Bach, Beethoven, Brahms ( & Mozart ? )

I got to hear one of my favourite pieces of music again today when the radio played Richard Wagner's " Ride Of The Valkyries ". It is such a descriptive composition, in one's mind one can see the Valkyries riding along in slow motion gathering up the Souls of the fallen warriors ( quite stirring ).

One addition to 'B' composers: Bruckner - his music can sound very boring or just awesome - depending on day at least to me. Some of his choral works are simply amazing.

And couple of additions to 'S' composers: Sibelius, (not only because he is Finnish ) His violin concerto is one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever written. And tricky one to play...Oistrakh's version is old but still one of the best versions I've heard. And his symphonies are quite interesting - mainly because his music evolved during the years to very interesting directions.

And then there is Shostakovich - maybe the most underrated great composer of the last century. Some people think that his quite modern music is monotonous, dark and too 'heavy metal' for their ears. But Shostakovich had a great sense of irony and he had also lyrical, lighter side in his music. Like the slow movement of his 1st piano concerto - very touching and beautiful indeed. He also wrote very much music for films.

Some music goes well with studying certain player's games, so studying a sharp tactical game I could play heavy metal whereas a Karpov game Vivaldi's Spring ^_^

Thanks for the recent posts, some good info there.

Getting back to Composers who have worked on movie scores we seem to have missed the one who is tops in that field today. I first saw him years ago on PBS as the Conductor of the Boston Pops ( following in the wake of the great Arthur Fiedler ). Yes I'm referring to John Williams who has done so many of the best known recent films. 

My personal favorite composer is Vivaldi.  I love playing his pieces on the violin.  :D

Beethoven all the way!!

But I also like Mozart, Vivaldi, Johann Sabastian Bach (especially his fugues), Chopin, Tchaikovsky, and (to a lesser extent) Debussy.

Speaking of whom, why has nobody mentioned Debussy?

Thanks for the new posts.

Vanelau: Vivaldi is great, I was  quite jealous when you mentioned that you are able to play his music on the Violin. I've got a Yamaha electronic keyboard around here that I should learn to play one of these days.

Vulpes_Vulpes: Great list that you have there. Thanks for adding Debussy to our list.

SamAdamsBrew: I do have a thread on Rock & Roll on the go as well where we chat about Neil Young ( and many others ). 

I also play the piano, but it's not the same as the violin to me.

Vanelau: And you play Piano as well, that is very good. Yes I would imagine that there is a huge difference in playing those two instruments. Many years ago while I was still in school I made some " noise " with a Trombone, it was quite interesting to say the least.

I agree. I tried to teach myself violin. My progress was snail-paced.

Thanks for the recent posts.

Getting back to John Williams and movie scores, he is the winner of 5 Oscars ( so far ). Some of the films that he worked on include: Jaws, ET., Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Schindler's List, Lord Of The Rings and Harry Potter ( the first 3 of that series ), etc. Of course he is not yet retired, so what will be next ? 

Today I've had my Satelite radio on one of the Classical music channels and one of the interesting pieces that was played is Antonio Sallieri's Flute & Oboe Concerto in C Major. Sallieri has been mentioned before in this thread but I do feel that he gets a bit of bad rap because of the " Amadeus " movie; they needed a villian for that film and he was chosen. One tends to forget tho that Sallieri was a gifted Composer in his own right, not that different from Haydn.

Also another beautiful piece of music that was on today is " The Moldau ". I've mentioned this treasure by Smetana before but it is worth repeating the name of this little gem.   

Out of boredom, I decided to create a "Periodic Table of Composers". Of course, that couldn't be done without research, so now I know a lot of names.

Has anyone heard of Sibelius?

Thanks for the post Vulpes_Vulpes.

Doing that Periodic Table sounds like quite an interesting project. And yes Sibelius was mentioned in a post by Walrus76 here on page 4.  

Here are two dilemmas:

For "V" in the periodic table, I could either use Vivaldi or Verdi, but I don't which to use.

For "Sb", should I use Sibelius or Schubert?

Well on the question of Vivaldi or Verdi one might need to flip a coin there. I would however take Schubert over Sibelius for " Sb ", but mainly because my background is German.

CHOOSE VIVALDI OMG HE IS MY IDOL IN MUSIC

Done

Thanks for the new posts.

Vivaldi is certainly a very good choice. Aside from being a great Composer Vivaldi also served as inspiration for JS.Bach. Vanelau you had mentioned earlier that you play the Violin so of course Vivaldi is a logical choice for you.