What's your favourite piece of classical music?

[Cathryn]

My school plays Classic FM all day in the main area we all walk through and I really love it. I grew up in a musical family playing clarinet and piano so I've always had a love for classical music, but kind of drifted away from it when I was older. I really enjoy hearing pieces I remember as I walk round the school. I have very Classic FM taste in music, I'm unashamed to say. My all-time favourites are Rachmaninov's 2nd Piano Concerto and the final scenes of Swan Lake but my current favourite is Shostakovich's Jazz Suite. I've been singing it all day since I heard it on the radio. (Lucky children!)

Shoss. Jazz.

What's your favourite piece and why?

 

[VelvetUnderpants]

Ralph Vaughan Williams - The Lark ascending

It reminds me of my childhood and the English countryside playing in fields in summer, looking up at the sky without a care in the world.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZR2JlDnT2l8




On the other hand I could easily have said Fantasia On A Theme By Thomas Tallis because it reminded me of my Grandfather who with my grandmother raised me for seven years. He fought in World War 2 and was in the Grenadier Guards, and would listen to this as well as military band music on a Sunday. My grandmother called him the sergeant major because he never really left the army. We played this at his funeral.

Sadly most of his generation have now gone, but never forgotten.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0U6sWqfrnTs

 

[Domus]

Beethoven's 6th Symphony (Pastoral). It was my father's favourite and always makes me think of him.

 

[OldShep]

Just perfect and always brings a tear for some reason

View: https://youtu.be/C8uoY9e5YVY

 

[The Crofted Crest]

Check out Shosto's string quartets, all 15 of them.

 

[MontyVeda]

Disney's Fantasia was my introduction to the classics (sorry, I have uncultured parents)

The Nutcracker Suite is a favourite... simple, playful, whimsical.
The Right of Spring for a bit of doom and boom.
New World Symphony is so familiar it's hard not to like it.
Almost anything by Bach.

Does Classical Gas count? (I only like it for a minute or so, then it gets silly/boring... so not a favourite)

 

[Sharky]

Don't know the names of any classics, but I often play Classic FM in the car and really like the soothing classical music, without loads of DJ's endlessly talking.

 

[Cathryn]

Check out Shosto's string quartets, all 15 of them.

Will def try a few! 15 is a lot.

 

[stoatsngroats]

Another for The Lark Ascending, but it’s not my favourite, that would Abinoni’s Adagio HERE

 

[PeteXXX]

Tchaikovsky ~ Hymn Of The Cherubim


Closely followed by Fauré's Requiem

 

[slowmotion]

Beethoven's Symphony No. 3, The Eroica. Karl Bohm's 1970's recording with the Vienna Philharmonic is utterly fantastic.

 

[Donger]

Carling Black Label.

 

[figbat]

I’m not really a classical person but there are pieces I can appreciate. In fact I can appreciate plenty but won’t generally know who or what I am appreciating. Anyway, a couple I remember:

Wagner’s Ride of the Valkeries - no doubt due to its use in popular media.
Mahler’s 7th, 2nd movement - if you listen to it you’ll probably work out why.

 

[Ian H]

I really dislike 'easy listening' such as Classic FM. In fact I can't stand background music. And I far prefer live performance to recordings. Stand-outs for me were Stockhausen directing three orchestras at St John Smith Square some time around 1968; Mahler's 10th at the Festival Hall many years ago. Various late-night concerts including Cage's altered piano pieces, and Stockhausen (he'd died in the meantime). Vaughan Williams' Tallis variations always move me. But the Desert island discs would have to be Beethoven's quartets. I can listen to those repeatedly and always find something new.

 

[Tail End Charlie]

So many to choose.
Perhaps Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata for me. It is just so soothing.