The Necessary 100: Here's a fabulous list that goes from Hildegard to Hoagy
I received my first list of 100 pieces yesterday, from Toronto violinist, teacher and Toronto Masque Theatre founder, Larry Beckwith.
It's not too hard to pick composers, but it's a major challenge to pick individual pieces. Thee are only a couple of composers from Beckwith's list I would not have included. I've bolded those specific pieces that would have been on my list (and I'm adding commentary, text translations and video clips, for the first three).
Heeeere's Larry, being perfectly chronological (the commentary is mine):
From the lists you've already received, it seems important to make the distinction between personal taste and some sort of objective idea of pieces that are valuable or "necessary". There are those pieces that have special meaning in one's life because of a particular performance one heard, or the circumstances - a love affair, the death of someone close, etc - that surround it. These are 100 pieces off the top of my head that I would deem "necessary" to anyone who really wanted to know something deep and essential about the Western classical music tradition (I think the 19th century is over-rated....I don't see Rossini, Donizetti or Bellini as having been innovative in any way, neither were Tchaikovsky or Puccini...lots to argue about!) The last 2 entries may be subjective, but I grew up with a composer in the house who I admire greatly!...and Stardust, well, that's an incredible song with alot of meaning for me:
*HIldegard: Ordo virtutum
*Machaut: Messe de Notre Dame
*Dufay: Adieu ces bons vins de Lannoys
*Ockeghem: Requiem
*Josquin: Ave Maria
*Gesualdo: Madrigals, book VI
-No ordinary rules of musical theory apply in thiese mesperizing polyphonies. Even Igor Stravinsky felt compelled to make a pilgrimage to this tragic madman's haunted, abandoned castle. Here is No. 17, "Moro lasso al mio duolo" led by Alan Curtis:
I die, alas, in my suffering,
And she who could give me life,
Alas, kills me and will not help me.
O sorrowful fate,
She who could give me life,
Alas, gives me death.
*Palestrina: Missa aeterna christi munera
*Byrd: Cantinones sacrae (1591)
*Tallis: Spem in alium
-The legendary motet written around 1570 for 40 individual voices (eight groups of five voices) is the ne plus ultra of polyphony, and one of the most awe-inspiring pieces of music every written, anywhere. The video comes with bonus visuals of Ely Cathedral, which is just north of Cambridge (Tallis was organist at Canterbury Cathedral):
*Monteverdi: Orfeo
-Claudio Monteverdi didn't invent opera, but is the only member of the Italian "New School" of composers whose operas have survived. These men looked back to Antiquity to find a way of maximizing drama by blending music and text in a stage play. I would rate the Marian Vespers of 1610 as highly as Orfeo, but it's time for something secular.
Here is Cecilia Gasdia as La Musica, singing the Prologue in a 1998 production of the opera at the Teatro Goldoni in Florence, led by René Jacobs:
From my beloved Permessus I come to you,
illustrious heroes, noble scions of kings,
whose glorious deeds Fame relates,
though falling short of the truth, since the target is too high.
I am Music, who in sweet accents
can calm each troubled heart,
and now with noble anger, now with love,
can kindle the most frigid minds.
I, with my lyre of gold and with my singing, am used
to sometimes charming my mortal ears,
and in this way inspire souls with a longing
for the sonorous harmony of heaven's lyre.
From here desire spurs me to tell you of Orpheus,
Orpheus who drew wild beasts to him by his songs
and who subjugated Hades by his entreaties,
the immortal glory of Pindus and Helicon.
Now while I alternate my songs, now happy, now sad,
let no small bird stir among these trees,
no noisy wave be heard on these river-banks,
and let each little breeze halt in its course.
*Monteverdi: Vespers (1610)
*Monteverdi: Madrigals, book VIII
*Carissimi: Jephte
*Schutz: Musikalische exequien
*Purcell: Dido and Aeneas
*Purcell: Te Deum and Jubilate
*Corelli: Violin sonatas, op. 5
*Couperin: Lecons de tenebres
*Charpentier: Medee
*D. Scarlatti: Piano Sonata, L. 224
*Vivaldi: "Winter" from The Four Seasons
*Handel: Solomon
**Handel: Giulio Cesare
*Bach: Klavierubung III
*Bach: Trauer-ode
*Bach: Cello Suites
*Bach: St. Matthew Passion
*Bach: Well-Tempered Clavier, books I and II
*Rameau: Les indes galantes
*Haydn: String quartet, op. 76, #2
*Haydn: Trumpet Concerto
*Haydn: Symphony #104
*Mozart: Piano concerto in D minor
*Mozart: Don Giovanni
*Mozart: Clarinet quintet
*Mozart: Jupiter Symphony
*Beethoven: Violin Concerto
*Beethoven: Symphony #9
*Beethoven: String Quartet, op. 131
*Beethoven: Piano sonata, op. 109
*Schubert: Die Winterreise
*Schubert: String Quintet in C major (I agree with Scott!)
*Schubert: Symphony #9
*Weber: Der Freischutz
*Schumann: Piano Quintet
*Mendelssohn: Elijah
*Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique
*Chopin: Preludes for piano
*Brahms: Haydn Variations
*Brahms: Piano pieces, op. 118 and 119
*Bizet: Carmen
*Dvorak: Serenade for Strings
*Verdi: La Traviata
*Verdi: Otello
*Wagner: Tristan und Isolde
*Mussorgsky: Pictures at an Exhibition
*Mahler: Symphony #5
*Widor: Toccata for organ
*Ives: Three Places in New England
*Stravinsky: Rite of Spring
*Ives: Concord Sonata
*Stravinsky: Agon
*Debussy: La Mer
*Debussy: Pelleas et Melisande
*Debussy: Preludes for piano, books 1 and 2
*Ravel: Trois poèmes de Stéphane Mallarmé
*Strauss: Elektra
*Schoenberg: Moses und Aron
*Joplin: Treemonisha
*Prokofiev: Romeo and Juliet
*Berg: Violin concerto
*Berg: Wozzeck
*Janacek: Jenufa
*Weill: Mahagony
*Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue
*Gershwin: Porgy and Bess
*Shostakovich: Lady MacBeth of Mtsensk
*Bartok: Miraculous Mandarin
*Bartok: String Quartet #5
*Messiaen: Quartet for the end of time
*Messiaen: Turangalila Symphony
*Duruflé: Requiem
•Duruflé: Ubi caritas
•Barber: Adagio for strings
•Bernstein: West Side Story
•Howells: Collegium Regal Service
•Elgar: Dream of Gerontius
•Copland: The Tender Land
•Britten: War Requiem
•Miles Davis: So What
•Lutoslawski: Symphony #4
•Boulez: Le marteau sans maitre
•Billy Strayhorn: Take the "A" train
•Berio: Sinfonia
•Berio: Sequenza for Soprano
•Stockhausen: Stimmung
•Maxwell Davies: Diary of a Mad King
•Schafer: Patria Cycle
•John Beckwith: Sharon Fragments
•Hoagy Carmichael: Stardust
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