Not sure if there is already a thread for this but what is some classical music that you fellow metalheads enjoy? any recommendations?

Well who knows, at leat I haven't seen any and the search function does not longer works for me (don't know why though...)

Anyway, I enjoy listening to the Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata (specially the 1st and 3d movement). A masterpiece.

The Toccata & Fuge by Bach is also a recommendation for any metalhead into classical.

There is also some Paganini work that I enjoy (actually I heard him because I was reading some stuff about how poeple thought he was evil).

Okay sweet Ill check those out.

Schubert is my personal favorite. Impromptu is awesome!

A lot of good classical music is underrated, but searching for the best is generally pretty easy. Just start from the basics like Beethoven, Mozart, Bach and go from there.

My favorite composer is Frederic Chopin. His Nocturnes in particular are especially close to my heart; they capture the melancholy beauty of a rainy day and the unmistakable essence of loneliness perfectly. He was a skilled technician as well as a tasteful and romantic tone poet, and although his sonic tapestries were primarily woven from shades of blacks and greys, his compositions are of such subtle and vivid color that it is almost as if you are physically part of his pieces as you listen to them.

Another composer that is close to my heart is Alexandar Scriabin. He was a student of Chopin's, so naturally his early works are very Chopinesque - and they served as my introduction to Scriabin, so as a Chopin fan I was naturally attracted to his pieces. But his later works incorporate experimental elements of avant-garde which he most tastefully displays in what is generally referred to as his masterwork, Sonata No. 9 - more commonly known as the "Black Mass Sonata".

Tchaikovsky's more melancholy moments very much connect with me, and his Swan Lake laments are among my favorite pieces of his.

I'm also a big fan of other Russian composers such as Dmitri Shostakovich (dark, brooding) and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (epic). Select pieces of theirs I would reccomend include Shostakovich's 5th Symphony and Korsakov's entire Scheherazade suite.

Of course, Bach and Beethoven are mandatory. Not many things in life measure up to the beauty of Moonlight Sonata. This is fact. Many would rank Wolfgang Amadeus with these gentleman, but I am of the Gouldian opinion and think that Mozart was a rather boilerplate composer.

And while he is a modern composer, and not technically "classical" music - though you will find his albums in the classical section of a record store - I shall forever be a devout Philip Glass fan. His Solo Piano record is in my top 10 favorite records of all time list.

Of course, there are many other composers that I enjoy: Liszt, Vivaldi, Strauss, Schubert, Mahler (his symphonies are breathtaking), (Orlando) Gibbons - but to elaborate on what each composer means to me, and how their works have influenced me and changed my life - would take to damn long.

QFT.

My taste in classical music tends to focus on Romantic-era composers; i.e., Beethoven, Schumann, Chopin, etc. I also like some Baroque material, particularly Bach. I'm not a big fan of Mozart, though, but his operas are quite good. Also, I really like Wagner and Mussorgsky. The thing is, in order to recommend 'classical' music, it's generally easier to discuss it in its different periods. What periods do you like? Baroque, classical, romantic, etc.? That way, you're more likely to get more recommendations that you like.

If you do some serious digging through the great composers, you'll discover that you're familiar with a lot more classical music* than you realized. If you've ever seen Bugs Bunny cartoons, you'll recognize Franz Liszt's "Hungarian Rhapsody", Verdi’s "Dies Irae", Mozart's "Sonata No. 1 in C Major" and many others. If you've seen Disney's "Fantasia", you'll recognize Tchaikovsky's "Nutcracker Suite", Mussorgsky's "Night on Bald Mountain", and other great pieces. If you've seen "Apocalypse Now", you're familiar with Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries". Even metal bands have used some great pieces in their work. For example, Slayer uses Grieg's "In the Hall of the Mountain King" as an intro to "Raining Blood".

The most famous composers are probably Beethoven, Bach and Mozart. Don't overlook these men because they are too popular, but don't get bogged down by their greatness either.

Try these:
Devil's Trill Sonata by Giuseppe Tartini
Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta Sz. 106, BB 114 by Béla Bartók
Symphony No. 8 in B minor by Franz Schubert
Nocturnes Op. 9 by Frédéric Chopin
Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565 by Johann Sebastian Bach
Symphony No. 4 in A minor, opus 63 by Jean Sibelius
A Symphony to Dante's Divine Commedia, S.109 "Dante Symphony" by Franz Liszt
In the Steppes of Central Asia by Alexander Borodin
Caprice No. 24 in A minor by Niccolò Paganini
Symphony No. 2 in E minor, Op. 27 by Sergei Rachmaninoff




* - I use the general term "classical music" to describe all Western Art Music, including Renaissance, Baroque, Romantic, Contemporary and so on.

Shostakovich is fantastic and Rachmaninov's symphonic stuff is underrated.

Yes, that's my favourite Tom & Jerry episode, it already was when I saw it as a little rugrat.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqxZ3AYjuJo

Check out Mozart Eine Kleine Nachtmusik - it's great! First metal arrangement! Also I like Debussy, Rachmaninov and Tchaikovsky.

Wow, nobody has mentioned Wagner yet? That guy is the most metal of all classical composers! My favorite composer by far.

I mentioned Wagner earlier, but I didn't emphasize his greatness.

I don't listen to a lot of classical, but when I do, my favorite thing to listen to is Albeniz' Asturias on classical guitar.

I mentioned Wagner. He's bad-ass, although Ribos believes that his metalness is exaggerated. Either way, he's fantastic. I saw Tristan und Isolde at the Chicago Lyric Opera a couple of weeks ago and was quite impressed.

Shostakovich is great. And Tchaikovsky is unmatched.

I currently have Mozart, Bach, Vivaldi and Haydn music...

I prefer the wind/strings/symphonies/organ pieces the most.

Why do people keep mentioning Bach? Bach is NOT classical! Bach was from the Baroque period.

Meh, so is Vivaldi.

I honestly classify all Baroque - Classical music classical, simply because using "baroque" confuses 90% of the people in the world.

God I hate Tchaikovsky. Whiny little pansy, and way too damn French-influenced for his own good. I don't understand why he's hailed as such a genius when he was really just regurgitating the trends of the time with his own generic angst. The original emo kid, if you ask me.

And agentsteel666, if you actually knew anything about Classical music (as opposed to "classical" without a capital C), you'd know that JS Bach was a Baroque composer who helped usher in the Classical period (and is thus quite relevant), and that there have been far many more mentions of composers from beyond the Classical period in here that would be much more worthy of your senseless complaining.

And yes, Wagner was awesome, but definitely NOT as metal as several other composers. In general, I'd say that chamber music from the Baroque era has many more similarities to metal than Wagner's insanely extended constant sound textures. Well, unless you're talking about drone, but that's a different bag of chips. Perhaps someone could enlighten me a bit more as to why Wagner is seen as such a "metal" composer?

I'd say that any self-respecting metalhead who is not aware of Mussorgsky's works is just as much an ignorant poser as any metalcore fan. Between Pictures At An Exhibition and Night On Bald Mountain, you've got your foundations of metal right there. There's a reason Mekong Delta covered them.

...And of course, Stravinsky. The Rite of Spring is a ballet... revolving around a pagan ceremony involving a virgin sacrifice. But apparently, that's too metal for Disney, so when they included part of it for Fantasia, they decided to make it about dinosaurs. Stravinsky went to his grave despising Disney for it.

If you're into the Avant-Garde type stuff, I'd heartily recommend George Crumb and Iannis Xenakis. Howard Sandroff is also great, and I've had the pleasure of speaking with him a couple times. I'd recommend staying AWAY from Philip Glass and John Cage, though. While I've heard a couple pieces from the two of them that are mildly engaging, most of the stuff they're known for is either completely pretentious bullshit or so mind-numbingly dull it makes progressive trance music seem like Darkness Descends.

My 666th post!

In relation to the topic, I'm listening to the blue danube (thats the one they played in the simpsons when homer goes into space) right now, I watched 2001 a space odyessey (excuse the spelling) and it sounds so nice in that movie, i'm going to try and download the full version tommorow, however long that goes for...

Chopin is my most favourite composer of all time. Also check out Liszt.

I'm new to this myself, but the romantic period of classical music is outstanding.

Awesome thread! I was thinking of asking many questions regarding to "Classical Music" here's the first one:-

-Where to start/begin from...???

-Which era? can anyone explain it to me...? the different era(s) over the years... il also certainly look-it up as well.

Ive heard many symphonic pieces played in movies as well, it just sounds just amazing and darn gratefully engaging! that's a different story...

Anyways, I really would like to get myself into the Classical music.... Enlighten me to your ways...

I have been playing some Erik Satie lately on the piano. He is perfect for anybody into ambient music or any atmosphere-centric music. I believe he is also widely considered to be one of the pioneers of it (although he called it "furniture music"). When playing his music, images of scribbles always seem to go through my head, if that gives you an idea of what it is like. His most famous works are the Gymnopedies (him-nop-eh-deez) and Gnossienes (nah-see-enz). Techincally, these pieces are very easy, but getting the right style is the main challenge with his music.

Also, the guy beat death metal bands to the whole gore thing by a good 100 years (Chilled Pieces, Drivelling Preludes (for a Dog), Dried up Embryos are some of his more strange song titles). The guy made fun of all of his contemporaries and romantic music in particular. He was the Mark Twain of composers and had a wit to match. If there was anyone I wish I could get fucked up with, it is this guy.

Some samples here. http://www.af.lu.se/~fogwall/samples.html

All the mandatory well known composers.

I also love Edward Grieg's work.

I don't know if anyone has heard some of Philip Glass's stuff. Don't know what catagory you would put him in. Every album is very different.

I've been listening to some Respighi lately, specifically The Pines of Rome. It's a four movement work about various locations around Rome. Really epic stuff.

Also check out Holst if you haven't already (especially since Bathory and Nile covered Jupiter and Mars, respectively from The Planets Suite). The Planets is great, but my favorite by him is his Second Suite in F for Military Band. It's quite majestic, and even haunting in places.

People need to learn the difference between Baroque, Classical and Romantic music. Music of the Classical period is, in many cases, the most trivial. I ignored all music from 1750-1900 for a very long time; I used to be a baroque elitist, but I've broadened my tastes.

These are the only composers you ever need to listen to:

French Baroque
Pierre Attaignant - Music printer of the early Baroque era who had a load of music credited to him because no one knows who wrote the music he printed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKLmZnrPRpo

Jean-Baptiste Lully - worked for King Louis XIV, wrote some insanely good pieces. Highlight: his opera, Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6ggBiOyEUY

German Baroque
Johann Sebastian Bach - Considered an 'ancient' in his time, he drew influence from both North German and South German styles-as well as French and Italian. I could go on for paragraphs, but basically, he is responsible for modern music. He mastered harmonic organization and counterpoint, bringing the Baroque period to its maturity. When he died, in 1750, so did the Baroque era.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZiU8xQGr1yU
http://www.youtube.com/user/Bacholoji

Georg Philipp Telemann - Extremely underrated composer, he was more famous than Bach in some respect. Wrote over 3000 pieces (Bach wrote 1000), making him the most prolific composer, ever.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_qutnEe ... annel_page
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5F46m9Fm ... annel_page

Italian Baroque
I've never gotten into Italian as much as German or French.

Antonio Vivaldi's importance is self-explanatory; he wrote a ton of good music, helped define the Concerto as a style, and lived with a bunch of deformed girls who played his music.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19LCvUF-G-E

Giuseppe Tartini was one badass dude. He had a dream that the Devil played a song for him on the violin, and he wrote it down.

Romantic
Richard Wagner - German, Wrote operas, is awesome. People accuse his music of being awkward, but they don't realize that he did almost everything for a reason.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSKL5E3zSjs

Damn, I got carried away.

one last piece

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1trE3ms3AGo

that was in reference to the movie 2001 actually

"O Fortuna" from Carmina Burana is one of my favs-and not because they use it ad nauseum in movies.

He was a huge influence on key founders of extreme metal in the 80's (Celtic Frost, Bathory). Listen to say, the Rienzi Overture or Scene II, Part II of Das Rheingold and tell me some of those motifs don't sound like old CF riffage. I read once somewhere that the overture to Das Rheingold is one of the first 'drone' pieces conceived in western music, so I see where you got that comparison. But as far as symphonic music goes, it doesn't get more grim than Night on the Bald Mountain.

I love Danse Macabre by Camille Saint Saens, great song i think. First was introduced to it in music class when i was like 12... didn't appreciate it back then, but i love it now.

Nonemclature issues aside, I enjoy a bit of "classical". Vivaldi's Four Seasons is probably my favourite, just an accessible and enjoyable bit of baroque stuff that's relaxing in some parts and enthralling in others.

Other favourites would be Beethoven's 9 symphonies, Chopin's epic piano-lating and some Schubert stuff. Quartet in G Minor, I think it was called. That's a rad bit of music.

Certainly not a rabid classical enthusiast. Overall I'd say I listen to more medieval-renaissance type stuff then anything else.

People need to learn the difference between "Classical" and "classical."

If it's with a capital C, it's the Classical period: i.e., Mozart. If it's with a lowercase C, it's just referring to the whole field of music. In other words, there's nothing wrong with calling Mussorgsky "classical," but you're terribly wrong if you say he's "Classical."

Yes, I recognize the problems with this choice of terminology, but I'm not the one who set the standards.

It's easier in German, though. You say "klassische Musik" for "classical music", but when refering to the epoch Mozart, Beethoven and Haydn belong the noun "Klassik" or "Wiener (Viennese) Klassik" is used.

I'm a huge fan of Dvorak's work, especially symphony number 9. Other favorites of mine include Shostakovich's 7th, Sibelius's 5th, Steve Reich's Music for 18 Musicians, and Stravinsky's Rite of Spring. I also have a growing interest in some more modern minimalist stuff like Glass.

I like Debussy and Ravel, to mention some new names.

Check out Ravel's Piano Concerto for the Left Hand, he wrote it for a soldier who had his right hand blown off in WW I. (Trivia: that soldier was Ludwig Wittgenstein's brother.) I had a spectacular recording of it on tape and the (contra?)bassoon part at the beginning always blew me away, I'd just loop that for hours.

I'm going to assume you mean all non folk and pop types of music.

As for that, I'll take Debussy and Ravel over Beethoven and Mozart anyday man. Ok, maybe not Beethoven , but I think I made my idea clear.

Seriously though, Debussy and Ravel just transport me to places, make me feel feelings, hell, its indiscribable. The energize me. They make me see reality how it is, or how it was for them. I think that, while composers such as Bach, Mozart and Chopin are quite awesome, but Debussy and Ravel just feel far more real, far more, them. Its wierd. It could also be that they are more reacent.

As for modernist, I haven't heard much other than Carl Orff. If anyone could suggest anything as great as him (as great mind you, not the same thing), that would be great. He is EPIC as fuck.

I don't listen to too much classical. I do though really enjoy Gustav Holt's The Planets

I tend to be a big 20th Century Classical guy, Anton Webern and Igor Stravinsky.

I wish there was a "www.classical-archives.com"

There are plenty of such archives out there, and even more sources of encyclopedic information. For information, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/ is a great source.

For music, I recommend Naxos. Don't have the URL on me, but a google search should turn it up.

Also, I'm sure if you went to any local library, or even better, a university campus, you should be able to find even more information/music. It's really not that hard, if you actually go looking.

Man, Webern? i can't stand that kind of shit.