Most Transformative Classical Compositions Ever?

The Chicago Sinfonietta invites you to take survey to select musical works for its Think Big progam at this November’s Chicago Humanities Festival. One choice per category is allowed, and an write-in option appears at the end.

Nominees (below) were selected by Michael Abels, Henry Fogel, Tania Léon, Dominique-René de Lerma, Drew McManus, Steve Robinson and Alex Ross.

The Sinfonetta site doesn’t offer listing samples, be we’ll take care of that for you, via the magic of Rhapsody free trial tracks:

Classical Period

 Symphony No. 9 - Beethoven 

 Symphony No. 3 “Eroica” - Beethoven*

 Don Giovanni - Mozart

Romantic Period

 Tristan und Isolde - Wagner* 

 Symphonie Fantastique - Berlioz

 La Mer - Debussy

Modern

 Appalachian Spring - Copland 

 Rite of Spring - Stravinsky 

 Five Pieces for Orchestra - Schoenberg* 

 Concerto for Orchestra - Bartok 

 Desert Music - Steve Reich 

 Sensemaya - Silvestre Revueltas

* Bonnie’s choices

Comments

[David Ellis]

Thanks very much for calling this voting opportunity to my attention. I agree with your picks for Classical and Romantic, but I don't think any of the Modern choices offered are close to "transformative" as compared to the Eroica and Tristan. So I had to use the write-in option so I could vote for "In C" by Terry Riley.

[Bonnie Gibbons]

Thank you, David, for being I think the first person to go ahead and comment on a post written by my humble self as I've been holding down the fort! I personally went to the other end of the timeline with a Monteverdi selection as my write-in, since I'm not so qualified to opine on late 20th century contributions.