Music

[Dubious]

No comment required:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsKMCLfqF20

...one by chintzy Mozart:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDpcbUNC2f4

[vegetariantaxidermy]

No comment required:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsKMCLfqF20

...one by chintzy Mozart:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDpcbUNC2f4

Both lovely. Kiri also sings the most exquisite Exsultate Jubilate I have heard (this recording when she was very young).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TcQJPnpSwk

[Dubious]

Both lovely. Kiri also sings the most exquisite Exsultate Jubilate I have heard (this recording when she was very young).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TcQJPnpSwk

Speaking of Kiri who specialized in the music of Mozart and Richard Strauss, these are the final two of the Four Last Songs Strauss composed as a farewell to life. Germany was destroyed and Strauss was already in his mid 80's. Even without understanding the words - beautiful in themselves - the music leaves no doubt as to its meaning.

3 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XP2chJ6Ujc
4 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=co61XmUu-tc

[Conde Lucanor]

Now that we are in the mood for sopranos and arias, one of my favorites ever:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDerUBm2ORw

[Walker]

Now that we are in the mood for sopranos and arias, one of my favorites ever:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDerUBm2ORw

That is definitely worth the listen, beginning to end.

[Walker]

This is still the preferred performance.
London Philharmonic Orchestra
Sarah Chang

Ralph Vaughan Williams - The Lark Ascending
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HajcRH48ng

[Dubious]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbnlhCizyj8

[Conde Lucanor]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SfZJQ7cXV4

[Dubious]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SfZJQ7cXV4

My favorite version of Stabat Mater which I like even more than Haydn's.

Don't know if you ever heard this; Bruckner's Te Deum one of the grandest sounds in existence the ending of which easily outshines the coda to Beethoven's 9th...IMO.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WaCsMUGO8w

[Conde Lucanor]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SfZJQ7cXV4

My favorite version of Stabat Mater which I like even more than Haydn's.

Don't know if you ever heard this; Bruckner's Te Deum one of the grandest sounds in existence the ending of which easily outshines the coda to Beethoven's 9th...IMO.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WaCsMUGO8w

Nice. Had never listened to it before. Not many appreciate the "Ode to Joy" chorus and some acclaimed director had called it "vulgar".

Choral works are among my favorites in times when uplifting one's spirit is desperately needed...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0zWIJc4U_8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGRbOjqOSYs

...even if the themes are solemn and sad:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnilUPXmipM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1DsJ5YQr5s

[TSBU]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrBB3_rFPjg

[Conde Lucanor]

Movie soundtracks. Want to start with the master of them all:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91ye_YUNJVI

[Dubious]

Not many appreciate the "Ode to Joy" chorus and some acclaimed director had called it "vulgar".

Choral works are among my favorites in times when uplifting one's spirit is desperately needed...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0zWIJc4U_8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGRbOjqOSYs

...even if the themes are solemn and sad:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnilUPXmipM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1DsJ5YQr5s

... all great works I'm very familiar with.

The choral part of the 9th is definitely not vulgar no matter who states it but personally the true greatness of Beethoven's last lies purely in the orchestral parts. It's the Missa Solemnis which he considered his greatest work which is his true choral masterpiece alongside Bach's B minor mass.

For me, there are far greater choral works than the conclusion of the 9th:
Here's a few though seldom heard and hardly known.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEFt_fcA4t0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIaLrdOm3G0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jCKbHDN5os

For something more secular there's this much more well known piece. It comes from an old black and white film quite unique. Sound is not great.You may want to stop after the foot stomping...unless you know the story.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SfVA1W_3xE

This is the usual excerpt you would hear not included in the above.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-u48NrqBfPw

[Conde Lucanor]

The choral part of the 9th is definitely not vulgar no matter who states it but personally the true greatness of Beethoven's last lies purely in the orchestral parts.

I think it was Bernstein who said it, which is ironic, being one of the great directors of that same work. Of the chorale in the last movement of the 9th (which is not my favorite movement, I prefer the 2nd), the part I enjoy the most actually has to do with the orchestral part, the one after the first singing, where he sets up everything before the grandiose chorus, with the strings at the end of that passage repeatedly sticking to one note (which appears to be the F# note) and the winds playing the first three notes (F#, G and A) of the upcoming sung melody. Then the voices come erupting with the Ode. Just beautiful:

https://youtu.be/t4N5-OALObk?t=801

It's the Missa Solemnis which he considered his greatest work which is his true choral masterpiece alongside Bach's B minor mass.

There is so much you can choose from Bach and say is a masterpiece. The B minor mass is one of them and another chorus work I would add to the list will be this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCULWK4tNuc

For me, there are far greater choral works than the conclusion of the 9th:
Here's a few though seldom heard and hardly known.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEFt_fcA4t0

Just listened to the first minutes, but delightful. And there are the Messiah's choruses, which I still find unmatched.

For something more secular there's this much more well known piece. It comes from an old black and white film quite unique. Sound is not great.You may want to stop after the foot stomping...unless you know the story.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SfVA1W_3xE

For secular choral works I would go with the obvious, more popular ones:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XttF0vg0MGo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeUyoXVzP4w
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXFSK0ogeg4

And this one in particular, quite an anthem:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sxTbfeYdO0

[Dubious]

For secular choral works I would go with the obvious, more popular ones:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XttF0vg0MGo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeUyoXVzP4w
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXFSK0ogeg4

And this one in particular, quite an anthem:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sxTbfeYdO0

No matter how much I try - always feeling I'm missing something - I'm not at all fond of Verdi's Requiem. I've given up on it but Va, pensiero is a beauty and my favorite among Verdi's choruses.

The grandest creations in 19th century choral music alongside LvB's Missa Solemnis, Bruckner's Te Deum and Brahms requiem is one which is as grand as it can get within the dimensions of sound. I'm referring to the Berlioz requiem. As with Bruckner's Te Deum, there are extreme contrasts in loud and soft; loud enough to crack the vaulted ceilings of a cathedral as in the Dies Irae and Lacrimosa and then its antithesis in very low Gregorian Chant like phrases which suddenly expand without getting much louder. In the music of the Offertorium it's easy to visualize the soul unbinding itself from the body in slow torque, dwelling over it for a few moments on what has been it's host for however long before leaving it forever.

What I wouldn't have given to be in that space at that time!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLBDZOTDuek

The Russian is quite impressive though I don't care for the words.

I sometimes wondered what an anthem for Earth would or should sound like. For that I can think of nothing more appropriate than this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dK5VxJJ8FlI