Five pieces you would be very sad never to hear again

[Pabmusic]

And...

Rachmaninov: Symphonic Dances
Debussy: Petite Suite
Mozart: Clarinet Concerto
Leigh: Concertino for Harpsicord & Strings
Fauré: Masques et Bergamasques

[that's enough lists - Ed.]

[BBMmk2]

I just wouldn't know where to start!

RVW Tallis Fantasia(Not sure which one yet)
Elgar VC(Kennedy, CBSO/Rattle
Shostakovich Symphony No.5(Mariss Jansons, can't rermember which orchestra, St Petersburg?)
Rachmaninov PC No.3(Ashkenazy, LSO/Previn)
Ravel: Daphnis et Chloe(LSO, Monteux)

[Richard Barrett]

All five pieces* I'd choose for this category would be by the same composer but modesty forbids my identifying him.

* ... not because I think they're "better", only because I haven't heard them enough times in good performances!

[Barbirollians]

All five pieces I'd choose for this category would be by the same composer but modesty forbids my identifying him.

An Elizabeth Schwarzkopf like list perchance ?

[Richard Barrett]

An Elizabeth Schwarzkopf like list perchance ?

It's just that otherwise it would be impossible to limit myself to five! (And even then...) I see that people have made choices like Das Lied von der Erde and the op.130/133 String Quartet, which is all very well, but what about everything else by Mahler, what about all the other Beethoven quartets...? Although I might add a few that I don't think have been mentioned so far - Bruckner 8, Messiaen's Des canyons aux étoiles, Schubert's String Quintet (but what about the late piano sonatas and Winterreise?), Stockhausen's Momente (but what about...), Monteverdi's Vespers, the Mass in B minor, that's already six and I've hardly started. I would be very sad not to be surrounded by music until coil-shuffling time.

[Serial_Apologist]

Debussy: Préludes (both books! ) (1909/13)
Schoenberg: String Quartet No. 2 (1907)
Honegger: Symphony No 4 - Deliciae Basiliensis (1946)
Messiaen: Messe de la Pentecôte, for organ (1950)
Stockhausen: Telemusik, for tape (1966)

( I would like to have added: all the musics of Debussy, Schoenberg, Bartók, Varèse, Eisler, Vaughan Williams, Holst, Bridge, Warlock, Honegger, Dutilleux, Stockhausen, Takemitsu... )

[P. G. Tipps]

Ludwig van Beethoven: Ode to Joy
Thomas Arne: God Save the King/Queen/Monarchial Transgender
Hamish MacCunn: Land of the Mountain & The Flood:
Craig Reid (Mostly): I'm Gonna Be (500 miles)
Josef Anton Bruckner: Symphony No 00.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Wagner Die Meistersinger
Wagner Act 2 Gotterdamerung
Bill Evans Trio - Haunted Heart and (as they are both short ) Charlie Parker - My Old Flame
Beethoven Opus 109 Piano Sonata in E major ( to quote P M-D -" such a magical key" )
Mozart Jupiter Symphony Finale

[Sir Velo]

Wagner Die Meistersinger
Wagner Act 2 Gotterdamerung
Bill Evans Trio - Haunted Heart and (as they are both short ) Charlie Parker - My Old Flame
Beethoven Opus 109 Piano Sonata in E major ( to quote P M-D -" such a magical key" )
Mozart Jupiter Symphony Finale

For a moment I thought you'd copied my response to five pieces you wouldn't mind never hearing again!

[Sir Velo]

Great thread! Who wants to talk about the music of Bob Simpson or Richard Barrett anyway!

1) Bolero
2) Carmina Burana
3) Couldn't think of a third one
4) The Lark Ascending
5) Pictures From An Exibition

[gurnemanz]

Beethoven - Missa Solemnis
Schumann - Dichterliebe
Schubert - Winterreise
Wagner - Parsifal
Richard and Linda Thompson - I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight

[Lat-Literal]

My less obvious five are:

Crosse - The Demon of Adachigahara
Ramirez - Missa Criolla
L Harrison - Symphony No 3
A Tcherepnin - Piano Concerto No 4
Villa-Lobos - Floresta do Amazonas

I'd also want (1) Browne - To Gratiana Dancing and Singing and (2) Duparc - Extase.

But as they are short songs I wouldn't be getting the best value for money.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

But as they are short songs I wouldn't be getting the best value for money.

Do you mean that you would be more sad if you were never to hear a short piece than a long one, or less sad?

[Lat-Literal]

Do you mean that you would be more sad if you were never to hear a short piece than a long one, or less sad?

Erm.....I think if I were on a desert island (not that hard to imagine) I would be most sad if I were restricted to five pieces.

Consequently, I would want at the very least several hours from the discs I did have and with a certain amount of variety.

Plus, the Harrison and the Tcherepnin pieces are new to me - each is a huge find and I can still get new things from them.

"Twentieth century Russian composer Alexander Tcherepnin was a composer after the twenty-first century's own heart, devising his own diatonically based harmonic systems, methods of composition, and attempting to fuse musical elements between the Far East and West into a combination he referred to as "Eurasian." Tcherepnin's output is as technically assured and artistically rewarding as it is enormous.....in all of his works, there is a profusion of invention, especially orchestral. Spending some years in the Far East in the 1930s, and collecting a Chinese pianist wife, he was much taken with Chinese music and folklore. The Piano Concerto No. 4, Op. 78, is one of the most extended of his "Eurasian" works, and includes the movement "Yan Kuei Fei's Love Sacrifice," which is one of the finest contributions Tcherepnin made to this genre. A set of three distinct narrative genre pieces - the first illustrates a story of a young hero rescuing his village from a man-eating tiger, the second tells the sad tale of a noble lady’s self-sacrifice, and the finale displays a piece of exuberance based on travels through Yunan; it is very episodic music.....and not a piano concerto so much as three tone poems with a major piano part."

There is something of a theme here. The Crosse piece of my childhood also reaches out towards the East but the vinyl record from 1974 I own which features a few hundred 'orrible kids including, as it happens, me may well be the only recorded version. The Villa-Lobos and the Ramirez pieces also have an international dimension, albeit different, as in South American. And the Harrison piece is a bridge between the Americas and the East with as much variety as the Tcherepnin although it is short for a symphony. I'd say that all of these selections would sit very well in the 21st Century if given half a chance. The Tcherepnin brothers sound so modern in a good way to my ears that I don't understand why they are overlooked. One thing I feel is that someone in a significant place should sit down and really think about what could/should be taken forward with the sort of promotion once given to Gorecki and Part. This would especially focus on undiscovered composers who would, given the nature of their composition, have a fresh appeal in what is, after all, the global age.

Lou Harrison - Symphony No 3 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27I8YOlRZSM

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Thomas Arne: God Save the King/Queen/Monarchial Transgender

So you've solved the mystery of the anonymous composer of the national anthem. Arne must have had an early Tardis model.