Anybody listen to classical music?

[S0me1X]

If I had to rank the concertos (for each individual instruments):
Violin:
1 Beethoven
2 Mendelssohn
3 Brahms
4 Sibelius
5 Tchaikovsky
Honerable Mentions: Saint-Saens, Paganini, Glazumov, Brusch, Mozart, Prokofiev

Piano:
1 Rachmaninoff No. 3
2 Rachmaninoff No. 2
2 Tchaikovsky No. 1
4 Brahms No. 2
5 Beethoven No.5 "emperor"
6 Mozart No. 21
Honerable Mentions: Mozart (many of his 27 Piano Concertos), Liszt, Chopin, Saint-Saens

Cello:
1 Dvorak
2 Elgar
3 Haydn
I change my mind between Dvorak and Elgar all the time... they are definitely the two best cello concertos. The Elgar is very sombre, even depressing at times.

 

[Zoe]

Ooh, a classical thread.

-Epics; any Mahler Symphony (except #1). Think of these as the "Roots" of the symphony world.
-Chopin; one of my favorite composers. Artur Rubenstein(legendary pianist) did an entire Chopin collection recording awhile back. Any of those CD's are good.
-Russian composers; i.e. Shostakovich, Prokefiev, Rimsky-Korsakov, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov. Good stuff, all of it. BTW for Star Wars fans, John Williams (movie music composer) studied Prokefiev intently while writing the music for Star Wars. It's totally obvious in 1)the Jawa scene when they blast/kidnap R2D2 and carry him back to their sandcrawler 2)the Ewoks main theme in RotJ.
-Beethoven Piano Concerto #5, Symphony #3, 5, 7, 8, 9 are my favs. Violin Concerto is long.
Any chamber music by him is awesome; trios, quartets, quintets. Choral Fantasy (the precursor to 9th symphony) is godlike.
-Schubert/Schumann chamber music
-Brahms; most of his music is long, too long for my short attention span. His chamber music is my favorite.
-Copland; all-American composer. Appalachain Spring is great. Theme for the Common Man!
-Violin Concertos by Wieniawski/Tchaikovsky/Sibelius/Bruch/many others . Sibelius is by far my favorite.
-Bartok; weird music that I love. His pieces are very, very difficult to play and master due to insane demands on instrument technique. Hardest I've ever had to learn (Concerto for Orchestra, Concerto for Viola). If you've ever seen that Stephen King movie "The Shining", the entire soundtrack is based on one of Bartok's ensemble pieces (creepy).

Greatest orchestra ever; Berlin Philarmonic (von Karajan conductor). Best brass section ever; Chicago Symphony Orchestra (Solti).

Favorite current performers I'd recommend: Arcadi Volodos(piano) Maxim Vengerov(violin) Martha Argerich(piano). Any recording by them is almost always the best, IMO

(RE to the above post) Elgar Cello Conc is definitely my favorite.

Show-pieces; Saint-Saens Introduction and Tarantella/ Intro and Rondo Capriciosso
Paganini; Caprices/Moto Perpetuo
Sarasate: Carmen Suite

Lot's more I can't think of right now...

 

[Valhalla1]

classical? ugh.

 

[S0me1X]

I have somewhat of a hard time listening to Paganini's 24 Caprices. I see them as more of "Etudes." I do like the 24th Caprice, in A minor.
In my opinion, there are many other etudes which are more musical than the Caprices, such those by Chopin.

My favorite performers are: Vladimir Horowitz (compare Horowitz's Rachmaninoff Concerto No.3 with those of Argerich and Volodos), Jascha Heifetz, and Maurizio Pollini.

I believe Heifetz recorded Beethoven's Violin Concerto in 37+ minutes, which is just fine for me.