The 100 (1000, 10000?) classical works one has to know

[porcy62]

Lately I am listen to more and more classical music (on vinyl, of course ) and I am wondering if there is any list of the key classical works (and maybe recordings). I am pretty familiar with such stuff for jazz and rock, but never met a classical one.

I know that such kind of lists depend on the writer's taste and pov, but nevertheless I might find it interesting since I am not really an expert, my listening is oriented towards "classic", "romantic" and "late romantic" composers like Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Brahms and Mahler, just to name a few. I read the Penguin guide but it's focused on recordings rather then the works.

Any suggestion?

[Bright Moments]

great idea for a topic!

[Ron S]

Here's a book that identifies what the author considers to be the 350 essential classical works (and also contains recommendations of specific recordings, but those are somewhat narrow and a bit dated):

http://www.amazon.com/NPR-Guide-Building-C...4114&sr=1-1

[Michael Weiss]

What sayeth Mark Stryker?

[A Lark Ascending]

Is this any help?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/c...Recordings.html

Be sure to read 'The Classical Rules' at the bottom - a nice send up of the needless pomposity that often surrounds classical music collecting.

When I first got interested in the mid-70s I recall reading the section in Pears Encyclopedia to get some sense of overview!!!!! Amazingly it convinced me to try Bruckner!

You'd be as well to get a general history of music or the period that interests you most and work it out from there. It's very old now but way back then I found this very helpful with short bios:

My version ends in the mid-20thC but I think it has been updated.

Treat any 'best of list' with caution. They can be useful guides but the real fun comes from finding your own path rather than ticking the boxes on a list someone else asserts are essential. As with jazz, the best way is to tune in to a radio programme. BBC Radio 3 has a nice drive time programme where you get ambushed by a wide range of music - unlike Classic FM, it ranges far and wide and doesn't just stick to lollipops. I'm sure you'll have something similar where you live.

The Saturday morning 'Building a Library' feature on Radio 3 can be good too - each week compares versions of a particular piece and suggests a 'best' version. Can be a bit hair-splitting and donnish but always interesting. And I'd stongly recommend a 5.00 pm Sunday programme called 'Discovering Music' - 90 minutes exploring a piece in a very approachable, non-academic way, usually with a complete performance of the piece.

I recall having German classical radio on in the mid-70s (I spent some time there) and bumping into things. It was always a bit of a panic as the piece ended trying to work out what it was from the German (which I could not speak). But I heard some amazing things - Schoenberg's 'Pelleas and Melisande' especially sticks in my brain (early, pre-atonal Schoenberg).

I've always found recording magazines like Gramophone and the BBC Music Magazine very helpful (every nation seems to have their own version). They may get sniffed at by arty-farty types but for the ordinary listener they're light and easy to understand. The BBC magazine carries a cover disc with complete works each month - you can get completely surprised by music you'd not otherwise think about. Nice features like the one where they take one classical piece you might know and suggest others from different composers that also might appeal.

Edited November 30, 2009 by Bev Stapleton

[porcy62]

Is this any help?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/c...Recordings.html

Be sure to read 'The Classical Rules' at the bottom - a nice send up of the needless pomposity that often surrounds classical music collecting.

Not really my taste in performances, but interesting.

When I first got interested in the mid-70s I recall reading the section in Pears Encyclopedia to get some sense of overview!!!!! Amazingly it convinced me to try Bruckner!

What's wrong with Bruckner? A recent discovery I love it!

You'd be as well to get a general history of music or the period that interests you most and work it out from there. It's very old now but way back then I found this very helpful with short bios:

My version ends in the mid-20thC but I think it has been updated.

Treat any 'best of list' with caution. They can be useful guides but the real fun comes from finding your own path rather than ticking the boxes on a list someone else asserts are essential. As with jazz, the best way is to tune in to a radio programme. BBC Radio 3 has a nice drive time programme where you get ambushed by a wide range of music - unlike Classic FM, it ranges far and wide and doesn't just stick to lollipops. I'm sure you'll have something similar where you live.

The Saturday morning 'Building a Library' feature on Radio 3 can be good too - each week compares versions of a particular piece and suggests a 'best' version. Can be a bit hair-splitting and donnish but always interesting. And I'd stongly recommend a 5.00 pm Sunday programme called 'Discovering Music' - 90 minutes exploring a piece in a very approachable, non-academic way, usually with a complete performance of the piece.

I recall having German classical radio on in the mid-70s (I spent some time there) and bumping into things. It was always a bit of a panic as the piece ended trying to work out what it was from the German (which I could not speak). But I heard some amazing things - Schoenberg's 'Pelleas and Melisande' especially sticks in my brain (early, pre-atonal Schoenberg).

I've always found recording magazines like Gramophone and the BBC Music Magazine very helpful (every nation seems to have their own version). They may get sniffed at by arty-farty types but for the ordinary listener they're light and easy to understand. The BBC magazine carries a cover disc with complete works each month - you can get completely surprised by music you'd not otherwise think about. Nice features like the one where they take one classical piece you might know and suggest others from different composers that also might appeal.

Thanks for the suggestions.

Edited November 30, 2009 by porcy62

[David Ayers]

Here's my top ten:

Ligeti, Piano Concerto

Boulez, Sur Incises

Shostakovich, Leningrad Symphony

Henze, Gogo No Eiko

Tristan und Isolde

Mahler 7 no wait 9 no wait 2 no wait

Stravinsky, Firebird

Khovanshchina

Henze 9

Ligeti, Violin Concerto

I'll have another ten for you tomorrow.

By way of saying I hate these conservative and consumerist lists.

[A Lark Ascending]

What's wrong with Bruckner? A recent discovery I love it!

Nothing - a favourite of mine. It's just that looking back I find it odd that I should have got curious about a relatively 'heavy' composer from the relatively slight coverage provided by a catch-all almanac like Pears. You found it where you could in those pre-internet days.

[A Lark Ascending]

By way of saying I hate these conservative and consumerist lists.

I'm fine with lists if they are open about their subjectivity. It's when they use terms like 'Essential' or '100 recordings you must hear before you die' that I get irritated. Smacks of the homogenisation of culture (small c), packaged up as a ready meal. There are other ways of presenting classical music in an accessible manner without having to suggest that there is a single package you can purchase that will allow you to tick the list before you move on to ceramics or ballet.

'Essential' is probably the most misused word today, other than 'awesome'!

[blind-blake]

There's an interesting discussion here...

http://www.organissimo.org/forum/index.php...c=37806&hl=

[porcy62]

What's wrong with Bruckner? A recent discovery I love it!

Nothing - a favourite of mine. It's just that looking back I find it odd that I should have got curious about a relatively 'heavy' composer from the relatively slight coverage provided by a catch-all almanac like Pears. You found it where you could in those pre-internet days.

When I was at the university there was a records' shop with a huge display of classical box sets, since I was penniless at times I bought very very few of them, guess four or five in my whole academic degree (4 years). Among the boxes there was the Jochum's Bruckner Symphonies. I always wanted it, but at the end I bought something else, Brahms' chamber music, Beethoven' quartets, etc. So at times I missed Bruckner for a money matter. Lately I bought that very same box set on ebay, if you're not fond of early and rare pressings used classical vinyls are competitive with middle priced cd.

[David Ayers]

'Essential' is probably the most misused word today, other than 'awesome'!

Yeah some truth in that! I suppose the main thing I dislike is the way that recent and contemporary music is downplayed in favour of endless core repertoire and as you say 'essential' versions (which are frequently just old favourites and don't seem to embody music as a living practice). I could go on...

[A Lark Ascending]

It was the Jochum versions of 5, 9 and the Te Deum that first hooked me on Bruckner. I spent my student holidays on a British military base in Germany. At the time the exchange rate was such that records in German shops were almost 50% more than in Britain. The only place I could spend the money I earned in my holiday job was in the NAAFI (military store) and they had a rather bizarre range of LPs - lots of top twenty, quite a bit of classical on DG but little of the rock that was my staple at the time. So I started picking up the DGs (which were much cheaper than in the UK) - Stravinsky, Sibelius, the Kubelik Mahler cycle and those Bruckners. I recall being told off by a more knowledgable classical friend for having all these DGs - 'it's not the only label, you know!'

I sometimes think my interest in classical music began as a result of the chance of being stranded in Germany for two months at a time with more money than I usually had but none of the default outlets for it!

[A Lark Ascending]

'Essential' is probably the most misused word today, other than 'awesome'!

Yeah some truth in that! I suppose the main thing I dislike is the way that recent and contemporary music is downplayed in favour of endless core repertoire and as you say 'essential' versions (which are frequently just old favourites and don't seem to embody music as a living practice). I could go on...

There's a potential thread in that - 'classical' music of the last 25 years* that might excite you.

* Random number!

[ejp626]

Clearly there is no top 100, but I do like these lists to the extent that they do lead me to try works (and composers) I've never heard.

I do like Discovering Music on BBC where they break down the piece into its component parts and explain how it functions. I think it is fairly unique on radio for trying to really explain classical music beyond the most superficial gloss. To be fair, BBC 3 also has a program called Hear and Now that focuses on contemporary chamber/symphonic music and they often have 5 minute intros to these various pieces, sometimes including an interview with the composer.

While many would argue that Bernstein's interpretations are idiosyncratic, there is some very good music here and it usually can be found for a good price:

http://www.amazon.com/Original-Jacket-Coll...3619&sr=1-2

This was something I wanted for a while when I was just out of college, but the prices then were too high. I'm glad it stayed in print and the prices eventually dropped.

I will also put in a plug for Olivier Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time which has been discussed elsewhere. I do think this is a piece that any relatively well-educated classical music fan/aficionado ought to know.

Edit: I'm actually missing the bridge between Discovering Music and Bernstein, which was that one of Berstein's greatest achievements was his concerts for young people where he also explained but did not abridge or simplify orchestral music for younger listeners. Many of these concerts are out on DVD, and I'm about to start showing them to my son to see what he makes of them.

Edited December 1, 2009 by ejp626

[porcy62]

It was the Jochum versions of 5, 9 and the Te Deum that first hooked me on Bruckner. I spent my student holidays on a British military base in Germany. At the time the exchange rate was such that records in German shops were almost 50% more than in Britain. The only place I could spend the money I earned in my holiday job was in the NAAFI (military store) and they had a rather bizarre range of LPs - lots of top twenty, quite a bit of classical on DG but little of the rock that was my staple at the time. So I started picking up the DGs (which were much cheaper than in the UK) - Stravinsky, Sibelius, the Kubelik Mahler cycle and those Bruckners. I recall being told off by a more knowledgable classical friend for having all these DGs - 'it's not the only label, you know!'

I sometimes think my interest in classical music began as a result of the chance of being stranded in Germany for two months at a time with more money than I usually had but none of the default outlets for it!

Actually the Decca's and Emi's are usually better recordings then DG, though not always better performances. RCA and Mercury's are beyond my pocket.

[porcy62]

I will also put in a plug for Olivier Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time which has been discussed elsewhere. I do think this is a piece that any relatively well-educated classical music fan/aficionado ought to know.

Noted down!

[A Lark Ascending]

I'm actually missing the bridge between Discovering Music and Bernstein, which was that one of Berstein's greatest achievements was his concerts for young people where he also explained but did not abridge or simplify orchestral music for younger listeners. Many of these concerts are out on DVD, and I'm about to start showing them to my son to see what he makes of them.

Andre Previn was very good at this in the UK in the 70s - he did some BBC programmes that presented classical music as something anyone could enjoy. His easy-going approach (and classic Morcambe and Wise appearance) endeared him to many.

Can't imagine Karajan or Boulez doing this: http://video.google.co.uk/videosearch?sour...119032886599958.

Another vote for the Messiaen here!

There was a marvellous set of programmes in the 80s by Bernstein about Mahler where he really stressed the Jewish elements of the music. I have a feeling he might have been over-egging it but I found it compelling.

One I'd like to see was Simon Rattle's 'Leaving Home' series about 20thC music - missed it at the time.

There's a British conductor/composer called Howard Goodall who does some very easy to follow programmes in a deliberately populist manner - almost MTVish in places. The ones I watched on the technical side of music - how chords work etc - were very engaging.

And these radio programmes, available on 2 6CD sets, are very good at telling the tale in bite-sized chunks with musical examples:

Original webpage here with details of each programme:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/makingofmusic/...c.shtml#episode

Edited December 1, 2009 by Bev Stapleton

[David Ayers]

Can't imagine Karajan or Boulez doing this: http://video.google.co.uk/videosearch?sour...119032886599958.

Well yeah, but I've heard Boulez speak quite a few times and he is lucid and charming - really quite good with an audience.

[A Lark Ascending]

Can't imagine Karajan or Boulez doing this: http://video.google.co.uk/videosearch?sour...119032886599958.

Well yeah, but I've heard Boulez speak quite a few times and he is lucid and charming - really quite good with an audience.

Yes, he seems to have mellowed since his days of wanting to burn down opera houses!

I saw him conduct Mahler 3 back in 1974, my first classical concert at the RFH.

I get the impression that the composer at the heart of series II and III of the German TV series "Heimat" might be partly modelled on Boulez. In series II he's the uncompromising avant-garde firebrand; by series III he's touring the world as an international celebrity playing the 'classics'.

[WD45]

I did a bit of using guides of this sort [not just in classical, but rock, jazz, etc.] and ended up with shelves of stuff I didn't actually like or never listened to.

It turns out that other methods of discovery work FAR better for my listening.