The inimitable Mimi Ezust inquires about Listers' "musical home", and I
am impressed with the diversity of some responses.  I've never thought
of Bach's "Mass in B Minor" and "The Empire Strikes Back" as being on
the same list.  For what it's worth, here's my list of music without
which, were it not there, would make it not worth going home again:

1. Bach: Goldberg Variations and The Art of Fugue. The Violin Partita No. 1.

2. Beethoven: String Quartet #13 (Opus 130) including the Grosse Fugue.
A life is not well spent without hearing this live by a first rate string
quartet.

3. Mozart: The Viola Quartet in G Minor.  The Requiem.

4. Verdi: The Requiem.

5. Shostakovich: String Quartets No. 8 and 15.

6. Schubert: Cello Quintet in C Major. The late piano sonatas, particularly
D. 960.  These were all written as Schubert was dying of tertiary syphilis,
and I don't understand how a dying 30 year old managed to come up with
such music.

7. Smetana: String Quartet No. 1.

8. Just to prove that John Williams is not alone among minor composers
invited into a listener's "home", I'll include Richard Rogers' Edelweiss
Song.

Larry Sherwood <[log in to unmask]>