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

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.

vivid memory of a friend from college saying "this is the one that just put my mom over the edge"

I threw this a vote, maybe my bottom place or at least very low on my ballot. Good hangover music, that's about all I really use it for.

So "Gruppen" isn't going to be #1, I take it?

after 98 pieces of obscurantist pish i'm holding out for a bit of john williams

Def had 18 Musicians pegged for number 1

Looks like Debussy and Reich each placed 7 in the top 100, more than anyone else. Debussy completely shut out of the top 20 tho.

3 for 3:
2 Olivier Messiaen - Turangalîla-Symphonie Points: 1458 Votes: 11 #1 Votes: 1
http://slurmed.com/3d/alanquest/005_turanga-leela-3d-layout_by-alanquest.jpg

It looks like most people have gone to sleep but I'll finish this off tonight. I doubt the #1 will be a surprise:
1 Igor Stravinsky - Le sacre du printemps (The Rite of Spring) Points: 1502 Votes: 12 #1 Votes: 1
http://i.huffpost.com/gen/975052/images/o-THE-RITE-OF-SPRING-100-facebook.jpg

My #7.

The whole list:

1 Igor Stravinsky - Le sacre du printemps (The Rite of Spring)
2 Olivier Messiaen - Turangalîla-Symphonie
3 Steve Reich - Music for 18 Musicians
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

Excellent poll. Thank you, Sund4r.

yes, thank you

anyone who wants to put a Spotify list together, well I've got this bookmarked so plz post

Jon's been working hard on the playlist: https://open.spotify.com/user/1213493496/playlist/1gdrjEQPZiP44ODeNysAyS

And you're welcome! Thanks to everyone who participated! And definitely to Jon for the playlist.

Just completed playlist 10 seconds ago.

If I get really bored at work maybe I'll make an alternate cut using different recordings of the pieces.

Great poll, with extremely interesting absences! I bewail the non-placement of crumb, saariaho, koechlin and Ohana especially. (Well, I thought crumb had a chance at least)

ILX likes minimalists and massive totemic modernism!

Excellent poll - I have a lot of listening to do. Thanks for running it, Sund4r.

Thanks for the poll. As far as I know I've never heard any of Turangalilla before. Checking it out now (on a first inattentive listen). I doubt I will force myself to listen to everything in the playlist, but there are quite a few pieces I intend to check out. Definitely more interested in Sibelius than I was previously, thanks to what I've heard so far.

Wasn't Turangalilla someone's ILX handle or at least display name? That was where I first saw "Turangalilla" at all (that I can recall). Of course, for all I know I might have heard some of it at some point. (WXPN did used to play a lot of Messiaen.)

It is famously Matt groening's favorite piece of music fwiw

Turangalila was a regular poster around here for years but he left after a clusterfuck

but he left after a clusterfuck

Say no more.

(Oops, thought I was seeing a double "l" in the title.)

Nice list, overall. Glad to see Feldman, Debussy Preludes, Tapiola all placing highly. Surprised at relatively little Ravel. Missing the piano concertos, La valse, piano trio, Gaspard, and his masterpiece Daphnis & Chloe.

Shostakovich and Prokofiev probably hurt by vote-splitting. A lot was nominated, and a lot more didn't even get nominated. (Including DSCH's Symphony 10, which is a little surprising.) And neither of them have a well-acknowledged masterwork to rally around, though this didn't hurt Sibelius. Same goes for Strauss, who probably didn't even come close to the list I guess? Maybe Salome could have made it. Four Last Songs was on my ballot in the top ten. I think he might be sorta out of fashion these days?

Not many Brits. Britten, Holst, Bryars, Eno...that's it I guess. Not too surprising, but Elgar, Vaughan Williams, Delius, Walton all left out.

I voted delius very high (song of the high hills)

Crazy that turn of the screw got in but Peter grimes didn't! I was kind of strategic in my screw vote because I figured grimes was a shoo-in and didn't need me.

I've never really got into Stravinsky (maybe some day), but I'm very happy Turangalîla made it to #2! I had no idea it was so popular, but it deserves it, feels like it has everything that's good and inspiring and moving and freaky about 20th century classical music.

Even at the risk of sounding parochial, I would highly recommend this recent recording of it by the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra (with Angela Hewitt on piano and Valérie Hartmann-Claverie on the ondes Martenot). It's remarkably good, I got the goosebumps when I first listened to it... Certainly better than the "official", Messiaen-approved DG recording from the early '90s.

And yeah, in the end there was only one woman in the top 100, which I find quite disappointing, though not surprising. Not blaming any of you, we already discussed the reason why women are often excluded from the canon upthread.

BALLORO! Post your Top 100 Notated Pieces of Music Since 1890 poll ballots here!

Nothing parochial about recommending recordings on Ondine records. Finnish orchestras are some of the best in the world and they seem to have produced a never ending supply of great conductors to lead them. I almost picked that version of turangalila just based on the people involved.

I have that same recording. It's fantastic. Maybe I'd be parochial for recommending an Angela Hewitt recording?

Missed the last few slots, but thoroughly enjoyed this poll! Think it's the first time I've ever actually matched a #1 on my own ballot. Thanks Sund4r for running!!!

yes thanks v much sund4r, this has been a lot of fun. looking forward to plundering all yr individual lists now...

No prob, everyone. Glad you enjoyed it.

Yeah, big thanks Sund4r!

I wonder how much both Messiaen and Penderecki have benefited recently from Jonny Greenwood's advocacy. Not that I think most of the voters in this poll are Radiohead stans.

Didn't take part, it would probably have killed me, but fascinating stuff.

Pop star advocacy actively turns me off this sstuff