Wherein We Elect Our Favourite Classical Compositions of… the 1910s

All of these should have been included as well:

Alban Berg – String Quartet (1910)
Albert Roussel – Le Festin de l’araignée (1913)
Alexander Scriabin – Piano Sonata No. 6, Op. 62 (1911-1912)
Alexander Scriabin – Piano Sonata No. 7, ‘White Mass’, Op. 64 (1912)
Béla Bartók – Bluebeard’s Castle (1911)
Béla Bartók – Romanian Folk Dances (1915)
Béla Bartók – 15 Hungarian Peasant Songs (1914-1918)
Béla Bartók – The Miraculous Mandarin (1918-1919)
Carl Nielsen – Chaconne (1916)
Charles Ives – Symphony No. 3, ‘The Camp Meeting’ (1908-1910)
Claude Debussy – 12 Etudes (1915)
Edward Elgar – Symphony No. 2 in E-flat major, Op. 66 (1909-1911)
Edward Elgar – Falstaff, Op. 68 (1913)
Gustav Mahler – Symphony No. 10 (unfinished) (1910)
Leoš Janáček – Taras Bulba (1915-1918)
Manuel de Falla – El sombrero de tres picos (1919)
Maurice Ravel – Piano Trio in A minor (1914)
Maurice Ravel – Le Tombeau de Couperin (1914-1917)
Ottorino Respighi – Fontane di Roma (1916)
Richard Strauss – Ariadne auf Naxos (1912)
Richard Strauss – Die Frau ohne Schatten (1919)
Sergei Rachmaninoff – Etudes-Tableaux, Op. 33 (1911)
Sergei Rachmaninoff – Etudes-Tableaux, Op. 39 (1916)
Wilhelm Stenhammar – String Quartet No. 5 in C major, Op. 29 (1910)
Wilhelm Stenhammar – Serenade in F major, Op. 31 (1908-1913)
Wilhelm Stenhammar – String Quartet No. 6 in D minor, Op. 35 (1916)
Zoltán Kodály – Sonata for Solo Cello, Op. 8 (1915)

And no doubt many more I'm forgetting, as usual.

To think that approximately half of the decade was taken up by WWI…

It was going to be an easy vote for Pierrot; then I saw The Rite of Spring there. Hm.

pierrot has the dumbest words

juggalo lunaire

Fucking Sprechgesang, how does it work?

flanders and swann are the true masters of speaky-singy

Daphnis et Chloé is where I was anticipating that I might finally give Ravel the vote. I've a soft spot for big juicy proto-filmscore-ness. But... Préludes, Les Noces and Les Heures persanes! And I recall favouring most of these Scriabin and Nielsen pieces over the earlier options. And Webern, Prokofiev, Janáček, Szymanowski and Enescu... Blimey.

What an absolutely crazy decade. Masterpiece and masterpiece and masterpiece. And yet I suspect it's going to be a landslide... And I voted for that as well.

I take it you won't be voting for Det uudslukkelige? C'mon, Nielsen was an incredible composer, he deserves some encouragement from his fellow Danes.

I love Carl Nielsen! My family is from Nr Lyndelse, specifically moved there because it's the birthplace of Nielsen. Still have a cottage house in the hills where he ran around as a boy, it's my favourite place on earth. I might vote for Fynsk Forår next decade. But I'm a singer, a Danish singer, so Carl Nielsen is this incredible songwriter who wrote all my favourite songs growing up.

Fynsk Forår seems to be considerably more popular in Denmark than beyond its borders. I quite like it, but I must admit I wouldn't put it in my Nielsen top 5. Cultural relativism strikes again?

You either get Funen or you don't :)

Christ almighty.

I'm not a huge Stravinsky stan but who else has had a run like his 1910-1913 one?

Probably gonna vote "Vers la flamme" tho.

Wait, was that a real question about sprechgesang? Would be happy to explain if needed. I love the OTT Expressionist psychodrama of the text (in English or French, anyway; don't speak German).

lol no Sund4r, I was just riffing on mark s's ICP theme. See:

https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/miracles-fucking-magnets-how-do-they-work

Oh lol. I have never knowingly heard ICP.

Firebird suite

That said, Sund4r, I'd love to read your thoughts on Sprechgesang, so feel free to post them as you see fit. As you know, my technical knowledge of music is severely limited.

Concord Sonata, frankly. Stravinsky was ooga booga-ing for the bourgeoisie while Ives was creating a masterpiece of proto-post-modernity

Jesus Christ tho it’s like

The Debussy sonata AND the Janacek AND Prokofiev 1 AND Elgar Cello AND even El Amor Brujo which totally rules

This was like the zenith of fun classical music

More fun than the roaring twenties?

I suppose we'll find out soon enough.

i'd like to see an informed defence of sprechgesange which set out how you can tell the good performances from the bad

(it all sounds annoying to me but i am also unreconciled with most classical singing, in all its various evolving periods, so maybe i am just irredeemable as a listening appreciator -- ps i get that juggalot lunaire is meant to sound unhinged, and expressionist versions of unhinged get p overstatedly caligari p quickly)

first line reads snarkier than intended, that's actually what i'd like to read! esp.from sund4r!!

Probably gonna vote "Vers la flamme" tho.

An excellent choice. Which version do you prefer? (I'm partial to Roger Woodward.)

i'd like to see an informed defence of sprechgesange which set out how you can tell the good performances from the bad

― mark s

i can't give you an informed defense, but if you want to hear bad sprechgesang listen to frank zappa, for instance "the dangerous kitchen"

or even more than that, "star wars won't work"

when the venn diagram of things i very much don't want to hear forms a perfect circle

Mark do you like Wozzeck

ooga booga-ing for the bourgeoisie

Thanks for the display name!

im persuadable (i'm listenable to the boulez version right now)

yes thats what i meant to write

Try Dohnányi's – Eberhard Wächter is a much better Sprechgesänger than Walter Berry imo.

(This may go some way towards responding to your initial challenge.)

ok :)

(tho i'd still also like an actual real informed musician-composer-teacher to pin down their sense of the necessary precepts) (to give me something to disagree with as i'm processing it lol)

BTW, I can only assume that Prokofiev's 2nd Piano Concerto is going to be counted as a 1920s piece based on the reconstruction. Because that absolutely is one of the top 10 pieces of music ever written.

Indeed (to the former – I'm not a huge Prokofiev stan beyond the 1st Violin Concerto and the War Sonatas).

That's fine, so long as it has a seat at the table.

Don't worry, it will. And I'm still curious to hear your Vers la flamme recording pick. :)

Might be the piano he's using, but Horowitz's is right up there:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0nrg7Lqfak

Good stuff.

(At work. Will post at lunch!)

I think this is my favourite decade of classical music but there's quite a lot I haven't heard of here! Got a lot of love for the Bartok string quartet, Three Places in New England, the Debussy preludes and images, the Planets, the Firebird (got a totally charming recording on pedal steel guitar), the Rite of Spring, both the Vaughan Williams, and Strauss' absent Alpine Symphony (if just for the opening, which I used to play over & over).

I'd like to write in a vote for Charles Villiers Stanford's The Blue Bird from his 1910 8 part songs, which cuts me deep for personal reasons and feels so full of loss. Of these I'll vote for Debussy's first book of preludes

I'll seek out that Stanford piece (I'm not familiar with his oeuvre at all tbh).

As ever, don't hesitate to prop up favourite recordings should you have any. I very much admire Jean-Efflam Bavouzet's way with Debussy and the Préludes in particular. And the immortal Michelangeli…

Voted Book I of the Préludes, where I think Pollini gets it more right* than most (*right as in, "how I think each one should go"). Hope someone throws a bone to Webern's 6 Pieces though - the version on the complete works box conducted by Boulez is controlled hysteria.

You can refer to a score here: https://imslp.org/wiki/Special:ImagefromIndex/03959/pnba

NB: I am not a singer.

So this may be basic stuff but, as per Schoenberg's instructions, aiui, the vocalist is expected to follow the notated rhythms strictly. The notated pitches are to be struck but let go immediately and the vocalist follows the line in sliding towards the next note, which strikes me (a non-singer) as pretty tricky. With a mix of conjunct and very disjunct (plenty of sevenths and ninths) contours in the line, and the wide, detailed dynamic range, you have quite a substantial expressive repertoire to work from, but it is one that is also carefully notated and can certainly be followed (and evaluated). Compositionally, the way he could use recognizable sets of intervals in each movement can provide unity. Is that a helpful start? Any vocalists want to jump in?

no clue for this decade, gonna have to listen/relisten to everything

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnMv6-XTROY

2xp He did elaborate later that the pitches should be 'good' but not 'strictly adhered to'.

xp ^^^^ a bourgeoisie properly ooga booga'ed

Ever since I came back around on "classical", this period has been the anchor for my appreciation and understanding of music in general. Amazing how this hazy anxious uncertain cloud of sound just swept in and made the stuff from just a couple decades before seem old and antiquated. This is probably my favourite decade of "classical" music. Voted Concord Sonata on this but I could have gone with any of a dozen pieces, especially the Scriabin sonatas.

Thanks for the display name!

<3

I love Rite Of Spring on a technical level, top 10 works of all time for sure, but when I think about what Concord was attempting (and succeeding at, gloriously)? There is honestly no 20th c. work I admire more.

I don't know if I've been posting about it recently-- upon reading "Essays After A Sonata" my awe of this sonata just runneth over-- but I think the only comparable work to it is Finnegan's Wake; FW works so well as a casual read (or read aloud) and is richly rewarding upon close examination. And in Concord, there are stupefying moments throughout. Certain nudge-and-wink compositional aspects of it-- the viola and flute, the board-- are, sure, hilarious in their apparent superfluousness, but are SO GORGEOUS in execution.

I mean listen to this, this moment in "Hawthorne" is so glorious

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDNPpsUaVYo&t=17m40s

My favourite passage

Hm: hxxp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDNPpsUaVYo&t=17m40s

Oh wow, Debussy Jeux didn't even make the long-list here? scandaloos

Fuck.

This is as ridiculous as the absence of Sibelius's Violin Concerto in the last poll. Mea culpa, once again.

You gotta have either Jeux or the Etudes, man. The place-setters for the next phase of Debussy if not for that goddamn colon tumor.

This is the decade to end all decades. So many masterpieces left off but you know, it’s ok, it makes the vote a little less agonizing!

But I was all set to vote Preludes Bk I for this one, Sibelius either the 7th or Tapiola for the next one. But I forgot fucking Pierrot aggghhhhh

Curiously I don’t feel too tempted by the rite...

It's a testament to the strength of the decade that the Debussy Preludes are not currently in my top 2. I'm pretty sure I wrote a paper on the Concord Sonata in undergrad but I don't remember it very well, weirdly. I can't not listen to it now. Unlikely that anything will beat Pierrot in the end, though.

So this may be basic stuff but, as per Schoenberg's instructions, aiui, the vocalist is expected to follow the notated rhythms strictly. The notated pitches are to be struck but let go immediately and the vocalist follows the line in sliding towards the next note, which strikes me (a non-singer) as pretty tricky. With a mix of conjunct and very disjunct (plenty of sevenths and ninths) contours in the line, and the wide, detailed dynamic range, you have quite a substantial expressive repertoire to work from, but it is one that is also carefully notated and can certainly be followed (and evaluated). Compositionally, the way he could use recognizable sets of intervals in each movement can provide unity. Is that a helpful start? Any vocalists want to jump in?

That is indeed helpful, thanks.

There are quite a few excellent performances of Pierrot lunaire available on YT, so side-by-side comparisons are easily undertaken by amateurs such as myself. It also goes without saying that the visual component is hardly irrelevant to the work.

Kiera Duffy does an amazing job here and I'm surprised to encounter Cristian Măcelaru in this repertoire:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bd2cBUJmDr8

The place-setters for the next phase of Debussy if not for that goddamn colon tumor

Tbf three more Sonatas were in the works, so the first three are as much an indication of future directions as Jeux and the 12 Etudes. Not to mention he was a jingoistic motherfucker who could have easily devolved into writing ear-numbing music pour la mère patrie, especially given his response to WWI. But I like to think that wouldn't have happened regardless.

I mean I love it, it rules, it birthed a new moon, but I love it just as much for the sweepstakes it kicked off where every place on earth eventually had a composer floating that land’s own stomping folk colossus. And for the glorious genre of horror film scoring.

Xpost to self

it's Ives' Concord

you dating his Fourth Symphony to the 1920's? fair enough if so!

Yep.

Re Prokofiev peak works convo
The 2nd and 3rd symphonies are magnificent monsters, you pom need to hear them if you haven’t

I have heard them and I don't get them at all. But it's been ages... I'll revisit them next week.

Rushed another Spotify playlist last night but then just went to bed. LOL.

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5uAi4Ii8OSGQqfZp78MH9L

Recording choices subject to ongoing refinement, etc, etc...

This is probably totally cliché, but I'd been somewhat-generally-interested in classical/notated music as a part of the greater music thing until about 22, when a friend at university shoved me into a listening chair at the library, put a CD of the Rite of Spring in the player, got out the score and two sets of headphones, and just kind of conducted me through the thing. I was blown away in general, and also found the source of the start of "The Anal Staircase" by Coil. :-D

So that. You could probably make a credible poll of 50 for each single one of these years. Damn.

(fgti's connection of the Concord Sonata to Finnegans Wake is going to make me listen to the former very soon, though! I guess I've thought of it as a somewhat daunting task, for which I should put on a very serious and pondering face, which I guess is how many non-FW readers view FW, which to me is mostly great fun.)

(the best and also the correct way to read FW is broken up into tweets, sorry if this offends)

Roaratorio was also meant to be experienced as a series of tweet-length snippets iirc.

I like the John Zorn version of Lunaire (w/wind machine)

dull poptimist votes for sibelius 5

That's hardly the most poptimist pick here tbh (see: Elgar, Holst, Vaughan Williams – all British, incidentally).

Disappointed that there's no Lili Boulanger on the list... "D'un matin de printemps" and "Faust et Hélène" especially are among my favourite compositions of this decade.

Have you heard The Oceanides, Brad? As much as I worship the 5th, I feel like it's the purest distillation of Sibelian bliss in the 1910s.

oooh i haven’t

i guess you’re right, my brain skipped over the planets when i was reading the list

You're in for a treat. Check out Osmo Vänskä's performance with the Lahti Symphony Orchestra.

Re: Lili Boulanger, it's a lovely little piece, but not top 50 material imho. Don't worry, it'll stop being a sausage fest very soon.

Sibelius is the poptimist option because it's the most indie sounding!

That's quite the take. Care to expand?

Yeah idgi

(And Sibelius is tied for my all time favorite composer)

Joeks

the so-called nationalist composers are all eager for their respective nations to gain independence -- hence indie!

*runs away very fast*

*ba dum tss*

I usually think of Satie as classical for indie listeners but tbh I don't think I know the Nocturnes. (I voted for the Gymnopédies in their poll; I listen to indie. Don't @ me.)

my own joeks half-formed opinion (also previously aired on these borads) is that Sibelius is v off-putting because it is an uncanny-valley-type of sound that seems to be your regular orchestral music yet is not really, yet is not unlike enough to be something that is not that

I usually think of Satie as classical for indie listeners

My experience as well.

Sibelius is v off-putting because it is an uncanny-valley-type of sound

This is especially true of his late works (The Tempest and Tapiola in particular). Jean was more of a modernist than he let on.

Obligatory "can we not?"

This is especially true of his late works (The Tempest and Tapiola in particular). Jean was more of a modernist than he let on.

Yeah, I do feel a bit bad about how I feel about this, I ought to approach his stuff from a more tabula-rasa standpoint.

Come to think of it, I actually do like his string quartet! It being not orchestral could possibly be relevant.

(as could me having a soft spot for SQs in general obv)

I vaguely recall picking up a box set of his symphonies after reading a review that described him as the Nordic Debussy or some such, so that was an ideal way to step into his sound world. I discovered the 'lol Sibelius' serialist memes, his Nazi sympathies and his influence on conservative British composers much later, which no doubt helped.

Fwiw if you enjoy the String Quartet, you may want to hear contemporaneous (albeit orchestral) works such as Nightride and Sunrise, The Bard, The Dryad, Luonnotar and, of course, the 4th Symphony, but you probably know that one already.

Honest answer probably The Rite but assume that's going to win at a canter. My second choice would have been Bluebeard's Castle but given I can't vote for that I've gone for Szymanowski Violin Concerto. His v concertos are often called "perfumed" and I'm not sure any music fits the description better.

My wife and I saw Bluebeard performed at the ENO in a double bill with the Rite a few years ago. We were in seats next to Julian Barnes. Opera in London is good for celebrity sightings but it's the only time I've actually been seated next to one.

Uh
What Nazi sympathies???

That seems like a bizarre characterization at least according to what I have read

Check the 'Patriotic Manifestations' section:

https://fmq.fi/articles/the-responsibility-of-an-artist

'Nazi sympathies' is pushing it perhaps, although accepting the Goethe Medal from Hitler himself in 1935 is… nagl, to say the least, even when you take Finland's historical predicament into account.

That section explicitly says he was sceptical of the Nazis. It's true that he was right-wing, and the accepted accolades granted by any other states Germany (among many other states), but he never expressed any sort of support for Nazism, not even in his private diary.

(xpost)

I think it's fair to say that he was nonetheless quite complacent in this regard.

Yeah, but that's different from "Nazi sympathies". There were many Nazi sympathisers in Finland's cultural circles in the 1930s and 1940s, even among Sibelius's friends and family, but he remained unsympathetic of them.

Fair!

pom: Sib recommendations noted, thanks! I do not know e.g. the 4th; for some reason it's the 3rd I've heard the most, and that one is fine by me actually.

As far as recordings are concerned, Vänskä and the Lahti SO emphasize the Finnish 'glass of chilled water' aspect of his works, so that may help as well. British conductors in particular make a plodding, backward-looking mess of it and are to be avoided if you're not already sold on the mainstream Sibelius.

Well, mainstream in the UK, that is.

Vanska is overrated imo and at his most valuable in rarities

Hard disagree. Except for his Minnesota cycle, which I didn't care for at all.

I'd also rep for Segerstam with the Helsinki Philharmonic.

Yeah, well living in Minnesota is enough to ruin anybody.

The symphonies fared quite well in the 'golden age of stereo' and there are formidable recommendations for almost every piece from that era, yes the digital era brought about more of a focus on the pure cold water angle but the playing itself is often boring, the stereo era outings are often just so much more alive as instrumental playing.

You're right that way too many Sibelius cycles got recorded in the last couple of decades that are simply dull

OK let's do this

SYMPHONIES

1: With its Tchaikovskian/Brucknerian inheritance this is one that was pretty much nailed before CDs came along. Maazel/VPO (NOT later Maazel) for energy and verve, Colin Davis/Boston (NOT Later davis remakes) for all around excellence, Barbirolli/Halle (EMI version) for rough hewn bardic heft
2: Similarly, this is owned by Monteux/LSO, Kajanus (the very first recording from 78s), Barbirolli/RPO, and in the early CD era Jarvi/Gothenburg (NOT the later jarvi DG one) which was the first since Kajanus to understand that the first movement is always played too damn slow.
3: This one had to wait longer to be nailed, the only stereo era recordings I really rate at the highest level are Bernstein/NYPO and Davis/Boston. CD era, this is one that Vanska does very well and it was also knocked out of the park by Olli Mustonen and Thomas Zehetmair. Blomstedt/San Francisco is also very good.
4: Maazel/VPO is still the iciest and most formidable and best recorded (for my sonic tastes). Always avoid all digital-era Maazel. More recently, Segerstam (the one on Ondine not the one on Chandos) kills it here. Vanska's is too slow but interesting.
5: Barbirolli/Halle/EMI and Bernstein/NYPO are amazing here. Celibidache if you can find it. Digitally, Ole Schmidt/LSO is my favorite and this is a piece where the later Colin Davis (LSO Live label) is preferable to earlier in Boston where something is just wrong.
6: Berglund/Helsinki or Berglund/Bournemouth comes closest to getting this most sublime piece just right. Davis/Boston would be my top choice but he's too fast in one of the movements. Beecham (from 78s) is the most musically alive. Saraste's (RCA not Finlandia) was the disc that made me fall in love with Sibelius so special pride of place to that.
7: Maazel/VPO has all the same fierce qualities as the same team's 4th and never fails to slay me. This is the other symphony besides the 5th where elderly Colin Davis on LSO Live hit a transcendent peak. Mravinsky is a must-hear. My favorite of all now is a live radio capture from Charles Munch and the Boston SO but it's not fair to talk about bootlegs.

I'll do the rest of the orchestral works later today

Booming post, even though I strongly disagree with most of it. :)

Basically I prefer my Sibelius as muted, frosty, modernist and impersonal as possible.

Vanska’s your dude then! I was a little harsh on him tbf, his 3rd 5th and 6th are very good, but he errs too much on the side of flatness too often

I like Segerstam a lot.

There is no completely recommendable complete cycle, but Berglund/Helsinki is maybe the only one where none of the 7 gets botched

Sibelius was commited to a very personal and relentless brand of avant gardeism within the framework of tonality and disallowing himself from ever reaching for strange instrumentation. When he adds a bass clarinet, that’s the equivalent of Mahler rolling out an anvil.

Last year when I was sick and wasting away with a very severe flu I put on Symphony No. 4 and suddenly Sibelius clicked for me like never before; I felt physically in tune with this music, when I couldn't bear to listen to most other music. Later it was interesting to read that Sibelius composed it at a time when his health was precarious, having recently had operations to remove throat cancer, and fear of death was much on his mind.

not loving that you had a mega flu but loving that post

Luonnatar, the Dryad, the Lizard (Odlan) and parts of the Everyman (Jedermann) music share some of that gnawed vibe

Re: Lili Boulanger, it's a lovely little piece, but not top 50 material imho.

Assuming this is in reference to D'un matin de printemps and not to Faust et Helene? Although both were named.

7: Maazel/VPO has all the same fierce qualities as the same team's 4th and never fails to slay me. This is the other symphony besides the 5th where elderly Colin Davis on LSO Live hit a transcendent peak. Mravinsky is a must-hear. My favorite of all now is a live radio capture from Charles Munch and the Boston SO but it's not fair to talk about bootlegs.

I'll do the rest of the orchestral works later today

― valet doberman (Jon not Jon)

interested in hearing more about the munch/boston SO recording, mostly because it's your favourite.. (only recording i could find on youtube was munch conducting the RTF in helsinki)

Assuming this is in reference to D'un matin de printemps and not to Faust et Helene? Although both were named.

Correct.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Xpost

I mean it’s my favorite right now because I’m just so bowled over by its singular vision but it wouldn’t really be a “responsible” choice for an “all time favorite” Sibelius 7th - it’s really really slow, almost certainly the slowest ever, like in the 28 minute range; I didn’t think it’d work at all but it does, like crazy. Drama and tension never lets up. It can’t be what Sibelius wanted but it kills.

wellll i was kind of fishing for a ysi since it's not commercially available :)

Btw, for the 1920s poll, pls don't forget Heitor Villa-Lobos - Douze études pour guitare. Probably won't defeat the best of Bartok/Webern/Schoenberg but the 11th is still probably my favourite thing to play.

Debussy Sonata for Flute, Viola, and Harp is peak music

Don't worry Sund4r, I've got you covered. I've got reservations aplenty about Villa-Lobos's output but those Etudes are all-time.

Xpost quite possibly my favorite piece of chamber music

So many cool prototypical and influential ensembles from this general time period

That Debussy trio
The “Pierrot ensemble”
Bartok two pianos and percussion

OTM

Yeah, that's 100% otm.

I'm really struggling here. Might just go with The Oceanides in the end but Vers la flamme is equally tempting (they all are).

Fuck it, I'm going with Mahler's 9th, which was probably the most important music ever to me as a 19 year-old.

the first movement is about as good as music gets

Yep. And when Jascha Horenstein is conducting it, the whole thing.

i'll give this one to scriabin sonata 10

Deserved imo. Which reminds me:

My Tenth Sonata is a sonata of insects. Insects are born from the sun ... they are the kisses of the sun.

Ok Alex.

you know he's right

I never heard back from mark! Did the description of sprechgesang give you something to process and disagree with?

Almost ran out of time again. Somewhat arbitrary late vote for the Ravel (D&C) I had in mind before I even saw the list. Aaargh.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Poor moonstruck Pierrot.

Hard to argue with the winner, though.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Art_works_that_caused_riots

I respect Stravinsky far more than I enjoy his music but it's impossible to argue with the Sacre.

Onwards, fellow travellers:

Wherein We Elect Our Favourite Classical Compositions of… the 1920s

While I feel the best piece won this poll, I'm now listening to the Ralph Vaughan Williams compositions for the first time and these two here are unbelievably sublime. The Lark Ascending and Fantasia are just magical pieces of music. Possibly a bit on the tail end of fashion given their romantic roots, but good lord what sheer beauty.

yeah they're wonderful, just an absurdly rich decade

Indeed they are, and Arvo Pärt's now ubiquitous compositional style seems unthinkable without the Fantasia in particular. It's tempting to think of Stravinsky (and Prokofiev) as the torchbearers of 'primitivism' in the 1910s, but Vaughan Williams's musical language in these pieces also taps into an imagined 'archaic' consciousness, one grounded in endless melody instead of polyrhythm and not all that dissimilar Erik Satie's own self-consciously naïve experiments in simplicity.

By the way, Andrew Davis's studio recording of the Fantasia with the BBC Symphony Orchestra is stellar, but I think I like this live performance even better:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpwqZSp_CyM

*dissimilar from

all these last posts otm

pom could you suggest a relatively recent piece which exemplifies “Arvo Pärt's now ubiquitous compositional style” and wherein i might hear this RVW influence ?

I hear echoes of both in Dobrinka Tabakova's music.

Btw Pärt's Silouans Song strikes me as a good example of what he (consciously?) owes to RVW.

The Lark Ascending and Fantasia are just magical pieces of music.

Indeed they are. Thanks for linking to that Davis' recording Pom!