Romantics?

[Theocrat]

Do you guys listen to any of the classic?
Like Chopin or R.Wagner?

Which are your favourite pieces?

I'm a heavy metal enthusiast (and musician). But when i come home i (from the pub et al) i mostly sit and listen to romantic music. I hope i'm not alone in this predicament.

Have a nice weekend, guys & gals!
/Jonas

[Michael Moorcock]

I'll chill out on light classical or some familiar favourite like Beethoven's 5th.

[Dead-Air]

I like many, many different types of music. My primary classical listening probably ranges towards the avante garde, but I do really like Holst's The Planets, and Haendel's Four Seasons a lot.

[A_Non_Ymous]

I think you mean Vivaldi's The Four Seasons unless you're thinking of Hأ¤ndel's Water Music and just substituted the title; they're both extremely popular pieces, and it's late, so the lapsus memoriae is understandable.

I like Chopin and Schumann and Brahms quite a bit. Mendelsohn can be okay, too. Even Liszt has his moments, and I like Wagner's Tristan und Isolde. (Parts of Das Ring des Nibelungen are okay, and parts are a little too bombastic for my taste.)

To name some pieces, Chopin's Nocturnes and أ‰tudes are high on my list. For Brahms, the Intermezzi are among my favorites. Schumann's piano pieces collected under the title Kinderszenen (which includes "Trأ¤umerei") are another.

What I really like to listen to for pleasure and relaxation: Maurice Ravel's piano music(Gaspard de la Nuit and Le Tombeau de Couperin) and his two piano concertos; the complete piano music of Debussy (especially the 2 books of preludes) and Prأ©lude أ  l'aprأ¨s-midi d'un faune, and Schأ¶nberg's Verklأ¤rte Nacht. Late Schأ¶nberg, even the entertaining Pierrot Lunaire, is a little too arresting to listen to for relaxation. Same with Bartok. (I really like his "Four Dirges".)

I can listen (and have listened) to Debussy all day. Fun (but challenging) music to play at the piano, too.

LSN

[mordenkainen]

Classical music? sure. Chopin is all right. Wagner I just can't stand for too long but is at times interesting. I join LSN in the praise of my (our ) fellow countrymen Ravel and Debussy...I like Bach(JS!). And Liszt. And Schoenberg. And Carl Orff (Carmina Burana and Der Mond)...Dvorak is ok too. And Faurأ©. Oh well, the answer is yes :D

My favourites...Prأ©lude أ  l' aprأ¨s-midi d'un faune , and Prokofiev's 5th.

[A_Non_Ymous]

I overlooked Gabriel Faurأ©. The piano music is extremely elegant and a real pleasure. The suite he wrote from his incidental music for Maeterlinck's Pellأ©as et Mأ©lisande is thing of rare beauty.

Debussy is well known for his connection with Maeterlinck's curious symbolist play, since he wrote an opera with the play as his text. Remember the famous remark by Saint-Saأ«ns about staying in Paris during the summer to speak ill of "Pأ©wأ©as et Mأ©wisande." (Saint-Saأ«ns was a remarkable intellect, but he had an awful lisp. He detested Debussy.)

Let's not forget Moussorgsky's piano version of Pictures at an Exhibition. I prefer it to the orchestrated version, although Ravel did a fine job of arranging and orchestrating the work.

LSN

[HawkLord]

Romantic music is good. I prefer classical though. Classical guitar especially is very excellent.

[steeltsar]

A guy I used to know and like (a bit hung up on ether, as it happens, but doubtless a passing phase) said to me one night - I was, what, 19 at the time - "listen to this. He never does quite what you expect. Every new phrase is a surprise." He put on some Mozart. How right he was. A total one-off. Possessed, in the most literal sense, by genius. A brat with a soul inexplicably touched by God, who can make your heart bleed with sadness or burst with joy.

I like Scriabin because he believed the climactic moment of his Poem Of Fire would end the world if performed, as he wanted it to be, in the Himalayas with a huge massed choir and a battery of coloured lights. He invented the light-show.

The Prayer in Janacek's opera Jenufa will nail you to the wall, open heart surgery.

And for sheer, pure, naked beauty, listening to Thomas Tallis's amazing 40-part choral motet Spem In Alium is, well, like being shown into the gates of paradise in your soul. Go there, please; you won't regret it.

As an obverse PS, I also love the fearfully aggressive music of Iannis Xenakis: orchestral pieces like Nomos Gamma and Terrektorh, or the truly terrifying electronic composition Bohor 1.

[Marca]

I've never thought of classical music as anything other than just music. To me, music is music, whether classical, rock, soul, whatever. But you could spend a lifetime discovering the classics. In addition to some already mentioned I like Corelli's Christmas Concerto, Pachelbel's Canon, Barber's Adagio (although it's become a bit overused in recent years). I often think the greatest film soundtrack composers are the classical composers of today - John Barry, Morricone, Goldsmith, Hermann and others.

[Michael Moorcock]

Schoenberg, Ives, Messiaen are amongst my 20th century favourites.
I also like Mahler, Berg, Brian. I like some of the modern minimalists.

[mordenkainen]

Mahler and Berg! Mahler's 9th is a masterpiece IMO. Which reminds me, we forgot about Bruckner, too. Such a prolific dude I wouldn't know which of his works to suggest...

Never heard of Brian....Google, aid me!

[Dead-Air]

I think you mean Vivaldi's The Four Seasons unless you're thinking of Hأ¤ndel's Water Music and just substituted the title; they're both extremely popular pieces, and it's late, so the lapsus memoriae is understandable.

That pretty well sums things up. I was combining both popular pieces and composers into one I fear. I wouldn't make the same mistake regarding Cage, Partch, or Branca so I guess I proved my ignorance towards the mainstream. I can't even get the stuff I like straight...

[Governor of Rowe Island]

I have discovered as I have got older that there is so much that is worth listening to in every genre, that it is foolish to stick to one sort of music. Beethoven I find very stirring, as is Grieg, but many other composers can be equally moving. I have come across many different compositions in so many different styles that can change my mood that I have developed a very open mind concerning new (to me) music.

[Michael Moorcock]

Yes, my own taste is pretty wide -- goes from old folk ballads to contemporary minamilism, with pretty much everything in between, both 'popular' and otherwise. I have a soft spot for early English operetta, like The Arcadians. I like Harold Arlen, Johnny Mercer, Cole Porter, the Gershwins and pretty much all the 'Great American Songbook' writers -- also Ivor Novello, Noel Coward and so on. I must admit that while I'm very fond of Sonheim I can't take Webber and I have a particular irritation experienced when I hear the work of Bach and
simply can't abide Schubert or Michael Jackson (and the rest of that genre, whatever it's called). I like R&B, quite a lot of rap, West Indian music, Indian music (classical and popular), quite a lot of Chinese music and am a huge fan of Oum Kal Thoum, the classical Arabic singer, as well as a lot of Rai. Much African music, too. Mozart, Liszt, Alkan,
Ravel and Debussy are other great favourites. Blue Grass, Rockabilly,
Blues and quite a lot of Jazz. All have their geniuses. I also like Weill at lot and enjoy French popular music as well as Cajun. Depends on my mood, of course.

[Typhoid_Mary]

Hey Mike, just out of interest, what do you think of Prince?