# Top Recommended Pre-1650 Works (TC Voting)



## Albert7 (Nov 16, 2014)

Now that the Top Recommended Post-1950 Works voting thread is well under way, I think that this would be a wonderful time to explore another area of classical music that some people (including me) are not familiar with. Plus there is a richness during this era before J.S. Bach crashed onto the scene that is worth checking out.

Thoughts on this voting proof of concept?


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## Skilmarilion (Apr 6, 2013)

If this is to be done, it may as well be pre-1700. That way you salvage an extra 50 years whilst still keeping Bach, Viv and Handel out essentially.


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## Proms Fanatic (Nov 23, 2014)

I don't think I know any works from this period so I'd be fascinated to see what people suggest!


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

I'd love to be involved in this, but for God's sake, before any such project should start, participants need to come up with a sensible way of voting first. If it's like the post-1950 project I'm not interested.

The nomination/vote style of other recent lists isn't too bad, but for me the problem is that in nominating works you have to think about both your own preferences and support other people, while also imposing a numerical order: there's too much to be achieved in one action.

My suggestion is that first the project should involve a proper, informed discussion of what composers and specific works should be considered, and the production of an initial longlist to work from in some way. Otherwise such a diffuse subject runs the risk of being decided by whims. For example, someone picks the one Perotin piece they know, and that ends up being the only Perotin piece on the list solely because it's the one that got chosen first.


And I agree with Skilmarillion, a pre-1700 list makes sense, although perhaps a pre-Baroque (ie, pre-1600ish) might be preferable (which is predicated on there eventually being a Baroque list too).


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## GreenMamba (Oct 14, 2012)

I agree with Neferrid on trying a new voting scheme. 

You could choose to dispense with ranking order and just aim for a list of 100 or 150 works, in which case you probably have more leeway. You wouldn't worry so much whether you are hitting the "greatest" works first, and could more easily focus on one composer at a time. 

All that said, I would probably not participate until the post-1950 thing winds down. I'm a little voted out right now, and need to get away from time-specific listening.


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## Guest (Jun 28, 2015)

Nereffid said:


> I'd love to be involved in this, but for God's sake, before any such project should start, participants need to come up with a sensible way of voting first. If it's like the post-1950 project I'm not interested.
> 
> The nomination/vote style of other recent lists isn't too bad, but for me the problem is that in nominating works you have to think about both your own preferences and support other people, while also imposing a numerical order: there's too much to be achieved in one action.
> 
> ...


I, too, will be abstaining if there is not adequate discussion of rules, terms, goals, and a good amount of pre-determined interest. I don't want a list to just be started with the TC label on it with hardly any validation (see the attempted jazz list). Wasn't surprised that there was hardly any participation, given how it was started right off the bat with no discussion.

I would also prefer we go back to the traditional style of nominating lists. I also think 1650 is an arbitrary date. 1600 or 1700 make more sense, depending on your goal.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

Nereffid said:


> I'd love to be involved in this, but for God's sake, before any such project should start, participants need to come up with a sensible way of voting first. If it's like the post-1950 project I'm not interested.


What I find confusing is that you participated in the other project at the start and then made suggestions that we change the rules. Once the voting rules were changed you stopped participating.


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## Albert7 (Nov 16, 2014)

nathanb said:


> I, too, will be abstaining if there is not adequate discussion of rules, terms, goals, and a good amount of pre-determined interest. I don't want a list to just be started with the TC label on it with hardly any validation (see the attempted jazz list). Wasn't surprised that there was hardly any participation, given how it was started right off the bat with no discussion.
> 
> I would also prefer we go back to the traditional style of nominating lists. I also think 1650 is an arbitrary date. 1600 or 1700 make more sense, depending on your goal.


nathanb, would you like to collaborate with me in spearheading a pre-1700's list perhaps? I have little experience in doing anything like this.


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## Guest (Jun 28, 2015)

Albert7 said:


> nathanb, would you like to collaborate with me in spearheading a pre-1700's list perhaps? I have little experience in doing anything like this.


It's possible, but between my classes, my job, and my mother starting chemotherapy last week, I'm a bit strung out right now, so if I were to play any central role again, it would have to be, for now, a bit of a slower pace. Something along the lines of the nice week-long (or more) rounds TVox took when he was busy.


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## Albert7 (Nov 16, 2014)

nathanb said:


> It's possible, but between my classes, my job, and my mother starting chemotherapy last week, I'm a bit strung out right now, so if I were to play any central role again, it would have to be, for now, a bit of a slower pace. Something along the lines of the nice week-long (or more) rounds TVox took when he was busy.


No worries. This project wouldn't even begin probably until November-ish for me. I am pretty busy until then.


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## SimonNZ (Jul 12, 2012)

Does this come from the suggestion I put to T-Vox at the end of the SQ project?:

http://www.talkclassical.com/34778-tc-top-100-recommended-121.html#post864238

Because I believe he expressed some possible interest in running that after rest/holidays, and considering the amazing job he did with that the offer should remain open to him.

I am naturally interested in the project - if the person running it can be someone with the same level of reliability, maturity, insight, patience, empathy, sound judgement and the same widespread respect as he has.


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## Guest (Jun 28, 2015)

SimonNZ said:


> Does this come from the suggestion I put to T-Vox at the end of the SQ project?:
> 
> http://www.talkclassical.com/34778-tc-top-100-recommended-121.html#post864238
> 
> ...


Agreed. TVox is totes def my hero.


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

I'll nominate:

Claudio Monteverdi- _Vespro della Beata Vergine_- 1610
Carlo Gesualdo- _Tenebrae Responsoria_- 1611


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## GreenMamba (Oct 14, 2012)

I don't think we've started yet.


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

tdc said:


> What I find confusing is that you participated in the other project at the start and then made suggestions that we change the rules. Once the voting rules were changed you stopped participating.


The reason for that is that I didn't like the rules to begin with, gave it a chance, didn't think it worked, offered suggestions when other people expressed a wish to change the rules, and then dropped out because although these changes were improvements they completely failed to address what I saw as the fundamental problems of the original rules, and thus my enjoyment from participating wasn't helped at all.

Basically if you can imagine a situation where my enthusiasm was about 60%, and gradually it declined to about 30%, rising with the rule changes to about 40% and then declining quickly again to about 20%, at which point I stopped participating, and since then my enthusiasm for that system has dropped to approximately 10%. These aren't scientifically accurate figures and are used for illustrative purposes only.


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## Albert7 (Nov 16, 2014)

Nereffid said:


> The reason for that is that I didn't like the rules to begin with, gave it a chance, didn't think it worked, offered suggestions when other people expressed a wish to change the rules, and then dropped out because although these changes were improvements they completely failed to address what I saw as the fundamental problems of the original rules, and thus my enjoyment from participating wasn't helped at all.
> 
> Basically if you can imagine a situation where my enthusiasm was about 60%, and gradually it declined to about 30%, rising with the rule changes to about 40% and then declining quickly again to about 20%, at which point I stopped participating, and since then my enthusiasm for that system has dropped to approximately 10%. These aren't scientifically accurate figures and are used for illustrative purposes only.


Also early on during the process it was fairly easy to enshrine the pieces but as it moved along, the process became a lot harder because 7 points ahead required a lot more for the base number of points.


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## TurnaboutVox (Sep 22, 2013)

SimonNZ said:


> Does this come from the suggestion I put to T-Vox at the end of the SQ project?:
> 
> Because I believe he expressed some possible interest in running that after rest/holidays


Thank you for the encomium, SimonNZ and nathanb 

I remain interested in running a pre-1650 or 1700 project (it will all be new music to me), but please don't let me put anyone else off, especially if people want to get this started. I think the post-1950 works project is still in progress, though, isn't it?

I have a busy time at work over the next 4 months, August holidays excepted, but I am going part time in November and anticipate having a bit more free time for a project like this.

If someone does go ahead and take this up before then, I will point out that, depending on participation levels, it can take up a lot of time and there were certainly some weeks during the string quartet list project when I was really hard pressed to find enough space.

Whoever runs the project, I am much clearer in my own mind now about its main purpose - basically to bring interesting works to each other's attention so that members can discover them and discuss their reactions, their merits and demerits, and for those who feel qualified to do so, their technical features and innovations etc. So having less regard to the 'ordering' of the eventual list, perhaps we could agree on a nomination and voting system that serves this purpose. Personally I thought that the well worn 2 stage system that TC has used for compiling a number of our recommended lists (nominations, vote on most popular) was good enough for the purpose. It has disadvantages, but other methods have greater ones, I think.

I agree with nereffid that whichever voting system is used, it is agreed and finalised in advance of the actual vote!


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## Trout (Apr 11, 2011)

I certainly wouldn't mind helping or running the project as I've managed a few others in the past without finding the process arduous at all. It probably helps that I've been a list-compiler for as long as I can remember. But I suppose it theoretically shouldn't matter too much who runs it, so long as we have the rules and format down pat beforehand.

I agree with the list being pre-1700s (as I mentioned at the end of the TC String Quartet list thread). We also should probably not overlap with the current post-1950 project and even have a cooldown interlude of at least a couple weeks before starting to prevent 'voter fatigue'.

By the way, best wishes to your mother, Nathan. I hope both you and she stay strong.


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## Albert7 (Nov 16, 2014)

Trout said:


> I certainly wouldn't mind helping or running the project as I've managed a few others in the past without finding the process arduous at all. It probably helps that I've been a list-compiler for as long as I can remember. But I suppose it theoretically shouldn't matter too much who runs it, so long as we have the rules and format down pat beforehand.
> 
> I agree with the list being pre-1700s (as I mentioned at the end of the TC String Quartet list thread). We also should probably not overlap with the current post-1950 project and even have a cooldown interlude of at least a couple weeks before starting to prevent 'voter fatigue'.
> 
> By the way, best wishes to your mother, Nathan. I hope both you and she stay strong.


Sounds good. I think that I would like to help helm this project but only after the post-1950's voting is done and we wait 2-3 months afterwards.

This is a great project because I don't know much about it and this gives me a chance to explore an era I have the least familiarity with.


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

The more I see enthusiasm from people who say they don't know much about the music - which is great! - the more I think serious preparation should be done beforehand.
I know between us we probably have several motivations for participating in this project: some just want to encounter new music, some like the voting aspect, some want to produce a solid reference list at the end, and of course combinations of those reasons. I like the voting, and new music is always welcome, but mainly I'm in the "reference" camp. The pre-1700 list should be as valuable as, say, the symphonies list in terms of being a guide to excellence/popularity, but because the music as a whole is much less well-known, the list won't be able to rely on the sort of "canon" that's already in many listeners' minds with regards to symphonies - for example "everyone knows" that Mozart's last few symphonies are "better" than his first few, and there's no chance that an arbitrarily chosen early symphony of Mozart would be voted in ahead of the Jupiter, but how many participants in the pre-1700 list will be able to confidently do the same with, say, Josquin's masses?


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## Guest (Jun 29, 2015)

Off-topic briefly, but thank you to Trout and the couple of PM'ers for the condolences for my mother. Makes me feel a little more like a human


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## Albert7 (Nov 16, 2014)

Looks like we got momentum here so let we do it! Fall or winter of this year.


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