# Favorite Pieces - any why?



## Snowfall (7 mo ago)

I’m currently a Music Education major and am looking for as many was as possible to introduce younger people into the beautiful world of classical - where better to start than favorite pieces?

The pieces can be anything, not necessarily something that is a good start into classical. I’m more focused on the explanation and thought process behind music you love

The more information and specificity you can give, the better. 

I’ll post mine in here as well.


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## Snowfall (7 mo ago)

Snowfall said:


> I’m currently a Music Education major and am looking for as many was as possible to introduce younger people into the beautiful world of classical - where better to start than favorite pieces?
> 
> The pieces can be anything, not necessarily something that is a good start into classical. I’m more focused on the explanation and thought process behind music you love
> 
> ...


Richard Strauss’ Alpine Symphony (Berlin Phil w/ Karajan) has been my favorite for well over a year now. First, as a brass player, the crazy parts were exciting but that quickly faded and the art of the tone poem took more focus. I love the soundscapes from the big-sky opening, the spin into the summit, heart wrenching horn lines, the dark woodwind storm, and the nearly silent end.
The piece has a big mix of nostalgia and love for the art, as the idea of climbing and conquering a mountain is simple yet fantastic and this piece became the first I could understand and connect to from start to finish.


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## Merl (Jul 28, 2016)

The problem is my 'favourite' piece changes every week but overall Janacek's 2nd String Quartet is a piece that hooked me from the first time I heard it. Its not just the music but the true story it tells of the 63 year old, married composer and his unrequited love for a married woman over half his age (evident by the hundreds of letters he sent her) . The story is intriguing but the music it spawned is an outpouring of passion like few other pieces in CM. Yeah, these days the backstory comes over as a bit creepy and pervy but it's fascinating and we're not sure of all the facts surrounding it (and she was hardly a naive little girl). Anyway, the moment in the 3rd movement when 'the earth moves' for old Leos is so powerful (when done properly) that I always listen for it. I have stupid numbers of recordings of Janacek's 2nd and have seen it performed live on numerous occasions (including very recently).


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## allaroundmusicenthusiast (Jun 3, 2020)

Don't like being that guy, but you'll see, if you search the forum, that this question has been asked hundreds of times. Make use of that!


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## Luchesi (Mar 15, 2013)

Snowfall said:


> I’m currently a Music Education major and am looking for as many was as possible to introduce younger people into the beautiful world of classical - where better to start than favorite pieces?
> 
> The pieces can be anything, not necessarily something that is a good start into classical. I’m more focused on the explanation and thought process behind music you love
> 
> ...


Try holding back the most stirring works and tell the kids that only the smartest kids will be chosen to hear your best choices. heh heh

Just a random thought coming out of me.. I've taught piano for a long time and I've speculated about how I and other people/students have gotten into the excitement of the famous pieces. Was it just lucky coincidences and happenstances? But was there also a sense of hidden treasures (only waiting for me to mature in music)?

The worst thing is for youngsters to decide that they SIMPLY don't want CM (because of unfortunate first exposures).

One approach is to present works with clear-to-hear melodies (and remember that you hear sequences in music many times better than most young people). That's just natural. 

I start with fun-sounding short pieces by Chopin, then a Mozart piano concerto, clarinette, or violin concerto. Then the powerful but clear-sounding works of Beethoven's Middle Period. 'Not very many to digest at first, repeat often and repeat the exciting parts separately for structure. You might inspire someone to learn an instrument.


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## ORigel (May 7, 2020)

Lately, I've been listening to Sibelius' symphonies. None of them are my favorite works, but they're all great. Start with No. 2 or 3.

Today, I listened to Grieg's concert overture In Autumn. It's a bit trashy, IMO, but quite accessible and fun.

My favorite piece for a while was Beethoven's Grosse Fuge, which can be thought of as a four movement darkness to light string quartet after an intro.

The intro introduces ideas which will be used later in the piece. Then an intense dissonant four minute fugue which collapses to a fairly calm "slow" movement. The triumphant finale begins prematurely, and the music takes a turn towards violence (the third movement). The violent music exhausts itself and the triumphant finale proper begins. It gives an aborted recap of the previous "movements" before a coda. End.


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

Snowfall said:


> I’m currently a Music Education major and am looking for as many was as possible to introduce younger people into the beautiful world of classical - where better to start than favorite pieces?


When I was starting my journey in classical music, my favorite pieces of the genre included:

Wagner's _Tannhäuser_ overture (this is the piece that made want to explore CM);
Dvorak's 9th symphony _From the New World_;
Rachmaninoff's piano concerto no. 2;
Grieg's _Peer Gynt_;
Vivaldi's _The Four Seasons_;
Bach's concertos (particularly the _Brandenburg_ nos. 2, 3, 5 and 6, the violin concertos BWV 1041-1043, and the harpsichord in D minor BWV 1052);
Brahms' symphony no. 1 (particularly the last movement);
Tchaikovsky's _The Nutcracker;_
Beethoven's _Eroica_ and _Pastoral_ symphonies;
Beethoven's piano sonatas no. 8 (_Pathétique_), no. 14 (_Moonlight_) and, particularly, no. 17 (_Tempest_);
Chopin's Piano Concertos;
Mozart's _Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, _symphony no. 40 and piano concertos nos. 20 and 21;
Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto;
Dvorak's _American_ string quartet;
Borodin's string quartet no. 2;
Beethoven's string quartet no. 9 (_Razumovsky_ no. 3);
Mozart's string quintet no. 4;
Schubert's string quartets no. 14 (_The Death and the Maiden_) and no. 13 (_Rosamunde_).
I think that all these works are great _and_ very accessible, and I recommend them to beginners.



ORigel said:


> My favorite piece for a while was Beethoven's Grosse Fuge, which can be thought of as a four movement darkness to light string quartet after an intro.


I don't recommend initiating kids in Beethoven via his late period, much less by his Op. 130 with the _Grosse Fuge_, probably his least accessible piece of all he published. I remember hating the _Grosse Fuge_ with passion the first few times I listened to it, when I was a beginner, and it took me years until I could assimilate it (this said, now it's one of my favorite pieces of all CM). In Beethoven it's better to start from the middle period in my humble opinion.


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## ORigel (May 7, 2020)

Xisten267 said:


> When I was starting my journey in classical music, my favorite pieces of the genre included:
> 
> Wagner's _Tannhäuser_ overture (this is the piece that made want to explore CM);
> Dvorak's 9th symphony _From the New World_;
> ...


I agree. I included it because of the OP's phrase, "not necessarily something that is a good start into classical." Anyway, I love the Grosse Fuge because it's wild and has a clear emotional journey. While Snowfall shouldn't play the Grosse Fuge to children, they can point out that many listen to classical music for more than relaxation and studytime, but because it's often fun and emotionally fulfilling. My serious suggestions are Sibelius Symphonies 2 and 3 (play excerpts, not a whole symphony) and Grieg's In Autumn.


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## khoff999 (Oct 31, 2018)

Since you bring up being a music educator, I will pick the work that first made me a serious fan of classical music. In 1971 I was a freshman in high school. Prior to that the only classical music I had was a few "greatest hit" albums of Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven. You know, first movements of Brandenburg No. 3, Moonlight Sonata, Symphony No. 5, _Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, _etc.

But in high school I became interested in more serious instrumental rock music than the pop I had listened to in elementary school. One of the albums I bought that year was Emerson, Lake & Palmer's _Pictures at an Exhibition. _ It immediately grabbed me, but when I took it to a friend's house to play it for him, his older brother who was studying music in college, pronounced it 'garbage'. He played me a Ravel's orchestra version (Karajan / Berliner Phil, IIRC) and it astounded me. Because of the variety of orchestral colors it was probably better for me at that age that I heard the orchestra version first, but a year or two later I heard the original piano version and I listen to piano versions more than orchestra versions since then. I each music appreciation courses to seniors and I usually compare a couple movements of the piano version with the movements from orchestra versions which they seem to respond to. 

There is too much to it all recount here, but the stoic formality of Promenade I with its very odd time signatures wonderfully sets up expectations of what is to come, and the later Promenade variations capture the changing emotions as you move from one work to another in an art exhibition. The romantic spookiness of The Gnome and the Old Castle is wonderfully offset by the playfulness of The Tuileries. I can't think of anything in Chopin, Liszt, or Schumann that anticipates the dissonance in Ballet of Unhatched Chicks (or any piano music before the 20th century that equals it). I don't know if Liszt ever heard _Pictures_, but I imagine he would have loved Hut on Fowl's Legs.

_Pictures _is probably my favorite later 19th century piano composition. I also find that several movements of it makes a good bridge to some 20th century piano music like Scriabin, Prokofiev and Bartok which beginners are often tempted to reject as "to weird."


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

*Duruflé | Requiem, Op. 9 *(1947)*. *Based entirely on the traditional Gregorian chants for the requiem mass, Duruflé harmonized and arranged them into a magical, and beautiful work for choir, soloists, and three different accompaniments: solo organ, chamber ensemble, and full orchestra. My favorite is with organ solo, but in the "Pie Jesu" Duruflé wrote an optional solo cello obligato.

*Bernstein | Mass *(1971). Amazing, although controversial, work; an eclectic stylistic hodge-podge, but throughout the compositional structure is tight and well organized, and includes some of Bernstein's most striking melodies and effects. A quintessential American work, and IMO Bernstein's greatest work.

*Stravinsky* | *Symphonies of Wind Instruments *(1920, rev. 1947). The beginning of Stravinsky's neoclassical period, this work is among his most creative and unique. In an oeuvre that includes several modern classics, this work stands out.


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

Mozart symphonies, Beethoven concertos, Haydn symphonies. 
Just a start and I am with a allaroundmusicenthusiast there are lots of lists, games. and polls.


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## Luchesi (Mar 15, 2013)

A majority of kids DON'T (can't) hear in music what older music fans can hear. That's why ELO and Yes were appealing for the adventurist 14 year old (and much of that is ego and showing off). Think of your own journey (unless you're an exceptionally quick study and then I'd say you're disqualified).

Do kids get hooked on walls of sound, or is it the memorable melodies which lead to appreciating cleverness? What happened in your own years of initiation?
Of course, there are few young people who have surprised me (but it's difficult to know what they really think).

Other technical subjects are like this with kids too, but it's not such a crucial consideration. I mean, they can't just op out of math or science subjects (well, they shouldn't be able to..).


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

To introduce music start simply ....

Handel Hallelujah chorus

Rossini La Gazza Ladra overture


Bach Third Brandenburg Concerto

Tchaikovsky Nutcracker suite

Mozart Eine Kleine Nachtmusik

Beethoven 5th symphony

... then work up to more complicated stuff later


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