Beethoven is my favorite composer.

My favorite piece, however, is Pachelbel's Canon in D major.

 

Apocalyptica is a pretty awesome band. Just a quick word of advice: If you live in America you can get an account on Pandora Radio, that plays music similar to an artist/song you choose. There are other music recommendation services online but I haven't tried them.

A quick tip;Pandora really good, but sometimes the music it plays is kinda dissonant with what you started off with. Only rarely, however.

I've used it for Hip-Hop, Pop, Trance, Rock...just about any genre has a large presence on it.

 

I'm not hugely into classical music but I do occasionally listen to Mozart/Chopin etc.

My favourites at the moment have gotta be Philip Glass and Ennio Morricone

 

The Carmina Burana is by Carl Orff, isn't it ?

I think it's classical music in the wider sense, not just music from the classical era. But I don't consider Beethoven's later works, or Schubert's work to be classical.

I fail to see any Schubert. As a Schubert fanboy, I'll name a few things:

The impromptus (in particular D899, this shit is genius), the sonatas (D959 and D784 I like in particular), the Fantasia in F minor, D940 (for piano four-hands) - for performers, I like Brendel but there might be a better reference out there.

Outside of the strictly-for-piano repertoire, there's also the Lieder (oddly missing here too), the arpeggione sonata, the string quartets (Death and the Maiden, anyone?), the string quintet (D956), the second piano trio (D929). And probably a bunch of other shit I forgot.

Fixed that. I agree with Schumann concerto as well.

I'm not a huge opera fan, but for those who want to try out some of the easier classics, I recommend Verdi and Mozart (La Traviata and Die Zauberflöte are the ones I got into a few years ago).

Also, from some other thread:

 

Ah, Schubert. For those that think he's boring like me, you can still listen to the Tausig transcription of the Military March, the Wanderer Fantasy, the impromptu mentioned by oephyx, the third of the moments musicaux, and some of the transcriptions by Liszt.

I'm going to recommend a specific recordings that are really triumphs of music in general. Some aren't famous to anyone with only a surface familiarity with the repertoire. And rightfully so, but there are those great artists who can elevate an average work and make it sound better than it actually is.

Schubert-Liszt Soireés De Vienne, Valse-Caprice#6 - The last piece Franz Liszt ever performed in public, FYI.

The seventh is beautiful too.

Saint-Saëns/Godowsky - The Swan

Rachmaninoff - Prelude in G major, Op. 32 No. 5

Debussy - La Fille Aux Cheveux De Lin. - Unusually reflective, unsentimental yet is very sweet. The ultra-pianissimo had me blinking. If for no other reason, (and if you're a violinist) you should listen to it simply to comprehend the possibilities of dynamic range on the instrument.

It is originally for the piano (Book of Preludes) but Heifetz must have arranged it for the violin.

Barber - Piano Concerto No. 2, 2nd mvt. - Hauntingly beautiful. I can't begin to describe it. Samuel Barber won the Pulitzer Prize for its composition, and the pianist is John Browning, known to some as the rival of Van Cliburn of Tchaikovsky Competition fame. Find the entire second movement if you can.

Liszt- Mephisto Waltz No. 1 - performed when Horowitz was 75. Fuck.

Liszt Sonata in B Minor - the most profound work penned by Liszt. Still insanely virtuosic of course.

Rachmaninoff - Piano Concerto No. 3 in D Minor - When Horowitz was 78, the most treacherously difficult concerto of all time for the piano, as agreed upon by many famous pianists and can be attested to by generations of pianists that failed to learn it. The circumstances are extraordinary, let me explain Horowitz was an intimate friend of Rachmaninoff, and was particularly famous for this concerto, which he graduated from the conservatory at Ukraine when he was 16, and brought the faculty to its feet in the only standing ovation of the institution's history.

Rachmaninoff declared the concerto Horowitz's property, and made his only unscheduled public performance in Pasadena when he mounted the stage to congratulate H after he played it.

Horowitz played the concerto at Carnegie Hall, making his first orchestra appearance in 30 years, with Eugene Ormandy, who himself conducted for Rachmaninoff himself in the 40's when the composer made his own recording of it (which is itself worth hearing).

So this is one of the greatest of all composers saying that someone owned o absolute perfection, down to the last goddamn phrase. You have the performer, and the conductor who worked with Rachmaninoff personally, the two biggest champions. Imagine Chopin or Schumann saying this of competitive works like the ballades or the concerti and you'll have an idea of how epic it is.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90iRwSpBQDA&feature=related -
There's also a video recording of him playing with Zubin Mehta, and an insane performance when he was close to his prime at the age of 50, all of which are treasures.

Bach - Again a composer I don't listen to much, since I played the WTC to death. I could sight-read a four-voice fugue at a whim now. But the Bach-Busoni Toccata and Prelude arrangement by Siloti are beautiful.

And the Bach Chromatic Fantasy is Bach for people that... do not like Bach.

Beethoven - Eroica Variations, Rage over a Lost Penny. Hammerklavier Sonata is a work that takes listening to, but is extremely rewarding after you internalize it. The Emperor Concerto is riveting even if you don't listen to Beethoven with any regularity.

Fritz Kreisler - the embodiment of charm and grace on the violin.
Toy Soldier's March
Schon Rosmarin
Liebesleid & Liebesfreud, for how can you have one without the other.

Listen to Kreisler performing with Rachmaninoff at the piano too. I am very glad great musicians such as they managed to live into the recording age.

 

I was driven to revive this thread after coming back from a concert by the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

They played this piece:
Daphnis et Chloé Suite No. 2 by Maurice Ravel and I found it extraordinarily beautiful for its mad sweeping passion, especially in the beginning. Listen to at least the five-minute mark with the volume turned way up.

My favorite five minutes ever in any piece of music.

 

My favourite classical piece is the Adagio from Schubert's String Quintet in C Major, D.956, Op.163.

I listen to a lot of classical though, including Vivaldi, Verdi, Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Dvorak, Chopin, Wagner, Bruckner, Holst, Grieg, Stravinsky, Sibelius, and Shostakovich.

Lately I've been listening mostly to Bach, Sibelius, and Shostakovich. The latter's symphonies are some of the best I've heard. Plus, Shostakovich personally was an interesting fellow, considering the place and time he lived in (Soviet Union).