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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   2565 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 30, 2025

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What're your favorite pieces of "classical" music? A few recent discoveries:

Ravel's Mother Goose Suite has been listed in both French and English, so I'll add Le Tombeau de Couperin, the spelling of which I did not check. Both suites were originally written for piano and later adapted for chamber orchestra (smaller than a post Beethoven 3 symphonic orchestra, but larger than a baroque ensemble), though only four of the latter's six movements are included in the orchestral suite (one of the movements not orchestrated is a "tocatta," meaning a very technically challenging piece, traditionally for keyboard, but the opening of the orchestral suite is famous for featuring the oboe as the melodic instrument, despite the melody being much more technical than an oboe would usually play).

Tchaikovsky's violin concerto in D minor is great - the main theme of the first movement was plagiarized for the heroic theme in the score of "The Right Stuff." (Listen to the Julia Fischer recording)

Brahms's violin concerto in D major is also great - a recording of it was used in the score for "There Will Be Blood." (Unfortunately, the film came out before Julia Fischer's recording of it - the Julia Fischer recording is always the best recording of a given violin piece)

For a piece by an English composer, Ralph Vaughan Williams's The Lark Ascending single-movement violin concerto-like-composition (If there's a recording with Julia Fischer as the soloist, that's news to me, but there's a famous recording with Iona Brown, and the Iona Brown recording of a violin piece is the best recording of any violin piece not recorded by Julia Fischer)

Pretty much any Haydn string quartet. (Beethoven considered symphonies and string quartets to be the two great forms in classical music, and Haydn was his teacher)

For fun, here's one of Debussy's most popular piano preludes played by a 20th century great, a famed 21st century pianist, adapted by the giant of Spanish guitar, ... and re-adapted by if-you-know-you-know legend Ted Greene.

The classical era was very short, typically starting with the death of Bach (1750) and ending with Beethoven's 3rd (1803). Lipinski would be a romantic composer, almost certainly, while Ornstein was more avant-garde. Listen to the piece you linked, there's little classical about it. This isn't just pedantry: if I asked you to play classical music, I'd accept romantic, even impressionistic, but this Allegro Barbaro, or the more famous one would barely count. I'd be upset if you played Schoenberg or Berg, because they aren't classical at all. God forbid you play Penderecki, I'd revoke your aux cable privileges.

Similarly, I'd be surprised if you played Zefiro Torna, because Monteverdi was too early to be Classical, or even Baroque.

Classical, or rather neoclassical, would be Stravinsky's Sonata for Two Pianos (I like the 2nd movement best), but not his Rite of Spring (linked elsewhere).

I am quite partial to Beethoven 5, but my favorite part isn't in the fantastic first movement, it's the transition from movement 3 to 4, and the recap of the same within m.4. There's nothing quite like landing on that C Major arpeggio in the full, glorious triumph or the brass section.

I'll suggest two pieces I haven't yet seen, from one composer you've heard of in the neoclassical style, and one you probably haven't that's either neoromantic or minimalist, depending on your tastes.

Stravinsky - Pulcinella Suite

Vladimir Martynov - Come In!

Seriously, check out Martynov's work. I can't recommend it enough.

One more minimalmist piece from the 21st century, Ludovico Einaudi - Fly. Another from Eric Whitacre, Cloudburst.

Most of this, but not all, is from my 20th century music history notes. I can transcribe the listening list later if there's interest.

Like it or not, the term "classical" has become the term used to describe all music that emanates from the European art tradition, from Gregorian Chant to John Cage and beyond. Several other terms to describe this overarching meta-genre have been proposed, but none have really stuck. Art Music and Legitimate Music come with the implication that other kinds of music are somehow of lesser value, and can be confusing to the general public. Professor Feinberg from the Great Courses Series uses the term European Concert Music, which is probably the best term from a purely semantic point of view (it comes from Europe, was intended to be performed publicly rather than privately [as with folk music], and doesn't contain any implied superiority), but it's a mouthful and hasn't been widely adopted. Furthermore, the term "classical" has also been widely used to describe music that comes out of similar traditions from other parts of the world, e.g. Indian Classical Music or Chinese Classical Music.

not classical

Indeed, it is "classical". Those are load bearing quotation marks!

listening list

Gladly!

Credit to my wife for keeping the syllabus in a nicely organized binder.

Impressionism: 1890 - 1920

Claude Debussy - Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun (1894)
Claude Debussy - Reflections in the Water (from Images 1905)
Claude Debussy - The Sunken Cathedral (#10 of Preludes, Book 1; 1909)
Lily Boulanger - In an Infinite Sadness (1916)
Lily Boulanger - Spring Morning (orchestral version; 1918)
Marion Bauer - "Druids" (m.2 of Three Impressions) (1917-1918)
Maurice Ravel - Water Games, or, Fountains (Jeux d'eau) (1901)
Maurice Ravel - Daphnis and Chloe Suite No. 2 (1912)

Four Revolutionary Works: c.1910
Bela Bartok - Allegro Barbaro (1911)
Igor Stravinsky - Le Sacre du Printemps / The Rite of Spring (1913)
Arnold Schoenberg - Pierrot Lunaire / Pierrot in the Moonlight (1912)
Charles Ives - Fourth of July (1913)

Satie and 'Les Six': from 1920
Erik Satie - Gymnopedie No. 1 (1888)
Darius Milhaud - Sonatine for Clarinet and Piano (1927)
Germaine Tailleferre - Outdoor Games (1919)
Francis Poulenc - Festive Holiday (1943)
Francis Poulenc - Gloria (1959)

AURAL EXAM #1 INCLUDES ALL PRECEDING WORKS

Second Viennese School: 1900 - 1945
Anton Webern - Five Pieces for Orchestra (Op. 10; 1913)
Alban Berg - Wozzeck (1921)
Anton Webern - Wie bin ich Froh! / How Happy I Am (op. 25 #1; 1935)
Arnold Schoenberg - Variations for Orchestra (Op. 31; 1928)
Alban Berg - Violin Concerto (1935)

Neo-Classicism: from 1920
Igor Stravinksy - Soldier's Tale (1917)
Igor Stravinksy - Pulcinella Suite (Orchestral version; 1920)
Igor Stravinksy - Symphony of Psalms (1930)
Igor Stravinksy - Sonata for Two Pianos
Bela Bartok - String Quartet #4 (1928)
Bela Bartok - Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta (1936)
Bela Bartok - Concerto for Orchestra (1944)
Paul Hindemith - Nobilissima Visione (1938)

AURAL EXAM 2

Nationalism: 1900-1950
England
Ralph Vaugn Williams - The Lark Ascending (1914)
Ralph Vaughn Williams - Serenade to Music
Gustav Holst - Mars, from The Planets (1914-1917)
Rebecca Clarke - Passacaglia (1943)
Rebecca Clarke - The Aspidistra (1929)
Benjamin Britten - War Requiem (1961)
Benjamin Britten - Peter Grimes (1945)
Benjamin Britten - Serenade for Tenor, Horn, and Strings (1943)
Russia
Sergei Prokofiev - Piano Concerto #3 (1922)
Sergei Prokofiev - Symphony #5 (1944)
Dmitri Shostakovich - Symphony #5 (1937)
Dmitri Shostakovich - String Quartet #8 (1960)
Germany
Carl Orff - Carmina Burana (1936)
Eastern Europe
Bela Bartok - Six Dances in Bulgarian Rhythm from Mikrokosmos Vol. VI (1926)
Zoltan Kodaly - Psalmus Hungaricus (1923)
South America
Heitor Villa-Lobos - Bachiana Brasileira No. 5 (1938)
Alberto Ginastera - Estancia (1941)
Spain
Manuel de Falla - Ritual Fire Dance from Love, the Magician (1915)
Mexico
Carlos Chavez - Sinfonia India (1936)

AURAL EXAM 3

United States - Nationalism Continued
George Gershwin - Rhapsody in Blue (1924)
Samuel Barber - Adagio for Strings (1936)
Samuel Barber - Knoxville: Summer of 1915 (1947)
Aaron Copland - The Cat and the Mouse (c.1920)
Aaron Copland - Fanfare for the Common Man (1942)
Aaron Copland - The World Feels Dusty, from Twelve Poems of Emily Dickinson (1949)
Aaron Copland - Appalachian Spring (1944)
Aaron Copland - Hoe-Down from Rodeo (1942)
Leonard Bernstein - Candide Overture (1956)

The Second Avant-Garde: 1945 - 1975
John Cage - Root of an Unfocus (1944)
Elliot Carter - Woodwind Etude #7 (1950)
Mario Davidovsky - Synchronism No. 1 (1963)
Kryzystof Penderecki - Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima (1960)
George Crumb - Ancient Voices of Children (1970)

Minimalism, Neoromaniticism, and other current trends
Steve Reich - Come Out (1966)
Phillip Glass - Glassworks (1982)
Phillip Glass - Satyagraha (1980)
John Adams - Nixon in China (1987)
John Adams - Lollapalooza (1995)
Henryk Gorecki - Symphony No. 3 (1976)
John Corigliano - Pied Piper Fantasy (1980)
Gwyneth Walker - An American Concerto (1995)
Arvo Part - Fratres (1992)
Arvo Part - Rejoice, O Mother of God (1990)
Kryzystof Penderecki - Lacrimosa (1980)
Vladimir Martynov - Come In! (1988)
Eric Whitacre - When David Heard (1999)

AURAL EXAM 4

I only linked one song, because that's the only one that where I care about the performance. Listen to the Susan Pickett version of An American Concerto. The rest should be easily found through searches.

Going through, some of my favorites include the two John Adams works (I am the wife of Mao Tse-Tung, I speak according to the bo-OK, the bo-OK!), the Martynov I mentioned earlier, Fratres, and Satyagraha. I also quite liked Come Out, but I wouldn't call it classical music at all. It's recorded loops that slowly go out of sync (I let the bruise blood come out to show them, Come out to show them, Come out to show them).

That should keep you going for a while. I can do the 19th century list next, but it's going to be a lot more of what you've already had suggested. Yes, Beethoven 3 and 5 and 9, and Mahler and Wagner.

I think you’re confusing the Classical Period of classical music with classical music as an overarching genre. The latter encompasses everything from Gregorian chant to John Williams.

If I asked for Romantic music, or Impressionist music, or Avant Garde music, or Baroque music, I would be asking for music from those periods.

Bach - pretty much everything, but the catalog #1052 keyboard concerto stands above the rest. Glenn Gould is a wonderful choice here.

Mozart - Sonata #8, symphonies #25 and 40. Probably anything else he composed in minor key is brilliant too.

Beethoven’s violin and third piano concertos. Appassionata. Symphonies 5 and 7.

Schubert’s Death and the Maiden.

Chopin’s first piano concerto.

Grieg’s piano concerto.

Dvorak’s cello concerto.

Sibelius’s violin concerto. You want Oistrakh’s recording.

Rachmaninov’s second piano concerto.

Shostakovich’s 5th symphony.

Sviridov’s Snowstorm suite.

Chopin, Prelude 4, Op. 28 in E Minor

Rachmaninoff, Symphony No. 2 in E Minor

St. Saens, Aquarium from Carnvial of the Animals

DeBussy, Arabesque 1: Andantino con moto

and Clair de Lune ..sometimes depends on whose version.

Fauré In Paradisum

And Ravel, Le jardin féérique from Ma mère L'oye Yes it is a fey title.

I'd put Wagner in there as well. particularly Tristan und Isolde.

For Wagner, I'll suggest Siegfried Idyll in addition to the very good Tristan.

At the moment, I like:

Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor.

Tchaikovsky's ballets

Anything by Chopin

Holst's The Planets, as others have mentioned

Heliotrope Bouquet by Scott Joplin

And for variety's sake here are some pieces that are "classical" to non-Western instruments:

Tsugaru Jongara Bushi for the shamisen

Liu Tianhua's erhu compositions

General's Command for the yangqin

Gotta toss in Shostakovich's 11th and basically all of Chopin's nocturnes (but yet also his prelude in E minor).

I always liked Bolero.

And this is the perfect time of year to remind ourselves that spring isn't free. Spring requires blood.

You get dinged for not being hip if you say Beethoven's No. 9 Symphony, Mozart's Requiem, etc. but those are all truly great.

Shoutout to @Hoffmeister25 for mention of Dvorak's No. 9 Symphony and all of Grieg's Peer Gynt Suite, and @FtttG for Holst's Planets Suite.

Some personal favorites:

And if we can sneak in choral works, an excerpt from the last piece, above: the Gesualdo Six's arrangement of O Sacred Head Sore Wounded.

if we can sneak in choral works

...but then, we could go pre-"classical" and just head straight to the source: When David Heard. Even recorded by the same group.

Touché.

Beethoven 5, 6, and 9 are the best obviously. Everybody knows them because they really are that good.

This is Beethoven 3 erasure.

“I’ve been working on a symphony to celebrate Napoleon doing away with monarchy and the influence of Rome!”

“Have you heard? He’s proclaimed himself emperor and cut a deal with the Pope.”

“As I was saying, I’ve been working on a symphony about heroism, just in general.”

A perfectly fine symphony that will adorn the Hall-of-Very-Good for eternity to come.

It's his second best symphony, and it quite literally inaugurated the romantic era.

There are not many composers who have ever written a piece better than Beethoven 3.

Symphony 1 is in the hall of very good. #3 is epoch-defining.

3 is not even better than 7, which only has one really good movement.

There are not many composers who have ever written a piece better than Beethoven 3.

Not many worth talking about. Any composer worth remembering 100 years later has at least one piece better than Beethoven 3.

it quite literally inaugurated the romantic era

Okay, I’ll bite. I don’t like the C# in measure 7. It’s not set-up, and it doesn’t go anywhere. I know people always talk about how it “changed classical music forever”, but really that just means that everyone else used it as a jumping-off point for ideas that work much better.

Have you heard Bernstein's analysis of the first movement?

Great video and cool website!

I mean, it goes to D, but it's also a diminished chord that doesn't resolve hardly at all, and that's the point of it. You don't have to resolve everything, you don't have to be like Mozart forever. Someone had to be first, and it happened to be Beethoven, who was probably the greatest ever, and cast a shadow as long as anyone.

I also quite like the third movement.

I will always have a particular weakness for Claude Debussy's Arabesques.

Seconded - I used to play piano, and Arabesque no. 1 was one of my favourite pieces to perform. It's almost unbelievably beautiful.

I can barely listen to recordings of it though, because so many interpretations of the piece play it way too fast.

I like piano music. If a professional is playing it, then Scriabin, such as Fantasie Opus 28. If I'm playing it for myself, then it needs to be within my technical ability, for example Clementi, Opus 36 no 3 which has an impressively high ratio of happiness&fun to technical difficulty.

When I was taking piano lessons, my teacher showed me a video of a Japanese 4 year old playing that Clementi Sonatina and dared me to do better. At the time I was infuriated to be shown up by a toddler, but it's probably the reason I still remember and enjoy the piece.

Beethoven - König Stephan

Ibert - Ouverture de fête

Ifukube - Japanese Rhapsody

Moroi - Sinfonietta in B flat

Nobutoki - Kaidou Tousei

Bedřich Smetana - The Moldau

Edvard Grieg - In The Hall Of The Mountain King

Sergei Prokofiev - Symphony No. 1 “Classical”

Maurice Ravel - Mother Goose Suite

Antonín Dvořák - Symphony No. 9 “From The New World”

Ottorino Respighi - Pines Of Rome

  • Gabriel Fauré - Pavane in F#m
  • Gustav Holst - The Planets (especially "Jupiter". My brother once told me that the "vaporwave" genre is intended to induce the sensation of nostalgia for a time one never personally experienced. By the same token, "Jupiter" makes me feel patriotic for a planet I'll never set foot on.)
  • Edward Elgar - "Nimrod" from the Enigma Variations

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