# Positive crtiques towards dead composers



## Richannes Wrahms (Jan 6, 2014)

As a contrast to Bad superficial crtiques and value judgements towards dead composers 


1. *Messiaen*'s exploration of synthetic scales giving rise to different harmonic colours and ambiguities plus the use of diverse cultures' rhythms (from the Greeks to the Indians), his playing with symmetry and assymetry and even the use and adaptation of collected natural material (birdsong) gives rise to an exotic yet very personal style unique in the canon.

2. *Hindemith*, a composer of remarkable compositional instinct, extended the concept and reelaborated the system of tonal tension to suit his structural needs. Being one of the last legs of the old German tradition, he composed music in almost every genre with relative ease and achieved a relatively wide popularity.

3. *Busoni* takes on the exploratory pianistic harmonic style of Liszt through Debussy and combines it with a mastery of Bachian melody-counterpoint. The result is easy to follow works of exquisite sonority and technical display.

4. Mature *Ligeti* concerned himself with the production of the most consistent works in terms of harmony and counterpoint with an endless flux of melodies in canonic form as if Ockeghem were still alive. Later Ligeti took on the tradition of Chopin and looking outwards to jazz and other cultures's music, made up a combination of pianistic counterpoint, shifting accentual patterns, polyrhythms and polymodal themes all woven up toghether.

5. *Prokofiev* demostrated his command of traditional style and forms from the very beginning as is excemplified by his ver popular Symhpony No.1 in the manner of Haydn. Just prior to that he had shown he was up to date with the complex score of the Scythian Suite. In later years he would mature a personal rather astringent style that would combine these two ideas. Symphonies, concertos, operas and ballets would pour from his pen each exploring a different character as the program, the circumstances and the musical material saw fit.

6. *Godowsk*y is like *Ades *or *Mahler* and so many others. Folks that could making new and outstanding music recycling "the garbage from the past" (as Ligeti would put it). One is surprise by the different personal take each of this composers molded their material with. Godowsky in the Java Suite could bring the gamelan pentatonic sounds he heard to the piano, just like Debussy had done earlier, but with a wealth of detailed contrapuntal pattern writing. Mahler in his Symphony No. 3 turned a drinking song into a beatiful eagerly awaited contrasting pastoral theme that would grow stronger and stronger into a fanfare. Ades takes the modern textural approach.One recognises the old tonal motifs and related forms but the way they are transformed, reconstructed and superimposed as to bring out more recent rhythmic and harmonic developments is unique, perhaps a bit strange but never a fault can be discerned.

7. *Handel* knew exactly what he wanted to convey and how to do it most directly within the boundaries of his Baroque Opera style. A plethora of emotions arise from simple processes and an unparalleled comand of the human voice.

8. *Schumann* and *Brahms* attempted to maintain a traditional Beethovenian developmental aesthetic while improving upon the technique and, specially, the counterpoint behind it. The result is varied upon the genre, with the Symphonies being closer to the older tradition and the chamber pieces more personal yet much "out there". Brahms would develop a unique sense of rhythm and layering that would often juxtapose sincopations and hemiolas. Both founded on the piano, would also produce the most iconic and ear grabbing pieces and concertos for the instrument. Many marvelous individualistic piano miniatures would come out of Schumann. He and specially Brahms' inventive skills would transform themes or motifs constantly, what Shoenberg calls "deloping variation".

9. With a magisterial command of form and texture, *Dutilleu*x would slowly unveil his themes punctuated by the most colourful harmonies. Each piece a unique puzzle, his creative instrumentation would synthesise the appropriate sonorities to acompany rather traditionally written lines that offer no resistance to the overall rhythmic drive much like a Romantic melody would just ignore the bar lines.

10. *Xenakis* exploits very visceral effects though often guided by complex mathematical processes ensuring integrity, detail and a strong sense of structure. Late Xenakis, more distanced to his models, and more personal, shows the composer's guiding ears more directly. His music is often very raw and hard to swallow at first but also very rewarding to listen on repeat as more and more features are discovered behind the theatre of intense emotions he brings to light.

11. *Schoenberg* had an expressive drive like no other composer from the past and the craft to realise it. Early on he would show a perfectly innovative approach to Late and Post-Romantic music but that was not enough for him. He would tear apart the old diatonic chromaticism compositional worldview in favour of purely chromatic work with motifs and their variational development, first "freely" and then guided by his own invented-formalised 12-tone techniques. From the seductive sounds of the wagnerian Verklarte Nacht and the canonic Pierrot Lunaire to the terrifing athematic drama of Erwartung, the brooding darkness of the Violin Concerto, a lighter Mozartian approach on the Piano Concerto to the very end with the intense String Trio; each Schoenberg piece unveils a new world that was a part of him and needed to be worked on.


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## fbjim (Mar 8, 2021)

Nancarrow basically invented ProTools if you think about it, yo.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Are these also from the discord server?


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## Richannes Wrahms (Jan 6, 2014)

hammeredklavier said:


> Are these also from the discord server?


Nope, these are just mine / mostly from here and some books.

Let me know which composer to do next. There are some of course I won't do (Sorabji for example).


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## Sequentia (Nov 23, 2011)

Richannes Wrahms said:


> Nope, these are just mine / mostly from here and some books.
> 
> Let me know which composer to do next. There are some of course I won't do (Sorabji for example).


And why is that so?


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## fbjim (Mar 8, 2021)

Richannes Wrahms said:


> Nope, these are just mine / mostly from here and some books.
> 
> Let me know which composer to do next. There are some of course I won't do (Sorabji for example).


Mendelsson, Partch, and Berlioz! (Just from stuff I've been listening to recently)


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

Richannes Wrahms said:


> Nope, these are just mine / mostly from here and some books.
> 
> Let me know which composer to do next. There are some of course I won't do (*Sorabji for example*).


Oh yeah, I stupidly bought a Sorabji piano set and can't stand it. Could use it for audio torture.


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