Top Ten Pieces of Music Written Before 1900

Me ^ | 12-05-01 | Pharmboy

[Pharmboy]

Ask the question this way: If you were stranded on a desert island with a CD player and a good sound system, what ten pieces would you take with you that were written before the 20th Century?

My list:
1) Beethoven's Appassionata sonata for piano
2) Bach's Partita Number 2 for solo violin
3) Mozart's Symphony Number 41
4) Wagner's Overture to Tristan und Isolde
5) Beethoven's String Quartet Opus 131
6) Chopin's Ballade Number 4
7) Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto (IMO the only worthwhile thing he ever wrote)
8) Schubert's Impromptus (all of them)
9) Beethoven's Pathetique Sonata
and 10) Bach's Mass in B Minor

[Pharmboy]

I just don't tire of listening to the above. I have always been impressed with Freeper taste and have an open mind and am willing to learn (I also expect to get several good suggestions for CDs to buy myself for the Holidays).

[SamAdams76]

Some good choices there, especially Bach's "Mass in D Minor." which is one of my favorites as well. Here are mine:

Monterverdi - Vespers of 1610

Mozart - Don Giovanni

Handel - Water Music & Music for Royal Fireworks

Bach - Brandenburg Concertos

Mozart - Le Nozze de Figaro

Beethoven - Missa Solemnis

Wagner - Ring Cycle

Bach - Mass in D Minor

Beethoven - Ninth Symphony

Mozart - Requiem Mass

[Cinnamon Girl]

Brahm's German Requiem

Beethoven's Ode to Joy

The Celtic folk song "Gary Owen"

Pacabel Canon

Vivaldi's The Four Seasons

Anything by Chopin

[denydenydeny]

Much more standard tastes for me, I'm afraid.

1) Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.
2) Handel's Messiah
3) Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture
4) Pachelbel's Canon
5) Handel's Watermusic
6) Puccini's Turandot
7) Bach's Jesu, the Joy of Man's Desiring
8) Bizet's Carmen
9) Bach's Brandenburg Concerto # 3
10)Verdi's Requiem

[petuniasevan]

I'm not a classical fan; most pre-1900 music is not my style. However, Greensleeves is my favorite Christmas music.
Running a close second is "Cantique de Noel".

I love the Mannheim Steamroller versions of these tunes.

[Pharmboy]

Doh! How could I forget Mozart's Requiem? You are sooo right.

I guess the Violin Concerto gets bounced. Do me a favor, Sam, tell Tchaikovsky the news...

[johnboy]

albinoni's adagio in g (?) major.

[real saxophonist]

Too bad Gustav Holst's work was in the early 1900s. Anyway, Sousa! Just about 30 years, 1872 or 3, 'til another 30 years in the 20th Century. He had to write the Inauguration Music, and the Funeral Music, for President Garfield in 1881.

[Chi-townChief]

I have to go with the more "pop classics", if you can call them that:

- Lizst's Hungarian Rhapsody #2
- Beethoven's 9th - 2nd movement
- Handel's Water Music
- Rossini's Thieving Magpie Overture
- Bizet's Carmen Suite
- Wagner's Ride of the Valkyrie
- Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite
- Beethoven's 5th Symphony in its entirety
- Johann Strauss's Blue Danube waltz
- Julia Ward Howe's Battle Hymn of the Republic

[Pharmboy]

It is hard to argue with many of your choices; personally, I just think that some of the greatest pieces ever written (Ludwig's Number 9, for instance) are played soo much that they've taken themselves out of this realm. Pachabel's Canon is in the same category, IMO. I remember the first time I heard that...it was like "Where have you been all my life?"

[T'wit]

ALL the best music was written before 1900 :-)

[Registered]

When was the theme to the TV Series "The Rat Patrol" written. It's got to qualify ;-)

[JCG]

Think big...

  1. La Traviata
  2. La Boheme
  3. Tosca
  4. Lucia di Lammermoor
  5. Aida
  6. Lohengrin
  7. Jussi Bjorling's Greatest Hits
  8. Scottish Fantasia, Max Bruch
  9.  Symphony #9, Antonin Dvorak
10.  Symphony #6, Tchaikovsky
 

America's Fifth Column ... watch PBS documentary JIHAD! In America
Download 8 Mb zip file here (50 minute video)

[johnboy]

Bach's Jesu, the Joy of Man's Desiring

concur. also, now that i think about it, and in a similar vein ... let's see. schuberts ave maria, sheep may safely graze, panis angelicus (franch?), o mio babbino caro (sp?) by puccini, pueri concinte by ??hmm, and perhaps handel's largo from xerxes (sp?), oh, too, the second movement from ???, y'know, in the hall of the mountain kings, and all that.

[Revolting cat!]

Bump and bookmark. Thank you. (I cop out. I can't add anything for fear of omitting so much else. I love it all except the easy listening (usually) barogue pap played on my local classical radio station.)

[johnboy]

lol. rat patrol.

[Antoninus]

How could you leave out:

Mozart's Requiem Mass
Beethoven's Symphony #7
Any of Chopin's Nocturnes
Wagner's Overture to Der Meistersinger von Nuremburg.
"Turkey in the straw" by Stephen Foster

Just joking there at the end.

[Pharmboy]

John Phillip is for sure da man! The Washington Post, The Thunderer and El Capitan were all written before 1900. JPS deserves a special honorable mention.

[Savage Beast]

I'd take the whole Tristan und Isolde, and I'd take Bach's St. Matthew Passion, Wagner's Der Ring der Nibelungen, Tosca, Salome by Richard Strauss, Beethoven's sonatas and symphonies--well, you're taking all of Schubert's impromptus. And if you're going to play that way, I'm going to take all of Puccini's operas, all of Verdi's, all of Wagner's, and everything that Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Mahler, Handel, Vivaldi, Chopin wrote.

I feel so soothed just thinking about it.

--The Beast