Favorite Classical/Choral Music?

[Dover]

I'm no connoisseur, but love to listen to this kind of music pretty often and have many favorites.
Actually I most like to hear it juxtaposed or played in combination (randomly) with other kinds of music.

I love the deeply woven stillness and ascending phrases of Barber's Agnus Dei choral piece.
And the richly vibrant work of Vivaldi, especially if played by Itzhak Perlman.

Anyone else?

[Manifestor_of_Light]

1. Choral music:

Cantique de Jean Racine by Gabriel Faure.

The Barber Adagio for Strings (originally for string quartet/string orchestra) redone as an Agnus Dei.

The Nimrod variation of the Enigma Variations by Sir Edward Elgar done as a Requiem Aeternam.

The Mozart Requiem.

The Berlioz Requiem.

Missa Secunda by Hans Leo Hassler (obscure little mass)

[I Have A Dream]

2. I'm also not a connoisseur. However, there are some pieces of music...

that make my soul soar.

I only have one piece of choral music that I can mention: O Nata Lux by Morten Lauridsen. Here's a link to it on Youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJjxbwZTfi8

The same piece is contained in the following Youtube video along with some other parts. I'm including it since it has the orchestra playing along with it, and I think that this makes it even sweeter:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8REAP-OHybI&NR=1

The first time that I heard it, I thought of heaven and the angels. This must be how angels sound when they are singing about the glory of God.

I don't have time right now to include the other classical music that I like, but I'll try to get back to include those as well.

[Dover]

11. That is beautiful!

I'd never heard it before.

I can understand how it sounded like heaven!

[Shallah Kali]

3. if it ain't Baroque don't fix it!

I love most baroque music and renaissance/early music. Vivaldi RULZ!!! Ditto for Bach's Double Violin concerto! I also love Christmas music from renaissance to around the 1940s. For more modern classical I favor Debussy, Satie Ralph Vaughn Williams, Alan Hovhaness

A few of my favorite CDs

The Prayer Cycle by Johnathan Elias (always brings me to tears) http://www.sonyclassical.com/music/60569 http://inkpot.com/classical/eliasprayer.html

Canticles of Ecstasy Hildegard von Bingen performed by Sequentia

Celestial Fantasy Alan Hovhaness

Music of Alan Hovhaness Yolanda Kondonassis (all works for harp)

"Echoes of Spain" , "Music of Medieval France", "Songs & Dances of the Middles Ages" by Sonus (early music)

"Music of the Troubadours", "Codex Faenza: Instrumental Music of Early XVth Century", "On the Way to Bethlehem", "Black Madonna: Pilgrim Songs from the Monastery of Montserrat" by Ensemble Unicorn

"Sinners & Saints" by Philip Picket & the New London Consort

"O Gemma, Lux: Motets isorythmiques" composter Guilaume Dufay, by Huelgas-Ensemble

"Music of the Crusades" The Early Music Consort of London

"The Renaissance Album" Windham Hill collection. esp. like the naughty song 'My Thing is My Own' performed by Ann & Nancy Wilson.

I too love Barber's Adagio. I have a cd that is nothing but different performances of it including one of the Agnus Dei variation.

It is funny to look at my cd collection as it is mostly early music, Christmas, a bit of baroque, a bit of modern classical, a dollop of new age and around 1/2 dozen putumayo world music cds :P

[Dover]

8. Thanks for mentioning The Prayer Cycle!

I didn't know about it, so I googled it and listened to some samples and THEN ordered it!
Sound wonderful.

There are several listed in this thread by your and others that I want to listen to samples of when I have time. I'll probably enjoy most of them...lol!

[Shallah Kali]

9. I am so glad you loved it that much!

There is nothing else on the list quite like that but if you enjoy early/medieval music you will probably enjoy the ones I posted. As for the composer Alan Hovhaness he had a very unique style of classical that was more than a bit mystical. To my mind it is a bit like Philip Glass but not anywhere near so out there. I wish I knew more of music because I am sure there is some terminology that would describe what connects these for me when they are so very different.

[Stevepol]

19. Elias Prayer Cycle: samples for listening at

http://music.barnesandnoble.com/The-Prayer-Cycle/Jonathan-Elias/e/074646056929

[Dover]

23. I just ordered this CD and am listening to it right now.

I love it! Reminds me a bit of the soundtrack to the movie The Mission (which I also love).

Anyway, thanks you guys for mentioning it.

[Fire Walk With Me]

4. The Bulgarian Women's Choir, Dead Can Dance, Hamlet Gonashvili

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tluogv9EGTQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vu3boYzcBuo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efjESd4RBY8

[kentauros]

5. Bethoven's 9th Symphony

"Ode to Joy" :)

Overtoning by such artists as Jonathan Goldman and David Hykes.

Pavarotti. Oh, and U2, too ;) - Miss Sarajevo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wX6c5als1lk

:D

[BlueIris]

6. I've been trying to get more interested in classical the last couple of years. So far, my faves are

Gabriel Fauré, Maurice Ravel, and good old Bach.

[crikkett]

7. Hildegaard von Bingen

she wrote medieval music, not exactly choral but it was the first time anyone thought to use musical instruments to accompany chants. (IIRC)

[Fire Walk With Me]

10. I must enthusiastically recommend the CD of her music produced by David Lynch.

The singer is amazing. Beatiful music.

[stellanoir]

12. consider checking this out

http://www.onpointradio.org/shows/2008/08/hard-wired-songs/

The Brandenburg Concertos original score was used to insulate Bach's fruit saplings over an especially cruel winter.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandenburg_concertos

How cool is that?

Aaand how funny is this. . . ?

http://www.emusic.com/album/10991/10991604.html?fref=150042

Great thread as always Dover.

[Callie McAllie]

13. John Phillips Souza!

I suppose that doesn't really count as classical.

[SeattleGirl]

14. Mozart's Requium

Yes, I know it's a mass for the dead, but that piece just grabs my soul every time I hear it. I experience all kinds of emotions, but overall, it's a piece that is actually freeing to me.

[NJCher]

15. Grrrrr

you would have to bring this up, wouldn't you? You'll get me going again with an old obsession. As if I don't have enough obsessions interests now, what with reading about UFOs all night, every night.

Now I'll be tracking everyone's selections down and putting them on my iPod.

Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring

A Mighty Fortress

Handel's Messiah

I loved it, crikket, that you mentioned Hildegard von Bingen. Her voice haunts me.

And stellanoir, just this week, in cleaning out a closet, I came across a cassette tape of the Brandenburg Concertos! A CASSETTE TAPE!!??!

I have a shocker for you guys: I was once a church organist! Yes indeed--I sat up in a choir loft (often by myself because the choir didn't always perform each Sunday) and I played an organ with four keyboards and what was then called "stops." The "stops" could be adjusted to make the organ sound like different instruments. The organ had a foot keyboard, too. In addition, there was yet another console for the carillons. As I am sure people on this thread know, these are bells that can be heard ringing outside.

I started music lessons when I was only five and by the time I was 11 I was the church organist in a church that used an extensive liturgy.

I think there must be some past life involvement in music that carried over because I can remember, even as a kid, I had very definite ideas about what made a good church organist.

I had an eight-year career as a church organist, during which time I was completely involved with sacred music. By the age of 18, when it was time for college, I left it all behind.



Cher

[Dover]

16. Wow Cher. You must have had few peers in your age group.

A very young organist and done by 18? How can you stay away? You don't even have a piano or organ
to play at home?

I envy you that experience. As a listener, I love how the room just fills up with organ music in a church and it travels right through one's pores and into the bone. Like the original 'surround sound' experience.

Playing the organ must be like being 'inside' the music.
And possibly like conducting an orchestra with so many 'instruments' available through the use of the stops.
What is your experience of it? And how could you walk away?

[NJCher]

20. the answer

An astrologer looked at my chart and said, "You have an unused musical talent." I wonder what in my chart made her say that. This astrologer did an incredibly insightful delineation of my chart and when I told my regular astrologer what the "guest" astrologer said, she responded that she had to be getting a lot of it by psychic means. So--who knows :shrug: The two astrologers were friends, so she would know.

I don't have a piano or an organ but my next-door neighbor and dear friend has a baby grand. I've been thinking about asking her if she minds if I play. I dog and babysit enough that I could play at those times. I also thought about offering free music lessons to her six-year-old, just to have some fun with the kid and interaction with music.

During that time, I also learned to play the bassoon. How I loved playing that instrument. It is the "character" of the orchestra. I also learned to play sax but wasn't in love with that instrument like the piano, organ, and bassoon. All of this came so easy to me but when I tried the drums, I found my limitations. I was a horrible drummer and I could never march lockstep in the band. I was always wandering off, missing the beat, etc. One time a teacher had to lead me out of someone's rose garden and back to the band, which was half a block away by that time.

So when I hear the expression, "marches to the beat of a different drummer," I always think about my youth. :)

Yes, being an organist is like being inside the music. I get goosebumps just thinking about it. It is a powerful position in which to be--the interpretation has such an effect on the listeners and the organist can see it all from up above in the choir loft. Being able to select whatever instrument was like having an infinite amount of colors on the palette.

I did what was called "sight-see" music, which means I could play any piece without practice. I played "cold" almost every Sunday, meaning I didn't practice anything. I just walked in, sat down, played the liturgy and the hymns that were listed by page at the front of the church. I could just glance at the piece and get the gist of it.

What I would do, however, is play on my own, alone in the church, especially in the late afternoons during the week. That is when I would experiment with the capablities of the organ, using a stop like the piccolo. My favorite was the dulcimer.

Now, keep in mind, that with the stops, one could combine them in various degrees with each other, making for an unlimited number of sounds. It was heaven on earth!

But oddly enough, I really have no desire to do it.



Cher

[Dover]

21. Thanks for sharing that.

I get it. AND I also get how its possible to just walk away from something like that.
I've done it myself....mastered something (at least to my satisfaction), given all of myself
to it with wonderful result...and then....I was done. NEXT! It's all creative energy.
But it left a lot of people scratching their head.

However these things are also 'tools' in my toolbelt of life and I've gone back to pick them
up at various times. Like riding a bike, and just as pleasurable though not as driven.
So who knows, maybe your gifts will find a rebirth in some new form. I'm sure others would benefit from it as well.

The piano next door sounds like just such an invitation.

[crikkett]

17. very cool NJcher

we have a lot in common

including the UFO research...

thanks for the note about your career as an organist. BTW I used Hildegaard's music to maintain sanity in (what was to me) a horrible horrible world. My history teacher turned me on to her. I owe him a big thank-you.

[SocratesInSpirit]

18. I am also a huge fan of Vivaldi

There's something lovely and wistful about his music. I especially love his Gloria and Four Seasons. I even found a version of Four Seasons with nature sounds in the background to illustrate each season. (Link, if you're interested: http://www.amazon.com/Four-Seasons-Various-Artists/dp/B000000JTB/ref=cm_cr-mr-title)

I also enjoy Mozart, Johann Sebastian Bach (especially Brandenburg Concerto #6), and Albinoni (his style is quite similar to Vivaldi's - sometimes I can't tell them apart!).

[The Blue Flower]

22. My fave by Alan Hovannes

Prayer of St. Gregory. Very stirring and contemplative.

[Dover]

24. Also, Gregorian Chants

But I have to be in the mood (or want to GET in the mood) because they really really affect me
strongly and I just get so still. I can do some activity if it is somehow creative, but nothing
that requires a thinking cap.

Also love the soundtrack to the movie, The Last Temptation of Christ. Not sure what category
to put that one in.

[Dover]

25. Best combination cd collection

The persons who put this collection together must, like me, enjoy listening to several compatible genres of music together. In this case that means classical, choral, many wonderful movie score pieces, and even some very recognizable opera pieces.



It's a 4-CD set. I'm pretty crazy about it.

So you get popular pieces by Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Vivaldi, Barber, Faure, Chopin, Handel, Debussy, Pachelbel, etc.

But then you also get Stanley Myers's Cavatina (from the Deer Hunter), Ennio Morricone's Gabriel's Oboe (from The Mission), Howard Shore's, The Fellowship, (from Lord of the Rings series), John Williams, Schindler's List Theme, etc.

John Rutter, Pie Jesu frin Requiem (performed by King's College Choir)
Dome epais (Flower Duet) from Lakme
Giacomo Puccini's O mio babbino caro from Gianni Schicchi

And much more!

Here's a link with the full list:

http://www.amazon.com/Most-Relaxing-Classical-Music-World-Ever/dp/B0009S4WK2/ref=sr_1_18?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1219227594&sr=1-18




And another really good one for choral music that I enjoy is Cathedral Dreams; Music To Inspire

http://www.amazon.com/Cathedral-Dreams-Music-to-Inspire/dp/B00006I0D1/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1219230188&sr=1-1




And finally,

I've gone to the opera just twice in my life and have mainly been exposed to it through film. But I'm pretty passionate about some pieces and found many on this really nice collection album titled,
The Movies Go To The Opera. I think many of us would find them familiar.

http://www.amazon.com/Movies-Go-Opera-Operatic-Melodies/dp/B000002SQ3/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1219227980&sr=1-4



If anyone has any suggestions for collections in these genres we mentioned, please share.

[BlueIris]

26. Don't know if he "counts" because he's so modern, but: Zbigniew Preisner.

I'm listening to the soundtracks he did for the "three colors" film trilogy right now: excellent.