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

I didn't know this one before, to be honest, but I am enjoying it so far.

The Spotify playlist will be posted at the end of the day.

567 compositions received at least one vote. There are a number of popular or scholarly 'hits' that didn't make it to our final countdown.

didn't feel knowledgeable enough to vote but i'm eagerly anticipating the rollout and strongly approve of the results so far

Same here, though I didn't know the Grisey before and have not got all that far into listening, it seems really interesting.

4 and a half minutes into "Partiels", I can definitely see why it is so well-regarded.

And now, as they say, for something completely different.

99 Benjamin Britten - The Turn of the Screw, opera after Henry James Points: 320 Votes: 2 #1 Votes: 0

http://www.musicweb-international.com/SandH/2003/Oct03/Turn_Screw_ME.jpg

Dunno if I'll keep up the blurbs throughout but:

With its tightly-controlled response to James’s tale, Britten’s opera runs the risk of seeming to shirk depth of expression as decisively as it shuns technical elaboration. Yet there is a spontaneity and naturalness in the musical ideas, and a compact solidity in the form schemes of each scene, which give the lie to arguments that Britten’s response was thin or inhibited. Above all, the music reveals its absolute rightness in the way it brings to convincing life the extraordinary Jamesian blend of starchy social conventions and turbulent emotional forces which those conventions promote, while seeking their suppression. Britten gives substance to Jame’s psychological insights without in any way distorting them. The Turn of the Screw marked a decisive change in Britten’s development. After it, chamber opera would be his main concern, and the chromatic intensity obtainable from the acknowledgment of some aspects of 12-note principles a central technique. What did not change, in essence, was the type of subject Britten favoured in his dramatic works.

Another one I hadn't really listened to before, owing to my opera blinders. (I did vote for Peter Grimes, though!) I always enjoy Britten a lot when I hear him; yet it somehow rarely occurs to me to put him on. And I'm definitely liking this, or at least Act 1, so far. (I never knew there were 12-note rows in this.) Is there such a thing as an English opera fan? Because Dido and Aeneas is probably my favourite CPE opera.

Oh cool, it's started. I voted for Les Espaces Acoustiques.

People who listen to a lot of opera (or musicals for that matter): do you find that you can listen to the music of an opera front-to-back (e.g. on a recording) without following and focusing on the narrative? Because, already, by Scene 3, I feel like I've got just the audio from a sung movie (that I haven't watched) playing in the background while I'm trying to do other things. If you're not actually watching a performance, do you prefer to just listen to the major arias, the way that people will listen to compilations of hits from Broadway shows?

xp

I don't listen to a ton of opera, but I usually will follow along in the translation of the libretto a little, maybe not line for line but just to get an idea of the action of each scene. It's never occurred to me to skip around in the arias, and I don't really like Broadway hits comps for the same reason I don't really like Greatest Hits albums-- you never know what great deep cuts you might be missing.

I definitely listen to opera that way. I read a plot synopsis at some point before listening but then I just play it while doing my day job like any other classical music. Usually in halves (like disc 1 then disc 2 a few days later).

I voted Turn of the Screw pretty high in my ballot. Act 1 scenes 7 and 8 (The Lake - At Night) give me the chills of the uncanny.

I am partially influenced by seeing it performed in Seattle in the 90s... The production had some really cool ideas, most memorably during Miles' number about his feeling of being 'bad', miles was sitting on the floor in the middle of an empty room with an open window at the back. The whole floor of the room is covered by a sheet. During the course of Miles' number, Peter Quint appears at the window behind him, reaches into the room, and begins to VERY SLOWLY PULL THE SHEET, WITH MILES ON IT ABSORBED IN HIS ARIA, TOWARDS THE WINDOW.

Kicking off a string of pieces that I am very familiar with and love:

98 Iannis Xenakis - Metastasis Points: 322 Votes: 4 #1 Votes: 0

https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/images/ic/1200x675/p00tcy3k.jpg

Metastasis, 1953-54
Piece written for 61 orchestral players (46 strings), with each
playing a different part.
Uses multiple glissandi (straight lines) in the music for string and
horn parts. These indicate for the player to begin at a certain pitch
and slide through all the frequencies on the way to a different pitch
(could be higher or lower).
Xenakis realizes that drawing the glissandi in the score can create
a special surface of straight lines, called a ruled surface. This was
the inspiration for his design of the Philips Pavilion.
He thought of the glissandi as graphs of straight lines (time on the
horizontal axis, pitch on the vertical), where different slopes
correspond to different “sound spaces.”

One of the pieces that smeared my brain when I took late 20th century music history at 19.

Listening now to the Grisey. Probably a dumb question, but there's no way this is standard western temperament, right?

That's not dumb and you're right: it's not. I think that in pretty much any 'spectral' music, the pitches are based on specific frequencies derived from spectrographic analysis of acoustic phenomena. So, e.g., in "Partiels", you start out with a low E on trombone. Then you get an orchestrated chord where all of the pitches are determined by the prominent frequencies that Grisey found when he did a spectral analysis of a trombone playing that low E.

Slow roll out would make sense here, Sund4r, to allow listening time and a bit of reaction before the next tranche (not that I'm going to even attempt complete operas).

10 per day?

What do other people think?

My arguments: We're in the bottom reaches of the top 100 now. I could maybe slow it down a bit for the top 10 but the countdown would take nearly two months if I were to go e.g. 2 a day through the top 100, and nearly three weeks even for 5 a day. Metal poll countdowns go through 20-40 albums per day, for comparison. Yes, some operas are a lot longer than the average metal album but e.g. "Metastasis" is about 8 minutes long. Even Turn of the Screw is just under 2h and fits on 2 CDs like plenty of double albums.

I wasn't planning on giving everything a complete listen during the rollout, just sampling stuff and bookmarking what I liked for later. I think 10 a day is fine, gives plenty of time for discussion and doesn't drag out the process for too long.

I'm working the same way. I don't give every album a complete listen during metal polls or EOY polls either. I am going to listen to Metastasis again in its entirety before moving on, though!

There's like eight different recordings of The Turn of the Screw on Spotify alone; does anyone have a favorite recording of this, or should I just put on the Decca one?

I imagine Jon can help you here, although I have a feeling he likes the 2004 Naxos recording.

Now we finally come to a notated composition that was released as a proper album per se, and a beautiful one.

97 Meredith Monk - Dolmen Music Points: 323 Votes: 4 #1 Votes: 0

https://ecmreviews.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/dolmen-music1.jpg

I knew of Meredith Monk (vaguely) from a class I took fifteen years ago, but I hadn't heard any of her work-- Soulseek was always a little spotty for contemporary art music. I really like her approach to the voice, and I don't always like vocal chamber music.

^ Would have voted for that if I had voted.

Turn Of The Screw was my no.8. The Glyndebourne DVD with Toby Spence is exceptionally good.

The Decca CD with Helen Donath is good but I think I listen to the Erato one just as much.

Yeah my turn of the screw fave is the naxos (originally recorded for Collins classics) conducted by britten's right hand man steuart bedford.

Warning: the Spotify playlist (sund4r will link it later this eve) includes only a remix of the monk piece, bc the original is not on Spotify. All other works have been on there so far. Presuming we have some Phil glass coming up though, that is also a fallow area on Spotify.

I found the Monk piece on Youtube, it was 23 minutes (hopefully the right one). https://youtu.be/7su7d76LhWg (oh please don't embed)

Yes, that's it. It's side B of the LP but we were voting for compositions, not albums, so, yep, that's the whole thing. If you can find the ECM LP on vinyl, you won't regret it.

A apologize for not voting in this but I would have had to apologize even more for voting in it. (Way too unfamiliar with classical music, which isn't all that's covered, but an important part of it.) Probably would have voted for Dolman Music.

I didn't vote in this, because I don't know very much about this stuff, but I'm super-excited about the rollout! I'm sure I'll find all kinds of great pieces I've never heard of.

same

Wow, Meredith Monk is cool. Anyone having any experience with performing her music?

10 a day seems fine to me.

I voted, and when the results are done and everybody is posting their ballots, I hope mine prompts a lot of "ugh, I could have done better than that" and boosts turnout in future polls.

Meredith Monk receiving a 2014 National Medal of the Arts and Humanities

Uf, I'm having a hard time with all of these. I already knew serialism, spectralism, opera and some, I guess spiritual?, types of minimalism are not for me. The chants on Dolmen Music just sound really cheesy to me. As opposed to something like Music for 18 Musicians which is crazy beautiful. Will give a shot to all 100 tho.

^^ that

I don't know a lot about this stuff, but I can think of 10 pieces listed in the noms sheet that I like more than others. Hopefully nobody on this board is going to go "ugh, you voted for Mahler? Really?" but even if they do, who gives a shit, really?

(that was an xpost to WilliamC obv)

Spiritual hat minimalism.

I voted for Mahler, lol...

Simmel, what kinds of notated music do you like (other than Reich obv)?

I had at least three maybe four Mahlers on my ballot, I unashamedly profess the Debussy Mahler Sibelius axis as the king shit

We're staying in America, and among my personal favourites, for the next one.

96 John Cage - First Construction in Metal Points: 327 Votes: 3 #1 Votes: 0

http://www.bellperc.com//media/images/hire/thunder.jpg

... Cage moves away from the traditional Western absorption in pitch, to a point where "pure" (i.e. nonpitched) timbre and rhythmic structure dominate his thinking. The First Construction is scored for an ensemble of six percussionists, who perform on such instruments as brake drums, oxen bells, large 'thundersheets' of metal, gongs, Turkish cymbals, and a 'string piano' (that is, the strings of a grand piano struck directly). The entire work is based on units - rhythmic and formal - of sixteen; for eample, there are sixteen sections, each consisting of sixteen measures. These units, at every level, subdivide into the proportions 4-3-2-3-4.

RIYL: rhythmic electronic music

I really like this version.

I had three Mahler pieces on my ballot, I just meant that if you were going to go after populist stuff, Mahler might be a popular choice. He was a great composer, I'm still finding my way through the symphonies.

I had no idea of the existence of this poll. Glad it got made.

btw: Pollero means guy who sells chickens in spanish so I thought this was some sort of cumbia or salsa poll.

I was unfamiliar with Grisey – this is wonderful.

Yeah thanks Sund4r this has been a fun enterprise

Haha I was mentally preparing a hypothetical ballot for this about a week ago (I cant front: Id have prob included some Swearingen!) and both Symphony in Blue and The Planets were both locks. Crazy!

I just thought it was interesting to see two Messiaen pieces in the top 5. He has always been well-regarded but I'm not sure you would have seen that on many lists 20 years ago.

It was also noteworthy to me how poorly the Second Viennese School did. I believe only one Schoenberg piece made it, and only to #50; Berg was represented by one opera at #35; and I think Webern was shut out altogether. Maybe that's more of a thing for theory/comp obsessives?

No, it was definitely surprising. And are Wozzeck and Pierrot Lunaire even serialism? Was there any serialism on the list? I'd have guessed Moses und Aaron and some Webern would have made it at the very least.

It was surprising -- but I guess down to the polling audience again. I know I didn't have much of those guys on my ballot, for the chief reason I simply don't listen to them as much as other stuff. And like Shostakovich, I think if you were polling academics or all classical musicians/composers, they'd have fared much better.

Pierrot is atonal and not serial

(atonal period before he went serial is my favorite schoenberg period)

Wozzeck is serial enough to be called serial iirc

same for Stravinsky's Agon

spectralism is the new serialism

Agon is an amazing piece -- Stravinsky so good at serialism, he made it sound almost tonal.

But I know Messiaen worked in serialism too -- it didn't always sound like Schoenberg and Webern.

yeah it got my highest stravinsky vote, bits from it get stuck in my head all the time.

xpost

messiaen liked game-type systems, he had this weird musical alphabet thing going for awhile

someone asked him if he really thought it was communicable to listeners and he said "c'est un jeu"

Messiaennnnnnnn

liked birds iirc
and jesus

can i just take a moment, for anyone who is diligently making to-listen lists from all this, if you start getting into Messiaen please check out the 20 minute solo piano piece La Roussarolle Effarvette (The Reed Warbler). It's from his massive cycle of ornithological piano works Catalogue D'Oiseaux, and in this piece he 'depicts' an entire 24 hour cycle in the life of a French marsh, it is music to live by.

i didn't nominate it only because it seemed excessive to nominate the entire Catalogue

Not much of a fan of Messiaen myself. That Alex Ross book has probably had some influence?

I wanted to call out a few specific pieces of British choral music that ppl should check out:

https://play.spotify.com/album/42PjwoPOw3UzyXkIvvQQ5b
Frank Martin: Mass for Double Chorus (particularly the "Agnus Dei")

https://play.spotify.com/track/7GJzibotlvYkUM8AP1fau1
Herbert Howells: Take him, Earth, for cherishing (written on the occasion of JFK's assassination)

https://play.spotify.com/track/1VJx0lbD8564c7U3qlrh09
Benjamin Britten: Hymn to St Cecilia (really check all of Britten's choral music, dude was a master)

https://play.spotify.com/track/0LYnJH42w6itoek1vtv5iA
Charles Ives: Psalm 67 (notable mostly because the women are singing in C-major and the men are singing in G-minor)

https://play.spotify.com/album/1MEil2WMsiotndFOFHgqYU (start at track 6)
Herbert Howells: Requiem (this dude is an unsung hero of British choral music in my opinion)

https://play.spotify.com/track/5xndSoWdGIrwcnRHBmt16P
https://play.spotify.com/track/4ltqbRA0cTpY8DkdKNwJmv
https://play.spotify.com/track/2GRTpVUSY5iz4HrQwBDRTf
Ralph Vaughn Williams: Three Shakespeare Songs

Serialism is just a method of organizing pitch and it can sound like a lot of things (including Bill Evans or Blood, Sweat, and Tears). I do think the Second Viennese School had a common aesthetic that is central to some people's conceptions of 20th century music, though. As serialism goes, aside from the pieces that were mentioned, Kreuzspiel is not just serialism but integral serialism: even the accents in the percussion part follow a 12-number pattern. I'm not totally sure about Kontakte: I wanted to say that at least the acoustic parts were written with serial methods but I can find no proof of this and I'm not doing an analysis right now.

Some excellent stuff in this thread, some of which I've heard but quite a fair bit that I haven't. Thanks for this, Sund4r!

(Ives was [fiercely] American btw.)

DJP probably meant to say English language choral music

Speaking which DJP what do you think of the (chorus + orchestra) Five Tudor Portraits by Vaughan Williams? An oddball masterpiece IMO

And I'm gonna check out all your choral tips that I don't know.

Oh yeah, that makes sense.

I still have nothing significant to contribute to this most excellent thread, just came to say

• Last Friday I crossed paths with the son of this guy, who apparently was at some point Villa-Lobos right hand man
• Earlier last week came across a copy of the recent book of John Cage's Selected Letters and confirmed his participation in this poker game.

Thanks for the choral music recs btw! Will def look into those, esp Britten.

We're doing Hymn to St Cecilia this november :) It's good, though perhaps not my favorite Britten. In a way, it was just better singing Britten as a little boy, he was perhaps the best at writing music for children ever? His Spring Symphony, A Boy Was Born, Hymn to the Virgin.

And Noye's Fludde, now semi-famous thanks to Wes Anderson!

I think Spring Symphony is my favorite of his works with choir.

Moonrise Kingdom is the best Wes Anderson by far, btw, and it's 90% because of the interplay with Britten-music. Young Persons Guide in the opening and on the credits! So good.

and desplat's brief britten-inspired original score

DJP probably meant to say English language choral music

lol I forgot I put Ives in there

just wanted to drop in and say great poll as well, special thanks for all of the choral recommendations, I am always a sucker for a choral piece above all else

Don't miss out on Maurice Ohana's spine tingling
works with choir - he did a fair amount of it. Also lutoslawski's Trois Poemes de Henri Michaux has very unusual choral writing.

I must reiterate I am very happy to have this playlist to work from. I might go back to the nominations list as well and pick up some of those very familiar names whose music is pretty much a blank to me at this point. So far I am gravitating toward Bartok, Sibelius, and Messiaen.

If sund4r wants to publish the 101-200 placements, I'll make a second playlist for those.

(Meant Debussy not Sibelius.)

(Although much of Preludes for Piano is to Romantic for me.)

There was a tie at 199 so here's 1-199. The bottom five or so received one vote each:

1 Igor Stravinsky - Le sacre du printemps (The Rite of Spring) 1502 12 1
2 Olivier Messiaen - Turangalîla-Symphonie 1458 11 1
3 Steve Reich - Music for 18 Musicians 1234 10 0
4 Olivier Messiaen - Quatuor pour le fin de temps 1225 10 0
5 Krzysztof Penderecki - Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima 1060 8 0
6 Henryk Gorecki - Symphony No. 3 'Symphony of Sorrowful Songs' 970 8 0
7 Maurice Ravel - Boléro 949 8 0
8 Igor Stravinsky - Firebird 940 7 0
9 Terry Riley - In C 881 8 0
10 George Gershwin - Rhapsody in Blue 826 8 0
11 Bela Bartok - Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta 816 6 0
12 Igor Stravinsky - Petrushka 788 6 0
13 Morton Feldman - Rothko Chapel 780 7 0
14 Karlheinz Stockhausen - Kontakte 754 6 0
15 Steve Reich - Drumming 741 6 0
16 Philip Glass - Einstein on the Beach 694 5 0
17 Gyorgy Ligeti - Atmosphères 692 5 0
18 Arvo Pärt - Tabula Rasa 682 5 0
19 Jean Sibelius - Tapiola 668 4 0
20 Steve Reich - Different Trains 667 6 0
21 Claude Debussy - Preludes (Books 1 and 2) 663 5 1
22 Arvo Pärt - Fratres 648 5 0
23 Claude Debussy - Prélude a l'après-midi d'un faune (Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun) 636 5 0
24 Gustav Holst - The Planets 632 7 0
25 Leonard Bernstein et al - West Side Story 627 4 0
26 Gustav Mahler - Symphony no. 6 625 5 0
27 Duke Ellington - The Far East Suite 598 5 0
28 John Cage - 4'33' 594 5 1
29 Philip Glass - Music in 12 Parts 594 4 1
30 Olivier Messiaen - L'Ascension 575 5 0
31 Karlheinz Stockhausen - Stimmung 566 6 0
32 Glenn Branca - Symphony no. 3 555 6 0
33 Igor Stravinsky - Agon 539 4 0
34 Luciano Berio - Sinfonia 533 6 0
35 Alban Berg - Wozzeck 522 4 0
35 Gyorgy Ligeti - Requiem 522 4 0
37 Gyorgy Ligeti - Lux Aeterna 517 4 0
38 Gabriel Fauré - Requiem in D minor 516 4 0
39 Claude Debussy - Nocturnes 515 4 0
40 Claude Debussy - La mer 514 3 0
41 Bela Bartok - Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion 511 4 0
42 Arvo Pärt - Cantus in memoriam Benjamin Britten 507 4 0
43 John Cage - Sonatas and Interludes for the Prepared Piano 489 5 1
44 Steve Reich - Tehillim 483 4 0
45 Claude Debussy - Sonata for Flute, Viola, and Harp 483 3 0
46 Jean Sibelius - Symphony no. 6 480 3 0
47 Ennio Morricone - The Good, the Bad and the Ugly 477 4 0
48 Alfred Schnittke - Concerto for Choir 475 4 0
49 Gavin Bryars - Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet 473 3 0
50 Arnold Schoenberg - Pierrot Lunaire 471 3 0
51 edgard varèse - Ionisation 467 5 0
52 Benjamin Britten - Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings 461 3 0
53 Philip Glass - Music in Similar Motion 453 3 0
54 Bela Bartok - Mikrokosmos 452 4 0
55 John Zorn - Cobra 449 4 0
56 Bela Bartok - Concerto for Orchestra 446 3 0
57 Karlheinz Stockhausen - Kreuzspiel 442 4 0
58 Edgard Varese - Density 21.5 439 5 0
59 Louis Andriessen - De Staat 433 4 0
60 Maurice Ravel - Rapsodie espagnole 433 3 0
61 Yamashiro Shoji (with Geinoh Yamashirogumi) - Akira (Original Soundtrack) 429 3 0
62 Bela Bartok - String Quartet no. 4 427 3 0
63 Maurice Ravel - String Quartet in F 412 4 0
64 Benjamin Britten - War Requiem 409 3 0
65 Steve Reich - Music for Mallet Instruments, Voices and Organ 404 4 0
66 Pierre Boulez - le marteau sans maître 399 3 0
67 Brian Eno - Discreet Music 396 3 0
68 John Luther Adams - Become Ocean 395 4 0
69 Jerry Goldsmith - Alien, film score 388 3 0
70 Gustav Mahler - Das Lied von der Erde 388 2 0
71 Igor Stravinsky - Les Noces 381 3 0
72 Claude Debussy - String Quartet in G Minor 380 3 0
73 Gustav Mahler - Symphony no. 9 380 2 1
74 Gavin Bryars - The Sinking of the Titanic 375 3 0
75 Antonin Dvořák - Symphony no. 9 ('New World') 374 4 1
76 Iannis Xenakis - Pithoprakta 370 4 0
76 Steve Reich - Sextet 370 4 0
78 Charles Ives - The Unanswered Question 368 3 0
79 Jean Sibelius - Symphony No. 4 366 4 0
80 Gustav Mahler - Symphony no. 5 365 4 0
81 Philip Glass - Akhnaten 363 3 0
82 George Gershwin - An American In Paris 361 4 0
83 Antonin Dvořák - Rusalka 356 2 0
84 Steve Reich - Piano Phase 354 4 0
85 Giacomo Puccini - Manon Lescaut 350 2 0
86 Claude Debussy - Etudes 346 2 0
87 Scott Joplin - The Entertainer 345 4 0
88 luciano berio - Sequenza III (for female voice) 342 5 0
89 Igor Stravinsky - Symphonies of Wind Instruments 340 3 0
90 Ennio Morricone - For A Few Dollars More, film score 335 4 0
90 Les Baxter - Quiet Village 335 4 0
92 Glenn Branca - Symphony no. 13 ('Hallucination City') 333 3 0
93 Maurice Duruflé - Requiem 332 2 0
94 Arvo Pärt - Magnificat 329 3 0
95 Gustav Mahler - Symphony no. 3 328 3 0
96 John Cage - First Construction in Metal 327 3 0
97 Meredith Monk - Dolmen Music 323 4 0
98 Iannis Xenakis - Metastasis 322 4 0
99 Benjamin Britten - The Turn of the Screw, opera after Henry James 320 2 0
100 Gérard Grisey - Les espaces acoustiques 318 2 0
101 Maurice Ravel - Gaspard de la nuit 316 3 0
102 Maurice Ravel - Daphnis et Chloe 314 2 0
102 Maurice Ravel - La valse 314 2 0
104 Jean Sibelius - The Tempest, incidental music for the play 310 3 0
105 Aaron Copland - Appalachian Spring 310 2 0
106 Erik Satie - Trois Gnossienes 306 5 0
107 Steve Reich - Four Organs 304 3 0
108 Olivier Messiaen - Trois petites liturgies de la présence divine 300 3 0
109 Scott Joplin - The Maple Leaf Rag 299 3 0
110 Giacomo Puccini - Tosca 299 2 0
110 Percy Grainger - A Lincolnshire Posy 299 2 0
112 Witold Lutoslawski - Symphony no. 3 297 3 0
113 Alban Berg - Lulu 295 3 0
113 Glenn Branca - Symphony no. 6 295 3 0
113 Kurt Weill (with Bertolt Brecht) - Threepenny Opera 295 3 0
116 Per Norgard - Symphony no. 2 294 3 0
117 John Cage - In a Landscape 293 2 0
118 Maurice Ravel - Valses nobles et sentimentales 292 2 0
119 Bela Bartok - Out of Doors (Szabadban), Sz. 81 288 2 0
120 John Tavener - The Protecting Veil 285 3 0
121 Claude Debussy - Pelléas et Mélisande 284 2 0
122 Sergei Prokofiev - Alexander Nevsky 283 3 0
123 Giacomo Puccini - La Boheme 283 2 0
124 Steve Reich - violin phase 282 3 0
125 John Cage - Williams Mix 281 2 0
126 Gabriel Fauré - Piano Trio 279 3 0
127 Henryk Gorecki - Miserere 279 2 0
128 Alfred Schnittke - Concerto Grosso No.1 278 2 0
129 Alice Coltrane - Galaxy in Satchidananda 277 2 0
130 John Adams - Nixon in China 275 3 0
131 Iannis Xenakis - Pléïades 275 2 0
132 Bernard Herrmann - Vertigo, film score 273 4 0
133 Gustav Holst - First Suite in E-flat for Military Band 273 3 0
134 Henry Cowell - The Banshee 265 3 0
135 Harrison Birtwistle - Punch and Judy 265 2 0
135 witold lutosławski - string quartet 265 2 0
137 Owen Pallett - Heartland 264 2 0
138 Howard Shore - The Fellowship of the Ring, film score 263 3 0
139 Gyorgy Ligeti - Violin Concerto 262 2 0
139 John Adams - A Short Ride in a Fast Machine 262 2 0
141 Igor Stravinsky - The Rakes Progress 261 3 0
142 Claude Debussy - Children's Corner 260 2 0
143 Dmitry Shostakovich - Symphony no. 14 (song cycle for two singers and orchestra) 258 2 0
144 Per Norgard - Symphony no. 3 256 2 0
145 Charles Koechlin - The Jungle Book 254 3 0
146 Astor Piazzolla - Libertango 253 2 0
146 John Adams - Harmonium 253 2 0
148 U Totem - One Nail Draws Another 252 2 0
149 Krzysztof Penderecki - Symphony No.1 248 3 0
150 Gil Evans - Sunken Treasure 248 2 0
150 Jean Sibelius - Symphony No. 7 248 2 0
150 Olivier Messiaen - Des canyons aux étoiles 248 2 0
153 Sergei Rachmaninoff - Piano Concertos 1-4 245 2 0
154 Ralph Vaughan Williams - Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis 242 4 0
155 Elliott Carter - String Quartet No. 1 241 2 0
156 Maurice Ravel - Miroirs 240 2 0
157 Claude Vivier - Lonely Child 236 2 0
157 Gustav Mahler - Symphony no. 7 236 2 0
157 Scott Joplin - Solace 236 2 0
160 Ottorino Respighi - Pines of Rome 235 2 0
161 Olivier Messiaen - Vingt Regards sur L'enfant-Jesus 233 2 0
162 Bernard Herrmann - Psycho, film score 232 2 0
163 Olivier Messiaen - Chronochromie 231 2 0
164 Olivier Messiaen - La Nativité du Seigneur 229 2 0
165 Howard Shore - Crash, film score 228 2 0
166 John Luther Adams - Inuksuit 227 3 0
167 Arnold Schoenberg - Verklarte Nacht 226 4 0
168 Louis Andriessen - Hoketus 226 2 0
169 Gyorgy Ligeti - Lontano 225 3 0
170 Leoš Janáček - Capriccio for Piano (left hand) and Wind Instruments 224 2 0
171 Bela Bartok - String Quartet no. 5 217 2 0
172 Edward Elgar - Cello Concerto 216 3 0
173 Steve Reich - City Life 215 2 0
174 John Cage - credo in us 212 3 0
175 Charles Koechlin - Les Heures Persanes 212 2 0
176 Dmitry Shostakovich - 24 Preludes and Fugues (op. 87) 210 2 0
176 Pauline Oliveros - Six for New Time 210 2 0
178 Bela Bartok - String Quartet no. 3 207 2 0
179 Milton Babbitt - Philomel 206 2 0
180 Edgard Varese - Arcana 202 3 0
181 Ennio Morricone - Once Upon A Time In America, film score 202 2 0
181 Kurt Schwitters - Ursonate 202 2 0
181 Morton Subotnick - Silver Apples of the Moon 202 2 0
181 Peter Warlock - The Curlew 202 2 0
181 Wendy Carlos - Timesteps 202 2 0
181 harrison birtwistle - triumph of time 202 2 0
181 luciano berio - laborintus 2 202 2 0
188 Bela Bartok - Piano Concerto No.2 201 2 0
189 Karlheinz Stockhausen - Mikrophonie II 200 2 0
189 Karlheinz Stockhausen - Prozession 200 2 0
189 Ornette Coleman - Skies of America 200 2 0
189 Steve Reich - phase patterns 200 2 0
189 henryk gorecki - harpsichord concerto 200 2 0
189 ornette coleman - dedication to poets and writers 200 2 0
195 Giuseppe Verdi - Falstaff 200 1 1
195 Jean Sibelius - Finlandia 200 1 1
195 Sofia Gubaidulina - The Canticle of the Sun 200 1 1
198 George Lewis - Homage to Charles Parker 198 1 0
199 Lili Boulanger - Clairières dans le ciel 196 1 0
199 Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov - The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh 196 1 0

I wanted to call out a few specific pieces of British choral music that ppl should check out:

Just to nitpick, Frank Martin was a francophone Swiss who also lived in Italy, France and the Netherlands.

195 Sofia Gubaidulina - The Canticle of the Sun 200 1 1
199 Lili Boulanger - Clairières dans le ciel 196 1 0

Wow, kinda sad I was the only one to vote for these, didn't expect that... I expected there to be more love for Gubaidulina especially, she's pretty prominent and well recorded.

had a listen to that george lewis piece and nice v v nice

is there a spotify link to this anywhere?

got it, never mind

I haven't gotten around to doing the 101-200 playlist yet btw. Maybe during the holiday lull.

I'm not sure why I was AWOL for this! I remember nominating stuff, The Unanswered Question for one.

I'm never quite sure how popular Messiaen is, but that's a pleasing result on that front.

It looks like, if I'd be paying attention, Daphnis et Chloe, Alexander Nevsky and some Lutoslawski and Koechlin might have just snuck into the 100. :)

I just want to say thank you for this thread to all who participated. I've been making my way through this list and have found so many amazing pieces. Today's discovery: Arvo Part's Fratres, Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten, and Tabula Rasa.

This Sunday's NYT piece on the straightjacketing effect of Rhapsody in Blue over the course of the last 100 years annoyed me but also had some truth to it