What is your favorite classical piece?

[ERCougar]

No joke, other than my cello playing skills, which are fairly laughable at times. They are good enough for me to be first chair cellist in the Charlotte South Stake Chamber Orchestra. I'm not sure precisely where we rank in comparison to other LDS-based, intermittent chamber orchestras, but I think it is pretty high.

Besides being impressed with your obvious mad cello skillz, I'm excited that "I Heard Him Come" can finally be realized by the chamber orchestra it deserves!

(Seriously, I do love the cello. I had heard Jacqueline Du Pre's name around, but didn't know her story until browsing Elgar concerto videos--thanks, wikipedia! I've had her performance playing in the background at work here. It's easily my favorite cello piece and wow--she's amazing. I'm curious to hear your favorite. My son's finally about to leave the Suzuki repertoire... )

[Realtall]

I guess that I'll jump in here. These are some that I came up with off the top of my head. I've played all but the Dvorak and Beethoven 9.

My list(partial):

1. Mozart Requiem - An absolutely transcendent piece.
2. Beethoven 9
3. Copland Rodeo(Saturday Night Waltz is one of the most beautiful pieces in all of orchestral literature)
4. Beethoven 5
5. Dvorak 9(New World)
6. Handel Messiah
7. Bernstein Chichester Psalms
8. Mozart Die Zauberflote

[happyone]

I guess that I'll jump in here. These are some that I came up with off the top of my head. I've played all but the Dvorak and Beethoven 9.

My list(partial):

1. Mozart Requiem - An absolutely transcendent piece.
2. Beethoven 9
3. Copland Rodeo(Saturday Night Waltz is one of the most beautiful pieces in all of orchestral literature)
4. Beethoven 5
5. Dvorak 9(New World)
6. Handel Messiah
7. Bernstein Chichester Psalms
8. Mozart Die Zauberflote

Good list

[UVACoug]

Its impossible for me to pick my favorite classical piece. I love classical music. I am kind of obssessed with it actually.

Some of my favorites that come to mind:

Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet
Shostakovich's 'Leningrad' Symphony
Shostakovich's String Quartet No. 8
Brahms' Sympony No. 1
Beethoven's Symphony No. 3 (Eroica)
Ravel's Daphnis et Chloé
Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra
Barber's Medea
Schumann's Symphony No. 1
Debussy's Cello Sonata in D Minor
Rachmaninoff's Cello Sonata
Respighi's Pines of Rome
Gershwin's Rhapsodie in Blue
Mahler's Symphonies Nos. 2 ("Resurrection") and 5 and 8 and ... really anything from Mahler
Bernstein's Candide and Mass
Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade and Capriccio Espagnol
Saint Saens' Cello Concerto

and many more that I can't think of right now.

[Realtall]

as for symphony, I go with Mahler's 3rd. The deutchegrammaphone recording is awesome.

Ah, a man after my own heart. Mahler 3rd is wonderful(not to mention that it also has the longest trombone solo in the literature). Mahler 5 is also great.

[Realtall]

Its impossible for me to pick my favorite classical piece. I love classical music. I am kind of obssessed with it actually.

Some of my favorites that come to mind:

Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet
Shostakovich's 'Leningrad' Symphony
Shostakovich's String Quartet No. 8
Brahms' Sympony No. 1
Beethoven's Symphony No. 3 (Eroica)
Ravel's Daphnis et Chloé
Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra
Barber's Medea
Schumann's Symphony No. 1
Debussy's Cello Sonata in D Minor
Rachmaninoff's Cello Sonata
Respighi's Pines of Rome
Gershwin's Rhapsodie in Blue
Mahler's Symphonies Nos. 2 ("Resurrection") and 5 and 8 and ... really anything from Mahler
Bernstein's Candide and Mass
Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade and Capriccio Espagnol
Saint Saens' Cello Concerto

and many more that I can't think of right now.

I'm more of an orchestral person. I don't really prefer chamber music, except for a few examples, and I can't really listen to solo keyboard music for any length of time. I guess that's why I'm an orchestral musician.

It says a lot about your tastes that you enjoy Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra. Most non-connoisseurs don't even know that it exists.

[Katy Lied]

I spent 30 minutes reacquainting myself with one of my Top 3: Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. This YouTube Video gives a few minutes of background, and then we see pianist (and polymath-- what is it about the piano and math?) Stephen Hough go to work. He is so focused, with such fantastic muscle memory, and makes the piano sing and wail and laugh and beguile and strut and and then when the piece ends, you can see him mentally collapse, wrung out and exhausted.

Hough says that Rachmaninoff himself was afraid of playing this piece, which is saying something because Rach was the biggest showoff. His virtuoso skills on the piano were well known in the day.

This is awesome to listen to, but even better to watch; you can't truly appreciate the piece until you see it played.

[PaloAltoCougar]

I spent 30 minutes reacquainting myself with one of my Top 3: Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. This YouTube Video gives a few minutes of background, and then we see pianist (and polymath-- what is it about the piano and math?) Stephen Hough go to work. He is so focused, with such fantastic muscle memory, and makes the piano sing and wail and laugh and beguile and strut and and then when the piece ends, you can see him mentally collapse, wrung out and exhausted.

Hough says that Rachmaninoff himself was afraid of playing this piece, which is saying something because Rach was the biggest showoff. His virtuoso skills on the piano were well known in the day.

...

This is awesome to listen to, but even better to watch; you can't truly appreciate the piece until you see it played.

I love that. When I wanted to show off my new CD player and refrigerator-sized speakers in the early 80's I'd play this piece (Claudio Abbado conducting the London Symphony, Cecile Licad at the piano) to my gaping audience. The final shimmering minute (around 27:30) of that is especially mind-blowing.

[Omaha 680]

I did not know this thread existed. I will need to find time to read through it. Unsolicited, here are my holy trinity of classical pieces, in order of greatness (I know these are not very original):

1. Beethoven No. 9
2. Handel Messiah
3. Rachmaninoff Prelude in C-sharp Minor

#3 represents the pinnacle of my piano playing ability, as I learned if for a recital when I was 16 shortly before I stopped taking lessons. It has been a long downhill slide ever since.

[Bo Diddley]

Scheherazade by Rimsky Korsakov

and 2112 by Rush.

[Donuthole]

I spent 30 minutes reacquainting myself with one of my Top 3: Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. This YouTube Video gives a few minutes of background, and then we see pianist (and polymath-- what is it about the piano and math?) Stephen Hough go to work. He is so focused, with such fantastic muscle memory, and makes the piano sing and wail and laugh and beguile and strut and and then when the piece ends, you can see him mentally collapse, wrung out and exhausted.

Hough says that Rachmaninoff himself was afraid of playing this piece, which is saying something because Rach was the biggest showoff. His virtuoso skills on the piano were well known in the day.

This is awesome to listen to, but even better to watch; you can't truly appreciate the piece until you see it played.

That was entertaining. A few observations:

-That oboe player must work out! (crossfitter, maybe?) (8:10);
-The cameraman is super pervy. Very few close ups of the men (other than the pianist), but plenty of close-ups of female orchestra members (often starting at their cleavage and zooming out--like the bassoonist at 8:35 whose part, by the way, is resting during her close up);
-That garb tho! I can't tell if he should be reporting the updated location of the Rebel forces to Darth Vader or if he should be next to my table lighting cheese on fire.