Composer's Triumph

[Antnee]

What do you think are some of the composer's biggest feats in their contribution to music. For example, Liszt and his B minor Sonata or Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. What about Chopin, Schubert, Schumann, all of the others??? What do you guys think...

-Tony-

[DarkWind]

Liszt, Transcendental Etudes, Le Tombeau de Couperin and Gaspard de la Nuit by Ravel, Opus Clavicembalisticum by Sorabji, Chopin's Ballades, theres more but I can't think of any right now.

[shatteringpulse]

Bach: Mass in B minor

Beethoven: Symphony No. 9, Missa Solemnis, Hammerklavier, Appassionata, Op. 111 (hence why he's a great composer!)

Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 2

Chopin: Ballade in F minor, op. 52

Liszt: Sonata in B minor

Wagner: The Ring Cycle  

Leoncavallo: I Pagliacci (the height of verismo opera, IMO, not Puccini!)

Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No. 3

Prokofiev: Piano Concerto No. 2, Sonata No. 7

Scriabin: Sonata No. 9

Schubert: The last sonata (B-flat, 960)

Ravel: Gaspard de la nuit

Debussy: La mer, douze etudes

Mahler: Symphony No. 9, No. 6

Ligeti: Etudes...

Boulez: Sonata No. 2

Stravinsky: Rite of Spring


Hmmm...any more...

So what's the ultimate musical work...just one...one that stands for all music, if only one piece could exist...what would be music to humanity?

[donjuan]

Liszt- Les Preludes

it changed my whole perception of orchestral music.  It, along with Berlioz's Symphony Fantastique made the symphony seem limitless in varieties of ways to convey an emotion or situation.  
Liszt's opera transcriptions are empirical evidence that the piano is the ultimate power device.  The music has fallen into the realms of mystery and legend, until someone is mad enough to attempt one of them...
donjuan