Your Top 5 Favorite Pieces

[allegroamabile]

I thought asking everybody's favorite pieces would be a nice addition to the forum. I will start with myself.

1. Brahms: String Quintet No. 2 in G major
2. Brahms: Clarinet Quintet in B minor
3. Brahms: Symphony No. 2 in D major
4. Elgar: Enigma Variations
5. Brahms: Variations on a Theme by Haydn

[Niels]

I think:
1. Totentanz (Liszt)
2. Piano Concerto #2 (Rachmaninoff)
3. Hungarian Rhapsody #2 (Liszt)
4. Ballade #2 In F Major (Chopin)
5. Ballade In G Minor (Grieg)

[allegroamabile]

The music you like Niels is my "blind spot." I know very little of the music of Chopin, Liszt, Grieg, and Rachmaninov and I kind of feel proud of that.

[dwil9798]

My favorites, at least right now (you'll notice I like opera):
1. Wagner - Der Ring des Nibelungen (I consider it one piece, but of the four, I'd say Das Rheingold is my favorite)
2. Wagner - Parsifal
3. Wagner - Tristan und Isolde
4. Berg - Lulu
5. Messiean - Saint Francois d'Assise

[allegroamabile]

2. Wagner - Parsifal

I played a nice arrangement of Wagner's Good Friday Music from Parsifal transcribed by Dan Godfrey in my school's concert band (Interlochen). pretty neat stuff...

[vinteuil]

1. Beethoven Missa Solemnis
2. Bach Mass in B Minor
3. Carter Double Concerto for Harpsichord and Piano
4. Corelli Concerto Grosso No. 8, Op.6/8 "Christmas Concerto"
5. Shostakovich Symphony No.4
Not in order.

[dwil9798]

I played a nice arrangement of Wagner's Good Friday Music from Parsifal transcribed by Dan Godfrey in my school's concert band (Interlochen). pretty neat stuff...

The Karfreitag Musik, in my opinion, is perhaps the most beautiful piece of music ever written, especially when the oboe first intones the Blumenaue motif accompanied by the strings. Now that's good orchestral writing.

[KGill]

1. Varese: Ameriques
2. Shostakovich: Symphony No.4, Op.43
3. Villa-Lobos: String Quartet No.5, W.263
4. Shostakovich: The Nose, Op.15
5. Stravinsky: Agon

Subject to change at any moment.

[vinteuil]

1. Varese: Ameriques
2. Shostakovich: Symphony No.4, Op.43
3. Villa-Lobos: String Quartet No.5, W.263
4. Shostakovich: The Nose, Op.15
5. Stravinsky: Agon

Subject to change at any moment.

I like the first 5...not sure about the rest .
What do you like about Ameriques? I love it too (although Ecuatorial is my favorite of his).

[allegroamabile]

Ah, Varese... Elliot Carter's good friend.

[Yagan Kiely]

No idea what-so-ever.

[KGill]

What do you like about Ameriques?

I like it because aside from being very good/well written, it seeks to get the best of as many worlds as possible by building upon the basic structure of centuries past and the megalomania of the Late Romantics, along with thematic, rhythmic, harmonic, and planar material that (practically) no one ever saw before that time. It is still fresh and amazingly powerful/complex/inventive, especially in live performance (Philadelphia Orchestra with James Conlon, to name an excellent example).
Of course, I am infatuated with all of his works- Ecuatorial, Deserts, Arcana, Poeme electronique, Offrandes, etc.- but this one just especially appeals to me, I guess. I haven't actually heard every single work by him, though (Dance for Burgess and one or two others), so my opinion isn't really comprehensive. I guess the one thing I wish was in Ameriques is the use of electronic timbres, but they hadn't really gotten off the ground by that point.

[kongming819]

1. Shostakovich: Symphony No. 4
2. Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring
3. Mahler: Symphony No. 6 (2, 3, and 8 follow closely)
4. Xian et al: Yellow River Concerto
5. Ravel: Gaspard de la nuit

[SeanMartin]

Wow. This is tough.

Okay, at the risk of sounding like one of those hapless matrons from a Hokinson cartoon, in no particular order:

(1) William Mathias, Organ Concerto, op 91
(2) Debussy, Les Nauges
(3) Bernstein's Mass (dont roll your eyes at that one, okay?)
(4) Barber, Knoxville: Summer of 1915
(5) Mozart, Magic Flute overture (I love the entire opera, but that overture!)

[sbeckmesser]

I have difficulty with this since the list is limited to 5 and I want to include operas along with everything else. Ten would have been far easier. These are NOT in order. And they only represent my thoughts as of just now (11:00:34 pm, 17 Aug 09 EDT]. And since I have a problem with the concept of "favorite" as being too hazy, my stricter criterion for this list are works that I would be glad to listen to at least two times in immediate succession, with no break or intervening music but allowing a different interpretation.

1. Bach: St. Matthew Passion
2. Wagner: Tristan und Isolde
3. Verdi: Otello
4. Stravinsky: Les Noces
5. Mozart: Jupiter Symphony

the NEXT five would probably be

6. Mozart: Don Giovanni
7. Bach: Goldberg Variations
8. Berlioz: Symphonie fantastique
9. Beethoven: Symphony No. 3
10. Stravinsky: Le sacre du printemps

11. Monteverdi: Vespers of 1610
12. Brahms: Violin Concerto
13. Berg: Wozzeck
14. Strauss: Der Rosenkavalier
15: Mahler: Symphony No. 9

Sorry, it's hard to stop. Besides, Messiaen's Turangalila Symphony, which probably would have been next and which is indeed one of my very favorite pieces, is also a bit much to take twice in a row.


--Sixtus