Top 10 Favorite Works Under Ten Minutes

[Mirror Image]

Have fun.... 

[ritter]

Let's give this a try...

These ten first spring to mind (alphabetically by composer):

- Pierre Boulez: Mémoriale ( ... explosante-fixe ... Originel)
- Ferruccio Busoni: Berceuse élégiaque
- Elliott Carter: Esprit rude / esprit doux
- Claude Debussy: L'isle joyeuse
- Cristóbal Halffter: Preludio para Madrid '92
- Charles Ives: The Unanswered Question
- Franz Liszt: R.W. Venezia
- Luigi Nono: Polifonica - Monodia - Ritmica
- Arnold Schoenberg: A Survivor from Warsaw
- Igor Stravinsky: Symphonies d'instruments à vent

All are stand-alone pieces, not movements of larger compositions or parts of collections.

Runner-up: Richard Wagner: Der Ring des Nibelungen. 

EDIT: After some thinking, managed to make it to one per composer. In the initial list, Debussy and Stravinsky had more than one work each (D'un cahier d'esquisses and Zvezdoliki, respectively—Scherzo à la russe was a contender as well).

[Jo498]

Bach: Prelude & Fugue C major BWV 547
Beethoven: Coriolan Ouverture (Mendelssohn Hebrides is about one minute too long)
Chopin: Ballade #4 (most interpretations take a little longer, but sub 10 performances do exist), Barcarolle
Schumann Toccata
Schubert: Notturno for piano trio

Beethoven: Meeresstille und glückliche Fahrt
Schubert: Nachtgesang im Walde (Gesang der Geister über den Wassern seems about half a minute too long in most performances)
Schubert: Erlkönig
Brahms: Von ewiger Liebe (and of course there are dozens of other great songs by many composers, all more around 3-5 min.)

[Mirror Image]

Let's see...(in no particular order)

Debussy: Trois Poèmes de Stéphane Mallarmé
Ravel: Tzigane (esp. the version for violin and luthéal)
Szymanowski: Litany to the Virgin Mary
Stravinsky: Symphonies d'instruments à vent
Ives: Violin Sonata No. 4, 'Children's Day'
Carter: Elegy (preferably the version for viola and piano)
Fauré: Élégie, Op. 24
Martinů: Rhythmic Etudes for Violin and Piano, H. 202
Ligeti: Lux Aeterna
Pärt: Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten

[Mirror Image]

Looks like I've stumped many members here with this particular thread. I'll freely admit I had to think for a minute (or two) about my own list. It didn't come too easily, but once I rattled off five choices, the other five became much easier.

[Mirror Image]

Let's give this a try...

These ten first spring to mind (alphabetically by composer):

- Pierre Boulez: Mémoriale ( ... explosante-fixe ... Originel)
- Ferruccio Busoni: Berceuse élégiaque
- Elliott Carter: Esprit rude / esprit doux
- Claude Debussy: L'isle joyeuse
- Cristóbal Halffter: Preludio para Madrid 2002
- Charles Ives: The Unanswered Question
- Franz Liszt: R.W. Venezia
- Luigi Nono: Polifonica - Monodia - Ritmica
- Arnold Schoenberg: A Survivor from Warsaw
- Igor Stravinsky: Symphonies d'instruments à vent

All are stand-alone pieces, not movements of larger compositions or parts of collections.

Runner-up: Richard Wagner: Der Ring des Nibelungen. 

EDIT: After some thinking, managed to make it to one per composer. In the initial list, Debussy and Stravinsky had more than one work each (D'un cahier d'esquisses and Zvezdoliki, respectively—Scherzo à la russe was a contender as well).

A fine list, Rafael.

[Florestan]

Looks like I've stumped many members here with this particular thread.

For me the problem is not the 10-minute limitation, it's that I can't choose only 10 works. Heck, Schubert alone would easily make for at least 20 of them. Add Chopin and my confusion grows exponentially. 

[Mirror Image]

For me the problem is not the 10-minute limitation, it's that I can't choose only 10 works. Heck, Schubert alone would easily make for at least 20 of them. Add Chopin and my confusion grows exponentially. 

How about this, you can only have one work per composer. Now, let's see your list.

[Florestan]

How about this, you can only have one work per composer. Now, let's see your list.

You really want to kill me, John, don't you? 

Okay, I'll think about it and come up with a list.

[Mirror Image]

You really want to kill me, John, don't you? 

Okay, I'll think about it and come up with a list.

No, not kill, that would be all too easy, but inflicting full-body, piercing pain is much more to my liking.

[Florestan]

A tentative, otomh list

Mozart - Adagio in B minor KV 540
Beethoven - Egmont Overture, Op. 84
Schubert - Die Sterne, D939
Weber - Aufforderung zum Tanz, Op. 65, J. 260
Chopin - Barcarolle in F-sharp minor op. 60
Schumann - Three Romances for Oboe and Piano op. 94, No. 2 Einfach, innig
Glinka - Jota aragonesa (Spanish Overture no 1)
Liadov - Baba Yaga
Chabrier - Habanera
Rachmaninoff - Prelude Op. 3 No. 2 (yes, that one)

Tomorrow this list would probably look very different. 

[Mirror Image]

Cool, Florestan.

[Florestan]

Cool, Florestan.

As it was to be expected, it leans heavily towards the Romantics, unsurpassable masters of the miniature. 

[Mirror Image]

As it was to be expected, it leans heavily towards the Romantics, unsurpassable masters of the miniature. 

If you say so.

[Florestan]

If you say so.

[Rinaldo]

All right, one work per composer it is:

Grażyna Bacewicz – Oberek
Ferruccio Busoni – Nocturne Symphonique
Anna Clyne – 1987
François Couperin – Les Barricades Mystérieuses
Claude Debussy – La Cathédrale engloutie
Galina Grigorjeva – Molitva (arrangement for saxophone and organ)
Alan Hovhaness – Alelluia and Fugue
Marin Marais – Le Badinage
Arvo Pärt – Fratres (Gil Shaham's interpretation – my favourite – fits under 10 minutes, whew!)
William Lawes – Lyra viol trio in D major

[Mirror Image]

Maybe I should make a new rule, it can't be any movements and parts of larger works. Like, for example, Debussy's La Cathédrale engloutie is a part of Préludes, so it can't be chosen. It has to be a work that stands alone and is meant to stand alone.

[JBS]

Oh, good.  Now we can have a vigorous debate argument about whether pieces published together as a set were expected to be played as a set by the composer.

The Well Tempered Clavier seems to be a set which everyone assumes was never meant to be played as a full set.  Perhaps the same applies to Debussy as here, or Liszt (Annees de pelerinage, Transcendental Etudes,etc.)

[Florestan]

Maybe I should make a new rule, it can't be any movements and parts of larger works. Like, for example, Debussy's La Cathédrale engloutie is a part of Préludes, so it can't be chosen. It has to be a work that stands alone and is meant to stand alone.

To which your avatar would reply: There are no rules. Pleasure is the law. 

[San Antone]

Debussy - Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune
Faure - Sicilienne, Op. 78
Ravel - Pavane pour une infante défunte
Jehan Alain - Litanies
Satie -  Gnossiennes I
Poulenc - Élegie for horn and piano
Stravinsky - Tango
Liszt - Annees der Pelerange, 2nd Year, Italy - Sonnet 123 of Petrach
Finzi - Ecologue for Piano and Strings (usually around ten minutes, some performances are longer)
John Cage - 4'33"