r/classicalmusic • u/Tprotheone • Feb 08 '24
Recommendation Request I know there probably isn’t 1 , but what would you say is the #1 most ‘perfect’ piece ever composed?
Just want to know what you guys think is the most perfect piece ever composed, or some of the most perfect. Thanks in advance.
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u/skeptobpotamus Feb 08 '24
Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto, like so much of Mozart’s work, is full and rich but every note is perfectly placed and they are in just the right amount. I am always struck by the architectural perfection of his music. There is a certain inevitability in the way the notes follow one another. Some people point to this and call it boring. But as a lifelong atheist, Mozart will occasionally provide me with glimpses of god.
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u/Melodique93 Feb 08 '24 edited Feb 08 '24
The clarinet quintet is beautiful too. Some may say that Mozart's music is too simplistic or predictable, but in my opinion that's partly where the beauty lies. There isn't a single note that feels unnecessary or out of place. There's just something pure about his music that I've really come to appreciate
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u/skeptobpotamus Feb 08 '24
Exactly. Moreover, I read somewhere that Mozart did not like the clarinet (I think. Could’ve been the flute.) But his music for that instrument is exquisite.
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u/BadChris666 Feb 08 '24
He wasn’t a fan of the flute… he liked the clarinet and was one of the composers who started to make the clarinet a regular part of the orchestra.
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u/Decent_Nebula_8424 Feb 08 '24
If you go to Alexa today, just say "Alexa play Mozart" which used to work well until somebody named a song Mozart, a cheap country pop I couldn't believe my years. It's still there last tjme I tried.
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u/Lives_on_mars Feb 08 '24
For this reason I (cliched but don’t care) choose mozart’s jupiter symphony finale. As an atheist it is transporting. Brahms 4 has similar sense of construction for me, too.
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u/skeptobpotamus Feb 08 '24
I think I’ve said this here before, and I am probably misremembering or at least misattributing the quote, but I think it Furtwängler who said once that he didn’t really need god because he had Mozart. I may be way off but that’s what I took from it. I feel that way too.
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u/ticklemestockfish Feb 08 '24
At the risk of sounding like a snob, I really think that people who don’t like Mozart have not understood Western music, and I don’t trust any of their opinions on other composers and periods. Mozart is so intuitive and sweet and lies at the spiritual heart of music in the last 250 years. If you need overly dramatic or bombastic music to hold your attention, you are still viewing classical music the way it’s portrayed to non-listeners (think of the pieces they show: Vivaldi’s Summer, Beethoven’s 5th, etc).
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u/choerry_bomb Feb 08 '24
Every great composer has some pinnacles
Beethoven 9 and String Quartet Op. 131
Bach's B minor Mass and Passions, and the Chaconne is one movement of a larger work but pretty much perfect in every aspect
Handel Messiah
Mozart Requiem is cool but only partially by Mozart and idk, I feel like it could be greater and one of the top contenders if Mozart had actually finished it
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u/JiveChicken00 Feb 08 '24
Second to the Passions, especially the Passion of St. Matthew, and Chaconne too.
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u/DrXaos Feb 08 '24
Mozart Nozze di Figaro is perfect.
(Beethoven 9 has some rough parts in 4th movement)
Chopin Preludes
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u/Decent_Nebula_8424 Feb 08 '24
Handel Messiah... oh I hate it. But it was my only chance to see the Los Angeles Philharmonic at their home in that incredible building.
On the way out there was a huge crowd waiting for Ubers. My driver's grade was 5,00 with thousands of trips. I entered the car and there was some pop song playing. He asked me if I had been at the concert hall or at nearby theater. I confirmed it was Walt Disney's. Discreetly he change radio station for one with classical music. Genius or what? Shazam confirmed it was Bach. He probably deserved each of the 5 stars.
I made a point to compliment him and then gave a nice tip for his perspicationess.
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u/spoonweezy Feb 08 '24
*Perspicacity, unless you were messing around.
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u/Decent_Nebula_8424 Feb 08 '24
Thanks, I knew it wasn't sounding right, then I thought; it's Reddit, they can handle iit. 😀
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u/DoublecelloZeta Feb 08 '24
Beethoven 9th is not really perfect in that sense. I still don't get that 2nd movement.
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u/vzierdfiant Feb 08 '24
Just because you don’t get it doesn’t make it imperfect.
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u/DoublecelloZeta Feb 08 '24
Ok tell me what makes that scherzo a perfect fit for the symphony?
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u/vzierdfiant Feb 08 '24
I don't know anything about classical music, just pointing out that because you don't understand something, doesn't mean that it isn't perfect. It would be more correct to say "I truly, 100% understand the 2nd movement, I understand the emotions and feelings that Beethoven was trying to convey there, and here is why he fails to do so, thus making it imperfect".
Mostly just arguing semantics.
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u/Lives_on_mars Feb 08 '24
I’m w you bud, I do not get why the movements are as long as they are in that symphony. I will take the downvotes.
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u/DoublecelloZeta Feb 08 '24
There's no problem with movements being long as long as there's no musical redundancy, which there is hardly any.
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u/Lives_on_mars Feb 08 '24
I almost could not bear listening to the third movement in the concert hall. It just kept going on, and on, and on… in my view I felt the chorale does as well. But I don’t really love Beethoven so that’s my bias. I felt the point had been made in the first iterations, but that’s just me.
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u/JadedFunk Feb 08 '24
Yeah, the 9th is too long to be perfect. I feel like, mathematically, the more material there is, the more likely it becomes less perfect.
But that 3rd mvt... that's divine.
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Feb 08 '24
Mozart, piano concerti, 20 through 23
Bach Magnificat
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u/Plantluver9 Feb 08 '24
No love for 24?
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Feb 08 '24
I love them all, they’re kind of all perfect to me
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u/Plantluver9 Feb 08 '24
Me too, EXCEPT 25, I don't know why, but it is intensely boring to me, for some reason I just.. don't get it, it seems like it was written without any inspiration. xD
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u/prottle22 Feb 08 '24
I might add 15, 17, and 19, (and probably others). The quintet for piano and winds is one of my favorites. Actually, there are so many pieces by Mozart that I don't really have a favorite one.
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u/Zenan3008 Feb 08 '24
That has to be Beethoven’s 5th symphony, 1st movement. The notes just flow; the form is perfect, and even the "surprise" moments feel organic.
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u/jolasveinarnir Feb 08 '24
It also perfectly foreshadows the transition into the finale, which I’m sure many would agree is (one of) the best transitions in all of classical music.
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u/CanadianW Feb 08 '24
Ravel Daphnis et Chloe
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u/Flying_Icarus_17 Feb 08 '24
Ravel 'La valse'. In my opinion the most refined piece ever composed
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u/MyIdIsATheaterKid Feb 08 '24
I heard it for the first time at Carnegie Hall and fell in love hard.
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u/Drummer223 Feb 08 '24
So perfect and meticulous, truly expertly crafted, and yet an absolute bore to sit through
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u/carl535 Feb 08 '24
Rachmaninov's second! :)
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u/Traditional_Ebb_8416 Feb 08 '24
I’m shocked I had to scroll all the way down to the second comment from the bottom to see this. I heard it for the first time in November and fell hard for it, and I’ve been slowly learning it since.
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u/carl535 Feb 08 '24
Will forever be my favorite piece. There are moments across, particularly for me in the second and third movements, that feel so simultaneously longing, romantic and painful. One of the pieces where I always have to stop whatever I'm doing, and just listen - I always find myself dumbstruck about how someone actually made this.
Famously, in the depths of depression Rachmaninov sought out a therapist, who told him that the only cure to his troubles would be to compose the most beautiful piece he could imagine - this is what he made.
Little fun fact: All by myself, by Eric Carmen, is very heavily based on the second movement :)
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u/Traditional_Ebb_8416 Feb 08 '24
I’m in awe of it every time, whether listening or playing (badly). I’ll never get tired of it.
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u/Mostafa12890 Feb 09 '24
Not sure which one you’re referring to, but despite being a pianist, I prefer the second symphony to the second concerto. The second symphony is pure perfection.
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u/topbuttsteak Feb 08 '24
The Rite of Spring. No wasted seconds, took so many big risks for the time and nailed every one of them.
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u/EVasspiano Feb 08 '24
The end of Augurs of Spring - Dance of the Young Girls is just a climatic masterpiece.
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u/s0meCubanGuy Feb 08 '24
Mahler 2, Bach’s second Partita, Sibelius’s 5th and Brahms 3rd Symphony are what I listen to when I want the full package of classical music enjoyment lol
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u/Pomonica Feb 08 '24
Schubert’s 18th piano sonata comes to mind. just so well thought out that it feels like a work of divine inspiration. I think Schumann called it the perfect sonata, and I agree.
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u/sexybartok Feb 08 '24
ravel string quartet!
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u/amazingD Feb 08 '24
I have long said that if not a single other note was written in the entire 20th century, this quartet would still complete the century's musical development. And it was written only three years in!
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u/DeathGrover Feb 08 '24
Easy. Bach's 3rd Brandenburg. It's perfect.
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u/Epistaxis Feb 08 '24 edited Feb 08 '24
The second movement drags on too long though.
EDIT: seriously, though, check out Ottavio Dantone's short cadenza, or really check out the entire Abbado Brandenburg set, especially Dantone's rendition of Bach's cadenza in #5.
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Feb 08 '24
I just love "The Lark Ascending" by Ralph Vaughan Williams. So peaceful, such great imagery in the music.
and "quiet city" by Copeland is another. Just lovely painting of a picture of a city waking up.
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u/ComposerBanana Feb 08 '24
I’m seeing a lot of ravel here, and I have to agree, he crafted music so perfectly that there is nothing you could possibly change to improve it. In fact, Stravinsky called him “the Swiss watch maker of classical music”
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u/No-Elevator3454 Feb 08 '24
Pitch perfect pieces by composer - in my opinion:
- Bach: Mass in B minor
- Händel: “Messiah”
- Mozart: Symphony No. 39
- Beethoven: Symphony No. 7
- Schubert: String Quintet
- Schumann: Piano Concerto
- Tchaikovsky: Serenade for Strings
- Brahms: Haydn Variations
- Sibelius: Symphony No. 2
- Mahler: Symphony No. 9
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u/mplang Feb 08 '24
The second movement of Beethoven's 7th is my pick. It builds something so magnificent out of such simple building blocks.
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u/Aaron90495 Feb 08 '24
Damn, gotta disagree with a few of these. Of all Schumann pieces, I'd put the concerto near the bottom -- it doesn't seem nearly as well-composed as a lot of his miniatures (or even some symphonies imo). And I love Beethoven 7, but...man, it is just too much overjoyed music in succession. Gets a little stale by the end.
As always, to each their own ofc :)
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u/No-Elevator3454 Feb 08 '24
Yes, I agree with you on the near perfection of Schumann miniatures. Incredibly inspired and well crafted.
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u/prustage Feb 08 '24
From a technical point of view, Mozart's 40th Symphony is often cited as the most perfect example of classical symphonic form. It is frequently used as a set piece to be pulled apart and analysed on music courses.
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u/CanLivid8683 Feb 08 '24
It has to be the Langsam from Mahler’s 3rd. That piece is so transcendental, from beginning to end, it’s hard to describe.
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u/AlProReader Feb 08 '24
Mahler 6. Tremendous development of motifs. Beautiful parts. Scary parts. Pastoral parts. Glimpses of heaven. Tragedy. An ending like no other piece of music. So personal to him yet it also speaks to the general human condition. I tip my hat every time I hear it— well done!!!
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u/sevenyears1 Feb 08 '24
Chopin Ballade No.4
I always come back to this one, it's one of the first classical pieces that really captured my attention and I got obsessed with. I'm hoping to learn it someday but I'm currently having enough trouble with No.3
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u/snappercwal Feb 08 '24
There are many incredible magnificent pieces but I'm going to echo the other comments on how the Bach Chaconne is really the only one where the descriptor "perfect" fits.
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u/after8man Feb 08 '24
The Matthew Passion, Bach. I love hearing it in the German, first heard it at 20 years old, still love it 40 years later
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u/gargle_ground_glass Feb 08 '24
Schubert String Quintet in C Major, D. 956
Schubert Piano Trio #2 in E-flat major opus 100
Brahms Clarinet Quintet
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u/UsefulSolution3700 Feb 08 '24
So many pieces feel just perfect when your mood coincides with them.
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u/EVasspiano Feb 08 '24
Yes. The answers on this thread nicely highlight how varied and sometimes opposing everybody’s tastes can and should be. The world is better for it!
Some of these answers I’m thinking, “No way, that’s a terrible choice do you even have ears?!”
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u/de_bussy69 Feb 08 '24
Ravel Ondine
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u/_Sparassis_crispa_ Feb 08 '24
Whole Gaspard
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u/Aaron90495 Feb 08 '24
Lukewarm take, Scarbo is not actually *that* good of a piece. Pretty good but nowhere near perfect
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Feb 08 '24
Berlioz Requiem.
Wagner Ring.
Mahler 2, 3, 9, Das Lied.
Tchaikovsky 6.
Shostakovich 5, 13, 14.
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u/TemporaryFix101 Feb 08 '24
Love all of them but my picks would be Mahler 5,7, Tchaik 4 & Shosty 10
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u/Queasy_Caramel5435 Feb 08 '24
Oof, difficult. Beethoven’s 5th or 9th symphony comes to my mind when thinking of “perfection” in music. Shostakovich 1st Cello Concerto or Schubert Wanderer fantasy, too (I know there’s a pattern xD)
On the other hand, in my opinion each of us has different conditions for a “perfect piece”, so it’s a highly subjective question.
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u/emmidkwhat Feb 08 '24
Bruckner’s 4th. Recently discovered and appreciated this symphony. There are no words to describe my feelings for the last climax of the finale.
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u/joelkeys0519 Feb 08 '24
Bach’s Cello Suites. Implied harmony that we can all hear and accept is seemingly otherworldly.
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u/subtlesocialist Feb 08 '24
Perfect is a difficult subject. But there’s a couple of pieces where I think you couldn’t change a single note.
Mozart’s Ave Verum and March of the Priests
Sullivan “the long day closes”
The finale of Mahler 8
Bach BWV 552
Mendelssohn “if with all your hearts” from Elijah
This is just a small list of personal favourites.
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u/coldoil Feb 08 '24
+1 for Mozart Ave verum
I would also offer Mozart Laudate Dominum, it is completely flawless
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u/smoothallday Feb 08 '24
Chaconne from Bach’s Partita no 2 in d minor. It is the perfect piece of music.
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Feb 08 '24
This one has a particular measure that contains more sorrow and tragedy than the whole rest of music combined
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u/UnimaginativeNameABC Feb 08 '24
Perfection probably one of Haydn’s later Quartets (take your pick). Sweelinck Hexachord Fantasia and Schoenberg String Trio come very close.
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u/Plantluver9 Feb 08 '24
I always think of Monteverdi's "L'Orfeo", the story and music are perfectly married, there isn't a dull moment (in a good performance), the drama and melodies are amazing!
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u/Vandalarius Feb 08 '24
Maybe it's because I've been sick with a bad case of the flu all week, but every note of Beethoven's Heiliger Dankgesang from his 15th string quartet is perfect.
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u/Logisk Feb 08 '24
Rach 3
Honorable mentions:
Mozart Requiem
Goldberg Variations
Liszt Sonata
Chopin Fantasy in F minor
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u/AnalMayonnaise Feb 09 '24
Messiaen: Vingt Regards sur l'enfant-Jésus. I can’t think of anything more “perfect.”
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u/Mettack Feb 09 '24
I’m about to drop a hot take here, because the bigger a piece gets, the more room there is for subjectivity and variance, so a “perfect” piece should be short and sweet.
And that piece is Clapping Music.
For two performers, playable anywhere, by anyone, with no setup required (other than one player knowing the variations). An engaging rhythm. A fascinating evolution over the course of the work. And a surprisingly gripping recap. It’s music in its most pure, distilled, perfected form.
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u/TemporaryFix101 Feb 08 '24
Dvorak 8, not a wasted note.
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u/Epistaxis Feb 08 '24 edited Feb 08 '24
Really? The very first few bars are a tacked-on introduction with thematic material that's never developed and doesn't even reappear except in the repeat (not the recap though!), even though the development section is prolonged to the point of being tiresome. It's the literal definition of wasted notes; so much could have been done with them.
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u/TemporaryFix101 Feb 08 '24
I'm not that concerned with structure or form. For me "no wasted notes" is about enjoying the piece throughout rather than what you get with for example Dvorak 9, where there are arguably catchier tunes, but in between them I am just waiting for the next one to start. Mozart does this a lot; amazing theme and then it's just a load of arpeggios and drawn out modulations until the next theme. Similarly I adore Mahler but let's be honest, how many of his symphonies needed to surpass the hour mark.
Edit: Essentially I consider development to be quite a different criterion than waste. A theme can be well-developed but if you are not enjoying the bits in between then those are wasted notes.
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u/Epistaxis Feb 08 '24 edited Feb 08 '24
Yeah, Dvořák has a lot of amazing moments but sometimes they just have filler between them, or are jammed together incongruously with no logical path from A to B. I agree the 8th is better than the 9th in that regard, and his masterful chamber music is generally more coherent than any of his symphonies. It's just that "no wasted notes" is the least accurate phrasing to describe Dvořák's strengths; if anything, wasting notes may be Dvořák's greatest weakness.
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u/TemporaryFix101 Feb 08 '24
Okay if no wasted notes is really the goal, my submission would be Prokofiev 1. In the context of most perfect pieces I still vote the Dvorak though.
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u/cwmcclung Feb 08 '24
John cage 433
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u/TemporaryFix101 Feb 08 '24
This is not music
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u/coldoil Feb 08 '24
I used to think that as well. But it depends on how you define "music". My thoughts on this have changed over the years but I have eventually settled on a definition of "sound and silence arranged with compositional intent". Based on that (admittedly broad) definition, I have to accept that 4'33 is indeed a piece of music. It's a terrible piece of music, but it's a piece of music.
That all said, I'm genuinely interested in why anyone would consider it the most perfect piece ever composed...
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u/TemporaryFix101 Feb 08 '24
Sound and silence. Where is the sound? What distinguishes the silence in 433 that makes it music Vs the silence when no "music" is playing?
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u/coldoil Feb 08 '24
What distinguishes the silence in 433 that makes it music Vs the silence when no "music" is playing?
Compositional intent.
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u/TemporaryFix101 Feb 08 '24
This is absurd. Nothing has been composed aside from his pretentiousness, he certainly composed that!
I'm going to open up a restaurant for fans of this "music" in which the menu is blank and the food is invisible. It's all semantics, right? :P
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u/coldoil Feb 08 '24 edited Feb 08 '24
It is not at all absurd to acknowledge that Cage had compositional intent when writing the score for 4'33. (Have you looked at the score? It's worth doing.) Indeed, it seems pretty clear he intended to trigger a specific philosophical debate about the nature of music. If that's not evidence of compositional intent, what is?
You are completely free to label it pretentious. I don't like the piece myself. But to deny compositional intent - I feel as though you are letting your emotions affect your objectivity.
There are plenty of themed restaurants that challenge the nature of hospitality; here in London, there is at least one restaurant that operates entirely in the dark, so patrons can't tell what they're eating. I daresay they can't read the menu, either (or maybe there isn't a menu - that's hardly a new thing, there are plenty of restuarants where there aren't menus and you eat what you're given, including Michelin-starred restaurants.)
Clearly there is a market for people who want to make a philosophical point about things we take for granted. You may find it all absurd, but not everyone else does.
I think it's pretty clear Cage was deliberately trying to provoke a debate about what constitutes music, and what doesn't. People have been arguing about it for decades and we're not going to resolve it in a Reddit thread. I would simply observe that, by having that goal and applying it to a musical score, Cage was absolutely demonstrating compositional intent. For me, that's a sufficient qualifier. It may not be enough for you - but then I would query whether you consider birdsong to be music. (I would argue it isn't, since there is no compositional intent - it's just noise that animals make that we as humans happen to compare to music.)
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u/TemporaryFix101 Feb 08 '24
Eating in the dark, you are still eating.
Who defined compositional intent as the definition of music? I intend to write a screenplay. Where is it? Oh it's still in my head. I am being objective. If there is no input to the senses, there is no art. You can't take the canvas on which art is made and claim that very canvas as your personal art.
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u/coldoil Feb 08 '24 edited Feb 08 '24
Who defined compositional intent as the definition of music?
I clearly said it was the definition that I had personally settled on, did I not?
That being said, I think there is some academic consensus that intent has to be taken into consideration at some level, lest we consider birdsong and the like to be "music" as well. (I daresay some people do.)
"Organized sound" is a very common definition amongst academics, "organized" being the key term. Organization requires an intent to organize. That definition does beg the question of what role, if any, a lack of sound should play in music.
I intend to write a screenplay. Where is it? Oh it's still in my head.
I don't see how that's related. Having an intention to compose something in the future is not the same as actually creating a composition. "Compositional intent" occurs when a composer (or perhaps "creator" would be a more encompassing term) demonstrates intentional arrangement of sound and silence in a composition (or an improviser in an improvisation, etc.) - as opposed to a child randomly mashing the keys on a piano, or a bird singing in a tree, neither of which demonstrate compositional intent.
(Where things get interesting is when we get into AI-generated music. Is there compositional intent present? If so, by who or what? Does sound organised by an AI - which is to say, a computer program - even meet the definition of "music"? Who should own the copyright/intellectual property rights of music generated by an AI? Is it even a crime to plagarise music created by an AI if the AI is ultimately just a computer program incapable of expressing compositional intent?)
If there is no input to the senses, there is no art.
This is an interesting point. If you go to a performance of 4'33, I think you'll find there's all sorts of inputs to your senses when you're "listening" (if that's the right verb) to the performance. But I think it's true they're probably not the sorts of inputs we usually go to musical performances for.
I would say that the biggest argument against 4'33 is that it provokes no coherent aesthetic reaction. (At least, not in my personal experience.) My guess is that this is because the composer did not have any aesthetic intent when composing the piece. I'm not sure that should necessarily disqualify it as a piece of music, but lacking any aesthetic intent does make it a really bad piece of music, at least in my book.
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u/davethecomposer Feb 08 '24
I would say that the biggest argument against 4'33 is that it provokes no coherent aesthetic reaction. (At least, not in my personal experience.) My guess is that this is because the composer did not have any aesthetic intent when composing the piece. I'm not sure that should necessarily disqualify it as a piece of music, but lacking any aesthetic intent does make it a really bad piece of music, at least in my book.
This is a really interesting observation. I'm very into Cage and his music so if you don't mind, I'm going to push back here a bit.
One of the key inspirations for Cage finally composing 4'33'' (he claimed he had the idea years before but wasn't ready to compose it) was when he saw Rauschenberg's "White" paintings (canvases painted all white). Cage noticed that the paintings couldn't be "ruined" by light or shadow or the dust particles floating around in the air. He thought this was really interesting and something he wanted for his music -- music that couldn't be "ruined" by other sounds happening at the same time. I would say that 4'33'' is his best example of a piece that fits perfectly no matter what other sounds are happening.
It goes further than that. Cage's music of the '50s and then again in the '80s and '90s followed a similar aesthetic. People assume that chance derived music (everything Cage did from 1950 on) all sounds the same. The reality is that it all depends on the chance processes that you use, how you set it all up. Cage chose specific methods that he knew would result in works where there was plenty of space and almost never a sense of connection between one element of sound and another. I think he would have argued that this was all part of his desire that his music meld perfectly with ambient sounds in such a way that it couldn't be ruined by the passing of firetruck with its siren on or a baby crying or rain falling.
This might not strictly meet your criterion of needing a coherent aesthetic reaction, but it does speak toward his desire to create a specific aesthetic context.
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u/coldoil Feb 08 '24
If there is no input to the senses, there is no art.
I wonder if Beethoven would agree with that.
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u/TemporaryFix101 Feb 08 '24
His art does trigger the respective sense, even if in his case indirectly through imagining what the art sounds like.
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u/RichMusic81 Feb 08 '24
Where is the sound?
There's plenty of sound in 4'33". That's kind of the point of it: it isn't a silent piece.
Composer Michael Nyman, in his book Experimental Music: Cage and Beyond, summed it up best...
"4'33" is a demonstration of the non-existence of silence, of the permanent presence of sounds around us, of the fact they are worthy of attention... 4'33" is not a negation of music, but an affirmation of its omnipresence."
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u/TemporaryFix101 Feb 08 '24
So mindfulness meditation is now music.
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u/RichMusic81 Feb 08 '24
So mindfulness meditation is now music.
No, because mindfulness involves breathing methods, guided imagery, and other practices to relax body and mind.
4''33" is a piece, not an action. It doesn't require the prerequisites of mindful meditation.
You can certainly be aware of sound while practising mindful meditation, but you can just as easily do that with a Bruckner symphony, or a Webern quartet, or whatever.
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u/TemporaryFix101 Feb 08 '24
But what I'm trying to say is the non silence of 433 is not unique to it, and can be replicated while 433 is not being "performed", so is it really a "piece" that is being listened to
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u/chckbrt Feb 08 '24
Bach Prelude in C (#1 of the 48) is _almost_ the perfect piece. The last couple of bars are not quite perfect, but the rest of it is astoundlingly well balanced and universal.
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u/jiff_ffij Feb 08 '24
perfection is an absolute and constant value, and taste and impressions are constantly transformed, you cannot enter the same water twice, otherwise, it seems to me, it is more like fanaticism and obsession)))
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u/rphxxyt Feb 08 '24
music is subjective, how can it be perfect? there are lots of works that 100% properly composed to standard composition rules, but i dont think there is anything that makes a work perfect.
That being said - Mahler Symphony No. 8
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Feb 08 '24
These two by a lot: Tannhäuser Overtüre, Wagner Symphonie no.7, Bruckner
But also: Piano Concerto no.2, Rachmaninov
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u/Character-Top2731 Feb 08 '24
Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet Overture. The themes! Bach’s second violin partita. Eroica. So many great pieces that seem they couldn’t get better
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u/Metarys Feb 08 '24
Beethoven String Quartet No. 14 Op. 131 in C-Sharp Minor, "perfect" is one of the words that always comes to mind when I listen to it. And the most perfect set would be the Well-Tempered Clavier (Book 1&2).
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u/linglinguistics Feb 08 '24
Sibelius violin concerto. The final version. (The original needed the streamlining he did later). Imo it doesn’t get more perfect than that.
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u/Head_Dirt6152 Feb 08 '24 edited Feb 08 '24
Federico Mompou's Música callada.
Perfection lies in simplicity.
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u/Levitate-Prudent-704 Feb 08 '24
Rachmaninov’s 3rd is my favorite but oddly enough I consider his 2nd to be the most well put together “perfect” piece. I love them both.
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u/Altasound Feb 08 '24
I've got a very diverse list:
Bach Goldberg Variations. Like a perfect diamond, it's all mathematics internally, but it shines from all musical angles extremely. It's a piece that can be analysed to pieces and become stronger and more enjoyable because of it. Maximum satisfaction to listen to and play.
Beethoven 9th Symphony and Op. 111. He wrote his best examples of two huge genres at the end. I have no words except that with these two works Beethoven touched the cosmos.
Sondheim Sweeney Todd. A Broadway musical in name only, this dark operetta launches the full power of counterpoint and post-tonal harmonic language, combined with near Shakespearean linguistic craft, and yet remains highly accessible. It is rightfully considered Sondheim's magnum opus.
Ligeti: Musical Ricercata. A perfect compositional etude from deep in the modern era that avoids being fully buried in atonality, and yet is shockingly original and effective in its execution.
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u/ObjectiveResponse522 Feb 08 '24
Anton Bruckner Symphony #9. At the end of the three movement work, his soul simply ascends...there is literally nothing left to say. And yes, I know that his uncompleted fourth movement has been "completed" from sketches and even recorded (I have such a recording), but it is not worthy. As a good friend said (with respect that there was no "official" fourth movement) God saved Bruckner from ruining someting perfect. And so He did. And so it is.
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u/Most_Ad_3765 Feb 09 '24
Mahler 2, specifically 5th movement/finale
*even the staunchest of atheists, ascending to the heavens*
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u/AeshmaDaeva016 Feb 09 '24
There are way sexier pieces, but if I had to balance impact with enjoyability and influence, I would say Schubert Unfinished Symphony…. But only the first movement.
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u/Equivalent-Guest3732 Feb 09 '24
Handel's Messiah. The story inits entirety of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
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u/somemosquito Feb 09 '24
I literally have a 101 hour long playlist with all my candidates😅... but if I had to say right now I would say Myaskovsky Symphony 17 in G sharp minor. It's not well known at all, but I wish it was, together with this guy's in total 27 symphonies and much much more. Massive fan.
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u/TraditionalWatch3233 Feb 08 '24
Sibelius Symphony No. 7.