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I suppose I should not have been surprised.
I got home from work a few days ago just as a performance by the New York Philharmonic of Antonín Dvořák's Symphony No. 9 in E minor, "From the New World" came onto the radio. I actually had a break in my busy schedule and was able to listen to it uninterrupted from start to finish. I especially enjoy the introduction of certain 'passages' that reappear later as well as the tension as the piece builds to a huge fanfare.
I thoroughly enjoyed it and remarked on this in our IRC (Internet Relay Chat) channel. Not only did several people recognize it, there was a sudden discussion of people's favorite classical works and a suggestion that I should post a story to the main site.
Other favorites of mine include:
- 1812 Overture - Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
- The William Tell Overture - Gioachino Rossini ("The Lone Ranger" theme)
- The Barber of Seville - Gioachino Rossini
- Pictures at an Exhibition - Modest Mussorgsky
- Brandenburg Concertos - Johann Sebastian Bach.
In retrospect, a well-performed piece of classical music is like a well-written piece of software. Everything just flows together. Intricate passages combine into something much greater than its constituent parts.
So, fellow Soylentils, what are your favorite classical works? As performances vary in quality and there are many recordings out on the internet, it would be very much appreciated if you included a link to a free (libre) copy if you know of one that you think others would enjoy.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Thursday December 17 2015, @12:14AM
This was around the time "switched on bach" came out
Well that's embarrassing. Nostalgia drove me to wikipedia and the recording was made the year before the moon landing. The first CD release was vaguely around Reagan's re-election, and my experience of hearing that for the first time, on this newfangled CD thing is what I meant. I can't find the first cd release date for that recording but it had to be vaguely around '84 plus or minus some.
My dad having an audiophile friend is pretty much the same situation as having friends with boats or planes or vacation houses; real nice to have and I'm really glad I'm not paying for it. A bit more google work shows he paid $700 in the early 80s for that cd player. The picture reminded me how utterly huge the first cd players were.