Classical Music.

Beethoven's piano concertos are wonderful.

Try googling classical music radio. Lots of online sites are given.

Glad you're enjoying the music.

Thanks Roberta. Have not got my paws on any Beethoven as yet, but I am finding BBC3 very nice.

I have often heard that Bach is the greatest of all time?

In the solo keyboard music genre from various periods, some of my favorites are:

François Couperin: Pièces de clavecin, especially Book 1
J.S. Bach: The Well-Tempered Clavier, Books 1 and 2 (especially performed by Bernard Roberts)
Mozart: the piano sonatas (especially performed by Mitsuko Uchida)
Schubert: the piano sonatas
Brahms: Op. 118
Ravel: Sonatine
Janácek: On the Overgrown Path
Poulenc: Improvisations
Krenek: 20 Miniatures
Nancarrow: Studies for player piano

Sibelius' symphonies are great.

You might want to check out some recordings of Liszt's piano transcriptions of Beethoven's symphonies.

B's Sixth Symphony especially lends itself to trascription for piano, and within the Sixth, the Second Movement is especially sublime, IMO.

On piano the symphonies' melodies are more direct and accessible than when played by full orchestra, although, of course, color and texture are sacrificed for the simplicity of the piano. Liszt managed to boil these symphonies down to their essences.

"Greatest" is an individual determination, I think. I prefer Beethoven. The complexity of Bach as staggering. Bach's concertos for harpsichord are intricate and powerful.

Thank you everyone for the names, I hope those are not exclusively piano music . I was just listening to a Bach Baroque cd (yes, those relics of the past century), and found it very pleasing. I amworking my way through a Wagner cd and it reminds me of church bells and vows....

P.S. I have heard of nocturnal music, do we get diurnal?

When a poet talks about diurnel music, the poet usually means birdsong--unless the poet was being poetic after 1940. The subject matter might be machinery, civilian or military.

All music before Elvis isn't classical, just a rough guide:

1000 ad-----1450 was known as medieval
1450--1600 renaissance
1600--1750 Baroque
1750 --1827 ( to coincide with Beethovens death) was known as classical
1827 till 1910 is called romanticism (the romantic era)
after 1910 it's just called 20th century music

So for example Johann Sebastian Bach didn't compose classical music he died before it came along

I think that when people refer to Classical music in general they are referring to the music described by Merriam-Webster's entry 3 b : of, relating to, or being music in the educated European tradition that includes such forms as art song, chamber music, opera, and symphony as distinguished from folk or popular music or jazz.

Within this description one can include "classical" music, i.e music from the Classical Period, described by Webster's entry 3 a : of or relating to music of the late 18th and early 19th centuries characterized by an emphasis on balance, clarity, and moderation.

M-W's does list the musical period as the word's first musical reference, and that is probably where its generic musical reference (i.e. "educated European tradition distinguished from folk or popular music or jazz") began.

Yes, the different uses of the word "classical" can be confusing. Usually they are distinguished by capital and lowercase letters: "classical" is the generic term we use for the entire tradition of Western art music while "Classical" is the term for the music written ca. 1750-1810.

As a period-description, the term "Classical" was not actually used by the composers the word purports to describe. The term was retroactively applied by 19th-century historians, primarily in Germany, who were trying to write the history of their musical culture. The term "Classical" was meant half-metaphorically--just as ancient Greece is considered the birth of modern civilization, the gloried "tradition" of Haydn and Mozart was seen as the starting point of what was in the early 19th century current musical culture. That is the late 18th century was given the same descriptor as Greek antiquity--"Classical."

When it comes to symphonies, my favorites are Beethoven (again) and Tchaikovsky.

Check this out:

http://classicalwebcast.com/index.html

http://www.ipl.org/div/mushist/

My favorites are: Beethoven- Fifth, Seventh and Ninth symphonies

Dvorak- Any of his chamber music

Mahler- Second Symphony

Saint Saens- Organ Symphony

Rossini- Overtures (any of them)

Berlioz- Symphonie Fantastique

Saint Saens--Carnival of the Animals

You couldn't possibly leave out pastoral symphony no.6

I would recommend to you the piano sonatas of Haydn, which are not as frequently performed as those of his contemporary Mozart, but which i have always enjoyed as much as those of Mozart.

Also, speaking of Mozart, my two favorites are the Rondo A la Turqua, and the piece entitled Variations on O, Maman, dirai-ja. The latter you will recognize as "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star," but he does a dozen variations on the theme. Also, the sonatas of Scarlatti and Haydn for harpsichord might entertain you as well.

As for pieces other than piano sonatas, i could go on for pages.

Love Mozart's Turkish Rondo (someone did a parody on that which was great, but I cannot find it)

Also Saint Saens' Danse Macabre among others.

Chopin's Revolutionary Etude and Fantasy Impromptu.

Many of the German composers among which is Schumann.

Sorry if I misspelled the names. I'm American after all.

By the way, you might also enjoy the solo piano works of Schubert known as Moments Musicaux (Musical Moments). Less well known, but equally entertaining in my opinion are the Moments Musicaux of Sergei Rachmaninoff. Rachmaninoff, who lived from 1873 to 1943, was the last great "Romantic" composer. The Romantic era in musical composition follows the Classical era, and runs roughly from 1815 to 1900--although the "Modern" and "Neo-classical" eras begin in the late 1800s. Composers divided themselves into Romantic, Neo-classical and Modern "camps," and were often bitterly divided over the worth of their own particular preferred style of composition. Rachmaninoff traveled in Europe and North America before the Great War, and in 1917, left Russia for Sweden with his family. He eventually ended up in New York (about 1920), and he spent most of the rest of his life in the United States. He did not, however, compose much music after he left Russia. He did, however, record a good deal of music. He first recorded for Thomas Edison, on an inferior piano. He remained, above all else, a popular piano virtuoso, and he signed a contract with Victor Talking Machines (RCA Victor, eventually), and a great many of his recordings have been preserved. He truly was a virtuoso--his hands were huge, and he could span the keyboard of a piano as few other pianists have been able to do. He was able to play accurately piano music which he had only heard once, and he was able to play technically difficult pieces with ease because of the great span of his hands. He was influenced most by Tchaikovsky, another "late Romantic," and his compositional style was very Russian. He recorded a good deal of the music of others, including your new favorite Chopin, and when it comes to solo pieces, his recordings remain gems, because monaural recordings are just as good as any other variety when there is a single instrument and performer. He was also once filmed paying piano, and it's a breathtaking piece of film, because of the speed and accuracy with which he could play. I highly recommend Rachmaninoff's music, and any recordings you can find of his performances, especially of your new friend Chopin. Like most of the Russian performers of the Romantic era, he considered that his playing should always be technically faultless, and felt free to interpret the music he was playing. I think you'd like him.

Few people ever mention it, but Beethoven's Third Symphony (called the "Eroica" Symphony) was a ground-breaking symphony, and helped pave the way for the Romantic Era. His first and second symphonies are very obviously influenced by Haydn, with whom he briefly studied composition. But the Third Symphony was all his own, and he shows this in the drama of the music, and in going his own way in the structure of the symphony. The second movement of this symphony is noted as "Marcia Funebre," or funeral march, and is one of the most dramatic pieces of music ever composed for a symphony orchestra, and even more remarkable for its simplicity, which approaches the bravura simplicity of the Fifth Symphony. Some people see the composition of the Third Symphony as the end of the Classical era and the beginning of the Romantic--however, not too many people in 1804 noticed that the Classical Era had ended, and the imperatives of composition in the Classical style continued for a decade or more. It was definitely, however, a watershed in symphonic composition.