February 19, 2005
Music Pimping

So, as I have been sparkling lots about classical music recently, I decided to rip some tracks off a few of my CDs and share them with my lovely friends ^^ They're all pretty much classical pieces, or at least what I term classical XD They're all YouSendit links.

Dvorak, Symphony No. 9 - Subtitled From the New World. One of my favorite pieces of classical music. It has some wonderfully dark, dramatic bits, as well as a movement or two that's slower, and sadder sounding. I've always liked it because it has so much emotion to it, IMO, and it tends to make me wave my arms around and pretend to conduct when I listen to it XD This is four tracks, about half an hour of music, 19 MB or so.

Aaron Copland, Appalachian Spring - Like the first one, this is a set of multiple tracks - eight, about 24 MB. It also has a lot of feeling to it, but in a different way - rather than being dark and dramatic, it's simple, clean and happy. As the title kind of implies, spring in the mountains ^^ Track 7 is one of my favorites, and has a beautiful variation on the very old melody of 'Simple Gifts'.

Mussorgsky, Night on Bald Mountain - A single track, this time, as are the next two. This one is more like the Dvorak pieces in feel - it starts off very dark and dramatic, and changes a bit towards the end, finishing off on kind of a calmer note. I rather like the arrangement of this we did in band a few years ago that was really just the darker bits - it was a lot of fun ^^ Oh, and for those curious, this is also the piece used in the Chernabog sequence at the very end of the first Fantasia movie, and also as Chernabog's battle theme in Kingdom Hearts.

Sabre Dance - Another band piece, although I didn't like doing it as much as Night on Bald Mountain, although still fun. I think the best way to describe this is 'exciting' - it's fast-paced and higher, which I suppose is fitting for a piece of music with a title that rather suggests people dancing very, very quickly with swords.

Tchaikovsky, Overture 1812 - This is kind of here for geeky reasons, as well as being the reason my mom and brother bought the CD it's on. There's a bit in an episode of Farscape where John, the main character, gets stranded by himself for a while on this spaceship and teaches a bunch of repair robots to play it - he even paints '1812' on one of them, and you see it in later episodes. I also think this is the song that Calvin comments on in a bunch of Calvin and Hobbes strips about finding out that classical music can be cool, because it has cannons in it XD Loud, enthusiastic, and fun ^^

Enjoy :D! I'd love to know what people thought of these, although I won't demand it ^^