Jul 25, 2008

Most Transformative Classical Compositions Ever?

Published Mar 19, 2008, 11:00pm

The Chicago Sinfonietta invites you to take survey to select musical works for its Think Big progam at this November’s Chicago Humanities Festival. One choice per category is allowed, and an write-in option appears at the end.

Nominees (below) were selected by Michael Abels, Henry Fogel, Tania Léon, Dominique-René de Lerma, Drew McManus, Steve Robinson and Alex Ross.

The Sinfonetta site doesn’t offer listing samples, be we’ll take care of that for you, via the magic of Rhapsody free trial tracks:

Classical Period

playsm.gif Symphony No. 9 - Beethoven 

playsm.gif Symphony No. 3 “Eroica” - Beethoven*

playsm.gif Don Giovanni - Mozart

Romantic Period

playsm.gif Tristan und Isolde - Wagner* 

playsm.gif Symphonie Fantastique - Berlioz

playsm.gif La Mer - Debussy

Modern

playsm.gif Appalachian Spring - Copland 

playsm.gif Rite of Spring - Stravinsky 

playsm.gif Five Pieces for Orchestra - Schoenberg* 

playsm.gif Concerto for Orchestra - Bartok 

playsm.gif Desert Music - Steve Reich 

playsm.gif Sensemaya - Silvestre Revueltas

* Bonnie’s choices

Comments

2 comment(s) on this page. Add your own comment below.

David Ellis
Mar 23, 2008 2:51am [ 1 ]

Thanks very much for calling this voting opportunity to my attention. I agree with your picks for Classical and Romantic, but I don't think any of the Modern choices offered are close to "transformative" as compared to the Eroica and Tristan. So I had to use the write-in option so I could vote for "In C" by Terry Riley.

Bonnie Gibbons
Mar 24, 2008 3:36pm [ 2 ]

Thank you, David, for being I think the first person to go ahead and comment on a post written by my humble self as I've been holding down the fort! I personally went to the other end of the timeline with a Monteverdi selection as my write-in, since I'm not so qualified to opine on late 20th century contributions.

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