Somehow, I never have appreciated Mozart very much. Learning the piano sonatas as a kid, I found it a lot of technical fluff. He does write some gorgeous melodies though.
There a lot of pieces that I love. These are the ones that I keep coming back to.
Bach- Goldberg Variations (love the way these evolve from a simple Aria that was originally a teaching piece.) Any of the unaccompained violin or cello partitias. Clean lines, sophisticated form and content, meditatively beautiful.
Beethoven- any of the piano sonatas, esp. the later ones. Also, the Grosse Fugue (string quartet)- talk about hearing Beethoven's inner demons in this one.
Chopin- (esp. the Ballades) the most pianistically friendly composer, I haven't met a pianist who doesn't love to play Chopin.
some Rachmaninoff preludes- though I find him to get a little bombastic sometimes.
love the harmonies in Debussy and Ravel
love the rhythmic energy in Ginastera
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