Favorite Classical Works

[KagayakiWashi]

Alright, I'm a classical junkie who just loves the world of classical music and I'm wondering what your favorite classical works are. Opera, chamber music, string quartets, symphonies....anything! Here's a few of mine.....

Danny Elfman - Serenada Schizophrana
Philip Glass - Heroes Symphony, Glass Works
Gustav Mahler - Symphony 1
Ludwig Van Beethoven - Symphonies 3, 5, 6, 7, and 9, Piano Sonata #14 and #32
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Don Giovanni, Piano Concerto 20, Requiem K626
Franz Liszt - Hungarian Rhapsodies, Mephisto Waltz, Totentanz
Dmitri Shostakovich - String Quartet #8, Symphony #4 and 7, Jazz Suite #1 and 2, The Execution of Stepan Razin
Igor Stravinsky - Petrouchka, The Rake's Progress, Fireworks, The Firebird
Sergei Prokofiev - Alexander Nevsky
Richard Wagner - Tannhauser, Der Fliegende Hollander, and probably my absolute favorite of all time, Der Ring Des Niebelungen.....the 14 hour tetrology of Norse mythology composed over a 25 year span. Truly amazing stuff.

[GhostontheNet]

For the purposes of this thread I'll count both Classical and Neoclassical works:

George Frederick Handel - The Messiah
Johan Sebastian Bach - St. John's Passion
Karl Jenkins - Requiem
The Choir of New College, Oxford - Agnus Dei: Music of Inner Harmony
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Requiem
Gabriel Faure - Requiem
Franz Joseph Haydn - The Creation
Philip Glass - Dracula
Karl Jenkins - The Armed Man: A Mass For Peace
George Gershwin - The Piano Rolls

[Doubleshadow]

Johann Sebastian Bach - Air on the G String, Brandenburg concertos, Cello Suite No. 1
Ludwig Van Beethoven - Fur Elise, Moonlight Sonata: Adagio Sostenuto, Symphony 3, 6
Frédéric Chopin - Waltz Op.64 No.1, Minute Waltz, Etude Op.10 No.1, Allegro, Etude op.10 No.3, Tristesse
Arcangelo Corelli - Adagio from Concerto Grosso Op. 6, 9
Joseph Haydn - London Symphony, Serenade
Franz Liszt - Etude No.3 La Campanella, Liebestraum, Un Sospiro
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Rondo Alla Turca, Symphony 40
Johann Pachelbel - Canon in D
Antonio Vivaldi - Concerto Grosso Op.3, No.11, Four Seasons, Violin Concerto Allegro

[yukoxholic]

Eminence Orchestra if you haven't checked them out you should if you're a fan of the scores found in Anime and Video Games they get it down to a perfect T. Anybody who went to Otakon 2007 and missed their performance is an idiot. That was the best 90 minutes of my life.

Eric McCarl. I love his piano works. His light trilogy is beyond amazing.

Yo-Yo-Ma. Genius, enough said.

Bach Another genius. I love his Goldberg Variations.

Chopin: Étude Op. 10, No. 12, Étude Op. 10, No. 3 and Polonaise Op. 53.

Michael Gluck (aka Piano Squall): Ok, so he dresses like Squall for a living but that doesn't make him any less the most awesome pianist for compositions from Nobuo Uematsu.

Nobuo Uematsu: Man's a legend in his own right. I love his Black Mages "rock work" and his scores in Final Fantasy VIII and X.

Hitoshi Sakimoto: He's truly what I like to call a "raw talent composer". He has absolutely know schooling in music and has never listened to any classical music in his life but he can compose astounding musical scores. His best are featured in the anime Romeo x Juliet, Odin Sphere, Vagrant Story, and Final Fantasy Tactics. I also love the song Ferris Wheel and his compositions for singer Lia.

Yasunori Mitsuda: Xenosaga Episode I: Der Wille zur Macht, Chrono Trigger, Chrono Cross, Shadow Hearts, and Shadow Hearts: Covenant. Radical Dreamers and Sailing To The World are my all time favorite songs which remind me of summer.

Kō Ōtani: Man did Gunslinger Girl -Il Teatrino, Haibane Renmei, and Shadow of the Colossus.

Yuki Kajiura: Girl's also a genius! ^__^. Tsubasa Chronicle, hack series, Mobile Suit Gundam SEED, Madlax, Xenosaga 2 and 3.

Yoko Kanno: I love her band The Seatbelts but her compositions are also very good. Cowboy Bebop OSTs are outstanding.

Kanon: She's a Japanese Pop/Opera singer. Her song Brand New Breeze is beautiful. Her voice is clear as a bell and like an angel's.

Joe Hisaishi: The man's a studio Ghibli prodigy. Spirited Away, Howl's Moving Castle, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, My Neighbour Totoro, and the list goes on.

And that's all I can think of right now...

[ShiroiHikari]

I love a lot of classical pieces, but I can't remember the names of half of them, and I don't have my CDs anymore. -_-

[Scarecrow]

Dont really know who did most of them but here are my favorites. Moonlight Sonata is my all time favorite classical piece. Beethoven's 5th, and Canon? I think thats the name of it. I forget who did Canon but they have Canon Rock and Christmas Canon Rock by Trans Siberian Orchestra.

I looove Trans Siberian Orchestra. Probably the only ones who play good classical Christmas music I like.

[Hana Ryuuzaki]

[font="palatino Linotype"]I LOVE Richard Wagner.

We actually listened to 'Flight of the Valkyries' in Reading Class the other day!!

Umm, gosh.

I love Beethoven's Fur Elise. That was the first song I learned to play on the piano...

Umm...
Canon, Minuet, Gavotte, all the music by Pachelbel and Handel...

...there're more, but I can't remember the names.

Oh, Nobuo Uematsu is <3[/font]

[EricTheFred]

I'm taking 'Classical' to mean concert hall, opera, and ballet, and not restricted to 'classical' period (i.e. 18th century). What 'classical music' means is a kind of a nebulous thing. And I would have to make a really long list. I'll do a reasonable sampling instead:

I have at least one CD of all of the following works mentioned. Favorite composers are probably Ralph Vaughan Williams (Symphonies 7, 8, and 9, Oboe Concerto), Jean Sibelius (2,3 and 7, the incidental music for King Christian II, the Violin Concerto), Edvard Grieg (Piano Concerto, Symphony in C, both Quartets) and Shostakovich (most of the symphonies, cello concerto and violin concerto).

Other big favorites include Gershwin (Rhapsody in Blue, American in Paris, Piano Concerto), Shickele (Oboe Concerto, Quartet no. 1, Piano Quintet.) Gorecki (Miserere, Symphony no. 3), Handel (Messiah), Brahms (Piano Concertos 1 and 2), and Dvorak (several symphonies, concertos and quartets.) Some of my more recent acquisitions have included two symphonies by Sir Malcom Arnold and several symphonic works by Andrei Eshpai. Anyone interested in 20th century symphonic music should check these two out.

I could keep typing. You may be getting the sense right now that my symphonic and chamber collection is a little on the large side. You may be right.

Somebody mentioned Yoko Kanno above. Although she is more of a fusion studio artist, one of her earlier albums, "Song to Fly", features several concert choral works that are very good. She could have made quite a career for herself as a concert hall composer if she had wanted.