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

Whoops! I skipped #89, very sorry!

89 Igor Stravinsky - Symphonies of Wind Instruments Points: 340 Votes: 3 #1 Votes: 0

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"[The Symphonies of Wind Instruments] is not meant 'to please' an audience or rouse its passions. I had hoped, however, that it would appeal to those in whom a purely musical receptivity outweighed the desire to satisfy emotional cravings."

- Igor Stravinsky, An Autobiography

In contrast to his lavish "audience lollipop" The Firebird (1910), Stravinsky described the Symphonies of Wind Instruments as "an austere ritual that is unfolded in terms of short litanies between different groups of homogenous instruments." Using the terminology of sacred music, Stravinsky creates "short litanies" comprised of varied, discrete musical ideas, from lively cantilena melodies that recall the Russian folk tunes of his early works to ascetic chorales that look forward to his sacred works like the Symphony of Psalms (1930).

Stripping the term "symphonies" of its Classical-era associations, Stravinsky here invokes the word's root meaning, "sounding together." To this end, Stravinsky rapidly juxtaposes blocks of sound, each with its own instrumental, rhythmic, and temporal identity. The effect is a kind of disjointed, collage-like form, whose visual corollary can be found in the Cubist canvases of his friend and collaborator Pablo Picasso. Emphasizing precision over expression, Stravinsky creates four discrete tempos (whose relationships are multiples of each other) that must be strictly adhered to and in which, in the words of writer Paul Griffiths, "rubato is ruled out."

- From: http://www.laphil.com/philpedia/music/symphonies-of-wind-instruments-igor-stravinsky

Regarding Sequenza III, which placed higher, at #88:

The voice carries always an excess of connotations, whatever it is doing. From the grossest of noises to the most delicate of singing, the voice always means something, always refers beyond itself and creates a huge range of associations. In Sequenza III I tried to assimilate many aspects of everyday vocal life, including trivial ones, without losing intermediate levels or indeed normal singing. In order to control such a wide range of vocal behaviour, I felt I had to break up the text in an apparently devastating way, so as to be able to recuperate fragments from it on different expressive planes, and to reshape them into units that were not discursive but musical. The text had to be homogeneous, in order to lend itself to a project that consisted essentially of exorcising the excessive connotations and composing them into musical units. This is the “modular” text written by Markus Kutter for Sequenza III.

Give me a few words for a woman
to sing a truth allowing us
to build a house without worrying before night comes

In Sequenza III the emphasis is given to the sound symbolism of vocal and sometimes visual gestures, with their accompanying “shadows of meaning”, and the associations and conflicts suggested by them. For this reason Sequenza III can also be considered as a dramatic essay whose story, so to speak, is the relationship between the soloist and her own voice
Sequenza III was written in 1965 for Cathy Berberian.

Luciano Berio

From http://www.lucianoberio.org/node/1460?1487325698=1

Sequenza III is another longtime favourite, which knocked me out when I heard it in that history class at 19, with just the sheer range of what he (and Berberian in the classic recording obv) was able to get out of the human voice, both technically and expressively. The guitar sequenza is one that I might have listened to more but this will always be definitive for me.

Anyway, risks of doing these things without enough sleep etc.

Duruflé's Requiem was #2 in my ballot. Besides Fauré's famous one (with which it's often paired on recordings), it's my favourite requiem of all time, and one of my top 10 religious pieces in general. I love calm serenity with which both of them tackled the heaviest of subject matters, though Fauré's approach I guess is a bit prettier compared to Duruflé's more solemn one. I can't really say I prefer one above the other, but I decided to place Duruflé higher in this poll because he needs more recognition than Fauré.

sund4r's quote is correct that Duruflé was very much out of time, and he seems to have not been influenced much by contemporary 20th century music, neither by avant-garde nor popular stuff. Apparently he was also incredibly self-critical, publishing only a handful of compositions he was absolutely satisfied with (mostly organ music). The entirety his published output fits on two CDs, I think.

this is all v nice so far. i've surprised myself by knowing most of it (tho never even heard of duruflé!), maybe i should have voted after all. i'll be sure to participate in the next ilm notated music poll fifty years from now

A quick recap:

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

So I'd well recommend checking pretty much anything by him, it's all wonderful. For the requiem, you can go wrong with the version he himseld conducted, though there good later ones to, such as this one. For the organ works, Marie-Claire Alain's interpretations are the best ones I know, though I'm not sure if they've been compiled on one recording. For a complete organ works I disc, I like this one, where Vincent Warnier plays on Duruflés "home organ" (the one in Saint-Étienne-du-Mont where he served as an organist).

(xxpost)

"though there are good later ones too"

I did listen to almost all of his Requiem last night. It was pleasant, yeah. I could see myself putting it on again.

Something truly obscure up next.

87 Scott Joplin - The Entertainer Points: 345 Votes: 4 #1 Votes: 0

http://www.oneicity.com/site/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Flickr-Ice-Cream-Truck.jpg

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/KCToGv-lO7c/hqdefault.jpg

I gave more points to "Maple Leaf Rag" but I like this one too, especially the way the melody relies on the m6 interval. Really great American composer.

I've always wondered, was "The Entertainer" popular at all before it was used in The Sting?

This is no doubt the one entry in the top 100 I have the earliest memories of, since a kid in the '80s I had Commodore 64 Snoopy platform game which featured this tune on infinite loop. After hours and hours of playing it, I think the melody is burned in my mind until the day I die.

https://youtu.be/vRvd1Zx51Vw

"The Maple Leaf Rag" is usually cited as the one that was most popular and important in its time but Joplin was very successful and popular by 1902, when "The Entertainer" was written.

Edward Berlin in Grove:

In 1901 Joplin moved to St. Louis with Belle, his new wife, and devoted his time to composition and teaching, relegating performance to a minor part of his activities. Adding to his fame through the next few years were such outstanding rags as “Sunflower Slow Drag” (1901, with Scott Hayden), “The Easy Winners” (1901), “The Entertainer” (1902), and “The Strenuous Life” (1902)

Wikipedia fwiw:

In the June 7, 1903 St. Louis Globe-Democrat, contemporary composer Monroe H. Rosenfeld described "The Entertainer" as "the best and most euphonious" of Joplin's compositions to that point. "It is a jingling work of a very original character, embracing various strains of a retentive character which set the foot in spontaneous action and leave an indelible imprint on the tympanum."[2]...

...In November 1970 [three years before The Sting], Joshua Rifkin released a recording called Scott Joplin: Piano Rags[4] on the classical label Nonesuch, which featured as its second track "The Entertainer". It sold 100,000 copies in its first year and eventually became Nonesuch's first million-selling record.[5] The Billboard "Best-Selling Classical LPs" chart for September 28, 1974 has the record at #5, with the follow-up "Volume 2" at #4, and a combined set of both volumes at #3. Separately both volumes had been on the chart for 64 weeks.[6] The album was nominated in 1971 for two Grammy Award categories, Best Album Notes and Best Instrumental Soloist Performance (without orchestra), but at the ceremony on March 14, 1972, Rifkin did not win in any category.[7] In 1979 Alan Rich in the New York Magazine wrote that by giving artists like Rifkin the opportunity to put Joplin's music on disk, Nonesuch Records "created, almost alone, the Scott Joplin revival."[8]

LOL the playlist is 8 hours long already. Listen up Gustav and Glenn, take some lessons in getting to the point from your Uncle Les, why don'tcha?

Fwiw, top 77 albums of 2015 playlist is 60h17m long (about 7.8h for 10 albums). Top metal albums from 00-15 playlist is 141h44m.

i'm really vexed about what version of The Entertainer to put on the playlist. Does anyone dig the v slow Rifkin style anymore? (I seem to recall that was supposed to be authentic...?)

Checking in here from hospital where my daughter was born, can't really participate much. But go for Joplin piano roll recording!

heyyyy many congrats DL!!!

thank you!

hahaha, i love that you popped in for scott joplin advice!

congratulations to you and family!

Congratulations, Dominique!

Yes, congrats! That's wonderful!

"The Entertainer" is short enough that you could add both, isn't it? A slow recording and a more uptempo one?

congrats D!

I am so completely annoyed with myself that I forgot this was happening and didn't vote. Big ups to Durufle

i went with the piano roll, who can argue with a new parent?

Btw, if you squint, you can see me in the front row of the Branca orchestra (on the roof of the WTC, summer 2001) in that pic, on Bob Bannister's left.

This will not be the next composer's last appearance on this poll...

86 Claude Debussy - Etudes Points: 346 Votes: 2 #1 Votes: 0
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Did everyone vote for at least one Debussy piece? I think it might be possible.

No worries, DJP. I was looking forward to your ballot, though! It would have been good to see another list with a lot of vocal/choral repertoire music, since it's not my main area. I think Fred covered for you there a bit.

Ha, yeah... I guess if we'd had another one we could have taken over the whole list with choral music! Except I guess my list was mostly what I've performed myself. It's just hard to compare something I've listened to and perhaps heard in concert once or twice, with something where I've pored over the score for possibly months...

I don't think I voted for any Debussy? I cut something at the last minute, because I figured I hadn't heard it enough. I wan't to listen to it more, though. Several pieces.

ETUUUUUDES

Dying magician surmounts his agony, goes out on top. My most frequently listened to Debussy work these days, probably.

(Oh yeah another note on the playlist: in some cases, such as the Berio Sequenza III, I have chosen the track from a cheeseball compilation instead of from its proper place on a DG (or Philips or Decca or other Universal Music Group label) album. This is a workaround to be able to have good-sounding versions of UMG tracks on the playlist, because unfortunately the lion's share of the DG/Decca/Philips etc classical recordings on Spotify were added to their library back when UMG was still watermarking their files. But UMG has been licensing their holdings to budget digital compilation labels like X-5 for awhile, and the versions that appear on these compilations are not watermarked. This is why the Sequenza on the playlist is not taken from the DG complete Sequenzas album but from a comp with a dumb title and andre rieu cheek by jowl with ligeti.)

lol mine also would have been heavy with things I have personally performed

where's the nomination list? I will assemble a "what might have been" ballot of suggestions for you, Sund4r.

oh nevermind just saw the link in the opening post

(omg did I not nominate the Brahms Requiem, wtf me)

sorry to spam the thread after not voting but was this noticed and were any potential votes for these combined:

Richard Strauss - Four Last Songs
Richard Strauss - Vier letzte Lieder

lol

that really makes us look like rubes

Dunno how I missed that but there was one vote for "Vier letzte Lieder" and none for "Four Last Songs".

I believe this is the second opera in the top 100:

85 Giacomo Puccini - Manon Lescaut Points: 350 Votes: 2 #1 Votes: 0

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manon_Lescaut_(Puccini)#/media/File:Locandina_Manon_Lescaut.jpg

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/6b/b3/93/6bb39396529583aec83071fa21aa7c77.jpg

if you can overlook the fact that it's set in the 'desert' of New Orleans, the finale is one of the most heart-wrenching in opera. Sola, perduta, abbandonata!

I'm going to see Sondra Radvanovsky play Manon in November, which should be great.

sharivari, for the playlist -- Caballe or Callas?

Not much to choose between them. Callas if it's the remastered version, Caballe if not perhaps.

We've had some pretty dramatic contrasts between neighbouring pieces so far but the upcoming one is definitely up there.