My Twenty Favorite Pieces of Music

Brandenburg Concertos No. 2 and 3 in G Major, BMV 1047-1048, by J.S. Bach. Selected to be broadcast into space on the Voyager spacecraft traveling through the galaxy, this seems to me a perfect example of the genius of the human spirit to be presented to other worlds. The concerto no. 3 has been a favorite of mine since early childhood, and I like the Raymond Leppard's version with its distinct thoroughly developed middle movement.

Piano Concerto No. 20 in D Minor, KV 466, by W.A. Mozart. A dark and swirling roller coaster ride that seems no less fresh after repeated listenings. I like Alfred Brendel's cadenza in the middle of the first movement on his recording with The St. Martin-in-the-Fields recording in the "Play by Play" version produced by PolyGram Records. Unlike many of my friends, I am ignorant (self-taught) in music, but I would try to express in my writing (if possible!) what my soul feels when listening to Mozart.

Well-Tempered Clavier, Books I and II by J.S. Bach - When talking about classical music, it all really begins with the work of Johann Sebastian Bach. In my opinion, these series of preludes and fugues in each of the major and minor chords are as close to perfection as you will find in music. I enjoy the strict literal playing of Keith Jarrett or Rosalyn Tureck as well as the intellectual meanderings of Edward Aldwell. However, one does not truly appreciate Bach on the keyboard unless one hears it done by the master Glenn Gould.

Requiem, KV 626, by W.A. Mozart. In listening to this funeral music one feels as if they too were facing the hooded specter of death in the final moments of life. Towering and majestic, the intensity and profundity of Mozart's "Requiem" is perhaps matched only by the darker moments of Bach's "Mass in B Minor" in the classical repertoire. As much now as during the first exposure, in listening to the "Requiem" I feel as if I were looking my own mortality in the face. How can the same man who wrote Eine Kleine Nachtmusik have written this lamentation?

Concerto for Piano and Orchestra in A Minor, Op. 54, by Robert Schumann. This concerto has always reminded me of the musical optimism and prolific creativity which was Vienna in the middle of the Romantic nineteenth century. Written just before his final mental breakdown, I have always marveled at the irony of this carefree and happy instance of music.

Piano Concerto No. 3 C Minor, Op. 37 by Ludwig van Beethoven. The music storms and thunders for over two minutes before the piano even sounds, and then the tempo only increases -- the restless, aggressive spirit of Beethoven flashing across the score as piano and orchestra argue back and forth vigorously. The music attacks and then retreats, a darkly anxious dialogue between two voices alternately probing and relenting. Beethoven's brooding spiritual distress and considerable concentration of emotion are well on display here, the Classical forms giving way to Romantic will. Check out John Eliot Gardiner and his Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique's edgy interpretation with pianist Robert Levin playing Beethoven as it should be done: like an "angry dog with a bone."

Variations Serieuses, Op. 54, by Felix Mendelssohn. I heard this one morning on a classical radio station and bought the CD later that afternoon. It is, in my opinion, as fully developed and brilliant as any of the Beethoven piano sonatas. Check out the dazzle of Murray Perahia in his version recorded for the CBS Records Masterworks Series.

Piano Concerto No. 2 in C Minor, Op. 18, by Sergei Rachmaninoff. It may be a little sugary sweet, but the romantic in me has always had a sweet spot for this emotionally drenched piece of Slavic lyricism. Only