You Gotta Know
You Gotta Know These Musical Works
The following table lists the 50 most-frequently referenced works of music in NAQT questions as of October 1, 2005. While you really gotta know their creators, these are also some of the works about which more substantive questions are written, so teams should be prepared for questions on their style, instrumentation, performance, lyrics, key, program, and circumstances of creation.
This is an update of the October 2002 You Gotta Know article.
| Rank | Title | Genre | Creator | Date | Freq. |
| 1 | Aida | Opera | Giuseppe Verdi | 1871 | 77 |
| 2 | Carmen | Opera | Georges Bizet | 1845 | 71 |
| 3 | Messiah | Oratorio | George Frideric Handel | 1741 | 51 |
| 4 | Appalachian Spring | Ballet | Aaron Copland | 1944 | 50 |
| 5 | Symphony No. 6, "Pastoral" | Symphony | Ludwig van Beethoven | 1808 | 48 |
| 6 | Rigoletto | Opera | Giuseppe Verdi | 1851 | 45 |
| 7 | The Marriage of Figaro | Opera | Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart | 1784 | 45 |
| 8 | The Ring of the Nibelung | Opera | (Wilhelm) Richard Wagner | 1876 | 44 |
| 9 | Symphonie fantastique | Symphony | (Louis-)Hector Berlioz | 1830 | 43 |
| 10 | Don Giovanni | Opera | Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart | 1787 | 42 |
| 11 | The Rite of Spring | Ballet | Igor (Fyodorovich) Stravinsky | 1913 | 42 |
| 12 | William Tell | Opera | Gioacchino Rossini | 1804 | 41 |
| 13 | Madama Butterfly | Opera | Giacomo (Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria) Puccini | 1904 | 40 |
| 14 | The Magic Flute | Opera | Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart | 1791 | 40 |
| 15 | La Bohème | Opera | Giacomo (Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria) Puccini | 1896 | 40 |
| 16 | The Nutcracker | Ballet | Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky | 1892 | 39 |
| 17 | The Four Seasons | Concerto | Antonio Vivaldi | 1725 | 37 |
| 18 | Fidelio | Opera | Ludwig van Beethoven | 1805 | 36 |
| 19 | Rhapsody in Blue | composition | George Gershwin | 1924 | 35 |
| 20 | Symphony No. 3, "Eroica" | Symphony | Ludwig van Beethoven | 1804 | 35 |
| 21 | The Song of the Earth | Symphony | Gustav Mahler | 1909 | 35 |
| 22 | West Side Story | Musical | Leonard Bernstein | 1957 | 34 |
| 23 | The Planets | Suite | Gustav(us Theodore von) Holst | 1918 | 34 |
| 24 | The Phantom of the Opera | Musical | Andrew Lloyd Webber | 1910 | 33 |
| 25 | Moonlight Sonata | Sonata | Ludwig van Beethoven | 1801 | 33 |
| 26 | Symphony No. 9, "Great" | Symphony | Franz (Peter) Schubert | 1825 | 33 |
| 27 | Boléro | composition | (Joseph) Maurice Ravel | 1928 | 32 |
| 28 | Porgy and Bess | Opera | George Gershwin | 1935 | 32 |
| 29 | The Mikado | Musical | William S. Gilbert (words) and Arthur Sullivan (music) | 1885 | 31 |
| 30 | The Flying Dutchman | Opera | (Wilhelm) Richard Wagner | 1843 | 31 |
| 31 | Amahl and the Night Visitors | Opera | Gian-Carlo Menotti | 1951 | 30 |
| 32 | Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini | composition | Sergey (Vasilyevich) Rachmaninov | 1934 | 30 |
| 33 | Peter and the Wolf | composition | Sergei (Sergeyevich) Prokofiev | 1936 | 29 |
| 34 | A German Requiem | Sacred choral work | Johannes Brahms | 1868 | 29 |
| 35 | Symphony No. 6, "Pathétique" | Symphony | Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky | 1893 | 29 |
| 36 | Falstaff | Opera | Giuseppe Verdi | 1893 | 29 |
| 37 | Turandot | Opera | Giacomo (Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria) Puccini | 1762 | 29 |
| 38 | Cats | Musical | Andrew Lloyd Webber | 1982 | 29 |
| 39 | Pictures at an Exhibition | composition | Modest (Petrovich) Mussorgsky | 1874 | 28 |
| 40 | Carmina Burana | Cantata | Carl Orff | 1936 | 27 |
| 41 | Boris Godunov | Opera | Modest (Petrovich) Mussorgsky | 1869 | 27 |
| 42 | Symphony No. 41, "Jupiter" | Symphony | Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart | 1788 | 27 |
| 43 | Symphony of a Thousand | Symphony | Gustav Mahler | 1907 | 26 |
| 44 | Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun | Ballet | (Achille-)Claude Debussy | 1894 | 26 |
| 45 | Symphony No. 9, "From the New World" | Symphony | Antonín (Leopold) Dvorák | 1893 | 26 |
| 46 | Symphony No. 9, "Choral" | Symphony | Ludwig van Beethoven | 1823 | 26 |
| 47 | Salome | Opera | Richard (Georg) Strauss | 1905 | 26 |
| 48 | La Traviata | Opera | Giuseppe Verdi | 1853 | 26 |
| 49 | Hungarian Rhapsodies | composition | Franz Liszt | 1846 | 26 |
| 50 | The Threepenny Opera | Opera | Kurt Weill | 1928 | 25 |
NAQT has complete lists of the works of literature, non-fiction, art, and music that have been mentioned in its questions, sorted by frequency, available for purchase by coaches or teams for use as study guides.
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