Favorite classical piece?

[John Dailey]

Jordanz:

~ Hmmm...interesting. To this untrained ear I now see the apparent 'similarities' you allude to, though Williams' style seems generally a bit more...adventurously 'rambunctious' oriented...(Indiana Jones-ish, if you wish) than Holst's; yet, the 'quiet' moments in each's comps do seem to almost have a mirror-imaged 'ethereal' sense-of-life to each other's.

~ Only a musicologist (or Williams! Hope he's reading this) could establish whether there was an actual influence.

LLAP

J:D

Edited January 3, 2007 by John Dailey

[blackhorse]

Another great is the score for 'Superman' by John Williams.

[John Dailey]

Blackhorse:

~ Yes, Williams' original music for Superman WAS...super-appropriate. I don't know how to 'musicologically' analyze it, but...it sure was, well, 'right-on.' His "Can You Read My Mind?" love-theme (Supe and Lois) was surprisingly fitting as well.

~ Williams has sometimes been considered, well, 'trite', in his 'appeal to the masses' (like Andrew Lloyd Webber.) Such may be for this plebeian, but, he's a far cry from the likes of John Cage. Imagine Cage doing a movie-score! (4 hours of silence...for a 2 hr movie; what a soundtrack!) Lucas and Spielberg knew what they were doing when they picked him; so did the Boston Pops, for that matter.

~ An aside: a couple people I knew 'studying music' thought that his segment for E.T.'s mother-ship was musicologically 'radical.'

LLAP

J:D

[John Dailey]

~ Did I mention Swan Lake?

LLAP

J:D

[blackhorse]

Carl Davis 'Darcy's Second Proposal' from the 'Pride & Prejudice' soundtrack is a very moving, and short, piece. It reminds me of the sunrise in early summer...

[Robert Jones]

Oh, gosh, that's a lot to ask. I have maybe 15 pieces vying for "favorite" classical piece at any given time. To narrow it down....

Jean Sibelius: Symphony No. 7, Tapiola

Bernard Herrmann: Sinfionetta for String Orchestra, For the Fallen

Piotr Tchaikovsky: Francesca da Rimini, Serenade for Strings

Sergei Rachmaninoff: Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Symphonic Dances

Alexander Scriabin: Poem d'Extase

Richard Wagner: Bruennhilde's Immolation Scene, "Good Friday Spell" from Parsifal

Johannes Brahms: Violin Concerto, Academic Festival Overture, Piano Concerto No. 1

Gustav Mahler: Symphonies Nrs. 2, 9

Hans Werner Henze: Undine

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Finale to Don Giovanni, Piano Concerto No. 20

Claude Debussy: Iberia, La Mer

Edward Elgar: Enigma Variations, Cello Concerto

Nino Rota: Symphony No. 1

Antonin Dvorak: Symphonies Nrs. 6, 8

Maurice Ravel: Piano Concerto for the Left Hand, Alborada del Gracioso

Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No. 7, Piano Concerto No. 4

Samuel Barber: Adagio for Strings, School for Scandal Overture

Cesar Franck: Symhony, Psyche and Eros

Ennio Morricone: Music from "Il Buono, Il Bruto, Il Cattivo"

Igor Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring

Miklos Roszca: Violin Concerto

Franz Liszt: Totentanz, Les Preludes

Erik Satie: Three Pieces in the Shape of a Pear, Gymnopaedies

Giaccomo Puccini: La Boheme

Edited January 16, 2007 by Robert Jones

[Robert Jones]

If pressed for ONE, however....

Sibelius's 7th Symphony. In 21 minutes, it says more than Beethoven or Mahler did in their overlong symphonies, IMHO.

[Dustin]

What's everyones favorite cassical piece? I actually have two of them; 'Toselli's Serenade', by Enrico Toselli, and 'Time to Say Goodbye' with Sarah Brightman and Andre Bocelli. I get the feel-good goosebumps whenever I listen to them.

Most definately Beethoven. I think that even if I had read nothing of Beethoven himself, I'd know his personality from his music. Is that too mainstream? I can't help it.

[Chris Grieb]

I have two cd set of John Williams Greatest Hits 1969-1999. It has Star Wars, Superman, Saving Private Ryan and all the other hits. I don't know if it still available but I recommend it highly.

[Wrighty]

Sibelius distilled so much into a small timescale. I listened to Sym 4 recently (a pretty cold piece) but I was re-amazed at how much he said. Any thoughts on Nielsen's 5th perchance??

John Williams' set the scene for a whole crop of brilliant modern film score composers. His unashamed influences are many - yes Holst, but also Prokofiev, Richard Strauss, Mahler, Shostakovitch...et al.....listen out for them!! But having said all that, his ideas are very original. Its somewhat akin to the influence on Sir Arthur Sullivan by Mendelssohn...where, in the end, Sullivan had the edge in melodies I reckon.

[Robert Jones]

Sibelius distilled so much into a small timescale. I listened to Sym 4 recently (a pretty cold piece) but I was re-amazed at how much he said. Any thoughts on Nielsen's 5th perchance??

John Williams' set the scene for a whole crop of brilliant modern film score composers. His unashamed influences are many - yes Holst, but also Prokofiev, Richard Strauss, Mahler, Shostakovitch...et al.....listen out for them!! But having said all that, his ideas are very original. Its somewhat akin to the influence on Sir Arthur Sullivan by Mendelssohn...where, in the end, Sullivan had the edge in melodies I reckon.

Peter, I have recordings of Nielsen's 2nd and 4th symphonies, but not his fifth. On your recommendation,I will check it out. Sibelius's 4th Symphony is called his "Barkbrot" symphony , Swedish for the bread made from the bark of trees they were forced to eat in famine. Strange you call it "cold"; Sibelius himself likened it unto a glass of clear, cold, pure water. It is very powerful and dark work, and if you've never heard Stokowski or Ormandy conduct it, then you haven't really heard it.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Robert,

Sibelius's 7th Symphony is a very hard one to get to know. I love it but it had to grow on me. Outside of other merits, what trombone player wouldn't love it? I have a very soft spot in my heart for this symphony.

Michael

[Robert Jones]

Robert,

Sibelius's 7th Symphony is a very hard one to get to know. I love it but it had to grow on me. Outside of other merits, what trombone player wouldn't love it? I have a very soft spot in my heart for this symphony.

Michael

I suppose it depends on one's particular tastes, because I immediately took to this symphony. I bought it on a cassette when I was 18 (Ashkenazy/Philharmonia) and listened to it while driving in the Appalachian mountains on Interstate 81, during a snowstorm. As trucks passed my tiny econobox, they threw slush onto my windshield. It sort of heightened the emotional impact of the symphony. In retrospect, it reminds me of the "winshield wipers" cue music Bernard Herrmann wrote for Janet Leigh's fateful last drive in "Psycho." That, and Sibelius is my favorite composer. It does have a beautiful trombone solo, which bridges the (seamless) movements. I envy you for having played it!

[arete1952]

Impossible for me to select one, but some of my favorites are:

Machaut: Notre Dame Mass

Ockeghem: Missa Mi-mi

Byrd: Mass for Three Voices

Monteverdi: L’Orfeo, Beatus vir

J.S. Bach: Art of the Fugue, Brandenburg Concertos

Haydn: Symphonies 22,46,60,63,77; Cello Concertos in C and D

Beethoven: Symphonies; Piano Concertos #4 and #5; late string quartets, Violin Concerto

Schubert: Symphonies #5 and #9, String Quintet in C; Rosemunde

Mendelssohn: Octet for Strings, incidental music for Midsummer's Night Dream

Dvorak: Slavonic Dances, Opp. 46 and 72; Legends, Op.59; Serenade for Strings

Vaughan Williams: Lark Ascending, Tallis Variations, Five Variations on Dives and Lazarus

Copland: Quiet City, Our Town

Also in regard to the "what do you mean by classical" discussion happening here...

It depends what you mean by "classical". In everyday language, it refers to music written for orchestra and written in a "serious" (i.e. non-popular) format.

No offense, but this is not accurate. As we know, the term "classical" has numerous meanings. The correct musicological term for what the general public calls classical music is Western art music with classical being the period of Western art music from 1750 to 1825...the 6 main periods of Western art music:

Medieval: c. 500 A.D. to 1450

Renaissance: 1450 to 1600

Baroque: 1600 to 1750

Classical: 1750 to 1825

Romantic: 1825 to 1900

Modern: 1900 to present (there are other terms which have been used for this period...this is a really general way to refer to this...and there are numerous styles within this period)

Also, Western art music is not limited to music written for orchestra.

Best to all,

Ken

Edited November 7, 2008 by arete1952

[Chris Grieb]

Arte; Your comment that there are different names to call the present period in music is true and some of them can't be used in what is called polite society.

[Robert Campbell]

Here are some of my favorites in Western classical music:

Guillaume Dufay, Missa "Se la face ay pale"

Diego Ortiz, Various Glosas

Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck, Variations on "Est-Ce Mars"

Marc-Antoine Charpentier, Médée

Marin Marais, Couplets de Folies, Le Labyrinthe

François Couperin, Ordre No. 6

Antonio Vivaldi, Farnace, Juditha Triumphans, Bassoon Concertos

Jan Dismas Zelenka, Capricci

Jean-Phillippe Rameau, Dardanus

Georg Frideric Handel, Giulio Cesare, Rodelinda

J. S. Bach, Brandenburg Concertos, Viola da Gamba Sonata No. 1, Flute Sonata BWV 1030, Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue

Carl Philip Emmanuel Bach, Violin Sonata W. 176, Keyboard Concertos No. 14, 20, 23, Oboe Concerto No. 2, Symphony W. 183, No. 1

Franz Josef Haydn, Horn Concerto No. 1, Cello Concerto No. 1, Trumpet Concerto, Symphonies 22, 55, 77, and 82, Baryton Trio No. 85

Jan Baptist Vanhal, Symphony in G Minor

Luigi Boccherini, Quintet Op. 40 No. 2 "Del Fandango," Symphony Op. 41

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Clarinet Concerto, Sinfonia Concertante for Violin and Viola, Piano Concerto No. 24, Symphony 41, Don Giovanni

Muzio Clementi, Symphony 4

Ludwig van Beethoven, Piano Concerto No. 3 (with the Alkan cadenza), No. 4, Symphony 3 and 7, Quartet Op. 59, No. 1, Piano Sonatas No. 11, 28

Franz Schubert, String Quintet

Felix Mendelssohn, Violin Concerto (No. 2), Octet, String Quartet No. 6

Robert Schumann, Carnaval, Kreisleriana, Märchenbilder

Franz Liszt, Sonata, Deux Légendes

Charles-Valentin Alkan, Sonatine, Le Tambour Bat au Champs, Le Festin d'Esope

Adolf Henselt, Piano Concerto

Johannes Brahms, Piano Quartet No. 1, Sextet No. 1, Handel Variations, Symphony 4, Clarinet Sonata No. 1

Camille Saint-Saëns, Cello Sonata No. 1, Clarinet Sonata, Piano Concerto No. 2

Antonin Dvorak, Cello Concerto (No. 2), Symphonies 5 and 8

Gabriel Fauré, Nocturne No. 13, Cello Sonata No. 2

Carl Nielsen, Symphonies 3, 4, and 5, Violin Concerto, Chaconne for Piano

Jan Sibelius, Violin Concerto, Symphonies 2 and 5, Tapiola

Aleksandr Scriabin, Sonatas No. 3 and 4

Sergei Rachmaninoff, Preludes Op. 23 No. 5 and Op. 32 No. 13, Cello Sonata

Ralph Vaughan-Williams, Variations on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, Job

Havergal Brian, Symphony 8

Sergei Prokofiev, Piano Concerto No. 1

Béla Bartók, Concerto for Orchestra, Rhapsody No. 1

Robert Campbell

[Greybird]

Some favorites here, and I'm not hewing closely to historical-period definitions ... nor am I going to the CD case to get exact citations. These are from memory, and not in order of preference:

Beethoven - 9th Symphony, "Pastoral" Symphony

Rachmaninoff - 2nd Piano Concerto

Tchaikovsky - 1st Piano Concerto, "Pathetique" Symphony

Brahms - 1st Symphony, "Variations on a Theme by Haydn"

Delibes - Mazurka from "Coppelia"

Puccini - Nessun dorma, "Gianni Schicchi"

Gershwin - "Rhapsody in Blue," "An American in Paris," "Concerto in F"

Mendelssohn - "Scotch" Symphony, music for "A Midsummer Night's Dream"

Bruck - "Scottish Fantasy" for violin and orchestra

Dvorak - "New World" Symphony, "Slavonic Dances"

Offenbach - "Orpheus in the Underworld"

Bach - "Air on the G String," "Toccata and Fugue" in D Minor

Mozart - "Don Giovanni," "Jupiter" Symphony, "Marriage of Figaro"

Handel - "Royal Fireworks," portions of "Messiah"

Vivaldi - "Four Seasons"

Vaughan Williams - Fantasy on "Greensleeves"

Wagner - Overtures to "Parsifal," "Die Meistersinger von Nuernberg"

I believe that Andrew Lloyd Webber, on stage, and John Williams, on screen, are among those doing work comparable to the best classical composers, and that their work will endure in the same way, whether attached to their films and plays or performed on their own.

I also believe that without the likes of Webber and Williams keeping its tropes before the public, classical orchestral music would have withered on the economic vine at least 40 years ago. Even now, its state is precarious.

[arete1952]

I believe that Andrew Lloyd Webber, on stage, and John Williams, on screen, are among those doing work comparable to the best classical composers, and that their work will endure in the same way, whether attached to their films and plays or performed on their own.

I respectfully disagree...you really think that their music is comparable to that of Bach, Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert, etc.????

I also believe that without the likes of Webber and Williams keeping its tropes before the public, classical orchestral music would have withered on the economic vine at least 40 years ago. Even now, its state is precarious.

Their music has very little presence on the programs of major and not-so-major orchestras in this country and around the world...their impact on classical orchestral music is practically non-existent.

I do agree with your statement about the precarious state of classical music though.

Edited November 7, 2008 by arete1952

[Barbara Branden]

A few favorites:

Richard Strauss -- "Four Last Songs"

Rachmaninoff -- Third Piano Concerto

Anything by Puccini -- especially "Turandot"

A great deal of Wagner -- especially "Tristan and Isolde"

Mahler -- Second Symphony

Shubert -- "Ave Maria"

Almost anything by Chopin

Verdi -- "La Traviate"

This isn't classical, but I love a good deal of gospel music, and also Klezmer music. And I fall apart at the sound of a violin.

It fascinates me to try to find common themes -- not musical, but sense-of-life themes -- in the music a person loves.

Barbara

[Greybird]

I believe that Andrew Lloyd Webber, on stage, and John Williams, on screen, are among those doing work comparable to the best classical composers, and that their work will endure in the same way, whether attached to their films and plays or performed on their own.

I respectfully disagree ... you really think that their music is comparable to that of Bach, Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert, etc. ????

This appears to be one of those days where I'm not getting my points across, which comes in part from writing in the middle of the night *sigh* ...

I said that they were "doing work comparable to the best classical composers." I didn't say that all of their work was comparable to all of the work of those earlier composers. The film and stage composers have their moments, often brilliant ones, which aren't given nearly enough credit by classical-music "snobs" (not necessarily you, of course), and they don't deserve such dismissal.

The earlier composers weren't always brilliant, either. Haydn did many vivid orchestral works — but, let's face it, some of the less memorable of his hundred-odd symphonies were done so that Prince Esterhazy would keep buying him groceries.

I also believe that without the likes of Webber and Williams keeping its tropes before the public, classical orchestral music would have withered on the economic vine at least 40 years ago. Even now, its state is precarious.

Their music has very little presence on the programs of major and not-so-major orchestras in this country and around the world ...

Not from concerts I've attended by the Chicago Symphony and Los Angeles Philharmonic, and other cities scattered across the continent. You seem to be forgetting about Williams's years in Boston, as well. (Don't dismiss "the Pops." They pay the bills for the rest of the orchestral year.)

... their impact on classical orchestral music is practically non-existent.

On other composers? Well, that's debatable. I referred, though, to the "economic vine," which has been nourished with many new customers over the past 30-odd years by orchestral film and stage works. If that interest hadn't been piqued in the movie theaters, many newer-comers to classical works wouldn't have dared to be nearly as adventurous, nor would they have paid the obscene ticket prices for symphonic concerts. I know this from talking to them.

[Reidy]

Since you ask, here goes. Rand said you can read people's character from lists like this. Mine might lead to a diagnosis of ADD.

1. Andante Festivo by Sibelius.

After that, not in any special order:

Prelude in C for harp, Prokofiev;

Spanish Dance #4, Villanesca, Granados;

First movement, first Cello Suite, Bach;

Spring Song, Sibelius;

Lux Aeterna, Lauridsen;

Dirait-on, Lauridsen;

Komm Heiliger Geist, C major version, Bach;

Toccata and Fugue in F, Bach (just the toccata for purposes of this list);

Pastorale sonata, last movement, Beethoven;

Last movement of The Firebird;

Opening "Gloria" from the last movement of the Bach Magnificat;

Fanfare for the Common Man, Copland.

After #1, the most beautiful melody I know is the main theme of the first movement of Schubert's op. posthumous piano sonata.

[Barbara Branden]

I wonder how much of the music we love is the result of associations. For instance, all during my teens, it was Frank Sinatra I heard -- at dances, at parties, on the radio, at night clubs, in coffee shops. As someone once said,"We fell in love to the singing of Frank Sinatra and we fell out of love to his singing." Ever since then, his singing has been very special and evocative to me -- but I don't know if it would have been, to nearly the same extent, if it did not bring back those years of discovery.

I loved the music of "Tristan and Isolde" long before I moved to New York to study philosophy at NYU. But soon after my move, I attended a performance of the opera at the old Met (not to be confused with what I always shall call "the new Met," despite its advancing age). It was a magnificent performance, with Kirsten Flagstad and Lauritz Melchior., And I was thrilled by the glamor and majesty of the Met -- the long winding marble staircase and the dark velvet of the ascending rows of boxes, the women in their silken gowns, the men with their capes swinging behind them. It was all part of a single Gestalt -- which was the endless wonder of at last living in the great city. And perhaps I love the music of 'Tristan" even more than before and hear even more beauty in it, because it takes me back to my velvet seat at the old Met.

I remenber that Ayn Rand once played a recording for me on which she had her favorite light music, her "tiddly-wink music," as she called it. "It's pure gaiety." she said. "It's music without the concept of pain." As I listened, I thought that that was true of much of the music, but with a few rather startling exceptions. Some of the pieces, to my ear, were sad, almost tragic, I was puzzled by the mystery of why Ayn heard these pieces as joyful, and I heard them as sad. Much later, I discovered what I consider the key to the mystery. The pieces I had thought sad had often been played on the piano by one of her sisters in the years before the Russian revolution. Later, during the dark days following the revolution, they were associated in Ayn's mind with a more sunlit period, a period before hunger and fear and gray depression became staples of everyday life. That association with a vanished gaiety remained throughout her life.

Barbara

[Greybird]

[...] Rand said you can read people's character from lists like this.

Where did she say or write this? I'm highly dubious about it. It fits with Peikoff's seeking of shortcuts to moral judgment, but I seriously doubt Rand herself was this cavalier about it.

(Rand had Ellsworth Toohey say something like this to Kiki Holcombe, after he talked about "the style of a soul," but I doubt she was speaking for herself, in even a fiction-filtered Galtish sense.)

[Dragonfly]

[...] Rand said you can read people's character from lists like this.

Where did she say or write this? I'm highly dubious about it. It fits with Peikoff's seeking of shortcuts to moral judgment, but I seriously doubt Rand herself was this cavalier about it.

Perhaps he was paraphrasing this statement by Rand:

When one learns to translate the meaning of an art work into objective terms, one discovers that nothing is as potent as art in exposing the essence of a man's character. An artist reveals his naked soul in his work-and so, gentle reader, do you when you respond to it.

[Reidy]

That last is, more than any other, just the passage I had in mind. Nathaniel Branden's "The Psychology of Pleasure" is also quite explicit. I wonder what would happen if you put these claims to a full-dress empirical test with controls, double-blinds and all the rest.