what is your favourite classic composer?

Keith Emerson

Aaron Copland

The trouble with most radio stations - especially during the day - is they only play "Pop" classics. They don't dare play the interesting stuff.

I get so fed up of hearing Vivaldi's "Four Seasons" or Mozart's "Eine Kleine Nachtmusik" or Beethoven's 5th played by homogenous-sounding orchestras that bleed the emotion out of the music.

These are fine pieces of music, but overplay and Herbert von Karajan and his wannabees just trash it. To my mind, an orchestra should not sound like a syrupy wash of sound in which the instruments are barely definable from each other, and there is no need for absolute precision in timekeeping - the music should be felt, not wound up like clockwork.

Roger Norrington is the best conductor alive - his interpretations of Beethoven are stunning!

Pierre Boulez is another conductor we should all be grateful to for keeping avante-garde music alive and bringing his own 20th Century viewpoints to the classics.

My current favourite composer is Messaien, followed by Rakhmaninov, who I have been studying - which always gives a bias!

It's always pleasurable to read about a composer whilst listening to his/her work - it gives you a feeling of really understanding what he/she was about (even if you don't really understand it ).

Studying a classical composer's work really opens your ears to good prog rock too - plus helps you filter out the dross!

Schubert, Dvorak.

Lately , I have been a bit allergic to grand symphonies and prefewr String quartet or quintets. Chamber music. probably comes from my liking bands like Univers Zero , Maneige and others.