Does anyone here listen to classical music?

[AlAaraaf74]

It seems that not as many people enjoy classical music like they used to, and that's a shame. Anyway, I'm bored and so I'm asking if you guys listen to classical music. Also, if you do, what are some of your favorite composers/pieces?

My favorite composers: Bach and Chopin.

 

[GodofDisaster]

I'm not an avid fan but I've come across some excellent classic orchestrated pieces, this one by Dvorak being a personal favourite.

 

[Henkie36]

Unless you would count the opera scene from The Fifth Element, no. But it's not like I can't enjoy or hear the beauty of a masterpiece written by Mozart or someone like him. That said, I won't seek it out and I still prefer rock or pop over classic.

 

[SckizoBoy]

As ever, I do listen to 'classical' in the broad sense, but I don't actually listen to that much classical era music. Instead, I like:


and

 

[AlAaraaf74]

As ever, I do listen to 'classical' in the broad sense, but I don't actually listen to that much classical era music.

I'm not a big fan of the classical era either. I mainly enjoy Romantic up to today.

 

[e033x]

I listen much to classical music.

My favorite composers/pieces are:

Beethoven (duh)
9th symphony (choral) [4th mvt. middle part] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OxuRYTaPys
I also like his 7th symphony

Berlioz
An underappreciated gem; Grande Symphonie Triomphale et Funebre, especially 3rd mvt. Originally scored for wind band in 1840: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPVKTzgSLRI

Grieg
While his solo-piano works and lieds are fantastic, i absolutely love his piano concierto, one of the few large orchestral pieces he wrote: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dxzpy1b1_BY

Mussorgsky (plus Ravel for orchestration)
Pictures at an exhibition, orchestrated by Maurice Ravel, is absolutely stunning. One of my dreams is to see the Berlin Philharmonic, or another great orchestra playing this live: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCn0yFu0wy8

George Percy Grainger/Percy Aldridge Grainger (pseudonym)
For his excellent renditions of english folk songs and works for wind band, both summed up in what many consider his masterpiece; Lincolnshire Posy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piSieyTruog

Honorable mentions to:
Mozart, especially for his 15th piano concierto: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGMVNpSbAUo
Sibelius
Dvorak, his 9th symphony
All composers of neoclassic music

About 1/3 of the music listed, i have actually played, as a percussion player in an orchestra.

 

[steevee]

I listen to Classical sometimes, but I wouldn't call myself an avid fan. I really have to be in the right mood. I like a lot of the more contempory stuff, a lot of what I like comes from game and film soundtracks actually. Such as Bioshock and Lord of The Rings.

 

[Oisin XD]

Quite a big fan of classical music; I sang in a pretty prolific choir when I was young.

The choir made me like the music however, not the other way around.

Favorite composers? Probably Bach and Tchaikovsky, and of course Mozart, as well as some obscure ones whose names even I can't remember, (Aw yea, Hipster) but it's more about single pieces when it comes to them.

 

[Hollock]

When I listen to the radio, that's what I listen to

 

[Laser Priest]

I do, but only because I sprinkle it regularly in the middle of every playlist I make. I'd be fucked to try to name the pieces and their composers.

 

[Sammisaurus]

It's not the main genre on my iPod, but I do have a few classical pieces My favorite i Beethoven's 7th symphony, 2nd movement

 

[Blow_Pop]

Mussogorsky is one of my favourites and I listen to classical music all the time. In between the metal and everything else I listen to.

 

[SckizoBoy]

As ever, I do listen to 'classical' in the broad sense, but I don't actually listen to that much classical era music.

I'm not a big fan of the classical era either. I mainly enjoy Romantic up to today.

Cool... I'm actually listening to the last vid I posted, this movement has a such an intricate but grand build up to its end that leads into the second movement very well.

Anyway, as you can tell from my selection, I'm a baroque fan, esp. Herr Johann. No-one, and I mean no-one can top his organ music (no, not even Saint-Saens's Organ Symphony, though I did like it) with the possible exception of that 6-7 minutes of madness that is the Toccata from the 5th Organ Symphony by Widor. Man, haven't listened to that in ages...

...

Guess what I'm listening to now. XD

And the thing is, I actually prefer harpsichord music to piano music, largely because I was part of several baroque ensembles when I was younger (violinist/viola/harpsichord). You wouldn't believe how difficult it is to find a good harpsichord to play these days... they go out of tune within a month and I was lucky I got to play one at school. *sigh*

 

[EndOfDaWorld]

I do. Vivaldi - Shostakovitch...

 

[AlAaraaf74]

Favorite composers? Probably Bach and Tchaikovsky, and of course Mozart, as well as some obscure ones whose names even I can't remember, (Aw yea, Hipster) but it's more about single pieces when it comes to them.

Ha ha, me too. My friend asked me who some of my favorites were and I said, "I like Liszt, Scriabin, Busoni..." he had no idea who they were.

 

[Stall]

On a quick, rather pedantic note: Classical music != classical music. Lowercase classical music refers to Western art music (what most people mean when they say classical music), uppercase while Classical music refers to music written during the Classical era, typically dating the late 1700s to the early 1800s (think Mozart).

Bach is one of the most brilliant, if not the single most brilliant, music mind who has ever existed. I enjoy mostly his secular works, but many of his masses and cantatas are equally as beautiful. My personal favorites are early Classical/late Romantic Germanic composers, such as Schubert, Beethoven, or Mendelssohn. Although there is little classical music I do not enjoy, aside from high and post Romantic music (which I typically too overblown and gaudy for my tastes).

This is Mendelssohn's famous Violin concerto. Simply brilliant... Mendelssohn had such an ear for melody.
<iframe width="425" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/CCLxso5XDN4" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen>

 

[AlAaraaf74]

As ever, I do listen to 'classical' in the broad sense, but I don't actually listen to that much classical era music.

I'm not a big fan of the classical era either. I mainly enjoy Romantic up to today.

And the thing is, I actually prefer harpsichord music to piano music, largely because I was part of several baroque ensembles when I was younger (violinist/viola/harpsichord). You wouldn't believe how difficult it is to find a good harpsichord to play these days... they go out of tune within a month and I was lucky I got to play one at school. *sigh*

I like both piano and harpsichord, but I get annoyed when pieces for those instruments are interchanged. For example, I had listened to Bach's Harpsichord Concerto in D minor only with a piano instead. It didn't sound right at all.

 

[Zenron]

I listen to a lot of more piano focused classical music. But other than that I'm not really into it. I listen to rock music most of the time.

 

[SckizoBoy]

Bach is one of the most brilliant, if not the single most brilliant, music mind who has ever existed. I enjoy mostly his secular works, but many of his masses and cantatas are equally as beautiful.

Huzzah, another Bach lover. It's rather strange that his secular music was so well written, seeing as how devout a Lutheran he was. Still, immense output at that (sure, nothing on Handel, but immense enough, seeing as how he lived most of his adult life tremendously short sighted and the final ten-ish years almost blind)...

And the thing is, I actually prefer harpsichord music to piano music, largely because I was part of several baroque ensembles when I was younger (violinist/viola/harpsichord). You wouldn't believe how difficult it is to find a good harpsichord to play these days... they go out of tune within a month and I was lucky I got to play one at school. *sigh*

I like both piano and harpsichord, but I get annoyed when pieces for those instruments are interchanged. For example, I had listened to Bach's Harpsichord Concerto in D minor only with a piano instead. It didn't sound right at all.

I'm a purist too, albeit a slightly more relaxed one, as I've listened to recordings of that Concerto in D-minor with a piano and they were quite good (though admittedly, not a patch on the harpsichord original). I do prefer the 'historically informed' in the end, though. And no disrespect to him, but I cannot stand Glenn Gould's recordings...

Here's a question: have you heard Maxim Vengerov's interpretation of the Fugue (from the Toccata and Fugue in D-minor for the Organ) on the violin? It might not sound like much, but the chords/arpeggios he gets out of the instrument left me speechless. Andrew Manze version (listen from 2:07, Toccata is very hard to transcribe and not as good as the Vengerov transcription)

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Oh, and Leopold Stokowski's transcriptions of Bach's Passacaglia and Fugue in C-minor for a full orchestra is worth a listen too.

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