Thread: Your "top 10" works for individual composers of the twentieth century

I'm interested in what people would recommend others to listen to (particularly newcomers) of music of the twentieth century by each composer.

Think of your favourite composers of the twentieth century, whose music you are generally well acquainted with. Make up a list of 10 works which you would recommend others to listen to as a starting point.

Your list doesn't have to have anything to do with the works being the most popular by the composer. As long as even obscure works you choose to put on the list engage or inspire you in some way, and you think that they would do likewise for others, that's fine. Sometimes, lesser-known works can give us a more well-rounded understanding of a particular composer.

Try to choose a number of different works from various genres - if the composer wrote in them (eg. orchestral, chamber, solo instrumental, song, stage works, etc.) & from across his/her compositional career. Your list can also have works on it that you may have only heard bits of, or mainly read about, but want to explore more yourself down the track.

You can include some works as a whole unit if it is warranted in some way. For example, Prokofiev's piano sonatas numbers 6 to 8 are collectively known as his "war sonatas" and are quite inseperable (so I'd say that for the purposes of this list, they consist as one inseperable work). Puccini's opera trilogy Il Trittico is in the same category. But basically, if you think that a number of works should be listened to together, then you can include them as one work.

I'll start with a perennial favourite, Bela Bartok. These works range in date from 1911 to 1945 & all genres are basically covered. I think that listening to these is a good starting point to get to know Bartok's music:

1. Concerto for Orchestra (1943)
2. Music for Strings, Percussion & Celesta (1936)/Divertimento for Strings (1939)(both written for Paul Sacher of Switzerland)
3. Violin Concerto No. 2 (1937-8)
4. Piano Concertos 1-3 (1926-45)
5. String Quartets 1-6 (1908-39)
6. Mikrokosmos, solo piano (1926/1932-9)
7. Piano Sonata (1926)
8. Cantata Profana (1930) (haven't heard this but will soon, but Bartok thought it to be his finest work)
9. The Miraculous Mandarin, ballet suite (1918)
10. Bluebeard's Castle, opera (1911)

Good one, Andre. I'll continue with Samuel Barber.

1. Adagio for Strings (1938)
2. Violin Concerto (1939)
3. Piano Concerto (1962)
4. 1st & 2nd Essays for Orchestra (1937/1942)
5. Piano Sonata (1949)
6. Vanessa, opera (1957) (haven't heard the whole thing yet, but it won a Pulitzer)
7. Knoxville: Summer of 1915, soprano and orchestra (1948)
8. First Symphony (1936)
9. Cello Concerto (1945)
10. Excursions, piano solo (1942-44)

Ten introductory works by Arnold Schoenberg in the order in which you should hear them:

1. Gurre-Lieder
2. Verklärte Nacht Op. 4
3. String Quartet No. 1 in D Minor Op. 7
4. Chamber Symphony No. 1 in E Major Op. 9
5. String Quartet No. 2 Op. 10
6. Serenade Op. 24
7. Five Pieces for Orchestra Op. 16
8. Piano Concerto Op. 42
9. A Survivor from Warsaw Op. 46
10. Moses und Aron

But even then, I'd say a newcomer to Schoenberg needs already to have a come to terms with the length and chromaticism of the great works of Wagner and Mahler. Knowing how to listen to counterpoint would also be an advantage.

Great lists, Webernite. Thanks for starting the ball rolling. Funnily enough, I'm more familiar with Barber than Schoenberg. I really want to hear the latter's String Trio, which is said to be a seminal late work. I've heard of neither's piano concertos (or Barber's cello concerto). I borrowed Vanessa from the library last year, but ended up returning it without hearing it. I had too much other listening on my plate. It's on my list to borrow again and actually listen, because it is said to be one of his best stage works. I was fortunate to "bump into" both these guys works in the concert halls last year - Barber's Knoxville and Schoenberg's Serenade which you list, and also the suite (chamber work). I particularly thought that the Serenade was quite light despite being amongst his first serial works. Here he had invented a new system of composing, and he wrote gavottes, minuets and other ancient dances. It sounded both familiar and "new" (for me, anyway) at the same time. Neoclassical serialism? I thought that the inclusion of the baritone solo in the middle was an interesting "pivot." I have much more to discover from Schoenberg, I've heard none of his solo piano works, nor any of his string quartets. Hopefully, I can rectify this a bit by the end of the year. This year, I have already bought Pierrot Lunaire, which I hope to see live here in Sydney in April. A challenging but thoroughly absorbing work indeed...

Richard Strauss-

1. Four Last Songs- (Vier letzte Lieder)
2. Salome
3. Elektra
4. Der Rosenkavalier
5. Ariadne auf Naxos
6. Die Frau ohne Schatten
7. Also sprach Zarathustra
8. Death and Transfiguration (Tod und Verklärung)
9. Eine Alpensinfonie
10. Daphne

I went with Strauss because I find that most of those who underestimate him as a composer do so without having listened to his greatest achievements... which are surely his operas. I would unhesitatingly call him the greatest operatic composer of the 20th century. Salome and Elektra build upon the works of Wagner, yet achieve something far more... disturbing. They attain the shock of Expressionism yet within the most exquisitely beautiful music. The closest analogy I can think of is the poetry of Charles Baudelaire.

Der Rosenkavalier, on the other hand, is a return to a classicism. There are elements of traditional Viennese waltzes... the glitter and wit of Mozart's opera... and yet the work never slips into a mere pastiche. Many would argue it is his greatest achievement.

My choice of the Four Last Songs for no. 1 is simply based upon the fact that I find these four symphonic songs to be among the most exquisite and emotionally wrenching vocal works of the century. They are quite likely the 20th century work that I have the most recordings of... and perhaps only second to Schubert's Winterreise in this among all my lieder.

I could have gone with the opera Capriccio instead of Daphne... but I am so enamored of Rene Fleming's recording of Daphne that I recently purchased.

I'm surprised you didn't include Metamorphosen, or many of the other non-operatic works, especially those from before 1900. But I suppose it's understandable. I had to miss plenty of important works of Schoenberg's off my list, too.

Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev

Piano Sonata No. 1 (1909)*
Piano Concerto No. 1 (1911-12)*
Toccata (1912) My introduction to this composer.
Piano Concerto No. 2 (1912-13, rev. 1923)
Violin Concerto No. 1 (1916-17)
Chout (1915, rev. 1920)
Visions Fugitives (1915-17)
Piano Concerto No. 3 (1917-21)
Love for Three Oranges (1919)**
The Fiery Angel (1919-27)**
Quintet (1923)
Symphony No. 2 (1924-5)
Symphony No. 3 (1928)
Piano Concerto No. 5 (1932)
Romeo and Juliet (1935-6)
Alexander Nevsky, cantata (1939)
Violin Sonata No. 1 (1938-46)
Piano Sonata No. 6 (1939-40)
Piano Sonata No. 7 (1939-42)
Piano Sonata No. 8 (1939-44)
War and Peace (1941-43, rev. 1946-52)
Symphony No. 5 (1944)
Symphony No. 6 (1945-7)
Symphony No. 7 (1951-2)***

*Though the 1st Piano Sonata is a relatively lesser work compared to many of the others mentioned, I think it is essential in understanding Prokofiev's development as a composer to analyze his roots as a romantic composer and how he eventually molded out of that. I think when discussing the "jump" between the op. 1 piano sonata and his mighty First Piano Concerto (arguably where the composer first found his "voice"), we often forget that the "new" Prokofiev isn't really all that different from the "old" one, and that this seemingly rapid progression between "styles" is by no means a spontaneous one.

** The beginning of Prokofiev's "wild" period, which lasted until around 1933. After that, his music arguably grows increasingly tonal, with the possible exception of the War Sonatas.

***Prokofiev's last completed work may be the most tonal in his entire career. Yet it's really hard for any beginner to jump to the end of the composer's career, accessible as it is. The 7th symphony is not a work in the 18th century Romantic spirit - or in any way comparable to the symphonies of Brahms and Bruckner. Instead, I see of it more as the composer's last mockery, the most bitter and ironic of them all, in many ways. One can just envision the poor man regressing further and further into a fantasy dream-world, a hiding place perhaps, but also nostalgia and introspection. And in this way he finally gave in...

Witold Lutoslawski. A very great and energetic composer as well as a sad and likeable man, sadly neglected since he died. He used methods and techniques of modernism to create music that was above its time as well as above modernism, on a par with the best of Beethoven or of Bela Bartok, whom he resembles in certain ways:

1/ Concerto for Orchestra
2/ Symphony #2
3/ Trois Poemes d'Henri Michaux
4/ Livre pour Orchestre
5/ Symphony #3
6/ Chain #1
7/ Chain #3
8/ Interlude
9/ Piano Concerto
10/ Symphony #4

Air redeems himself for including more than ten works of Prokofiev, by including the unjustly neglected 2nd symphony. I can't get enough of the Tema from the Theme and Variations 2nd movement!

Originally Posted by Webernite

Ten introductory works by Arnold Schoenberg in the order in which you should hear them:

1. Gurre-Lieder
2. Verklärte Nacht Op. 4
3. String Quartet No. 1 in D Minor Op. 7
4. Chamber Symphony No. 1 in E Major Op. 9
5. String Quartet No. 2 Op. 10
6. Serenade Op. 24
7. Five Pieces for Orchestra Op. 16
8. Piano Concerto Op. 42
9. A Survivor from Warsaw Op. 46
10. Moses und Aron

But even then, I'd say a newcomer to Schoenberg needs already to have a come to terms with the length and chromaticism of the great works of Wagner and Mahler. Knowing how to listen to counterpoint would also be an advantage.

What about his violin concerto, opus 36 (1934 - 1936)? I have that on CD (coupled with a few other works, including A Survivor from Warsaw). If you like atonal violin concertos and interested in listening to an early example of one, then this might be for you.

Originally Posted by Andre

Great lists, Webernite. Thanks for starting the ball rolling.

The Barber list was by Jeff N and not by me. He gets the credit for that one.

Originally Posted by Andre

Funnily enough, I'm more familiar with Barber than Schoenberg. I really want to hear the latter's String Trio, which is said to be a seminal late work. I've heard of neither's piano concertos (or Barber's cello concerto). I borrowed Vanessa from the library last year, but ended up returning it without hearing it. I had too much other listening on my plate. It's on my list to borrow again and actually listen, because it is said to be one of his best stage works. I was fortunate to "bump into" both these guys works in the concert halls last year - Barber's Knoxville and Schoenberg's Serenade which you list, and also the suite (chamber work). I particularly thought that the Serenade was quite light despite being amongst his first serial works. Here he had invented a new system of composing, and he wrote gavottes, minuets and other ancient dances. It sounded both familiar and "new" (for me, anyway) at the same time. Neoclassical serialism? I thought that the inclusion of the baritone solo in the middle was an interesting "pivot." I have much more to discover from Schoenberg, I've heard none of his solo piano works, nor any of his string quartets. Hopefully, I can rectify this a bit by the end of the year. This year, I have already bought Pierrot Lunaire, which I hope to see live here in Sydney in April. A challenging but thoroughly absorbing work indeed...

If I remember correctly, the Serenade Op. 24 is only partially serial. I might be wrong, but I think I remember reading that his first completely serial work was the next opus along, Op. 25. This might be why you find the Serenade lighter than, for example, the Violin Concerto, which is completely serial.

Even so, Pierrot Lunaire isn't serial at all, and yet, as you say, it's very challenging. More challenging to me than many of his serial works. So I guess there must be other factors at work - instrumentation, how heavily he uses dissonance, etc.

Olivier Messiaen, this highly conservative Catholic, who promoted the music of Pierre Boulez and of Karlheinz Stockhausen!

1/ Huit Preludes
2/ Visions de l'Amen
3/ Vingt Regards sur l'Enfant Jesus
4/ Trois Petites Liturgies de la Presence Divine
5/ Reveil des Oiseaux
6/ Catalogue d'Oiseaux
7/ Sept Haikai
8/ Chronochromie
9/ Des Canyons aux Etoiles
10/ Concert a Quatre

Originally Posted by HarpsichordConcerto

What about his violin concerto, opus 36 (1934 - 1936)?

How about the Variations op 31? It is the best available introduction to the twelve-note method of composition, and it is superb, as music!

Originally Posted by HarpsichordConcerto

What about his violin concerto, opus 36 (1934 - 1936)? I have that on CD (coupled with a few other works, including A Survivor from Warsaw). If you like atonal violin concertos and interested in listening to an early example of one, then this might be for you.

I haven't yet listened to Schoenberg's Piano Concerto, so I can't comment on that. But I have heard the Violin Concerto (Hilary Hahn's performance) & I think that it is indeed a fine work. I have read, though, that the Piano Concerto is one of his most approachable works, so maybe that's why Webernite included it. I am aiming this thread at the beginner, the lists created should help newbies get a bit of a grasp of these composers music without literally having to listen to almost everything they wrote...

Originally Posted by HarpsichordConcerto

What about his violin concerto, opus 36 (1934 - 1936)? I have that on CD (coupled with a few other works, including A Survivor from Warsaw). If you like atonal violin concertos and interested in listening to an early example of one, then this might be for you.

You're right, and the Violin Concerto is one of his more famous works nowadays, ever since Hilary Hahn started performing it. But I felt my list already had enough string-based works - two quartets, the sextet, and so on. The list needed more variety, so I chose the Piano Concerto instead.

Edit: Andre posted while I was typing. This thread moves fast!