# "Lush" Music



## HCE (Jul 27, 2018)

I see this term used to describe classical a lot, in your opinion what are some of the lushest works out there? Daphnis et Chloe immediately comes to mind, but I'm curious if there are any others that could surpass it in lushness. I want to feel like I'm drifting down a river of honey in ancient Greece.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

I think Daphnis is rather threadbare in spots - Ravel wrote with great clarity. Other composers of his generation wrote much more lush orchestrations. If it's ancient Greece you want, look no further than the works of Sir Granville Bantock:

The Cyprian Goddess
The Helena Variations
Sappho
Sapphic Poem
Thalaba the Destroyer
Pagan Symphony
Omar Khayyam is pretty great too, but awfully long.

Great, heady, lush, atmospheric music. Horrible neglected nowadays, but fortunately there's a superb collection on Hyperion and the price is right!


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Szymanowski wrote orchestral music you can swim in.


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## HCE (Jul 27, 2018)

Thank you mbhaub, I will definitely be looking into this. It seems like there is little digital presence recording-wise for him, is he just obscure or is it some other reason?


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

HCE said:


> Thank you mbhaub, I will definitely be looking into this. It seems like there is little digital presence recording-wise for him, is he just obscure or is it some other reason?


His (lush) orchestration was his strong point. For this he is often likened to Strauss but he lacked Strauss ability to write memorable material (IMO).


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Delius without a doubt.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

Enthusiast said:


> His (lush) orchestration was his strong point. For this he is often likened to Strauss but he lacked Strauss ability to write memorable material (IMO).


That is his weakness - you can wallow in the glorious sound while you listen, but it's hard to keep in your head; it evaporates soon. He's not the only composer whose music suffers from that lack of memorability. Nonetheless, it's great stuff to listen to.

Bantock suffered the same fate as many other composers who wrote tonal, large scale works in the first half of the 20th c: it was pegged as being old-fashioned. He steered clear of modernist trends and sealed his fate, which was our loss.


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

I find Bax's music to be quite lush.


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## MusicSybarite (Aug 17, 2017)

If you want lush music, these guys will be your best friends: Respighi, Glière, Hausegger, Marx, Boehe, Novák, Glazunov, Ciurlionis, Atterberg, Suk, Wetz, Prokofiev, Arnold, Korngold, Braga Santos.


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## laurie (Jan 12, 2017)

When I think of lush orchestration, Respighi is the first one that comes to mind.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

The Smith brothers are good for a wallow.
Well, they aren't really brothers.
And they aren't actually "Smiths", in the _English_ sense.

Franz Schmidt ( 1874 - 1939), an Austrian composer, pianist and cellist, wrote four rather lush symphonies and an opera titled _Notre Dame_.






Florent Schmitt (1870 - 1958), a French composer, is perhaps best known today for his _La tragédie de Salomé_, Op. 50, a long-time favorite musical slushy for me.






And ... don't forget the Russian Smith: Rimsky-Korsakov. (Okay, that one's a stretch.) But _Scheherazade_ sounds lush to my ears.






Surprisingly perhaps, some of the lushest music comes from early work by the atonalists, Schoenberg, Berg and Webern. Check out the _Verklärte Nacht_, Op. 4 (1899) and _Gurre-Lieder_ by Schoenberg. Berg offers the_ Lyric Suite_, especially in its string orchestra version, and Webern will delight with _Im Sommerwind_ (1904) and the _Langsamer Satz_ (1905).


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## Kjetil Heggelund (Jan 4, 2016)

I had to google...urban dictionary here: one who becomes intoxicated after a few drinks and flirts with everyone...I had a few drinks actually...


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

some pieces worth mentioning:

Sorabji - Gulistan (if you want to listen lush, intoxicating and decadent piano music, you should check this out, and the other nocturnes too). It's almost a musical drug.

Charles Loeffler - La mort de Tintagiles 

John Foulds - Three mantras

Alphons Diepenbrock - Marsyas


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## Fredx2098 (Jun 24, 2018)

I'd suggest Coptic Light by Feldman: 




But perhaps I rather ought to keep that to myself...


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## Vasks (Dec 9, 2013)

In my dictionary, when I look up the word "lush" it shows a pic of Delius.


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

MusicSybarite said:


> If you want lush music, these guys will be your best friends: Respighi, Glière, Hausegger, Marx, Boehe, Novák, Glazunov, Ciurlionis, Atterberg, Suk, Wetz, Prokofiev, Arnold, Korngold, Braga Santos.


yes, this is a very good list, I wanted to mention some of those composers too. I would add Rimsky-Korsakov (Sheherezade, Christmas Eve: Orchestral Suite, The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh)


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## Orfeo (Nov 14, 2013)

Jacck said:


> yes, this is a very good list, I wanted to mention some of those composers too. I would add Rimsky-Korsakov (Sheherezade, Christmas Eve: Orchestral Suite, The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh)


I agree. I would also like to add George Lloyd as well as:


Sibelius (before, say, his Fourth Symphony)
Melartin
Alfven
Creston
Hanson
Barber
Skulte
Ivanovs (before his Ninth Symphony)
Myaskovsky
Rachmaninoff
Coke, Roger Sacheverell
Ireland
Moeran
Scott, Cyril
Feinberg, Samuiil
Schmitt
Reger
Mahler (definitely)
Tchaikovsky
Lyatoshynsky (pupil of Gliere)
Diamond
Del Tredici
Vaughan Williams
Wagner
Puccini
Mascagni
Villa-Lobos
Catan (try his Florencia en el Amazonas)
Ginastera
Dohnanyi
Goldmark
Bainton
Bruckner
Brahms (to some extent)
Shostakovich (to some extent)
Lehar


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

Oh, I thought you meant background music for an AA meeting.


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## Portamento (Dec 8, 2016)

Schmitt and Hovhaness for me.


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## Guest (Jul 29, 2018)

I guess anything that has some kind of sense of growing or 'having grown' but I'm not sure. Perhaps something extremely colourful or vast? Ligeti's micropolyphonic works might fit the description.


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