Classical Music Snob Committee

A thread where classical music snobs like myself can share their favorite songs and whine about the low quality of today's popular music.

(I suppose technically this thread should be called the "Baroque, Classical, Romantic and Symphonic Snob Committee", since all those genres are also allowed, but that was too long)

Some of my current favorites:

Bacchanale by Saint-Saens


Chopin's posthumous Nocturne in C# Minor


Rachmoninoff's Prelude in C# Minor


Addinsell's Warsaw Concerto (Sadly not in C# minor)


The Adagio from Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez

Trust me, I have loads that I could put here. I'm just going to start with the piece our orchestra is finally playing Saturday. (Long story short, it was supposed to be on our fall concert my sophomore year, but it was struck at the last minute. So now it's the winter concert senior year, and I really like it, so I'm happy we're finally doing it)

Oh God Concierto de Aranjuez. If I could write something that achingly sad the purpose of my life would be fulfilled.

Of all the things I've heard in my life, this is the most like what the pagan version of Christmas music would be. Like Bach but dark and Hungarian. It makes me want to be celebrating Yule and have a Green Knight walk in and challenge me or something like that.

Bartok, Cantata Profana

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1ZBqQj3o7g

Also been listening to a lot of Mozart. This is Mozart in the mood I like him in; thrilling and terrifying. He spent a lot of time writing music light in spirit which I generally find boring, but when he goes for it, he really goes. Adagio and Fugue in C Minor.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gd8EdQRX0Tg

my favorites are dvorak and rachmaninoff

coplands cool too, quiet city has a really nice feel to it

Everybody loves Rhapsody in Blue, but I think too many people forget about its younger sister, which is just as good. That is, only people who haven't heard it forget about this song, but that's still too many.



Now I need to find a song that is actually underappreciated so I can justify this post.

Over the last week, I was helping out with a strings camp, and this was our closing song. Because Dvorak is great, but everyone's heard New World.

I have a library of over 1200 classical music pieces.

I find that I really love the French Impressionism: Faure, Ravel, Debussy... But also, all sorts of Russian music.

Anyhow, here's a bunch of my favorites. I'm willing to bet that you haven't heard of a few of these before:

I had this in my favorites, but forgot about it.

Autoplay was on, this came on, and it got to around 30:00 and I thought "I MUST FAVORITE THIS" only to find that I already had.

I found this just now, and already I love it:

I just really like the finale of this. It's so fun to play.

We've been playing this at school for a few months and I've absolutely fallen in love with it.


edit: I only just saw that medley thing. I was expecting to be very angry, but that was really skillfully done and worked very well. It does a great job of showing the common threads in music, especially music from similar time periods. I'm also very proud/embarassed about how many of those I could name.

I'm a fan of Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 6 in general, but out of all of its movements I prefer the feel of the 4th one the best. It's great for those times when you're staying up until 3 in the morning.



I suppose this is a bit earlier than Baroque, but I also really like 16th and 17th century music. "Wir Zogen In Das Feld" is catchy too.

I've had mixed feelings about this piece for a while but recently I gave up and decided that I liked it. It's still the epitome of late-Romantic self-indulgence, but sometimes that's okay.

I saw this live at the symphony a while ago and it's really good.

Some more I saw at the symphony. These songs are so evocative; while other songs may be based on an idea, these ones are that idea.

Putting this here just so I don't keep forgetting what it's called.

Putting this here just so I don't keep forgetting what it's called.

This too.

Man I'd love to be able to play this some day.

I've really been getting into Grieg lately. Most of these have both piano and orchestra arrangements, so I choose the ones I liked the best.

I'm not much of a snob, per se, but I still enjoy classical music. <.<











[video=youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpfbDLFSZb4[/youtube]

This isn't actually a classical song, but I thought it was cool how you could hear snatches of Debussy throughout, especially in the beginning. It's especially interesting because Debussy and Guaraldi are both some of my favorite composers, but I didn't notice before now how much Guaraldi must have been influenced by Debussy.

Most people will recognize the two major themes of this song, but when I listened to it today I was really struck by the tragic, solitary introductory theme of the first five minutes or so. I think it's one of the real strengths of this piece, but since it's not repeated like the other two are, it's not as well known.

Some more I saw at the symphony. These songs are so evocative; while other songs may be based on an idea, these ones are that idea.

these two are almost as good, and they're also about the sea:

Listening to the top choice by Rachmaninov is making my internetting and general life feel a lot more dramatic and exciting! Thanks a52.