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Any classical music fans around?

It would be pretty boring.

I don't know if this counts as classical music, but I think it's the closest thing to it that I listen to.
The guy's YouTube name is myuu and he composes a helluva lot of good work.



This is the music of a mature soul, not a neophyte.
 
I have mixed feelings on Glass. He's kind of the Thelonius Monk of classical music.

I find most people love him, or despise him.
 
I find most people love him, or despise him.

Full disclosure, I'm not all that familiar with his works. Maybe if I invested some time into listening to him I'd jump on one side or the other.
 
This is the music of a mature soul, not a neophyte.

Nah man, I just like dark piano music.

And I always hear Myuu's music in the background of people's Creepypasta readings (internet horror stories), and that's how I found out about him initially.
 
Does this count as classical?

 
Nah man, I just like dark piano music.

And I always hear Myuu's music in the background of people's Creepypasta readings (internet horror stories), and that's how I found out about him initially.

Then you're an exceptional person to be so advanced spiritually and mentally. Ever hear of Sandals Grande Antigua Resort & Spa? It's $10k a day of fun that you should experience at least once.
 
Then you're an exceptional person to be so advanced spiritually and mentally. Ever hear of Sandals Grande Antigua Resort & Spa? It's $10k a day of fun that you should experience at least once.

Nope, never heard of it. I don't go to spas anyways.

And 10K?! Hell no.
 
Nope, never heard of it. I don't go to spas anyways.

And 10K?! Hell no.


Now, I believe you're 17yrs old. To exist in paradise, where the elegant serve you like a royalty seems like a strange thing. This is a place where you rub elbows with the rich and famous, like Jennifer Aniston and Chris Pine.
 
Love Beethoven. My faves are the 9th symphony (still gets to me). The 5th piano concerto. Several of his piano sonatas. Mozart, just about anything but the Marriage of Figaro is tops. I love opera. Madame Butterfly was my first. La Boheme. Trivata. (The last two are not Mozart, I know.)

Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 is a childhood fave. My mom has the sheet music.

Rachmanioff's preludes. My fave is C sharp minor (yes I looked it up to get it right). I have a box set (vinyl).

My mom played loads of Chopin but I don't recall the specific pieces.

I know there are more, can't think.

 
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Love Beethoven. My faves are the 9th symphony (still gets to me). The 5th piano concerto. Several of his piano sonatas. Mozart, just about anything but the Marriage of Figaro is tops. I love opera. Madame Butterfly was my first. La Boheme. Trivata. (The last two are not Mozart, I know.)

Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 is a childhood fave. My mom has the sheet music.

Rachmanioff's preludes. My fave is C sharp minor (yes I looked it up to get it right). I have a box set (vinyl).

My mom played loads of Chopin but I don't recall the specific pieces.

I know there are more, can't think.

You must like the Nutcracker Suite, with Tchaikovsky? These were my first introduction to the classics thru Xmas mall trips.
 
You must like the Nutcracker Suite, with Tchaikovsky? These were my first introduction to the classics thru Xmas mall trips.

Oh my gosh yes! My parents had the album which my brother and I wore out. I saw a production of it on TV when I was a kid. Loved it. Magical.
 
Oh my gosh yes! My parents had the album which my brother and I wore out. I saw a production of it on TV when I was a kid. Loved it. Magical.

You're touching my heart girl,, stop that because I miss those years so much. Seriously, why can't they reproduce the magic we experienced back then?
 
You're touching my heart girl,, stop that because I miss those years so much. Seriously, why can't they reproduce the magic we experienced back then?

Dunno, but I miss the wonder of those early Christmases. Wonder and magic. That describes it.
 
Dunno, but I miss the wonder of those early Christmases. Wonder and magic. That describes it.


Wonder & Magic describes you. It takes a soul that recognize it to know it. They're not lost Gina, only waiting for resurrection.


 
You are an angel Gina. I was at my bottom during the late 90's early 2000's, before Sarah came out with her songs. Ironic, how we see each other thru the music of our era's.

Yes, it is. For those who love it, music defo leaves a mark. :)
 
You're touching my heart girl,, stop that because I miss those years so much. Seriously, why can't they reproduce the magic we experienced back then?

The Milwaukee ballet did a fantastic interpretation of the Nutcracker last Christmas. They did it with a live pit orchestra, which is so much better than when they do ballet to a recording.
 
I'm probably the biggest classical music bluff you'll find anywhere. I can probably write hundreds of pages on my observations/feelings/philosophizing of music, not the mention the tidbits I picked up from hours of scouring the Internet for information. I was actually thinking of writing a blog devoted to politics/music/miscellaneous but decided it would be too much of an effort.

Anyways, my passion lies in the core German repertoire and Russian music. The three B's (Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms) are my favorite. I absolutely love and worship Bach, and he's pretty much the only composer whom all musicians and composers universally admire and love. Even though I don't believe in a personal God (the closest thing to a religion I have would be pantheism), but the only time I begin to believe that a God exists is when I listen to Bach's music. Bach himself was devoted to God his whole lifetime, ending all his religious compositions with the inscription "Soli Deo Gloria," and his music reflects that. His music is truly devoted to God and is from God. Any handful of his music, if written by someone else, would make that person famous. The Mass in B Minor, the two Passions, the Art of Fugue, the WTC, the Goldberg Variations, the violin sonatas and partitas, the cello suites, cantatas, keyboard works, everything is at the pinnacle of music.

Beethoven is also of course, immeasurably great, but of a different kind. Bach's music is holy; it encompasses everything. When I listen to Bach, I think of the universe and stars, of nature, it's a transcendental experience. Beethoven's music is very much human, encompassing not nature and the universe but human emotions, everything from the darkest depression to the brightest joy. Bach's music is like looking at the Grand Canyon or a giant waterfall; Beethoven's music is like watching a video that compresses the entirety of human civilization. While everybody knows about his symphonies (my favorite is actually 7 with 3 being a close second, possibly due to the overplaying of 5&9), his piano sonatas and violin sonatas and concerti are also masterpieces.

I like Brahms' symphonies, especially the First, and his concerti and chamber music. I love his music, but don't hold him the same place as Bach and Beethoven, an opinion he himself probably agrees with. Nonetheless, I love his music, contrary to the opinion of many others.

While my favorite is the German repertoire as seen above (I've also begun listening to Schubert recently) but I also love Russian music. Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky hold special places in my heart, and I like some of Shostakovich and Prokofiev's music (I especially like Prokofiev's ballet music), despite my general indifference for most post-Brahms music. French music, I confess myself to be also mostly indifferent to aside from the occasional piece (Chausson Poeme, Franck and Poulenc violin sonatas), though to be fair, I never gave it a serious listening.

(Continued...)
 
One thing I've noticed in the thread is the lack of mention of performers. Performers are as important as composers, especially if the piece leaves room for a lot of different interpretations.

I don't know much relatively about symphonic music, but I consider Furtwangler to be one of the greatest if not the greatest. His main repertoire was the core German one: Beethoven, Brahms, Schubert, and Bruckner. He aimed not to just follow the composer's written notes as so many conductors do, but to achieve a transcendental experience through music. I also highly recommend Klemperer who had pretty much the same repertoire.

Of violinists, there are so many great ones but here's the briefest of overviews:
Jascha Heifetz - Unquestionably one of the greatest if not the greatest. Think of him as the person who achieved a 3-minute mile. Although many were/are on his standard both technically and musically, he was revolutionary at the time. His most famous hallmarks are his immediately identifiable silvery, highly-charged tone and ultra-human technique. He was greatest in the Romantic repertoire, especially the Brahms, Tchaikovsky, and Bruch concerti. One of my all-time favorite recordings is the Vitali Chaconne by him, and it perfectly illustrates his playing. He's universally regarded as one of the gold standards. As Gitlis said, "You can like, not like, agree, disagree, but Heifetz was unique, there's no doubt." Critics often accused him of coldness in his playing due to his conservative stage demeanor, a laughable accusation when you actually listen to his records. Personally, stage manner is one of my main complaints against today's classical music scene, but that's a discussion for another day.

David Oistrakh - Like Heifetz, also regarded universally as one of the greatest if not the greatest. Famous for a distinctive warm tone, he prefers a slower tempi than most which is why I think of his playing as introspective. He had an unfailing technique and musicianship of the highest order. Like Heifetz, he's known for his interpretations of the Romantic repertoire, but he was also very successful in chamber music and violin sonatas, whereas Heifetz was below his own Heifetzian standards due to his tendency to dominate instead of cooperate. His every note and phrase is well thought-out and crafted, but not mechanical or over-rehearsed.

Nathan Milstein - Famous for his extremely clean articulation and no-fuss way of playing. He had a technique equal to Heifetz (I think he, along with Heifetz and Ferras, has a very distinct way of holding the violin and very unconventional technique that suited him) and I think of his tone as "plain" without any of the negative connotations; very direct with a slight edge to it. He was famous for the same Romantic repertoire as Heifetz and Oistrakh, but he's even more famous for his Bach of which he was an undisputed master. Any discussion of Bach's violin music inevitably mentions Milstein. He, Grumiaux, and Szeryng were the three in the "old" days whose Bach was most admired. With an impeccable musicianship and cleanest technique, he had the tools to play Bach ideally.

Arthur Grumiaux - He's the most well-rounded violinist of his generation IMO, along with Henryk Szeryng. He was widely admired for his music in all three periods - Baroque, Classical, and Romantic. His recordings of Bach are often reference recordings (his recordings were on the Voyager), his Mozart concerti hold the same status, and he was fiery with a twinge of his classicism. I often think of his tone as very aristocratic, refined, and reserved, just like French wine. He's very under-appreciated IMO, probably because he had a mostly European-based career and he recorded for Phillips.

There are of course, many many others. Kreisler, whose playing was the most charming and sweet of them all. Ferras, Neveu, Kogan, Szigeti (whose technique was failing him in his later recordings, but possessed the highest musicianship), Francescatti, Enescu, Menuhin, Perlman. All of them were wonderful musicians.

(Continued...)
 
There are also so many great pianists. Vladimir Horowitz, whose virtuosity and bursting temperament knew no bounds. He has legendary recordings of the Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff 3 concerti. Arthur Rubinstein, one of the most admired pianists of the last century, whose Chopin is especially well-loved (his Chopin nocturnes are so lovely). Glenn Gould for Bach and Bach only. Even though I am somewhat of a purist when it comes to editing recordings, I love some of his Bach recordings which are famous for being meticulously edited. He possessed the most ideal tone for Bach IMO. There are so many great Beethoven players, such as Serkin, Kempff, Backhaus, Schnabel, Arrau, and Gulda. Serkin possessed the ideal tone for Beethoven, like how Gould possessed his own for Bach. Despite the stigma attached to Kempff for his failing technique in his old age, he was the most lyrical and poetic pianist IMO. His playing flows so naturally, as naturally as singing and humming. I adore Sviatoslav Richter, especially his WTC, second Brahms concerto with Maazel (despite the fact that it was the one with Leinsdorf that won the Grammy), and some of the Beethoven sonatas. Here's a great starting point: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pianists_of_the_20th_Century. I only wrote about ones whom I listened to enough times to form an opinion, and there are many more whom I must listen to.


Finally, some of my favorite recordings:

The Vitali Chaconne with Jascha Heifetz. This recording perfectly illustrates Heifetz's playing and is one of my all-time favorites. I don't think any words are necessary to explain the emotional hurricane that this recording is.


Bach partita no. 2 in D minor played by Arthur Grumiaux. The last movement, the Chaconne, is famous for its emotional and intellectual depth, as well as technical difficulty. It's undoubtedly one of the greatest pieces of music ever composed and Grumiaux plays it magnificently. As Brahms wrote: "On one stave, for a small instrument, the man writes a whole world of the deepest thoughts and most powerful feelings. If I imagined that I could have created, even conceived the piece, I am quite certain that the excess of excitement and earth-shattering experience would have driven me out of my mind." Notice how Grumiaux so skillfully plays the counterpoint and harmony.


Furtwangler's Beethoven 7th. My current favorite symphony, along with Schubert's 8th and 9th.
 
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