Top Classical Chamber Music

Music Lists - Classical Music

Chamber means room, so these music are meant to be played in the intimacy of a room.  That's why the instrumentation is for a handful of instruments only - mostly string instruments.  The best musicians used to play these music in courts and palaces, so you're lucky that in this day and age, these songs are readily available and can be listened to with a flick of a switch.  Here are my favorites:

1.  Schubert: String Quintet - tragically beautiful music, every movement is grand.  The Adagio movement is one of those rare, perfect, and achingly profound slow music.
2. Beethoven:  Last String Quartets - these pieces are titanic, a high point of a great composer's career; includes the intense Grosse Fugue which is devilishly difficult to perform.  These pieces are demanding to listen to intellectually and emotionally.
3. Schubert: String Quartet no. 14 "Death and the Maiden" - another unrelentingly lyrical music with tragic overtones from Schubert.  The "Death and the Maiden" variation is harrowing in its beauty.
4. Schubert: Piano Quintet "Trout" - a piece that shows the lyrical Schubert at his best - an overwhelming wealth of invention and thematic contrast.  The piano part blends well with the strings.
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5. Mozart: Clarinet Quintet - wonderful melodies, intensely romantic, with the last movement full of yearning.  This piece is a display of the clarinet's wonderful capabilities.
6. Mozart: String Quartet in C "Dissonance" - elegance with depth, a complex piece of music that is easy to appreciate.
7. Haydn: String Quartets, Op. 76 (includes the "Emperor") - elegant masterpieces from the master of good-natured music.  These pieces feature ingenious variatons and complex fugal writing.
8. Beethoven: Violin Sonatas (includes "Spring" and "Kreutzer") - for those who like the musical interplay of violin and piano -at times cheerful, at times emotionally passionate.
9. Borodin: String Quartet No. 2 - very melodious, the slow movement is an exotic Nocturne.
10. Franck: Violin Sonata - It's almost Beethovenian in its passion and the build-up and falling of tension.  The French elegance is there though.