Your Top 20 Favorite 20th Century Orchestral Works

[vandermolen]

Very nice list indeed. Those two are Night ride & Sunrise and Isle of the Dead, respectively.

Thank you! Also great choices.

[GioCar]

It's a HUGE century!

Adams: Harmonielehre
Bartók: Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta
Berio: Sinfonia
Britten: Cello Symphony
Casella: Symphony No.2

Cerha: Spiegel
Debussy: La mer
Grisey: Partiels, Modulations, Transitoires, Épilogue (from Espaces Acoustiques)
Janáček: Sinfonietta
Maderna: Quadrivium

Mahler: Symphony no.7
Nielsen: Symphony No.5
Ravel: La valse
Respighi: Fontane di Roma
Schoenberg: Five Piece op.16

Shostakovich: Symphony No.13
Sibelius: Symphony No.5
Stravinsky: Le Sacre du printemps
Takemitsu: From Me Flows What You Call Time
Xenakis: Jonchaies

[GioCar]

I'm especially liking those one! 

If you haven't already do that, try Cerha's Spiegel. I have a small suspect you're gonna like it 

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

Ok let's give this a go, I will keep my list one work per composer as my own little challenge. Here are 20 pieces I really love.

Boulez: Notations
Dutilleaux: Metaboles
Berio: Sinfonia
Xenakis: Ata
Lutosławski: Piano Concerto
Ligeti: Atmosphères
Varèse: Arcana
Stravinsky: Petrushka
Messiaen: Chronochromie
Nørgård: Voyage into the Golden Screen
Gerhard: Symphony no. 3
Saariaho: ...À La Fumée
Berg: Violin Concerto
Schoenberg: 5 pieces
Carter: Violin Concerto
Adès: Asyla
Mahler: Symphony 7
Sibelius: Symphony 7
Cage: 101
Feldman: Coptic Light

[GioCar]

What if I told you that I've not only heard it......but read (the very large) score too? 

[Karl Henning]

It's such a...ummm.... HUGE century, that I have no idea where to start. There is no way I can do 20, no way, that only covers Xenakis' orchestra works   

Hence the expediency of choosing to limit one's list to one piece per composer  0:)

[Karl Henning]

I've done the best I can, I think I'll rent a yacht and go crayfish diving for a week  0:)

Not a bad plan, really!

[ahinton]

Curious that the vast majority of the works so far mentioned date from the first 60 years of the last century.

Just saying...

[Karl Henning]

Curious that the vast majority of the works so far mentioned date from the first 60 years of the last century.

Just saying...

Later works perforce suffer an inventory/distribution disadvantage, of course.

There is a Wuorinen piece from 1988 I should like very much to hear, Machault Mon Chou, but I'm jiggered if I can find any recording of it.  And, of course, I wonder if the première doubled as Final Performance.  (Thus far, I mean, to be sure.)

[Turner]

Curious that the vast majority of the works so far mentioned date from the first 60 years of the last century.

Just saying...

Occasionally, one will even still hear Debussy´s La Mer being labelled as a piece of "new music" (not here, though ).
That somehow the craft quality among composers should have been going down doesn´t hold water.

[Karl Henning]

Occasionally, one will even still hear Debussy´s La Mer being labelled as a piece of "new music" (not here, though ).

Serious double-takes when a contemporary music ensemble programs . . . Pierrot Lunaire . . . .

[Karl Henning]

OTOH, if a contemp. mus. ensemble do not perform the Schoenberg Op.21, who will?  I see the conundrum.

[Karl Henning]

Robert Craft had the right idea by naming his outfit the Twentieth Century Classics Ensemble.

[Mirror Image]

It's such a...ummm.... HUGE century, that I have no idea where to start. There is no way I can do 20, no way, that only covers Xenakis' orchestra works   

Why participate in these kinds of polls if all you're going to do is ignore the OP's request and do whatever you want? I mean if you want to list 100 favorite 20th Century works, then create your own thread, but, out of respect for my own wishes, and looking at other people's lists and how they kindly have obliged me, the least you could do is narrow your choices down.

[Maestro267]

Calm down. He's only saying how difficult a task it is to narrow it down to 20 works.

[SymphonicAddict]

Janácek: Glagolitic Mass
Nielsen: Symphony Nr. 4
Sibelius: Symphony Nr. 5
Shostakovich: Symphony Nr. 5
Bantock: A Celtic Symphony
Langgaard: Music of the Spheres
Glière: Symphony Nr. 3
Ravel: Daphnis et Chloé
Respighi: Vetrate di Chiesa
Khachaturian: Symphony Nr. 2
Madetoja: Symphony Nr. 2
Miaskovsky: Symphony Nr. 17
Stravinsky: Rite of Spring
Atterberg: Symphony Nr. 3
Prokofiev: Symphony Nr. 5
Hindemith: Symphony in E-flat
Holmboe: Symphony Nr. 8
Barber: Second Essay for orchestra
Lutoslawski: Cello concerto
Weinberg: Cello concerto

[Mirror Image]

Calm down. He's only saying how difficult a task it is to narrow it down to 20 works.

But he does this in these kinds of polls all the time. Oh and I'm quite calm.

[Trout]

Alwyn: Lyra Angelica
Bartók: Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta
Boulez: Répons
Debussy: La Mer
Finzi: Romance for String Orchestra

Glass: Koyaanisqatsi
Grisey: Partiels, Modulations, Transitoires, Épilogue (from Espaces Acoustiques)
Ives: Symphony No. 4
Ligeti: Lontano
Magnard: Symphony No. 4

Mahler: Symphony No. 9
Messiaen: Turangalîla-Symphonie
Ruggles: Sun-Treader
Schoenberg: Five Pieces for Orchestra
Sibelius: Symphony No. 7

Strauss: Eine Alpensinfonie
Stravinsky: Le Sacre du Printemps
Takemitsu: From Me Flows What You Call Time
Vasks: Violin Concerto "Distant Light"
Webern: Six Pieces for Orchestra

[arpeggio]

I am one of these people who could not answer such a question.  I would fine it extremely difficult to list just twenty works.  I still like this thread because I found some interesting new works to check out and I want to thank all of the fine recommendations that have been made 

P. S. I anyone is interested as a band junkie I could come with a list of twenty concert band works.

[Trout]

P. S. I anyone is interested as a band junkie I could come with a list of twenty concert band works.

I'd certainly be interested!