You must agree, this is the most beautiful piece of music ever written

[Square Wheels]

 

[dinneR ★]

This one is almost as good and they took all of two minutes to make their point

 

[Longjohn ★]

My bride came down the aisle to this music

[Zealot]

This is probably my personal favorite classical piece. Though truly it’s difficult to make such a choice:

 

[Parr8hed]

 

[maddmaxx ★]

Where in your wildest dreams did you get the idea that I had to agree with anything.

Besides, this would be the correct answer anyway.  

 

[MickinMD ★]

The first movement of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata got me into a music adventure that lasted a decade.

As a result of my playing it, I met and discussed Chinese music scales with the great pianist Lang Lang, was told how much she liked my playing of Schumann's "First Sorrow," by Opera Grand Diva Hyunah Yu as she poured me a Coca Cola, and was told at the piano how to play a classical passage better ("Here's how to make it sound like it should - like pigs slopping in the mud") by the Grammy Award winning classical pianist Leon Fleisher, and studied under virtuosa Frances-Cheng Koors where sometimes it was hard to concentrate and repeat the notes she had just played sitting alongside me on the piano bench because I was so astonished by how well she played them.

The Moonlight Sonata is the piano piece I played when I auditioned to get a slot as a student with Frances Cheng-Koors, the virtuosa and chairwoman of the Piano Dept. at the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins U.  I had been studying it at a small music school in my area.  It's not easy: the left hand plays the bass, the right hand plays the rhythm AND the melody at the same time, with the rhythm fingers playing a little softer - the finger control is hard to do.

I had been taking my 5 year-old nephew Ryan - the one who is now training flight attendants for Mesa Airlines - to the Peabody Prep for a year where he studied early childhood music under the great world-class harpist Michaela Trnkova (Played for e few Presidents at the White House, Winner of the Queen Elizabeth of Belgium Harp Competition - the Wimbledon of Harp).  She loved teachin little kids.  I sometimes played background piano chords for Michaela to help the kids keep the beat as they did worked on ringing triangles, waving scarves, beating drums, etc. to learn the difference between quarter notes, half notes, and to stay in rhythm with each other.

One day, there was a sign pasted on the college's hallway message boards, "How to Learn new material," a seminar by Frances Cheng-Koors, $25.

I asked Michaela if I played well enough that I qualified to attend the seminar.  She said I did.

Halfway through it, Frances said to pay attention to the nationality of the composer, because that sometimes gave you a clue of how to accent the music.  For example, Chopin was from Poland and his waltz music often accented the 2nd or 3rd of the three beats instead of the 1st as happens with Polish Mazurkas.

Then, she sat down and played Chopin.  My mouth must have been hanging wide open because the woman sitting next to me, a piano teacher, looked at me and said, "Oh, I know.  Her playing is incredibly beautiful!"

Somehow, I had the nerve to approach her after the seminar, told her I had studied for a couple years at a small studio, and asked her if she was taking new students.

"What are you studying now?" she asked.

"The first movement of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata."

"I'm having a recital here in a couple weeks.  Come to it and play it for me."

After I played it, she asked when I wanted to start lessons with her.  I thought I must have done very well.  As it turned out, she just liked my enthusiasm!  I had the wrong posture, poor efficiency of shoulders, arms, wrists, and hands - all the things the "Russian Method" that is considered THE way to play piano involves.  So she started me out on simpler pieces to get that right before I moved up over the decade I worked with her to major pieces Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schumann, Chopin, etc.

Through Frances, I met some of the major musicians in the world.  Leon Fleisher came to see her about some Peabody matter when I was in her studio doing a lesson.  He looked over at me practicing and said, "We can do that better, can't we?" and went on to show me how!  I was being taught piano by arguably the greatest American pianist of all time! THAT was a thrill!

Unfortunately, Frances passed away a few years ago.  I had continued piano lessons at her home for a few years after she retired from Peabody.

As I studied with her, I learned Frances was a child prodigy in Shanghai.  During the Cultural Revolution when things Western were banned, her parents played Communist Patriotic Music at full blast - knowing no one would dare complain - to hide the sound of Frances practicing Beethoven, Mozart, etc. on the piano.

As she grew up, she escaped Red China, studied at Peabody, and later became piano dept. chair there.  She was one of the few pianists in the world to be invited to play on Mozart's personal grand piano during the Salzburg, Austria Music Festival each year.

 

 

 

[MickinMD ★]

I love The Moonlight Sonata and it was the first piece of Masterwork Sheet Music - exactly as Beethoven wrote it - I ordered when I got my new piano after the fire.

There are two pieces of music I also consider to be among the greatest pieces of piano music ever written.  One is another Beethoven piece, Fur Elise, and one by Chopin, Nocturne in C Sharp Minor Opus Posthumous (both below).  The greatest piece of music to me is the 2nd movement of Mozart's Concerto for Flute and Harp, K.299.  When the harp begins playing at the end of the intro at 0:48, it's fantastic.  It was the music selected for the scene in the Oscar-winning movie Amadeus, when Salieri is looking at Mozart's sheet music and saying, "It was the very voice of God."

 

 

 

[Longjohn ★]

1 hour ago, Zealot said:

This is probably my personal favorite classical piece. Though truly it’s difficult to make such a choice:

 

I like the Christmas version. I’ve seen it live many times. 

 

[TrentonMakes]

Honestly, I don't think I can argue with SW on this one.  (In the YouTube link she's generally playing a little faster than I'd prefer though) My daughter is taking it upon herself to learn it.

Thanks for the other links to listen to at lunchtime.  (and I really need to see Amadeus again - probably haven't seen it since I was in high school.)

[MickinMD ★]

3 hours ago, MickinMD said:

The first movement of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata got me into a music adventure that lasted a decade.

As a result of my playing it, I met and discussed Chinese music scales with the great pianist Lang Lang, was told how much she liked my playing of Schumann's "First Sorrow," by Opera Grand Diva Hyunah Yu as she poured me a Coca Cola, and was told at the piano how to play a classical passage better ("Here's how to make it sound like it should - like pigs slopping in the mud") by the Grammy Award winning classical pianist Leon Fleisher, and studied under virtuosa Frances-Cheng Koors where sometimes it was hard to concentrate and repeat the notes she had just played sitting alongside me on the piano bench because I was so astonished by how well she played them.

The Moonlight Sonata is the piano piece I played when I auditioned to get a slot as a student with Frances Cheng-Koors, the virtuosa and chairwoman of the Piano Dept. at the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins U.  I had been studying it at a small music school in my area.  It's not easy: the left hand plays the bass, the right hand plays the rhythm AND the melody at the same time, with the rhythm fingers playing a little softer - the finger control is hard to do.

I had been taking my 5 year-old nephew Ryan - the one who is now training flight attendants for Mesa Airlines - to the Peabody Prep for a year where he studied early childhood music under the great world-class harpist Michaela Trnkova (Played for e few Presidents at the White House, Winner of the Queen Elizabeth of Belgium Harp Competition - the Wimbledon of Harp).  She loved teachin little kids.  I sometimes played background piano chords for Michaela to help the kids keep the beat as they did worked on ringing triangles, waving scarves, beating drums, etc. to learn the difference between quarter notes, half notes, and to stay in rhythm with each other.

One day, there was a sign pasted on the college's hallway message boards, "How to Learn new material," a seminar by Frances Cheng-Koors, $25.

I asked Michaela if I played well enough that I qualified to attend the seminar.  She said I did.

Halfway through it, Frances said to pay attention to the nationality of the composer, because that sometimes gave you a clue of how to accent the music.  For example, Chopin was from Poland and his waltz music often accented the 2nd or 3rd of the three beats instead of the 1st as happens with Polish Mazurkas.

Then, she sat down and played Chopin.  My mouth must have been hanging wide open because the woman sitting next to me, a piano teacher, looked at me and said, "Oh, I know.  Her playing is incredibly beautiful!"

Somehow, I had the nerve to approach her after the seminar, told her I had studied for a couple years at a small studio, and asked her if she was taking new students.

"What are you studying now?" she asked.

"The first movement of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata."

"I'm having a recital here in a couple weeks.  Come to it and play it for me."

After I played it, she asked when I wanted to start lessons with her.  I thought I must have done very well.  As it turned out, she just liked my enthusiasm!  I had the wrong posture, poor efficiency of shoulders, arms, wrists, and hands - all the things the "Russian Method" that is considered THE way to play piano involves.  So she started me out on simpler pieces to get that right before I moved up over the decade I worked with her to major pieces Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schumann, Chopin, etc.

Through Frances, I met some of the major musicians in the world.  Leon Fleisher came to see her about some Peabody matter when I was in her studio doing a lesson.  He looked over at me practicing and said, "We can do that better, can't we?" and went on to show me how!  I was being taught piano by arguably the greatest American pianist of all time! THAT was a thrill!

Unfortunately, Frances passed away a few years ago.  I had continued piano lessons at her home for a few years after she retired from Peabody.

As I studied with her, I learned Frances was a child prodigy in Shanghai.  During the Cultural Revolution when things Western were banned, her parents played Communist Patriotic Music at full blast - knowing no one would dare complain - to hide the sound of Frances practicing Beethoven, Mozart, etc. on the piano.

As she grew up, she escaped Red China, studied at Peabody, and later became piano dept. chair there.  She was one of the few pianists in the world to be invited to play on Mozart's personal grand piano during the Salzburg, Austria Music Festival each year.

 

 

 

P.S.  Here are some photos from World Harp Champion Michaela Trnkova's Early Childhood Music Class at the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins Univ. on May 21, 2005.  The last pic is me, 4 year-old Ryan, and Michaela. It was Michaela who encouraged me to take a seminar class with piano virtuosa Frances Cheng-Koors, that resulted in me playing The Moonlight Sonata for her, that started me on a great, decade-long musical journey.

 

[12string]

Sitting in the pew, waiting for the wedding to start, my wife pointed out in the program that they would be using "Winter" from Vivaldi's Four Seasons for recessional.  She asked if that was the one we used at our wedding.  I barely finished telling her that we had chosen "Spring", when the string Quartet started playing it.

Alas, I am no longer permitted to think it's the most beautiful piece of music ever written

[Dottleshead ★]

I'm pretty sure you meant this, right?

 

 

Thought so.

[shootingstar]

20 minutes ago, Dottles said:

I'm pretty sure you meant this, right?

 

 

Thought so.

[shootingstar]

Now you know what type of music that I listen online and go to live performance concerts that include Handel's "Handel Music", Pachbel's Cannon.  Latter has played at several family weddings during the march down aisle.  

Pachebel's Canon, was my dear departed sister's favourite piece she listened often.  Her children know this piece very well.

We also played the piece at her funeral.

Canon reminds me of approaching a magnificent soaring mountain that reveals its glory slowly.

Understand dearie and I in Prague, when we got there attended via paid ticket a classical music concerts in historic churches.  Believe me, to know pieces is like Shakespeare, you can go concerts internationally, and assess the quality also... very well known classic musical pieces, are  like an international language.

[BuffJim]

On 12/4/2022 at 10:35 PM, Square Wheels said:

 

Magnificent. 

[BuffJim]

51 minutes ago, BuffJim said:

Magnificent. 

But I can’t help but think how much better it could have been if they had steel guitars back then.