Guys. I should get a gold star for this.

[Keakealani]

Okay, I know this guild is pretty low-activity so I dunno who is going to see this, but I seriously spent the greater part of an hour putting together what I consider to be a pretty epic "crash course to classical music" post. Check it out!

But like, seriously. Although I know I missed a lot of people (there was a lot of hand-wringing at omitting certain people I love but who I don't feel are as influential or popular), I feel like I did a pretty good job of pinpointing a lot of the big names. I tried to include a few really recognizable pieces (Mozart Requiem, Beethoven Symph 5, Barber Adagio for Strings), but also some more obscure but not completely out-there pieces (Mendelssohn Reformation Symphony, Schubert Erlkönig, Stravinsky Symphony in C), and also tried to balance out nationalities (although I feel I neglected a lot of French composers, having only included Debussy - but French composers have limited pockets of strong influence in the general scheme of music history).

So yeah. I really hope that guy appreciates how much work I put into that post, because it actually took a lot of sorting through - not only did I want to include a variety of composers and music, but locating what I consider to be relatively high-quality recordings online for free is a challenge as well; I even included some performers I don't care for, for variety's sake, although in almost all cases I think the majority of the performers are quite well-known in their field.

Anyway, what do you guys think? Is there anything you'd add? (probably.)  

[miyuki_pudding]

Keakealani

Anyway, what do you guys think? Is there anything you'd add? (probably.)

I wonder if any works of Handel or Vivaldi be influential enough to include? I'm not sure, just wondering. I do feel Bach was the definitely the biggie there. Or perhaps one of Strauss' tone poems? (Don Quixote?)

But really, it seems very fine and complete just the way it is right now, both in variety and in hitting the influential works. You did an incredible job on it and I hope it really helped the people in the thread who were interested in classical music. smile  

[Keakealani]

miyuki_pudding

Keakealani

Anyway, what do you guys think? Is there anything you'd add? (probably.)

I wonder if any works of Handel or Vivaldi be influential enough to include? I'm not sure, just wondering. I do feel Bach was the definitely the biggie there. Or perhaps one of Strauss' tone poems? (Don Quixote?)

But really, it seems very fine and complete just the way it is right now, both in variety and in hitting the influential works. You did an incredible job on it and I hope it really helped the people in the thread who were interested in classical music. smile

Mm, yeah. That's true - I don't personally care for Handel or Vivaldi all that much, but you're right that one of them probably deserved mention, in retrospect.

And you know, I don't know very much about Strauss' tone poems! I think I know what I'm going to try to check out today! biggrin (I always love learning something new about music!)  

[miyuki_pudding]

Keakealani

miyuki_pudding

Keakealani

Anyway, what do you guys think? Is there anything you'd add? (probably.)

I wonder if any works of Handel or Vivaldi be influential enough to include? I'm not sure, just wondering. I do feel Bach was the definitely the biggie there. Or perhaps one of Strauss' tone poems? (Don Quixote?)

But really, it seems very fine and complete just the way it is right now, both in variety and in hitting the influential works. You did an incredible job on it and I hope it really helped the people in the thread who were interested in classical music. smile

Mm, yeah. That's true - I don't personally care for Handel or Vivaldi all that much, but you're right that one of them probably deserved mention, in retrospect.

And you know, I don't know very much about Strauss' tone poems! I think I know what I'm going to try to check out today! biggrin (I always love learning something new about music!)

If you wanted to add either of those two, for Handel, you could grab something from The Messiah or from Water Music, perhaps. I hope the Messiah wouldn't seem too obvious, but it seems like the most influential (on works such as Mendelssohn's Elijah) of his works. For that same reason, I'm not sure if The Four Seasons would be ok for Vivaldi, for the possibility of it being too obvious? His style when writing violin concerti in general is the important thing, so maybe another violin concerto would be ok. The one that's used often when studying music history is a student concerto which most student violinists still learn, No. 6 in A minor from L'estro Armonico. A more musically interesting one, I think, is RV208 in D Major.

Just some suggestions in case you wanted to add either of those composers to the list! smile

Strauss' tone poems are great! smile If I may suggest one, Don Quixote is a great one to start with. It's humorous, witty, and just a lot of fun to listen to, especially with the score. It uses different instruments to represent the characters and their antics, and there's a section where the brass use flutter-tonguing to depict of field of sheep (which Don Quixote runs into, ensuing chaos). I hope you enjoy checking out the tone poems in general though, they're very interesting! biggrin  

[ChrisDaee]

Nice list. I wouldn't have been able to hone it down that much.