Hey guys, I'm new to classical music and I'm looking for some recommendations. I'm not sure if Mozart or Beethoven's music will fit the bill so I'll let you guys do the suggesting. I'm looking for something that is dramatic and motivating. I want it to sound powerful and can bring up my mood. I thought about something like the Star Wars Episode Two song, across the stars, by John Williams. I hope this is enough and if you guys can post a link to a preview of it that would be great too. Thanks!

Tchaikovsky, Peter Ilyich - Piano Concerto No. 1 in B flat minor, op. 23

Mendelssohn, Felix - Symphony no. 4 in A major, op. 90 "Italian"
Mendelssohn, Felix - Konzert für Violine und Orchester e-moll op. 64

Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus - Requiem in D-minor, K 626 (not really designed to put you in a good mood but it is very powerful)

Rachmaninoff, Sergei Vasilievich - Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Op. 18

Grieg, Edvard - Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 16

Beethoven, Ludwig van - Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125
Beethoven, Ludwig van - Symphony No. 5 in C minor, op. 67


Hope you like it

Btw.: I listened to the piece you mentioned. It sounds like what you are after is music from the romantic period.
You should probably go for composers like: Schubert, Tchaikovsky, Chopin, Schumann, Wagner, Rachmaninoff, Dvorak (actually the piece sounded a lot like Dvorak to me) and Grieg.

Here are some late romantic compositions I ike:

Gustav Holst: The Planets
Ralph Vaughan Williams: Symphony No. 7 ("Antarctica"), No. 4, No. 1 ("A Sea Symhony")
Dmitry Shostakovitch: Symphony No. 5, No. 7 ("Leningrad"), No. 8, No. 4
Gustav Mahler: Symphony No. 2 ("Urlicht"), No. 5
Anton Bruckner: Symhony No. 4 ("Romantic")
Richard Strauss: Eine Alpensinfonie, Also sprach Zarathustra

Try this. It will certainly satisfy what you've said that you're looking for:

Paweł Szymański - Partita III i IV, Two Etiudes, Lux aeterna, Miserere (Accord ACD 038)
1997

• Lux aeterna (1984) - voices, instruments
  Camerata Silesia Chamber Choir and Instrumental Ensemble, Anna Szostek - cond.
• Partita III (1986) - harpsichord, orchestra
  Elżbieta Chojnacka - harpsichord,
• Partita IV (1986) - orchestra
  Polish Radio National Symphony Orchestra, Antoni Wit - cond.
• Two Studies (1986) - piano solo
  Szabolcs Esztényi - piano
• Miserere (1993) -
  Bornus Consort, Marcin Bornus-Szczyciński - dir.

Paweł Szymański
Photo: Andrzej Świetlik

What is the romantic period?





Can you guys do me a favour and post some preview for those songs? I don't want to buy something that I haven't heard before.

Ok, here you are. This is 2min excerpt from Partita III in MPEG-4 HE-AAC v2 format (using Nero tool). File size is 502,2 KB
Partita III (excerpt)
Cheers

A period in classical music history where the norm was powerful emotional music.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romantic_music
The composers I listed are form that period.


You can find the grieg concert here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grieg#Media
And the Rachmaninoff concert here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachmaninoff#Music_samples

Beethoven's 5th can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beethoven#Media

Most online record stores offer a pre-listen function, e.g. jpc.de and i think Amazon too.

Small hint: these "songs" can last far more than one hour. If you expect shorter pieces, something like Holst's Planets would be a good start.

Here is what I started on as a small child. It is a good introduction to how the orchestra and its individual instruments work. It is also a fun story for children of all ages: Peter and the Wolf. Also good, and used in music appreciation classes, A Young Persons Guide to the Orchestra. I would listen to these two pieces and then follow up on some of the music suggested. Tchaikovsky is good to start on. The recent Russians, Prokofieff, Rimsky-Korsakov, Kabalevsky (not really Russian but generally grouped with them), Rachmaninoff they are all good. The same for recent Germans like Brahms, Beethoven and not-too-recent Mozart. If you listen long enough you will quite possibly find your way to Bach. Bach rules!

Romantics were in some ways a reaction to rationalism as they valued irrational emotion over reason. Fascism is rooted in it.

Ok, my recommendations for beginners:

Dvorak - 8th and 9th Symphony (there's an amazing record with both symphonies, conducted by kubelik, sure one of the best recordings, and i'm pretty certain you're gonna like it) (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=d...amp;btnG=Search)

Richard Wagner - The whole operas will be too much for you, but there's plenty of compilations with overtures and orchestral pieces, get some of those, brilliant stuff.

I won't recommend Richard Strauss for someone who's new to classical music, no doubt the "Alpensinfonie" or "Also sprach Zarathustra" (you know it from 2001-Odyssey in space) are great pieces of music, but they require you to get into it, so my first 2 recommendations should be just right to get you hooked.


By the way, i think the claim, "fascism is rooted in romantic music" is nonsense. It's true that Hitler was a fan of romantic composers. Still: You can safely listen to romantic composers' music without being afraid to suddenly become a racist

One more thing: in many cities the public library offers classical CDs as well. So you should be able to just rent some of the recommended pieces from this thread, and it's usually cheap. - At least it's worth a try!

Well, you must have discovered quite a bit since May 2007. For a newbie, a great introduction to Classical music is to listen to Eric Kunzel, Conductor of the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra. He records exclusively for Telarc, a fine independent label. The link is provided below;

Eric Kunzel at Telarc.

I second the Dvorak's 9th Symphony - a GREAT starting point for classical. If you like that, go for Gustav Mahler, especially if you like Williams. Also: Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's "Russian Easter Overture" (timely), the most obvious selections might be Beethoven's 5th, 7th, 9th Symphonies (classical period), especially conducted by Von Karajan . Prokofiev's "Dance of the Nights" from "Romeo and Juliet" almost IS the Vader theme. Also Mozart's Requiem - very dark, epic. Aaron Copland has some of that "bright, energetic" Williams sound, especially "Appalachian Spring".

Whatever you do - don't listen to Penderecki's "Threnody"...

The hardest thing for me is figuring out which recordings to get of a given piece.

FWIW, Muti's version of Beethoven's 9th is available on Amazon ($6 for the whole thing in 256kbps mp3) and is general considered one of the top 5 recordings of that piece--the 9th, in turn, is generally considered one of the greatest compositions in Western classical music.

Possibly cheap enough to buy on a whim and listen, then decide if you want to investigate another recording or another format.