# Favorites From My Collection:



## Great Gate (Oct 17, 2010)

*These are my favorite works from my Vinyl/CD collection:*

Beethoven: Symphonies #5 and #9, Moonlight Sonata.

Dvorak: Symphony #9, "New World"

Greig: "Peer Gynt" suite

Haydn: Symphony #100, "Military"

Holst: "The Planets" (I'm an amateur Astronomer)

Liszt: "Les Preludes"

Mendelssohn: "Italian" Symphony

Moussorgsky: "Pictures at an Exhibition", "Night on Bald Mountain"

Mozart: Symphonies #40 and 41 "Jupiter"

Prokofiev: Symphony #1 "Classical", "Peter and the Wolf"

Rachmaninov: Piano Concerto #2

Ravel: "Bolero", "Rhapsody Espanol"

Resphigi: "Pines of Rome"

Rimski-Korsakov: ""Scheherazade", "Capriccio Espanol",

Saint-Saens: Symphony #3, "Organ"

Schubert" Symphony #8, "Unfinished"

Tchaikovsky: Symphony #6, "Pathetique", "1812 Overture", "Cappricio Italien", "Romeo & Juliet Overture", "Marche Slave", and Piano Concerto #1.

Vivaldi: "Four Seasons"

Wagner: Lohengrin Prelude to Act III, "Ride of the Valkyries"," Pilgrim's Chorus"

*Non-Classical:*

Gershwin:"Concerto in F", "Rhapsody in Blue", "An American in Paris"

Grofe: "Grand Canyon Suite"

Gilbet & Sullivan excerpts from "HMS Pinafore", "The Mikado" etc.

*This represents my taste in Classical Music.*

GREAT GATE


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## janealex (Apr 7, 2010)

Thanks for sharing, let me check them out once.:tiphat:


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

Lots of great choices there


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## Delicious Manager (Jul 16, 2008)

A good selection of the 'pops' of classical music there. I wonder how adventurous you are in exploring beyond those?


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## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)

Indeed, it seems like list of newbie's favourite "songs", especially those Wagner excerpts.


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## Great Gate (Oct 17, 2010)

*Beyond my favorites, I'm not "Adventurous" at all!*

I'm hardly a "newbie" Sir, as I was first introduced to Classical music when I entered the US Army in 1960.

A fellow GI had me listen to Beethoven's 9th, and I thought that was the "home run" of all music!

During the intervening half-century, *I've listened to everything ever written*, and this is why my list of favorites is limited to the length you see!

Yes, my favorites are what some of you would call "pop" music, but it pleases me, friends!

I've given Mahler a chance...also Shostakovich, Stravinsky, Schoenberg, and others...nothing! The only Brahms work that keeps me awake are his Hungarian Dances!

Perhaps my love of Jazz has polluted my taste!

Great Gate


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## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)

> I've listened to everything ever written


How did you like "March of the tractor" op. 167 for choir and piano by Apolinary Szeluto?


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## Great Gate (Oct 17, 2010)

*"The tail gun turret disintegrated...*

...as Bob's shells found their mark."

Do you like Adinsell's "Warsaw Concerto"?

My Mother was born in a small village in Poland in 1912.

Great Gate


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## Nicola (Nov 25, 2007)

Aramis said:


> Indeed, it seems like list of newbie's favourite "songs", especially those Wagner excerpts.


My thoughts exactly. It looks like it's Classic FM's most often repeated favourites.


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## jhar26 (Jul 6, 2008)

But just because they are popular pieces doesn't mean that they aren't great as well.


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## Great Gate (Oct 17, 2010)

*Thank You, Moderator!*

It seems that in every esoteric group. there are those who will look with disdain upon those whose tastes are more mundane in their opinion.

Well...I've already discovered two such persons in this thread.

I may not be staying long in this Forum...

GREAT GATE


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## jhar26 (Jul 6, 2008)

Great Gate said:


> It seems that in every esoteric group. there are those who will look with disdain upon those whose tastes are more mundane in their opinion.
> 
> Well...I've already discovered two such persons in this thread.
> 
> ...


Stick around. A few weeks from now you'll love us.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

I get the impression you found this list of favorites as you explored other music. Like T.S. Eliot said,

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

I'm always listening to new things, but I have a pretty solid all-time favorite list. And as Eliot said, the new things end up helping me appreciate the old favorites in a new way. 

Is that your experience?


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## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)

> It seems that in every esoteric group. there are those who will look with disdain upon those whose tastes are more mundane in their opinion.
> 
> Well...I've already discovered two such persons in this thread.
> 
> I may not be staying long in this Forum...


Uhm.

Noone is looking with dislain (at least not yet), it's just that you introduced yourself as experienced listener and yet your favourites is almost exactly the same as (hypothetical) list of most typical early fascinations of classical newbies. We have right to be surprised - there is no chamber music in your list, there are short excerpts from Wagner operas instead of his whole works and this is also very newbish to enjoy short prelude to act III instead of whole Lohengrin, I can't think of any other explaination but - forgive me and don't get mad - being unable to appreciate whole, lenghty work.


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## jhar26 (Jul 6, 2008)

Manxfeeder said:


> I get the impression you found this list of favorites as you explored other music. Like T.S. Eliot said,
> 
> We shall not cease from exploration
> And the end of all our exploring
> ...


In a way it is. I love for example Mozart's operas and my admiration only has grown after I'd heard some operas from contemporaries like Paisiello and Dittersdorf. But I'm always eager to make new discoveries and I regularly find stuff that I like, but even though I might add new faves, they never replace the old ones - the list just gets longer.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

My only disappointment with the OP's list is that he didn't indicate specific performers or recordings. A list of my 'favorites' would use up too much bandwidth, but a selection of them would include:

Boulez as conductor, many recordings he made before 1970 - including Bartók's Concerto For Orchestra with the NYPO

Reiner and the CSO, Strauss' Also Sprach Zarathustra

Oistrakh's recordings of Tartini sonatas

Wispelwey's recording of Kodaly's Sonata, Op. 8

Time to save bandwidth.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Yeah, the performances can be just as significant as the pieces in a favorites list. I disliked Bruckner because of Solti's recording of the 5th; then George Tintner and Eugen Jochum turned me into a great fan of all his works.


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## sospiro (Apr 3, 2010)

My favourite opera & my favourite recording of it. (Until they release the DVD with Domingo as Boccanegra)


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## Great Gate (Oct 17, 2010)

Yes.

Great Gate


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## Great Gate (Oct 17, 2010)

*Dear Mr. Aramus:*

My daughter plays in a Chicago-area Chamber Music group. I love my daughter (and the 3 grandchildren she has given me), but I can't stand Chamber Music.

Is Vivaldi's "The Four Seasons" chamber music?

Are Bach's Brandenburg Concerti chamber music?

If so, then I'll admit that I don't find ALL chamber music boring!

As for Opera...I couldn't even sit through ONE ACT of even Grand Opera, although I do like selected arias and overtures.

I've liked classiscal music for *fifty years*, Mr. Aramus...how long have you been listening to it?

For all I know, YOU may be the "newbie"!

GREAT GATE


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## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)

> I've liked classiscal music for fifty years, Mr. Aramus...how long have you been listening to it?
> 
> For all I know, YOU may be the "newbie"!


Indeed, my two years of exploring can make me look like a newbie in comparison with your fifty; it makes me even more proud that I can understand and appreciate it deeper and broader than you do, despite fact that you had so much time to learn.


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## Argus (Oct 16, 2009)

Aramus said:


> Indeed, my two years of exploring can make me look like a newbie in comparison with your fifty; it makes me even more proud that I can understand and appreciate it deeper and broader than you do, despite fact that you had so much time to learn.


The man knows what he likes and doesn't mould his tastes to appear more knowledgable on the subject or anything like that. Props for that. Some people genuinely like Stairway to Heaven over all other LZ songs.

He's got enough sense to know opera is rubbish anyway.:wave: Plus, he's listened to everything ever written which is a pretty amazing feat.

Great Gate your non-classical selections are pieces I would class as classical even if they may have jazz or popular influences. I thought only characters in Chariots of Fire liked Gilbert & Sullivan in a non-kitsch way but you have proven me wrong.:tiphat:


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## Chi_townPhilly (Apr 21, 2007)

jhar26 said:


> But just because they are popular pieces doesn't mean that they aren't great as well.


Yeah- that's the way _I_ see it, too.

You know, there's a reason the Warhorses can be typically found at the *front* of the pack...

(PSA: there's a related thread *here*, where people brought up their top-10 choices among Classical works.)


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## Elgarian (Jul 30, 2008)

As the wise jhar26 says, our favourites (if they're worthy of sustained attention) tend to remain favourites, even though our experience of music becomes wider. I love Elgar's music more now, over 40 years later, than I did when I was first overwhelmed by it as a teenager. The fact that I've grown to enjoy a much wider range of music in the years between hasn't had any diminishing effect on how much I value the _Enigma Variations_.

The first complete opera recording I ever bought was the Pavarotti/Freni/Karajan _La Boheme_. My shelves are now weighed down with an embarrassingly large collection of opera recordings from Monteverdi to Massenet, bought and listened to with passion over the years. But my favourite opera is still _La Boheme_. And the only recording of it on my shelves is still Pavarotti/Freni/Karajan (apart from the almost equally wonderful Pavarotti/Freni/Schippers live recording that I couldn't resist buying when I found it a couple of years ago).

I've listened to a lot of symphonies over the years, but my favourite Vaughan Williams symphony is still the fifth, as it was 40 years ago. My favourite Sibelius symphony is still the first. It isn't _change_ that counts, for me - it's _growth_. There are a lot more branches now, but the same tree trunk is still sound. I'd be quite worried if it were not.


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## Elgarian (Jul 30, 2008)

Chi_townPhilly said:


> You know, there's a reason the Warhorses can be typically found at the *front* of the pack...


Quoted because it's worth saying twice.


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## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

Great Gate said:


> *These are my favorite works from my Vinyl/CD collection:*
> 
> Beethoven: Symphonies #5 and #9, Moonlight Sonata.
> 
> ...


No music by George Frideric Handel (1685 - 1759)?


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## Boccherini (Mar 29, 2010)

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> No music by George Frideric Handel (1685 - 1759)?


So that what pestered the suspicious amongst us.


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## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

Boccherini said:


> So that what pestered the suspicious amongst us.


Indeed! Utterly unacceptable! No mention of your Avatar either!

But if the new member is willing to explore, then we are more than happy to help and to recommend in order to potentially enrich his/her listening horizon.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Great Gate said:


> ...During the intervening half-century, *I've listened to everything ever written*, and this is why my list of favorites is limited to the length you see!...


& I've listened to everything on your list (except the Haydn & G & S). Is that a similar great achievement?

But seriously, I don't mind if someone's taste is somewhat "vanilla" (for want of a better word). It's ok to only like the warhorses, as long as you maybe use them as a basis or a springboard into other less well travelled stuff. If a person has devoted their lives to listening only to these kinds of things, that's ok & I can understand that. Not everyone will be as interested in exploring the little side roads and alleyways, some people just want to stick to the main roads or highways. No problem with that, but I like to keep an open mind, as much as possible. For me it's the reverse - I'm an unashamed "modernist" and am actually now stretching myself to acquire on cd an see live the works of Beethoven, Schubert, Handel, Mozart, Haydn, etc. One can't fully appreciate the present if one doesn't understand the past, imo...


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## Nicola (Nov 25, 2007)

"Dear Ms. Moderator"


How amusing.


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## Air (Jul 19, 2008)

Nicola said:


> "Dear Ms. Moderator"
> 
> How amusing.


I don't think it is a first for Mr. Jhar.


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## jhar26 (Jul 6, 2008)

Air said:


> I don't think it is a first for Mr. Jhar.


No, it isn't. It must be the result of that Martha Argerich lookalike wig I'm always wearing.


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## Great Gate (Oct 17, 2010)

*My final post:*

After my 50 years of carefully listening, comparing, sorting, and amassing my collection of favorite classical works, I must now acknowledge that my collection is substandard, as decreed by High Priests Aramis and Nicola.

After all, what does a 74-year-old classical music lover know about the subject?

Therefore, I will destroy my collection and begin anew by collecting records of RAP artists and their "music"!

Remember...Richard Strauss's "Also Sprach Zarathustra" is in the key of "C".

Now I'm going back to my Gun Forum and my Astronomy Forum, where all are equally respected!

TA TA...
HAL POLLNER (formerly Great Gate)


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## Nix (Feb 20, 2010)

Elgarian said:


> My favourite Sibelius symphony is still the first.


! Why?

just curious.


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## Conor71 (Feb 19, 2009)

> Quote:
> My favourite Sibelius symphony is still the first.





Nix said:


> ! Why?
> 
> just curious.


I love Sibelius first as well  - Gorgeous slow movement (possibly Sibelius best) and thrilling Finale are the main reasons I like it anyways.


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## Nix (Feb 20, 2010)

Hmm... I've always thought of his first symphony as more of a showpiece- kinda like "ta da, here I am! I know how to write for orchestra." And then as the symphonies go on they get more compact and intimate. I would choose his 3rd for a slow movement and his 5th for a finale, but that's just me.


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## Elgarian (Jul 30, 2008)

Nix said:


> ! Why? [replying to my comment about the first being my favourite Sibelius symphony]
> 
> just curious.


It was one of the very first pieces of classical music that broke through my musical prejudices when I was about sixteen. That long, slightly melancholy clarinet solo conjuring images of the calm surface of a lake lying cold among snowy slopes, then the sudden jagged sweeps of strings like an icy wind from a clear northern sky. And from the moment that exciting new window opened, I was off into Sibelius-land, never to be quite the same again. So the first symphony has all sorts of personal, epiphanic, extra-musical associations for me that are still powerful decades later. Even when I listen to it today, it still feels like a musical window opening onto a strange and compellingly beautiful northern soundscape. (I spent some time recently trying to find a recorded performance that came closest to my imagined ideal. Segerstam, with the Helsinki PO, comes pretty close.)


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

Ref Sibelius' 1st symphony



Elgarian said:


> It was one of the very first pieces of classical music that broke through my musical prejudices when I was about sixteen. That long, slightly melancholy clarinet solo conjuring images of the calm surface of a lake lying cold among snowy slopes, then the sudden jagged sweeps of strings like an icy wind from a clear northern sky. And from the moment that exciting new window opened, I was off into Sibelius-land, never to be quite the same again. (I spent some time recently trying to find a recorded performance that came closest to my imagined ideal. Segerstam, with the Helsinki PO, comes pretty close.)


Sibelius 2nd symphony and violin concerto (which sounded/sounds like the same 'story' from a different viewpoint) were among my 1st classical recordings. I spent a lot of time in the winter woods in those days, and the music made an immediate connection.

It's interesting that Sibelius' music strikes so many sympathetic nerves in the UK.


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## Elgarian (Jul 30, 2008)

Hilltroll72 said:


> Sibelius 2nd symphony and violin concerto (which sounded/sounds like the same 'story' from a different viewpoint) were among my 1st classical recordings. I spent a lot of time in the winter woods in those days, and the music made an immediate connection.
> 
> It's interesting that Sibelius' music strikes so many sympathetic nerves in the UK.


Yes, I can easily imagine the 2nd, the VC - or even the 3rd or 5th - having that same kind of impact on a first hearing. At the time I was hell-bent on finding what I thought of as 'northern-ness' in music. Sibelius provided me with the largest quantities of musical snow and icy northern skies by far - but I was also picking up a different, softer kind of northern-ness in some of Vaughan Williams (_Tallis Fantasia_), Elgar (_Intro & Allegro for Strings_) and the Germanic strain of northern-ness in Wagner's _Ring_. Powerful old favourites all, and still potent today.


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## Fsharpmajor (Dec 14, 2008)

Great Gate said:


> Now I'm going back to my Gun Forum


Uh-oh. Watch out, Aramis.


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## Delicious Manager (Jul 16, 2008)

Great Gate said:


> During the intervening half-century, *I've listened to everything ever written*, and this is why my list of favorites is limited to the length you see!


I hardly think so! Do you have ANY idea how many pieces have been written in the last 1,000 years? Apparently not. If one person lived to be 120 and listened to music all the time, he/she would still only be able to scratch the surface.

A ridiculous statement!


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

*hyperbole?*



Delicious Manager said:


> I hardly think so! Do you have ANY idea how many pieces have been written in the last 1,000 years? Apparently not. If one person lived to be 120 and listened to music all the time, he/she would still only be able to scratch the surface.
> 
> A ridiculous statement!


When I read "I've listened to everything ever written" I thought it was an amusing bit of hyperbole. On balance I still think so, though I'm not as certain. This Gun Forum might be interesting though. I've been messing with guns about as long as with classical music (over six decades). I wonder if the Gun Forum contains a study on the relative ineffectiveness of the .32-40 on deer.


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