Top 10 Favorite choral works (with or without orchestra)

[EigenUser]

I've been listening to a lot of choral music recently and I wanted a place to organize my favorites and to see what other good stuff is out there. List choral symphonies, requiems, etc. Basically, anything with a chorus (with or without an orchestra).

Here's my eccentric list, containing things from the mid-1400's right up until 1972-3 ("Clocks and Clouds")
1. Ligeti -- "Clocks and Clouds"
2. Ockeghem -- "Missa Prolationum"
3. Debussy -- "Trois Nocturnes: III. Sirenes"
4. Beethoven -- "Missa Solemnis"
5. Haydn -- "The Seasons"
6. Mahler -- "Symphony No. 2"
7. Ligeti -- "Requiem"
8. Ockeghem -- "Requiem"
9. Mendelssohn -- "A Midsummer Night's Dream"
10. Ives -- "Symphony No. 4"

[North Star]

Off the top of my head, one per composer (so not only Bach on the list)

1. Rakh Vespers
2. Schnittke Choir Concerto
3. Bach Matthäus-Passion
4. Berlioz Requiem
5. Bruckner Te Deum
6. Shostakovich 13
7. Schönberg Gurre-Lieder
8. Janacek Glagolitic Mass
9. Mussorgsky St. John's Night on Bare Mountain
10. Zelenka Missa Votiva

[EigenUser]

Off the top of my head, one per composer (so not only Bach on the list)

1. Rakh Vespers
2. Schnittke Choir Concerto
3. Bach Matthäus-Passion
4. Berlioz Requiem
5. Bruckner Te Deum
6. Shostakovich 13
7. Schönberg Gurre-Lieder
8. Janacek Glagolitic Mass
9. Mussorgsky St. John's Night on Bare Mountain
10. Zelenka Missa Votiva

You're killing me... You were the one to introduce me to the LvB "Missa Solemnis" a few months ago, yet it isn't on your list?

And no renaissance/early music? And Schnittke before Ligeti?
(it's cool)

Early music is a genre I really need to explore more. I think Ockeghem is in my top 20 composers. I ordered a box of old (literally, falling apart) scores on eBay which arrived today for $2.50. One of them is Josquin des Prez. Usually getting a score serves as a reason to get to know the music well.

[North Star]

You're killing me... You were the one to introduce me to the LvB "Missa Solemnis" a few months ago, yet it isn't on your list?

I said off the top of my head. 

And no renaissance/early music? And Schnittke before Ligeti?
(it's cool)

Early music is a genre I really need to explore more. I think Ockeghem is in my top 20 composers. I ordered a box of old (literally, falling apart) scores on eBay which arrived today for $2.50. One of them is Josquin des Prez. Usually getting a score serves as a reason to get to know the music well.

I could easily have included more older music (Josquin for sure, maybe Monteverdi's In Illo Tempore, Domenico Scarlatti's Stabat Mater), but then I would have had to leave out something else (in addition to Prokofiev's Seven, They Are Seven, Martinů's folk cantatas & The Epic of Gilgamesh, Pärt Stabat Mater, and more Janáček.  0:)

[Scion7]

1. Beethoven - Missa Solemnis
2. Mahler - Song of the Earth
3. Brahms - German Requiem
4. Bruckner - Te Deum
5. Mendelssohn - Midsummer Night's Dream (although I like the incidental music more  )
6. Handel - Messiah
7. Haydn - The Creation
8. J.S. Bach - The Passions (no preference really)
9. Barber - Knoxville: Summer of 1915
10. Mozart - Requiem

[amw]

Stravinsky - Requiem Canticles & Les Noces
Mozart - Requiem (except the Süssmayr bits)
Beethoven - Missa Solemnis
Schubert - Eb Major Mass (D950)
Bach - B Minor Mass
Messiaen - Cinq rechants & Le Transfiguration
Ligeti - Lux aeterna
Xenakis - Nuits
Some pre-Bach composer - something

I swear we had this thread already

[EigenUser]

Yeah, I thought that I saw this thread a while ago, but when I searched the poll board for "choral", nothing relevant came up.

Stravinsky - Requiem Canticles

I need to hear this again. I heard it a while ago and it left me cold, but so did many other things that I now love. Or maybe that was "Threni"... I forget.

Messiaen - Cinq rechants & Le Transfiguration

I haven't heard these yet! Messiaen is a favorite of mine, so I should.

[...] and more Janáček.  0:)

A good reason to keep the one-per-composer rule! 
(Sorry, Ken moment )

2. Mahler - Song of the Earth

I didn't think about including things with only soloists, but it doesn't matter. If we are, then my list changes. I'll insert the Mahler DLvdE between the LvB and Haydn, knocking off the Ives at the end. So, including any kind of voice, my list becomes:
1. Ligeti -- "Clocks and Clouds"
2. Ockeghem -- "Missa Prolationum"
3. Debussy -- "Trois Nocturnes: III. Sirenes"
4. Beethoven -- "Missa Solemnis"
5. Mahler -- "Das Lied von der Erde"
6. Haydn -- "The Seasons"
7. Mahler -- "Symphony No. 2"
8. Ligeti -- "Requiem"
9. Ockeghem -- "Requiem"
10. Mendelssohn -- "A Midsummer Night's Dream"

Also, Luciano Berio's "Sinfonia" wouldn't make top 10, but it wouldn't be far away, either.

[kishnevi]

Tallis Spem in Alium
Handel Dixit Dominum
Bach Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben (Cantata number something or other)
Beethoven Missa Solemnis
Brahms German Requiem
Verdi Reqiuem
Puccini Turandot Act I
Mahler Symphony 8
Elgar Dream of Gerontius
Part Adams Lament

[Ken B]

Early music is a genre I really need to explore more. I think Ockeghem is in my top 20 composers. I ordered a box of old (literally, falling apart) scores on eBay which arrived today for $2.50. One of them is Josquin des Prez. Usually getting a score serves as a reason to get to know the music well.

*bites back several enormous Itoldyasos*

Good timing [asin]B008BT104M[/asin]

[Karl Henning]

Off the top of my head, one per composer (so not only Bach on the list)

1. Rakh Vespers
2. Schnittke Choir Concerto
3. Bach Matthäus-Passion
4. Berlioz Requiem
5. Bruckner Te Deum
6. Shostakovich 13
7. Schönberg Gurre-Lieder
8. Janacek Glagolitic Mass
9. Mussorgsky St. John's Night on Bare Mountain
10. Zelenka Missa Votiva

Cool list, though I've not listened to the Zelenka yet . . . .

[North Star]

Cool list, though I've not listened to the Zelenka yet . . . .

Oh dear. What Zelenka have you heard, Karl, if any?

[Karl Henning]

Tallis Spem in Alium
Handel Dixit Dominum
Bach Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben (Cantata number something or other)
Beethoven Missa Solemnis
Brahms German Requiem
Verdi Reqiuem
Puccini Turandot Act I
Mahler Symphony 8
Elgar Dream of Gerontius
Part Adams Lament

Cool list, too.  And do I recall aright, Jeffrey, that you were one of the advocates for the Gardiner recording of the Verdi?  A stick of dynamite.

[Karl Henning]

Oh dear. What Zelenka have you heard, Karl, if any?

None, as yet!  I have friends who sang in a recent-ish Boston performance of the Missa votiva, but I was unable to attend.

[North Star]

None, as yet!  I have friends who sang in a recent-ish Boston performance of the Missa votiva, but I was unable to attend.

Well, better now than later. 
https://www.youtube.com/v/VEqnWcsGXvI

[asin]B001AS6A9G[/asin]

[Karl Henning]

Well, better now than later. 
https://www.youtube.com/v/VEqnWcsGXvI

[asin]B001AS6A9G[/asin]

Thanks for the aid!  Will give a listen soon (-ish)!

[Lisztianwagner]

In no particular order:

Beethoven: Symphony No.9
Mahler: Symphony No.8
Shostakovich: Symphony No.13
Bruckner: Te Deum
Brahms: German Requiem
Schnittke: Symphony No.4
Haydn: Die Schöpfung
Debussy: Sirenes from Nocturnes
Verdi: Requiem
Elgar: Dream of Gerontius

[Drasko]

Easier to quote myself from favorite sacred works thread:

Liturgy of St.John Chrysostom - Ioannis Koukouzelis et al
Messe de Notre-Dame - Guilleme de Machaut
Missa L'homme arme - Antoine Busnois
Missa Pangue lingua - Josquin Desprez
Missa Hercule Dux Ferrariae - Josquin Desprez
Miserere - Josquin Desprez
Vespro della Beata Vergine - Claudio Monteverdi
Miserere - Jean Baptiste Lully
Te Deum - Michel-Richard Delalande
Requiem - W.A.Mozart
Requiem - Giuseppe Verdi
All-night Vigil - Sergei Rachmaninov
Motets pour le temps de penitence - Francis Poulenc

Of secular stuff: Mahler 2, Stravinsky Persephone, Poulenc Figure Humaine, Schnittke Choir Concerto ...

[Cato]

Quickly, a few things which came to mind:

Schoenberg's Friede auf Erden

Barber's Agnus Dei (which uses his Adagio for Strings ).

Bruckner's Helgoland.

[vandermolen]

Howells: Hymnus Paradisi (prob my favourite, a deeply moving response to the death of his young son in the 1930s but not heard until the 1950s)
Vaughan Williams: Sancta Civitas
Vaughan Williams: Epithalamion
Vaughan Williams: Fantasia on the Old 104th Psalm
Britten: War Requiem
Bliss: Morning Heroes
Foulds: A World Requiem
Prokofiev: Ivan the Terrible (from film/movie score)
Barber: Knoxville, Summer of 1914
Holst: The Cloud Messenger

Apologies for the list being rather Anglo-centric.

Could have included Sibelius's Kullervo Symphony.

[EigenUser]

Fauré's Requiem (pass the kleenex);

Oddly, I don't find the Faure requiem sad -- just very beautiful and very moving. Although not choral, something I find extremely sad is the finale (adagio) to Mahler's 9th.

I've had the Faure requiem stuck in my head all day today for some reason.