It's all about the classical music composers and their works from the last 400 years and much more about music. Hier erfahren Sie alles über die klassischen Komponisten und ihre Meisterwerke der letzten vierhundert Jahre und vieles mehr über Klassische Musik.
If you thought classical music was all about peaceful tunes and harmony, think again. The gloves are off and the claws are out as we explore some of the rudest, most insulting composer put-downs in the history of classical music.
1. Rossini
"What a good thing this isn't music." Rossini on Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique
2. Copland
"Listening to the fifth symphony of Ralph Vaughan Williams is like staring at a cow for 45 minutes." - Copland
3. Beethoven
"Rossini would have been a great composer if his teacher had spanked him enough on the backside." Beethoven on Rossini
4. Beethoven
"I like your opera - I think I will set it to music." Beethoven
5. Rachmaninov
"He was a six and a half foot scowl." Stravinsky on Rachmaninov
6. Messiaen
"All you need to write like him is a large bottle of ink." Stravinsky on Messiaen
7. Tchaikovsky
"It is the most insipid and base parody on music." Tchaikovsky on Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov
8. Stravinsky
"It's beautiful and boring. Too many pieces finish too long after the end." Stravinsky on Handel's Theodora
9. Elgar
"The musical equivalent of St Pancras Station." Sir Thomas Beecham on Elgar
10. Wagner
"Wagner has beautiful moments, but awful quarters of an hour." Rossini on Wagner
11. Berlioz
"A tub of pork and beer." Berlioz on Handel
12. Debussy
The audience expected the ocean. Something big, something colossal, but there were served instead with some agitated water in a saucer." Louis Schneider on La Mer
13. Mussorgsky
"He likes what is coarse, unpolished, and ugly." Tchaikovsky on Mussorgsky
14. Chopin
"A composer for one right hand." Wagner on Chopin
15. Clara Schumann
"He gives me the impression of being a spoilt child." Clara Schumann on Liszt.
16. Bach
"All Bach's last movements are like the running of a sewing machine." Bax on Bach
17. Brahms
"What a giftless bastard!" Tchaikovsky on Brahms
18. Handel
"Handel is only fourth rate. He is not even interesting." Tchaikovsky on Handel
19. Saint-Saens
"If he'd been making shell cases during the war it would have been better for music." Saint-Saëns on Ravel
20. Britten
"I liked the opera very much. Everything but the music." Britten on Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress
21. Strauss
"He'd be better off shovelling snow than scribbling on manuscript paper." Richard Strauss on Schoenberg
Have a soppy and indulgent listen to the most romantic pieces of music imaginable. Better get some tissues to hand…
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Puccini - O Mio Babbino Caro
Date advice: do not attempt to sing this song to your partner to make them like you more or to make up for a lack of Valentine’s Day presents. Leave it to brilliant soprano Susanna Hurrell instead.
O mio babbino caro performed by Susanna Hurrell
Susanna Hurrell and pianist Jonathan Santagada performs the famous aria from Puccini's Gianni Schicchi
This concerto was made famous as the heart-rending soundtrack to the film Brief Encounter. But its romance is all its own. Just listen to Alexandre Tharaud perform this stunning slow movement with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra.
Alexandre Tharaud plays Rachmaninov with the RLPO
Some of the most beautiful Romantic music ever written
If you have a moustache or are in any way British or emotionally repressed, all you have to do is stick this piece on the stereo, stand awkwardly in the corner and wait for the object of your desire to shower you with kisses. Guaranteed*. (*Not even slightly guaranteed.)
Puccini - O soave fanciulla, from La Bohème
Let Pavarotti do the talking. Singing. Whatever. Either way, Puccini does romance, anguished or joyful, better than most, and this aria is one of his most charged duets.
Rota - Love Theme, from Romeo and Juliet
So the story itself didn’t end all that well (whirlwind holiday romance goes insanely wrong, teens take drastic action etc), but the music inspired by Shakespeare’s most famous romance is so affecting, so purely emotional, that you’ll probably want to visit the apothecary as well (not really).
Mascagni - Intermezzo, from Cavalleria Rusticana
Oh, can’t you just feel it ruddy well oozing out of you? Romance, that is. Blimey, just one blast of this at full volume is guaranteed to melt absolutely anyone.
Handel - Ombra mai fù, from Xerxes
Simple, sweet, plaintive, innocent. This is the sound of love beginning, a perfect choice if you’re cooking for a date and want to appear both intelligent and emotionally accessible.
