short masterpieces

[val]

WEBERN, the sublime little choral work, "Das Augenlicht" opus 26. Five minutes of beauty.

[Symphonien]

Webern- Symphony, 5 Movements for Strings

I was thinking of those particular Webern examples as well except...

List masterpieces that are not symphonies, piano concertos, sonatas or string quartets.

Although one could argue if Webern's Op.21 really should be considered a symphony, or if the Five Movements for String Quartet count as a traditional String Quartet, but I suppose we could always opt for the string orchestra version of Op. 5.

[Ten thumbs]

Excluding multi-movement sonatas and chamber works, which are not in general little, but including a couple of movements from suites, here are a selection of masterpieces written on a small scale. These are all examples of supreme musicianship.
J.S. Bach - English Suite 3 Prelude
Handel - Suite 8 Allemande
Scarlatti - Sonata K97
Schubert - (Song) Im Abendroth
Fanny Hensel - Allegro vivace 8/12/46
Chopin - Nocturne Op62.1
Alkan - Op38.2.5 Andantino
Liszt - Nuages Gris
Mel Bonis - (Song) Op91.3 Songe (vers un pur amour)
Rachmaninoff - Etudes Tableaux Op39.5
Medtner - Op14.1 Opheliensgesang

[Teresa]

Some of my favorite miniature orchestral masterpieces:

MALCOLM ARNOLD: Tam O'Shanter
COPLAND: Danzón Cubano
COPLAND: El Salon Mexico
DUKAS: The Sorcerer's Apprentice
DVOŘÁK: In Natures Realm Overture
FERNANANDEZ: Batuque
FRANCK: The Accursed Huntsman
GERSHWIN: An American In Paris
GERSHWIN: Promenade for Orchestra "Walking The Dog"
GERSHWIN: "Rialto Ripples" Rag for Piano and Orchestra
GERSHWIN: Variations on "I Got Rhythm" for Piano and Orchestra
GLIÈRE: Russian Sailors' Dance
GLINKA: Russlan and Ludmilla: Overture
GOLDSMITH: Fireworks
GOUNOD: Funeral March of a Marionette
GRIEG: Funeral March for Richard Nordraak
HALVORSEN: Entry March of the Boyars
HERBERT: March of the Toys
HONEGGER: Pacific 231
ENGELBERT HUMPERDINCK: The Witches Ride from "Hansel and Gretel"
JÄRNEFELT: Praeludium
KABALEVSKY: Colas Breugnon: Overture,
KABALEVSKY: The Comedians: Galop
KHACHATURIAN:  Sabre Dance
LECUONA: Malegueña
LIADOV: Baba Yaga
LISZT: Battle of the Huns
LISZT: Hungarian March to the Assult
LISZT: Mephisto Waltz No. 1 (Orchestral version)
MENDELSSOHN: Hebrides Overture
MUSSORGSKY: Dance of the Persian Slaves
MUSSORGSKY: Night On Bald Mountain
MUSSORGSKY: Gopak from Sorotchinsky Fair
RACHMANINOV: Caprice Bohémien
RAVEL: Alboranda del Gracioso
RAVEL: La Valse
RIMSKY-KORSAKOV: The Dance of the Tumblers
ROSSINI: William Tell Overture
SAINT-SAËNS: Danse Macabre
SHOSTAKOVICH: Festival Overture
SIBELIUS: Finlandia
STRAUSS: Don Juan
STRAUSS: Salome, Dance of the Seven Veils
STRAVINSKY: Scherzo à la russe
SUPPÉ: Light Cavalry Overture
TCHAIKOVSKY: Marche Slave
TCHAIKOVSKY: Mazeppa, Cossack Dance "Hopak"
VAUGHAN WILLIAMS: Toccata Marziale
WILLS: The Vikings

There are many more but these are my favorites, I limited my selection to works that are short and complete in one movement.   There are many, many more.

 

[Kullervo]

"Selection"?

[M forever]

Some of my favorite miniature orchestral masterpieces:

JANÁÇEK: Taras Bulba

I limited my selection to works that are short and complete in one movement.

Is there a shortened, one-movement version of Taras Bulba? (I hope not.)

[Teresa]

Is there a shortened, one-movement version of Taras Bulba? (I hope not.)

Thanks for the correction and you are totally correct, I just pulled my Janacek LP and indeed Tara Bulba has three movements.  I removed it from my list of one movement miniatures.

[M forever]

A lot of the other pieces on your list aren't really "miniatures" either, even though they may be single movement pieces, like "Russian Easter" or "Capriccio Espagnol". Those are pretty massive pieces with a number of contrasting sections - "Capriccio Espagnol" is actually in several movements although these are played attacca. Really great orchestral miniatures are little pieces like Borodin's "From the Steppes of Middle Asia" or, one of my all-time favorites, Rimsky-Korsakov's "Dubinushka". I have a great recording of that with Svetlanov but I don't have access to the CD right now. I may have another one with Järvi which is not quite as good on one of my external hard drives, maybe I can locate and post that.

[M forever]

I found the LSO/Järvi recording of "Dubinushka" but it's really not that great. It's rushed and sluggish with smudged details. Järvi really sucks. I wish I could get to the Svetlanov recording right now 

Still, it's a fun piece:

http://tinyurl.com/3zhv3k

[Bonehelm]

I found the LSO/Järvi recording of "Dubinushka" but it's really not that great. It's rushed and sluggish with smudged details. Järvi really sucks. I wish I could get to the Svetlanov recording right now 

Still, it's a fun piece:

http://tinyurl.com/3zhv3k

Thanks.

[knight66]

I wish more folk could let us know what they like about specific pieces. I am not likely to explore titles I don't know, if there is no expansion.

Delius; He excelled at creating the atmosphere of times of day and evoking nature. I love his short pieces 'Song before Sunrise' and 'Summer Night on the River'. Gentle melismatic pieces, they are ilusive and difficult to bring off.

Overtures used often to be played independently from the rest of the piece. The one for Candide is still programmed away from the full work. I have Bernstein's recording with the LA Phil on DG. The piece fizzes with energy and is packed with tunes, great brass writing. Listening to it always puts me into a happy mood. It feels like an entire meal rather than a starter.

Mike

[jochanaan]

I wish more folk could let us know what they like about specific pieces. I am not likely to explore titles I don't know, if there is no expansion...

Well, I like the Chopin preludes because they each express a single mood perfectly, and are also very progressive musically for their time.  As for the woodwind pieces, you may forgive my partiality since I'm a woodwind player ; but the ones I"ve named in particular are perfect microcosms of structure and feeling.

[scarpia]

I found the LSO/Järvi recording of "Dubinushka" but it's really not that great. It's rushed and sluggish with smudged details. Järvi really sucks. I wish I could get to the Svetlanov recording right now 

Still, it's a fun piece:

http://tinyurl.com/3zhv3k

Jarvi's Dubinushka is dreadful.  I haven't heard Svetlanov, but it is hard for me to imagine anything topping the Ansermet, Suisse Romande recording on Decca.  Rhythmic verve, and sparkling articulation.

Widely available, and every track on this release is top notch;

[scarpia]

Delius; He excelled at creating the atmosphere of times of day and evoking nature. I love his short pieces 'Song before Sunrise' and 'Summer Night on the River'. Gentle melismatic pieces, they are ilusive and difficult to bring off.

For pieces in this vein from Delius I am partial to "Walk to the Paradise Garden" which was originally an operatic interlude.  This set from Barbirolli gets it right.

[Christo]

FERNANDEZ: Batuque
VAUGHAN WILLIAMS: Toccata Marziale

I would second the nomination of some of your orchestral miniatures - adding that perhaps half your list cannot qualify as `miniatures', being too long or even three-part (as e.g. McPhee's Tabuh tabuhan). And add a few more:

Vaughan Williams, Flourish for Glorious John
Braga Santos, Staccato brilhante
Tubin, Kurb valss
Goossens, Tam O'Shanter
Guarnieri, Dansa selvagem
Delius, On hearing the first cuckoo in Spring
Holst, Capriccio
Debussy, Danse (Tarentelle styrienne)
Adams, Short Ride in a Fast Machine

[M forever]

Jarvi's Dubinushka is dreadful.  I haven't heard Svetlanov, but it is hard for me to imagine anything topping the Ansermet, Suisse Romande recording on Decca.  Rhythmic verve, and sparkling articulation.

I downloaded that track. It is really much better already than Järvi but Svetlanov's is still a few degrees better, groovier, has more lilt and more of the brilliantly blazing brass playing Russian orchestras of the Soviet period were notorious for, but here it works great because it is also musically very flexible, not just loud. I will upload the track if I get a chance to get the CD which is however unfortunately not very likely any time soon.

[scarpia]

I downloaded that track. It is really much better already than Järvi but Svetlanov's is still a few degrees better, groovier, has more lilt and more of the brilliantly blazing brass playing Russian orchestras of the Soviet period were notorious for, but here it works great because it is also musically very flexible, not just loud. I will upload the track if I get a chance to get the CD which is however unfortunately not very likely any time soon.

The Svetlanov recording sounds like it could be a hoot, but I would suggest that the performance tradition of an effectively French orchestra such as the Suisse Romande might be more appropriate to the music than a Soviet orchestra.  After all, in Rimsky-Korsakov's time the Russian cultural elite had a fixation on France.  In essence, Rimsky-Korsakov's musical idiom developed into Stravinsky's Firebird and Petrushka, Poulenc's Les Biches, rather than the brutality of Shostakovich or Khatchaturian.

[Teresa]

I would second the nomination of some of your orchestral miniatures - adding that perhaps half your list cannot qualify as `miniatures', being too long or even three-part (as e.g. McPhee's Tabuh tabuhan). And add a few more:

Vaughan Williams, Flourish for Glorious John
Braga Santos, Staccato brilhante
Tubin, Kurb valss
Goossens, Tam O'Shanter
Guarnieri, Dansa selvagem
Delius, On hearing the first cuckoo in Spring
Holst, Capriccio
Debussy, Danse (Tarentelle styrienne)
Adams, Short Ride in a Fast Machine

I removed McPhee's Tabuh tabuhan you are correct it does indeed have three movements, I do love it!   I have the Mercury Living Presence which is coupled with Roger Sessions' The Black Maskers.  I also removed a few others. 

Wow another Tam O'Shanter, I have it by Malcolm Arnold and Chadwick and love both though each are totally different.  I will have to look for Goossens version.  I know him only as a conductor not a composer. 

Thanks again for everyone's help, I guess I wasn't thinking short enough!

[M forever]

The Svetlanov recording sounds like it could be a hoot, but I would suggest that the performance tradition of an effectively French orchestra such as the Suisse Romande might be more appropriate to the music than a Soviet orchestra.  After all, in Rimsky-Korsakov's time the Russian cultural elite had a fixation on France.  In essence, Rimsky-Korsakov's musical idiom developed into Stravinsky's Firebird and Petrushka, Poulenc's Les Biches, rather than the brutality of Shostakovich or Khatchaturian.

Wow - I think you deserve some kind of price for the highest density of silly uninformed clichés in one single, short post that I have seen in a long time. You are generally pretty good at taking one or two things that you have read somewhere and generalizing them so much that you think you can describe very complex phenomena with them. But you have really outdone yourself here. There is so much nonsense in that post that it would take a while to clear that all up, but since I know you aren't responsive to consctructive, informed criticism, I won't waste my time on that.

Besides, the reason I think that Svetlanov recording is "better" is not because I think it is somehow more "authentic". It is simply more spirited and even more detailed and has a degree of enthusiastic panache which Ansermet's more schoolmasterly correct rendition doesn't achieve. In such a short and musically fairly simple (but still wonderfully elaborate in its inner musical detail) piece which is basically the orchestration of a workers' song, such stylistic differences hardly have any weight at all anyway.

And besides that, even though it is basically true that there was an avid interest in French culture there at the time, that doesn't mean that everything Russian from that time must be somehow exclusively French influenced. That is pretty much total nonsense. When it comes to orchestral music, the main external influence in that area was German anyway. The music directors of the St.Petersburg Philharmonic for the first 35 years, the staple repertiore and more or less all the influential teachers of orchestral instruments at the conservatory there all came from Germany. That is not very immediately obvious because of the very distinct and different style Russian orchestras developed later but can still be traced fairly well in historical recordings, and from historical information about the people who were influential there. I was surprised myself when I read that the Russian trumpet and horn schools were founded by teachers immigrated from Germany because they styles they developed later are so different. But that was much later. They even still played German trumpets in Leningrad in the 50s. But all that leads very far away. When it comes to this music, basically your assumptions are very superficial and pretty much totally wrong.

Sorry.

Ah yes, and "the brutality of Shostakovich and Khatchaturyan" is really not just wrong, it is also very silly. For that I don't have to say sorry.

[scarpia]

Nevertheless, when Rimsky-Korsakov's disciple Stravinsky left Russia he went to Paris and enlisted Monteau and Ansermet to produce his music, he didn't go to Germany and get Furtwangler and Knappertsbusch.

Wow - I think you deserve some kind of price for the highest density of silly uninformed clichés in one single, short post that I have seen in a long time. You are generally pretty good at taking one or two things that you have read somewhere and generalizing them so much that you think you can describe very complex phenomena with them. But you have really outdone yourself here. There is so much nonsense in that post that it would take a while to clear that all up, but since I know you aren't responsive to consctructive, informed criticism, I won't waste my time on that.

Besides, the reason I think that Svetlanov recording is "better" is not because I think it is somehow more "authentic". It is simply more spirited and even more detailed and has a degree of enthusiastic panache which Ansermet's more schoolmasterly correct rendition doesn't achieve. In such a short and musically fairly simple (but still wonderfully elaborate in its inner musical detail) piece which is basically the orchestration of a workers' song, such stylistic differences hardly have any weight at all anyway.

And besides that, even though it is basically true that there was an avid interest in French culture there at the time, that doesn't mean that everything Russian from that time must be somehow exclusively French influenced. That is pretty much total nonsense. When it comes to orchestral music, the main external influence in that area was German anyway. The music directors of the St.Petersburg Philharmonic for the first 35 years, the staple repertiore and more or less all the influential teachers of orchestral instruments at the conservatory there all came from Germany. That is not very immediately obvious because of the very distinct and different style Russian orchestras developed later but can still be traced fairly well in historical recordings, and from historical information about the people who were influential there. I was surprised myself when I read that the Russian trumpet and horn schools were founded by teachers immigrated from Germany because they styles they developed later are so different. But that was much later. They even still played German trumpets in Leningrad in the 50s. But all that leads very far away. When it comes to this music, basically your assumptions are very superficial and pretty much totally wrong.

Sorry.

Ah yes, and "the brutality of Shostakovich and Khatchaturyan" is really not just wrong, it is also very silly. For that I don't have to say sorry.