What Do You Think Is The Greatest Piece of Music of All Time?

[LostInTheMist]

You can go as far back or as contemporary as you like. I really am not sure where I reside on this. I love Beethoven's symphonies, I love the 1812 overture.... There are no modern songs that I revere so much, but there is always the Imperial March or the Superman Theme....

What's your favorite piece of music of all time, bar none?

[gaggedLouise]

The greatest piece of music ever written is We Are Motörhead by Lemmy Kilminster...  :D Nah. I bet many of us could come up with a hundred different answers here, pieces of music, songs or works (symphones, masses, song cycles, operas) which we admire, enjoy digging into and that affect us deeply, again and again. There's no way I could select one single "item" and anyway music is a language, or a set of languages, making different composers, bands, pieces, musicians and artists become involved in a kind of murmur of steady interaction: the way you would respond to Bach or Mozart, Louis Armstrong or Led Zeppelin when you hear them isn't locked in isolation from the rest of the world of music and its exploration of sound, textures and melody.

Just noting a couple of pieces, works or record albums that are sitting high on my personal list (and including albums because it would make no sense to just pick one single track from them). In no particular order, and naturally with lots of "omissions":

Franz Schubert: Symhony no. 8, in B minor (Unfinished) (brooding, gothic, the music of mystery)
Georges Bizet: Carmen (really should be watched of course, but the opera of operas)
Ludwig van Beethoven: Sonata no.32 in C minor for piano (amazing work, the second movement seems to prefigure jazz piano styles. Have several recordings of it by different pianists, a rare thing with me)
Miles Davis: Live-Evil (live/studio album, 1971, with a star-studded and very tight band)
J.S. Bach: Christmas Oratorio (some of the choruses were borrowed and rescored/adapted from earlier works by Bach, but they all seem to belong in their new place: this one really exudes joy)
J.S. Bach: St.Matthew Passion (a seminal masterpiece and powerfully human/divine. Covered the two key points of the church year there...)
Marianne Faithfull: Broken English (1979 album; dark, brooding, brave and brilliant)
Curtis Mayfield: Superfly (1972, perhaps the greatest soundtrack album ever, underused in the film)
Marvin Gaye: What's Going on? (1971 album, the soundtrack of its own film, sort of. As powerful and relevant now as when it was made)
Genesis: Wind and Wuthering (1977 album, romantic and relentlessly melodic, wonderful keyboard and guitar sound palette and the album where Phil Collins really came into his own as a singer)
Amy Winehouse: Frank (2003 debut album, an amazingly assured debut; her early death remains a big loss)
Jimi Hendrix Experience: Are You Experienced? (1967, same comment here, just change the pronoun)
Deep Purple: Made in Japan (1972 album, one of the greatest hard rock live record sets ever)
The Beatles: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967; ought to have felt like it's buried under decades of acclaim and outrun by some later bands by now, but it remains an awesome record, and a very personal one for many of us)
Santana: Moonflower (1977 live/studio album; at the peak of their powers)
Igor Stravinsky: The Firebird (a rivetingly romantic ballet)

[Inkidu]

It's a hard question, but if I had to, with a gun to my head, give an answer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ea90L91eZk

[Nico]

Franz Schubert: Symhony no. 8, in B minor (Unfinished) (brooding, gothic, the music of mystery)
Ludwig van Beethoven: Sonata no.32 in C minor for piano (amazing work, the second movement seems to prefigure jazz piano styles. Have several recordings of it by different pianists, a rare thing with me)
Miles Davis: Live-Evil (live/studio album, 1971, with a star-studded and very tight band)
J.S. Bach: Christmas Oratorio (some of the choruses were borrowed and rescored/adapted from earlier works by Bach, but they all seem to belong in their new place: this one really exudes joy)
J.S. Bach: St.Matthew Passion (a seminal masterpiece and powerfully human/divine. Covered the two key points of the church year there...)
Genesis: Wind and Wuthering (1977 album, romantic and relentlessly melodic, wonderful keyboard and guitar sound palette and the album where Phil Collins really came into his own as a singer)
Deep Purple: Made in Japan (1972 album, one of the greatest hard rock live record sets ever)
The Beatles: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967; ought to have felt like it's buried under decades of acclaim and outrun by some later bands by now, but it remains an awesome record, and a very personal one for many of us)
Igor Stravinsky: The Firebird (a rivetingly romantic ballet)

Those would be on my list as well.

And those:

Carf Orff: Carmina Burana (1937)
Ludwig van Beethoven - Opus 125: Symphony No. 9 in D minor ("Choral") (composed 1817–24)
Richard Wagner - Götterdämmerung (Twilight of the Gods), Parsival (1882)
and pretty much everything from Vivaldi, especially his "The Four Seasons".

[gaggedLouise]

*smiles* I'd agree on all of those Nich, and indeed I own a complete set of Götterdämmerung, a stately 6-LP box (Berlin Philharmonic/Karajan, early 1970s, with Swedish tenor Helge Brilioth as Siegfried). Bought it second-hand almost unused in my teens and have seen a good deal of Wagner on tv, dvd and in live transmissions from the Met. We need to go to Bayreuth together, right?  :-*

[Nico]

We need to go to Bayreuth together, right?  :-*

This! ;D

[Ethoxyethane]

-Symphony No 6 - by Tchaikovsky
-Symphony No 9 - by Ludwig Van Beethoven

These are good too:
-Clair De Lune - by Debussy
-Canonn - by Pachelbel
-I Dreamed a Dream-  Les Misérables [Film]
-Requiem For A Dream - Lux Aeterna

Bach, Chopin, Vivaldi, Mozart, etc, etc.

[theliam]

There's so many to pick from but I can't help but choose 'Barcelona' with Freddie Mercury and Montserrat Caballé.

[Caehlim]

This is one of those questions where my answer would be different every day, depending on my mood and what springs to mind. There's just so much great music out there that it's nearly impossible to pick a single one.

But, for the sake of picking an answer, how about Edith Piaf: Non, je ne regrette rien.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFtGfyruroU

[Chris Brady]

Pachabel's Canon in D.  Every major pop song in the last 40 years uses the same chords!

[jouzinka]

Bedřich Smetana - Má Vlast (My Country), because, well, it's about my country!

There definitely is something about Vltava (Moldau) that resonates deep within me.

Adagio!

In about each and every one of its incarnations

Classical
Marilena Solomou
Lara Fabian

This is the sexiest song ever written. Correction - this is sex music-fied. Even if you ignore the lyrics and just listen to the guitar, how it's teased, let go, made to cry, sing with joy and then again mercilessly teased, soaring high and falling low... especially during the solo at the end.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O93jd0_UQXg

Kamelot - March of Mephisto
It blends together seamlessly and geniously classical orchestra and heavy metal. It may not be the first nor the last, but this song is a masterpiece.

[Ethoxyethane]

Pachabel's Canon in D.  Every major pop song in the last 40 years uses the same chords!

The song Graduation (Friends Forever) by Vitamin C = Canon by Pachelbel.

[Caehlim]

Pachabel's Canon in D.  Every major pop song in the last 40 years uses the same chords!

The song Graduation (Friends Forever) by Vitamin C = Canon by Pachelbel.

This guy (Rob Parovingian) demonstrates that really well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdxkVQy7QLM

[Ethoxyethane]

This guy (Rob Parovingian) demonstrates that really well.

Video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdxkVQy7QLM

-LAUGHS SO HARD MY BUTT ACTUALLY FALLS OFF-

T'anks for sharing :D

[Caehlim]

-LAUGHS SO HARD MY BUTT ACTUALLY FALLS OFF-

T'anks for sharing :D

:D You're welcome. He's a hilarious musical comedian.

[gaggedLouise]

Live counterpoint, on the spot:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upFQcITxX9A

[Chris Brady]

This guy (Rob Parovingian) demonstrates that really well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdxkVQy7QLM

Here's another example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pidokakU4I