classical music recommendations

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[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShH_7GcZSXc[/youtube]

One more

Ok, you guys, I've got one for you. There's a version of Itzak Pearlman doing this too, but I thought the orchestra backing him up was too obtrusive.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnE9ooiC-tc[/youtube]

Hey Jan, thanks for sharing. : )

I read in one of your posts that you're a fan of Gong and Univers Zero. Have you visited Piero Scaruffi's review website? He had some nice things to say about those bands if I remember correctly.

Awake, I wish you luck with "Waldesruhe" (Silent Woods), the hard work is going to be worth it in the end.

Seems a little Dvorak party is rolling in the thread now. I'll join in the fun.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-sA68GcDHs[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yFPQ4VTEAA[/youtube]

Cool! Sarasate... I heard that Saint-Saens loved him! I have to listen to more of his work. Thank you for that lovely piece.

The Squid was ecstatic this evening, to find out one of his favorite modern composers is responsible for a game soundtrack we fell in love with as a child. We pulled the music off of the original game disc, so we had no information on the track titles, or their author. We finally got up the curiosity to look it up (and thanks to google) we found that Jeremy Soule was responsible, and it was his first award winning music! Here's some samples.

Warpath - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAB59q4 ... E94FC21B88
The March unto death. - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAB59q4 ... E94FC21B88

Here is some of his more modern works.
Skyrim
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAB59q4 ... E94FC21B88
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eF2gOB ... 3AB56938F8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eF2gOB ... 3AB56938F8

Of course any modern gamer worth their salt has heard of these.

Another of my modern favorites is Austin Wintory,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTlScD1 ... BD7150DDA5
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypNgvc6 ... BD7150DDA5

And finally, Joe Hisaishi.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQ02BT9 ... zq-p3sXn9E
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwTqNNX ... 24F17E913E

Enough links. The Squid thinks you should check these guys out.

You guys write music, don't you? Is it hard to write a symphony? I'm writing a novel and I'm trying to imagine it like that, but I have a hard time thinking of music as linear or even non linear. Why hasn't anybody ever written a drum symphony? Drums are still my favorite though the cello and violin are growing on me. I guess I have a lot to learn about music language.

I bought a couple of cds from this thread, but my new speakers are coming tomorrow. I can't wait.

I actually checked all three of them out when you mentioned them before - have been trying to go through all of the thread posts, but not in order. I like them.

Some of your links above are duplicated. I like this skyrim one a lot. I've never played a game like that, can't really picture how it works - although I guess you create characters and then they run around and do stuff and there is music in the background.

The Squid can see the duplicate links now, we apologize. Skyrim is a game with a pseudo-Nordic based medieval tale. You create a character from one of a number of races, customize his or her appearance, then dive in. The game is non-linear, so you are not require to go to point A then to point B. It is encouraged that you simply explore, and see what you can dig up. You'll find quests from hundreds of citizens and travelers throughout the land. We actually have put mods into our Skyrim to make it much more realistic such as requiring food and sleep during your journey, and Hypothermia plays a large role too, (Since much of the map has freezing temperatures) If you have never played it, We would suggest it. The way the music works in the game, is depending on your location, and situation, it fades out from one track to another. You could be in the city of Whiterun and be listening to one of the city tracks, when suddenly the city is attacked by a dragon and thus one of the dragon battle songs would take over. The music is the game is at least half of the experience. It works very well. Being stuck in an icy cave, with giant spiders crawling around, and having some of the atmospheric music playing while you try to sneak out can invoke some creepy emotions.

We have never written a symphony, but we imagine it is MUCH harder than writing a book. A book can only convey one idea at a time, in a linear format. When you write a symphony, you are controlling each instrument simultaneously. If a book were to do that, you would be reading the thoughts and experiences of over 10 people all at once. Now that we have written this, we wonder if our minds could even properly comprehend such a method.

It's not as hard as you might think. Once you have the theme, then all you have to do is wind the other parts around it. The hardest part for me is not having your idea ruined by crappy computer generated instruments.

This is a link to the very incomplete first movement of a symphony I am writing, Right now there are very bare parts, but you stack them as it comes, and it's like building a house one brick at time.

*Edit* I took down the link because I'm working on it.

The fourth movement is complete, except for percussion that the software didn't have. It has bare parts and ends dissonant, but that is intentional.
http://mus.cr/ShGGOR

Last edited by Awake on 29 May 2014, 6:43 pm, edited 2 times in total.

What software are you using? The music sounds like it would be really nice, but I can't even tell what instrument is playing. But then again, I have horrible speakers, new ones still not here.

LOL, I was just looking at Awake's score, that's what it looks like. I guess each instrument gets to have it's own personality. So for instance, you don't automatically have to write one thing for the bass just because of how you wrote the violin. I think, but what do I know?

Squid you described that game situation very well. I almost want to play it now just to experience what you are talking about.

It's called Musescore, and the instruments are pretty bad, but if I can't figure out how to import the nice sounding instruments in a higher end program like Finale. If I could figure that out, I might have the motivation to actually rewrite everything and learn all the new shortcuts for a different program.

It's not terribly hard to write a lackluster symphony, but it is extremely difficult to write a truly good one. Many composers spend their entire lives working on that, and a good many of them never end up succeeding. Same with most art forms I suppose.

Recommendation attack time! I hope you've got your headphones on, 'cause it's about to get serious in this thread! This should keep you occupied for a few hours .

Sibelius: The Bard: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2WDhLzIN34
Sibelius is one of my favorite composers. Once you get past his terribly overplayed Finlandia, you start to discover how amazing he really was.

Bruckner: Symphony 7: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3Xus7OGK10
I only got into Bruckner in the past year or so. He is the master of the adagio (well...second to Mahler at least)...his slow movements are just incredible.

Brahms: German Requiem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LydPLNdob1c
This is probably my favorite choral piece, and it is one of the few works by Brahms that I actually like. Everything about this work is amazing. It can be very difficult to find good performances of it though, because there are a lot of nuances to the performance that can make big differences in the sound (this version is pretty good though).

Mahler - Symphony 9: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFIK2nckQhY
This is the last complete work that Mahler wrote, and is considered by many to be his finest achievement. A must-listen for nay fan of classical music! The ending is one of the most profound I've heard.

R. Strauss: Metamorphosen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djuM1ueLAy4
This is a very emotional work for strings that was composed towards the end of World War 2.

Arvo Part: Spiegel Im Spiegel (Mirror in Mirror): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8qg_0P9L6c
This is a fairly minimalist piece by a more modern composer.

Beethoven: String Quartet 14: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gx2KlpV_ZOk
After hearing this quartet, Franz Schubert famously commented: "After this, what is left for us to write?". Beethoven's final string quartets are often considered his greatest works, but they are also some of his least accessible to the casual listener. They really require you to devote your attention to them to truly appreciate them.

Ernest Chausson: Piano Quartet in A Major: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-97NzhhXjs
Chausson died fairly young so he didn't write as much as many other composers, but he was quite talented and wrote quite a few great pieces.

Technical question time - I have all my music on my computer and also listen to it on my iPod. However, I've never been able to find good speakers for my computer - the ones that just came today sound pretty nice, but the volume doesn't go up enough to hear it across the room.

How do you guys listen? Is there a music player that I can get that plays MP3s, like radio only for mp3s or something so that I don't have to keep messing with computer speakers? OR do you have some computer speaker to recommend? I guess I could just get a speaker that plugs into my iPod if all else fails. Any ideas? Thanks.

I mostly use headphones. If you want to buy really high-quality speakers, Bose makes some great ones. I used to have some, and you could hear them all the way across a house (without it sounding overly loud up close either).

One problem with classical music on speakers is that dynamics are extremely important, and you will often have pieces that alternate between very quiet and very loud. With the way most sound systems work though, that means that you have to manually crank the volume up when its quiet, and manually crank it down when its loud. In my car I find this really annoying, particularly one symphony where it goes from almost inaudible to CRAAAASSSHHHHHH! all of a sudden lol.