Rosie this is such a hard question! There are so many. Renaissance- Mozart: the music takes me away to another place and makes me feel calm. When Walt Disney started making animated features, the Sherman Brothers- their music was fun, communicated the feelings of the characters and the story in a creative way for children and adults. The Renaissance for Disney films starting in 1989 with The Little Mermaid and the collaberative team of Alan Menken composing the music and Howard Ashman writing the lyrics. Howard Ashman was able to communicate a characters feelings through a song that it touched my heart and made me cry. He also wrote the lyrics for Beauty and the Beast and that movie was nominated for its music and at the time, it was the first animated feature "cartoon" to be nominated for best picture at the Academy awards, but he died of AIDS before the movie was even released.
This post was edited by ally at December 8, 2017 1:29 PM MST
First of all apologies for the difficulty honey. Here's the backstory. I just saw "RHAPSODY IN BLUE" for the ziillionith time. I LOVE "An American in Paris". "Rhapsody in Blue". "Concerto in F". As well as all the popular Gershwin songs. I got goosebumps when in the movie Oscar Levant, a concert pianist in his own right and a very close real-life friend of George Gerswin's, actually played some Gershwin music . Al Jolson actually sang "Swanee" in the movie in blackface just as he had in real life..not P.C. but back then things were different than they are now. I adore historical movies and I always check them out after the fact of seeing them to see how accurately the movie portrayed the subject. So for right now I'd have to say Gershwin is my favorite. But my favorite non-Gershwin classic piece is the 1812 Overture. There are many composers whose music I love so I know it's hard to single out just one. Thank you for your very thoughtful and information-filled reply to my question. I just learned a lot I did not know. A sad end for Howard Ashman but his music makes him immortal. Happy Saturday ally! :) ((hugs)) The hug is for the great answer! :)
This post was edited by RosieG at December 4, 2017 12:57 PM MST
I go mainly for the big tunes and expansive themes by the Romantic and Modern composers: Wagner, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov, Sibelius, Holst, Elgar, Poulenc, Vaughan Williams; even Saint-Saens although I'm not religious and much of his work is sacred directly or by association.
A lot of Classical music leaves me a bit cold because it seems more exercises in composing and playing skill than emotion.
I like Bach but in fairly small doses because too many Preludes & Fugues together sound rather repetitive; and a fugue is not easy to follow, more a display of audio geometry than message. In fact his music went well out of fashion for some while after his death: everyone was about fugued out!
Still, both Bachs (father & son) were writing mainly liturgical music for the Lutheran tradition which encourages singing (the "Chorale" is sung by the congregation, not just the choir) and their era, the Baroque, turned out a lot of big, bright, brassy, bouncy tunes for entertainment, that made Handel a big-name star of the day.
ally 