Classical music

orfeoorfeo Shipmate
edited January 2 in Heaven
Do we have many fans here? I'm aware of the recently departed Rossweisse... but I'm not sure otherwise.

I'm obsessed with chamber music in particular at times, including right now. Preserving my sanity on some days. Dvorak. I can't get enough of Dvorak. Or Faure.

EDIT: Or Haydn. Given that I have about 15 discs of Haydn on their way to me (piano trios, string quartets, filling a symphony gap) I shouldn't forget Haydn.
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Comments

  • I'm with you: chamber music, sure, Dvorak and Haydn certainly, but mainly Beethoven, Schubert. Bruckner symphonies keep me sane (or insane, opines Mrs RR).
    I have a subscription to the Berlin Phil Internet stream. This we watched over the stresstive season rather than the garbage elsewhere.
    More musical obsessions revealed on request. This is not the time, though for a renewed study of 'Winterreise'. More Bach Christmas Oratorios, perhaps to relieve the lockdown blues.
  • Indeed. I visited Dvorak's grave in 1987.

    My tastes range very broadly. I had a life-altering experience in seeing/hearing The Ring Cycle in 2006. I've wept at Shostakovich's 5th Symphony (conducted by his son, Maksim), and I love his string quartets. So much a Shostakovich geek that I once attended a seminar given by Richard Taruskin. I see (or, saw, in The Before Time) about three or four operas a season. The Canadian Opera Company has a particular strength in 20thC opera. And I've seen a great performance of..... Orfeo.
  • DafydDafyd Shipmate
    edited January 2
    I spent yesterday afternoon listening to Barenboim and the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra Prom performance of Beethoven's Ninth (on YouTube).
  • orfeoorfeo Shipmate
    edited January 2
    Yes, well, now you know part of the origin of my screen name. Not that I'm terribly into opera. But I got to see Orfeo at La Scala in Milan. Quite an experience, that theatre.

    And Shostakovich is worth geeking over. My collection expanded rapidly only 1-2 years ago.

    Classical streaming services have come of age and I personally use Primephonic**, it tends to lead to me exploring particular composers in depth more than scattering across composers, though that does happen sometimes. And it also leads me to trying different recordings of pieces I didn't "get" and discovering that a different recording can bring rewards. Right at this moment I'm discovering I do like Beethoven's Violin Concerto after all, when the first movement isn't played at a crawl.

    **Idagio also seems good.
  • la vie en rougela vie en rouge Circus Host, 8th Day Host
    I have a soft spot for Beethoven's violin concerto. The first time I visited my inlaws' house, my father-in-law (a retired concert pianist) put on the radio and decided to play Name The Composer. "Beethoven violin concerto," says I. "I've played it."* That was the moment when I realised the ingratiating myself with the parents exercise was going rather well.

    *I hasten to add that I was not the soloist. I was playing cello in the orchestra.
  • I have a soft spot for Beethoven's violin concerto. The first time I visited my inlaws' house, my father-in-law (a retired concert pianist) put on the radio and decided to play Name The Composer. "Beethoven violin concerto," says I. "I've played it."* That was the moment when I realised the ingratiating myself with the parents exercise was going rather well.

    *I hasten to add that I was not the soloist. I was playing cello in the orchestra.

    Well played, madame.

  • I have loved classical music since I was a teenager and everybody else was obsessing over the Beatles. I sang in massed choirs in Sydney under the late Terence Hunt, which gave me a particular love for twentieth-century English choral music, but my interests range from Gregorian chant to Arvo Part. When we travel, I am always on the lookout for locally-recorded items, so my collection includes Mongolian folk and classical music, Russian Orthodox liturgy, organ music from Scandinavian cathedrals and brass band music from several countries. The recent trend to box-set reissues have allowed me to acquire favourite recordings from more impecunious times. My Christmas gift from Mrs BA was the box-set Sibelius Edition from DG [wish I could afford the massive BIS complete edition] and a 6-CD Bach collection sung by The Sixteen.
  • orfeoorfeo Shipmate
    [wish I could afford the massive BIS complete edition]

    I find it excessively massive. I own one box of it (voice and orchestra), but when I investigated I felt that many parts of it were 'complete' to a fault, with every revision and scrap of an idea they could find.

    Does anyone really need to spend a quarter of an hour listening to 50 themes Sibelius sketched out for piano? Not pieces. Themes.

    It started looking like poorer value for money once I realised that some of the boxes had about twice as many discs as they really needed.

    Anyway. That's a raw nerve. But I do like the Voice & Orchestra box!

  • kingsfoldkingsfold Shipmate
    I don't know any composers works in any great depth, but yes, classical music and choral music are pretty much the major constituents of my CD collection.
    I do like Beethoven, Dvorak & Shostakovich as others have mentioned (bits of the piano concerto in F bring me to tears almost every time I hear it). Mostly orchestral works.
    I have a soft spot for Gershwin's piano concerto in a similar way to LVER's soft spot for the Beethoven Violin concerto: I've played it.... as a second violinist. But it's a lot of fun, which is why it sticks more than some of the other concerti for which I've second fiddled.
    I confess to not being a great fan of Mozart though.
  • LydaLyda Shipmate
    I have a soft spot for Beethoven's violin concerto. The first time I visited my inlaws' house, my father-in-law (a retired concert pianist) put on the radio and decided to play Name The Composer. "Beethoven violin concerto," says I. "I've played it."* That was the moment when I realised the ingratiating myself with the parents exercise was going rather well.

    *I hasten to add that I was not the soloist. I was playing cello in the orchestra.

    Ah, that wonderful concerto! My father and I saw it performed by Rachel Barton Pine at our local symphony. We fell in love with the piece and her. I bought her cd recording and we would just sit and listen to it on occasion. Good memories. :cry: :smile:

    Besides Beethoven, I daily listen to Renaissance music on Pandora. I can hardly ID any specific pieces, but I enjoy Tallis and Gesualdo (shhh! murderer! but incredible composer)
    And I'm subscribed to KUSC our local non-profit classical station. If you want to listen to good classical variety without commercials, you could do worse than check out KUSC online.
  • I first fell in love with Classical Music over 50 years ago when I was in high school. (I played clarinet and then string bass in our school orchestra.)

    I currently have the New York classical station (WQXR) playing on one computer or another just about constantly. Though I financially support Phoenix's station, the New York one is far better.

    In recent years (mostly since my divorce) I've subscribed to our local symphony, opera, and chorale. I pretty much dropped out of the opera because he was doing almost entirely new, experimental things. And then, of course, everything shut down last March.

    One of my major disappointments last spring was that I had tickets to see Wagner's Ring Cycle in Chicago (Rossweisse first told me they were doing it), and of course that never happened. I'm delighted that I was able to see it in San Francisco a few years earlier.

  • Pigwidgeon wrote: »
    I pretty much dropped out of the opera because he was doing almost entirely new, experimental things. And then, of course, everything shut down last March.
    One of the blessings of moving to Cardiff was the excellent music on offer from National Orchestra of Wales and Welsh National Opera. Alas! last February's "Figaro" seems a long time ago. Two other performances that stand out were "Rosenkavalier" (on the night between the semi-final and final of Cardiff Singer of the World - the house was packed and the atmosphere electric) and "War and Peace" (cast of hundreds: stunning chorus work).

  • MarsupialMarsupial Shipmate
    I’ve been a classical music fan since my mid-teenage years. I started with Bach (organ works), Mozart, and Shostakovich and have expanded in various directions since. In the last decade or so it’s been mostly piano, chamber music, and choral music on my CD player with occasional forays into orchestral music and opera (mostly live, back when that was possible).

    I still buy recorded music on CD, though not quite at the same rate I used to. Major discoveries (for me) in the last few years are Mompou’s and Janacek’s solo piano music. Still acquiring choral music including lately the last few instalments of the Tallis Scholars’ now-complete set of Josquin masses.
  • la vie en rougela vie en rouge Circus Host, 8th Day Host
    My favourite operas are Mozart. We don't go often because it's so damnably expensive, but we did get to a glorious Don Giovanni the summer before last when these things were still possible.

    Currently listening to Richter playing Rachmaninov.
  • PriscillaPriscilla Shipmate
    Yes!
    My parents had eclectic tastes, my dad liked brass bands, and the first time I heard “The Land of the Mountain and Flood” was on a Cory Band record. My games mistress in school believed in exposing pupils to the classics, and arranged school trips to several operas at the New Theatre in Cardiff.
    I also went there with my parents - I particularly remember a performance of The Pearl Fishers with Delme Bryn Jones. That’s an opera I’d dearly love to see again.
  • MarsupialMarsupial Shipmate
    Speaking of the Beethoven violin concerto, I just put Isabelle Faust’s recording with Abbado (2012) on the CD player. I’m not sure if it’s fast enough for @orfeo (guessing it might not be), but it doesn’t feel at all lugubrious in good part because of Faust’s contribution.

    It’s coupled with a very good Berg violin concerto. (Sensibly, they put the Berg first, so you can skip over it entirely if you want.)
  • I was listening to the classical radio station (the "other" one in this market) and they were playing piano-violin sonatas by 20th century artists. One of them, I swear, was an experimental piece where they had the two artists in separate studios and they were playing compositions from two separate composers but happened to be doing it at the same time, and they mixed them live on the desk. It was painful.
  • MarsupialMarsupial Shipmate
    mousethief wrote: »
    One of them, I swear, was an experimental piece where they had the two artists in separate studios and they were playing compositions from two separate composers but happened to be doing it at the same time, and they mixed them live on the desk. It was painful.

    Sounds like some social distancing experiment gone horribly wrong...

    There is a story, perhaps apocryphal, about a concert pianist having a bad moment and starting the Grieg concerto when everyone else was playing the Schumann.

  • orfeoorfeo Shipmate
    edited January 2
    Marsupial wrote: »
    Speaking of the Beethoven violin concerto, I just put Isabelle Faust’s recording with Abbado (2012) on the CD player. I’m not sure if it’s fast enough for @orfeo (guessing it might not be), but it doesn’t feel at all lugubrious in good part because of Faust’s contribution.

    It’s coupled with a very good Berg violin concerto. (Sensibly, they put the Berg first, so you can skip over it entirely if you want.)

    That is in fact exactly the recording that improved my appreciation of the piece last night. It's faster than many, and in fact a lot of reviews commented on it: "oh look, it does actually sound like an allegro".
  • There is also a story of a famous pianist (can't remember who) performing with an orchestra under Georg Solti. In the cadenza to the concerto he, to Solti's great consternation, wandered into the cadenza of a completely different piece ... only at the very last minute to get back on track just before the orchestra came in. In fact it was an April fool and the orchestra were all in on the joke ... Solti (who apparently didn't have much of a sense of humour) was absolutely livid!!!

    Mind you, I think that he and Pappano have been the greatest musical directors at Covent Garden.
  • jedijudyjedijudy Heaven Host, 8th Day Host
    My whole life! I blame Bugs Bunny.

    When I was really young, I loved Beethoven the very best, and bought quite few of the piano sonatas to try to learn on my old upright. My teacher wasn't a Beethoven person, and couldn't give me a lot of help, and I was way too young to attempt most of them without guidance, but it was so much fun! And the Beethoven violin concerto was just heaven! That was the reason I attempted to learn violin. I failed miserably. It scared my cats.

    The scope of music in this house has increased tremendously since those long ago days. Schubert, Debussy, Mozart, Brahms...and especially Bach. Don't love everything, but playing or listening to them puts my soul back where it belongs.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    orfeo wrote: »
    Yes, well, now you know part of the origin of my screen name. Not that I'm terribly into opera. But I got to see Orfeo at La Scala in Milan. Quite an experience, that theatre.

    Which one - Monteverdi or Gluck? We prefer Monteverdi but both are good.

    Probably my very, very favourite recordings are of Casals playing the Bach Cello Suites - music and playing of the highest order. You have to put up with the deficiencies of recordings made 80+ years ago, but well worth it.
  • MarsupialMarsupial Shipmate
    orfeo wrote: »
    Marsupial wrote: »
    Speaking of the Beethoven violin concerto, I just put Isabelle Faust’s recording with Abbado (2012) on the CD player. I’m not sure if it’s fast enough for @orfeo (guessing it might not be), but it doesn’t feel at all lugubrious in good part because of Faust’s contribution.

    It’s coupled with a very good Berg violin concerto. (Sensibly, they put the Berg first, so you can skip over it entirely if you want.)

    That is in fact exactly the recording that improved my appreciation of the piece last night. It's faster than many, and in fact a lot of reviews commented on it: "oh look, it does actually sound like an allegro".

    Glad we’re on the same page about that recording. It’s been a while since I’ve heard any other version, which is probably why it didn’t seem notably fast to me.* I’m a big fan of Faust as well as the pianist Alexander Melnikov who regularly performs with her.

    (*it may also have something to do with the fact that one of our other versions is the Heifetz)

  • orfeoorfeo Shipmate
    Gee D wrote: »
    orfeo wrote: »
    Yes, well, now you know part of the origin of my screen name. Not that I'm terribly into opera. But I got to see Orfeo at La Scala in Milan. Quite an experience, that theatre.

    Which one - Monteverdi or Gluck? We prefer Monteverdi but both are good.

    Probably my very, very favourite recordings are of Casals playing the Bach Cello Suites - music and playing of the highest order. You have to put up with the deficiencies of recordings made 80+ years ago, but well worth it.

    Monteverdi. I did wonder if I needed to clarify but then didn't because I remembered Gluck is officially Orfeo and Euridice... but it's often just called Orfeo...

    Yeah. Saw the Monteverdi. Don't know it well, don't remember much of it. It really was all about seeing the theatre which is amazing.
  • orfeoorfeo Shipmate
    edited January 3
    Marsupial wrote: »
    orfeo wrote: »
    Marsupial wrote: »
    Speaking of the Beethoven violin concerto, I just put Isabelle Faust’s recording with Abbado (2012) on the CD player. I’m not sure if it’s fast enough for @orfeo (guessing it might not be), but it doesn’t feel at all lugubrious in good part because of Faust’s contribution.

    It’s coupled with a very good Berg violin concerto. (Sensibly, they put the Berg first, so you can skip over it entirely if you want.)

    That is in fact exactly the recording that improved my appreciation of the piece last night. It's faster than many, and in fact a lot of reviews commented on it: "oh look, it does actually sound like an allegro".

    Glad we’re on the same page about that recording. It’s been a while since I’ve heard any other version, which is probably why it didn’t seem notably fast to me.* I’m a big fan of Faust as well as the pianist Alexander Melnikov who regularly performs with her.

    (*it may also have something to do with the fact that one of our other versions is the Heifetz)

    I'm definitely a fan of Melnikov too. And the cellist Queyras whom they also both play with, and is actually responsible for one of my preferred Bach cello suites...

    Faust in Beethoven probably isn't all that fast but I gather there was a slower approach for a period, and now in the 21st century folks have sped up a bit again. I've been reading reviews today of the one that I listened to yesterday - Zukerman with Barenboim - and yeah, turns out it's known for being a bit on the sleepy side, all very sweet and lyrical but zero drive. So whatever the range is for me, Zukerman/Barenboim isn't in it and Faust/Abbado was much more pleasing.
  • MaryLouiseMaryLouise Purgatory Host, 8th Day Host
    Another one who grew up in a household listening to classical music, including Schoenberg and Bartók . In recent years I've been drawn to more avant-garde listening, the work of György Ligeti (those electrifying and surreal arias in Mysteries of the Macabre), Philip Glass (Einstein on the Beach) and at the moment Elliott Carter's Figment V for marimba.

    Most live performances I've been able to see out here are jazz, although we have (in other years) lively opera seasons with a number of acclaimed performers (Sibongile Khumalo, soprano Pretty Yende, tenor Nkululeko Mqobongo, baritone Njabulo Madlala). I saw a local interpretation of Bizet in U-Carmen eKhayelitsha some years ago, have a particular interest in the productions of William Kentridge: (La Boheme Abanxaxhi and Wozzeck following Berg's atonal score but set as a militarised nightmare in the First World War.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    orfeo wrote: »
    Gee D wrote: »
    orfeo wrote: »
    Yes, well, now you know part of the origin of my screen name. Not that I'm terribly into opera. But I got to see Orfeo at La Scala in Milan. Quite an experience, that theatre.

    Which one - Monteverdi or Gluck? We prefer Monteverdi but both are good.

    Probably my very, very favourite recordings are of Casals playing the Bach Cello Suites - music and playing of the highest order. You have to put up with the deficiencies of recordings made 80+ years ago, but well worth it.

    Monteverdi. I did wonder if I needed to clarify but then didn't because I remembered Gluck is officially Orfeo and Euridice... but it's often just called Orfeo...

    Yeah. Saw the Monteverdi. Don't know it well, don't remember much of it. It really was all about seeing the theatre which is amazing.

    We have the Monteverdi somewhere or other, on 12" LP records rather than discs. Can't remember who the performers are.
  • PuzzlerPuzzler Shipmate
    Music for me is classical music.
    Especially choral music, from Tallis, Byrd, Palestrina through to Eric Whitacre, via Bach, Brahms, Mendelssohn and Mahler et al.
    In my weekly Zoom choir we do a Bach chorale every week and are amazed at how
    “ modern” some of his chords are.
  • PuzzlerPuzzler Shipmate
    A formative experience was performing Gluck’s Orpheus and Euridice ( in English ) at school, followed by Monteverdi’s Vespers at university.
  • Wow! This thread has really taken off, which does the heat good! And what a range of tastes and enjoyments.
    Mrs RR and I bunkered down yesterday, it being a 'Lockdown Grey Day', to, not 'The Magic Flute' (by far and away our favourite opera) but 'South Pacific'. Turned into a bit of a sing-along. With tissues at the ready.
    Today, sterner stuff; three of Bach's Christmas Oratorios. Or, blow that, and indulge myself in Bruckner's Fourth Symphony (Mrs RR: "Not again!!!".).
  • Mrs BA has a similar reaction to Bruckner @RockyRoger. I have the Bernard Haitink complete recordings on LP, and for Christmas 2019 received the complete Dresden recordings under Eugen Jochum. Selected symphonies are also in the 150th anniversary symphonic boxed set from the Wiener Philharmoniker. It's a wettish summer here at present, so maybe the player will get a workout.
  • orfeoorfeo Shipmate
    I don't know Bruckner. It's on my to-do list. I usually have a very long to-do list, stretching years into the future...
  • DafydDafyd Shipmate
    orfeo wrote: »
    I don't know Bruckner. It's on my to-do list. I usually have a very long to-do list, stretching years into the future...
    Just like Bruckner. (Ba dum tish.)

    I do like Bruckner. He was a devotee of Wagner but I've heard it suggested that he was as much an heir of Schubert's symphonic writing. (I wouldn't be able to judge but I like Bruckner and Schubert and am lukewarm about Wagner.)

  • Pangolin GuerrePangolin Guerre Shipmate
    edited January 3
    @MaryLouise I saw U-Carmen eKhayelitsha at the Toronto International Film Festival, and I said to the friend with me was that it was bizarre that it was French opera, but it felt like Khayelitsha. Wonderful film. A few years later they screened the same group's Noye's Fludde, which was also a delight.
  • Ethne AlbaEthne Alba Shipmate
    edited January 3
    I first listened to a recording of Bruckner at a church youth group; promptly went out and bought an LP of something or other by him ......and had to eat on Far Less Money for that week!

    By 16 yrs old, I was saving college lunch money and escaping off to London’s South Bank on Friday or Saturday night for concerts at the Wigmore Hall or Queen Elizabeth Hall. Any spare time or money had me jumping in a train before 5pm at one end of the evening...and catching the last train home from Liverpool Street station.

    A good friend introduced me to Gorecki’s ‘Symphony of Sorrowful Songs’....... it saved a bad divorce from being a traumatic divorce.

    Still easily my favourite.
  • My taste is all over the map. Gregorian chants. Medieval madrigals. Renaissance and Baroque composers of every stripe.

    Not as much into the classical period, Haydn kind of pop-musicked me out and Mozart appeals to my head but not my heart.

    But Beethoven ESPECIALLY as he straddled classical and romantic periods. Romantic period composers, yes the Liszts and Brahmses and Tchaikovskys.

    I have a weird kind of preference for 20th century composers. Stravinsky (on account of my ballet background), Mahler, Shostkovich, Strauss (the other one), Copland, Britten, Vaughn Williams, Holst, Gershwin and Hindemith.

    Then on to the cinematic score composers like Ennio Morricone and the exuberant, over the top bombast of Hans Zimmer. But not John Williams - too derivative.

    I can listen to just about anything except the twelve-tone composers. They're up there with the free-jazz artists like Sony Rollins. Intellectual virtuosos but not really "listenable".

    AFF

  • I am interested in the definition of classical music. Our minister is a philistine, loves Hellsong and despises what he calls classical, i.e. old music - anything much more than around five years old. My argument is that 'classical' means enduring, meaning it can be centuries old or it can have been written last week. If it is good, it will endure. Much of the noise that passes for music in church now is instantly forgettable; disposable. Outside the church, my own favourites keep shifting, but Stravinsky's ballets will always be near the top of the list, with his glorious light, colour and images radiating from his music.
  • PigletPiglet All Saints Host, Circus Host
    I've had classical music as a soundtrack all my life. I was sent to piano lessons from the age of seven, then fiddle (which I hated) and then flute (which I didn't).

    Ever since being taken to see my brother in a school production of HMS Pinafore when I was six, I've had a major soft spot for Gilbert and Sullivan, and was in a few am-dram productions myself in my early 20s.

    I was a teenager in Orkney when the St. Magnus Festival was founded by Peter Maxwell Davies and Norman Mitchell, and every June I overdosed on (and performed in) music from Tallis to contemporary. Then David introduced me to the music of composers such as Gibbons, Byrd, Howells and Vaughan Williams (his favourite composer).

    I don't know whether I should be ashamed to admit that grand opera leaves me cold, but I can't help that.
  • I do enjoy classical music but I don't like having it on as a background - I have to be listening to it as an activity in itself (in fact I find this with most music). I gravitate towards either baroque, especially Bach or early/mid 20th century composers. For some reason not so much classical/romantic period.
  • Puzzler wrote: »
    In my weekly Zoom choir we do a Bach chorale every week and are amazed at how
    “ modern” some of his chords are.

    Bach's harmonies are often extremely adventurous in a way that was not reached by most other composers until late in the nineteenth century. I remember from when I was studying Music 'A' Level that the Harmony textbook that we used quoted the same phrase from one of Bach's Chorale Preludes (his last, if I remember correctly) three times, each time to illustrate the use of a different very unusual chord.

    His modulations (moving from one key to another) often move in unexpected directions, again in a way that is much more adventurous than many later composers. A classic example of this is in the Organ Toccata in F major (in my view the best of his Organ Toccatas), where at one point he is in a key aboout as remote from the original as it is possible to get.
  • Rachmaninov's Vespers are my personal favourite, but I also love Pergolesi's Stabat Mater, just about anything by Mozart, Beethoven's Pathetique Piano Sonata (and most of his other works), Corelli's Grossi Concerti, anything Tallis wrote... Carmina Burana. Then there's, well...
  • finelinefineline Kerygmania Host, 8th Day Host
    I didn't grow up with classical music, or music at all, really, but I discovered opera as a teenager. I liked the cover art of the cassette series you could borrow from the library, so I was always borrowing them, and listening, and I liked them. It started because we watched the film of West Side Story at school, and the library had a recording with Kiri te Kanawa and José Carreras, and I borrowed it, and thought at first it sounded weird and wrong in those kinds of (operatic) voices, and then something switched in my mind, and I found the voices beautiful. So then I explored opera in general from library tapes.

    Tosca was my favourite one. I didn't know anything about opera, but I would go into HMV, and they had this big book about all the recordings, and it would say which recordings were best. I would sit in HMV and read the book, and then go to the library and look for the recordings it recommended. However, my favourite Tosca was one the book was quite critical of, and I didn't like the one they recommended. I enjoyed borrowing the operas and reading the plots and the lyrics in the thick booklets the cassette sets would have. I liked Joan Sutherland a lot - the coloratura stuff (I didn't know it was called that at the time). I liked La Fille du Regiment, especially because it was in French, and so I understood some of it.

    I then discovered Baroque music, because when I was doing my A levels, I was reading books on how to do well in exams, and how to boost your brain power and all, and it recommended Baroque music, so then I started exploring that. I particularly like Handel and Vivaldi.

    Then, when I was at university, I got a membership to a library in London that had a big classical music section of CDs, and you paid £10 for a year membership and could borrow whichever you like, which I found quite delightful. This is when I discovered Mozart - there was a huge set of Mozart CDs, his complete works, so I would always borrow CDs from the set, because I like the idea of something being part of a set. I really liked Mozart from the start. I never got into Beethoven. I tried listening to his stuff too, because people would say Mozart and Beethoven are the two greats, and didn't like it. Maybe I would eventually like it if I kept listening.

    In general, I discovered my favourite kind of orchestral music is violin and flute. I how have the NML app on my iPad, which I can access free through my public library, and I often listen to classical music on that. I am right now listening to some Baroque flute music. This app also has Sondheim music, which I love. I am not aware of his musicals being considered classical music, but it is specifically a classical music streaming app, so maybe he is sort of considered that.
  • jedijudy wrote: »
    My whole life! I blame Bugs Bunny.

    Ain't that the truth.

    I love Bach best (no surprises there) but will listen to almost anything but Chopin, who irritates me.

  • Another one here who grew up with music in the house all the time—classical (including opera), light classical (lots of Gilbert &Sullivan), Broadway/musical theater, Big Band, folk revival, pipes and drums/British military bands, and more. It gave me really broad musical tastes. My bachelor’s degree is in music.

    Like @Puzzler, when it comes to classical, I’m particularly fond of choral music. 2020 marks the longest I’ve gone in 56 years without singing in a choir. :disappointed:

    My taste is all over the map. Gregorian chants. Medieval madrigals. Renaissance and Baroque composers of every stripe.

    Not as much into the classical period, Haydn kind of pop-musicked me out and Mozart appeals to my head but not my heart.

    But Beethoven ESPECIALLY as he straddled classical and romantic periods. Romantic period composers, yes the Liszts and Brahmses and Tchaikovskys.

    I have a weird kind of preference for 20th century composers. Stravinsky (on account of my ballet background), Mahler, Shostkovich, Strauss (the other one), Copland, Britten, Vaughn Williams, Holst, Gershwin and Hindemith.

    Then on to the cinematic score composers like Ennio Morricone and the exuberant, over the top bombast of Hans Zimmer. But not John Williams - too derivative.

    I can listen to just about anything except the twelve-tone composers. They're up there with the free-jazz artists like Sony Rollins. Intellectual virtuosos but not really "listenable".
    This really describes me too. Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven don’t do a whole lot for me, with some exceptions. I love Magic Flute. And I’ve tried, but I just seem unable to like Mendelssohn’s vocal music.

    Right this moment, with Jan. 6 approaching, I’m listening to Amahl and the Night Visitors. My academic advisor in college was the second Amahl, after the first Amahl’s voice changed.

  • Baptist TrainfanBaptist Trainfan Shipmate
    edited January 3
    Bach's harmonies are often extremely adventurous in a way that was not reached by most other composers until late in the nineteenth century. I remember from when I was studying Music 'A' Level that the Harmony textbook that we used quoted the same phrase from one of Bach's Chorale Preludes (his last, if I remember correctly) three times, each time to illustrate the use of a different very unusual chord.
    Yes, just think of the several harmonisations of the Passion Chorale in the St Matthew and (especially) St John Passion.

  • My love of classical music started in 4th grade (ca 10 years old), where I was introduced somehow to the Firebird. Possibly on a field trip but that part of the memory is gone. But then when we got back to class we had a filmstrip with accompanying sound (probably a 45 rpm record) that had the music. During times when we were allowed to watch whatever we wanted, I watched that one a lot. There wasn't a lot of classical music in our home growing up but in 7th-7th-8th grades my school was just a couple of blocks away from the public library, and they would let you check out LPs. So I started learning about the music that way. (It never occurred to me to look for the classical music station on the dial. Doh.) I also discovered jazz at that library. Meanwhile I was listening to Dr. Demento and back then he played music from every conceivable genre, as long as it was funny. (Later on he stopped playing older stuff and concentrated on mostly pop/rock stuff of the 70s+ alas.) So I heard a lot of kinds of music, which I was able to look up at the library and hear more of.
  • Rachmaninov's Vespers are my personal favourite.

    [PedantMode] Just the Vespers and not the whole of the All-Night Vigil? (The Vespers part is just numbers 1-6 of the All-Night Vigil) [/PedantMode]

    The whole is a masterpiece of what is apparently termed "orchestral writing for voices". I particularly like the Great Doxology, a high spot in Mattins on Sundays and Feast Days in Orthodox services. Here Rachmaninov uses a Znamenny (medieval Russian) melody, which is itself an amazing work, building a long intricate melody using only FOUR notes. Rachmaninov passes this around the different voices, adding delicate harmonies and occasional countermelodies. Truly a master crafstman at work.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    We generally prefer earlier rather than later music, but since Boxing Day I've been listening to accounts of Strauss's Four Last Songs (and driving Madame mad by hearing so much) - the last great work of the Romantic era . Flagstadt's has great value, she having been Strauss's preferred singer, but so far the recordings I've found have been of poor quality. Overall my favourite is Jessye Norman, but Schwarzkopf is not far behind.
  • ECraigRECraigR Castaway
    I've been quite into classical music for all of my cognizant life. Not sure how it started, as neither of my parents are, nor anyone else in the family really, but I developed a deep passion for opera when I was a teenager, and prior to that loved all forms. I regularly go in and out of obsessions, currently I'm listening to Glenn Gould's recordings of Beethoven's piano sonatas. Very, very strange and eccentric, and note to note I sometimes can't decide if I like them or hate them, but enjoying the process of discerning that nonetheless.

    Currently where I live has a very good classical music, NPR affiliated station, so I have that on the radio very frequently throughout the day. Classical music (and jazz, I should say) are two of the big passions of my life.
  • rhubarbrhubarb Shipmate
    I could listen to Bach all day and every day. Do you think Bach will be playing in heaven?
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