From Brandenburg to Vivaldi: the classical canon that never gets old

From Bach to Vivaldi: the classical canon defended by catalogue numbers

The classical repertoire isn't debated: it's displayed with the opus number up front. That gesture, which sounds like conservatory pedantry, actually works as quality control. The chain of recommendations has settled into a list that starts with a Viennese waltz and ends, almost always, with Vivaldi. In between, there's room for a concerto for electric guitar, several versions of Mozart's Requiem, and a string of catalogues —BWV, K., Op., HWV— used as proof that you've heard the good stuff. Classical music comes out of this ordered by numbers, not adjectives.

From a Viennese waltz to the Eroica: the opening

The starting point couldn't have been more conservative: the Sphärenklänge, Walzer, Op. 235, with Christian Thielemann leading the Wiener Philharmoniker. New Year's orchestra, New Year's baton. From there, things loosened up and everything appeared: a Concerto Suite for Electric Guitar and Orchestra in E Flat Minor Op.1, Beethoven's Symphony No. 3 "Eroica" in Leonard Bernstein's reading, the march from Suppé's Fatinitza, Saint-Saëns's Danse macabre, the overture to Wagner's Rienzi, and Waldteufel's Les Patineurs Op. 183.

The mix has its logic. The waltz and polka go down easy; the symphony demands patience; the concerto repertoire sneaks in through the back door. What's striking is that the selection wasn't ordered by difficulty or era, but by the desire to hear something that won't disappoint.

Bach as the backbone: Brandenburg, Magnificat, and BWV 1047

If anything holds the whole together, it's Bach's catalogue. The Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 in F major BWV 1047 appears again and again as a reference for orchestral baroque, and alongside it unfold the Magnificat in D major BWV 243 broken down number by number —Et exultavit, Omnes generationes, Fecit potentiam, Esurientes implevit bonis—, the double violin concerto BWV 1043, the "Erbarme dich" from the St Matthew Passion, the Toccata and Fugue BWV 565, the "Jesus bleibet meine Freude" BWV 147, and the Andante from the Organ Sonata No. 4.

There's a practical reason for so much numbering: BWV lets you search without knowing the title. The catalogue acts as a map. And when the material goes beyond Bach, it goes toward Handel —the "Alexander's Antiestéticast" HWV 318— or toward the Adagio from Alessandro Marcello's Oboe Concerto in D minor, which is the most relied-upon baroque entry point after The Four Seasons.

Why is the Requiem the most repeated work?

Because it's the genre that best withstands a change of version without losing the thread. Mozart's Mass for the Dead appears conducted by James Gaffigan, by Teodor Currentzis, and by Claudio Abbado with the Berlin Philharmonic. The "Dies irae," the "Confutatis," the "Rex tremendae," and the "Lacrimosa" work as standalone pieces, which is why they circulate out of context.

Mozart is joined by the Requiem by André Campra in Emmanuelle Haïm's version with Le Concert d'Astrée, the Requiem by Tomás Luis de Victoria, the Requiem Op. 148 by Donizetti, and, closing, the Requiem by Verdi conducted by Daniele Gatti. The list also includes the Missa Sacra Op. 147 and the Miserere by Gregorio Allegri, dated 1638 and written for the Sistine Chapel choir under Urban VIII.

The choral block weighs more than it seems for a repertoire presumed to be instrumental. The reason isn't devotional: it's acoustic. Well-recorded polyphony fills the room with less apparatus than an orchestra.

The piano takes half the list

Here there's no possible debate. The solo piano monopolizes the recommendations: Chopin's Berceuse in D-flat major Op. 57, the Nocturne Op. 27 No. 2, the Piano Concerto No. 1 in E minor with Olga Scheps, Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 3 with Alice Sara Ott, and Mozart's Concerto in D minor K. 466 by Mitsuko Uchida, cited as one might cite the Bible.

There's also a more recent line, not always well received: Sofiane Pamart, Yiruma, and Yukie Nishimura enter the same conversation as Grigory Sokolov playing Rameau's Les Cyclopes or Bertrand Chamayou with Chopin. The boundary between classical and what some call playlist neoclassical is anything but clear, and here nobody bothers to draw it.

In between appear Handel's Sarabande, Berlioz's Fantasia analyzed movement by movement, the Cellos doubling Bach, and, of course, "Für Elise," which is the door almost everyone came in through.

Vivaldi, opera, and the quote that closes it all

Any list of this kind ends the same way: with The Four Seasons. It's the most repeated work and the most discussed for its excess. "For violins, my favorite is Vivaldi. The Four Seasons itself is masterful. Unbeatable. The first one that comes up on YouTube," summarizes one of the participants. Winter and Spring appear even in versions for solo piano, which gives an idea of the degree of plundering the score endures.

Around it, opera and orchestral repertoire bulk up the list: the overture to Rossini's William Tell, Suppé's Light Cavalry, the prelude and the Aragonaise from Bizet's Carmen —also with Karajan—, Dido's lament by Purcell, Strauss's Don Quixote with Rostropovich and Karajan, and the Waltz-Scherzo from Shostakovich's Ballet Suite No. 1.

The ritual of the New Year's Concert

The human element of the repertoire has a date and time. "I'm in love with the New Year's Concert. If I don't watch it on TV, I go crazy," says a participant who describes his liturgy: getting up without a hangover, shower, breakfast in a good place, and back home by around 11, before the show starts. Getting a seat in the theater, he notes wryly, is a matter of money.

That rootedness explains why the list always returns to Strauss and the Wiener Philharmoniker. It's not an aesthetic choice: it's a family custom, of sofa and tablecloth. The same logic appears at the end of the compilation, when the repertoire is dedicated to the victims of a catastrophe and Verdi's Requiem plays. Classical music serves both celebration and mourning.

With this material, the predictable thing would be for the canon to close and no one to move a piece. It won't happen. The entry of current pianists and arrangements for instruments that didn't exist when the works were written will keep stretching the list, and it's likely that in a few years the opus number will remain the same while the performer has changed completely. That's the bet. Anyone who has seen what peine with the standalone versions of the Requiem knows it's a safe one.