# KUSC Top 100 Countdown



## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

It's that time of year again, and in fact the second half of the list has already been chosen. Working down to number one over the next two or so days.

The list is interesting because KUSC is supposedly the most widely-heard classical station in the US, so the poll should be well-attended. Is it agreeable to any of our tastes? Well, that's another matter.

Here's the *online listing* so far. Any surprises or comments? Forecasts for No. 1? Sorry, no Elliott Carter (so far)!

49. Mozart: Clarinet Concerto
50. Tchaikovsky: Serenade for Strings
51. Mozart: Piano Concerto #21
52. Tchaikovsky: 1812 Overture
53. Rodrigo: Concierto de Aranjuez
54. Mozart: Eine Kleine Nachtmusik
55. Elgar: Enigma Variations 
56. Mozart: Marriage of Figaro
57. Sibelius: Finlandia
58. Pachelbel: Canon
59. Bizet: Carmen
60. Mozart: Magic Flute
61. Beethoven: Fur Elise
62. Grieg: Peer Gynt
63. Tchaikovsky: The Nutcracker
64. Shostakovich: Jazz Suite: Waltz
65. Bach: Mass in b minor 
66. Mendelssohn, Felix: Violin Concerto
67. Mahler: Symphony #1 
68. Morricone: Cinema Paradiso: The Love Theme
69. Bruch: Violin Concerto #1
70. Khachaturian: Spartacus: Adagio
71. Tchaikovsky: Symphony #6 "Pathetique"
72. Bach: Cello Suite #1
73. Chopin: Piano Concerto #1
74. Lauridsen: O magnum mysterium
75. Satie: Gymnopedies
76. Copland: Fanfare for the Common Man
77. Dvorak: Cello Concerto
78. Mozart: Symphony #39
79. Bach: Sheep May Safely Graze
80. Shore: Lord of the Rings
81. Gershwin: An American in Paris
82. Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto #3
83. Bach: Goldberg Variations
84. Williams: Theme from "Raiders of the Lost Ark"
85. Albinoni: Adagio in g minor
86. Bach: Air on the G String
87. Prokofiev: Romeo & Juliet 
88. Williams: Theme from "Jurassic Park"
89. Grofe: Grand Canyon Suite
90. Bach: Concerto for 2 Violins
91. Borodin: Polovtsian Dances
92. Rossini: William Tell: Overture
93. Dvorak: String Quartet #12 "American"
94. Brahms: Symphony #4
95. Delibes: Lakme: Flower Duet
96. Schubert: "Trout" Quintet
97. Brahms: German Requiem 
98. Stravinsky: The Firebird
99. Khachaturian: Masquerade: Waltz
100. Chopin: Piano Concerto #2


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## Portamento (Dec 8, 2016)

KenOC said:


> 85. Albinoni: Adagio in g minor


No. Just... no.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

I don't know how this works but there are some works in the list that really should be much higher. Bach's B minor mass at #65?!?!?


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

I predict these will be next:

42. Orff: Carmina Burana
43. Ravel: Bolero
44. Mussorgsky: Pictures at an Exhibition
45. Berlioz: Requiem
46. Mendelssohn, Felix: Midsummer Night’s Dream
47. Rossini: Thieving Magpie Overture
48. Beethoven: Symphony #3 “Eroica”

:devil:


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## Common Listener (Apr 6, 2019)

Nothing against Hollywood scores but Williams and the rest above Schubert's "Trout," Brahms' Symphony No. 4, Bach's Concerto for Two Violins, etc.?

Mozart's 39th at twice its number? (Granted, you have to make room for a lot of Mozart.)

While Mozart and Bach have six, Beethoven has only a single piece - Khachaturian has two?

There are at least a few dozen out of those 52 that aren't they way I'd personally have it, but those seem particularly strange to me.

On the other hand, there are several good pieces so far.

A projected (not endorsed) number one? Probably a Beethoven symphony such as 5 or 9?


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## Bluecrab (Jun 24, 2014)

Enthusiast said:


> I don't know how this works...


It's a listeners' poll. It's explained on the KUSC website.



Enthusiast said:


> ...but there are some works in the list that really should be much higher.


Obviously, not in the collective opinion of the listeners who voted in the poll.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Common Listener said:


> ...A projected (not endorsed) number one? Probably a Beethoven symphony such as 5 or 9?


Believe #1 was Beethoven's 9th last year (could be wrong). But it has also been, in a prior year, the Four Seasons. Go figure.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Art Rock said:


> I predict these will be next:
> 
> 42. Orff: Carmina Burana
> 43. Ravel: Bolero
> ...


You are SO cheating! :scold:


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## ldiat (Jan 27, 2016)

Winner and still champ Ludwig van Beethoven #1(or close) Symphony No. 5!! well he was up in the top 5 or 10 last year with more then one.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

Ninety-three pieces better liked than the Brahms Symphony No. 4?

Didn't Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue register No. 1 on this last year? It's a listener popularity poll, right? My station in East Lansing Michigan had one too. The Gershwin won there.


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## MusicSybarite (Aug 17, 2017)

What can I say? Mainstream out of the mainstream.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

The first post lists places #49-100. Now the countdown has reached #25. Here are the new additions.

25. Handel: Messiah
26. Debussy: Clair de Lune
27. Massenet: Thais: Meditation
28. Bernstein: West Side Story Symphonic Dances
29. Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto #1
30. Bach: Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring
31. Beethoven: Piano Sonata #14 “Moonlight”
32. Saint-Saens: Symphony #3 “Organ” 
33. Williams: Theme from “Schindler’s List”
34. Grieg: Piano Concerto
35. Debussy: Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun
36. Williams: Theme from “Star Wars”
37. Beethoven: Violin Concerto
38. Smetana: The Moldau
39. Borodin: In the Steppes of Central Asia
40. Tchaikovsky: Swan Lake 
41. Bernstein: Candide Overture
42. Orff: Carmina Burana
43. Ravel: Bolero
44. Mussorgsky: Pictures at an Exhibition
45. Berlioz: Requiem
46. Mendelssohn, Felix: Midsummer Night’s Dream
47. Rossini: Thieving Magpie Overture
48. Beethoven: Symphony #3 “Eroica”


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## BachIsBest (Feb 17, 2018)

KenOC said:


> The first post lists places #49-100. Now the countdown has reached #25. Here are the new additions.
> 
> 25. Handel: Messiah
> 26. Debussy: Clair de Lune
> ...


What educated person doesn't rate the Theme from "Star Wars" a good 10 spots higher than the "Eroica" or Berlioz's Requiem? I know I certainly do.


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## paulbest (Apr 18, 2019)

Note the LA's concert line up for 2019
Beethoven , Beethoven ,,and ….more Beethoven, Lots of Mahler and Bruckner, Tchaikovsky, Sibelius. 
Unreal, some things never change. 
Classical has a slim chance at surviving into the 21th C. I juts don;'t see it happening. Well it lasted almost 400 yrs, and now she's in her death throes. 
I guess you think I do not see the ages of concert goers, well I do, and most over over the age of 50. Like the churches, whose ranks are into their 50's, both together will not last into the 22nd C. 
There needs be new blood to fill the seats of those whom passed on. But youths don't like church, nor your classical music. 
Both will perish together.

https://www.laphil.com/events/performances/


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

paulbest said:


> Note the LA's concert line up for 2019
> Beethoven , Beethoven ,,and ….more Beethoven, Lots of Mahler and Bruckner, Tchaikovsky, Sibelius.
> Unreal, some things never change.
> Classical has a slim chance at surviving into the 21th C. I juts don;'t see it happening. Well it lasted almost 400 yrs, and now she's in her death throes.
> ...


What's the good news?


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

paulbest said:


> Note the LA's concert line up for 2019
> Beethoven , Beethoven ,,and ….more Beethoven, Lots of Mahler and Bruckner, Tchaikovsky, Sibelius.
> Unreal, some things never change.


Look a little deeper. This from the last season:

For the past few years, the LA Phil has been a leader in the US in presenting new commissions and works by living composers. Looks like they're going to go a step farther!

"…the 2018-2019 season offers an explosion of new music: 50 commissions by a distinguished and diverse group of composers, including Steve Reich, Thomas Adès, Julia Adolphe, Billy Childs, Unsuk Chin, Adolphus Hailstork, and Ashley Fure. And the Green Umbrella series will be all world premiere commissions during the 2018-19 season. How to pay for all this? A $500 million centennial campaign is three-fifths completed…"

Well, it helps to be well-funded!
​https://www.kusc.org/culture/out-and...a-phil-at-100/

Basically the LA Phil is the national leader (by an order of magnitude) in presenting new and living composers and premieres of new works. Look at the new season: In a single concert for instance, with John Adams conducting, we have:

Freya WALEY-COHEN : Changeling (world premiere, LA Phil commission) 
Donnacha DENNEHY : Overcasting (world premiere, LA Phil commission) 
Jeffrey MUMFORD : ...amid still and floating depths (world premiere, LA Phil co-commission) 
Christopher STARK : Cascade (world premiere, LA Phil commission with generous support from Pacific Harmony Foundation)

And there's a LOT more if you care to check the programming more closely.


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## Haydn man (Jan 25, 2014)

These lists are all about popularity and familiarity so I expect the batting order changes each year but all the usual suspects will remain present, just swap around in places.
The same exercise in the UK will have much the same top 10 with perhaps The Lark Ascending being consistently high in the UK and not present in the USA list.


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## bharbeke (Mar 4, 2013)

If KUSC's voting is like KBAQ's, then the voters are presented with a list of popular pieces and asked to check the box. Write-in votes are allowed and accepted, but that requires a lot more thought and effort. I wonder how the lists would change year to year if people had to write in all of their choices.


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## Quartetfore (May 19, 2010)

KenOC said:


> It's that time of year again, and in fact the second half of the list has already been chosen. Working down to number one over the next two or so days.
> 
> The list is interesting because KUSC is supposedly the most widely-heard classical station in the US, so the poll should be well-attended. Is it agreeable to any of our tastes? Well, that's another matter.
> 
> ...


It looks like the WQXR list( New York City) I don`t think that there was alot of movie music on the WQXR list, but as you reach the lower numbers there is a good number of Mahler`s music.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Yesterday about this time we'd gotten down to #25. Now we've gotten to #12. Wrapping up tomorrow, I think. Here are the new additions to the list.

12. Rimsky-Korsakov: Scheherazade
13. Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto #2
14. Beethoven: Symphony #7
15. Berlioz: Symphonie fantastique 
16. Vaughan Williams: The Lark Ascending
17. Mozart: Symphony #40
18. Copland: Appalachian Spring
19. Holst: The Planets
20. Vaughan Williams: Tallis Fantasy
21. Bach: Toccata & Fugue in d minor
22. Barber: Adagio for Strings
23. Mozart: Requiem
24. Handel: Water Music


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

I think that such lists are interesting as a way to know which works are most popular among casual listeners, but I don't think that the results have any reasonable criteria. I mean, look at them: _Für Elise_ a greater work than Bach's _Mass in B minor_? Pachelbel's _Canon_ a better piece than Mendelssohn's violin concerto? _Moonlight_ sonata, the best solo piano composition by Beethoven? C'mon. Those guys don't seem to have a clue on what they are doing.

I think that the differences between the lists of top <<place number>> pieces in classical music by casual and non-casual listeners are well characterised in the _digitaldreamdoor_ website: they have *a list for most popular pieces* and what is in my opinion *a reasonable list for greatest ones*.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Allerius said:


> I think that such lists are interesting as a way to know which works are most popular among casual listeners, but I don't think that the results have any reasonable criteria.


Hey, it works for electing presidents! Scary, huh? :lol:


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

KenOC said:


> Hey, it works for electing presidents! Scary, huh? :lol:











It works wonders indeed...


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## Knight769 (Mar 2, 2017)

KUSC host Alan Chapman said there are two classical music pieces that have broken into the top 10 for the very first time. After looking at this year's list from #12-100, I am left with three pieces of music that are not on the list as of now, and have never made the KUSC top 10. My three guesses are:

- Bach: Brandenberg Concerto
- Mozart: Symphony #41
- Rachmaninoff: Paganini Rhapsody


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## Gallus (Feb 8, 2018)

KenOC said:


> 61. Beethoven: Fur Elise


Oh come on. It wouldn't even make a list of Beethoven's top 61 bagatelles.


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## apricissimus (May 15, 2013)

Allerius said:


> View attachment 117504
> 
> 
> It works wonders indeed...


It occurs to me that there may be young people today who are unaware that this is not the right way to hold a telephone.


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## apricissimus (May 15, 2013)

Okay, so I agree that there are some rather lightweight pieces in that list that don't really belong, or are rated too highly. But doesn't the mere fact of their perennial popularity say something about them? I guess not everything has to have the gravitas of a Mass in B Minor, and that Very Serious Classical Aficionados are not the only arbiters of what's good, or what resonates with people.


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

apricissimus said:


> Okay, so I agree that there are some rather lightweight pieces in that list that don't really belong, or are rated too highly. But doesn't the mere fact of their perennial popularity say something about them?


Perhaps it says more about the folks who select them.


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## apricissimus (May 15, 2013)

Bulldog said:


> Perhaps it says more about the folks who select them.


I'm sure most of them live full and rewarding lives.

Edit: Sorry, that was an overly glib way of saying that many people do not prioritize classical music as highly as others, and that's fine. And they may still have perfectly adequate artistic sensibilities in other ways.


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

apricissimus said:


> I'm sure most of them live full and rewarding lives.


I have relatives in Malden. They are the happiest people I know and none of them ever listens to classical.


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## bharbeke (Mar 4, 2013)

On the KUSC site, there are articles about several of the pieces on their top 100 list. Here is one that I liked that highlighted different approaches to Bach's famous Toccata and Fugue in D Minor:

https://www.kusc.org/culture/staff-blog/behind-the-top-100-toccata-and-fugue/


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Yesterday we’d gotten to #12, now we’re to #5. The new entries:

5. Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue
6. Bach: Brandenburg Concertos
7. Rachmaninoff: Paganini Rhapsody
8. Tchaikovsky: Violin Concerto
9. Beethoven: Piano Concerto #5 “Emperor“
10. Mozart: Symphony #41 “Jupiter”
11. Vivaldi: Four Seasons


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## BachIsBest (Feb 17, 2018)

KenOC said:


> Yesterday we'd gotten to #12, now we're to #5. The new entries:
> 
> 5. Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue
> 6. Bach: Brandenburg Concertos
> ...


Well, it's obviously going to be Beethoven 5,6,7,9 for the top 4. The only interesting part left is what order they will be in.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Beethoven's 7th is already on the list at #14. But the Pastoral was just announced as #4. So the 5th and the 9th will be in the top 3. Any guesses as to what work will fill out the top 3?

Added: Now they're playing Dvorak's New World Symphony. Could well be #3. They're bringing in the heavy hitters to wrap things up.

Amazing that the only Schubert piece is the Trout Quintet, at#96!


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## ldiat (Jan 27, 2016)

KenOC said:


> Beethoven's 7th is already on the list at #14. But the Pastoral was just announced as #4. So the 5th and the 9th will be in the top 3. Any guesses as to what work will fill out the top 3?
> 
> Added: Now they're playing Dvorak's New World Symphony. Could well be #3. They're bringing in the heavy hitters to wrap things up.
> 
> Amazing that the only Schubert piece is the Trout Quintet, at#96!


told ya just like last year...or the year before. Beethoven in top 5!


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

ldiat said:


> told ya just like last year...or the year before. Beethoven in top 5!


Yes, Beethoven probably won, but it's not fair in my opinion. 
And I say this as a beethovenian who loves his symphonies.

Where are Bach's WTC and St. Matthew passion, just to cite two key masterpieces from western classical music? Aren't they popular anymore? I wonder if they are still going to appear at the top 5.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

#2 is Beethoven's 5th. The announcer mentioned that this is the third year in a row it has come in second. And now we all know what #1's going to be.


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## Haydn70 (Jan 8, 2017)

No Haydn, no Schumann, no Wagner, no Bruckner, no Richard Strauss. One piece by Schubert, which comes in at #96. Two pieces by Brahms, #94 and #97. But of course four pieces by John Williams, one by Morricone and one by Howard Shore.

Ah, yes...


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Haydn70 said:


> No Haydn, no Schumann, no Wagner, no Bruckner, no Richard Strauss. One piece by Schubert, which comes in at #96. One piece by Brahms, which comes it at #97. But of course four pieces by John Williams and one by Morricone.
> 
> Ah, yes...


Vox populi, vox dei.

Official now, the top 4 places:

1. Beethoven: Symphony #9
2. Beethoven: Symphony #5
3. Dvorak: Symphony #9 "From the New World"
4. Beethoven: Symphony #6 "Pastoral"


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## BachIsBest (Feb 17, 2018)

Haydn70 said:


> No Haydn, no Schumann, no Wagner, no Bruckner, no Richard Strauss. One piece by Schubert, which comes in at #96. *Two* piece by Brahms, which comes it at #97. But of course four pieces by John Williams, one by Morricone and one by Howard Shore.
> 
> Ah, yes...


Not that it really matters but both the Symphony #4 and the Requiem made it.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

BTW I was mistaken earlier. The DJ said Beethoven's 9th has taken 1st place every year, as long as the countdown has been run. And that's a long time!


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## apricissimus (May 15, 2013)

Beethoven's Ninth is a respectable choice for the top spot, at least.


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## JB Henson (Mar 29, 2019)

Is this the same list as the KDFC Top 100 (they are siblings mind you).


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

JB Henson said:


> Is this the same list as the KDFC Top 100 (they are siblings mind you).


I assume they're the same. The University of Southern California (thus KUSC) owns KDFC. But the programming doesn't appear duplicative, for the most part.


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## ericdxx (Jul 7, 2013)

In typical elitist fashion you condemn people who want to popularize symphonic music. One minute later you will condemn the public for not embracing classical music.


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## Guest (May 4, 2019)

It seems that this KUSC listener poll has been in existence since 2015, so that there have been 5 sets of results.

According to the voting system as I understand it, anyone of any age who lives anywhere on the entire planet is allowed to vote for up to 5 selections of any piece of classical music they may care to put forward, in addition to a long standardised list of works that is provided for convenience. People may vote for the same item up to 5 times if they so wish.

I don't know what checks are imposed by the organisers to ensure that no-one can vote more than once. Also I don't know whether or not any checks are carried out to ensure that only human voters are allowed to vote, or whether it's conceivably possible to enter a vote on behalf of one's cat, dog, budgerigar, tortoise, goldfish, or whatever other "pet" may be kept at the home.

I don't think that the results are all that surprising for polls of this nature. There seems to be quite a strong correlation between each year's results at the higher levels.


Clearly, Beethoven has consistently dominated the scene in these polls. Over the 5 years, his works are listed 48 times, some in very high positions. Following this is Bach with 45 listings, and then Mozart with 44. 
Behind these are Tchaikovsky with 33, Rachmanoff with 17, Copland with 13, Dvorak with 13. 
I noticed that the following significant composers achieved nil points over the entire 5 year period: Haydn, Bartok, Liszt, Schumann, Verdi, Monteverdi. 
 A problem with all such polls is that they don't tell us is exactly how many votes were cast for each item. They only give the rank order of preferences. This is a problem in my opinion. To take an extreme example, the individual votes for each of the 100 items could be, say, 10,000 to 10,100. In this case there is very likely to be no statistically significant difference between the individual items. On the other hand, there might be quite large differences separating some of the individual items from top to bottom in the list.

Another problem is that it's not clear whether people are voting for a particular work in its entirety, or only on the basis of what might possibly be a small part of the entire work with which they are familiar. For example, Beethoven's Symphony No 9 has usually come out in the No 1 spot, but is this because most people are familiar only with the up-lifting choral ending only? It could be that if they heard the entire work (all 70+ minutes of it or whatever) some of them might think it was overall boring. Who knows?

On the whole, polls of this nature are possibly of value to novices with limited ambitions of finding out more about classical music. The more serious students of classical music would be better off studying the kind of lists produced in places like T-C.


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

ericdxx said:


> In typical elitist fashion you condemn people who want to popularize symphonic music. One minute later you will condemn the public for not embracing classical music.


You may be right. Now thinking better, I feel bad for having come here to criticize this list, for I actually value Ken's effort at bringing it to TC - it's an interesting and recent source to measure the popularity of classical composers/works among the general audience after all.

In my opinion, the results suggest that there could be an effort on the part of the midia to popularize some remarkable pieces of classical music that are not in the list.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

KUSC scheduled the Top-100 Countdown to end on April 1. And of course as always it ended with the celebratory playing of Beethoven's 9th.

This seemed to be an effort to build up listenership a bit before the big pledge drive, which started the very next day! And pledge drives always end with...Beethoven's 9th.


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

KenOC said:


> KUSC scheduled the Top-100 Countdown to end on April 1. And of course as always it ended with the celebratory playing of Beethoven's 9th.
> 
> This seemed to be an effort to build up listenership a bit before the big pledge drive, which started the very next day! And pledge drives always end with...Beethoven's 9th.


I think that it's great that they play Beethoven's 9th, without any doubts a major work of art in my perspective, to their public as an incentive for them to enjoy classical music, but this is already a piece with awesome popularity. I wonder if it could be possible to make a step further and give them some great but less popular music, including other Beethoven pieces such as the Missa Solemnis for example. Or a piece such as the Choral Fantasy, the true and very imaginative predecessor to his Op. 125 in my humble opinion.

Perhaps this is already done in the big pledge drive and I'm just uninformed though.


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## bharbeke (Mar 4, 2013)

Does KUSC have to generally play works of less than an hour without interruption due to station break rules? Since the 9th usually clocks in at over an hour, it does become a bigger deal to the public radio listeners to get to hear the whole thing.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

KUSC usually pays longer works in the evening, after 7:00 PM. There's no problem with works of more than an hour -- they played Mahler's 3rd the other day without interruption.


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## zelenka (Feb 8, 2018)

I love ranking lists, and I love how these for fun lists trigger people even more


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

Did I say I have no comment about this list, or this post.

I am happy that someone is listening to "classical" music, whether it be Beethoven's Ninth or Chopin's Second Piano Concerto -- or anything in between!


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## Brahmsianhorn (Feb 17, 2017)

Better list:


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