Do you guys know of any obscure classical gems?
I’m pretty ordinary when it comes to favourite composer. Beethoven first. Mozart second. Sorry, not obscure at all.
Lol that’s ok. Never was a Mozart man myself. But I like to discover new or obscure things.
Trent Reznor
Gioachino Rossini
Mozart , Bach , Beethoven , Prokofiev , Tchaikovsky
Rachmaninov is my personal favorite. Paganini is fun as well and Berlioz is interesting. And for odd dark modern Glenn Danzig has recorded two classical albums. Black Aria 1 and 2.
I’d say Prokofiev here but he is not obscure. Finnish composer Eino Juhani Rautavaara is great modernist, check him out.
I’m fairly ordinary; Mozart, Bach, Puccini, Rossini (love opera in general), Beethoven. Some of the Scandinavian ones are quite good and not very well known like Stenhammar or Nilssen. Grieg of course but then again he’s pretty well known. Arvo Part and Gorecki are interesting though I don’t know them that well yet.
I do of course have the greatest admiration for Beethoven and Mozart, but these guys were after the invention of the piano. I absolutely adore the pre-piano era (Baroque and Renaissance/Medieval). Vivaldi, Bach, and Handel are standouts, but there are a lot. Mainly I prefer violins and other handheld strings to pianos. If you have itunes, go to the radio section under classical. They have an all baroque station, which you can find a lot of gems. I often listen to it while working. Already mentioned Grieg and Paganini are pretty cool.
Chopin and Liszt, anyone? 
@Filek I was waiting for that. Chopin is Poland’s greatest gift to the world. :-*
@Xander yes, I agree with you fully about your favorites. Just sort of kicking around for something new. Guess it’s like snuff, there is only so many choices.
I do enjoy some Sergei Rachmaninoff, I also love Vaughan Williams. Pretty much anything with a bit of passion behind it, a bit of omph.
American pianist Liz Story…She defies category and writes almost all her own material. I guess you could say a cross between jazz, classical, and new age music…I had the pleasure of knowing her… As far as dead classical composers…Satie and Debussy…
Strictly speaking classical music is that which succeeded the rococo or late baroque style and preceded the romantic style. A good example is the First Viennese School. The most familiar names here are Haydn, Mozart Beethoven and Schubert. Compare these composers with those of the radical Second Viennese School comprising of Schoenberg, Webern and Berg. This is atonal music, dissonant and often disturbing. Arnold Schoenberg, an Austrian Jew, escaped the Holocaust. A Survivor from Warsaw with narration in English and German is his powerful testament to Nazi inhumanity. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGWai0SEpUQ This is Arnold Schonberg again with the sublimely decadent Pierrot lunaire composed in 1912. This sort of burlesque, using singspiel, only sounds ‘right’ in German. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWYxRtoCAms Adolf Hitler hated decadent music. By contract Carl Orff was a Nazi approved composer – Aryan purity versus Jewish decadence. Here is an extract from his most famous work of the Third Reich, Carmina Burana (almost everyone knows this music but few can say who wrote it). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GD3VsesSBsw Krzysztof Penderecki continues 20th century angst with his Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hz936beItg4 Before leaving the 20th century here is Philomel (1964) by American composer Milton Babbitt who pioneered electronic music - and who sadly but inevitably died last year. It illustrates why serious composers need university funding since few audiences pay to hear avant-garde. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SMR5WIgSUg Fed up with 20th century violence and dissonance? If so then try exploring earlier music. Many modern performances of earlier music use authentic instruments and voices. For example contralto parts are sung by men (counter tenors). Some men with a high falsetto can even imitate castrati. Here is an extract from Come Ye Sons of Art by Henry Purcell. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqmKfT8yIJ4 If that seems difficult for fellows to sing then listen to these adult male sopranos singing pulchra es from Monteverdi’s Marian Vespers of 1610 for an authentic renaissance sound. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEvvHmYLpAM Try the beautiful English or Italian madrigals of the renaissance. Here is an example by Thomas Morley (prefixed by a dreadful advert) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTTU9k7W-4g and another - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJ7VirCScp0 One of the greatest renaissance works of polyphony is the 40 part motet Spem in Alium (40th birthday gift to Elizabeth I) by Thomas Tallis. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBaQaq-Q6ZU
^^^ someone had a slow day at work…
^I think music is his work. Thanks @PhilipS and good to see you back here again. Thanks for the Thomas Tallis!
Well that could explain it. Music is only my night gig…
Yes, Tallis is wonderful!