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Classical Music Recommendations
KeyScourge
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I recently got so bored that I investigated my dad's CD collection and came across some CDs of classical music. Needless to say, I'm hooked. So could anyone here recommend me some good classical music pieces? Ones I've already got are:
Thanks in advance
Thanks in advance
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Sibelius.
J.S. Bach.
Dvorak.
Elgar.
Vaughn-Williams.
That should get you started.
Those videos you played are some pretty good pieces, but horrendously overplayed. What you picked out is all from the "Classical" (Mozart) and early "Romantic" (Beethoven), and eras of classical music. Here are some of my favorites, which are mostly from the Romantic or 20th century periods.
Bartok- Concerto for Orchestra
Brahms- Symphony No. 1
Copland- Lincoln Portrait, Rodeo, Fanfare for the Common Man
Dvorak- Symphony No. 7, Symphony No. 9
Elgar- Enigma Variations
Hindemith- Symphony in E-flat, Symphonic Metamorphosis
Holst- The Planets, First Suite in E-Flat
Mahler- Symphony No. 1, Symphony No. 8
Prokofiev- Alexander Nevsky, Lt. Kije, Scythian Suite
Rachmaninoff- Symphony No. 2, Symphonic Dances
Rimsky-Korsakov- Scheherazade, Russian Easter Overture
Shostakovitch- Symphony No. 1, Symphony No. 5, Symphony No. 8
Sibelius- Symphony No. 1, Symphony No. 2, Finlandia
Strauss (Richard)- Also Sprach Zarathustra, Tod und Verklärung
Stravinsky- Firebird Suite, Petrushka, Rite of Spring
I know that's a lot of music, so I bolded a few that I think are the very best
For example, the Four Seasons by Vivaldi is tremendously overplayed, and you've probably heard it many times while on hold on the phone or at a shopping mall store. However, if you listen to the Il Giardino Armonico arrangement, it sounds completely different.
Similarly, performances by various star classical musicians can bring out nuances in the material that make each piece their own. Sarah Chang (violinist) is technically brilliant and is probably as close to perfection as a solo violinist can be. But Joshua Bell (also violinist) is more inventive with his interpretations and also has a more emotive performance (especially Live). The same piece played by both of these virtuosos can sound the same, but individual aspects of the performance reach different highs and lows. One of the great things about classical music is that each performer is essentially a new "cover artist" for the same great material.
With that said, here are some of my favorite artists:
* Anne-Sophie Mutter - Violinist. Very high quality recordings.
* Il Giardino Armonico - Italian baroque group. The best, IMO.
* Itzhak Perlman - Violinist. Well-known for having polio and limited use of his legs. One of the current modern great violinists.
* Jascha Heifitz - Deceased Violinist. An old-school virtuoso violinist, we are fortunate that he lived in a day and age where recordings can be made of his work, with some of the definitive recordings of various violin pieces.
* Joshua Bell - Probably the most popular current Violinist, star of various movie soundtracks. He can be hit or miss with his interpretations, but he always tries to do something new and definitive with his work.
* Sarah Chang - Violinist. For a perfect definitive recording of various virtuoso violin classics, pick up a Sarah Chang recording (especially in her younger years). The Carmen Fantasy and the Tchaikovsky 1st Violin Concerto are two of my favorite performances by her.
* Yehudi Menuhin - Deceased Violinist. If you only listen to Menuhin recordings for the rest of your life, you will have a large swath of classical music performed by one of the most brilliant performers (on multiple instruments) who ever lived.
* Yo Yo Ma - Cellist. What can I say about him, really? He's famous. He's great.
Get more opinions than mine, however, since my tastes lean toward solo violin (since I'm a violinist myself).
^ For a good baseline of classical music that everyone should know, view Fantasia and Fantasia 2000 once. They have a good sampling of "pop" classical that everyone should know.
Not really "classical", buy neither is Shostakovitch, so try Stravinsky's Firebird Suite.
GT: Tanky the Tank
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I personally prefer Petrushka over Firebird. Actually Rite of Spring and Firebird are tied for second on my Top 3 Stravinsky ballet hits.
Hehehe... light indeed
You really can't go wrong with any of those three though
As a good example of this, here's Flight of the Bumblebee played on double bass:
Plus that one actually sounds like a bumblebee ;D Not that I have various renditions of Flight of the Bumblebee on my iPod, but I also prefer most classical music when it isn't done w/ the same old "huge orchestra" approach. Condensing a piece down to, say, a trio or even duet, typically makes the good bits stand out (and the bad bits are usually dropped in order to make it concise).
i really like clair de lune
and
vocalise
If you want some Orchestra + chorus stuff, Mozart's Requiem is excellent, and you'd probably recognize several parts of it, especially the Lacrymosa which was in The Big Lebowski.
Carl Orff's Carmina Burana is another one that you'd recognize parts of. Get a translation of the lyrics while you listen. They're pretty dirty in parts.
Brahms' Requiem is amazing, and not nearly as overplayed as some other pieces.
Ralph Vaughan Williams' Dona Nobis Pacem is one of my favorite works. It's much more modern, with several movements having text from Walt Whitman poetry.
Edit: Aww, that clip cuts out several minutes before the end. Still, great piece.
Ahh yes Smetana, I forgot about him. I really like that piece too.
I found part two of the clip so you can hear the great ending:
Some amazing pieces:
My favorite Tchaik 4 movement (but you have to see this live to really appreciate it)
Op 127
Throw some Stravinsky in there too. Rite of Spring
Honestly, the best thing to do is get out to the orchestra every once in a while. Find a set that you like and bring a cute girl. She'll think you're sophisticated
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPIS5yvvT2Y&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyOf_L4cNHc&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZn_VBgkPNY&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9ZVuV8Py24
The best recording I've found of the Brandenburg Concertos I've found is the Martin Pearlman Boston Baroque- you can find it on Amazon.
Here's a list Crawdaddio and I compiled:
Johann Sebastian Bach- EVERYTHING
George Frideric Handel- Water Music, concerto grossos
Claudio Monteverdi- operas, L'Orfeo especially
Antonio Vivaldi- Four Seasons- yes, I know, it's fruity, but as an example of text painting and baroque music in general it's very good; also, the double cello concerto (really, most of his stuff has excellent cello parts)
Arcangelo Corelli- Sonatas de Chiesa, Sonatas de Camera, Christmas Concerto
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart- Everything
Ludwig van Beethoven- Everything, Especially his Sonata Pathetique, 9th Symphony (people stopped writing symphonies for a while after that one, it was so good)
Franz Schubert- Everything
Joseph Haydn- Concerto for Trumpet in E flat major, "Surprise Symphony", String Quartets
Richard Wagner- Everything, especially his Ring cycle
Pyotr Tchaikovsky- Sixth symphony (depressing, but amazing), 1812 Overture, and just about everything else
Modest Mussorgsky - Pictures at an Exhibition (orchestrated by Ravel; not the most accurate orchestration, but the de facto standard), Night on Bald Mountain
Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov - Scheherazade (a genius piece of music in the way it evokes images, especially if you know the stories it represents), Cappriccio Espagnol
Alexander Borodin- Quartet no. 2 (Because I'm a cellist)
Johannes Brahms- Hungarian Dance, Symphonies and Concertos
Antonin Dvorak- New World Symphony, Piano Concerto, and especially his Cello Concerto
Frederic Chopin- all the Nocturnes and Preludes
Hector Berlioz - Symphonie Fantastique
Giacomo Puccini- La Boheme, Turnadot
Guiseppe Verdi- Requiem, La Donda e Mobile
Felix Mendelssohn- Spring Song, Symphony no. 4
Camille Saint-Saens - Carnival of the Animals (especially "The Swan"), Samson et Dalila, and his Cello Concerto no. 1
Sergei Rachmaninoff - The piano concerto no. 3 will amaze, but I personally like his "Isle of the Dead"; also, his Preludes (all of them)
Gustav Mahler (try his first symphony, it was the first to achieve such a level of greatness in people's minds since Beethoven's 9th)
Maurice Ravel- Bolero (duh)
Gabriel Fauré - Requiem (great choral work), Élégie (for cello)
Claude Debussy- Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun
Edward Elgar - Cello Concerto (but only get this if you're going to get the version played by Jacqueline du Pre, and conducted by Sir John Barbirolli; once again, because I'm a cellist)
Igor Stravinsky - Rite of Spring/Petrushka
Richard Strauss - Death and Transfiguration (for the goth--it's about a man dying (and then dead); written when he was young, Strauss later said on his deathbed that it was about right)
Arnold Schoenberg- Verklarte Nacht
Johann Strauss II- Blue Danube Waltz
George Gershwin - Rhapsody in Blue (duh)
Dmitri Shostakovich - (I greatly enjoy his fifth symphony, but also try to find his piano trio no. 2; it's haunting)
Erik Satie- Trois Gymnopedie
I couldn't disagree more. While a intentionally composed chamber piece can be quite good, condensing to such extremes is a travesty. There is no way you can begin to approach the complexity and texture available to a large orchestra in a chamber group. You lose so much nuance and brilliance of the orchestration! It's akin to comparing the Mona Lisa to a smiley face.
Now, sometimes they're necessary, if you have no other option for getting more people for a performance, but we're talking about recordings, so that's not even a valid point.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9idfQVkqKyw
I found the singing in that YouTube version lacking.
If you're looking for a source for music you can actually download there's MusOpen which features a fair bit of performances of classical music that have been donated to the public domain. Not all of it seems to be played the greatest, but it's there.