Top Classical CDs

[Aaron]

Classical CD's are great - cheap and nice to listen too.

Got a couple from the "Ontario" Label the other day which cost me NZD 1.99 each :)

Strauss - Tales From the Vienna Woods
Various - Great Overtures

Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 (The Choral) is fun - the music is all the way through the movie Die Hard 3. The main piece is 'Ode to Joy'.

So what do you people like in terms of Classical music?

Aaron

[Rex_Mundi_Incarnit]

I prefer Baroque classical music the most. As for composers:

-Bach (!)
-Beethoven
-Chopin (!)
-Wagner
-Gershwin / Ravel
-Vivaldi
-Handel

I also like music from the movie 'the Piano' and a bit more 'new age' style music from Ludovico Einaudi called 'Le Onde.'

[Todd The Kiwi]

Tchaikovsky - Dance Of The Sugarplum Fairy
Grieg - Morning And In The Hall Of The Mountain King*
Bernd Alois Zimmerman - Photoptosis*
Debussy - Anything
Gustav Mahler - Titan*
Gustav Holst - Planets

i remember seeing Swan Lake when i was really young.
also running around the living room to Srauss' Radetzky Marsh was a childhood highlight ;)

i like the more dramatic* stuff really
i'd like some more oboist pieces too, any suggestions ?
this stuff all sounds better on vinyl too, the included picture sheds some light on what i have, which isn't a lot really, i know people who have thousands of records of JUST classical music.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v608/toddthekiwi/classicallist.jpg

[rorythedog]

I've got lots of classical music. Some of my favourites are pieces by :-

Bruch - Symphony No.1

Sibelius - Finlandia

Grieg - From Holbergs Time, Peer Gynt

Smetana - Der Moldau

Orff - Carmina Burana

Mussorgsky - Night On The Bare Mountain

Grofe - Grand Canyon Suite

Nielsen - Oriental Festival March

Mascagni - Cavalleria Rusticana

Puccini - Gianni Schicchi

Bizet - Carmen

Offenbach - Barcarolle

A couple of these are more operatic pieces. What can I say. I like fat ladies singing.

Mainly though, I like Scandinavian music. A lot of it sounds like (is?) a musical interpretation of Norway. Spectacular!

[jkrzok]

Sibelius Symphony #5, by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Colin Davis. This is the first recording that really proved the power of classical music to me. My prior experiences with classical ran to the cliches; Beethoven's fifth, the William Tell Overture, etc. As great as the cliches are, they're not fresh; over-repetition robs them of much of their emotional power. This recording really opened the world of classical to me. I figured if a guy I never heard of (Sibelius) could be so good, the guys I've heard of (Beethoven, Mozart) must really be good.

The 1955 recording of Bach's Goldberg Variations by Glenn Gould. He made those variations his own. If you don't mind his heavy breathing.

I could go on and on with a list but these are the actual recordings that come immediately to mind.

[Todd The Kiwi]

I figured if a guy I never heard of (Sibelius) could be so good, the guys I've heard of (Beethoven, Mozart) must really be good.
i have to agree with this man, "the ones you've heard of" are total legends
everyone has heard it, most like it but don't know it.
play them some william tell or bald hill or valkyries and they go "aw yeah i know that old thing"
i'm adding Mussorgsky and Handel to my list too.
although sitar music isn't really classical in the way we're discussing it here
i have to say i'm a huge fan of it and i own a couple of 'ragas' on vinyl 11 years older than myself :P
have you guys noticed Beethovens 9th symphony comes with xp ?

[jkrzok]

Show of hands now. How many people's first experiences of classical music comes from cartoons? Disney or Looney Tunes. I can watch a cartoon and recognize the soundtrack as something classical.

[dm1030]

Show of hands now. How many people's first experiences of classical music comes from cartoons? Disney or Looney Tunes. I can watch a cartoon and recognize the soundtrack as something classical.


I actually love the music from the Looney Toons. I had several records and tapes with a bunch of the music, but have gotten lost over the years of moving and a divorce. A few of my friends play classical and love playing the music.

[rorythedog]

When I got my first CD player in '86 as a 21st birthday present, I went and bought three CD's. The first was Brothers in Arms by Dire Straits. I also got a Tchaikovsky disc. The 1812 overture. The reason I got it was because the cover proclaimed that there were real cannons. The third was Zoolook by Jean-michel Jarre.

However, I never listen to any of them now.

[DanTheManPR]

Anything by Tschaicovsky or Mozart is cool for me.

[Aaron]

This piano piece is really hard to beat for something nice to chill out to.

:)

Aaron

[rorythedog]

This piano piece is really hard to beat for something nice to chill out to.

:)

Aaron

I don't know if you've heard it, but a band called Sky do a fantastic version of this piece. If you want it I've got it.

[Todd The Kiwi]

discovered a friggin' GEM yesterday called The Firebird by Stravinsky
have any of you guys heard Rachmaninoffs symphony no 1 or isle of the dead (http://www.stmoroky.com/reviews/gallery/bocklin/iotd.htm) ?
it's proving hard to find and i'm told it's quite the dramatic piece
so is most of firebird too if you wondered.
i also found out that Wagner does a version of Griegs in the hall of the mountain king
a bit 'lighter and brighter' you could say, perhaps it's just faster.
either way both versions are damn fine, and well worth a visit from "noise control" :cheeky:

[Todd The Kiwi]

yesterday i went out and bought around 41 lps of classical music (and 3 cds)
dvorak, stravinsky, mahler, Ippolitov-Ivanov, handel, liszt, wagner, rossini, grieg, tchaikovsky, sibelius, mendelssohn, haydn, Khachaturian, racmaninov, brahms, bach, strauss and shit loads more.
i actually scored 1/2 of real groovy's entire classical (lp) section ha ha ha
took me all night to clean them, not that they were dirty, i wanted to aye
this stuff sounds so much better off vinyl, the girlfriend is out today too
so i can cane my system, nice :P
anyway , where was i? aah yes DUN DUN DUN DAAAHHN! ;)

washing plates :cheeky:

[acushla]

Wagner, Wagner and Wagner. Oh yes...and Mahler too. (Did I mention Wagner?)

[Todd The Kiwi]

Rachmaninoff - symphony no 1choice, i scored this off a workmate the other day
the first movement is very promising, then almost twiddles into silence for about 10 mins
until suddenly i'm faced with the fourth movement - awesome stuff, very familiar too (the fourth that is)

i added MAHLERs symphony number 2 to my collection too, all 80+ mins of it ha ha ha

sorry i just have to put this pic back, i reckon it's funny...

[acushla]

This piano piece is really hard to beat for something nice to chill out to.

:)

Aaron

Oh yes...I LIKE this choice. Excellent. Did you know that Satie loved to sit around the Parisian cafés with musicians but the only way he could do this was to be a musician himself. So he wrote his compositions and he was 'allowed' to join the musicians...who were amused by him but dismissed his music as inconsequential. Today the only name we know from that table is Satie's.

[acushla]

I don't know if you've heard it, but a band called Sky do a fantastic version of this piece. If you want it I've got it.

This is interesting...if you want it I've got it. Since the two of you obviously don't live next door I am curious as to how you would get it to Aaron. Would you mail it...would you arrange some type of computer transfer...? Could I get it too?

[acushla]

discovered a friggin' GEM yesterday called The Firebird by Stravinsky
have any of you guys heard Rachmaninoffs symphony no 1 or isle of the dead (http://www.stmoroky.com/reviews/gallery/bocklin/iotd.htm) ?
it's proving hard to find and i'm told it's quite the dramatic piece
so is most of firebird too if you wondered.
i also found out that Wagner does a version of Griegs in the hall of the mountain king
a bit 'lighter and brighter' you could say, perhaps it's just faster.
either way both versions are damn fine, and well worth a visit from "noise control" :cheeky:

Yea Wagner!

[rorythedog]

This is interesting...if you want it I've got it. Since the two of you obviously don't live next door I am curious as to how you would get it to Aaron. Would you mail it...would you arrange some type of computer transfer...? Could I get it too?


Do you want it? Do you REALLY want it? Do you sir? ;)

[matty28carter]

Do you want it? Do you REALLY want it? Do you sir? ;)

ooo suit you sir!
wagner is great. as are sky, bach, mozart, debussy, strauss etc etc. brilliant. its all brilliant. Brilliant! (gotta love the fast show).

[Todd The Kiwi]

gotta love the fast showyes, yes quite.
bother, i seem to have my head stuck in this door, oh wait, there we go ha ha
almost had me there.

[rorythedog]

Speaking of which, has anybody seen Paul Whitehouse's new show? It's called "Help" and it's good. Damn good.

[rorythedog]

You guys might like to listen to this.

THE MOZART EFFECT (http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/science/mozarteffect.shtml)

[Todd The Kiwi]

interesting, i reckon Tolkien was listening to GRIEG
and someone in florida was listening to HOLST ha ha ha :globe:

shit, it's .ram :depressed

[acushla]

Do you want it? Do you REALLY want it? Do you sir? ;)

Of course I want it. Didn't you say it was fantastic?

[matty28carter]

Speaking of which, has anybody seen Paul Whitehouse's new show? It's called "Help" and it's good. Damn good.
no? whens it on? i'll have to watch it. :cyclops:

[rorythedog]

no? whens it on? i'll have to watch it. :cyclops:

Tonight (Sundays), 21:30, BBC2. I can't wait.

[madjo]

Tonight (Sundays), 21:30, BBC2. I can't wait.
I'll watch the Buzzcocks first ;)

[rorythedog]

I'll watch the Buzzcocks first ;)

Me too. Great taste. Did you see it last week with that young guy "Kensey"(?). What a numptie.

[madjo]

Me too. Great taste. Did you see it last week with that young guy "Kensey"(?). What a numptie.Yeah.. laughed my a$$ off :)
http://www.madjo.nl/images/thumbsup.gif

Oh and Help was great :) especially the last one.