Classic FM are doing thier yearly Hall Of Fame - where anyone can choose thier favorite 3 pieces of Classical Music and enter them in to the largest survey of its kind. It'd be interesting to know your top 3 pieces of Classical music, what are your favorites? (whether you voted, havent voted yet, or are not going to vote at all!)
Mine are
Smetena: The Moldau from Ma Vlast (My Country)
Chopin: Winter Wind Etude op.25 no.11
Chopin: nocturne in C# minor

It's so hard!!! I can't decide!

oooh gosh, I can't remember what I chose...

Rachmaninov - Rhapsody on A theme by Paganini
Vaughn Williams - The Lark Ascending
Howard Shore - LOTR

I think this is what i chose..though I could be wrong.

Difficult decision

Rachmaninov's Piano concerto no. 2
Beethoven - Moonlight Sonata
Bach - Toccata and Fugue in D minor.

Not in any paticular order.

Just three........ nigh on impossible!

I'll have a go though. In no particular order,

Appalachian Spring-Aaron Copland

Symphony no.3 (Organ) -Saint-Saens

Clarinet Concerto K622 -W. A. Mozart

But there's other pieces I think are equally good. Decisions, decisions.....

Barry (clari)

Mine very rarely get in but they are
Elgar Dream of Gerontious
Handel Dixit Dominus
Bach Mass in b minor.


At present though I'm really in love with Albeniz Suite Espagnole Op 47 for Piano.

Just three........ nigh on impossible!

Agreed!

Brahms Haydn Variations (St Antony)

Vaughan-Williams Tallis Fantasia

Durufle Requiem

Bach St John Passion

Poulenc Concerto for Organ strings and tympani

etc

etc

I only heard this piece this morning and I love it!

I'm doing a flute quartet version with the college flute ensemble I conduct. It works remarkably well on 4 flutes (it is an abridged version, in case any of you are wondering ).

deleted, talking rubbish, it's vltava that is the river one isn't it?

Vlatava and "the Moldau" are one and the same piece and either title is appropriate

Right! Should have stuck with first instincts! Thanks jod... I'm being particularly thick today...

In which case my original comment still stands, which was that I could imagine flutes sounding fabulously watery in this piece

I mean watery in a good way...!

I'm playing it in orchestra at the moment. It is lovely, although the viola part is not terribly interesting - lots of repeated chromatic semiquaver passages....

That's what you get for being a viola, sadly.

We'll have to do lots of viola ensembles in concerts so all the violas get to do the exciting bits

I love playing the harmony though, and being in the middle of the texture If you want to see boring viola music then look at Ravel's Bolero - 56 bars of repeated pizz. chords, 1 note changes and then another 56 bars...

Violas rule! Yay - in our viola ensemble the violas will have the nice bits all the time, they won't get hijacked by celli or violins

Yes actually I've found viola bits in Chamber music can be pretty good, as the group is smaller you get more exciting bits and still keep the interesting harmonies


*snore*

Crumbs that must be seriously dull!




*must start requests/suggestions thread...*

This is interesting...

http://www.classicfm.com/index.cfm?nodeId=5377&sw=1024

Hmm...too many thing to choose from!

I'll have:

Tallis - 40 Part Motet (Spem in Alium) - Simply because it astounds me.
Vaughn-Williams - The Lark Ascending
Vivaldi - Lute/Guitar Concerto in D - I feel the need to represent classical guitar!

I'd pick Scherheradzare ( ) by Rimsky-Korsakov

Vivaldi's 4 sesaons - spring

Concerto Grosso (christmas) by Corelli!!

its lovely - the whole piece is amazing - all those wonderful tunes!
Ma vlast means my father land and is the title of the whole collection of pieces
Tthere are six peices altogether
Vltava or the moldau is the second movement and describes a river

Ah - I 'did' Vltava for my 'O' Level Music all those years ago...*goes all nostalgic*

Lovely piece (and of course now I can sing it in solfa )

Yes, Vltava is a lovely piece but I've been to the river and was rather disappointed the location didn't seem to match the music. I was expecting a picturesque setting and it wasn't helped much be a cloudy day!

Solfa - hmmmm. I can't remember. Is it B - E (Bb - Eb?) soh - doh. No, it's minor mi - la. Cyrilla, how does it start??

Rachmaninov Piano Concerto No.2 in C minor

Chopin Etude No.11 in A minor "Winter Wind"

Vaughn Williams The Lark Ascending

Right, here goes:

Ravel: Menuet Antique (orchestral version);
Vaughan Williams: Fantasia on a theme by Thomas Tallis;
Poulenc: Gloria (tieing with Verdi Requiem, but just pipping it to the post today).

Bach: St Matthew Passion OR Mozart Reqium
Sarasate: Zigeunerweisen (played by Kennedy)
Bach: Partita in D minor (played by Zina Schiff)

But I would also like the Mendelssohn violin concerto and a Vivaldi concerto...

Chopin Fantasie Impromptu

Telemann's flute concerto

Vivaldi's "four season"[Spring especially...next summer ]

Yeah...it's a difficult choice! I really wanted to put in Pachabel's Canon!!

eeek I know I didn't vote for him but I hope Einaudi does better than last year....I think all three of his pieces were on the big fallers list.

Rachmaninov Piano Concerto No.2 in C minor is my top favourite.

The next two favourites are impossible to decide! However, they are likely to be by Mozart / Chopin / Bach / Brahms. I LOVE ALL 4 of them!

Not Beethoven, please, please, please. He's too complex for simple old me.

Can I please ask everyone not to vote for Canon, as it is the most boring piece of music ever, to play that is. I am always being asked when doing gigs, 'can you play Pachabel's Canon.' We play it, just to keep them happy. Vote for proper music, like Wagner, Bach Caconne (unacc. violin music), Racmaninov, anything but Canon and The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba!

Sorry, I might have sounded a little rude, but I mean it.

Yup, noodle, it's minor so starts mi-la...

m, l, t, d r m mm f f m

m r r r d rd d t, t, t,l,

etc etc!!

Thanks Cyrilla. I'm never sure about solfa in minor keys. It will sink in eventually, I suppose....

I'm just about to start revising minor keys using my little solfa sight singing book!

Good for you, CPPF!

I know it can take a while to sink in that the tonic in the minor is lah, not doh - but thinking in terms of the relative major can help (ie doh remains the same note - eg F is doh in F major and in D minor).

I think you asked about singing in solfa for the aural tests on another thread, CPPF? My inclination would be (naturally!) to sing in solfa - as you say, it helps you to keep in tune. I think your main concern is that you're not fluent enough to sing in solfa at speed. I'm afraid there isn't really a solution to that other than practice!

If I can be of any more solfa help, please just say!

Noodle is confuzzled! So if Vltava started B, C#, D#, E, G, what's the C# and D# called? That's s, l, t, d - in E major, but then the rest of the minor scale would be wrong. I give up!

I have to agree that while the Canon is quite pretty, it's overplayed and it's not that exciting. I wouldn't put it in the top 10 or even probably the top 100 pieces ever written. It's OK, & I've played it several times, but it doesn't come close to being the best. It's a nice enough piece...

Er - think I'm confuzzled now!

Yes, B, C#, D#, E is s, l, t, d in E major. It would be m fi si l in E minor.

Ummm - sorry, can't remember the exact key of the main melody as it first appears - but say it was in E minor then it would start B E F# G A B B B C C B, which would be m, l, t, d r m mm f f m in solfa, because E would be lah and G would be doh (relative Em/GM).

Eeeep.

Hope this makes SOME sort of sense...

Aaah. Think I need to find out names of accidentals in solfa.




I can understand that ok, it's just the accidentals I haven't got to grips with. I think the original melody is E minor (or Eb minor?) but this is getting complicated enough for my little brain so we'll stick to E minor.
So if it started B, D#, E then it would be m, si la?

Thanks Cyrilla! I'm sure you're glad I'm not in any of your classes!

Yes, the Canon (WHICH ISN'T EVEN A CANON) isn't the most complex music ever. But I don't see why people shouldn't vote for it - it's well known for a reason. And it IS proper music. I like the Arrival of the Queen of Sheba though.
Wagner - proper music? Bah. No more than anything else. Some of it is a waste of time, IMHO.

PS - if it's proper music, and you're going to bash everything else, at least spell it properly

Noodle, I would LOVE to have you in one of my classes!!!

Yup, B D# E would be m si l

Which one?? Your year 3 class know more than I do.

PAH!!!! NOT TRUE!!!!!!

This is an impossible question to answer sensibly, because there are so many pieces that move to the top of my list when I have just heard them, but I decided to post here when I saw how many viola players managed not to choose one of the great Mozart string quintets. For the two violas, the best would be the G minor, K516. The minuet, in particular, is technically undemanding: only the first violin has quavers, and I would estimate that the lower parts need no more than Grade 5 standard. However, that is not why it gets on the short list: the reasons for that are its emotional charge, its formal shapeliness and its thematic unity.

For my other two works I would choose (today, at least) Beethoven's Symphony No 3 in Eb, "Eroica", which changed the course of symphonic music and has the most magnificent slow movement of any of his symphonies; and finally (even though it is not strictly Classical) Debussy's Prelude à "L'après-midi d'un faune", which many historians of music* consider the first 20th century work, even though it was written in 1894!

* Olivier Messiaen reckoned that Debussy was the most important influence on 20th C. composers.

Hmm, let's see...

Mozart: Clarinet Concerto
Mozart: Don Giovanni
Mahler: Symphony No 2, Resurrection
J.S. Bach: Mass in B minor
Mozart: Requiem
Wagner: Die Walkure
Tallis: 4-part mass
R. Strauss: Der Rosenkavalier

For my book I'd like Anna Karenina, and please may I have a Steinway Grand as my luxury item?

Oh hang on, I've got the wrong programme, haven't I Feel free to vote for any of the above though

If you are refering to my spelling of the Bach Caconne, it is spelt two or three different ways, such as Caconne and Chaconne. Other than that, I realise I spelt Rachmaninov wrong, only becuase I was distracted. I am SO SORRY!

Deborah, I think that you are thinking of Desert Island Disc's, why the Mozart Clarnet Concerto?

Very true!! Even Bagpuss has a cat able to do hand signs. *feels useless*


the_viola, Why shouldn't people vote for Canon if they want to? I know it wouldn't be in my choice of top three classical pieces but it might be for others or do you expect everyone to choose our favourites out of yours?

Ah, yes, to see Felix doing his paw signs is something else...

Please don't feel useless, noodle - come June you'll be handsigning away with ease!

My attempts at a little humour after all the sol-fa above.


Occupational hazard of being a clarinettist! I'd being playing for a couple of years when I first heard it, and it really made me sit up and go "WOW"! I swore that I'd learn it one day, so when I saw that the final movement was on the Grade VIII syllabus, I leapt at the chance - now there's no stopping me!

Aw, Deborah, believe me, solfa has a humour all of its own!

Apologies if I hijacked the thread and upset you - I was just trying to answer noodle's questions.

Oh no Cyrilla, I'm not upset in the slightest. I know how passionately you feel about solfa, and of the benefits it brings, so don't mind me when I say VOTE FOR THE MOZART CLARINET CONCERTO

Aw I love that piece too!!! I'll never forget hearing Jack Brymer play it at the Fairfield Halls about 15 years ago...