Classical music with strong hooks

[Zulu Romeo]

I'll also add another great tune: the Intermezzo from Sibelius's "Karelia Suite"

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYoJ4fhMlC0[/yt]

(a.k.a. the theme tune to "Ethel The Frog" )


Someone mentioned Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition. A recent Proms performance of Ravel's orchestration of the work is also on YouTube, conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen (who also conducted that clip from Sibelius's 5th symphony posted earlier):

1) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_98452AxFI
2) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hT5NVsQR3Q
3) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DsHAptvTGQ
4) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-JjNJAkBZc (the finale)

 

[Jadzia]

I've enjoyed listening to Sibelius' Intermezzo just now. It's a familiar tune, but I've never properly sat and listened to it before. I can't decide whether it sounds more Soviet or British, and seeing that the composer is Finnish, that makes some sense, to me at least

It's the sort of music I can easily imagine introducing Parliament Hour on BBC2 in the early 1980s.

 

[Zulu Romeo]

I've enjoyed listening to Sibelius' Intermezzo just now. It's a familiar tune, but I've never properly sat and listened to it before. I can't decide whether it sounds more Soviet or British, and seeing that the composer is Finnish, that makes some sense, to me at least

It's the sort of music I can easily imagine introducing Parliament Hour on BBC2 in the early 1980s.

It was actually used as the theme tune to ITV's old midweek current affairs show "This Week".

 

[Vulcan Princess]

If you want a good intro to a variety of pieces, I recommend watching Disney's Fantasia and/or Fantasia 2000. If you think the animation is too cheesy, you can ignore it and just listen to the music. A lot of the songs on there fit with what you're looking for. Fantasia was one of my early introductions to classical music as a child.

 

[Zulu Romeo]

While looking for other interesting music, I found this YouTube channel, expressing music in the form of simple animation, which is quite diverting and mesmerising.

For example, here is their take on Pachelbel's Canon in D Major, showing (visually) the three main threads of the canon and how they interlink so beautifully:

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3uh75-OXQo[/yt]

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

I'm intrigued to know what Holdfast ended up buying.

 

[Holdfast]

I'm intrigued to know what Holdfast ended up buying.

Thanks for asking. I don't pay money for music because I'm a cheapskate and lack the patience to truly listen for the nuance and detail that are the reward of a better quality recording, but I did enjoy listening to quite a lot of the tunes mentioned upthread on YouTube and through other online sources.

A lot of the suggestions I knew already (eg. most of the Elgar, Vaughan Williams, Mozart, Holst, Ravel, Strauss that were mentioned, I was at least passingly familiar with) but I was rather surprised to enjoy some of the Mahler, Dvorak & Shostakovich listed. Not composers I'd really listened to at all before and wouldn't have without this thread.

I still find I can only listen to about 5 minutes of classical music at a time though, before I get bored (this isn't a knock on classical; I feel the same way with all music), so the longer pieces I didn't finish listening to and ended up browsing onto another item on the list. But I enjoyed it, so thank you all!