A few weeks back, I was tweeting and talking on the podcast about how much I enjoyed the third book in Tessa Dare's Spindle Cove series, A Lady By Midnight (A | BN | K | S). Avon kindly offered up 5 digital ARCs to help me soothe my feelings of guilt for talking about a book so far before the on-sale date. Super easy and quick giveaway ahoy!
If you'd like to win a digital ARC of A Lady By Midnight, leave a comment below and tell me your favorite piece of classical music (the heroine, Kate, is a music teacher in Spindle Cove).
I'll share one of mine: one of my absolute favorites is the second movement to Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, which you can hear (and watch from a 1952 Carnegie Hall performance) on YouTube. The first movement of the 5th is pretty bad ass, but the second movement is my favorite.
And if you don't like classical music, you can still enter! TV themes, jazz, instrumental interstitials to commercials, they all totally count. Feel free to post a link to the piece of music you're suggesting, too. This will be one loud entry when I figure out how to make them auto play all at once.
There are no restrictions geographically for this giveaway but please know that winners will need an account with Edelweiss.abovethetreeline.com. The eARCs expire on the book’s on sale date, which is 28 August 2012.
If you're confused about what devices you can use, your questions may be answered at the Edelweiss site.
Standard disclaimers apply: I'm not being compensated for this giveaway, except that I read an ARC a week or so ago. Void where prohibited. Must be over 18 years of age and driving a wagon in order to win. Your mileage may vary. Objects in mirror are closer than they appear. Never sass a librarian or a music teacher.
You've got until 11:59pm ET Saturday 16 June, and I'll be picking the winners at random from all your musical suggestions. Ready, set, go!
All-time favorite: Giuseppi Tartini’s Devil’s Trill Sonata—
There’s a wonderful part where the violin seems to leap out of the dark silence, as though it was dancing. Very haunting.
It’s a solo piece for the violin, which makes sense—because, really, who would dance with the devil? ^_^
Brahms first piano concerto. I know conventional wisdom is that the second is much more evolved, sophisticated, whatever, but I could listen to the first over and over and over.
I would agree with the first commenter that Habanera from Bizet’s Carmen is one of my favourite pieces to listen to ad infinitum, but probably the most interesting version I have heard is by heavy metal guitarist Wolf Hoffman:
. Really, anything off of his album Classical is bound to blow the mind.
Crossover jazz musician Eric Lewis is also worth a good check out, as it is possible for your face to melt at his mad piano skillz:
I am such an opera girl, and anything by Purcell is wonderful.
If Music Be The Food of Love seems like an appropriate one, and this is a beautiful, beautiful recording:
I grew up in a household where my father listened to an AM station on the weekends that played all Italian music and my mother liked easy listening. Add to that a brother five years my senior who liked rock and you get someone like me, whose musical preferences are all over the map. Favorite piece of music? I honestly don’t have one. Some of my favorites though? Long list. Here’s a partial: Ravel’s Bolero, Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, Fur Elise by Beethoven, anything by Mozart, Pavarotti singing Torna a Surriento, Granada sung by Jose Carreras, Julio Iglesias (again, anything), Clair de Lune by Debussy, and Kashmir by Led Zeppelin.
Given the opportunity I also play 60’s & 70’s soul and R&B, country, literally any kind of rock, 50’s Doo-Wop, Al Martino, Dean Martin, classical and opera at volume. My neighbors hate me.
PS: re Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries- does anyone else always picture the choppers flying in formation with a flaming jungle backdrop every time they hear it like I do? Not even one of my favorite films and yet the two seem to be irrevocably twined for me.
Handel’s Harp Concerto in B Flat Major-first movement. Every time I hear it, it puts a smile on my face.
Pachabel’s Canon in D, Moonlight Sonata, Vivaldi’s Winter
I’ve always loved Chopin’s Nocturnals…oh, I can hear them now:)
Bach’s Suite No. 1
Like others I was introduced to classical music in the cartoons, which means my favorite is Richard Wagners “Ride of the Valkyries.”
Ok, so while I do enjoy some classical, not enough that I have a favorite or could name it (shout out to those Star Wars fans, I didn’t think of that!). In any case, I’ll have to go with the theme used in the 80’s McDonald’s commercial where the little girl is playing at her piano recital and singing to herself about how she’ll get fries and “not give any, to my dumb brother. They’re mine, all mine.”
My favorite classical piece is Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony (PathĂ©tique).
My husband and love of my life is a violinist in spare time. Though my own personal favorite composer is J. S. Bach, I now love Tchaikovsky’s violin concerto in A.
The William Tell Overture or the Lone Ranger Theme as I think of it.
I have so many, it is hard to pick just one – Handel’s Water Music or Pachabel’s Canon in D are the ones that come to mind most often.
Talking of Paganini, this isn’t strictly classical – but this is one of my favourite bits of one of my favourite records.
The rest of it is spectacular as well.
Does Leonard Bernstein’s Mass count as classical? Bits of it certainly, though it’s the street chorus intrusions that make it really special. Subversive classical music!
I also like Faure’s Requiem, especially the Libera Me. Oh, and Mendelssohn’s Elijah. Anything that tells a story on top of being good music will always go down well with me.
I love the music from the Nutcracker. 🙂
This is such a wonderful idea—I’m always on the lookout for new pieces of classical music.
So, I tried and realized it’s impossible for me to choose solely one as my favorite. But the following 3 top my list:
Rachmaninov’s Prelude in C Sharp Minor, op. 3, no. 2
Albinoni’s Adagio in G Minor for Strings and Organ
Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata
And some other recommendations:
Barber’s Adagio for Strings Op. 11
Bizet’s Carmen – Habanera
Bizet’s L’ArlĂ©sienne Suite No. 1: Prelude
Johann Strauss II’s An der schönen blauen Donau (The Blue Danube Waltz)
Yann Tiersen’s La valse d’Amelie (from the fantastic film AmĂ©lie)
le carnaval des animaux
Smetana’s Má vlast
Song for Jesse (from The Assassination of Jesse James soundtrack)
Ludovico Einaudi (a contemporary Italian pianist and composer)
And, of course, who could forget Yanni?
I look forward to going through the list to see what others have suggested!
One more vote for Carmina Burana (O Fortuna) and the Danse Macabre. Both haunting.
Handel’s Water Music. Perfect rainy day driving around in the mountains and woods music.
Dee, was it this commercial?
The music from the jingle is from an old spiritual “Joshua Fought the Battle of Jericho,” which at some point also became sung at some Jewish holidays (I remember singing it at summer camp, and at Passover). I can imagine that it could have also been played at a wedding.
I agree with Tessa Dare. What a playlist this is turning out to be!
A piece I find soothing is Bogoroditse Devo, raduysia (Rejoice, O Virgin Mary) Sergey Khvoshchinskiy (b. 1957) sung by The Rose Ensemble. yoiu can hear it on the last track of http://www.roseensemble.org/mu…
I am a huge fan of classical music, Dvorak is my most recent fave, but if I had to pick one piece to have with me on a desert island, it would have to be the last movement of Beethoven’s 9th, the Ode to Joy. I love the music and the words, “all men are brothers”. Plus the miraculous fact that he was completely deaf when he wrote it. But speaking of Beethoven, did you know that the famous opening notes of his 5th symphony were used to open all BBC broadcasts to Europe during WW2? Because dot-dot-dot-dash is the letter “V’ in Morse code, “V’ which stands for victory(remember Churchill flashing the “V’ sign?) and V of course is also the number 5 in Roman numerals.
Meditation from the opera Thais by Massenet is the singular, most effective way to calm the storm. This stroke of genius is the reason I am sane. Not even the wrath of my hormonal teenager can stand against the firm foundation of peace it grants me. Ironic, considering the subject matter of the opera it came from…
Hmm, more of a rock fan. Does the soundtrack to Bram stoker’s Dracula count? The music on that is pretty sweet.
I’m a sucker for anything Beethoven and Chopin. Particularly Moonight Sonata.
I’ll be the first to admit the majority of my knowledge of classical music stems from my Saturday morning cartoon days. This one is sure to be recognized by Bugs Bunny fans of all ages, though its title and composer might be lesser known. Call to the Cows from Rossini’s William Tell Overture (
is my hands down choice for favorite. I think Kate Taylor would love it too.
Nessun Dorma, as sung by Pavarotti. NO ONE has ever sung it better.
Beethoven’s Piano Sonata #14 – the Moonlight Sonata. Now I’ll be humming it all day!
My absolute favorite is Pachelbel’s Canon in D, especially the 9 minute rendition by Pagagnini which includes multiple variations on the song (i.e. classic, country, blues etc.).
I don’t know much classical music (though hopefully the suggestions here will help remedy that), but I love the pride and prejudice soundtrack.
The Lord of the Rings soundtrack—which I’ve actually seen performed as a symphony, so it totally counts, right?? (Howard Shore was conducting. Oh, geek!gasm…)
Don’t really know Classical music – but I do love musicals. I dreamed a dream from Les Miserable has always been one of my favorites.
Carmina Burana by Carl Orff. You hear it EVERYWHERE and dont even realize it. Commercials, movie trailers, credits but its still best in its purest concert form. Check it out and I bet you recognize it without realizing you did!
I choose Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons.
My favorite for now is the album by Nuthin But Strings. They are a great Juliard trained violin playing brothers with a great underscore of hip hop in their songs! The track Dance with my Father is Fantastic!
So I don’t know the names of the music I listen to but I do love classical music. Especially if I need to study or concentrate on something. But I do known I like Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 14 In C Sharp Minor (“Moonlight”) (because it is currently playing on pandora) – though I particularly love Alicia Key’s version where she sings one part and plays the other.
I also love the P&P Keira Knightly/Mathew Macfayden soundtrack.
Smetana’s work is beautiful, especially the piece about the Moldau River. If you love that, you probably also like Dvorak’s Slavic influenced music and Enescu’s Romanian rhapsodies.
The Alvin Ailey dance theater used to do a piece set to that music, which I was lucky enough to see in person. Gorgeous!