Music to get your royal groove on?

I was thinking about where I could get some kingly music. As in, I do0n’t know, so please tell me.

Kingly music here, is not so much a particular genre but a style. I want music that screams glory, dignity, and so on. If you’ve ever played some of the Total War series (especially Rome: Total War), much of that would do. I’m not really looking for marches or blatant “blare the trumpts” stuff: give me something that just oozes out of the speakers.

That part of Carmina Burana they always play is pretty majestic.

Wagner like “Ride of the Valkyrie”.

Good God. *Ride of the Valkyrie * is about as bombastic as it music gets. I’m looking for something much more sedate.

Almost anything by Handel, especially Water Music which is traditionally played at weddings of the British royal family.

Mouret’s First Suite in D sometimes also called “Fanfare for the King’s Supper.” Nowadays, it’s best known as the Masterpiece Theater theme music.

The opening movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.

Mozart’s Jupier Symphony has magisterial moments.

I always thought that if I time-travelled back to a time when my esoteric knowledge could win me a kingdom, I’d teach the Court Musicians how to play the Throne Room arrangement from the end of SW(IV):ANH, where they get the medals. That’s always impressive.

:smack: Sorry, I thought you said “screams” :wink:

Handel has some great music that might be right up your alley. This CD has quite a few. One of (IMHO) the best pieces is the beginning of Zadok The Priest. It’s got this string arpeggio thing that goes on and on and builds into this POW of choir at the end. Love it.

He he. I was a chorister at Windsor Castle as a boy so I know ‘Now That’s What I Call Kingly Music XiV’ would certainly carry ‘Zadok The Priest’. They were always playing it - I would also recommend Edward Elgar’s ‘Pomp and Circumstance’.

But the most kingly music - I’m talking majestically majestic now - is Nino Rota’s theme for that movie ‘Death On the Nile’. Check it out to see what I mean.

Tchaikovsky’s Marche Slav and 1812 Overture both have the Imperial Russian anthem, (“God Save the Tsar”) woven into them.

Also the beginning and end marches from The Sleeping Beauty, the Introduction & Marche, and Finale-Apotheosis, are both full of pomp and grandeur. (And if you’ve seen Disney’s Sleeping Beauty, they’re both used to announce the King, and the Princess Aurora).

Thanks. I’ll take a look.