10 Best scores for young/learning composers

[pi 0]

In No Order Whatsoever: IMHO

1. Rachmaninoff Vesper's Mass (Useful 4 Part Writing, Contrary Motion, General + Solo Chorale Writing, Halo Anyone?)

2. Holst: The Planets -bleh, the fiber of your musical diet

3. Ravel: Daphnes et Chloe Part 1

4. Tchaikovsky: The Nutcracker Complete Ballet (Important String Voicings/techniques, Learning how sections work together, "Fawkes the Pheonix", Children's/Animation Writing)

5. Orff: Carmina Baurana - trite and hackneyed, yet still most of modern day trailer music is derived from this piece. Learn the ostinato and learn it well

6. Mancini: Sound and Score: The best book to learn cleverness, great score examples and of course JAZZ voicings, which lend its self to pop, rock etc.. keep it simple and good

7. Barber: Adagio for Strings (Bleh, you will need to write a piece like this at some point)

8. Walton: Symphony 2 (or 1) Hard to get scores of him, steal it from your library or order it from Petelson's in New York

9. Penderecki Trenody: Learning this stuff helps immensely, free your mind from V-I

10. Stravinsky: Firebird - learning the embellishment stuff, and bitonality

OK those are my thoughts

[Maglorfin 196]

Nice examples, pi. Some more I'd add:

- Rimski-Korsakov - Scheherazade

- Vaughan Williams - Symphony No. 7 'Sinfonia Antartica'

- Copland - El Salón México

- Mussorgski - Pictures At an Exhibition (Ravel's orchestration)

- Ravel - Boléro

- de Meij - Symphony No. 1 'The Lord of the Rings' (for symphonic band)

- Van der Roost - Sinfonietta, suito-sketches for symphonic band (obviously also for symphonic band)

- Picqueur - Symphony No. 0 (also for symphonic band)

These spring to mind immediately, however there are sure many more.

[Eric_JWFAN 11]

I'm assuming you mean for young FILM composers and not just composers in general. Otherwise you would absolutely have to have a Haydn and Brahms Sumphony.

I like your list and would add Debussy Nocturnes for Orchestra or La Mer and Elgar's Enigma Variations.

[steb74 53]

Yep, some fine choices there. I'd also add -

Bartok - Music for Strings, Percussion & Celeste

Dvorak - Symphony No. 9

Ives - The Unanswered Question

Mahler - Symphony No. 8

Shostakovich - Symphony No. 10

Stravinsky - The Rite of Spring

Tchaikovsky - Symphony No. 4

Varese - Ionisation

Wagner - Tristan and Isolde

[Maglorfin 196]

Also:

Wagner - The Ring of Nibelungs cycle

Strauss - Thus spake Zarathustra

Strauss - symphonic poems (Alpine Symphony, Till Eulenspiegel, Götterdammerung ...)

[Marian Schedenig 8,174]

Götterdämmerung is an opera by Wagner... I'd substitute it for Tod und Verklärung in your list.

[pi 0]

Yes I meant, for a young film composer.

If you want to learn orchestral music and writing techniques, grab these commercially available materials.

I do not see any opera as being important, soloist vocal music is not used in film music hardly ever (except for solo boy). Unless you guys mean the incidental "scoring" moments in between.

There are many scores that are also great, but if i had to concentrate on ten these are the ones i would pick.

Enigma variations are cool, but are pretty much covered by The Planets, Adagio. The EV's are my favorite classical orchestral work.

[Genius_Gone_Insane 5]

Williams, J. - Battle in the Snow.

[Joe Brausam 214]

Götterdämmerung is an opera by Wagner... I'd substitute it for Tod und Verklärung in your list.

And what an opera it is!

I'd also say Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique or his Requiem(incredible!!). You know, considering that Berlioz is basically the father of modern orchestration.

[Maglorfin 196]

Götterdämmerung is an opera by Wagner... I'd substitute it for Tod und Verklärung in your list.

Yes indeed. My bad.

Of course, every aspiring composer should study as many scores as possible by two of the greatest orchestrators ever - Nikolai Rimski-Korsakov and Maurice Ravel.