> Talk about subjective. Some of what *I* consider to be extremely good music includes anything by J.S. Bach, anything by Henry Purcell, almost anything by John Dowland or The Eagles or The Pogues or Dire Straits, umm, Gilbert & Sullivan, anything traditional and Irish, Gregorian chant, 1930s dance music, Bob Marley, or classic rock 'n' roll. Um. Does that help? It isn't definitive.

Yeah. I know what you mean B-G. I like stuff ranging from Jean-Joseph Mouret's baroque "Fanfare"... to Samuel Barber's gentle "Adagio for Strings"... all the way to funky Fishbone's "Swim" and "Servitude", Blur's "Song No. 2"... and the themes from Fame and ER. And if none of these appear to have any relationship to each other, well, you're right. Can't say I'm able to make a definitive list of the kind of music that I "like". I guess it's interesting to write down this stuff now, and come back in a couple years to see how tastes have changed...

Take classical music, for example. Modern classical music, from early 20th century to recent. I can't even begin to cover what I enjoy in that genre. I do have a soft spot for modern Spanish classical music, which does NOT mean Flamenco, but classical music with a regional Spanish flavour. For example, there's

Isaac Albéniz: Cataluña, and Córdoba;
Enrique Granados: Goyescas;
Manuel de Falla: Danza Espagñol No. 1 - "La vida breve" [a stunning piece from a ballet that won de Falla numerous awards];
Joaquín Rodrigo: his fabulous guitar concertos "Concierto de Aranjuez" and "Fantasia para un gentilhombre".

Hey, you've *got* to listen to the latter two! If you haven't yet. Rodrigo was a blind composer who died last year, at age 98?...100? All his music was brilliant and amazing.

And how about modern classical opera? There's Giacomo Puccini's aria "O mio babbino caro," which is beautiful in all vocal and instrumental versions. It got a lot of airplay in 1986 when "A Room With A View" was released in theatres. For Choral & Vocal music, nothing can beat Howard Blake's "Walking in the Air" from The Snowman, composed in 1982, sung by treble Aled Jones -- I think I'm going to gush here, but THAT PIECE is absolutely breath-takingly angelic for vocals. Goosebumps is what I get from how beautiful it is. I also like Queensrÿche's remake of Simon & Garfunkel's "Scarborough Fair Canticle".

Then there's movie music, which is the biggest source of exposure that people get to classical music. I agree with Grishny that a lot of great music is being written for the movies. Look at science fiction epics, like David Arnold's "Stargate Overture".... Wow. A true orchestral score which, for once, makes full use of dynamic range from silence to crescendo. And then look at Jerry Goldsmith's main title score for Star Trek movies 1 and also 5 -- for which he won an Emmy and Academy Award. His same theme shows up on TV in ST: The Next Generation (they knew a winner when they saw it :-) What's amazing about all this is if you mind-meld a David Arnold score with a Goldsmith, you'd expect to get music like the Stargate SG-1 TV theme... and that's *exactly* what they got from their collaboration. ^_^

I also like following how John Williams borrows from the great classics, such as the theme for the "Imperial March" in Star Wars. It's taken from "Mars, the Bringer of War"... i.e. from Holst's opus The Planets. Why not? It works. For that matter, the music in IRON CHEF is borrowed from Hans Zimmer's score for "Backdraft". That was the 1991 movie about fire-fighters and arsonists. (Knowing this finally explains, for me, those huge flames splashing the screen when the "Iron Cooking Man" logo is displayed during the show :-) I really enjoy how this music is so entirely *heroic* and upbeat. Apparently an employee at Universal Studios reported some Japanese tourists asking, Why was the Iron Chef music being played in the Backdraft exhibit? Heh. Well it seems like a perfectly valid question to me :-) I have no idea how good the movie is, but the music rules. For those of you missing out on the joy of Iron Chef, try listening to the theme music at these two links:

Backdraft "Fahrenheit 451/Show Me Your Firetruck": remastered remix
http://www.ifiji.com/yumbo/sound/backdraftISDN.ra

Iron Chef theme music from Backdraft, by Hans Zimmer
http://www.cinemusic.net/reviews/1998/backdraft.html

Wolf "all aimless rambles eventually end in Iron Chef, right?" spirit