If you play in an orchestra....

[SpindleFibre]

...or similar, what is your all time favourite piece of music you have played?

Or what piece would you love to play as part of a large orchestra but haven't?

Funny you should be asking that as I have just played Mahler 3 and am now completely hooked on the Abbado recording with the Lucerne Festival Orchestra.
I played the Rite of Spring about 20 years ago and that was also one of my all-time most exciting orchestral experience.

I loved playing Bizet’s L’Arlesienne but mostly preferred playing in a string quartet.

Tchaikovsky 4th symphony- I played viola. It was exciting but you did feel like you'd had a nervous breakdown by the end it was so intense!

We were sat right in front of the brass so from the off your head is being blasted!

1812 overture, absolutely magnificent to play especially if you're lucky enough to play in a performance with actual canons! I love listening to it as well, goosebumps every time.

Bernstein West Side Story Suite. Percussion. Thrilling beyond words.

Thank you for your responses. I had been watching a YouTube video of the overture from Die Fledermaus this morning and I was thinking how amazing it must be to be part of that experience.

I do envy you all!

Have any of ever played the William Tell Overture or Pomp and Circumstance March no. 1 as part of a large orchestra? That must be incredible.

I am a violinist in a string orchestra. We all love the Holberg Suite. It is worth listening to the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra playing it on youtube.

So many but perhaps Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms or Verdi's Requiem. I played both with a local orchestra 25 years ago as a teen.

The best experiences... I have a few. 3 accompanying soloists - Rachmaninov piano concerto no. 2, Chopin piano concerto No1 and Sibelius violin concerto. Another, playing Brahms symphony number 4 - almost divine experience.

Playing Saint Saens Danse Macabre during a thunder storm!

Dd says her fav piece to play was pomp and circumstance 1 at Albert hall (schools prom)

She wants to play the solo for Vivaldi 4 seasons, but unlikely, she's more a team player!

Sibelius 2, or Shostakovich 5. Finzi clarinet concerto. Also love Elgar's Enigma variations.

So many pieces! Enjoyed Petrushka, Mahler 1 and 4, Shostakovich 5 and 10, Nielsen 4 and lots by Bernstein.

Would love to play Shostakovich 8, any of the Prokofiev symphonies and Nielsen 3.

Also really like Sibelius, Tchaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakov.

Tchaikovsky, Mozart, but all time favourite piece is meditation from Thais.

Same - although I wasn't playing percussion. Part of a local youth orchestra and we had a shit hot percussion section at the time, which is why they chose it that year.

My other favourite was Stravinsky's Firebird Suite. Still love it.

DC1 next to me said Appalachian Spring is the best thing she's played. She really wants to play the La La Land Concert Suite - the woodwinds are scored so nicely.

I love it when we go to outdoor classical concerts and the 1812 is performed complete with an amazing firework display. Goosebumps every time!

It's also my ringtone.

Beethoven's Egmont Overture.

For concert band, Guy Woolfenden' Gallimaufry. .

I miss playing in an orchestra! I think it must depend what instrument you play. As a 1st flautist my favourite pieces were Faure’s Pavane and Bizet’s L’Arlesienne as they have beautiful flute-led passages.

I remember Mozart’s 40th was the first piece I ever played in a big orchestra as a 2nd violinist in high school and I always got totally lost. I must have mimed most of it in the school concert! I gave up the violin the year after that 😂

Back row of the second violins back in the 70’s. I can remember playing in The Sea Symphony which is still a favourite. I can still see the handsome French Horn player if I close my eyes!
As for singing in a big choir around the same time “The Rio Grande” by Constant Lambert was absolutely amazing.
I also loved playing in the “Academic festival Overture” ( Brahms) and Benjamin Brittens “Soirée Musicales”
Lovely memories of a lovely time in my life, early and mid teenage years. I do wish I’d kept up the violin as playing in a group is such fun. Music has such power to bring back memories doesn’t it?.

Symphonie fantastique, mahler 4, Rachmaninov 2, finlandia....also as a violinist, barber's adagio.

Have to admit this made me giggle. Cannons are probably more impressive than canons 😊.

In a choir I loved Bach B Minor Mass, though exhausting, but the best has to be William Walton's Belshazzar's Feast in King's College Chapel. It was just an elemental performance.
We did the Walton again in the Sheldonian but the music was too big for it. However, that time the bass soloist was Willard White and he had the most Amazing speaking voice: so sexy that a gasp went round all the choir stalls when he first spoke.

I played first violin in the orchestra from primary to secondary school - about five years in total and more than forty years ago. We played the overture from 'Der Freischutz' in spring and summer 1982. Nice lively number which seemed to get faster every time we played it. Unfortunately, we never went public with it as the school production in '82 was a musical version of The Gorgon's Head. Hmmph!

The Planets was definitely a favourite, and Shosti’s 5th.
I’d love to play some John Williams though. Never had the chance.

Shostakovich 7 is a favorite, the context really makes it. On a lighter note, I really enjoyed some John Adams, short ride in a fast machine is great.