[Closed] Now Playing ( NON film / game / tv scores ) - Part III

It would be hard to name 'the' important piece of music in the twentieth century, but I have a feeling it wouldn't be a classical piece.

Orff wrote many great things. Look into musica poetica. He has a lot of great cd's out there

No problem buddy!
Music Poetica was used in the film Badlands and Finding Forrester. Zimmer was greatly inspired by the piece and composed his own version for the film True Romance.

NP : The White Album - The Beatles

NP: The Symphonic Jean Michel Jarre (Exclusive EP) - Jean Michel Jarre

Listening to this one... again. The City of Prague Philharmonic sound incredible!

So I tried Oldfield's Tubular Bells at long last.
Even though I honestly dislike the endless free-format banging-on of much of the prog-rock scene, I felt I at least should give the guy a chance: it is after all deemed a classic.

Well (and I apologise in advance Tim and Thor), it's not bad.
It does go on a bit, but it's a generally not unpleasant listen (even though its quintessential "main theme" really is the highlight)...until I came to the Piltdown Man part...
I've not been able to get past that.
The first five seconds of utter bewilderment when I heard the grunting through my headphones rapidly gave way to uncontrolable bouts of hysterical giggling.
Honestly!
What was he trying to do?
What was he thinking?
What was he on?

I tried it two times after that, but like this lolcat, it doesn't seem to matter I can see it coming, it's got me in stitches every time, over and over again.

I seriously fear I need to let this experiment go out with a sizzle, and maybe try again in a few years time. Maybe on a dark and cold winter's night, when I'm alone and depressed, it might work better.
If only to cheer me up.

In the meantime I've been able to get my hands on an album called The Symphonic Tubular Bells, which seems to be exactly that: a symphonic reworking of the original Tubular Bells, and from what I've heard so far, I like this a lot!
...but then, I haven't reached Piltdown Man yet...

The very one.

(My mistake: it's "The ORCHESTRAL Tubular Bells", not SYMPHONIC)

No worries on that account. Mine goes up to eleven.

An ST woofer system???? I'm impressed!

There's a difference between "not bad" and "can't stand it" D. did you read it all?

I've no idea how I'd react to Tubular Bells if I listened to it for the first time now, likely it would be favourable!? There's no doubt that it's a classic album and deservedly so, if you could ever see the 'making of' I think you'd find yourself giving it a lot more respect, Oldfield has been touched by genius at times and this is one of them. 19 years old, playing almost every instrument himself on a composition that is incredibly original and sounds like no other.

Heh heh heh.
Well, I tend to be pretty binary in my preferences as welll, but in all honesty I couldn't say I can't stand this album simply because I generally dislike prog-rock. It's just too interesting for that.
Yeah, I could go on a bit about the dated instrumentation, orchestration, composition and blah blah blah, but at the end of the day I don't think it's bad at all.

Believe it or not, there is room for nuanced thought within this polarized mind (*cough* Glass' Neverwas *cough*).

As for prog-rock stuff: Timmer (and I think I may have asked this before?), did you ever hear Mike Batt's 1979 concept album Tarot Suite? It's totally based on the cards of the tarot deck, and mixes symphonic orchestral elements with (prog-)rock. I like that one a LOT!

I expanded on Martijn's comment by adding my own personal view, i didn't say that's what he said exactly. Is it yet another one of those works we aren't supposed to dislike by any mean?

No worries either. I am not into Mozart apart his symphony no 40, 41, the mass and the requiem, i.e. the only works that contain minor scales as well, instead of the 24/24 fluffy major scales' storm.

I much prefer late-romantic/20th Century orchestral music. Much better than Classical!