# insufficiently modern composers



## science (Oct 14, 2010)

I think 2015 will be for me a year of exploring the insufficiently-modern composers of the present or recent past (let's say 1968 to now). The ones who aren't radical enough to be cool. The composers who aren't cool among people like us. I suspect I haven't been fair to them, and I'm going to give them a lot of my time. 

I'm thinking of people like: 

- Jennifer Higdon
- Eric Whitacre
- Philip Glass 
- John Rutter
- John Taverner 
- Morten Lauridsen 
- Robert Simpson
- Andrew Lloyd Webber 
- Kurt Atterberg 
- Ned Rorem 
- Roy Harris 
- Virgil Thompson 
- John Williams 

Who am I missing? Who are other famous but insufficiently-modern composers? The music that you'd be afraid to like (or to admit to liking)?


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

To paraphrase Arthur C. Clarke, any sufficiently advanced music is indistinguishable from noise.

Or to paraphrase another SF writer who paraphrased Clarke, any music distinguishable from noise is insufficiently advanced.


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## MoonlightSonata (Mar 29, 2014)

Insufficiently-modern? Surely a composer doesn't _have_ to be a radical? 
I can't think of any you've missed, this is a good list of the more conservative composers.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

May I suggest, as additions to your list, Christopher Rouse and Aaron Jay Kernis? Both younger than I am...

John Adams isn't there, I assume for some sufficient reason.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Maybe Peteris Vasks?

I'm not sure if Thomas Ades is also in this category or not.

I was thinking about this earlier, but in the context of dead composers and the measure of modernity in their time. Rachmaninoff for example, or Mendelssohn or Elgar. Or maybe Shostakovich or Dutilleux. These are big names, so what about the lesser known composers that were in the same situation. Lyapuonov, Medtner, as late romantic piano composers, Avison and Boyce writing english baroque music well into the classical period, or maybe Hovhaness of the 20th century.


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## Richannes Wrahms (Jan 6, 2014)

Lauridsen's problem isn't modernity but his pop mentality (and perhaps a bit more refinement, you know, the little things like learning how to write proper polyphony). 
Similar (if not the same) _problems_ haunt the rest in the list, of which only a few have interested me more than 2''.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Ades is right on the border, it seems to me. I'll add him in, just to be safe. Vasks may actually be cool, but... maybe I can't help myself.... 

I was wondering about Salonen too. He may be too popular with our elite to qualify.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Richannes Wrahms said:


> Lauridsen's problem isn't modernity but his pop mentality (and perhaps a bit more refinement, you know, the little things like learning how to write proper polyphony).
> Similar (if not the same) _problems_ haunt the rest in the list, of which only a few have interested me more than 2''.


Good, tell me more of these guys with a pop mentality!

Tell me more of the people who we're not encouraged to have more than 2 minutes of interest in!


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

In another thread, someone cited this Palladio thing by Karl Jenkins. I personally thought it was a very movie score-ish piece with popish rhythm but almost pastiche style harmonies(of a more typical sort). Is that what you are looking for?


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

clavichorder said:


> In another thread, someone cited this Palladio thing by Karl Jenkins. I personally thought it was a very movie score-ish piece with popish rhythm but almost pastiche style harmonies(of a more typical sort). Is that what you are looking for?


That piece drives me bonkers.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

violadude said:


> That piece drives me bonkers.


It made me think, "now this is what I want to avoid sounding like."


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

clavichorder said:


> In another thread, someone cited this Palladio thing by Karl Jenkins. I personally thought it was a very movie score-ish piece with popish rhythm but almost pastiche style harmonies(of a more typical sort). Is that what you are looking for?


Ohmigosh, thank you! Jenkins was a major oversight on my list!

- Jennifer Higdon
- Eric Whitacre
- Philip Glass 
- John Rutter
- John Taverner 
- Morten Lauridsen 
- Robert Simpson
- Andrew Lloyd Webber 
- Kurt Atterberg 
- Ned Rorem 
- Roy Harris 
- Virgil Thompson 
- John Williams
- Christopher Rouse
- Aaron Jay Kernis
- Pteris Vasks
- Thomas Ades 
- Karl Jenkins


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## MoonlightSonata (Mar 29, 2014)

Thomas Adés? Really?


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

MoonlightSonata said:


> Thomas Adés? Really?


I actually did see his music condescended to as only "putatively" modern. So that's good enough!


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

MoonlightSonata said:


> Thomas Adés? Really?


I mean, isn't he kind of harkening back to a more 20th century style of composition? Dutilleux for example, was pretty 'conservative' but also very original. I don't know Ades well enough to say whether he is that(or if I like him half as much as Dutilleux), but I am listening to that Violin Concerto again.


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

Daniel Asia
Eric Ewazen
Lowell Liebermann
Chloe Moon
Esa-Pekka Salonen (perhaps only semi-conservative)
Peter Schickele
José Serebrier
Milos Sokola (hard to find but worth it!)

Kind of a long show-off list, I know, but for a while I really sought ought under-appreciated conservative composers. There are a lot more in my catalog that might fit the bill, but I couldn't remember and wasn't going to sample them all.

[Actually, I shouldn't include Chloe Moon. I can't even find her now. She was on an album I have of contemporary New Zealand compositions for flute and orchestra. Now there's specific enough category!]


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

You must not forget Kenny G, the greatest of all Seattle composers.


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## dgee (Sep 26, 2013)

science said:


> Good, tell me more of these guys with a pop mentality!
> 
> Tell me more of the people who we're not encouraged to have more than 2 minutes of interest in!


I thought you were interested in composers who aren't sufficiently modern? Pop influence is so now! Try free-jazz crossovers too. And, your minimalists and eastern mystics (and Taverner and Rutter) are definitely modern. John Adams is a god for a big chunk of contemporary music practitioners - so modern in his break from Europe

Maybe insufficiently modern would include Charles Wuorinen - still 12 tone! Henze definitely. Possibly Rihm, although he won the Gravemeyer lately (so conservative!). Recent Stockhausen - he never moved on from the 70s!

Oh, jokes - I get your code. You want to listen to the naughty music, the music hated like people by me (just a punter with a music education who happens to like bleepy bloopy euro-modernism). Well, here we go: there's some horrible names in your OP but if you add Mason Bates you'd really be hitting the jackpot. Why not grab some Vangelis and Wojchiech Kilar too. There's certainly a lot of diversity out there


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Weston said:


> Daniel Asia
> Eric Ewazen
> Lowell Liebermann
> Chloe Moon
> ...


Wow, that's an interesting list. I'll look them up.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

clavichorder said:


> You must not forget Kenny G, the greatest of all Seattle composers.


I was hoping to find performances by Lang Lang....


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

clavichorder said:


> You must not forget Kenny G, the greatest of all Seattle composers.


Ha! He wrote nothing to touch Black Hole Sun!

But for insufficiently modern Seattle (area) composers, there's Alan Hovhaness...


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

dgee said:


> I thought you were interested in composers who aren't sufficiently modern? Pop influence is so now! Try free-jazz crossovers too. And, your minimalists and eastern mystics (and Taverner and Rutter) are definitely modern. John Adams is a god for a big chunk of contemporary music practitioners - so modern in his break from Europe
> 
> Maybe insufficiently modern would include Charles Wuorinen - still 12 tone! Henze definitely. Possibly Rihm, although he won the Gravemeyer lately (so conservative!). Recent Stockhausen - he never moved on from the 70s!
> 
> Oh, jokes - I get your code. You want to listen to the naughty music, the music hated like people by me (just a punter with a music education who happens to like bleepy bloopy euro-modernism). Well, here we go: there's some horrible names in your OP but if you add Mason Bates you'd really be hitting the jackpot. Why not grab some Vangelis and Wojchiech Kilar too. There's certainly a lot of diversity out there


Yes, that's what I'm looking for.

Wourinen and Rihm are good choices. I'll check out Mason Bates, so thank you for that.

I didn't realize that Kilar was scorned! I'd missed that. Thanks for letting me know, as I already enjoy his music!

Adams to my knowledge is the least scorned of the modernists, so I think I'd better leave him out.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

What do 'modernists' think of Luther Adams?


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

clavichorder said:


> You must not forget Kenny G, the greatest of all Seattle composers.


Ahem...3rd greatest of all Seattle composers.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

KenOC said:


> Ha! He wrote nothing to touch Black Hole Sun!
> 
> But for insufficiently modern Seattle (area) composers, there's Alan Hovhaness...


Yeah, but he's long dead too. Science is into the living ones for this thread's purposes.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

What's considered modern these days? Actually, I don't want to discuss it. I heard Andre Previn being interviewed on the radio the other week, and he was avoiding a discussion about music. He said "just listen to the music."


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

clavichorder said:


> Yeah, but he's long dead too. Science is into the living ones for this thread's purposes.


Hovhaness would be ok with me, at least the music of the last couple decades of his life. I haven't seen him scorned enough to feel comfortable including him on the list.

Can anyone reassure me that his late music was scorned by the cultural elite?


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

science said:


> Hovhaness would be ok with me, at least the music of the last couple decades of his life. I haven't seen him scorned enough to feel comfortable including him on the list.
> 
> Can anyone reassure me that his late music was scorned by the cultural elite?


I don't know, but I seem to recall PetrB having a very low opinion of Hovhaness. I think some of it is due to his hatred of 'music by the yard.'

My understanding of later Hovhaness is that it is somewhat longer winded.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

clavichorder said:


> Yeah, but he's long dead too. Science is into the living ones for this thread's purposes.


I don't think so. The OP's list includes several composers who wouldn't be alive even by stretching the definition of "zombie" to an unreasonable degree.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

KenOC said:


> I don't think so. The OP's list includes several composers who wouldn't be alive even by stretching the definition of "zombie" to an unreasonable degree.


Then I stand corrected.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

science said:


> Can anyone reassure me that his late music was scorned by the cultural elite?


All of Hovhaness's music is quite sufficiently scorned. I live in Seattle for quite a few years and know. Trust me, it's scorn city for Mr. H!


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

clavichorder said:


> What do 'modernists' think of Luther Adams?


Not sure, and I've never been able to stay awake long enough to form my own opinion.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Weston said:


> Daniel Asia
> Eric Ewazen
> Lowell Liebermann
> Chloe Moon
> ...


I just did my homework on this list and it is a great list. I really appreciate you taking the time to learn this stuff and then to share it with me.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

I'm taking y'all's word for Hovhaness. If PetrB scorned him, then he must deserve scorn, and so I want to add him to my list!

I still need help with Kilar.


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

*Latest Purchases*

Check out some of my latest purchases:

http://www.talkclassical.com/1006-latest-purchases-531.html

http://www.talkclassical.com/1006-latest-purchases-535.html#post771563

http://www.talkclassical.com/1006-latest-purchases-534.html

http://www.talkclassical.com/1006-latest-purchases-533.html#post768404

http://www.talkclassical.com/1006-latest-purchases-531.html

Sorry. It appears that all of my links don't work.


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## dgee (Sep 26, 2013)

Zbigniew Preisner - there's a good one for ya.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

This might be a bit painful for me; I don't anticipate liking this music very much. But tentatively, here is a first draft of my next order (at least with respect to this stuff): 

- Jenkins: The Armed Man, A Mass for Peace
- Einaudi: Una Mattina
- Nyman: "The Piano" Concerto
- Simpson: Symphonies #3 & 5 
- Gjello: Choral Works "Northern Lights" 
- Lauridsen: Nocturnes 
- Rorem: Symphonies 
- Thompson: Symphonies 
- Higdon: Blue Cathedral (on the Spano "Rainbow Bodies" disk because that looks so hard not to scorn) 
- Salonen: Wing on Wing 
- Rutter: Requiem & Magnificat 
- Tavener: Akathist of Thanksgiving
- Priesner: Requiem for My Friend 
- Aho: Symphony #15
- Ewazen: Sejong Plays Ewazen
- Westlake: Onomatoposia 
- Schuman: Symphony #6
- Kats-Cherin: Wild Swans Concert Suite
- Rihm: Jagden und Formen 

Actually I'll probably have to break that up into a couple of different orders. And if I can find anything more scorned first, I will! So that's not set in stone. 

Meanwhile, I already have some stuff I can listen to... I'll see y'all in the current listening thread....


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

dgee said:


> Zbigniew Preisner - there's a good one for ya.


That does look good.



KenOC said:


> Not sure, and I've never been able to stay awake long enough to form my own opinion.


Good enough for me! I'll add "Become Ocean" to my wish list.


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## Guest (Dec 8, 2014)

dgee said:


> Zbigniew Preisner - there's a good one for ya.


Does this count?


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

Rachmaninov. Rachmaninov is not cool because he wasn't "modern" enough. 

Topics like these I find to be really weird because it skews our minds into thinking or implying that even though, say, Thomas Adès (what! why choose him to put on the list???) isn't "radical" that he will ultimately be put into a second class of composers. Alternatively, it can make composers such as Anthony Pateras, Brian Ferneyhough and so on form an elitist group in our minds with snobbish implication........

Also it doesn't take into account that each one of these composers is incredibly different in the way they set out to compose and what their influences are that each one makes for a very good composer on their own grounds as to what they have determined is their reason for composing. Categorising composers and composers as different as Higdon and Adès and Jenkins and Glass into a box with a label truly shows how meaningless this all is....

I think it's best to really view this on no more than a superficial level for it to make the most sense anyway.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

But yo, its fun yo...


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## MoonlightSonata (Mar 29, 2014)

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> ...Thomas Adès (what! why choose him to put on the list???)...


Thank goodness. I thought I was the only one who was surprised.
Wonderful post, though.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> Categorising composers and composers as different as Higdon and Adès and Jenkins and Glass into a box with a label truly shows how meaningless this all is....
> 
> I think it's best to really view this on no more than a superficial level for it to make the most sense anyway.


I think the point is not that these composers are similar in their musical style but rather that some TC members view the composers in a similar manner (i.e. not truly modern or contemporary). The list is not so much based on characteristics of the composers but on how TC members view composers. For example, _science_ would say (I think) that he did not choose Ades but rather the TC membership indirectly did.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

mmsbls said:


> I think the point is not that these composers are similar in their musical style but rather that some TC members view the composers in a similar manner (i.e. not truly modern or contemporary). The list is not so much based on characteristics of the composers but on how TC members view composers. For example, _science_ would say (I think) that he did not choose Ades but rather the TC membership indirectly did.


In that case I nominate Nigel Westlake, Kalevi Aho and Elena Kats-Chernin!


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

KenOC said:


> All of Hovhaness's music is quite sufficiently scorned. I live in Seattle for quite a few years and know. Trust me, it's scorn city for Mr. H!


I live in Seattle now and that's not the impression I get. West Coasters seem to like Hovhaness's type of music.


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

science said:


> - Robert Simpson
> - Roy Harris


Of the composers mentioned at the outset, I'm especially fond of these two--interesting personalities worth reading about, I might add. I'd particularly recommend Harris' 3rd string quartet and piano quintet, which I continue to listen to (being a fugue addict). I used to have several albums in which he was paired with William Schuman, another very fine composer who has fallen off the grid. If you get into Simpson's symphonies and string quartets, be sure to read his bizarre descriptions of what he was trying to do!


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## MagneticGhost (Apr 7, 2013)

I think the concept of ranking a composer's importance based on his musical language is pure bunk. And that goes from which ever side of the 'divide' you are viewing it from. 

This is not a dig at this thread btw - which is fun 

Can't quite believe in Ades inclusion either. 
Feldman must be in with a shout - Rothko Chapel is stuff I could play my mum :lol:


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## Wood (Feb 21, 2013)

Arvo Part

Tarik o'Regan

Einaudi

Magle :devil:

David Bedford

Mike Oldfield

Emerson, Lake & Palmer

Jethro Tull (Bouree)


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## SimonNZ (Jul 12, 2012)

I may be missing the humour in this, and I don't want to be a killjoy, but...it seems like this is going to build more walls than it tears down.

And reverse snobbery is just another form of snobbery.

All of the people listed so far have very different reasons for whatever (if any) criticism that has been leveled at them, all of which is something other than "insufficiently modern". It would be interesting to address those one at a time.

Personally I enjoy some of the composers mentioned very much, others just particular works, others I see as squandered potential. A few more I think are downright bad.


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

Michael Nyman!

From a recent _Guardian_ interview:


> ...Nyman's self-definition as the outsider of British contemporary music: the composer always ignored by the opera houses, scorned by his peers for doing all the vulgar things - having a large audience, writing film soundtracks, making money - that aren't done by those he calls "real composers". It's reached the point where he feels there's "something heroic" about his rejections from ENO and the ROH, "but it pisses me off, because I'm a very good opera composer, and I read with a combination of envy and joy when an opera that's been commissioned from my colleagues is given two stars by the Guardian. I know I could write an opera that's equally as bad, but I won't get a chance."
> 
> Nyman's sense of grievance about being deemed non-U by the contemporary music establishment is hardly new - the first time I interviewed him, for a football magazine, nearly 20 years ago, he observed glumly that he featured in more books about 1970s football than he did in books about classical music - but it's no less persuasive now, not least because he understands from both sides the pernicious effects of musical dogmatism. He cites the case of John Tavener, about whom he wrote for the Spectator.
> 
> "When John died, I thought maybe one of my reviews of his work could be used as a homage to his work in the early 60s. I reread this review, and it was terrifyingly savage." The irony, he says, is that all the things he professed to despise were things that "would really attract me big-time now, in that he worked with musical collage, and he had children's rhymes, and this very flashy incoherence, with pop connections. But in those days we were very hardline, and so his music was looked on with great suspicion. Now, if there was a big montage, collage piece, I'd love to write it myself. But because it broke all the rules of what the guiding musical language of the time was, I just dismissed the man. I have been cursed as a composer ever since I started writing in 1976 simply because the music was very consistent but it dealt with elements that were not really permitted in music, in the way I thought John Tavener was dealing with musical elements that were not permitted by the avant garde."


OK, I guess you can add John Tavener to the list too!

Also Max Richter, whose music was IIRC described as "anti-music" by one of _Gramophone_'s modern-minded critics.

Jonathan Dove, Alec Roth, Ugis Praulins, Laurent Petitgirard - all have written music I love.

On the UK's Classic FM they like:
Nigel Hess
Helen Jane Long
Philip Stopford
Patrick Hawes
Stuart Mitchell


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

^^^Michael Nyman is a favourite of mine. 

Not just for his film scores, but also his operas and orchestral music. I don't like his more "normal" chamber music though in the forms of piano trios and string quartets!


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## MagneticGhost (Apr 7, 2013)

^^ I saw Nyman's 'The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat' when I was at Uni studying music. Our Professor gave a pre-performance open lecture. Neither the music or the attitudes of my illustrious betters gave me any indication that I was not witnessing real, serious, music.
I have the Opera on CD and I still enjoy it very much.


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## SeptimalTritone (Jul 7, 2014)

Valentin Silvestrov hasn't been mentioned yet. Requiem for Larissa and Symphony 7.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

MagneticGhost said:


> ^^ I saw Nyman's 'The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat' when I was at Uni studying music. Our Professor gave a pre-performance open lecture. Neither the music or the attitudes of my illustrious betters gave me any indication that I was not witnessing real, serious, music.
> I have the Opera on CD and I still enjoy it very much.


Have you heard/seen Facing Goya? It's probably my favourite, makes use of the Michael Nyman Band in his own typically loud and coarse style of ensemble writing.


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## Skilmarilion (Apr 6, 2013)

The OP is the first time I have seen Andrew Lloyd Webber described as a 'composer'.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

SimonNZ said:


> I may be missing the humour in this, and I don't want to be a killjoy, but...it seems like this is going to build more walls than it tears down.
> 
> And reverse snobbery is just another form of snobbery.
> 
> ...


I agree with almost everything here, but I refuse to surrender the low ground!


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> Alternatively, it can make composers such as Anthony Pateras, Brian Ferneyhough and so on form an elitist group in our minds with snobbish implication........


This is an implication to which I am responding, not creating.


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## MagneticGhost (Apr 7, 2013)

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> Have you heard/seen Facing Goya? It's probably my favourite, makes use of the Michael Nyman Band in his own typically loud and coarse style of ensemble writing.


No - I will look out for it now on your recommendation


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## Guest (Dec 8, 2014)

science said:


> This is an implication to which I am responding, not creating.


I disagree. From where I'm standing, it looks like you're creating it. And then responding to your creation as if it were something real out there that exists independent of you.

As evidence, I submit this quote:



science said:


> Tell me more of the people who we're not encouraged to have more than 2 minutes of interest in!


No one has discouraged anyone from having more than 2 minutes of interest in anything. One person did something quite different, which was to mention that he (and he alone) has not been able to be interested in most people on science's list for longer than 2 units of time. (And his unit was the second, not the minute.)

Turning a personal comment about one's own tastes into "people... we're not encouraged to have more than 2 minutes of interest in" is definitely creating.

As are things like "cultural elite," used throughout this thread as a) a thing that exists and b) a bad thing.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

some guy said:


> I disagree. From where I'm standing, it looks like you're creating it. And then responding to your creation as if it were something real out there that exists independent of you.
> 
> As evidence, I submit this quote:
> 
> ...


This has done me good. I'm duly chastised.

But, can you add any music to my project?


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

*HE STARTED IT!*


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

science said:


> I agree with almost everything here, but I refuse to surrender the low ground!


I agree with everything, except the fact that he is missing the humor.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Nereffid said:


> *HE STARTED IT!*


I was thinking about this with regards to the "counter-snobbery is as bad as snobbery" claim. I'm not sure I believe that, but an interesting thing to think about is whether traditional snobbery even exists anymore.

Imagine someone saying, "Jazz, rock and roll, rap are garbage; Beethoven and Schoenberg are where it's at." That's the traditional snobbery, and I think very few of us would admire someone who embodied that opinion. I know it still exists, but it is no longer culturally persuasive. The victory of counter-snobbery is complete.

So that now, I suspect, all snobbery is counter[SUP]x[/SUP]-snobbery, where X is an unknowable value greater than 1: it is counter-counter snobbery, or counter-counter-counter-snobbery, or counter-counter-counter-counter-snobbery, or worse, and we'll never untangle it. Counter-snobbery's victory is so complete that we're all trying to be the persecuted, for the sake of adopting their powerful rhetoric.

It's a race to the bottom, and if indeed I occupy the low ground, I've won, for now.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

science said:


> I was thinking about this with regards to the "counter-snobbery is as bad as snobbery" claim. I'm not sure I believe that, but an interesting thing to think about is whether traditional snobbery even exists anymore.


Otherwise Thackeray's Vanity Fair and much of his early work would be just as morally reprehensible as what he parodies.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

clavichorder said:


> I agree with everything, except the fact that he is missing the humor.


Well, I disapprove of humor.

The problem is that humor is one of the last weapons of the weak. If we take it from them, we can crush them more completely.

That's why I'm always careful to make sure that my jokes aren't actually funny.

But I'm actually serious in a way: I am going to listen to this music and, if I can, learn to like it! Really, except for really cheesy music, this is the music I have the hardest time enjoying. Perhaps I've internalized the wrong values! (Oh, I slipped back into joking there. Being serious is not as easy as some people make it look.)


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## Trout (Apr 11, 2011)

Nico Muhly
Dobrinka Tabakova
Leonard Bernstein
Krzysztof Penderecki (1970s onward)
Osvaldo Golijov
Henryk Górecki
Dmitri Shostakovich (maybe?)
Einojuhani Rautavaara
Malcolm Arnold

When all is said and done, this list will probably be larger than one of all the "sufficiently modern" composers (especially when including many film/musical composers and pretty much all of the lesser-known, 20th-century romantics).


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## Guest (Dec 8, 2014)

Rautavaara, Penderecki, and other neo-romantic staples are good picks.

A note for science:
Make sure you're paying careful attention to the works you choose to listen to. If I correctly understand your goal, it would be bogus to call just any Rihm, Henze, etc work "insufficiently modern".

Edit:
I somewhat agree with stances of someguy and SimonNZ and the like. I think your intent is good, science, but your rhetoric is potentially harmful. *Why not simply ask for "conservative contemporary composers"?* Why do the folks who listen to the more radical stuff have to be attacked to get a few replies containing lists of conservative contemporary music? Whether any of them are guilty or not of such discouraging rhetoric, is it really all that relevant? I say this respectfully in hopes of peaceful coexistence


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## Tristan (Jan 5, 2013)

I like a lot of those composers on your initial list and am not afraid to admit it one bit. But I know, I'm dumb and simple, so I _would_ like that music. 

And to be fair, @*arcaneholocaust*, people have asked for "conservative contemporary composers" in the past, but then the whole thread consists of people saying "Why limit yourself? Why would you want to listen to _that_?" and they assume the person is hostile to modern innovative music. There doesn't seem to be a good way to talk about "conservative contemporary" without getting into the "cool vs. uncool", "deep vs. shallow", "interesting vs. boring" rehash. So maybe opening with "I know you all think these composers suck ***, but if you could just _humor me _with a list..." is not a bad way to start


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## Guest (Dec 8, 2014)

But if you don't open with hostilities, at least you can pin the blame on someone else


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## Guest (Dec 8, 2014)

Oh, even if you do open with hostilities, you can still pin the blame on someone else.

Oh, and Roxanne Panufnik for thread duty.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

If the suggestion box is still on the wall -- Mason Bates. Even _I_ scorn his music.


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## SuperTonic (Jun 3, 2010)

Maybe John Corigliano? I think I've seen him criticized for being overly conservative before. I personally like much of his music though. I really think it was the score for The Red Violin and the violin concerto that was adapted from that score that did him in with the modernists.


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## Jos (Oct 14, 2013)

Max Richter, has he been mentioned yet ? Not even sure if he writes "classical" music.

Very enjoyable, but definitely insufficiently modern, I guess......


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## Ludric (Oct 29, 2014)

Essentially every Estonian composer could be considered "insufficiently modern. They compose in a very tonal manner and often stay within the same key throughout an entire piece - usually without any chromaticism either. No extended techniques, no theatrics, just pure tonal melody and harmony.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Vincent Persichetti. 9 out of 12 of his piano sonatas are irresistibly approachable.

Hilding Rosenberg's two piano concertos are romantic in spirit.

I play these only after I'm quite sure the atonalist faction of TC have all gone to bed.


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## uaxuctum (Dec 5, 2014)

Ludric said:


> Essentially every Estonian composer could be considered "insufficiently modern. They compose in a very tonal manner and often stay within the same key throughout an entire piece - usually without any chromaticism either. No extended techniques, no theatrics, just pure tonal melody and harmony.


I fail to see how that description would apply to someone like Tüür. Listen to _Requiem_ or _Crystallisatio_ and then tell me everything there is just pure tonal melody and harmony with no extended techniques or theatrics.


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## Ludric (Oct 29, 2014)

uaxuctum said:


> I fail to see how that description would apply to someone like Tüür. Listen to _Requiem_ or _Crystallisatio_ and then tell me everything there is just pure tonal melody and harmony with no extended techniques or theatrics.


There are exceptions for sure, but the majority of compositions from Estonian composers are tonal. Here's a piece by Pärt Uusberg which was composed just last year:


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

If Philip Glass, Claude Debussy, Arvo Part, and so forth are to be considered tonal in the same sense as Mozart, Bach, and Beethoven, I'm not joking or being obtuse when I say that I do not understand at all what people mean by tonality anymore.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Daugherty? "After reading a score by Michael Daugherty, I feel that I need to wash my hands." --Felix Mendelssohn


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

I don't really know enough about music to know quite how modern these composers are, but I suspect they will fit the bill:

Lera Auerbach (e.g. Symphony No. 1, Dialogues on Stabat Mater, Double Concerto)
Sylvie Bodorova (e.g. Bern Concerto)
Yehezkel Braun (e.g. Violin Concerto)
Guillaume Connesson (e.g. Sextet)
Richard Danielpour (e.g. Piano Concerto 4)
Avner Dorman (e.g. Concerto in A, Cello Concerto)
Ross Edwards (e.g. Violin Concerto)
Douwe Eisenga (e.g. Piano Concert, Motion)
Jonathan Leshnoff (e.g. Double Concerto, Violin Concerto)


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## Guest (Dec 8, 2014)

uaxuctum said:


> I fail to see how that description would apply to someone like Tüür. Listen to _Requiem_ or _Crystallisatio_ and then tell me everything there is just pure tonal melody and harmony with no extended techniques or theatrics.


Helena Tulve is even less conservative than Tuur. Check her out.


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## Guest (Dec 8, 2014)

Mahlerian said:


> If Philip Glass, Claude Debussy, Arvo Part, and so forth are to be considered tonal in the same sense as Mozart, Bach, and Beethoven, I'm not joking or being obtuse when I say that I do not understand at all what people mean by tonality anymore.


In the 20th century, it became an all-encompassing term for "sounds pretty to me".


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## binkley (Feb 2, 2013)

Weston said:


> Peter Schickele


Does Schickele belong on the list? Even his non-PDQ Bach stuff doesn't seem very serious in intent.


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

Mahlerian said:


> If Philip Glass, Claude Debussy, Arvo Part, and so forth are to be considered tonal in the same sense as Mozart, Bach, and Beethoven, I'm not joking or being obtuse when I say that I do not understand at all what people mean by tonality anymore.


The disintegration of diction.


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## rrudolph (Sep 15, 2011)

I'm not exactly sure what we're looking for here, but here are some 20th century composers that seem to me to be unjustly in danger of fading into the past and might be considered "conservative":

David Diamond
George Perle
George Rochberg
Ross Lee Finney
Ralph Shapey (perhaps not everyone would consider him conservative)


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## dgee (Sep 26, 2013)

Just as an anecdote, I had a look at the composers at my local university - I reckon about half of them are insufficiently modern for the purposes of this discussion. Which is interesting given the usual prejudices about academia and in the context of the university being strong on electro-acoustics


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## binkley (Feb 2, 2013)

I may be misremembering, but don't some believe Ligeti to have gone soft and useless in his later years?


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## Jobis (Jun 13, 2013)

binkley said:


> I may be misremembering, but don't some believe Ligeti to have gone soft and useless in his later years?


Possibly, but you might be thinking of Penderecki? Hard to say.


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## dgee (Sep 26, 2013)

binkley said:


> I may be misremembering, but don't some believe Ligeti to have gone soft and useless in his later years?


Haha! A little bit 

Magnus Lindberg is a prime example of this phenomenon - but his newer music is still enjoyable. Friedrich Cerha also but his later music I don't find particualrly interesting. That could be a whole separate thread!


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## Richannes Wrahms (Jan 6, 2014)

Late Elliott Carter?


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## Guest (Dec 9, 2014)

Mahlerian said:


> If Philip Glass, Claude Debussy, Arvo Part, and so forth are to be considered tonal in the same sense as Mozart, Bach, and Beethoven, I'm not joking or being obtuse when I say that I do not understand at all what people mean by tonality anymore.


They mean "pretty."


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

some guy said:


> They mean "pretty."


Given that I don't consider Bach or Beethoven particularly "pretty" much of the time, I think I'd have to disagree with "them" here.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Nicolas Flagello. Stuck in a maelstrom of dark, turbulent, sumptuous Romanticism. Pretty good or better.


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

some guy said:


> They mean "pretty."


"Pretty" really doesn't mean anything other than it appeals to one's sensibilities. Someone can hear a giant wall of white noise from a radio broadcast and think it's pretty. I do.


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

I seem to recall PetrB having a very low opinion of Hovhaness.

I seem to recall that he has a rather low opinion of Shostakovitch and is less than thrilled with Bach... so where does that leave you?


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

StlukesguildOhio said:


> I seem to recall PetrB having a very low opinion of Hovhaness.
> 
> I seem to recall that he has a rather low opinion of Shostakovitch and is less than thrilled with Bach... so where does that leave you?


In the interest of avoiding unnecessary controversy, it doesn't leave me with much to add.


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

Michael Daugherty
Daniel Catan
William Bolcom
David Lang
Enrique Granados
Peter Lieberson
Lorenzo Palomo
John Harbison
Jake Heggie
James MacMillan


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## Guest (Dec 10, 2014)

StlukesguildOhio said:


> I seem to recall PetrB having a very low opinion of Hovhaness.
> 
> I seem to recall that he has a rather low opinion of Shostakovitch and is less than thrilled with Bach... so where does that leave you?


It leaves you with a conclusion about PetrB but with nothing about any of the three named composers.

It leaves me with something further, which is that if I want to hear PetrB's opinions about things, I'd much much much rather hear them from PetrB and not second or even third-hand from somebody else.


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## Albert7 (Nov 16, 2014)

Does insufficiently modern here in this thread mean composers who were not influenced by minimalists or Elliott Carter?

If you just went by historical criteria would not every composer born after 1900 be considered modern?


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## Johannes V (Dec 2, 2014)

Oguzhan Balci

This one is even in D!


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## Guest (Dec 12, 2014)

albertfallickwang said:


> Does insufficiently modern here in this thread mean composers who were not influenced by minimalists or Elliott Carter?


Probably not.























albertfallickwang said:


> If you just went by historical criteria would not every composer born after 1900 be considered modern?


Even if you define "modern" by date, that's still only a chronological criterion, not a historical one. And the word "insufficiently" is a bit of a tip-off that the op is not defining "modern" by date.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Blake said:


> "Pretty" really doesn't mean anything other than it appeals to one's sensibilities. Someone can hear a giant wall of white noise from a radio broadcast and think it's pretty. I do.


LOL. Especially if that wall of white noise is blocking / occluding other sounds you deem 'unwanted noise,' then it is not only pretty, but a welcome relief


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

starthrower said:


> I heard Andre Previn being interviewed on the radio the other week, and he was avoiding a discussion about music. He said "just listen to the music."


*"Just listen to the music."*

Now, that, of late, is about as truly avant garde radical as it can get!


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

StlukesguildOhio said:


> I seem to recall PetrB having a very low opinion of Hovhaness.
> 
> I seem to recall that he has a rather low opinion of Shostakovitch and is less than thrilled with Bach... so where does that leave you?


Well, forming your own opinion independent of others might be a good place to start, that is if you're that completely lost or so desperately stranded that you are forced to scavenge for thoughts other than your own to comment upon, you might look around on your own for the materials for a way out vs. waiting for some air-lifted intellectual supplies to be provided you.

From the 'there' of having some opinion of your own, you can then consider the opinion of others and either then form your own independent opinion on the subject at hand as stimulated by the others opinion, or consider the opinion in relation to a self-formed opinion you may already have.

At any rate, coming up with your own and making some decent argument and/or merely explaining your personal aesthetics or point of view is usually considered an exercise with some real merit as well as one bearing its own rewards, the all of which is near universally valued and respected.


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## aajj (Dec 28, 2014)

science said:


> I think 2015 will be for me a year of exploring the insufficiently-modern composers of the present or recent past (let's say 1968 to now). The ones who aren't radical enough to be cool. The composers who aren't cool among people like us. I suspect I haven't been fair to them, and I'm going to give them a lot of my time.
> 
> I'm thinking of people like:
> 
> ...


So, this is supposed to be about guilty pleasures? Tonality versus atonality? Abba versus Zappa? My understanding of this thread is insufficiently insufficient.

Anyway, Philip Glass as far as i know has been plenty modern and considered plenty cool. Virgil Thomson wrote about fifty million compositions and cannot be summed up easily. Nor can Sir Mix-a-Lot, the third or fourth greatest composer from Seattle.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

aajj said:


> So, this is supposed to be about guilty pleasures? Tonality versus atonality? Abba versus Zappa? My understanding of this thread is insufficiently insufficient.
> 
> Anyway, Philip Glass as far as i know has been plenty modern and considered plenty cool. Virgil Thomson wrote about fifty million compositions and cannot be summed up easily. Nor can Sir Mix-a-Lot, the third or fourth greatest composer from Seattle.


Well, in "polite company" (let's say, a gathering of grad students in music) I'd be far more comfortable expressing an admiration for Sir Mix-a-Lot than expressing one for Glass. And that's without knowing Sir Mix-a-Lot's music at all!

I don't believe tonality or atonality are very useful categories in most discussions, so I wouldn't frame the question in those terms, but if it helps you to think of it as "contemporary composers employing tonality," and you have some names for that, let's have 'em!


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## Guest (Jan 7, 2015)

One of my favorite Roussel pieces, _Bacchus et Ariane._

It is clear that this purging of animals has to have some distinct limits.


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## aajj (Dec 28, 2014)

science said:


> Well, I'm flexible with the diction. Let's discuss contemporary composers who (in your view) in some way aren't "successful in what they set out to do."


This would be a completely different topic. Andrew Lloyd Weber was, for whatever reason, on the original list. His music makes me want to vomit 'til the break of dawn but i cannot dispute that he has been "successful" in terms of popularity and making lots and lots of money.


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## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

If all that matters is doing new and different things, as much as possible, all the time, then I guess what will be left at some point in the distant future is either full white noise, or complete silence. It could go either way.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

DeepR said:


> If *all that matters is doing new and different things, as much as possible, all the time*, then I guess what will be left at some point in the distant future is either full white noise, or complete silence. It could go either way.


I know I'm glad that *no one thinks this way*, or else music might be in a bad state.

But music today is quite alive and well and allows all kinds of growth, so there's nothing to fear just yet.


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## Stavrogin (Apr 20, 2014)

Also, full white noise and complete silence have both already been done


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

aajj said:


> This would be a completely different topic. Andrew Lloyd Weber was, for whatever reason, on the original list. His music makes me want to vomit 'til the break of dawn but i cannot dispute that he has been "successful" in terms of popularity and making lots and lots of money.


Well, Andrew's biggest sin it seems, was not sharing the cash. While the likes of Lerner and Lowe (My Fair Lady), Bernstein (West Side Story), and Rodgers and Hammerstein (The King and I) had a part of the profits from their massive record sales invested back into classical recordings, Andrew Lloyd Webber set up his own recording company and pocketed all of the cash. It doesn't get one in the establishment's good books, does it? Even though now he's basically establishment.

There's other examples like this, for example Mantovani's recordings (he did the first vinyl LP to sell a million) also going towards funding back into serious classical music, but also others like The Rolling Stones. Then there's the Grateful Dead, whose record sales went into funding the likes of Ferneyhough and Carter.

The same goes for living classical composers who actually sell - eg. Arvo Part, Eric Whitacre, Philip Glass and so on - the money generated by their sales would have some trickle down effect across the classical music industry. Same would go for today's Mantovani, Andre Rieu (although he's done a lot of charity work too, especially in Africa).

Could it be that without us great unwashed, classical music would be up the proverbial creek?

But this type of thing doesn't get discussed on this forum, perhaps because it isn't widely known, or maybe more likely because its discomfiting.

In any case, the reason why I and others here do speak about these sorts of hidden values in classical is because it is VERY relevant to discussions of new music on this forum. History isn't irrelevant, society isn't irrelevant, and most of all MONEY isn't irrelevant to music.

This thread kind of reminds me why I don't want to post any more, or even read this type of threads, even though I am interested in newer or new music. Its hypocritical to say the least for people of Modernist bent on TC to deny elitism and insufficiency of certain composers, when they hardly do anything but push ideologies of the sort for years on this forum. Now they are magically being nice. Or is it just to deny what they did? They've done nothing but label people and then target them with their invective.

I think its just sad, and a lie. Just say what you want to say, be what you want to be, and let others do it too. Simple as that, no smoke and mirrors games required. I'm talking to ALL of those who are invalidating this thread. Put up with it, or shut up. That is the choice you've given your opponents time and time again. Go do it yourself.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

aajj said:


> This would be a completely different topic. Andrew Lloyd Weber was, for whatever reason, on the original list. His music makes me want to vomit 'til the break of dawn but i cannot dispute that he has been "successful" in terms of popularity and making lots and lots of money.


Fine. What other contemporary composers make your superior self want to vomit all night long? I don't give a damn about how we phrase it.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

PetrB said:


> I'm not about to go into a mode of groveling gratitude


Fortunately, nobody asked you to do that. You might, however, consider either contributing to the thread or ceasing to derail it.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Sid James said:


> This thread kind of reminds me why I don't want to post any more, or even read this type of threads, even though I am interested in newer or new music. Its hypocritical to say the least for people of Modernist bent on TC to deny elitism and insufficiency of certain composers, when they hardly do anything but push ideologies of the sort for years on this forum. Now they are magically being nice. Or is it just to deny what they did? They've done nothing but label people and then target them with their invective.


To be fair, it has gone both ways. There is a solid base of participants who don't take part, but there was for awhile a pretty powerful anti-modernist clique here (which has dissolved) and they were just as ideological, judgmental, hypocritical, and mean.

I'm not much bothered when the most transparently elitist people try to deny being elitist. Who are they going to fool?


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

Sid James said:


> Well, Andrew's biggest sin it seems, was not sharing the cash. While the likes of Lerner and Lowe (My Fair Lady), Bernstein (West Side Story), and Rodgers and Hammerstein (The King and I) had a part of the profits from their massive record sales invested back into classical recordings, Andrew Lloyd Webber set up his own recording company and pocketed all of the cash. It doesn't get one in the establishment's good books, does it? Even though now he's basically establishment.
> 
> There's other examples like this, for example Mantovani's recordings (he did the first vinyl LP to sell a million) also going towards funding back into serious classical music, but also others like The Rolling Stones. Then there's the Grateful Dead, whose record sales went into funding the likes of Ferneyhough and Carter.
> 
> ...


Close thy Bible, open thy Sid.

-- I like that one.

Great maxim to live by.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

science said:


> To be fair, it has gone both ways. There is a solid base of participants who don't take part, but there was for awhile a pretty powerful anti-modernist clique here (which has dissolved) and they were just as ideological, judgmental, hypocritical, and mean.
> 
> I'm not much bothered when the most transparently elitist people try to deny being elitist. Who are they going to fool?


I did read this whole thread, and yes I think this thread has been useful. I read all the responses, and many did accept the premise of your thread and gave suggestions, which is great.

I do hope the worst years (which is imo the last two) of the Modernists versus anti-Modernist culture wars are behind us, but let's just see what happens. Time will tell, so until more time passes, I am not confident that it is fully over. Or maybe if it is over, we'll have some other hot topic of the year repeat ad infinitum into an ongoing mud slinging competition. I've always said these topics come and overstay their welcome, like the film Groundhog Day. Absolutely tedious but unlike the film, not funny at all.

It is not a problem to be elitist, it isn't banned here or anywhere else. I think that it is inherently part of classical music culture. I just think that its a lame tactic to use against other people - whether it be listeners or composers - as part of some agenda.

Success should be rewarded and encouraged, and in terms of recordings it is true that if we didn't have the living popular composers we wouldn't have money to spare for funding less immediately popular or appealing types of music. It doesn't even have to be retro type composers, you look at how Ligeti's profile was hugely boosted by Kubrick's 2001 A Space Odyessy in the late 1960's.

I am arguing that there are these interrelationships between different types of contemporary classical music and also between different genres. Again, I think that these sorts of connections and the wider contexts are important.



Marschallin Blair said:


> Close thy Bible, open thy Sid.
> 
> -- I like that one.
> 
> Great maxim to live by.


I might have stolen it from a song that would undoubtedly be branded lowbrow by some of our august members.

"Do what you wanna do, be what you wanna be, yeah," ...with apologies to Masters Apprentices.


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

I don't feel like reading through all 9 pages of this now, but has anyone mentioned Turkish composer/pianist Fazil Say?

There's plenty of performance/promo videos on the composer's website, http://fazilsay.com/videos/


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

Closed for repairs


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