Top 10 compositions since 8/5/1945

[cloughie]

The whole of Malcolm Arnold's output qualifies - I'd pick out a 10 from him alone headed up with the Cornish Dances.

[LeMartinPecheur]

The whole of Malcolm Arnold's output qualifies - I'd pick out a 10 from him alone headed up with the Cornish Dances.

Send the (Padstow?) lifeboat!

[richardfinegold]

I'm looking forward to listening to The People United Will Never Be Defeated! in St Illtud's Church, Llantwit Major on Saturday 23 May at 1pm when Robin Green performs it as part of the Vale of Glamorgan Festival.

The Vale of Glamorgan Festival? sounds like something to be enjoyed with a single malt on the rocks

[jayne lee wilson]

DAVID MATTHEWS Symphonies 4 - 7.
DUTILLEUX Symphonies 1 and 2.
HOLMBOE Symphonies 11 - 13.
NORGARD Symphony No.8

programs subject to change and alteration

[Mary Chambers]

I'm surprised no-one's mentioned The Turn of the Screw, 1954.

[mrbouffant]

The whole of Malcolm Arnold's output qualifies - I'd pick out a 10 from him alone headed up with the Cornish Dances.

^^^ This.

I think I would head the list with Sym 7 and the Guitar Concerto .... masterworks...

[makropulos]

I'm surprised no-one's mentioned The Turn of the Screw, 1954.

Yes - The only reason I didn't put it in my '10' was because having put in Billy Budd and the War Requiem, things were already looking very Brittenish

In an ideal world I'd add not only Turn of the Screw but Noye's Fludde as well.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

In an ideal world I'd add not only Turn of the Screw but Noye's Fludde as well.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Yes - The only reason I didn't put it in my '10' was because having put in Billy Budd and the War Requiem, things were already looking very Brittenish
In an ideal world I'd add not only Turn of the Screw but Noye's Fludde as well.

??? An ideal world is one where a list of ten works could include more than ten works???

Joshing aside, you have pinpointed the problem of all these "List your x favourite ... " Threads: there's always going to be more than the number stipulated. (Well, except for something like "Which are your ten favourite Bartok String Quartets" - now in my "ideal world", there'd be fifteen or more to choose from! )

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

... oh; and world peace and a fully-funded International Health Service that rich people didn't object to paying for.

[visualnickmos]

Impossible to list a final, definitive 10. Today it will be this 10, tomorrow another 10.....

[Richard Barrett]

Almost all of these lists seem to interpret the brief as "top 10 compositions in the first forty years of the seventy since May 1945", and only three 21st century compositions have been mentioned! So here is a list of ten compositions since 1985.

Anthony Braxton, Nine Compositions (Iridium) 2006
John Cage, Freeman Etudes, 1990
Morton Feldman, Violin and String Quartet, 1985
Brian Ferneyhough, String Quartet no.6, 2010
Michael Finnissy, Red Earth, 1988
Hans-Joachim Hespos, kaleidoskopes luftsilber, 2001
Luigi Nono, No hay caminos, hay que caminar…, 1987
Bernard Parmegiani, Plein-temps, 2006
Eliane Radigue, Trilogie de la mort, 1998
Karlheinz Stockhausen, Sonntag aus Licht, 2004

Is that ten already? As others have said, there could be ten times as many...

[EdgeleyRob]

I'm surprised no-one's mentioned The Turn of the Screw, 1954.

I tried to stick to 10 different composers so plumped for Death in Venice but yes,could just as easily have picked that.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Ooh, alright - I'll have a go .....

Schoenberg: String Trio
Stravinsky: Requiem Canticles
Nono: Prometheus
Feldman: For Philip Guston
Cage: Roaratorio
Birtwistle: The Mask of Orpheus
Ferneyhough: Carceri d'Invenzione
Stockhausen: Gruppen
Barrett: Opening of the Mouth
R Saunders: Chroma
J Saunders: #[unassigned]
Lang: Differenz/Wiederholung 2
Lachenmann: Der Madchen mit den Schwelelholzen
Sciarrino: La Bocca, I Piedi, Il Suono
Billone: 1 + 1 = 1

... and (to take it up to the required 10):

Xenakis: O-mega

But there are so many questions here - do I really "prefer" the Requiem Canticles to the Movements for Piano & orchestra or Threni, or any of Igor's other works written in his last couple of decades? No Tippett, Lutoslawski or Boulez ? And where the blazes has Barraque, Babbitt and Carter disappeared to? Couldn't anything by Ferneyhough, Xenakis, Sciarrino, Feldman - or any one of a dozen alternative works by Stockhausen, Nono, Birtwistle or Lachenmann have been equally "representative"? And what about Aaron Cassidy, Evan Parker, John Coltrane, Tim Parkinson, Evan Johnson, Lennon & McCartney ... ????

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

... and (to take it up to the required 10):