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Top Ten Pieces of Music Written Before 1900
Me ^ | 12-05-01 | Pharmboy

Posted on 12/05/2001 7:02:28 PM PST by Pharmboy

Ask the question this way: If you were stranded on a desert island with a CD player and a good sound system, what ten pieces would you take with you that were written before the 20th Century?

My list:
1) Beethoven's Appassionata sonata for piano
2) Bach's Partita Number 2 for solo violin
3) Mozart's Symphony Number 41
4) Wagner's Overture to Tristan und Isolde
5) Beethoven's String Quartet Opus 131
6) Chopin's Ballade Number 4
7) Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto (IMO the only worthwhile thing he ever wrote)
8) Schubert's Impromptus (all of them)
9) Beethoven's Pathetique Sonata
and 10) Bach's Mass in B Minor


TOPICS: Miscellaneous; Your Opinion/Questions
KEYWORDS: music
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To: Mini-14
You haven't lived until you have heard the Liszt Etudes. Fortunately for me I don't need a CD player... just give me my Steinway.

My hat's off to anyone who can perform these 12 up to speed.

121 posted on 12/06/2001 5:55:27 AM PST by Wm Bach
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To: Pharmboy
"Pachabel's Canon is in the same category, IMO. I remember the first time I heard that...it was like "Where have you been all my life?""

You are so right ... I remember the first time I heard it was as background music on the Carl Sagan "COSMOS" specials. I had spent all of my high school and college playing in bands and orchestras and I had NEVER heard it before.

I've taken 24 variations of "Canon" from different CD's .. different arrangements, different groups playing it, different interpretations .. and placed them all on one CD. When I really want to relax and "chill", that's the CD I use ... one of the variations has ocean sounds (waves and birds) as faint background to it.

FANTASTIC!

122 posted on 12/06/2001 5:57:08 AM PST by BlueLancer
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To: Pharmboy
I am astonished your list leaves out the best. So here's mine:
  1. Handel's Messiah
  2. Handel's Messiah
  3. Handel's Messiah
  4. Handel's Messiah...
You get my drift.

Dan

123 posted on 12/06/2001 6:09:52 AM PST by BibChr
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To: Pharmboy
Numbers 3 and 4 are good. No Rossini?
124 posted on 12/06/2001 6:13:03 AM PST by <1/1,000,000th%
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To: T'wit
the Goyescas by Grandados (played by Alicia de Larrocha)

She's got these tiny little hands. Tiny! And the Goyescas have tenths, with wiggly stuff goin' on in between the spans all over the place. So me 'n the boys were all wonderin'...I mean...How's she do it?

125 posted on 12/06/2001 6:22:20 AM PST by Wm Bach
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To: Pharmboy
Dvorak's New World composed in 1893 is Top 10.
126 posted on 12/06/2001 6:30:12 AM PST by tx4guns
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To: Pharmboy
"Trois Gymnopédies" and "Trois Gnossiennes" by Erik Satie.
127 posted on 12/06/2001 6:35:23 AM PST by bwteim
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To: AFellowInPhoenix
Nope, it's already been mentioned ... Edvard Grieg's Peer Gynt Suite. One section is called "In The Hall of the Mountain King."

Ruh, Roh! The only part of the Peer Gynt Suite with which I'm familiar is the 'pastoral' sounding one that tended to be used a lot in cartoons! The only recording I have of it is on a compilation disc of "Relaxing Classical Music". I'll have to fire up the CD player and give my kids some culture while they're doing their (home)schoolwork!

128 posted on 12/06/2001 6:51:15 AM PST by SuziQ
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To: Wm Bach
3)Bach - Goldberg Variations Especially with Glenn Gould (love his humming along)

Bach's Orchestral Suites all of them ("Air on G" is from Suite #3)

Allegri's Misere Anyone who loves choral music should hear this, especially around Lent

Mozart's Marriage of Figaro, The Magic Flute (that'll get anti-Masons going)

Verdi's La Traviata

Widor's Symphony No. 5 in f minor for organ--the Toccata movement is wild--try playing it

Bach's Unaccompanied Suites Luminous and absolutely scary to play--no place to hide

Bach's Magnificat The Gloria movement is fabulous (especially is is you're in the middle of the chorus behind the orchestra)

Too bad we can't include Barber's Adagio for strings and Rachmaninoff's Fourth Concerto

129 posted on 12/06/2001 7:05:39 AM PST by Carolina
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To: wozzeck
You should try some of the newer stuff though too (after 1900)

I think that Richard Rogers' "Victory at Sea" (Copeland Too) is one of the better ones but after 1900 brings us into the Jazz, Swing and Rock Age and that is a whole new set of favorites.

130 posted on 12/06/2001 7:12:38 AM PST by Mike Darancette
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To: Carolina
Widor's Symphony No. 5 in f minor for organ--the Toccata movement is wild--try playing it.

No. And you can't make me. These boots were made for three pedals only. Any more than that and the brain freezes in overload. :^)

131 posted on 12/06/2001 7:15:00 AM PST by Wm Bach
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To: Wm Bach
These boots were made for three pedals only.

ROTFLOL!!!

132 posted on 12/06/2001 7:17:56 AM PST by Carolina
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Can't figure out for the life of me the fascination with the Pachabel Canon. I/V/vi/iii/IV/I/IV/V over, and over, and over, and over again. Sounds like some Lionel Richie ballad. No accountin' for taste.
133 posted on 12/06/2001 7:37:11 AM PST by Old Fud
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To: Old Fud
I/V/vi/iii/IV/I/IV/V over, and over, and over, and over again.

And that obnoxious Bach Passacaglia, or his Chaconne in d minor, or the song "House of the Rising Sun" or "Whiter Shade of Pale" for that matter...the only thing worse would be Greg Lake fronting for The Pogues in a cover of one of these songs. It would be Crimson and Clover over and over.

134 posted on 12/06/2001 8:47:50 AM PST by Wm Bach
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To: wozzeck
Sorry, but any mahler symphonies after the fourth were written after 1900......none of Mahler's symphonies after the fourth are worth listening to anyhow.....
135 posted on 12/06/2001 8:50:26 AM PST by Intolerant in NJ
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I'd add Dvorak's 12th ("American") and 14th quartets, and also some Mendelsohn (Hebrides Overture)
136 posted on 12/06/2001 9:11:31 AM PST by Virginia-American
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To: Harley - Mississippi
Rachmaninov's music can get pretty violent...?...well the first symphony is kinda bombastic and technically that's probably all we should consider, since it's the only major piece he completed before 1900...but most of his music it seems to me is actually more melancholy and hopeful than "violent"...he was a master at the slow, lingering, tender resolution of his themes, like the end of the Spring Cantata, all but the third section of the Bells, and the finale of the first section of the Symphonic Dances...nobody does it better, but it did come after 1900...
137 posted on 12/06/2001 9:26:04 AM PST by Intolerant in NJ
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To: SmartBlonde
Jane Olivor ?

FINALLY~ Someone ELSE who likes Jane Olivor ! Will wonders never cease.

Jane is one of the FINEST female singers ever.. I've worn out the vinyl album of "Chasing Rainbows"..played it so MUCH ...finally was able to find the CD.. Great album.. wonderful singer~!

138 posted on 12/06/2001 9:47:35 AM PST by Biblical Calvinist
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To: innocentbystander
Do you remember Bugs Bunny doing Liszt's second Hungarian Rhapsody?
139 posted on 12/06/2001 9:58:03 AM PST by T'wit
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Comment #140 Removed by Moderator


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