I’ve just about worn out my Hans Zimmer soundtracks and I want to expand my horizons a bit. Please recommend some exciting, pulse-raising orchestral music a la Gladiator and Black Hawk Down.
Educate me about good and bad composers, which recordings are superior if there are several and possibly some other soundtracks that might tickle my fancy.
I need some good, rabble-rousing music to blast in my car this summer!
How about Beethoven? Parts of the latter symphonies really get moving, especially the Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, and Ninth. I prefer Herbert von Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonik.
Anton Dvorak’s symphonies can really get moving, too.
Film music? I have to admit that I like John Williams. So sue me. But I really like James Horner’s score for The Rocketeer, both the imposing opening scenes and the actions scenese (which seem to fit your requirements better).
One specific recommendation I have is a bargain 6 CD set 100 Best Film Classics. It costs about $20, and has a pretty wide selection that you’re sure to like something of.
It’s become a bit cliche through its use in commercials for movies that want to use blood pumping classical music, but Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana is a good choice.
As to which specific recording, I tend to look for a series. “CBS Masterworks” or something. Those are usually a good bet.
Carmen is great - my 3-yr-olds love to march around the living room to it!
Peer Gynt is easy to like and lively, “In the Halls of the Mountain King” has been used in a lot of movies.
Stravinsky’s Rites of Spring is longer and more involved, but the complexity makes it especially interesting.
Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture is pretty stirring - it’s about a war. With real cannons!
Gotta have Moussorgsky’s Night on Bald Mountain – here, find this specific recording . You’ve got your skeletons flying around, plus Baba Yaga in her chicken-legged hut, stealing children in the night. Conducted by Bernstein. Win-win-win!
Sixth? Nah. Beethoven was an “odd” composer.
Wagner is always a good choice. And Stravinsky. It doesn’t get much more rockin’ than Le Sacre, Dances of the Pretty Maidens. Brahms’ 1st and 4th rock pretty hard. Prokoviev is a mixed bag, but the Capulet dance from Romeo is about as Motley as it gets in classical.
Oh yeah. And there’s that. Pretty much standard fare for action film TV trailers.
Oh? So you don’t think the “Storm” sequence from the Pastorale is blood-pumping music/ I beg to differ.
It’s Beethoven, not Star Trek movies.
It is, but you have to wade through a lot of boring before you get to it.
I’m just not a huge Beethoven fan. But the 2nd movement of the 7th, while not totally metal, is one of the most powerful pieces of music ever written, IMHO.
Damn, now I gotta get off the computer and go crank some tunes.
Byat da datta datta DAH da da! BOOM!!!
For stirring modern film scores, I’d recommend Basil Poledouris’ score for Conan the Barbarian (he did a lot of good film scores and unfortunately died last November).
I always thought Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade suite could get the blood goin’.
ETA: Even though it’s used a lot, I never get tired of Holst’s Mars, Bringer of War.
Lend an ear to John Williams’s “Imperial March” from The Empire Strikes Back, and his movie themes from Star Wars, Amistad, Superman and Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony has some blood-pumping passages, and of course the rousing The 1812 Overture.
How about marches? I’m fond of Strauss’s “Radetzky March,” and Sousa’s “Semper Fidelis,” “The Thunderer,” “Stars and Stripes Forever,” and “El Capitan.” Older American marches include “Hail Columbia” and “Hail to the Chief.”
No mention of Shostakovich yet? Explore the symphonies, in the order 5, 10, 7, 8, 4 for starters. And some of his film music is great stuff - try this album.
Of course. Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus as well.
Rock on.
Rossini immediately comes to mind. Any one of his overtures, but most definitely:
William Tell
The Barber of Seville
La Gazza Ladra (“The Thieving Magpie”)
Twilight of the Gods: The Essential Wagner Collection Including Ride of the Valkyries, aka “You might remember me from such movies as Apocalypse Now.”
ETA: “And I’m included in some of the collections mentioned above!”
Well I was gonna suggest Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring but of course someone beat me to it.
John Adams has written a lot of orchestral stuff that’s quite forceful. There’s ‘Harmonielehre’, and his violin concerto.
Huh, a music recommendation thread where I can’t recommend my eponymous hero! 
(well I think there are orchestral arrangements, haven’t heard them though)
I also like Rick Wakeman – a lot of his works have significant and sweeping orchestral parts. Check out
**A Journey to the Center of the Earth
Myths and Legends of King Arthur
Return to the Center of the Earth**
Here are a few not yet mentioned:
John Adams - Short Ride in a Fast Machine
Samuel Barber - Second Essay for Orchestra
Hector Berlioz - Roman Carnival Overture
Leonard Bernstein - Overture to Candide
Aaron Copland - Rodeo
Franz Liszt - Les Préludes
Rimsky-Korsakov - Capriccio espagñol
Christopher Rouse - The Infernal Machine
Jean Sibelius - En Saga & Finlandia (both tone poems)
Bedrich Smetana - Ma Vlast
Tchaikovsky - *1812 Overture * & Capriccio Italien