Students sometimes ask me for a recommended listening list for general music literacy (this is part of Craft). So from the perspective of an orchestra girl, here are my recommendations. I recognize this list is slanted toward orchestral composers, so inevitably there are gaps – but this is after all a subjective exercise! When the mood strikes I may offer more lists focusing on more specific niches like early and 20th/21st c. music.
A large listening project like this can be approached in no particular order, though it is arranged basically chronologically. Find good recordings – or better, go to live performances whenever you can. And take your time – like reading great literature, it’s best to give major musical works time to assimilate. Breaks in the academic year are a great time to take on a subset of such a list, like listening to (for example) all the Sibelius Symphonies, or the complete WTC of Bach.
Please make your suggestions in the comments – what have I missed? Also, I found that after a point adding more to the list had the effect of diluting “the essentials” – hence the “Next” list.
ESSENTIALS
Monteverdi – Orfeo
Bach – Well Tempered Clavier, Art of Fugue, B Minor Mass, St. Matthew Passion, Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin
Haydn – Symphony No. 104
Mozart – Symphonies 38-41, Requiem, Marriage of Figaro
Beethoven – Symphonies 1-9, Missa Solemnis, String Quartet Op. 132, Grosse Fuge
Berlioz – Symphonie fantastique
Schubert – Symphonies 8 & 9, Winterreise
Schumann – Dichterliebe, Symphonies 3 & 4
Brahms – Symphonies 1-4, Piano Concerti, Violin Concerto, Violin Sonatas 1-3, Piano Intermezzos Op. 117 & 118
Mendelssohn Symphonies 3-4, Incidental Music from Midsummer Night’s Dream
Dvorák – Cello Concerto, Symphonies 8 & 9
Wagner – Tristan und Isolde Prelude und Liebestod, (orchestral highlights from) the Ring cycle
Mussorgsky – Pictures at an Exhibition, Boris Godunov
Tchaikovsky – Symphonies 4-6, Francesca da Rimini, Letter Aria from Eugene Onegin
Bruckner – Symphonies 4, 7, & 9
Mahler – Symphonies 1-10 (start with 1, 4, 2, 3, 5, 6, 9), Das Lied von der Erde
Strauss – Alpine Symphony, Four Last Songs
Debussy – Prèlude á l’après-midi d’un faun, La Mer
Sibelius – Symphonies 1-7 (esp. 2, 5, 7)
Bartok – Concerto for Orchestra, Music for Strings Percussion & Celeste
Stravinsky – Firebird, Petrushka, Rite of Spring, Pulcinella, Dumbarton Oaks, L’Histoire du Soldat
Schoenberg – Verklärte Nacht, Kammersymphonie Op. 9, Five Orchestral Pieces Op. 16
Berg – Violin Concerto
Webern – Symphony Op. 21
Varèse – Octandre
Ives – The Unanswered Question
Copland – Appalachian Spring, Symphony No. 3
Hindemith – Mathis der Maler
Prokofiev – Symphonies 1 & 5
Shostakovich – Symphonies 5 & 10, String Quartet No. 8
Britten – War Requiem, Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes
Messaien – Quartet for the End of Time, etc.
Berio – Sinfonia
NEXT
Purcell – Dido & Aeneas
Saint-Saëns – Symphony No. 3 “Organ”
Faure – songs, Requiem
Rimsky-Korsakov – Scheherazade
Verdi – Requiem
Holst – The Planets
Elgar – Enigma Variations
Vaughan Williams – Symphony No. 2 “London,” Lark Ascending
Rachmaninoff – Symphony No. 2, Piano Concerto No. 2
Ravel – Daphnis & Chloe, La Valse
Janacek – Sinfonietta
Barber – Knoxville: Summer of 1915, Violin Concerto
Riley – In C
Glass – Music in Fifths, etc.
Reich – It’s Gonna Rain, Come Out, The Desert Music
Pärt – Fratres, Tabula Rasa
Gorecki – Symphony No. 3
Adams – Fearful Symmetries, Lontano
Seeing a dearth of opera on your list, I’d have to add Bizet’s Carmen as an essential, as well as Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (complete), which is itself a fascinating exploration of the creation of (musical) art and the role of the artist. Finally, Verdi’s Otello.