Our Doors Are Open . . ., Come one, come all!

This is the very first topic in our new forum.

To start the ball rolling the first question is:

Who is your favorite composer of classical music.

For me this is a difficult question to answer because of the breadth of the music. Overall I guess I would have to say Mozart. From simple pieces to complex opera he was able to create pieces of complex subtlety.

stevenpd;
I'll answer that. In fact I am sitting here listening to his Symphony No. 2 in E minor. RACHMANINOV.


Camac.

That one is hard to answer! I keep coming back to Mozart and Beethoven, but also love the Russian composers. Beethoven's music is full of drama, in search of answers and at times tragic. Mozart has the ability to convey a certain lightheartedness and charm. Mozart didn't have to "work" much on his music. His music was almost always completed in his head before he wrote it down. Beethoven struggled, often revising what he had put on paper.

Here is something a little more contemporary by Arvo Pärt

Der Spiegel im Spiegel (The Mirror in the Mirror)



For more information on Arvo Pärt

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arvo_P%C3%A4rt

Ah! What a great place this will be.

Though I do not want to linger on the "Bugs Bunny Show" one thing comes to mind in regard of cartoon and classical music and this one is still so funny to watch and it's the episode with Elmer Fudd in the "Barber of Seville" from Rossini...

This piece of music is simply extraordinary.It is one of my favorite.
One day I promise myself to go and see that opera.



Hope you like it as much as I do.Enjoy!

LOA

The Barber of Seville was originally a french comedy play but rejected by the italians.
It was performed 10 years later but the version we all know today was first perfomed in 1816 this time with the Gioacchino Rossini's opera. In which of course the popular barber is none other than Figaro.

Here is a piece of the opera which is part of the Barber of Seville and the Figaro's Aria performed here by Sir Thomas Allen at Buckingham Palace.




LOA

That piece is simply wonderful mcnberry.

Listening to the sound of the violin is so relaxing though some find that the instrument is melancholic but to me that's the beauty of it. This is the only instrument that I know of that through its sounds one can feel the deep emotions of the performer who plays it.

That is why the violin is so much part of classical music.

Thank you for posting this piece...beautiful.

LOA

I feel similarly to Steven, its almost impossible for me to choose a single favorite composer. I'll follow moods to, some days are Baroque days, some Romantic etc.

I love Aaron Copeland's Fanfare Steven. Have you listened to his Appalachian Spring that he composed for dancer Martha Graham? There's an old Quaker/Shaker hymn he uses as a theme "tis a gift to be simple tis a gift to be free".....

For some reason Aaron Copeland's Fanfare for the Common Man (love that title) fills me with very patriotic feelings. Maybe because he was American, but the his music is so American. I love listening to it.

Mozart I love too. I like Neville Mariner and his St Martin in the Fields group playing him, but also like Glen Gould's playing of the piano sonatas, even though some used to complain that Gould could never be consistent with his rhythm. I love the energy with which he plays Mozart. Some interpretations are downwright boring! If that's possible for dear ole Wolfgang.

Hi LOA - if you like the violin, have you heard Hilary Hahn's first CD where she plays Bach Partitas? Also, if you can find Suzanne Laudenbacher playing the Beethoven violin concerto - get it! She's fantastic. Hilary Hahn also has a recording of it, and its nice but had a few sound flaws. Her fiddle wasn't recorded loudly enough and is too often almost drowned out by the orchestra. Maybe I can find some YouTube examples of the above. Probably not Laudenbacher, that was a while ago.

For Beethoven I like Herbert von Karajan as conductor or maybe Bruno Walter (whose autobiography is amazing).

Hi LOA - if you like the violin, have you heard Hilary Hahn's first CD where she plays Bach Partitas? Also, if you can find Suzanne Laudenbacher playing the Beethoven violin concerto - get it! She's fantastic. Hilary Hahn also has a recording of it, and its nice but had a few sound flaws. Her fiddle wasn't recorded loudly enough and is too often almost drowned out by the orchestra. Maybe I can find some YouTube examples of the above. Probably not Laudenbacher, that was a while ago.

For Beethoven I like Herbert von Karajan as conductor or maybe Bruno Walter (whose autobiography is amazing).

Hello Antwn,

I noted the artists you mentionned here. Indeed violin is my favorite instrument as it is one that you can hear in anykind of music.

Thank you.

LOA

Yes and his "Rodeo."

Lady of Avalon,

here are some of my favorites:

Leonid Kogan plays excerpts from Paganini's Violin Concerto #1 on Paganini's own Violin



David Oistrakh plays the first movement of Sibelius's Violin Concerto in D Minor. The entire Concerto is beautiful!



Bach - Double Violin Concerto in D minor 2nd movement, Largo



1966 David Oistrakh Shostakovich Violin Concerto #1 Movement 3,Cadenza



Enjoy!

I just read an article that stated historians believe they have found the cause of Mozart's death at 35. There was an epidemic of deaths amongst young men the year he passed attributed to edema (kidney failure) and linked to strep infections. Though it may never be truly known, this is likely to be accurate.

Slàinte,    

Patch    

The impossible question! Can I put down my list?

Start typing!

Ok then! I'll go by period

Medieval: Hildegard von Bingen. I'm a big fan of chant in general though, hardcore, seriously.

Renaissance: John Dowland, Thomas Tallis, Johannes Ockeghem, Tomás Luis de Victoria.

Baroque: Antonio Vivaldi, Marin Marais, Henry Purcell, JS Bach.

Classical: Some early Beethoven.

Romantic: Beethoven, Hector Berlioz, Mikhail Glinka, Franz Liszt, Jacques Offenbach, Giuseppe Verdi, Bedřich Smetana, Alexander Borodin, Max Bruch, Johannes Brahms, Modest Mussorgsky, Pyotr Tchaikovsky, Antonín Dvořák, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Gabriel Fauré, Leoš Janáček, Edward Elgar, Gustav Mahler, Jean Sibelius, Alexander Scriabin, Sergei Rachmaninov, Claude Debussy

20th C. - Ralph Vaughan Williams, Ernest Bloch, Béla Bartók, Zoltán Kodály, Igor Stravinsky, Alban Berg, Heitor Villa-Lobos, Aaron Copland, Dmitri Shostakovich, Samuel Barber, Benjamin Britten, Leonard Bernstein, Einojuhani Rautavaara, George Crumb, Steve Reich, John Coolidge Adams, Richard Einhorn, Eleni Karaindrou, Astor Piazzolla

I'll link to any good youtube videos of any of these that someone wants to hear