10 Greatest Symphonies

[jsp]

I have recently discovered a book called the 50 greatest composers and
their 1000 greatest works. The book groups composers into categories of
greatness (obviously subjective).

I am interested in finding a list of say the 10 greatest symphonies,
5 or 6 greatest violin concertos and 5 or 6 greatest piano concertos.

For example on author states that the two mountain peaks of the violin
concerto are Brahms and Beethovens with many foothills in between (some
large foothills). Likewise I am interested in a list that also compares
the great symphonies and concertos and how they stand in relation to each
other, why are they great or very great etc.

[Peter Lemken]

jsp <jeffrey....@gdc.com> wrote:
>I have recently discovered a book called the 50 greatest composers and
>their 1000 greatest works. The book groups composers into categories of
>greatness (obviously subjective).
>
>I am interested in finding a list of say the 10 greatest symphonies,
>5 or 6 greatest violin concertos and 5 or 6 greatest piano concertos.

Such a list ist _very_ subjective, but here is mine anyway:

Symphonies:

Beethoven 4,9
Brahms 1,4
Schumann 2
Tchaikovsky 5, 6
Mahler 2,6
Shostakovich 5

(Only ten??? Where do I leave the other 40 or 50 great ones?)

Violin concerti:

Mendelssohn e-minor
Mozart A-major
Brahms
Tchaikovsky
Shostakovich 1,2

Piano concerti:

Bach d-minor
Mozart K 488
Beethoven 4
Brahms 2
Rachmaninoff 3
Prokofiev 2

(Not to mention Schumann, Grieg, Liszt, Scriabin, Shostakovich, Ravel,
Chopin etc.....)

Peter Lemken
Berlin

[kousuke ishimatsu]

In <85721033...@msn-066.b-1.msn.eunet.de> Peter Lemken

My greatest 10 symphonies:
Beethoven 7,9
Brahms 1,2
Mahler 1,2,5
Tchaikovsky 5,6
Saint-Saens 3

[Br. Matt Szatkowski]

Here's my list: Mozart's 39, 40, 41;
Dvorak's 9;
Beethoven's 3, 4, 5, 7, 9;
Tchaikovsky's 5.

Violin Concerti--Bach's 6 Brandenburgs,
Mendolsohnn's,
Brahm's,
Tchaikovsky's.
Vivaldi's 'Four Seasons.'

Piano Concerti--Beethoven's 3 & 5,
Tchaikovsky's 1,
Rachmaninoff's 2.

Comments???

Matt Szat

[John Grabowski]

In <Pine.OSF.3.91.97030...@odin.cbu.edu> "Br. Matt

Szatkowski" <msza...@odin.cbu.edu> writes:
>
>Here's my list: Mozart's 39, 40, 41;
> Dvorak's 9;
> Beethoven's 3, 4, 5, 7, 9;
> Tchaikovsky's 5.

Great list, but what's the Dvorak 9 doing in there? Check out No. 7.
What a ride!

> Violin Concerti--Bach's 6 Brandenburgs,

*All* of them considered as VC's?

> Mendolsohnn's,
> Brahm's,
> Tchaikovsky's.
> Vivaldi's 'Four Seasons.'

Berg's. Beethoven's. Bach's. Barber's. (Not trying to harp on the
B's here...) Sibelius. Prokofiev's. Others I'm blanking out on...

> Piano Concerti--Beethoven's 3 & 5,

4!!!!

Mozart's No. 9, 17, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 27. (Phew! That's
quite a list.)

> Tchaikovsky's 1,

Used to hate it. Now I can enjoy it once we get past the square,
pounding, bombastic opening theme.)

> Rachmaninoff's 2.

I enjoy getting past that to his 3rd! And while it's not a concerto,
check out Rachy's Preludes Opp. 23 and 32 as well. Those and the 3rd
are the Rachmaninoff I'd want to take to a desert island with me.

Brahms'. Barber's. Porkofiev's 1, 2, 3, 5. Ravel's. And D'Indy's
Symphony on a French Mt. Air, if you accept that as a piano concerto.

>Comments???

You got 'em.

John

[Eric Schissel]

In article <5fabc2$m...@dfw-ixnews9.ix.netcom.com>,

John Grabowski <joh...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>In <Pine.OSF.3.91.97030...@odin.cbu.edu> "Br. Matt
>Szatkowski" <msza...@odin.cbu.edu> writes:
>>
>>Here's my list: Mozart's 39, 40, 41;

38.

>> Dvorak's 9;

6 or 8.

>> Beethoven's 3, 4, 5, 7, 9;

2, 3, 4, 6-9.

>> Tchaikovsky's 5.
>
>Great list, but what's the Dvorak 9 doing in there? Check out No. 7.
>What a ride!
>
>> Violin Concerti--Bach's 6 Brandenburgs,
>
>*All* of them considered as VC's?
>

>> Brahm's,

>
>Berg's. Beethoven's. Bach's. Barber's. (Not trying to harp on the
>B's here...) Sibelius. Prokofiev's. Others I'm blanking out on...

Dvorak's... Rubbra's... Miaskovskii's... Brian's... Elgar's...
Walton's... Shostakovich 1&2... Dohnanyi 1 (haven't heard 2 yet)

>
>> Piano Concerti--Beethoven's 3 & 5,
>
>4!!!!

2!!!!!

>
>Mozart's No. 9, 17, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 27. (Phew! That's
>quite a list.)

16 more than 22.

>
>> Tchaikovsky's 1,
>
>Used to hate it. Now I can enjoy it once we get past the square,
>pounding, bombastic opening theme.)

Prefer 2, myself. Don't have much good to say about any of the 3.

>> Rachmaninoff's 2.
>
>I enjoy getting past that to his 3rd! And while it's not a concerto,
>check out Rachy's Preludes Opp. 23 and 32 as well. Those and the 3rd
>are the Rachmaninoff I'd want to take to a desert island with me.

Much, much prefer 4. 1 has its points.

>
>Brahms'. Barber's. Porkofiev's 1, 2, 3, 5. Ravel's. And D'Indy's
>Symphony on a French Mt. Air, if you accept that as a piano concerto.

Schoenberg's. Sessions'. Tubin's concertino. Prokofiev 4 (along with 2
his best.) Several of the Saint-Saens... perhaps all 5.

>
>>Comments???
>
>You got 'em.

Likewise. Of course, I've had to omit a lot of my personal favs...
especially in the symphony department...
This post's getting mighty long, after all.

-Eric Schissel

>
>
>John
>
>

[John Bicketts]

Ooh, this will be hard. I have quite a list.

Symphonies:
Beethoven's 3,5,6,7,9
Mozart 38,40,41
Haydn 94
Schubert 8

Sorry for the classical period bias. It's a stage I'm in.

Keyboard Concerti:
Mozart- 21,24,23
Beethoven 4
Bach -1 in Cm

Violin Concerti
Beethoven- D
Mozart- No.5
Bach- Dbl. Concerto, No.1
Vivaldi- Four Seasons

[Q.]

jsp wrote:
>
> I have recently discovered a book called the 50 greatest composers and
> their 1000 greatest works. The book groups composers into categories of
> greatness (obviously subjective).
>
> I am interested in finding a list of say the 10 greatest symphonies,
> 5 or 6 greatest violin concertos and 5 or 6 greatest piano concertos.
>

> For example on author states that the two mountain peaks of the violin
> concerto are Brahms and Beethovens with many foothills in between (some
> large foothills). Likewise I am interested in a list that also compares
> the great symphonies and concertos and how they stand in relation to each
> other, why are they great or very great etc.

I won't name individual symphonies, but I'll name symphonists:

Mahler
Beethoven
Shostakovich
Brahms
Sibelius
Nielsen
Mendelssohn
Bruckner

Violin Concertos:
Brahms (the mother of them all)
Beethoven
Sibelius
Bartok (esp. No. 2)
Berg

I guess the staples of the standard repertoire are Brahms, Beethoven,
Sibelius, Tchaikovsky, Mendelssohn and maybe pieces like the Bruch (No.
1), but for me (I'm a violinist myself), the pieces in the list above
rank highest, with Tchaikovsky, Mendelssohn, Bruch et al just a notch
below. Also, the Mozart concertos are harder to play well than any of
those three romantic concertos.

Time is running low, so I'll save the piano concertos for another day :)

Rgds,

Q.
--

*Remove asterix from email address to send reply*

[Janghwan Chung]

Try Vivaldi's concerto for 2 cellos, strings, and continuo in G minor (RV
531).

[Janghwan Chung]

On Sat, 1 Mar 1997, Br. Matt Szatkowski wrote:

> Violin Concerti--Bach's 6 Brandenburgs,

> Mendolsohnn's,
> Brahm's,
> Tchaikovsky's.
> Vivaldi's 'Four Seasons.'
>
>

Try Vivaldi's RV 356 in A minor. It's pretty good.

[Michael Laderman]

jsp <jeffrey....@gdc.com> wrote:

>I have recently discovered a book called the 50 greatest composers and
>their 1000 greatest works. The book groups composers into categories of
>greatness (obviously subjective).

>I am interested in finding a list of say the 10 greatest symphonies,
>5 or 6 greatest violin concertos and 5 or 6 greatest piano concertos.

>For example on author states that the two mountain peaks of the violin
>concerto are Brahms and Beethovens with many foothills in between (some
>large foothills). Likewise I am interested in a list that also compares
>the great symphonies and concertos and how they stand in relation to each
>other, why are they great or very great etc.

Well, here's my 2 cents:

I won't limit myself to 10 symphonies. In no particular order, the
greatest symphonies I know are any Haydn symphony I've ever heard (the
1st is already a great symphony!), all 9 Beethoven symphonies, the 4
by Brahms, Mozart from around the 32nd on, Mahler's 9 symphonies plus
Das Lied von der Erde (which he admitted was really his 10th
symphony), some of Carl Philipp Emanuel's (I don't know them all),
Mendelssohn's "Italian" symphony, Schubert's 9th...I'm going on and
on, aren't I?

Violin concerti in the very great category would include those by
Beethoven, Brahms, Mozart (the A major, with the Turkish March in the
last movement, is a favorite of mine), J.S. Bach, Mendelssohn, Berg,
and Prokofiev's 1st, but there are many other worthy violin concerti.

My favorite piano concerti are those by Beethoven (I especially like
the 4th), Mozart, Brahms, Schumann, Tchaikowsky, the Bach keyboard
concerto, and the Bartok and Prokofiev concerti (I forget the numbers:
Prokofiev 3rd I think??).

Other concerti which I would rank among the greatest works would
include the Mozart Clarinet Concerto (I also love the Bassoon
Concerto), Haydn's Trumpet Concerto, a number of works by Vivaldi
including the Four Seasons (which has been a favorite of mine since I
was 4), Haydn's 1st Cello Concerto - and can I mention Tchaikowsky's
"Rococo Variations," which are not technically a concerto?

[粥粉麵飯]

In article <Pine.OSF.3.91.97030...@odin.cbu.edu>,

"Br. Matt Szatkowski" <msza...@odin.cbu.edu> wrote:
>Here's my list: Mozart's 39, 40, 41;

> Dvorak's 9;

> Beethoven's 3, 4, 5, 7, 9;

> Tchaikovsky's 5.

Mozart's 39 & 41;
Beethoven's 3, 5, & 9;
Dvorak's 7 & 9;
Brahms' 1;
Schubert's 9;
Tchaikovsky's 6.

[Jeff Smithpeters]

Mozart's 41 and 35
Beethoven's 9, 7 and 5
Mahler's 9, 5 and 6
Schubert's 8

[John Bicketts]

M

> Well, here's my 2 cents:
>
> I won't limit myself to 10 symphonies. In no particular order, the
> greatest symphonies I know are any Haydn symphony I've ever heard (the
> 1st is already a great symphony!), all 9 Beethoven symphonies, the 4
> by Brahms, Mozart from around the 32nd on, Mahler's 9 symphonies plus
> Das Lied von der Erde (which he admitted was really his 10th
> symphony), some of Carl Philipp Emanuel's (I don't know them all),
> Mendelssohn's "Italian" symphony, Schubert's 9th...I'm going on and
> on, aren't I?

Have you tried Mozart's 25th in G minor? It's one of those early
works (made at age 17) but it's really good. Very passionate, atleast
as much as the 40th.

[John Bicketts]

Janghwan Chung wrote:
>
> On Sat, 1 Mar 1997, John Bicketts wrote:
>
> > Ooh, this will be hard. I have quite a list.
> >
> > Symphonies:
> > Beethoven's 3,5,6,7,9> >

etc etc

> Try Vivaldi's concerto for 2 cellos, strings, and continuo in G minor (RV
> 531).

I think I have that one (on a scratched up LP i'm afraid :^( ),
and I agree. It's a powerful piece.

[Emperor Dan Itsara]

jsp <jeffrey....@gdc.com> wrote:
>I have recently discovered a book called the 50 greatest composers and
>their 1000 greatest works. The book groups composers into categories of
>greatness (obviously subjective).
>
>I am interested in finding a list of say the 10 greatest symphonies,
>5 or 6 greatest violin concertos and 5 or 6 greatest piano concertos.

Opinions will definitely vary. Here are some of mine (in no particular
order):

Symphonies
__________

Dvorak 9 "New World"
Saint-Saens 3 "Organ"
Beethoven 4
Beethoven 5
Beethoven 9
Brahms 4
Schubert 7(9) C major
Tchaikovsky 2
Shostakovich 5
Dvorak 8

Violin Concerti
_______________

Mendelssohn e-minor
Tchaikovsky
Dvorak
Barber
Prokofiev 2

[Q.]

Br. Matt Szatkowski wrote:

(snip)

> Violin Concerti--Bach's 6 Brandenburgs,

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
The Brandenburgs are not violin concerti. They are concerti grossi,
effectively, for mixed soloists and strings.

Rgds,

Q.
--

[c. dana jackson]

Hhhhhmmm... For now let me name a first group of the 10 greatest
symphonies -- and leave the violin and piano concerti to more
thought. :-)

(listed in no particular order):

Sibelius 5th symphony
Beethoven 5th and 9th symphonies
Brahms 4th symphony
Mozart 41st symphony
Schubert 'Unfinished Symphony'
Mahler 2nd symphony
Tchaikovsky 5th and 6th symphonies
Haydn 104th symphony

Dana
cjac...@fuse.net

"...take your dissonance like a man."
-- Charles Ives

[Paul mastr]

Any list of the greatest symphonies must include Bruckner's 7th and 8th

[Lionel Tacchini]

Peter Lemken wrote:
>
> jsp <jeffrey....@gdc.com> wrote:
> >I have recently discovered a book called the 50 greatest composers and
> >their 1000 greatest works. The book groups composers into categories of
> >greatness (obviously subjective).
> >
> >I am interested in finding a list of say the 10 greatest symphonies,
> >5 or 6 greatest violin concertos and 5 or 6 greatest piano concertos.
>

Ok, here are my favorites :

Symphonies :
Do I really have to select only 10 ?
Bruckner 8, 9 (it hurts to leave the others out)
Beethoven 5, 7
Mahler 6, 9
Mozart 38, 41
Haydn 92, 98

Others I just need to mention :
Bruckner 4, 5, 6
Beethoven 4
Mahler 10 (completed)
Mozart 39, 40
Haydn 88, 95, 96, 97, 99, 103, 104

Violin concerti
this one is limited and very personal, since I don't really like
violin concerti. Here are the exceptions :
Ligeti
Lutoslawski's Partita (not a "concerto", but well ... I like it)
JS Bach (both of them + the double concerto)
Schumann

Piano concerti :
Beethoven's 3rd & 4th
Furtwaengler's "Symphonic piano concerto"
Schumann
Brahms' 1st
Bartok's 1st
(Sorry Mozart, no room left, although 20, 22, 23 & 27 are my
favorites)

Lionel Tacchini ___ /---\
_.-| | (|~ ~|)
{ | | /=(_*_)=
Irren ist menschlich, "-.|___| / ( ) ))
aber wer richtigen Mist bauen will, .--'-`-. / ( ___ )))
braucht einen Computer .+|______|--- () ()

[Diane Wilson]

|> jsp wrote:
|> >
|> > I have recently discovered a book called the 50 greatest composers and
|> > their 1000 greatest works. The book groups composers into categories of
|> > greatness (obviously subjective).
|> >
|> > I am interested in finding a list of say the 10 greatest symphonies,
|> > 5 or 6 greatest violin concertos and 5 or 6 greatest piano concertos.

This will be a highly personal and subjective list. I admit it!

Symphonies, in no order:
Shostakovich 5, 8, 10
Beethoven 5, 7
Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique
Schumann 4
Dvorak 9
Mahler - still exploring, but at least one should go here
Mozart 40

Violin concertos:
I'm a former cellist, so my acquaintance with this repertoire is rather thin.
Shostakovich 1
Bartok 2
Prokofiev 1 & 2
Lalo Symphonie Espagnole (is it a concerto? isn't it?)

Piano Concertos:
My 20th century bias will show even more here!
Prokofiev 2, 3
Poulenc, Aubade for Piano and 18 Instruments
Rachmaninoff 3
Gershwin

Might as well do the cello concertos.....
Dvorak
Shostakovich 1
Walton
Prokofiev Symphony Concertante
I'm not fond of some of the standards: Lalo, Saint-Saens, Elgar, Boccherini.
I'm still getting acquainted with the Haydn concertos; they belong here.

And one completely off-the-wall concerto:
Leopold Mozart, Concerto for Alphorn, performed by Dennis Brain on a garden
hose, Hoffnung Festival Orchestra accompanying.
--
Diane Wilson | Attention is the primary currency in
anon-...@anon.twwells.com | an information economy.
http://www.lava.net/~dewilson/ | --John Perry Barlow
http://www.lava.net/~dewilson/asd/ |

[David Bluestone]

Why must it?

David

[James H. Young]

On Sun, 2 Mar 1997, Janghwan Chung wrote:

> On Sat, 1 Mar 1997, Br. Matt Szatkowski wrote:
>
> > Violin Concerti--Bach's 6 Brandenburgs,

> > Mendolsohnn's,
> > Brahm's,
> > Tchaikovsky's.
> > Vivaldi's 'Four Seasons.'
> >
> >
> Try Vivaldi's RV 356 in A minor. It's pretty good.

Aaarg! The Brandenburg Concerti are NOT violin conceri. #6 doesn't even
have a violin part!!!!!!!

(sorry, you struck a nerve)

[Kastchei]

Rachmaninoff 2
Dvorak 9
Tchaikovski 4
Mahler 5,7 (btw, i don't have all the mahler ones so more could be on the
list)
Beethoven 9
Hindemith "Mathis der Maler"
Shostakovich 5
Prokofiev 5
Rimsky-Korsakov "Scheherazade"

as you can see i am very much slanted towards late-romantic/20th century
works. i don't particularly care for classical symphonies and well there
just don't exist any baroque symphonies. btw, i think Mozart is way
over-rated. very dry music. no emotion. or maybe that's just the
recordings i've heard. any suggestions of good mozart recordings?

mike

*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*
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*^* *^* *^*
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*^* Michael Lee Cooney *^* But never really pray without surrender; *^*
*^* *^* You can fight without ever winning, *^*
*^* ml...@acpub.duke.edu *^* But never ever win without a fight. *^*
*^* *^* -Rush *^*
*^* *^* *^*
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*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*

[James H. Young]

On 2 Mar 1997, Jeff Smithpeters wrote:

> jsz...@hotmail.com (=B5=B0=AF=BB=C4=D1=B6=BA) wrote:
> >In article <Pine.OSF.3.91.97030...@odin.cbu.edu>,
> > "Br. Matt Szatkowski" <msza...@odin.cbu.edu> wrote:
> >>Here's my list: Mozart's 39, 40, 41;

> >>=09=09 Dvorak's 9;
> >>=09=09 Beethoven's 3, 4, 5, 7, 9;
> >>=09=09 Tchaikovsky's 5.

> >
> >Mozart's 39 & 41;
> >Beethoven's 3, 5, & 9;
> >Dvorak's 7 & 9;
> >Brahms' 1;
> >Schubert's 9;
> >Tchaikovsky's 6.

>=20

> Mozart's 41 and 35
> Beethoven's 9, 7 and 5
> Mahler's 9, 5 and 6
> Schubert's 8

I can't resist:
(in no particular order):
Mozart 40
Beethoven 5,7,9
Mahler 2
Shostakovitch 4
Barber Symphony in one Mvt.
Tchaikovsky 4,5,6

[Janghwan Chung]

>
> Have you tried Mozart's 25th in G minor? It's one of those early
> works (made at age 17) but it's really good. Very passionate, atleast
> as much as the 40th.
>

Actually, better than 40. 40 is overrated.

[Michael Laderman]

John Bicketts <sfei...@mach3ww.com> wrote:

>Have you tried Mozart's 25th in G minor? It's one of those early
>works (made at age 17) but it's really good. Very passionate, atleast
>as much as the 40th.

I like it too; I'm just not sure it belongs on a list of the greatest
symphonies of all time.

[Janghwan Chung]

On Mon, 3 Mar 1997, Kastchei wrote:

>
> as you can see i am very much slanted towards late-romantic/20th century
> works. i don't particularly care for classical symphonies and well there
> just don't exist any baroque symphonies. btw, i think Mozart is way
> over-rated. very dry music. no emotion. or maybe that's just the
> recordings i've heard. any suggestions of good mozart recordings?
>

Well, this is not a symphony but Mozart's piano quartet in G minor is
pretty good.

[romney]

Both my grandmothers graduated New Eng Conservatory and my mother played
piano. Our house was full of good music in the 1930's when I was a
little boy. The older people used to talk about going to concerts as far
back as 1880 and hearing brilliant first performances of works such as
the Rachmaninoff Conc. 2, Strauss: Zarathustra, Grieg, Sibelius, Dvorak
and even Brahms. We listened to wonderful concerts on radio, on WQXR,
to the Longines symphonette and many more. But as we all got older and
they started taking me to concerts, the new music was no longer
brilliant, beautiful and exciting. Instead the conductors gave us Howard
Hansen, Paul Hindemith and people like that whose music made no sense.
They'd first give us most of a concert of moderns and then put in a
Beethoven symphony or concerto so we wouldn't all walk out at the
intermission. I'm thinking of BSO mostly but all concerts were like
that. The discord artists were supposed to be profound and modern and we
were warned that Wagner and Beethoven sounded strange and discordant too
when first heard. If we didn't like them our intelligence was
questioned. But this discordant abrasive music is now almost a hundred
years old and it still sounds strange, discordant and nasty and most
people who go to concerts still don't like it.
My relatives became sadder and more disillusioned as they aged . Me
too. These days I'd break down in tears of joy if anyone would
surprise us by writing a new concerto sounding like Grieg or Chopin or
Lizt or Rachmanoff and play it on the FM.... but it never happens. Why?
Warsaw Concerto is a bit like that but it is a mere fragment. Something
is dreadfully wrong with our culture and I know it. Does anyone else
feel that way?
What is wrong? Ed Romney http://wwwedromney.com

[David Cleary]

Sure, I'll play along--only one work per composer allowed. Subject to
change without notice BTW. Lots of fine stuff left off, unfortunately.

Symphonies:

Haydn #104
Mozart #41
Beethoven #7
Berlioz Symphony Fantastique
Mendelssohn #4
Brahms #2
Mahler #9
Ives #4
Stravinsky Symphony in C
Lutoslawski #3

Dave

[Roger L. Lustig]

romney wrote:

Both my grandmothers graduated New Eng Conservatory and my mother
played
piano. Our house was full of good music in the 1930's when I was a
little boy. The older people used to talk about going to concerts as
far
back as 1880 and hearing brilliant first performances of works such
as
the Rachmaninoff Conc. 2, Strauss: Zarathustra, Grieg, Sibelius,
Dvorak
and even Brahms. We listened to wonderful concerts on radio, on
WQXR,
to the Longines symphonette and many more. But as we all got older
and
they started taking me to concerts, the new music was no longer
brilliant, beautiful and exciting.

Not to you, perhaps. But a good many people loved the new music and
love it still!

Instead the conductors gave us Howard
Hansen, Paul Hindemith and people like that whose music made no
sense.

Howard Hanson?  Composer of the Romantic Symphony? You must be
kidding!

They'd first give us most of a concert of moderns and then put in a
Beethoven symphony or concerto so we wouldn't all walk out at the
intermission. I'm thinking of BSO mostly but all concerts were like
that.

Go back and look at your BSO programs. Even under Koussevitsky
it wasn't like that.

The discord artists were supposed to be profound and modern and we
were warned that Wagner and Beethoven sounded strange and discordant
too
when first heard. If we didn't like them our intelligence was
questioned. But this discordant abrasive music is now almost a
hundred
years old and it still sounds strange, discordant and nasty and
most
people who go to concerts still don't like it.

So why do they go?  I think a lot of people *do* like a lot of it. Are
you tellimg me that people really don't like Petrushka and the Rite of
Spring and the Bartok concerti?  How come they win Grammies and
sell lots of copies, I wonder?

My relatives became sadder and more disillusioned as they aged . Me

too. These days I'd break down in tears of joy if anyone would
surprise us by writing a new concerto sounding like Grieg or Chopin
or
Lizt or Rachmanoff and play it on the FM.... but it never happens.
Why?

Uh, because the old stuff is still popular, and no great artist in
history has
*ever* gotten anywhere by writing in old styles?

Warsaw Concerto is a bit like that but it is a mere fragment.

No, it's a piece of movie music. Not very good, either.

Something
is dreadfully wrong with our culture and I know it.

I agree. Why does our culture insist that the music of 200 years
ago is a timeless standard by which all other music must be measured?
The composers of that time certainly never felt that way...

Does anyone else feel that way?

Lots of people do. Doesn't change things, though; fake 19thC music
will never rate when compared to the real thing.

What is wrong?

What's wrong is that some people have confused 19thC concert
music with music per se. The symphony orchestra developed
primarily to play the music of that time, *in* its time and somewhat
after. But time keeps on passing, and the music has gotten older.

Roger

[Roger L. Lustig]

[Roger L. Lustig]

[Christopher Norman]

romney wrote:
>
> Both my grandmothers graduated New Eng Conservatory and my mother played
> piano. Our house was full of good music in the 1930's when I was a
> little boy. The older people used to talk about going to concerts as far
> back as 1880 and hearing brilliant first performances of works such as
> the Rachmaninoff Conc. 2, Strauss: Zarathustra, Grieg, Sibelius, Dvorak
> and even Brahms. We listened to wonderful concerts on radio, on WQXR,
> to the Longines symphonette and many more. But as we all got older and
> they started taking me to concerts, the new music was no longer
> brilliant, beautiful and exciting.

So I guess they never played Stravinsky's Rite of Spring. Shame.

Instead the conductors gave us Howard

> Hanson, Paul Hindemith and people like that whose music made no sense.

Did you bother to pay attention to the music? Give it a chance?
Approach it with an open mind? Neither Hindemith nor Hanson are
particularly "discordant", after all; in fact, most of their
music is tonal. I'd be interested to hear what Hanson piece
could have caused such distress.

> They'd first give us most of a concert of moderns and then put in a
> Beethoven symphony or concerto so we wouldn't all walk out at the
> intermission. I'm thinking of BSO mostly but all concerts were like
> that.

You lucky, lucky person. Performances of modern music are pretty
rare where I live.

> The discord artists were supposed to be profound and modern and we
> were warned that Wagner and Beethoven sounded strange and discordant > too when first heard.

A lesson worth heeding.

If we didn't like them our intelligence was
> questioned. But this discordant abrasive music is now almost a hundred
> years old and it still sounds strange, discordant and nasty and most
> people who go to concerts still don't like it.

You're generalizing an awful lot. Can you give names of pieces or
composers?

> My relatives became sadder and more disillusioned as they aged . Me
> too. These days I'd break down in tears of joy if anyone would
> surprise us by writing a new concerto sounding like Grieg or Chopin or

> Lizt or Rachmaninoff and play it on the FM.... but it never happens. Why?

Because it would be fake. It would be dishonest art. Above all,
it would be pastiche. A composer can't just pretend that the
last hundred years of music never happened, and revert to
the idiom of the mid-19th century.

Your basic problem is that you don't have any real experience of
the range of modern music. You seem to be under the impression
that all the music written since 1890 has been "discordant",
which is simply not the case.

> Warsaw Concerto is a bit like that but it is a mere fragment. Something
> is dreadfully wrong with our culture and I know it. Does anyone else
> feel that way? What is wrong?

Nothing! "Beautiful" music never went away...ask around this
newsgroup, and you'll get hundreds of recommendations of
"beautiful" music by modern composers. But the fact that
not all the music written in the last 100 years doesn't
fit the conventional notion of "beauty" is by no means an
indication that "something is dreadfully wrong with our
culture".

Christopher Norman

[Frankie Ho]

Hello!

jsp wrote:

> I have recently discovered a book called the 50 greatest composers and
> their 1000 greatest works. The book groups composers into categories of
> greatness (obviously subjective).

> I am interested in finding a list of say the 10 greatest symphonies,
> 5 or 6 greatest violin concertos and 5 or 6 greatest piano concertos.

Here are my favourite symphonies, VCs and PCs...

Symphonies : Beethoven - #7
Brahms - #1,4
Bruckner - #6,7
Haydn - #45
Mahler - #2,5,6
Mozart - #25,32,39
Prokofiev - #7 (I LOVE IT!)
Rachmaninoff - #2
Shostakovich - #5,7
Sibelius - #2
Stravinsky - Symphony in 3 movements
Tchaikovsky - #5
Weill - #2

Violin Con. : Brahms
Khachaturian
Mendelsohnn
Paganini - #1
Sibelius
Stravinsky
Tchaikovsky
Vivaldi (RV580 - for 4 violins)
Weill

Piano Con. : Bartok - #1
Beethoven - #3
Brahms - #1,2
Chopin - #2
Khachaturian
Liszt - #2, Totentanz
Moazrt - #20,24
Prokofiev - #3,5
Rachmaninoff - #3
Ravel - left-hand concerto
Schumann
Scriabin
Shostakovich - #2

Anybody out here wish to share with me??? :>

--

/> est wishes,
/_> /~
/~ rankie Ho

[fran...@netvigator.com]

[Dave Dalle]

romney (rom...@teleplex.net) writes:
> that. The discord artists were supposed to be profound and modern and we

> were warned that Wagner and Beethoven sounded strange and discordant too

> when first heard. If we didn't like them our intelligence was

> questioned. But this discordant abrasive music is now almost a hundred
> years old and it still sounds strange, discordant and nasty and most
> people who go to concerts still don't like it.

Some people who go to concerts do like it though, not all new music is
good, but some people find much of it exciting, brilliant, and maybe even
beautiful.

> My relatives became sadder and more disillusioned as they aged . Me
> too.

Why? There is no shortage of older beautiful music. In fact, more and
more music from previous eras in music is being recorded and played. Just
sometimes you'll have to share the stage with music that doesn't please
you, but you can't please all the people all of the time. I wouldn't fret
about it.

These days I'd break down in tears of joy if anyone would
> surprise us by writing a new concerto sounding like Grieg or Chopin or

> Liszt or Rachmanoff and play it on the FM.... but it never happens. Why?

Because they are dead; and have been dead for a long time. You can
not resurrect the past, and any attempt to copy it will simply sound
like a shallow copy. But, thankfully, we still have their music
around. Rather than having the original, unsurpassed music and shallow
imitations of it, I would want the unsurpassed, original music AND different,
new music. The best of both worlds, or in fact the best of many
worlds, as music from many different periods has come down to us. If
you don't like one of those periods, the most recent, that is fine, it
is your choice, but you still have all the older music as well, so why worry?

Dave
--
Tu as entendu l'histoire de l'homme qui est tombe de l'appartement? A chaque
niveau, il disait pour se rassurer: "A ce point la, tout va bien...a ce
point la, tout va bien...a ce point la, tout va bien" Mais c'est pas la
chute qui compte, c'est l'atterissage.

[Q.]

Dave Dalle wrote:

> romney (rom...@teleplex.net) writes:
> > that. The discord artists were supposed to be profound and modern and we
> > were warned that Wagner and Beethoven sounded strange and discordant too
> > when first heard. If we didn't like them our intelligence was
> > questioned. But this discordant abrasive music is now almost a hundred
> > years old and it still sounds strange, discordant and nasty and most
> > people who go to concerts still don't like it.
>
> Some people who go to concerts do like it though, not all new music is
> good, but some people find much of it exciting, brilliant, and maybe even
> beautiful.

Right.

# 1: I find Berg inexpressibly beautiful. I also think that Part,
Penderecki, Copland, Schoenberg (both post- and pre-serialism), Webern,
Gorecki, Hindemith, Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Carl Vine, etc, etc, etc.
write beautiful music. Not always, but then again - Beethoven,
Tchaikovsky, Wagner et al, weren't always beautiful as such. 'New
music', like Turnage, Cage, the so-called 'avant garde' may not be to
everyone's taste, but neither is the older repertoire.

#2: "...most people who go to concerts sitll don't like it."
As an avid concert-goer, I see the audience reaction to Shostakovich,
Mahler, Barber (not just the Adagio!), Cage, Prokofiev, Britten, even
Glass - and more often than not it is the works by these and other 20th
century composers that elicit the biggest response.

> > My relatives became sadder and more disillusioned as they aged . Me
> > too.
>
> Why? There is no shortage of older beautiful music. In fact, more and
> more music from previous eras in music is being recorded and played. Just
> sometimes you'll have to share the stage with music that doesn't please
> you, but you can't please all the people all of the time. I wouldn't fret
> about it.

Me neither; look at the frequency with which Mozart, Beethoven, Bach,
Schubert, Schumann, Tchaikovsky and Haydn are being played - their
popularity seems to be ever-growing, if anything. There are just *more*
concerts overall now, *more* recordings, and there are well-known groups
devoting themselves to 20th century repertoire - but there have been
groups specialising in music from pre-renaissance to 19th century
romantic for years. Why *not* 20th century too?

> These days I'd break down in tears of joy if anyone would
> > surprise us by writing a new concerto sounding like Grieg or Chopin or
> > Liszt or Rachmanoff and play it on the FM.... but it never happens. Why?
>
> Because they are dead; and have been dead for a long time. You can
> not resurrect the past, and any attempt to copy it will simply sound
> like a shallow copy. But, thankfully, we still have their music
> around. Rather than having the original, unsurpassed music and shallow
> imitations of it, I would want the unsurpassed, original music AND different,
> new music. The best of both worlds, or in fact the best of many
> worlds, as music from many different periods has come down to us. If
> you don't like one of those periods, the most recent, that is fine, it
> is your choice, but you still have all the older music as well, so why worry?

I can't add anything to this :) Great job, Dave :)

> Dave
> --

- Q.
--

[Kastchei]

hmm. you seems to be stuck in a Romantic rut (but remember that
rachmaninoff is a twentieth century composer too). you say that modern
music isn't beautiful; well let me suggest:

Finale from Stravinski's "The Firebird" perhaps the most beautiful piece
ever written.
in addition listen to some of the slow mvmts. like the
Bercuese (sp?), or the princesses rounds.
2nd symphony of Howard Hanson. has some very beautiful sections, esp. in
the first two movements.
3rd symphony of Henryk Gorecki. this piece has tons of those bad
dissonant chords you don't like. there are times when no chords
are outlined at all. times when E F G and A are sounding together,
yet i haven't heard anyone who has said that it isn't one of the
most beautiful pieces that they have heard. (written '77?)
The Planets by Gustav Holst. Venus and Neptune are beautiful.

now there are plenty of other examples too. maybe there just aren't as
many as in the 19th century. but wait, there aren't as many composers
either. anyway, for some of the stuff you don't like, give it another
chance. The Rite of Spring is perhaps the most brillantly written
composition. there is no mistake about what actions/emotions stravinski
is trying to protray. even if you listen to it there are places where
the music opens slightly and very lyrical, beautiful lines come out. yes
they are very short, few, and far between. anyway, almost anything from
prokofiev will have some "beautiful" (have i used this word enough?)
music amidst anything else he is doing. same with shostakovich. anyway,
perhaps you simply don't like the modern sound. all i can tell you is to
open up a little and try it again. don't be so close-minded to change.
change is good. remember, "changes aren't permanent, but change is"
(sorry i just had to stick that quote in, hehe) as far as Hindemith
goes, you simply just have to like that style to like his music.
personally i think all modern music is terrific and it is obvious in many
cases that more time, thought, and revision was given to modern
compositions than with pre-20th century stuff. (but not in all cases)

[David Bluestone]

I like listening to beautiful music.

David

[Diane Wilson]

Along with other excellent replies, I'd like to point out that beautiful
tonal music is still being written, even as we speak. Just to pick a
couple of names out of the hat, David Diamond and Lou Harrison have done
some beautiful work in the last 10 years.

If you think things like that are dissonant, please give a hard
listening to the introduction of Mozart's "Dissonance" string quartet.
Try the late Beethoven string quartets. Dissonance isn't a 20th
century invention. (For that matter, if you take apart some Bach,
you'll find dissonance. He had his way of resolving dissonance, and
modern composers have their ways. It is a matter of listening
and understanding.)

If you want to see what happens when a 20th century composer takes
on the older styles directly, listen to Stravinsky's Pulcinella and
Prokofiev's Classical Symphony. The first actually uses old Pergolesi
compositions, and the second is "in the style of Haydn," but both are
unmistakably 20th century and unmistakably identifiable as Stravinsky
and Prokofiev.

Another question that needs to be asked is, "beauty by what standard?"
For instance, is Bartok really dissonant and "ugly?" Bartok (and Kodaly)
spent a few years roaming the back country of Hungary, collecting folk
songs. The tonality of the music they heard was unique to that area,
and distinctly different from Western classical traditions. Much of the
20th century Hungarian classical music flows from these roots, and if
you listen to enough Bartok and Kodaly and Rozsa to begin to hear the
patterns and structures of this old tradition, you will hear a beauty
unlike anything else in classical music.

20th century music is strongly rooted in the traditions of Western
classical music. The influences are there, if you want to look for
them. Early Bartok was influenced by the Romanticists. Stravinsky,
Prokofiev, and Shostakovich were all trained at the Leningrad Conservatory
under Rimsky-Korsakov and his protege Glazunov. The entire middle
period of Stravinsky's career is considered neo-classical, as he explored
the music of the past and let that experience filter into his music.
Shostakovich was an admirer of both Beethoven and Mahler, and his
writing of the 24 Preludes and Fugues was directly inspired by a performance
of the Well-Tempered Clavier. The Preludes and Fugues contain baroque
structures and devices, including passacaglias and Picardy thirds.
The string quartets also contain beautiful passacaglias, notably the
third movements of the 6th and 10th quartets. Again, these are
unmistakably 20th century, unmistakably Shostakovich, and just as
unmistakably an evolution of tradition.

[Michael Subotin]

Kastchei <ml...@acpub.duke.edu> writes:

<recommendations deleted>

> now there are plenty of other examples too. maybe there just aren't as
> many as in the 19th century. but wait, there aren't as many composers
> either.

Say what?! Just on my shelves I have recordings of music by *well* over
a hundred 20thC composers which I find moving and beatiful. And this is
just scratching the surface! How many recorded 19thC composers can you name?

Oddly enough, there are hardly two dozen last century composers whose
music I would characterize with those words. Funny thing, taste.

Michael

[bal...@ludens.elte.hu]

My favourite symphonies are as follows:

Beethoven's 3 (Eroica), 5 and 7
Bruckner's 2, 4 and 9
Mozart's last g minor symphony and the "Jupiter" symphony
Brahms' 4
Britten's Simple symphony

Oh no, that's already 10! Anyway, I could go on, but ten is ten...
If I were asked tomorrow, I would give a different answer I guess...

Boldizsar.

[romney]

David Bluestone wrote:
>
> I like listening to beautiful music.
>
> David

Very Good!
One thing that may have happened to make most 20th Century music
decadent is the change in its sponsorship from private to public
sector. Fine classical music of the 18th Century was funded by rich
cultured noblemen such as Prince Esterhazy. In the 19th Century, people
of the prosperous classes with good taste paid for the concert halls and
opera houses. They had season tickets and many times my parents and I
were recipients of these tickets from older relatives when I was young.
But today the federal government is the sponsor of music and gives
grants in the arts. They are an elitist bunch who doesn't give a hoot
whether the public and the average concert goer like their weird music
or not. And the decadent toneless musicians of discord all have tenure
at universities so they can thumb their noses at the public concert goer
too. But a day of reckoning is coming soon.... The liberal political
elite in the government has about spent the country broke. Funds and
grants are being cut, particularly in the arts. Many people like myself
and my friends now are of an age and in a position where we could endow
a school of music or a concert hall or a composer. But most of the music
coming out of these places now sounds like the noise of an auto body
shop, and most of this music is dedicated to people like Che Guevarra or
Sacco and Vanzetti. So the weird musicians are not getting a cent of my
money, unless there is a radical change and they start producing
something tuneful and good. If we hear stuff on the PBS radio we enjoy,
then we will begin to contribute again...
Edward H Romney http://www.edromney.com

[Allen Watson]

In article <331CB8...@teleplex.net>, rom...@teleplex.net wrote:

> . . . conductors gave us Howard
> Hansen, Paul Hindemith and people like that whose music made no sense.

> They'd first give us most of a concert of moderns and then put in a
> Beethoven symphony or concerto so we wouldn't all walk out at the

> intermission. . .
> . . . These days I'd break down in tears of joy if anyone would

> surprise us by writing a new concerto sounding like Grieg or Chopin or

> Lizt or Rachmanoff and play it on the FM.... but it never happens. . .

> Something is dreadfully wrong with our culture and I know it.
> Does anyone else feel that way? What is wrong?

> Ed Romney

Hm. Well, Hindemith did promote something he called "dissonant
counterpoint." And God knows, Shoenberg's method of composition with all
12 tones was the basis for about a million pieces of musical garbage.

Maybe what you need to do is find some modern pieces that don't have so
much dissonance. Here are a few examples:

Barber: Adagio
Gershwin: Porgy and Bess; Concerto for Piano
Harris: Symphony #3
Hovhaness: Mysterious Mountain
Stravinsky: Apollo; Duo Concertante

My version of this list is kinda short--I like dissonant music. ;-)
Still, I'm sure other posters to this news group will be able to add to
the list.

Good hunting!
- Allen

***********************************
"Queremos genios en vida."
- Mecano
***********************************

[Kastchei]

> Oddly enough, there are hardly two dozen last century composers whose
> music I would characterize with those words. Funny thing, taste.

are you saying you don't like 19th century music? or just that isn't
very much of it. actually there are tons of 19th century compositions.
alot more than twentieth century ones. like you said whether you find
them as beautiful or not is a matter of taste.

[Kastchei]

> One thing that may have happened to make most 20th Century music
> decadent is the change in its sponsorship from private to public
> sector. Fine classical music of the 18th Century was funded by rich
> cultured noblemen such as Prince Esterhazy. In the 19th Century, people
> of the prosperous classes with good taste paid for the concert halls and
> opera houses. They had season tickets and many times my parents and I
> were recipients of these tickets from older relatives when I was young.
> But today the federal government is the sponsor of music and gives
> grants in the arts.

so you are saying that ppl who have lots of money have good taste and
those without it have bad taste. after all, only the "rich cultured
noblemen" and "people of the prosperous classes" are educated enough to
know what sounds good and what doesn't.

please! you don't have to be educated at all to know what sounds good.
right now i am taking a music class and the teacher will play example
that are supposed to be "bad" yet most of the class likes them. the
teacher just says that you have to learn what is good and bad. that is
stupid. that's like aquiring a taste for beer just so you can get
drunk. your view is very bigoted.

> They are an elitist bunch who doesn't give a hoot
> whether the public and the average concert goer like their weird music
> or not.

despite your crowd, most concert goers do like 20th century music. in
most orchestras it is played very little but when it is you are almost
always guaranteed a packed audience.

> a school of music or a concert hall or a composer. But most of the music
> coming out of these places now sounds like the noise of an auto body
> shop,

there are some compositions that sound like that but in many cases that
is their purpose. there was a great band piece that i played a few years
ago that was called "Ghost Train" and the composer (who slips my mind)
made use of interesting techniques to try to reproduce train sounds (like
using a contrabass bow on a music stand for the squeaky wheels).
however, this is very little of the music. a lot of the music may not a
have a tonal center (meaning in a specific key) but it certainly has
tonal qualities. the notes are not just haphazardly placed on the page.
maybe you just have to be more open-minded and creative to see the logic
and admire the creations for what they are: works of art.

> and most of this music is dedicated to people like Che Guevarra or
> Sacco and Vanzetti.

i'm not too familiar with these guys; perhaps you can try to justify why
it's so bad to dedicate music to them.

> So the weird musicians are not getting a cent of my
> money, unless there is a radical change and they start producing
> something tuneful and good.

this "discordant" music as you call it isn't just a US thing. if it does
die off because of lack of money here, it won't in europe. (from your
post i assume you are in the US.)

> If we hear stuff on the PBS radio we enjoy,
> then we will begin to contribute again...

"we"? is there a whole group of you holding out on the music business so
you can bribe them to create music that you want to hear? and frankly, i
don't think composers today want a cent of your money; i am beginning to
write compositions and i certainly don't want any of your money or help.
and you are the only one missing out from refusing to give music a chance.

[Christopher Norman]

romney wrote:
>
> David Bluestone wrote:
> >
> > I like listening to beautiful music.
> >
> > David
> Very Good!

> One thing that may have happened to make most 20th Century music
> decadent is the change in its sponsorship from private to public
> sector. Fine classical music of the 18th Century was funded by rich
> cultured noblemen such as Prince Esterhazy. In the 19th Century, people
> of the prosperous classes with good taste paid for the concert halls and
> opera houses. They had season tickets and many times my parents and I
> were recipients of these tickets from older relatives when I was young.
> But today the federal government is the sponsor of music and gives

> grants in the arts. They are an elitist bunch who doesn't give a hoot

> whether the public and the average concert goer like their weird music

> or not. And the decadent toneless musicians of discord all have tenure
> at universities so they can thumb their noses at the public concert goer
> too. But a day of reckoning is coming soon.... The liberal political
> elite in the government has about spent the country broke. Funds and
> grants are being cut, particularly in the arts. Many people like myself
> and my friends now are of an age and in a position where we could endow

> a school of music or a concert hall or a composer. But most of the music
> coming out of these places now sounds like the noise of an auto body

> shop, and most of this music is dedicated to people like Che Guevarra or
> Sacco and Vanzetti. So the weird musicians are not getting a cent of my

> money, unless there is a radical change and they start producing

> something tuneful and good. If we hear stuff on the PBS radio we enjoy,

> then we will begin to contribute again...

Brilliant! That was an absolutely perfect parody of a simplistic,
uninformed, idiotic rant! I salute you!

Christopher Norman

[Jeremy Berman]

In <331DBF...@teleplex.net> romney <rom...@teleplex.net> writes:
>
>D

> One thing that may have happened to make most 20th Century music
>decadent is the change in its sponsorship from private to public
>sector. Fine classical music of the 18th Century was funded by rich
>cultured noblemen such as Prince Esterhazy. In the 19th Century,
people
>of the prosperous classes with good taste paid for the concert halls
and
>opera houses. They had season tickets and many times my parents and I
>were recipients of these tickets from older relatives when I was
young.
>But today the federal government is the sponsor of music and gives
>grants in the arts. They are an elitist bunch who doesn't give a hoot

>whether the public and the average concert goer like their weird music

>or not. But a day of reckoning is coming soon.... The liberal

political
>elite in the government has about spent the country broke. Funds
and
>grants are being cut, particularly in the arts.

Now, wait a second there. Earlier you wrote this discordant music is
the fault of government funding, but now you're saying, correctly, that
funds are being cut. I just went to a WONDERFUL concert by Barbara
Hendricks. I looked at who sponsors Alice Tully Hall events, and do you
know who I found? Corporations and rich individuals. Yes, I'm sure some
government grants cover some of Lincoln Center's expenses too. But,
again, as you wrote, these cuts are being cut. Not so much by those
liberals you decry, but by the conservative Republicans who consider
such things as Public TV and classical music examples of non-essential
elitist art. Anyway, Republican or Democrat, it won't matter now. Most
politicians want to cut the budget, and there aren't many politicians
who are willing to fight for the arts anymore. So, if you don't like
the idea of government funding of the arts, fear not, they probably
won't before too long. I, for one, DON'T get alot of consolation from
that.
On to your original post. I think you generalize a bit too much about
the lack of beautiful music in this century. Here are several quick
examples: the second movement of Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony, the
third movement of Prokofiev's Fifth Symphony, just about any Debussy or
Ravel work out there, Hanson's Second Symphony (certainly you can't NOT
like that work of his), Copland's Quiet City, most Poulenc, much of Ned
Rorem's work, and Barber's Knoxville: Summer of 1915. And believe me,
there's plenty more. And I'm not a a 20th century music addict.
I think the reasons for so much dissonant and, at least on the surface,
unfriendly music is manifold. Just think of this century. Two major
world wars, a major holocaust, many moderate sized wars, the explosion
of the industrial structure, the computer age arrived, so many more
ideas of what "music" is are filtering around and prospering (whether
all of us like it or not), a communications revolution has occurred,
and modes of behavior have changed. And that's just a reader's digest
version of the century. My point is, these changes and the changes in
classical music are related. You can't really expect romantic,
"beautiful" music to be written in this environment. Sure, there were
wars back then too, but the nature of this century's wars were
different, even more inhumane (yes, all war is inhuman). Perhaps, the
change in our human language has effected the difference in our musical
language. Our lives are alot more impersonal, less the village
existence (sorry, Hillary) of past centuries. This too has translated
itself into our music. As others have written, if we were to hear a
Tchakovsky-esque or Beethovenian work today, it would most likely sound
phoney and unfulfilling. Yes, there's alot of inhuman, totally
dissonant crap being written these days. But, the melody still exists,
and always will. We need to seek the better examples of that out, but
not expect it to sound exactly like Grieg and Rachmaninoff, or else
these newer works will always fail our expections.

[O'Rourke Sean M]

av...@aol.com wrote:
: MAHLER'S 1st
: MAHLER'S 2nD
: MAHLER'S 3RD
: MAHLER'S 4TH
: MAHLER'S 5TH
: MAHLER'S 6TH
: MAHLER'S 7TH
: MAHLER'S 8TH
: MAHLER'S 9TH
: MAHLER'S 10TH

: ANY DISCUSSIONS???

Very convient. But what are the 11 greatest symphonies? :)
~~
Sean

[Dave Dalle]

"David Bluestone" (sapp...@cix.compulink.co.uk) writes:
> I like listening to beautiful music.

Don't we all?

[Michael Laderman]

>: ANY DISCUSSIONS???

Mahler called "Das Lied von der Erde" his 10th symphony. So there! :)

[Kastchei]

> examples: the second movement of Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony, the

i think you probably mean the third mvmt. of the shostakovich

[Jason Leung]

And for me:

Sibelius : No. 2,3
Nielsen : No. 1,2,3
Mahler : No. 5
Beethoven : No. 6
Berlioz : Symphonie Fantastique
Walton : No. 1
Rachmaninoff : No. 2

So, what do you think?

If you have time, please visit :
http://home.hkstar.com/~l281868/classical.htm

Thank you!

--

***welcome***
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
++ jason's world : http://home.hkstar.com/~l281868/++
++ jason's e-mail : l28...@hkstar.com ++
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

JJJJJJJJJJJJ AAAA SSSSSS OOOOOO NN NN
JJ AA AA SS OO OO NNNN NN
JJ AA AA SSSSSSS OO OO NN NN NN
JJ AAAAAAAA SS OO OO NN NN NN
JJ AA AA SS OO OO NN NNNN
JJJJJJ AA AA SSSSSS OOOOOO NN NNN

[av...@aol.com]

In article <5flm3q$i...@ursa.smsu.edu>, smo...@nic.smsu.edu (O'Rourke Sean M) writes:

>Very convient. But what are the 11 greatest symphonies? :)
> ~~

das lied

avik-gms

[SqWoland]

A couple of works not yet mentioned:
Ravel Tzigane
Prokofieff Sonata #2 (vln & pno)
Prokofieff Concerti #1 & #2 (vln)
Debussy Sonata (and just about everything else he wrote)
Ravel Sonata
Almost anything by Shostakovitch - but for sheer emotional impact, the
piano trio in E, or the Quartet #8
Everything by Rachmaninoff (bastard wrote ONE work for violin!!!!!! Only
one!!!!)
Etc, etc. (I realize the list is violin heavy. I'm biased, granted!)
In fact, although I consider myself a neanderthal conservative when it
comes to 20th century music, the only composers whom I find (on the
umpteenth try) to be unappealing and anti-aesthetic are the Second
Viennese School, Cage, Crumb, and Babbit. And 90% of the major
conservatories' composition department graduates. This, however, is to be
expected. Conservatories don't produce geniuses - they refine them, at
best.
Fr'instance, not everyone who graduated in the same year as Shostakovitch
could even dream of approaching the heights of his 1st Symphony. And that
was a large graduating class.

[exeter.ox.ac.uk]

O'Rourke Sean M wrote:
>
> av...@aol.com wrote:
> : MAHLER'S 1st
> : MAHLER'S 2nD
> : MAHLER'S 3RD
> : MAHLER'S 4TH
> : MAHLER'S 5TH
> : MAHLER'S 6TH
> : MAHLER'S 7TH
> : MAHLER'S 8TH
> : MAHLER'S 9TH
> : MAHLER'S 10TH
>
> : ANY DISCUSSIONS???
>

> Very convient. But what are the 11 greatest symphonies? :)
> ~~

> SeanTry adding Das Lied Von Der Erde to the above list, you'll probably have
an answer :-)

[Jonathan Kandell]

On Tue, 4 Mar 1997, romney wrote:

> too. These days I'd break down in tears of joy if anyone would

> surprise us by writing a new concerto sounding like Grieg or Chopin or

> Lizt or Rachmanoff and play it on the FM.... but it never happens. Why?
> Warsaw Concerto is a bit like that but it is a mere fragment. Something

> is dreadfully wrong with our culture and I know it. Does anyone else
> feel that way?

1. Many of us find what you call "dischordant" music very beautiful, so be
careful objectifying that term.

2. You're quite lucky, since about 90% of what most "classical" music
radio stations play is the Grieg and Chopin and Lizt and Rachmaninoff you
so love (what Boulez called "music treated like a museum").

jk

[Roger L. Lustig]

romney wrote:

David Bluestone wrote

> I like listening to beautiful music.

Very Good!

One thing that may have happened to make most 20th Century music
decadent is the change in its sponsorship from private to public
sector.

Huh?

Fine classical music of the 18th Century was funded by rich
cultured noblemen such as Prince Esterhazy.

Also by the Church, which had vast temporal power, and by
municipalities (Bach and Telemann were employees of the
cities of Leipzig and Hamburg, respectively), and by royalty,
which isn't exactly the private sector.

In the 19th Century, people
of the prosperous classes with good taste paid for the concert halls
and
opera houses.

Um, no. State subsidy was quite common then. In fact, it became
institutionalized in the 19thC.

They had season tickets and many times my parents and I
were recipients of these tickets from older relatives when I was
young.
But today the federal government is the sponsor of music and gives
grants in the arts.

Bullshit.

The Federal government provides only a tiny percentage of arts
funding, and what it provides, it provides as *matching* grants.

They are an elitist bunch

....unlike the aristocracy?

who doesn't give a hoot
whether the public and the average concert goer like their weird
music

Ah. That's why the military bands get more funding than the NEA
gives out. That's why most of the musical beneficiaries of the NEA
are things like symphony orchestras. That's why concert attendance
has increased dramatically thanks to NEA funding.

Could you cite a single piece of evidence for your weird claims?

or not. And the decadent toneless musicians of discord all have
tenure
at universities

More bullshit. Also slander. What's decadent about them, other than
that they don't pander to your lazy taste? What does 'toneless'
mean?  And why do most composers have anything *but* tenure?

so they can thumb their noses at the public concert goer too.

This concert-goer:: what's his name?

But a day of reckoning is coming soon.... The liberal political
elite in the government has about spent the country broke.

Reagan was a liberal?  And if the country is broke, why is the
deficit declining?  Why is the stock market going out of sight?
Why are inflation and unemployment low?

Funds and grants are being cut, particularly in the arts.

You know, the entire NEA budget is smaller than the margin
of error in estimates of Pentagon waste.

And if you bothered to find out what most of the NEA grants
*went* to, you would be horrified at what you're saying.

Many people like myself
and my friends now are of an age and in a position where we could
endow
a school of music or a concert hall or a composer.

Most composers are well-endowed already, thank you.

But most of the music
coming out of these places now sounds like the noise of an auto body

shop,

Name a single piece.

and most of this music is dedicated to people like Che Guevarra or
Sacco and Vanzetti.

You would prefer, say, Joe McCarthy?

Tell me, if you're so much against statism, why do Sacco and Vanzetti,
who were murdered for politicians' gain, bother you so much?

So the weird musicians are not getting a cent of my
money, unless there is a radical change and they start producing
something tuneful and good.

That's your right, and always has been. But don't think you'll
impress people by making up nonsense like the above.

If we hear stuff on the PBS radio we enjoy,
then we will begin to contribute again...

I hear it all the time. And who's this 'we'?

Roger Lustig

[Michael Subotin]

Kastchei wrote:
>
> > Oddly enough, there are hardly two dozen last century composers whose
> > music I would characterize with those words. Funny thing, taste.
>
> are you saying you don't like 19th century music?

No, I like 19thC music very much, but I find I'm more likely to enjoy
a random piece of music written in this century than one written in the
19th.

> or just that isn't very much of it.

That I'm not saying at all.

>actually there are tons of 19th century compositions.

No argument here.

> alot more than twentieth century ones.

Now this is what I disagreed with the last time (when it referred to
composers). On what do you base this conclusion? Do you count only
compositions for which scores survive to this day? or are currently in
print? or (since the whole thing started with recommendations for music)
only the ones recorded? How many tons is alot?

> like you said whether you find them as beautiful or not is a matter of taste.

Michael

[Rob Barnett]

Me too

Arnold Bax Sym 6
Sibelius Sym 5
E J Moeran Sym in G Minor
Prokofiev Sym 1
Vaughan Williams Sym 6
Havergal Brian Sym 1 The Gothic
Elgar Sym 2

Violin Concertos
Sibelius
Elgar
Walton
Prokofiev 1
Szymanowski 1

OK not tens but just a few different choices for this thread - hope
someone is prompted to explore a little beyond the central repertoire.

Rob

[Q.]

Janghwan Chung wrote:
>
> On Mon, 3 Mar 1997, Kastchei wrote:
>
> >
> > as you can see i am very much slanted towards late-romantic/20th century
> > works. i don't particularly care for classical symphonies and well there
> > just don't exist any baroque symphonies. btw, i think Mozart is way
> > over-rated. very dry music. no emotion. or maybe that's just the
> > recordings i've heard. any suggestions of good mozart recordings?
> >
>
> Well, this is not a symphony but Mozart's piano quartet in G minor is
> pretty good.
>
I agree! I'm a violinist first, pianist second, but for the Piano
Quartet I'm playing piano, and I love the piece!

I too went through a phase when I didn't really like Mozart that much -
but then I learnt the 27th piano concerto, and it set me off on a
"Mozart rediscovery trail", for want of a better term :) It was the slow
movement that set me off initially, but I don't understand how anyone
can fail to be caught up in the sheer delightfulness of the 3rd
movement, and the beauty of the 1st. After that...maybe some of the
string quartets - my favourite is the K.421 A minor (in the set of 6
'Haydn' quartets), and I love the 4th and 5th violin concertos. My
favourite symphony is the 'Jupiter', closely followed by the 'Haffner'
and No. 28. Favourite opera: toss-up between Zauberflote and Don
Giovanni.

Rgds,

Q.
--

[David Bluestone]

>
> "David Bluestone" (sapp...@cix.compulink.co.uk) writes:
> > I like listening to beautiful music.

> Don't we all?
>
> Dave

I don't know.

David

[Per Ivar Somby]

--------------
Well, I agree with Jonathan that modern music isn't romantic or
beatiful, and that is because the music today reflect the society we
live in.
It's a cold, mechanic world, and modern music, (ALSO POPmusic) shows
this too. The only music that basically is made beatiful, we find in
commercials on the TV, and that is just to fool an innocent heart to buy
their crap. I guess this also is a part of our cold world.

I love Grieg, not only because he's norwegian, like me, but because he
fought the society, by following his heart making romantic music though
society around him were making radical, debating art. It's a moment of
fresh air in the music, something that we all need. Even more than in
Griegs days, because now it's a stressful world out there.

then, JK.
Music is only treated as a museum by those who see it through
"museum"-eyes. But if you take music for what it is, and don't let
anybody decide your glasses, you see what's good music. Now, that is an
individual thing, so I agree that it's not a thing to discuss, but WHERE
is the beatiful music today??
Is it in the eyes/body of Whitney Houston?
I just ask.

Per Ivar

[Benjamin E. Buck]

Roger L. Lustig wrote:

I'm just a college student but I have to say that some of my favorite
concerts going to the Cleveland Orchestra were those that opened me up
to some very recent music. In fact, I've been dissapointed that I can't
find a CD of Rousse's Symphony No. 2. I'm heartily looking forward to
hearing Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra live; I really enjoyed hearing
Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony. In conclusion, good music is still being
written today, and I will continue to go to concerts and support the
Cleveland Orchestra by gift as long as they continue to play a balanced
program that includes both a few old favorites and all the neatest
modern stuff.

[Ron Stordahl]

romney <rom...@teleplex.net> wrote in article <331DBF...@teleplex.net>...

> One thing that may have happened to make most 20th Century music
> decadent is the change in its sponsorship from private to public
> sector.

This is exactly correct. This change substitutes 'group think' for individual choice. To
try to do so in something so unique to the individual as personal musical preference
is doomed to failure. There are exceptions of course, but they, unlike in mathematics,
do not disprove the rule.

Ron

[Kastchei]

> Now this is what I disagreed with the last time (when it referred to
> composers). On what do you base this conclusion? Do you count only
> compositions for which scores survive to this day? or are currently in
> print? or (since the whole thing started with recommendations for music)
> only the ones recorded? How many tons is alot?

i think i meant in totality. true many scores are lost, and many are not
in print now and many aren't recorded (19th century stuff i'm talking
about) but overall, there are more. maybe i'm just mistaken. anyway, no
doubt there are far more recordings of 19th century stuff than 20th
century.

[Dave Dalle]

Michael Subotin (*NOSPAM*mvs...@vms.cis.pitt.edu) writes:

> Kastchei wrote:
>
>>actually there are tons of 19th century compositions.
>

>> alot more than twentieth century ones.
>

> Now this is what I disagreed with the last time (when it referred to
> composers). On what do you base this conclusion? Do you count only
> compositions for which scores survive to this day? or are currently in
> print? or (since the whole thing started with recommendations for music)
> only the ones recorded? How many tons is alot?

I would think that there was more classical muci written during the 19C
than the 20C. For several reasons, music-making was a much more vital
part of life in the 19C, new pieces and contemporary composers were much
more important to the average audience members. For most audience members
at my local orchestra, I would think contemporary music has very little
importance, this can be seen by the large increase of subscriptions over
the last few years, which correesponded to an increasinly narrow
repertoire and the creation of a "light Classics" series. The creation of
classical music certainly does not have the vitality it had in the 19C,
and I envy the previous century for that. I am not saying 19C's music is
superiour to 20C, I love 'em both, just that the current social
environment is not very conducive to the creation and consumption of new
music (and I would even argue the established repertoire).

[Roger L. Lustig]

Ron Stordahl wrote:

romney <rom...@teleplex.net> wrote in article
<331DBF...@teleplex.net>...

> One thing that may have happened to make most 20th Century music
> decadent is the change in its sponsorship from private to public
> sector.

This is exactly correct.

Except for one thing: it's complete nonsense.

In centuries past, church and state supported the arts, and the
aristocracy
(many of whom had tax-collecting and other powers) did a good deal of
the rest.

This change substitutes 'group think' for individual choice.

....as though most individuals in centuries past had great influence over

music!

Tell me, if the 'group' is so powerful, why do we have a hundred
times more diversity in our arts in this century?  We have new genres,
subcultures, avant-gardes, historical exploration of music and other
arts as never before, etc., etc.

To
try to do so in something so unique to the individual as personal
musical preference
is doomed to failure.

Utter blather. When before now have people had as much choice, as much
freedom to decide for themselves what they like, what's worthwhile,
what's 'great'?  

There are exceptions of course, but they, unlike in mathematics,
do not disprove the rule.

Could you give us some evidence that would support your 'rule'?
You're arguing entirely counter to fact.

Roger Lustig

[SqWoland]

The following is a reply by an out-of-town friend of mine:

"One of the most beautiful pieces of music I know was written by the
contemporary Russian composer, Martinov, in 1985. It is called 'Come In'
or, in Russian, 'Voidite'. It is scored for two violins, and string
orchestra; and the only recoding available, to my knowledge, is a concert
given in the 1986 Leningrad Festival by the Moscow Soloists, with Gidon
Kremer and his then-wife, Tatiana Grindenko. Martinov lives the life of a
hermit and his music is infused with a serenity born of religious
dedication."

[Q.]

John Bicketts wrote:
>
> Janghwan Chung wrote:
(snip)
> > Try Vivaldi's concerto for 2 cellos, strings, and continuo in G minor (RV
> > 531).
>
> I think I have that one (on a scratched up LP i'm afraid :^( ),
> and I agree. It's a powerful piece.

Whoa! This post brought back memories...the first ensemble piece I ever
played (back of 2nds in a chamber orchestra when I was 7)! I agree that
it's a wonderful piece!

- Q.

[Lee Moore]

In article <331CB8...@teleplex.net>, rom...@teleplex.net wrote:

>Instead the conductors gave us Howard
> Hansen, Paul Hindemith and people like that whose music made no sense.

Surely you're talking about some other, more dissonant guy named Howard
Hanson here. Anyway, just wanted to inject some crusty New England rigor
into the discussion by offering my favorite Charles Ives quotation:

"[B]eauty in music is too often confused with something that lets the ears
lie back in an easy chair. Many sounds that we are used to do not bother
us, and for that reason we are inclined to call them beautiful.
Frequently--possibly almost invariably--analytical and impersonal tests
will show, we believe, that when a new or unfamiliar work is accepted as
beautiful on its first hearing, its fundamental quality is one that tends
to put the mind to sleep. A narcotic is not always unnecessary, but it is
seldom a basis of progress--that is, wholesome evolution in any creative
experience." (from the Epilogue of Ives's "Essays Before a Sonata")

--
"I'm saying nothing and I'm saying it." - John Cage

[av...@aol.com]

In article <332285...@netvigator.com>, Gustav Yeung Kwong Fung <gus...@netvigator.com> writes:

>Subject: Re: 10 Greatest Symphonies
>From: Gustav Yeung Kwong Fung <gus...@netvigator.com>
>Date: Sun, 09 Mar 1997 01:41:23 -0800

>
>O'Rourke Sean M wrote:
>
> av...@aol.com wrote:
> : MAHLER'S 1st
> : MAHLER'S 2nD
> : MAHLER'S 3RD
> : MAHLER'S 4TH
> : MAHLER'S 5TH
> : MAHLER'S 6TH
> : MAHLER'S 7TH
> : MAHLER'S 8TH
> : MAHLER'S 9TH
> : MAHLER'S 10TH
>
> : ANY DISCUSSIONS???
>
> Very convient. But what are the 11 greatest symphonies? :)
> ~~
> Sean
>

> Can't agree more.
>
>--
IF YOU MUST HAVE AN 11TH-HOW ABOUT "DAS LIED"?

avik-GUSTAV MAHLER SOCIETY-USA

[av...@aol.com]

In article <332284...@netvigator.com>, Gustav Yeung Kwong Fung <gus...@netvigator.com> writes:

> Mozart's No. 9, 17, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 27. (Phew! That's
> quite a list.)

ADD 39, 40, AND 41 AND I WILL GO ALONG WITH IT.

avik-gms

[Zhixiao Lin]

I am listening to Bach's Partita and Suites for solo violin played by
Yuval Yaron. I am totally blown away by Yaron's dazzling technique,
apart from the penetrating sound of gold of his violin. Before Yaron, I
enjoyed listen to Grumiaux and Perlman a lot. Although I am no longer a
fan of Perlman, I do find his Bach set to be very satisfying.

I remember a while ago, there is a discusion about Ysaye's sonatas of
solo violin. I purchased the CD by Yuval Yaron. Well, I have to say,
he is above Gidon Kremer and I do like Kremer a bit.

Does anyone know why Yaron only records violin solo music (the other two
albums he issued are 10 Jewish Melodies and Sibelius's works for violin
and piano). He should have done concertos. I long to hear him playing
Sibelius or Tchaikovsky.

zhixiao Lin

[Gustav Yeung Kwong Fung]

John Grabowski wrote:

In <Pine.OSF.3.91.97030...@odin.cbu.edu> "Br. Matt
Szatkowski" <msza...@odin.cbu.edu> writes:
>
>Here's my list: Mozart's 39, 40, 41;
> Dvorak's 9;
> Beethoven's 3, 4, 5, 7, 9;
> Tchaikovsky's 5.

Great list, but what's the Dvorak 9 doing in there? Check out No.
7.
What a ride!

> Violin Concerti--Bach's 6 Brandenburgs,

*All* of them considered as VC's?

> Mendolsohnn's,
> Brahm's,
> Tchaikovsky's.
> Vivaldi's 'Four Seasons.'

Berg's. Beethoven's. Bach's. Barber's. (Not trying to harp on
the
B's here...) Sibelius. Prokofiev's. Others I'm blanking out on...

> Piano Concerti--Beethoven's 3 & 5,

4!!!!

Mozart's No. 9, 17, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 27. (Phew! That's
quite a list.)

> Tchaikovsky's 1,

Used to hate it. Now I can enjoy it once we get past the square,
pounding, bombastic opening theme.)

> Rachmaninoff's 2.

I enjoy getting past that to his 3rd! And while it's not a
concerto,
check out Rachy's Preludes Opp. 23 and 32 as well. Those and the
3rd
are the Rachmaninoff I'd want to take to a desert island with me.

Brahms'. Barber's. Porkofiev's 1, 2, 3, 5. Ravel's. And D'Indy's

Symphony on a French Mt. Air, if you accept that as a piano
concerto.

>Comments???

You got 'em.

John

Dvorak's 7th sounds like Brahms' "5th" to me.

Cheers

--
-------------------------
Gustav Yeung Kwong Fung
System Engineer, Vanda Computer & Equip. Co Ltd.
Tel: (852) 2334 8702
Fax: (852) 2764 2640

[Gustav Yeung Kwong Fung]

O'Rourke Sean M wrote:

av...@aol.com wrote:
: MAHLER'S 1st
: MAHLER'S 2nD
: MAHLER'S 3RD
: MAHLER'S 4TH
: MAHLER'S 5TH
: MAHLER'S 6TH
: MAHLER'S 7TH
: MAHLER'S 8TH
: MAHLER'S 9TH
: MAHLER'S 10TH

: ANY DISCUSSIONS???

Very convient. But what are the 11 greatest symphonies? :)
~~
Sean

Can't agree more.

--

[Gustav Yeung Kwong Fung]

Q. wrote:

Janghwan Chung wrote:
>
> On Mon, 3 Mar 1997, Kastchei wrote:
>
> >
> > as you can see i am very much slanted towards late-romantic/20th
century
> > works. i don't particularly care for classical symphonies and
well there
> > just don't exist any baroque symphonies. btw, i think Mozart is
way
> > over-rated. very dry music. no emotion. or maybe that's just
the
> > recordings i've heard. any suggestions of good mozart
recordings?
> >
>
> Well, this is not a symphony but Mozart's piano quartet in G minor
is
> pretty good.
>
I agree! I'm a violinist first, pianist second, but for the Piano
Quartet I'm playing piano, and I love the piece!

I couldn't have imagined how powerful a Mozart piece could be before I
first heard Amadeus Quartet played it. I am also a violinist and I enjoy
playing the violin part over and over, even without the other three
parts! If I play in a real quartet I think I would play the viola, like
Mozart himself.

I too went through a phase when I didn't really like Mozart that
much -
but then I learnt the 27th piano concerto, and it set me off on a
"Mozart rediscovery trail", for want of a better term :) It was the
slow
movement that set me off initially, but I don't understand how
anyone
can fail to be caught up in the sheer delightfulness of the 3rd
movement, and the beauty of the 1st. After that...maybe some of the
string quartets - my favourite is the K.421 A minor (in the set of 6

'Haydn' quartets), and I love the 4th and 5th violin concertos. My
favourite symphony is the 'Jupiter', closely followed by the
'Haffner'
and No. 28. Favourite opera: toss-up between Zauberflote and Don
Giovanni.

Rgds,

Q.
--

Well, I am also a lousy pianist. I prefer the Romanza of the D minor
Concero ....

Regards,

Gustav

[Q.]

av...@aol.com wrote:
>
> In article <332284...@netvigator.com>, Gustav Yeung Kwong Fung <gus...@netvigator.com> writes:
>

> > Mozart's No. 9, 17, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 27. (Phew! That's
> > quite a list.)
>

> ADD 39, 40, AND 41 AND I WILL GO ALONG WITH IT.
>
> avik-gms

Wasn't he talking about the piano concerti?

- Q.

--
nguy...@mlckew.edu.au
minh...@labyrinth.net.au
--
"Music to me is a power that justifies things."
- Igor Stravinsky

[Subir Baksi]

Here's a list of the top 5 violin concertos in order:

1. 3-way tie: mendelssohn,brahms,tchaikovsky
2. beethoven
3. bach concerto for 2 violins

i couldn't possibly choose only 10 symphonies....but MY favorite
symphony is the mendelssohn #4 (italian)

disagree? mail me. we'll argue. :)
regards,
subir

[Jang Choe]

On Sun, 9 Mar 1997 03:00:56 GMT, Subir Baksi <ka...@wsunix.wsu.edu>
wrote:

>Here's a list of the top 5 violin concertos in order:
>
>1. 3-way tie: mendelssohn,brahms,tchaikovsky

mendelssohn's does kick ass.

>2. beethoven

so does beethovan's

>3. bach concerto for 2 violins

uggg, I played this so much it's getting very mundane. What about some
of Vivaldi's lovely pieces?

[Don Patterson]

Jang Choe wrote:
>
> >Here's a list of the top 5 violin concertos in order:
> >
> >1. 3-way tie: mendelssohn,brahms,tchaikovsky
>
> mendelssohn's does kick ass.
>
> >2. beethoven
>
> so does beethovan's
>
> >3. bach concerto for 2 violins
>
> uggg, I played this so much it's getting very mundane.

Your playing it too much does NOT make it mundane.
Bach concerti are great music regardless of over-
exposure. Would you say the same about Beethoven's
5th Symphony (played by VPO under Kleiber, of course)?

> What about some
> of Vivaldi's lovely pieces?

Speaking of mundane. Some (read...SOME) of Antonio's
music is quite beautiful, but much of it sounds the same
to me. How could you place this above Bach's much
superior contributions to the genre?

--
Don Patterson <don...@erols.com>
"The President's Own"
United States Marine Band

The views expressed are my own and in no way reflect
those of the U.S. Marine Band or the Marine Corps.

[Don Patterson]

Greatest is a pretty subjective term. I would prefer
"personal favorites". Here are mine:

Brahms
Beethoven
Prokofiev 3rd
Bach in a
Brahms Double (a little cheating here)
Mendelssohn
Tchaikovsky
Vivaldi's Winter

[John Kavanagh]

Vaughan Williams 4
Stravinsky Symphony in C
Bax 7
Brahms 4
Beethoven 9
Tippett 2
Walton 1
Shostakovich 10
Simpson 9
Neilsen 4

[Chi-yun Charles Kung]

My five favorite violin concertos:

1. Beethoven, Tchaikovsky (tie)
2. Brahms, Bruch, Mendelssohn (tie)

10 favorite symphonies:

Beethoven 5, 7, 9
Tchaikovsky 4, 5, 6
Dvorak 7, 9
Mendelssohn 4 (Italian)
Schubert 8 (Unfinished)

Five favorite piano concertos:

1. Brahms 1
2. Rachmaninov 2
3. Rachmaninov 3
4. Tchaikovsky 1
5. Beethoven 5

Charles Kung
chi...@princeton.edu

[av...@aol.com]

In article <33220A...@labyrinth.net.au>, "Q." <minh...@labyrinth.net.au> writes:

>Wasn't he talking about the piano concerti?
>
>- Q.

he may have. i did not read the original.

sorry,

avik-gms

[Robert John Kerr]

> jsp wrote:
> >
> > I have recently discovered a book called the 50 greatest composers and
> > their 1000 greatest works. The book groups composers into categories of
> > greatness (obviously subjective).
> >
> > I am interested in finding a list of say the 10 greatest symphonies,
> > 5 or 6 greatest violin concertos and 5 or 6 greatest piano concertos.
> >
> > For example on author states that the two mountain peaks of the violin
> > concerto are Brahms and Beethovens with many foothills in between (some
> > large foothills). Likewise I am interested in a list that also compares
> > the great symphonies and concertos and how they stand in relation to each
> > other, why are they great or very great etc.

Right, here goes...
Symphonies: Beethoven - 4, 5, 6, 7, 9
Brahms - 1, 4
Sibelius - 2 (recent live performance tips this over...)
Schubert - 8
Mendelssohn - 3

Violin Concs: Beethoven
Sibelius
Brahms
Mendelssohn
Mozart 4
Nielsen

Piano Concs: Beethoven - 3, 4, 5
Brahms 1
Grieg(!)
Rach 2 (alt Ravel)

Whew!

--
Robert Kerr - r...@cs.nott.ac.uk
"It's got three keyboards and a hundred extra knobs, including twelve
with
'?' on them."
-- The Unseen University Organ, as designed by B. S. Johnson
(Terry Pratchett, Men At Arms)

[Don Patterson]

Don Patterson wrote:
>
> Greatest is a pretty subjective term. I would prefer
> "personal favorites". Here are mine:
>
> Brahms
> Beethoven
> Prokofiev 3rd
> Bach in a
> Brahms Double (a little cheating here)
> Mendelssohn
> Tchaikovsky
> Vivaldi's Winter

OOPS! I left out

Barber Concerto
Berg Concerto

[Q.]

romney wrote:
>
> David Bluestone wrote:
> >
> > I like listening to beautiful music.
> >
> > David
> Very Good!

> One thing that may have happened to make most 20th Century music
> decadent is the change in its sponsorship from private to public

> sector. Fine classical music of the 18th Century was funded by rich
> cultured noblemen such as Prince Esterhazy. In the 19th Century, people
> of the prosperous classes with good taste paid for the concert halls and
> opera houses. They had season tickets and many times my parents and I
> were recipients of these tickets from older relatives when I was young.
> But today the federal government is the sponsor of music and gives
> grants in the arts. They are an elitist bunch who doesn't give a hoot
> whether the public and the average concert goer like their weird music
> or not. And the decadent toneless musicians of discord all have tenure
> at universities so they can thumb their noses at the public concert goer
> too. But a day of reckoning is coming soon.... The liberal political
> elite in the government has about spent the country broke. Funds and
> grants are being cut, particularly in the arts. Many people like myself

> and my friends now are of an age and in a position where we could endow

> a school of music or a concert hall or a composer. But most of the music

> coming out of these places now sounds like the noise of an auto body

> shop, and most of this music is dedicated to people like Che Guevarra or
> Sacco and Vanzetti. So the weird musicians are not getting a cent of my

> money, unless there is a radical change and they start producing

> something tuneful and good. If we hear stuff on the PBS radio we enjoy,

> then we will begin to contribute again...

> Edward H Romney http://www.edromney.com

And yet, you still don't name specifics - composers, works, musicians.
To say "...most of the music coming out of these places now sounds like
the noise of an auto body shop..." is a gross generalisation, not to
mention indicative of a narrow musical mind and unwillingness to even
give anything remotely dissonant a listen. On the other hand, I could
say that it's your loss and that nothing anyone on this newsgroup says
is going to change your mind anyway.

It seems that in your view, composers of the 20th century are/were all
self-centred, self-indulgent, self-obsessed, cynical bastards who
didn't/don't care about their audience and have no deeper-running
motivations for writing the music they do. Music still is, as it has
always been, a way of expressing what a composer has to say, and it is
inevitable that music in the 20th century is going to be their way of
reflecting upon a changing world. Whether or not it is tonal, atonal,
whatever, is no way to judge their musical value.

And it's not like pre-19th century composers are being exactly neglected
in performance, either. Each period gets its fair representation in most
orchestras' concert seasons; it seems that for some, one post-1900 piece
in a concert is one too many. Another gross generalisation has been made
in saying that *all* 20th century music is dissonant, and therefore
ugly. No 1: I don't think that dissonance is ugly, and No. 2: nowhere
near all of 20th century music is dissonant.

Most composers and musicians nowadays are still fully trained in
harmony, compositional techniques, aural, history etc, so to cut them
down on grounds of ignorance of what has gone forth in centuries before
is simply not correct. Condescending views like those expressed in the
original post can only repress the creativity of composers and other
artists today.

I step off my soapbox now.

Have a nice day.

[Q.]

Don Patterson wrote:
>
> Greatest is a pretty subjective term. I would prefer
> "personal favorites". Here are mine:
>
> Brahms
> Beethoven
> Prokofiev 3rd

(snip)

I assume we're talking violin concertos (if we're not, I'm sorry)...
Prokofiev only wrote 2 violin concertos - No. 1 in D major, and No. 2 in
G minor.

[Nat228]

May I also add to the question in listing the 5 "greatest" concertos for
'cello? Thank you all in advance.

[Jonathan L. Ellis]

In article <33236B...@labyrinth.net.au> "Q." <minh...@labyrinth.net.au>
writes:

>Don Patterson wrote:
>>
>> Greatest is a pretty subjective term. I would prefer
>> "personal favorites". Here are mine:
>>
>> Brahms
>> Beethoven
>> Prokofiev 3rd

>(snip)

>I assume we're talking violin concertos (if we're not, I'm sorry)...
>Prokofiev only wrote 2 violin concertos - No. 1 in D major, and No. 2 in
>G minor.

Could be piano concertos: Prokofiev's 3rd is the most popular of them.

Anyway, my list runs as follows:

Symphonies (in no particular order):

Mahler 2 "Resurrection" (or any other from 3, 5, 6, 9)
Mozart 40 in g minor (or 36, 38, 39, 41)
Beethoven 7 in A (or pick any other from 3, 5, 6, 9)
Mendelssohn 3 in a minor "Scottish" (or 4 in A "Italian")
Brahms 1 in c minor (or any other)
Schubert 9 in C "Great" (or 8 in b minor "Unfinished")
Bruckner 8 in c minor (or 7, 9, 4, 5 in that order)
Dvorak 9 in e minor "From the New World" (or 8, 7, 5)
Shostakovich 5 in d minor (or 10 in e minor)
Berlioz "Symphonie fantastique"

This list was only cut down to ten by the decision to only allow one
symphony per composer - and even then I still had to leave off such pieces as
Prokofiev's 5th, Nielsen's 4th or 5th,any of the last three of Tchaikovsky
(my own vote goes to the 6th, with the 4th next), any of Haydn's (the last,
"London" symphony in D, is my favourite), any of Schumann's - especially #1
or #4 - Franck's symphony, Liszt's "Faust" symphony, Rachmaninov (any, but I
like the 2nd), Saint-Saens's "Organ" symphony, Borodin's 2nd, Vaughan
Williams's 4th or 6th, any of Sibelius (2nd and 5th seem to be favourites, but
I happen to prefer the 4th or 7th), Elgar's 1st, and many others - including
compositions that are not technically symphonies, including symphonic poems,
concert overtures, "concertos for orchestra", suites and various other things.
No doubt a few have been left out on the grounds that I have not heard them
yet.

For various reasons, I have applied the same strictures to the list of
piano concertos, my favourites of which are listed below (again in no
particular order):

Beethoven 4 in G (or 5, the Triple Concerto, 3, in that order)
Mozart 20 in D minor (or 23, 24, 17, 21, 10 (Double Concerto))
Brahms 2 in B flat (or 1 in D minor)
Tchaikovsky 1 in b flat minor (2 in G is not as good, but still OK)
Schumann in a minor
Mendelssohn 2 in d minor (which I prefer to #1 in g minor)
Grieg in a minor
Liszt 1 in E flat (or 2 in A)
Chopin 2 in f minor (or 1 in e minor)
Rachmaninov 3 in d minor (or 2 in c minor)
Ravel in G (or D for the left hand)

Again, the list of absentees is notable - Prokofiev 3, Shostakovich 2,
Saint-Saens 2 or 4, Bartok 2 or 3, Gershwin in F and many by lesser composers,
works I have not heard or works for piano and orchestra that are not
technically concertos - such as the "Rhapsody in Blue", the Faure Ballade, the
Franck Symphonic Variations, various concert rondos, variations, capriccios
etc.

As for violin concertos, with the same restrictions:

Beethoven in D (also count the Triple Concerto and the two Romances)
Mendelssohn in e minor (the best of all his concertos)
Sibelius in d minor
Brahms in D (also count the Double Concerto)
Tchaikovsky in D
Bruch 1 in g minor
Mozart 3(?) in G (or - depending on preference - 4 in D, 5 in A)
Saint-Saens 3 in b minor (better, the Introduction and Rondo in a minor)
Lalo "Symphonie Espagnole" in d minor (yes, it is a concerto)
Elgar in b minor

And still no room for the Dvorak, Prokofiev (either), Shostakovich
(either), Bartok (either) or any by the myriad violin virtuosi (e.g. Paganini
1, Viotti 22 etc) or for Vivaldi's 4 Seasons (any of them - my favourite is
"Winter") or Schumann's posthumously published concerto, any of Bach's
(in E, a minor, the Concerto for 2 violins and a couple of other pairings of
violin and another), or Glazunov's one in a minor (which I only heard
recently; likewise his piano concertos in f minor and [B/e minor]) or, again,
any I have not yet heard or heard of.

And cello concertos (same restrictions again);

Elgar in e minor
Dvorak in b minor
Schumann in a minor
Haydn 1 in C (or 2 in D)
Brahms Double Concerto
Beethoven Triple Concerto
Shostakovich 1 in E flat
Saint-Saens 1 in a minor
Tchaikovsky "Variations on a Rococo Theme"
Bloch "Schelomo" (getting a bit desperate to fill up a 10 here)

Um, the list seems to be getting harder to fill up. I find it hard to
think of more than a few, though again there are probably some I have
missed or not heard. Maybe another list will have to take in *all* other
instruments: and composers can be represented more than once, as long as it is
for different instruments.

Mozart Clarinet Concerto
Rodrigo Guitar Concerto "de Aranjuez" (or other guitar concertos)
Mozart Horn Concerto (4 or 3)
R. Strauss Horn Concerto (1 or 2)
Bartok Viola Concerto
Haydn Trumpet Concerto
Hummel Trumpet Concerto
Mozart Sinfonia Concertante for violin and viola
Poulenc Organ Concerto
Berlioz "Harold in Italy", for viola and orchestra

And a couple more Mozart concertos could have gone in - such as the
concertos for oboe, bassoon, flute, flute and harp, or the four-winds Sinfonia
Concertante: or the Strauss Oboe Concerto, Vaughan Williams Tuba Concerto,
Koussevitsky Double Bass Concerto (the most famous for that instrument),
Poulenc Harpsichord Concerto (not counting any of, for instance, Bach's works
as specifically harpsichord concertos, as the piano had not been invented yet
and Bach would surely not have changed much for the piano: this Poulenc is,
however, SPECIFICALLY for the harpsichord), or orchestral song-cycles such as
Mahler's "Song of the Earth", "Ruckert-Lieder", "Kindertotenlieder", "Songs of
a Wayfarer" and Elgar's "Sea Pictures", among others. The trouble with this is
that so many of these concertos for other instruments were composed by people
who, for various reasons, did not become as famous as other composers: perhaps
because their instrument was in little demand as a solo instrument, or they
neither played nor conducted to a high standard, or they were somewhat removed
from the centres of tradition (a whole load of good pieces have been lost, or
ignored, because the composer was in the wrong place at the wrong time, or
merely a very good composer when others around him were geniuses), or because
the work has been composed too recently to gain public acceptance yet (some
may, others may not) or has not done so for other reasons.

Jonathan Ellis.

[Janghwan Chung]

On 11 Mar 1997, Nat228 wrote:

> May I also add to the question in listing the 5 "greatest" concertos for
> 'cello? Thank you all in advance.
>
>

Vivaldi's concerto for 2 cellos, strings and continuo.

[Frankie Ho]

Hello!

Nat228 wrote:

> May I also add to the question in listing the 5 "greatest" concertos for
> 'cello? Thank you all in advance.

Elgar.
Dvorak
Shostakovich #2
Tchaikovsky (Roccoco)
Strauss (Don Quixote) (a little but cheating...)

--
/) est wishes,
/_) /~
/~ rankie Ho

[fran...@netvigator.com]

[GUZ]

>
>Hm. Well, Hindemith did promote something he called "dissonant
>counterpoint." And God knows, Shoenberg's method of composition with all
>12 tones was the basis for about a million pieces of musical garbage.
>

I think you are not talking about "all" the Shoenberg's music :-) but about
the garbage made aroun it (I don't mean Berg or Webern). Atonal,Serial and
Dodecaphonic music are beyond the personal taste. Julian Carrillo and "Sound
13" is another example of the enrichment of the music, he built their own
pianos to get the "13 sound" compressing 12 tones to give space to the #13
tone. If you like this music and if some day you go to Mexico City don't
forget to visit the Julian Carrillo's house. There you could see the "13"
pianos :-) . Guz

>***********************************
>"Queremos genios en vida."
> - Mecano
>***********************************

I know some, but they are killed when are growing up.

[George J. De Bruin]

In article <Pine.OSF.3.91.97030...@odin.cbu.edu>, "Br. Matt

Szatkowski" <msza...@odin.cbu.edu> wrote:
>Here's my list: Mozart's 39, 40, 41;

Don't know that I've actually considered putting out a full list of
"favorites". They change too often with me (hence the 700 disc collection in
my apartment...<grin>).

> Dvorak's 9;
> Beethoven's 3, 4, 5, 7, 9;

Shoot, just take all the Beethoven symphonies. And, while you're at it, add
the Brahm's symphonies.

> Violin Concerti--Bach's 6 Brandenburgs,

Generally not listened to as Violin Concerti -- but yes, all of them.

> Mendolsohnn's,
> Brahm's,
> Tchaikovsky's.
> Vivaldi's 'Four Seasons.'

Have grown extremely _tired_ of the 'Four Seasons'. However, have been very
well rewarded by 'La Stravaganza'.

>
> Piano Concerti--Beethoven's 3 & 5,

> Tchaikovsky's 1,
> Rachmaninoff's 2.

Grieg.

[Michael Laderman]

pi...@interport.net (Michael Laderman) wrote:

>What am I leaving out?

Schumann, of course, one of the greatest of them all.

>Michael Laderman

[Michael Laderman]

nat...@aol.com (Nat228) wrote:

>May I also add to the question in listing the 5 "greatest" concertos for
>'cello? Thank you all in advance.

Good idea. My favorite cello concerti include the following:

Haydn No. 1 in C Major
Vivaldi
Dvorak
Saint-Saens A Minor
Elgar

Brahms Double
Beethoven Triple (when played imaginatively, for example with Yo-Yo Ma
playing the cello part - I think Emanuel Ax was the pianist in that
performance...now who was the violinist?)

and can I include the Tchaikowsky "Variations on a Rococo Theme"? I
think that's one of the greatest of all cello-and-orchestra pieces.

Mention should also be made of "Don Quixote" by Richard Strauss

What am I leaving out? I'm sure I'll find out soon enough!

Michael Laderman

[Robert Davidson]

The ten greatest symphonies are those of Glenn Branca and Nam June Paik.

Robert Davidson

[Diane Wilson]

In article <cluster.4...@mcc.ac.uk>, clu...@mcc.ac.uk (Jonathan L. Ellis) writes:

|> And cello concertos (same restrictions again);
|>
|> Elgar in e minor
|> Dvorak in b minor
|> Schumann in a minor
|> Haydn 1 in C (or 2 in D)
|> Brahms Double Concerto
|> Beethoven Triple Concerto
|> Shostakovich 1 in E flat
|> Saint-Saens 1 in a minor
|> Tchaikovsky "Variations on a Rococo Theme"
|> Bloch "Schelomo" (getting a bit desperate to fill up a 10 here)
|>
|> Um, the list seems to be getting harder to fill up. I find it hard to
|> think of more than a few, though again there are probably some I have
|> missed or not heard.

There are quite a few that you've missed, some of which certainly deserve
a "top 10" or even "top 5" consideration:

Boccherini (at least 8)
Walton
Barber
Schnittke (2?)
Prokofiev (Sinfonia Concertante)
Resphigi (not a concerto, and I've forgotten the title, but he did something
with cello solo and orchestra)

I'd also question inclusion of the Brahms and Beethoven works; dim memory
tells me that these were written for multiple instruments based on the
assumption that the cello couldn't stand alone as a solo instrument for
a concerto. This seems to have been a common assumption and may account
for the dearth of 19th century cello concertos; I know that the Dvorak
really woke some people up to see what was possible for the instrument.
--
Diane Wilson | Attention is the primary currency in
anon-...@anon.twwells.com | an information economy.
http://www.lava.net/~dewilson/ | --John Perry Barlow
http://www.lava.net/~dewilson/asd/ |

[n.c.j.a.harmans]

Hallo,
In will bring in a few of my personal favourites:
Alexander Zemlinsky: symphony in B flat major;
Alexander Scriabin: symphony no. 1 in E major opus 26;
Dmitri Shostakovich: symphony no. 10 in e minor opus 93;
Jean Sibelius: symphony no.5 in E flat opus 82;
Serge Prokofiev: symphony no. 3 opus 44;
Carl August Nielsen: symphony no. 3 opus 27;
Igor Stravinsky: symphony in three movements;
Bela Bartok: concerto for orchestra.

And this is only a small selection, because there is so many beautiful
music to listen to.
Greeting from The Netherlands,
Niek Harmans