# Passionate people; to you, what are the most emotionally impacting 20th C works?



## Dasein

Hoping that the pedantic, scholarly, classifying, collecting, and other such elements that can creep into music hobbyism are laid aside here. This is for the raw, unthinking, animalistic appreciation; hooting, weeping, spastically flailing in your arm chair or even melting into a puddle at the base of it is the name of the game. This is King Lear on the brink and Ophelia in the river. No appreciation for revolutionary ideas or experimentation; the mind has no place here.

The main reason I put 20th century is because I haven't listened to a sizable amount of it and am curious; but it's not 100% strict, so if there's something that's really, really been grabbing you recently feel free to post it.

I'm willing to bet everyone here has at least one piece that absolutely destroys them on a visceral level. Of course when it comes down to purely emotional things they can be fickle, even down to daily or hourly moods, but if it touches your soul on any sort of regular basis I want to hear about it. 

If you feel that this sort of description or classification is lacking, or naively youthful, or you want shake fists at each other I'm all ears (and fists); also any thoughts you might have are welcome, positive or negative, or purely philosophical.

Thanks for reading.


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## Merl

Arvo Part's 'Fratres for Strings and Percussion'. So beautiful.


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## Art Rock

Gorecki's third for me. Heartbreaking, yet I can't stop listening.

And Mahler of course (Kindertotenlieder, Das Lied von der Erde, Symphony 9).


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## MusicSybarite

This definitely has to be here: Schnittke's Cello concerto No. 1

Also:

Penderecki - Threnody for the victims of Hiroshima (visceral)
Kalnins - Symphony No. 5 (incredibly touching)
Respighi - Suite from 'Belkis, Regina di Saba', Vetrate di Chiesa (both works are wonderful in every sense of the word)
Prokofiev - Cantata for the 20th anniversary of the October Revolution
Schmidt - Symphony No. 2, Intermezzo from 'Notre Dame' (both works are disproportionately romantic and passionate)


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## MusicSybarite

Four more pieces:

Schoenberg - Gurrelieder
Holmboe - Symphony No. 8 'Boreale'
Casella - Symphony No. 2
Brian - Symphony No. 1 'Gothic'


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## Strange Magic

Two early Hovhaness works: Piano Concerto No. 1, _Lousadzak_, with Maro Ajemian at the keyboard, please!; Violin Concerto No. 2, with Anahid Ajemian, violin.

Plus so many more.....


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## Pat Fairlea

Barber's Violin Concerto. No contest.

Part's Cantus In Memoriam Benjamin Britten a good runner-up.


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## CnC Bartok

I'm not sure why 20th century works should in any way be less likely to destroy on a visceral level than music of any other century....

For starters there are too many pieces by Bartok and Janacek to even mention! But for starters, Cantata profana by the former, The Cunning Little Vixen by the latter.

Oh, and Martinu's Opening of the Wells, Stravinsky's Apollo and Kodaly's Psalmus Hungaricus get me going every time.....


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## Marsilius

Maybe I'm being superficial, but for me Rachmaninoff is right up there with the piano concerto no. 2 (1901) and the second symphony (1907).


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## Manxfeeder

Dasein said:


> I'm willing to bet everyone here has at least one piece that absolutely destroys them on a visceral level.


Pieces that take me outside of myself are Beethoven's C# minor string quartet, the A minor quartet, and Piano Sonata 111. In pieces like this, I've heard them, studied them, marked up the score, and now they're, I guess you could say, assimilated. One piece that gets me humbled, then out of my chair and stomping around, then staring upward in transcendence is Beethoven's Missa Solemnis.


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## Roger Knox

Dasein said:


> Hoping that the pedantic, scholarly, classifying, collecting, and other such elements that can creep into music hobbyism are laid aside here.
> 
> 
> 
> I've never heard of hobbyism and do not think "music hobbyism" adequately describes TalkClassical. People engage with varying amounts of experience and kinds of interests. As I understand it this site is intended to be open and welcoming to everyone. I disagree with your polarization: in music reason and passion can work together, and I believe their integration is valuable when talking about classical music.
Click to expand...


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## Dasein

> I've never heard of hobbyism and do not think "music hobbyism" adequately describes TalkClassical. People engage with varying amounts of experience and kinds of interests. As I understand it this site is intended to be open and welcoming to everyone. I disagree with your polarization: in music reason and passion can work together, and I believe their integration is valuable when talking about classical music.


If I thought that music hobbyism was the entirety of TalkClassical I would have just said TalkClassical instead of music hobbyism. This is a post in a forum, in other words it's a subcontext to a context; it's entire purpose is to distinguish between what it wants to be and what it doesn't want to be using text; it's necessarily exclusive. TalkClassical includes the totality of what can bring together interest in music; this thread is about one single element, PURPOSELY. Obviously reason and passion can work together; that's why I had to be so specific in separating them. Almost every single thread in here is about an integrated take, homogeneity can be so tiresome; and who's to say their dis-integration isn't also valuable?


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## Joe B

Dasein said:


> The main reason I put 20th century is because I haven't listened to a sizable amount of it and am curious; but it's not 100% strict, so if there's something that's really, really been grabbing you recently feel free to post it.
> 
> I'm willing to bet everyone here has at least one piece that absolutely destroys them on a visceral level.


You're not kidding. There are several 21st Century choral works that get a visceral reaction from me each time I play them. Currently at the top of my list is Will Todd's "Ode to a Nightingale". I also find Todd's "The Call of Wisdom" (referring to the entire disc) performed by Tenebrae and the English Chamber Orchestra puts me into a much needed mental and emotional space.

20th Century: Howard Hanson's "Symphony #3". I'm also really beginning to develop a need for more works by 20th Century British composers.


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## Kiki

Being blown away viscerally rather than intellectually?

Rautavaara’s Angels and Visitations, for a terrifying yet mesmerising experience.

Berg’s Violin Concerto, for its haunting beauty and lyricism.

Schnittke’s Viola Concerto, for a spellbinding, emotional rollercoaster ride. I also second on Schinittke's Cell Concerto No. 1, but I came to know the Viola Concerto first, and kind of anticipated what to expect from his Cello Concerto No. 1, so it did not shock me as much; although later on I found out his late music has proved how wrong I was to think that I knew what to expect...

Le Sacre du printemps did also when I first heard it, but perhaps these days we have gotten too used to hearing it so it has ceased to shock anymore?


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## Guest

Out of orchestral (or at least, large ensemble) works:

Boulez: _Répons_
Lachenmann: Ausklang
Shostakovich: Symphony no. 4
Lutosławski: Livre pour orchestre
Schnittke: Symphony no. 1


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## Thomyum2

Dasein said:


> I'm willing to bet everyone here has at least one piece that absolutely destroys them on a visceral level. Of course when it comes down to purely emotional things they can be fickle, even down to daily or hourly moods, but if it touches your soul on any sort of regular basis I want to hear about it.


Viscerally speaking, for me, the Shostakovich Symphony #5 stands out. The finale never fails to give me chills.



Dasein said:


> This is for the raw, unthinking, animalistic appreciation; hooting, weeping, spastically flailing in your arm chair or even melting into a puddle at the base of it is the name of the game. This is King Lear on the brink and Ophelia in the river. No appreciation for revolutionary ideas or experimentation; the mind has no place here.
> 
> If you feel that this sort of description or classification is lacking, or naively youthful, or you want shake fists at each other I'm all ears (and fists); also any thoughts you might have are welcome, positive or negative, or purely philosophical.


I'll never turn down an offer to share philosophical thoughts!  Your classification is not lacking or naïve at all - the ability to appreciate music from the heart and at an emotional level is an essential part of the spirit of the art (and the responses to your thread have provided me with a lot of intriguing-sounding new pieces to add to my listening list). But I would just challenge the idea that 'the mind has no place here' - I think the mind and heart can cooperate in this endeavor and in fact are always doing so. In my own encounters with music, listening to music with the participation of the mind - done with care and in moderation - more often enhances the emotional and visceral experience than detracts from it; that's certainly the case for me in the Shostakovich. But I think that even when we're not aware of it, the mind it interpreting music at a subconscious level - just as we're able to understand the meaning of language without being conscious of the rules of the vocabulary and grammar that give it that meaning.


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## leonsm

MusicSybarite said:


> This definitely has to be here: Schnittke's Cello concerto No. 1
> 
> Also:
> 
> Penderecki - Threnody for the victims of Hiroshima (visceral)
> Kalnins - Symphony No. 5 (incredibly touching)
> Respighi - Suite from 'Belkis, Regina di Saba', Vetrate di Chiesa (both works are wonderful in every sense of the word)
> Prokofiev - Cantata for the 20th anniversary of the October Revolution
> Schmidt - Symphony No. 2, Intermezzo from 'Notre Dame' (both works are disproportionately romantic and passionate)


I totally concur with you in the 'Cello Concerto no. 1' by Schnittke. The whole work is amazing, but the final movement is something from another level, it's a painfully beautiful piece of music.


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## MarkW

For sheer power, Bartok's Miraculous Mandarin
For wistfulness, Das Lied von der Erde
For a feeling of immense pride at being a human being, Tippett's The Midsummer Marriage


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## jalexis

Anything by Tchaikovsky appeals to me.


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## Steerpike

Here's a short list, emotionally compelling for different reasons: -

Ralph Vaughan Williams - Symphony no. 3 'Pastoral'
Jean Sibelius - Symphony no. 4
John Tavener - Akhmatova Songs
Malcolm Arnold - Symphony no. 5
Dmitri Shostakovich - Symphony no.7 'Leningrad'


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## Manxfeeder

Thomyum2 said:


> Viscerally speaking, for me, the Shostakovich Symphony #5 stands out. The finale never fails to give me chills.


When I was 18, I discovered in one of my closets the 78s of Shostakovich's 5th, collected by my deceased uncle in the late '40s. I didn't know much about his music then, but there was something about the sound of those records or the intensity of the performance, whoever it was, that always brought me at some point to tears.


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## Kjetil Heggelund

Emotional impact on me was...
Shostakovich-Symphony no. 5
Schnittke-Concerto Grosso no. 1 & Piano concerto
Messiaen-Turangalila Symphony
Britten-Nocturnal
I always love to hear those


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## Steerpike

Marsilius said:


> Maybe I'm being superficial, but for me Rachmaninoff is right up there with the piano concerto no. 2 (1901) and the second symphony (1907).


Yes, I like those too.


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## Mifek

Stravinsky - The Rite of Spring
Rachmaninoff - Piano Concerto no. 2 
Sibelius - Violin Concerto 
Prokofiev - Piano Concerto no. 2 
Górecki - Symphony no. 3
Prokofiev - Piano Concerto no. 1
Shostakovich - String Quartet no. 8
Prokofiev - Violin Concerto no. 2 
Prokofiev - Violin Concerto no. 1
Sibelius - Symphony no. 2 
Puccini - Tosca 
Prokofiev - Alexander Nevsky
Sibelius: Pelleas et Melisande
Shostakovich - Symphony no. 8 
Shostakovich - Symphony no. 13

Of course, there are many other 20th century works that I value at least as much, but with no such strong personal emotions involved. Also, those strong emotions are often associated with specific performances only.


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## CnC Bartok

Marsilius said:


> Maybe I'm being superficial, but for me Rachmaninoff is right up there with the piano concerto no. 2 (1901) and the second symphony (1907).


Be as superficial as you wish! You aren't alone in liking such music!!!


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## Brahmsian Colors

Steerpike said:


> Here's a short list, emotionally compelling for different reasons: -
> 
> Ralph Vaughan Williams - Symphony no. 3 'Pastoral'
> Jean Sibelius - Symphony no. 4
> Dmitri Shostakovich - Symphony no.7 'Leningrad'


A big YES for the three of them:clap:


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## Blancrocher

Agree with the Schnittke pieces mentioned above, though I've probably been most moved by that composer's chamber music—the awesome piano quintet, for example, and the 2nd string quartet (where the composer, incidentally, engages directly with a real-world tragedy). Similarly, I'd highlight Shosty's preludes and fugues, viola sonata, 8th string quartet, and piano quintet. But then everything that these composers wrote seems saturated with emotion!

Others: 

Sibelius: Symphonies 4-7
Stravinsky: Symphony of Psalms
Berg and Walton's Violin Concertos
Gubaidulina's recent triple concerto


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## Gordontrek

I have to second Shostakovich's 5th symphony and 8th string quartet. 
Others:
Barber- Adagio for Strings
Corigliano- Symphony 1
Ravel- Daphnis et Chloe
Holst- The Planets (esp. Mars, Venus, Saturn)
Sibelius- Tapiola
If I may also suggest a film score- John Williams' Close Encounters of the Third Kind was very impactful to me when I first heard it. The cue played at the end (The Visitors/Bye Bye) is absolutely stunning.


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## fliege

I would make another vote for the Barber's violin concerto.


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## Roger Knox

Debussy - La Mer
Tippett - Fantasia Concertante on a Theme of Corelli
Rzewski - The People United Will Never be Defeated


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## Kjetil Heggelund

I forgot the Rite of Spring!


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## Roger Knox

Stravinsky - The Firebird
Schmidt - Symphony No. 4
Bruch - Violin Concerto No. 1
Brahms - Tragic Overture


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## MusicSybarite

Roger Knox said:


> Stravinsky - The Firebird
> Schmidt - Symphony No. 4
> Bruch - Violin Concerto No. 1
> Brahms - Tragic Overture


The Bruch and the Brahms aren't from the 20th century


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## Roger Knox

MusicSybarite said:


> The Bruch and the Brahms aren't from the 20th century


Oops! Two others are:

Marx - Eine Herbstsymphonie
Durufle - Requiem


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## SONNET CLV

A lot of music has happened in the 20th century, and it remains diverse in the "classical", jazz and pop veins. But for me, the Stravinsky _Rite of Spring _marks the century. It features a bit of everything that the best of 20th century music entails -- fine melody (that opening tune), savage rhythms (you know the passage), complexity, sincerity, beauty, tonality and atonality … just perfect it seems. The _Rite_ looks backwards as well as foreword, and there's really no other piece quite like it, even in Stravinsky's oeuvre. That's my pick.


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