Your top ten favourites in classical music.

[Courtenay]

I've been holding off from joining this discussion, despite being a huge fan of classical music, simply because I love so many pieces that it's really hard to decide!! But I decided to make mine a bit of a "Desert Island Discs" (with two extra records allowed ) — not just pieces of music I happen to like, but ones that absolutely mean so much to me that I couldn't bear to be without them. I've taken it that we are allowed to have more than one piece by the same composer, as there are some that I just cannot pick between and cannot live without, sorry.

It's taken till today for me to decide on the last ones in the list (and this of course is not absolutely definitive; many of these are pieces I've only got to know in the last 10 years or so, and the list might be different again in a few years' time). I'm quite surprised to find that nearly all of them are from the 20th century, but there we go...

1. Symphony No. 5 by Ralph Vaughan Williams
2. The Lark Ascending by Ralph Vaughan Williams
3. Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis by Ralph Vaughan Williams (why yes, I DO have an all-time favourite composer )
4. Benedictus from The Armed Man by Karl Jenkins
5. O Magnum Mysterium by Morten Lauridsen
6. Lux Aurumque by Eric Whitacre
7. Nunc Dimittis by Geoffrey Burgon
8. Aslan's Theme (main title theme from the BBC's Chronicles of Narnia series) by Geoffrey Burgon
9. Sure On this Shining Night by Morten Lauridsen
10. Eine Kleine Nachtmusik (especially the opening movement) by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart — this was the first piece of music I ever fell in love with as a child

Sorry my list isn't nearly as diverse as most people's, but it's very interesting to see what music everyone likes! I know most of the pieces others have listed and many of them would be in my top 20 or 30, if we took this further (but I'd rather not, as it'd probably take me forever to decide on even more!).

[Boatbuilder]

Sorry my list isn't nearly as diverse as most people's, but it's very interesting to see what music everyone likes! I know most of the pieces others have listed and many of them would be in my top 20 or 30, if we took this further (but I'd rather not, as it'd probably take me forever to decide on even more!).

I think your choice is just as diverse as anybody's, Courtenay. I would likely include some of them in an elongated (top 20 or 30) list. It's what you like that really matters, and the reasons for liking some pieces can vary. In my own case, the reasons for some of them differs tremendously. Here are some:

The 'Intermezzo' from Cavalleria Rusticana, Beethoven'sSymphony No. 5 in C-minor and ‘March of the Toreadors’ from Carmen are three of the pieces I played when I was in a youth orchestra many moons ago.
The Concerto di Aranjuez brings back memories of my business visits to Spain, but mainly Seville, in the 1980s. When Enid and I later went on holidays there in the early 2000s I made sure I took a copy with us on tape to listen to in the hire car - especially so on one occasion when we drove from the coast up into the mountains to a small village called Guadalest. Listening to that piece during the drive was the 'icing on the cake' and I can sit here now listening to it and still picture that beautiful drive.
The Pomp & Circumstance March No.1("Land of Hope and Glory") was a favourite of my dad and became one of mine. My dad loved the song by Vera Lynn and I still have the 45rpm he bought of it in the early 60s.
The John Dunbar Theme was a favourite of Enid's and as I have previously mentioned elsewhere, was played at her funeral a year ago.

Just to finish off, here is a picture of a violin I bought some 45 years ago from a music shop in Cheltenham, but haven't played for many years now. I used a school's violin when I was in the youth orchestra. Maybe I should start practising again.

[Machupicchu14]

Listening to the Valse Sentimentale by Tchaikovsky on repeat these days, it's truly so beautiful!

I must say Tchaikovsky and Mozart are the two composers who really do accompany me with their music every day. I seriously do love them so much!

https://youtu.be/rUuusqy50yk?si=R3kV-OE3HoQCVb6X