In an effort to slightly heighten the musical tone of discussion (he said snobbishly), I thought it time somebody started a thread on Classical/ Orchestral music in general.

Who likes Bach's 'Preludes and Fugues'? Or the symphonies of Beethoven and Mahler? The 'avante-garde' works of Varese and Ligetti? So-called 'Early Music' (in other words, virtually anything pre-JS Bach)?

Are you into the popular classics, eg. greatest hits of Mozart and Puccini, or a lover of grand opera a la Wagner and Verdi? Do you like that piece from X commercial, but don't know what it's called? Maybe somebody else here does! Do you like the classical works of guitarist Andre Segovia, John Adams or Wynton Marsalis (or even Paul McCartney!!). Or are you a fan of the 'classical' works of Frank Zappa?

Elitist snobs unite, here is your all-purpose platform!

I have a couple of those Time-Life 100 Piano classics cd box sets. They inspired me to try and write some piano-based classical tracks to pop-hiphop beats. And The Fur Eise is one of my favorite songs.

I love all music...

The classical works of Frank Zappa (and you also mentioned Varese) are very unorthodox, though interesting.

For popular, but not mainstream composers, I'm a fan of Ravel, Dvorak, Chopin, Liszt, Haydn, Rossini, Verdi, Saint-Saens, Gershwin and a ton of others.

The mainstreams that are naturally amazing are Beethoven, Bach, Vivaldi, Mozart, Tchaikovsky.

I'm not big on most opera. The problem with a lot of it to me is that it's designed where a composer has to think of a song with opera singers, and then build the orchestra around it. I don't think it works when a composer is obliged to incorporate an instrument (eg: the human voice), and let the composition grow from there. It is more appropriate to me when a piece comes into more natural fruition, where all the instruments feel more naturally appropriate.

One person who I feel did opera well was Wagner. His pieces were focused as much on the orchestra as they were on the singers. As a result you have a complete piece, not a singer's showcase.

I'm into the more experimental challenging classical stuff like late Schoenberg, Alban Berg, Webern, and more recently everything by Luciano Berio, Lygeti, and Pierre Boulez. In fact I just picked up "Notations/Figures-Doubles-Prismes/Rituel" by Boulez today. So far I don't understand anything I'm hearning. It usually takes me about 20 listens before I can make out whats going on in one of his pieces.

When I'm in a more stressed out, in need of solace type of mood I go for Arvo Part and John Tavener.

Igor Stravinsky



I'm not heavily into classical music (yet) and I don't know much about it
either, except wether I like what I'm hearing or not lol.

I always figured it's something that I'll get into a bit later on because
it's such an enormous pool to dip into.

But so far, the ones I like to listen to on and off are Mahler (yes, I did
check him out mainly because the Prince references, but also because I had
read "Death In Venice" and heard good things about Mahler's music).

Another fav of mine is Claude Debussy. I checked him out because I read
Camille Claudel's bio and it stated she'd danced with him at a party, so
I had to know.....

Bach: Cello Stes.

Rodrigo: Concerto de Aranjuez

Carlos Montoya: (anything by the man)

Andres Segovia: (anything by the man)

Carl Orff: Carmina Burana

just a few of my favourites!

ooooh How could I forget Pablo Casals... cello

My parents never listened to anything else but classical music and jazz. The weird thing is that I can often hum all the songs, but I can't label them.

Chopin and Schubert were my first 2 loves. Especially Chopin makes me calm and quiet. eg Piano Concertos nos. 1 & 2n Krystian Zimmerman.

But I can also appreciate a symphony from time to time. Or opera. I love Maria Callas' voice.

And Bach. His work can be viewed in so many different ways !

And Jacqueline du Pré, celliste, great personality and musician.

Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 in D major, especially the 2nd movt. He kicks ass on the harpiscord. And Mendelssohn's, Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in E minor, Op. 64 (performed by the Montreal Symphony Orchestra). I also have it performed by Perlman, but it's just not the same.

Anyway, I can't wait for the Kanye West remix on both these joints!

Chico1 said:

That is one of my favorites to play

I am also a huge Kronos Quartet fan, they are simply the most original quartet

ella731 said:

I'm a huge fan of the Impressionists, and those that came after...I like Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel, Gustav Holst, Fredrick Delius, Anatol Liadov, Ottorino Respighi, Pyotr Tchaikovsky, Erik Satie and Arthur Honegger, up through Contemporaries Aaron Copeland and Charles Ives.

Some of my favorites:

Ravel: Le Tombeau De Couperin: Prelude

Ravel: Le Tombeau De Couperin: Menuet

Ravel: Pavane Pour Une Divin Enfant

Debussy: Clare De Lune

Debussy: Arabesque No. 1

Debussy: La Mer

Debussy: Golliwog's Cakewalk

Holst: The Planets

Respighi: The Fountains of Rome, The Pines Of Rome

Honegger: Pastorale Dete

Liadov: The Enchanted Lake

Delius: On Hearing The First Cuckoo In Spring

Delius: Brigg Fair

Delius: Summer Night On The River

Delius: Song Of Summer

Delius: The Walk To Paradise Garden

Copeland: El Salon, Mexico

Copeland: Appalachian Spring

Copeland: Rodeo

Copeland: Billy The Kid

Erik Satie: Gymnopede No. 1

Tchaikovsky:Swan Lake

Tchaikovsky:Sleeping Beauty

Tchaikovsky:The Nutcracker

...
for other orchestral work , I like composers and arrangers that bridge Jazz and Classical: from Ellington and Gershwin up through Leonard Bernstein, Robert Farnon, Clare Fischer(and his son, Brent), Michael Gibbs, Jorge Del Barrio, Jeremy Lubbock, and Vince Mendoza...


...
[Edited 11/8/04 10:04am]

paligap said:

You've got good taste! Especially the Satie, Debussy and Ravel stuff.

lezama said:

Thank Ya!! You Too!!

I used to play nothing but classical music on the piano, but since I've let my instrumental talents slide, I haven't been exposed as much. These last few years I've been digesting as much popular music as I can because i was a fairly late bloomer getting into music other than adolescent recital playing.

My only problem with classical music is that there is just so much of it I can never remember who composed what and when etc!! Seriously though I'm more of a Late Romantic-Early 20th Century person. Stravinsky, Debussy, Ravel, Rachmaninoff (spelling ).

I am not into classical music big time, but love the flair and flamboyance of Mozart music.

But the classical music that fits me best are the piano pieces by Satie; they are gloomy, like I am.

Miles said:

I've been itching to discuss classical music on this board and even started a thread on Kabalevsky the other day -- which died in the water, as I knew it would.

Being a violinist, I've played in classical orchestras my whole life and love classical music.

I go to the symphony often and while I can appreciate all composers and eras, I find that 20th century music -- the more avant-garde stuff -- to be most exciting and stimulating. The Bach's and the Mozart's have just been played to death.

On that note, I can sink my teeth into the 20th century Russian composers like Shostakovich, Stravinksky, and Kabalevsky. Tchaikovsky is a little [mainstream] (she said snobbishly) for me.

Recently I heard a piece called
Three Screaming Popes by Mark-Anthony Turnage written in response to the Francis Bacon painting:



That was cool. The entire orchestra actually SCREAMS with their instruments!

I do like the dramatic mood swings of Beethoven. And I'm a big fan of Itzakh Perlman especially when he plays Paganini.

And modern American composers John Adams and Ernest Bloch are completely ace!

heartbeatocean said:

That actually sounds really interesting. I'm also a big fan of Francis Bacon. Read a biography on him a year or so ago. Never heard of Turnage. Will have to see if I can track this down. You often have composers write things to poems or to literature, but rarely to paintings.

lezama said:

Turnage is a living composer born in 1960 in England.
Three Screaming Popes is on a CD recorded by the CIty of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir Simon Rattle. Other works of his on the CD are Drowned Out, Kai, and Momentum. I got this info from the program notes. Maybe you can find it.

heartbeatocean said:

Thanx Heartbeat. I just found a copy at Amazon.de.

Mark-Anthony Turnage has written quite a lot of music that combines 'modern classical' elements with jazz fusion, including a couple of albums with jazz guitarist John Schofield as lead soloist. I've not bought them, but I have heard parts of them. Sounds quite interesting tho.

In my view, concert halls should be forced to play 60% living composers and 40% dead. However wonderful a lot of the old stuff is, the world is too full of 'dead composer music' (as Frank Zappa so marvellously described it). If more people were exposed to 'living composer music' (and it's by no means all post Schoenberg/Varese/ Messiaen/Stockhausen 'conceptual art' music-sound), 'art music', for want of better name, would be in a much healthier state.

Only problem is, you have to pay not-dead composers. Unlike Bach, Haydn, Verdi, etc, who now kindly give their services for free due to the virtue of thier having been dead for years and so out of copyright. Plus the works of 'famous dead composers' have the 'advantage' of being familiar to both audience and musicians, and so no work needs to be done by either party. I'm not really knocking the music, but it's a jukebox in a dinner-jacket, safe and predictable.

And then there's the absurdity of old keyboard pieces (and pieces for other instruments) by the likes of Bach being played on modern pianos (which had not been invented in the 18th century). I prefer period instruments, otherwise it's a bit like listening to Thelonious Monk being played on a sythesiser, OK but not really 'as the composer intended' (ranted the arch-purist). I've absolutely nothing against Henry Purcell being played on a piccolo bass, as long as it sounds good, but it can pay to know a bit of music history, so you know what you're actually hearing.

And so ends this lesson ...

'The present-day composer refuses to die!' Edgard Varese

Miles said:

That's a good way of putting it. The more time goes on, I get impatient with hearing the same old same old composers again and again and again, and that includes centuries of music! Contemporary music really represents our culture and our time and, in a way, it's our voice. So I think it's much more vital and valuable for us if we want to get a deeper understanding of ourselves.