Quote: Griff @ March 10 2011, 4:02 PM GMTFar too many to list but I will try.
Opera - I like La Traviata (Verdi), The Magic Flute (Mozart), The Marriage Of Figaro (Mozart), Carmen (Bizet), The Tales Of Hoffman (Offenbach) and I would very much like to see Madam Butterfly (Puccini).
The only opera I have been to see and not enjoyed was A Masked Ball by Verdi which seemed a bit short on tunes and a bit long on shouting and yelling.
I adore Gilbert and Sullivan. I went to see The Mikado last week and it was fabulous. I was particularly struck by the fact that it contains a large number of brilliant short songs that are over in a couple of minutes and never repeated, unlike most modern musicals which have about three or four "hits" and either drag them out over and over again, or make a single rendition go on for ten minutes with interminable repeats and key changes so that by the time they've finished milking it to death you hate the song with a passion, even if you liked it in the first place.
I like most instrumental works by Bach or Mozart, or anything by Handel (including oratorios like Alexander's Feast). There's usually too much going on in Beethoven for my liking. I like the solo piano repertoires of Liszt and Chopin, and the big piano concertos of Tchaikovsky, Grieg, Rachmaninov etc. I like oddities like Saint-Saens' Carnival of The Animals. I've recently discovered Mahler but I'm still deciding whether I like it or not. Most twentieth-century classical music sets my teeth on edge, with the exception of things like Barber's Adagio or the jazz-influenced composers like Gershwin or Shostakovich. (Oh and I like Orff's Carmina Burana).
I like Radio Three very much except when they play contemporary stuff like Pierre Boulez or Harrison Birtwistle.
Griff, you truly are the most cultured BCGer ever!*
*May not actually be compliment
