# Who Are Your Favourite Modern Art Music Composers?



## Rapide (Oct 11, 2011)

Let's say "modern" means music compsoed within the last 50 or so years, roughly. Please list 10 roughly. 

I enjoy the music of: Messiaen, Boulez, Claude Arrieu, Scelsi, Rolf Liebermann, Philip Glass, Lorenzo Ferrero, Harry Partch, Karl Amadeus Hartmann.


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## Air (Jul 19, 2008)

Good thread idea!

I'll list a favorite piece by each of these too while I'm at it.

All composers that were still living within the last 20 years... (which means excluding Varese, Shostakovich, etc. )

*Olivier Messiaen*: _Vingt Regards sur l'enfant Jesus_ (1944)
*John Cage*: _Sonatas and Interludes_ for prepared piano (1946-48)
*Krysztof Penderecki*: _St. Luke Passion_ (1966)
*Luciano Berio*: _"points on the curve to find..."_ (1974)
*Henryk Gorecki*: Symphony No. 3 _"Symphony of Sorrowful Songs"_ (1976)
*Sofia Gubaidulina*: _Offertorium_ (1980-1986)
*Pierre Boulez*: _"...explosante-fixe..."_ (1971-1993)
*Brett Dean*: _Carlo_ - Music for strings, sampler and tape (1997)
*Kaija Saariaho*: _L'amour de loin_, opera (2000)
*Gyorgy Ligeti*: _Etudes_ for piano (1985-2001)

I find modern music extremely engaging because it constantly forces me to listen in different ways; thus, it is inducing of an effort from me as a listener. I like music that actively involves my intellect and emotions; in some ways, it counterbalances and even enhances my more relaxed listening periods (and vice versa). The struggle, the journey of understanding more and more about contemporary classical music, allows each little step gained to feel even more magnificent and well-earned. This is not just true of contemporary music, but of all music that serves this purpose.

Recently, I've been listening to some electro-acoustic music samples (maybe I will save up to buy a CD in the upcoming months) and also checking out some more contemporary piano music (i.e. Dutilleux's Piano Sonata). I plan on beginning a more serious exploration of the minimalists (they haven't really clicked with me yet, not even Adams' _Nixon in China_. "Batter my heart" from _Doctor Atomic_ is really cool though.) and delving into some of Carter's works (I have the _Symphony of Three Orchestras_ at my command, but I plan on obtaining more of his music).

Partch's _Delusion of the Fury_ is also piquing my curiosity quite a bit (thanks to you, Sid James, someguy, and others)!

:tiphat:


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## jalex (Aug 21, 2011)

Of composers who wrote in a modern idiom, Messiaen, Berio and Ligeti stand out for me. The little Saariaho and Dutilleux I've heard has also been impressive. I'd further count Britten, Shostakovich and Stravinsky as composers who have written works I particularly admire in the last 50 years.

I want to listen to some later Boulez, I've read that it's more accessible than the serialist/pointillist earlier stuff. Any recommendations?


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

jalex said:


> Of composers who wrote in a modern idiom, Messiaen, Berio and Ligeti stand out for me. The little Saariaho and Dutilleux I've heard has also been impressive. I'd further count Britten, Shostakovich and Stravinsky as composers who have written works I particularly admire in the last 50 years.
> 
> *I want to listen to some later Boulez, I've read that it's more accessible than the serialist/pointillist earlier stuff. Any recommendations?*


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## jalex (Aug 21, 2011)

^Wow, thanks Aleazk, that was great. That sounds a lot more like the work of a Messiaen pupil than Piano Sonata #2! At times it was downright...beautiful.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

I go for the later works of old generation greats, like Shostakovich and Copland. Getting into the 1980s, my favorite music might be William Schuman's later symphonies and Henri Dutilleux's Violin Concerto.


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## Jeremy Marchant (Mar 11, 2010)

jalex said:


> I want to listen to some later Boulez, I've read that it's more accessible than the serialist/pointillist earlier stuff. Any recommendations?


This is a talk by Boulez, complete with on stage performed music examples, about _Sur incises_ (1996-98) - a wonderfully sonorous work for three pianos, three harps and three percussionists (mostly tuned percussion).


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

^^Thank you Jeremy, I'll have to get to that, I have found exactly that work (Sur Incises) to be too complex for me and go above my head. Lectures tend to be helpful for me enjoying music, also books on music, etc. I have the recording of this work and two others on the DGG label & the two other works have been more gratifying for me to a degree - Anthemes 2 and Messagesquisse...


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Rapide said:


> Let's say "modern" means music compsoed within the last 50 or so years, roughly. Please list 10 roughly.
> ...


I like music that has an original voice of the composer, no matter what style really, and some sort of artistic development over time (eg. not just rehash).

Hard for me to narrow it down to 10, but I'll just go with what comes to my mind now, esp. in terms of the composers I have been listening to, returning to again and again, lately -

- *Peter Sculthorpe *(Australian) - His imaging of our landscape is unique, his innovations with notation and pushing instrumental techniques, his getting rid of largely irrelevant British pastoralist and Impressionist rehash styles that were common even post-1945 and fashioning a style that was about Australia and the Asia-Pacific region.

- *Alan Hovhaness* - I like how he combined tradition and latest techniques (eg. of his friend John Cage) and formed his own style and voice.

- *Olivier Messiaen *- His _Quartet for the End of Time_ was a big gateway into post-1945 music (although composed early 1940's, it's aesthetic was ahead of it's time). I'm more into his works of esp. 1930's to '40's, but I have also enjoyed what I've heard of his output coming after that.

- *Iannis Xenakis *- I like the visceral force of his music, combining everything from architectural structures to Greek mythology, a sense of the epic and Mediterranean climate, and things like West AFrican drumming. These were present in a performance this year of his percussion "symphony"_ Pleiades_, which after the show I wrote in an email to a friend that it was "******* awesome."

- *Pierre Boulez *- His piano sonatas fascinate me, and I also like his _Le Marteau sans Martre_. But I've only scratched the surface with him. Agreed, _Derive _is awesome.

- *Steve Reich* - I think he's the most changing and adaptable of the USA minimalists coming in the late 1960's. Others have just kind of not changed much, but Reich has adapeted his style to the latest trends all the times since. I esp. like his pieces that are upbeat and I think he's a contemporary master of counterpoint.

- *Harry Partch, John Cage* - These two guys I listen to less, but when I do, I'm all ears. Major innovators, both coming from the more relaxed American West Coast kind of hippy culture (well, hippy compared to the East Coast, the way I see it). Again, haven't devled in too deeply to their things, but what I've heard has overall been very absorbing.

- *Michael Tippett *- Again, I like his combination of tradition (he esp. admired one of my favourite composers, Beethoven) & developing his own voice. Very eclectic guy, hard to "box" him. His string quartets, esp. nos. 3-5, are constantly in my player.

- *Astor Piazzolla* - I like how he combined everything from Baroque counterpoint, to jazz, to aspects of the then latest trends like atonality and using synthesisers, electric guitars, etc. & of course the great tango. Tango, like his music, is basically about love, life and death. Kind of encapsulates the essence of humanity, really, and he did it without pretension and histrionics. & he's one of the most popular and "accessible" classical composers on the planet.

- *Elliott Carter *- Continuing many strands, from Ives to Schoenberg and going far back as well. His _String Quartet #1 _has been a favourite since I got to know it a few years ago, and I am happy to listen to any piece by him, given I'm in the right mood or frame of mind. He is intellectual but I like that aspect, and in some things he's more relaxed and even lyrical (eg. his violin concerto) and even jazzy (his clarinet concerto, like a younger brother to Copland's)...

...That'll do for now, gives you an idea what I like. The 2oth century is my favourite of all classical music...


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## emiellucifuge (May 26, 2009)

My 10 without explanations:

Boulez
Messiaen
Henze
Ligeti
Berio 
Penderecki
Lutoslawski
Zimmerman
Stockhausen
Dallapiccola


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

In birth order:

Stravinsky (including him maybe cheating a little seeing he was winding down a bit by c. 1960 due to advancing years)
Hindemith (ditto - due to ill-health)
Copland
Tippett
Shostakovich
Britten
Bernstein
Simpson
Penderecki
Schnittke
Ades (which makes 11 but I couldn't leave him out)


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## Rapide (Oct 11, 2011)

Many good names mentioned.

Tippett, yes. He is a favourite. I atteneded a concert not long ago and listened a concerto for string orchestra. It was such an energetic piece of music, so new at the same time.


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## Conor71 (Feb 19, 2009)

Shostakovich, Britten, Messiaen, Part and Ligeti are all I can think of (that I listen to on a regular basis anyways!)


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## Rapide (Oct 11, 2011)

I love this piece by Ligeti! The raw energey is constant.


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## Oskaar (Mar 17, 2011)

I am in my first half year exploring classical music, so I have not heard that many. 
But I appreciate:

Aho
Adams
Abe
Messiaen
Shostakovich
Britten
Scnittke
Henze


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

From what I've heard, which maybe isnt quite as much as some people around here might think, my favorites are

Ligeti
Per Norgard
Schnittke
Gubaidulina
Kancheli 
Crumb
Takemitsu
Messiaen
Ikue Mori
Wolfgang Rihm

Of course this list is subject to extreme change...especially since were dealing with a time period so close to our time and were not exactly sure what all is out there yet.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

...Oops, just rememberd, forgot one of the guys I'm really getting into now, *Leonard Bernstein*, with his "composer" hat on, that is. A guy who proved, if anybody needed to, that the old highbrow/lowbrow thing was just rubbish. He was at ease in writing stage musicals to symphonies and even one film score, the brilliant _On the Waterfront_, even a_ Mass_, which is more a musical about a mass than a mass "proper." All of these I have been getting into since the start of this year. An eclectic composer combining many things, but as he said, everything he composed has a strong theatrical and dramatic element, whether it was literally for the stage or not...


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## SuperTonic (Jun 3, 2010)

Rapide said:


> I love this piece by Ligeti! The raw energey is constant.


I can honestly say I have never seen so many f's in a dynamic marking. Watching the score in the video, I think I counted nine at one point.


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

*Who Are Your Favorite "Classical" Composers of the last 50 Years or so?*

Well lets get some of the obvious "old school" composers out of the way:

Dimitri Shostakovitch
Igor Stravinsky
Benjamin Britten
Olivier Messiaen

Moving to more "recent" composers I would count the following (roughly in order) as being among my personal favorites:

*Toru Takemitsu-* Takemitsu builds upon the soundscapes of the French Impressionists and Messiaen. John Cage led him to a deeper appreciation for a form of "minimalism" including Erik Satie and Japanese traditional classical and folk music. Takemitsu is masterful in employing a broad range of orchestration (using both Western an Japanese instruments) to achieve a wealth of sound colors. Critics have noted that it is almost impossible to believe that Takemitsu can achieve such beauty in spite of the use of so much dissonance. I probably have more music by Takemitsu than I do by any other composer of this era.











*Henri Dutilleux*- Dutilleux is a fascinating figure... a composer with a small, yet highly polished oeuvre building upon elements of French Impressionism, classicism, and non-traditional tonality. As a composer profoundly inspired by art and literature, Dutilleux's works often employ "poetic" titles. His _L'arbre des songes_ is actually a violin concerto premiered by Isaac Stern, while Tout un monde lointain, commissioned by Mstislav Rostropovich, is one of the most important Cello Concertos of the 20th century.






*Tristan Murail*- Clearly there is some sort of theme here. All of the composers I have cited are profoundly rooted in French Impressionism (especially Debussy) and Messiaen. Of course Murail actually studied with Messiaen. The composer went further than his teacher employing electronics and making a deep study of the fundamental properties of sound and harmony or an analysis of sound spectra that led to his school of composition being known as spectralism. Other major figures within the field of "Spectral Music" include Gerard Grisey, Julian Anderson, Jonathan Harvey, and Kaija Saariaho (all favorites as well).











*Giacinto Scelsi-*- Scelsi began his career enamored of the early European Modernists: Hindemith, Schönberg, Stravinsky, Shostakovitch, and Prokofiev. After the Second World War, Scelsi suffered an emotional breakdown and spent time in an asylum playing just a single note over and over upon the piano. This, combined with his discovery of Eastern spirituality and Eastern music led to a radical transformation of his view of music. He began composing music based around a single pitch, altered in all manners through microtonal oscillations, harmonic allusions, and changes in timbre and dynamics.


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

*Osvaldo Golijov-* Golijov is the multicultural composer _par excellence_. He was born in Argentina of Romanian Jewish parents. He grew up listening to Jewish liturgical and klezmer music, the new tango of Ástor Piazzolla, and Latin-American folk and popular music. He studied for 3 years at the Jerusalem Rubin Academy in Israel where he was exposed to Israeli and Middle-Eastern classical, folk, and pop music. He later moved to the United States where he studied with George Crumb at the University of Pennsylvania. His music has been described as "Polystylistic"... drawing from a multitude of sources... "high" and "low".











*Henryk Górecki*- Górecki, like many of the leading composers of Eastern Europe began his career seen as heir to the new aesthetic of post-Webernian serialism, embraced by the Western avant-garde establishment. Like many, however, he felt trapped between the limitations of the Communist authorities on one hand, and the radical Modernist establishment on the other. By the early 1970s, Górecki had begun to move away from his earlier radical modernism, and was working towards a more traditional, romantic mode of expression. His change of style affronted both the avant-garde establishment, and the Communist authorities who were outraged at the openly emotional and dark content and the religious elements. While Western critics ironically dismissed his new material as no longer cerebral and sparse and suggested that he was in essence "selling out" in order to reach a broader audience, Górecki's work (and his politics) actually involved a degree of bravery unknown to Western composers. In

As Professor of Composition at the State Higher School of Music in Katowice,Górecki came to believe the Polish Communist authorities were interfering too much in the activities of academy, and described them as "little dogs always yapping". As a senior administrator but not a member of the Party, he was in almost perpetual conflict with the authorities in his efforts to protect his school, staff and students from undue political influence. In 1979, he resigned from his post in protest at the government's refusal to allow Pope John Paul II to visit Katowice and formed a local branch of the "Catholic Intellectuals Club"; an organisation devoted to the struggle against the Communist Party. He remained politically active through the late 1970s and 1980s. In 1991, he composed his _Miserere_ for a large choir in remembrance of police violence against the Solidarity movement.

Among Górecki's most interesting works are the _Symphony No. 2, 'Copernican'_, the intensely moving _Third Symphony_ or "_Symphony of Sorrowful Songs_", the _Miserere_, and the string quartets.






Valentin Silvestrov- Like Górecki, Silvestrov (born 1937 in Kiev, USSR) began his career as an heir to Modernism but soon felt pressure to conform to both official precepts of socialist realism and fashionable modernism. Sylvestrov chose to withdraw from spotlight, and rejected his earlier Modernist work. His work took on an element of extreme simplicity... minimalism and intimacy. Indeed, the composer elected to work primarily within forms that might be performed in small, private gatherings... not unlike the gatherings at which Schubert presented his songs.


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

*Ned Rorem*- The reigning American master of the classical "Art Song"











*Jake Heggie*- Ned Rorem's heir apparent. A masterful song-writer... and talented composer of opera as well including the works Dead Man Walking and the recent Moby Dick. Unfortunately there are but few good videos of his songs of YouTube






*Peter Lieberson*- Lieberson would earn a place upon my list of favorites for only a single work. His song cycle, _Neruda Songs_. This cycle has been acclaimed as The Four Last Songs (ala Strauss) of our time, and I do not find the comparison far from the mark. Lieberson wrote these songs for his wife and professed "soul-mate", the brilliant singer, Lorraine Hunt-Lieberson. The cycle concludes with "Amor mío, si muero y tú no mueres ..." in which Neruda writes, "My love if I die, and you don't...:" This song becomes especially heartbreaking considering that the composer knew his wife was facing certain mortality in her struggle with Cancer. Lorraine would live long enough to premier and record these songs, but died before the disc was released at age 52.






*Steve Reich-* One of the pioneers of Minimalism who refused to align himself with either the heirs of Schoenberg and atonality or those of Neo-Romanticism, Reich drew inspiration from a broad array of sources including jazz, popular music, recording technology, African and Eastern music, and even traditional Hebrew chant.


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## Glissando (Nov 25, 2011)

Steve Reich 
Philip Glass 
Terry Riley
Tony Conrad 
Glenn Branca
John Cage
LaMonte Young (and his work with John Cale in the Dream Syndicate)


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## Olias (Nov 18, 2010)

Aside from the obvious (Stravinsky, Shostakovich, Copland, and Bernstein) I've really gotten into Jennifer Higdon's work. Her music is very accessible to the masses but is full of artistic integrity. As a percussionist she has a marvelous variety of timbre in her music as well. Check out Blue Cathedral and the Violin Concerto.


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## jalex (Aug 21, 2011)

Whatever anyone says about John Cage, La Monte Young's _Compositions 1960_ are the most pretentious pieces of 'music' ever written. http://georgemaciunas.com/?page_id=886.

Satie at least did bizarreness with a sense of relatable good humour.


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## jalex (Aug 21, 2011)

^Hmm? I didn't say anything about Cage's music, just mentioned because he is often cited as pretentious (I happen to disagree on the whole, though he had his moments). I was talking about a set of works of La Monte Young who was mentioned a couple of posts up.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Did I miss something...Re Jalex responding to someone?


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Ligeti
Schnittke
Lutoslawski
Penderecki
Zappa
Dutilleux


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

I'm having some trouble with Carter, Berio, and some of Messiaen's works, but I'll keep working at it.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

Off the top of my head:

Brouwer
Dyens
Rodrigo
Takemitsu
Lutoslawski
Schnittke

But in reality like violadude mentioned there is just so much modern music out there right now, so this kind of thing can quickly change.


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## jalex (Aug 21, 2011)

violadude said:


> Did I miss something...Re Jalex responding to someone?


Indeed you did


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

There are so many obscure composers that are hard to find out about. For instance, there's a Mexican composer, Charles Sanchez-Gutierrez who teaches at Eastman School of Music. I heard a piece of his music at a chamber music concert a few years ago. I thought it was quite interesting and entertaining. http://www.carlossg.com/


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## hespdelk (Mar 19, 2011)

Shostakovich
Kancheli
Schnittke
Penderecki
Scelsi
Allan Pettersson
Sallinen
Part
Vasks

I'd say this is fairly accurate.. though I can't help but feel I'm forgetting someone..


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

Ligeti
Boulez
Carter
Cage
Maderna
Takemitsu
Chin
Messiaen
Penderecki (early)
Dutilleux
Norgard
Grisey

and possibly some others, I'm not good making lists.


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## korenbloem (Nov 5, 2012)

last 50 years: classical:
Boulez, Reich, Riley, Hassell, Golijov, Glass, Meredith Monk, Stockhausen, Schnitkke, Penderecki. Part, Andriessen, Bun-Ching Lam, Feldman, Carter, Ades, Gordon, Messiaen, Shostakovich, Aho, Britten, Gorekie, Galas, (and almost everyone else I forget!!!!)

Jazz/third stream (so jazz composers who almost make classical music, or make classical music):
George Lewis, Roscoe Mitchell, Anthony Davis, ICP.

Special notice for some great composers: but are officialy rock, but transend that genre.

Joanna Newsom (Chamber music)
Klaus Schulze (comsic composer)
Can (band, krautrock old students of Stockhausen)
Brian Eno (ambient, and great producer)
Julia Holter (modern composer)


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