h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

who was dying when he composed this piece.

For me, the most striking thing about the Requiem is how it conveys Mozart's fear of death and of meeting his God. You can feel his awe of what is to come.

At least that is what it means to me.

A modern version of this is Warren Zevon's song, "My Ride is Here". He is also dying, of inoperable lung cancer. OK, not at the lofty level of Mozart, but pretty moving, in a different way. Zevon's career has been characterized as "the margarita stand in the mausoleum", and after hearing his hero Bob Dylan do a bunch of his songs in a concert recently, he said it almost made it worth it.

I certainly consider Mozart one of the greatest, and just to mention another moving piece, I've always considered Beethoven's Third Symphony, 2nd Movement to be right up there. And he presumably wrote it without the benefit (?) of being near death.

Interesting point, Abi.

I've always hated the Eroica, Steve, but after what you said I'll listen to it again. I only heard it once, when I was 13, and I was so bored I haven't listened to it since. I like all of Beethoven's other symphonies though.

Niwt

OK, a confession - I'm not really a big fan of the Classical or Romantic periods. Sure I listen and agree that there's some great music in there. But I pay a lot more attention to both Baroque and 20th century music. So to overstate my case, Wolfgang, Ludwig and Johannes are sort of a lull between Johann Sebastian and Igor.

(Ducking ... this reminds me of the time I called Elton John a one-hit wonder on an open Web forum ... I don't recommend it)

But I also dabble in short animations, and am always thinking of background music to support visuals. Wagner, of course, wrote with that in mind, and "Ride of the Valkyries" would be great except now everybody sees helicopters when they hear it. For somber scenes, the 2nd movement of the Eroica might be pretty good.

You're being a little harsh. Mozart was the only man after Bach who could write a killer fugue.

I don't remember any Mozart fugues, I'll have to go look through my collection. I do enjoy a lot of his music, it seems more clever than most, closer to Haydn than, say Beethoven. I have one piece titled "Theme and Variation", one page of piano solo, great stuff. My music theory prof said there is a single quarter rest near the end that makes it hilarious. Another favorite is the variations on the "Twinkle, Twinkle" song.

But Bach's fugues are way up there on my list. I have a book, "Bachanalia: The Essential Listener's Guide to Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier" by E.L. Altschuler and a preface by Stephen Jay Gould. The overall plan is "to apply Bill James' style of statistical analysis for baseball teams to the fugues of Bach's WTC". Pretty weird but fun. The appendices have some things like the "Superstar Four" fugues - c minor Book 1, F-sharp Major Book 1, C Major Book 2, and E-flat Major Book 2.

For Mozart fugues, look at K73w, K375d-h, K383abd, K385k, K385n, K394, K404b, K405a, K426, K546. K375e, K375f and K385k are particularly nice for relatively easy piano music. There is definitely influence from Bach (in fact K404a and K405 make this explicitly clear). There are of course fugal passages in many of his other works, including K626 (the entire Kyrie springs to mind).

Can you point me at a particular recording, e.g. a CD at Amazon or similar? I'm not having much luck searching on K numbers.