Lately, I've been listening to a lot more classical music... ranging from English Folk Songs to piano concertos to crazy violin solos... I've always been a fan of classical music, being the band nerd I am, but I've been trying to explain my knowledge of classical music, in effort to become a better classical musician myself. Ralph Vaughn Williams has always been one of my favorite composers, and I have a new appriciation for his music since I've played some of it on lead clarinet... Gordan's Jacobs pompous style has kind of grown on me, once again since I played a piece of his, and am now looking to expand into him more... Mozart? Well, I have a love/hate realtionship with Mozart. A lot his music feels like overdone scale exercises to me, but it's challenging to play, and fun to listen to if in a certain mood. Other classical composers like Bach have been catching my ears more than Mozart lately... Maybe it's just because I've been forced to play so much Mozart... Who knows... So who do you guys listen to when it comes to the more laid back (or far more intense, depending) side of things? I would love to expand, espeically into musicians I could find some pieces of music of and actaully play myself...
I really like Mozart and Beethoven as I used to have to play a lot of it when I was younger. I'm a huge fan of Wagner because his music is just so powerful. Tchaikovsky was amazing, the sleeping beauty is some of my favourite romantic music ever. These are just a few from the classical/romantic eras. I am also a fan of the beginning...Baroque etc. Not so keen on 20th century...just gets very atonal and extreme, but I do appreciate that in order to have made it to where we are today, we needed the 20th century to kick off the Jazz and the Blues, which are the two genres which still influence almost all music created today.
I honestly haven't heard much Wagner, which surprises most people... I should look into him more, any recommendations?
Did you know that the traditional Wedding song "Her comes the bride" was actually taken from a Wagner composition? If you listen to "The ride of the Valkyries" you should recognise it, it's been used many times by the media. Such a powerful piece of music. He's actually a pretty mondern romantic composer... around in the 1800s! Not very long ago whatsoever.
I never have a good reply for the classical questions. I should remedy that. The few compilations I had always did the trick when I was in the mood for some classical music. But the heavy hitters always stood out; Beethoven, Mozart and Bach. Off the back of those comps I've since got more Beethoven and Mozart, but that's about the top and bottom of it
I love a bit of Beethoven. Get me drunk and I might sing the "Ode to Joy" from the ninth symphony in German!
