# neoclassical music: do you have any favorites?



## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

I was reading the recent thread about the classical period and while it's one of the most celebrated period in classical music like others there, I have a difficult relation to it. On the other hand, I'm intrigued by the idea of balance, beauty, serenity and purity that are the premises of classical music and I really, really like some neoclassical works that unlike the music produced in the eighteen century is often dismissed as not particularly interesting. Maybe it's the fact that I find the harmony much more interesting or closer to my sensibility, I don't know, but while I'm not an expert at all I think there are works that deserve more attention and have great value.
So what are your favorite neoclassical works?
I'm especially interested in chamber works, but feel free to recommend anything.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

Bloch's Concerto Grosso No. 1.
Stravinaky's L'Histoire du Soldat.
Hindemith's Music for the Royal Sewing Machine.


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## Olias (Nov 18, 2010)

Stravinsky's Pulcinella
Prokofiev's 1st Symphony
Shostakovich's 9th Symphony (especially the 1st movement)
Octet for Winds - Stravinsky


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

For chamber works, some that come to mind: 

Ravel - Piano Trio
Debussy - Sonata for Flute, Viola and Harp
Poulenc - Sonata for Oboe and Piano

All of the chamber works by the above three really. Nothing too out of the ordinary I guess. For Prokofiev I would vote for his piano sonata cycle and the second symphony (the latter structurally modelled after Beethoven's Op. 111).


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Stravinsky's Concerto for 2 Pianos (there is no orchestra) is a good one. Poulenc's Violin Sonata and Flute Sonata are good but may not be really neoclassical. His Trio for Oboe, Bassoon and Piano is, though. Hindemith's Kleine Kammermusik for Wind Quintet is another good one and the Viola Sonata (Op.25/4) is also good. It seems I don't know a lot of neoclassical chamber music. If we go to orchestral then a lot of the Stravinsky that I list in a separate thread must be included and a fair amount of Frank Martin and Poulenc.


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## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

Hindemith's Kammermusik series is a pretty big achievement of neoclassicism, alongside many of his other works. He was a great composer and perhaps the genre's poster child (yes, over Stravinsky, who despite any genre tags bestowed upon him was still more Stravinsky than anything).


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## CnC Bartok (Jun 5, 2017)

It's difficult to know exactly what music classifies itself as Neoclassical. Some music of the 20th Century might look like that, but is effectively classical pastiche. I would think looking for music that was written in reaction to the "lack of structure/form/discipline" that has been a useful label for disparaging the Romantic era would be the most constructive. So yes indeed Hindemith! But personally, I'd say more definitely Stravinsky.

But also consider Bohuslav Martinu; a lot of his works effectively resurrect the old Concerto Grosso form; look at all the use of forms in controlling the music in scenes on Hindemith's Cardillac, or perhaps even better, Berg's Wozzeck? Try the wonderful discipling Vagn Holmboe prescribes in his String Quartets. You could even start calling Bartok a neoclassicist for his incomparable quartets, or more obviously in Music for Strings (fugue etc) or the resurrected Divertimento form.

It's not an easy thing to define or categorise, to be honest, so good luck with that!!


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

I've been on a Hindemith chamber music trip recently. I like it all across the board but there is still something more adventurous about the works which came immediately after his late romantic/expressionist periods. Hindemith composed a fair amount of chamber music through the 1920s, which I think was his most fertile decade. A whole new world begins to open up with the third string quartet op.16 (1920) and from here until and including the trio for viola, heckelphone and piano op.47 (1928) represents for me the high water mark of Hindemith's chamber output.

Below is a link to IMSLP's comprehensive list of Hindemith's works. It can be arranged by date which makes it even more useful for reference purposes.

https://imslp.org/wiki/List_of_works_by_Paul_Hindemith


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

CnC Bartok said:


> You could even start calling Bartok a neoclassicist for his incomparable quartets


I like the quartets, but I think that this is exactly the opposite of what neoclassicism is, especially in terms of "balance, beauty, serenity and purity"






I'd say this is more an expressionist work than anything else.

While I'm looking more for stuff like


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## CnC Bartok (Jun 5, 2017)

^^^ Ok. Your understanding of what neoclassicism is does not necessarily correspond to mine. Besides, balance, beauty, serenity and purity are there in abundance in those works. As is a vestige of tonality.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

CnC Bartok said:


> ^^^ Ok. Your understanding of what neoclassicism is does not necessarily correspond to mine. Besides, balance, beauty, serenity and purity are there in abundance in those works. As is a vestige of tonality.


Do you think that movement I've posted is an example of serene and balanced music?
Because to me that's very aggressive, anguished and full of suspense music. And it's great and it's clearly made on purpose to be like that.


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## Pat Fairlea (Dec 9, 2015)

I'm a big fan of Michael Tippett's Fantasia Concertante on a Theme of Correlli:


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## CnC Bartok (Jun 5, 2017)

norman bates said:


> Do you think that movement I've posted is an example of serene and balanced music?
> Because to me that's very aggressive, anguished and full of suspense music. And it's great and it's clearly made on purpose to be like that.


Balanced, yes. Serene would indeed be pushing it!!

What is "neoclassical" about Bartok, and it is there in the Quartets, is the re-emphasis on form and structure, and the idea of "pure" music. Personally, I understand neoclassicism to be a reaction to the "indulgences" of Romanticism, as well as a reaction to the "aggressive experimentalism" that took place in the pre-WWI years. Yes, your example is not a new piece dressed up in an old friend's clothing, and yes, he's pushing the boundaries of tonality, and indeed instrumental technique, but it is related to the first movement inextricably, the whole arch form of the quartet, and it is this insistence on controlled structure that I see as the key idea of neoclassical music. Not the twee pastiche of, say, Prokofiev's Classical, as fine a piece as that may be. I have never understood neoclassical music as having to be Mock Baroque, forgive me if I am wrong

Having said all that, and having tried to highlight some of the neoclassical elements in Bartok's music, I am also perfectly happy to argue that he's actually the last of the Great Romantics! And I don't see any contradiction in that. :tiphat:


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

I agree it is a hazy term. I also agree with the comments excluding Prokofiev's 1st Symphony, for not being 'neo' enough. But much of his other work I think is neoclassical (which is a style that can be fit under the umbrella of Modernism). I think most of Ravel and Poulenc qualifies, and I think they are stylistically between neoclassicist and Impressionist. Things like Bartok's _Divertimento for Strings_, Ravel's _Le Tombeau de Couperin_, and Debussy's _Pour le Piano_, might be more accurately classified as neobaroque. Ravel's _Gaspard de La Nuit_ and Bartok's String Quartets are maybe closer to neoromanticism.


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## MusicSybarite (Aug 17, 2017)

Roussel!!! The _Suite in F_ is a must-hear. Likewise his symphonies 3 and 4 demonstrate how well Roussel managed this style. And let's not forget his only _String Quartet_.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

norman bates said:


> Do you think that movement I've posted is an example of serene and balanced music?
> Because to me that's very aggressive, anguished and full of suspense music. And it's great and it's clearly made on purpose to be like that.


classicism also encompasses those aesthetics


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Neoclassicism? I've always enjoyed the Dumbarton Oaks Concerto.


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

I am surprised that no one has mentioned Walter Piston.

When I was with the Army we had a woodwind quintet and we like playing the Piston.


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## tortkis (Jul 13, 2013)

I like Alexandre Tansman's chamber & piano works. I think they are neat and well balanced.

Sonatina No. 3 (1933), walter spies; Pastorale, animé





String quartet No. 8 (1956); Rapsodia, allegro agitatao


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

Jacques Hétu - Suite for Guitar Op.41


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

norman bates said:


> I like the quartets, but I think that this is exactly the opposite of what neoclassicism is, especially in terms of "balance, beauty, serenity and purity"


What a godawful, hideous performance of the Bartók SQ. The dissonances he wrote are sharp enough that they don't need to be exaggerated and performed like a strident act of war. Worst performance ever and there are other recordings less aggressive and more musical. I truly loathe what some do to these great SQs and this is supposedly a "gold medal" performance when I believe they greatly overdo it, distort, and try too hard. They play the movement like it's a total crisis and not as a work of neoclassicism. It's supposed to sound rhythmic with a sudden emphasis but not as insanely compulsive. D-minus. This does not strike me as a neoclassical work at all. In what way does it refer to classicism of style and content, especially the harsh way it's played? It doesn't look back at anything.

"Neoclassicism in music was a twentieth-century trend, particularly current in the interwar period, in which composers sought to return to aesthetic precepts associated with the broadly defined concept of "classicism", namely order, balance, clarity, economy, and emotional restraint. Neoclassicism was a reaction to both the emotional excesses of late Romanticism and the radical dissonance of modernism."


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