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

I'm a little surprised it didn't make my ballot at all.

You can't not like Bolero, unless you're one of the unfortunate musicians who has to play it. I love the way it builds and builds, almost like post-rock decades before it was invented if that doesn't sound too stupid.

No, I once tried to compare it to GYBE in order to explain it to someone who didn't 'get it'.

Bolero is one of those things that had to happen. The cool thing about ravel's body of work is how he would conceive of some kind of mechanism, build it and perfect it, and then not really do that again in any other works.

I heard it again after hearing some other Ravel thingy posted in this poll. And man, Bolero is insanely good. Yeah, it 'had' to happen, but the idea is executed so well.

6 Henryk Gorecki - Symphony No. 3 'Symphony of Sorrowful Songs' Points: 970 Votes: 8 #1 Votes: 0
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/4d/58/c9/4d58c913476d392c9a9902ae3cd49029.jpg

OK, that makes more sense. The (mostly trolling, half-facetious) point was htat Hitler not only didn't declare Sibelius' work 'degenerate' but he thoroughly celebrated it, awarded Sibelius the Goethe medal, Sibelius received regular money from Nazi Germany, etc. I don't know that too much blame can be assigned to a composer for not taking a stand about this, though.

― Spiritual Hat Minimalism (Sund4r)

a lot of people collaborated with the nazis. they're all dead now, and anyway i wasn't there at the time. i got better things to do than pass judgment on dead people, especially when there are so many living people available for me to pass judgment on.

Yeah, I agree, especially considering how limited his involvement.

was

My grandmother died last year and helped the resistance. Had a collaborator found out, she could have been executed. It's not THAT long ago, folks...

bit harsh not to tell her the war was over

Else Marie Pade died earlier this year and was involved in the resistance, let's sub out all the Sibelius and sub her in (if she has anything that qualifies as notated)

Slightly relieved I forgot to nominate any Canteloube.

Honestly, I was just trolling Sibelius.

https://wso.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Sibelius1.jpg

xpost I played Bolero when I was 18. I played the gong. Most of the part is counting 400 measures of rest. I now hate Bolero, even though yes, the melody is pretty catchy.

my school choir sang in Mahler's 8th and i think we missed an entrance cos of the counting

I'm not sure what I think of Gorecki 3. I sometimes feel like it is too long, although the version I have on iTunes isn't the famous Upshaw/London Sinfonietta one but a Polish recording.

I think I have that same Polish recording on CD, on Universal Classics.

Joanna Kozłowska is the soprano?

I feel like we have already discussed Gorecki's third so much, I was surprised it hadn't showed up already, lol. It's good! Perhaps not the eighth best composition in the last 125 years, but good.

It's the sixth. Proven by science!

Is this the point where I formally give up on Shostakovich and Bernard Herrmann placing, btw?

This is the one. It's Slovenian, not Polish.

I voted for the Arutunian!

The top 5 starts with a composer we haven't seen on the countdown before, and a personal favourite piece (my #10). I think it's also one that no one guessed for the top 10 so far. (Take a minute to guess now!)

Threepenny Opera?

rodrigo?

Ha, I love the Rodrigo concerto but even I don't rank it as a top 10 piece.

Good guess though. (My 59.)

is it a solo piece?

Nope, it's for an orchestra of sorts, is used in many films, and makes a political/social statement.

(Not Threepenny Opera either, although that's an interesting pick.)

Threnody?

Frederik is correct.

5 Krzysztof Penderecki - Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima Points: 1060 Votes: 8 #1 Votes: 0
http://www.di-arezzo.co.uk/multimedia/images/kalmus/part/a7010.jpg

man it sucks that my man lutoslawski didn't make it into the top 100, we would have had all the big postwar poles

I don't know how good this liberal arts college's student body is as a representation of kidstoday but this is a piece that last year's students seemed to like. Ligeti/Penderecki seemed to interest them the most.

Maybe because in a weird way, this piece, and something like Atmospheres or Lux Aeterna, are less obviously dated than, say, In C. You could still use them in a sci-fi or horror flick today, and I think they'd have the exact same effect as they did when Kubrick used them 40 years ago.

Yeah, when I watched Under the Skin, I was trying to figure out what Penderecki piece they were using before I realised it was a younger composer using similar techniques. I used clips from 2001 and The Shining in class and a bunch said the latter was among their favourite films.

bartok, penderecki and lutoslawski are all still really popular sources for film composers

Yeah, when I watched Under the Skin, I was trying to figure out what Penderecki piece they were using before I realised it was a younger composer using similar techniques.

― Spiritual Hat Minimalism (Sund4r), Tuesday, October 4, 2016 9:08 PM (three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

micachu, you've made it

silently in awe of all this btw, my next 5 years of music listenership are sorted

They seemed OK with the later Reich/Glass stuff but it also didn't seem to strike them as particularly mindblowing so much as "the kind of thing that would come up on my Pandora station".

haha

The top 4 pieces were the only ones that actually made it to a majority of the ballots. There is one composer who wrote two of the top four.

keeping w/my original guess, would have to be Messiaen x 2, Reich, Stravinsky?

Off to a good start:
4 Olivier Messiaen - Quatuor pour le fin de temps Points: 1225 Votes: 10 #1 Votes: 0
http://csosoundsandstories.org/wp-content/uploads/quartet_end_time-980x520.jpg

No Intégrales? Was it even nominated? I was sort of counting on it placing earlier, just because it's my favorite Varese.

Edgard Varese - Arcana
Edgard Varese - Density 21.5
Edgard Varèse - Déserts
edgard varèse - Ionisation

but no Intégrales

A recap before we get to the top 3:

4 Olivier Messiaen - Quatuor pour le fin de temps
5 Krzysztof Penderecki - Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima
6 Henryk Gorecki - Symphony No. 3 'Symphony of Sorrowful Songs'
7 Maurice Ravel - Boléro
8 Igor Stravinsky - Firebird
9 Terry Riley - In C
10 George Gershwin - Rhapsody in Blue
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

Dom is 2 for 2 so far:
3 Steve Reich - Music for 18 Musicians Points: 1234 Votes: 10 #1 Votes: 0
http://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/sites/default/files/imagecache/production_main_image/images/160524_icms_colin_currie_steve_reich_20_image_ben_larpent_web.jpg

My #2.