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Any classical music lovers?

PyramidHead

PyramidHead

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I'm currently imbibing judicious amounts of the Bartok string quartets every time I get in my car. I'm stuck with a vehicle that doesn't have a tape deck or an aux input, so I have to rely on CDs (I know, first world problems and all that). Anybody into Bartok, or if not, what are some of your favorite classical composers and pieces?
 
If you like Bartok, you might enjoy Smetena and Dvorak. If you like strings, I recommend Janos Starker playing Bach's solo Cello sonatas. He has multiple recordings of them over the years, but I like the latest one best.
 
Try Stravinsky:

Firebird
Petrushka
The Rite of Spring are all big, juicy ballets

Symphony of Psalms
Symphony in C
Pulcinella Suite

are later, more restrained and conservative pieces, but just as good.

I don't listen to many string quartets, so I'm not much help there. Transfigured Nights is a beautiful early string sextet by Schoenberg. And there's Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time.

I lost most interest in Bartok some time ago, but Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta is still transcendent. Excerpts were used in Being John Malkovich, and in The Shining.
 
I listen to orchestral music predominantly. Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Schnittke, Mahler, Ives, mostly 20th century stuff.
 
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Bartok, Music for Strings Percussion and Celesta
Penderecki, Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima
Stravinsky, Firebird, Petrushka and Rite of Spring
Alan Hohvaness, Mysterious Mountain
Prokofiev, Romeo and Juliet (I’ve listened to two CD’s, and the one with Charles Dutoit and Montreal Orchestra Symphony is notably superior).
Vaughan Williams, Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis
Holst, The Planets
Ligeti, Concerto for Cello and Orchestra
George Crumb, Ancient Voices of Children
Takemitsu, Visions
Aaron Copland, Appalachian Spring

Not super-knowledgable on "classical" music but these are the ones I’ve both got on CD and enjoy a great deal. I do usually enjoy early - mid 20th century symphonic music best.
 
I was obsessed with Rachmaninoff at one point, and he's still my favorite composer. I highly recommend his preludes, especially his Prelude Op. 32 No. 10, and piano concertos (1, 2, or 3). His first and second symphonies are wonderful, too.
 
What's with the all-20th-century-all-the-time vibe? Am I the only one into the whole Mozart/Beethoven/Schubert/Mendelssohn/Brahms/Bruckner scene? (Well, almost the only one. Smetana and Dvorak are breathtaking!)

Best 20th-century composer by a mile: Puccini.
 
I'd still like to find a nice book that strings a narrative through classical music, because I don't feel like I've been able to get a handle on it yet.

That said, I especially like solo piano and string quartets, more solo piano recently. Have listened to many youtube videos of Martha Argerich lately. I really like this one:



And when a classical show comes to town, which is fairly often, I sometimes try to make it out.
 
Horatio Parker said:
Try Stravinsky:

Firebird
Petrushka
The Rite of Spring are all big, juicy ballets

Symphony of Psalms
Symphony in C
Pulcinella Suite

are later, more restrained and conservative pieces, but just as good.

I don't listen to many string quartets, so I'm not much help there. Transfigured Nights is a beautiful early string sextet by Schoenberg. And there's Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time.

I lost most interest in Bartok some time ago, but Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta is still transcendent. Excerpts were used in Being John Malkovich, and in The Shining.
Click to expand...

Gotta love Igor. I think his Symphonies for Wind Instruments is probably my favorite piece of music. Didn't know about the Bartok piece being used in movies, that's very cool.

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Bomb#20 said:
What's with the all-20th-century-all-the-time vibe? Am I the only one into the whole Mozart/Beethoven/Schubert/Mendelssohn/Brahms/Bruckner scene? (Well, almost the only one. Smetana and Dvorak are breathtaking!)

Best 20th-century composer by a mile: Puccini.
Click to expand...

For me, I can't listen to the early classical composers without feeling like they were harmonically constrained (though for the time revolutionary) to a specific set of tonal idioms that they explored endlessly.
 
Bomb#20 said:
What's with the all-20th-century-all-the-time vibe? Am I the only one into the whole Mozart/Beethoven/Schubert/Mendelssohn/Brahms/Bruckner scene? (Well, almost the only one. Smetana and Dvorak are breathtaking!)

Best 20th-century composer by a mile: Puccini.
Click to expand...

I'm with you on most of those guys. Mendelssohn doesn't do much for me, and I've never heard any Smetana. Interesting that two people mention Dvorak and Smetana together, two Czechs.

I love Puccini but I don't consider him 20th century, not stylistically.

We saw "Orfeo" and "Wozzeck" this year, and this season the Met is doing "Lulu". Berlin Phil is coming to town, we're going to hear them play Beethovens Ninth.

I don't usually go to programs of all traditional music. I like a mix.
 
rousseau said:
I'd still like to find a nice book that strings a narrative through classical music, because I don't feel like I've been able to get a handle on it yet.

That said, I especially like solo piano and string quartets, more solo piano recently. Have listened to many youtube videos of Martha Argerich lately. I really like this one:



And when a classical show comes to town, which is fairly often, I sometimes try to make it out.
Click to expand...


I love this video of Horowtiz playing Traumerei in Moscow, 1986. It was a very big deal at the time.

 
Horatio Parker said:
Bomb#20 said:
What's with the all-20th-century-all-the-time vibe? Am I the only one into the whole Mozart/Beethoven/Schubert/Mendelssohn/Brahms/Bruckner scene? (Well, almost the only one. Smetana and Dvorak are breathtaking!)

Best 20th-century composer by a mile: Puccini.
Click to expand...

I'm with you on most of those guys. Mendelssohn doesn't do much for me, and I've never heard any Smetana. Interesting that two people mention Dvorak and Smetana together, two Czechs.

I love Puccini but I don't consider him 20th century, not stylistically.

We saw "Orfeo" and "Wozzeck" this year, and this season the Met is doing "Lulu". Berlin Phil is coming to town, we're going to hear them play Beethovens Ninth.

I don't usually go to programs of all traditional music. I like a mix.
Click to expand...

One of my favorite works is by Josef Suk, his Asrael Symphony. Suk was also a Czech and a student of Dvorak.
 
GenesisNemesis said:
I was obsessed with Rachmaninoff at one point, and he's still my favorite composer. I highly recommend his preludes, especially his Prelude Op. 32 No. 10, and piano concertos (1, 2, or 3). His first and second symphonies are wonderful, too.
Click to expand...

Gen, I just clicked this (Prelude Op.32 No.10 in B minor) and heard it for the first time. While I listened to it, I felt loose and relaxed. I'm going to add that to my music selection. Thx!
 
I'm another one who is mostly into the Classical and Romantic era composers, especially the main current of Austro-German composers running from Haydn through to Brahms; also some of the nationalist composers of the romantic era--the Czechs (Smetana and Dvorak) and the Russians (especially Tchaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakov). Parallel to them, but in a different musical tradition, I really love the line of 19th century Italian opera composers from Rossini to Puccini, with Verdi being my favorite of all. I can enjoy the late Romantics such as Mahler, Sibelius or Richard Strauss, but I have to be in the right mood. I haven't warmed up to 20th century, post-Romantic music as a whole, but I do like Ives, Britten and some Stravinsky and Hindemith.
 
I discovered classical music nearly 20 years ago and soon realised I liked 18th century music the best of all. All those Bach fugues and counterpoint. And Mozart, Haydn & Beethoven.

As for 20th century music... call me a Philistine but I often can't tell the difference between the tuning up at the start and the actual proper music. Some of it sounds like what you'd get if you threw an orchestra off a cliff. Give us a tune (please!!!)
 
I think I have pointed out before, though long ago, that my screen name comes from one of my favorite Bach cantatas "Ach wie fluechtig, ach wie nichtig." (Oh how fleeting, oh how vain is the life of man.) The first and fourth movements I find particularly powerful. Helps to know a little German, but its good in any case.


 
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Draconis said:
I discovered classical music nearly 20 years ago and soon realised I liked 18th century music the best of all. All those Bach fugues and counterpoint. And Mozart, Haydn & Beethoven.

As for 20th century music... call me a Philistine but I often can't tell the difference between the tuning up at the start and the actual proper music. Some of it sounds like what you'd get if you threw an orchestra off a cliff. Give us a tune (please!!!)
Click to expand...

That's what I like about Bartok, to be honest... but it's because every so often, after several frenzied minutes of angular dissonance, he slips in the most lyrical, tonal, and melodious passage you've ever heard, and it packs that much more of a punch because it's so unexpected. If the entire piece is an orchestra falling off a cliff, I'm with you, it's hard to get through it.
 
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