I'm still trying to tweak the subsections of more modern music. Here's what wikipedia has:
Renaissance
Baroque
Classical
Romantic
Impressionism
Modern/High Modern - This includes serialism (Schoenburg, Webern), Expressionism (Ives, Mahler, Stravinsky), and NeoClassicism (Hindemith, Copland)
Contemporary - This includes Minimalism and postmodernist music, basically stemming from the latter half to third of the 20th century to today.
THIS IS HOW I WILL DO THIS!!!
This is the common periodisation. It's overly broad, but should be enough for a top I guess. Going into subdivisions might prove difficult, as esthetics needs definition (which some might disagree with (ex : Ives, Stravinsky and Mahler never wrote expressionists works to me, expressionism designating mostly german early atonal pieces by Schonberg, Berg and Webern, and some others (like early Hindemith)) and can run over several periods of time (with some composers switching from one esthetic to another). "Neoclassicism" is particulary difficult to pin down : 80 % of the composers of the 20th century would fall under this category. It's mostly an expression of an underlying esthetical and political war between expressionism/serialism and neoclassicism, but does not say much about the music itself (what do Stravinsky neoclassic music have in common with Hindemith late pieces ?).
Exactly. I would have a HARD time trying to find pieces to fit into a serialsm honorable mention top 5 because I really can't stand most of it... Webern's tone row music just sounds like banging on a piano to me. It gets worse with John Cage... although I do enjoy some of his prepared piano pieces, his indeterminate music is again, like my daughter just playing around on the piano to me (although, the ironic thing is Cage would actually call that music; and I can't say that I don't enjoy my daughter trying to play). And yeah, Stravinsky going from his huge nationalistic ballets to more neoclassical music is a HUGE shift... and then you got a ton of other composers like Lygeti, Boulez, and Penderecki that are ALL doing different things, Stockhausen who was a pioneer in the world of electronic music with musique concrete, and others. For me, it would be almost impossible for me to make an accurate top 5 honorable mention with all these specific categories without putting someone in inaccurately, so I'm just going to use modernism to explain them all. And to be honest, this era will probably be the one that evolves the most before my next version of this list, as I've heard pieces by many of these composers but am not familiar enough with them to place them in a top 50 or honorable mention list, so for the next version, if I do get more familiar with the pieces, I will end up changing it to more specific subgenres.
Alrighty, onward with Impressionism.
I5. Arabesque 1 - Claude Debussy (1888)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMVmQAW0CM8I learned how to play this in high school, and it was at the time the most difficult piece I learned to play. While playing for solo and ensemble festivals, I had judges comment that I would be good at playing Debussy because of the expression that I put in my playing, and this just fit for me. It's so beautiful and intricate. I love the chords that are put into it... the arpeggiated chords in the lower register (which are a BITCH to play) just give a sense of flowing... I feel calm immediately while listening to it.
I4. Pines of Rome - Ottorino Respighi (1924)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvgyfqzLC0AI first heard this piece while watching Fantasia 2000, so obviously I think of whales floating while watching this, even though that's not Respighi's vision (blessing and a curse in Fantasia). Although the immediate splash of music that you hear when the music begins reminds you again, of water flowing and splashing, just like you'd see in a fountain. The ebbs and flows of this music are undeniable.
I3. La Cathedrale Engloutie - Claude Debussy (1910)
I was given a task in college to orchestrate this piece, and I must have done OK since I got a B+. I would love to hear my arrangement live at some point, but I'd have to tweak with it (if you want to check it out, it is on the classical music archive, so I linked it below... it's a .mid file, so not the best quality). The translation of this prelude is "The Sunken Cathedral" so I imagine an old cathedral with it's bell still intact, still ringing, even though it's under the water.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jg5hvGS7X7whttps://www.classicalarchives.com/contributor/1008.html (My orchestrated arrangement, you need to register to hear the full version)
I2. Jeux d'eau - Maurice Ravel (1901)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_36x1_LKggI LOVE this piece. It's so joyful... why is it that almost all of these pieces that I picked are about water? I guess all these open quartal and quintal chords give me a vision of water. Anyways, I just imagine while listening to this water flowing... it's not a rapid river, it's a clear stream flowing through the mountainside in spring, splashing against the rocks sticking out from the ground.
I1. Gymnopedie 1 - Eric Satie (1888)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-Xm7s9eGxUFINALLY a piece NOT about water! Satie was an eccentric man... and pieces such as this helped to influence both Debussy and Ravel greatly, even though compositionally Satie isn't generally considered an Impressionist composer. I HAVE to put this here, because there are just too many elements within the musical structure of the piece (not necessarily how they are used) are impressionistic.
Topic: Top 50 "Classical" Works - Currently: Scorpion 47-48, Splent Addenda (Read 13797 times)