It struck me that while there are many seemingly comprehensive lists of titles for the canon of Great Books in the western tradition, I have yet to see a satisfactory one for music. There are plenty of listicles (and albums) of supposed greatest works, but the criteria used to create such lists are often disappointing to say the least.
For example, this one has only two composers (J S Bach and Vivaldi) before the classical era, and a disproportionate emphasis on twentieth century works–not to mention that both those “old” composers are still post-baroque harmonic revolution. One radio station compiled 400 greatest works of the past 400 years, but we know that the canon of western music extends long beyond this arbitrary cut-off. Their list’s inclusion of Thomas Tallis’s Spem in Alium as well as one work by Hildegard von Bingen gives one hope, until realizing they also include the 90s pseudo-classical hit “Time to Say Goodbye.”
Surely the world can do better than this! And surely we can make a list more reflective of the past 1,000 years of music at least. Both music and the Great Books have traditions long, long before the enlightenment–let the lists reflect that!
What works would you add to canon of western music?
If only we could find transcripts of David’s harp playing.
I wonder if part of the difficulty compiling such a list is because music can really be studied or appreciated alone – performers are always required.