The Greatest Compositions

You think the rock list was hard? HA! That's nothing. How do you compare works from the Romantic Period to works from the Classical Period? Any wise man would say, you don't. Thankfully I'm making the rules... so when in doubt... I'll just list both! HA!

Again, in no particular order:

Dvorak - Symphony #9 "The New World": The greatest of all time.

Arron Copeland - Third Symphony "Appalachian Spring": America's greatest composer.

Dmitri Shostakovich - The Tenth Symphony: Musical violence on a grand scale.

Igor Stravinsky - Rite of Spring: At its debut, it caused a riot. Enough said.

Beethoven - Symphony number 9 "Ode to Joy": Duh.

Brahms - Requiem: Written for his mother's passing. Unbelievable language and score.

Bach - Little Fugue in G minor: One could list the all-fathers entire catalog, but instead I thought I'd just pick my favorite.

Modest Mussorgsky - Pictures at an Exhibition: I would've loved to put Night on Bald Mountain here... but come on.... The Great Gate puts this over the top.

Tchaikovsky - 1812 Overture: You know it. Even if you don't know you know it.

Richard Wagner - The Ring: Big Balls. Big Big Balls.

Holst - The Planets: Makes the list for Mars alone.

Camille Saint-Sean - Danse Macabre: The musical story of Death dancing in a cemetary. Modern music starts here. Listen for the rooster calling the dawn at the end... and the twelve strokes of midnight at the begining.

Berlioz - Symphonie Fantastique: Un-fricken-believable.

Again.. I could go on for days.. but if you can't immediately hum any of these... then you need to do some serious searching. This is the greatest music ever written. If you can't appreciate it, then something is wrong. Nothing but good can come of learning from these 13.

UPDATE: Special Thanks to the Jones for his help. He and I would basically construct identical lists so I spoke to him to make sure I didn't make any obvious ommisions.

UPDATE II: Some of you may be looking for something new here. If you like masculine music... I strongly recommend The Novosibirsk Chimes by Dmitri Shostakovich. It's also known as The Fire of Eternal Glory, an apt and descriptive name if ever there was one.