Which of these do you like the most?!
Question:
Which of these do you like the most?
The Planets: Mars - Holst
Requiem: Dies Irae (The loud bit) - Verdi
The introduction from Also Sprach Zarathustra (The 2001: A space Odyssey theme) - Richard Strauss
4 days ago
And why?
Come on, I know you enjoy pontificating. Make it good.
Answers:
Probably "The Planets." While I love Verdi, the Requiem is hardly my favorite work. He seemed to do best with outrageously dramatic (or funny) storylines and I find the Requiem a bit overblown and lacking the necessary architecture for such a long piece.
As for the Strauss, I pretty much hate everything he wrote in the 19th Century. He came into his own with the incredible operas in the 20th century. Also Sprach... is great in 2001 but I can hardly listen to it otherwise.
The Planets is a lot of fun - colorful orchestration, great variety, melodic. Mars itself is very dramatic but not bombastic. On the whole, a very effective tone-poem. Many who wrote under its influence took a wrong turn and didn't keep it as pithy as Holst.
There you have it - Mars it is!