Thread: One Hit Wonders for Orchestra

Can you name a piece for orchestra that is really, really wonderful, yet it seems that the composer just never could repeat with anything else as great again? Hense the name, a "One Hit Wonder".

The two I have in mind that caused me to think of this topic:

Paul Dukas - A Sorcerer's Apprentice.
Gustav Holst - The Planets.

Samuel Barber, for instance, has a respectable catalogue of works; Barber's Piano Concerto won a Pulitzer Prize, as an example.
Yet, it appears that, if Barber will be remembered for anything, then it will be his "Adagio for Strings".

Would "Adagio for Strings" be a one-hit wonder (if any classical music piece can be said to be a "hit")?

Here's an oddball example: Marius Constant!

Constant wrote some amazing concert pieces like "Turner - 3 Essays" or "103 Regards dans l'eau".
Yet, Constant composed some library stock music for CBS television during the late 1950s, 2 pieces of which were cobbled together and served a subsequent purpose as the "theme" for THE TWILIGHT ZONE!

That TWILIGHT ZONE theme has entered the lexicon of pop culture, but I expect most of the public is unaware of who wrote it (let alone explore Constant's absolute music).

This stretches the boundaries of the OP's initial focus, but is this not a possible one-hit wonder (I wonder )?

Originally Posted by Prodromides

Samuel Barber, for instance, has a respectable catalogue of works; Barber's Piano Concerto won a Pulitzer Prize, as an example.
Yet, it appears that, if Barber will be remembered for anything, then it will be his "Adagio for Strings".

Would "Adagio for Strings" be a one-hit wonder (if any classical music piece can be said to be a "hit")?

Problem is that when a composer has a huge hit like that, some listeners expect him to do another thing almost exactly like it (eg. rehash). Barber was a very creative composer who was not interested in doing rehash. So this is the issue, the so called fault may not be with the composer but with people expecting him to do things that goes against the grain of the creative process (in general, unless we talk about rehash composers, who don't interest me at all).

Re Dukas, his La Peri is a good work, it is a ballet with an oriental theme. Despite Ansermet recording and championing it, it hasn't entered the repertoire, at least not to the degree of the Sorcerer's Apprentice. But La Peri has been recorded many times, in terms of recordings there is no shortage of good ones for this work. Another thing is Dukas' high self criticism and tendency to destroy many works - his catalogue of works is very thin.

As for Holst, he also did many other works, but ones in genres other than orchestral stand out for me. For string orchestra, there's the St. Paul's Suite (also a version for brass band). Then there's the chamber opera Savitri, which is an amazing work. & he considered Egdon Heath to be his finest work, apparently (which is an orchestral work, but I'm not highly familiar with it). But I do love The Planets, it's one of the key works of its time.

Are we defining this "one hit wonder" notion as a composer who wrote a great orchestral piece but never wrote one as great again? or a composer who wrote a great orchestral piece but never wrote one as popular as before? If the former, I definitely do not think that Barber qualifies

Originally Posted by Sid James

Problem is that when a composer has a huge hit like that, some listeners expect him to do another thing almost exactly like it (eg. rehash). Barber was a very creative composer who was not interested in doing rehash. So this is the issue, the so called fault may not be with the composer but with people expecting him to do things that goes against the grain of the creative process (in general, unless we talk about rehash composers, who don't interest me at all).

Re Dukas, his La Peri is a good work, it is a ballet with an oriental theme. Despite Ansermet recording and championing it, it hasn't entered the repertoire, at least not to the degree of the Sorcerer's Apprentice. But La Peri has been recorded many times, in terms of recordings there is no shortage of good ones for this work. Another thing is Dukas' high self criticism and tendency to destroy many works - his catalogue of works is very thin.

As for Holst, he also did many other works, but ones in genres other than orchestral stand out for me. For string orchestra, there's the St. Paul's Suite (also a version for brass band). Then there's the chamber opera Savitri, which is an amazing work. & he considered Egdon Heath to be his finest work, apparently (which is an orchestral work, but I'm not highly familiar with it). But I do love The Planets, it's one of the key works of its time.

Barber is somewhat of a enigma. But I agree that probably only the Adagio will ever enter the standard repertoire.

Holst, like Dukas, was very modest and very self critical. He wrote quite a bit of very good music for SSA chorus. And of course there is the St. Paul's Suite for strings, but it is really sad that he did not continue to write more for full orchestra. He obviously was a highly competent orchestrator.

Dukas wrote a major piece "Polyeucte" that I personally like a lot. The La Peri I am familiar with is less than 2 minutes long and thus not a major work. I also find his Symphony in C interesting.

Originally Posted by violadude

Are we defining this "one hit wonder" notion as a composer who wrote a great orchestral piece but never wrote one as great again? or a composer who wrote a great orchestral piece but never wrote one as popular as before? If the former, I definitely do not think that Barber qualifies

A hit is a piece that has entered the standard repertoire. Another potential definition would be a piece popular with a large percentage of the discerning orchestral music loving public (as opposed to the general public who may only recognize 5 or 10 pieces of art music, if that many).

Checking this subject on Wikipedia reveals very few orchestra-only examples.

There's Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov's Caucasian sketches, which I've never heard of (which rather contradicts the original premise!)

Slightly more convincingly, it suggests
Jeremiah Clarke, Trumpet voluntary, more properly known as Prince of Denmark's march
Amilcare Ponchielli, Dance of the hours from La Gioconda
Aram Khachaturian, Sabre dance from Gayane

Originally Posted by Jeremy Marchant

Checking this subject on Wikipedia reveals very few orchestra-only examples.

There's Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov's Caucasian sketches, which I've never heard of (which rather contradicts the original premise!)

Slightly more convincingly, it suggests
Jeremiah Clarke, Trumpet voluntary, more properly known as Prince of Denmark's march
Amilcare Ponchielli, Dance of the hours from La Gioconda
Aram Khachaturian, Sabre dance from Gayane

"Dance of the Hours" is a perfect example of the category! Very well known piece. Even familiar to some of the general public (by sound probably not by name).

I agree about the Clarke as well.

Khachaturian is a surprise to me. I would have thought that even if the rest of "Gayane" was excluded from the repertoire we would still have "Spartacus".

Barber's Violin Concerto, the First and Second Essays for Orchestra and Knoxville Summer of 1915 are in the repertoire these days and outside of orchestral music, the Piano Sonata, Four Excursions and some of the songs are in the repertoire of pianists and singers, so I would in no way consider him a one hit wonder.
Holst may once have been but there is now a much greater appreciation of his other works, Egdon Heath is a masterpiece IMHO.
One could argue that Max Bruch is a one hit wonder with the 1st Violin Concerto, but again the Scottish Fantasy and Kol Nidrei get enough performances/broadcasts to probably counter this.
There's also Lalo with the Symphonie Espagnole for Violin & Orchestra, very few of his other works get played.

Originally Posted by suffolkcoastal

There's also Lalo with the Symphonie Espagnole for Violin & Orchestra, very few of his other works get played.

I read that Debussy considered Lalo's ballet Namouna to be 'something of a masterpiece'. I haven't heard it, but I'd be interested.

Khachaturian being the King of Concertos, is hardly a one-hit wonder.

Originally Posted by suffolkcoastal

Barber's Violin Concerto, the First and Second Essays for Orchestra and Knoxville Summer of 1915 are in the repertoire these days and outside of orchestral music, the Piano Sonata, Four Excursions and some of the songs are in the repertoire of pianists and singers, so I would in no way consider him a one hit wonder.
Holst may once have been but there is now a much greater appreciation of his other works, Egdon Heath is a masterpiece IMHO.
One could argue that Max Bruch is a one hit wonder with the 1st Violin Concerto, but again the Scottish Fantasy and Kol Nidrei get enough performances/broadcasts to probably counter this.
There's also Lalo with the Symphonie Espagnole for Violin & Orchestra, very few of his other works get played.

I just listened to Egdon Heath (for perhaps the second time in my life) and it left me cold. Cant see it qualifying.

The Bruch Kol Nidrei is most definately in the standard repetoire for cellists. Virtually everone who studies cello has to learn it.

Lalo's cello concerto is very popular with cellists.

This is a tougher category than I thought!

Maybe that Scherzo of Litolff from the Piano-something No 4?
Not that it actually gets programmed at concerts or anything, but it's the only thing he's known for.

Katchaturian can't count because of Spartacus as well - the adagio even made it onto a TV show!
Holst also has The Perfect Fool ballet music, and the Military Band suites - about the finest things ever written for the genre.
Delibes must be close with Coppelia? but there's Sylvia...
Mascagni - Cavalleria?
cheers,
GG

Two genuine one-hit wonders I can think of are:
Orff - Carmina Burana
Pachelbel - Canon in D

Offenbach comes close with 'Orpheus in the Underworld', but there is also the 'Tales of Hoffman'

By the same token, I don't think Dukas quite makes it with 'The Sorceror's Apprentice' as there's also 'La Peri'