Classical Music Enthusiasts

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I have met some classical music fans here, so I thought it would be a good idea to compile everyone in one thread. Do you have any favorite pieces? Do you have a preference of sub-genre (chamber music, orchestral, choral, solo...)? Who are your favorite composers? Do you play any instruments? If so, what are some of your projects? Any pieces you like to play? Do you practice in an aspie way? I usually take 2-3 measures and just repeat ad nauseum. I think this has something to do with the typical aspie repetitive perseverance. NT musicians tell me I spend too much time on one small section.

I was a classical piano major and I love Beethoven. I've solely been listening to Beethoven symphonies and his 4th piano concerto for the last 3-4 months. I can't even imagine listening to anything else right now. This exclusivity sort of defeats the purpose of having an ipod, but whatever.

I'm practicing the Scriabin etude Op 8 No 12 (the over-played but still awesome one) and I will be starting the Danzas Afro-Cubanos I also like to play other Lecuona pieces. My more long-term goal is the Beethoven piano concerto No. 4. I hope to enter that in a local concerto competition in February 2012 (provided that the world didn't end )

I tend to favor the Romantic composers, like Chopin and Rachmaninoff, particularly Racmaninoff. My favorite piece is Rachmaninoff's Vocalise, Op.34/No. 14. I often find that piece of music playing in my mind. My favorite arrangement/performance is the solo piano version by Zoltan Koscis, but I also like the violin versions by Itzhak Perlman and Joshua Bell (though I lean towards Perlman's interpretation).

As far as instrumentation, I tend to prefer the smaller performance structures. Solo piano, solo guitar, solo cello, piano/cello, string quartet, etc. Piano and cello (separately and together) are probably my favorites, though.

I have loved classical music since childhood. My top favorite composers in descending order, are Beethoven, Chopin, Tchaikovsky, Ravel, Prokofiev, Grieg, Bach, Mozart. There are many more, but I can't think of them right now. ,

Are you talking about "Classical music", "classical music", or both?

I play viola in an Aussie community orchestra, and have been doing that in various groups for around 15 years.
One of my favourite things is Smetana's Moldau, that i played 6 or so years ago and I get transported back to an amazing place when I hear it again.

I love many periods and pieces of classical music. The first classical record that I listened to as a child was a collection of Overtures by Rossini. I have quite a collection - Satie, Beethoven, Bach, Berlioz, Vivaldi, Mozart, Chopin, LIszt, Haydn, Rossini, Orff... and always looking to get more. I also listen to classical via satellite radio (Sirius) and public radio stations which helps to expand my horizons. Most of my collection tends to be "budget" CD's - although I have been fortunate to find several Eastern European orchestras on those labels which can be excellent. On occasion I even make it to live performances as I am fortunate enough to live in an area that supports the arts and has a community symphonic orchestra which has free concerts.

Count me in!

I'm a mixed bag of attitude when it comes to classical music. My biggest COMPLAINT about classical music enthusiasts is how many pretentious people there are out there, usually NTs, btw, who rave on and on about Mozart because, damnit, it's MOZART!! ! The people in that category who annoy me most are clarinet players who go gaga about the famous clarinet concerto. Musically, it is not a special piece. It's not Mozart's best work. The only thing worth going on about it is that it was one of the first MAJOR works for clarinet as a solo instrument--and even then it wasn't written for the modern clarinet but a variation of it with an extended range--Mozart wrote it, and it was one of the last works he composed. His keyboard and string quartet works are just fun, but his keyboard music is no Chopin. It's not even Schubert. Plain and simple, Mozart was a prolific child prodigy and gifted at writing representative period Classical music. He is worthy of study. But I wouldn't deify him like non-musical classical music connoisseurs do.

I do highly respect Beethoven, though, because he brought something genuinely distinct to every genre he composed in, especially the symphony. Not just the 9th, either. Every single symphony he wrote is a case study on symphonic writing. Each one is ground breaking in its own way.

I do enjoy Romantic period literature. I LOVE Weber's music, and not just the clarinet concertos (yes, I'm a clarinetist).

But my FAVORITE of all time comes from the High Modernist era of the 20th Century. I never get tired of the Second Viennese School--Schoenberg and his disciples. I'm more a Webern fan than a Berg fan. I like the other stuff, too--like John Cage, Terry Riley, Reich, Adams, Glass (though not as much as Reich and Adams, but the Portrait Trilogy are my fav Glass works), Varese, Stockhausen, Babbitt (LOVED Philomel, LOVE his pieces for solo instruments).

I myself am a hardcore serialist composer. Only trouble is there isn't much demand for 12-tone or dissonant music. I don't care. I write it anyway.

I'm more active at the moment as a church musician. My wife are working together learning 4-in-hand handbells. I dislike writing hymn arrangements, but it's just one of those necessary things I have to do. I'm still wrapping my head around technical issues relating to handbells, so in the meantime I've revived an interest in "space music" and am applying serialist methods to composing space/ambient/atmospheric music. I realize we don't really count that as "classical" music, but it isn't unlike the High Modern approach of composers after WWII, so I think my electronic work is just as "legit" as that of others within the whole "classical" music rubric.

I also like much of the High Modernist (Glass, Reich, et al.) as well - although I do not mind Mozart's clarinet concerto. I also like Iannis Xenakis who was an experimental composer from Greece. His electro-acoustic music had quite an influence upon later avant-garde early industrial music like Throbbing Gristle. Are you familiar with Xenakis' works at all?

Since you are a piano major, you should appreciate this one:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYOlqBLuBfQ&feature=related[/youtube]




The piano concertos were what really sold me with Prokofiev being my favorite composer.