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

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.

Did Duchamp do this in a musical context?

not to my knowledge but i was thinking of the "anaesthetic" found pieces exemplified by "Fountain" - imo Duchamp focuses on a particular way of apprehending as being the aesthetic quality rather than something innate to that which is apprehended. so for Duchamp visual art becomes a way of looking, as in 4'33" music becomes a way of listening

and this still creates a role for the artist as a selecter or delimiter - Duchamp still in some way - indifference or otherwise - chooses his found objects, and Cage specifies a particular span of time as constituting the piece - except when he doesn't

Right, and I think Cage was quite aware of the precedents in the visual arts, and gave credit to these. It's the application of that idea to musical composition that was significant with 4'33".

Far East suite (one of several late Ellington masterpieces) is not available in full on Spotify anymore so I had to settle for three pieces picked from Ellington comps

(Sund4r see also Afro Eurasian Eclipse)

cage's '26 statements re duchamp' is nice https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=dXJyDIuHuEUC&pg=PA70&lpg=PA70&dq=26+Statements+Re+Duchamp+year+from+monday&source=bl&ots=uCNDG0w-S5&sig=IS7Ct3KN_MroJLtXiBrMI35i9KY&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjigOGG2LzPAhWoBsAKHbDyAzIQ6AEIPzAD#v=onepage&q=26%20Statements%20Re%20Duchamp%20year%20from%20monday&f=false

excellent, i've never come across that before but i wondered if something like it existed

My ballot was unranked, but Sinfonia might well have been my #1 if I'd attempted a ranked one. By the way, Jon, while I heartily approve of your selecting the premiere recording for the playlist, given that a fifth movement was added shortly after, you might add a recording of that movement for completeness (this new one isn't bad)

26 Gustav Mahler - Symphony no. 6 Points: 625 Votes: 5 #1 Votes: 0

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/8f/7b/64/8f7b641f31b98a7f6016b0e41a68a23a.jpg

Lol, perfect picture!

Good God there's a lot of recordings of this on Spotify. I have the Tilson Thomas/SFSO recording on mp3 and voted based off of that, but is there a 'best' recording of the 6th?

An ultra-populist double-header coming up.

Clair de Lune? Or as my dad calls it 'Clear the Room'. I'm sure none of you had ever heard that one before...

Gorecki's 3rd b/w The Planets?

25 Leonard Bernstein et al - West Side Story Points: 627 Votes: 4 #1s: 0

http://images1.villagevoice.com/imager/u/original/8226956/nyv_zoe_20160203_sharks_courtesy_photofest.jpg

I don't think "Suite bergamasque" was even nominated?

(xpost)

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8a/Alternating_time_signatures2.gif/400px-Alternating_time_signatures2.gif

Tom v, Bernstein (60s NYPO) is my favorite 6th but there are a lot of others that run it close. Boulez is fantastic, Abbado's last live recording, the MTT you have is very good. Barbirolli is a highly unusual one with a slow grim tempo for the first mvmt. Others I'm forgetting about.

Puerto Rican gang has former bodyguards to listen in (6)
^Graun cryptic sword clue yesterday

Bernstein (60s NYPO) is my favorite 6th

This is the one I'm listening to. Sounds great.

Lol that west side story was posted as I was typing my recommendation of bernstein's Mahler

The 60s Bernstein Mahler cycle was a little subpar in terms of sound until the round of remastering they gave it about 5 or 6 years ago. Now it sounds fantastic. (I think it was on its 3rd or 4th digital remastering by then...!)

Tom was half OTM:

24 Gustav Holst - The Planets Points: 632 Votes: 7 #1s: 0

http://nineplanets.org/images/solar-system-439046_640.jpg

Just listened to Planets the other day, it's still terrifically thrilling in all its pomposity. Clearly the Rosetta Stone for many adventure film composers (not just John Williams).

I wish more film composers would lift the other movements besides Mars! (Well, Leonard Rosenman did do a nice Jupiter inspired bit for the bakshi lord of the rings)

The Planets mightily deserves its popularity. It also deserves to be recognized as a masterpiece of Ravellian meticulousness. And its misterioso movements deserve as much love as its assertive ones.

(Holst also no one hit wonder. Egdon Heath, the Choral Symphony and the Choral Hymns from the Rig Veda all fantastic. Dude made his own translations from Sanskrit. Respect.)

Btw I added the fifth movement of the Berio Sinfonia from a recent recording, thanks for the tip

I voted for two other Holst pieces in this very poll owing to my time spent in high school concert bands, though neither as high as my vote for the Planets.