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Let us put aside or tuba playing bias and come up with a list of 5 pieces of classical/orchestral music that should be in every ones library. Complete recordings of all a composers symphonies or operas or keyboard music, etc., don't count. Specific recordings are welcome, but not a requirement. Let's keep it to what is commonly known as classical music.

1. Beethoven 5- Kleiber/VPO
2. Bach- Mass in B minor
3. Vivaldi- Four Seasons
4. Stravinsky- Rite of Spring
5. Debussy- Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun

I know this may be constricting, but put your thinking caps on. And try to have some fun.

Chuck

- St Matheus Passion - Bach
- Cavatina from quartet op. 130 - Beethoven
- Cantique de Jean Racine - G. Fauré
- Turangalila - O. Messiaen
- The Peace Of God - J. Rutter, in a euphonium and organ version, played by Highams. It realy touched me.

I learn very much from these.

Antero

These will probably change tomorrow, but here they are in no particular order.

1. Adams - Nixon in China
2. Mahler - 5th
3. Debussy - Piano Preludes
4. Ives - Three Places in New England (Chamber Orchestra version)
5. Cage - Imaginary Landscapes No. 1

Well, so far I think my list would have to include everything mentioned, but here are a couple of additional thoughts as they come to me: Holst - The Planets
Mussorgsky - Pictures (gortchakov arrangement)
Wagner - Ring Cycle (I know a bit much, but ...)
Tchaik - Symph 6
Orff - Carmina Burana ( make the choir people happy)
Dvorak - Symph 9

I am looking forward to seeing more choices - will help me decide what CD purchases I should be making

Adams - Harmonium
Holst - The Planets
Mahler - 5th
Mussorgsky - Pictures
Orff - Carmina
Stravinsky- Rite of Spring

R. Strauss Alpine Symphony

Sibelius Symphony No. 1

Brahms Requiem

Bach B minor Mass

Hovhaness Symphony No. 2
"Mysterious Mountain"

All right, here are my five pieces, do what you will with it:

1) Beethoven 9 - Karajan/Berlin Phil: This is THE piece of music that every college music major should have a score to, in my opinion. It has inspired generations of Western Art School trained musicians.

2) Bach Well Tempered Clavier - Gould: From a contrapuntal and pedagogical standpoint, this piece of music is INCREDIBLE. A lot of the things that Bach did in this music, I think he did just because he could. And this recording is played by one of the masters.

3) Mahler 1 - CSO/Solti - This picks up right where Beethoven 9 left off in the world of orchestral music. A lot of it is VERY characteristic of the late Romantic Style, and is a prime example of the dichotomy between absolute and programmatic music.

4) The Planets - Dutoit/Montreal - This recording is my personal favorite of this piece. I put this on the list only because the music of Holst (& other British composers such as VW and Elgar) has inspired so many modern film music composers (John Williams, Danny Elfman, James Horner, Michael Kamen, etc.), which for people in my generation was our first exposure to orchestral and classical music.

5) Rite of Spring - Unfortunately I do not have a recording of this that I am truly happy with right now, but this piece of music helped pave the way for twentieth century music like no other. However, is 20th century music just a musical fad or will it last? I think it is still too early to judge that, as even things like twelve tone systems have already begun to fade.

5a) Hindemith, Symphonic Metamorphosis - This is a personal favorite of mine, just based on the fact that it was originally for orchestra, but works just as well as a band piece. It is very effective either way. The music contained in this piece is incredible. It is the one piece right now that I can remember hearing and saying "Where has this been all my life?"

Well, there's my five. Take it or leave it!

Bach-Art of Fugue
Wagner-The Ring
Bruckner 9
Mahler 9
Schoenberg-Gurrelieder

Monteverdi - Vespers of 1610

In no particular order...

-Schubert Winterreise (Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and either Alfred Brendel or Gerald Moore)

-Beethoven 5 (Kleiber/VPO.. have to agree with Chuck on that)

-Beethoven Late String Quartets (particularly op. 130 in B flat) (I'm partial to the Emerson recording, but Guarneri ranks a close second)

-Mozart Le Nozze di Figaro (Rene Jacobs' latest period version on Harmonia Mundi.. received much critical acclaim inc. Gramaphone's Disc of the Year and for good reason)

-Tchaikovsky 5 (I'm especially fond of the Mravinsky/Leningrad PO recordings despite some heinous balance issues with the principal trumpet in some sections. This recording, to me, shows the sort of energy and excitement that a work like this should have.)


Honorable mention (I know.. only 5, but these I couldn't pass up): Beethoven Piano Sonatas (Gould); Bach Cello Suites (Pierre Fournier); Brahms Ein deutches Requiem (Klemperer, Philharmonia; Schwarzkopf and DFD (again).

Mahler 1 - Live Version (1991) CSO/Tennstedt
Mahler 7 - (1999) London SO/Michael Tilson Thomas
Mahler 8 - (1972) CSO/Solti
Dvorak New World - CSO/Reiner
Tchaik 1812 - (1986) CSO/Solti

Some good Italian opera, e.g. "Tosca" or "Traviata" (I perfer Verdi to Puccini, but that's just me). The exact one doesn't mater so much as long as it's representative of the genre.

Anyone think musical theater, say "West Side Story" or some movie music would be appropriate?

Non-Italian opera, say, "Peter Grimes" on anyone's list?

How about the moderns, like Hans Werner Henze's "Songs from the Arabian"?

Anyone have any plain chant nominees?

Just tossing some ideas out to broaden the field away from the instrumental-symphonic-germanic field.

'Peter Grimes' is definately on honorable mention for me.

Chuck(G) wrote:Monteverdi - Vespers of 1610

Definitely!

Chuck(G) wrote:How about the moderns, like Hans Werner Henze's "Songs from the Arabian"?

Frank Zappa G-Spot Tornado (as performed by the Ensemble Modern off The Yellow Shark)

Chuck(G) wrote:Just tossing some ideas out to broaden the field away from the instrumental-symphonic-germanic field.

How about vocal-Italianiate? The intense "chromaticism" in some Gesualdo madrigals is always both fascinating and oddly refreshing.

But now I'm up to 10...

Here's an idea--take the 5 and roll 'em into one! Sort of like this:

http://www.sibeliusmusic.com/cgi-bin/sh ... reid=59096

mandrake wrote:

Jeremy K. wrote:However, is 20th century music just a musical fad or will it last? I think it is still too early to judge that, as even things like twelve tone systems have already begun to fade.

The answer to this question is obvious: it's a fad. Twentieth Century Music will cease to be written as soon as musicologists realise that it's the Twenty-First Century.

Is a genre considered a fad if it has lasted over 100 years? Do you think it is possible that people in the Baroque era considered early Classical-styled music a fad as well?

The South Beach Diet is a fad. Parachute pants were a fad. A style of music that many composers have spent a lot of time, effort, and emotion writing should not be so "obvious"ly a fad. I think a lot of composers (and performers for that matter) on this board would tend to agree.

If you don't like 20th/21st style music, that's fine. However, making sweeping generalizations about a genre is not called for.

mandrake wrote:

Jeremy K. wrote:However, is 20th century music just a musical fad or will it last? I think it is still too early to judge that, as even things like twelve tone systems have already begun to fade.

The answer to this question is obvious: it's a fad. Twentieth Century Music will cease to be written as soon as musicologists realise that it's the Twenty-First Century.

The thing is....twelve-tone music requires an investment of time most people are not willing to make. If you immerse yourself in the stuff for about a month or so, you'll "learn the language" so to speak. You'll be immune to all the dissonance and "wrong notes" and just be able to take the music for what it is.

Unfortunately, your everyday music lover will never even get through the door as far as 12-tone stuff is concerned. If "popular music" is "familiar music", 12-tone music will never be popular because it's not immediately familiar. The associations with other kinds of music people already know are much more abstract, which is in a way reflective of where the music was created....apart from society in colleges and universities.

This doesn't mean the music is worthless....but it's audience will always be smaller and limited to the few who take the time to learn how to listen to all the "bad sounding" music.

In order to somewhat relate this to the original post...since I listen to a lot of 12-tone music, here are my favorites in that regard:

1. Elliott Carter: Variations for Orchestra (CSO, Levine)
2. Roger Sessions: Symphony No. 8 (American SO, Botstein)
3. Carter: String Quartet No. 2 (Juilliard Quartet)
4. George Rochberg: Symphony No. 2 (New York Philharmonic)
5. Schoenberg: String Quartet No. 4 (Arditti Quartet)

Other Favorites:

1. Mahler: Symphony 2
2. Tchaikovsky: Symphony 6
3. Wagner: Das Rheingold
4. Beethoven: Eroica Symphony
5. Prokofiev: Symphony 5

While I think the Kleiber VPO Beethoven 5 is phenomonal, my personal preference is George Szell and Cleveland performing it (a perfect example of this ensemble's virtuosity, taut playing, and exceptional blend, balance, and intonation).

As for my 5.

Dang this is though.

Stravinsky - Rite of Spring (Boulez, Cleveland, SONY recording)

Respighi - Roman triptych (Dutoit, OSM)

Bach - Goldberg Variations (Murray Perrhia)

Debussy - Piano Works (Walter Gieseking)

Bach - Cello Suites (Rostropovich, Starker, or Wispelwey)

Maybe I'm missing something, but I'm pretty sure that more than just dodecaphonic music was composed during the twentieth century. I don't see any reason why stuff like Stravinsky, Vaughan Williams, Copland and the rest won't continue to be appreciated as long as anybody still listens to classical music.