Most important/influential piece of music

[quintett op.57]

quintett all i can say, is survey bach's concerti again and listen more carefully, they are highly significant works of great musical value

hope you're not suggesting I've said the contrary?

and influencial...

Bach being influential, allright. But his influence on later concertos is not necesarily to be find in his proper concertos more than in WTC.

double, triple, quadruple etc concertos, harpsichord concerti, heck even a piece like brandenburg 5 are definite precursors to the piano concerto

yes, but has this particular work influenced Mozart concertos? Hard to say.

also, soloists roles clearly defined but not as shallow, overtly dramatic, poofed up, naff, or bombastic displays of virtuosity like you often get in the 18th or 19th centuries,

clearly defined but not defined like in Vivaldi and later concertos. 

Bach wasnt about those rather vulgar considerations & aspirations....its more pure...its more a interwoven whole and polyphonically conceived, great subtelty and complexity, not to mention inner musical intensity and great great depth.

your taste

many many composers were greatly influenced by this area of bach's super rich canon, just as they were of his choral, organ, keyboard, sacred, vocal, cello, violin etc works....and as i pointed out...many 20th century composers turned to the baroque period as models when writing concertos. this doesn't mean they cloned bach's music btw.

I think you've forgotten Bach is not all baroque.
He's not the only composer who used super rich counterpoint. When a later composer uses counterpoint, it's not necesarily because of Bach. Great counterpoints would have existed without him, unless he's the one whose counterpoints are the most various among the composers I know.

Don't tell me I'm denying Bach's influence. If you want to mention the influence of Bach's fugues on many Beethoven's compositions including IXth Sy, I'll follow you. But, in my opinion, his role in the history of concerto is not central.

[The new erato]

I believe this is an aria. I didn't refer to arias.

No. It's the great divertimento for String Trio.

[looja]

I would mention various works from Chopin and Liszt. They treated the piano as a whole new instrument and showed what the piano is all about. Chopin also converted many genres to piano, made the piano "sing" and showed how emotions can be described with piano... That should be influential enough.

[BachQ]

I would mention various works from Chopin and Liszt. They treated the piano as a whole new instrument and showed what the piano is all about. Chopin also converted many genres to piano, made the piano "sing" and showed how emotions can be described with piano... That should be influential enough.

........... But what SPECIFIC composition of Chopin was influential (note the thread topic) ..........

[looja]

........... But what SPECIFIC composition of Chopin was influential (note the thread topic) ..........

Well as you have read the topic, many members have posted mainly composer and not a concrete piece of music from him. If you want an example take a pick from Chopins Ballads, nocturnes, etudes. Hard to come forward with few works if they all have the same effect. For Liszt I say random work from Annes de pelerinage and maybe some specific works to come out is Danse Macabre, Mephisto Walzer.

[quintett op.57]

no, facile, empty displays of virtuosity & dexterity, not as showy or gratuitious as vivaldi OR paganini and so many others after, who gave rise to that....which are but rather shallow affairs in comparison....
the soloists roles are more interwoven into orchestra, and less about trying to merely dazzle with virtuosity which can be fun but ultimately shallow, and not much meaning....

Regarding Paganini, you're exagerating, but let's say ok.
Regarding Vivaldi, you can't reduce his oeuvre to virtuosity.

Bach is the summation and consolidator of that age remember,in all areas you'll find Bach head and shoulders way beyond all his contemporaries (and predecessors)

no. He's probably the greatest consolidator but he's surely not consolidated everything.

he is widely known and acknowledged as the GRAND MASTER & greatest contrapunalist to have ever lived....it wasnt until the early baroque that composers (ie. Frescobaldi & Sweelinck) started forging whole pieces in a fugal style, and it continued to develop throughout the 17th and reached its ABSOLUTE ZENITH in the 18th, and for ALL western music, in the output of JS BACH. Any composer who wants to study counterpoint turns to BACH, he is the gold standard, no one comes close. For lesser composers writing fugues (the most difficult type of counterpoint) is a slow and mathematical process, but not for a real master like JSB, who could IMPROVISE eloquent fugal textures (polyphonic) at the keyboard and see at a glance the unique possibilities of a given subject. He simply MASTERED with great precision the formal problems of counterpoint, and produced keyboard works (for instance) in which as many as 5 separate lines of arguement are simultaneously sustained! But despite these things, his music is also of the deepest humanity, and not just in the depiction of Christ's suffering in works like St. Matthew's Passion, but also listening to a complete performance of the Goldberg Variations - as purely abstract as anything Bach wrote - is to participate in a journey of EXTRAORDINARY transformations in which the return to the final theme is a deeply moving and satisfying experience...and its because of things like this that every single great composer that followed owed a great debt to him and stand in awe of him.

yes. He was great.


But Music is far from being only counterpoint.

[Bonehelm]

Actually Carl Czerny's piano studies and etudes were very influential...I'm sure everybody who studies piano have at least played 2 or 3 selections from those..

[Mandryka]

In a generalised description I think Mozart's music was far more surface orientated ... in harmonic terms it was conceived in the vertical ... to be experienced vertically, but with a strong emphasis on top line melody to replace interest potentially lost through it's much simplified horizontal aspects.
It aspired to a lighter and more vivacious effect than Bach's - at which of course it succeeds ... and it is much enjoyed by people who like that sort of thing.

I have heard Mozart's larger religious works, but I am unaware of him being able to express himself with the transcendant intensity that Bach was so uniquely capable ... but then intensity was not his thing.

Surface beauty & glitter & charm were his aspiration. Not with Bach. (name me a JSB piece that is Haffner)

It is not surprising that Mozart is easily adapted to corporate use, in adverts etc: In fact much of his music is advertising something in itself : it has the feel of music that is looking at itself in the mirror ... admiring it's costume & finery. Many people like exactly this quality in it ... the lifestyle choice ... the sense of self ... the effervescent gaeity.

Well, you know it really wouldn't be hard for me to make a list of Mozart's music which wasn't superficial like you describe. Or to make a list of passages which are transcendent. But there's something more interesting around here.

I wonder if it's like this. Charming superfiality pays $$$ to the entertainment business because it's easy listening. Mozart sells.  So they promote that aspect of his art, his life story, and promote performances which tend to support that view.

Basically I'm saying that for a richer account of how people understand Mozart's music you have to bring these productive forces into play. Bach's too.

[Ken B]

Caccini, The New Music.

If Tristan counts as one piece, why not that? Anyway, it is ideas not pieces that influence.
Odd no-one mentioned T&I.

Other choices might be some early polyphony, say from the Le Puy manuscript, or mass fragments by Perotin.

[EigenUser]

Off of the top of my head,
-Bach WTC
-Beethoven's 3rd symphony
-Mahler 2
-Debussy PAofF
-Stravinsky RoS
-Bartok PC1 (I will fight you all on this!!)
-Gershwin RB
-Messiaen's MdeV&d'I (thanks a lot for opening a can of worms and running away, Messiaen!)
-Ligeti's "Atmospheres"
-Stockhausen "Gesang der Jungeling"
-Riley's "In C" (I really want to put Reich here, but I can't in good conscience)

[ibanezmonster]

-Messiaen's MdeV&d'I (thanks a lot for opening a can of worms and running away, Messiaen!)

[Jo498]

Off of the top of my head,
-Bach WTC
-Beethoven's 3rd symphony
-Mahler 2
-Debussy PAofF
-Stravinsky RoS
-Bartok PC1 (I will fight you all on this!!)
-Gershwin RB
-Messiaen's MdeV&d'I (thanks a lot for opening a can of worms and running away, Messiaen!)
-Ligeti's "Atmospheres"
-Stockhausen "Gesang der Junglinge"
-Riley's "In C" (I really want to put Reich here, but I can't in good conscience)

How did Mahler 2 and Gershwin make that list...? Gershwin is very lightweight and even late in the "Jazz-classical mix" after Stravinsky, Milhaud etc. Mahler 2 is clearly at the end of a tradition (and often a "ripoff" of Beethoven and a little Bruckner). I agree that the others are good candidates.

As someone wrote above, the most influential piece was probably whenever some Magister musicae in Notre Dame or so came up with "rule-based" and written out polyphony instead of having the singers improvise something around a main chant melody.
And of course Monteverdi and others around 1600s. If sticking with "big works" I'd name "L'orfeo"
Other important operas are "Zauberflöte" (the first great German language opera of its time and very important for Beethoven and Weber) and of course "Tristan & Isolde"

[Jo498]

While it has been greatly exaggerated that JS Bach had been "forgotten" for  a hundred years, only a select few of his works were known among musician and these have to be considered influential: The WTK, the inventions and sinfonias, the Art of the Fugue and a few other keyboard pieces. Most of the rest was really forgotten for a 100 years. His music was more the end of a tradition than an influential dawn of a new one.

[EigenUser]

How did Mahler 2 and Gershwin make that list...? Gershwin is very lightweight and even late in the "Jazz-classical mix" after Stravinsky, Milhaud etc. Mahler 2 is clearly at the end of a tradition (and often a "ripoff" of Beethoven and a little Bruckner). I agree that the others are good candidates.

As someone wrote above, the most influential piece was probably whenever some Magister musicae in Notre Dame or so came up with "rule-based" and written out polyphony instead of having the singers improvise something around a main chant melody.
And of course Monteverdi and others around 1600s. If sticking with "big works" I'd name "L'orfeo"
Other important operas are "Zauberflöte" (the first great German language opera of its time and very important for Beethoven and Weber) and of course "Tristan & Isolde"

Mahler 2 is on there because it is the first major work to combine song and symphony, something that Mahler was known for. As for the music (writing) itself, I agree (though I love it).

Perhaps Gershwin was a bit late (really?) in the jazz/classical mix, but I was thinking on the "other side of the fence" -- i.e. jazz musicians are less likely to know Stravinsky/Milhaud, but more likely to know Gershwin.

By the way (I'm surprised it hasn't been disputed yet!), my reason for Bartok's PC1 is the percussive treatment of the piano and its mixture with the percussion section in the orchestra. Percussive piano writing is a hallmark of the 20th century. In the score, Bartok requests that the percussion section be placed in the front of the orchestra next to the soloist. Of course, that isn't enough to convince the audience that the piano is an extension of the percussion section -- but his composition certainly is.

His music was more the end of a tradition than an influential dawn of a new one.

Well put. His music was considered "old-fashioned" by the end of his life, with younger composers and audiences apparently preferring a lighter "rococo" style.

[Karl Henning]

Well, you know it really wouldn't be hard for me to make a list of Mozart's music which wasn't superficial like you describe.

Dude, the boilerplate to which you're responding is more than seven years old!

Now, I agree with your point;  but keep in view that no one living ever changed James's mind.

[Karl Henning]

Mahler 2 is on there because it is the first major work to combine song and symphony

La damnation de Faust

[Sergeant Rock]

Mahler 2 is on there because it is the first major work to combine song and symphony

La damnation de Faust

Beethoven Ninth...Mendelssohn Symphony No.2 "Lobgesang"....


Sarge

[mc ukrneal]

Off of the top of my head,
-Bach WTC
-Beethoven's 3rd symphony
-Mahler 2
-Debussy PAofF
-Stravinsky RoS
-Bartok PC1 (I will fight you all on this!!)
-Gershwin RB
-Messiaen's MdeV&d'I (thanks a lot for opening a can of worms and running away, Messiaen!)
-Ligeti's "Atmospheres"
-Stockhausen "Gesang der Jungeling"
-Riley's "In C" (I really want to put Reich here, but I can't in good conscience)

Could accept the Bach, Beethoven and Stravinsky, but not the rest. In particular, Ligeti has no business on that list.  I think you need to have Schoenberg for sure and Haydn as well. I tend to think of the most influntial not those who wrote certain pieces, but those who changed the form, structure, etc of those who came afterwards (or started something).

[Brahmsian]

Mendelssohn Symphony No.2 "Lobgesang"....
Sarge

Yah, but who listens to it?     

I listen to Mendelssohn's symphonies one or twice a month now, but I skip the No. 2.  It does have purely instrumental music in the first three movemens.

[Sergeant Rock]

Yah, but who listens to it?     

Me and Jens   


Sarge