# Sensual and exotic classical! Some recomendations please



## FPwtc (Dec 3, 2014)

I have particularly been enjoying Ravel's Ma Mère l'oye, Debussy's Nocturne, Jacques Ibert's Escales, Berg and Szymanowski's violin concertos. I love the shimmering sensual and exotic atmosphere of these works. They make me think of foreign travel and altered states. I almost find them psychedelic!

Can anyone recommend some similar highly atmospheric and mysterious pieces I may enjoy in this vein?

Thanks!


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Psychedelic? Just listen to Sorabji's nocturnes. It's like a cross between Scriabin, Szymanowski, Debussy and similar stuff on acid. Intoxicating music.





(the quality here is very bad, but there are some better recordings).
But I guess that you would find interesting the music of many other "impressionist" (and not only) composers considering the ones you've mentioned. Koechlin, Griffes, certain things of Busoni, obviously Scriabin, certain things of Ives, Delius, Messiaen...


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

It sounds like you're interested in early 20th century music:


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## Alfacharger (Dec 6, 2013)

FPwtc said:


> I have particularly been enjoying Ravel's Ma Mère l'oye, Debussy's Nocturne, Jacques Ibert's Escales, Berg and Szymanowski's violin concertos. I love the shimmering sensual and exotic atmosphere of these works. *They make me think of foreign travel and altered states. I almost find them psychedelic!*
> 
> Can anyone recommend some similar highly atmospheric and mysterious pieces I may enjoy in this vein?
> 
> Thanks!


Captain Obvious here!!!!


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

Hah! I read the thread title as "sensual and erotic", thought wow, a powerful imagination at work there. Our friend _some guy_ needs to check this out.


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

Ukko said:


> Hah! I read the thread title as "sensual and erotic"


Well, just in case anyone's more interested in your idea:


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

Sensual? I am against sensuality in music. What for? Sex is all over the damned media and they make it a point to shove it down our throats — the fools.


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## FPwtc (Dec 3, 2014)

Ukko said:


> Hah! I read the thread title as "sensual and erotic", thought wow, a powerful imagination at work there. Our friend _some guy_ needs to check this out.


Ha, this cracked me up!


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## FPwtc (Dec 3, 2014)

norman bates said:


> Psychedelic? Just listen to Sorabji's nocturnes. It's like a cross between Scriabin, Szymanowski, Debussy and similar stuff on acid. Intoxicating music.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Thanks these are a very good starting point for me


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Ravel's song cycle Sheherazade (best in the orchestrated version).


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## Richannes Wrahms (Jan 6, 2014)

Go to Messiaen for the exotic, to Ligeti for the moon light.


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## QuietGuy (Mar 1, 2014)

Try Charles Tomlinson Griffes' _Pleasure Dome of Kubla Khan_, Ravel's _Daphnis et Chloe_, and Debussy's _Afternoon of a Faun_. Also Ottorino Respighi's _Fountains of Rome_ and _Pines of Rome_.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

How about:

Falla





Albéniz









Rodrigo


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## SuperTonic (Jun 3, 2010)

If you enjoy the Messiaen pieces others have suggested you may also like Takemitsu as well. My favorite work is _From Me Flows What You Call Time_, but I haven't heard anything by him that I haven't liked.


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## FPwtc (Dec 3, 2014)

norman bates said:


> Psychedelic? Just listen to Sorabji's nocturnes. It's like a cross between Scriabin, Szymanowski, Debussy and similar stuff on acid. Intoxicating music.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Thanks for the Griffes mention, I had heard and liked some of his work and then forgotten about him! Could you recommend some specific recordings of Sorabji and Koechlin you may have?


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## GreenMamba (Oct 14, 2012)

Alan Hovhaness's Lousadzak (a piano concerto), perhaps more exotic than sensual.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

FPwtc said:


> Thanks for the Griffes mention, I had heard and liked some of his work and then forgotten about him! Could you recommend some specific recordings of Sorabji and Koechlin you may have?


While I really like the nocturnes I don't know a lot about Sorabji, mostly because his work is so prohibitive in terms of lenght. I guess the Jami symphony could another work that could be interesting, but it's never being recorded to my knowledge (I've heard it just as a midi file, four hours or something like that).
About the other longer works like the Opus clacivembalisticus I have still to find enough courage to face those monsters. I guess that after Sorabji one could start to consider Wagner a miniaturist.
And Koechlin too has produced a huge body of work and I know it very superficially, but: Les heures persianes, Vers la Voûte étoilée, The jungle book.


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## Aecio (Jul 27, 2012)

And what about Faure 1st Quintet for piano ? You can get more sensual than this, it's almost rapturous !


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## Posie (Aug 18, 2013)

Arabesque no. 2

You may have heard it already, but it fits both of those adjectives and is very re-listenable.


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## Selby (Nov 17, 2012)

Some obvious ballets:
Ravel: Daphnis et Chloe




de Falla: El Amor Brujo





Some personal favorites that might strike you:

Rometelli: An Index of Metal





Koechlin: Paysages et marines (Landscapes and Seascapes) for chamber ensemble





Saariaho: 
Amers (cello concerto)




Lohn (for soprano and electronics)





Norgard: A Light Hour (percussion ensemble)





Faure: La Chanson d'Eve (song cycle)


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## Gaspard de la Nuit (Oct 20, 2014)

Richard Strauss' Salome might work well for sensuality, but it's also noisy as hell.....Ravel definitely works well - Daphnis and Chloe would be the best, Rahpsodie Espangole, etc........Rachmaninov is a good one for sensual melodies, all his famous piano and orchestra works would be good. Tristan und Isolde is another one.

As far as exotic, things are only exotic if you aren't used to hearing them, so I'm not exactly sure what to recommend. If you mean in comparison to the canon of largely Austro-German composers + Tchaikovsky, Debussy and Stravinsky, then there's a lot of music for you, you might try like Tan Dun or something, or even some Mexican composers like Carlos Chavez


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## Guest (Aug 10, 2015)

I would HIGHLY recommend Manuel de Falla's "Noches en Jardines Espana"


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## FPwtc (Dec 3, 2014)

SuperTonic said:


> If you enjoy the Messiaen pieces others have suggested you may also like Takemitsu as well. My favorite work is _From Me Flows What You Call Time_, but I haven't heard anything by him that I haven't liked.


I do like Takemitsu, I got 2 of his cds only recently. I got into him through Frank Zappa mentioning him in an interview.


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## FPwtc (Dec 3, 2014)

Selby said:


> Some obvious ballets:
> Ravel: Daphnis et Chloe
> 
> 
> ...


Thanks this is a really good list


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## Selby (Nov 17, 2012)

^^^ a pleasure.


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## FLighT (Mar 7, 2013)

Sensual and Exotic. Might some of Puccini's love and death operas fit the bill for sensual and exotic I wonder? Butterfly, Tosca, Boheme, Turandot...someone always dies happily ever after. Tosca is my favorite: the bad guy dies, the good guy dies, the woman at the focal point of desire by both jumps to her death as well, "O Scarpia, avanti a Dio", for me that's a tough act to beat!


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## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

Here are two completely "far out", mysterious, atmospheric pieces that I enjoy a lot:

Nikolai Roslavets - Three Etudes, No. 2 (1914)





Scriabin - Poeme Op. 59 No. 1


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## FPwtc (Dec 3, 2014)

@DeepR 
I posted this thread a while back but I have only just got round to everything on it. Nikolai Roslavets, great suggestion I love it!


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

FPwtc said:


> @DeepR
> I posted this thread a while back but I have only just got round to everything on it. Nikolai Roslavets, great suggestion I love it!


And did it work as O.P intended.


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## helenora (Sep 13, 2015)

mmm.....I want to say that some Mozart´s music is sensual and exotic for me....well, at least for my ears it sounds like that, but I know it´s far from what was named above and I agree that Salome and de Falla is more suitable for the topic


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## Bettina (Sep 29, 2016)

A lot of Debussy's music is sensual and exotic. You might especially like his Spanish-style pieces. La Soiree dans Grenade, La Puerta del Vino, Iberia...


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Try Nights in the Gardens of Spain by de Falla, especially as performed by Artur Rubinstein.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Also try the Pines of Rome by Respighi.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Schubert Impromptus, always food.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

For sensual piano music try Images Books 1 & 2 plus l'isle joyeuse by Debussy.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

The ultimate seducing:

Scheherazade (Rimsky-Korsakov)


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