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Classical music recommendations?

N

notfred

Lifer
I'm starting to get into classical music, but I don't know much about it. Anyone have any recommendations? I prefer stuff that's more symphonic that stuff with a lot of solos by a single wind instrument, and stuff like that.
 
I can recommend three artists to start your collection with

Mozart, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky.

For Mozart I suggest his 40th and 41st Symphonies

For Beethoven I suggest the 3rd, 5th, 6th, and 9th Symphonies along with Piano Conchertos 3 and 5.

For Tchaikovsky I suggest his 6th Symphony.

There are hundreds of books related to Classical music available. If you want a good refrence book to start off with get: Classical Music For Dummies

Also you can listen to a live stream of a local classical music station at KMozart.com.

If you have any questions feel free to PM me.
 
TRANS SIBERIAN ORCHESTRA!!!!

Members of my favorite band Savatage grouped up with an string orchestra and play a lot of the old classics with an upbeat tempo. Electric guitars and a good drum set.... They sound great. They do a lot of christmas music also, they are very popular among all age groups. Look into the cd Bethovens last night (I am pretty sure that is the name) It is wonderfull. Also check out Savatage if you like that, savatage is a metal band but they do a lot of ballads and the song "Sarejavo 12/24" (sp) came from savatage, but it is on there TSO CD also.
 
I personally love Rachmoninoff:

Rachmoninoff - Vocalise
Rachmoninoff - Rach 3
Rachmoninoff - Rhapsody on a Theme
Rachmoninoff - Piano Concerto 2
Rachmoninoff - Bells of Moscow

Vivaldi - Four Seasons

Beethoven - 9th Symphony
Beethoven - Funeral March
Beethoven - Moonlight Sonata

Chopin - Minute Waltz
Chopin - Polonaise
 
It really depends on what you are looking for from Classical Music.

Something Rousing?

Beethovens 9th (as heard in A Clockwork Orange!)
Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture

Something Soothing?

Mozart will fit the bill

Also, check out Holst - The Planets. It will sound familiar and you'll definitely like it.
 
anything the boston pops does! 🙂 they have a bunch of albums.
john williams
astor piazolla
aron copland
Ennio Morricone
itzhak perlmans two cinema serenade albums🙂
 
To mention some others:
Mussorgsky - Pictures at an Exhibition
Rimsky-Korsakov - Scheherazade (it breaks your no-solos quite often with the lead violin, but they tend to be short and overall is a great piece)

If you are into opera at all, Wagner (though a lot of his stuff is still good without the vocals)

Aaron Copland has a few pieces (Fanfare for the Common Man, Rodeo) that are good, with mainly a western flair

What I listen to most:
Beethoven - 9th Symphony
Tchikovsky - 1812 Overture
Holst - The Planets
Mussorgsky - Pictures at an Exhibition (Night on Bald Mountain is also excellent driving music)
Rimsky-Korsakov - Scheherazade

Trying to think of what else is in my collection......

Also, if you hear a piece by a composer you don't find appealing, don't necessarily shut out that composer from your list. Beethoven has a lot of crap I won't listen to, but I can't get enough of his 9th symphony, for example.
You will start to find a lot of pieces that sound familiar, and you will be able to actually name them when you hear their variants in the movies.
 
Some of my favorite composers..

Holst
Debussy
Saint-Saens
Rachmaninoff
Rimsky-Korsakov

Dude, there are SOOO many good pieces out there. Most of the goods one's aren't mainstream though...
 
I have quite a few Joseph "Papa" Haydn CDs that have made their way into my regular work rotation. If I'm remembering correctly from my piano lessons, historians dubbed him the "Father of the Symphony." He was Mozart's mentor and to me epitomizes the Classical era more than any other composer.
 
For classical with a twist try the album Born by Bond and The Seduction Of Claude Debussy by Art Of Noise.
 
not very symphonic, but there is nothing more heartwrenching than a really good rendition of one of chopin's pieces. that guy was the bomb.
 
FYI, there's (usually) 4 movements to a symphony, 3 movements to a sonata, and 3 movements to a concerto. If you start downloading (say) a symphony, see if you can tell the conductor/label/something identifying it, and go to Amazon and look up the CD. Then make sure that you have all of the tracks. It'd suck to listen to the movements of a symphony out of order, or to have (say) the 3rd one missing.

Beethoven - Symphony No. 5!!! Get this and listen to it continually until you memorize the whole thing! (NOT just the first movement!) It's probably the most revolutionary and influential piece of music ever written. Ever.
Prokofiev - Romeo and Juliet (very long piece (2 CDs) most famous part is traditionally called "Capulets and Montagues")
Tchaikovsky - 4th, 5th, and 6th Symphonies (6th symph. MUST be listened to in its entirety!)
Van Cliburn playing Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto #2 (I think it's #2) (this is the best-selling classical music recording of all time)
Mozart - Symphony No. 40
Chopin -- waltzes, nocturnes, ... (lots of shorter pieces -- all for solo piano -- one of the sonatas has "Funeral March" or Marche Funebré as its second movement, which is really famous and quite beautiful when not being played by some Soviet marching band upon the death of the Premier)
Beethoven - Piano Sonatas. "Moonlight" is very famous. My favorite is "Pathetique".
Mozart - Requiem (it's in like 9 pieces)
Dvorak - Symphony No. 9 "From the New World"
Smetana - My Fatherland - (famous excerpt: "The Moldau")
Pachelbel - Canon (very famous piece)
Bach - The Art of the Fugue (many pieces to this)
Bach - Toccata and Fugue in.. hmm I forget the key, it's his most famous organ work though. Just type "Bach Toccata" and you'll get it.
Bizet - Carmen (excerpt: Toreador Song)
Barber - Adagio for Strings
Tchaikovsky - The Nutcracker, Romeo and Juliet Overture
Albinoni - Adagio (there's many of his adagios, but there's one that's really famous, it's in G minor)
Rossini - William Tell Overture
Rossini - The Barber of Seville (Overture, "Figaro", ...)
Debussy - Claire de Lune, Le Cathedrale Engloutie (sp?), Children's Corner
Händel - Water Music, Music for the Royal Fireworks
Elgar - Pomp and Circumstance Marches (You know the graduation song..... but you only know the suckiest part of the piece!)
Elgar - Enigma Variations (there's like 15 -- the most famous, and best, is "Nimrod" -- but try and get all of them and listen to them in sequence)

To introduce you to a bit of opera, I would recommend that you get the songs off of the CD "The Three Tenors in Concert", the London recording. Most of the good stuff is from Puccini operas.

edit: other people already said them, but Holst's The Planets and Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition are both really good and you've probably heard them before somewhere.
 
You forgot Grieg in that list.
And Ride of the Valkyries by Wagner.

P.S. Opera sux.

P.P.S. Try searching for Within Temptation - Pearls of Light.
 
I Cannot Beleive No One Mentioned This Song:
carl orff - carmina burana <---one of the best classical type songs as heard in great movies like Excauilber, and Needful things so very "chaotic" sounding to it =)
Also i suggest "Fure Elise" there is Mozart and Beethoven versions i beleive, its really relaxing.
 


<< I Cannot Beleive No One Mentioned This Song:
carl orff - carmina burana <---one of the best classical type songs as heard in great movies like Excauilber, and Needful things so very "chaotic" sounding to it =)
Also i suggest "Fure Elise" there is Mozart and Beethoven versions i beleive, its really relaxing. >>



No one mentioned that? Ack! Scrolled through the thread but didn't notice that was missing.
Btw, you also want to check out the rest of the works from Orff, he made a lot more good stuff.

I don't like Fur Elise much, but that might be due to the fact that our neighbour tried to learn how to play that song on the piano... during 20 years... and still only could play the first few notes *cringe*

Edit: Try finding the CD 'The Best of Carl Orff'. Finding any other CD from him than Carmina Burana is a pain as he decided that that was his masterpiece and that all his other work was useless compared to it, and threw the rest away, but this CD contains a reasonable nr of short songs by him.
 
I don't like Fur Elise much, but that might be due to the fact that our neighbour tried to learn how to play that song on the piano... during 20 years... and still only could play the first few notes *cringe*


heh i learned that for one of my first recitals... good lord i can't listen to that cursed song without cringing now. repetitive... cr@p
 


<< You forgot Grieg in that list.
And Ride of the Valkyries by Wagner.

P.S. Opera sux.

P.P.S. Try searching for Within Temptation - Pearls of Light. >>



Wagner Rocks!

and no opera does not suck

try Carmen "Music of the Night" or most of the "Phantom of the Opera" pieces

and where are the sugarplum fairies?
 
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