Classical Music!

[rschul2]

I'm guessing the Holst-lovers were in band at some point? Either that, or they got hooked on The Planets?

If you like Holst, are you also fans of Vaughan Williams, Grainger and the rest?

Don't get me wrong, there will always be a soft spot for the beautiful melody in Jupiter or even violent Mars, but I was thinking more along the line of Suite No. 2 in F's Song of the Blacksmith or Fantasia on the Dargason.

And of course I was in band all the way through college (excellent scholarships), but I think my favorite piece of all time to play was Respighi's Pina di Roma sp.??

As far as Vaughan Williams, Grainger and the rest...aah, I can take or leave them. I did once get to play with Wynton Marsalis. Cool story. When I was in jazz band in high school in New Orleans, we once had a concert and our fourth trumpet was sick, and he had a improvised solo in a piece called Computer I think. Anyway, our jazz director said he had a friend he could call that would be willing to sit in and play the cocert with us. Someone had metioned that our director was good friends with the Marsalis, but we all knew there was no way Wynton was going to be filling in on some lowly fourth part. Sure enough though, up walks Wynton Marsalis. We all were going to let him take the lead spot, but he said no and played the fourth part for an entire hour and a half concert. Needless to say his solo in Computer just blew everyone away. By the end we were all just like, "We're not worthy, we're not worthy." He was a really cool guy, and even came back and gave a master class to all of the trumpet players in jazz band. One of the coolest experiences of my life.

 

[Kyle]

I don't follow much that is more recent than the Big Band Era. I'm sure that there is a lot of current material that is excellent, I'm just unfamiliar with it.

 

[JohnP]

Wow Randy that is amazing, and actually, really cool, too.
No such cool luck for me....I think I would have died. I think the closest to celebrity to come to my band in high school, the former director used to play with John Philip Sousa's original band. As you might have ascertained, that was LOOOONG before my time. I grew up in the middle of nowhere...
John P.

 

[letterk]

I once played for the original Bush in my highschool band. That's the closest I've come to celebrities and music. This thread is taking a tangent.

 

[Hoss]

I was fortunate during my undergraduate schooling to have been within walking distance of Severance Hall (which had, at the time, a great night-of ticketing deals for students) during Christoph von Dohnanyi's tenure. At the time, he was aggressively programming works of 20th century Americans, and attending a performance of Carl Ruggles' Sun-Treader introduced me to a new realm of music, lead by two rather powerful American personalities:

Charles Ives: the "Concord" Piano Sonata, many of his songs, "Three Places in New England", "The Unanswered Question"

Carl Ruggles: Dohnanyi did a nice recording of Sun-Treader and Men and Mountains, but the 2 LP set of Ruggles' complete works (he was not the most prolific composer) by Michael Tilson Thomas is still the one to seek out (it really needs to be on CD!)

Other American composers that I enjoy are: Eliott Carter, Ruth Crawford-Seeger (too bad her politics crushed her creativity so early), Henry Cowell, Lou Harrison and George Crumb (his "amplified" string quartet Black Angels is nicely paired with Schubert's "Death and the Maiden" quartet on a recording by the Brodsky's).

Other 20th(+)-Century "modern" composers I have an affinity for include Brian Ferneyhough, Silvestre Revueltas, Leonardo Balada, Luciano Berio and Pierre Boulez (after his serialist period, where he was never able to successfully emulate musicality within the concept that Berg, Schoenberg, and Webern were able to achieve).

More traditionally:

J.S. Bach: just about everything, but especially the single instrument works (WTK, Cello Suites, Sonatas & Partitas for Violin, etc... on both period and modern instruments) and the choral works... he creates complex musical textures and layers that seem to have disappeared in music until the 20th century

Dmitri Shostakovich: String Quartets and keyboard works (the Preludes and Fugues)

Modest Mussorgsky: his songs (esp. the "Songs and Dances of Death" and "Sunless" cycles), and operas (Boris Godunov, Kovanschina) in his own orchestration (not the re-orchestrations by Rimsky-Korsakov, etc. which lose the punch of the original)... all with a good Russian bass

Prokofiev's score to Eisenstein's "Alexander Nevsky"

Schubert's Lieder and chamber pieces

Antiphonal (polychoral) pieces from pre-Baroque to Bach (e.g. Brumel's "Earthquake" Mass)

So much of it depends on mental state (mood, ability to concentrate, etc.) that I have a hard time picking favorites...

Hoss

 

[yasuo200365]

I love music ...,
Beethoven: Symphony No. 6 "Pastorale"
This recording by Bruno Walter is about as good as it gets:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...3-9515849-9420634?s=classical&v=glance&n=5174

The pianist Artur Rubinstein playing Chopin …, the Master.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...6/103-9515849-9420634?s=music&v=glance&n=5174

Benjamin Britten Choral Works – Excellent record.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...3-9515849-9420634?s=classical&v=glance&n=5174

Regards
John

 

[Phog Allen]

I just had a doc student do her dissertation on Irish trad music--great stuff!!! One of my happiest accomplishments was getting her approved for a research grant to visit Ireland and hang out in pubs listening to Irish traditional musicians jam. Now that's a dissertation!

Aw Mitch, that's just evil. Getting payed to visit pubs and listen to trad music? Jayziz I'm in the wrong line of work boyo! It's been a near dream of mine to visit Eire and I want to spend a month there at least! I know it's expensive but how much Guiness can a guy consume each day?(I don't know, quite a bit if you're me) Who needs food when you have that? Well, I don't know, the bangers and mash are good and boxties of any kind are delicious. Other than that, I'll live out of sleeping bag if necessary. There's only two kinds of people in the world. Those that descend from the Irish and those who wish they did. Happily I fall into the former category.

Slainte!

Todd

 

[mrob]

Todd,

Thanks! She had a great time, wrote a terrific document, and is off to a great career.

And she drank a boatload of Guiness on the University's dime!

 

[mrob]

On a serious note, this thread has brought me a great deal of enjoyment--its just great reading such thoughtful, heartfelt posts about your feelings about and relationships with music. Classical, jazz, folk--its been a long time since I thought too much about these distinctions--which become pretty irrelevant depending on how you define them.

As a music teacher educator, it just makes me very happy to hear how important music is to a lot of you--I wish music teachers could read these posts and realize:

a. that what they do can be very important to their students for the rest of their lives, and

b. that its important to find out what kinds of music their students like, and give them the tools to understand that music better and more fully.

Thanks for making me feel more hopeful about my job.

 

[rossination]

Thanks for making me feel more hopeful about my job.

...and thanks for me making me more hopeful about my major!

 

[Aky007]

My favourite is Mahler's symphony no.5.

 

[pcxpe]

Bach's Concerto In A Minor For Violin, Strings And Basso Continuo (BWV 1041). There are few things I can say are my favorite, this is my favorite piece of music. Second to that are Glenn Gould's (1981 recording) Goldberg Variations.

What can I say!
This is my kind of music to..And opera !!!

__________
Peter

 

[SSLStudio]

- Chopin ( cant help it the romantic melodies, though Chopin is way more complex and deep then just people think he is only the composer for romantic moods. just think 1 minute waltz or the funeral song everyone knows)

- Glenn Gould's (1981 recording) Goldberg Variations. magical recording hasnt been equalled ever since. brilliant interpretation.

-Beethoven whats not to like about him.

-Rachmaninoff - piano concerto nr 3- Prelude in C-Sharp Minor, Op.3, No.2

-Liszt - has some of the most out of this universe pieces and chord/melody structures that believes me to think he must have been the DEVIL

-Bach - The God himself. every note makes sense and has its place everyone knows the Organ piece Air. My teacher gave it to me to rewrite for the piano offcourse the long intro Note..uh Teacher I dont have a sustain on the piano that looooooong.

- Mozart -Das wunder kind. I think people in Africa in the deep jungle would like mozart they would recognize it ?

- Felix Mendelssohn " Songs without words "

-R Schumann " kinderszenen" (Scenes from childhood)" played by Horowitz gets me to tears


- Debussy I like the mystical world I feel when playing his pieces.

there are way more composers out there but at this moment these are the ones that come first to my mind, jazz spoken im a pianist of the school of Bill Evans he is my God some of his recordings are just so painfull to listen specially his late solo recordings when his heroine addiction withdrawal kicks in. IF you dont know Bill Evans id suggest as a starting point get the album
You Must Believe in Spring my fav song -> B minor Waltz (for Ellain)

reminds me I must hit my library tonight after work get out some Bill Evans cd's.

 

[mrob]

there are way more composers out there but at this moment these are the ones that come first to my mind, jazz spoken im a pianist of the school of Bill Evans he is my God some of his recordings are just so painfull to listen specially his late solo recordings when his heroine addiction withdrawal kicks in. IF you dont know Bill Evans id suggest as a starting point get the album
You Must Believe in Spring my fav song -> B minor Waltz (for Ellain)

If you like Bill Evans, you may also like some of the old Chet Baker recordings--Evans is the pianist on many of them. As a trumpet player, I just love Baker's sound and style--so smooth and pretty, not all the pyrotechnics of many other trumpeters--just pretty melodies and a gorgeous vocal quality to his playing. My guilt pleasures are the "Chet Baker with Strings" recordings--there are several available from the 60s, and they are sappy but pretty!

Sadly, another heroin addicted soul who died waaaay too early, and deprived us of lots of great music.

 

[Kyle]

Cool! I'm a Chet Baker fan and have the "Chet Baker with Strings" album. I had no idea who Bill Evans was. I will have to go back and re-listen to check him out.

 

[luvgravy]

I'm surprised no one has come out as a fan of classic Piobaireachd.

The soothing sounds are quite refreshing.

 

[mrob]

Cool! I'm a Chet Baker fan and have the "Chet Baker with Strings" album. I had no idea who Bill Evans was. I will have to go back and re-listen to check him out.

Yeah, Chet was the greatest. The epitome of cool.

As much as I love his horn playing, I really am blown away by his singing. The sound of his voice is the definition of androgonous, but has an eerie, haunting kind of appeal. I could listen to his rendition of My Funny Valentine every day!

Its not common to find another Chet fan--its an acquired taste, I'm afraid. And requires massive amounts of sophistication and intellect--or so I tell myself.

 

[rossination]

My favorite trumpet player has to be Lee Morgan, though. Another guy who died way before his golden years. I just love the way he articulates things, and the energy that's behind every note. I would kill to be able to play that way!

 

[Straight Arrow]

As I wasn't a member when this thread went into remission, I thought I'd revive it for myself and other newer B&B members who'd like to respond.

I enjoy a wide variety of classical music and own approximately 1,000 classical records and many CD's.
While I enjoy them all, my favorite genre is early twentieth century: Stravinsky, Ravel, Debussy, Bartok, Prokofiev, etc. Of late I am into exploring 20th century organ works by Messiaen, Widor, Dupre, etc.

Exploring classical music is a lifelong wondrous quest with depths so vast that few people can do much more than scratch the surface.

 

[Stauff]

Bach (everything), Schubert (Lieder, piano, chamber works), Brahms (, chamber, choral, symphonies, Ein Deutsches Requiem), Mahler (Das Lied; Orchestral Lieder, Symphonies).

Have a weak spot for Elgar (violin concerto) and Vaughan-Williams (the lark ascending) as well.