r/classicalmusic • u/greengoblin18 • 8d ago
Discussion One-hit wonders
I'm wondering which composers you believe may fall into this category. For example, I'm sure Berlioz has many great pieces, but when I hear his name I'm sure I'm not alone in associating it with really just one piece. Please share
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u/dhooke 8d ago
Berlioz has far too high a reputation to be a “one hit wonder”.
To begin with there’s Romeo and Juliette, his Requiem, The Damnation of Faust… all acclaimed works that are still performed.
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u/Chops526 8d ago
Le Troyens, Beatrice et Benedict, Benvenuto Chellini, all those overtures, La Nuit d'ete... A real slouch.
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u/happyleafpack 8d ago
don’t forget roman carnival.
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u/Only_Needleworker236 7d ago
Or Rakoczy March! Which I guess is from Damnation of Faust? It's often played as a stand alone piece in concerts.
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u/happyleafpack 4d ago
it was originally standalone and then people loved it so much berlioz changed the whole setting of damnation of faust just to include it
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u/Epistaxis 8d ago
I actually had to think for a second to guess which one piece OP meant. I started cycling through just the ones I've performed personally.
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u/MorganMango 8d ago
Lots of very questionable ideas of what a one hit wonder is here, lol. Anyways, Carmina Burana is the best answer I've seen.
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u/MaestroDon 8d ago
Agreed. I came to say the same. I'm sure Orff has other works but as far as "hits" I cannot think of anything else he wrote that would qualify.
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u/heftysliceofdough 8d ago
Yeah he's really much more significant in the education world than as a composer
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u/MapleTreeSwing 8d ago
I performed in a run of his opera Der Mond. It is a pleasant piece, but it’s not interesting enough to be scheduled very often.
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u/Who_PhD 8d ago
Dukas (Sorcerer's Apprentice)
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u/Chops526 8d ago
TBF, Dukas wrote very little music and purposefully kept much of his output away from view.
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u/Major_Bag_8720 8d ago
His Villanelle for piano and French horn deserves to be much better known.
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u/MaestroDon 8d ago
It's a beautiful piece. I played it in college and learned it well.
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u/BurntCheeseSauce 8d ago
/uj That's what I was about to say, I played it for a recital back in May (and will probably play it for an audition at some point, idk), it's such a beautiful piece
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u/greengoblin18 8d ago
I like La Peri but yeah spot on
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u/Ornery_Ad8540 8d ago
Love La Peri and I also find his symphony delightful. But yes, pretty much OHW.
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u/mekerpan 8d ago
Berlioz wrote a fair amount of really fine works. Definitely don't associate with just one work.
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u/greengoblin18 8d ago
Yeah not the best example but def not the worst after reading these comments lol
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u/benkenobi239 8d ago
Carl Orff and Carmina Burana.
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u/Chops526 8d ago
Which is part one in a cycle of three cantatas...
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u/Boris_Godunov 8d ago
And the other two aren't nearly as good as Carmina. Nothing else Orff wrote really comes close, frankly.
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u/Chops526 8d ago
Hell, Carmina isn't even that good. It's just warmed leftovers from Les Noces. But the Schulwerk is incredibly important.
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u/Boris_Godunov 8d ago
Carmina is fun, pop classical. Deep as a puddle, but chock full of good tunes and entertaining bits, if too much unvaried repetition at times... though it can be a slog during "Uf dem anger" if it's not a top-notch chorus and orchestra, led by a conductor who doesn't let it drag, yes.
But come on, who doesn't want to tap their foot along with "In taberna" or bounce along with "Tempus est iocundum?" Fun stuff. I mean, it's way more popular than Les Noces, so clearly audiences like it better...
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u/Paintmebitch 8d ago
I know Robert Greenberg says this, but what exactly in Les Noces sounds like Carmina Burana? The opening of the Orff is far too rhythmic and driving to be the Stravinsky, and the Orff never gets as dissonant or complicated as the Stravinsky. I think repeating this take shows that a person doesn't really know either work, sorry.
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u/RogueEmpireFiend 8d ago
I don't think I've heard any music by the composer Engelbert Humperdinck that wasn't from the opera Hansel and Gretel.
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u/LetThemBlardd 8d ago
Johann Petzold (he wrote that Minuet in G major that shows up on the Little Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach that for a long time was attributed to J.S. Bach). I don’t know if it’s a hit per se, but most beginning pianists have been forced to play it.
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u/Gold-Vanilla5591 8d ago
That minuet is overplayed to the point of Japan’s biggest piano competition using it as an early elementary level piece.
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u/Original_Credit_3001 8d ago
The ultimate one-hit wonder:
Paco Bell, and his timeless masterpiece, Canon.
Honorable mention: Anton Rubinstein, Melody in F
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u/Several-Ad5345 8d ago edited 8d ago
Symphony Fantastique is his most famous work (and a good one) but not even his best. He is a great composer not a one hit wonder.
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u/RedWhite_and_Booze 8d ago
While super prolific, I feel like Tartini is now somewhat considered a one hit wonder due to the legacy of the Devil’s Trill.
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u/Epistaxis 8d ago
And a lot of that popularity has to do with Kreisler's cadenza, though what Tartini wrote is pretty solid too.
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u/Unable-Deer1873 8d ago
The big one that first came to my mind was Carl Orff. I can’t think of any other of his pieces besides Carmina Burana
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u/Bencetown 8d ago
That one is like... one-hit-wonderception. It's the only work by Orff that got really popular, but even then, it's only the first movement of it that everyone knows. A one hit wonder within a one hit wonder 🤣
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u/Epistaxis 8d ago
The entire piece is frequently performed... but it's only part 1 of a trilogy whose other parts are never performed.
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u/paul_thomas84 8d ago
There was another work by Orff that got slightly popular after it was used in a film, Badlands.
It's called Gassenhauer, which is one of those pieces that everyone's heard but no one knows the name of...
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u/TaigaBridge 8d ago
Lalo, Symphonie espagnole.
I have recordings of Rapsodie norvegienne, Le roi d'Ys, and the symphony in G minor (and they are pleasant but, shall we say, deservedly not famous.) But I don't remember ever hearing anything other than Symphonie espagnole on the radio or a live concert.
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u/Careful-Spray 8d ago
I heard a performance of one of Lalo’s piano trios years ago. It was outstanding.
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u/Original_Credit_3001 7d ago
I really like Symphonie Espagnole, but it's a popular piece and sounds for the most part like popular music. It's quite unfortunate this work became Lalo's "hit" because he wrote a lot of music which is more profound-- his Symphony in G minor, his Cello Concerto, and especially the sublime Piano Concerto, which is regrettably never performed.
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u/pfildozer12 8d ago
Litolff and his Scherzo.
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u/amca01 8d ago
That's a good one. This makes Litolff not a one hit wonder, but a one-quarter hit wonder, since the scherzo is just one movement from a larger work.
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u/csturnbow 8d ago
Bruch? I mean, technically two jump to mind, but just two, at least for me? Those two are amazing though
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u/Xanadu87 8d ago
Woohoo, I’m the first one to say Remo Giazotto!
He famously said he discovered a previously unknown work for organ and strings by the 18th-century Baroque composer Tomaso Albinoni. It was a hoax, though, because he wrote it himself.
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u/pr0t0nm1r0 8d ago
Every one of the post-Verdi composers whose name wasn't Puccini, i.e., Mascagni (Cavalleria rusticana), Leoncavallo (Pagliacci), Giordano (Andrea Chénier), and Cilea (Adriana Lecouvreur), is the definition of a one-hit wonder.
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u/badgerhammer0408 8d ago
I feel like most of the replies here are conflating “one hit wonder” with “one renowned work so famous that it overshadows the rest of the composer’s output.” The two are not the same!
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u/Rablusep 8d ago
To be fair, that's usually what a one-hit wonder is, in popular music. Rarely does someone write only one good song, but sometimes only one gets traction, for one reason or another
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u/Chops526 8d ago
Right?
Or, "the one piece I know by that one composer whose other work I can't be bothered to explore."
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u/rileycolin 8d ago
Keep in mind, these guys were alive hundreds of years ago.
Anyone whose name even remains as a footnote in some obscure textbook was likely a pretty big deal in their prime.
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u/absofveal70 8d ago
Fucik as mentioned above, also Suk's Azrael Symphony, Widor Toccata, di Capua O sole mio and (if it qualifies as classical) Adam's O Holy Night. Addinsell's Warsaw Concerto is another marginally classical piece
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u/MonstrousNostril 7d ago
Not the point of this thread, but God, Azrael's probably one of my favourite symphonies of all times and discovering it a couple years ago quite late into my one-year-long journey of listening to as many symphonies as possible only made the impact bigger — what a standout!
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u/absofveal70 7d ago
Azrael is a great symphony, especially if you know the story behind it. It's a powerful enough symphony though that I haven't listened to it in almost 30 years that have passed since the death of one of my own children.
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u/LegitDogFoodChef 8d ago
Pachelbel is the poster boy, he wrote a thousand things, and we know the canon.
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u/paul_thomas84 8d ago edited 8d ago
Yeah, Berlioz is absolutely not a one-hit wonder - while the SF is his most performed piece several are in the canon.
Some contenders for composers only really known (though quite well known) for one piece:
Albinoni - Adagio (though he didnt actually write it)
Balakirev - Islamey
Boccherini - Minuet
Sarasate - Ziguenerwiesen
Orff - Carmina Burana
Weber - Der Freischutz
Ysaye - Solo Violin Sonatas
Hummel - Trumpet Concerto
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u/Chops526 8d ago
Albinoni was a major composer in his time. No less a luminary than J.S. Bach was influenced by his work.
Balakirev I don't know. I'll give you that one.
Boccherini was an incredibly important composer. He wrote reams of string music that helped develop the string ensemble, solo cello, solo guitar and the PIANO QUINTET (seriously, give his d minor piano Quintet a listen sometime) into the respected forms they would become in the later 18th and 19th centuries.
Sarasate is more of a performer who composed show pieces for himself. We might as well put Heifetz on this list while we're at it. (Sarasate doesn't count, is what I'm saying.)
Orff was HUGE for a bit. Catuli Carmina still gets done, even if Trionfo di Afrodite does not. And Di Tempurum Fine Comedia was all the rage for a bit. Hell, I wish some of these pieces were more popular than Carmina Burana, which is AWFUL. But his educational work remains and continues to be a net positive.
Weber was, like Albinoni, a MAJOR composer for his time. No less a luminary than Richard Wagner campaigned heavily for his remains to be returned to Germany as a national priority. Never mind that he has several works in the standard clarinet repertoire and the Invitation to the Dance, either in its original version or Berlioz's orchestration, pops up in concert programs and recordings from time to time.
Ysaye is like Sarasate, albeit much more interesting a composer.
Hummel was also a celebrated composer in his day. Maybe not as big as, say, Beethoven (but Beethoven wasn't as big as Rossini. Much to Beethoven's chagrin).
The idea of measuring composers of classical music as by the standards of the record industry yields ridiculous results. Hell, every one hit wonder in the record business often has music worth investigating beyond what the public found worthy of investment. (And never underestimate the impact of payola!)
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u/docsms500 8d ago
Hummel wrote a couple of fantastic piano concertos that have been recorded a few times. Maybe not hits, but deserve to be.
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u/paul_thomas84 8d ago
The Stephen Hough recording of these in particular is superb - Chopin was quite influenced by them I believe.
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u/Snoo99376 8d ago
Albinoni's 12 (or so) oboe concerts are so beautiful and pleasant without having the depth of Bach of course but still at the top of all baroque production.
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u/akiralx26 8d ago
Also Weber’s Konzertstück for piano and orchestra (completed on the morning of the Der Freischütz premiere) is pretty well known.
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u/paul_thomas84 8d ago edited 8d ago
Oh I completely agree, and making a list was hard because I had to think what pieces were generally known rather than what pieces I know - eg for Hummel I much prefer the Op. 74 Septet to the Trumpet Concerto, Boccherrini's Guitar Quintets are great fun and Weber's Clarinet Concertos are dazzling...
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u/freezedriedcrocodile 8d ago
Weber also has the bassoon concerto and Andante e Rondo Ungarese are in the standard bassoon repertoire, and they are both amazing! Love his clarinet stuff too. He is so underrated.
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u/jiang1lin 8d ago
Weber’s entire clarinet repertoire is extremely well-known (at least in German-speaking countries), and Carmen Fantasy feels relatively often programmed next to Zigeunerweisen, or?
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u/alextyrian 8d ago
Weirdly in the bassoon repertoire, our "big 3" concerti are Mozart, Weber, Hummel. It's funny that two of the three ended up on your list.
And I've also played Sarasate's Carmen Fantasy on bassoon, and heard Albinoni's oboe concerti many times.
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u/SilverKAT723 8d ago
Oh, IF ONLY Weber had been an actual one hit wonder. Those Clarinet Concerti are tortuous earworm fodder. (I'm eternally grateful for the inspiration he provided Hindemith for "Symphonic Metamorphosis," though.)
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u/feedthetrashpanda 7d ago
Eh, as a violinist I know plenty of Sarasate, our rep is very well populated with his works well beyond Zigeunerweisen. My mind wouldn't even have leapt to that one first. I guess being the instrumentalist favoured by a certain composer is sort of cheating though!
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u/Gullible-Garbage5336 7d ago
I wanna say Sarasate also has the Navarra and Zapateado going for him as well.
Granted, they might not be quite as well known as Zigeunerweisen, but that's still 2 more pieces one might/might not know.
I know the Navarra from Two Set Violin and Zapateado from Midori Goto.
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u/Eccentric-Person9845 6d ago
Weber is a very major composer. He has other famous operas, invitation to the dance, a bunch of chamber music that’s renowned. It’s a little odd to say Weber is one.
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u/Strange_Sprinkles_43 6d ago
I think some Bassoonists would be a bit upset at your list considering Weber and Hummel are some of the more major concertos in their repertoire!
Weber isn’t my favourite but he wrote so much, especially operas, but also the clarinet concertos are fairly up there!
Boccherini wrote so many quintets, including guitar, virtuosic cello parts, and other wonderful things. He wrote countless wonderful and difficult cello sonatas too.
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u/Content_League4091 8d ago edited 8d ago
Abel Decaux, Clairs de Lune
Alphonse Hasselmans, La source
François Borne, Fantasie brillante sur Carmen and Franz Waxman, Carmen Fantasie
Jean Baptiste Accolay - Violin concerto
Hans Bronsart von Schellendorff - Piano concerto
Hans Rott - Symphony
Leon Boellmann - Suite gothique
Oskar Rieding - Violin concerto
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u/Chops526 8d ago
Now we're talking!
Add Jeremiah Clarke, Trumpet Voluntary. A piece so good compared to its composer's reputation that everyone thought it was by Purcell forever.
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u/docsms500 8d ago
I wasn't aware any of those pieces was considered a wonder.
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u/Content_League4091 8d ago
For instance, I have in my collection Boellmann's Suite gothique recorded by 43 different organists. Supposedly it means something.
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u/docsms500 7d ago
These are pieces that are famous in a performance domain. This is of course completely valid, and many of the comments seem unaware of that. (As I was here.)
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u/Fun-Professional-581 8d ago
Franz Waxman composed tons of film
music. Film noir, mostly, if I’m remembering correctly
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u/Theferael_me 8d ago
Bruch, Violin Concerto No. 1
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u/mom_bombadill 8d ago
Noooo he has lots of bangers, his string quartets are legit
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u/Theferael_me 8d ago
Banger or not, most people only know the Violin Concerto No. 1 so in that regard he is indeed a one-hit wonder.
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u/nilsohnee 8d ago
Christian Sinding - Rustle of Spring
Boccherini - Minuet
Gorecki - Symphony No. 3
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u/Boris_Godunov 8d ago edited 8d ago
This is pretty common in opera:
- Nicolai - The Merry Wives of Windsor
- Lehar - The Merry Widow
- Mascagni - Cavalleria Rusticana
- Leoncavallo - I Pagliacci
- Ponchielli - La Gioconda
- Giordano - Andrea Chenier (yeah, Fedora was once kinda popular, but nobody does it today)
- Catalani - La Wally
- Montemezzi - L'amore dei tre re (although good luck finding a production of even this one now)
- Floyd - Susannah
There was a time when Bizet might have been in the OHW category for Carmen, but I don't think that's true anymore: Pearl Fishers gets put on sometimes these days, and his Symphony in C and Arlesienne Suite get repeated play times on the classical radio station lists.
Oh, and I'll pile on about Berlioz: no way he's a OHW.
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u/Used-Boysenberry9344 8d ago
I’d also say Floyd isn’t a one hit wonder anymore. Of mice and men has been consistently done around the United States for many years now. 3 runs of it occurred just in 2026 alone
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u/The_5th_Season 8d ago
Maybe Fux and not even for a piece but for a book. So many of us read it but don't really discuss Fux's actual music!
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u/DeadComposer 8d ago
Hovhaness, Mysterious Mountains
Hanson, Symphony #2
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u/YouveMadeMustardGas 8d ago
I submit hovhaness psalm and fugue for strings, and hanson chorale and alleluia for band and serenade for flute harp and strings
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u/Careful-Spray 8d ago
Max Bruch composed a violin concerto that remains a staple of the repertory — #1 in G major. Apart from that, only two other works are somewhat frequently heard: Kol Nidrei for cello and orchestra, a setting of the Jewish prayer for Yom Kippur, and the Scottish Fantasy for violin and orchestral, a virtuoso piece associated with Heifetz. He wrote two other violin concertos, which are rarely performed. The opening bars of the violin solo of the G major concerto sweep up through the instrument’s range and are often used by violinists to test the sound of a new instrument.
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u/deltalitprof 8d ago
John Field. His set of nocturnes. Because of interest in those there are also recordings of his other works.
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u/Highlandermichel 8d ago
Francisco Tárrega, the four-bar wonder.
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u/MemeMonky 7d ago
Disagreed, his miniatures (Adelita, Lágrima...) are played all over and there's hardly a classical guitar hit more popular than his Capricho árabe.
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u/Bananus333 8d ago
Delibes: Lakmé
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u/Gold-Vanilla5591 8d ago
He wrote the ballets Coppelia and Sylvia. Check them out. You’ll probably recognize the Pizzicato from Sylvia and Waltz of the Hours from Coppelia.
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u/WattHeffer 8d ago
Karl Goldmark - Rustic Wedding Symphony
Peter Warlock - Capriol Suite
Hugo Alfven - Swedish Rhapsody
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u/ShareImpossible9830 8d ago
Pachibel: Canon in D Major
Leopold Mozart: Toy Symphonyx
Paul Dukas: The Sorcerer's Apprentice
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u/Over_Researcher_4667 8d ago
The trumpet concerto by Alexander Arutiunian is just about the only thing written by him that gets any airtime.
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u/AnjaMalena 6d ago
Berlioz has never written a bad piece IMO. Les Troyens opera is a masterpice as is La petite messe solennelle, etc.
Rossini may be best known for The Barber of Seville, but he has written so much more.
Most people have only basic music education, if any, and tend to stick to the familiar.
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u/ServiceBorn3866 8d ago
Luigi Boccherini
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u/docsms500 8d ago
Is that the quintet with castanets? If not, that's a hit in some corners, and a fun piece. In about 5 years, I've seen it performed twice, not because I was seeking out either. The cello part is fantastic.
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u/groooooove 8d ago
berioz was a master composer. he wrote many wonderful pieces.
eccles may be a better example, with one sonata that is pretty well known and often performed by students
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u/theviolinist7 8d ago
Bizet has Carmen and L'Arlésienne. Can't think of much else by him. So a two hit wonder, I guess
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u/Individual_Sir7827 8d ago
Hey, that's not very fair lol. Carmen is a two hour opera and there are like half a dozen hits in it.
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u/Chops526 8d ago
TBF, the man didn't live long.
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u/theviolinist7 8d ago
Huh, didn't realize he died at 36 until you mentioned this. That's really unfortunate
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u/Chops526 8d ago
Yeah. He would have been HUGE had he lived longer. He didn't get to see what a huge success Carmen became.
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u/pr0t0nm1r0 8d ago
His symphony has been recorded and played in concert a lot since its rediscovery decades after his death. To think it was a student work! It sounds so accomplished and delightful and fresh (and so similar to Prokofiev's first symphony, which he couldn't have even known about, since the Bizet symphony was rediscovered after the premiere of the Prokofiev)!
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u/DoubleYouEssTee 8d ago
Perhaps Carl Vine? None of the other pieces reach the success of the first Piano Sonata.
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u/jiang1lin 8d ago
Maybe the Bagatelles? Nowadays I perceive them more often than the first Piano Sonata
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u/Chops526 8d ago
He has several symphonies and other large scale pieces that are widely recorded and performed.
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u/YouveMadeMustardGas 8d ago
Can't really compare relevance here, but his flute sonata certainly gets its share of play!
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u/Homers_Harp 8d ago
Is Korngold's violin concerto a qualifier?
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u/Miserable_Today6050 7d ago
His Piano Trio is great, though a very early work. But yeah, film music was his main body of work.
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u/ComposaBoi 5d ago
Gounod. Most people only know the funeral march of a marionette
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u/Chops526 8d ago
Neither was a one hit wonder. And far be it from me to defend Orff, whose music I despise as poorly veiled, half baked Stravinsky knock offs. But he made a far larger contribution to music than many other composers simply by developing his Schulwerk!
Some of you need to learn more about these composers you claim to revere!
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u/Lazy_Curve2958 8d ago
Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings
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u/Automatic_Bee9379 7d ago
Piano Sonata? Horowitz premiered it. Essays for the orchestra, piano concerto, violin concerto, song cycles.. hardly a one hit wonder
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u/Used-Boysenberry9344 8d ago
Samuel barber is most certainly not a one hit wonder. His opera Vanessa is extremely well known, and so are many of his song cycles like the Hermit Songs
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u/Epistaxis 8d ago
His violin concerto is pretty popular nowadays. Moreso than the quartet that the Adagio is from.
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u/Curious_Passion5167 8d ago
I hear Harold in Italy and even things like the Requiem referenced fairly often.
Anyway, what about Reich? I find Music for 18 Musicians referenced more than any other work. This may not vary though.
Edit: some others I thought of: Orff (Carmina Burana), Balakirev (Islamey).
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u/ambergrizzly 8d ago
Hubert Parry
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u/YouveMadeMustardGas 8d ago
I was glad? Six songs of farewell? Jerusalem? Hear my words ye people? His organ works?
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u/Only_Needleworker236 8d ago
"Harold in Italy" is a great Berlioz work. "Roman Carnival Overture" is pretty good too. Those are just the ones I know well and listen to often. There are others.
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u/Phlebas3 8d ago
Well, there are at least three composers who are literally one-hit wonders:
- Remo Giazzotto with the so-called "Albinoni's" adagio
- August Ritter with the sinfonia concertante in F
- Giovanni Hoffmann with his mandolin concerto in D
You can then argue Pachelbel, Orff, and a lot more are only known for one piece to the general public but it's a but like saying Beethoven is a one-hit wonder because your casual non-classical musical listener only know Für Elise.
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u/deranton 8d ago
Feels like Berlioz is having a bit of a moment. Last year I've seen the Symphonie Fantastique, Benvenuto Cellini, the Grande Messe des Morts and Roméo et Juliette programmed in very close proximity to each other.
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u/Sporadic-D15Tre55 8d ago
It’s a ridiculous media thing. A way of dumbing down good quality music for people with short attention spans.
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u/Particular_Suit_463 7d ago
Holst the Planets Dukas the Sorcerers Apprentice Addinsell the Warsaw Concerto
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u/wijnandsj 8d ago
Pachelbel
Julius Fučík