What is your favourite classical music?

Today marks 212 years birthday of French composer Hector Berlioz. Berlioz became very influential to musicians of late Romantic era(such as Wagner, Liszt and Mahler) with his signature traits with strong symphonic force and orchestration with exceptionally large orchestra. Here is his composition which he is most well-known for(and was so influential that Franz Liszt actually made a piano transcription of this work). This is "Symphonie fantastique." HAPPY BIRTHDAY HECTOR BERLIOZ!

The "Little" Fugue in G Minor (BMV 578), one of Bach's numerous masterpieces

Chopin Nocturne Op.9 No.2, especially when played by Arthur Rubinstein
Rubinstein's subtle changes in tempo is amazing...

coolio90 wrote: Really love chopin, nocturne pieces.

I think you will like the piece I just posted.

Certain compositions by Hildegaard von Bingen, Jacopo Peri, Claudio Monteverdi, Antonin Dvorak, Jean Sibelius, Charles Marie Widor, Maurice Ravel, Pyotr Tchaikovsky, Franz Liszt, etc. I also like songs like "Erquan Yingyue" by Hua Yanjun.

Bach's Organ Concerto in C major, BWV 595 and Keyboard (Harpsichord) Concerto in C major, BWV 984 are two separate transcriptions of an earlier work composed by Johann Ernst IV, Duke of Sachsen-Weimar .

Here is Bach's transcription for the harpsichord:



And for the organ:



It is also interesting to note that BWV 984 is part of a much broader collection known as 16 Konzerte nach verschiedenen Meistern - sixteen concerto transcriptions based on the work of Bach's contemporaries including Antonio Vivaldi and Georg Philipp Telemann.

Any classical music with Eastern European touches.

Frankly, Baroque and Classical music are dominated by a handful of composers with a bunch of lesser-known copycats. The music is confined to the major and minor tonality — the former era compensated technical limitations of the clavichord and harpsichord with polyphony and counterpoint, while the latter era clung to homophony and fostered maximalism through sheer orchestral size. While great introductions to music, the two elicit only marginally less yawns from me than Medieval and Renaissance music. Boring as hell to practice and recite.

Meanwhile, compositions of the latter 1800's to modern day challenged the way I perceive and understand tonality and rhythm. Richard Strauss, Igor Stravinsky, Anton Webern, Arnold Schoenberg, John Cage, György Ligeti, Pierre Boulez, Steve Reich, and many others like them have pushed music to express far greater range of emotion and thought by consciously moving away from popular styles and formats.