Contemporary...Ben has named most of my favs already, but one he left out that is not widely known is Liduino Pitombeira; Brazilian fellow, incredibly humble, and incredibly talented.

"Old School"...well, just about all of them really...and one...ummm....pretender....Randy Newman...lol

Seriously though...Randy's overtures while not anything to take note of from a technical standpoint, are just super-pleasing to the ear.

Even if his songs are clever, I find Randy Newman's voice really irritating, like some others in the pop world, ie Al Stewart, Mark Knopfler, Bett Midler, Bob Dylan ....

Yeah, it takes a lot to forgive his voice sometimes...but being from his homestate, I'm sort of more forgiving than most. I was talking primarily of his score work, like the overture to the movie "The Natural": tonal ear candy at it's best...for what that's worth.

Cucco wrote:
Haydn - BBBOOORRRIIINGGG (zzzzzzzz....)

Chopin - Kopprasch wrote a bunch of Horn Etudes, but you don't see me playing them in concert. Why are Chopin etudes SO special?

Just some thoughts...

J.

I hope this doesn't come across as rude or harsh and I don't even know if cucco even reads this post, and i don't know if cucco is a pianist...but....i don't know if u knew that it was Haydn who practically invented the Classical musical forms of symphony, concerto, string quartet and sonata. Many later musicians, including mozart, beethoven, and schubert (just to name a few) owe a lot to haydn.
Also,being a pianist, hearing (let alone playing) chopin's etudes is amazing! I dunno if u have to be a pianist to appreciate it, but if ur not a pianist, u might want to take a look at some of the sheet music with the chopin etudes in it and try playing a little bit of it. They are truely amazing and some of them can be quite difficult.

Once again i hope this doesn't come across as rude or anything. whether or not cucco is a pianist (or anyone else for that matter) and whether or not you agree with me, i do respect everyone and anyones opinion. 8) 8) 8) :D :D :D

mannyfresh

The Chopin etudes are excellent. The Lizt excercise book is excellent too for training purposes, but the Chopin etudes are more fun to listen to. As for composers I enjoy material by the lot from like Pergolesi, Pärt, Satie and Prokifiev, Weill and others. Mozart is great fun too. And the Beethoven piano sonatas... good stuff.

Haydn

mannyfresh wrote:
i don't know if u knew that it was Haydn who practically invented the Classical musical forms of symphony, concerto, string quartet and sonata. Many later musicians, including mozart, beethoven, and schubert (just to name a few) owe a lot to haydn.

CPE Bach is generally regarded as the inventor of the symphony, sonata and modern (i.e. post-baroque) concerto form, as well as the starting point of the "Wiener Klassik" (first Viennese school). While he isn't highly regarded today (which may have to do with the fact that most of his works are imo boring), he had been very popular during his time (much more so than his father) and well-respected among colleagues - among those who reference CPE Bach are Mozart ("He is the father, we are the children"), Haydn and Beethoven.

Rainer

bap wrote: The 'Mozart Effect' has been beneficial to my cat's mental capacity.
Mozart is his favorite composer.

Our cat likes jazz (mostly bop and earlier stuff) and classical Indian music.

My tastes in classical are quite broad. My favorites come from as early as the mid-1500's and as recently as a couple years back. Still have a soft spot for Copeland, particularly in the original orchestrations.

John LaGrou recently turned me on to Eric Whitacre--watch this guy.

recordista wrote:

John LaGrou recently turned me on to Eric Whitacre--watch this guy.

Eric Whitacre is a great composer- I've recorded a number of his choral works in concert. Just last week, I recorded a recital where his wife was the vocal soloist. She's an unbelievable tallent- one of the rare Sopranos that I've ever heard... Did an 80 minute, difficult program and then nailed the Queen of the Night Aria as an encore.

Anyways, I met Eric at that concert and he's a heck of a cool guy, too. Seems very down to earth.

--Ben

FifthCircle wrote: Just last week, I recorded a recital where his wife was the vocal soloist. She's an unbelievable tallent- one of the rare Sopranos that I've ever heard... Did an 80 minute, difficult program and then nailed the Queen of the Night Aria as an encore.
--Ben

Wow, that's really something. Most of the time it ends up being Queen of the Night, 1, Soprano, Nil. :)

Whitacre is really writing some great stuff! As a choral director I wholeheartedly agree. There's way to much crap out there.

I also heard something recently that I feel a need to pass on to classical fans. Our school orchestra just traveled to Eastmann and then Toronto so the director put together a concert of pieces by American and Canadian composers.
The half way point was "Music for the 49th Parallel" by Vaughan Williams. - written for the movie of the same name.
I've heard some great stuff, but this piece ranks right up there with the best 2.5 minutes of music anywhere.
Get a copy or rent the movie.

Phil

I wonder no-one mentioned Debusy... Speaking of Debusy and composition, there is different percentage of actual composition in music, considering the historical and artistical context of the times. Thus, Mozart wasn't a pure composer, sometimes Mozart was more of an arranger, "shopping" for pop-tunes throughout Wienna and PRague, mostly, and copy-pasting his accompaniament formulas, cadenzas, etc. Same with Bach, you'll find an area in the middle of the 41st Kantata which is stunning, but strictly compositional, he had same technique as many of his contemporaries. Bach (=God?) did it maybe faster and more skillful...Not so with Debusy, Strawinsky, Beethoven, Wagner, Mussorgsky, Gesualdo, Messiaen, Berg. So the subject of liking someone's music and comparing his compositional skills might divide into two separate subjects (I think there were hints on this in a posting in regard of Haydn's contribution to classical genre crystalization). One more touch - it seems like there are composers whose orchestral works are perfectly balanced for recordings due to masterful orchestration, like Ravel, or Rimsky-Korsakov. Others sucked at that as did Mahler with moments of celesta playing together with 8 horns, string section and some occasional percussion (also, Elgar cello concerto). As about "getting" the new music, depends on what esthetics certain music is related to. Picasso ranks, after Michelangelo as the second eminent artist of the humanity, but his female nudes are not even close to the real beauty of my girlfriend's breasts.
I enjoy Alfred Schnitke as much as I do enjoy Prince's "NEWS" album (2nd track is pure energy).
Cheers to all!!

Erik Satie