Classical Music

Here is a relatively obscure piece by Mozart.

Isn't that his most famous composition for two pianos? It was even used in Ouran and stuff... If people want to listen to obscure pieces by Mozart I would suggest his string quartets. They definately need more love, imo.

My twin faves tend to be the baroque period (J.S. Bach über alles) and the prewar Modernists (Stravinsky, Mahler, etc.). I feel I ought to like the Classical composers more than I do, but something about the genre leaves me cold ... a fact that beyond doubt reflects more on my taste than on the music.

Even with the styles I like, though, my musical perception and insight are pretty darned limited. Often wish that I could hear a piano piece or grand opera, and fully understand & appreciate what the hell I'm hearing. We can't all be Renaissance men, one supposes.

I only recently found out that there is more to Vivaldi than the Four Seasons.

As far as composers go, Gershwin in one of my favorites (I was in tears when I couldn't go see the Gershwin Tribute at the Sydney Opera House). I just love his jazzy, very NYC style of music. Rhapsody in Blue being my favorite composition ever. Accept no subsitutes.

I'm also quite fond of Tchaikovskys work. The Nutcracker Suite, Firebird Suite and Swan Lake I am very partial to in particular, I also like Beethoven's Fifth, Sixth and Ninth Symphonies (Ode To Joy being my second favorite classical piece).

I also like Edvard Griegs work. Such as the Pyer Gynt and Pianon Concerto.

As for individual pieces, I like Dance of the Hours, The Pines of Rome, Toccata in Feuge in D minor and Pomp and Circumstance. I also like works the feature a heavy use of the harpsichord, such as Sonata in D minor (Scarletti)

I feel like I should listen to mor Chopin and Mozart, any reccomended pieces?

There's a 20th-century Italian classical composer. He's called Gian Francesco Malipiero, and apparently he was quite well known during his life but is all but forgotten nowadays.

And his music is amazing.

(from his opera L'Orfeide)

I always loved Chopin's 4th ballad and his 4th scherzo. As for Mozart, I'd recommend his three Da Ponte operas (Nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni, Così fan tutte'') and his piano concertos no. 23 and 27.

edited 13th Jun '12 10:28:08 AM by Fresison

Are allowed to post Symphonic Metal and the like?

I guess so, yes. After all, a hundred years from now a lot of metal artists will get the same respect classical composers get.

We have a metal topic. It's been going for ages...

Well, yes, but the point is to approach it from the classical music, not from the metal.

Anyway, one absolutely fantastic modern classic music soundtrack is the one from Ouran High School Host Club. Anyone here who hasn't watched the series, I have a favour to ask you: could you please listen to it and tell me if you feel, at any point, the compulsion to laugh? Here, for a start, the Powerful Motor Rhapsody For Orchestra!

edited 19th Jun '12 11:31:14 PM by TheHandle

Sorry, new accounts cannot post external links.

edited 4th Jul '12 5:32:44 PM by MorwenEdhelwen

Anyway, I love Sigmund Romberg and Victor Herbert (no idea if they count as classical)

For myself, I adore everything Mozart - symphonies, sacred music, chamber music, piano works, operas (oh how I love the operas), you name it. I got a box set that's supposed to be the complete works of his, though I found a few omissions - a piano piece that was discovered earlier this year, K. 617a (understandable omission as it's just a an ensemble piece adapted for solo instrument), and K. 579 (no idea how they missed it). Lately I've found that I like his flute quartets:

Apart from Mozart, I'm fond of a number of twentieth-century composers: Ralph Vaughan-Williams, Gian-Carlo Menotti, Aaron Copland, Carlisle Floyd.

In particularly I'm fond of opera, and I have a spot in my heart for a number of underrated American works.

Hmm, rather varied on the classical music. I like many different pieces from many different composers, but usually I don't like all their music. For example, of Mozart's I only enjoy his Requiem (almost all the pieces in it), but I don't listen to anything else he's composed. Satie's Gymnopedies and Gnossiennes are also among my favorites, but I don't like his other works.

Overall, I'd say I mostly listen to some of Mussorgsky, Beethoven and Edvard Grieg's works, and to some modern composers, of whose works I own one soundtrack with classical music each: Alexandre Desplat, Sam Hulick and Yann Tiersen.

Being very anal to OP, I should note that "classical" technically isn't a genre.

In any case, Glenn Gould playing Schöenberg!

I think we should focus on criticism and on deepening our understanding of works, or on bringing said works to each other's attention, rather than on swapping likes. I don't know about you, but I'm not interested in what others like or dislike, only in what they think I should hear, and what they have to say about it. I certainly don't judge someone on their tastes, which is what "sapping likes" seems to be about.

Brahms' Hungarian dances are interesting pieces, in the way they play with rhythm, messing with one's expectations, always catching one off-guard, but in a way that isn't completely "ungrokkable" (as in "what the hell did I just listen to", think Pierre Boulez's "The Hammer Without A Master"). One very interesting example of its use as a soundtrack was in The Great Dictator: Charles Chaplin shaves a guy n one single take, to the sound of one of the Dances. That scene straddled the line between comical, epic, and terrifying, and testifies to the skill and sense of timing of the creator.

Terrifying? Never got that from the scene. I mean, it's Charlie Chaplin, not Sweeney Todd.

Also, can't talk about classical music and '"The Great Dictator without the Lohengrin'' globe scene.

He's weilding a straight razor blade extremely fast extremely quickly all over your face, to a music that changes pace frequently, randmonly, and drastically. Did you ever cut your finger on one of those things?

Because they are really, really sharp, the little shits.

True as that may be, I'm generally not going to experience terror in a black-and-white 1930s comedy. Now, color 1930s comedies are another matter entirely.

That movie had tons of Fridge Horror.

Yet another Mozart. Very dark, but beautiful.

edited 26th Jul '12 2:11:38 AM by dRoy

I can't help but picture Mozart walking in the snow in Prague.

edited 27th Jul '12 5:42:37 AM by TheHandle

New person says hi, and drops this Allegro from a Bach harpsichord concerto:

That's lovely.

By the way, does anyone know what is the music that is playing between 0:36 to 0:56?

Standard Snippet. Discuss.