# Your Top Ten Living Tonal Composers



## Guest (Apr 16, 2016)

Of all the noteworthy composers who write contemporary music primarily utilising tonal traditional aesthetics who would you choose as your top ten? 
(This is a learning opportunity for me, I'm looking to others for recommendations).


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

There's a trap element to this: if a participant includes Joker P. McToodles on their list, and McToodles has composed a few works in serialist style, or stretched CPP harmony at all, or anything like that - in short, unless McToodles strive really, really hard not to have any modern elements in any of his works - then someone is going to trash that participant for not having understood McToodles's works correctly.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

Here are some decent ones that come to mind (not in any order)

Glass
Reich
Adams
Penderecki
Brouwer
Part
Sierra
Dunne
(Some of her music is tonal I think) Gubaidulina
(ditto) Saariaho


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

I like these two as well:

Roland Dyens 





Yoshimatsu


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## Guest (Apr 16, 2016)

science said:


> There's a trap element to this: if a participant includes Joker P. McToodles on their list, and McToodles has composed a few works in serialist style, or stretched CPP harmony at all, or anything like that - in short, unless McToodles strive really, really hard not to have any modern elements in any of his works - then someone is going to trash that participant for not having understood McToodles's works correctly.


OK peoples, no traps.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

I don't know of any famous concert music composer today who writes tonal music. All of them write in a style that's been affected by what's come since.

It's not a trap, but I can't answer your question because to me there are no composers who fit the bill.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

I can't recognize whether a work is tonal or not and I don't care either. Some of my favourite living composers include Gubaidulina, Rautavaara, Sallinen, Aho, Glass, Reich, Adams (both), Part and Sheng.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

I guess "tonal" here means, at least, triadic music in equal temperament. Well... I like Einojuhani Rautavaara, Éliane Radigue, La Monte Young (who of course later switched to just intonation), Steve Reich, and John Luther Adams, I guess?










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That aside, it depends on what you call "tonal." Like, are any of these "tonal" to you?





















http://www.kylegann.com/SnakeDance3.mp3


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

Whenever I recommend another thread I sometimes I get criticized for putting the OP down. I really trying to be helpful.

I started thread that addressed this. Unfortunately it was a bust but there are some good recommendations there: http://www.talkclassical.com/41172-12-tone-music-contemporary.html#post984975


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## Guest (Apr 16, 2016)

arpeggio said:


> Whenever I recommend another thread I sometimes I get criticized for putting the OP down. I really trying to be helpful.
> 
> I started thread that addressed this. Unfortunately it was a bust but there are some good recommendations there: http://www.talkclassical.com/41172-12-tone-music-contemporary.html#post984975


Sorry if I'm kind of duplicating yours Arp. It's all grist.


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

I don't know enough contemporary music to have a top 10. I like the usual suspects, (Reich, Riley, some Glass, both Adamses to some extent, Rautavaara, later Penderecki, Part).

Lots of composers use tonal elements but not pervasively or in an overarching tonal context (like Gubaidulina for example), so some people might consider those tonal and others might not.

Something that uses triads as a consonance and is recognizably modal in some way is tonal to me, for purposes of this thread.


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## Chronochromie (May 17, 2014)

Reich, Glass, John C. Adams, Penderecki and Pärt, I guess.


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

dogen said:


> Sorry if I'm kind of duplicating yours Arp. It's all grist.


No problem. I really think mentioning the other thread maybe helpful. I did not mean that my post is a criticism of your OP.


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## Myriadi (Mar 6, 2016)

No love for Howard Skempton?





Or Peter Garland?





As for naming 10, I can't think of so many good living composers.


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

Silvestrov
Some Gubaidulina
Early Nørgård
Saariaho
Some of the late Penderecki
Some Rautavaara
Sallinen
Sergei Slonimsky (symphonies)
Some Corigliano (piano concerto)
Pärt


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## Guest (Apr 16, 2016)

Stating the obvious (?) but it seems to me a division based on a (possible) methodology isn't necessarily a very consistent means of describing what the outcomes are going to sound like.

Or was that established 853 threads ago??


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

My top 10:

Hugh Murray
Constantine Petrie
Peter Small
Signor Beniamino Bari
The honourable Alex O’ Brannigan, Bart.
Kurt Freund
Mr John P. De Salis, M. A.
Dr Solway Garr
Bonaparte Gosworth
Legs O’Hagan


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## Guest (Apr 17, 2016)

Nereffid said:


> My top 10:
> 
> Hugh Murray
> Constantine Petrie
> ...


Will you not be choosing Todd Unctuous there?


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

I only know of a couple of living composers who might not scare my neighbors (my definition of tonal in this context).

Eric Ewazen

Lowell Leiberman

I have no idea if they are relying on a tonal center. The music just sounds sonorous in the old fashioned common practice sense, but with a bit of eyebrow raising twists and turns.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

The insufficiently modern composers thread covered some of this material, while avoiding the difficulties of the word "tonal."


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Weston said:


> I only know of a couple of living composers who might not scare my neighbors (my definition of tonal in this context).
> 
> Eric Ewazen
> 
> ...


I was going to list the exact same two composers both of whom I quite like. I also don't know if they write strictly tonally.


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

Apologies for stealing your thunder. ^


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## Guest (Apr 17, 2016)

Nereffid said:


> My top 10:
> 
> Hugh Murray
> Constantine Petrie
> ...


Can I use these?


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## Guest (Apr 17, 2016)

I think Lera Auerbach might be kind of sort of somewhat tonalish. That's the only person I can think of.


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

nathanb said:


> I think Lera Auerbach might be kind of sort of somewhat tonalish. That's the only person I can think of.


Lera Auerbach have written a work with a key signature. It caused some discussion in a thread about her. Created by a user who said he had heard none of the composers in your poll with her.


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## Guest (Apr 17, 2016)

Sloe said:


> Lera Auerbach have written a work with a key signature. It caused some discussion in a thread about her. Created by a user who said he had heard none of the composers in your poll with her.


I think it's odd that she uses key signatures, given the sound of her music. I have a feeling they're sort of just used in a loose conceptual sense to guide her sets of preludes through a progression of central tones, without having a whole lot of tonal stuff actually going on.


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