# The Grand TC Music Playlist! (please submit ONE work)



## 20centrfuge

We have hundreds of active members here on TC -- every one of which is unique in terms of taste, experience, education, background, personality, etc.

What if *EACH *person submitted *ONE* piece of music?? It would form a sort of grand collection of music. A mosaic of the TC community.

So, here we go! There is no set criteria for submission. Some possible reasons for your choice might include:

-A piece you feel everyone on TC should know
-A favorite or life-changing work
-An under-rated work or performance you wish to bring to light
-A piece that represents you and your interests

*Rules:
1. ONLY ONE PIECE PER PERSON!
2. Provide a link (if possible) to YouTube and Spotify
3. List the Composer, Title, and Performer(s)*

Optional:
Provide notes on your work: why you chose it as well as any program notes on the work or performance.


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## Portamento

First!

*1.* Henning Christiansen: Requiem of Art (Aus "Celtic") Fluxorum organum II, op. 50






"We were of course very impressed by Cage when we were in Darmstadt, but he has his house and I have mine." 
- Henning Christiansen

_While countless pages of energy, words and print have been laid down concerning such alternative musical heroes as Sun Ra, Stockhausen, Miles Davis, and John Cage to name but four, relatively little attention has been paid to the Danish Fluxus man who was a central figure of radical Danish performance for over 40 years. Henning Christiansen was a composer, musician, and artist that sprung out of the overflowing well of mid 20th Century post-Cage Fluxus inspired activity. His friends and collaborators included Joseph Beuys, for whose performances he provided the sonic backdrop, along with Nam June Paik, Ben Patterson, Keith Rowe, and Christophe Charles, as well as the bulk of radical Danish artists that emerged from this period of immense creativity and exploration. Henning predominantly worked within the context of visual art that likely contributes to his relative neglect in the experimental music media and community. The breadth of Henning Christiansen's creative output is wildly far reaching, encapsulating a large variety of styles and techniques which touch upon many strands of 20th century creative practice, all with his unique fingerprint. It is not possible to summarise all facets of his career and artistic output in less than a lengthy book, so this piece is focused on his career in music. The different practices, stages and output, along with tracing the path he took (not an easy task given the plentiful forks, detours, stop/starts, u-turns etc) - suffice to say the heterogeneous nature of his output is overwhelming. Henning was a passionate man, an active man, a curious man and a great creative man.

The music of Henning Christiansen is an unusual proposition. It comes from the 20th Century avant garde but does not sit comfortably amongst any of the recognisable patterns within that field. It often incorporates a collage technique but is not strictly 'musique concrete'; there are no chance based experiments but often within his work there appears what could be considered random gestures; and while improvisation is most certainly at hand, this is not do or die free improvisation. It came from (exists within?) the Fluxus paradigm but avoids willful piano destruction or flushing toilets (although he did partake in performances of such works by others). Christiansen's recorded output can be conservative, radical, beautiful, unsettling, discreet, random, charming and hilarious. There is a human behind all this, one who prioritized the logic and chaos of nature over pure theory and the synthetic._
~​
I have been entranced with this man's music recently - it is so very magical yet dangerously eerie at the same time. Love it!

I can't find the names of the performers, but the LP which is pictured on the YouTube thumbnail was a ca.1973 collaboration with Joseph Beuys. What a treasure.

Not on Spotify, unfortunately.


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## Tchaikov6

I'll start with a fairly well-known work, but one of my favorites.






Abbado's recording is fresh, delightful, and mature. The piece as a whole is my favorite Mahler symphony (probably), and I just think that it completely changed my ideas of music, and not just music, but the life themes that Mahler suggests. The ending is one of my favorite endings of all times, and it proves that you don't have to end with a bang to a have a fantastic close.


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## 20centrfuge

Thinking about which work I would submit -- I'm choosing one that I discovered as a teenager. It was the first piece by Prokofiev that I really fell in love with - his Symphony No.6.

Symphony No.6 was written at a time in Prokofiev's life when he was frustrated and felt imprisoned by the Soviet system overseeing his music. The symphony has wistful, sentimental qualities at times, frustration, anger, hope, even playfulness. It covers so many emotional bases. The first movement in particular - the main theme at about 2:55 in the video -- is a melody that seems to languish and wrap around itself like a person wrapping up in a blanket, seeking solace (sorry for waxing poetical).

When Symphony No.5 was premiered, the Soviets hailed it as emblematic of their progressiveness and strength. The piece was aggressively promoted internationally and even resulted in Prokofiev making the cover of USA's Time magazine. With Symphony No.6 they saw it as a negative emblem of their system and smothered it. In my opinion, the piece never ever received the recognition it deserved and Prokofiev's career was never quite the same. He was officially out of favor with the government and, by and large, the vigor that was previously found in his music wasn't heard again.

Anyway, I love this piece and this is a fine performance by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra with Neeme Järvi conducting.

*Sergei Prokofiev: Symphony No. 6, Op. 111 (1947)

YouTube -- Movement 1: Allegro Moderato

YouTube -- Movement 2: Largo

YouTube -- Movement 3: Vivace

Spotify Link*


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## 20centrfuge

Somehow I thought this was going to succeed.


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## Bettina

Beethoven: Fantasia in G Minor, Op. 77, performed by Rudolf Serkin






I chose this piece because Beethoven is my favorite composer, and I wanted to share one of his lesser-known works with the TC community. This piece has a unique position in his overall output: it's the only Fantasia for solo piano that he ever wrote (he did, however, write a Choral Fantasy for piano, chorus and orchestra).

As one of Beethoven's few contributions to the improvisatory genre of the Fantasia, this work gives us a glimpse of his legendary abilities as an improviser. The improvisatory mood is established from the outset, with a cadenza-like flourish that leads into a plaintive melody. This sets the tone for the rest of the work, in which virtuosic sections alternate with lyrical melodies, often interspersed with sudden modulations which create drama and surprise.


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## tortkis

Terry Riley: The Harp of New Albion (1986)





Probably this is one of the earliest pieces I listened to that employed an alternative tuning. Rarely I heard microtonal music which is as beautiful as this, sounding different but not being too quirky.


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## Art Rock

Samuel Barber - Knoxville summer of 1915






Dawn Upshaw, soprano
David Zinman
Orchestra of St. Luke's

Aside from the omnipresent Adagio for strings, this was my first encounter with the music of Samuel Barber (early 90s I'd guess). The haunting piece, sung beautifully by Dawn Upshaw, has become one of my all-time favourites, and prompted me to check out this rewarding composer further.


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## hpowders

Charles Ives Concord Piano Sonata.

A mammoth, incredible, haunting work on the scale of Beethoven's Hammerklavier Sonata.

In this work, Ives is obsessed with the opening of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony.

It recurs many times. Have you counted them?


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## Strange Magic

As a young child, I had begun my relationship with Classical Music in part by being exposed to the "exoticism", the "orientalism" of works by the Russian Mighty Five: Borodin's Polovtsian Dances being a very early influence. I expanded further into the other many areas of CM, but the allure of that "otherness" that suggests itself in the music of so many Russian composers, and is also found in other composers dotted about the periphery of Europe (Spain, Finland) has remained, and my ears have always been ready to respond. So it was with a profound jolt that I first experienced Alan Hovhaness' Piano Concerto No. 1, Lousadzak, then just released by MGM Records on vinyl in the late 1950s which I offer here. Maro Ajemian, who premiered the work, is the soloist, and the MGM string orchestra is conducted by Carlos Surinach.

Lousadzak offered orientalism, exoticism, on a wholly different scale than the music of the Mighty Handful or of, say, de Falla. The MGM recording came out sometime in the late 1950s, and sustained me during some dark times in my late teens--I found I could get through a bad night after a bad day by immersing myself in its haunting, mysterious thrummings and drone backgrounds as the exotic melodies danced in the foreground--a glimpse into another world. It remains today a treasured and close friend. Later, MGM re-released the disc, which had also borne Hovhaness' wonderful Violin Concerto No. 2, on its Heliodor label in 1966. Not for everyone, but certainly for me!


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## Sina

*Horațiu Rădulescu: Iubiri (1980/81) for 16 players & taped sound icons*
(Liner notes can be found here)


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## chalkpie

One of my favourite, if not my very favourite tone poem by Sibelius (1894/1895). The unmistakable Nordic vibe and deep wood nature imagery I get from this piece is just unsurpassed. Also, the haunting and elegiac beauty of the cello melody in the last 2/3 of the piece is beyond words for me. When I get into one of my Sibelius "moods" (in which I binge on nothing but his music for weeks at a time), The Wood Nymph is usually played at least once per day, sometimes more. My favourite version is the original performance with Vanska/Lahti as heard here. Its not a very frequently performed piece, and part of its charm for me is its relative obscurity or underappreciated quality, like some sort of lost gem. Enjoy this masterpiece!


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## chalkpie

hpowders said:


> Charles Ives Concord Piano Sonata.
> 
> A mammoth, incredible, haunting work on the scale of Beethoven's Hammerklavier Sonata.
> 
> In this work, Ives is obsessed with the opening of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony.
> 
> It recurs many times. Have you counted them?


Great call - my favourite solo piano piece by ANYBODY. The Alcotts is one of the most beautiful stretches of music ever composed imo.


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## DiesIraeCX

*Composer*: Ludwig van Beethoven
*Work*: String Quartet #14 in C# minor, Opus 131 (1826)
*Performer*: Takács Quartet

My favorite piece of music, it inevitably would have found its way onto the playlist, just thought I'd be the one to add it.


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## bharbeke

I chose Schubert's Wanderer Fantasy performed by Murray Perahia.










I don't have a special reason for it; I just think it sounds great.


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## Janspe

My contribution: *A. Schoenberg: Piano Concerto, Op. 42*

For some reason it was really easy to make this decision, even though there are hundreds of pieces that I feel would be worthy of this thread. Schoenberg's concerto is a piece that I've loved dearly for quite a long time already, but initially I found it hard and almost incomprehensible. But I persevered due to a curiosity that wouldn't go away, and Mitsuko Uchida's enthusiasm for the piece helped a lot too. Slowly at first, and then all of a sudden Schoenberg's language and expression revealed itself to me, and the great oeuvre that he created became an integral part of my listening life.

In the end I think there are four reasons why I chose this work: 1) it's a brilliant 20th century masterpiece, 2) it taught me that sometimes it's worth it to keep listening to something that is hard and difficult, 3) artists who fervently champion (any kind of!) music can _really_ make a difference and find new audiences, 4) *it still deserves to be much more well-known*.

The performance, provided in the YouTube clip below with the score included, is by Mitsuko Uchida playing with the Cleveland Orchestra and Pierre Boulez. It is a wonderfully thoughtful reading of the score that emphasizes the lyrical aspect of the work without trying to simplify it in any way. In these performer's hands the first movement threatens gently, the second movement explodes unexpectedly, the slow movement broods steadily forward and the finale dances around as if it was a Haydn concerto. The recording shows clearly what this piece truly is: an important and moving 20th century re-imagining of a centuries-old genre that continues to be alive and kicking even today. And I love it so much!


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## QuietGuy

Ravel: Daphnis et Chloe (1909 - 1912) - complete ballet. Dutoit/Montreal






As I've stated many times in threads here on TC, this is what I hope heaven sounds like when/if I get there. I loved it on first hearing, and over time, it has become an old friend.


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## mathisdermaler

Composer: Karlheinz Stockhausen
Performer: N/A (synthetic electronic recording)
Title: Gesang der Junglinge






To me this is the greatest avant-garde work after WWII. Stockhausen put an unfathomable amount detail into this piece, generating each sound and splicing them together by hand with his assistants. It is a monumental success on a musical and literary level and I find it more traditionally musically satisfying than any other famous work of musique concrete/electronische musik. It is Stockhausen's greatest and most pioneering work, it is a masterpiece and I love it! (sound starts ~0:20)


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## Tallisman

Well, I might as well snatch this masterwork before anyone else: Beethoven's 10th string quartet (Harp) by the Alban Berg quartet in a lovely video performance for your viewing pleasure:


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## Strange Magic

20centrfuge, give yourself a BIG pat on the back for conceiving a great idea for a thread! I'll be visiting or revisiting just about everyone's submissions here for quite some time. Well done. :lol:


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## bharbeke

Like most of the other threads on the site, I find myself sharing tastes with some and differing wildly on others. I do like reading the posts, though, so keep 'em coming, people!


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## SONNET CLV

My pick has to be the piece I consider the reason I'm here. I mean, here at this classical music Forum. For it's the piece that swept me into classical music as a youth. After hearing it I was never the same. And I would be much the poorer, I'm certain, had I never encountered it. The _Capriccio Italien _by Tchaikovsky. It was played in a required junior high school Music Appreciation class to which I was assigned as a seventh grader. The teacher had an LP collection titled something like "50 Great Classics" which presented snippets of the more famous classical pieces. None of the pieces he played made much of an impression on me (an avid rock-n-roll fan, like most kids my age) until he cued up the Tchaikovsky one day. It was not the entire piece, only the closing couple of minutes, that boisterous finale to the _Capriccio_. But it was enough. Like a charm, it seduced me into a wondrous new sound world. I sought out the work at a record store and purchased an album featuring Tchaikovsky's _Capriccio_ and the _1812 Overture _... and someone named Deems Taylor talking about bells and cannons. I'm sure most of you know that Antal Dorati disc. It was not the same interpretation on the teacher's LP collection, but it was close enough to restore in me the magic of the first moment I heard it. And I loved the _1812 Overture _as well. And with that my journey into classical music began. The very next purchase I made was the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto with Ashkenazy on London. It blew me away. And I soon followed up with the Grieg Concerto, the Beethoven Fifth, and the four Brahms Symphonies. I was hooked.

Whether or not the _Capriccio Italien _will hook anyone else is beyond my abilities to say, but I'll present a video version here, and hope any of you who have not yet heard this will give it a spin. It just may change your life, too.

Music: Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's _Capriccio Italien_, Op. 45 performed by the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra conducted by Antal Dorati






Of course, many of you know I'm a great fan of contemporary music, and of Bach. There might be some distance between those two poles, and some distance from both to the Tchaikovsky, but that just shows how wondrous this magic is. Classical music has such a range, so much to explore. But first you have to get into it. Tchaikovsky's_ Capriccio _was my doorway, and since that first hearing of the piece I've enjoyed thousands of classical pieces ranging from the Medieval period and Renaissance up to music of the 21st century. And it continues. Powerful stuff, this.


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## eugeneonagain

My choice for this thread is "Concert Music for Brass and Strings" (Op.50, 1930) by Paul Hindemith. It's a piece I come back to quite often.

The Orchestra is the Israel Philharmonic under Leonard Bernstein:


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## brianvds

Bettina said:


> Beethoven: Fantasia in G Minor, Op. 77, performed by Rudolf Serkin


Never actually heard it before. It's a marvelous piece filled with Beethoven's trademark grandness and nobility. I am no professional pianist, but looking at the score I also get an impression of how much Beethoven extended piano technique. One cannot imagine seeing so many notes crammed into so little space in a sonata by Mozart or Haydn. 



chalkpie said:


> Wood Nyph
> 
> One of my favourite, if not my very favourite tone poem by Sibelius (1894/1895).


I only discovered Sibelius' tone poems recently, and the Wood Nymph is one of my favourites too, along with the epic Kullervo.


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## Phil loves classical

A neglected towering masterpiece in my opinion. Henze modelled this symphony after Beethoven, but its language is much more modern. Has tonal elements and free atonality.


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## Casebearer

Such a difficult choice and I might have posted Bartók's 2nd Violin Concerto or his Cantata Profana or one of the String Quartets (etc.). In the end I decided to post *Alfred Schnittke's Seid nüchtern und wachet (Faust Cantata)*, especially in the performance by the Malmö Symphony Chorus and Malmö Symphony Orchestra with Inger Blom, conducted by James DePreist.

I have this cd for a long time and I bought it immediately after watching the BBC video/documentary on Schnittke's piece. This hit me with a hammer as one of the most original and powerful pieces of music ever. It's not just the loud and strong pieces, also the quiet and subtle pieces are very very strong emotionally. Apart from the obvious Bach' undertones that carry the cantata several parts remind me of the feeling of alienation in Berg's Wozzeck for instance.

In the past all parts of this BBC documentary - with Inger Blom performing - were available on YouTube but nowadays only the climax part is, so I'll post that. But I sincerely urge you to listen to the whole piece. Maybe it's available on Spotify but I don't know my way around there, so I would be grateful if somebody would check and post a link to the entire BBC documentary if available.






I would also strongly advise everyone to play this piece loud to experience it. Make sure the neighbours are gone or use your headphones!


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## 20centrfuge

Is the BBC documentary entitled, "The Unreal World of Alfred Schnittke" ?

It's available on YouTube

...and the Spotify link for the piece is here.

I can't wait to explore them both!


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## Casebearer

Thanks 20centrfuge. You're better at this than I am. Concerning the Spotify link: the Faust Cantata starts with number 4.


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## Kjetil Heggelund

I choose Schubert's Violin Sonatina in a-minor, D385. Along with Mozart & Beethoven symphonies, this is a piece I can remember "since forever"  My father had a cassette he had copied from my uncle so I don't know the original recording I listened to. Must have been from the 70's. I should have picked something with guitar though, since I'm that kind of guy...


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## eugeneonagain

I've listened to all the pieces posted thus far. The most impressive for me is Schoenberg's piano concerto. I confess to having dismissed this in my teenage years; calling it "meandering rubbish". How short-sighted I was. I heard it again a few years ago and feel pretty much the same about it as Janspe.

Schoenberg's orchestrations in this are excellent. He has a sort of 'spare' style which is full when it needs to be. What I mean is that the orchestra blends, but you can still hear the individual sections with a striking clarity. The piano work is also stellar, especially nin the last movement and Mitsuko Uchida's playing reveals it.


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## Janspe

eugeneonagain said:


> I've listened to all the pieces posted thus far. The most impressive for me is Schoenberg's piano concerto. I confess to having dismissed this in my teenage years; calling it "meandering rubbish". How short-sighted I was. I heard it again a few years ago and feel pretty much the same about it as Janspe.


I'm happy to hear that you share my enthusiasm for the piece!


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## Ralphus

I have to include the piece that got me started with classical music all those years ago.


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## Botschaft

*Brahms' string sextet no. 2 in G major*






While hardly neglected the second string sextet by Johannes Brahms is in my opinion one of his greatest works, and thus, by logical necessity, one the greatest works of all time. Rarely however is it considered as such. The links above are to one of the two available recordings of this work on period instruments, the other one being by Hausmusik London, which is less successful in opinion. The work has been arranged for string orchestra to great effect by Kurt Atterberg and recorded by the symphony orchestra of NorrlandsOperan.


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## hpowders

chalkpie said:


> Great call - my favourite solo piano piece by ANYBODY. The Alcotts is one of the most beautiful stretches of music ever composed imo.


Yes. The Concord Sonata is one of the most hauntingly beautiful pieces ever composed. 45 minutes of pure bliss.....once you adjust to Ives' unique musical language.


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## lextune

Debussy - Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune

...the birth of modern music.











EDIT:

...perhaps insanely, I am up to 51 versions!

http://i.imgur.com/CvRz7rP.jpg


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## Omicron9

Greetings.

I am posting the three Benjamin Britten Suites for Solo Cello (composed 1965 - 1971). These are not meant as my favorite pieces, or my favorite pieces by Britten. Only because I don't have favorites of any piece or any composer. However, I do love solo cello works, and especially these. I feel that they should be better known; hence my posting here. Some are a little dense; repeated listenings are rewarded. Personally, I can't ever hear these enough.

Enjoy!

No. 1:





No. 2:





No. 3:





A very recommended recording of all three:

https://www.amazon.com/Britten-Cell...1502114675&sr=8-1&keywords=britten+mork+cello

For additional reading:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cello_suites_(Britten)


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## Portamento

Omicron9 said:


> A very recommended recording of all three:
> 
> https://www.amazon.com/Britten-Cell...1502114675&sr=8-1&keywords=britten+mork+cello
> 
> For additional reading:
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cello_suites_(Britten)


The Mørk is definitely my choice for the epic _Third Suite_, but the dedicatee Rostropovich plays the first two to perfection. Considering the weight of Op. 87, it is no wonder the Russian master felt he couldn't play it after Britten's death.


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## Varick

Great thread. So many pieces I haven't heard (That Schnittke piece is dark and powerful! I love it!). Yes. this is a thread I will be revisiting again and again. Great job!

V


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## Nereffid

It's been really difficult for me to pick a single piece. I want to post something that characterises my taste generally, but the main problem here is that in the 25 years or so in which I've listened to classical music, there have been two key strands - the Romantic line of Liszt/Wagner/Mahler, and the minimalists and post-minimalists. Not necessarily overlapping groups! Couple that with the fact that I also enjoy so much other music - wouldn't it be good for this playlist to include some Medieval music, for instance?
In the end I've decided to go with something contemporary, because that's where my focus tends to be lately. So that indicates a minimalist piece, but at the same time I want to acknowledge that other key strand, so a large-scale orchestral work would also be good.

Fortunately, *John Luther Adams* has obliged with his 2013 work *Become Ocean*.

Listen here: https://johnlutheradams.bandcamp.com/album/become-ocean

Adams says of the piece: "Become Ocean lends itself very well to putting you in the middle of this ocean of sound, with these three sections of the orchestra ebbing and flowing, rising and falling, crashing over and swirling around each other. It rumbles the floor and tickles your backbone, and at the same time, you feel the depth of the waves and the spray of the sea. That's what I'm reaching for."
For me, he absolutely succeeds - this is the closest any piece of music gets to recreating a physical environment, in this case a vast, rolling ocean, unchanging and yet always different.


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## Holden4th

Deliberating this I decided to choose a lesser known work by a composer that some may not have heard of and if so, only in passing. The reason I chose this work is that whenever I hear it it always makes me feel happy with the world and with myself.

Dag Wiren: Serenade for Strings Op 11

The only version I have is by Marriner/ASMF. I'm not sure how to attach Youtube clips.


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## wolkaaa

I have no idea which work I should choose... Beethoven's 9th Symphony is the most important work for me but it would be a boring choice.
I choose a work by my favorite living composer, Nikolai Kapustin. He deserves more attention! Nobody else can combine classical music forms with Jazz style like him.

24 Preludes in Jazz Style, performed by himself:


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## mmsbls

Holden4th said:


> Deliberating this I decided to choose a lesser known work by a composer that some may not have heard of and if so, only in passing. The reason I chose this work is that whenever I hear it it always makes me feel happy with the world and with myself.
> 
> Dag Wiren: Serenade for Strings Op 11
> 
> The only version I have is by Marriner/ASMF. I'm not sure how to attach Youtube clips.


Wiren's Serenade for Strings is wonderful. I could not find the whole work by Marriner on youtube so I chose this version.


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## Blancrocher

Schubert's sonata in g major, performed by Sviatoslav Richter--doesn't get better than this, for me.


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## Woodduck

It will have to be Wagner's swan song _Parsifal,_ not because I listen to it often (it's too long and requires that the mind be cleansed and receptive) but because it's about transformation and release from the spirit's deepest pains and heaviest burdens: a ritual journey through hell to a heaven which probably exists for most of us only in music. The quiet ecstasy of its final pages seems not so much music to live with as music to die by. If I ever see that fabled light beckoning at the end of the corridor, I think I will also hear music like this, blessing and cleansing my weary soul.


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## DeepR

I submit probably the shortest piece: Scriabin's Poeme Op. 59 No. 1 (1910), which is at the start of what is considered his late period. One perfect little self-contained musical world. A glimpse of the mysterious. An otherworldly realm, far out there. And an ending that still gives me goosebumps even if I listen to it ten times in a row. This is Scriabin's magic.


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## ST4

*Luzifer's Tanz*, a scene from Samstag Aus Licht:






A highly fun, exciting and engaging scene from this opera which I come back to time and time again. The melody from the famous "right eye dance" (around 13 minutes in) will get stuck in your head for ages and the opera itself (as a representation of the whole opera cycle) is an amazing example of what opera, theater, ritual and music itself can be!

I hope you enjoy this mystical, spacey, fun and sometimes a little humorous work :tiphat:


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## musicrom

I will opt for a lesser-known work by my favorite composer. Experience the magic of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov! This is the Suite from his opera, _The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh_.


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## shangoyal

I pick Bach's *Goldberg Variations*. This work has struck me as genius from the beginning and I come back to it quite often.

This recording by Helmut Walcha from 1961 is superb. You should listen to it if you haven't.


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## Portamento

*Submissions to date:*
Adams, J.L.: Become Ocean
Bach: Goldberg Variations, BWV 988
Barber: Knoxville: Summer of 1915, op. 24
Beethoven: Fantasia in G minor, op. 77
Beethoven: String Quartet #10 in E-flat major, op. 74 "Harp"
Beethoven: String Quartet #14 in C-sharp minor, op. 131
Brahms: String Sextet #2 in G, op. 36
Britten: Cello suites
Christiansen: Requiem of Art fluxorum organum II, op. 50
Debussy: Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune (Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun), L 86
Henze: Symphony #7
Hindemith: Konzertmusik, op. 50
Hovhaness: Lousadzak, op. 48
Ives: Piano Sonata #2 "Concord, Mass., 1840-60"
Kapustin: 24 Preludes in Jazz Style, op. 53
Mahler: Symphony #4
Prokofiev: Symphony #6 in E-flat minor, op. 111
Ravel: Daphnis et Chloé
Ravel: Piano Concerto for the Left Hand in D
Riley: The Harp of New Albion
Rimsky-Korsakov: The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh and the Maiden Fevroniya
Rădulescu: Iubiri, op. 43
Schnittke: Seid nüchtern und wachet (Faust Cantata)
Schoenberg: Piano Concerto, op. 42
Schubert: Piano Sonata #18 in G, D. 894
Schubert: Violin Sonata (Sonatina) #2 in A minor, D. 385
Schubert: Wanderer Fantasy in C, D. 760
Scriabin: Poème, op. 59/1
Sibelius: The Wood Nymph, op. 15
Stockhausen: Gesang der Jünglinge
Stockhausen: Samstag aus Licht (Scene 3: Luzifers Tanz)
Tchaikovsky: Capriccio Italien, op. 45
Wagner: Parsifal
Wirén: Serenade for Strings, op. 11

A *YouTube playlist* can be found *here*.


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## Lenny

Franz Schmidt symphony 1 in E-major (1899).

Schmidt is a traditional symphonist in the most pure sense, and in his glorious 1st symphony I hear the grandiose vision of his master Bruckner and the spark of genius that reminds me of Schubert. This work describes my taste of music perfectly.


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## Meyerbeer Smith

Meyerbeer? Berlioz?

No, I'm opting for Stanisław Moniuszko's opera _Straszny dwór_ (_The Haunted Manor_) - almost unknown outside Poland, but a masterpiece of wit and tunefulness.

This meets all of your criteria:
- *a piece you feel everyone on TC should know*
-*A favorite or life-changing work* - a favourite work; family friends gave my parents a highlights CD and I fell in love with it; it may have primed me for being an opera obsessive!
-*An under-rated work or performance you wish to bring to light* - not so much under-rated as under-known!
*-A piece that represents you and your interests* - obscure opera, or opera outside the warhorses

It's a 4 act opera, so I'll post a few extracts.


----------



## 20centrfuge

I'm bumping this thread, cuz I feel like it still has some life in it and that more people will contribute.


----------



## Trout

I'd like to submit Steve Reich's *Music for 18 Musicians*. Quite possibly my favorite classical piece ever, it never fails to mesmerize me with its ethereal sonorities and cosmic wonder.

My favorite performance is the live 2008 one in Tokyo with Reich himself at a piano.
It's been re-uploaded on Youtube, but the sound quality is not too excellent. Still, I just love how the voices meld with the ensemble and the tempo is perfect for me. In terms of studio versions, the ECM and Grand Valley State recordings are very good as well as Rough Fields' interesting overdubbed version.

My ultimate goal, however, would be to hear it live to really soak in the piece's unbridled energy.


----------



## jegreenwood

I posted this link in another thread recently, but it's worth including here. To my mind if one wants to understand the magic of chamber music, one merely needs to watch this video:






Schubert: Trout Quintet - Perlman, Zuckerman, du Pre, Mehta, Barenboim (a British TV program from 1969)


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## Goddess Yuja Wang

For me, it has to be Shostakovich's 7th symphony.

What a marvelous way of developing a simple tune into a complete monster of dissonance, complexity and excitement. I simply can not stop listening to this piece. Oh, and the ending of the symphony... The brute power and the colours of the orchestra this man can create!

I think this symphony (all Shostakovich's symphonies, actually) are a needed tribute to humanity and western art.

Damn! Now I feel like defending Russia myself!

I don't have my CD of my favourite version handy, but I found this on Youtube, and it gave me the excuse to listen to it again. It is a fine performance


----------



## fluteman

Whether you love or are terrified by 20th century "modern" music, I think you'll find Poulenc's Sextet for piano and winds great fun. I think the best recording is that of Poulenc's close friend Jacques Fevrier and the Paris Wind Quintet, but the version from the Naxos series of his complete chamber music made at the time of his 100th birthday is first rate too. The rest of his chamber music is also well worth a listen.
Poulenc himself recorded his Sextet with the great Philadelphia Wind Quintet, but that was recorded in one evening while Poulenc was on a concert tour of the US performing other music and he had never even met the wind players before. Not surprisingly, there are some ensemble and intonation problems.


----------



## EddieRUKiddingVarese

_Poème électronique - A milestone in classical music achievement
_


----------



## Centropolis

Wojciech Kilar - Orawa

Maciej Tomasiewicz - Conductor
The Karol Szymanowski Youth Symphony Orchestra


----------



## staxomega

20centrfuge said:


> I'm bumping this thread, cuz I feel like it still has some life in it and that more people will contribute.


Thanks for the message.

My one piece- Bruckner's Symphony 7, a supremely satisfying symphony with a poignant adiago. My favorite version is Haitink with the Concertgebouw.

Here is Haitink with VPO:


----------



## Portamento

*Submissions:*
Adams, J.L.: Become Ocean
Bach: Goldberg Variations, BWV 988
Barber: Knoxville: Summer of 1915, op. 24
Beethoven: Fantasia in G minor, op. 77
Beethoven: String Quartet #10 in E-flat major, op. 74 "Harp"
Beethoven: String Quartet #14 in C-sharp minor, op. 131
Brahms: String Sextet #2 in G, op. 36
Britten: Cello suites
Bruckner: Symphony #7 in E
Christiansen: Requiem of Art fluxorum organum II, op. 50
Debussy: Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune (Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun), L 86
Henze: Symphony #7
Hindemith: Konzertmusik, op. 50
Hovhaness: Lousadzak, op. 48
Ives: Piano Sonata #2 "Concord, Mass., 1840-60"
Kapustin: 24 Preludes in Jazz Style, op. 53
Kilar: Orawa
Mahler: Symphony #4
Poulenc: Sextet for Piano and Winds
Prokofiev: Symphony #6 in E-flat minor, op. 111
Ravel: Daphnis et Chloé
Ravel: Piano Concerto for the Left Hand in D
Reich: Music for 18 Musicians
Riley: The Harp of New Albion
Rimsky-Korsakov: The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh and the Maiden Fevroniya
Rădulescu: Iubiri, op. 43
Schnittke: Seid nüchtern und wachet (Faust Cantata)
Schoenberg: Piano Concerto, op. 42
Schubert: Piano Quintet in A, D. 667 "The Trout"
Schubert: Piano Sonata #18 in G, D. 894
Schubert: Violin Sonata (Sonatina) #2 in A minor, D. 385
Schubert: Wanderer Fantasy in C, D. 760
Scriabin: Poème, op. 59/1
Shostakovich: Symphony #7 in C, op. 60 "Leningrad"
Sibelius: The Wood Nymph, op. 15
Stockhausen: Gesang der Jünglinge
Stockhausen: Samstag aus Licht (Scene 3: Luzifers Tanz)
Tchaikovsky: Capriccio Italien, op. 45
Varèse: Poème électronique
Wagner: Parsifal
Wirén: Serenade for Strings, op. 11

*YouTube playlist.*


----------



## Granate

*Wagner: Tristan und Isolde - Act III Prelude + 'Kurwenal, He!'*










*Prelude (Act III)
Scene I - 'Kurwenal! He!' (Act III)*










The piece shown here is the sum of the prelude and the first minutes of Scene I of Tristan und Isolde's Act III. Tristan was the first Opera I watched on cinemas and I didn't quite get the plot or the characters. Now I blame the modernistic and cold Metropolitan staging. That concert was directed by Simon Rattle and from that extenuant night, only one piece raised my eyebrows. The opera is famous for the leitmotifs of the Prelude I. Probably it's musically superior to the one I'm posting.

What made me fascinated to this prelude was how similar it was to the Dark Ambient music I usually listen to. It's basically string music followed by a single clarinet that plays the winter song. The depressing mood of the piece is not something that changed my life, but it prevented me from gving up on Wagner. The prelude shortly follows its leitmotifs in Scene I, just a while before Tristan wakes up from his coma. This is the key scene for Kurwenal and the reason that he must sound gorgeous to consider a Tristan und Isolde a reference.

My favourite performances, in terms of conducting and sound, are by Furtwängler, Janowski, Barenboim (the one I prefer for now) and Solti (probably too fierce for the mood of the score here).

*SHEPHERD*
_(softly)_

Kurwenal! He! Kurwenal, hey!
Sag, Kurwenal! Listen, Kurwenal!
Hör doch, Freund! Hear, my friend!

_(Kurwenal partly turns his head towards him)_

Wacht er noch nicht? Is he still not awake?

*KURWENAL*
_(sadly shaking his head)_

Erwachte er, Were he to waken
wär's doch nur it would only be
um für immer zu verscheiden: to depart for ever,
erschien zuvor if she, the healer,
die Ärztin nicht, does not first appear,
die einz'ge, die uns hilft. - the only one who can succour us.
Sahst du noch nichts? Have you seen nothing yet?
Kein Schiff noch auf der See? Still no ship out at sea?

*SHEPHERD*

Eine andre Weise A different tune
hörtest du dann, would you hear then,
so lustig, als ich sie nur kann. as merry as I could make it.
Nun sag auch ehrlich, Now, tell me truly,
alter Freund: my old friend,
was hat's mit unserm Herrn? what ails our lord?

*KURWENAL*

Lass die Frage: Do not ask.
du kannst's doch nie erfahren. You can never know.
Eifrig späh; Keep a sharp look-out,
und siehst du ein Schiff,  and if you see a ship
so spiele lustig und hell! play merrily and clearly!


----------



## David Phillips




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## Ralphus

Thanks for all your work, Portamento. A great idea and a fascinating selection of music to enjoy.


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## Portamento

Ralphus said:


> Thanks for all your work, Portamento. A great idea and a fascinating selection of music to enjoy.


You should be thanking 20centrfuge, not me!


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## dillonp2020

Sergei Prokofiev: Cantata for the 20th Anniversary of the October Revolution, performed by Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra, Yurlov State Choir Capella, and conducted by Kirill Kondrashin.


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## 20centrfuge

JamieHoldham said:


> This Overture is not only conducted by Furtwangler, my favorite conductor in terms of pure power and raw emotion he puts into his conducting, this Overture to Wagners Opera' Die Miestersinger von Nurnberg, is a very powerful piece that stirs the emotion and feeling pride within you.. and with the political turmoil over here where I live in the United Kingdom, this is a piece of music I feel I can connect to a lot more than others at the moment.


Posted at JamieHoldham's request.


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## tdc

I submit - Harry Partch _Delusion of the Fury_


----------



## Crystal

Love this video :angel:


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## Crystal

Great thread! I've rated it five stars! Thanks for posting :tiphat:


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## Jacob Brooks

I simply can't say anything other than Solti's legendary recording of Mahler's 8th symphony. 

I urge anyone, if they haven't yet listened to it, to listen (and yes, read along). There is a magic in the combination of the texts Mahler has chosen, between the joyous religious devotion of the first to the panorama of ecstatic emotion in the second that seems to transfigure any pain of man, as the text does when it totally conquers the tragedy of Faust.

Both parts, in addition, represent the greatest synthesis of voice and orchestra I've heard since the Kyrie from Bach's b minor mass. The vocal parts and the orchestral parts seem to work together in a way that should have been done ages ago, and that I haven't heard anywhere else. They become one united force towards the aim of the art. I primarily play and listen to chamber music, but the truth and significance of this, Mahler's greatest work, somehow overpowers even Wagner in scale and significance. It has brought me to tears countless times.


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## Ralphus

Portamento said:


> You should be thanking 20centrfuge, not me!


Woops. Sorry, 20centrfuge. Thanks


----------



## Pat Fairlea

No playlist should be without Tippett's Concerto for Double String Orchestra. This link is to a YouTube audio with waffly sound quality but it is, at least, the whole piece and not just an isolated movement.






This is one of Tippett's most accessible pieces and, in my view, most accomplished in terms of a coherent structure to each movement and some wonderful use of the string orchestra voices. Those voices counterbalance, argue, harmonise, come together at intervals then separate to weave around each other. What emerges is an often unexpectedly straightforward melodic line despite the complexity of the score. 
The opening movement is just wonderful, an optimistic, exuberant canter around the orchestras, full of energy without ever sounding rushed or intemperate. This may sound slightly barmy, but I feel there is a warmth, a friendliness even, about this unpretentious movement. The lovely slow movement has fragility, depth and emotional heft. Tippett essentially takes two simple tunes for a walk, allowing different string voices to mull them over among themselves. The predominantly open harmonies give the bass strings a rare prominence, to good effect. In the final movement, Tippett's infectious energy is back, bouncing off the walls like a musical Tigger. Rhythmical fragments flutter around, then the strings come together in a sweeping chorale passage, before the cross-cutting rhythms re-establish themselves. Finally, it all comes together, song-like melodic lines and rhythmical fragments combining in a quite glorious coda that never fails to bring a lump to my throat.

So, there's a vintage example of someone with no musical training blundering about while trying to find the vocabulary to describe a wonderful piece of music. But it is wonderful.


----------



## Fonteles

Very nice thread, OP.

This piece utterly changed the way I started to hear classical music. I love the way how the sublime tunes wins the war against the tense and titanic (and somewhat dark) forces. In fact, the sublime made the dark became good and beautifull. Marvellous.

For me, this is the best rendition (Brahms + Zimmerman + Bernstein). It's even better than Rubinstein , Baremboim and Grimaud (powerfull renditions too).﻿


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## clavichorder

I'll have to go with Nielsen's 4th Symphony, "The Inextinguishable." I am intimately familiar with just about every moment of this work, and it both intellectually satisfies and thrills me.


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## tdc

erase this post pls moderators it is only here so I can view this page


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## KenOC

Shostakovich's Symphony No. 10. Probably the greatest symphony of the 20th century. A dark horse performance: The Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela, Gustavo Dudamel conducting in 2007. Brings out the power and mystery of the work. Only on YouTube.


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## Lenny

clavichorder said:


> I'll have to go with Nielsen's 4th Symphony, "The Inextinguishable." I am intimately familiar with just about every moment of this work, and it both intellectually satisfies and thrills me.


Very good symphony! This was actually the first piece I heard from Nielsen. Hooked since then.


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## howlingfantods

Well, since people have already done Parsifal, Meistersinger and Tristan, I suppose I'll do Gotterdammerung.

The finale of Gotterdammerung, and the Ring Cycle below:





Boulez, Bayreuth, Fritz Hubner as Hagen

The last bars features the return of one of the most beautiful leitmotifs in the tetralogy, commonly called the "Redemption through Love" leitmotif. It's an odd leitmotif though, as it's only heard twice in the entire cycle, the only other time in Act 3 Scene 1 of Die Walkure, after Brunnhilde has told a desperate and despairing Sieglinde that she is pregnant:

"O hehrstes Wunder" (about 1:10 into this clip):




Bohm, Bayreuth, Birgit Nilsson as Brunnhilde, Leonie Rysanek as Sieglinde

I've never read or heard a very satisfying explanation for why this leitmotif appears again here at the end of the Ring, but I always think about the question every time I listen.


----------



## Woodduck

howlingfantods said:


> Well, since people have already done Parsifal, Meistersinger and Tristan, I suppose I'll do Gotterdammerung.
> 
> The finale of Gotterdammerung, and the Ring Cycle below:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Boulez, Bayreuth, Fritz Hubner as Hagen
> 
> The last bars features the return of one of the most beautiful leitmotifs in the tetralogy, commonly called the "Redemption through Love" leitmotif. It's an odd leitmotif though, as it's only heard twice in the entire cycle, the only other time in Act 3 Scene 1 of Die Walkure, after Brunnhilde has told a desperate and despairing Sieglinde that she is pregnant:
> 
> "O hehrstes Wunder" (about 1:10 into this clip):
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Bohm, Bayreuth, Birgit Nilsson as Brunnhilde, Leonie Rysanek as Sieglinde
> 
> I've never read or heard a very satisfying explanation for why this leitmotif appears again here at the end of the Ring, but I always think about the question every time I listen.


I've thought a lot about it too, and I've come to think that "redemption by love" is a pretty fair interpretation. In this final scene, Brunnhilde begins to sing the melody at "Im Feuer leuchtend," and as she speaks of her love for Siegfried and cries out to him, it modulates from key to key and grows in power until her very last words. In _Die Walkure_, Sieglinde had sung it in tribute to Brunnhilde, "most glorious of women," who had just defied Wotan's edict in the name of love for Siegfried, the hero who was to break Wotan's power and inaugurate a new reign of love. With Siegfried's death, Brunnhilde in _Gotterdammerung_ rises to her full glory and completes the destruction of Wotan's reign of power through love's ultimate sacrifice, freeing the world for a new regime ruled by love. The motif thus celebrates Brunnhilde, human love, and hope for a world no longer ruled by the struggle for power.

That seems quite an expressive burden for one short theme to carry, but if anyone can make it work, Wagner can. As the melody surges beneath Brunnhilde's ecstatic greeting to Siegfried, combines with the return of the Rhinemaidens once more in possession of their gold, does battle with the motif of Walhall in flames, and finally breaks out like the sun after a storm, it gathers to itself the power to bestow benediction and peace. It may not convince us that love really can conquer greed and depose tyranny, but if love can't, what can?


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## Forss

This is _very_ hard, for sure, only selecting _one_ piece, etc. Perhaps Beethoven's _Piano Concerto No. 4_ is _the_ piece from whence my taste springs and constantly aligns itself, so to speak. (Preferably performed by Zimerman and the Wiener Philharmoniker.) The second movement is surely one of the greatest moments in music, and there, as Wittgenstein once said, Beethoven is writing not just for his own time or culture, but for the whole human race.


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## clavichorder

The other piece I would do, if I had the option, is Berlioz's Harold in Italy.


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## 20centrfuge

Thank you to everyone who has participated. So far, we've had 56 submissions. I know, I for one, will be leisurely making my way through all of them; and, in some small way, at least, trying to hear what you hear in the music you are each so passionate about. 

I'll continue to hope for more submissions, but will stop any aggressive promotion of this thread. TC is kind of an odd place. It is addicting and frustrating at the same time. 

I feel like a thread like this is a beautiful way to celebrate our differences and to get to know each other. Thanks again.


----------



## Granate

staxomega said:


> Thanks for the message.
> 
> My one piece- Bruckner's Symphony 7, a supremely satisfying symphony with a poignant adiago. My favorite version is Haitink with the Concertgebouw.


One of my favourite Bruckner No.7 recordings too if you mean the ADD RCO studio recording for Philips. Glad that at least some Bruckner is showing up in the playlist.


----------



## Marinera

Biber's Mystery Sonatas. They made me very interested in Baroque music (besides Bach) in general and Biber's musical output in particular.

The Annunciation, the first Mystery Sonata played by Andrew Manze






And Passacaglia also played by Manze.


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## 20centrfuge

dillonp2020 said:


> Sergei Prokofiev: Cantata for the 20th Anniversary of the October Revolution, performed by Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra, Yurlov State Choir Capella, and conducted by Kirill Kondrashin.


I'm so happy to see this work gaining traction. It is such a great piece, and I didn't even realize this recording exists. Thanks dillonp2020!


----------



## StDior

I would like to nominate Bartok String Quartet 1 for this list. It is performed by the Hungarian String Quartet on the attached video. I like the whole piece, and my special favorite is the 2nd movement.


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## jim prideaux

Sibelius-5th Symphony.

remains one of those works that for me defines the sheer wonder and magic of music.....

but now I have to work out which recording!


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## Pat Fairlea

jim prideaux said:


> Sibelius-5th Symphony.
> 
> remains one of those works that for me defines the sheer wonder and magic of music.....
> 
> but now I have to work out which recording!


Which recording AND which version!
You'll just have to spend a lot of time listening to Sibelius 5.


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## Sol Invictus

Arvo Pärt is a major factor in my getting into classical music. This performance of Tabula Rasa is a favorite of mine. Ulster Orchestra under Takuo Yuasa.


----------



## norman bates

Sibelius - Luonnotar (1913)


----------



## Selby

A decision worthy of agony. The piece I eventually landed on was:

*Gabriel* *Faure*'s _String Quartet in E minor, Op. 121_ (1924)

From Wikipedia: 
Gabriel Fauré's String Quartet in E minor, Op 121, is his last work, completed in 1924 shortly before his death at the age of 79. His pupil Maurice Ravel had dedicated his String Quartet to Fauré in 1903, and he and others urged Fauré to compose one of his own; he declined, on the grounds that it was too difficult. When he finally decided to write it, he did so in trepidation.

The quartet is in three movements, the last movement combining the functions of scherzo and finale. The work has been described as an intimate meditation on the last things, and "an extraordinary work by any standards, ethereal and other-worldly with themes that seem constantly to be drawn skywards."


----------



## Oldhoosierdude

Probably a boring, dull, obvious choice.
Beethoven's 6th Symphony. This is conducted by Daniel Barenboim, my favourite recording of it. But just about any will do.
My favorite piece of music and I consider it essential yo any classical music collection.


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## 20centrfuge

I don't think it's cliche, boring, or dull in the least, Oldhoosierdude. Thank you for posting.


----------



## St Matthew

An example of another neglected, highly innovative and evocative composer that deserves more attention and recognition:


----------



## Faustian

My immediate instinct upon reading this thread was to choose something by Richard Wagner; indeed I don't think there is another composer whose works I have immersed myself in so completely, revisited as often or which move me as profoundly since I started my journey with classical music years ago. But partly because all of what I feel are Wagner's greatest masterpieces have already been touched upon in this thread by other users, I wanted to take the opportunity to profess my long held adoration for another incomparable tour de force. A piece by one of history's most acclaimed opera composers, but not an opera. Indeed, a work that I consider to be head and shoulders above any of his works for the stage even though it itself is often criticized in some quarters for being too theatrical and over-the-top. A a piece full human drama that grapples with some of life's biggest and most pressing questions: Giuseppe Verdi's Requiem Mass.

Musically it goes without saying that the Requiem is a hugely inspired creation. There are colossal fugal choruses, thrilling turns for soloists, and the score is full of exquisite scene painting. No matter how many times I listen to the "Dies irae" with those syncopated blasts on the bass drum it never fails to exhilerate me, and every the "Offertorio" begins with that rising melody on the cellos and the blending of voices I am swept off my feet by the sheer beauty of it all. Yet this is also and incredibly rich work thematically. Here Verdi confronts death, stares into the abyss and asks the meaning of life. Is the force that spins the world a source of evil, terror and retribution? Or a force of goodness, forgiveness and love? His Requiem is ambiguous about any answers to those inqueires, but in any case he depicts humanity in extremely touching and fragile light, full of hope and cries for compassion.

For a selection of a recording I'm going to pick the remarkable performance from 1940 by Arturo Toscanini and the NBC Symphony Orchestra with the Westminster Choir that seems to encompass so many aspects of this great piece: probing theological insights, plenty of fire and passion, and thoroughly "operatic" in the best sense of the word with an unbelievable quartet in Zinka Milanov, Bruna Castagna, Jussi Björling and Nicola Moscona .

I. Requiem & Kyrie:






II. Dies irae:






III. Offertorio:






IV. Sanctus:






V. Agnus Dei:






VI. Lux aeterna

VII. Libera me


----------



## 20centrfuge

Adams, J.L.: Become Ocean
Bach: French Suite No 6 E flat major BWV 817
Bach: Goldberg Variations, BWV 988
Barber: Knoxville: Summer of 1915, op. 24
Bartok: String Quartet 1
Beethoven: Fantasia in G minor, op. 77
Beethoven: Piano Concerto #4 in G major
Beethoven: String Quartet #10 in E-flat major, op. 74 "Harp"
Beethoven: String Quartet #14 in C-sharp minor, op. 131
Beethoven: Symphony #6
Biber: Mystery Sonatas
Brahms: Piano Concerto #1
Brahms: String Sextet #2 in G, op. 36
Britten: Cello suites
Bruckner: Symphony #7 in E
Christiansen: Requiem of Art fluxorum organum II, op. 50
Debussy: Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune (Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun), L 86
Elgar: Prelude to the Kingdom
Faure's String Quartet in E minor, Op. 121
Henze: Symphony #7
Hindemith: Konzertmusik, op. 50
Hovhaness: Lousadzak, op. 48
Ives: Piano Sonata #2 "Concord, Mass., 1840-60"
Kapustin: 24 Preludes in Jazz Style, op. 53
Kilar: Orawa
Mâche: L'Estuaire du temps
Mahler: Symphony #4
Mahler: Symphony #8
Nielsen: Symphony #4 "Inextinguishable"
Pärt: Tabula Rasa
Partch: Delusion of the Fury
Poulenc: Sextet for Piano and Winds
Prokofiev: Cantata for the 20th Anniversary of the October Revolution
Prokofiev: Symphony #6 in E-flat minor, op. 111
Rădulescu: Iubiri, op. 43
Ravel: Daphnis et Chloé
Ravel: Piano Concerto for the Left Hand in D
Reich: Music for 18 Musicians
Riley: The Harp of New Albion
Rimsky-Korsakov: The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh and the Maiden Fevroniya
Schnittke: Seid nüchtern und wachet (Faust Cantata)
Schoenberg: Piano Concerto, op. 42
Schubert: Piano Quintet in A, D. 667 "The Trout"
Schubert: Piano Sonata #18 in G, D. 894
Schubert: Violin Sonata (Sonatina) #2 in A minor, D. 385
Schubert: Wanderer Fantasy in C, D. 760
Scriabin: Poème, op. 59/1
Shostakovich: Symphony #10
Shostakovich: Symphony #7 in C, op. 60 "Leningrad"
Sibelius: Luonnotar
Sibelius: Symphony #5
Sibelius: The Wood Nymph, op. 15
Stockhausen: Gesang der Jünglinge
Stockhausen: Samstag aus Licht (Scene 3: Luzifers Tanz)
Tchaikovsky: Capriccio Italien, op. 45
Tippett: Concerto for Double String Orchestra
Varèse: Poème électronique
Verdi: Requiem Mass.
Wagner: Gotterdammerung, Finale
Wagner: Overture to the Mastersingers of Nuremberg
Wagner: Parsifal
Wagner: Tristan und Isolde, Prelude to Act III and "Kurwenal! He!"
Wirén: Serenade for Strings, op. 11


----------



## Botschaft

St Matthew said:


> An example of another neglected, highly innovative and evocative composer that deserves more attention and recognition:


Someone tell me: when does the music start?


----------



## Granate

Improbus said:


> Someone tell me: when does the music start?


It's experimental ambient classical music. The sounds are music itself. We shouldn't close the door to music trends (I would listen to something more straight to the point, like Vatican Shadow or Oneohtrix Point Never).


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## mmsbls

We removed a post (and responses to that post) strongly negative of a selected work. While in some threads we might keep such a post, we view such posts as inappropriate in threads such as this one. This thread is a place where members suggest works to create a shared list, and such negative posts disrupt the thread. We would have a similar view of such posts in composer guestbooks and other list making threads.


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## mmsbls

The list of works is interesting with major, well-known works, works by relatively unknown composers, and less well-known works by major composers. I originally thought of submitting Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 20, and given that there are presently no works by the greatest composer )), that suggestion would certainly make sense. But maybe this list is a bit different than just a greatest hits so instead I'll submit Tallis' Spem in alium performed by the Tallis Scholars.

Spem in alium is a 40-voice motet for 8 five voice choirs. I have heard nothing quite like it. There is another 40 part Renaissance work, Striggio's Mass in 40 parts, but I find it lacking the emotional impact of Spem in alium. Few works have had such a powerful immediate impact on me that this work had. Other examples might be Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2 (second movement) or Wagner's Liebestod.


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## Animal the Drummer

Thus far into the thread no Mozart's been nominated? This cannot stand.

So my choice is "The Marriage of Figaro". I'm in love with this man's music as a whole, but even so I declare here and now that "Figaro" is for me the greatest work of art ever created in any medium. My chosen excerpt is "Non più andrai", partly because it shows the mastery of its composer was as complete in shorter numbers like this as it was in big set pieces and partly because I am constitutionally unable to prevent myself cheering when the final notes have died away. Here it is sung by Bryn Terfel, with Cecilia Bartoli (in the days when she was still a fine Mozartian and hadn't yet become a show pony) a silent partner for once:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsmvqPOB3QA


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## Polyphemus

Robert Simpson Symphony 9

Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra

Vernon Handley


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## cimirro

Sorabji's Gulistan played by the composer - recording from a broadcast:


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## Gordontrek

For my submission I was torn heavily between several pieces but I decided to go with the piece that has spoken to me the most. Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 6:


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## Orfeo

I have so much to list that it's not even funny. But I will share this with you:

*Nikolay Yakovlevich Myaskovsky (1881-1950)*
Symphony no. XXVII in C minor (1949-1950).
The USSR State Symphony Orchestra (Orchestra of the Russian Federation)/Yevgeny Svetlanov
->




Comment (from my review in Amazon.com):

*"*....Yet that inner strength, defiance, and resolve never abandoned this ever so honest yet self-effacing composer and pedagogue even in his final days, and his Twenty-Seventh Symphony and his Thirteenth String Quartet (1949-1950) show just how much he adhered to the true principles of musical art (and how much he adhered to his true self dare I say). Posthumously awarded the Stalin Prize in 1950, this symphony serves as a pinnacle of all that went on before in his life, musically & otherwise. To deem this work a masterpiece (as it is so generally considered after Gauk premiered it in December of 1950) is an understatement. There's something true, defiant, yet sublime in the work that I've grown to love and admire over the years, and the true value of it never waned. He came up with this work just under two years after the infamous yet abhorrent Zhdanov affair of 1948 and its quiet sense of protest is all the more compelling (by quiet, I mean it does not have the bombast of a Shostakovich, but its profound dignity and solidity would've done Tchaikovsky proud). I'm thinking of not just the slow movement (arguably the best he has ever written), but also the tenacity of the symphony's beginning and the ensuing development; that bittersweet melancholy mixed in with the angst that never runs that risk of shallowness and lip-servicing. It's only in the finale where the material sounds a bit 'forced' and conformed. But this work overall will continue to garner admiration as it has over the years.*"*


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## Joe B

I just read through this thread and will submit my reply:

Richard Strauss' "Don Juan"






This is one of the first pieces of classical music I heard when I was younger, and it hooked me into classical music for life. It is not my favorite piece of music as I don't have just one (for that matter, I would have to spend all day just coming up with my top 10 if I even could). I think what hooked me was the visual nature of the work. At the age of 12 or 13 I would close my eyes and imagine scenes where "Don Juan" would be the score accompanying the action. My love for visual music has never waned.

So, I guess I would have to say that this was a life changing work. It put me on a wonderful road that has fed my soul for a life time.


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## Portamento

*Submissions:*
Adams, J.L.: Become Ocean
Bach: French Suite #6 in E major, BWV 817
Bach: Goldberg Variations, BWV 988
Barber: Knoxville: Summer of 1915, op. 24
Bartók: String Quartet #1, Sz. 40
Beethoven: Fantasia in G minor, op. 77
Beethoven: Piano Concerto #4 in G, op. 58
Beethoven: String Quartet #10 in E-flat major, op. 74 "Harp"
Beethoven: String Quartet #14 in C-sharp minor, op. 131
Beethoven: Symphony #6 in F, op. 68 "Pastoral"
Biber: Mystery (Rosary) Sonatas
Brahms: Piano Concerto #1 in D minor, op. 15
Brahms: String Sextet #2 in G, op. 36
Britten: Cello suites
Bruckner: Symphony #7 in E
Christiansen: Requiem of Art fluxorum organum II, op. 50
Debussy: Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune (Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun), L 86
Elgar: The Kingdom, op. 51 (Prelude)
Fauré: String Quartet in E minor, op. 121
Henze: Symphony #7
Hindemith: Konzertmusik, op. 50
Hovhaness: Lousadzak, op. 48
Ives: Piano Sonata #2 "Concord, Mass., 1840-60"
Kapustin: 24 Preludes in Jazz Style, op. 53
Kilar: Orawa
Mahler: Symphony #4
Mahler: Symphony #8 in E-flat "Symphony of a Thousand"
Mozart: Le Nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro), K. 492 (Non più andrai)
Myaskovsky: Symphony #27 in C minor, op. 85
Mâche: L'Estuaire du temps
Nielsen: Symphony #4, op. 29 "The Inextinguishable"
Partch: Delusion of the Fury
Poulenc: Sextet for Piano and Winds
Prokofiev: Cantata for the 20th Anniversary of the October Revolution, op. 74
Prokofiev: Symphony #6 in E-flat minor, op. 111
Pärt: Tabula Rasa
Ravel: Daphnis et Chloé
Ravel: Piano Concerto for the Left Hand in D
Reich: Music for 18 Musicians
Riley: The Harp of New Albion
Rimsky-Korsakov: The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh and the Maiden Fevroniya
Rădulescu: Iubiri, op. 43
Schnittke: Seid nüchtern und wachet (Faust Cantata)
Schoenberg: Piano Concerto, op. 42
Schubert: Piano Quintet in A, D. 667 "The Trout"
Schubert: Piano Sonata #18 in G, D. 894
Schubert: Violin Sonata (Sonatina) #2 in A minor, D. 385
Schubert: Wanderer Fantasy in C, D. 760
Scriabin: Poème, op. 59/1
Shostakovich: Symphony #10 in E minor, op. 93
Shostakovich: Symphony #7 in C, op. 60 "Leningrad"
Sibelius: Symphony #5 in E-flat, op. 82
Sibelius: The Wood Nymph, op. 15
Sibelus: Luonnotar, op. 70
Simpson: Symphony #9
Sorabji: Gulistān
Stockhausen: Gesang der Jünglinge
Stockhausen: Samstag aus Licht (Scene 3: Luzifers Tanz)
Strauss, R.: Don Juan, op. 20
Tallis: Spem in Alium
Tchaikovsky: Capriccio Italien, op. 45
Tchaikovsky: Symphony #6 in B minor, op. 74 "Pathétique"
Tippett: Concerto for Double String Orchestra
Varèse: Poème électronique
Verdi: Requiem
Wagner: Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (Overture)
Wagner: Götterdämmerung
Wagner: Parsifal
Wagner: Tristan und Isolde
Wirén: Serenade for Strings, op. 11

*Medieval:* 0
*Renaissance:* 1
*Baroque:* 3
*Classical:* 7
*Romantic:* 16
*20th Century/Modern:* 31
*Contemporary:* 12

*TOTAL:* 70


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## Sol Invictus

I just wanted to bump this thread and encourage newer members to add submissions to the list.


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## Sloe

Can only be one work. My favourite opera Mascagni´s Iris from 1898:






It is about a Japanese girl who lives with her father and gets kidnapped. When her father turns up he condemns her and she througs herself out of a building and is dying through the last act and dies.

A perfect opera full with beautiful music.


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## Pugg

For me this is the highlight of all operas, Don Carlo; by Giuseppe Verdi.
Love , anger, jalousie, politics passion and death .


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## Casebearer

Olivier Messiaen's Éclairs sur l'au-dèla (Illuminations of the Beyond).






I'm just copying what musicanth wrote posting this great work on YouTube. I have nothing to add to that:

Éclairs sur l'au-delà... [Illuminations of the Beyond...] (1987-1991)

I. Apparition du Christ glorieux ("Apparition of Christ in glory") [0:00]
II. La Constellation du Sagittaire ("Constellation of Sagittarius") [7:23]
III. L'Oiseau-lyre et la Ville-fiancée ("The lyre bird and the bridal city") [14:08]
IV. Les Élus marqués du sceau ("The elect marked with the seal") [18:20]
V. Demeurer dans l'Amour... ("Abiding in love") [20:28]
VI. Les Sept Anges aux sept trompettes ("The seven angels with the seven trumpets") [35:23]
VII. Et Dieu essuiera tout larme de leurs yeux... ("And God will wipe every tear from their eyes") [41:58]
VIII. Les Étoiles et la Gloire ("The stars and the glory") [46:22]
IX. Plusieurs Oiseaux des arbres de Vie ("Some birds in the trees of Life") [58:10]
X. Le Chemin de l'Invisible ("The way of the Invisible") [1:01:24]
XI. Le Christ, lumière du Paradis ("Christ, light of paradise") [1:04:43]

Although my own disposition is anything but mystical or religious, the sheer vibrancy, inventiveness, cohesiveness and depth of feeling of this composition makes it one of my favourite works by French composer and organist Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992). "Éclairs sur l'au delà..." was his last completed work, and its commissioner, the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, premiered it in November 1992 under the baton of Zubin Mehta, six months after the composer's death. Like Messiaen's other monumental orchestral pieces, it has an austere sense of otherwordliness, which is produced by sharp, repetitive, mesmerizing rhythms, rich orchestral colour, and lilting melodic patterns. The third and ninth of the eleven movements incorporate birdsong, which was an endless source of fascination and inspiration for Messiaen. The composition is scored for the following forces:

Strings - 16 first violins, 16 second violins, 14 violas, 12 cellos, 10 five-stringed double basses

Woodwinds - 3 piccolos, 6 flutes, alto flute, 3 oboes, English horn, 2 E-flat clarinets, 6 clarinets in B-flat, bass clarinet, contrabass clarinet, 3 bassoons, contrabassoon

Brass - 2 trumpets in D, 3 trumpets in C, 6 horns (in F and B-flat; horns 1, 3, 5: high, horns 2, 4, 6: low), 3 trombones (tenor-bass), 2 tubas in C, contrabass tuba in C

Keyboard percussion - crotales, glockenspiel, xylophone, xylorimba, marimba

Percussion (10 percussionists) - 3 sets of tubular bells, 3 triangles, wind machine, bass drum, wood block, 6 temple blocks, réco-réco, 3 large gongs, 3 high gongs, whip, small suspended cymbal, suspended cymbal, large suspended cymbal, small tamtam, regular tamtam, very large tamtam

Conductor: Sylvain Cambreling
SWR Sinfonieorchester Baden-Baden und Freiburg


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## shadowdancer

Arrived a bit late to this wonderful conversation here.
My work is, in my opinion, the most underrated work for cello:
Myaskovsky's Cello sonata #2 in A Minor Op.81 
Recommended recording: Mstislav Rostropovich & Alexander Dedyukhin (1967)


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## leonsm

I think this one can't be out of any reasonable list

J. S. Bach - Passacaglia and Fugue in C Minor, BWV 582


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## Haydn man

We have a list with no Piano Concerto by Mozart, so let's put this right
No.23 is the single best classical piece ever written IMO and Perahia knows how to play it

PS struggled trying to add the You Tube link with the picture but think the above will take you to musical paradise


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## Minor Sixthist

Paul Hindemith - Symphonic Metamorphosis of Themes by Carl Maria von Weber, 1943, Sawallisch, Philadelphia Orchestra

I'd weep if this didn't end up making our playlist. A necessity.


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## Michael Diemer

Mozart: Symphony No 40 In G. The work I turn to test new speakers, headphones, etc. It's just that good.


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## Malx

I have stumbled across this thread very late in the day and can't believe that the Richard Strauss masterpiece -"The Four Last Songs" hasn't been suggested yet.
I have 17 versions of this work in my collection and find it hard to chose just one but will go with this relatively recent recording which I currently return to often.

But I hasten to add I could have chosen many others, I'm sure other posters will have their individual favourites.


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## Janspe

Malx said:


> I have stumbled across this thread very late in the day and can't believe that the Richard Strauss masterpiece -"The Four Last Songs" hasn't been suggested yet.


*Thank you.* I've been waiting for this.

There are so many pieces I'd like to see on the list, but for some reason it doesn't feel right to suggest what others should nominate - it should be intuitive and honest.


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## Guest

Scriabin

Sonata no. 6

Varduhi Yeritsyan, piano






Scriabin created music that was both intimate and other-wordly. Yeritsyan performs this, my favourite sonata, with exquisite sensitivity.


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## Marc

Anonymous (16th century, sometimes attributed to Thomas Preston [ca. 1500 - 1563]):

_Upon La Mi Re_ for organ.

When I first heard it myself (live concert of organist Theo Jellema in the Martinikerk, Groningen, NL) it felt as if I was lifted up and floating around the vaults of the church.

A pity it only lasts about 3 minutes.

In this clip, Matthias Havinga plays the Jürgend Ahrend transept organ of the Oude Kerk, Amsterdam, NL.


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## Marc

Portamento said:


> *Submissions:*
> [...]


Maybe for a reason, but it looks like this one is missing:

Franz Schmidt: Symphony 1 in E-major (1899).


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## 20centrfuge

I’m bumping this thread


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese

Edgard Varèse - Amériques - *YouTube*


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## Jacob Brooks

FJ Haydn: Symphony 38 - 




Can't believe there is no Haydn. This piece is absolutely amazing.


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## SixFootScowl

MARTHA, Friedrich von Flotow
This one is full of delightful tunes


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## 20centrfuge

I'm bumping this thread with the hopes that newer members will participate. I'll also make an updated list of all entries in the next day or so.


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## D Smith

This is a great idea for a list and I can't believe I missed it before. Thanks for bumping it 20centrfuge. Cesar Franck was not yet on the list so I felt compelled to add his symphony which was one of the works that led me to my life long enjoyment of classical music. This is the recording by Monteux that I wore out on my record player.


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## SixFootScowl




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## Fabulin

Composer: Emilie Mayer
Work: Symphony No.7 in F-minor (1856)
Orchestra: Kammersymphonie Berlin
Conductor: Jürgen Bruns






Ace symphony. I tend to keep it between Beethoven's. It should really enter the canon.


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## CnC Bartok

Bela Bartók
Cantata profana, Sz.94 composed 1930


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