A soundtrack of three symphonies...

Besides the usual mixture of Delirious?, Third Day, Vigilantes Of Love, Bruce Cockburn, and Anouar Brahem, I've been playing a lot of classical recently. I've been a fan of the genre for about 20 years and like a lot of stuff all over the spectrum, but I guess I gravitate towards the early 20th century stuff. Here's the three I've been listening to (click the link for more info on each - gotta love Wikipedia), usually as I work on the computer or do dishes. Sometimes when I fast, I also fast from music, as a good piece or album feels like a feast to me, and "going without" helps me focus on Him. But on those occasions when I can enjoy, this is what I'm listening to now:

Vaughan Williams' Pastoral Sympony (No. 3). This symphony is gorgeous, rich with broad melodies, and it's both calm and intensely brooding. Many have noted that it's something of a requiem to the Allied soldiers who died in World War I and it is quite evocative of rolling green hills marked with white crosses. I'm listening to the Bernard Haitink/London Philharmonic version; sounds great.

Vaughan Williams' Symphony No. 6. Quite different from the Pastoral Symphony. The first movement is aggressive, energetic, and later quite stirring. The second movement shifts keys and is immediately disturbing, plodding, and warlike. It is very reminiscent of "Mars" from Holst's "The Planets" suite. The third movement is fast, chaotic, and at times evocative of decadence. Then everything quiets down into a fourth movement that is super-soft all the way through. There are hints of structure, but it's like looking at ruins. A great city was here, but everyone is gone. Are there ghosts here? Bernard Haitink/LPO again.

Shostakovich's Symphony No. 8. Many feel that this is Shostakovich's true view of either the Soviet system's effect on the populace, while the Soviet "official" version was that it was in memory to the fallen (particularly at Stalingrad). That the average Joe was put through an incredible amount of fear, strain, tragedy, and grief while working in the Soviet war machine during World War II is undeniable from this symphony. The first and last movements are ponderous, mostly quiet but at key times loud and shrill. Hope? What's that? The second movement is interesting but I can't find the words to describe it other than a scherzo. The third movement is an amazing, horrifying picture of the "war machine" at work, grinding its foes and its laborers into the ground. The fourth is a funeral song over a repeating bass line; moving. At the risk of seeming like a fan of just one guy, I've also been listening to Haitink conduct the Royal Concertgebouw. Are you interested in this? I also have Andre Previn conducting the London Symphony Orchestra in this work; drop me a comment with your address and I'll send it to you and it will be yours.

UPDATE on June 9, 9:20 AM:

Nobody seems interested, so I think I'm going to trade it away on lala.