Your Number One, All Time Favorite Romantic Piece?

[Felix]

I have too many one or all time favourites, but perhaps a special favourite is Schubert's Piano Trio in B flat major, partly because it was the first piece of 'classical music' I got to know on a wind.up gramophone in the wilds of Namibia.

I have just remembered a piece which, I think, I love before all others: Bach's Chorale Prelude for organ, O Mensch bewein dein Suende gross.

Bach, of course, was a romantic.
The first line translates, "Oh man weep for your great sin" but there is nothing about sin in the music, only compassion, tenderness, intimacy, spirituality as well as constructive genius.

[Cadenza]

It could only be the first Brahms symphony.
I often listen to it while driving, over and over again, and comparing different orchestras as I go. The final movement still inspires me.

[SergeOfArniVillage]

My favorite Romantic piece of music?

Totentanz, by Franz Liszt. (Solo Piano version)

There are many pieces that are better, but as far as being in the Romantic mindset, Totentanz is, in my mind, a sublime masterpiece, probably fitting the Romantic mindset in one of the deepest ways. Chaotic whirlwinds of fire and brimstone coat the tonal palette, with soft, lulling contrasts ... the piece comes across as rhapsodic and loosely-structured, although it has a clear direction ... beautiful, dynamic variations give moments of "how is that even possible?" ... For me, Totentanz is a wonderful piece of Romantic art.

[Felix]

Sergeetc, are you a newcomer to BC? I see you are writing to threads thathave more or less run their course. At least Roehre has answered your 'I love Mozart' note. I'll answer both.

I'm a great admirer of Liszt and the Totentanz, but my intimate favourites are Schumann, Chopin, Brahms in the romantic period.

Impossible to answer the intial question as one has too many all time favourites. I gave some of mine - I can't remember whcih - but added Bach's chorale prelude, Oh Mensch bewein dein Suende gross, as it is a fully fledged Romantic piece.

I'll tell you something about me and Liszt. I was studying music at Rhodes university, in Grahamstown, South Africa and another student, Stewart, who dug me out of a practise room and we became constant musical chums. Our first questions were, "Who is your favourite composer. I said schumann, whom he didn't like and he said Liszt, whom I didn't like. with time we both changed our minds.I thought I dislike Liszt for a longtime, but my conversion came with Barenboim playing the great in B minor Sonata in London

When I was bar unsuitably bar pianist in the Algarve in Portugal pianist:the propietress insisted. One day, sitting next to me, she asked me to play something by Liszt. I played one of the pieces from the Consolations, the one that sounds most like a Chopin Nocturne, but with quite different harmonic shadings. When I had finished, She said, "Aaah, Professor so-and-so says all the Romantics are marvellous, but Liszt makes the moon sing!"

I have recently heard the last Variation of Schumann's Etudes Symphoniques, and it struck me as the most wonderful romantic piece I had heard.

Yours, Felix

[SergeOfArniVillage]

Haha, yes, I have always been bad not to check the date to see if it has expired yet xD I should get into that habit!