Yay, someone agrees~

Favorite piece, eh? That's a tough one, but I'd have to go with The Art of Fugue. I'm a bit of a purist, so I'm behind the whole 'playing music on period instruments' movement; incidentally, if you're looking for a recording along those lines, this string quartet/harpsichord version is out of this world. It took me a little while to adjust to period tuning (it's considerably flat compared to A440), but it really mellows out the normally bright key of D minor and gives it a nice C# minor feel.

One of the few major compositions of his that I haven't listened to is the Goldberg Variations, so I'll definitely take your recommendation under advisement :3

Anyways, I totally get you. The mechanical, mathematical nature of his music is the primary reason people shy away from it; in fact, when I was younger and more naive, I didn't like Bach all that much either. Composers like Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Puccini, etc. certainly have a more visceral appeal (not to take away from the achievements of these composers!). As I got older, I began to appreciate the nuanced, meticulous presentation of Bach and the 'hidden' passion behind his compositions. That said, you'd be hard-pressed to find a more emotionally-charged piece than the Mass in B minor!

All of this discussion makes me wish I understood music theory better so I could appreciate Bach on a deeper level. As a casual (once-serious) musician, I can only glean so much.

As a pianist, what's your favorite piano piece (any composer)? I have my thoughts, but I'm a pretty cruddy pianist so it would be cool to hear a more educated opinion :3

Glenn Gould is a little weird for my tastes, but I miiiight give that a shot. If that's doesn't do it for me, I'm sure there are other respectable recordings out there.

I'm a big fan of Beethoven's piano works (and Beethoven in general, heh - easily my next favorite composer behind Bach) and I have the Arrau recording playing in the background now :3. It's pretty cool that you're in his 'lineage'; I like his playing.

I will give "Oiseaux Tristes" a try as well. In general I've found that Ravel doesn't really appeal to my aesthetic, but I haven't tried him out in a while. Maybe my tastes have changed with time!

I enjoy Chopin quite a bit, and almost all of his pieces are technically treacherous. I have a recording of the complete Etudes by Ashkenazy (I'm pretty sure) and I like it a lot. I'm nowhere near the technical proficiency to attempt them, but kudos to you for your bravery. Best of luck on mastering it! All of the Etudes are great, but I think I like Op. 10 Nos. 4 & 12 and Op. 25 No. 11 the best. There's a jaw-dropping and admittedly somewhat silly recording of Richter playing Op. 10 No. 4 at a ridiculous tempo; silly because the musicality gets partly lost at the speed he plays it. You can't knock his precision or technique, though!

I realize now that I posed an unfair question to you, because I don't think I can come up with an absolute favorite piano piece either :P Maybe if I ruminate on it a bit I'll come up with a short list.

Don't worry about the length of your posts! I'm out of touch with most of my music friends from high school and don't get a chance to geek out about classical music very often, so this is a lot of fun for me :3

Sleep well!

Back to Beethoven, eh? That's pretty awesome, even if it doesn't mean a whole lot. Similar to the whole '6 degrees of separation' thing, there's something called the Erdos number; Paul Erdos was a remarkably prolific mathematician, so the Erdos number is a reflection of how many steps removed you are from having a direct collaboration with him. Mostly it's just a neat factoid, but you could construct something similar for student-teacher heritage :3. As for me, one of my cello teachers was a student of Janos Starker (world-renowned cellist and instructor), who is one step removed from being instructed by David Popper, who (literally) wrote the book on cello technique. I don't expect those names to mean much to you, but it's still a bit cool.

I may come up with a real Liszt at some point (*snort* music humor)! Unfortunately, I haven't sampled nearly as many composers or compositional forms as I would like. I'm most familiar with violin and cello solo pieces, followed by small string ensemble and orchestral work. I should really take the time to listen to Mahler and Bruckner symphonies straight through, and Mozart, Wagner, and Verdi operas, and 20th-century composers in general. I hesitate to put together a formal list when I feel I've only heard a very small fraction of the great music out there! That said, I can certainly point you to a number of pieces I love. Off the top of my head, in no particular order:

- Beethoven, C# minor string quartet (No. 14 Op. 131)
- Elgar, Cello Concerto in E minor
- Stravinsky, Rite of Spring
- Bach, Art of Fugue (as I mentioned earlier)
- Dvorak, Serenade for Strings
- Bach, Violin Sonatas and Partitas (all of them)
- Elgar, Introduction and Allegro for string quartet and string orchestra
- Shostakovich, Cello Sonata Op. 40
- Shostakovich, Piano Trio No. 2 (piano, violin, cello)

Even that was painful to come up with, because there are so many pieces I'm leaving out and I wouldn't say it's representative at all. I also realize almost all of them are multi-movement works that last upwards of 30 minutes to an hour each; Introduction and Allegro is only about 12-15 minutes, though, so maybe you'd start there, if you haven't heard it before (good recording here)?

It's definitely a lot of fun to go back and forth like this! Get some coffee and such and start the day over there :3 *patpats a foxy on the head~*

It's funny how we tend to focus in on our own repertoires...as I said before, the amount of great music out there is overwhelming. Don't feel embarrassed, though! It's not like there isn't time to fill in the gaps :3. I'm glad you liked the Elgar; I actually played that piece with a small ensemble I was a part of in high school, and it was a blast. In general I feel Elgar is under-appreciated, but that may be because he wrote such a kick-ass cello concerto. Also, I'm a bit surprised that you favor the Firebird! I've listened to all three of his early ballets extensively, and I have to say that the Firebird is by far the most abstruse and difficult. The Firebird Suite is very nice, but mainly because it cuts out the majority of the weird, impressionistic interludes that are present in the full ballet; did I mention I don't really like Ravel all that much? XD

If there's anything on that list that I think you absolutely MUST listen to, though, it's the Beethoven C# minor string quartet. It's not 'easy listening' in the same sense that great Bach isn't easy listening, but it's well worth the effort. I would link a YouTube video for that one, but to be honest I'm not sure which recording to recommend. This piece completely changed my view of Beethoven, and I only discovered it about a year ago. You're probably very familiar with his solo piano work, and I'm familiar with much of his symphonic work (with a smattering of piano sonatas, piano trios, and early string quartets), but his late quartets are quite literally a revelation and unlike anything else he wrote. With his symphonies especially, he may have ushered in the Romantic period, but these quartets - I happen to be most familiar with No. 14, but there are six (I think) - preface the innovations of the 20th century. You don't have to take my word for it, though; Schubert reportedly said, after listening to it: 'After this, what is left for us to write?'

I listened to the Piazzolla you linked, and I have to say that it was...interesting. I actually have listened to a chunk of his music arranged for solo cello and accompaniment (courtesy of Yo Yo Ma), so hearing it on two pianos was a bit jarring! I hadn't heard the tango you linked before, but the same duo performed a similar arrangement of Libertango, which I do know. On two pianos, it feels like the balance between parts is off and the whole thing comes off as kind of heavy and muddled; a tango, though, is first and foremost a dance. It could just be me and my cello-heavy bias, though, so don't take my opinion too seriously!

*Lets out a wide yawn of his own before going back to sipping his coffee and scratching behind your ears a little with a small smile~* Now it's time for me to wake up! Let's get some good wake-up music on...*'thumbs' through iTunes library and settles on Bernstein's 'Candide'* ...speaking of which, I'm pretty well-versed in musicals as well, so if you ever want to talk about that genre, I'm all ears! I'm happy to talk about other genres too, of course, but I don't know them quite so well :3

After giving it such high praise, I found myself curious and listened to the C# quartet again on my way to work today. Still just as wonderful as I remember~. Even though it's 7 movements long, the whole piece is contiguous and played without any breaks (attacca if you've encountered that jargon before), so I can't even suggest for you to listen to excerpts of it because they're taken out of context. Still, the high points of the piece for me are movements 1 and 5. I wouldn't take Beethoven's alleged assertion about solo piano music too much to heart, though. There's only so much range you can get out of a single instrument, and of any instrument out there, the piano is probably the most robust (followed closely by the cello, of course :3). The string quartet happens to be one of the more versatile types of ensembles; it covers the wide range of pitch, color, and timbre you would expect of any sizable group of diverse instruments, but still maintains the intimacy of playing 'alone together'. Also, he WAS deaf at that point...how important can a deaf guy's opinion on music be? :P

I’m so glad you liked the Elgar, too~. Yo-Yo Ma is a phenomenal cellist and that performance in particular is so lush and nuanced. I also love the announcer’s bit in the beginning as he introduces the piece, just because his choice of descriptor in the word ‘autumnal’ is simply perfect for the overall tone of the concerto. I’ve learned (but not mastered) the first movement, and I wish I had the technical prowess and endurance to play the rest. It’s not a technical ‘nightmare’ compared with a number of other famous cello concertos, but it’s not trivial, either, especially that second movement.

As I was thinking about it afterward, I think my remark about musicals was a little misguided, in that I'd much rather talk about classical music XD. I used to like musicals a lot when I was younger, and they are fun to perform and watch and listen to. The trend, at least in this country, of the popularization of the musical by the general public and the drive to turn EVERYTHING into a musical has made me less interested in them as an art form. It's not a countercultural thing for me so much as I think it's overstuffed and overdone. Especially irritating is the idea that people are 'getting culture' by watching a musical. Maybe it's me just being a snob and projecting, but I don't like the idea of ignorant people equating musicals with, say, opera, just because they're both stage performances with music and singing. 'Legally Blonde, the Musical' and 'Madama Butterfly' are worlds apart, although I admittedly enjoy both for what they are. (To be fair, 'Legally Blonde' and 'Les Miserables' are pretty far apart too)

That said, I still do enjoy musicals. I've only performed in two - 'The Music Man' and 'Crazy for You' - both of which have their mediocrities but also a considerable amount of charm. I like 'Little Shop of Horrors' a lot (the movie especially; and no, it's not because of 'that thing I'm clearly into based on my favorites/gallery content on this site' *cough* >.> <.<), but I haven't seen the other ones you mentioned. There are certainly gems and duds in the genre. 'Candide' is actually more of an operetta than a musical, and it's elevated to that status primarily because of the quality of Bernstein's score. I could recommend a bunch of musicals to you, but which ones would depend on your taste! 'Les Mis' and 'Legally Blonde' are probably at the two poles on the spectrum from serious and emotive to fun and zippy, with most falling somewhere in the middle. Personally, I can't say that I gravitate towards one type of musical over another; I appreciate quality over everything else, and in anything there can be good and bad. 'Little Shop of Horrors' isn't as brooding and contemplative as 'Sweeney Todd', but I would say that both are high-quality musicals that can be enjoyed in their own right (and in the right mood). 'Guys and Dolls' is a pretty cruddy musical, by comparison, because I don't think I'd ever be in the mood for it :P

I'm listening to the Granados now (what a great title~), and I agree that it is lovely :3. Your teacher's quite good, as well! I was also wondering: One composer whose name gets tossed around a lot but who I've never paid much attention to is Debussy, partly because I've not delved into solo piano work until relatively recently. Do you have any pieces of his that you could recommend? I know I've ripped on Ravel a bit, but I should really listen to more of his work as well before writing him off completely, too. I suppose that my aesthetic is just more German than French, heh.

On a completely unrelated note, what brings you to this interesting little corner of the internet? What got you into furry? :3

It's nice.

Just kidding, I'll be more specific. I listened to "Pagodes", and I'm re-listening to "Clair de Lune" now. As for the first, the music is complex but well put-together - following along with the sheet music helped me realize the structure - and it certainly requires an incredible amount of left/right-hand independence. I can see some of the touches you mentioned that were subjects of the piece. I don't know, though...I think I appreciate it more than I like it; I want to like it, which is why listening to it actually makes me a bit frustrated. It's hard to describe, but I just can't interact with it at all like I can with the work of other great composers. I don't know where it's going, I don't know where it's been, and I have nothing to latch onto as I'm listening. "Clair de Lune" is a little more tangible to me in parts, but even that remains too abstract for me to be moved by it.

I just don't get Impressionism. Maybe I'm being unfair by giving him that label, but that seems to be his aesthetic, at least, even if his compositions are diverse. I wish I had the ability to sit back, relax, and allow myself to 'hear' the music rather than 'listen to' it, but I can't shut my brain off :P. I'm too busy trying to figure it out as it goes, which is probably the main reason why it goes over my head. I recognize that this is a deficiency on my part, not Debussy's, but I don't think I can change the way my crazy brain works x3.

That's a really tragic story about Granados...I hadn't known that. I'm pretty sure I played an orchestral piece of his or two while I was in high school, but that was almost a decade ago and I can't remember which ones. Oh well! I'll sniff around some and enjoy some great music on the way :3.

After reading what you wrote about your take on musicals, I realized my main problem with them actually is my perception of how other people think about them and their changing role in our culture, not the musicals themselves. With the preponderance of new musicals derived from movies that seem to be little more than saccharine, easily-consumed products, and the many people who go and seem to enjoy them, I've become a bit jaded towards the musical as an art form. Sure, there are plenty of examples of lackluster, uninspired musicals from decades ago, but they don't feel as cynically motivated as "Disney Movie X - The Musical", which usurps the talents and artistry of actors, set designers, musicians, etc. in its execution but blatantly contains nothing creative of its own. Rodgers and Hammerstein, Gilbert and Sullivan, Sondheim, Bernstein...these are artists and their work is art. Even now, I'm sure there are plenty of wonderful, original musicals that continue to come out. The most heavily advertised and most popular, though, are vacuous.

If you couldn't tell already, I'm a self-hating American x3.

As far as furry goes for me, I joined up a little more than six years ago; I actually created this account only a couple months after discovering that it existed. It's not something I sought out so much as fell into, to be honest. I first found the online vore community, and as I began to explore that and noticed that some of the people had adopted animal avatars, it felt completely natural - more natural, even - to take on a fox persona. I've always felt an affinity for cartoons and animals - both separately and together - so the opportunity to be a fox was really exciting! I've been drawn to foxes for a long time, though I suspect my boyhood crushes on Robin Hood and Fox McCloud had some influence on why I intuitively gravitated towards a fox fursona in particular x3. Six years later, I can't say that I haven't had my fair share of furry-fueled drama, but it's brought me in touch with a collection of really great people, a thriving community full of creativity, and a welcoming atmosphere for a part of myself I can't really express anywhere else. It also awakened a latent interest in writing, and now I have a gallery full of skeletons to show for it heh heh. I've been to AnthroCon a few times now and that was a lot of fun...if you haven't been to a furry convention before and have some friends to go with, I'd definitely recommend it!

Sooooooooooooo yeah, that's that~ *Earflick*

Well, I may return to Impressionism at some point! Perhaps I just need to get older to appreciate it.

I completely agree that art in all forms is taking a turn for the worse. Most films that come out are trash, popular music is a disaster, and visual art is just a tool of corporations nowadays. Music is something very dear to me, so I get particularly upset with the state of things in the music world, but it can be generalized to many different areas.

The 'furry drama' I was referring to is mostly interpersonal stuff, not the crazy FA-wide stuff that occasionally tears the community on here apart. The most recent one I can think of is the whole Zaush being taken on as the coder for this site...a lot of people were/are friends with his ex, and I really don't know much more than that so I choose to just ignore it! I have a Weasyl account and I visit it occasionally, but mostly I like it here, issues and quirks aside. Whenever you're a part of a community of people, issues naturally come up from time to time...mostly it's been positive for me though :3.

My only experience at a fur con is Anthrocon, which I've been to three times now. I know I would feel uncomfortable going there alone - especially since the main reason I go is to get drunk with friends -_- - but AC is also HUGE. Thousands of people. A smaller convention could have a totally different feel. Hopefully you do get the opportunity to go, and with people you know! Furries can be a little...difficult...to hang around depending on the crowd you're running with, so I can easily see someone having, like your partner, having a rough time of it even though she's not opposed to the furry thing in general (or even is a furry herself). Even so, I'd give it a shot, especially if it's a smaller convention, and hopefully you can rope your GF into it, heh~

Let me know about that Beethoven when you get around to it! I've been pretty busy so I haven't been paying as much attention as I was over the weekend, but if you want to keep talking, I'm totally up for that :3. Also, if you want to chat, I have Skype...I have some other instant messengers too, but I don't go on them often.

Kunst Der Fuge is the world's first techno piece.

It's been about an hour since I read this, and I'm still trying to wrap my mind around it @_@

Because the score has no set instrumentation and is based on mathematical principles.

Ahh, very true. I suppose my conception of techno is pretty naive, but that's good to know! If it's anything like the Art of Fugue, I'm sure I'll find it appealing :3

Kunst Der Fuge IS the Art of Fugue ;3

Of course! I was referring to techno with the last statement, not Kunst der Fugue. I already know I like Kunst der Fugue just as much as Art of Fugue. :3

Hehehe, no worries.

Techno emerged as essentially a more hardcore version of electropop.

See, this is why I feel embarrassed when people talk about music that isn't classical...I don't really know the difference between those two XD. I'm sure I could hear the difference if I had reference songs, but I'm so uneducated :c

No worries man ^^

Outside of classical and new wave I feel out of my depth.