Composers whose music means more to you as the years go by

[Thropplenoggin]

Naturally you mean

Naturally Bruckner, RVW, Holst, Britten etc.........

I wondered how long it would take you to shoehorn Bruckner into "Lady Sidcup's" post... Rather slow on the uptake today, AG.

[Parry1912]

Beethoven. One of the first Classical (and "classical") composers whose work I ever heard: the Headmaster of my Primary School used to play movements from the Pastoral Symphony, the "Moonlight" Sonata and other works (and, on other mornings, pieces by Chopin, Tchaikovsky, Bach and Mozart) as we gathered for Assembly.

That was a very clever way of doing it. I remember the head of my Junior School decided to take us all into the hall one day to listen to "Chamber Music". I have no idea what he played but it bored the pants off me at the time and I lived in fear of it for many years after. Today I love it.

Personally, Mendelssohn has grown on me a great deal in recent years.

[amateur51]

That was a very clever way of doing it. I remember the head of my Junior School decided to take us all into the hall one day to listen to "Chamber Music". I have no idea what he played but it bored the pants off me at the time and I lived in fear of it for many years after. Today I love it.

Personally, Mendelssohn has grown on me a great deal in recent years.

Do try to catch Quatuor Ebene's latest Felix & Fanny Mendelssohn CD, Parry1912.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrSgcqzwbH8

They're also playing Mendelssohn (Felix & Fanny) at Wigmore Hall on Saturday

http://www.wigmore-hall.org.uk/whats-on/productions/quatuor-ebene-31402

[Tevot]

I agree that LVB is for me at any rate the lodestar - but in recent years I've found myself listening to more Brahms - not necessarily the usual suspects but the late piano works, the clarinet sonatas and also the lieder and works for Chorus such as Nanie.

Best Wishes,

Tevot

[amateur51]

I agree that LVB is for me at any rate the lodestar - but in recent years I've found myself listening to more Brahms - not necessarily the usual suspects but the late piano works, the clarinet sonatas and also the lieder and works for Chorus such as Nanie.

Best Wishes,

Tevot

<swoonemoticon>

[gurnemanz]

I agree that LVB is for me at any rate the lodestar - but in recent years I've found myself listening to more Brahms - not necessarily the usual suspects but the late piano works, the clarinet sonatas and also the lieder and works for Chorus such as Nanie.

Best Wishes,

Tevot

Agree on Brahms Lieder of which I used to know only a small selection. I got the Brilliant Classics complete set last year and have made a lot of discoveries (songs and singers). I have also been reading Fischer-Dieskau's book.

[Tevot]

Re # 21

Thanks for the links Gurnemanz - if only my mostly forgotten O-Level German (1981) could do the DFD book justice :-(

(What a polymath he was )

I've added the Brilliant Classics set to my Amazon Wish List !

Best Wishes,

Tevot

[Serial_Apologist]

Schoenberg's still my lynchpin; notwithstanding his fall from grace he was key (no pun intended) to most if not all musical advance until modernism started losing its nerve ca. 1975; and I have to thank him for re-turning my ears back to earlier composers on whom I was musically overfed as a child born into a musical family, in particular Bach, Beethoven (especially the later Beethoven of the quartets) and Brahms. From earlier times Frescobaldi and Monteverdi have now become belated loves. Late Holst, late Bridge from the English composers of the so-called "pastoralists" will always be close to my heart. I don't think there are any composers who hold less meaning to me than they did when I was being brought up on them, though overfamiliarity allows me to switch them on in my inner walkman, rather than on the CD/cassette/record player, or attend concerts to hear them.

[JFLL]

Getting older (OK, old) I do miss the thrill of discovering fresh music which I know I will like, as I did about ten years ago with the Bach cantatas and Haydn piano trios. I’ve probably heard just about everything worth hearing by ny favourites Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Wagner, Bruckner, Mahler, so I may be reduced to exploring the barque.

[jayne lee wilson]

It would have to be Robert Schumann.

Coming back in via the stunning Violin Sonatas (Oh, I'd bought them, but never really listened), then the Quartets and Trios, then the Symphonies once more after stumbling upon the Ceccato/Bergen PO Mahler arrangements, so fresh and alert! Currently much taken with Dausgaard's SCO BIS survey of the orchestral music... BIS has served this composer remarkably well.

Schumann is especially lucky with the variety of interpretative approaches now on record, and I'm lucky to feel such a temperamental affinity with his art. I just wish there was a little more of it!

[Serial_Apologist]

It would have to be Robert Schumann.

Coming back in via the stunning Violin Sonatas (Oh, I'd bought them, but never really listened), then the Quartets and Trios, then the Symphonies once more after stumbling upon the Ceccato/Bergen PO Mahler arrangements, so fresh and alert! Currently much taken with Dausgaard's SCO BIS survey of the orchestral music... BIS has served this composer remarkably well.

Schumann is especially lucky with the variety of interpretative approaches now on record, and I'm lucky to feel such a temperamental affinity with his art. I just wish there was a little more of it!

Yes it's high time I gave Schumann another go. The early Romantic is my least favourite period in musical history, but it was RS's Piano Concerto that first grabbed me for classical music. I hear that same spirit of music bursting out of its creator that appeals in Schoenberg and Bartok.

[eighthobstruction]

I love Russian Choral music....Bortnyansky being a favourite....I've found it difficult to know what I am after when buying....(the recordings I would like were used during a Russian week on R3 Christmas 1989(?) but have nevere been able to track them down)....http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-05lT8-N0k

[EdgeleyRob]

I've been listening to the music of Ralph Vaughan Williams for nigh on 40 years and the older I get the more dependant on it I become.
It's more than just music to me,it's air,water,medication.....

I get more and more out of Mendelssohn's music as the years go by.

[Boilk]

Morton Feldman ... many years ago I was intrigued but did not venture to delve much further at the time. However, in the past decade or so his work has come to the top of the pile for me.

I first discovered Feldman's music in the 1980's , (my composition teacher was a friend and enthusiast of his work)
I remember playing this as a student and finding it fascinating and continues to be ...

In case Bryn and Mr GG don't know about them, here are two audio links to Feldman speaking:
a great 1986 interview here...

https://archive.org/details/MFeldmanSOM

...and here Feldman talking with Cage:

http://archive.org/details/CageFeldmanConversation1

[MrGongGong]

Thanks

I did know some of that
I think they are also on UBUWEB