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 November 1, 2007. 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 an earlier You Gotta Know article.
| Rank | Title | Genre | Creator | Date | Freq. |
| 1 | Carmen | Opera | Georges Bizet | 1845 | 147 |
| 2 | Aida | Opera | Giuseppe Verdi | 1871 | 146 |
| 3 | The Ring of the Nibelung | Opera | (Wilhelm) Richard Wagner | 1876 | 122 |
| 4 | Messiah | Oratorio | George Frideric Handel | 1741 | 102 |
| 5 | Symphony No. 9, "Choral" | Symphony | Ludwig van Beethoven | 1823 | 100 |
| 6 | Symphony No. 6, "Pastoral" | Symphony | Ludwig van Beethoven | 1808 | 97 |
| 7 | Symphonie fantastique | Symphony | (Louis-)Hector Berlioz | 1830 | 92 |
| 8 | The Nutcracker | Ballet | Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky | 1892 | 91 |
| 9 | The Rite of Spring | Ballet | Igor (Fyodorovich) Stravinsky | 1913 | 90 |
| 10 | Madama Butterfly | Opera | Giacomo Puccini | 1904 | 89 |
| 11 | Symphony No. 3, "Eroica" | Symphony | Ludwig van Beethoven | 1804 | 86 |
| 12 | The Barber of Seville | Opera | Gioacchino (Antonio) Rossini | 1816 | 85 |
| 13 | The Magic Flute | Opera | Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart | 1791 | 84 |
| 14 | Appalachian Spring | Ballet | Aaron Copland | 1944 | 83 |
| 15 | Rigoletto | Opera | Giuseppe Verdi | 1851 | 82 |
| 16 | Don Giovanni | Opera | Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart | 1787 | 79 |
| 17 | La Bohème | Opera | Giacomo Puccini | 1896 | 78 |
| 18 | Fidelio | Opera | Ludwig van Beethoven | 1805 | 77 |
| 19 | The Four Seasons | Concerto | Antonio Vivaldi | 1725 | 73 |
| 20 | Rhapsody in Blue | Composition | George Gershwin | 1924 | 72 |
| 21 | The Marriage of Figaro | Opera | Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart | 1784 | 72 |
| 22 | West Side Story | Musical | Leonard Bernstein | 1957 | 68 |
| 23 | Siegfried | Opera | (Wilhelm) Richard Wagner | 1876 | 66 |
| 24 | Moonlight Sonata | Sonata | Ludwig van Beethoven | 1801 | 63 |
| 25 | The Planets | Suite | Gustav(us Theodore von) Holst | 1918 | 61 |
| 26 | Symphony No. 6, "Pathétique" | Symphony | Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky | 1893 | 60 |
| 27 | Porgy and Bess | Opera | George Gershwin | 1935 | 60 |
| 28 | William Tell | Opera | Gioacchino Rossini | 1804 | 59 |
| 29 | Peter and the Wolf | Composition | Sergei (Sergeyevich) Prokofiev | 1936 | 59 |
| 30 | The Song of the Earth | Symphony | Gustav Mahler | 1909 | 59 |
| 31 | Swan Lake | Ballet | Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky | 1877 | 58 |
| 32 | The Flying Dutchman | Opera | (Wilhelm) Richard Wagner | 1843 | 58 |
| 33 | Lohengrin | Opera | (Wilhelm) Richard Wagner | 1850 | 57 |
| 34 | Boléro | Composition | (Joseph) Maurice Ravel | 1928 | 55 |
| 35 | The Phantom of the Opera | Musical | Andrew Lloyd Webber | 1910 | 54 |
| 36 | Tosca | Opera | Giacomo Puccini | 1900 | 54 |
| 37 | Turandot | Opera | Giacomo Puccini | 1762 | 53 |
| 38 | La Traviata | Opera | Giuseppe Verdi | 1853 | 53 |
| 39 | Pictures at an Exhibition | Composition | Modest (Petrovich) Mussorgsky | 1874 | 53 |
| 40 | A German Requiem | Sacred Choral Work | Johannes Brahms | 1868 | 51 |
| 41 | Symphony No. 94, "Surprise" | Symphony | (Franz) Joseph Haydn | 1791 | 50 |
| 42 | Symphony No. 41, "Jupiter" | Symphony | Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart | 1788 | 50 |
| 43 | Symphony No. 9, "From the New World" | Symphony | Antonín (Leopold) Dvorák | 1893 | 49 |
| 44 | The Mikado | Musical | Arthur Sullivan (music) William S. Gilbert (words) | 1885 | 48 |
| 45 | My Fair Lady | Musical | Frederick Loewe | 1956 | 47 |
| 46 | Falstaff | Opera | Giuseppe Verdi | 1893 | 47 |
| 47 | Boris Godunov | Opera | Modest (Petrovich) Mussorgsky | 1869 | 47 |
| 48 | Cats | Musical | Andrew Lloyd Webber | 1982 | 46 |
| 49 | Enigma Variations | Composition | Edward (William) Elgar | 1899 | 46 |
| 50 | Salome | Opera | Richard (Georg) Strauss | 1905 | 45 |
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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