Do you have any favourites?
These are just a few of mine:

Beethoven's Pastoral symphony (can't remember the number)
Mozart's Clarinet concerto
Sibelius' Finlandia
Many short pieces of Chopin (and also his piano concerto no 1 I think)
Brahms' Piano concerto no 2
Pieces by Delius & Vaughan williams

Me-  I love mostly Japanese composer's.

Heisoku no Kakudai-  ( and others)

unknown artist


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VA7wPLOrlaw

bogarde73 wrote on Jan 1^st, 2016 at 1:25pm:

Beethoven's Pastoral symphony (can't remember the number)

That'a 6.  I'm more partial to his fourth myself.

Also a big fan of some of the less grandiose romantics like Mendelssohn and Chopin.

I forget who said it but he opined that the world would be a better place if everyone listened to Mozart for 10 minutes a day.

Mozart's 21st Piano Concerto
Tchaikovsky's 1st ditto
Smetana's Ma Vlast
I heard part of Mendellsohn's Scottish Symphony this morning. Great way to start the year...

The Heartless Felon wrote on Jan 1^st, 2016 at 2:23pm:

I heard part of Mendellsohn's Scottish Symphony this morning. Great way to start the year...

Another good one, as well as the Italian.  Both extremely well written.  Fingal's Cave (Hebrides Overture) is another excellent piece by him if you are familiar with it.

bogarde73 wrote on Jan 1^st, 2016 at 1:25pm:

Do you have any favourites? These are just a few of mine: Beethoven's Pastoral symphony (can't remember the number) Mozart's Clarinet concerto Sibelius' Finlandia Many short pieces of Chopin (and also his piano concerto no 1 I think) Brahms' Piano concerto no 2 Pieces by Delius & Vaughan williams

Yes, Bogey, I have all of those.  The only music I dislike is Opera (cat's wailing) and Country and Western.  ;D

This is my favourite Chopin.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yjnLmv1hHU

Yes, but chamber-music over the symphony orchestra. The bombastic stuff is no more interesting than Death-Metal.

Paganini's works are favourites.

issuevoter wrote on Jan 1^st, 2016 at 4:18pm:

The bombastic stuff is no more interesting than Death-Metal. Paganini's works are favourites.

I'm curious as to what you mean by "bombastic" as that music could very easily be used to describe much of Paganini's music. 

I would have loved to see Paganini live, from all accounts he was a freak of nature.

Beethoven

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Tr0otuiQuU

Nothing big bombastic or overpowering about this piece , beautiful.  Moonlight Sonata, lovely.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7EqoZYDhGs

I have a collection of the choral works of John Taverrner 1490 – 1545 (who appears on my avatar), including this one:

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

One of my ancestors was a fairly obscure but accomplished Australian composer, Julia Nixon b. 1874 and pictured below. She wrote mainly for the pianoforte.



I still have some of her original sheet music.

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Stratos wrote on Jan 1^st, 2016 at 4:44pm:

issuevoter wrote on Jan 1st, 2016 at 4:18pm: The bombastic stuff is no more interesting than Death-Metal. Paganini's works are favourites. I'm curious as to what you mean by "bombastic" as that music could very easily be used to describe much of Paganini's music.  I would have loved to see Paganini live, from all accounts he was a freak of nature.

Bombastic: Ride of the Valkyries, and all of that bloody noise in the 1812 Overture, just for starters.

I happened to notice the New Year concert by the Vienna Philharmonic was broadcast in the middle of the night by SBS and have recorded it.

Something to look forward to watching. It always has a lot of Strauss of course. Great stuff.

I have a huge collection of vinyl records and music sheets of classical composers music.
Used to teach classical mainly on piano and keyboard. The kids loved Beethoven's Fur Elise (for Elise, his sweetheart at the time), having found a simpler version of the music for them to play.
Interesting life story of these classical composers of their time.
For instance, did you know, that Beethoven had gone completely deaf, and he had taken the legs off his grand piano, put his piano on the floor to play, and would go by the vibrations to write more music.

Knew he was deaf of course but didn't know that he did that.
Many composers don't need a piano or anything to write though, they can hear the sound and visualise the notation in their head.

I bet there is computer technology today to assist the hearing impaired with such things.

I've only heard that story as myth, and I'm not inclined to believe it for several reasons.

a) Beethoven was a skilled composer, and even amateur can "hear" music in their own minds from manuscript.  It's a pretty basic skill I'm positive Beethoven would have.  Hearing individual notes through their vibrations though?  Not so sure about that one.

b)  It would destroy some basic functions of the piano (pedals)

c)  At this time, Beethoven was old.  playing cross legged on the floor would have been seriously uncomfortable.

Could be true, good story at least.

There is a lot of written stuff about it, although I had heard of it before the advent of computer and internet.

It could be true, but then again maybe not entirely, to find out more, a visit to Germany where the house he used to live in still stands as a museum/exhibiton could give some clues, and a few questions asked, may give more insight into the composer's life on a more personal level.

His father was a heavy drinker, and was a bit cruel to young Ludwig, hence, Ludwig's pesonality I have read, was a bit erratic.
Along with his hearing loss, it is written he also had tinnitus, which is something I have...and although I have learnt to live with it, but in my younger years, it was all I could hear when it was quite bed time. It's like having 2 or 3 differnt notes on organ keys compressed all the time.

Anyway, I had a chuckle reading this article, where he would be seen by visitors in his underwear or even naked on the floor with his piano with the chopped off legs. Now that part I didn't know before! :)

http://www.artsalive.ca/en/mus/greatcomposers/beethoven.html

Re OP: No.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0diDwHtATw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZRy69dOGa8

Some - depends on mood....

I am not a big fan of JS Bach, but I used to have a three LP set of the partitas and sonatas for solo violin by Menuhin. I heard some of it on the ABC today and it all came flooding back, no pun intended.