Your Most Loved Classical pieces...

[moderntimes]

Nearly anything by Mozart or Beethoven, but my classical enjoyment runs wide and deep. I've loved classical music since I was a kid, singing in a very high liturgical Episcopal church choir.

So choral music, yes -- Mozart's Requiem, Beethoven's 9th, Verdi Requiem, other well known pieces.

For keyboard, Mozart's piano concerto #21 of course, Beethoven's piano concerto, and a special love for Bach played on the harpsichord, my fave being Bach's Chromatic Fantasy & Fugue. You can find this by the great harpsichord virtuoso, Wanda Landowska on YouTube.

I enjoy some modern classical, especially Philip Glass.

My sister would tell this little fantasy story ---

If "they" could manufacture a microphone small enough to fit inside of an atom, and they would put it onto a line and lower it down into an atom, and switch it on, they'd hear a Bach fugue.

[Bighuey]

Im not much into classical music but I heard one a while back I was very impressed with. It was Fire Of Prometheus by the Japanese composer Akira Ifukube. He was more well known for composing the soundtrack music for the Godzilla movies but he wrote many other pieces as well. Nice music, it has kind of a Japanese sound to it.

[Freida Livery]

Saint-Saens - Carnival of Animals - The Swan
Rachmaninoff - Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini
Liszt - Hungarian Rhapsody - all of them
Vivaldi - The Four Seasons
Grieg - Hall of the Mountain King

[moderntimes]

So Freida, you seem to like "program" music?

[Freida Livery]

So Freida, you seem to like "program" music?

I'm not familiar with the term "program" as it pertains to classical music. What do you mean?

Google is my friend

Program music is a term usually applied to any musical composition on the classical music tradition in which the piece is designed according to some preconceived narrative, or is designed to evoke a specific idea and atmosphere.

I'm briefly looking through my classical music collection and you seem to have hit on something about my tastes.
Just a few of that would fit the category, if I have it correct:
Prokofiev's Peter the Wolf
Tchaikovsky's 1812
Dvorak's New World Symphony
Copeland's Rodeo - Symphony for the Common Man
Fantasia
Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue
Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade

Just a few...

-- 14 Mar 2016, 12:11 --

Are operas considered "programmed" music? I have a few of them in the collection.

[moderntimes]

Generally, "program music" is that which tells a story rather than the music being just for the musical sound with no "story" embedded.

Non-program music would be:
Beethoven's 5th symphony
Mozart's piano concerto #21
Bach fugues
etc

You're correct about Peter & the Wolf, but just because a particular theme is expressed, that doesn't make it program music. Therefore Dvorak's New World Symphony has a general theme which tries to express musical ideas inspired from the Western hemisphere but there really isn't a "story" told, so it's not program music per se.

When you said "fantasia" did you mean the Disney movie? Much of that film's music came from ballet scores, and ballet does indeed tell a story unless it's an abstract dance just for the visual rhythm of the dancers. Therefore, Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring" (le Sacre du Printemps) is choreographed story where ancient primitive tribes gather to propitiate spring by sacrificing a maiden, where she dances herself to death. And one of my fave ballets.

Likewise "Rodeo" which depicts, yeah, a rodeo and celebrations around it.

But Rhapsody in Blue or "Common Man" don't tell a story and therefore aren't program music.

[Freida Livery]

I've learned something new today. I don't know all the ins and outs of classical music, but as the saying goes, I know what I like. My collection is mostly made up of music I've heard over the years and enjoyed enough to purchase. I collect artists that I like including Horowitz, Leonard Bernstein conducts, and Van Cliburn (my mother was a big fan).

I'm always willing to consider something new. Here's where you come in, again...please list a few classical items that I may not have considered. .. I've looking for new music lately. Thanks

[moderntimes]

Glad to help. A great deal depends on the conductor. They set the pace and tone of the music.

Only a few years ago, conductors were a bit ponderous with very slow tempos. Those aren't my fave.

Later conductors, like Seiji Ozawa and Georg Solti, are far more brisk and energetic. If you're buying new music, you might try to focus on those 2 conductors and see if you like them. Each to one's own.

[Freida Livery]

I have a 6 box set of Beethoven's Symphonies - Chicago Symphony with Georg Solti. Nothing with Ozawa. I will take a peak over on Amazon. Thanks!

[moderntimes]

The symphony is also a factor, as you can easily understand. Chicago symphony is among the very finest, with a crisp and accurate sound, rarely "mushy" and overly soft. Some other orchestras sound like background music piped into restaurants, soggy and swoopy.

Something else to listen for, when listening to a concerto -- I recommend Beethoven's violin concerto (he only wrote one) or his 5th piano concerto. Traditional concertos have 3 movements, a light and spirited intro, a slower and more eloquent 2nd movement, and a breathtaking finale.

If you listen to the 3rd movement of either of these Beethoven concertos (others are the same but these 2 are a great example) you can listen for a "dance" between the solo instrument vs the orchestra. The orchestra states the theme and then the solo comes in with a brighter, more lively version, then they interact between the two, a great and spirited dance.

[DATo]

Rachmaninoff theme of Paganini A minor, Opus 43 - Variation 18

(You've heard this one before.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4E7XHOotTX0

Also, used in the movie Ronan.

[moderntimes]

One particular thing about listening to earlier classical music (Bach) is that it's not "vertical" but linear. If you listen to a Bach fugue, for example, you have to "hear" it in a slightly different way from 19th century symphonic music.

[madeline412]

Mozarts Requiem can't help it but I love the dreariness .

[moderntimes]

I've sung the Requiem a few times, and the great fugue of the Kyrie and the Deus Irae are not dreary at all, intense mainly.

Whenever you sing a great choral fugue, you become sucked into the pacing and if you're not careful, you begin to sing faster and faster.

And you talk about intensity? I sang Carl Orff's "Carmina Burana" with a 70 piece orchestra, our main choral group (60 singers) plus about 100 more chorus people from the university. I was dripping with sweat afterward, just from the emotion.

[MaroBenipayo]

I love everything about Akutagawa Ryunosuke (although it's nit a poem)