Classical Masterpieces: Recommended Works You Should Hear at Least Once
Classical music, the foundation of all music.
It began with chants sung in churches and led to the birth of countless composers and works.
In Japan, classical music remains close to us even today—taught in music classes and played as background music in a variety of settings.
In this article, we’ll introduce a wide range of classical pieces: from famous works you’ve likely heard somewhere at least once, to lesser-known pieces that will still linger in your ears.
Please enjoy these masterpieces of classical music—performed in many forms, from sacred music and symphonies to piano solos and concertos, including works arranged for different instruments.
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Classical Masterpieces | Recommended Works You Should Hear at Least Once (21–30)
MessiahGeorg Friedrich Händel
While the German Baroque, home to composers like Bach, is characterized by strong religious and scholarly elements, Italy also saw a flourishing of opera in addition to sacred music.
Handel, famous as an Italian opera composer, wrote Messiah, which is one of his signature works and is centered on the figure of Christ.
Ave MariaJosquin Des Prez
The French composer Josquin des Prez is said to be the greatest composer of the Renaissance.
In addition to sacred music such as Masses and motets, he wrote secular works like chansons and a small number of instrumental pieces, and he enjoyed extremely high acclaim even during his lifetime.
This piece is thought to have been composed toward the end of the 15th century, and it unfolds through successive imitations of melodies based on the Gregorian chant “Ave Maria.” It is a very beautiful work composed in a quintessential Renaissance style, incorporating partial homophony within a polyphonic texture.
Classical Masterpieces | Recommended Works You Should Hear at Least Once (31–40)
Music for Strings, Percussion and CelestaBartók Béla
The Hungarian composer Bartók was also an ethnomusicologist and studied old Hungarian folk songs.
Through this he encountered music with characteristics different from traditional functional tonality, and gradually went on to create new compositional techniques.
This work, whose expansive first movement features five voices moving in canon, is one of his masterpieces.
RequiemGabriel Urbain Fauré
Since the Classical period, the German cultural sphere—centered on Germany—has led Western classical music.
However, in parts of France, a musical current entirely different from Germany’s began to emerge.
Fauré was the composer who spearheaded this movement, and in his Requiem, the church modes—nearly forgotten during the Romantic era—were revived and employed.
Piano Sonata No. 14 “Moonlight”Ludwig van Beethoven
Among Beethoven’s piano sonatas, this is one of the most widely loved works thanks to its popular melody.
The piece is dedicated to Giulietta Guicciardi, an Italian countess’s daughter who was one of Beethoven’s piano students.
He harbored romantic feelings for the young lady, who was fourteen years his junior, but marriage was impossible due to the difference in social status; it is said that he poured those unfulfilled feelings into this composition.
The nickname “Moonlight Sonata” arose when the poet Ludwig Rellstab, upon hearing the first movement, commented that it was like “a boat floating on the lake in the moonlight, on the rippling surface of Lake Lucerne.”
Purified NightArnold Schönberg
Arnold Schoenberg was an Austrian composer and conductor active from the 19th to the 20th century, known for founding the compositional method called twelve-tone technique.
Transfigured Night was completed before Schoenberg entered his twelve-tone period and shows a strong influence from Brahms and Wagner.
It sets, virtually verbatim, a long poem from German poet Richard Dehmel’s collection Women and the World to music, and the title of the piece is derived from this poem.
It is a mystical work that delicately renders the poem’s landscape, psychology, and dialogue through subtle sonorities.
Impromptu in G-flat major, Op. 90 No. 3Franz Schubert
What followed Classical music was Romantic music.
Romantic music departed from the earlier pursuit of axioms in musical practice, instead prioritizing human emotions and sensations; in other words, it does not demand strictness in compositional technique.
Several of Schubert’s impromptus are quintessentially human-centered.