Works least typical of a composer

[max]

What would qualify as the strangest or least representative music by your favorite composer(s)? Something that would make you say, "He wrote that"?

[mahlertitan]

It happens all the time, off the top of my head is Bruckner's march for orchestra and Schoenberg's suite for string orchestra.

[Cato]

Bruckner's String Quintet came to mind first.

A potboiler like Wellington's Victory by Beethoven came to mind second.

[Florestan]

Wagner's operas as compared to his piano music. 

[Grazioso]

Bruckner's String Quintet came to mind first.

To me, Bruckner's String Quintet (a drop-dead gorgeous work, btw) sounds very much in line with his symphonies.

[Cato]

To me, Bruckner's String Quintet (a drop-dead gorgeous work, btw) sounds very much in line with his symphonies.

Which is why I find it a frustrating work, in a sense: I keep imagining how it would sound in an orchestral version!   

[Mark G. Simon]

C.F. Peters publishes a Sonatina in C major for 3 clarinets and bassoon by Brian Ferneyhough, presumably an early work. I've read it over with an ensemble, and I must say that when Schoenberg said that there's plenty of great music left to be written in C major, he would not have had this piece in mind.

[Grazioso]

Which is why I find it a frustrating work, in a sense: I keep imagining how it would sound in an orchestral version!   

And I wonder why the heck he didn't write more beautiful chamber music (The string quartet is ok, but nothing really exciting.)

[Harry]

Beethovens vocal works.

[Mark]

I always think of Beethoven's British song settings as quite untypically Beethoven, despite enjoying them a great deal.

[Kullervo]

I'm going to be cheap and say Sibelius's Fourth. He never wrote anything else like it, and yet, it couldn't possibly be written by anyone other than Sibelius.

[Keemun]

Elgar's cello concerto. 

[lukeottevanger]

My entry to the list....

[lukeottevanger]

...unless of course you all recognised that as Cage!

[Kullervo]

...unless of course you all recognised that as Cage!

Atypical in that it's actually music?

[karlhenning]

Somewhere in heaven, Corey, Cage says, Ouch! 

[lukeottevanger]

Atypical in that it's actually music?

Atypical in that it is trite. The track is called 'Reactionaries', btw....  0:)

However, it has at least the merit of disproving the case of those who say Cage (etc.) couldn't write this sort of thing if they wanted to!

[BachQ]

Wagner Symphony no. 1
Bizet Symphony no. 1 in C Major

[маразм1]

requiem-mozart
middle movement from winter-vivaldi.  It sounds like a modern 20th century sort of "sound collage" piece.

[karlhenning]

Schoenberg's cabaret songs

Brahms German Requiem