Agreed that classical is misused. The term we should probably use is orchestral, although opera can fit in there as well, especially Mozart's operas.

Has anyone here ever heard Guillaume de Machaut's Messe de Notre Dame? I adore that work.

Yes I do, I listen on radio to Classic and even opera from time to time. But I don't know any names. Don't care about them, just love the music.

I'm very into classical. PM me if you want to talk about it hardcore. I'm going to bed though.

Yes, and very little else.

Greig's "Morning Mood" www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAbwMGZtIsY - very relaxing.

Holst's "Mars" from the Planet Suite: Someone's done a very good video of the Mars Rover mission with this music playing over it. It's here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZWOGcdC_PI&feature=fvst

Tchaikovsky "1812 overture": www.youtube.com/watch?v=9B0oS0xCSHI&feature=related - put this on while playing Dip

Straus' "Blue Danube", used to great effect in the film "2001, a Space Odyssey". Start this, select 480p, full screen and sit back and enjoy - www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDAWszeZtNg&feature=related - and to think, all this was made using 1960's technology. Kubrick was a genius.

Blue Danube has been ruined for me by an ice cream van that uses it near where I live.

Also a big fan of Elgar's 'cello Concerto in E minor (one of very few pieces of classical music I ever bothered to learned the name of). Aside from that my somewhat limited taste revolves around the more well known stuff with a lot of oomph... 1812 Overture, Finlandia, The Ride of the Valkyries etc etc

Vaughn William's fantasia on greensleaves

I listened to that earlier today...

@ SpeakerToAliens

I thought you wrote Grieg's "Morning Wood" LOL!

@ SpeakerToAliens: Ah, Holst's Planets is excellent, IMO.
@Draugnar: I unfortunately do not have much listening experience with the first half of your list, but I completely agree with the second half (especially Bernstein).

My favorite composers:

Vivaldi
Bach
Bach's sons, esp. CPE Bach (sense of humor)
Mozart
Mahler
Prokofiev
Respighi
Charles Ives
John Cage
John Adams
Philip Glass

Many others but that's a good guideline.

I'm not fond of Piano music of violin concertos for the most part but I like just about everything else.

Symphonies are usually masterpieces
Operas can be a lot of fun
String quartets never fail to please

In fact just about all chamber music is awesome. I like woodwind quintets actually.

I'm fond of Mozart because he uses a lot of clarinet, which I play. One of my favorite instruments all told.

Yeah I could babble on forever. I won't. But I love the stuff.

My three favorite sub-genres:

Baroque
Post-Romantic
Minimalist

@KaiserWilly: Oh deary deary me.

Johann Sebastian Bach/Charles Gounod: Ave Maria
As a pianist/cellist (might have noticed a bias above) I love this piece. Simple but beautiful - I kept meaning to record each part and put myself together in a duet.

Not much recently, but his thread has inspired me to again so my thanks to the OP and everyone else for sharing their favourites. My own include Elgar (Nimrod is sublime), Handel, Bach, and Rodriguez' Concierto de Aranjuez (especially Miles Davies version which includes the most perfect silence in music (stuff you Cage fans)). However, the piece which I finx most moving, and I almost in tears thinking of it, is Gorecki's 3rd symphony, the Symphony of Sorrowful Songs, which has been associated with those lost in the Holocaust.

@Draugnar: "Concerto Aranjuez by Jobim" shurely shome mishtake.

One of my favourite composers is Debussy. He isn't classical though. His style is called impressionist.

Concierto de Aranjuez is by Joaquín Rodrigo. I was thinking of Antonio Carlos Jobim, composer of Latin Jazz pieces like Agua de Berber and Desafinado. Sorry about that.

Although for great vocal jazz renditions of both Concierto de Aranjuez and Agua de Berber, pick up Al Jarreau's Greatest Hits album. Spain/I Can Recall (based on Chick Corea's Spain, also a great song) is based on the Concierto and Agua de Berber is, obviously, Agua de Berber. For Desafinado, the Getz/Bird recording from 1962 is probably the definitve version, but this version (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOkJKxC3l-0) performed by Joao Gilberto & Jobim is my favorite.

@Thucy - I didn't think about Glass because I don't always equate Minimalism with Classical, but his Heroes Symphony as well as the scores to Koyaanisqatsi and The Hours are great.

@diplomat61 - My favorite music remembering and honoring the holocaust is actually John Williams score to Schindler's List. The piece entitled "I Could Have Done More" is so powerful even if you haven't seen the movie, but more so when you remember the scene affiliated with it and Liam Neeson's performance therein.

Oh, and for Minimalists... I know it's rather passe, but I still enjoy Tutbular Bells by Mike Oldfield. There is a version called Orchestral Tubular Bells as well and, while the first moevement is best in the original version, the second movement is improved by the orchestral version.

*Tubular, not Tutbular...

Personal Favorite, Carmina Burana by Carl Orff

I'm not going to try to be cool by only mentioning obscure composers. I'm just not that widely listened (or cool). Here are a few of my faves from different periods:
Baroque:
- JS Bach's Brandenburg Concertos and Cello Suites.
- Handel's Water Music
Classical:
- I'm partial to Beethoven's 3rd symphony
Romantic:
- Brahms' symphony #4
- Tchaikovsky's symphony #6
Modern:
- Mahler's symphony #1 and #2
More recent:
- Philip Glass's Violin Concerto #2 (http://bit.ly/cnOoom)

@MKECharlie - have you heard Beethoven's 6th, the Pastoral? Very relaxing symphony. I never got into Mahler that much.

@Axxroytovu - do you like all of Carmina Burana or just the first and last pieces (O Fortuna)? My wife and I saw it as a ballet at Music Hall with the Cincinnati Ballet and performed by the CSO and the May Festival Chorus conducted by Paavo Järvi. Simply Incredible.

Someone up there wrote about Holocaust memorial music. I would suggest listening to Schoenberg's 'A Survivor from Warsaw' which is one of the most powerful and emotional works ever.

If you also want something in the same vein, you should listen to 'Threnody to the victims of Hiroshima' by Penderecki.

@Draugnar: I've listened to all of the Beethoven symphonies, and the 6th is also very good, yes.

@KaiserWilly: Steve Reich did a piece called "Different Trains" about the Holocaust, too. Really nice example of 20th century minimalism, and a good use of sampling and audio mixing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Different_Trains
Looks like you can also find clips of recordings on YouTube.

"Threnody to the victims of Hiroshima' by Penderecki."

Oh my God.

That's on my top classical 5 songs.

Masterpiece.

Sorry, into modern music today...

I find it helps me to move around. I am very, very choosy, but like to move between centuries to keep my appreciation fresh. Paul Simon today, preceded by live Jethro Tull.