Thread: Moods and music/composers

So how much your mood effects to what/who's music you listen to?
I am always on a mood for Beethoven.
I prefer to listen to Sibelius when its dark.
When i want something softer i listen to Mozart.
When i am feeling happy i listen to Mozarts his early works ( not childhood works).
When i feel that i want to listen to controlled chaos i listen to Atonal music.

My listening is entirely list-based. Much as the idea seems to make sense, I never put on a particular piece because I'm in the mood for it.

(Though, I have, on occasion, gone off of my list if the next scheduled thing is just too much not in my mood.)

If I were to base my listening on moods:

Nostalgic/reflective: Schumann/Elgar
Serious/phiolsophical: Brahms
Happy: Haydn / Mozart / early Schubert symphonies
Wired: Bach/Beethoven/Prokofiev
Fatalistic: Nielsen/Vaughan Williams/Barber/Mahler/Bruckner

Originally Posted by Vesteralen

My listening is entirely list-based. Much as the idea seems to make sense, I never put on a particular piece because I'm in the mood for it.

(Though, I have, on occasion, gone off of my list if the next scheduled thing is just too much not in my mood.)

If I were to base my listening on moods:

Nostalgic/reflective: Schumann/Elgar
Serious/phiolsophical: Brahms
Happy: Haydn / Mozart / early Schubert symphonies
Wired: Bach/Beethoven/Prokofiev
Fatalistic: Nielsen/Vaughan Williams/Barber/Mahler/Bruckner

Well my mood decides what kinda/who's music i listen to.
For example, i couldn't listen to Sibeliuses Violin concerto on a warm bright summer day.

I decide what to listen to using the shuffle function on my Itunes.

"Moods are for girls." ~ Igor Stravinsky

Originally Posted by PetrB

"Moods are for girls." ~ Igor Stravinsky

And apparently sexism is for Stravinsky.

When it's cold and snowy, nothing beats Rachmaninov and several other russians

Originally Posted by BurningDesire

And apparently sexism is for Stravinsky.

And apparently being a girl is for girls. You girl.

Yeah, how do you like that? Not so high and mighty now!

When i feel i want to invade Poland, i listen do Die Wälkure

I listen to:

Mahler if I feel in for a treat,
Schubert is I feel poetic,
Bach when I feel I ought to,
Handel when I'm stuck,
Renaissance if I want to be calm
Beethoven if I feel Napoleonic,
Haydn if I'm in a normal mood, (and just generally a lot),
Mozart if I want a change

and more of course. Mostly its whimsical.

I don't know that the mood I'm in really dictates what I want to listen to. For example, if I'm cranky I don't know that there is really any piece that "fits" my cranky mood.

I have been known to start quite a few pieces before I find the one I'm in the mood for, though. One of the great advantages of an ipod. It would be a real drag to do that with CDs or records.

Originally Posted by dionisio

When i feel i want to invade Poland, i listen do Die Wälkure

Dude....too soon.

What Vesteralen explained.

Off topic: What do you think of my current Avatar? I wonder..

I must say that I find it difficult to believe that people can identify particular composers uniiquley with different moods. Surely most composers produced music that crosses over various moods, sometimes even in the same work. I know that people often regard Mozart as a happy, bouncy c-major type of composer, but it's by no means all like that as any Mozart fan will tell you.

I'm not clear whether people choose "cheerful" composers when they're in a cheerful mood, or when they're in a miserable mood. And vice versa.

For myself, I don't try to play any of my music to suit any type of mood I may be in. I'm not sure what the thought processes are in my selection of music. Currently I have a fixation on Bach's religious cantatas, and would play them regardless of mood. I tend to get composer specific fixatiions that last a week or so, and then I move on, but they're not dictated my mood swings.

I'm not, on the whole, a moody type, so maybe this is why the issue is not important. However I was chatting to a new, young work colleague recently who was saying how depressed she sometimes gets when not at work, and how much she finds solace in classical music. I asked casually what composer she liked most of all and it was Robert Schumann and Chopin. This was interesting to me because these are among my favourites.