# Need reconmmedation for complex (dark,visceral or beautiful) orchastral music



## kanonathena

Hi,

I started enjoying classical music with Bartok's music on the soundtrack of The Shining. I like Bartok (The Miraculous Mandarin and Concerto for Orchestra), Debussy, Bach and recently Beethoven.

I like super complex music with all many layers. I think Bach and Bartok are the best among limited number of composers I tried (Dubussy's music are just too beautiful La Mer, Beethoven is very emotional) I also tried Wagner, but he wrote very little pure orchestral music and they are generally not as good as Bartok's creation

I see Bartok is not popular here, guess there are top composers much more sophisticated. Please give me some suggestions.


----------



## Serge

Bruckner. Symphonies. Sublime stuff.


----------



## SuperTonic

If you like Bartok, you'll probably like Lutoslawki as well. His Musique Funebre is very dark.


----------



## Guest

Bartok is awesome. Try Prokofiev, he has a somewhat similar style. For overall complex music, try Arnold Bax. His orchestration is about as complex as it gets. Can't go wrong with Brahms either, especially if you like Bach and Beethoven. The Three B's.


----------



## Guest

Bruckner and Mahler come to mind.


----------



## Earthling

kanonathena said:


> Hi,
> 
> I started enjoying classical music with Bartok's music on the soundtrack of The Shining. I like Bartok (The Miraculous Mandarin and Concerto for Orchestra), Debussy, Bach and recently Beethoven.
> 
> I like super complex music with all many layers. I think Bach and Bartok are the best among limited number of composers I tried (Dubussy's music are just too beautiful La Mer, Beethoven is very emotional) I also tried Wagner, but he wrote very little pure orchestral music and they are generally not as good as Bartok's creation
> 
> I see Bartok is not popular here, guess there are top composers much more sophisticated. Please give me some suggestions.


If you're into Bartok, I'm going to guess you would probably get into *Stravinsky*-- not merely the big three ballets (_the Firebird, Petroushka, the Rite of Spring_). Here's a list of Stravinsky pieces that might be good to start out with (off the top of my head):

_Symphonies of Wind Instruments 
Concertino for 12 Instruments
Symphony in Three Movements
Symphony in C
Symphony of Psalms
Apollon musagete
Concerto in D for string orchestra ("Basle")
Dumbarton Oaks Concerto _

That's a good list to get you going.


----------



## 151

kanonathena said:


> I like super complex music with all many layers.


Sounds like my first post!

If you like modern classical, try Tod Machover

and you should know Modest Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition for the dark and visceral parts. And I think Piero Milesi makes very beautiful music, effeminate, pacey and amicable, just very cherubic, almost child-like music. Also Phillip Glass' _North Star_ I love.


----------



## Head_case

kanonathena said:


> ...I like super complex music with all many layers. I think Bach and Bartok are the best among limited number of composers I tried (Dubussy's music are just too beautiful La Mer, Beethoven is very emotional) I also tried Wagner, but he wrote very little pure orchestral music and they are generally not as good as Bartok's creation
> 
> I see Bartok is not popular here, guess there are top composers much more sophisticated. Please give me some suggestions.




Bartok - not popular?! Oer.

Popularity isn't a quality which classical music listeners tend to care for, otherwise Kylie Minogue and Take That would top the list.

I came to like Debussy's La Mer; Prelude à l'après midi d'une faune before the harsh agitated dissonances of Bartok's string quartets. In between the two - it was Karol Szymanowski's work which mesmerised me: the two exceptional violin concertos; his Symphony of the Night; Stabat Mater and Litany to the Virgin Mary; his rich body of violin sonatas and piano mazurkas and the two crowning chamber works - the two string quartets.

You seem to be describing a kind of sonic textural quality with that kind of horizontal reading; vertical reading of a piece which offers a rich kind of opulence. That is quintessentially Szymanowski for me. Bartok's first few string quartets won the international/European concours at the time - displacing even Szymanowski's first string quartet into second place. He was way more popular than Szymanowski ever was; the richness of Szymanowski's writing approaches mystical ecstasy - too dense for the thick to get it 

Have you tried listening to Scriabin's Prometheus? Knapik's 'Island' for string orchestra; Gorecki's string quartet no.II; Tadeusz Baird's Psychodrama; Enescu's 'Vox Maris'; Symphonie villageoise'; Myaskovsky's Symphony No. VI;No.XXI; No. XXVI; Prokofiev's violin concertos No.s I & II; Szymanski's Partitas I-IV; Kilar's symphonic works? There are more populus recommendations although these are popular enough lol


----------



## Huilunsoittaja

Yeah, Stravinsky is a good place to start, for your taste.

Then, there's Ravel (who influenced Stravinsky)... you may like his kind of Impressionism, such as in Daphnis et Chloe, or La Valse. Highly complex.


----------



## kanonathena

Thanks for all the suggestions. I am very new to classical music. Before I only listen to movie (and video games) sountracks - Elliot Goldenthal (Final Fantasy - spirit within), Harry Gregson-Williams (Kingdom of Heaven), Danny Elfman (Night before Christmas), Don Davis (The Matrix Revolution), Clint Mansell (The Fountain). I thought classical music are all about Bach, Beethoven and Mozart until Bartok (I was searching for horror music score). I restricted my search to the following list

http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=69:

ps: The first piece from Debussy's La Mer created kind of a echoing effect among instruments, what do you call that in music terms?


----------



## Huilunsoittaja

kanonathena said:


> Thanks for all the suggestions. I am very new to classical music. Before I only listen to movie (and video games) sountracks - Elliot Goldenthal (Final Fantasy - spirit within), Harry Gregson-Williams (Kingdom of Heaven), Danny Elfman (Night before Christmas), Don Davis (The Matrix Revolution), Clint Mansell (The Fountain). I thought classical music are all about Bach, Beethoven and Mozart until Bartok (I was searching for horror music score). I restricted my search to the following list
> 
> http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=69:
> 
> ps: The first piece from Debussy's La Mer created kind of a echoing effect among instruments, what do you call that in music terms?


Actually, Movie Soundtracks are one of the best places to start. In many ways, it is our present day classical music. Instead of Incidental Music to Plays, we have Movie Music. I love soundtracks too.

And to you ps. comment, I believe it's called imitation, when one instrument (or group) plays something, and others copy or develop same idea.


----------



## kanonathena

The problem is when you go back to soundtracks after listening to say Debussy, everything seems so under orchestrated and loose even though the melody is still there. This just forces me to listen less to the limited number of classical music I like so that every else (90%) on my nano won't sound so cheap.


----------



## TWhite

If you're looking for 'Dark", and you don't mind heading a little further back than Bartok, you might try Rachmaninov's "Isle of the Dead", an extremely dark orchestral tone-poem. It's very Late Romantic and much more traditionally 'tonal' than either Bartok, Prokoviev or Stravinsky, but it's beautifully orchestrated, extremely moody and has several large orchestral climaxes that if approached in the right frame of mind,can be absolutely overwheliming. 

As to Bartok, and I'll admit that I'm one of those who is not neccesarily a big fan of his music, if you haven't heard it yet, his "Music For Strings, Percussion and Celeste" is one of his few works that I REALLY like. Very mysterious, very strange and IMO really "Creepy." 

Tom


----------



## kanonathena

I really like Karol Szymanowski's music, very mysterious and very well orchestrated, feel like dowelling in the deep sea and look up, perfect balance between different instruments (based on Symphony No. 3 Song of the Night) Based on a few I have tried, Stravinsky's music is cruel, less subtle and precise than Bartok. Bartok's music is very analytical, although dark but can be playful at times (femalien in a fragile way or very childish), providing a contrast. Most composers don't have this IMO, or less extreme, less pronounced.


----------



## Aramis

> feel like dowelling in the deep sea and look up


You almost exactly repeated what Szymanowski himself wrote about Debussy in one of his articles.


----------



## JAKE WYB

*MARTINU* 
- Double Concerto - as close to Bartoks music for strings as it gets - very dark, 
- Concerto for two pianos - not so dark but immensely complex and completely 
dazzling

*BAX* 
- Symphony 1 - the first two moevemnts are dark and complex - the second moevemtn is completely unsettling and withsome of the darkest undercurrents of any piece of music
- Symphony 2 - Dark hues all way through especially chilling epilogue
- Symphony 6 - Very visceral and gritty - an uncomfortable but exciting listen

*VAUGHAN WILLIAMS *
- Symphonies 4,6,9 - all have beautiful deep indercurrents but in a harsh violent context - the epilogue of symphony 6 is rather bartokian in its otherworldy bleakness

*SIBELIUS *
- Symphony 4 - entirely chilling and with an empty and lonely landscape - but has a beautiful frosty poetic character - the opposite to complex though - as pared down and seemingly simple as it gets

*SHOSTAKOVICH *
- Symphony 4 - a romp through many noisy effects and indulgences but made sense of by the end 5 minutes - dying away one of the great endings 
- Symphony6, 8, 10 - all have dark, langourous and often movingly sonourous episodes that one never tires of and that often give way to unsurpassingly intense climaxes that have to be heard and seen live to be believed
- Symphony 11 - astonishly dramtic to see live - hardly a light and hopeful moment in it - the percussion has a field day representing a massacre - blows the cobwebs away entirely


----------



## anshuman

Try Scriabin's poem of Ecstasy and Neo Baroque composers like Hindemith


----------



## angusdegraosta

Was just talking about Rautavaara's 5th symphony in another post - the intro and esp. the last few minutes fit the bill for dark and beautiful.


----------



## Ukko

Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra has layers of 'meaning'. You probably haven't heard the recorded performance conducted by Ferenc Fricsay from occupied Berlin. His interpretation is several layers in, different in degree from any other performance I have heard.

Mahler's middle symphonies - 4 through 7 - are not always dark, but the light parts are usually tinged with something that you could interpret as a premonition of....


----------



## myaskovsky2002

*Scriabin, op. 74*






Ia umeraiu

Martin


----------



## starthrower

Some of my favorites:

William Schuman-Symphonies nos. 7&10 Seattle Symphony-Naxos
Henri Dutilleux-Symphonies nos. 1&2 on Chandos
Witold Lutoslawski-Symphonies nos. 3&4 w/Esa-Pekka Salonen on Sony
Bela Bartok/Boulez-Cantata Profana/The Wooden Prince on DG label
Shostakovich-Symphony no. 8 London Symphony/Andre Previn EMI
Charles Ives No.4 
Lutoslawski No.2 -the 2nd movt is like a cyclone tearing the roof off your house.
Messiaen-Turangalila


----------



## bassClef

Isn't the opening theme of the Shining from Symphonie Fantastique by Berlioz ?


----------



## kanonathena

Yes, it is based on Dies Irae. BTW Symphonie Fantastique is fantastic, I like it more than any of Beethoven's symphonies.

Bartok's Cantata Profana is wicked.

Scriabin's music reminds me of the lightness of Mozart, almost a complete opposite to Shostakovich


----------



## Jean Christophe Paré

I read something yesterday about Bruckner. It was from Kent Nagano, conductor for the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal. 

He was quoting his teacher, Günter Wand: "«It is one (Bruckner's 9th) of the three symphonies in which, as an audience member, you have the feeling of looking from beyond the stars down to the earth.» The fifth, the Seventh and the Ninth Symphonies are like that. For the other great symphonies, the Fourth (the Romantic), the Sixth, the Eight, the perspective is as if you wre standing on earth looking out to what's beyond."

And he said they would do a complete cycle, causing me to almost break down in tears of joy.


----------



## tdc

Maybe:

Takemitsu's Cassieopia for percussion solo and orchestra
Stravinsky's Rite of Spring
Mahler's 2nd, 3rd or 6th symphonies
Joaquin Rodrigo's Sones en la Giralda
Falla's Nights in the Garden's of Spain. 
Mussorgsky's A Night on the Bare Mountain
Webern's Six orchestral pieces op. 6
Schoenberg Five Orchestral Pieces op. 16
Arvo Part's Tabula Rasa
Messiaen Et exspecto resurrectionem mortorum
Ginastera's Estancio Op 8 or Panambi Op 1


----------



## Rangstrom

If you want complex try Elliot Carter's 2nd and 3rd quartets; dark, try the Pettersson symphonies and for beautiful, try Schubert (just about anything). To get it all in one composer is a challenge, but Janacek might work (Sinfonietta, Mass, quartets).


----------



## LordBlackudder

I forgot to add Resident Evil. Oh well.


----------



## Vaneyes




----------

