Introduction

Do you know what the most common complaint about the Classic FM Hall of Fame is? “Choose my three favourite pieces of classical music? That’s impossible. It should be at least five, or even better, ten.”

That is the whole point. It is not impossible, just very, very difficult. You really have to think about it. Why do I like this particular piece of music, and do I definitely like it more than this other piece? What matters more to you — a melody you can hum, or a rhythm you can tap your feet to? Voices or orchestra or both? The choice is yours entirely, and no one will ever criticise you for what you choose.

That is the beauty of music. What one person loves may not appeal to the next person. Neither is right and neither is wrong. Beauty in music is in the ear of the listener, just as beauty in art is in the eye of the beholder.

And the beauty of the Classic FM Hall of Fame is that by collating your hundreds of thousands of votes, we can see what particular pieces of music appeal to the largest number of listeners, allowing us to draw up a list of the 300 most popular pieces. It is the largest survey of classical music tastes in the world.

Every piece the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra will play in this Hall of Fame concert has been voted by you into the top 300, so we can truly say they are among the best loved pieces of music ever composed.

From Vaughan Williams’s evocative The Lark Ascending to Edvard Grieg’s terrifying In the Hall of the Mountain King. From Elgar’s emotional Nimrod to John Williams’s flighty Hedwig’s Theme.

You will leave the hall humming after a concert to remember.

John Suchet, Presenter