not sure if I got the right message from that.

 

no, I'm not gay. I play the bassoon.

In italian, the bassoon is called il fagotto, and in german it's das Fagott. So on instrument abbreviations on scores or parts, it's often called Fag. So among musos the bassoon is often known as the fag.

So maybe it doesn't appear like that on american editions of scores after all!

 

One of my good friend plays the cello and sent me some classical music. At the moment and basically all the chances before this I was really just to lazy to download off of Kazaa and I still probably am. Because you have to remember to save the files before closing the chat box when using direct connect on AIM or else it doesn't save, I have lost some of the ones sent to me. here's what I have:

Symphony 5 III Allegro Molto - none given
Adagio for Strings NYP - Samuel Barber
Dvorak Cello Concerto in B Minor, Allegro - Yo-Yo Ma
Bruch Concerto I- Allegro Moderato - Isaac Stern
Dimitri Shostakovich: Quartet No. 8: II Allegro molto - Kronos Quartet
Quartet No. 10 in A flat major op_1 - none given
Schindler's List Theme - Movie Theme ??
Grey Ice Water - Yo-Yo Ma

Now I do not have a vast knowledge of classical music, but that's what it has on my Window's Media Player. Except for the two question marks because it says "Movie Theme" under author, but I'm not sure if that's correct.

 

i don't listen much to classical music, but my favourite composer is erik satie (19th-20th century).

 

I have to say, that Satie is guilty of what I consider to be some of the most boring music ever written.

The Schindler's List score was written by John Williams by the way - he's quite a big name in film music. I wouldn't consider it classical though, just because it's played by an orchestra doesn't really make it classical music. Film music is a different genre altogether. Not saying I don't rate it, but it is different, it's written to achieve different goals.

 

I love Classical music, it's unfortunate that more people aren't into it. I play Flute, Piccolo, Tenor Sax, Alto Sax, Alto Clarinet and I am learning bassoon.

My fav. Era.... hmm, hard to choose. I like the romantic and baroque.. but then again I also like the mozart and such.... I can't choose.

One of my Fav. Composers is Debussy. I love listening to and playing his stuff.

It's nice to know other people are into Classical as well.

 

I've loved classical music for ages! Before I got into a lot of the rock and folk performers who I like now, I listened to practically nothing else. I must have hundreds of albums of the stuff on CD, tape and vinyl.

Since I've played violin for quite a few years now, I love to play classical pieces myself as well. I've played in various orchestras and ensembles, and I've always really enjoyed it!

The Romantic era's definately my favourite, but it's much harder to name specific favourite composers.

Beethoven, Chopin, Mendelssohn all rate pretty high on my list, but there isn't a single composer I can think of who I didn't like at least something by.

If I had to decide on an all time favourite piece of music, I'd say the Méditation from Jules Massenet's opera Thaïs. It's quite simply one of the most beautiful and emotional melodies that I have ever heard.

 

I agree completely. Bach is absolutely my favorite classical composer. His work has almost a mathematical precision about it (in both rhythm and "theory") that is simply superb. He has such a flair for trading the melody line off to the bass parts while providing stunning counterpoint and vice versa... simply amazing!

Anyone else have Wendy Carlos - Switched on Bach? (or S.O.B. 2000?) It's almost hard to imagine the orig. S.O.B. being done with monophonic Moog synths and countless overdubs (in a world of 24+ note polyphony and unlimited track midi sequencing.) ~7

 

Mine is Baroque. Mehndelsohn, Mohtzart. Those guys. Them long hairs!

 

Erm mate, Mendelsson was Romantic and Mozart was Classical

 

Something even older then the general age for classical music, the aong Green Sleeves, such a beautiful song.

 

Yeah, Greensleeves is great! And it's a Renaissance period piece (supposedly written by Henry VIII) a style of music I also love!

 

I don't own too much classical music, nor do I listen to it very much or have an extensive knowledge of it, but I do love what I have heard. Most of it is the type of music that I have to be in a specific mood for. Unlike pop or rock and roll music, classical is very cerebral in nature and I want to focus on it in a more intense way than popular music. Most classical music has such a huge amount of depth and complexity to it. As far as my favorite composers go, I enjoy Bach, Tchaikovsky, Mozart, and Beethoven quite a bit. Also, Fantasia is one of my favorite films of all-time. I have also been playing classical viola for almost seven years, and have been involved in a local youth symphony since September of 2001, so I get a large amount of exposure to classical music through that.