Most important/influential piece of music

[Don Giovanni]

I was thinking about this today when dicussing Tristan and Isolde. Some suggestions:

The Rite of Spring
Tristan and Isolde
One of Beethoven's symphonies (probably no. 9?)
Something by Bach (St Matthew Passion?)
Pelléas et Melisande

Any other ideas? Could one be considered the most popular?

[Florestan]

For opera: Monteverdi / Orpheus

For symphonic music: Corelli / Concerti Grossi op. 6

For chamber music: Corelli / Violin Sonatas op. 5

[hornteacher]

The Eroica changed forever how symphonies were written in terms of concept, length, structure, emotion, etc.

[Don Giovanni]

For opera: Monteverdi / Orpheus

For symphonic music: Corelli / Concerti Grossi op. 6

For chamber music: Corelli / Violin Sonatas op. 5

Hmm, I never thought of those. Well done!

[Justin Ignaz Franz Bieber]

Any other ideas? Could one be considered the most popular?

well do want people to list what they think is the most popular (as your post says) or the most influential/important (as the title says)? those are two different things if you ask me...

most popular: could be lots of stuff, bach's air "on the g string" from orchestral suite #3, vivaldi's 4 seasons, bach's bwv565, "ode to joy" from beethoven's 9th, that mozart (a minor?) piano thing from the truman show that everyone has on their cel phones...

most important: maybe busnois' l'homme arme, or maybe cavemen banging sticks against rocks (the first instance of what we'd call rhythm)... hard to think of other stuff off the top of my head... according to philosopher karl jaspers "everything changed" at around 500BC (the axial age) & 1600AD so i would consider those two time periods first. obviously the pythagoreans started doing their thing at around 500bc. they studied properties of harmonics etc & i wonder if they had anything to do with the creation of modes. what changed in music at around 1600? some biographer called tomas luis de victoria's requiem of 1603 a "requiem for an age", so what ended at that point and what started? maybe zarlino in the mid-1500s deciding that there would be 12 tones in a scale, or the idea of equal-temperament came not too long before 1600. i'm don't think i know enough about music but i would consider what was happening at around those two periods in history to find the 'most important' works.

[m_gigena]

that mozart (a minor?) piano thing from the truman show that everyone has on their cel phones...

The turkish march... 

[Don Giovanni]

I was thinking about this today when dicussing Tristan and Isolde. Some suggestions:

The Rite of Spring
Tristan and Isolde
One of Beethoven's symphonies (probably no. 9?)
Something by Bach (St Matthew Passion?)
Pelléas et Melisande

Any other ideas? Could one be considered the most popular?

Sorry everyone, I meant 'the most important'. Silly me.

[Don Giovanni]

Monteverdi's Orfeo- profound impact on operas
Beethoven's 3rd, 5th, 9th symphonies- profound impact on orchestral music
Mahler's 9th- further departure from the age old concept of the importance of tonality
---------------------------------------music ends here-----------------------------------

You don't like modern/contemporary music?

[mahlertitan]

You don't like modern/contemporary music?

no, i feel that they belong to a another category, it's more like music philosophy.

[btpaul674]

I don't believe that their is one 'most important' piece of music, and a lot of great examples have been discussed. As mentioned, the Eroica symphony was very groundbreaking in its C# not really being "explained" until the final movement.

As much as I don't personally like it, the Symphonie Fantastique was quite groundbreaking for its time. The concept of this idee fixe representing The Beloved really did a lot for the recurrence of themes through entire pieces of music.

I think a lot of Carlo Gesualdo works as well could've been more influential if they had been given proper notice. I guess you can't trust a murderer.

[Mystery]

Please can people qualify their answers? I'm revising for Cambridge music exams at the moment and am very interested in this kind of thing, especially as we're doing both Monteverdi's Orfeo (as the first fully-fledged opera) and Tristan. I would definitely place both of these on this list.

[sonic1]

Important for what? To the audience (general listeners? more experienced listeners?) To composers? To instrumentalists? Important to whom?

Sorry to be nit-picky.

[Bonehelm]

Bach's Well tempered Klavier
Beethoven's 3rd, 5th, 9th symphonies
Mahler's 2nd, 9th symphonies
Stravinsky's Rite of spring
Wagner's Ring cycle
Handel's Messiah
Mozart's Requiem in D

[BachQ]

Franz Ignaz Biber's Missa Salisburgensis

[bwv 1080]

Some work by John Dunstable, perhaps  Missa Rex seculorum

[karlhenning]

Le sacre du printemps

[BachQ]

Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique

[karlhenning]

Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique

(* pounds the table *)

[PerfectWagnerite]

Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique

Probably just as influential as Beethoven's 9th. To this day it still pushes even the most virtuosic ensembles to the limit.

[oyasumi]

Please can people qualify their answers?

That's not how things work around here. The idea is to list as much as possible with no explanations at all. Now that's informative.