I've noticed that especially in this day and age... people tend to have one of three points of view on Classical Music.

1) They love it.
2) They can't stand it.
3) They like movie scores but not traditional classical music.

The last one I find most amusing since in some movie scores, Disney's "Fantasia" being a perfect example, music producers will use traditional Classical pieces to help set a certain mood in the film. Remember the gut wrenching string orchestra piece heard throughout the movie, "Platoon"? It's actually the Adagio for Strings composed by Samuel Barber... written 50 years before the movie even came out. What about Strauss' Blue Danube Waltz & Also sprach Zarathustrain (Thus Spoke Zarathustra) in "2001: A Space Odyssey" or Wagner's Die Walküre (Ride of the Valkyries) in "Apocalypse Now"?

Ironic, no? So in a way, these creative movie creators have turned the people from #3 into people from #1 without them even realizing it. Nicely done, indeed.

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I'm actually one of those few people who enjoy Orchestral and Choral pieces whether they be from a movie, musical, opera or simply a celebration. My mother collected a ton of LPs which ranged from the original London Production Recording of "Camelot" (with Richard Harris, Julie Andrews and Robert Goulet) to the piano concertos of Ludwig van Beethoven.

The latter is probably what influenced me the most. To this day my absolute favorite piece of classical music is the first movement of Piano Sonata No. 14 in C♯ minor, the Mondscheinsonate or "Moonlight Sonata" as most know it as. There's just something so mystical and mysterious as the tone and a series of musical triplet rhythms draw you in to a world where you can almost see a full moon reflecting upon a lightly rippling lake somewhere in the remote wilderness.


Other pieces since then have moved and influenced me in many ways. The previously mentioned Adagio for Strings is one. Others include Schubert's Symphony No. 8 in B minor, First Movement, The "Unfinished" ... Händel's Hallelujah Chorus from Messiah ... Beethoven's Symphony no. 9 in D minor, Last Movement, "Ode to Joy" ... Pachelbel's Canon in D ... Dvořák's Symphony No. 9 in E Minor "From the New World", Second Movement (Largo) ... Debussy's Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune (Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun) and Holst's Mars, Bringer of War.

Pieces from musicals, movies, or classical recording artists that I love include Andrew Lloyd Webber's Music of the Night from "Phantom of the Opera" ... Hans Zimmer's Now We are Free (ft. Lisa Gerrard) from "Gladiator" ... Apocalyptica's Farewell ... Alison Krauss' Down by the River to Pray from "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" ... Ennio Morricone's Man With a Harmonica from "Once Upon a Time in the West" ... Yiruma's River Flows in You and finally Thomas Newman's American Beauty (Plastic Bag Theme) from the movie of the same name.


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Classical music of all types still continues to amaze and influence even across different musical genres today. When you hear an amazing artist like Yngwie J Malmsteen perform a guitar solo to Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 in C minor and then turn around and write his own Symphonies to accompany it... you know that the genre is something to be cherished and continually explored.