Classical music, Operas and all.

This does say the arts in its topic descriptions so I'm going to ask it becasue it is my part time "job" (playing with youth and civic orchestreas)

Where do you stand with classical music? do you like it with vocals or with pure instrumentals. Yes you can have vocal classical and have it not be considered opera, there is alot os Saint Saeins that is like this.. Any way. If you like classical who are your favorite composers and favorite qworks. If you like opera same and what is your favorite opera. Or what is your favorite type of classical, romantic, picturesque, pastoral, etc....

If you don;t like classical what is it you dont like?


ANd becasue this is socail issuses. Where do you see modern composers, orchestral preformers and the fans of this music in modern society. What area do you see these people making up?

last but not least What makes a person come to this music?

YOu don't have to answer all but answer at least one.
Have fun

I love classical music! Even better I love classical music that is orchestrated with rock...like The Trans Siberian Orchestra! Even though I perform rock music, I was trained as a kid in Opera and had an offer to go to Europe to perform with Professor Philipinko and his wife...but I was young, stupid and didn't want to go...had I , perhaps I would of missed all the drug addiction I went through.....youth is wasted on the young....

I enjoy classical music. It's not all I listen to, but I spend more time listening to classical than anythng else.

I like Opera, but I have never had the stamina to listen to very many. The Marriage of Figaro and The Barber of Seville are two that I have enjoyed. I have a few opera compilation CDs that are enjoyable.

I am most fond of Beethoven and I have all his symphonies. I like the piano concertos, the violin concerto and the overtures. Like most people, I like virtually anything by Mozart. The horn concertos are a favorite as well as the Piano Concerto #20. I recently discovered Beethoven's Fantasia for Piano, Orchestra and Chorus and listen to it quite a bit.

I like Richard Strauss, especially the Alpine Symphony, most of Stravinsky, Brahms, Debussey, and a host of others.

[edit on 04/12/29 by GradyPhilpott]

haha, i like trance/dance remixes of pieces of classical music/opera. Apotheosis's O Fortuna remix is fantastic.

Yes I enjoy classical and instrumental music, even some opera. Wagner's O Fortuna is a classic piece, and I really enjoy John Williams and I don't know if this counts but Ennio Morricone who has done a lot of spaghetti western music.

For socail Issues. The classical musicain or any professional mussian with professional training through school is one of the most passioniate and toughest carrears to enter in. A concert mussicain may devot as much time in one day as they are awake to their job and may expect to see a yearly sarlary of around 6000$ a year. These people are in an illite sect of society. They are often lookd up upon by fans and admired but away from the lime life a concert musicain has to deal with the emotion, lack of pay, compition, and aggervation that can be brought upon by this carrear. I am sstarting to get involved in this area of work and when I started somone told me " to be a professional musican means your an Idiot. For all of the hardships for nothing are simply not worth it to any rational person."

The conductor of an orchestra is most likely one of the worst jobs in the music industry next to the mussical composer. The conductor can loose his job in one night and is loved by the people who watch him and do not know him but hated by thoes who are under him. Often ridiculed by compition for his seat and often hated for what he is. The conductor has all the glory and all the pain.

The lives of musicans are hard ones. They play a cruical part in the socail ladder and they also can be way at the top and way at the bottom. I've often laughed at the fact that TRUE musicains, the ones who for all their life have been studdying music out of passion. How they spend most of their lives working for this and get paid so little and often get so little reconigiotn by people outside their feild. They although love it. They are happy with it and enjoy it all. BUT ( this is where the socail issue comes in) pop mussicains who can't read music and couldnt tell you if they were in a major or mino key or how many beats are in the measure or for that matter what a measure is, can make hundreds of thousands a year and then they can still complain about money? I guess its that tricky word.... Talent.

Wagner didn't write O Fortuna... It was Carl Orff

BUT Wagner did write alot of great operas. Most famous of I'd say was Tanhuasser (sp)

Originally posted by Mizar
Wagner didn't write O Fortuna... It was Carl Orff

BUT Wagner did write alot of great operas. Most famous of I'd say was Tanhuasser (sp)

Ah don't you hate it when they attribute the wrong name as the author of a song?

I never figured that the life and career of a conducter would be so difficult. The sad thing is that our current music industry, mainly pop, has these lyp-synching talentless hacks who do not even write their own music or sing it ie Ashlee Simpson, while the ones with talent are often ignored and struggle with their career.

VIVALDI ROCKS!!! His music is exuberant and alive. And for opera it would have to be the Italian operas, they're tops. I will never forget seeing Placido Domingo on stage, what a treat. For as long as I could remember, I always wanted to see him perform. I saved up my money and ate beans for 3 weeks so I could go. On the day of the performance, my girlfriend who was supposed to go with me was sick and didn't go. I didn't feel too well myself but I still went. And it was so worth it. I'll always remember it. Later on I saw La Boheme at the SF opera house.One of the scenes was so sad that the 60something y.o. man next to me started crying. I mean sobbing and crying. His wife kept feeding him tissues. It was then that I understood the full maginificence and beauty of live opera and its ability to move people.

Lastly, it's hard to top Beethoven's symphomy #5 and Ode to Freedom. I have a CD of OTF that was played at the Berlin Wall after it was torn down. Beautiful.

Yes, opera is an amazing emotional setting. I cant count the times I been brought to tears simply because of beuaty of some music. Everytime I listen to Pine Di Roma byt Resphigi I always get chills and almost cry at the ending.


You mention La Bohem, exclent opera, Pucinni was proablly the greates opera composereven though his operas were sometimes political (Aida).

Beethoven was a revolunatiary not only in his music but also in his life style. Thats what the 9th symphony is about. The 9th symphony was the first symphony to ever have a Choral movement. THis amazing new concept later on inspired some of the greatest composers to write choral symphonies. most noteably Mahler. Gustav Mahler's 5th symphony is the greates example.

Keep listening and learning there is so much depth to the world of classical that it can sometimes be overwhelming

Oh and your proablly wondering why I didnt mention anything about Vivaldi. I am not a fan of vivaldi. Even though he is a baroque composer he used too much of th estring section. I say even though he was a baroque because the baroque orchestra was strings (violins, violas, cellos, and basess) THe only winds were oboe, bassoon (later in baroque period) trumpets, horns, and trombone. Percussion consided mainly of the harpsichord and the timpani.

Im a fan of baroque music but Vivaldi did not use the winds at all. Most of his music was verry similar rythmatically and in chordal status. No doubt many of his peices are beuatiful but when overall compared to his entir opus works it is mostly the same.

-mizar

I am more into light classical like Arthur Fiedler and John Williams i.e., anything from the Boston pops. I do like some classics's like Bolero and 1812 overture and some others I cannot think of their names right now.

Never did care for opera; don't ask me why, I don't know, just not my bag I guess.

I absolutely adore Carmina Burana.........just ask my neighbours. Songs of drunkeness and debauchery. Interesting history behind the poems that the opera is based on also.

I absolutely abhor Carmina Burana. It really hasn't anything to do with the subject matter, I just hate the music.

I think one of the reasons I hate it so much is that back in the eighties, WWNO played the piece or pieces, I guess, ad nauseum.


[edit on 2006/9/2 by GradyPhilpott]

I have various collections of classical music, from just pure enjoyment to relaxation.

Yes classics should be an integral part of children development in arts.

Right now I can not get enough of Yanni.

Late at night my husand and I love to watch on cable, concerts.

Now operas are not my favorite but anything with orchestras just take my away hart away.

Originally posted by marg6043
Right now I can not get enough of Yanni.

Yanni? Great Ceaser's Ghost!

To each his own, I guess, but we are talking classical music here.

What next? John Tesh? :bash:

[edit on 2006/9/2 by GradyPhilpott]

To watch and listen to a philharmonic orchestra perform is one of life's great pleasures--the superb synchronicity, the individual and group artistry, the impeccable timing, the responsiveness to the conductor and above all the magnificant sounds are a living testament to the value of human cooperation. Just thinking back to some of the performances I've seen and heard brings me to the edge of tears. No other form of music has anywhere near the emotional impact of a good classical performance. One of my most fervent wishes is for a sound system that could accurately reproduce the sounds of a great classical orchestra. Perhaps one day technology will take us there.

I hesitate to start trying to single out and name my favorites simply because I have so many. Saint Saens, "Carnival of the Animals"; Edvard Grieg's Pier Gynt Suite; Massenet's Meditation from Thais; Beethoven's Symphony No. 5; Chopin's Concerto For Piano and Orchestra No. 2; well I'll just stop here even though I've barely started.

Music is a big part of my life and I would be very unhappy without it. Even though I listen mostly to rock and pop music (and enjoy it tremendously), nothing compares to the expressiveness and beauty of good classical music, be it orchestral, chamber, strings, opera, ballet, or what have you.

Kids grow up watching cartoons yet I would venture to say that not one in a hundred realize the music accompanying those cartoons comes from the classics and mostly from Rossini's William Tell Overture.

[edit on 2-9-2006 by Astronomer70]

Originally posted by Astronomer70
One of my most fervent wishes is for a sound system that could accurately reproduce the sounds of a great classical orchestra. Perhaps one day technology will take us there.

I pity your neighbors.

In the seventies, there was a movement toward binaural recording that was supposed to render a very convincing musical experience when listened to wearing headphones.

The idea was to implant microphones in the "ears" of a human head-shaped silicone mass and place it in the center of a concert hall for the recording. The sound one was supposed to hear as a result was supposed to be as near to actually being there as technology could provide.

I never hear anything about that technology anymore, despite the Wikipedia article.

Besides that, however, I thank God that I live in the age of high fidelity and I can enjoy the greatest music ever composed with minimal expenditure and without leaving the house. I can listen in my car or even as I walk or take the bus.



[edit on 2006/9/2 by GradyPhilpott]

Originally posted by GradyPhilpott
I absolutely abhor Carmina Burana. It really hasn't anything to do with the subject matter, I just hate the music.

I think one of the reasons I hate it so much is that back in the eighties, WWNO played the piece or pieces, I guess, ad nauseum.


[edit on 2006/9/2 by GradyPhilpott]

you mentioned WWNO. thats my local NPR/ Classical station. How do you know of them or are affiliated with them?

I notice your in new mexico. Im curious..

and Astronomer 70 I couldnt agree more.

The first Louisiana Philharmonic Orchesta's preformance after hurricane Katriania had a opening peice of the National Anthem by John Williams. This version by Williams was the most amazing I have ever heard. I had my pulse sky rocket and I literally began sweating. The pride, the emotion, the patritisom, and the shere power of the arrangment brought me to my knees almost. I will never forget that.

I once heard a concert opener of Fanfare For a Common Man. and to hear the entire auditourm in a dead scilence then the first timpani notes. ANd the crisp clear perfect trumpet. I literally cried. it was so moving....

you are correct sir that nothing can compare to the emotion of classical music.

I lived in New Orleans for 22 years from 1976-1998. I remember WWNO when it was a font of the most beautiful music in the history of man and news was just an nice feature. Now news is it's main purpose and music is just an after thought.

The monthly guide used to be so comprehensive that I was able to plan my day around the music that was scheduled and I recorded many works off-air, thus saving me a lot of money in days when I had little.

I am a graduate of UNO and Tulane University.

Originally posted by GradyPhilpott
What next? John Tesh? :bash:

LOL!!

That reminds me of an episode of Harry Shearer's Le Show, wherein he played a parody of Tchaikovsky's "Peter and the Wolf" as performed by John Tesh and narrated by Kato Kaelin! Truly one of the funniest things I've ever heard -- it would have made Professor Peter Schickele proud.

Baack