Best NON piano orchestral pieces

[soliloquy]

What would you say are the ten greatest orchestral pieces that are not piano concerti, or basically piano+orchestra?  Am mostly asking because a lot of people on here probably listen to almost nothing but piano music, and it would be cool to hear some people's suggestions and look them up


Henri Dutilleux- Cello Concerto (Rostropovich)
Leonardo Balada- Guernica
Krzysztof Penderecki- Capriccio for Violin and Orchestra
Yves Prin- Dioscures
Pierre Boulez- "... ...explosante-fixe... ..."
Nikolai Rimsky Korsakov- Scheherezade (Reiner + Chicago)
Igor Stravinsky- Rite of Spring (Ozawa + Chicago)
Benjamin Britten- Cello Symphony (Rostropovich)
Alfred Schnittke- Symphony No. 8
Arvo Part- Lamentate

[rc]

Phew, where to begin!

Here're two off the top of my head:

Dvorak - Symphony 9
Smetana - Die Moldau

I have to admit, most of the orchestral music I've expored are by the composers whose piano music I love the most (Beethoven, Haydn, Mozart).

I'm not familiar with most of your recommendations, I'll write them down and see if the library has any recordings.

[elspeth]

In no particular order... and because they have special places in my heart...

Beethoven Symphony no 7
Warlock Capriol Suite
Feeney 'Dracula' ballet score
Mozart Flute Concerto no 2 in D major
Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto
Gershwin American in Paris
Prokofiev Overture on Hebrew Themes
Rodrigo Flute Concerto
Sullivan arr Mackerras Pineapple Poll score
JS Bach Orchestral Suites

I wasn't sure if singers were allowed, or there would be some changes above... Mozart's Requiem would be up there, for instance...

[astroboy]

shostakovich symphony 5

[jre58591]

stravinsky's rite of spring and carl vine's symphony no 5 (percussion symphony) are up there on my list. also, osvaldo golijov's opera "ainadamar" is up here on my favorite operas. also, maybe penderecki's capriccio for oboe and orchestra, too, for the orchestral pieces.

[pianowolfi]

Haydn Symphony no. 6 "The Morning"
Mozart Jupiter Symphony
Mozart Prager Symphony
Schubert "Unfinished" Symphony
Bruckner Symphony Nr. 8
Rachmaninoff Symphony no. 2
Bartók Concerto for Orchestra

just a few

[musik_man]

Petrushka by Stravinsky
Symphonies 1,2,3,5,6,9,&10 Mahler
Verklaerte Nacht Schoenberg
Symphonies 5,7,9 Shostakovich
Symphonies 38,40,41 Mozart
Water Music and Music for Fireworks Handel

And a whole lot more

[mikey6]

Are we talking favourite or best? Coz besides 'the best orchestral piece' being virtualy impossible to name, some of the one's listed would certainly not fall into that category.
But, me fav's would be
Haydn 101
Beethoven 7
Mozart Marriage of Figaro overture
Schubert unfinished
Liszt Les Preludes
Tchaik 6
Wagner Isoldens liebestod
Elgar 2
VW 5
Sibelius 5
Mahler 2, 8
Ravel Daphne and Chloe
Strauss Death and transfiguration

[rach n bach]

I'll just give you a couple...

Holst's The Planets
Shubert Unfinished
Mozart Requim
Bach Suites
Handel Water Music

Of course I've got more... but I would spend all night typing...

RnB

[thalbergmad]

Rimsky-Korsakove   Schereazade

I am sure i have spelt that wrong, but you know what i mean.

Thal

[soliloquy]

Rimsky-Korsakove   Schereazade

I am sure i have spelt that wrong, but you know what i mean.

Thal

Ahaha we actually agree on something for once   If you had read my post then you would have seen it is spelled "Scheherezade", as I also listed that as one of my favorite pieces.

[imbetter]

beethoven 59/2 is one of my favorite pieces ever and it has no piano

[thalbergmad]

Ahaha we actually agree on something for once   If you had read my post then you would have seen it is spelled "Scheherezade", as I also listed that as one of my favorite pieces.

I thought we agreed on the Massenet Concerto as a great work as well

Thal

[le_poete_mourant]

Mahler 6 & Shostakovich 10 are two of my favs.  And the Mozart Requiem.  Piazzola's Four Seasons are awesome. 

[ronde_des_sylphes]

Rachmaninov: Symphonic Dances and Isle of the Dead.
Wagner: Isolde's Liebestod

would be, if not the best, certainly my favourites.

[lisztisforkids]

Mendelsohn, Hebrides overture.

[rach n bach]

Rachmaninov: Symphonic Dances and Isle of the Dead.

How could I forget this one?!?!   

[ganymed]

smetana - ma vlata (my fatherland)

[burstroman]

Mendelssohn- Scherzo (Midsummer Night's Dream)
Schubert - Symphony #9 (The Great)
Ives- Symphony # 4

[ahinton]

Just 10? Impossible! FIrst off, the responses so far, whether they cite 10, less than 10 of more than 10, tend for the most part fo be "favourites" rather than specifically "best" - which is almost certainly inevitable with a "poll" like this. I could name 10 that would do nicely for me - such as

Strauss           Ein Heldenleben
Shostakovich  Symphony No. 4
Schönberg      Pelleas un Melisande
Varèse            Amériques (original version)
Rakhmaninov  Symphony No. 2 (or do I mean 1? - or perhaps 3?)
Szymanowski  Violin Concerto No. 1 (or do I mean 2?)
Elgar               Symphony No. 2
Lutosławski    Concerto for Orchestra
Carter             Concerto for Orchestra
Dutilleux          Violin Concerto

but as soon as I do so I realise that I've left out so very many more...

Best,

Alistair

[counterpoint]

Debussy  La mer

Respighi  Pini di Roma

Berio  Sinfonia


and many, many others...

[gruffalo]

my favourite symphony sets are Rachmaninov, Mahler and Shostakovich. I uploaded complete sets conducted by Jansons of Rach, shosty and tchaikovsky to da SDc

[soliloquy]

Just 10? Impossible! FIrst off, the responses so far, whether they cite 10, less than 10 of more than 10, tend for the most part fo be "favourites" rather than specifically "best" - which is almost certainly inevitable with a "poll" like this. I could name 10 that would do nicely for me - such as

Strauss           Ein Heldenleben
Shostakovich  Symphony No. 4
Schönberg      Pelleas un Melisande
Varèse            Amériques (original version)
Rakhmaninov  Symphony No. 2 (or do I mean 1? - or perhaps 3?)
Szymanowski  Violin Concerto No. 1 (or do I mean 2?)
Elgar               Symphony No. 2
Lutosławski    Concerto for Orchestra
Carter             Concerto for Orchestra
Dutilleux          Violin Concerto

but as soon as I do so I realise that I've left out so very many more...

Best,

Alistair

Ah!  He has come to my distress call to resurrect this thread with an amount of substance only he could produce :O  I shall be giving several of these pieces relistenings today   It's interesting that I quite recently got a very good album of music by Varese and Ameriques is one of the tracks, although I have to say I may have to take the more common-man's route and say I like Ionisation and Integrales the most.  I assume you mean the Szymanowski Violin Concerto No 1 just because that is also one of my favorite Violin Concerti, along with the Dutilleux as you also mentioned, the Glass, the Ginastera, the Bartok No. 2, the Rozsa, the Walton... and I better leave off there before I list 600 pieces :O

[pianistimo]

just to add one more to alistair's list:

the 'millenium symphony' started by walter boudreau - to include 19 composers, 333 musicians, 15 church steeples, one great organ, 56 bell chimes, and two firetrucks.

details here:
https://www.smcq.qc.ca/smcq/symph.e/

[ahinton]

and I better leave off there before I list 600 pieces :O

My point precisely; you did invite me to contribute to this thread and my answer is just as inadequate as I warned you it would be!

I'm just about to add another list - but I'll have the decency to stop before I start (and that'll surely be the only "decency" I've ever attempted to display, no doubt...)

Best,

Alistair

[soliloquy]

*resurrect*

[retrouvailles]

What would you say are the ten greatest orchestral pieces that are not piano concerti, or basically piano+orchestra?  Am mostly asking because a lot of people on here probably listen to almost nothing but piano music, and it would be cool to hear some people's suggestions and look them up


Henri Dutilleux- Cello Concerto (Rostropovich)
Leonardo Balada- Guernica
Krzysztof Penderecki- Capriccio for Violin and Orchestra
Yves Prin- Dioscures
Pierre Boulez- "... ...explosante-fixe... ..."
Nikolai Rimsky Korsakov- Scheherezade (Reiner + Chicago)
Igor Stravinsky- Rite of Spring (Ozawa + Chicago)
Benjamin Britten- Cello Symphony (Rostropovich)
Alfred Schnittke- Symphony No. 8
Arvo Part- Lamentate

I don't know how I never caught this, but that has a piano in it. In fact, it's almost a piano concerto.

[soliloquy]

I don't know how I never caught this, but that has a piano in it. In fact, it's almost a piano concerto.

Nominated for useless comment of the year.


Wait, let's skip straight to the ceremony!


YOU WIN!


2/3rds of Russian orchestral music probably has a piano in it at some point.  Would you call Tzar Saltan a piano concerto?  Anyway, just because the piano is playing a lot of the time doesn't mean it is in any way a solo piece o.O  It is never billed as a concerto, and the piano is never pushed to the front of the stage.  There are no candenzas, and the piano probably plays a total of 15 different chords throughout the entire 40 minute span of the piece.

[mephisto]

soliloquy just admit that you never actually listen to music. You just decided at one point that avant-garde music would make you look smart so you just searched a bit on wikipedia (or similar web-sites) and to find some of the most important names. Than you learn the names of some of their pieces and you copy-past them here

[pita bread]

Barber - Andromache's Farewell
Beethoven - Symphony no. 9
Strauss - Salome

[soliloquy]

soliloquy just admit that you never actually listen to music. You just decided at one point that avant-garde music would make you look smart so you just searched a bit on wikipedia (or similar web-sites) and to find some of the most important names. Than you learn the names of some of their pieces and you copy-past them here

You're a *** dumbass.  Just admit it.  Whenever you speak, your ignorance makes me cringe.  Every time you say something, if it isn't offensively stupid, it is extremely offensively stupid.  What you just said, may be the single most idiotic thing EVER UTTERED ON PIANOSTREET.  That is the level of illogic that you are.  You are dumber than elevateme, franzliszt2 and maul all thrown together, on valium.  You make a thread with a total of two paragraphs about bad grammar, and manage to somehow put 60 (I counted and I can show you every one of them) grammatical, spelling and syntax errors in it, including in the title.  Everything you say is either only a tangent of the truth or just completely and utterly false, and you are apparently so insanely stupid and have such a prodigiously low IQ that any logic in contradiction, and ALL logic will ALWAYS be in contradiction to you by the way, will simply be phased off of you due to your inability to comprehend even the most primally and animalistically basic fundaments of understanding.  What is so incredibly sad and pathetic, and in your case due to the enmity I hold for you laughable, is that you seem to be constantly putting out these vain and (insert your own blissful ignorance) failed attempts to redeem any respectability whatsoever by attemping to converse about topics miles above your head.  Even a thread about "Favorite pieces of music" is apparently too complex and semantically ostentatious for you to be able to understand and communicate in any decent, normal or logical way in.


Anyway, shall I count the number of different chords there are in Lamentate?  I have the score.  Do you?  Whose recording do you have?  Have you ever heard the piece?  *** no.  jre's comment up there, while pointless, at least had some mild form of adolescent logic behind it.  What you just said is so utterly and confoundingly unsubstantiatable and obviously wrong I feel as though I should be writing a dissertation on it; I would assuredly win the Nobel, for discovering you.  The intellectual missing link!  The grants would pour in.  Now GTFO.

[retrouvailles]

Nominated for useless comment of the year.


Wait, let's skip straight to the ceremony!


YOU WIN!


2/3rds of Russian orchestral music probably has a piano in it at some point.  Would youcall Tzar Saltan a piano concerto?  Anyway, just because the piano is playing a lot of the time doesn't mean it is in any way a solo piece o.O  It is never billed as a concerto, and the piano is never pushed to the front of the stage.  There are no candenzas, and the piano probably plays a total of 15 different chords throughout the entire 40 minute span of the piece.

Uh, Pärt's Lamentate is for SOLO PIANO AND orchestra. The piano has a VERY prominent role, and it is practically a piano concerto, in all but name. And the piano is pushed to the front of the stage. I have also seen the score and can scan a page that shows this. Tsar Saltan doesnt give the piano the same sort of role, so it is useless to draw a comparison.

soliloquy just admit that you never actually listen to music. You just decided at one point that avant-garde music would make you look smart so you just searched a bit on wikipedia (or similar web-sites) and to find some of the most important names. Than you learn the names of some of their pieces and you copy-past them here

Agreed.

Anyway, shall I count the number of different chords there are in Lamentate?

What would counting chords do? It woulndn't disprove the fact that the piece has a solo piano in it.

Lets just end this argument here, for it is really pointless.

[soliloquy]

Uh, Pärt's Lamentate is for SOLO PIANO AND Large Orchestra. The piano has a VERY prominent role, and it is practically a piano concerto, in all but name. And the piano is pushed to the front of the stage. I have also seen the score and can scan a page that shows this. Tsar Saltan doesnt give the piano the same sort of role, so it is useless to draw a comparison.

Agreed.

What would counting chords do? It woulndn't disprove the fact that the piece has a solo piano in it.

It DOES NOT have a solo piano!  The piano is used just like the wind, or brass, or string sections.  It is NOT a concerto at all.  There is no way to dissect this any more.  This is the most basic level of explanation.  The piano is playing fairly consistently in the piece, but it is used just like any other instrument.  I have no other way to explain it.  Pretty much all the piano does is play the same theme over and over and over again with the orchestra behind it building tension and varietizing based on the different permutations of the theme, which is not even always played on the piano.

[retrouvailles]

It DOES have a solo piano! I could get anyone here on this forum (who hasn't heard the piece) to listen to the piece, and they would agree that it DOES have a solo piano. It isnt rocket science. Just take a look here, where is says Lamentate.

https://arvopart.org/compositions.php?genre=orchestral

Do you still want to dispute it?

And tell me, why is the pianist always credited on the covers of CDs that the piece is on? If the piano soloist wasn't that important, he wouldn't be credited.

[mephisto]

You're a *** dumbass.  Just admit it.  Whenever you speak, your ignorance makes me cringe.  Every time you say something, if it isn't offensively stupid, it is extremely offensively stupid.  What you just said, may be the single most idiotic thing EVER UTTERED ON PIANOSTREET.  That is the level of illogic that you are.  You are dumber than elevateme, franzliszt2 and maul all thrown together, on valium.  You make a thread with a total of two paragraphs about bad grammar, and manage to somehow put 60 (I counted and I can show you every one of them) grammatical, spelling and syntax errors in it, including in the title.  Everything you say is either only a tangent of the truth or just completely and utterly false, and you are apparently so insanely stupid and have such a prodigiously low IQ that any logic in contradiction, and ALL logic will ALWAYS be in contradiction to you by the way, will simply be phased off of you due to your inability to comprehend even the most primally and animalistically basic fundaments of understanding.  What is so incredibly sad and pathetic, and in your case due to the enmity I hold for you laughable, is that you seem to be constantly putting out these vain and (insert your own blissful ignorance) failed attempts to redeem any respectability whatsoever by attemping to converse about topics miles above your head.  Even a thread about "Favorite pieces of music" is apparently too complex and semantically ostentatious for you to be able to understand and communicate in any decent, normal or logical way in.

Harsh, but certainly no more than an ad himinem attack?

And you didn't even comprehend the reason for my grammar-thread (i.e write as good as YOU can, nothing more nothing less.) I never said that I only wanted perfect grammer, since I can't write perfect English my self!

 

[mephisto]

It DOES have a solo piano! I could get anyone here on this forum (who hasn't heard the piece) to listen to the piece, and they would agree that it DOES have a solo piano. It isnt rocket science. Just take a look here, where is says Lamentate.

https://arvopart.org/compositions.php?genre=orchestral

Do you still want to dispute it?

And tell me, why is the pianist always credited on the covers of CDs that the piece is on? If the piano soloist wasn't that important, he wouldn't be credited.

Lamentate   2003   35-40'   for piano and orchestra
3 2 2 2 - 4 2 2 0 - timp, perc(4), str

[soliloquy]

Harsh, but certainly no more than an ad himinem attack?

And you didn't even comprehend the reason for my grammar-thread (i.e write as good as YOU can, nothing more nothing less.) I never said that I only wanted perfect grammer, since I can't write perfect English my self!

Ad HIMINEM?  I have no idea what that is.  Ad HOMINEM you mean?  Here is the definition:

An ad hominem argument, also known as argumentum ad hominem (Latin: "argument to the person", "argument against the man") consists of replying to an argument or factual claim by attacking or appealing to a characteristic or belief of the person making the argument or claim, rather than by addressing the substance of the argument or producing evidence against the claim.

Again, your logic fails you, and again, you display exactly what I said you would.  You try to use big words you don't understand to attempt to look even remotely non-retarded, but fail miserably.  I can not be using an ad hominem argument, because I did not disagree with your statement; I did not find it necessary, due to the ridiculousness of said statement.  Also, your statement has to have "substance to be addressed"; otherwise I can not be avoiding aforementioned substance because it is non-existant.  Logical Fallacy is more of a hard science than a soft science, and if you knew anything about it you would know that it is treated as thus.  Your statement had no substance and was unsubstantiatable, therefore it is impossible to argue with.  Your original assertion is also an ad hominem attack you hypocrite idiot.  Notice I didn't use the word "argument", because I actually know what I'm talking about.  Also, you were probably looking for "straw-man" as opposed to "ad hominem" in the first place genius.  Or should I say "genious"?

It DOES have a solo piano! I could get anyone here on this forum (who hasn't heard the piece) to listen to the piece, and they would agree that it DOES have a solo piano. It isnt rocket science. Just take a look here, where is says Lamentate.

https://arvopart.org/compositions.php?genre=orchestral

Do you still want to dispute it?

And tell me, why is the pianist always credited on the covers of CDs that the piece is on? If the piano soloist wasn't that important, he wouldn't be credited.

I will temporarily concede this argument to you as at this point I am not able to access the necessary resources to combat that.  I will get back to this tonight.  I'm only responding at all for the sake of avoiding the "no response", which is almost always understood as a concession.

[retrouvailles]

Whatever. While you try and think of something to combat what I said, I'll be going over to my school library to rent the score, scan a few pages, and settle this once and for all.

[soliloquy]

Whatever. While you try and think of something to combat what I said, I'll be going over to my school library to rent the score, scan a few pages, and settle this once and for all.

Okie dokie.  I'm also gonna grab the score to Tzigane and scan a couple pages and tell you it's for solo Violin.  Of course I'm going to choose all the pages that are solo violin


Actually *** it you're probably right.  I've just never thought of Lamentate as a "Piano + Orch" piece.  Always more of an "Orch + Piano" if you know what I mean.  But then again I guess Part's compositional style could probably easily lend to that misinterpretation, due to how sparce the piano part in even a piano concerto would be.  I guess I just always found the horns more interesting in that piece and sort of focused on them; I actually think the piano part is sort of unnecessary XD

[retrouvailles]

Um, if you were to take out the piano part, there would be entire movements (or the majority of a movement) with silence. The piano part is far from unnecessary.

[soliloquy]

Um, if you were to take out the piano part, there would be entire movements (or the majority of a movement) with silence. The piano part is far from unnecessary.

Really?  My rec comes out to 40:42 or something like that.  When I get home I'm going to listen and count out the number of non-pre-silent seconds there would be if the piano is removed.  I doubt it will come out to more than 1 min.

[mephisto]

Ad HIMINEM?  I have no idea what that is.  Ad HOMINEM you mean?  Here is the definition:

Sorry, it was a misspelling

What I ment was that you were only attacking me as a person, but not denying what I wrote.

[gymnopedist]

Ad HIMINEM?  I have no idea what that is.  Ad HOMINEM you mean?  Here is the definition:

Again, your logic fails you, and again, you display exactly what I said you would.  You try to use big words you don't understand to attempt to look even remotely non-retarded, but fail miserably.  I can not be using an ad hominem argument, because I did not disagree with your statement; I did not find it necessary, due to the ridiculousness of said statement.  Also, your statement has to have "substance to be addressed"; otherwise I can not be avoiding aforementioned substance because it is non-existant.  Logical Fallacy is more of a hard science than a soft science, and if you knew anything about it you would know that it is treated as thus.  Your statement had no substance and was unsubstantiatable, therefore it is impossible to argue with.  Your original assertion is also an ad hominem attack you hypocrite idiot.  Notice I didn't use the word "argument", because I actually know what I'm talking about.  Also, you were probably looking for "straw-man" as opposed to "ad hominem" in the first place genius.  Or should I say "genious"?


I will temporarily concede this argument to you as at this point I am not able to access the necessary resources to combat that.  I will get back to this tonight.  I'm only responding at all for the sake of avoiding the "no response", which is almost always understood as a concession.

Wow, you're just not a very nice person, are you?

Oh, sorry for posting something not related to the topic, I, with my broken english, lousy grammar and uninteresting musical taste, shouldn't be able to think with an IQ as low as mine. I'm an idiot, but at least a cute one.

[soliloquy]

Wow, you're just not a very nice person, are you?

I'm an idiot, but at least a cute one.

You would have been cute if it was 1989, but it's 2007.  So you're a coin-flip between "ok" and "odd-looking".  Cut your hair and stop wearing red and you'd be cute though <3  Although I don't think you're an idiot; I think you are one of the few-and-far-between sane and coherent members of this forum.  But then again you haven't been here very long.  Just look at Mozartian; she used to be very nice, but pianostreet turned her into evil.  I think the unrelentingly inferior and/or lack of logic, the misinformation and most importantly the boringness of such slowly scrapes away your willingness to try to explain your opposing views in any sort of constructive format.  Same happened to thalbergmad, same happened to JRE aka retrouvailles, same happened to koji.  They/us all used to try to be helpful, but now we've developed the habit of coming here which is unfortunate because we no longer have the patience to deal with BS.  Would you honestly say that meph's assertion that I do not actually listen to music and just copy/paste wiki is utter BS?  Anyway, I think I am selectively mean and selectively nice.  I'm generally only assholes to other assholes, and my posts seem to stick out because I curse more

[ahinton]

You're a *** dumbass.  Just admit it.  Whenever you speak, your ignorance makes me cringe.  Every time you say something, if it isn't offensively stupid, it is extremely offensively stupid.  What you just said, may be the single most idiotic thing EVER UTTERED ON PIANOSTREET.  That is the level of illogic that you are.  You are dumber than elevateme, franzliszt2 and maul all thrown together, on valium.  You make a thread with a total of two paragraphs about bad grammar, and manage to somehow put 60 (I counted and I can show you every one of them) grammatical, spelling and syntax errors in it, including in the title.  Everything you say is either only a tangent of the truth or just completely and utterly false, and you are apparently so insanely stupid and have such a prodigiously low IQ that any logic in contradiction, and ALL logic will ALWAYS be in contradiction to you by the way, will simply be phased off of you due to your inability to comprehend even the most primally and animalistically basic fundaments of understanding.  What is so incredibly sad and pathetic, and in your case due to the enmity I hold for you laughable, is that you seem to be constantly putting out these vain and (insert your own blissful ignorance) failed attempts to redeem any respectability whatsoever by attemping to converse about topics miles above your head.  Even a thread about "Favorite pieces of music" is apparently too complex and semantically ostentatious for you to be able to understand and communicate in any decent, normal or logical way in.


Anyway, shall I count the number of different chords there are in Lamentate?  I have the score.  Do you?  Whose recording do you have?  Have you ever heard the piece?  *** no.  jre's comment up there, while pointless, at least had some mild form of adolescent logic behind it.  What you just said is so utterly and confoundingly unsubstantiatable and obviously wrong I feel as though I should be writing a dissertation on it; I would assuredly win the Nobel, for discovering you.  The intellectual missing link!  The grants would pour in.  Now GTFO.

You really ought to advertise the name, address and contact details of that charm school that you attended; never mind grants pouring in, the sheer amount of business that such a commendation would attract would be immense!

Best,

Alistair

[pianochick93]

I havn't heard the names of many pieces that I have heard on the radio. But I have listened to many that I loved.

[mephisto]

Best NON piano orchestral pieces

Messiaen - Des canyons aux etoiles
Messiaen - Oiseaux Exotiques
Messiaen - Turangalila Symphony
Strauss - Burlesque
Szymanowski - Symphony No.4 Concertante
Boulez - Sur incises
Webern - Concerto for 9 instruments
Beethoven - Chorale fantasy

Can't think of any other right now.

[soliloquy]

Best NON piano orchestral pieces

Messiaen - Des canyons aux etoiles
Messiaen - Oiseaux Exotiques
Messiaen - Turangalila Symphony
Strauss - Burlesque
Szymanowski - Symphony No.4 Concertante
Boulez - Sur incises
Webern - Concerto for 9 instruments

Can't think of any other right now.

I'm sorry, but most of those are chamber or ensemble works

[retrouvailles]

Best NON piano orchestral pieces

Messiaen - Des canyons aux etoiles
Messiaen - Oiseaux Exotiques
Messiaen - Turangalila Symphony
Strauss - Burlesque
Szymanowski - Symphony No.4 Concertante
Boulez - Sur incises
Webern - Concerto for 9 instruments
Beethoven - Chorale fantasy

Can't think of any other right now.

Hah.

[gymnopedist]

You would have been cute if it was 1989, but it's 2007.  So you're a coin-flip between "ok" and "odd-looking".  Cut your hair and stop wearing red and you'd be cute though <3  Although I don't think you're an idiot; I think you are one of the few-and-far-between sane and coherent members of this forum.  But then again you haven't been here very long.  Just look at Mozartian; she used to be very nice, but pianostreet turned her into evil.  I think the unrelentingly inferior and/or lack of logic, the misinformation and most importantly the boringness of such slowly scrapes away your willingness to try to explain your opposing views in any sort of constructive format.  Same happened to thalbergmad, same happened to JRE aka retrouvailles, same happened to koji.  They/us all used to try to be helpful, but now we've developed the habit of coming here which is unfortunate because we no longer have the patience to deal with BS.  Would you honestly say that meph's assertion that I do not actually listen to music and just copy/paste wiki is utter BS?  Anyway, I think I am selectively mean and selectively nice.  I'm generally only assholes to other assholes, and my posts seem to stick out because I curse more

Ok, I'll cut my hair and stop wearing red. I understand that we are not in the eighties anymore, and i will stop dressing as though we were. By the way, that red t-shirt has a lot of sentimental value to me because i got it from my old school. Also, I'm way too cool to care about what others (and especially Turinians) think of my clothes.

I assume that you do love all the music you list from time to time, but mostly because i have the naive hope that people are good and would not pretend to be something they aren't. You do give off the impression of someone who loves to provoke and shock, and that coupled with a somewhat provocative musical taste could lead to conclusions like Mephistos. Although i won't claim to have read every post of yours, no example of an in-depth discussion of avant-garde music with your contributions springs to mind. But maybe that's just because those are far less memorable than the many gay sex references.

Time to get my head out of my ass and address the original topic:

These are just off the top of my head, and more a list of favorites. I don't think i'm musically competent enough to decide which pieces are best.

Debussy - La mer
Prokofiev - Sur le Borysthène
Prokofiev - Zdravitsa
Prokofiev - Flourish, mighty country
Poulenc - Stabat Mater
Milhaud - Either Violin Concerto
Milhaud - L'homme et son désir
Korngold - Cello Concerto
Brahms - Ein deutsches requiem
Hindemith - Mathis Der Mahler Symphony
Honegger - Cello Concerto

And millions more.