Wherein We Elect Our Favourite Classical Compositions of… the 1880s

Honourable Mentions

Alexander Borodin - String Quartet No. 2 in D major (1881)
Anton Bruckner - Te Deum (1881-1883)
César Franck - Prélude, Choral et Fugue (1884)
César Franck - Les Djinns (1884)
Claude Debussy - 5 Poèmes de Charles Baudelaire (1887-1889)
Edvard Grieg - Lyric Pieces, Book II, Op. 38 (1883)
Edvard Grieg - Lyric Pieces, Book III, Op. 43 (1886)
Franz Liszt - Romance oubliée (1880)
Franz Liszt - Mephisto Waltz No. 2 (1878-1881)
Franz Liszt - Die Zelle im Nonnenwerth (1881)
Franz Liszt - Csárdás macabre (1881-1882)
Franz Liszt - Mephisto Waltz No. 3 (1883)
Franz Liszt - R.W.—Venezia (1883)
Franz Liszt - Am Grabe Richard Wagners (1883)
Franz Liszt - Mephisto Waltz No. 4 (1885)
Franz Liszt - Historische ungarische Bildnisse (1885)
Gabriel Fauré - Impromptu No. 1 in E-flat major, Op. 25 (1881)
Gabriel Fauré - Impromptu No. 2 in A major, Op. 31 (1883)
Gabriel Fauré - Barcarolle No. 1 in A minor, Op. 26 (1881)
Gabriel Fauré - Barcarolle No. 2 in G major, Op. 41 (1885)
Gabriel Fauré - Barcarolle No. 3 in G-flat major, Op. 42 (1885)
Gabriel Fauré - Barcarolle No. 4 in A-flat major, Op. 44 (1886)
Johannes Brahms - Piano Trio No. 2 in C major, Op. 87 (1880-1882)
Johannes Brahms - String Quintet No. 1 in F major, Op. 88 (1882)
Léo Delibes - Lakmé (1881-1882)
Max Bruch - Kol Nidrei (1880)
Vincent d’Indy - Symphonie sur un chant montagnard français, Op. 25 (1886)

It may just be Brahms's 4th Symphony for me, the Wiener Philharmoniker / Carlos Kleiber DG recording in particular. It has it all: the relentless, destinal sense of motion that can only end in tragedy, an economy of means that far surpasses his occasionally bloated previous entries in the genre, the extraordinary final movement in the shape of a passacaglia, which demonstrates his ability to synthesize past forms and models with a 'progressive' (to quote Schoenberg) outlook that holds its own against Wagner's or Liszt's or Bruckner's. An absolutely perfect work, really.

But there are so many other perfect works to pick here!

Here's a later, live performance of the Brahms 4 by Kleiber with the Bayerische Staatsorchester:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_L8BajLmtE

Damn this is heavy. And only gonna get heavier.

Don't know all this repertoire enough to place a vote, but chiming in to say: given the zillions of classical mega box sets coming out in recent years, I think they ought to give a shot at this "selection by decade" premise. They could have liner notes that contextualize pieces in light of major historical events, notable novels and works of philosophy, etc. They could go on the shelf alongside Rhino's Have a Nice Decade and Like, Omigod! boxes.

Time to retroactively trademark this whole series then. Hmu ILM label executives, I need your money.

Wow, we are already at Gymnopedie. And Mahler is popping up! The next few are going to get intense!

this is the last unsure one for me before my boys rachmaninoff and scriabin show up and clean house

anyone have a recording rec for bruckner 7?

Karajan’s whole cycle is tops imo, Bruckner and Strauss were his inarguable specialties.

Dislike Karajan
Try Skrowaczewski or Jochum (EMI)

Anyway the 6th knocks the 7ths dick in the dirt

I prefer Karajan (just this once) but I'm not much of a Brucknerhead to begin with. True fans generally rep for the latter two.

I'll have to check out Blomstedt's set at some point, it seems like a good match on paper.

Btw Strauss's Tod und Verklärung and Fauré's Pavane should both be in the 'honourable mentions' section at the very least.

Finally get to vote for Brahms. The 2nd Piano Concerto is a big favourite.

Which recording do you prefer?

The next few decades are going to require me to vote strategically since it is mandatory that I give at least one vote to Debussy, Sibelius and Mahler. I think it’s gonna go like this:

1900s: Mahler vote
1910s: Debussy vote
1920s: Sibelius vote

That gives me the 1890s for my man Delius or maybe late Grieg

You guys will have to look after Pierrot and Le Sacre

While we're at it, any Delius requests? I've barely explored his output.

Well I had the Florida Suite in mind for the 1890s but now I see it was composed in the late 1880s so damn.

The best of Delius by my lights:

Florida Suite
Winter Night
On Hearing the First Cuckoo of Spring
Over the Hills and Far Away
Appalachia
A Song Before Sunrise
North Country Sketches
Eventyr
Hassan incidental music
Brigg Fair
Sea Drift
Dance Rhapsodies
Idyll

To Delius belongs the pastoral uncanny - all is alive and not all of it friendly

Shit, the Florida Suite completely slipped my mind. I need to spend more time with his music – I tend to find it very agreeable but somewhat lacking in gestalt.

don't think ive ever heard In the Steppes of Central Asia before now, very nice little piece

Camille Saint-Saëns - Violin Concerto No. 3 in B minor, Op. 61 (1880)

Haven't listened properly to this before. Lol at the way violin flageolet + clarinet are played in unison, or rather octaves, at the end of the second movement -- jokey imitation of organ sound?

I'm torn. I want to vote for the Gymnopedies, which is the forerunner of so much modern music I love. But hand to heart, the one I love the most is Saint-Saëns 'Theme from the Movie: Babe, the Gallant Pig'.

You just gave me auditory visions of a lullaby for organ.

zp

*xp

Well, I did leave out Le carnaval des animaux, no doubt unjustly.

gonna have my fiance vote from now on cause she's the classical expert--faure - elegie this time around ("it's such a pretty piece")

The correct Borodin piece made the list, imho. Not that I know much of this list. I voted for Borodin even though I've listened to the Dvorak more; if it were the New World in this decade, it might be a closer battle. I heard the Steppes of Central Asia on the radio one night recently and I think I held my breath through the whole thing.

Gymnopédies, late Liszt, Don Juan all strong contenders

Love both the Brahms cellos sonatas, glad to see no. 2 make the cut here.

What Neue Jesse Schule said way up there!

While we wait for the box-sets, here's another playlist (again deferring to others' judgement whenever specific recordings get a shout-out.)
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6REsiwiCxkXe20SFAaI6eg

Franck violin sonata, Scheherazade, or Brahms 4th symphony.

Anton Bruckner - Symphony No. 6 in A major (1881)

Whenever I have a proper fever, what bothers me most is not chills, hotness, lethargy, nausea, or various possible nuisances in the muscular, skeletal and/or gastrointestinal systems. The worst thing is what my brain does when I go to bed, or for a nap, which I need to do pretty often when I have a proper fever. Then I get half-awake, half-asleep dreams which are not dreams, but more tasks and conundrums in the shape of carousels, where I purportedly need to take note of things that will be shown to me next time around, and where I could fix that lightbulb, except that I don't have a new one with me until I enter the combination A + R, which should be easy, but I've forgotten to bring the radio and the time is B now and I must wait another 270 degrees of the cycle for A to be released again and the other letter was encrypted at the radio place in the meantime, which wouldn't be a problem if I hadn't forgotten to bring the radio, and the lightbulb also got an update so I must

It is utterly exhausting. Listening to Bruckner's symphonies gives me small flashbacks to feverland. There is a theme, or rather a motif, which seems benign until it is suddenly and surprisingly not simply modulated or transposed, but *teleported* elsewhere, then elsewhere, then elsewhere, where it is repeated, and repeated, and repeated, and repeated, and repeated, and repeated, and repeated, and repeated and NEW MOTIF!

Of course I am being a bit unfair. And there are certainly things, especially on the micro-level, that I can really appreciate. But I have occasionally been dipping into these things for curiosity for decades now, and I am pretty sure I cannot ever love them. I will grant I am a bit in awe of Bruckner's sheer bloody-mindedness, though. I am reminded of what Mark E. Smith said about Mark E. Smith on some Fall cover: "I don't particularly like the person singing on this LP. That said I marvel at his guts."

I have my doubts about Bruckner's much-feted architectural chops in general but the beginning of the 6th's finale is all-time (eschatological Seven Trumpets Bruckner is best Bruckner imho). See 45:15:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OflReU5RlZM

i have not awoken to bruckner other than 7 which is the crowd pleaser i guess

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

In the end, this could only be "Gymnopédies" but "Nuages gris" is incredible.

Late Liszt is clearly hella cool. Shall be returning to this stuff.

I think I voted early, for Bruckner's 8th, somewhat lazily. I dig anatol_merklich's description of the 6th. I've no clue what Bruckner was on about overall but individual sections are mostly pleasingly, er, lush things to follow around in circles whether or not I get any closer to figuring him out. :)

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

Due to in-thread advocacy I spent a bunch of time with Brahms’ 4th which I don’t think I’ve really given its due before. And that’s where my vote went.

Missed this, sadly, but my vote would've only upped Gymnopédies one more.

I'm running a little late. I'll try my best to get the next poll up and running by tonight.

Fun fact: I'm fairly certain Gymnopédies hadn't come to my attention until... Pop Will Eat Itself sampled it.

Apologies for the delay, but I'm afraid I'll have to push back the 1890s to the 16th, just to be on the safe side. See you in a couple of weeks!

That’s fine. EOY poll trumps all at the moment anyway.

Some of this week's secondhand CD haul (I still dig cheap CDs!) was no doubt influenced by these threads. I doubt these are necessarily the most acclaimed recordings but with a lot of this stuff still fresh in my mind, how was a chap supposed to resist?

Beethoven ~ Diabelli Variations (Barenboim)
Mendelssohn ~ Complete String Quartets [3CD] (Ysaye Quartet)
Schumann - Piano Works [4CD] (Kempff)
Brahms - Serenade #1, etc (Tilson Thomas/LSO)
Brahms - Serenade #2, etc (Tilson Thomas/LSO)

Mendelssohn ~ Complete String Quartets [3CD] (Ysaye Quartet)

Love this recording.

Btw, I should be able to get the next instalment up and running tomorrow morning.