Hi all. I've been trying to improve my palate of musical taste recently and have been trying to listen to more classical music. Are there any classical pieces that you could recommend I listen to? I tend not to really like Beethoven. Actually, I like listening to film music such as Hans Zimmer, and video games music too but the ones that sound professional, done by a proper orchestrate. Recently I've been listening to opera pieces such as Nisi Dominus - Cum Dederit de Antonio Vilvadi. Anything that I can listen to while studying the Bible, which means nothing that is irritating.
Any recommendations would be gladly appreciated. I'll check them out.
I can suggest quite a few choral things I have enjoyed singing.
To start with, at 1hr 14:17 on this recording of Bach's St John Passion, there is a fantastic syncopated fugue, my favourite piece in the whole work:
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You can also see the fierce energy of Harnoncourt the conductor, as he motivates the choir to bring it to life.
Still with Bach, you could try this:
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the Agnus Dei from the Mass in B Minor (an old Janet Baker/Klemperer recording).
This setting of Ave Maris Stella from Monteverdi's 1610 Vespers is also very beautiful, especially the majestic slow last verse, with full 8 part choral harmony, after the preceding verses for smaller groups. It starts at 1:01 on this Gardiner recording, which was actual made in St Mark's Venice, the church for which it was composed:
And the final doxology (Gloria Patri) is quite ethereally magical. It starts at 1:23:30. (I actually thought about having this played at my wife's funeral - she died not long after our choir sang the Vespers. Though in the end I went for some things from Bach's Magnificat which we had had sung at our wedding.)
On which subject, organ music is not everyone's thing but we had the fugue from this at our wedding:
The whole thing is good but the fugue starts at 10:09.