By an acknowledged great composer(no avant-garde, please), the most complex, complicated piece ever composed?

Question

By an acknowledged great composer(no avant-garde, please), the most complex, complicated piece ever composed?

Answer 1

There must be a few contenders from across the ages such as:



Ives - Symphony No 4 (2nd and 4th movements)

Ligeti - Atmosphères

Matteo de Perugia - Le greygnour bien (composed around 1400 and still one of the most rhythmically and polyphonically complex pieces ever written)

Mozart - Symphony No 41 in C K551 ('Jupiter') - last movement

Shostakovich - Symphony No 2 (opening)

Stravinsky - The Rite of Spring (several sections might contest this 'honour')

Tallis - 40-part motet 'Spem in alium'



I have included Ligeti as I would contest he is an 'acknlowledged great composer'. It's shame to discount a whole period of music because of one's personal taste.



I will add any more I think of later.



Edit

Another one has come to me while I've been working.



Ruggles - Sun Treader (amazing complex counterpoint)

Answer 2

well i think...

Beethoven - String Quartet No. 14 and The Grosse Fugue, and you cannot let down the infamous 9th Symphony

Stravinsky - The Rite Of Spring it was his mos inovative work, but i think The Firebird deserves to be his greatest work.

Brahms - 2nd Piano Concerto and his 4th Symphony

Wagner - the monumental The Ring of the Nibelungs, but for a single opera Tristan Und Isolde

Mahler - i think his 9th symphony is his greatest, but some people argue that the 2nd one was his best

Richard Strauss - An Alpine Symphony i think this symphony makes mozart look like if he was a baby

J.S. Bach - well, what can i say about him, i think he deserves the greatest composer ever award, his best work, humm, could be the Mass in Bm?, or St Matthew passion? the violin Partita No. 2 (specially the Ciaccone), the Brandenburg Concertos?, i will go for St. Matthew Passion

Sibelius - Violin Concerto in D minor one of the greatest of all time

Tchaikovsky - Violin Concerto in D Major or his Symphony No. 6, even though i dislike enormously Tchaikovksy

Bruckner - Symphony No. 7

i think these are the most complex and complicated music pieces ever composed

Answer 3

Elliott Carter:



Double Concerto for piano, harpsichord and 2 chamber orchestras (1961).

Answer 4

Interesting question! Complexity may be hard to define, but I kind of know it when I hear/see it. Some of Brahm's later chamber music is said to be very complex, so complex its hard to bring the talent together to play some of these pieces properly, or so I've heard.



Certainly, much of Bach's music is complicated, especially his fugues. Complexity and "depth" often go together, but music can still be deep without being overly complicated.



Max Reger may not have been considered great, and maybe he was "avant garde" or too obscure, but he wrote some very complex music that combined Wagnerian chromaticism with Bachian counterpoint. He is mostly forgotten today. Maybe Reger's "Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Hiller" or his "Mozart Variations" or some other pieces of his may be among the most complex music ever written.



Max Reger used to say: "Other people write fugues - I live inside them". Some of Reger's fans claim he is extremely underrated and should be more appreciated for his unique music.

Answer 5

Stupid Time Zones!



I always answer these after everyone else... and I am afraid that my first and second choices have already been said.



So I nominate Bach's Fantasia on a Rondo in C minor.

http://www.pianostreet.com/piano_sheet_music/Bach-1554/Fantasia-Rondo-BWV-918.html



I may find a youtube link later... but at the moment I am having no luck.

Answer 6

Well Sorabji sprung immediately to mind, but I'm guessing that's a nono.



SO, I'd have to go with J.S. Bach's The Musical Offering, written on a theme by King Frederick II. There is simply so much to find in it (no doubt put there on purpose - Bach inscribed it with " Regis Iussu Cantio Et Reliqua Canonica Arte Resoluta", with an acronym spelling 'ricercar', meaning in Italian 'to search', as well as being another name for a fugue). It includes a six-part fugue (!) and four-part canon, along with the 'riddle fugues' (which, although aren't necessarily complex, are a very neat idea!).

Answer 7

Mahler's 8th Symphony?

Answer 8

Ok I know he may not be on your "great master" list, but I think Ockeghem's Missa prolationum (Prolation Mass) has to be included here. Here are the qualities of this "Backward mass":



*Notated in 2 voices but sung in four

*Uses all 4 prolation signs, a diff't one in each voice (Soprano and alto sing the same music but use diff't meters -- same with tenor/bass)

*It's a mensuration canon and a double canon in which voices may be delayed, inverted, or sung in retrograde (backwards)



ETA: I think Berlioz's Requiem makes this list as well

Answer 9

Mozart

A prime example of music theory.

A master of cadences, even if not ending a phrase on I always knows how to bring home with a vi or vii diminished. I'm not a big fan of ending on the tonic myself ha ha.

He also minds his accidentals with flawless execution, and if he doesn't they are very well placed.

Besides, Mozart's music is believed to stimulate neurons in the cortex of the brain, with spatial-temporal firing patterns.



Also give credit to other complex musicians: Schubert, Mendelssohn, and yes....Bach

Answer 10

I'm going to nominate the madrigals of Italian Renaissance composer Carlo Gesualdo (1566 - 1613.) These works utilised an intense, complex, rather shocking chromatic harmony which wasn't seen again until the 19th century.



Perhaps more famous for the murders of his wife and her lover, Gesualdo's bizarre but compelling style could well have been the result of a tortured, guilt-ridden soul...



http://video.google.com.au/videosearch?hl=en&q=gesualdo%20madrigal&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wv#



Hafwen xox

Answer 11

Bach's Toccata and Fugue. Contrapuntal genius.



I would throw in Berlioz's SF for the Romanticists.



Verdi's Aida.