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What is your favorite piece of classical music? (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter timschochet
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Leroy Hoard
Footballguy
Ilov80s
Footballguy
Might as well make it the full 9 and go out to the Ode to Joy.Beethoven's First through Sixth
Ilov80s
Footballguy
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gianmarco
Footballguy
Ilov80s
Footballguy
Ilov80s
Footballguy
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Eephus
Footballguy
I struggle a bit with most classical vocal music. The lyrics usually aren't in English so I have no idea what they're saying (although I assume this one has something do with Mom). The formality of the vocal style is kind of jarring to my pop sensibilities. The tone singers get singing from the back of their throat is technically amazing but I'd rather hear rock or soul music with more nose and tongue in their voice.Ilov80s said:
On a more practical level, I avoid concerts with vocal soloists because our preferred (cheap) seats for the SF Symphony are behind the orchestra above the percussionists. Singers are the hardest soloists to hear from behind. Our package this season includes the Czech Philharmonic performing an all-Dvorak program. The orchestra traces its lineage back to Dvorak conducting his own music so I'm really looking forward to this one.
Ilov80s
Footballguy
I can see it being an acquired taste. I try to hear the voice as I would any other instrument. So in that sense the literal meaning of the words is not that important. The feeling is what matters.
msommer
Footballguy
To me, that sometimes is a plus. It allows you to concentrate on the chords, the harmony etc.
For instance, (not classical, I know but the gist is the same) listening to Celine Dion in French is a much nicer experience that having to understand the drivel she sings about.
wikkidpissah
Footballguy
A shout out to Chopin's nocturnes. I listen to solo piano music - Bill Evans, Bach, Scarlatti, Keith Jarrett as well as regular doses of Chopin - virtually alldayeveryday anyway, but one of my dozen or so open writing files is a vampire novel that i've been working on a lot lately and i always choose a specific music to listen to - it's been everything from marimba music to Mogwai to Astor Piazzolla to Monk to Willis Alan Ramsey, depending on the project - to set the mood of a file. Of course nocturnes & vampirism go together like cocaine & cocktail waitresses, but i'll have to say that the nocturnes really hold their majesty & mystery thru repeated listenings. Si, if you need eine kleine nachtmuzik this Halloween season, Chopin's your boy.
Mister CIA
Footballguy
gianmarco
Footballguy
wikkidpissah
Footballguy
Ilov80s
Footballguy
I wondered if I was the only one that did that. I don’t write but when I read a book, I’ll listen to the same music every time I read that book.
gianmarco
Footballguy
For those with Prime and if you are into Baroque music at all:
Bach's Ciaccona -- Track #5 (and the whole album is amazing)
Bach's Ciaccona -- Track #5 (and the whole album is amazing)
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Eephus
Footballguy
I really liked The Bad Plus' version of Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring.
Most classical/jazz hybrids, like Miles' and Jim Hall's versions of the Concierto de Aranjuez that Gianmarco posted above, use the theme and changes from the classical piece as a platform for improvisation. The Bad Plus sticks much closer to Stravinsky's score. It's impossible for a piano trio to capture the musical colors of an orchestra but they still manage to sound huge. There are some relatively unobtrusive electronic atmospherics but mostly it's just the three of them. I think the drummer really sets their version apart. The Rite of Spring was dance music after all and he makes it pulsate.
Teodor Currentzis' orchestral interpretation of the same piece from a couple of years back is also worth a listen. Currentzis is kind of a controversial figure but this one lives up to the hype around him. can't articulate what distinguishes it from the hundred other performances of Le Sacre du Printemps but I'd probably choose this one for my desert island.
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pinequick
Footballguy
THIS recording, in fact, of Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 in G Major, III. Allegro
Why it works for me:
1. I love it for concentration--being baroque, it is less about melody and more about harmony and rhythm. Layers of sound.
2. It is allegro, so I always find my toe tapping or my head bobbing while it is playing.
3. Because of its layered form, I will literally put it on repeat and play it on a full plane ride if I'm trying to read or edit something.
4. This recording, in particular, plays the piece at *just* a bit of a slower pace than almost any other that I have heard. I like the rhythm to be just a bit more relaxed, less frenetic, than other recordings of this piece.
Why it works for me:
1. I love it for concentration--being baroque, it is less about melody and more about harmony and rhythm. Layers of sound.
2. It is allegro, so I always find my toe tapping or my head bobbing while it is playing.
3. Because of its layered form, I will literally put it on repeat and play it on a full plane ride if I'm trying to read or edit something.
4. This recording, in particular, plays the piece at *just* a bit of a slower pace than almost any other that I have heard. I like the rhythm to be just a bit more relaxed, less frenetic, than other recordings of this piece.
gianmarco
Footballguy
The orchestra I play with is doing Beethoven's 3rd symphony for our next concert. It reminded me how much I love the 2nd movement and in particular these 2+ minutes of pure intensity.
When the horns come in at 9:30.....oh man. Then the final climax at the 10 minute mark. No words.
When the horns come in at 9:30.....oh man. Then the final climax at the 10 minute mark. No words.
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Ilov80s
Footballguy
gianmarco
Footballguy
wikkidpissah
Footballguy
Odd that i was recently writing in here about the music i choose for writing projects, because i used this movement for one.
Before i found out i hadn't the patience, courage nor talent to be a novelist, i attempted one on the revolutionary Era in France. By creating the character of a Versailles courtesan with democratic sensibilities, i would have been able to tell the story of France from Ancien Regime to the Restoration with 'intimate knowledge" of the principles, much like one of my favorite books, Little Big Man, used Jack Crabb's careening life episodes to tell the story of the Old West.
My heroine had affairs with Louis XV, Marquis de Sade, Marat, Talleyrand and, of course, Napoleon. I have about 60 volumes of biographical material on the Little Corporal and played the Eroica (originally dedicated to him, of course) every time i read my research. One of the things i thought was most fun & original about Napoleon is that, when he saw his troops to be trepidacious in preparation for battle, he would have his bathtub (which went with him thru all his campaigns) brought to a frontal position in camp and take his usual long, luxurious, soapy bath in front of his soldiers to show them there was nothing to worry about (Sitting Bull would do similar - when the 7th Cavalry would announce themselves by shelling the Sioux position, he'd go out on the slope they were firing at, have a seat & light a pipe).
At any rate, i knew i had to connect this fetish to my heroine, so i made her (who first met Nappy in Toulon @ the beginning of his career) the reason Bonaparte soooo loved his soapy romps and i listened to the 2nd movement of the 3rd (the waltzy part just before the section you highlight was the rub-a-dub-dub) for the writing of both the tryst & battle tub scenes.
jdoggydogg
Footballguy
Chopin's in my top five favorite composer list, and his nocturnes are about as beautiful as anything the human race ever created.
El Floppo
Footballguy
when I played piano, his etudes were the stuff only the advnced upper elite people played. fortunately, he had a lot of stuff for the rest of us that was beautiful and easy. like ned's mom.
El Floppo
Footballguy
floppinho's new school for jr high- the special music school- is teaching him 2 private lessons per week along with 2 music theory classes and music history (all as part of the school day) . I was trying to help out on his first essay for music theory... about rondos.. and realized he's going to be waay past my knowledge base within a few weeks at this place. I'm looking forward to hearing these kids play- it's k-12 (HS is in another building) and the one show I saw last year that floppinho played in as a guest, and only percussionist (mostly marimba, etc)- these kids are amazing.
jdoggydogg
Footballguy
El Floppo
Footballguy
I reached a point in my piano days when my teacher wanted me to take the next step from local competitions to regional/larger and essentially forced me to undertake a whole theory component to my lessons with homework and tests and crap. I just liked playing the thing and wanted nothing more- so quit.
this was about when I started HS. lasted about a month and thankfully we both realized it was better for me to keep playing than stop. as a result, theory for me is a complete void- I'm hoping to pick stuff up by osmosis hanging around #1 son.
jdoggydogg
Footballguy
I dig. Theory seems impenetrable at first. But once you get in the swing of things, concepts and harmonies that once seemed like alien languages suddenly are very accessible.
El Floppo
Footballguy
wikkidpissah
Footballguy
for a short time when i was a teen, i lived in a huge loft in Boston's Back Bay, divided into like 40 'rooms' by twine & blankets & such like hippies did in those days. because Berklee School of Music was nearby, a lot of students lived there. Legendary vibraphonist Gary Burton taught a notoriously difficult music theory & composition class then and our loft had more groans of utter despair from his students doing their homework than from drugs, homosexual panic & existential dread combined. matter of fact, we had a saying, "if you see someone walking down Mass Ave talking to himself, he's either a hobo or a Burton Comp student".
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wikkidpissah
Footballguy
Never missed em.
Turner Classics ran a bunch of them and his Omnibus series on Thursday nights this spring past and they were, once again, the stodgiest pleasures i ever felt.
Ilov80s
Footballguy
They ran a few over the summer as well as a tribute to Lenny. It might have been over his bday weekend in August. They are so good.
wikkidpissah
Footballguy
Reminded me so much of when my fam would go down to NYC four times a yr to see relatives and take in shows and it was magnificent but terribly uncomfortable because we had to wear Sunday Best, just like the YPC kids.
Ilov80s
Footballguy
My dad saw him play in Ann Arbor guest conducting the Vienna Philharmonic, said he had a special stage with railings so he didn't fall off as he was so into the conducting and was so much more animated than most conductors. It would have been cool to see him live.
wikkidpissah
Footballguy
Eephus
Footballguy
The standing of Classical music in popular culture has diminished a lot since Bernstein's days. Bernstein and Arthur Fiedler were legitimate celebrities back then and some other conductors like Eugene Ormandy, George Szell and Georg Solti were well known.
There's no comparable conductor today who transcends the limited sphere of Classical today. A small number of soloists have crossed over to some extent but most modern Classical artists are like big talented fish in a small pond.
There's no comparable conductor today who transcends the limited sphere of Classical today. A small number of soloists have crossed over to some extent but most modern Classical artists are like big talented fish in a small pond.
Ilov80s
Footballguy
wikkidpissah
Footballguy
jdoggydogg
Footballguy
jdoggydogg
Footballguy
Ilov80s
Footballguy
Marsalis and Hancock might be the only living jazz musicians with any mainstream crossover recognition.
Eephus
Footballguy
Both Jazz and Classical are dead person's music where it's next to impossible for any modern artist to enter the Pantheon.
Rock 'n Roll is well on its way to the same fate.
Ilov80s
Footballguy
Yes. Last era of “great” rock was early aughts with White Stripes, Arcade Fire, Black Keys, etc.
wikkidpissah
Footballguy
Same template - deconstruction, all new forms being pushaways from, instead of re-imaginings of, existing classic strains, scholasticization - yet to happen to rock but EM already trending it that way - causing learned rather than inspired reassembly of constituent parts. Add no social upheaval, this generation of 'different's more absorbed in complaining than celebrating, society creating more customers than crusaders, and i'm not hopeful for culture at large.p.s. Jazz got terribly unlucky that 1) hiphop jazz, the natural lyric form for bop, didn't take off 2) Amy Winehouse 27ed, like Hendrix, before she could put it back on course.
Eephus
Footballguy
Ilov80s
Footballguy
I never considered them rock and roll. They were closer to Renaissance painters like Raphael and Giotto.
jdoggydogg
Footballguy
I think this is true for people that romanticize their teens and early 20s. For lovers of music who are willing to try new stuff, there are great musicians every generation.
