Steve Schwartz writes, inter alia:

>I can't think of any Ravel work that has the impact of, say, Debussy's
>Images for Orchestra or Prelude on the Afternoon of a Faun.

I'm not sure exactly what you mean by impact, but Bolero sure gets a lot
of attention, and La Valse and the Daphne et Chloe suites are staples of
the Boston Symphony's repertoire.

>With the exception of the string quartets, Bartok's historically
>important works also suffer from a similar fate.

Again, the Concerto for Orchestra and the Piano Concertos (all three of
them) make regular appearances on BSO programs.

Regarding RVW, the Tallis Fantasia seems to be programmed fairly
frequently.  I suspect I've heard it live from the BSO more often than
the Beethoven 5th Symphony.

Stereo Review (or HiFi/Stereo Review as it was once called, or maybe it was
High Fidelity, a different magazine entirely) used to have a column titled
The Basic Repertoire, and used to the publish a small leaflet summarizing
the works and their recommended recordings.  I sure I long ago misplaced
my copy; does anyone recall this list or have a copy?

len.