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.

NearlyMelanie. I love St Matthew’s Passion and Scholl must have been pretty much perfect. I will definitely try Key’Mon Murrah recommendation. Not a name I know of and love discovering new musicians and composers.

EdithStourton. I missed Bocherrini and Charpentier off my list. I love Spem in Alium and haven’t listened to any Orlando Gibbons for years so I must put that right now you’ve mentioned him.

So glad Orlinski was amazing live. I only came across him by chance when he came up in recommended on my YouTube feed, and found his voice something out of the ordinary. If ever there is an X Factor, for me, his voice has that. Hard to even put into words what I love about it but I feel as if angels on high were a thing, they’d sound like him!

I wish I could enjoy opera but haven’t found an operatic voice I enjoy. For me there’s too much vibrato and embellishment which I think is why I like plainsong and early choral music so much as they sound more natural to my ears

Unless you're an audiophile, historic recordings are your friend. (Or just listen to Emma Kirkby I suppose.)

There's plenty of vibrato in old recordings of course, but not usually the awful slow, wide flap that distorts the pitch so grotesquely.

Embellishment/improvisation is great though, it's a vital part of the singer's art which has been lost for too long, as a result of the cult of the star conductor. And now we're several decades into the truly decadent (in the bad sense of the word) era of the star director and his ego. Ugh.

Fabulous thread! Loving all the suggestions. Massive shout out for Fred Delius. Walk to the Paradise Garden never fails to reduce me to tears ❤️

Oh and Górecki Symphony no 3. Wonderful stuff 👌

Regular Radio 3 listeners in this house. We like most things, but both find Haydyn and some early music a bit zzzz

Utterly love
jazz suite no. 2 shostakovich
From a small girl I adores vivaldis guitar concerto in D
Still do.
Rhapsody in blue is not an unknown as such but I do love it so had to mention

I listen to classic fm every day just.love the many different styles

I wouldn't call myself an aficionado, but this is a nice bolt hole away from the swifties.

Currently playing Chopin's Nocturnes.

Poor Haydn had to churn out a symphony every week for his employers though. It's no wonder some of them are duff ones.

I’m exactly the same. There’s just something about the style I dislike - I know why it’s evolved as it has, but I just don’t find operatic voices pleasurable to listen to.

I find Radio 3 a bit odd these days, with its regional accents and all the random bits of jazz and Tin Pan Alley standards that got booted off Radio 2. I don't have anything against accents IRL I hasten to add, it just seems jarring on something as august as R3 used to be. It's as if you were listening to a speech by King Charles and he suddenly started doing a mockney accent for no reason and everybody just pretended it was totally normal. 😀

Bring back the dinner jackets and the massive microphones, I say! (Long gone by the time I was a listener, but it still had the vestiges of that kind of old fashioned formality, and I found it so reassuring.)

But in terms of music that I do like, the Sibelius symphonies & Finlandia, Warlock Capriol Suite, most things for string orchestra…

Probably as a result of trying to force too much volume as a result of orchestras getting bigger, then later as an affectation, as our understanding of what an "operatic" sound was began to change.

I love classical music but not an aficionado at all. Although I don’t like the adds I do listen to classic fm as well as Radio 3. Choral music or piano.

Karl Jenkins Armed Man
brittens war requiem,
faure Cantique de Jean racine

From a piano playing family
Chopin etudes, Fantasie impromptu
debussy

Mozart clarinet concerto

I know, right? My ex fiancé had the complete Haydn CD box set and it was about a foot long. You'd need to be pretty determined to get through that as a listener, never mind as a composer!

Karl Jenkins, Sibelius and Eric Satie at the moment.

My favourite countertenor is James Bowman (sadly no longer with us). Got a recording of him singing Stabat Mater by Pergolesi with Emma Kirkby. Wonderful. I like the countertenor voice but he's the best of the lot I reckon.

As an alto in a choir I like earlier music as the alto parts don't go up too high-probably written for male countertenors. And there are some lovely alto solos around from that period. I like singing The record of John by Gibbons, want to have a crack at Out of the deep by Morley next.

Not an aficionado but I listen to a lot of classical music and go to concerts if I get the chance (not that often here in rural Argyll&Bute).
I adore Shostakovich, Bartok, Mahler, Dvorak, Beethoven, Mendelsohn, Schubert, Sibelius, early music, I quite like the minimalists too (Steve Reich and John Adams, mostly) and a lot of contemporary music as well. Mark Simpson's violin concerto, written during lockdown for Nicola Benedetti, is fantastic. I saw it live in Edinburgh in March. Sally Beamish, Jessie Montgomery, Dobrinka Tabakova all have written some great music.
The YT channel of the Frankfurt Radio Symphony is fantastic for exploring. It's free, technically excellent recordings, live streams too. Their former music director, Andres Orozco Estrada (now in Vienna) played a lot of South American composers, Ginastera for example. Well worth having a browse there.

About the only bit of opera I like is the Slaves Chorus from Nabucco. Give me church music any day. Nothing beats evensong in a cathedral.

Edith and puttin I am totally with you . There is something utterly pure and magical sounding to sacred choral music. And in a cathedral or church setting they are awe inspiring. I re listened to Orlinski and Jarrousky after this thread last night and in my ignorance didn’t realise that the Vivaldi I was listening to was from an opera. I found both their voices beautiful and not shouty and vibrato heavy. So perhaps I’m not a lost cause when it comes to all opera and it’s just knowing what I’m likely to enjoy.

Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis. Stunning and emotional.

I tend to agree with Rossini about opera - “How wonderful opera would be if there were no singers.”

There's a brilliant story about Sir John Gielgud being asked to direct an opera, and at one of the rehearsals he rushed on to the stage shouting, "Oh please do stop that awful MUSIC!"

When listening to it I often wish I could have been at the 1910 Premier in Gloucester Cathedral!
It must have been a sensation.