What Are The Most Significant Works Classical Music?
Sun, Oct 17 2010, 1:22AM
#2
RE: What Are The Most Significant Works Classical Music?
Elliot Carter is over 100 years old and is still composing. Good luck to him and long may he continue. But the fact remains that he has yet to compose a single work that is even on the fringes of the general repertoire. Is this his fault or that of the audience for classical music? I think this question might be relevant to the current discussion.
Guilaume
Sun, Oct 17 2010, 2:10AM
#3
RE: What Are The Most Significant Works Classical Music?
If what you say is true, why is the music or our time, the music that reflects the world we know best; our present reality, and is far closer to our understanding than the world of two or three hundreds years ago of which none of us has any experience whatsoever, almost completely unknown and ignored. I would say simply because people don´t understand this music, and all the continued listening in the world ultimately won´t help if you don´t seek out some form of explanation.
My previous post should have quoted the above. I'm new and haven't yet got the hang of this site. But just who is supposed to provide "some form of explanation"?
Guillaume
Sun, Oct 17 2010, 1:55PM
#4
RE: What Are The Most Significant Works Classical Music?
Obviously the people who know more about these things than some of us i.e. the people who have spent their lives studying and listening to/playing music. The great Mr. Carter himself, the writers of progamme notes and CD booklets, radio and television broadcasters, and of course the reviewers and writers of Gramophone. As Michael Tippett wonderfully said when talking about BBC Radio 3, you have to give people better than what they want.
Mon, Oct 18 2010, 9:14AM
#5
RE: RE: What Are The Most Significant Works Classical Music?
I hope I'm misunderstanding you here. You're not saying Mozart writes 'pure' music, untainted by personal emotion or the events of his private life, are you?
No - merely trying to point out one of the differences between Beethoven and Mozart (or, more properly, between classicism and Romanticism). And in doing so played down their similarities to make the point in my argument.
Mon, Oct 18 2010, 6:51PM
#6
RE: RE: What Are The Most Significant Works Classical Music?
No - merely trying to point out one of the differences between Beethoven and Mozart (or, more properly, between classicism and Romanticism). And in doing so played down their similarities to make the point in my argument.
Fair enough.
As antediluvian as it may seem today, the view that Mozart wrote Eine Kleine Nachtmusik 626 times, or that Mozart=Beethoven - Emotion + Water was common currency when I was a lad.
Tue, Oct 26 2010, 6:56PM
#7
RE: What Are The Most Significant Works Classical Music?
Richypike:
Likewise I LOVE Ravel, Vaughan-Williams, John Adams, Sibelius and Bach but hate Brahms, Lizt, Berlioz and Pagannini.
Each to their own - you say you love pop, after all - but I find it very difficult to understand how someone can "HATE" any of those composers. Unless you've never really listened to them; or only to a handful of works. They all have affinities with the composers you say you love.
'Hate' is too strong a word, 'can't get into' would probably suit. As I said it's 'subjective' and maybe it's a failing of mine but I would rather spend time listening to and discovering music of composers I haven't 'filtered out' as not to my liking.
Anyway as you say 'each to their own'!
Sat, Oct 30 2010, 1:10PM
#8
RE: What Are The Most Significant Works Classical Music?
... the very best, like Sibelius, knew when to prune and when to let it go.
Mahler, on the other hand, didn't.
Sat, Oct 30 2010, 1:47PM
#9
RE: What Are The Most Significant Works Classical Music?
Thanks for mentionning the second movement of Beethoven's 4th Piano Concerto. One of the most memorable stretches of music ever composed and unequivocably ahead of its time. There's an ineffable feeling of wonderment and mystery in this music that one often hears in Bartok's night music: 3rd Piano Concerto, First movement of the Concerto for Orchestra... Let's compare them to Van Gogh's Starry Night. Why not?
Sat, Oct 30 2010, 2:43PM
#10
RE: What Are The Most Significant Works Classical Music?
Would you consider the Renaissance to represent the beginnings of advanced Mercantilism, i.e. Capitalism? The first stirrings of the Middle Class? So to speak.
The social, visual environment of latterday composers (Bach, Mozart, Beethoven etc.) was much different than our 20th-21st Century urban landscapes.I think Twentieth/Twenty-first century music expresses our world very well. Perhaps that is why most people either don't like it or shun it. It reminds them too much of the world that they live in: fragmented, abstract, full of distractions and, in many ways, downright frightening. The only solace for these people is to bask in the glow of the composers whose world was so much more different than our own. In other words, they choose to live in denial. Choosing to live in denial is a recipe for disaster. Which pretty well describes the 20th Century. The composers (sculptors, writers and painters as well) of the 20th Century did a splendid job of describing this disaster while it happened. I salute them all.
Some forty years ago I used to lie down on my sofa in a darkened room and bathe in the abstract sounds of my Nonesuch LP of electronic music. Very therapeutic and less expensive than a psychiatrist's couch. Xenakis can be as much an inspiration for some people as much as Mozart can be for others. For myself, Beethoven will always be number one.
Tue, Nov 2 2010, 11:48AM
#11
boing007 wrote: Would you
Would you consider the Renaissance to represent the beginnings of advanced Mercantilism, i.e. Capitalism? The first stirrings of the Middle Class? So to speak.
Not sure if the question's aimed at me - but I would very much endorse the view that the Renaissance was that period of history in which the foundations were laid for what we now call capitalism. It’s no co-incidence that the centres of the production of great art (Florence, Venice, Sienna, etc) were also those in which the origins of modern banking and financial services were created. (But not sure whether there was a middle class – rich and poor certainly, but perhaps not a middle class. But don’t quote me on that.)
And it also follows that the music of Bach and Mozart were products of the historical/materialist circumstances in which it was created. After all a symphony orchestra is an expensive thing to run, so you need either a wealthy patron or a bourgeoisie with sufficient disposable income to enable an Eroica or a Jupiter to be composed and performed. Which is why I find suggestions that great music somehow embodies ‘eternal truths’ or expresses the ‘human condition’ – ie: something outside of history – at best meaningless and at worst absurd.
Mon, Dec 13 2010, 5:39PM
#12
RE: What Are The Most Significant Works Classical Music?
Andy, how right you are!
Bruckner 6th symphony is has a resonance for me because it was the first piece I ever played as a professional musician.
Cosi, Rosenkavalier, Peter Grimes, (Verdi's) Otello, are also of significance because they were among some of the most memorable opera performances I ever had the pleasure of partaking in. And so it could go on.....
The crucial thing is that the pieces to which one listens are enjoyable, but they can also be (somewhat) challenging. New pieces, never before encountered, can also be significant.
Barry Wordsworth once suggested to his audience that they look through a brochure of forthcoming concerts, and select a programme with at least one unfamiliar work in it, buy a ticket and go to hear it. As the old song used to say ("If you go down to the woods today) you're sure of a big surprise"
Mon, Dec 27 2010, 9:43PM
#13
RE: What Are The Most Significant Works Classical Music?
I'm coming very late to this discuss, but I generally agree that it's really impossible to define a list of most significant works. For a start, it's obviously up to the individual to define what constitutes "significant". And human beings being what they are, every person has own opinion.
Beginning some time ago, I began to compile a list of most often recommended classical piece by experts and critics who had published, popular books on the subject. My purpose was self-education; I'm non-musician myself, and I was (and remain) relatively ignorant. However I did learn a lot from the exercise and my list was a very useful guide to my listening and acquisition of records.
So, for what it's worth, please have a look at my list of 250 works, linked HERE.
Sun, Jan 16 2011, 12:05AM
#14
RE: What Are The Most Significant Works Classical Music?
Hello and welcome to the world of classical music. While I'm not new to the music I am new on this forum. I read the responses to your question and they are all very informative and useful. Lots of knowledge and expertise in here so I won't offer another list. I will say, however, that classical music lovers are quite different from the rock & roll folks you're accustomed to. I was over on a yahoo forum a few weeks ago and made the mistake of commenting on Pink Floyd's "Dark side of the moon". I said that I thought "money" was the only decent tune on the album and that the rest of it was terrible. I'm still getting death threats. Classical music folks are far less judgemental and are just as passionate about your right to your opinion as they are about their own.
So there's my 2cents. (somewhat off topic)
Have a great day
Well, this question actually requires a large pitcher of beer and a bowl of chips and several hours for the group to argue it out, but you're making headway. A few suggestions out of a hundred I can think of:
Adams Harmonium
Bach Orchestral Suites
Bach Italian Concerto
Bach Magnificat
Bach English Suites 2 and 3
Bach etc etc
Bartok Dance Suite
Beethoven Symphony 3 "Eroica" - Historic
Beethoven Piano Con 5 "Emporer"
Handel Messiah
Haydn Symphonies 70,98
Mozart Symphonies 25 and 41
Nielsen Symphony 4 "Inextinguishable"
Tchaikovsky Symphony 4
Prokofiev Romeo and Juliet
Ravel Bolero
Scarlatti Keyboard Sonatas