Favourite Classical Music - Music - Forums : Best Ever Albums

rilex

Gender: Male

Location: Suwon

What is your top five classical music pieces?

This includes, but is not limited to the following periods/composers:

MEDIEVAL
(i.e. Hildegard de Bingen, Guillaume de Machaut, Gilles Binchois, Guillaume Dufay)

RENAISSANCE
(i.e. John Dowland, Palestrina, Giovanni Gabrieli, Monteverdi)

BAROQUE
(i.e. J.S. Bach, Buxtehude, Scarlatti, Rameau)

CLASSICAL
(i.e. Gluck, Mozart, J. Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert, Paganini, Pacini)

EARLY ROMANTIC
(i.e. Schumann, Mendelssohn, Berlioz, Chopin)

LATE ROMANTIC
(i.e. Brahms, Mussorgsky, Bizet, Tchaikovsky, Dvorak, Faure, Puccini)

ROM. - 20th C. TRANSITION
(i.e. Mahler, Wolf, Debussy, Strauss, Rachmaninoff)

EARLY 20th C.
(i.e. Scribian, Bartok, Schoenberg, Ravel, Satie)

20th C.
(i.e. Ives, Holst, Stravinsky, Webern, Prokofiev, Gunther Schuller, Berio)

MODERN-TRADITIONAL
(i.e. Gershwin, Copland, Crawford-Seeger, Shostakovich, Barber, Britten)

MID-20th C.
(i.e. Elliott Carter, Messiaen, Berg, Lutoslawski)

INNOVATORS
(i.e. John Cage, Harry Partch, Ligeti, Crumb, Takemitsu, Per Norgard, Schnittke, Nancarrow, Arvo Part)

ELECTRONIC
(i.e. John Cage, Stockhausen, Varese, Xenakis, Nono, Boulez, Schaeffer)

MINIMALISM
(i.e. Terry Riley, La Monte Young, Phillip Glass, Steve Reich, John Adams)

LATE 20th C.
(i.e. Rzewski, Del Tredici, Wuorinen, Andreissen, Ferneyhough, Dreyblatt, Michael Gordon, David Lang, Julia Wolfe, Evan Ziporyn)

I am hoping to get people's opinions on the last categories, but if you want to put "Beethoven's 9th!!!!" feel free. I obviously forgot your favourite composer, so let me know about it. My favourite composers are underlined, but I couldn't count all my favourite pieces even if I took my socks off.

p.s. Please no Zappa or McCartney or Eno, though they tried their hands at classical composition, I have to consider them dabblers with the possible exception of Eno.

cartoken

The Seer

Gender: Male

Age: 41

Location: Paris

impressive knowledge. i'm not that into cassical music, but you've listed actually most of the composers i like (Beethoven, the greatest of all time, mozart, bach, bizet, Tchaikovsky). you just forgot Verdi , in my opinion (not an expert one, once again).

40footwolf

Gender: Male

Age: 34

Yeah I'm no expert myself-most of my knowledge is of 20th Century and beyond-but for my money, in no order, it's:

1. The Planets-Holst
2. The Desert Music-Steve Reich
3. String Quartet No.5-Kronos Quartet/Philip Glass
4. Symphony #1-Brahms
5. Legions-Zoe Keating
_________________
I love all music. It makes you feel like living. Silence is death.

-John Cassavettes

albummaster

Janitor

Gender: Male

Site Admin

Concierto de Aranjuez - Rodrigo
Symphony No. 6 (Op. 68) - Beethoven
Suite Española - Albeniz
Vltava - Smetana
Concerto for Lute (RV 93) - Vivaldi

(excludes opera)

SquishypuffDave

Gender: Male

Age: 34

I wonder, how would one distinguish between classical music and certain forms of post-rock? Or even certain forms of symphonic prog. What's the overriding factor that makes something classical or not? I can never quite work it out. I guess you just know when you hear it.

Anyways, my favourite piece of classical music is probably Arvo Part's Spiegel im Spiegel. And I love anything by Erik Satie.

I'll have to check some of these guys out, especially the innovators and minimalists, since that's where my taste seems to lie. Nothing really clicks for me when I listen to the "greats" like Beethoven or Mozart. Couldn't say why.

cartoken

The Seer

Gender: Male

Age: 41

Location: Paris

SquishypuffDave wrote:

Nothing really clicks for me when I listen to the "greats" like Beethoven or Mozart. Couldn't say why.

not even Piano Sonata No. 14 Moonlight Sonata by Beethoven, the greatest piece of music ever written in the history of music to date ?

SquishypuffDave

Gender: Male

Age: 34

cartoken wrote:

SquishypuffDave wrote:

Nothing really clicks for me when I listen to the "greats" like Beethoven or Mozart. Couldn't say why.

not even Piano Sonata No. 14 Moonlight Sonata by Beethoven, the greatest piece of music ever written in the history of music to date ?

Actually you're right, that song didn't come to mind for some reason. I do love that one.

Wombi

I'm gonna start off by talking about the greatest music ever composed. Vivaldi's The Four Seasons . Essentially this should be no 1 in my all time chart (but I can't be bothered choosing my favourite cd version of it as they do of course differ greatly and there are so many). It seems like a really obvious choice and yes it is, everyone will know at least one piece from it (likely the opener La primavera - Allegro opus OR possibly L'estate - Presto) but that doesn't make it any less grand.
I think of it almost like the first album, 12 tracks with a total of 41 minutes that flow perfectly together. It's a concept album - obviously - and Vivaldi captures the emotions and vibes of each 3 month sector perfectly. I'm going on a bit here but I'll just say do not discard the four seasons as a hallmarky throwaway hokey thing (as i know some do) I mean you can hear all 12 tracks (what sounds like an active modern recording of them) for free on the wikipedia page and also in regards to the discussion and the person who was discussing the value of technology in music these pieces were published over 250 years before the pet shop boys came out.

Classical music has always been important to me and it's a large percentage of what I listened to before I started to hardcore listen to albums (around the age of 16) and honestly think the world could be a better place if people would every now and then take half an hour out to sit in an armchair and chill out to some classical music (with the exception of Hitler/Wagner obviously). I'll also give a special mention to "Rhapsody In Blue" by Mr. George Gershwin another well known but vastly amazing piece.

You covered all areas very well Rilex and you obviously know your stuff, I wish I knew more about classical music and If I had more time I'd devote a decent amount into researching it, I'll just add a few more favourites that I don't think you mentioned (in no order):

VIVALDI (of course)
Sibelius
Saint-Saens
Rossini
Handel
Elgar
Grieg
Liszt
Wagner

rilex

Gender: Male

Location: Suwon

SquishypuffDave wrote:

I wonder, how would one distinguish between classical music and certain forms of post-rock? Or even certain forms of symphonic prog. What's the overriding factor that makes something classical or not? I can never quite work it out. I guess you just know when you hear it.

It's all in the score.

Did the author/composer/musician take the time to write it down first?

Nowadays, musicians have little need to write the music down for posterity because a recording makes the pencil moot.

Even though Chopin, for example, was primarily a performer, he needed to write down the music to transcend the fleeting nature of sound apparent in all music before Edison coils ca. 1880.

But recording probably did not become a composer's tool until Das Germans gave us magnetic tape ca. 1940. This coincides with the advent of so-called Musique Concrete ("real" or "concrete" music) as a form of musical expression that was mostly limited to "University Composers."

As most of you know, 4-track machines became available 10 years later ca. 1950 which ushered in a new pass-time for budding musical pioneers. Why bother writing in front of a piano when you can all-but-literally get inside the music, to touch it, see it, smell it, and don't forget, to hear it and immediately?

Last edited by rilex on 04/06/2011 07:31; edited 1 time in total

rilex

Gender: Male

Location: Suwon

Jhereko wrote:

I'm gonna start off by talking about the greatest music ever composed. Vivaldi's The Four Seasons . Essentially this should be no 1 in my all time chart (but I can't be bothered choosing my favourite cd version of it as they do of course differ greatly and there are so many).

I wish this site had a way around this very problem. One vote for "Stravinsky conducts The Rite of Spring" is just a vote against Boulez's version.

Would OK Computer be #1 if the music was never recorded by them, but by 42 different interpretors 100 years after they wrote it?