# Do you have any special works to commemorate holidays?



## Selby (Nov 17, 2012)

Happy Fourth of July Yankees!

Today I started the morning of with:
Ives, Charles - A Symphony: New England Holidays [Michael Tilson Thomas, Chicago Symphony Orchestra]
The third movement is: The Fourth of July

Then my wife made me turn it off - not a big Ives fan.

Are there any works you always listen to on certain dates? Holidays? Celebrations?

Please no Pomp and Circumstance responses. 

Every year we do a family hike:

As we drive to the mountain it will be:
Hovhaness, Alan Symphony No. 50, Op. 360, "Mount St. Helens" [Seattle Symphony Orchestra]


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## opus55 (Nov 9, 2010)

Henry Kimball Hadley: Symphony No. 4 D minor, Op. 64 on 98.7 WFMT radio
John McLaughlin Williams, conductor. | Ukraine National Sym Orch.


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## Op.123 (Mar 25, 2013)

Mozart's piano concertos when driving through the Italian mountains, along with a bit of Beethoven and Strauss, that was a great holiday.


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## techniquest (Aug 3, 2012)

Respighi - Fountains of Rome; not when in Rome but when visiting the Purbeck area of Dorset.
Also, I only ever play Christmas-related music once we get to December 1st.



> As we drive to the mountain it will be:
> Hovhaness, Alan Symphony No. 50, Op. 360, "Mount St. Helens" [Seattle Symphony Orchestra]


I hope your mountain doesn't explode!!


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

Since you asked, no. I have never had any special feelings surrounding dates. I don't think time means the same thing to me as it does to other people. In fact the idea that I am supposed to feel a certain way depending on the date is kind of a pain to me. I don't begrudge others their feelings however.


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## Selby (Nov 17, 2012)

techniquest said:


> Respighi - Fountains of Rome; not when in Rome but when visiting the Purbeck area of Dorset.
> Also, I only ever play Christmas-related music once we get to December 1st.
> 
> I hope your mountain doesn't explode!!


No explosions  But we were on St. Helen's Road going out of Portland for a bit.


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## Air (Jul 19, 2008)

A few friends and I hiked to the tallest peak in our area and blasted Copland's Fanfare for the Common Man. It was epic!

Happy Fourth to all the Amurricans out there (and a good day to everyone else)!


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## kfking (Mar 31, 2013)

Not as of now, but I'm going to start listening to Beethoven's Missa Solemnis on Christmas.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

I don't mark occasions with music, really.

The spate of music around the christman holdiay usually annoys me more than anything else: I don't get any joy from christmas music of the post 1900's song type, at all, and to say the least about it , for example, hearing the little drummer boy makes me wish I had a death ray as well as an undetectable device in my pocket which would quietly take out all the audio speakers from which it streams, and I have similar reactions to things like White Christmas, Chestnuts roasting on an open fire, etc. -- part of the Great American Songbook I would happily live forever after without. 

The nature hikes accompanied by music -- I've never felt the want -- who wants or needs Mozart or Mahler if you're actually in the mountains? I want to be there -- wherever that is -- and not with an added soundtrack, even with the most glorious of scores accompanying the occasion. An added soundtrack to these real excursions seems to me surreal, turning the being there into an unreal or slightly surreal entertainment At the very least it is the proverbial painting the lily.

Buuuut -- On a road trip, or traveling by public conveyances, it is nearly a must to have your own choices of what to listen to with you

To me, the optimum time to listen to the complete Handel Messiah (First performed around easter) is to listen to it in mid-summer. Ditto for all those other traditionally seasonally scheduled works. Out of context, they're "just music" and you have a better chance of "Just Hearing" them, sans all the usual conditioned associations.


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## Sonata (Aug 7, 2010)

I don't really, no. I generally listen to whatever appeals at a given moment. 
Christmas though....I'm one of those annoying people who love to listen to Christmas music starting in November! I don't really listen to specific classical music for Christmas though, more the typical carols and popular songs.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Mitchell said:


> Then my wife made me turn it off - not a big Ives fan


Your wife and mine would get along. She has banned his music when she's around.
I used to listen to classical holiday music around Christmas. Lately I haven't, though. I felt like I had to hear it rather than wanted to.


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## Cavaradossi (Aug 2, 2012)

We were lucky to spent several summers at the Aspen Music Festival in the late 2000's. The culmination of the 2-day drive to get there was always always the trip up to the snowed covered expanses of Independence Pass, elevation 12,095 ft (3,687 m) with Strauss' _Alpensinfonie_ as required musical accompaniment.


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