Less Beethoven and More Holst, Please.
Apparently, I disagree a lot with my fellow DC area classical music lovers. WETA ran a poll to pick the 90 favorite pieces, which the station then ran all this week. This is the listeners’ top ten choices:
- Dvorak: Symphony #9 “From the New World”
- Beethoven: Symphony #9 “Choral”
- Beethoven: Symphony #7
- Beethoven: Symphony #6 “Pastoral”
- Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto #2
- Beethoven: Symphony #5
- Beethoven: Piano Concerto #5 “Emperor”
- Rimsky-Korsakov: Scheherazade
- Saint-Saens: Symphony #3 “Organ”
- Vivaldi: The Four Seasons
Obviously, there’s a lot of Beethoven love going on among Washington, DC classical music listeners. I like Beethoven plenty, but four symphonies among the top six is a bit much. His 6th and 7th are good, but not top ten material to my ears. I would have bumped those down and bumped Smetana and Gershwin (or perhaps Grieg) up from the 11-20 ranks.
I’m not thrilled that with their choice at #28 either. If I had to pick the best Vaughan-Williams piece, it wouldn’t be “The Lark Ascending”. I prefer his G Minor Mass, “Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis”, or his Symphony #2 (“London”) to the Lark.
Also, I’m surprised a little bit that there isn’t more Wagner on the list. Perhaps the DC classical audience isn’t into heroic orchestral power all that much. Their choices do seem long on intimate pieces and short on powerful ones.
Of course, I can’t look at a list like this without making my own.
So, here are my Top Five.
1) Gustav Holst – The Planets
2) Aaron Copland – Appalachian Spring
3) Beethoven – Symphony #9 (“Choral”)
4) Edward Elgar – Enigma Variations
5) Hector Berlioz – Symphonie Fantastique
Feel free to list your favorites in the comments.
UPDATE: Thanks for the link, Stacy! I think John Williams is one of the true musical geniuses of our time who won’t get his real due from the classical music community because of the genre in which he worked. That’s a shame because his music really is a gateway to the classical world (for instance, his Star Wars music was in places almost a direct plagiarism of Holst’s “The Planets”)
Other Posts of Interest:
- On “Forte” and “Forte”
- It’s Beginning to Sound a Lot Like Christmas
- Pandora to be Killed by the Record Industry
Category: Music
I'm not as familiar with classical music as you, Jimmie. My knowledge is limited mostly to pieces I've either played or currently own. But even I can see that the list is more than a little strange. No Mozart, Handel, Bach, Mahler, or Tchaikovsky in the top ten? At least one of those composers should make it in the top ten. I'm with you, way too much Beethoven. Although Beethoven's Ninth deserves to be there. But what about Bach's Brandenburg Concertos? Or Handel's Water Music Suite? Or Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachtmusik? (Yes, it's overplayed, but it's still great). The Symphony for the New World pick probably surprised me the most, though. I would've picked it, but I played trombone and that piece has some great (and difficult) trombone parts. So, I'm biased on that one. I guess everyone else is too.
I like Dvorak, don't get me wrong. "New World" certainly has a place in the top ten and the 'bone parts are at least as majestic as the ones in "The Planets". I think the list is affected greatly by the DC audience. I listen to WETA a lot here and there's a definite "feel" to it that runs against the more populist pieces.