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The 14 best pieces ever written for piano
The 14 best pieces ever written for piano
POSTED SEPTEMBER 12, 2018
Classic FM has done all the work for us on this one. Similar to what I did for Robert Greenberg's "30 Greatest Orchestral Works" [link on The Arts page] , Classic FM has pulled together videos for their top 14 works for piano. They've taken it a step further by embedding all the videos on a single web page (link below left).
Classic FM has done all the work for us on this one. Similar to what I did for Robert Greenberg's "30 Greatest Orchestral Works" [link on The Arts page] , Classic FM has pulled together videos for their top 14 works for piano. They've taken it a step further by embedding all the videos on a single web page (link below left).
Robert Greenberg chose a different set of piano works for his Great Courses Lectures on the "23 Greatest Solo Piano Works". Those on Classic FM's list preceded by an * are the only ones on both lists.
Classic FM's list:
Beethoven - Moonlight Sonata
Debussy - Clair de Lune
Chopin – Nocturne in E-flat Major (Op. 9, No. 2)
Schumann – Scenes from Childhood
*J.S. Bach – The Well-Tempered Clavier
*J.S. Bach – Goldberg Variations
Beethoven – Piano Concerto No.5 'Emperor'
Gershwin – Rhapsody in Blue
*Liszt – Piano sonata in B minor
Mozart – Piano Concerto No. 20
Beethoven – Sonata Pathétique
Liszt – La Campanella
Mozart – Piano Sonata No.11 (including 'Rondo alla Turca')
Rachmaninov – Piano Concerto No.2 in C minor
The 16 Best Works for Violin
The 16 Best Works for Violin
POSTED DECEMBER 5, 2018
Classic FM has pulled together videos for their top 15 works for violin. They've embedded all the videos on a single web page (link below left), along with a brief commentary on each piece. Sadly they did not include my favorite piece for violin - Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto in D Major. So I've included it with a link below right.
Classic FM's List of 15 best violin pieces
Classic FM's List of 15 best violin pieces
Bach - Partita No. 2, Chaconne; Bartok - Violin Concerto No. 2; Beethoven - Violin Sonata No. 9 (‘Kreutzer’); Berg - Violin Concerto No. 2; Biber - Mystery Sonatas; Brahms - Violin Sonata No. 3; Bruch - Violin Concerto No. 1; Glass - Violin Concerto No. 1; Paganini - Caprice No. 24; Saint-Saëns - Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso; Sarasate - Zigeunerweisen; Sibelius - Violin Concerto; Vivaldi - The Four Seasons; Williams - Schindler’s List; Ysaye - Violin Sonata No. 3
Symphony Hall listeners choose the 76 greatest musical works
Symphony Hall listeners choose the 76 greatest musical works
POSTED SEPTEMBER 10, 2019
Over the Labor Day Weekend, Sirius XM's Symphony Hall station reprised its list of the 76 greatest classical music works - with a twist. They asked their listeners to choose. As might be expected, there are some notable differences from the list selected by the station's program hosts for the Memorial Day Weekend.*
Beethoven's Ninth Symphony assumed its rightful place at #1, and some of the works I especially like fared much better in the listener survey:
Vivaldi's Four Seasons was #6, up 59 spots from the radio hosts' list
Beethoven's Seventh Symphony, my personal favorite, was #11, also up 59 spots.
Pachelbel Canon in D Major was #37, an improvement of 34 places.
Mendelssohn Symphony No. 4 ("Italian Symphony") was #49, an improvement of 29 places.
Listening on-and-off over the weekend, I found two enjoyable pieces that I was not so familiar with: Mahler's Symphony No. 5 and Barber's Adagio for Strings. [videos below]
For Mahler's 5th, I've chosen an uploaded recording of the work conducted by Rudolf Barshai. Barshai's was selected as the best of all the recordings of Mahler's 5th in this analysis and survey by Tony Duggan.
Samuel Barber is a 20th century American composer, who is considered one of the most expressive representatives of the lyric and Romantic trends in 20th-century classical music. His opera "Vanessa" (1958) and his Piano Concerto (1962) both won the Pulitzer Prize for Music.
*Links to the complete lists:
Labor Day Countdown List (Listeners' Top 76) (Facebook)
Memorial Day Countdown List (Program Hosts' Top 76) (kayespencer.com)
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