Wherein We Elect Our Favourite Classical Compositions of… the 1900s

Apologies for not including 'all of the above'.

To kick things off, here's an excellent performance of Busoni's somewhat undersung Berceuse élégiaque, an orchestral rewriting of the piano original:

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

As YT-er Catherine-Grace Patrick points out, Mahler conducted it as part of his very last concert, on the 21st of February 1911 in New York.

I'd also like to point out that the concept of a lullaby that doubles as an elegy is fascinating in its own right.

I voted for Sibelius's second but my god, what an astonishingly fertile decade.

Mahler, all of

no wait

all the Iveses, Bartok and Schoenberg's string quartets, Mahler's 8th or Dead Children or Earth Song

This is as appropriate a moment as any to say that I fucking love the Isle of the Dead, tone poem and painting both.

I like that there's room for Enescu. I have a soft spot for that octet.

So many of these are amongst my earliest "that sounds interesting -- I should really listen to more 'classical'" encounters. "Le Mer", "The Unanswered Question", "Le Poème de l’extase", those Ravel, Bartók and Webern string quartets, etc. Gawd.

Oh yeah, obligatory playlist (it's an illness) if there's still interest.
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7ERNlVYbqwsYZ0f7pmdfVl

Thanks!

Gaspard de la nuit x 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

God tho...

Charles Ives - The Unanswered Question (1908)
Charles Ives - Central Park in the Dark (1906-1909)

i went with "miroirs" over webern

Crazy to think this stuff was all contemporaneous. Voted “Salome”

sibelius no. 2, la mer, and enescu octet leap out at me, but wow are there some great options here.

predicting the fiancé will go with enescu because she won't be able to choose between mahler options.

rach 3

Wow. Unanswered Question vs Schoenberg 2 vs Three Piano Pieces vs Images.

oh man, images is really amazing isn't it?

Am definitely voting for Gaspard, but this also is just peak Ravel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3hCbntkpj8

Pom are we semi cheating and calling the two sets of Images one set? Not that I mind - that makes for a hell of a candidate.

Best decade in musical history? For me it’s either this one or the one that follows. Actually give me a baker’s decade of 1904 to 1914 and that’s my answer

Caught red-handed! I did cheat a bit and wish I could do the same for the Préludes, but that would be a little too conspicuous.

Wait, did Sibelius's Violin Concerto just slip my mind? Fuck, fuck, fuck.

damn, that one is colossally great. saw augustin hadelich rock it at lincoln center last fall.

I've sung Mahler 8, so that one

Apologies for not including 'all of the above'.

― pomenitul, Thursday, January 23, 2020 2:20 AM (nine hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

damn, for real

i can play* the berg piano sonata, so that one

*unconscionably slowly and badly but i do have the sheet music and do sometimes sightread through bits of it

Actually give me a baker’s decade of 1904 to 1914 and that’s my answer

It's gonna be 1915-1925 for me, christ

that's a damn fucking heavy one as well

lol @ omission of sibelius vico

I could easily vote for any of these:

Arnold Schoenberg - String Quartet No. 2, Op. 10 (with soprano) (1907-1908)
Arnold Schoenberg - 3 Piano Pieces, Op. 11 (1909)
Arnold Schoenberg - 5 Pieces for Orchestra, Op. 16 (1909)
Charles Ives - The Unanswered Question (1908)
Claude Debussy - Pelléas et Mélisande (1893-1902)
Claude Debussy - La Mer (1903-1905)
Claude Debussy - Images pour piano (1901-1907)
Edward Elgar - Symphony No. 1 in A-flat major, Op. 55 (1907-1908)
George Enescu - String Octet in C major, Op. 7 (1900)
Gustav Mahler - Symphony No. 5 (1901-1902)
Gustav Mahler - Rückert-Lieder (1901-1902)
Gustav Mahler - Kindertotenlieder (1901-1904)
Gustav Mahler - Symphony No. 6 (1903-1904)
Gustav Mahler - Das Lied von der Erde (1908-1909)
Jean Sibelius - Pohjola’s Daughter, Op. 49 (1903-1906)
Jean Sibelius - Symphony No. 3 in C major, Op. 52 (1906-1907)
Maurice Ravel - Miroirs (1904-1905)
Richard Strauss - Elektra (1909)

Enescu's octet is gonna be played on the same program as Mendelssohn's Octet in May here (NYC) btw, unmissable date

lol @ omission of sibelius vico

I'm genuinely angry with myself right now but this speaks volumes about what a fucking perfect decade it was!

Who will be performing the Enescu & Mendelssohn octet btw? I'd go regardless but I'm curious nonetheless.

*octets

It's the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center -

https://www.chambermusicsociety.org/nyc/events/upcoming/mendelssohns-octet-may-17-2020/

so somebody want to recommend a recording or a couple of the enescu octet? i took a look in my old penguin guide to see what recording they suggested and they didn't see fit to mention it at all... lol

I'm fond of the old Horia Andreescu-led recording on Olympia, even though the playing is not as secure as it could be. If you're looking for a more recent version, I very much enjoy Vilde Frang et al., as well as Gidon Kremer (with a full string orchestra).

And shout out to all the wonderful live renditions on YouTube, such as this one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ugv_o2XsJoE

thanks! it looks like the jansen is the one on olga-vogala's channel and is the one i've been listening to.

Forgot that Ravel’s string quartet was THAT quartet and the choice got even harder

I went nuts listening to every recording of Das Lied von der Erde that I could get my hands on a while back, which slowly got me into other Mahler, which slowly got me listening to more classical type music in general, so for me this one is a landslide. Although "Kindertotenlieder" would be a great name for a black metal album.

Which recording(s) stood out in the end?

I'm still partial to the Klemperer/Ludwig/Wunderlich one, which is how I fell for the work in the first place.

Haitink/Baker/King, Klemperer et al, Bernstein/Dieskau/King, Sanderling/Schreier/Finnila for me. The live Kubelik is great too.

The Boulez was super disappointing

I need to get the one with Gerhaher (Nagano?) since he rules

He has yet to record Das Lied von der Erde as far as I can tell but that disc of Mahler Lieder with Nagano is indeed worth seeking out.

The only one I've sought out and bought so far has been the Walter/Ferrier/Patzak, but I also liked both Rattle versions (Seiffert and Hampson, CBO, '97 and Kozena, Skelton, SBR, '18) as well as the Klemperer and I think Kubelik/Klemt/Baker from 1970. And I really liked last year's Fischer/Larsson/Skelton at the Dusseldorfer. Not that I could pick one out of a crowd, but those ones always got me absorbed more than others.

xpost i have that, must have decided in my mind that they'd also done DLvdE

Who claims Handel? England or Germany? Anyway I love Byrd and Tallis as much as Purcell and more than Britten

I enjoy them both. And I forgot to mention Dowland, whom I adore on occasion.

Dunstaple is also awesome

[XP, sort of] Ravel might secretly be my rarely acknowledged GOAT. All Ravel appearing so far is fab, and I can see myself actually voting for him a little later, but I keep feeling an inexplicable need to favour things whose fabulousness was less fully apparent before this exercise.

my ravel vote will be in a later decade

That Enescu Wind thingy is very attractive. Pretty sure I'd not heard that. Chuffed that he (and Janacek) are likely to feature again in the future. Boooo to the h8ers!

Speaking of wind thingies, the janacek piece I listen to most obsessively is the capriccio for piano and wind ensemble, a scurrying and blatting glory

I did enjoy the Youtube of the Enescu octet that was posted itt. Nice piece. Ives is probably getting my vote, although I'll listen to Schoenberg 2 again before voting. Still, I'm probably going to vote for a lot of Arnie (and I already have in the last poll) so.

Ravel is definitely going to win one of the later polls, lol. And not entirely undeservedly so, though there is a LOT of competition.

Choosing among this lineup was ridiculous. Went with a thing I once thought reasonably well about until it suddenly floored me completely, plus it possibly has a bit of a bridesmaid status better than which it deserves imo: the Schoenberg Qt 1.

Voted for the Ravel quintet, and not just for Royal Tenenbaums reasons

*quartet

For me it comes down to Webern or The Unanswered question but too far from it all to post.

I haven't listened to many of these pieces in years so it's fair game imo.

A lot of my favourite music on that list and I regret not being able to vote for Ravel and Strauss in particular, but Pelleas et Melisande is easily the piece that matters most to me personally and was an easy first choice.

My controp is that Miroirs is better than Gaspard

― valet doberman (Jon not Jon)

is that a controp? gaspard has a legendary status, but it's the same sort of legendary status islamey has, no?

Gaspard's reputation would suggest (rightly so, in my opinion) that it is far more than just a vehicle for pure virtuosity.

Gaspard definitely has a much higher critical profile than Miroirs

BTW my favorite Miroirs is by Frederic Chiu and it’s on a recital disc with Schoenberg Op.11 and a gorgeous obscurity by Abel Decaux

That disc fucking rules.

:)

I hunted that CD down principally for the Decaux piece which I couldn't seem to hear properly anywhere back in the day. Any chance of that appearing in a poll iself? LOL. (Though I guess it was from about this very era, no?)

I completely forgot about it, but it would have made for a fine addition to this poll.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

fgti will think I'm being challopy but I actually went with the Enescu Octet in the end as it's the one I've listened to the most. Cultural relativism ftw.

So much great pieces to let down here but I had to go with The Unanswered Question.

DLvdE

Images I love even more dearly but my vote for next decade is a Debussy so Mahler gets his cookie now

Ewig
Ewig
Ewig

That and La Mer could've taken it just as easily depending on my mood.

No it's fine you like the Enescu! I like the Ravel 4tet unreservedly even if it is really just about the cleverness of the 2nd movement

Man I will never tire of when the first violin melody moves down to an F and the rest of the 4tet continues on with their a-minor pizzicato pattern, that move is such a coup

I absolutely adore it that piece as well and am fascinated by how recent discs round out the logical Debussy/Ravel pairing by appending either the Dutilleux (my preferred option) or the Fauré or the Chausson or, more recently, the Tailleferre.

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

Wish “Central Park” had gotten a vote.

I hunted that CD down principally for the Decaux piece which I couldn't seem to hear properly anywhere back in the day. Any chance of that appearing in a poll iself? LOL. (Though I guess it was from about this very era, no?)

― Nag! Nag! Nag!

oh, someone besides hamelin has recorded it, i'll have to look for that.... hamelin is a great pianist but there are so many great performances where the _only_ performance available is his

I was fascinated by Ravel as a teenager, and I loved the Gaspard de la nuit suite of piano pieces the most. I wanted to get good enough to be able to play them, but they are among the most technically difficult piano works I've ever seen.

did play Jeux d'eau (1901) for my last high school recital though. That composition is really nice.

I got to a great place with "Le Gibet," and wasn't terrible on the first half of "Ondine." Never once considered tackling "Scarbo."

(Was a little taken aback "Jeux d'eau" wasn't a nominee here.)

symphony of -999

I ended up in hospital briefly and missed the deadline. Let's pretend I voted for Poem of Ecstacy, just to spread the love around.

somehow i knew that my vote would be decisive. la mer is the apotheosis of impressionism.

Quickly replying:

1. As much as I love 'Jeux d'eau', I don't deem it one of Ravel's Big Dogs™.

2. Hope you're alright, NNN.

3. La Mer is indeed a worthy winner.

4. 32 votes if my groggy early morning count was correct.

5. Glad to see that Sibelius's 3rd defeated the 2nd.

Wahey not alone with Schbrg Q1!

'Musical prose' remains a fascinating concept to this day.

Not one vote for the paradigm-shifting 2nd Quartet, though. :(

A humble request for pomenitul: When a new decade is up, could you put a link or just a mention of the fact in the previous decade's thread? I've missed a few of these in periods when I don't think of (or have time for) checking New Answers in addition to my own bookmarks. No big deal obv, would just be useful.

Good call, will do.

I'm making some frankly impossible last-minute cuts in preparation for the next edition as we speak.

XXP: I think I'm alright now, thanks. Certainly better than 7 hours ago when I apparently couldn't spell 'ecstasy' in English, let alone French!

Happy to hear it, and may it remain so!

Onwards to the next decade:

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

Glad you're OK, NNN.

Not one vote for the paradigm-shifting 2nd Quartet, though. :(

It could have got my vote; it really just was that I had voted for Schoenberg before and probably would again. The Unanswered Question is my single favourite piece by Ives. Arguably, it was as much of a paradigm shifter.

"5. Glad to see that Sibelius's 3rd defeated the 2nd."

OTM

feet to the fire though, Pohjola's Daughter is probably the finest Sibelius on this poll

I am truly shocked at 0 votes for Mahler's 5th and 6th