Among the many things that I’m happy and thankful to have taken away from my homeschooling years is my love of classical music. Our music appreciation sessions began with “Classical Kids,” a series of whimsical audio dramas about kids encountering various famous composers (anybody else remember Beethoven Lives Upstairs?). Then we moved on to a series of composer biographies on CD—a rich-voiced narrator giving a roughly hour-long overview of the composer’s life with his music playing in the background, plus bonus tracks at the end. (The bonus tracks on the Strauss and Sousa biographies probably saw the most use.) My siblings and I usually sat around on the living-room rug with pencils, crayons, coloring-books and paper, drawing and coloring as we listened—my brother drew a whole series of the composers’ portraits copied from the CD covers. Then we had a couple sets of Time Life’s “100 Masterpieces of Classical Music” compilation CDs—they’re at my elbow as I type this, as a matter of fact—which we played frequently, picked favorite tracks from, hummed and whistled and occasionally danced to.
When I got my own portable CD player (and in later years an mp3 player), I kept the radio band set to our local all-classical station and listened to it frequently. Though I go through spurts of listening to different types of music, I always come back to classical on a regular basis. I may not be an expert or a connoisseur—my favorites are often randomly chosen, though there are certain styles and composers I tend to like best—but I know what I like and I enjoy it. There is something about a really beautiful piece of symphonic classical music that simply makes me happy.
It occurred to me at some point in recent months to try and list my all-time favorite compositions (you know me and making lists). I couldn’t find fifty that fit the criteria of all-time favorites, and twenty-five wasn’t enough, so I ended up with thirty. Here they are roughly in order, though of course that can fluctuate depending on what I’m listening to or what mood I happen to be in at the time:
• “The Promise of Living” from The Tender Land – Copland
• “Capriccio Italien” – Tchaikovsky
• “Sunset” from Grand Canyon Suite – Grofé
• Largo from Symphony No. 9 “From the New World” – Dvorak
• “Roses from the South” – Strauss Jr.
• “Finlandia” – Sibelius
• “Jupiter” from The Planets – Holst
• “Morning” from Peer Gynt – Grieg
• Andantino from Concerto for Flute and Harp – Mozart
• “Street in a Frontier Town” from Billy the Kid – Copland
• “The Moldau” – Smetana
• Finale from Symphony No. 2 – Sibelius
• “On the Beautiful Blue Danube” – Strauss Jr.
• Variations on a Theme by Paganini, 18th variation – Rachmaninoff
• Light Cavalry overture – Suppé
• Radetzky-March – Strauss Sr.
• “1812” overture – Tchaikovsky
• “Barcarolle” (instrumental) – Offenbach
• “Clair de Lune” (orchestral arrangement) – Debussy
• “Swedish Rhapsody” – Alfvén
• Adagio from Spartacus – Khachaturian
• Allegro con brio and allegro risoluto, Sinfonietta – Moeran
• Appalachian Spring – Copland
• Pas de deux from The Nutcracker – Tchaikovsky
• “Corral Nocturne” from Rodeo – Copland
• Piano Concerto No. 1 – Tchaikovsky
• An American in Paris – Gershwin
• Adagietto from Symphony No. 5 – Mahler
• Warsaw Concerto – Addinsell
• “Waltz of the Flowers” from The Nutcracker – Tchaikovsky
(Of course including two movements of the Moeran “Sinfonietta” may be cheating a bit, but both movements do feature the same theme and I can’t decide which one I like best.)
Hanna-col says
I see many favorites on this list! Again, my homeschooler upbringing factors into my continued love for classical music I feel. For a long stretch it was pretty much the only music genre we listened to, outside of film soundtracks and hymns. AND I REMEMBER THOSE CLASSICAL KIDS AUDIO DRAMAS! Hallelujah, Handel was my personal favorite!
I am unfamiliar with some of those Copland pieces so I need to look those up on Spotify.
Elisabeth Grace Foley says
It’s funny, Hallelujah, Handel! is just about the only one whose plot I really can’t remember!
Oh, yes, definitely look up more Copland. If the list was longer I’d probably have his “Letter From Home” and “An Outdoor Overture” on there too, besides more from Rodeo and Billy the Kid.
Hamlette says
Good list! I’m a homeschooled fan of classical music too 🙂
I see a lot of favorites here, especially the Copland, Tchaikovsky, and Mozart selections. I would add Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” and “American in Paris” to it, and more Mozart and Tchaikovsky pieces probably. And some other stuff like Ravel’s “Bolero,” Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries,” and a few others.
Elisabeth Grace Foley says
“An American in Paris” is on there! If I made it a longer list I’d probably have more Tchaikovsky, too, and more Copland.
Oh, yes, “Bolero” is an old familiar one; it’s on one of those Time Life compilations (actually, I think it was a shortened version). I’m not too familiar with Wagner (aside from “Ride of the Valkyries” of course), but I have one piece of his that I like on my mp3 player called “Forest Murmurs.”
Sophia says
My sister, who’s the musician of the family, was reading this, got about halfway through, and said “Hmm, she likes Romantics.” Then she squealed “Tchaikovsky! Piano Concerto!” I think your list has her approval.
We listened to Beethoven Lives Upstairs too. I think home-schooling helps, because part of a liberal education is being able to listen to music even if, as in my case, you can’t make it to save your life. I’ve gotten more into listening to music in the couple of months since starting to work for the orchestra my sister’s in (she’s a second violin, at the moment), and for our Christmas concert they’re doing some Handel, which overjoys us all. (The last concert was all American stuff, Rhapsody in Blue and Copland songs and such — not quite as nice as the Baroque.)
My sister’s tastes differ from mine in that she likes a lot of Romantic music, whereas I prefer Bach and things that came before him.
Elisabeth Grace Foley says
Yep, that sounds about right. 🙂
I kept this list to orchestral pieces rather than mixing in choral, because I find I prefer singing choral music to listening to it most of the time. But Handel’s “Messiah” is just amazing—I’ve sung the whole thing with a choir several times and there’s just nothing to compare to it (the finale, “Worthy Is the Lamb,” perhaps even more so than “Hallelujah”).