• Ludwig van Beethoven- Quite often I say things like, 'I am listening to the fifth' or 'I heard the seventh today'... These numbers are not meaningless, they are symphonies by Beethoven. When referring to other people's symphonies I say, for example, 'Mahler's fifth symphony.' So I especially like the 5th, the 7th and the 9th, the Coriolan ouverture and tha piano sonatas Moonlight and Pathetic.

  • Mussorgsky- I think Ravel did a great job in orchestration of Pictures at an Exhibition, and of A Night on the Bald Mountain, yet the original chaotic version of the latter piece has its own charm. Listen to 'Destruction of Sennacherib', if you can find it somehow. Not only it is excellent, it was also written under influence of a Byron poem of the same name, which I quote quite often, but totally out of context.

  • Some Other Romantics- I also like Dvorak (especially his 9th symphony), Grieg, Tchaikovsky and Mahler (symphonies 1 and 5).
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