POLLERO!: ILM's Top 100 Notated Pieces of Music Since 1890

Verdi would be chagrined to hear a lot of my opinions about him, lol. But holy shit it was fun to sing :)

Hm, the soprano solo in the "Pie Jesu" is legit beautiful.

We're returning to a two-fer from a composer who's more in my wheelhouse, but compromising because we have a couple of religious choral pieces from him.

37 Gyorgy Ligeti - Lux Aeterna Points: 517 Votes: 4 #1s: 0

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/9gKQVrIdw5w/hqdefault.jpg

Could you almost say it's a... Ligeti split?

lol

TIE 35 Gyorgy Ligeti - Requiem Points: 522 Votes: 4 #1s: 0

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/bf/b6/7a/bfb67a7bbefec118609503fc44e637dc.jpg

Has to be one of the most original choral works ever written.

TIE 35 Alban Berg - Wozzeck Points: 522 Votes: 4 #1s: 0

http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2009/June09/Berg_Wozzeck_0184422bc.jpg

I listen to Berg's chamber music a fair bit, and "Lyric Suite" is in my personal pantheon, but I've honestly never listened to all of this.

The 'fragments from' might be a good way station for you

There was a film version on youtube at one point. It was very good. 'Ein guuuuter mensch!'

I got through all of Act 1 and am now on Scene 3 of Act 2 (from this recording). I love it so far, even without following the libretto or understanding the German. It's like everything I enjoy in Wagner concentrated and adapted to Berg's lyrical take on the 12-note language.

I'm not sure I know what postmodernism is in music, despite once taking a course on it, but all the same, I feel like the next piece is an important example of it.

Berio?

34 Luciano Berio - Sinfonia Points: 533 Votes: 6 #1s: 0
http://www.esosi.org/mm/history3.jpg

xp Wow, good guess.

Tbh, there's a lot of music I crammed through listening to when studying for comps in grad school so I can't say for sure that I never listened to all of Wozzeck before.

Serial ballet:

33 Igor Stravinsky - Agon Points: 539 Votes: 4 #1s: 0
http://oberon481.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341c4e3853ef01156fc94be8970c-800wi

With his second appearance on the countdown:
32 Glenn Branca - Symphony no. 3 Points: 555 Votes: 6 #1s: 0
https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BMTcyMzg4NDEyOV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwMzA2MzUyMQ@@._V1_UY268_CR2,0,182,268_AL_.jpg

My comp study notes on the keyed guitars in this one:

Keyed gtr: harpsichord-like design. Ea. string divided by metal bridge that spans middle of ‘harp’. String struck by plectrum on one side. Pickup ‘hears’ on other side. Picks up sympathetic vibrations. -> hear pure harmonic not fundamental -> reverberant, rich, no attack. Another design features “paper-thin leather disks that spin, rubbing the string w/ more or less force depending on key pressure -> delicate touch -> v. hi harmonics.

Now that Wozzeck is over and done with, I'd just like to say

woah Georg Büchner woah

Berg made me read this stuff and woah, GB feels like a major thing.

Agree with comments upthread that Bartók SQ4 is surprisingly low. Could it be that the nonexistent #3 lobby has somehow got the advantage!? :-D

Agon: my highest Stravinsky vote. Just catchy as all hell

Lol, I'm enjoying it but "catchy as all hell" isn't quite how I'd describe the last pas de deux.

And to finish us off for tonight, one of my favourite 'choral' works of the late 20th century:
31 Karlheinz Stockhausen - Stimmung Points: 566 Votes: 6 #1s: 0
http://www.sonoloco.com/rev/stockhausen/stockhausenpictures/IRosaka70.jpg

Pretty good summary here.

I was always thankful that the erotic poetry is in a language I don't understand.

Recap:

31 Karlheinz Stockhausen - Stimmung
32 Glenn Branca - Symphony no. 3
33 Igor Stravinsky - Agon
34 Luciano Berio - Sinfonia
35 Alban Berg - Wozzeck
35 Gyorgy Ligeti - Requiem
37 Gyorgy Ligeti - Lux Aeterna
38 Gabriel Fauré - Requiem in D minor
39 Claude Debussy - Nocturnes
40 Claude Debussy - La mer
41 Bela Bartok - Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion
42 Arvo Pärt - Cantus in memoriam Benjamin Britten
43 John Cage - Sonatas and Interludes for the Prepared Piano
44 Steve Reich - Tehillim
45 Claude Debussy - Sonata for Flute, Viola, and Harp
46 Jean Sibelius - Symphony no. 6
47 Ennio Morricone - The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
48 Alfred Schnittke - Concerto for Choir
49 Gavin Bryars - Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet
50 Arnold Schoenberg - Pierrot Lunaire
51 Edgard Varèse - Ionisation
52 Benjamin Britten - Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings
53 Philip Glass - Music in Similar Motion
54 Bela Bartok - Mikrokosmos
55 John Zorn - Cobra
56 Bela Bartok - Concerto for Orchestra
57 Karlheinz Stockhausen - Kreuzspiel
58 Edgard Varese - Density 21.5
59 Louis Andriessen - De Staat
60 Maurice Ravel - Rapsodie espagnole
61 Yamashiro Shoji (with Geinoh Yamashirogumi) - Akira (Original Soundtrack)
62 Bela Bartok - String Quartet no. 4
63 Maurice Ravel - String Quartet in F
64 Benjamin Britten - War Requiem
65 Steve Reich - Music for Mallet Instruments, Voices and Organ
66 Pierre Boulez - le marteau sans maître
67 Brian Eno - Discreet Music
68 John Luther Adams - Become Ocean
69 Jerry Goldsmith - Alien, film score
70 Gustav Mahler - Das Lied von der Erde
71 Igor Stravinsky - Les Noces
72 Claude Debussy - String Quartet in G Minor
73 Gustav Mahler - Symphony no. 9
74 Gavin Bryars - The Sinking of the Titanic
75 Antonin Dvořák - Symphony no. 9 ('New World')
76 Iannis Xenakis - Pithoprakta
76 Steve Reich - Sextet
78 Charles Ives - The Unanswered Question
79 Jean Sibelius - Symphony No. 4
80 Gustav Mahler - Symphony no. 5
81 Philip Glass - Akhnaten
82 George Gershwin - An American In Paris
83 Antonin Dvořák - Rusalka
84 Steve Reich - Piano Phase
85 Giacomo Puccini - Manon Lescaut
86 Claude Debussy - Etudes
87 Scott Joplin - The Entertainer
88 Luciano Berio - Sequenza III (for female voice)
89 Igor Stravinsky - Symphonies of Wind Instruments
90 Ennio Morricone - For A Few Dollars More, film score
90 Les Baxter - Quiet Village
92 Glenn Branca - Symphony no. 13 ('Hallucination City')
93 Maurice Duruflé - Requiem
94 Arvo Pärt - Magnificat
95 Gustav Mahler - Symphony no. 3
96 John Cage - First Construction in Metal
97 Meredith Monk - Dolmen Music
98 Iannis Xenakis - Metastasis
99 Benjamin Britten - The Turn of the Screw, opera after Henry James
100 Gérard Grisey - Les espaces acoustiques

30 Olivier Messiaen - L'Ascension Points: 575 Votes: 5 #1s: 0
http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3093/528/400/Norwich.1.jpg

29 Philip Glass - Music in 12 Parts Points: 594 Votes: 4 #1s: 1
http://dazedimg.dazedgroup.netdna-cdn.com/593/azure/dazed-prod/1010/9/1019597.jpg

Somehow I always thought the organ version of L'Ascension was the original but it turns out I was wrong. Just listened to the orchestral version, which is v nice.

12 Parts is one of the first Glass pieces I ever heard. Used to space out to this stuff.

Love music in 12 parts. Sadly for the first time in this poll this piece does not exist on Spotify, not even excerpted on a glass comp :(

(Admittedly, I mostly listened to excerpts. This is one piece where compositional music's 'long' reputation is justified.)

Yeah, it's on Naxos Music Library but prob not Spotify, yeah.

Early glass is very very thin on there.

It is not helping me focus on work this morning.

The next piece also got a #1 vote, was my #100, and may be the most talked-about composition of the 20th century. Coming up after I move to the coffee shop (where I may listen to it!)

Sacre du Printemps?

betting on 4′33″

No lime OTM:

28 John Cage - 4'33" Points: 594 Votes: 5 #1 Votes: 1
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/d9/18/06/d91806c537c8eef43ecdd4f0139057ad.jpg

At least the first chapter of this is recommended.

Le Sacre was a good guess but I ranked it way higher than 100.

As a huge fan of Cage's more conventionally 'musical' music (I might like it as much as some of you guys like Debussy), I think I have a bit of a grudge that this is the one thing everyone knows about him. But obv, important, great statement, had to be done once, etc.

TOO LOW

In its way, a mindbending work of art that changed the way I understood what art could be when I first encountered it.

gann's book is v good yes, as enjoyable and readable a solid scholarly introduction you're going to find on just about anything

My #1. I have had a 30+ year debate with my wife about this piece and how to think about art, what even qualifies as art.

Previous ILM discussion:
John Cage's 4'33"
Please stop referencing 4'33" by John Cage

Duchamp had the same idea 30+ years earlier i think, but it's still a great and important piece which is precisely why idiots crack wise about it

in a bizarre bit of happenstance this cartoon from 1932 is by someone called hy cage

http://musicmavericks.publicradio.org/features/images/cartoon10.gif

I think the cartoonist misunderstood either time signatures or rests.

Duchamp had the same idea 30+ years earlier i think, but it's still a great and important piece which is precisely why idiots crack wise about it

Did Duchamp do this in a musical context?

27 Duke Ellington - The Far East Suite Points: 598 Votes: 5 #1 Votes: 0

https://alanbumstead.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/img_0796.jpg

I was going to say that Ellington is a serious contender for the greatest American composer of the early 20th century imo, and I still hold that view, but this is from 1967! I listen to Ellington all the time, and voted for two pieces by him (from 1935 and 1940) but I don't know this one at all tbh.

It's the best thing by Ellington that I've ever heard, so I rated it high in my ballot. Just the way his arrangements manage to evoke that whole diversity of moods he wants to come across in this piece is nothing short of brilliant.