# Classical Music



## Park Bear (Oct 3, 2006)

Classical music fans, I'd like to know some of your favorite pieces. I'm always looking for unknown composers or some unknown works by composers.

I'll start;

I love French Baroque anything from Rameau with Minkowski as conductor. Minkowski is wonderful with French Baroque.

Another favorite is "Le Cid" by Massenet.

JC Bach is also a fav....I like most of the Manheim era Baroque. I think these guys were the "Rock and Roll" artists of the Baroque Era.

I like "Ballad of the Gnomes" and "Anciet Airs and Dances" by Respighi.

Rachmaninove Piano concertos

Beethoveen anything

Dvorak Slavonic Dances

Telemann Water Music

There are so many more but this is a start.


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## bwester (Oct 3, 2006)

Smetana - Die Moldau

Any of Vivaldi's woodwind quintet pieces. I always enjoyed playing those, they have excellent bassoon parts.


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## Park Bear (Oct 3, 2006)

I like Vivaldi bassoon also....both my boys play the bassoon. The oldest one is very good and was offered a scholarship when he was in 7th grade. They thought he was older. He has the ability to play any woodwind instrument almost right away. His instructors/teachers say he has perfect lip, mouth and tongue action for woodwinds. He plays the sax and clarinet also. I don't play any instrument so it is beyond me.


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## gore42 (Oct 3, 2006)

I'm a big classical music fan, but I typically prefer Classical era to Boroque (although it's hard to go wrong with JS Bach).

Mozart is undoubtedly my favorite... I have the complete works on about 160 CDs, and then multiple performances of my favorites. So, I'll start with him:

*Mozart Clarinet Concerto in A K622* - This was one of his later works, and one of the first Concerti written for a clarinet-like instrument. Actually, the period instrument had a lower range than the modern clarinet and could reach down to low written C, compared to E on the modern instrument. When it was first published after Mozarts death, it was arranged by the publisher for the modern instrument.

However, if you get the recording by The Academy of Ancient Music
directed by Christopher Hogwood, (L'Oiseau-Lyre 414 339-2), it's played on a period-type instrument, and it's AWESOME! The second movement is the most powerful, I think, but I love the whole thing.
*
Mozart's Piano Concerti 10-25*. My favorites are 17, 21, and 24 at the moment, but it changes constantly 

*Mozarts serenade #10 in Eflat*. I like the Academy of St Martin in the Fields recording (Mariner).

I could go on forever with Mozart, so I'll stop there and move on to others.


*Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf* - What great name  I like his Symphony #5 on Ovids Metamorphosis.



Then, some more modern stuff:

*Aram Khachaturian - Masquerade Suite*. The opening Waltz is particularly good.

*Prokofiev*s score to Alexander Nevsky (the romance movement is somewhat popular), and his first and fifth symphonies.

Tschaikovsky's 6th Symphony, and I love the Nutcracker 



I guess I'd better stop here....

- Matt


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## Park Bear (Oct 3, 2006)

I like all of Mozarts piano concertos and I am familiar with the ones you mentioned. I also like Dittersdorf.

I'm not real big on the more modern music, even though my local philharmonic features quite a bit and most of what they have done has been good.

I'll have to go home and look at my collection and add some more of my favorites.


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## adiaphane (Oct 3, 2006)

I personally love Brahms, Schumann, Beethovan, and of course Bach. I like to listen to Glen Gould playing Bach on Sunday mornings. I have a particularly fondness for string instruments, and could not live without my double disk set of Jacqueline Du Pre playing her beautiful cello. 

As for modern music, I try to like it, but it's hard to separate all those clashing sounds. About the only composer I can listen to post WWI is Philip Glass. 

My friend is absolutely nuts about Bartok, but I have seen one too many horror movies, and whenever he has Bartok on, I want to hide because all I can hear is " red rum, red rum" and "come play with us danny, forever and ever."


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## TADD (Oct 3, 2006)

Wagner....


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## MoreWater (Oct 3, 2006)

oooh, a classical thread!

JS Bach is an old favorite. 

My first non-baroque favorite was Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra. That was followed a couple of years later by The Rite of Spring - that one I had to get to know for an assignment and it too days of playing it on repeat to get my thick skull to recognize it as music.  

Recently into Faure's piano quartets. Actually, chamber and concertos are relatively new for me, as I used prefer (by far) straight orchestral..... Rachmaninov's piano concerto no 2 is breathtaking and hoping to listen to more quartets and quintets soon.

Also been checking out Kathryn Stott's recordings lately, which got me listening to Howell's Three Dances for violin and orch, as well as Koechlin's Les Heures Persannes.

And not long ago, I started working through a big box set of the Kronos Quartet, and from there I'm still listening to Arvo Part's Missa Syllabica, Osvaldo Golijov's Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind, and Terry Riley's Cadenza on the Night Plain. They are good for shoo-ing away people who might otherwise want to stick around and have a conversation. :rollhappy:


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## bwester (Oct 3, 2006)

TADD said:


> Wagner....



A little too brassy for me. I do like Lohengrin (spelling??) though.


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## Ron-NY (Oct 3, 2006)

My music range is broad but in classical I like Mozart, Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade, Tchaikovsky but I used to perform in the Nutcracker and therefore although I like the music, I have been over inundated by it.. Give me Sleeping Beauty or Swan Lake instead. Of course Vilvaldis 4 Seasons is nice as is Liszt's Hungarian Rapsodies and Grieg's Wedding Day at Troldenhaugen, Dvorak's Slavic Dances. Oh and Gerswin's Rhapsody in Blue!!


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## Heather (Oct 3, 2006)

I don't listen to a lot of classical, but one of my very favorites around the holidays to listen to is 'Ceremony of Carols' by Benjamin Britten. I remember one year my mom (who adores classical) sang it in the chorus she was in and I've been hooked ever since.


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## bench72 (Oct 3, 2006)

Korngold - Cello Concerto

Dvorak - Cello Concerto

Elgar - Cello Concerto


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## Park Bear (Oct 4, 2006)

i forgot to mention that I really like Battle music; Beethoven's Wellington Victory March is great. I got to hear a live performance of this a couple years ago with real cannon going of in the distance.

There are a few mentioned in hear that I have not heard about and I will try and get a copy to listen.


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