Classical Music - Are there any aficionados on here?

[VeryOldMan]

Are there any?
It all seems to be Pop and Taylor Swift on the board!

Drop a post on your favourite performers, composers or pieces of music.

Hi @VeryOldMan my favourite two pieces are Bach's Goldberg variations (with a preference for Glenn Gould's 1955 recording, probably because it's the first I heard) and Schubert's quintet in C, which, without wishing to sound like a twat, I believe to be one of the towering achievements of humankind.

Agree 100%.

My knowledge of Classical Music comes from the sleeve notes, CD booklet and listening to BBC Radio 3!
I've never studied Music and, whilst having a fair singing voice, my instrumental ability is restricted to dabbling with a mouth organ or tin whistle!
I did do a couple of songs at the Old Bank Acoustic Session in Matlock Bath last night though.

I wake up every morning and listen to Classic FM. Does that count?

I woke up listening to Palladio (1) by Karl Jenkins this morning. Really gets the heart pumping!! I also really like the theme tune to The Apprentice (but I liked it before it was used for that).

Some of the music composers today, I wonder if they will still have their music played in 200 years time like we're still listening to Mozart and Beethoven. I'd love to know what music has fallen by the wayside as these behemoths of music carry on.

Right up my street! My favourite composers are Bach and Purcell.
I particularly enjoy counter tenors.
I agree about seeing the the Sixteen and would add the Tallis Scholars. Glorious.

I listen to the the Early Music Show on Sundays on Radio 4, when I can, there is always something to discover.

I love "classical" music from all eras, particularly but not exclusively choral, as I sing it. Hildegard to MacMillan. His new work Timotheus, Bacchus and Cecilia premiered a few weeks ago with The Hallé. I've not heard it yet, but was told it's stunning (and maybe even shades Mahler 5 which followed). It's being repeated at the Proms on 21 July, and I think will be televised. Can't wait.

But my favourite is Bach. And my favourite Bach, the Mass in B minor.

Definitely an aficionado here!

Too many to list right now on the favourites list, but just to start by saying, Christian Forshaw / Grace Davidson are worth a listen.

I listen to Classic fm all day (with a couple of hours of pop music in the evening for variety)

Top pieces for me are Paderewski's piano concerto and The Intermezzo from Wolf Ferrari's jewels of the Madonna. Also love anything by Chopin.

A good piece of classical music can make me stop in my tracks just to listen, in a way that pop music doesn't.

I've always loved classical music from hearing Beethoven's fifth coming into assembly as a five year old to today where I'm chuffed at a thirty minute drive to my new job as I get an hour's uninterrupted Radio 3 a day! Driving back through beautiful countryside listening to Saint Saens Organ Symphony the other day was just perfect.
I learned the flute to grade 7 and did O Level music but my parents weren't supportive of going any further. I'm trying to get back into daily practicing but it's hard to re-form the habit. I play for the children in my preschool room and am trying to introduce playing a range of music to them.
I like a wide range of music although some modern works I find challenging. Having said that, there was a lovely piece by an Australian composer (Katya ?, must look it up) on R3 yesterday - very evocative of nature sounds.

Bach. All day if possible.
Butolike a wide variety of "classical" music.

I love a good bouncy piece (where you can really hear the triangle) for motorway driving.

Gosh - I found some NAAFI stamps the other day! My mum used to get me the 45 mark voucher with hers for school holidays (boarding school) and I bought records with them. Including "Classic Commercials" in about 1980.

Hello my people! I love almost all music but currently my piano repertoire (a grandiose term considering my mostly self taught skill level) looks like this:

Clair de Lune, Debussy (only the opening melody, shortened)
Pavane pour une infante défunte, Ravel
Lacrimosa, Mozart and also his Sonata 11 too
Grieg, from Peer Gynt: Solveig’s Song, Morning Mood and a shortened and simplified arrangement of In the Hall of The Mountain King
Nino Rota (am I stretching the concept of classical too far here?) themes from The God father and Romeo and Juliet
Tchaikovsky Swan Theme
Offenbach’s Barcarolle
Toreador by Bizet

They are all quite satisfying to play even though they’re not the sort of thing I love to listen to. My favourite requiem is Faure’s but I’m seriously addicted to Avi Avital at the moment, a mandolinist I heard on R3.

I recently discovered how much better than Spotify Apple Classical is but it doesn’t have nearly as many emerging artists. AIBU to use both streaming platforms?

Anyone like the modern composers - like John Williams and Brian Tyler and John Barry?

Where to start? Mozart is a favourite - so appealing on the surface but with more and more depth. And as a singer I would say nobody writes for the voice the way he did!

But so many others too - Schubert, Clara Schumann, Debussy, Chopin, Beethoven, Chausson, Wolf, Mahler and so many more... I was listening to Howard Shore's music for the Lord of the Rings and reflecting on how much film composers (John Williams being perhaps the best example) are taking forward the classical traditions and sounds and keeping them alive and in the soundtrack of people's lives.

I would recommend the Sticky Notes podcast where a conductor talks about different pieces in a way that has helped me hear familiar pieces in a new way as well as completely new ones.

Anyone like the modern composers - like John Williams and Brian Tyler and John Barry?

Me! I think composers are like cheese to me, I’ve never tried one I didn’t like.

I love classical music, but especially choral music (primarily Renaissance - Byrd, Tallis, Palestrina etc) and the romantics like Dvořak and Mendelssohn. I also love opera, including the early stuff - I fairly recently saw some unstaged Purcell operas at the Barbican which were amazing.

I have to say I hate Macmillan though! 🙈

I went to John Williams concert once and it was soo dull.

However every one else there was a fan.

Personally am more of a Richard Strauss or Janacek person.

Classic FM does a good job of being a place where people new to Classical Music can "dip a toe" into the genre and expand their knowledge and experience of the huge range of music on offer.
But this little tale, which some may find amusing, happened some years ago now, perhaps even a couple of decades.
I'd been sat listening to Radio 3, glass of single malt in hand, when Vaughn Williams' Lark Ascending started.
So it was feet up, relax and drift along with the music as I sipped the malt.
At the end of the piece there was a pause to allow the last reverberations of those last exquisite notes to die away before the announcer, Paul Guinery if I recall correctly, announced in hushed tones to match the mood of the music, "And that was Iona Brown accompanied by the orchestra of St. Martin in the Fields conducted by Sir Neville Mariner".

Then, later that same week, the same piece was on Classic FM and by coincidence I was again sat relaxing with a glass of single malt and again relaxed and drifted along with the music right the way through to those last two notes.
But, scarcely had the last note been played when the still dying reverberations were suddenly augmented by "AND NOW, FROM THE CARPHONE WAREHOUSE TODAY...."!!
I shot bolt upright, nearly going through the ceiling and my dearly tolerant OH, who was sat in the other room, claims I actually yelled out!

I would add Ron Goodwin to that list!

AND Ronald Binge

👏 thank you, they’re both palatable!

Palladio is worth getting to know:-

Another excellent platform for music is Radio Swiss Classic.
www.radioswissclassic.ch/en

I know it very well indeed. I had to learn it to conduct a performance. It really didn't take very long...

That's another on my internet radio set of presets. Along with France Musique - Classique Plus, which is my default.
www.radiofrance.fr/francemusique/radio-classique-plus