Bach, Beethoven, Brahms ( & Mozart ? )

yes, Handel is a good choice. Wouldn't Chopin be the Big-C? And I believe you forgot Schumann for Big-S

Chopin is one of my favorites, too.

Thanks for the recent posts.

Under the letter V we need to add Vivaldi for " The Four Seasons ".

That's funny, I've never had that happen, but my classical tastes are more eccentric. I go in for the east European composers- Dvorak, Prokofiev, Brahms etc.

Which reminds me of a (really bad) joke:

Do you like Rachmaninoff?

On and off.

What about Stravinsky?

Of Korsakoff!

Though Brahms is not exactly east European.

And Prokofiev was Russian through and through.

Is there a more official term for that subgenre of music that you would prefer? Obviously Hamburg is not really eastern but in my unlearned opinion his music falls in more with the Slavic posse.

I have a fondness for really cheesy jokes. 

Offenbach + Rachmaninov = Offanonanoff

This may be true, I honestly don't know much about this modern stuff. Music died with Johann Sebastian Bach in 1750 (fortunately it was reborn with Led Zep later).

Nice one. 

Thanks for all of these new posts.

Besides listening to Classical Music I also like to learn a bit about the Composers as well. EW Korngold ( 1897-1957 ) was mentioned on the previous page, he was born in Austria but moved to the USA in 1934. Korngold wrote a wide variety of music but may be best known for writing music for Motion Pictures. 

Looking back to the previous page of this thread I notice that we nearly had a bit of a controversy going here in regards to names under the letter " S ". In my case I had mentioned my fondness for the happy music of J Strauss Jr but I guess that his Walzes are discounted somewhat because they are not considered to be " Serious Music ". Both Stravinsky and Richard Strauss were mentioned as being more serious and indeed I added Schubert to the list as well. However I still love the Music of J Strauss Jr because it makes me feel happy ! 

To me, Bach's music is crafted, technical rather than powerful - I hear his music and I quietly, tastefully approve. I hear Dvorak and it rouses my soul. Of course, one could feel about the likes of him just as I feel about Tchaikovsky and Mozart - too exuberant, too direct. I know an old lady who listens to Megadeth.

To reply to both of cabbie's posts at once and in the wrong order:

Another that could be added to the S's is Salieri, hardly one of the greats but someone who gained a small slice of fame as one of the main characters in a movie about Mozart. And on the subject of movie scores, Prokofiev did the music for a Soviet film about Alexander Nevski, who fought off crusading Teutons on top of a frozen lake. But that's another story.

The Amadeus movie score is amongst my favorite movie music. Lots of songs in the soundtrack that are excellent.

Maybe that's why Pandora started playing movie scores for me.

Thanks for the recent posts.

We have had Heinrich Schutz mentioned here and he is often placed in the Baroque Era. The transition to the Classical Period from the Baroque can be confusing. Handel and Bach are usually placed in the late Baroque Era however Bach must be said to have gone beyond that Era. Joseph Haydn is often considered the bridging element from Baroque to Classical. He was also a founding member of a group of Composers that was called the " Viennese Classical School " which would also include Mozart and Beethoven. A forgotten name in the development of Classical Music is Ottaviani dei Petrucci who was not a Composer but a Printer. Around 1500 AD dei Petrucci devised a system of notation that was well suited for use with the printing press ( printed sheets were needed to spread the new Music thru all parts of Europe ). As time went by Brahms, Schubert, von Weber and others brought in the Romantic Era. People have attempted to modernize Classical Music but for my taste things have declined somewhat since the end of the Romantic Era.    

One modern classical composer/performer I like is Zoe Keating. I hesitated to call it classical since it is quite different from ordinary classical music, but I looked it up and verified that classical is indeed her genre.