The five masterpieces that changed the course of musical history

[Serial_Apologist]

I have now looked into the BBC Magazine and find that the five masterpieces are all Debussy's! The intention was to ask five people to write about a Debussy piece that was unique and influential. Sorry about misleading you!

A most enjoyable exercise, however!

5 unique & influential Debussy pieces?

L'Apres-Midi d'un Faun
Nocturnes
La Mer
Syrinx
Jeux

[gurnemanz]

Today I bought my copy of the latest issue of BBC Music Magazine and it lies before me with this headline prominent on the front cover. Of course we can all have our own ideas about these five pieces and I am certainly not going to hold myself bound to submit to the views of BBCMM's writer, but I started musing about which five I would choose. (I have not opened the magazine yet so I do not know which are selected there.)

In the end I chose :
Monteverdi Orfeo
Beethoven Eroica
Wagner Parsifal
Stravinsky Rite of Spring
Riley In C

I was loath to junk a few others, and indeed I am all the time thinking of other good candidates. Which do other boarders propose?

A great list up to the Riley which I'm afraid I don't know. I would tentatively add Sergeant Pepper in its place.

[Alf-Prufrock]

A most enjoyable exercise, however!

5 unique & influential Debussy pieces?

L'Apres-Midi d'un Faun
Nocturnes
La Mer
Syrinx
Jeux

Three of them the same as the BBCMM chose! They have Pelleas and the Piano Preludes instead of (gulp!) La Mer and Syrinx. I am not sure which I woud choose!

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

A great list up to the Riley which I'm afraid I don't know.

Very few people do. I suggest there was a hint of provocation with this one.

Anyway, it was preceded by Ravel's Bolero many years earlier.

[MrGongGong]

How is 4"33 music, then, Mr. GG? Surely the whole point of the "piece" is that it is emphatically NOT music.

OK then and this really has to be the last time ............ are we all paying attention at the back now ???

It has structure
It has form
It has sonic content
It has a performance context


The original score had a time signature and was written on manuscript paper
and you miss the point entirely if you think that it's "about" nonmusic

but nice to see that the hissy fit is over

"A great list up to the Riley which I'm afraid I don't know. I would tentatively add Sergeant Pepper in its place."

I find that extraordinary that you have never encountered InC
but Sergeant Pepper is most over rated IMV

[Mr Pee]

It has structure
It has form
It has sonic content
It has a performance context

The original score had a time signature and was written on manuscript paper

I've got a sheet of manuscript paper and I've just written a time signature on it.

Shall I add that to the list of masterpieces?

[MrGongGong]

I've got a sheet of manuscript paper and I've just written a time signature on it.

Shall I add that to the list of masterpieces?

you are most welcome to stick it wherever you like !
but what YOU think really has very little bearing on it

interesting that for someone who styles himself after Elgar's bike has more to say about the great John Cage than Sir Edward

[rauschwerk]

Regardless of whether 4'33" is or is not music, I would want a lot of convincing that any music has been written, or written differently, because of Cage's piece. What that has done is to generate a great deal of writing. Music makes music history: critiques don't.

[Panjandrum]

Snap
I was going to say the same, (the opening bars of the Tristan prelude are all you need)
but expected the usual idiot(s) to do the whole 4:33" isn't music nonsense again

And, by the same token, the usual idiot will write off The Dream of Gerontius.

[vinteuil]

Perotin Viderunt Omnes
Palestrina Missa Papae Marcelli
Petrucci Odhecaton A
Peri Dafne is lost - so Monteverdi Orfeo
Bach das Wohltemperierte Clavier