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

Oh, it's a Ross thing? Has there been a lot of ILM discussion about this piece? Honestly, it's not something I've ever seen someone else make a big deal about in a 20th c music history book (1 mention in Griffiths, none in Schwartz/Godfrey, not in NAWM); nor have I ever thought anything by Feldman had the popular/commercial reach of a lot of the composers we're seeing now.

FWIW, I remember Feldman's Rothko Chapel being treated as a very big deal when I used to listen to this sort of music on the radio in the 80s. (Sorry to be a broken record about "back in the 80s.")

I've always liked it -- as mentioned above, I think it offers a lot of what Feldman does in a relatively short time. Also, the contrast between the percussion, voices and viola gives it a lot of color. Something like string quartet #2 (which I think represents Feldman in a purer, albeit starker way) is relentlessly homogenous by comparison.

also shout out to my man William Winant on the recording I have of this!

Rothko Chapel also got recorded on a major label LP relatively early compared to other Feldman things.

On a can/stockhausen type note, mark Hollis was citing Feldman during the time between laughingstock and his solo album, when I was hanging on his every (rare) word. That was the first time I heard abt Feldman

Yay FEldman!

Now let's get some love for Meredith Monk in here.

Dolmen Music placed at 97 fwiw.

xpost I actually sat through For Christian Wolff on Spotify one night, very repetitive but mesmerizing if you're in just the right mood. I don't know if I could say I like it better than Rothko Chapel, but I have more vivid memories of listening to it.

Not my favourite Feldman by any stretch but I think people have touchd on why it's so high here. He's v important to me - hope this isn't his only entry.

Kontakte should've been higher. Can't decide whether it's concerns are v similar to Feldman's or radically opposed, but it's my favourite deconstruction of sound maybe ever.

I liked Glass when I was five:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tam1XY0HGjY

Never cared for anything else of his.

I wish it hadnt been so long since I listened to kontakte, I should have given it a high vote. Listening just now I lived it so much.

Loved

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aa5hjsm4tZY

12 Igor Stravinsky - Petrushka Points: 788 Votes: 6 #1 Votes: 0
http://petrushka.web.unc.edu/files/2014/04/petrushka_0001-1024x523.jpg

11 Bela Bartok - Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta Points: 816 Votes: 6 #1 Votes: 0
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/rFsvgYmSDeM/maxresdefault.jpg

I didn't expect this to place above Concerto for Orchestra or SQ4.

Recap of 11-100:

11 Bela Bartok - Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta
12 Igor Stravinsky - Petrushka
13 Morton Feldman - Rothko Chapel
14 Karlheinz Stockhausen - Kontakte
15 Steve Reich - Drumming
16 Philip Glass - Einstein on the Beach
17 Gyorgy Ligeti - Atmosphères
18 Arvo Pärt - Tabula Rasa
19 Jean Sibelius - Tapiola
20 Steve Reich - Different Trains
21 Claude Debussy - Preludes (Books 1 and 2)
22 Arvo Pärt - Fratres
23 Claude Debussy - Prélude a l'après-midi d'un faune (Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun)
24 Gustav Holst - The Planets
25 Leonard Bernstein et al - West Side Story
26 Gustav Mahler - Symphony no. 6
27 Duke Ellington - The Far East Suite
28 John Cage - 4'33'
29 Philip Glass - Music in 12 Parts
30 Olivier Messiaen - L'Ascension
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

ok, so was worried Petrushka would be the odd one out -- looks like 2 Stravinsky ballets in the top 10 then. Also thinking Music for 18 Musicians, Rhapsody in Blue, In C, Quartet for the End of Time (and maybe Turangalila?), and...?

Pre-emptive thank you so much for running this poll sund4r!!

ha oh yeah and maybe the poll namesake...

Ah yes Dolemn music at 97! Didn't see it, shame I didn't vote would've helped push it up a couple more placed.

Dolmen*

We're in the final stretch now. And the hits keep coming...

10 George Gershwin - Rhapsody in Blue Points: 826 Votes: 8 #1 Votes: 0
http://static.comicvine.com/uploads/original/12/126071/2427124-rhapsody_in_blue_fantasia.jpeg

(You're welcome, Dom!)

I like that piece and voted for it, but I still would've preferred some "real" jazz to place above it.

(Though I guess there's still a slight chance Ellington or Alice Coltrane will make it to the top 10.)

shit, cat

Shame I missed the vote in this, loving the rollout.

Surely Satie will have to pop up still, right?

Yeah, there's no way "Trois gnossiennes" would've missed the top 100 altogether.

it'll be super interesting if it doesn't. Just as interesting as shostakovich getting shut out entirely (I am really doubting we are gonna see sym 5 or quartet 8 in the top 10 here)

Certainly in the 90s i remember satie being THE classical composer for hip non classical people to like

well... one of THE anyway

9 Terry Riley - In C Points: 881 Votes: 8 #1 Votes: 0
http://cdn6.bigcommerce.com/s-huf3rh2/products/273/images/766/terry_riley_2K15__73449.1425851769.500.750.jpg?c=2

xp

I had "Trois gnossiennes" in my ballot, but not so high that I could have propelled him into the list (like I figure I might have for Grisey).

Shostakovich is a weird case -- I think if you ran this poll among classical music journalists or academics, he'd surely be in there. He has a ton of respect among composers, and in tribute, I listened to 5 or 6 of his quartets yesterday. They were *all* good. However, I might say he's not quite as ear-grabbing as, say, Stravinsky or Bartok (two composers who share his use of folk music as source for their melodies/rhythms).

well there's the stalin thing of course

yeah he is a weird case. I personally do not rate him up with Stravinsky, Bartok, Szymanowski, Ginastera, Villalobos or other favorite folk-modernists of mine. He has works of real greatness but there's something about his approach to chromaticism and his specific rhythmic tics that starts to blend everything together for me.

The Fourteenth Symphony is fucking incredible though.

Ha, I mean, the 'Hitler thing' didn't hurt Sibelius.
xp

satie will definitely be in the top 10, possibly twice, and probably top 3 in the case of trois gymnopedies

Trois Gymnopédies is his most famous work by far but it was too early for this poll.

(also i might as well mention that in the still boiling 'Testimony - authentic or fabricated' battle I come down pretty firmly on the side of 'fabricated')

Also, Musique d'ameublement and Vexations, which are at least important, were not nominated. xp

Trois Gymnopédies is his most famous work by far but it was too early for this poll.

1888! wow! i knew it was early but not quite THAT early.

Yeah, aesthetically, it would fit in with early Modern music, but it was actually written before the Paris expo.

ugh I cannot believe I didn't nominate Vexations. Major lapse there, it would have been in the upper half of my ballot

I would have given it a lot of points if it were on the list, though.
xp

there's also no evidence that the septugenarian sibelius had any liking for the nazis at all

richard strauss acquired much more of a taint but he was pretty ambivalent compared to card-carrying Karajan.

anyway subject for another thread.

there's also no evidence that the septugenarian sibelius had any liking for the nazis at all

I mean, as far as I know, I gather that there's about as much basis for this as for Shostakovich/Stalin. In both cases, my sense is that they dealt with the world around them like normal human beings.

Any favourite versions of In C? I only ever listen to the original Columbia recording, generally.

xp

the thing with Shostakovich is there's also the idea that he protested against the state, particularly in his later pieces, as much as he supported it. The famous anecdote is how he'd write a piece that began and ended triumphantly, but in the middle (while all the gov't officials had nodded off), stick in all his Western bourgeois chromaticism.

If people want to hear a different version, the Ars Nova choral version is quite good.

there are so many. I'm leaning toward the OG for the playlist but am open to suggestions!