What are your favorite pieces of classical music?

[retromike22]

My top 3:

1. The Planets by Gustav Holst
2. Scheherazade by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
3. Rite of Spring by Igor Stravinsky.

Interestingly... all are Russian influenced works that are about foreign (Possibly "Eastern") concepts.

I also just recently been listening to Prince Igor, which is by Alexander Borodin and follows that same "style."

[traininthedistance]

Now this is what I call a Freedom Thread, and your choices are solid too.  The Russians do classical music better than anyone... and also do classical music much better than they do anything else, ever.

Here's a top ten, subject to change and whim (with the exception of #1, which is very much set in stone):

1: Bela Bartok- Concerto for Orchestra
2: John Adams- Violin Concerto
3: Igor Stravinsky- Petroushka
4: Camille Saint-Saens- Symphony #3 "Organ"
5: Bela Bartok- Piano Concerto #2
6: John Adams- Gnarly Buttons
7: Olivier Messaien- Quartet For The End Of Time
8: Bela Bartok- String Quartet #5
9: Peter Tchaikovsky- Symphony #6 "Pathetique"
10: Charles Ives- The Unanswered Question

You can probably guess who my favorite composer is.  And you will also note the total lack of anything Germanic (though Mahler 1 is close to making it).

I hope this thread takes off; sure I'll have more to say if it does.

[Miles]

I play double bass so I like obscure composers who wrote bass solos; Dragonetti and Bottesini are the best-known.

As for actual pieces that I've played:

- Danse Bacchanale from Samson and Dalilah (Saint-Saëns)
- Beethoven Symphony 7
- Mysterious Mountain Symphony (Hovhaness)
- Finalandia (Sibelius)
- The Bach Cello Suites (better when played on bass, IMO )

The Appalachia Waltz/Appalachian Journey CDs that Edgar Meyer, Yo-Yo Ma and Mark O'Connor did are always in my car

[JerryArkansas]

I like any piece which has trombone more prominently featured, since that's what I play.  I also like Mozart and Bach, and some Handel.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

I like Elgar's Nimrod, and turn of the century Russian waltzes a lot, for some reason .

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I share traininthedistance's appreciation for Russian classical music--Tchaikovsky was probably my first love, musically, and I'm getting back into him now as well as discovering Mussorgsky and Shostakovich at his best--and I'm also very fond of Vaughan Williams. Schubert is lovely but for some reason provokes anxiety in me a lot of the time. It's very difficult for me to name favorite individual pieces.

[traininthedistance]

I share traininthedistance's appreciation for Russian classical music--Tchaikovsky was probably my first love, musically, and I'm getting back into him now as well as discovering Mussorgsky and Shostakovich at his best--and I'm also very fond of Vaughan Williams. Schubert is lovely but for some reason provokes anxiety in me a lot of the time. It's very difficult for me to name favorite individual pieces.

Oh s**t I totally forgot about Pictures At An Exhibition, thanks for reminding me.  I think that might even be in my top 5, especially in either the Ashkenazy orchestration or an amended Ravel orchestration that restores the missing "Promenade".  Sorry Charlie.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor is pretty hype.

[retromike22]

I'm prefer music from the Romantic period to the first half of the 20th Century. I do count film music as classical music though, and that's pretty good too.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Hmm... I'm tempted to argue that this is completely impossible to work out, but at the very top I'd guess Das Lied von der Erde (Mahler), Cello Concerto No. 2 (Shostakovich), Job: A Masque for Dancing (Vaughan Williams)... and at this point I'm already tempted to add at least twenty other things.

[homelycooking]

The ten that come to mind are:

Leo Ornstein - Piano Quintet
Charles-Valentin Alkan - Concerto for solo piano
Igor Stravinsky - Symphonies of Wind Instruments
Vincent Persichetti - Divertimento
Percy Grainger - Lincolnshire Posy
Edgard Varèse - Octandre
Giuseppe Verdi - Overture to La Forza del Destino
Franz Liszt - Piano Sonata in B minor
Claude Debussy - 24 Preludes for piano
Maurice Ravel - Rapsodie espagnole

My favorite Tchaikovsky symphony is the 4th.

[Kushahontas]

Rachmaninoff's Prelude in C sharp minor

[homelycooking]

Rachmaninoff's Prelude in C sharp minor

At Rachmaninoff's solo concerts, his crazed fans and groupies would shout "C-sharp! C-sharp!" so that he'd play that prelude as an encore.

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

The final of Act 1 of Motzart's Cosi fan Tutte comes to mind.

[Oldiesfreak1854]

I could name a bunch of them, and I'm not that good at identifying classical music, but I'll try to list some that I know I like here (in no particular order):

Hallelujah Chorus (Handel)
Funeral March (Chopin)
In the Hall of the Mountain King (Grieg)
Morning (Grieg)
Figaro's Aria (Rossini)
Barber of Seville Overture (Rossini)
William Tell Overture (Rossini)
Spring (Vivaldi)
Ode to Joy (Beethoven)
Austrian Hymn (Haydn)
Surprise (Haydn)

[Filuwaúrdjan]

While it won't be to everyone's tastes (to say the least), this is really interesting: Bach used to be played rather differently.

[homelycooking]

I noticed that when I arranged Bach's Orchestral Suite no 2 for my (very un-Baroque) instrument: compare this 1950 recording with a 2012 rendition. Even the first ten seconds of each differ immensely in style, tempo and ensemble balance.

[Oldiesfreak1854]

Almost forgot to mention "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring" by Bach.

[Simfan34]

What do you make of this piece? I'm far too blinded by nationalism to make a fair judgement:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGjSEgZwjuk

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

What do you make of this piece? I'm far too blinded by nationalism to make a fair judgement:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGjSEgZwjuk

I like it. It reminds me of Vaughan Williams.

[badgate]

Nimrod movement from Elgar's Enigma Variations.
http://youtu.be/sUgoBb8m1eE

For those who don't know: each movement in the piece is a variation of a theme, eulogizing or memorializing a person in Elgar's life. The Nimrod movement is about his best friend.

[CatoMinor]

How am I the first one in this thread to mention Mozart? His Requiem Mass in D Minor is magical.

[The Mikado]

I've become very fond of Handel's oratorios over the years for whatever reason.  Handel's Saul is probably at the top of my list for something to just listen to for two hours.  I still get chills when the ghost of Samuel is called up.

[anvi]

Oh, in no particular order, Beethoven's Sonata No. 9 "Kreutzer," and the first two movements of his 7th symphony.  Mozart's Requiem. Bach's cello Suite 1 in G-Major.  Yeah, I'm cliche, whatever.  The music I listened to in my teens is now called classic rock, so f it.

[moderatevoter]

Rondo Alla Turca.

Basically most things by Mozart and Beethoven.