Ray Bayles <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>Would appreciate any additional ideas with works less frequently done...
>and any 20th century pieces

Yes, that's right, my favourite one has something for all festivities:

Messiaen:  Vocalise for soprano and piano, also available in the setting
for violin and piano.  This latter was very dear to Messiaen as he arranged
it in the happy years of his marriage to his first wife Claire who was a
professional violinist.  They must have played it numerous times together
at home celebrating their luck.  It is a very warm and tender piece of some
4 minutes in a very Debussyan style, exceptionally tonal.  That Messiaen
continued to think very high of it is proven by the fact that he re-used it
in 1992 (55 years later) in his "Concert a Quatre" which he was working on
the very days he died.  Of that, there is a very beautiful recording
available under the baton of Myung-Whun Chung on Deutsche Grammophon.
Sadly, Messiaen's first wife became mentally ill.  Her illness prolonged
until the fifties until she died.  He then remarried a few years later (the
much better known Yvonne Loriod).

regards, Jos