My favourite music


If you want to check out any of this stuff online, an easy way is using Emule which is currently the best file and music sharing program. Of course if you end up really liking something you download, make sure you buy the music and support the artists.


Classical

  • David Cassidy - Vide Cor Meum (4:20) - one of the most amazing tracks to accompany a mainstream movie in many years, this played at the end of the film "Hannibal" and really took my breath away. Find it and enjoy it.
  • Catalani - Aria from "La Wally" (3:32) - this aria was blasted from obscurity by the French film "Diva" from 1981. The film wasn't really particularly good, but the version of this aria sung by Wilhemenia Wiggins Fernandez - who also starred in the film - is simply divine.
  • Samuel Barber - Adagio For Strings (9:53) - a haunting, beautiful piece.
  • Wagner - Prelude to Tannhäuser (14:43) - Wow - this one gives me shivers up and down my spine! Definitely my favourite from Wagner. Would be such appropriate music to be played while being carried up to heaven...
  • Wagner - Prelude to Lohengin Act III (3:28) - a great number which is moderately well known but hasn't been played to death in the popular media. (Needs to be played up loud!)
  • Rimsky Korsakov - Scheherazade - a lovely suite of music invoking the tales of The Book of One Thousand and One Nights. Wonderful!
  • Delibes - Coppelia Prelude and Mazurka (4:20) - a boisterous, well known theme with a lovely introduction. (You will recognise it.)
  • Mussorgsky - Night on Bare Mountain (10:56) - a well known theme with so many wonderful musical sub-themes thrown in. If you only have a vague memory of it from the orginal Fantasia film all those years ago, have another listen.
  • Rachmaninov - Piano Concerto No. 2 - Allegro (11:28) - one of the most romantic themes ever written?
  • Ravel - Bolero (5:07) - ok, it's probably been done to death in the media but it's just such a fantastic piece that it simply must be played regularly (and up loud).
  • Liszt - Les Préludes (Berliner Philharmoniker under Herbert von Karajan) (17:05) - an all-time favourite of mine, this the perfect recording in my opinion of one of the grandest and most under-rated classical epics of all time. The pinnacle of Liszt's work and something I imagine Wagner dearly wished he'd written.

    Crazy, funky, retro and groovy numbers

  • Manfred Hubler and Siegfriend Schwab - The Lions and the Cucumber (5:06) - a groovy and completely insane number from the Vampyros Lesbos movie soundtrack (note that the movie is complete rubbish!). The track also featured on the movie "Jackie Brown", so obviously Quentin Tarantino liked it too. Other tracks on this album worth checking out are Droge CX 9, There's No Satisfaction, Dedicated to Love and especially The Message - many of these featuring occasional sitar sounds. Who said Germans can't be cool and funky?
  • Stranglers - Walk On By (6:24) - a much less delicate take on Burt Bacharach's classic, with really intense synth and guitar.
  • Lee Selmoco Orchestra - Blue Media (2:32) - a great but simple track with some awesomely groovy aspects. Excellent if a little cheesy.

    Ultra-pleasant numbers

  • Louis Armstrong - We Have All the Time in the World (3:14) - a beautiful and timeless classic.
  • Morcheeba - The Sea (5:48) - ultra-cool and relaxed.
  • Mazzy Starr - Fade Into You (4:55) - beautiful and dreamy, with a distinctly western guitar sound (as in "country and western").


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    This page was updated by Richard Holmes in July 2003.  To get in contact, click here.