Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Five greatest pieces ever

As the posts here so nicely illustrate, the "five greatest pieces ever" have different faces and names depending on the ears and brains on the receiving end. And I bet many would have a somewhat different list next year, and the year after...

This is one of the great things about what we call "art" (for lack of a better word): it speaks differently to different people at different times and in different ways--in other words, it is almost infinitely varied, even when nothing concrete has actually changed (same notes on the page, for example...) I know some people get all up in arms at "Top 10" lists and the like, but I think it's kind of cool that you can have a sincere personal top five that might include 200 or 300 pieces over the course of a lifetime!

Yes, I think AJB's top five come from '60's, and he still has a stash.

Oh, so that's where this is all coming from. (Perhaps I need to ask my mum for '60's clarification... but she was more into Cream and that stuff.)

But we need to go easy on the old burned-out classical music hippies. They really thought serialism was the wave of the future. They wrote volumes attesting to the apparent fact that Mahler's Das Lied was supposed to be the birth of "modern music". Good grief: Mahler, a 19th century poseur as a 20th century visionary. Will wonders ever cease?

These same people said Elgar was a relic of Colonel Blimp and Empire. My, the axes that must be grinded at all costs, reality be damned.

To me the greatest piece ever is often the the one I just listened to....

So the concert-year 2006 both as listener and choir-singer gave me 5 heights:

Joseph Rheinberger: Stabat Mater
Egil Hovland: "Du såg mig"
J.S. Bach: Motet: "Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied"
W.A. Mozart: Pianoconcert 23 (A major)
Edvard Grieg : Ballade G minor (piano)

(and then I would have liked to add Chopin's Eminor piano concert, Faure's Siciliano, Mozarts Missa Brevis (Gmajor), Mahlers 5th symphony....and all other wonderful music I have heard live this year.)

Ecm : I think it spells "Verklärte Nacht" (Some years since I heard this piece - it is like a key to your hidden sorrows)

Ragnhild

Setting aside such things as most popular pieces, or most seminal influence on other composers, I'll stay simply with those compositions that have the greatest emotional impact on me.

Chopin - 3rd Sonata
Puccini - La Boheme
Schubert - Der Wintereisse
Richard Strauss - Der Rosenkavelier
Verdi - Requiem

Now for some runners-up in no particular order

Handel - Messiah
Cantaloube - Songs of the Auvergne
Orff - Carmina Burana
Rossini - Barber of Seville
Gilbert & Sullivan - Iolanthe
Mahler - 8th Symphony
Faure - Requiem
Gershwin - Rhapsody in Blue
Tchaikovsky - Swan Lake
Resphigi - Pines of Rome
Johann Strauss - Die Fledermaus
Wager - Das Reingold
Rodgers - Oklahoma
Copland - Rodeo
Bach - St. Matthew Passion
Beethoven - any string quartet, plus the quartet from Fidelio
Mozart - too difficult to choose

You mean that someone actually admitted to "composing" Chopsticks?? Well I never!

1. Linus and Lucy
2. Spongbob square pants theme song (aye aye captine)
3. Your Song - Elton John
4. Hanon Exercise #7
5. The Mario theme played by a blindfolded kid.


Matt

I'm going to pick my favorite of the more popular pieces:

1. Debussy - Clair de Lune
2. Beethoven - Appassionata
3. Rachmaninoff - Piano Concerto no2
4. Brahms - Violin concerto
5. Brahms - Variations/Fugue on a theme by Handel (just because I wanted to include it not because it's overly popular)

Really hard to pick 5. I limited to classical only.

1. Liszt Ballade No. 2
2. Rach 2
3. Mozart 20
4. Beethoven Appassionata
5. Liszt Mephisto Waltz

Schuetz: Musicalische Exeguien
Bach: Mattaus-Passion
Haydn: Schoepfung
Mozart: Don Giovanni
Beethoven: 9th symphony

Lol... that's a very difficult one to choose...

Liszt - Sonata
Liszt - Paganini etudes
Rachmaninoff - THIRD concerto
Rachmaninoff - Moments musicaux
Bach-Busoni - Chaconne
------------------------------------------------
Yes, of course many others, including:
Beethoven - 4th concerto, Brahms - both piano concertos AND the violin concerto, Liszt - piano concertos, Dante sonata, Mazeppa (symphonic poem), Wagner - Rheingold...
I can't count them all, alright? =}

Schumann piano Concerto a minor
Brahms op 118
Schubert Wanderer Fantasy
Debussy L'isle Joyeux
Beethoven op 110

Wagner Tristan
Liszt Mazeppa
B minor mass Bach
B minor Sonata Liszt
Handel's Messiah
Verdi Requiem
Brahms Requiem
Brahms Symphony No. 1

Are among my favorite pieces.

Are you forgetting the perennial favorite which is

Lean on Me - Bill Withers?

I'm trying to

Revised, below :

The statistics makes this really interesting, so since I answered the wrong questions last time I will enter the IMO greatest pieces ever .
I hope many others will keep BruceD occupied with changing the statistics....

Beethoven: Violin Concerto
Rachmaninov: 2. piano-concert
Bach: Brandenburger concert no 2
Mozart: Piano concert no 23
Handel: Messias


Ragnhild

See : Revision 2, below

Ok then make my 5 votes:
B minor Sonata Liszt
Handel's Messiah
Verdi Requiem
B minor mass Bach
Brahms Symphony No. 1

P.S. to anyone who chose the Busoni transcription of the Chaconne, I suggest hearing the original. I strongly prefer it.

What are the numbers next to your suggestions BruceD?

I first thought it was the number of the movement until i found 6 next to Rachmaninoff's concerto.

One of my favorite pieces of music of all time!

I didn't expect to see that one up on anybody's list, but it is certainly on my list.