10 Essential Battle Pieces for Beginners
Biber: Battalia à 10
Haydn: Symphony No. 100 “Military Symphony”
Wranitzky: Grand Characteristic Symphony for the Peace with the French Republic
Beethoven: Wellington’s Victory
Berwald: The Battle of Leipzig
Schnyder von Wartensee: Symphony No. 3 “Military Symphony”
Liszt: Hunnenschlacht (The Slaughter of the Huns)
Strauss: Ein Heldenleben (“A Hero’s Life”)
Shostakovich: Symphony No. 7 “Leningrad”
Nielsen: Symphony No. 4 “Inextinguishable”
source
Fabulous and thank you for what you do!
The Biber Battalia a 10, from 1673, was the first ever use of polytonality, I believe, a technique usually associated with the 20th century.
I have heard the Nielsen 5th symphony occasionally referred to as the "Psychological Fight".
I swear, for every of this "10 essential" video i can put Haydn.
Such a underrated composer, and thx to you videos i Discover him again
An excellent roster to happily move us into the new year—great work, Dave! And I'm so glad to see Liszt included—when I saw the title that was one of the pieces that immediately stood up to be saluted in my mind.
The battle in the first movement of the Shostakovich 7th at first perplexed me when I heard it initially, in the mid 1970s. I thought the simplistic variations rather crude, coming from a composer who demonstrated his subtlety and complexity in other works I'd already heard. He already in that very movement had mutated the strident, perky opening theme into a second subject that is beautiful in its regretful yearning. That fragility of positivity is so well captured as the exposition closes. But, since this is clearly intentional and this must have a symbolic aspect, it then struck me as perhaps being his actual, encoded response to the "just criticism" wherein his musical overlords demanded he write things simplistic enough that Stalin could easily recall. The insistent drum rhythm, intruding as it does at first during the dying strains of the lonely violin solo, is that ongoing threat that if he didn't comply with the prevailing and seriously enforced cultural agenda, he could be "disappeared."
So Shostakovich begins the development with that simple and trite tune, easily whistled, even, and subjects it at first to quite pedestrian and clunky variations. Almost as if he is saying, as much to himself as his overseers, "that I can do!" But, as the music goes along, since he is indeed a brilliant composer, he just can't help himself, and eventually keeps upping the complexity until the actually thematic battle against such an absurd and stifling mandate erupts. After the conflict subsides into a shattered wasteland, that regretful tune returns—making it even clearer in this recapitulation how it is connected to the opening theme—as a sort of consoling balm. But, that damned threat in the snare drum and that annoying little tune now in the muted, distant trumpet, just keeps making itself known. It has not been vanquished, even though it appears in a less potent guise, to finally conclude the movement with its menacing whispered threat as the last word.
On reading your title another piece also immediately sprang to mind, but, as you asked for no additions to the list, I'll simply say that there's a cantata wrought from a certain film score penned by one of Shostakovich's Soviet fellows which might also be a great one for beginners to this genre—could bring the list to a dozen, since the Tchaikovsky brought it up to eleven? I once sang in the chorus for a performance done by the Brooklyn Philharmonic under Lukas Foss, and it was an electric experience.
Here's to a joyous year as we all keep on listening to great music, and celebrate Dave's indefatigable productivity!
Thank you for another essential list Dave. Would you ever consider doing a list on pieces inspired by mechanisation or urbanisation? I was thinking of Yhe Iron Foundry or very differently Coates London Suite. Romanticism has an idolisation of nature sonit would interesting to see what you make of music inspired by industry, mechanisation and the growth of city life. Thanks!
Though at times listless, I always list after a list that mentions Liszt.
OK so these are for the beginners. Now I am excited to get to know what the pieces for "professionals" are.
Like the Duchess of Plaza-Toro, I'm by no means a beginner, but four of these ten are new to me. Thanks!
I have an album in my collection that features the 1812, Wellington, and Liszt's Battle of the Huns, (along with Capriccio Italien) appropriately named Symphonic Battle Scenes with Maazel and the Bavarian Radio Symphony. It's a good collection, though I prefer the Wellington's Victory with Dorati, because that one uses real weapons as opposed to imitations. And thanks for including the 1812 as an "honorable mention" as it really is my favorite piece out there.
I would like to know, what divices do you use for listen all you CD library?, can you talk about that in one of your videos? Greetings from Mexico
Do you plan to take up on the "The 10 best of …" series again in the due course of time, that is (i e. when further progressed in unpacking the cardboard boxes filled with …uhm…stuff)?
Very, very nerdy question Uncle Dave: is your Master’s thesis on Orientalism in music on the wilds of the internet for us to peruse?
Well, you purposefully avoided the obvious….1812. Bravo. You brought in some more obscure works, and all the better for it.