Recommend me music, I've grown stagnant in listening..

[Jaxamillian]

Alright guys- I used to listen to way more music when I was in school and we would analyze pieces and periods.  Lately I've grown stagnant in my listening...I find myself listening to the same pieces I loved.  Thats fine, but I've lost that sense of progression I used to have. 

I'll name some composers and pieces I really like and why I like them and hopefully you all can help me out.

R. Schumman- I love his songs and love his creative, ingenious use of harmony and harmonic sequences.  His piano accompinaments for his songs are freakin beautiful as well.
"Im Wunderschonen Monat Mai" anyone.....

Beethoven- Symphonies...Raw power.  Getting the most out of seemingly simple gestures....Faves...Symphony 5 Mvts. I and II....Sym 7 the slow movement...

Wagner- Making radical harmony work through counterpoint and moving lines....favorites....Prelude and Liebestad of Tristan un Isolde. I like the overtures in his operas and the preludes.

Mahler Symph 9...the final, slow movement...

Berlioz Symhopnie Fantastique- crazy, even scary in the orchestration and arrangement. 

Hovhaness- I haven't seen him discussed a lot here.  I like his sweeping string movements, Like the one in his Symph. 2.

I guess what I love most is clever use of traditional harmony...like late romantic style.  I love big chorales.  I love sweeping string movements like "Fantasia on a Theme By Thomas Tallis" by Vaughn Williams.  I am sure I am forgetting a lot but I hope this gives you a general sense of what I enjoy. 

Any reccomendations on essentials I need to get from those composers as well as new guys (or girls) to explore?

Thanks.

[Anne]

How about the opera, Carmen, by Bizet?  You will be delighted to discover you already know many of the melodies.

My favorite recording is a film on DVD by Francisco Rosi.  Lorin Maazel conducts.  The singers are Placido Domingo, Julia Migenes-Johnson, Ruggero Raimondi, Faith Esham.

[Brian]

Leos Janacek - Sinfonietta, Glagolitic Mass (triumphs of a quirky late romantic genius, these almost runneth over with new ideas, fresh instrumentation, brilliant tunes, spectacular rhetorical punch, and did I mention late romantic genius? A fairly logical progression, I think, from Berlioz...not sure why, though!!)
Schubert - songs, late music (piano sonata D. 960, string quintet)
Bruckner - Symphony No 7
Chopin - the mazurkas (a lot of experimenting with harmony and even some flirting with the edges of tonality going on occasionally)
Brahms - the 4 symphonies (#1 has a great chorale, #4 is a stunner though, like nothing else ever written)
Leos Janacek - Sinfonietta, Glagolitic Mass
Borodin - Symphony No 2 (a bit of an odd choice, but he does have some cool tricks with contrapuntal deployment of melodies and his music is delightfully direct)
Berwald - Sinfonie Singuliere
oh and in case I didn't mention it enough...
Leos Janacek - Sinfonietta, Glagolitic Mass  

[Brian]

Leos Janacek - Sinfonietta, Glagolitic Mass (triumphs of a quirky late romantic genius, these almost runneth over with new ideas, fresh instrumentation, brilliant tunes, spectacular rhetorical punch, and did I mention late romantic genius? A fairly logical progression, I think, from Berlioz...not sure why, though!!)
Leos Janacek - Sinfonietta, Glagolitic Mass
Leos Janacek - Sinfonietta, Glagolitic Mass  

On second thought, I should probably clarify that my enthusiasm was due to my listening to Janacek while writing that post. 

[Que]

R. Schumman- I love his songs and love his creative, ingenious use of harmony and harmonic sequences.  His piano accompinaments for his songs are freakin beautiful as well.
"Im Wunderschonen Monat Mai" anyone.....

Johannes Brahm seems an obvious recommendation here!

Beethoven- Symphonies...Raw power.  Getting the most out of seemingly simple gestures....Faves...Symphony 5 Mvts. I and II....Sym 7 the slow movement...

Tchaikovky's symphonies and Shostakovich?

And welcome to the forum.

Q

[knight66]

You don't mention Richard Strauss; I would have thought he would fit the bill for you....everything from the tone poems to Rosenkavalier. Less lush, but with power and beauty, you might explore Sibelius, not just the symphonies, but the mysterious sounding Violin Concerto and his shore orchestral pieces.

Dvorak is another composer, late romantic, his 'American Quartet' is full of melody. At the other extreme in scale, his late symphonies sit within the late romantic style, but sound fresh as spring flowers. There is a very long thread here on Vaughn Williams with some excellent writing describing his output. I suggest you read through some of it, it may inspire you if the Fantasia is the only of his pieces that you know.

I assume that as you know Schumann's songs that you know his four symphonies?

Mike

[vandermolen]

Just some thoughts:

Vasks Symphony 2

Miaskovsky Symphony 21

Moeran Symphony

Bax Symphony 3

Vaughan Williams Job/Concerto Grosso/Five Variants on Dives and Lazarus (if you like the Tallis Fantasia you should enjoy this. Also Symphony No 5).

[Novi]

R. Schumman- I love his songs and love his creative, ingenious use of harmony and harmonic sequences.  His piano accompinaments for his songs are freakin beautiful as well."Im Wunderschonen Monat Mai" anyone.....

How about some of Schumann's solo piano?

Szymanowski's violin concertos?

[Grazioso]

Some (more or less) Late Romantic works that may fit your bill (and I'll be seconding some other recommendations):

Miaskovsky: symphony 25
Borodin: symphony 2
Bruckner: string quintet, Te Deum, symphonies 7-9
Bax: Tintagel
Hanson: Romantic and Nordic symphonies
Norgard: symphony 3 (avant-garde, but lush and grand)
Strauss: Don Juan, Ein Heldenleben, Till Eulenspiegels Lustige Streiche
Zemlinsky: Die Seejungfrau (The Mermaid)
Elgar: cello concerto, Coronation March, In the South
Rubbra: viola concerto
Lilburn: Aotearoa, Drysdale Overture
Vaughan Williams: symphonies 2 & 3, The Lark Ascending
Pärt: Summa, Trisagion, Lamentate, etc.
Holst: The Planets
Liszt: Les Preludes and Mazeppa
Smetana: Ma Vlast
Dvorak: cello concerto, symphonies 7-9
Tchaikovsky: violin concerto, symphonies 4-6
Korngold: symphony
Rimsky-Korsakov: Scheherazade, symphony 2 "Antar"
for something along the lines of Beethoven's symphonies: the symphonies of Ries, Onslow, and Farrenc

[Dax]

Vitezslav Novak - The storm op. 48 (1908-10)

More info and a couple of reviews

http://www.musicweb-international.com/classRev/2003/Apr03/Novak_Storm.htm

[Mark G. Simon]

Johannes Brahm seems an obvious recommendation here!

If you only listen to one piece, does that make it a Brahm?

[Cato]

From your list, you seem somewhat 19th-century in orientation: if you know Wagner, then yes, you need to branch out to Brahms and Bruckner, the rest of the Mahler symphonies, Richard Strauss, Alexander Zemlinsky and then make the jump to Arnold Schoenberg and Alexander Scriabin.

And everything else mentioned above is to be recommended as well!   0:)

[SonicMan46]

Well, instead of just adding another list, you already seem quite familiar w/ many composers - if not already done, take a look at the Composer Index HERE, which includes a listing by country of composer discussions (and plenty of recommendations) - I'm sure that you will find plenty of choices there! 

[marvinbrown]

Wagner- Making radical harmony work through counterpoint and moving lines....favorites....Prelude and Liebestad of Tristan un Isolde. I like the overtures in his operas and the preludes.

  The overtures and preludes of Wagner's operas are truly magnificent, but I hope that's not all you are listening to.  I have always believed that Wagner's genius lies not in his overtures and preludes but in the vocal work coupled with the music- the drama!   I can not tell from your statement above if you have restricted yourself to just the overtures and preludes.  If that is the case then I would recommend that you buy some of Wagner's operas on DVD and watch them staged.  I used to  listen to Wagner's Ring cycle on CD to the point of becoming intimately familiar with the music. Then I bought a staged performance (the Levine Ring MET) and that made a huge difference. A new dimension had opened up to me.  Wagner is a theater composer in every respect!

  I would also recommend Verdi's AIDA and OTELLO then Falstaff, Rigoletto, La Traviata etc.- these you MUST see staged- they are all ASTOUNDING!!

  marvin

[Jaxamillian]

Whoa..a lot! 

I'm glad I still have a lot of unlistened stuff.

I'm going to start with Carmen and go through all of the reccomendations.  I will try to listen to new stuff at least every week.  I've noticed the effect of how the stuff you listen to, however intensely, takes root in your mind and comes out in other things you do (directly as a musician, indirectly as any other thing you may do). 

Thank you for the reccomendations and the composer forum.

lol...I forgot to mention that I LOVE Bach chorales as well.  Like the ones in Matthews Passion and B minor mass.  I think the composer forum will help a lot.

[Brian]

If you only listen to one piece, does that make it a Brahm?

Perhaps you scored only one Brahm on the 1-10 scale. 

[Brian]

lol...I forgot to mention that I LOVE Bach chorales as well.  Like the ones in Matthews Passion and B minor mass.  I think the composer forum will help a lot.

I believe the other day a forum member stated that he had spent 15 years exploring Bach's choral music, was enjoying every minute, and wasn't done yet.

[Grazioso]

I'm glad I still have a lot of unlistened stuff.

And we've only scratched the surface here...

Vitezslav Novak - The storm op. 48 (1908-10)

Though afaik there are no in-print recordings of that work. You can find, though, his gorgeous Lady Godiva overture on Chandos. And speaking of unjustly neglected Late Romantic Czech composers, try Suk's Fairy Tale and Fantastic Scherzo and the very Dvorakian symphonies of Fibich.

And if you want to explore a vast range of music, log onto Naxos's website, and for free you can hear 25% of every track of their enormous catalogue. For a fee, you can listen to it all.

[Dax]

Vitezslav Novak - The Storm

available, for instance, at

http://www.amazon.co.uk/vitezslav-novak-Classical-Music/s?ie=UTF8&keywords=Vitezslav%20Novak&rh=n%3A697386%2Ck%3AVitezslav%20Novak&page=1

and you can hear the beginning at

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zv1EUNdibVs

[vandermolen]

Vitezslav Novak - The storm op. 48 (1908-10)

More info and a couple of reviews

http://www.musicweb-international.com/classRev/2003/Apr03/Novak_Storm.htm

A great work.