# What pieces best describe what era.



## Op.123 (Mar 25, 2013)

Pick pieces that can describe an era of classical music. etc...

Baroque:

Bach - The Goldberg Variations
Vivaldi - The Four Seasons
Handel - The Messiah 

Classical:

Mozart - Piano Concerto No. 23
Mozart - Symphony No. 41
Haydn - Symphony No. 99

Romantic:

Schumann - Piano concerto 
Chopin - Piano Concerto No. 1
Beethoven - Symphony No. 9


----------



## apricissimus (May 15, 2013)

The Rite of Spring has to be the first choice to represent 20th century, or "modern" music, I think.


----------



## techniquest (Aug 3, 2012)

Romantic: 
Tchaikovsky: 6th Symphony
Rimsky Korsakov: Scheherazade

Post-Romantic
Mahler: 3rd Symphony
Stravinsky: Firebird

Modern
Stravinsky: Rite of Spring
Ives: Holidays Symphony

Modern / Neo-romantic
Shostakovich 5th
Prokofiev 6th


----------



## Guest (Jul 22, 2013)

No piece can describe an era.

Describing an era by a piece shortchanges the era as well as every _other_ piece that makes up the era.

I'm curious about the tenacious impulse to narrow and to exclude.

Maybe it's just me, but broadening and including sounds much much more appealing.


----------



## HaydnBearstheClock (Jul 6, 2013)

Burroughts, might I ask why you picked Haydn's 98 specifically as the example? (Just curious).


----------



## Op.123 (Mar 25, 2013)

HaydnBearstheClock said:


> Burroughts, might I ask why you picked Haydn's 98 specifically as the example? (Just curious).


Most of the later ones would do. I picked that one as I like it most.


----------



## apricissimus (May 15, 2013)

some guy said:


> No piece can describe an era.
> 
> Describing an era by a piece shortchanges the era as well as every _other_ piece that makes up the era.
> 
> ...


Some pieces are clearly iconic though (whether you think they ought to be or not).


----------



## HaydnBearstheClock (Jul 6, 2013)

Burroughs said:


> Most of the later ones would do. I picked that one as I like it most.


cool choice, I always thought the introduction had a nice punch to it. An excellent symphony - the 1st movement upbeat, lively and powerful, the adagio which is thought by some to be an homage to Mozart, and it's so great when the harpsichord comes in at the end of the 4th movement .


----------



## Op.123 (Mar 25, 2013)

HaydnBearstheClock said:


> cool choice, I always thought the introduction had a nice punch to it. An excellent symphony - the 1st movement upbeat, lively and powerful, the adagio which is thought by some to be an homage to Mozart, and it's so great when the harpsichord comes in at the end of the 4th movement .


Oh no. I got it wrong my favourite is 99. I have changed my first post so all is well again.


----------



## HaydnBearstheClock (Jul 6, 2013)

Ah yes, 99 - I love it too. In fact, I love all of the London symphonies.


----------



## starry (Jun 2, 2009)

apricissimus said:


> Some pieces are clearly iconic though (whether you think they ought to be or not).


Iconic now, but not all were necessarily iconic at the time. So is it better to just go by what is iconic _now_ (which would really be quite predictable anyway).

And Beethoven would have considered himself as the heir to Mozart and Haydn.


----------



## niv (Apr 9, 2013)

some guy said:


> No piece can describe an era.
> 
> Describing an era by a piece shortchanges the era as well as every _other_ piece that makes up the era.
> 
> ...


I don't think the idea is to "narrow and to exclude". It's easy to say "narrow vs broad" but in the end we have a limited lifetime and we cannot listen to all the great music in the world, so we choose and every choice is an exclusion by definition. I personally like to have some people tip me on what are "essentials" or "good examples of a style" to at least sample and have an idea of all styles to help me discover what I like the most.


----------



## starry (Jun 2, 2009)

We all try and listen to the famous things, though I do like discovering things for myself which aren't famous, that can give me even more pleasure. And to understand a style perhaps listening to just a few pieces won't really do it, the more the better really.


----------



## Novelette (Dec 12, 2012)

Burroughs said:


> Pick pieces that can describe an era of classical music. etc...
> 
> Baroque:
> 
> ...


We need some opera composers in there as well [well, other than Handel]: 
Rameau: Castor et Pollux
Pergolesi: La serva padrona



> Classical:
> 
> Mozart - Piano Concerto No. 23
> Mozart - Symphony No. 41
> Haydn - Symphony No. 99


Hmm, how about Gluck: Symphonies and Ezio
CPE Bach: Keyboard Sonatas and Various Concerti
Hummel: Piano concerti



> Romantic:
> 
> Schumann - Piano concerto
> Chopin - Piano Concerto No. 1
> Beethoven - Symphony No. 9


How about also:

Liszt: Années De Pèlerinage
Berlioz: La Damnation de Faust
Mendelssohn: String Octet


----------



## Guest (Jul 22, 2013)

apricissimus said:


> Some pieces are clearly iconic though (whether you think they ought to be or not).


Well, granted that some pieces have achieved an iconic status, question is how? How did they achieve that? And what's more, are there any other pieces that should have but didn't?

Take Stravinsky's _Le Sacre._ Widely thought of as _the_ modern composition, par excellence. And it's a nice piece, no doubt. And tremendously influential. But concentrating on that to the exclusion of other works causes you to miss things. One of those things is that in terms of modern trends post Stravinsky, _Petrushka_ is clearly more modern, more representative of more modern trends than _Le Sacre_ is. The use of silence. The juxtapositions of unlike materials. It has just as much rhythmic and harmonic innovation, too. _Le Sacre_ is more extrovert is all!

And there's Ives' _Unanswered Question._ This is almost a warhorse. It gets to be filler on practically every Ives disc, anyway. And because it has a "program" of sorts, its musical innovations and presentiments are practically ignored. I'd pick it as the very first unmistakably modern work. It is minimal in the sense of being sparse as well as in the sense of being repetitious. It is theatrical, not in a traditional sense of drama, but in a new sense of juxtaposed gestures that have nothing to do with one another but acquire meaning by proximity. It is harmonically and temporally static. There is no movement in any 18th or 19th century sense, just occasional irruptions into the underlying stasis. Irruptions that don't develop, that don't "go" anywhere. It does not create an illusion of motion as pretty much all common practice music does and as pretty much all serial music does as well. It creates a reality of stasis. This is the modernism of Varese (some of it) and of Schwitters and of Cage and of LaMonte Young and of Xenakis and of Christian Wolff and of Sachiko M and of Mark Andre. Music that is in the moment as opposed to music that creates an illusion of motion.

_Le Sacre_ points to the modernisms of Bartok and Prokofiev and Britten and Shostakovich. And to Revueltas and Copland and the rest of Varese. _Le Sacre_ is a continuation, just as Schoenberg's music is a continuation, of 18th and 19th century logics. _Unanswered Question_ is a clear break from those logics. Clearly a new and different logic.

Going for the iconic obscures things like that.


----------



## realdealblues (Mar 3, 2010)

Speaking in very general terms...

If someone asks what is the first music that pops into my head when I say...

Baroque?
Bach - Brandenburg Concertos or Vivaldi - The Four Seasons

Classical?
Mozart - Eine Kleine Nacht Musik

Romantic?
Tchaikovsky - Piano Concerto No. 1

Late Romantic moving into Modern?
R. Strauss - Also Sprach Zarathustra


----------



## Guest (Jul 22, 2013)

some guy said:


> Take Stravinsky's Le Sacre. Widely thought of as the modern composition, par excellence. And it's a nice piece, no doubt. And tremendously influential. But concentrating on that to the exclusion of other works causes you to miss things. One of those things is that in terms of modern trends post Stravinsky, Petrushka is clearly more modern, more representative of more modern trends than Le Sacre is. The use of silence. The juxtapositions of unlike materials. It has just as much rhythmic and harmonic innovation, too. Le Sacre is more extrovert is all!
> 
> And there's Ives' Unanswered Question. This is almost a warhorse. It gets to be filler on practically every Ives disc, anyway. And because it has a "program" of sorts, its musical innovations and presentiments are practically ignored. I'd pick it as the very first unmistakably modern work. It is minimal in the sense of being sparse as well as in the sense of being repetitious. It is theatrical, not in a traditional sense of drama, but in a new sense of juxtaposed gestures that have nothing to do with one another but acquire meaning by proximity. It is harmonically and temporally static. There is no movement in any 18th or 19th century sense, just occasional irruptions into the underlying stasis. Irruptions that don't develop, that don't "go" anywhere. It does not create an illusion of motion as pretty much all common practice music does and as pretty much all serial music does as well. It creates a reality of stasis. This is the modernism of Varese (some of it) and of Schwitters and of Cage and of LaMonte Young and of Xenakis and of Christian Wolff and of Sachiko M and of Mark Andre. Music that is in the moment as opposed to music that creates an illusion of motion.
> 
> Le Sacre points to the modernisms of Bartok and Prokofiev and Britten and Shostakovich. And to Revueltas and Copland and the rest of Varese. Le Sacre is a continuation, just as Schoenberg's music is a continuation, of 18th and 19th century logics. Unanswered Question is a clear break from those logics. Clearly a new and different logic.


Good stuff - thanks for sharing.


----------



## Jobis (Jun 13, 2013)

some guy said:


> Well, granted that some pieces have achieved an iconic status, question is how? How did they achieve that? And what's more, are there any other pieces that should have but didn't?
> 
> Take Stravinsky's _Le Sacre._ Widely thought of as _the_ modern composition, par excellence. And it's a nice piece, no doubt. And tremendously influential. But concentrating on that to the exclusion of other works causes you to miss things. One of those things is that in terms of modern trends post Stravinsky, _Petrushka_ is clearly more modern, more representative of more modern trends than _Le Sacre_ is. The use of silence. The juxtapositions of unlike materials. It has just as much rhythmic and harmonic innovation, too. _Le Sacre_ is more extrovert is all!
> 
> ...


I think I love you.


----------



## Ravellian (Aug 17, 2009)

Each era does indeed have pieces that are representative of the times, which is why it is often possible for an experienced listener to tell what era a piece is from upon first listening, even if one doesn't know the particular composer. The 20th century definitely has more varieties of new styles and genres than at any other time in history, but still, some representative examples of a few of the major trends will have good educational value.


MEDIEVAL PERIOD 
Most early vocal music is monophonic... polyphonic vocal forms begin to develop in the early 13th century
Gregorian Chant 
Adam de la Halle - The Play of Robin and Marion (secular song and dance)
Perotin - Viderunt omnes (early polyphony)
Guillaume de Machaut - The Mass of Notre Dame
Guillaume de Machaut - Il m'est avis qu'il n'est dons de Nature (14th century secular song)
Philippe de Vitry - In arboris (14th century motet)


RENAISSANCE PERIOD 
Polyphonic forms dominate, in both the vocal music (masses, motets, secular songs) and the instrumental music
Josquin des Prez - Ave Maria...virgo serena (motet)
Palestrina - Pope Marcellua Mass
Cipriano de Rore - Da le belle contrade d'oriente (madrigal)
William Byrd - John Come Kiss Me Now (keyboard variations)
Sweelinck - Fantasias, toccatas


BAROQUE PERIOD 
Homophonic operatic music becomes popular, though at the same time there is a strong tradition of polyphonic keyboard music that runs from Frescobaldi to J.S. Bach...
Monteverdi - L'Orfeo
Frescobaldi - Toccatas for organ 
J.S. Bach - Toccatas and Fugues for organ, Well-Tempered Clavier
Corelli - Trio sonatas
Lully - Armide


CLASSICAL PERIOD
Homophonic music dominates, maturity of tonality, development of sonata-allegro form, opera becomes more drama-focused...
Gluck - Orfeo ed Euridice
Haydn - Symphony No. 45 in F# minor (Sturm und Drang style)
Haydn - Symphony No. 92
Mozart - Piano Concerto No. 21 in C
Mozart - The Magic Flute


ROMANTIC PERIOD
Expansion of tonality, Beethovenian long forms, the short character piece, Wagner vs. Verdi...
Schumann - Carnaval
Schubert - Die schone Mullerin
Tchaikovsky - Symphony No. 4
Beethoven - Symphony No. 3 in Eb major
Verdi - La Traviata
Wagner - Tristan und Isolde


MODERN PERIOD
Impressionism, neoromanticism, atonality, serialism, tone clusters, aleatoric music, avant garde, experimentalism, minimalism... and much, much more!
Debussy - La Mer (impressionism)
Webern - Symphony (serialism)
Ligeti - Atmospheres (clusters/textures)
Berg - Wozzeck (atonality)
Messiaen - Quartet for the End of Time (palindrome rhythms)
Adams - Short Ride in a Fast Machine (minimalism)


----------



## starry (Jun 2, 2009)

Ravellian said:


> Each era does indeed have pieces that are representative of the times, which is why it is often possible for an experienced listener to tell what era a piece is from upon first listening, even if one doesn't know the particular composer. The 20th century definitely has more varieties of new styles and genres than at any other time in history, but still, some representative examples of a few of the major trends will have good educational value.


I would say listing a few pieces for each period can give basic educational value, but never the full picture as I said in my last post. Not useless but people shouldn't have the impression they fully get a style or period just by hearing a few pieces.


----------



## Ravellian (Aug 17, 2009)

I absolutely agree in that you cannot get the full picture from a few representative sources.. you can easily spend a lifetime studying a single era without finding out everything there is to know about it. I get the impression that someone asking this question is relatively unfamiliar with the period, and is just looking for a vague outline of what to expect. A short list of representative pieces can help with that.


----------



## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

some guy said:


> Well, granted that some pieces have achieved an iconic status, question is how? How did they achieve that? And what's more, are there any other pieces that should have but didn't?
> 
> Take Stravinsky's _Le Sacre._ Widely thought of as _the_ modern composition, par excellence. And it's a nice piece, no doubt. And tremendously influential. But concentrating on that to the exclusion of other works causes you to miss things. One of those things is that in terms of modern trends post Stravinsky, _Petrushka_ is clearly more modern, more representative of more modern trends than _Le Sacre_ is. The use of silence. The juxtapositions of unlike materials. It has just as much rhythmic and harmonic innovation, too. _Le Sacre_ is more extrovert is all!
> 
> ...


Well said, and some interesting connections and insights there I hadn't fully realized. Personally I've never understood the fuss about Stravinsky's Rite of Spring. Don't get me wrong I know it is an innovative, influential, and masterfully crafted work. But as far as I'm concerned it was one of many such works composed around that time, and I wonder if its "extroverted" style and the story of the riot at its premiere hasn't caused a little bit of this works reputation to be basically based off of hype. Many act as if Stravinsky practically invented the modern era with this one work, which I don't think is at all accurate, and personally many other works come to mind from this era I prefer to this work. The early 20th century is (along with Baroque) my favorite era of classical music, but if someone played me the Rite and explained that this one work defines or sums up the era, it would likely not even spark much interest out of me. To be honest I'm admittedly biased here because I don't actually enjoy listening to The Rite of Spring. I can appreciate the artistic talent required to create such a work, but I've never enjoyed the actual music in it much so I guess its not really surprising its reputation has always somewhat baffled me.


----------



## starry (Jun 2, 2009)

Ravellian said:


> I absolutely agree in that you cannot get the full picture from a few representative sources.. you can easily spend a lifetime studying a single era without finding out everything there is to know about it. I get the impression that someone asking this question is relatively unfamiliar with the period, and is just looking for a vague outline of what to expect. A short list of representative pieces can help with that.


Yeh you can probably spend a lifetime, I'm not sure I'd really think that is important to do for most people though. Yeh if this is just for beginners to start with something for a vague outline I agree, though they shouldn't decide whether they like or dislike a whole era of music based on an immediate reaction to a few pieces.


----------



## Aries (Nov 29, 2012)

Burroughs said:


> Romantic:
> 
> Schumann - Piano concerto
> Chopin - Piano Concerto No. 1
> Beethoven - Symphony No. 9


Beethovens 9th symphony is classical.


----------



## niv (Apr 9, 2013)

tdc said:


> To be honest I'm admittedly biased here because I don't actually enjoy listening to The Rite of Spring. I can appreciate the artistic talent required to create such a work, but I've never enjoyed the actual music in it much so I guess its not really surprising its reputation has always somewhat baffled me.


I personally enjoy it a lot, listening to it in the right mood it sparks a gigantic torrent of emotions and colors like no other piece can do, and it seems I'm not alone in that. I think the hype around it, the premiere story, and the revolutionary tag, all those things are often repeated because the piece really marvels the listeners, and not the other way around.


----------



## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

niv said:


> I personally enjoy it a lot, listening to it in the right mood it sparks a gigantic torrent of emotions and colors like no other piece can do, and it seems I'm not alone in that. I think the hype around it, the premiere story, and the revolutionary tag, all those things are often repeated because the piece really marvels the listeners, and not the other way around.


Have you heard the piece played on the piano, by chance? Stravinsky composed a 4-hand version that sounds spectacular on the piano, which can have an eerie effect if you've got a good memory of the orchestration; and there's a frenetic transcription by Dag Achatz for 2 hands. I'm not sure I don't listen to r.o.s. piano transcriptions more often than the more famous (and better, I suppose) orchestral version, as I cycle through my potted history of 20th-century keyboard works.


----------



## niv (Apr 9, 2013)

Yes, I've heard the version on here: http://www.gardnermuseum.org/music/listen/music_library?filter=composer

It sounds pretty good, but I prefer the orchestral version myself.


----------



## Op.123 (Mar 25, 2013)

Aries said:


> Beethovens 9th symphony is classical.


Lets update that list...

Berlioz - Symphonie fantastique
Brahms - Piano concerto No. 2
Brahms - Symphony No. 4
Chopin - Fantasy in F Minor
Chopin - Piano concerto No. 1
Liszt - Piano sonata
Mendelssohn - Violin concerto No. 2
Rachmaninoff - Piano concerto No. 2
Schumann - Carnival Op. 9
Schumann - Fantasy in C
Schumann - Piano concerto
Wagner - Tristan und Isolde


----------



## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

niv said:


> I personally enjoy it a lot, listening to it in the right mood it sparks a gigantic torrent of emotions and colors like no other piece can do, and it seems I'm not alone in that. I think the hype around it, the premiere story, and the revolutionary tag, all those things are often repeated because the piece really marvels the listeners, and not the other way around.


I don't doubt its a great work, but feel its over-rated when people speak of it as if its on another level than anything else written in the century. People talk about the primitive rhythms in the Rite making them want to bop their head and stomp their feet. I think it has a visceral effect not unlike the effect Beethoven often has on listeners, personally I find subtle aspects of music more powerful than this more extroverted style of composition. That is probably why I prefer Mozart to Beethoven, and I think Stravinsky wrote other pieces that are better than the Rite. I also find the majority of Ravel and Debussy's compositions more stimulating and gratifying to listen to than the Rite. But as I said I know certain things just come down to personal taste, so it is not as though I really feel I'm right and everyone is wrong. It just gets tiring reading about all this praise constantly getting heaped on one work, that I personally feel no connection to.


----------



## Aries (Nov 29, 2012)

Burroughs said:


> Lets update that list...
> 
> Berlioz - Symphonie fantastique
> Brahms - Piano concerto No. 2
> ...


No, Beethovens composing style is different. His motives have the classical straightforward-character.


----------



## niv (Apr 9, 2013)

tdc said:


> But as I said I know certain things just come down to personal taste, so it is not as though I really feel I'm right and everyone is wrong. It just gets tiring reading about all this praise constantly getting heaped on one work, that I personally feel no connection to.


Why it should be tiring? You really feel a connection to most works that are praised a lot?


----------

