with all these polls about hip-replacement-hop and alkaline earth metals, i feel a bit left out, and i think nick and john do, too... this poll may've been done before, but probably not in a while.

so these are the standard general divisions... they obviously all overlap... but you probably know whether you like beethoven's early/classical stuff or later/romantic works more... feel free to ask for clarifications, if you need any.

Medieval - from the beginnings of codified liturgical music to around 1400.
Renaissance - 1400-1600
Baroque - 1600-1750
Classical - 1750-1820
Romantic - 1820-1910
Impressionism - 1887-1925 - by far the least significant movement of these, but i didn't really want to include it under either Romantic and 20th Century music, as it happened to bridge the two... and there might be someone just crazy enough to vote for it, too, who knows.
"20th Century music" is a meaningless term stylistically and pretty inadequate because it includes so many developments, but breaking it down into more concrete movements seemed too much within the context of such a general poll... feel free to specify which aspects of 20th century music appeal to you most (or least).

~you can vote for 2 options, and rank the rest of them in your post, if you want.
~you can also post who your favorite composers are from each period, what you like/dislike about each period, why you find it interesting, and whatever else. post examples, too!

PS: don't forget that we have a classical subforum to consult for composers/periods/compositions/etc.

Renaissance, Baroque and Romantic would be my 3 picks. I'll have to think about how to narrow them down to 2. The holy music of the Renaissance is just so powerful. eg Tallis.
from Romantic period the piano concertos of Tchaik, Grieg, Rach & Shosta are golden for me, particularly as I was fortunate enough to be involved in performances of many of them.
Baroque - anything that features the oboe as solo instrument. So Albinoni, Marcello, Bach, Vivaldi spring to mind. I also like Telemann trumpet concertos and the concerti grossi of Handel & Vivaldi.

Baroque (read: Bach) and Romantic.

Will post in more depth in a bit.

are you saying bach is the only reason you vote for baroque?

roggo, don't cheat, shosta is "20th century" (neoromantic or whatever)... rach is too but he's closer to the 19th century spirit so i'll give you that... i usually mark mahler's death as the symbolic end of the romantic period, but being reminded of rach makes me reconsider the idea...


btw, my two votes would be for medieval and baroque. i'll post more later.

I always think of that concerto as being in with the others (romantic), George, particularly this movement.

But hey I could be wrong, I know I am strictly date wise. Anyway, isn't it a gorgeous movement? Could be my absolute favourite slow movement of all the piano concertos I mentioned and that's going some.

George: Bach is the only baroque composer I've listened to (knowingly and intently). But I love him that much.

Romantic got my second vote for having the greatest sheer volume of composers who have pieces I love/like a lot: Wagner, Brahms, Chopin, Sibelius, Dvorak, Elgar, Mussorgsky, Schubert, and Tchaikovsky.

But honestly I don't know most of these all that well—I'm still reasonably new to the world of classical (broad definition) music. Other than romantic, the only one I know a lot of composers from is modern, and while I like a lot of modern classical music I love fairly little of it. For impressionism, I adore Debussy and don't like the little Ravel I've heard. For renaissance, I have heard one Tallis piece once. Etc.

I love that movement so much. I remember when John introduced me to it: one of his ways of wooing me was to bring me my "new favorite song," and this was one of them.

Sorry I'm hopeless at this poll. I love whatever moves me at the time, whatever that is. And I always get confused with musical time periods, since they are somewhat different than the literary time periods. I listen to a little bit of everything. Lately it has been the Tallis Scholars (various composers), Schubert, Schumann, Vaughan Williams, and a little Mahler (I have to take him in small doses, he is a bit emotionally exhausting for me), Barber, Mendelssohn.

John, you sly old dog you.

So were you interested in classical music prior to meeting and being wooed by the plaid shirted one, Mrs 17, or did he kindle a flame inside you that burns to this day (weeeey, topical banter)?

Plaid-shirted one

I took piano lessons for about 10 years, but I was always trying to surreptitiously read a novel behind my music . . . so I'm afraid it was a bit lost on me. I lived with my cousin who was the principle clarinetist for our University's Philharmonic, so I went to her concerts and was exposed a bit more to classical music. But yes, cheesy as it is, John did convert me to classical music. He had (has) a keen knack for discerning what I would connect to and introduced me to those works.

I think I have picked up more of his interests than he of mine. He introduced me to baseball, classical music, video games. I've been unsuccessful in getting him to read much literature. Although I did turn him into a vegetarian, yoga practicing hippie so maybe we are even.

hmmm do i mean medieval for the choral music i love, george?

Wonderful! And thanks for fleshing out John a little.
As for the clarinet, try this one for size:

20th Century
Romantic
Baroque
Impressionism
Classical

Don't have enough experience with Medieval or Renaissance to rank them.

Love Vaughan Williams' Symphonies.

Vaughan Williams just about single-handedly bagged me a mrs17

Ranking these is pretty much impossible for me. I'll think about it, but my only initial response would be that impressionism would be last. Not for any other reason than that it's the most restrictive. I can make a case for each of the remaining options being my favorite.