Recommend me Classical music!

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I'm a pretty big fan of Classical Music, and listen exclusively to the classic channel on radio (partly because there's no annoying ads). I rather appreciate the innate intricacy of it, and the raw feelings it can evoke, unmarred by annoying, nasally singers. Sadly, I am still a n00b at it, and only know a small number of pieces.

Therefore, if anyone has anything they like and want to share, go ahead and name them here! I especially like evocative and emotional pieces, whether epic, tragic, or whatever. Pieces that I can wave my arms around dramatically do are especially welcome.

For my part, lately I've been addicted to Monti's Czarda, and I'd also like to recommend some traditional Chinese music.

Link away, friends!

 

Riuichi Sakamoto's End Of Asia is pretty good IMHO. Medieval type pieces...

 

I'm not exactly that familiar with classical music but I do enjoy them. Pachelbelle's (sp?) Canon, despite it's simplicity is always a welcome to my ear. Also, I had alway enjoyed movie themes. Notably those from Chinese and South Korean movies. You might want to check out Vanessa Mae, she did quite a performance of Guisepe Tartini's Devil's Thrill.

 

Dvorak's Slavonic Dances is phenominal. 16 works, with a great mixture of soulful and exciting.

 

Pachelbel was a renaissance composer of chorals, i.e. vocal church music. Very nice stuff, though I prefer Palestrina.
The style's not for everyone, because it's still close to medieval music. It can sound a bit strange.

I enjoy me some Johann Sebastian Bach, especially the "Brandenburgische Konzerte". That's a whole cycle of baroque music concerts, and purely instrumental. It's very structured, but with it comes a certain lightness that's pure fun to listen too. His most famous piece is probably "Toccata & Fugue".

For classical music (the time period), I like Mozart, especially his Requiem. Verdi's Requiem is also good, but louder. But - like all masses - requiems include singing by choirs and solists. Mozarts wrote tons of music, though, and there is something for everyone in his oeuvre.

Beethoven also was a classical composer. He's known for the heavyness of his music (as Mozart is for lightness), but once you can get that behind, you find some beautiful music. His most famous pieces are his symphonies, especially number 3, 5 and 9. His piano concerts are also quite good.

Later composer worth listen to are the aforementioned Dvorak, Smetana (The Danube), Sibelius, Grieg (Peer Gynt!), Mahler, Brahms and Rimsky-Korsakov.

But stay away from the so-called "New Classic" written after WW II. It's downright awful.

 

Although this site appears to be somewhat of an ad, it still has great music choices listed on it. I believe the omission of Grieg and Rachmaninoff are a glaring error -- also the works of Tchaikovsky are not well represented. Another site has a larger list, but it's quite a bit to digest.

Many of these can be found on the internet. You can simply play them and get a good feel for what you like.

 

No doubt about that, T2. Two of my other favs are Bela Batok and Modest Mussorgsky.

 

Tchaikovsky and Dvorak are two of my favorites. The only album of classical music that I have is a Dvorak one. As far as single instruments go, I love listening to cello music, even renditions of styles that I don't really like.

 

Antonio Vivaldi's violin concertos are a regular on my iPod.

 

Of course, there is the famous Carmina Burana (sp?) by Carl Orff- you can tell a cavalry charge is about to happen if a movie starts playing the 'O Fortuna' section. However, the entire thing is built on voices, so that may not be what you are looking for.

My personal favourite piece is Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture. Long, dramatic and hugely bombastic. Absolutely brilliant and there is not a voice to be heard.

 

If I had to pick one favourite composer that would be Tchaikovsky. He was far less prolific than most, but each piece sounds very different from the others and most of them are brilliant, whether especially his concertos. His second Piano Concerto is almost never played anymore, which is a shame.

I'm not a great fan of the baroque and classical periods although Bach, Pachebel's Canon and Albinoni's Adagio are great pieces. Mozart sounds too same-y for me but his Requiem is very good (though I prefer Verdi's).

19th century composers tend to be my favourites. Brahms has a large number of beautiful pieces, including his fantastic Piano Concerto no.2 and his Sonatas for Violin and Piano. César Franck has a brilliant sonata for violin and piano, probably his most famous work (that's the one heard in The Last Express for those who have played the game). Dvorak and Smetana if you like "epic" music, especially their 9th Symphony and the symphonic cycle "Ma vlast", respectively. Grieg is most famous for Peer Gynt and his piano concerto, and deservedly so. Others have already mentioned Beethoven's orchestral works, but he's got a huge number of sonatas and quartets, and almost all of them sound very unique, quite an accomplishment when you consider just how many there are. Jean Sibelius is a composer I discovered relatively recently and that is becoming one of my favourites - his symphonies and his violin concerto are stunning, and he's got a number of beautiful short pieces (Finlandia and Valse Triste deserve special mention). Liszt's symphonic poem Les Préludes has a great epic feel to it.

Moving to the Russian side, many of their 19th century composers are great. I've already mentioned Tchaikovsky, but there's also The Five, specifically 3 of them - Mussorgsky, Borodin and Rimsky-Korsakov. The latter's Sheherazade switches from slow, quiet and melancholic to heavy epic frequently and pulls off the contrast beautifully. Mussorgsky's music tends to be pretty depressing, but then again so was the composer for most of his life so that's not too surprising.

Some of my favourite 20th century composers include Bartok, Stockhausen and Prokofiev. Stravinsky's ballets are great. Shostakovich wrote brilliant symphonies and his cello concerto is highly recommended to anyone who likes cellos. Philip Glass is one of the few minimalitic composers I really like; the soundtrack he wrote from Naqoyqatsi is superb. Finally a special mention goes to Hallgrimsson's Cello Concerto, which has got to be the most disturbingly beautiful piece I've ever heard.