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Post by evergreen on Feb 10, 2023 22:28:51 GMT
I've never voted in the Classic FM Hall of Fame but I do enjoy listening to it. What pieces would be in your Hall of Fame?
One of my favourites is pretty well-known - the second movement from Shostakovich's Piano Concerto No 2, the Andante. As soon as it starts, it instantly makes me feel calm. And the first note of the piano when it comes in, makes me go all funny
Less well known is a piece that is on one of my Holst's CDs. It's called Beni Mora, and again it's a very calming piece. I've never heard it played on Classic FM and I've only ever once seen it included in a concert programme, and I was lucky enough to be able to go to the concert.
Wagner's Tannhauser would be on my list too. Along with Ravel's Bolero, it was one of the first pieces of classical music that I remember hearing and I've still got the album (yes, an LP!)
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Post by keff on Feb 10, 2023 23:38:14 GMT
Seem to remember that only three votes can be offered in the hall of fame so that makes it very difficult and I would be happier selecting pieces for my desert island. My favourite piano concerto is the Beethoven nos.4 in G but do I include it? Perhaps I am compelled to vote for three symphonies; Sibelius no 5, Brahms no 1 Beethoven no 7
Oh no...I can't vote for Dvorak, or Mendelssohn, or Tchaikovsky, or Schubert, or Mozart, or Handel, or Bach, or Berlioz, or....
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Post by Zi on Feb 11, 2023 11:45:17 GMT
I saw this, this morning and have been thinking but I couldn't possible get my list down to three. I'd definitely choose some Sibelius but I couldn't say which one - I love them all! I'd choose Borodin's Prince Igor... then I'd have a problem because Jeremy Soule's Skyrim would have to be there... so where does that leave Mussorgsky? Shostakovitch? Beethoven? Rimsky Korsakov? And no Stravinsky or Orff's Carmina Burana! Argggghhh. And now there's all of the Van Eyck and Telemann that I didn't know about before I started playing recorder; they wouldn't get a look in... Or Grieg! Or Handel! Agree over Bolero - it's a wonderful piece. It comes to the right ending too. Sometimes 'endings' leave me cold - I think there must be a better one. But that one is perfect!
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Post by pavane on Feb 11, 2023 12:19:00 GMT
Bolero was spoiled for me by going to a concert staged to mark the opening of a new concert hall. The first performance was given by the local youth orchestra, and they played Bolero. It was a terrible choice: one after another the soloists messed up their parts. The orchestra must have had some sort of artistic director; heaven knows what was going through his or her head when Bolero seemed like a good idea.
Choosing a small number of pieces is impossible. There is a lovely old stone bridge in Würzburg that has statues of 12 saints on it. There are other bigger/better bridges with statues, I just don't happen to have seen them. But, 12 seems a good number anyway, and rather than thinking of my very favourite pieces - which change from time to time anyway - I think in terms of which 12 composers/musicians I'd put on the bridge.
I think Holst is generally under-rated and he knocked out some good tunes that weren't in the Planets. Beni Mora is lovely but I only know it because it's on a Stuff by Holst CD. I don't think I've ever heard it on the radio, and have certainly never seen it performed. I like Egdon Heath too.
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Post by Zi on Feb 11, 2023 12:40:59 GMT
I could probably manage with 12. Agree about Holst - I love The Planets and I'd forgive him anything after that!
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Post by keff on Feb 11, 2023 12:56:22 GMT
An arrangement of the Planet Suite for piano duet by Nora Day and Vally Lasker was found in a cupboard in St.Pauls school by concert pianists John and Fiona York. The Yorks modernised the print, made some editorial changes and had it reprinted in 2002. I bought my first copy in 2003 after visiting the Holst birth place museum in Cheltenham. The music is difficult and I didn't even attempt to play it for a number of years.
After I had been with my present piano teacher for a little while we decided to have a go with some of the movements but because it was difficult I wanted to acquire another copy of the score to give to my teacher but they were out of print. I eventually was put in touch with John York who still had a few copies and he kindly sent me a signed copy and a CD of Fiona and he playing it. I kept the signed copy but my original was donated to my much admired piano teacher. We played a shortened version of Jupiter to a gathering of teacher's adult students.
In the correspondence that passed between John and I, he said, "Have fun with the score - some of it is very very very difficult..." We did have fun, it put a huge smile on my face.
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Post by evergreen on Feb 11, 2023 16:40:27 GMT
Perhaps we could change it to Desert Island Discs instead of Hall of Fame and then we could have more choices. And we could have a book as well. I'd have a book called "The World of Music". It's a huge book - 2240 pages and it covers just about everything - genres, instruments, songs, composers etc. I'm sure I'd be rescued from the desert island before I got even half way through. It was published in 1954 so it's a bit out of date but it's none the worse for that.
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Post by Zi on Feb 11, 2023 17:26:49 GMT
That is a seriously big book*. You could use it for pressing any flowers and leaves you found as well! I like the idea of not being limited to three pieces because every time someone mentions another composer I think of a piece I wouldn't like to be without. I don't listen to the radio - it sets off the tinnitus but I think you're allowed something as well! But anyway The Music Stand's version of Desert Island Discs should certainly allow a musical instrument! And some music. So, I'd take the descant recorder and the complete works of Van Eyck! A book would give me a serious problem but maybe I'd choose Chaucer's Complete Works and I could translate it into modern English using whatever poetic structures he used in the original. That should keep me challenged for a bit! So, evergreen would you take the clarinet or the piano with you? Or something completely different? edit - that *book is younger than me!
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Post by evergreen on Feb 11, 2023 17:45:04 GMT
My luxury item would be something very unoriginal - I'd take a very large toolbox (full of tools obviously!) so that I could make my own instruments out of driftwood, and for the clarinet ligature, I'd use seaweed which as the video said, would be just as good as a manufactured one
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Post by pavane on Feb 11, 2023 18:17:41 GMT
My luxury item would be a tangle of computer cable, preferably the old style ones with 25-pin plugs with screws, because they catch on EVERYTHING. I could feed myself just by dipping the bundle into the sea and pulling it out laden with fish.
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Post by Zi on Feb 12, 2023 12:35:34 GMT
My luxury item would be a tangle of computer cable, preferably the old style ones with 25-pin plugs with screws, because they catch on EVERYTHING. I could feed myself just by dipping the bundle into the sea and pulling it out laden with fish. And they'll breed! Like coat-hangers. Re music like Bolero - why do groups try things that on the face of it look simple but you just know they aren't going to be? After all, if you've got a lot going on and someone puts in a wrong beat or hits the wrong note then there's a better chance that no one will notice if you're playing Mussorgsky's Great Gate for example. But mess the beat up in the Bolero and you're done for...
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Post by keff on Apr 8, 2023 9:28:43 GMT
Hall of Fame is on Classic FM over this Easter weekend. I have just retuned to that station...first time in donkey's years and they are playing Mozart at number 219
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Post by pavane on Apr 9, 2023 9:40:39 GMT
How do they select the music - is it number of requests? Not sure if they do requests, but I too have not heard CFM for donkey's years.
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Post by keff on Apr 9, 2023 10:52:19 GMT
If I remember correctly listeners vote for their favourite pieces (via email presumably) sometime during lent.
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Post by Zi on Apr 14, 2023 9:30:59 GMT
So who 'won'? It wasn't Jeremy Soule was it?
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