Five favourite incidental music for plays.

[vandermolen]

May include film versions of plays or ballets but not opera.

Walton: Henry V
Sibelius: The Tempest
David Diamond: Romeo and Juliet
Walton: As You Like It
Rozsa: Julius Caesar.

These are all Shakespeare I notice but no need for you to do the same.

[Karl Henning]

Prokofiev: «Египетские ночи»
Shostakovich:  Hamlet (for the Kozintsev film)
Shostakovich:  King Lear
Nielsen:  Aladdin
Sibelius:  The Tempest

[vandermolen]

Prokofiev: «Египетские ночи»
Shostakovich:  Hamlet (for the Kozintsev film)
Shostakovich:  King Lear
Nielsen:  Aladdin
Sibelius:  The Tempest

Thanks Karl. I can always rely on you to respond to my crackpot threads 

Nielsen's 'Aladdin' is a great choice - I love that score.

[Drasko]

Lully - Le Bourgeois gentilhomme
Bizet - L'Arlésienne
de Falla - El corregidor y la molinera
Tchaikovsky - The Snow Maiden
Faure - Pelléas et Mélisande

[Sergeant Rock]

Beethoven Egmont
Schubert Rosamunde
Grieg Peer Gynt
Strauss  Der Bürger als Edelmann
Fauré Pelléas et Mélisande

Sarge

[vandermolen]

Very interesting choices with not much overlap so far. Thanks for the responses 

[Jo498]

Nobody has mentioned the most famous of all:

Mendelssohn: A Midsummer Night's Dream

I'd name this one, and Egmont and Peer Gynt.
I have Aladin on disc but I do not remember much about it, same with Fauré's and Sibelius' Pelleas. 
Not sure which of Purcell's I'd count. The two big semi-operas are more than mere incidental music.

[ritter]

Those that come to my mind just now :

- Claude Debussy: Le Martyre de Saint-Sébastien.
- Darius Milhaud: Les Choéphores (the first part--Agamemnon--of Milhaud's setting of Claudel's translation of the Oresteia,  and this second part, are both "incidental music"...only the third section, Les Euménides, is a full-fledged opera)
- Ildebrando Pizzetti: La Pisanella
- Arnold Schoenberg: Begleitmusik zu einer Lichtspielszene
- Gabriel Fauré (orch. Koechlin): Pélléas et Mélisande (definitely including the lovely Melisande's song).

EDIT: How coud I forget this one?  :
Sergei Prokofiev: Alexander Nevsky

SECOND EDIT: The Schoenberg and the Prokofiev are incidental music for films--in one case, an "imaginary film"--not emanating from plays. It's up to vandermolen to decide if I am applying the definition too broadly   

Cheers,

[vandermolen]

Those that come to my mind just now :



EDIT: How coud I forget this one?  :
Sergei Prokofiev: Alexander Nevsky

SECOND EDIT: The Schoenberg and the Prokofiev are incidental music for films--in one case, an "imaginary film"--not emanating from plays. It's up to vandermolen to decide if I am applying the definition too broadly   

Cheers,

Well, I was thinking more of music for plays but I'll let you get away with it for taking the trouble to respond  .

Maybe we should have a separate 'favourite film/movie scores by classical composers'. Actually I much prefer Prokofiev's 'Ivan the Terrible' film music to 'Alexander Nevsky' although I do enjoy that too.

[Gurn Blanston]

Shostakovitch - Hypothetically Murdered

Even though it is not "classical" it is very entertaining.   0:)

[Wanderer]

Debussy: Le Martyre de Saint-Sébastien
Mendelssohn: A Midsummer Night's Dream
Sibelius: Pelléas et Mélisande
Korngold: Much Ado About Nothing
Beethoven: Egmont

[vandermolen]

Debussy: Le Martyre de Saint-Sébastien
Mendelssohn: A Midsummer Night's Dream
Sibelius: Pelléas et Mélisande
Korngold: Much Ado About Nothing
Beethoven: Egmont

Interesting choices - I especially like the Debussy and Egmont, which I can remember watching on TV played live as a tribute to the athletes killed at the 1972 Olympics in Munich.

[Mirror Image]

Only two works can count as favorites in terms of incidental music:

Sibelius: The Tempest
Nielsen: Aladdin

[vandermolen]

Only two works can count as favorites in terms of incidental music:

Sibelius: The Tempest
Nielsen: Aladdin

Both great ones though John.

[Mirror Image]

Both great ones though John.