Greatest non-operatic choral work

[Chaszz]

Your favorite or the objectively greatest - either one, we don't really care to get into a discussion of theory of aesthetics, do we? Or do we?

[Chaszz]

Mass in B Minor forever -- or at last until the other galaxies have slipped beyond our view -- -- -- --

[knight66]

I have chosen one, though really it is a personal, not an objective issue. Right now I am listening to the B Minor Mass and I can't say I really think it less great than the Missa Solemnis: but I respond to the Beethoven more emotively and am always in awe that he wrote it when he was deaf. Mind you, Bach's work was produced while he was going deaf.

I am glad we have both.

Mike

[Chaszz]

I have chosen one, though really it is a personal, not an objective issue. Right now I am listening to the B Minor Mass and I can't say I really think it less great than the Missa Solemnis: but I respond to the Beethoven more emotively and am always in awe that he wrote it when he was deaf. Mind you, Bach's work was produced while he was going deaf.

I am glad we have both.

Mike

Bach was going blind, I think, not deaf. He was operated on by the same quack who left Handel blind also. For a mdern opthamologist's take on the two composers' eye surgeries,
http://www.uwhealth.org/news/uw-opthalmologist-explores-history-of-eye-care/25950

Also a good many of the movements from the B Minor Mass come from the cantatas, so Bach was probably not doing much composing when he compiled it.

[knight66]

Cor, meant to type blind....thanks. Yes I know that a number of the movements were recycled; nevertheless it makes a 'whole; is a masterpiece and does not at all betray any kind of patchwork approach.

Mike

[Brian]

"Greatest"? I've got no idea. "Favorite"? Glagolitic Mass  0:)

[springrite]

Bach B minor by a hair over Dittersdorf's underrated masterpiece.

I almost voted for "others", either for Ligeti Requiem or Book of Seven Seals by Schmidt.

[Wanderer]

I have chosen one, though really it is a personal, not an objective issue. Right now I am listening to the B Minor Mass and I can't say I really think it less great than the Missa Solemnis: but I respond to the Beethoven more emotively and am always in awe that he wrote it when he was deaf. Mind you, Bach's work was produced while he was going deaf.

I am glad we have both.

Couldn't have put it better. Missa Solemnis is the clear choice for me.

Among works not on the poll list, other great favourites off the top of my head: Walton's Belshazzar's Feast (it should be on the list), Berlioz's Messe Solennele and Grande Messe des mortes, Foulds' A World Requiem, Bruckner's Mass No.1 in D minor, Te Deum and Psalm 150, Haydn's Die Schöpfung, Monteverdi's Vespers, Mendelssohn's Lobgesang, Schmidt's Das Buch mit sieben Siegeln, Langgaard's Fra dybet, Lili Boulanger's Psalm 24, R.Strauss' Deutsche Motette...

[mc ukrneal]

Many choices here. I'd probably go for the Faure Requiem. Exquisite.

[Drasko]

Rachmaninov All-Night Vigil.

[knight66]

The Berlioz Te Deum is another top rank piece, Oedipus Rex, the Britten War Requiem, Alexander Nevsky, Carl Rutti Requiem, Bruckner Motets, Verdi Four Sacred Pieces, Handel's Israel in Egypt and his Dixit Dominus; add these to the list that Wanderer provided. (Though I can't see the Mendelssohn, or any choral piece by him, as being at this sort of level.)

I want to put B minor Mass, St Matthew Passion, Missa Solemnis, Monteverdi 1610 Vespers and The Creation in their own top drawer with most of the others mentiond in the second top one. (As long as we can consign the Mendelssohn to be heard as musak in the lift.)

Mike

[MDL]

I almost voted for "others", either for Ligeti Requiem.

Ligeti's Requiem for me. Either that or Stockhausen's Momente.

[MDL]

Dittersdorf Kumquat Tragedy?!


Kumquats seem to be cropping up rather a lot on GMG this weekend. What have I missed?

[jochanaan]

Can't speak for the Kumquats, but I'd like to add two more nominees to the already stellar list:

Bruckner: E minor Mass
Mahler: Symphony #8

[Gurn Blanston]

Without Beethoven's 9th Symphony and Haydn's "The Creation" there is scarcely anything I can vote for. So I added them for myself, and hope a write-in avalanche will follow...  0:)



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