If You Like Art - You Must Hear Pictures At An Exhibition By Mussorgsky - He Literally Wrote Music For

If you like art - You must hear pictures at an exhibition by Mussorgsky - he literally wrote music for art works imagening how they would sound!

Classical music to listen to based on your interests

(yes, I made another list.  sue me.  i’m all for spreading classical music awareness.  feel free to add to this list.)

If you like facts and logic - literally anything by Bach

If you like roasting people - “Leck mich im Arsch” by Mozart

If you like politics - Sinfonia Eroica (Symphony No. 3) by Beethoven

If you like invading other countries - “Ride of the Valkyries” by Wagner

If you like showing off - “Caprice No. 24″ by Paganini

If you like nature - “Finlandia” by Sibelius

If you like dancing - Slavonic Dances by Dvorak

If you like art - anything by Debussy

If you like reading - Scheherazade by Rimsky-Korsakov

If you’re classy - “The Blue Danube” by Strauss

If you like history - The Water Music by Handel

If you’re religious - A German Requiem by Brahms

If you like Star Wars/Star Trek - The Planets by Holst

If you like “All By Myself” - Piano Concerto No. 2 by Rachmaninoff

If you like crying your eyes out - “Nimrod” by Elgar

If you like the zoo - The Carnival of the Animals by Saint-Saens

If you like jazz - Jazz Suite No. 2, “Waltz No. 2″ by Shostakovich

If you’re patriotic - New World Symphony (Symphony No. 9) by Dvorak

If you like satanic rituals - “The Rite of Spring” by Stravinsky

If you like the burning flames of hell - Requiem in D Minor by Mozart

If you like New York City - “Rhapsody in Blue” by Gershwin

If you like sleep - “Sicilienne” by Faure

If you like Halloween - “Danse Macabre” by Saint-Saens

The smallest and prettiest book i own

It's a german poetry collection by Goethe

"You I saw, your look replied,

Your sweet felicity, my own,

My heart was with you, at your side,

I breathed for you, for you alone."

~ Welcome and Farewell by Johann Wolfgang Goethe

Book recommendations based on your favourite authors

1. Oscar Wilde

Edward St Aubyn - Patrick Melrose

If you love Oscar Wilde i would recommend St. Aubyn's amazing novels. They are full of wit, cunning irony, upper - class critisicm and dry humor.

2. William Shakespeare

Margaret Atwood - Hagseed

Part of the "Hogarth Shakespeare Series" this is a brillant retelling of Shakespeares play the tempest.

3. Lewis Carroll

Michael Ende - Momo

Similar to Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, Ende takes us on a young girl's magical journey in which she has to bring back the "stolen time".

4. Stephen King

David Mitchell - Slade House

Stephen King himself recommended this suspensful novel about an abnormal house: “Hard to imagine a more finely wrought and chilling tale of the supernatural. One of the rare great ones.”

5. Suzanne Collins

Koushun Takami - Battle Royale

This book has a very similar storyline to Collins great Hunger Games Saga: a class of junior high school students is taken to a deserted island where they are provided arms and forced to kill one another until only one survivor is left standing.

6. Jane Austen

Goethe - Elective Affinities

A love story just as sharming and complicated as Jane Austen's beloved works: Eduard and his wife Charlotte enjoy a quiet but idle life in their estate, when their piece is fastly thrown into chaos as he invites his friend the Captain and she invites her niece Ottilie to stay with them: a story of forbidden love begins to grow as they both form attraction to their guests.

Amadeus is such a great movie for learning the deep meaning of and the appreciation for Mozart's music

how to get into classical music?

this post is inspired by the great twoset violin video which you can watch here. Their tips are good, but I just wanted to add something based on my experience!

Listen to the compilations - I think everything works in this case, seriously - playlists on spotify, "the very best of " albums. You can just search for example "the very best of Vivaldi" and listen to whatever the hell is there.

Ask your classical music enthusiast friend what's their current favorite piece - that's the best question you can ask. Questions like "what are your 5 favorite pieces" or "what pieces would you recommend for a beginner" can be confusing for someone, who has hundreds of favorite pieces and knows thousands of them. If you ask about their current favorite piece, you can discover something completely new and complex.

Watch Amadeus - it is a movie about composers Mozart and Salieri and it's based on a play, so not everything there is true, but the soundtrack is just 100% classical music and like 99% of Mozart's compositions. How the soundtrack is combined with the atmosphere of this film is indescribable. And here's an important information - this movie made me loose my fucking mind and fall blindly in love with classical music. I didn't give a shit about classical music before watching Amadeus.

You already know some pieces but you're still too confused - search for other interpretations - the best thing about classical music is that you can find your beloved performance of your favorite piece and cherish it like it's your own treasure. So, for example, you know The Four Seasons and you like it, but you feel like something's missing? Search for other recording. btw - check out this Spring.

Find your favorite musicians - you find your favorite musician, you want to hear more of their work, you automatically check their other recordings and wow, suddenly you know more pieces! Even if you like this musician only because they're pretty and you want to watch them play! Go for it, there's nothing wrong about it!

WATCH performances - there's something hypnotizing about watching a perfectly synchronized orchestra, the work of a conductor, a violinist making funny faces, a pianist waving a hand in a weird way. Seeing it makes you feel more connected to the musicians and finally - to the music.

Go see a free classical music performance - even if it's something you don't know. Even if it won't be so great, because it's for free or something. Just take your friend and spend a nice evening. Or maybe it's free opera performance online? Then buy some chips or wine or whatever, read the synopsis to prepare yourself and go for it! I mean, if it's for free you can just leave or turn that off, you won't loose anything.

The very last thing - watch Twoset Violin. Even the silly charades videos or Ling Ling workout. You can't escape from exploring new pieces when you watch twoset. Their channel shows that classical music is for everyone and lots of their videos are very educational.

Movies to watch if you love Pride and Prejudice

1.Bright Star (2009)

This one is a beautiful, quiet and poetic movie about the love affair between Poet John Keats and Fanny Brawne.

2. Becoming Jane (2007)

This is an autobiographical movie about Jane Austen and her romantic relationship with Tom Lefroy. It is not entirely based on facts, since we know so little about some aspects of Austens private life.

3. A room with a view (1985)

This movie is a lovely and incredibly acted adaption of E.M. Forster's novel. It stars a young Daniel Day-Lewis and Helena Bonham Carter.

4. Finding Neverland (2004)

This film has to be one of my all time favourites: it is about J. M. Barrie and his relationship with a family who inspires him to create Peter Pan. It is a heart-wrenching, magical tale of love, fiendships and the wonders of the world.

Books like Dorian Gray?

I am looking for good Horror/ Mystery Literature like the Picture of Dorian Gray, Frankenstein or the stories by Edgar Allan Poe. Do you guys have any recommendations for me? Am not as familiar with that genre as i would like to be.