My top 5 does not reflect the most profound, but rather those works which
I have found the most uplifting during hard times:

1. Ravel Piano Music -- Le Tombeau de Couperin/Gaspard de la Nuit
2. Mahler Symphony #6
3. Vaughan Williams  Symphony #5
4. Gershwin  Concerto in F
5. Bartok  Concerto for Orchestra

I have a problem selecting a specific piece among Ravel's works for solo
piano. Somehow the body of work is greater than the sum of its parts.
But Le Tombeau and Gaspard lead the pack.

My dismay at excluding the following is assuaged by assuming that others
will list them:

6. Stravinsky   Rite of Spring, Firebird
7. Gershwin  Porgy&Bess
8. Mahler Symphonies #5 & 9
9. Schoenberg  Transfigured Night
10. Shostakovich   ALL the string quartets (an almost incomparable body of
     work -- how could you select among them?)
11. Bartok   ALL the string quartets
12. Rachmaninoff  PC #3, Symphonic Dances
13. Ravel  Daphnis&Chloe
14. Shostakovich  Syms #5 & #10
15. Prokofiev   Syms #5 & #7
16. Barber  Violin & Piano Concerti
17. Copland -- The Ballets
18. Petterson  -- The Symphonies
19. Strauss  Rosenkavelier
20. Debussy  LaMer, Nocturnes
21. Ravel   Piano Concerti
  and  on and on...

What a great century for music!

Donald L. Gunter, Ph.D.
Dept. of Medical Physics and Diagnostic Radiology
Rush-Pres. St. Luke's Medical Center