# Modern works conducted by Muti, your opinion?



## otterhouse (Sep 6, 2007)

I recently heard two new works by two young Composers-in-residense conducted by Riccardo Muti.
One in the poetic and one in the Disney mode... 
I'm curious what you think of both works...! --> http://classicalspotify.blogspot.nl/2014/09/anna-clyne-night-ferry-and-mason-bates.html


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

I went to youtube and found one-minute promo links to each the Anna Clyne and Mason Bates pieces. They were both done while each composer was composer in residence for the CSO.

Anne Clyne has extensive works previously done with all electronic means, taped and generated, including those infused with recorded speech. I have heard one earlier work -- complete -- which very much impressed me favorably. The piece for the Chicago Symphony _is her first -- ever -- written for orchestra._
This snippet




left me with the impression the piece _Night Ferry_ is made of musical materials which are rather cliche. The piece was reviewed as being from a literary premise but 'not sounding literal.' But I found that one bit in the link sounding more 'illustrative' than of any inherent musical interest. (While there is nothing inherently wrong with that, or plying cliches, it is what one does with them which lifts them out of being commonplace cliche.) Recalling this composer's electronic piece which I heard and thought so successful, I would be interested in hearing the complete _Night Ferry_ before I wrote the whole thing off. [Perhaps some slack should be given this composer, since _Night Ferry_ is her first large work written for a large instrumental ensemble?]

Mason Bates -- again just a short promo link:




Regardless of the inclusion of electronics, taped, sampled or generated, I agree with your 'Disney' assessment, i.e. Bates' musical vocabulary is no more engaging here, holding little of interest _to my ear_, than it is in this earlier work of his, _Mothership._ These generally sound like well-done but somewhat commonplace film scores.




Certainly competent, with all the more than basic skills (Bates is a Juilliard grad, composition) This work is a good number of years after _Mothership_, but I find nothing has much changed in his musical vocabulary, and I find nothing of real musical interest in his materials, inclusion of electronics or other.


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## otterhouse (Sep 6, 2007)

Thanks for your extencive reply! And for pointing me at the "Mothership" piece. 
What are recent works you have liked in the last couple of years?

Rolf, Netherlands


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## otterhouse (Sep 6, 2007)

Thanks for your extencive reply! And for pointing me at the "Mothership" piece. 
What are recent works you have liked in the last couple of years?

Rolf, Netherlands


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Georg Friedrich Haas:
In Vain




Limited Approximations





Beat Furrer ~ Piano Concerto No.1





An 'alternative' vein or sub-genre of contemporary classical...
Franco Battiato ~ Juke Box





Two earlier (mid-later 20th century) electronic works, both of which I consider important masterpieces:
Karlheinz Stockhausen (the link is a fragment of a longer work of approximately forty minutes' duration)
Gesang der Jünglige




Luciano Berio ~ Visages, for voice and electronics (prepared tape)





Terry Riley ~ Requiem for Adam, for string quartet and 'sound collage,' (i.e. prepared tape)
This is the first two movements, all three movements can be found in four links on Ytube. The sound collage figures prominently in the second and third movements.









Ingram Marshall ~ Fog tropes, brass sextet and prepared tape:





A piece without electronics but using instruments especially designed and built by the composer, specific to realizing the piece:
Lucia Dlugoszewski ~ Fire Fragile Flight





What I am not at all fond of is Mason Bate's approach or anything where electronics are similarly used, where the electronica seems to be exclusively 'featured' as 'other' than the instrumental color palette. This seems to be his most consistent use of the electronics, and to me it sounds both obvious and an unnecessary intrusion, almost like a commercial break in a presentation, where Bates is concerned it always sounds to me like "and here are the techno-industrial / beat-box sounds I played with when I was a DJ in a club." ... that just strikes me as lame.

The works I've listed of electronics with mixed acoustic instruments (_electro-acoustic -- this is also now a category in alternative pop genres_) seem to me to have the electronics as very much integrated and part of the musical fabric as a whole. Musician / composers treating those other sources as one or more elements and 'as musical,' for lack of better saying it. I feel the same about the Berio and the Stockhausen.


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