Richard Hawley

I have been listening to the radio at work, the only stations it will pick up are Classic FM and Century Radio. I have really enjoyed listening to Classic FM, it is the kind of music I was brought up listening to. I can't always remember the name of the music, or the composer, but their webside has the play list for emergency use.

I heard one of my favourites 'Finlandia bu Sibelius, a colleague said it was mournful I love it. http://virtual.finland.fi/stream/finlandia.wav.ram

I was ashamed not to recognise 'Fingal's Cave by Mendlesson, I went to see Fingal's cave a couple of years ago and was entranced by the place.

Does anybody else listen to classical music?

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I have a small selection of classical stuff, a little opera and some Gregorian Chant. Sometimes classical music is more soothing than the equivalent in rock music.

Some of my classics were 'discovered' through free CDs on magazines - some years back there was a monthly magazine called Classical CD and as with the ones that come with Mojo and Uncut, it uncovered a few composers I would not otherwise have listened to.

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Yes.

Favourite composers? Mahler, Tchaikovksy, Tippett, Bruckner, Berlioz, Prokofiev....

harder to choose a favourite piece, but at the moment Tchaikovsky's 6th symphony conducted by Leonard Bernstein in a 1986 recording is hard to beat. There is such sorrow, such passion and despair but beauty and power in this music and this performance that it just moves me in a way that no other music can.

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I agree I have found it soothing to listen to while working, I can't stand the radio stations with repetitive adverts. I think it takes longer to get into a piece of classical music, I have to listen to it a few times to appreciate it.



I can't place it from the name, I will track it down and listen to it. I studied Prokofiev's Lieutenant Kije at school, it was written as a film score, some of the themes are often played on T.V. especially the Troika around Christmas. I heard the 1812 the other day, it is magnificent.

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Love is so hard to find
And even harder to define

I don't like the tag 'classical' because most of the stuff I listen to is un-classical , I prefer the word 'orchestral' .'Classical' as a word is like pigeonholing under 'pop' all things from Bucks Fizz to Joy Division - labels of any kind are never a good idea.

Anyway the composer who means the most to me is Mahler .He wrote the most emotionally charged music ever written and listening to him is like exploring a vast ocean or the universe - pop/rock or what you call it , no matter how good it is, is like dipping your toes in a bucket of water in comparison .

The composers in my collection(a lot of austro-german stuff) :

Mahler
Beethoven
R.Strauss
Wagner
Bruckner
Bruch
Brahms
Mozart (he confuses me with his vast output - I just know the late syphonies)
Schönberg
Franck
J.Strauss
Sibelius
Elgar
Tchaikovsky
Nielsen
Rachmaninov
Stravinsky
Messiaen
Prokofiev
Shostacovitch
Bach

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"I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best."

JS Bach's my favourite composer - Glenn Gould's 1981 recording of the Goldberg Variations would definitely be one of my desert island discs. I love Mozart too - I'm not a huge opera fan but Don Giovanni is great. Generally speaking I prefer the 18th century to the big Romantic nineteenth century stuff....Handel, D Scarlatti, Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater...baroque'n'roll

I kno nuffink about classical music (or theory about any sort of music for that matter) but as with most things, some of it floats my boat, others don't.

I worked in London for a while and would sometimes go to lunchtime concerts in Smith Square or get cheapo return tickets for concerts at the south bank, and that shaped what I listen to now. I really liked the controlled passion of some of the early choral music - the 16 choir and the Tallis Scholars are both incredible, and Allegri's Miserere is spellbinding.

Beethoven is ace.

More up to date, I find the music of Arvo Part mesmerising. But you really need a concert setting or a quiet house to listen to it.

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Eat y'self fitter!

agreed, it's not background muzak.

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I quite like Dvorak and Smetana, brought it for my dad when I lived in Czechoslovakia and inherited back later. Music, like books, for me becomes about experiences, emotions and memories ... and what 'type' it isn't really important. Think as I've got older I've become more eclectic - will give most things a go ... although Ryan Adams still defeats me

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In every town I'll ever go

i LOVE classical music: Ravel, Katchachurian, Tchaikovski, Camille Saen-Saint, Rachmaninov, Aaron Copeland, Shostakovich...Indian and Chinese classical have some amazing string instruments..I love acoustic instruments and orchestras, and the lack of words.

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I smell the blood of an Englishman.
Be he 'live, or be he dead,
I'll grind his bones to make my bread.

My real name has the same initials as Mozart's - so it's impossible for me not to like him.

As far as I know, I also like listening to Stravinsky, Mussorgsky, Bartok and Zemlinski. Grieg. Jean Sibelius' works are ace. And that dude Beethoven was quite rad, indeed.

I don't know much about classical music. As long as it has colour and triggers my imagination, it's fine with me.

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Hodie adsit, cras absit.
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i know fuck all about classical music but i like this,i just think its music.......the end.............whatever you call it but the first time i heard time stopped

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now,then!

have you heard this one Richard ? (with your nautical interests and all..):

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"I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best."

Why does everyone seem to grovelingly say that they know nothing about 'classical music' ? - a kind of apology , maybe frightened of looking Illetist or 'high brow' ? There's nothing to know, all you do is put the CD in the machine and listen - just like any other music .I know nothing about blues music but all I have to do is listen ...

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"I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best."

I'm checking this out right now...what gorgeous music...that violin sounds kind of chinesee --- i used to play violin -- they make me cry....hark! I see a lark ascending!

"Ralph Vaughn Williams was an influential English composer, savior of British folk music and song, and blood relative to Charles Darwin. He studied at the Royal Conservatory and Cambridge, then later with Bruch and Ravel. In 1904, he became a major champion and preservationist of English folk songs, which were fast becoming extinct due to the widespread circulation of printed music in rural areas. Visiting the countryside, he transcribed and preserved many songs himself, and his fascination with the beauty of the music and its anonymous history greatly shaped his own compositions. In part due to his close study of his country's folk music, Vaughan Williams' music has often been said to be characteristically English, which may have been best categorized by Fuller Maitland, who noted that when confronted with Vaughan Williams' style "one is never quite sure whether one is listening to something very old or very new."

_________________
Fee! Fie! Foe! Fum!
I smell the blood of an Englishman.
Be he 'live, or be he dead,
I'll grind his bones to make my bread.