# Exploring Contemporary Composers



## mmsbls

Several of us thought it might be fun and educational to have a thread where members can explore contemporary composers in more detail than is generally done in other threads. In this thread we would pick a contemporary composer and post works, listen to the music, and discuss the music or the composer over a reasonable time period. We would then move on to another composer.

There is a companion thread, Discussion for "Exploring Contemporary Composers" where we nominate composers and discuss any relevant issues for this thread. If you have general comments about the project or wish to nominate composers, please use that thread.

Each composer will be discussed for at least 2 weeks so people have time to listen, read, and participate perhaps more fully than in faster moving threads. The 2 week period is not fixed, and we could decide to extend the period for certain composers depending on how the discussion proceeds. After we finish with a composer, we will move on to the next one. People are welcome to post works, comment on the music, ask questions, and generally explore the composers. Our hope is to explore a large number of composers over a long time period all in this thread.

The following post will include an index of composers discussed in this project. The index will have links to the start of each composer's posts so people can easily jump to any composer.


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## mmsbls

*Composer index:*

Sofia Gubaidulina: Starting post Post range: 3 - 64
Hans Abrahamsen: Starting Post Post range: 65 - 94
Salvatore Sciarrino: Starting Post Post range: 95 - 114
Frederic Rzewski: Starting Post Post range: 115 - 134
Kalevi Aho: Starting Post Post range: 135 - 151
Philip Glass: Starting Post Post range: 152 - 166
Kamran Ince: Starting Post Post range: 167 - 180
Chiayu Hsu: Starting Post Post range: 181 - 186
James MacMillan: Starting Post Post range: 187 - 199
Thomas Ades: Starting Post Post range: 200 - 218
Marjan Mozetich: Starting Post Post range: 219 - 226
Kaija Saariaho: Starting Post Post range: 227 - 232 
Per Nørgård: Starting Post Post range: 233 - 241
Marc-Andre Dalbavie: Starting Post Post range: 242 - 257
Carl Vine: Starting Post Post range: 258 - 282
Mark Camphouse: Starting Post Post range: 283 - 294
Michael Torke: Starting Post Post range: 295 - 312
John Corigliano: Starting Post Post range: 313 - 322
Toshio Hosokawa: Starting Post Post range: 323 - 334
Dmitri Kourliandski: Starting Post Post Range: 335 - 350
Bernhard Lang: Starting Post Post Range: 351 - 366
Elena Rykova: Starting Post Post Range: 367 - 377
Magnus Lindberg: Starting Post Post Range: 378 - 384
Valentin Silvestrov: Starting Post Post Range: 385 - 394
John Williams: Starting Post Post Range: 395 - 404
Michel Van der Aa: Starting Post Post Range: 405 - 415
Brett Dean: Starting Post Post Range: 416 - 423
Joseph Schwantner: Starting Post Post Range: 424 - 431
Panayiotis Kokoras: Starting Post Post Range: 432 - 438
Lera Auerbach: Starting Post Post Range: 439 - 445
Jörg Widmann: Starting Post Post Range: 446 - 458
Tristan Perich: Starting Post Post Range: 459 - 464
Michael Pisaro: Starting Post Post Range: 465 - 467
Natasha Barrett: Starting Post Post Range: 468 - 484
Georg Haas: Starting Post Post Range: 485 - 503
Ross Edwards: Starting Post Post Range: 504 - 509
Martin Amlin: Starting Post Post Range: 510 - 513
György Kurtág: Starting Post Post Range: 527 - 533
Steve Reich: Starting Post Post Range: 534 - 539
Dai Fujikura: Starting Post Post Range: 540 - 547
Pawel Szymanski: Starting Post Post Range: 548 - 553
John Coolidge Adams: Starting Post Post Range: 554 - 563
Simon Steen-Andersen: Starting Post Post Range: 564 - 569
Tristan Murail: Starting Post Post Range: 570 -576
Terry Riley: Starting Post Post Range: 577 - 584
Michael Nyman: Starting Post Post Range: 585 -592
George Benjamin: Starting Post Range: 593 - 598
Pierluigi Billone: Starting Post Post Range: 599 - 607
Stefan Prins: Starting Post Post Range: 608 - 611
Vyacheslav Artyomov: Starting Post Post Range: 612 - 613
Harrison Birtwistle: Starting Post Post Range: 614 - 631
Richard Barrett: Starting Post Post Range: 632 - 633
Missy Mazzoli: Starting Post Post Range: 634


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## mmsbls

*Composer: Sofia Gubaidulina (1931-)*

I'll add something later, but for now let's get started and enjoy.


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## Melvin

I already started off a bit and listened to this one today and it was really good.

Concerto for Bassoon and Low Strings (1975)


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## Kjetil Heggelund

Gubaidulina, like other Russian composers (Schnittke & Denisov), are a big portion of my listening. Starts off with a beautiful elegy, this one! If I'm not mistaken, this music can be described as "expressionist", and being from 1975, I'll categorize it as post-modern, which I know, surprisingly, is a much discussed term.


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## Melvin

_Blancrocher_ in the 21st century listening chain had posted the Gubaidulina Triple Concerto along with interesting program notes. He should re post it here. It is essential listening for this composer, one of her most recent works, and the notes were enlightening.


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## Guest

The only work I have of Gubaidulina is Night in Memphis (1968) This is a cantata using Ancient Egyptian text. The only performance I'm aware of is by Muscovites in 1989. It can be heard on Spotify.

As soon as I heard it a couple of years ago I decided that I wanted to explore this composer further. It is mystical and barbaric in the way that Rite of Spring was on early listenings.

Interestingly, this piece is considered to be peripheral in her ouevre.


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## Art Rock

Gubaidulina is my favourite living composer, I have over 30 CD's of her works.

My first encounter of her music was courtesy of the Kronos Quartet. Here is her fascinating 4th string quartet from 1993:

Youtube link part 1
Youtube link part 2


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## Blancrocher

Melvin said:


> _Blancrocher_ in the 21st century listening chain had posted the Gubaidulina Triple Concerto along with interesting program notes. He should re post it here. It is essential listening for this composer, one of her most recent works, and the notes were enlightening.







Gubaidulina, Triple Concerto (2016)

Program Notes:

https://www.carnegiehall.org/ch/popups/programnotes.aspx?id=15032387803&pn=15032387802


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## Kjetil Heggelund

...and now I feel this thread is too fast! I'm not done listening to the first piece for the first time...

Now I'm hearing it the 2nd time. Noticed the 1st mvt. is longer than the others (says so in the description) and starts very different than it ends. For the 2nd mvt., I'm wondering if there's some microtonal things, and when did such things pop into history...
I like that most of the music is fairly dark in register (bassoon & low strings...), I never heard that instrumentation before ( I think). Along with different string techniques, it makes a wonderful, mystic sound


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## Guest

She talks about her mysticism in this fascinating documentary by the BBC from 1990:


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## schigolch

Sofia Gubaidulina is of course one of the leading composers of the 20th century, and she has also quite a few excellent works in the 21st.

I remember a presentation we did some twenty five years ago, about Russian female composers, when a friend was introducing Gubaidulina, while I focused on my favorite, Galina Ustvólskaya. It was a success, especially the Gubaidulina part.

Of her many works, the one that is more attractive to me is "Hour of the Soul". It was written in the 1970s, for mezzo and orchestra, based on Marina Tsvetaeva's poem.


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## Kjetil Heggelund

http://https://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/oct/31/sofia-gubaidulina-unchained-melodies
More stuff to read. Wanted to find a catalogue of her works...
AH! Schirmer is her publisher. Looks like she has written mostly for chamber groups of 2-6 instruments, but also soloists with orchestra is well represented.


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## mmsbls

Well this thread has started off with a bang. Wonderful. I love her triple concerto and her Piano Quintet.

Piano Quintet mov 1
Piano Quintet mov 2
Piano Quintet mov 3-4

I'm listening to the string quartet No. 4 now. Soon there will be a lot of music to sample over the next couple of weeks.


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## Blancrocher

Kjetil Heggelund said:


> Now I'm hearing it the 2nd time. Noticed the 1st mvt. is longer than the others (says so in the description) and starts very different than it ends. For the 2nd mvt., I'm wondering if there's some microtonal things, and when did such things pop into history...


There's a recent dissertation devoted to analyzing the piece. Apparently it owes a great deal to the publication, in 1967, of Bruno Bartolozzi's _New Sounds for Woodwind_.

https://ir.uiowa.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2493&context=etd


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## Uxbal

György Kurtág
Michael Hersch
Vyacheslav Artyomov


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## Melvin

Blancrocher said:


> Gubaidulina, Triple Concerto (2016)
> 
> Program Notes:
> 
> https://www.carnegiehall.org/ch/popups/programnotes.aspx?id=15032387803&pn=15032387802


(Here are the program notes I was thinking of. I wasn't able to find them at first glance on the carnigie hall webpage. A very interesting theology with which to approach writing a TrippleKonzert)

_"When the title of a work of art reflects the work's essence, the title becomes a symbol, i.e., the distillation of the meanings contained in its depth. So while I was composing this work, the word Tripelkonzert ("triple concerto") became for me such a symbol, a symbol for the number three, of "three-ness." This is reflected not only in the number of performers-there are three soloists standing in front of the orchestra-but also in the tripartite structure of the form and in the use of simple triads in the texture of the piece.

However, most essential is the meaning of the three basic melodic-chordal structures, which are closely linked with the three most important qualities of the sound material: the force of intervallic attraction, the force of intervallic repulsion, and the force generating this contrast.

Thus the tree of the overtone series grows, as it were, out of the cluster sounding from the bayan, which represents the essence, the nature of sound. And in it we notice a gradual contraction of the intervals between the respective partials. The force of attraction of the neighboring partials increases as we gradually move from the first overtone to the following partials. This is the initium of the work, to which the remaining texture reacts. At the very end, a chord forms a response that consists of slowly enlarging intervals. In this way, the piece could be regarded as a revelation of three forces: the expansion of widening intervals, the contraction of narrowing intervals, and the reaction to this cosmological drama."_

Thanks for bring this one to our attention Blancrocher


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## Phil loves classical

Tulse said:


> She talks about her mysticism in this fascinating documentary by the BBC from 1990:


Thanks for sharing. In the second part it shows her mysticism with the tree illustration the most interestingly. I also never heard the concept of consonant and dissonant rhythms. Reading on Wikipedia and other stuff, she uses the fibonacci sequence and golden ratio, and chromaticism, polytonal, and microtonality. She states explicity she doesn't want to invent a new harmonic language, but express more in rhythms (the leaves of her tree illustration).

Found the following:

"Every composition is an enormous labor for me," Gubaidulina told Karen Campbell of the Christian Science Monitor. At the beginning, she said, she hears in her head "a vertical sound of colorful, moving, clashing chords, completely mixed up and jumbled. It is wonderful and beautiful, but it isn't real. My job is to turn that vertical sound into a horizontal line. Those two lines, horizontal and vertical, make a cross, and I think about that when I compose." That statement might serve as a kind of compositional credo for Gubaidulina, whose work has successfully merged spiritual influences with extremely original techniques. That combination hampered Gubaidulina's early career, when the repression of creative artists by the Soviet state was at its height, but in the eclectic 1980s and 1990s she became one of the hottest new composers on the international classical scene.

She puts her religious ferver into her music, and I sense it from listening to it, though her pointing to the divine, makes me wonder if it is just a fanciful perspective.

One site called her music postmodern, but it has a clear grand narrative to it, which disqualifies it as such in my mind.


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## 20centrfuge

Art Rock said:


> Gubaidulina is my favourite living composer, I have over 30 CD's of her works.
> 
> My first encounter of her music was courtesy of the Kronos Quartet. Here is her fascinating 4th string quartet from 1993:
> 
> Youtube link part 1
> Youtube link part 2


Since you've listened to far more of her works than I have, I would like for you to say what works are your favorites.


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## Art Rock

I will be posting my favourites with YT links in this thread, but not all at once.


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## Art Rock

The first complete Gubaidulina CD I bought includes _Jetzt immer Schnee_, which has remained a clear favourite for me. Unfortunately I can't find it on YouTube.

From her varied repertoire, I really like the various concertos, including less frequently used concertante instrument(s) like the bayan, viola, or percussion.

Here is her concerto "Glorious percussion" for percussion ensemble and orchestra.


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## Kjetil Heggelund

Sikorski is also her publisher. There's even more chamber music and concertos  This thread has so far given me 100 times new things to check out. I wish that all the information coming in, can be categorized so we can get an easy overview or perspective on the composer. I'm interested in different composition techniques she uses and how to describe her music. I've always liked what I've heard, but what did I really hear?


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## Melvin

String Quartet no. 4 is amazing.


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## Art Rock

Melvin said:


> String Quartet no. 4 is amazing.




The first three are worth exploring as well.


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## Portamento

My favorite Gubaidulina work is her haunting *Viola Concerto*, played to perfection by Yuri Bashmet.

I will re-listen to a few things and get back.


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## Blancrocher

An interesting aside about the background of the composition of the Bassoon Concerto (mentioned upthread):



> One day in 1973, Sofia Gubaidulina was attacked in the lift of her Moscow apartment building. The man started to strangle her. The composer thought grimly that this was the end and, if so, her chief regret was that she would never complete the bassoon concerto on which she'd been working. "I'm not afraid of death but of violence," she told her biographer later. She got exasperated with her attacker. "Why so slow?" she asked. Amazingly, the words scared him off.


https://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/oct/31/sofia-gubaidulina-unchained-melodies

That's the opening hook of a quite entertaining Guardian article about Gubaidulina.


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## Guest

schigolch said:


> Sofia Gubaidulina is of course one of the leading composers of the 20th century, and she has also quite a few excellent works in the 21st.
> 
> I remember a presentation we did some twenty five years ago, about Russian female composers, when a friend was introducing Gubaidulina, while I focused on my favorite, Galina Ustvólskaya. It was a success, especially the Gubaidulina part.
> 
> Of her many works, the one that is more attractive to me is "Hour of the Soul". It was written in the 1970s, for mezzo and orchestra, based on Marina Tsvetaeva's poem.


That was great Schigolch thank you.

I have come across a translation of the poem:

In the inmost hour of the soul,
In the inmost one-of the night ...
(The gigantic stride of the soul,
Of the soul in the night)

That hour, soul, reign
Over the worlds you desire.
To rule is the lot of the soul:
Soul, reign.

Cover the lips with rust; snow lightly
Upon the lashes ...
(The Atlantic sigh of the soul,
Of the soul in the night. .. )

That hour, soul, darken
The eyes in which you will rise
Like a Vega ... make bitter
The sweetest fruit, soul.

Make bitter: darken:
Grow: reign.

(1923)

The theme seems to align quite closely with Gubaidulina's mysticism. Perhaps Tsvetaeva was a significant influence on the composer?


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## schigolch

I think she was, and Gubaidulina is very fond of her poetry. After all, she also wrote "In Tribute to Marina Tsvetaeva", a choral piece on poems by Tsvetaeva.


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## Melvin

"Stunde der Seele" is an amazing work as well. All of her music I've heard so far is very connectable, polished... modernist yet deeply spiritual. I've never listened to much of this composer before now. But the name has for a while been one on the continually growing list of hundreds of composers I've been planning to get around to hearing at some point. That's why I like this project, it will give some structure to my otherwise sporadic listening, and it is much fun.


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## eugeneonagain

I see this has started moving along. I only had a brief listen to the first piece posted. I've not had much time today. I'm less familiar with Gubaidulina than some others here, so I'm mostly listening, reading and learning at this point.


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## Haydn man

So far have only had time to listen to the Triple Concerto
Interesting, but not sure I could really understand what is going on, so I shall do a little reading next
Going to try the Violin Concerto next as I seem to remember seeing a version of this with Anne Sophie Mutter


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## Guest

Phil loves classical said:


> Thanks for sharing. In the second part it shows her mysticism with the tree illustration the most interestingly. I also never heard the concept of consonant and dissonant rhythms. Reading on Wikipedia and other stuff, she uses the fibonacci sequence and golden ratio, and chromaticism, polytonal, and microtonality. She states explicity she doesn't want to invent a new harmonic language, but express more in rhythms (the leaves of her tree illustration).
> 
> Found the following:
> 
> "Every composition is an enormous labor for me," Gubaidulina told Karen Campbell of the Christian Science Monitor. At the beginning, she said, she hears in her head "a vertical sound of colorful, moving, clashing chords, completely mixed up and jumbled. It is wonderful and beautiful, but it isn't real. My job is to turn that vertical sound into a horizontal line. Those two lines, horizontal and vertical, make a cross, and I think about that when I compose." That statement might serve as a kind of compositional credo for Gubaidulina, whose work has successfully merged spiritual influences with extremely original techniques. That combination hampered Gubaidulina's early career, when the repression of creative artists by the Soviet state was at its height, but in the eclectic 1980s and 1990s she became one of the hottest new composers on the international classical scene.
> 
> She puts her religious ferver into her music, and I sense it from listening to it, though her pointing to the divine, makes me wonder if it is just a fanciful perspective.
> 
> One site called her music postmodern, but it has a clear grand narrative to it, which disqualifies it as such in my mind.


Yes the tree illustration was interesting, and I liked how she showed that the falling leaves of one era of composition become the roots of the next.

I'm okay with her religious fervour because it isn't dogmatic. She appears to be seeking to put the listener into an alternate state of mind which brings together both darkness and terror and light and goodness and she seems to be implying that this provides some form of revelation. Plenty is left for the listener to do, it certainly isn't programme music, but I think that the success of her work or otherwise is the extent to which we are able to access the strange inner world which she is attempting to facillitate for us.

On the other hand, I could be overthinking this or may have misled myself, so I look forward to seeing other people's views of this aspect of Gubaidulina's work.

I am struggling to comprehend the meaning of conosonant rhythm and dissonant rhythm. As rhythm has been so important as a way of getting into modern music since the 12 tone period then any significant changes here may be another key aspect of understanding her compositional style.

It would be good if someone could come along and attempt an explanation of this.


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## Art Rock

Haydn man said:


> Going to try the Violin Concerto next as I seem to remember seeing a version of this with Anne Sophie Mutter


She composed two violin concertos:

Offertorium
In tempus praesens

I'd recommend both.


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## Guest

Art Rock said:


> The first complete Gubaidulina CD I bought includes _Jetzt immer Schnee_, which has remained a clear favourite for me. Unfortunately I can't find it on YouTube.


It is on Spotify, a Dutch production. I'm listening to it now.


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## Phil loves classical

Tulse said:


> Yes the tree illustration was interesting, and I liked how she showed that the falling leaves of one era of composition become the roots of the next.
> 
> I'm okay with her religious fervour because it isn't dogmatic. She appears to be seeking to put the listener into an alternate state of mind which brings together both darkness and terror and light and goodness and she seems to be implying that this provides some form of revelation. Plenty is left for the listener to do, it certainly isn't programme music, but I think that the success of her work or otherwise is the extent to which we are able to access the strange inner world which she is attempting to facillitate for us.
> 
> On the other hand, I could be overthinking this or may have misled myself, so I look forward to seeing other people's views of this aspect of Gubaidulina's work.
> 
> I am struggling to comprehend the meaning of conosonant rhythm and dissonant rhythm. As rhythm has been so important as a way of getting into modern music since the 12 tone period then any significant changes here may be another key aspect of understanding her compositional style.
> 
> It would be good if someone could come along and attempt an explanation of this.


I was digging into the consonant and dissonant rhythm, and from what I could find, which isn't from authoritative sources, is that consonant rhythm is where the beat is regular and rhythms are on neat divisions of 1/2, 1/4, like in popular music, and basically all music pre20th century. disonant rhythm is like in some indeterminate or algorithmic music, or just any kind without a steady pulse or neat divisions, like Ferneyhough.

My favourite work by her from what I heard is clearly the Stimmen Symphony. I love the orchestration, and sound.


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## Guest

Phil loves classical said:


> I was digging into the consonant and dissonant rhythm, and from what I could find, which isn't from authoritative sources, is that consonant rhythm is where the beat is regular and rhythms are on neat divisions of 1/2, 1/4, like in popular music, and basically all music pre20th century. disonant rhythm is like in some indeterminate or algorithmic music, or just any kind without a steady pulse or neat divisions, like Ferneyhough.
> 
> My favourite work by her from what I heard is clearly the Stimmen Symphony. I love the orchestration, and sound.


Ah, that makes sense, thanks Phil.


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## Haydn man

I have given In tempus praesens a listen
I found the version above from Art Rock's post on Spotify with Anne Sophie Mutter to whom the piece is apparently dedicated.
Like the triple concerto I found this a work full of contrasts with something of a romantic style to the concerto overall with a definite feeling of the violin and orchestra in competition with each other. However the changes in flow and tempo continue to challenge me. I think I just have to sit back and let the music happen until it becomes more familiar


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## Art Rock

One of her unusual chamber music combinations: accordion and cello.

In croce.


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## Melvin

The piano quintet is very very good, I listened to it twice yesterday. Probably will have to add it to my quintet collection. It appears to be one of her earliest published works (1957) and doesn't seem to bear the distinctive mark of her later mature style. But it is nonetheless an excellent piece; it sounds to me "neoclassical" in style, which I always like.

ArtRock made another excellent recommendation with *Glorious Percussion*
"Glorious" definitely seemed to be the right word to describe it when I listened to it this morning. I love the utilization of low strings and brass in this piece, it has great orchestral sound. ArtRock had posted an excerpt, here's the full version I listened to (not sure who the conductor/orchestra is)





Right now home from work I'm listening to the viola concerto.


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## PeterFromLA

She has written many major pieces that are sure to join the repertoire. These are my recommendations for those interested in exploring her oeuvre:

Offertorium, a violin concerto that is based on Bach's Musical Offering, filtered through Webern. It is the piece that brought her to wide exposure in the West. The DG recording, with Kremer, is the one that made the initial splash.

In Croce, mentioned above, is a luminous meditation on the possibilities of combining organ and cello. It goes on, perhaps longer than it should, but it makes for a strangely affecting reverie.

Canticle of the Sun, written for Rostropovich, it is scored for cello, chamber choir, and percussion ensemble. This is an almost hallucinatory piece, offering a wonderful example of the composer's ability to conjure inner worlds.

In Tempus Praesens, the second violin concerto, this one written for Anne-Sophie Mutter. Lyrical and beautiful, a good intro to the composer.

Introitus, her piano concerto. A relatively early work (though still mature), it is a solemn, spiritual work, at times reminiscent of pealing church bells.

Glorious Percussion, I second the recommendation of this work made in the preceding posts.

I should add that all of Gubaidulina's mature pieces (like Messiaen's) contain references to her religious beliefs (Russian Orthodox). It is not essential to know this, however, to appreciate how they function as music.


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## Blancrocher

PeterFromLA said:


> Introitus, her piano concerto. A relatively early work (though still mature), it is a solemn, spiritual work, at times reminiscent of pealing church bells.


I had intended to mention this work myself, since it often gets lost in the shuffle: it's among my favorites, in part for the feeling of a really cumulative structure.


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## SuperTonic

PeterFromLA said:


> She has written many major pieces that are sure to join the repertoire. These are my recommendations for those interested in exploring her oeuvre:
> 
> Offertorium, a violin concerto that is based on Bach's Musical Offering, filtered through Webern. It is the piece that brought her to wide exposure in the West. The DG recording, with Kremer, is the one that made the initial splash.
> 
> In Croce, mentioned above, is a luminous meditation on the possibilities of combining organ and cello. It goes on, perhaps longer than it should, but it makes for a strangely affecting reverie.
> 
> Canticle of the Sun, written for Rostropovich, it is scored for cello, chamber choir, and percussion ensemble. This is an almost hallucinatory piece, offering a wonderful example of the composer's ability to conjure inner worlds.
> 
> In Tempus Praesens, the second violin concerto, this one written for Anne-Sophie Mutter. Lyrical and beautiful, a good intro to the composer.
> 
> Introitus, her piano concerto. A relatively early work (though still mature), it is a solemn, spiritual work, at times reminiscent of pealing church bells.
> 
> Glorious Percussion, I second the recommendation of this work made in the preceding posts.
> 
> I should add that all of Gubaidulina's mature pieces (like Messiaen's) contain references to her religious beliefs (Russian Orthodox). It is not essential to know this, however, to appreciate how they function as music.


Canticle of the Sun is one of my favorites from Gubaidulina as well. Another one I like is Seven Words for cello, bayan, and strings. I really like how she uses the bayan/accordion in a lot of her works. I think it really adds a unique and interesting sound.

I am going to spend some time over the next few days listening to some of the recommended pieces in this thread that I'm not familiar with.


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## PeterFromLA

Agree about Seven Words. I can't believe I forgot to mention that one, it is indeed one of her best!


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## Blancrocher

Any other fans of "Fachwerk"? I've got it in regular rotation during this Gubaidulina-fest. Nice Naxos recording.


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## Art Rock

Blancrocher said:


> Any other fans of "Fachwerk"? I've got it in regular rotation during this Gubaidulina-fest. Nice Naxos recording.


Sure, another of her rewarding concertante works (it is a concerto for bayan [Russian version of the accordion], strings and percussion).

For sampling:


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## LezLee

Tulse said:


> It is on Spotify, a Dutch production. I'm listening to it now.


I found Jetzt Immer Schnee on YouTube, it's not listed separately but as one of three videos.


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## Haydn man

Having found this on Spotify and having listened to Offertorium I shall move onto some of the chamber works starting with Silenzio.
Glad I found this as it covers many of the works others have mentioned plus others to explore


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## SuperTonic

Of the pieces mentioned in this thread so far that I was not already familiar with I've listened to the Concerto for Bassoon and Low Strings, the Triple Concerto, and Stunde der Seele. I was completely blown away by Stunde der Seele. Does anyone know if there are any recordings available? I haven't been able to find any. I've only been able to find the youtube recording linked in this thread.
I also really enjoyed the Bassoon Concerto. The Triple Concerto did not really hold my interest on the first hearing, but I am going to give it a couple of more tries.
Next I plan on exploring her string quartets which I am completely unfamiliar with.


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## schigolch

Try this, in a collection of several CDs released by Col Legno:










Gubaidulina revised the piece for the festival, and the percussionist Mark Pekarsky. This is the recording I own.

I have contacted one friend of mine, and he told me there is also a recording of the 1970s version (it seems there is also more than one version from the 1970s, anyway). It could be this one:










But I'm not sure, I haven't heard this CD.


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## Blancrocher

SuperTonic said:


> Next I plan on exploring her string quartets which I am completely unfamiliar with.


That's where I've been putting my listening emphasis, since they're basically new to me. There's a lot of variation in performances, as one would expect when dealing with works with aleatoric elements. I'll be interested in what recordings people gravitate toward. The Stamic Quartet is the best all-arounder for my money from what I've been able to hear online. I want to hear the Arditti #3, which isn't on Youtube.


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## starthrower

Great thread! I'm a fan of Gubaidulina. I've watched the old documentary on YouTube, and I find it fascinating that a poor Russian girl growing up in such stark surroundings possessed such an incredible imagination. She seems such a humble and unassuming person, but she obviously has a brilliant mind. So far my favorite works are symphony in 12 movements, Lyre of Orpheus, Offertorium, and her percussion concerto. There is also a 3 disc set on NEOS of her chamber music for double bass that I'd like to pick up.


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## Haydn man

Listening to Silenzio Five Pieces for classical accordion, violin and cello
Written in 1991
Parts of this sound quite minimalistic to me, reminded me of Philip Glass at times. Gave me the feeling this is quite a spiritual work


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## Melvin

Just picked up some library holds today; including 3 Gubaidulina discs.

Right now I'm listening to the String Quartets by the Danish Quartet. Easily said that it is great addition to the modern quartet cannon!!!


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## Blancrocher

I was just re-listening to G's Viola Concerto on Youtube, and noticed this interesting observation among the comments:



> What is interesting is how the composer takes the motivic idea from Grisey's viola movement from L'Espace Acoustique and make it entirely her own to create this wonderful concerto. I wonder if she ever acknowledged the Grisey influence in this work?﻿







Anyone else noticed this?


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## Melvin

Here is a nice short chamber trio for flute, harp, and viola.
*"Garten von Freuden und Traurigkeiten"*





I think it is an excellent composition. New listeners may find it pleasant and debussy-like, and veteran Gub listeners maybe haven't heard this nice little misc piece. This is the only Gubaidulina piece I'd ever heard until we started this thread, (since it is on a CD I've had for a while by the "Debussy Trio München", an all around good CD). I thought it was a nice piece when I heard it originally, but now I recognize in it the distinct touch of this composer.

Here is another piece I've listened to this week which I also felt was in a similar vein to Debussy (in it's colorfulness, pleasantness, and watery quality which falls easily on the ears)
*"Repentance"*





Happy holidays :cheers:


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## mmsbls

I've been rather busy for the past week and until recently haven't had a chance to really listen to her works. I heard Introitus, the Viola Concerto, Concerto for Symphony Orchestra and Jazz Band, and Glorious Percussion. 

The Viola Concerto stood out for me. My understanding is that she uses a string quartet tuned a quarter tone lower so the viola can play off both that quartet and the orchestra. The effect is wonderful. 

I'm not generally a fan of percussion concertos, but Glorious Percussion showcases a wide variety of percussion instruments to great effect. 

The Concerto for Symphony Orchestra and Jazz Band was great fun at times but didn't have the impact of Glorious Percussion and the Viola Concerto.


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## Haydn man

Been listening to Seven Words a really unusual piece which others have commented on before. I do not think this is something I would rush to listen to again
Next tried a much lighter offering Musical Toys which is I believe 14 short piano pieces written for children. The recording I have has a selection of 6. No1 Musical Accordion, No 5 April Day, No 6 Song of the Fishermen, No 9 The Woodpecker, No 11 Sleigh with Little Bells, No 13 The Drummer. These are delightful little pieces


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## Enthusiast

It is the Canticle of the Sun that is the most recorded - there are at least four commercial recordings out there - but although it has received a couple of mentions here it seems not to have many fans among those contributing. I wonder why? It was the first Gubaidulina piece I heard and can be a little challenging but it is a towering and deeply affecting piece. I love many of her pieces - she has been something of a favourite of mine for a few years - but do consider the Canticle to be an astounding piece and perhaps a key to what she is about.


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## Guest

I've been playing a lot of the recommendations over the last two weeks. The pieces that I really like are the Bassoon Concerto and Stunde der Seele.


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## Melvin

There are at least 3 recordings of the Gubaidulina Piano Quintet (which I am aware of)

-There is the 2 disc "Complete String Quartets" by Quatuor Molinari which includes it, featuring Louise Bessette on piano
(This one I've just gotten from the library today and have been listening to all day long!!)

-There is The disc entitled "Gubaidulina: in the mirror" by Kai Vogler which includes the quintet (along with "Introitus" and "Dancer on a tight rope")
(This one the library did not have so I am now waiting to get it in the mail so that I can also have Introitus)

-And there is another that is apparently available only by download. it is performed by the Rider quartet with Kathryn Woodward on piano.
(This is the recording that was posted onto this very thread)

Are there anymore out there? perhaps on vinyl?

Speaking of that, anyone have anything at all by Gubaidulina on vinyl?


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## Melvin

Found something cool! The Russian animated film adaptation of Kipling's "Jungle Book" with score by Gubaidulina. Made in 5 episodes from 1967-1971.






I haven't gotten a chance to watch much of it yet, but I was surprised and excited to find this!

Here is a list of her animation scores
http://www.animator.ru/db/?ver=eng&p=show_person&pid=1251
and she has also done the soundtrack to the 2013 film "Mary Queen of Scots"


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## Melvin

In Croce (1979)
for cello and bayan: 



or for cello and organ: 




that's my listening tonight.


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## SuperTonic

I finally got a chance to spend some time with her string quartets. Unfortunately I was not able to make a connection with them. I think my tastes when it comes to string quartets are more conservative than with other types of music. I can't seem to get into any that are later than Bartok or Shostakovich. But obvious that is my problem, not the music's. If I had to pick a favorite it would be the 2nd. The 4th started to grow on my after a few listens as well, but I don't really see myself going back to listen again any time soon.

On a more positive note I went back and listened to the Triple Concerto a few mores times after failing to make a connection on the first listen. It is definitely starting to grow on me. I'm looking forward to spending more time with this piece.


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## Blancrocher

If anyone has settled on a short (or long) list of favorite Gubaidulina recordings after a couple weeks' listening, I'd love to see it on the following list thread: Favorite recordings - lists! Lists! Lists!

My own big discovery during this process was the Viola Concerto (Bashmet/Gergiev), which I've been listening to repeatedly.


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## mmsbls

*Composer: Hans Abrahamsen (1952-)*


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## mmsbls

Hans Abrahamsen is one of my favorite contemporary composers. The first work I really enjoyed was the song cycle for soprano and orchestra, Let Me Tell You. The work, inspired by Ophelia from Hamlet, won the 2016 Grawemeyer Award. Barbara Hannigan's vocals are stunning in this performance.

Let Me Tell You (2013)

Another work I especially enjoy is the Double Concerto for violin, piano and string orchestra. The work is rather sparse and certainly not virtuosic.

Double Concerto for violin, piano and string orchestra (2011)

The first work I ever heard from Abrahamsen (#200 on our TC Top 200 Recommended Post-1950 Works List) is Schnee. Schnee seems quite different from everything else I've heard from Abrahamsen, and I've yet to appreciate it. TC members seem to point to this work more than others from Abrahamsen. I'd love to hear others thought on Schnee.


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## Blancrocher

I did an Abrahamesen listening project some time ago, and provided Youtube links to all of the works that were then available here: http://www.talkclassical.com/35055-hans-abrahamsen-1952-a.html#post919905

His orchestration of Nielsen's Commotio, which I was unable to find back then, is now available in a live performance:


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## schigolch

Not really a big fan.

I do like "let me tell you" and the performance by Hannigan, as well as the nice story of the novel by Paul Griffiths, and the restraint techniques used by both the composer and the writer. However, even if Mr. Abrahamsen himself has somehow paired "let me tell you" with "Schnee", I'm not so fond of this one.

"Nacht und Trompeten" was dedicated to Werner Henze, who conducted the piece with the Berlin Philharmonic.


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## Melvin

OK if there is one thing to conclude from listening to Gubaidulina the last two weeks, it is bayan.


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## Melvin

hmm, I'm finishing listening right now to the Abrahamsen Double Concerto. I immediately love it! Another fun new composer for us yay!


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## Melvin

OK now since its late at night, I will listen to some chamber music. I got two Abrahamsen discs on the cheap from broinc.com !!


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## Melvin

Hans Abrahamsen was born in 1952 in Copenhagen Denmark.
As a composer he has been associated with the "New Simplicity" style.
He took a decade hiatus from composing (~1990 to ~2000).
But now he has returned to composing once again with a more personal style of writing than before. *says wiki


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## tortkis

I have been re-listening to Abrahamsen's chamber works. I like the piano trio (Trio con Brio Copenhagen) and the accordion works (Haltli). Arditti Quartet's recent release of String Quartets No. 1-4 is excellent. I have Kontra Quartet's No. 1 & 2 recording, but I much prefer Arditti's clear rendition. There is a large interval between No. 1 & 2 (1973, 1981) and No. 3 & 4 (2008, 2012). The later works are more sparse, melodic & folkish, "light & airy" as in the title of No. 4 first movement, focusing on higher register (I was reminded of J.L. Adams's string quartet.)


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## tortkis

Melvin said:


> OK if there is one thing to conclude from listening to Gubaidulina the last two weeks, it is bayan.
> View attachment 100683


Abrahamsen composed a few works for accordion. This recording is very good.

Air - Frode Haltli (accordion), Arditti Quartet & Trondheim Soloists








Abrahamsen: Air (2006), Three Little Nocturnes (2005)
Sørensen: It Is Pain Flowing Down Slowly On A White Wall (2010), Sigrids Wiegenlied (2010)


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## Guest

mmsbls said:


> Let Me Tell You (2013)


UK listeners can access this via a US server.


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## Art Rock

I have 2 Abrahamsen CD's:

Schnee - 8 canons and 3 intermezzos (Ensemble Recherche)
String quartets 1-4 (Arditti String Quartet)

I found the music OK, but not sufficiently interesting to explore him further. I'll be looking at recommendations in this thread.

I also noticed this CD on sale right now (anyone recommend it or not?)


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## Art Rock

Bump? There must be more people wanting to share their experience with this composer.


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## mmsbls

Art Rock said:


> I also noticed this CD on sale right now (anyone recommend it or not?)


I don't have the Cd, but I've listened to it on the Naxos Music Library. I love Marchenbilder especially the last movement. I also enjoy Lied in Fall and Winternacht to a lesser extent.


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## Trout

mmsbls said:


> The first work I ever heard from Abrahamsen (#200 on our TC Top 200 Recommended Post-1950 Works List) is Schnee. Schnee seems quite different from everything else I've heard from Abrahamsen, and I've yet to appreciate it. TC members seem to point to this work more than others from Abrahamsen. I'd love to hear others thought on Schnee.


I love _Schnee_, definitely one of my favorite pieces of the 21st century. Its timbres and textures are so wispy, bare, even alien at times, yet they are utterly enchanting. From the beginning, the piano is what really draws me in, acting as both a tonal and percussive instrument that drives the piece rhythmically. In later sections, the pizzicato strings and the woodwinds assume this role with a sort of nervous energy. Some of the sections might outstay their welcome just a tad for me personally, but I find the piece to be haunting and thrilling as well as masterful in its epic conception. It has minimalist elements like Feldman and percussive sonorities like Ligeti or Furrer, but I think the piece is sui generis. However, I can completely understand people not necessarily liking it as I found it completely bizarre and even alienating upon my first listen.

_Let me tell you_ is probably a lot more accessible since it is similarly replete with gorgeous timbres, but there's not much unapologetic dissonance. And having Barbara Hannigan's sumptuous voice doesn't hurt much either!


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## Guest

I've heard Schnee and Let Me Tell You a few times already, and playing them again I like them some more.

The Double Concerto mentioned by Member Melvin is really good too, so I'll try some more works.

Here are the YT links for Schnee:






and the Double Concerto:






As an aside, I'm enjoying the paintings that have been coming up on my tele when playing both Gubaidulina and Abrahamsen through YT. Pleasing on the eye, they are deceptively simple but draw me in, especially since I am a captive for the length of the piece.


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## Melvin

Abrahamsen has a lot of good chamber music

Wald is one of my favorites so far





I finally got the chance to listen to the longer pieces Schnee and LMTY yesterday


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## Melvin

Quoting Grove dictionary:

"The composer’s first works adhered to the style of the Danish ‘new simplicity’ movement of the mid-1960s. For Abrahamsen and other composers such as Gudmundsen-Holmgren, Christiansen and Ole Buck, this stylistic attitude, which marked a break with serial music, was a Danish response to the complexity emanating from central Europe, particularly the circle around the Darmstadt School. In Abrahamsen this aesthetic anchorage came to mean an almost naive simplicity in musical expression, as exemplified in his orchestral piece Skum (‘Foam’, 1970). During the 1970s and 80s he developed an entirely personal style, in which a modernist stringency and economy are incorporated into an individual musical universe. The mature Abrahamsen emerged as early as in the first string quartet, ‘Ten Preludes’ (1973), which combines an assured sense of structure with clarity of expression. With later works such as the orchestral Stratifications (1973–5) and Nacht und Trompeten (1981), the ensemble works Winternacht (1976–8), Märchenbilder (1984), Lied in Fall (1987) and the wind quintet Walden (1978), the composer developed a multi-layered texture, both stylistically and emotionally."

"As Abrahamsen has written: ‘My imagination works well within a fixed structure. … The more stringent it is, the more freedom I have to go down into detail. Form and freedom: perhaps much of my music has been an attempt to bring the two worlds together’. His compositions are relatively small in number, and mainly instrumental. Often of short duration, his pieces are nevertheless highly concentrated in expression, balancing dramatic gestures and structural finesse."


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## mmsbls

I've heard Abrahamsen's 3rd and 4th string quartets. The 4th string quartet moves back and forth between slow, sparse, controlled movements and faster freely flowing ones. The first movement consists solely of ethereal harmonics. The second movement, probably my favorite, includes harmonics coupled with a bouncy counterpoint. The third movement mirrors the first but uses heavy pizzicato. The fourth movement feels like a joyful dance. Abrahamsen says the quartet has become "a serene and cool piece."

String Quartet 4


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## Melvin

I've really enjoyed the 4th string quartet, I've returned to it a couple of times so far this week. On the whole I've really been enjoying this composer. I find his music to be unpretentious and sincere, and it connects easily.


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## tortkis

mmsbls said:


> I've heard Abrahamsen's 3rd and 4th string quartets. The 4th string quartet moves back and forth between slow, sparse, controlled movements and faster freely flowing ones. The first movement consists solely of ethereal harmonics. The second movement, probably my favorite, includes harmonics coupled with a bouncy counterpoint. The third movement mirrors the first but uses heavy pizzicato. The fourth movement feels like a joyful dance. Abrahamsen says the quartet has become "a serene and cool piece."
> 
> String Quartet 4


The 5:4's review linked in the youtube page is quite negative, but I like No. 4 the most among his string quartets. The expressive SQ No. 2 (1981) was the first Abrahamsen work I heard some time ago, and I didn't know that his earlier works were associated with New Simplicity. I want to hear Skum (1970, "adopting an almost naive simplicity of expression" - Wikipedia) and Symphony in C (1974, "whose puerile three-note theme heralded a new simplicity and placed him among the early minimalists" - Lebrecht). Are there any recordings?

This is a concise, well-written bio of Abrahamsen by Paul Griffiths. it is interesting to know that "Ligeti, briefly his teacher, had been one of his first heroes, for exactness and beauty, along with Steve Reich."
http://www.musicsalesclassical.com/composer/long-bio/Hans-Abrahamsen


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## Melvin

tortkis said:


> I want to hear Skum (1970) and Symphony in C (1974) Are there any recordings?


I can't seem to find any recordings anywhere of Skum, but there does exist an out of print slightly expensive ($20-$25) CD with the 1974 Symphony
https://www.amazon.com/Danish-Orche...F8&qid=1515922641&sr=1-20&keywords=abrahamsen

But it also looks like this composer has had some revived attention recently after the acclaim and press for the 2015-16 concerts and recording of LMTY; for it appears there have been several new CDs of his released just in 2016 and 2017. So we may hope for more discs yet to come from this Dane.


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## schigolch

Actually, that "Double Concerto" is a really nice piece. At first listen, it seemed a little bit unstructured to me, but coming back a couple of times, I can somehow navigate those meanders now...


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## tortkis

Melvin said:


> I can't seem to find any recordings anywhere of Skum, but there does exist an out of print slightly expensive ($20-$25) CD with the 1974 Symphony
> https://www.amazon.com/Danish-Orche...F8&qid=1515922641&sr=1-20&keywords=abrahamsen
> 
> But it also looks like this composer has had some revived attention recently after the acclaim and press for the 2015-16 concerts and recording of LMTY; for it appears there have been several new CDs of his released just in 2016 and 2017. So we may hope for more discs yet to come from this Dane.


Thank you, I just ordered it.

I am finding his music more and more interesting, especially the 21st c. works. They are difficult to describe - mixture of modernism, simplicity/minimalism, Feldman, sentimentalism, folk, ... I liked Piano Concerto, Left, Alone, and let me tell you.


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## PeterFromLA

I'm a fan of the Piano Concerto, Schnee, LMTY, Nacht und Trompeten, and other pieces. I don't think I've heard anything by him that didn't grow on me. His music is well-crafted, imaginative, and penetrating.


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## Melvin

Here's a playlist of one of the CDs I posted












*Six pieces for Horn Trio* (1984)

*Ten Preludes for String Quartet* (1973)

Although he did not compose anything throughout the entire decade of the 1990s, he did work on several chamber arrangements of pieces by nielsen, ravel, satie and others, some of which are featured on this cd

Here's the other












*"Landscapes" (Wind Quintet no. 1)* (1972)

*"Walden" (Wind Quintet no. 2)* (1978)

Plus wind quintet transcriptions of Schumann's Op. 15 and of Ravel's Tombeau de couperin


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## Melvin

Here is as complete a list of Hans Abrahamsen works as I could manage to assemble:
(there may be a few missing, which I would try to amend)

Orchestral: 
Skum [Foam], 1970 
Symphony in C, 1972
Symphony, 1974
Stratifications, 1973-5
Winternacht, (for large chamber ensemble), 1976-8
Nacht und Trompeten, 1981
Märchenbilder, (for large chamber ensemble), 1984
Lied in Fall, (for large chamber ensemble), 1987

Chamber: 
Fantasistykker efter Hans-Jørgen Nielsen, fl, hn, pf, vc, 1969, rev. 1976; 
Rundt og imellem [Round and in-between], hn, 2 tpt, trbn, tuba, 1971; 
Landskaber [Landscapes], Wind Qnt no.1, 1972; 
Nocturner, fl, pf, 1972; 
Flowersongs, 3 fl, 1973; 
Glansbilleder [Scraps], vc, pf, 1973; 
10 Praeludier, Str Qt no.1, 1973; 
Walden, Wind Qnt no.2, 1978, arr. ob, 2 cl, a sax, bn, 1995; 
Str Qt no.2, 1981; 
6 stykker, vn, hn, pf, 1984; 
2 snedanse [2 Snow Dances], rec qt, 1985, arr. fl, cl, vn, vc; 
Storm og stille med hymne og capriccio bagateller, vn, va, vc, 1994

Solo instrument: 
Oktober, pf (left hand), 1969; 
Gush, a sax, 1974, rev. 1979; 
Canzone, accdn, 1977-8; 
22 studier, pf, 1984-98; 
Storm og stille, vc, 1988; 
Hymne, vc/va, 1990; 
Capriccio bagateller, vn, 1990

Vocal: 
Efterår [Autumn] (J. Paulsen), T/S, fl, gui, vc, 1972, rev. 1977; 
Danmarkssange (Abrahamsen), S, fl, cl, perc, pf, va, 1974; 
Universe Birds (I. Holk), 10 or 5 S, 1973; 
Aria (I. Christensen), S, fl, perc, hp, vc, 1979; 
2 Grundtvig-motetter, mixed chorus, 1983-4; 
Efterårslied [Autumn Song] (R.M. Rilke, trans. T. Bjørnvig), S, hpd/pf, cl, vn, vc, 1992

Arangements Include:
M. Ravel: Le tombeau de Couperin, for wind qnt, 1989; 
C. Nielsen: 3 Pf Pieces, op.59, for 10 insts, 1990
C. Nielsen: Commotio, op. 58, for Orchestra, ????
C. Debussy: Children's Corner, for Orchestra, 2011

21st Century works:
Piano Concerto (1999-2000)
Four Pieces (2000-2003), for Orchestra
Three Little Nocturnes (2005), for string quartet and accordion
Air (2006)
Schnee (2006-08), for large ensemble
String Quartet No. 3 (2008)
Wald (2008-2009), for ensemble 
Ten Sinfonias (2010), for Orchestra (after string quartet no. 1)
Double Concerto (2011), for violin, piano and strings
String Quartet No. 4 (2012)
let me tell you (2013), for soprano and orchestra
Left, alone (2015), for piano left-hand and orchestra


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## Melvin

Abrahamsen's arrangements should not be overlooked or neglected!

His orchestration of Debussy's "Children's Corner" is heartfelt, warm, and contenting.





Also of considerable interest is Abrahamsen's symphonic orchestration of Nielsen's epic organ odyssey "Commotio"


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## Melvin

Final listening: "Left, alone", piano concerto (2016)




One of his most recent major pieces. It is a very good conclusion, I love this piece. It reminds me of Ravel.


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## Malx

I finally made a little time to give some of Abrahamsen's works a listen. Of those I tried these two discs stood out for me although the 4th String Quartet being played at such a high register was a bit of a challenging listen.

I particularly liked the Piano Concerto and the Four Pieces for Orchestra from the second disc.

View attachment 101036


View attachment 101037


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## mmsbls

*Composer: Salvatore Sciarrino (1947-)*


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## Art Rock

A composer I have not heard a single note of.

* gets ready to take notes *


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## mmsbls

I am relatively unfamiliar with Sciarrino. The composer guestbook on TC is not full of recommendations so I checked our handy TC Top Recommended Lists. I found 3 works:

Allegoria della notte (Violin and Orchestra)
Sei quartetti brevi (String Quartet)
Piano Trio No. 2

The Guardian has a piece by Andrew Clements where he says of Sciarrino's music, "His music inhabits an instantly recognisable soundworld of fragile, fleeting events that are often teetering on the edge of inaudibility, pushing instruments to the limits of their ranges and pitching voices into ambiguous territory somewhere between song and whispered speech." That seems to perfectly describe the Piano Trio and the Quartet as well as parts of the work for violin and orchestra.

The Violin work starts and ends with quotes from Mendelssohn's concerto. The transition from those parts to the very fragile, fleeting sounds of the violin seems to work smoothly. Throughout the work the orchestral accompaniment sounds somewhat like eerie background noise.

I do have perhaps odd questions for those who have listened much more to Sciarrino. I found that I had to increase the volume for the quartet and trio to a level much higher than I normally use in order to hear the works. Even then I struggled a bit to hear all of them. I was uncomfortable placing the volume that high since I believe my ears are a bit sensitive to loud sounds. Do others increase the volume for his works? Should those works sound somewhat difficult to hear (i.e. not just soft and fleeting but almost inaudible as Clements suggests)?


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## schigolch

Silence is also part of music, and Sciarrino is always playing with silence and sound, and the border between both. It's a fascinating game, that challenges the listener. This is one of the main features of Sciarrino's style.

But there are others, like the unusual rhythms, like the extended techniques exploring the limits of each instrument, like the original way of handling vocal music...

He is also a prolific composer. There are many pieces, and also covering many genres.

My favorite work is the opera "Luci mie traditrici", premiered back in 1998, and based in _Il tradimento per l'onore_, by Giacinto Andrea Cicognini, and also inspired by the real killings of Carlo Gesualdo's wife and her lover, at the hands of the composer.

There are three versions on CDs and one on DVD available in the market. This is a fragment:






Also, Sciarrino is using in the opera an elegy by Claude Le Jeune: "Qu'est devenu ce bel oeil": 




transforming it from the prologue to the last act of the opera, in a very interesting and dreadful way, that has been published in a purely instrumental version:






But "Luci" is just one opera, and Sciarrino has already written sixteen more. Among the rest of his operatic production, my other favorite is "Macbeth", based on Shakespeare and written in 2002:


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## mmsbls

I listened to two works:

Variazioni, for cello & orchestra
Introduzione All'Oscuro

The Variazioni is a remarkable work of pulsating and shimmering sounds not quite like anything I've heard before. I found it rather engaging. The Introduzione All'Oscuro has almost an electronic sound often set against two repeated percussive beats.


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## Melvin

I'm starting off with his piano music. I love it! :cheers: I'm getting an airy messiaen feeling from it..


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## schigolch

The flute is one of Sciarrino's favorite intruments. He has written a great deal of material, looking to understand all the possibilities of a flute, with the use of extended techniques, as well as his usual partnership with silence. It's quite interesting to explore that material, especially for lovers of the flute.

Salvatore Sciarrino has said of flautist Mario Caroli that 'he is the Paganini of the flute'. "Morte tamburo" is a brief piece, written for Caroli back in 1999.


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## schigolch

"Studi per l'intonazione del mare" was written back in 2000, and dedicated to the Swiss composer and conductor Beat Furrer.

It requires one contralto, an ensemble of four flutes, an ensemble of four saxophones, percussion, 100 flutes and 100 saxophones.

It's a beautiful title, but... how can you really tune the sea?. Maybe what Sciarrino really aspires here, using his trademark musical style, is to be one with the sea.

That's really a wonderful score, it takes only around 35".


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## Melvin

Sciarrino is an incredibly prolific composer:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_compositions_by_Salvatore_Sciarrino

http://salvatoresciarrino.eu/Data/Catalogo/Cat_crono_eng.html
http://salvatoresciarrino.eu/Data/Catalogo/Cat_generi_eng.html


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## Melvin

schigolch said:


> But "Luci" is just one opera, and Sciarrino has already written sixteen more.


I'm listening to "Macbeth" right now, it's quite amazing!

Are you sure he has written that many operas? Looking through his catalog of works, he has about 16 works listed under "theater", but some of them don't seem to be full fledged operas.

Maybe I misunderstand the definition of "opera", but some pieces in that list are like small ensemble pieces with a single voice, rather than a large orchestra with multiple singers/characters.

For instance I listened to *La perfezione di uno spirito sottile (1985)*, which is like a trio for voice, flute, and percussion; but it's primarily centered around the flute, with the percussion used unobtrusively for background textures, and the voice only coming in sparingly at a few moments throughout the 45 minute piece.





Same with "Vanitas"

Maybe about 10 could be considered operas?


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## schigolch

Yes, of course it depends on the definition of "opera", or of "musical theater". Which are the boundaries?. Is "La perfezione di uno spirito sottile" an opera?. Or is "Vanitas"?. Or, just to mention a piece from other composer, is Feldman's "Neither" an opera?.

Well, for instance I have watched live, staged and billed as operas, both "Vanitas" (at Teatro Arriaga, in Bilbao) and "Neither" (at Teatro de la Zarzuela, in Madrid).

Personally, I don't care a lot about classification. If the composer thinks his piece is an opera... that's enough for me. But I'm fine with others thinking otherwise.

One of Sciarrino's works that is usually counted as opera, is "Infinito nero" (that has been also staged but is given more often in a concert version). This was written in 1998, and is basically based on texts by María Maddalena de Pazzi, an Italian mystic from the 16th-17th centuries, supposedly produced while she was on religious ecstasy. Only a mezzo and a small ensemble are needed to perform the piece.


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## juliante

PeterFromLA said:


> She has written many major pieces that are sure to join the repertoire. These are my recommendations for those interested in exploring her oeuvre:
> 
> Offertorium, a violin concerto that is based on Bach's Musical Offering, filtered through Webern. It is the piece that brought her to wide exposure in the West. The DG recording, with Kremer, is the one that made the initial splash.
> 
> In Croce, mentioned above, is a luminous meditation on the possibilities of combining organ and cello. It goes on, perhaps longer than it should, but it makes for a strangely affecting reverie.
> 
> Canticle of the Sun, written for Rostropovich, it is scored for cello, chamber choir, and percussion ensemble. *This is an almost hallucinatory piece, offering a wonderful example of the composer's ability to conjure inner worlds.*
> 
> In Tempus Praesens, the second violin concerto, this one written for Anne-Sophie Mutter. Lyrical and beautiful, a good intro to the composer.
> 
> Introitus, her piano concerto. A relatively early work (though still mature), it is a solemn, spiritual work, at times reminiscent of pealing church bells.
> 
> Glorious Percussion, I second the recommendation of this work made in the preceding posts.
> 
> I should add that all of Gubaidulina's mature pieces (like Messiaen's) contain references to her religious beliefs (Russian Orthodox). It is not essential to know this, however, to appreciate how they function as music.


Om my word. Thank you OP of this thread...! - I have just discovered Canticle of The Sun. Couldn't describe it better than Peter from LA does here. I find this piece mesmerising and unlike anything else I own. Rostropovich's playing is...there is no adjective. Roll on my exploration of Gubaidulina.


----------



## Guest

I have this, my only CD by Gubaidulina.

Canticle of the Sun
The Lyre of Orpheus

Kremerata Baltica


----------



## schigolch

"Efebo con radio" (Boy With A Radio), was written in 1981, for orchestra and contralto, and is a very personal piece. Sciarrino tried to recreate part of his own childhood, when he spend many afternoons sitting in front a radio, listening to the programs. He is playing with the orchestra to reproduce the sounds of the radio, and the voice interacting somehow with the sounds. It's not quintessential Sciarrino, but very interesting:


----------



## Melvin

Over the past few days I've been listening to Sciarrino's vocal pieces like "Studi per l'intonazione del mare", "Infinito Nero", "Vanitas", and "Efebo con Radio". It's a nice body of work, I've been enjoying it.

His piano music is also good. His set of Piano Sonatas are enjoyable. They're each only about 10 minutes long.

No. 1 (1976)




No. 2 (1983)




No. 3 (1987)




No. 4 (1992)


----------



## tortkis

schigolch said:


> The flute is one of Sciarrino's favorite intruments. He has written a great deal of material, looking to understand all the possibilities of a flute, with the use of extended techniques, as well as his usual partnership with silence. It's quite interesting to explore that material, especially for lovers of the flute.
> 
> Salvatore Sciarrino has said of flautist Mario Caroli that 'he is the Paganini of the flute'. "Morte tamburo" is a brief piece, written for Caroli back in 1999.


Flute seems to accentuates Sciarrino's characteristic style best. I enjoyed Caroli's recordings (L'opera per flauto, Vol. 1 & 2). Interesting contrast between faint shivering (sounding like bird warbling) and sudden burst of breath, which reminds me of shakuhachi. Sometimes it sounds like speaking.


----------



## Uxbal




----------



## schigolch

Sciarrino has also explored the string quartet during his long career. He has written nine full pieces in that genre, along with the "Sei quartetti brevi". While all of them are very interesting, and remarkably similar in style, my favorite is nº7, written in 1999 and that always haunts back to me, everytime I listen to it:


----------



## Melvin

I finally broke into some Sciarrino string quartets the other day, good stuff.

I'm surprised I'm listening to so many vocal works. I usually avoid them, but for this thread I'll try to go out of my comfortable depth and end up liking things I didn't expect to.

I listened to "Aspern Suite" this morning and found it to be incredibly good, with my coffee.


----------



## schigolch

Among Sciarrino's works for orchestra, one of my favorites is "I fuochi oltre la ragione", written in 1997 and dedicated to Riccardo Chailly. It's typical Sciarrino, with his obsession for sound and silence, for building tension though timbre, and with his usual subtlety. Also, the youtube below is a great performance:


----------



## mmsbls

*Composer: Frederic Rzewski (193*


----------



## Guest

I think his most well known work is

The people united will never be defeated!
36 variations on a Chilean folk song.

I have the performance by Ole Kiilerich, piano.

It was recommended to me early on TC (by Alypius) and I enjoyed it very much then and still do.


----------



## mmsbls

The People United ... is a wonderful piece. I also first heard it due to recommendations at TC.

Rzewski wrote a work for Solo Piano and Ensemble, Hard Cuts. I heard it awhile ago and revisited it finding that I liked it even more than before. Apparently Rzewski wrote just the melodic lines and did not specify the instrumentation of the ensemble. The link above is for orchestra, but I have listened to a Naxos recording with a chamber ensemble.


----------



## schigolch

In the last years, I have had quite some fun with his "Nanosonatas":


----------



## PeterFromLA

Last name is pronounched "Chevsky," in case anyone is wondering.

Saw him play "The People United" variations, and perform the narrator role in the work, "Coming Together." He was wonderfully animated and impassioned in both. Ensemble was the SF Contemporary Music Players. I recommend also Coming Together's pendant, "Attica."

Rzewski was a piano virtuoso in his own right. He gave many of the earliest performances of Stockhausen's Klavierstucken. He's an interesting figure in that he bridges Darmstadt era modernism and American minimalism. He was one of those Rome Fellows back in the 1950s, which seems to account for his European connections.

The Dance Theater of Harlem recently staged Coming Together. It must have been something.


----------



## Guest

dogen said:


> I think his most well known work is
> 
> The people united will never be defeated!
> 36 variations on a Chilean folk song.
> 
> I have the performance by Ole Kiilerich, piano.
> 
> It was recommended to me early on TC (by Alypius) and I enjoyed it very much then and still do.


What a hero, a deserved tribute to the Chileans and socialists everywhere!

Here is the composer playing the work:


----------



## Guest

Here are the red tunes that formed the basis of his work:

Das Einheitsfrontlied






Bandiera Rossa






El pueblo unido






The lyrics are mostly there. You can sing along if you wish. :lol:

Viva la socialismo !﻿


----------



## PeterFromLA

Listening now to Rzewski's newish Piano Concerto (2013), his first foray into the form.


----------



## tortkis

PeterFromLA said:


> Last name is pronounched "Chevsky," in case anyone is wondering.
> 
> Saw him play "The People United" variations, and perform the narrator role in the work, "Coming Together." He was wonderfully animated and impassioned in both. Ensemble was the SF Contemporary Music Players. I recommend also Coming Together's pendant, "Attica."
> 
> Rzewski was a piano virtuoso in his own right. He gave many of the earliest performances of Stockhausen's Klavierstucken. He's an interesting figure in that he bridges Darmstadt era modernism and American minimalism. He was one of those Rome Fellows back in the 1950s, which seems to account for his European connections.
> 
> The Dance Theater of Harlem recently staged Coming Together. It must have been something.


Coming Together is an amazing work. I listened to the eight blackbird's recording. Tension and anticipation accumulate throughout the piece toward the terrifying culmination.


----------



## PeterFromLA

After the Attica uprising (which resulted in the death of the man who wrote the text that was used in Coming Together), another inmate who actually survived the uprising, and was released from the prison, was asked by a New York Times' reporter, How does it feel to leave Attica behind you? His response constitutes the sole text for Rzewski's work, "Attica."

The original recording features Rzewski on piano. Jon Gibson, alto sax. Composer Alvin Curran on synthesizer. Garrett List, trombone. Karl Berger, vibes. Joan Kalisch, viola. Richard Youngstein, bass. Steve Ben Israel, speaker. (The same ensemble is heard on the original recording of Coming Together, though with Curran on piccolo trumpet instead of synthesizer.) Here it is on youtube:






A more recent performance, from Oklahoma! Rzewski himself apparently endorsed their effort.


----------



## Melvin

I've gotten a couple chances to listen to some Rzewski this week, though I've been busy. I'm well enjoying this music.

"The Turtle and the Crane"
I love this piece, it seems to paint such vivid images of a natural pond setting. The activities that are playing out in this remote and serene place, miles away from any human eyes.





I also like the Scratch Symphony. It is soothing.


----------



## Guest

PeterFromLA said:


> After the Attica uprising (which resulted in the death of the man who wrote the text that was used in Coming Together), another inmate who actually survived the uprising, and was released from the prison, was asked by a New York Times' reporter, How does it feel to leave Attica behind you? His response constitutes the sole text for Rzewski's work, "Attica."
> 
> The original recording features Rzewski on piano. Jon Gibson, alto sax. Composer Alvin Curran on synthesizer. Garrett List, trombone. Karl Berger, vibes. Joan Kalisch, viola. Richard Youngstein, bass. Steve Ben Israel, speaker. (The same ensemble is heard on the original recording of Coming Together, though with Curran on piccolo trumpet instead of synthesizer.) Here it is on youtube:


Thanks for uploading that Peter. A powerful work. Reading wikipedia, the response of the US government and media is barely credible. Killing the protesters and torturing them is bad enough, but to randomly kill the hostages too is remarkable.


----------



## Guest

Here is the link to Coming Together. Also essential.






"I think the combination of age and a greater coming together is responsible for the speed of the passing time. It's six months now, and I can tell you truthfully few periods in my life have passed so quickly. I am in excellent physical and emotional health. There are doubtless subtle surprises ahead, but I feel secure and ready. As lovers will contrast their emotions in times of crisis, so am I dealing with my environment. In the indifferent brutality, the incessant noise, the experimental chemistry of food, the ravings of lost hysterical men, I can act with clarity and meaning. I am deliberate, sometimes even calculating, seldom employing histrionics except as a test of the reactions of others. I read much, exercise, talk to guards and inmates, feeling for the inevitable direction of my life."﻿


----------



## mmsbls

Normally I dislike spoken words with music. I like the music of Copland's Lincoln Portrait, but I've never wanted to listen to it because of the spoken words. I heard Coming Together (or at least the beginning) awhile ago and dismissed it as another work with spoken words. Well, I listened to Coming Together several times in the past week and every time it grew on me. I now view it as a powerful work that I want to get. I also listened to Attica and enjoyed it. Maybe I'll be more open to other spoken works.


----------



## mmsbls

I listened to Book VI of Rzewski's nanosonatas. He wrote 8 books totaling 56 nanosonatas. They're quite fun. They seem to simply end all of a sudden as though Rzewski thought, "OK that's enough."


----------



## Melvin

Just got a bunch of Rzewski CDs from the library. Now I remember that I've heard his "Pocket Symphonies" on the radio before.


----------



## Melvin

Good CDs


----------



## Melvin

Rzewski is a member of a free improvisation ensemble called "Musica Elettronica Viva" (MEV) which was formed in Rome in the late '60s.


----------



## Melvin

Finally I got a lot of good listening time in today.


----------



## Bluecrab

PeterFromLA said:


> Listening now to Rzewski's newish Piano Concerto...


Good choice of a fine modern American virtuoso. I saw him with Musica eletronica viva about 8-10 years ago. It was (is?) a three-man ensemble of Rzeswki, Richard Teitalbaum, and Alvin Curran (another Yalie and keyboard phenomenon). Very different from most of his own compositions, but well worth seeing. Teitalbaum and Curran played electronic instruments, but Rzewski played a Steinway concert grand. And boy, did he play it.


----------



## mmsbls

*Composer: Kalevi Aho (1949-)*


----------



## Art Rock

Aho combines quality and quantity. So far, 17 symphonies (plus 3 chamber symphonies) and dozens of concertos, both for common and unusual instruments - plus an impressive chamber music and vocal oeuvre. I've heard many of his works, and found not a dud among them.

A first sampler:

Symphony No. 7 'Insect Symphony' (1988).


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## mmsbls

I've listened to Aho on and off over the past 5 years or so. Most of what I've heard are orchestral works. I have enjoyed pretty much everything I've heard, but I feel as though nothing has powerfully moved me (i.e. I simply must get this). I hope my listening over the next couple of weeks changes that.

Recently, looking forward to this thread, I did hear two new works that I certainly enjoyed:

Clarinet Quintet

and

Concerto for Two Cellos


----------



## Art Rock

An example of his more unusual instrument choice in concertos:

Concerto for contrabassoon and string orchestra.


----------



## Portamento

I agree with mmsbls. I just heard the _Hyonteissinfonia_ (Insect Symphony), which I would compare to Schnittke's 1st Symphony (a rare work by that composer which didn't appeal to me upon first listen). Maybe my experience with Aho's work will be a similar story, as I found Symphony #7 a bit boring. His use of percussion, however, was stellar; I loved the whimsical flexatone at the beginning and gong-dragging during the march. There is a lot of polystylism here, but this is where Schnittke is untouchable!


----------



## Kjetil Heggelund

Horn concerto for me now. I like what I'm hearing  I've only heard a couple of his pieces before. Maybe he is a typical contemporary composer these days, being not so alienating for "normal people". I find the tonal language a bit romantic. A modern Sibelius with a sense of humor!


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## Melvin

Just had the chance to listen to the 7th symphony after work. Wasn't quite following at first, but by the 15 minute mark my heart rate was increasing and I was feeling fully captivated by it. I'm extremely excited to hear the many other offerings of this composer!

After school tomorrow I will be able to from the library pick up my holds which are waiting for me; about 10 Aho CDs. Very excited to start listening to these tomorrow!!!


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## mmsbls

I listened to several concertos including the Contrabassoon, the Viola Concerto and Saxophone Concerto. All were enjoyable and had very interesting moments. I don't consider the contrabassoon one of my favorite instruments, but I probably liked that one the most of the 3.

I also listened to the Quintet for Oboe, Clarinet, Bassoon, Horn, and Piano which I absolutely loved especially the first two movements. It was written to be performed with Mozart's Piano Quintet.


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## Kjetil Heggelund

I think I love this man! Have heard a few concertos now  Why on earth doesn't he have one for GUITAR??


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## Melvin

Well, turned out the library was closed yesterday- President's day 

Last night I listened to a bunch of the concertos, they are jubilant pieces, very appealing. The contrabassoon concerto was enjoyable, sort of neo-romantic, I like that kind of stuff. The double cello concerto was impressive, (too bad the YT video was poor bit rate, I need to hear this one again). I also liked particularly the piano-wind quintet.

I'm chipping into the body of symphonies, these seem to be amazing, each one is a different vivid world.


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## Melvin

There is no guitar concerto. But he _does_ have a Theremin concerto.


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## Melvin

I've familiarized myself with a few of his symphonies now. Aho also has also made a nice contribution to the body of Nordic wind quintets with several of his own entries. I like them!


----------



## mmsbls

I listened to Aho's Concerto for Piano and String Orchestra (Piano Concerto No. 2). The first movement was very engaging. There were wonderful parts throughout although I found the end of the third movement somewhat less interesting.

I also listened to a short work, Lamento for 2 Violas, (not on youtube) on a Delphian recording of various contemporary artists. I thought it was fantastic. While earlier composers certainly wrote for the viola, I'm finding many more works for viola in modern/contemporary composers.


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## Melvin

CDs of chamber pieces

Oboe Quintet / 7 Inventions and Postlude / Flute Oboe & Strings Quintet





Bassoon & String Quintet





Saxophone Concerto / Quintet for Oboe Clarinet Bassoon Horn & Piano





Clarinet Quintet / Trio for Clarinet Viola & Piano / Sonata for 2 accordians





Kalevi Aho: Piano Works


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## mmsbls

I listened to Aho's 3 chamber symphonies. These are string symphonies with an alto saxophone added to the 3rd. They are written between 1976 and 1996.

The first was my favorite moving between quiet, calm portions and frenetic outbursts (the first after about a minute explodes briefly only to subside all too soon). It ends with a lengthy, subdued coda. Very enjoyable.

My favorite comment from reviews concerns the third: "Is there anything in music more irritating than an atonal alto saxophone cadenza...?" The reviewer goes on to praise the work: "I doubt it, but that misjudgment aside, the music here is very interesting, rewarding, and admirably concise." The cadenza was a bit of a wild ride for me, and other parts were difficult to follow on first hearing.


----------



## Melvin

I still haven't heard the 3 chamber symphonies. I've been focusing on the chamber quintet works; after several listens, still get better each time as I grow familiar with them. Finely crafted works that I will fondly return to. 
There are too many symphonies to analyze all at once, but I liked no. 4 a lot. I've listened also to numbers 1, 2, 7, 9, & 10...
His symphonies are a worthy continuation of Mahler/Sibelius. But not to understate Aho's unique style, which is flooded with endless ideas.


----------



## Melvin

Trying to fit in some final listening: the piano concerto no. 2 was incredibly good,,,:cheers:


----------



## mmsbls

*Composer: Philip Glass (1937-)*


----------



## Guest

Okay, lets get this going with Metamorphosis Four played by the composer.


----------



## Guest

I was too late for Aho so listened to the Insect Symphony earlier. It came across more as a ballet, with a series of dances depicting various insects. Perhaps this is a side effect of polystylism? I enjoyed it and will check out some more.

The Glass that I play most is the soundtrack to Reggio's film Koyaanisqatsi.






I enjoy this very much, but neither watch it without Glass's soundtrack, or listen to it without the video.


----------



## schigolch

Glass has written a fair amount of operas during his long career. However, my preferred is his second, _Satyagraha_, written in 1979, and based on the life of Gandhi.






More recently, just a few years ago, I attended the world premiere of one of his last operas, "The Perfect American", based on the life of Walt Disney, that was not as inspired from a musical point of view, but it was nonetheless an interesting piece:


----------



## mmsbls

There have been several threads about Glass being boring, repetitive, without substance, or all three. I agree his music is repetitive, but that by itself is not negative. I enjoy most of his works even if I feel they are repetitive. Some I find more interesting that others.

I enjoy his middle quartets (3-5) especially No. 4. I have not heard the last 2.

String Quartet No. 3"Mishima"
String Quartet No. 4
String Quartet No. 5

I truly love a later work Aguas de Amazonia composed for the Brazilian group Uakti, who make their own instruments, and with arrangements by Marco Antônio Guimarães. The work was composed for a ballet.


----------



## Haydn man

I believe you have to approach listening to minimalistic composers such as Glass with a different mindset.
For me it is the repetition of at times trance like primitive rhythms that appeal. I can let this type of music just carry me along
Yet he also writes works with many variations. Try the Etudes with a great recording by Olafsson on DG
Other favourites of mine are the Violin Concerto below and Symphonies No.2 and 3 with Alsop on Naxos






.

I urge people to give Glass a try, but if he doesn't float your boat then what have you lost


----------



## Melvin

Has the TC server been down the past couple days or was it just my PC?

Anyway, there is a huge abundance of Glass CDs from the library system so I have much to choose from. I have listened to a very little bit of Glass before a while ago, but not extensively. (Before this week, I've only heard his Violin concerto and a few String quartets)

Today on my big day off I'm going to listen to some Glass operas. I'm listening right now to "La Belle et la Bete" and later I will try "Einstein on the Beach".

I like Glass, it is very harmonious music. Not tough to crack into at all.

Like baroque music, I can follow it in the background while I'm studying; it is very logical and agreeable music.


----------



## Melvin

I heard a great CD that had Symphony no. 2 and this Concerto for Saxophone Quartet


----------



## Haydn man

Try having a listen to the Low and Heroes Symphonies
At present I am unable to add pictures or links for some reason. The version I am familiar with is the Dennis Russell Davies with the American Composers Orchestra
The 2 works are inspired by the music of David Bowie and Brian Eno. I feel Glass very quickly moves away from the Bowie influence and develops his typical minimalistic style 
Both works will repay some repeat listening


----------



## Melvin

"Low" is Symphony #1 and "Hero" Symphony is #4
Currently I am listening to Symphony #2, it is very nice work. I am listening to the Dennis Russel Davies recording on Nonesuch.
Next I will be listening to #3 of the same.

I listened to "Low" Symphony as well (half of it anyway, the library copy I had started skipping unfortunately.) I am not 100% familiar with Bowie's or Eno's music, but I didn't notice that it had anything to do with them, it just sounded like Glass to me.


----------



## mmsbls

I definitely enjoy Symphony No. 4. I know I've heard some of the others, but I'm not sure which ones since it's been awhile.

There are two violin concertos:
Violin Concerto
Violin Concerto No. 2 "The American Four Seasons"
I enjoy both. The American Four Seasons has 8 movements with violin solos (maybe cadenzas) played before each orchestral movement. The work is dedicated to Robert McDuffie (who plays in the link above) as a companion piece to Vivaldi's Four Seasons. Interestingly, McDuffie and Glass did not agree on which movement they identified with each season so the movements are simply labeled I, II, III, and IV without reference to a season.

An early work of Glass, Glassworks, has been much discussed on TC. The work has 6 movements (or maybe works associated with it). Some I love, others I like, and some I'm indifferent to.


----------



## Melvin

I listened to Glassworks this week, it is characteristic of his early style.

I heard a good double CD set "Alter Ego performs Philip Glass" which recorded only his early period works of 1967-69, the truly "minimalist" stuff. I enjoyed it, meditative mechanical music.

Music in Similar Motion


----------



## Guest

For those who have access to BBC iPlayer there is a programme called Tones, Drones and Arpeggios: The Magic of Minimalism.

The one I just watched was episode two: New York. It featured interviews and excerpts of music from (mainly) Glass and Reich.


----------



## Melvin

I'm listening to his later symphonies. I listened to numbers 7, 9, and 10.


----------



## Melvin

I'm listening to "Music in Twelve Parts" right now. I'm starting to get pretty Philip Glassed out


----------



## mmsbls

*Composer: Kamran Ince (1960 -)*


----------



## Art Rock

I got to know this composer via Naxos (as so often):










I remembered liking it, but it did not urge me to check out the composer further. I'm curious about other recommendations.


----------



## schigolch

I purchased this CD:










A very ambitious project, though the results were probably short of the original intentions:


----------



## Melvin

Kamran Ince is Turkish-American, he was raised between both countries. He studied composition at Izmir University in Turkey, then in the US at Oberlin College and Eastman School of Music.

Here is my favorite Ince piece:

Fantasie of a Sudden Turtle for Piano Quartet

"Completed in November 1990, "Fantasie of a Sudden Turtle" was commissioned by the Michigan Council for the Arts and written for the Cassini Ensemble who premiered it in Ann Arbor, Michigan in March 1991. The Contradiction between sudden and turtle is a reflection of my love for contrast and also represents this particular turtle's desire to do a lot of things it cannot. The work consists of a sequence of fantasies, dreams that a turtle might have. During this journey of imagination sometimes the turtle goes through moods and psychological states that humans do. The following are some of the progammatic titles within the work: Obsessed turtle; Robotic turtle; Hyper turtle; Hallucinogenic turtle; Angry turtle; and Passionate turtle. These fantasies and dreams come to the turltle in an unrelenting way."




(by the way, you can get this CD for $3 on Amazon and it is very much worth it.)


----------



## mmsbls

I had not heard any Ince at least that I remembered before a couple of days ago. I listened to Ince's Concerto for Orchestra and Symphony No. 2 "Fall of Constantinople". Both contained powerful, regular drum beats (more so in the Concerto) that I found disturbing and unpleasant. I've never really thought of drums in that manner so I was a bit surprised. The Piano Concerto has some very nice parts that I enjoyed.









I listened to the Fantasie ... Quartet. I had a similar response as I had to the Piano Concerto - there are parts I found intriguing and enjoyable.

My favorite work of Ince is In White for violin, chamber ensemble, voices, and synthesizer. One review says, "On In White, Kamran Ince does with sound what Walt Disney did with light in Fantasia." Well, maybe. Further "And there's certainly not a thing on In White that a lover of Bela Bartok or Astor Piazzola would have difficulty embracing."

I read that Ince can be described as Brian Eno meets Gershwin or the Turkish John Adams.


----------



## Melvin

Here's the Piano Concerto





haha "the Turkish John Adams"


----------



## mmsbls

I listened to this CD with Ince's Songs with Other Words. Most were very melodic. I especially enjoyed Nos. 1 and 2.


----------



## Melvin

Here's an an album with a variety of short pieces


----------



## mmsbls

I listened to the Sting Quartet, Curve. There are repeated seconds throughout the work giving a sense of sorrow described in the notes as "not so much sadness as emotional paralysis, which is sadder than sadness." The work ends with the repeated seconds fading until there is a single pizzicato note played on top of a sustained, seemingly out of place, pitch. The work has a sense of simplicity coupled with an angst that is quite effective.


----------



## mmsbls

Dreamlines for chamber ensemble was commissioned by the Turkish Chamber of Architects. The voices sing without words or speak in hushed tones. The work is described as an architect's prayer. The majority of the music is quiet (almost dreamy) with occasional modest crescendos. As with the quartet, Curve, this music is somewhat simple but creates an effective soundspace.


----------



## Art Rock

Kamran Ince: Concerto for Orchestra, Turkish Instruments and Voices.

I like this one because unusual concertos are a hobby of mine. Just for the musical content, I'm not convinced.


----------



## Melvin

Tracing, for piano and cello


----------



## Melvin

Flight Box





Ince's 5th Symphony was interesting, but it's not on Youtube.

Naxos and other labels have done a commendable job making his works available to hear, he has about 8 CDs it looks like.

Thanks for listening everyone


----------



## mmsbls

@Melvin: Thanks for suggesting Ince. The first few works I heard were not to my taste, but after exploring a bit I heard several that I enjoyed very much (In White, Curve, and Dreamlines).


----------



## mmsbls

*Composer: Chiayu Hsu (1975 -)*


----------



## mmsbls

I have tried to find online recordings of Chiayu Hsu's music. There are a couple of videos on youtube but I can't find more. Even the Naxos Music Library does not have a recording (although interestingly the regular naxos.com site does list one recording). Is there a way to hear more than a couple of works by her?


----------



## chefmclean

There's one on Apple Music/iTunes:


----------



## Melvin

A single CD released on Naxos it seems, and that is it unfortunately.


----------



## Melvin

http://www.chiayuhsu.com/index.html
On the web page some compositions can be heard in the section "works".

Just got the CD in the mail today.








A very nice set of music, it contains 6 pieces written between 2005 and 2014. A really enjoyable young composer.

She is very active at this moment filling commissions.

A winner of the 2016 Academy of Arts and Letters Music Award: https://us3.campaign-archive.com/?u=80ed7b7a619f831a187e53185&id=25963421e7&e=
"Born in Taiwan, Chia-Yu Hsu won the Suzanne and Lee Ettelson Composer's Awards, a 2013 IAWM Search for New Music prize, a Copland House Residency Award, the Sorel Organization's 2nd International Composition Competition, the 7th USA International Harp Composition Competition, an ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Awards, the Maxfield Parrish Composition Contest, the Renée B. Fisher Foundation Composer Awards, a Brown Foundation Fellowship, and a Camargo Foundation Fellowship. Her work has been performed by the London Sinfonietta, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the San Francisco Symphony, the Nashville Symphony, the American Composers Orchestra, the National Symphony Orchestra in Taiwan, the Aspen Music Festival Contemporary Ensemble, Eighth Blackbird, Ciompi Quartet, and Prism Quartet. She received her Ph.D. from Duke University, Master of Music from the Yale School of Music, and a Bachelor of Music from the Curtis Institute. "

This will be a composer to look out for in the future.


----------



## chefmclean

Found a piece on this album as well


----------



## mmsbls

*Composer: James MacMillan (1959 -)*


----------



## Art Rock

For me (and many of my generation I expect) he was first noted by the fascinating percussion concerto Veni veni Emmanuel, which has been played live over 300 times, and is (was?) available on the now defunct Catalyst label. After that first CD, i bought a handful of others, and was never disappointed.


----------



## mmsbls

Two works from TC's Top Recommended works:

The Confession of Isobel Gowdie - an orchestral work

Seven Last Words from the Cross - a very nice choral work


----------



## mmsbls

Two String Quartets:

Memento is a very short lament written in the memory of a friend. The work uses pentatonic Gaelic psalm style with a lot of quiet dissonance.

String Quartet No. 2, "Why is this night different?" is based on the night of Passover and the idea of children asking their parents about that night. MacMillan frequently uses glissandi in one or more instruments and the effect is interesting. Gaelic psalms play a role in this work as well.


----------



## mmsbls

Some vocal works:

Mass (excerpts)
The first movement (Kyrie) was enjoyable, but I was less pleased with the remainder.

The Strathclyde Motets

I heard the ones on this CD:

View attachment 102511


This CD has 7 of the motets (I'm not sure how many there are). These are (to me) more interesting than the Mass. Although I had not heard many of MacMillan's works, I always thought of him primarily as a vocal composer. Having heard many more of his vocal works now, I find the _Seven Last Words from the Cross_ by far my favorite


----------



## Melvin




----------



## Malx

Well renowned for his vocal works MacMillan first came to my attention as a composer of orchestral music. The discs that really caught my attention were those issued by BIS featuring in large part Scottish based orchestras that MacMillan had worked with conducted by the composer, Osmo Vanska and Joseph Swensen.

Not all the works are equally inspired but all are worth a listen. Possibly his most ambitious work is the Triduum that MacMillan describes as "an Easter Triptych" which consists of three distinct parts, Part I: The World's Ransoming a concertante work for Cor Anglais & Orchestra, Triduum, Part II: Cello Concerto, Part III: Symphony Vigil.

It is fair to say most of his work draws inspiration from his faith or from the history and landscapes of his native Scotland - which explains my great interest in his work.

Sample what you can there is plenty available from the usual sources.


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## Melvin

I listened to the Mass, The Confession of, and the Easter Triptych... I like it, it's uplifting music


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## Blancrocher

I'm enjoying the string quartet mmbls posted above: perhaps I've been too affected by the title and program note, but it sounds like music for a haunted house. There is an episodic, Liszt-like narrative quality that I enjoy.

Though I don't want to derail things, I've enjoyed listening to some of the other composers I missed writing about in this thread, including in particular Rzewski playing his own piano works. I also re-immersed myself in Glass while reading his recently published memoir; after re-watching the Qatsi trilogy, I was confirmed in my belief that Glass is not only my favorite modern film composer, but the individual who has basically set my expectations for what film music _is_. I've also been most interested to hear operas and piano music of Sciarrino.

Sorry for the late digest: my time and inclination for posting can be erratic.


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## Guest

Like many my introduction to MacMillan was Veni, Veni, Emmanuel. I have the Naxos CD by Colin Currie / Ulster O / Yuasa.

Next week MacMillan's Saxophone Concerto is to be premiered. I may go to the concert and explore this contemporary composer in person, as he will also be there.


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## Malx

Tulse said:


> Like many my introduction to MacMillan was Veni, Veni, Emmanuel. I have the Naxos CD by Colin Currie / Ulster O / Yuasa.
> 
> Next week MacMillan's Saxophone Concerto is to be premiered. I may go to the concert and explore this contemporary composer in person, as he will also be there.


Are you based in Scotland Tulse? I believe Perth, Glasgow and Edinburgh are all on the cards for performances this week.


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## Guest

Yes. I'm a fair way up north.


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## mmsbls

I listened to Macmillan's Violin Concerto. Description's include:

"On one level it's a brilliant tour de force which does everything a virtuoso could wish..." and "Mr. MacMillan's estimable mastery of orchestral timbre and effect is evident throughout." (Wikipedia)

I found it enjoyable but not engaging.


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## mmsbls

*Composer: Thomas Ades (1971 -)*


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## Art Rock

In the 90s, he was pushed in Gramophone reviews as the next big thing. I bought two CDs (Life story, Living toys), but was underwhelmed. More recently, I got hold of a CD with his violin concerto and a couple of other works, which appealed to me more. Still, so far I have not been inclined to check him out further. Let's see whether this thread can change my mind.


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## St Matthew

Ades is aids.
He by far not one of the best figures out there in contemporary music yet he still gets lots of funding from the BBC and whatever other British cashcows want to throw money at him. 

I can say this fairly too, being a deeper fan of contemporary classical than most people here and in general.


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## Guest

Late entry for MacMillan:

I saw the world premier of his Saxophone Concerto.I liked it, each movement integrated a different type of Scottish traditional music. Firstly there was country dances, secondly the strange call and response music from the Western Isles' church services and finally jigs. 

He gave a talk before the concert. He claims to be inspired by Allegri, Bach and Palestrina. He also provided some biographical information about his association with traditional forms of Scottish music in his younger life.

For a composer he came across as quite articulate, and handled very well a difficult situation when a strange woman in the audience kept harassing him about singers fainting during concerts.

Did you see it Malx? What did you think?


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## mmsbls

I came to like Ades's music earlier than many other contemporary composers. I was quite moved by the violin concerto, Concentric Paths. I love the energy of the first movement and feel the second movement is rather beautiful.

For now I'll suggest two other works that I like: the Piano Quintet and his string quartet, Arcadiana.

I have not heard any of his operas. The Tempest and Powder Her Face were both selected to the TC Top 272 Recommended Operas.


----------



## Mood Drifter

Ludovico Einaudi. Lubomyr Melnyk. Takashi Yoshimatsu. These are a few to get you started. They each differ vastly in style, but they all have a universal accessibility that should endear you.


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## mmsbls

I enjoy Ades's quartet, The Four Quarters, though less so than Arcadiana. My favorite movement is the first where the repeated three note rhythm beginning the movement morphs into other rhythms. The final movement is in 25/16 time (a bit hard to hear at least for me).

Another work I like a lot is Polaris. The work uses a technique known as a magnetic series where all 12 notes enter and seem to return to an anchoring pitch. The title, Polaris, refers to the North Star where all stars revolve around it (as seen from Earth). Apparently the brass instruments are placed in different parts of the performance hall so they can be "aimed" at Polaris.


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## Malx

Tulse,
Sadly my ticket went unused as I had the misfortune to contract a kidney infection that laid me low for a few days.
I am now doubly miffed given your favourable report.
Which concert did you attend?


----------



## Guest

Malx said:


> Tulse,
> Sadly my ticket went unused as I had the misfortune to contract a kidney infection that laid me low for a few days.
> I am now doubly miffed given your favourable report.
> Which concert did you attend?


Commiserations Malx, I'm sorry you missed out on that one. I enjoyed the other works too. We are lucky to have three high quality orchestras in Scotland.

I was at Perth Concert Hall. Whilst I was down there I managed to enjoy a bonus concert as the Scottish National Youth Orchestra were playing there a couple of days later. That also had a world premiere (by a loon) and was the loudest non amplified concert I have ever attended, partly due to Rite of Spring being programmed. The way the man sitting next to me was moving about I could have been at a rock concert!


----------



## Malx

Tulse said:


> Commiserations Malx, I'm sorry you missed out on that one. I enjoyed the other works too. We are lucky to have three high quality orchestras in Scotland.
> 
> I was at Perth Concert Hall. Whilst I was down there I managed to enjoy a bonus concert as the Scottish National Youth Orchestra were playing there a couple of days later. That also had a world premiere (by a loon) and was the loudest non amplified concert I have ever attended, partly due to Rite of Spring being programmed. The way the man sitting next to me was moving about I could have been at a rock concert!


Looks like you had a good time all round, apart perhaps from the jiggling man! My ticket was for the following evening in Edinburgh - c'est la vie.


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## Enthusiast

Ades - I also like the Violin Concerto. And also Tevot is great. His gift for making powerful music from simple ideas is impressive and I am not at all convinced the early hype was unjustified.


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## Kjetil Heggelund

Hello there! I haven't been paying attention so much to contemporary music lately. Been practicing myself for a recital tomorrow. I just heard James MacMillan's Violin concerto, but didn't like it as much as the Stabat Mater I heard last year. I loved that! I've heard some music by Thomas Ades before, and know I want to hear more.


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## Blancrocher

I've enjoyed watching and listening to Adès' Tempest, though I wish that the libretto was more faithful to the original; some of the revisions—like the "Full fathoms five" song—are extremely irritating to me. It's an interesting work in any case, especially as I think The Tempest is one of Shakespeare's least operatic plays.


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## Guest

The Exterminating Angel isn't popular on our opera forum. They are laughing at it.

Funny, that is the one I'm thinking of checking out for this thread.

https://www.talkclassical.com/35345-metropolitan-opera-broadcast-listeners-45.html#post1437179

(From post #664)


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## mmsbls

Asyla was composed in 1997 and is reasonably widely performed. The piece won the Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition. I enjoy the whole work especially the third movement.

The London Symphony Orchestra performs Asyla along with Tevot and Polaris on this CD.


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## Lisztian

Tulse said:


> The Exterminating Angel isn't popular on our opera forum. They are laughing at it.
> 
> Funny, that is the one I'm thinking of checking out for this thread.
> 
> https://www.talkclassical.com/35345-metropolitan-opera-broadcast-listeners-45.html#post1437179
> 
> (From post #664)


I seem to remember the work getting fantastic reviews, but those panning it in that thread generally do not like contemporary music. Go for it I say!


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## Melvin

I was able to get about 8 Ades CDs from the library, all on the EMI label, and had the opportunity to listen the past few days. So far, I liked his first two CDs of his early works: "Life Story", and "Living Toys". I also had the time to listen to "Powder Her Face", which was enjoyable. I particularly enjoyed his Piano Quintet. I would like to investigate the opera of "The Exterminating Angel"... I like Bunuel.

Also got a CD that had MacMillan paired with Ades, conveniently for my listening. MacMillan, (to go back once more,) impressed me a lot. His music sounds reminiscent of Stravinsky with its furious rhythms... I liked MacMillan's piano concertos, of which he has three, and also was fond of those of his religious choral pieces that I listened to.


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## mmsbls

Ades wrote In Seven Days to be performed as a Concerto for Piano with Moving Image. The work was written in close collaboration with Tal Rosner who produced the videos (really images that are animated from photos). In Seven Days depicts the creation of the world and is written as a theme and variations.

I love the opening and really the whole first movement. The third movement has simple piano arpeggios played above the gradually increasing mass of the orchestra. The fifth (and sixth) movement is a fugue which incorporates more and more instrumentation perhaps showing the increase in species diversity. The seventh movement reverts to the original theme and ends abruptly.

I've enjoyed this work more and more as I hear it repeatedly.


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## PeterFromLA

I first became acquainted with Ades' music when I saw him perform his solo piano piece, Darkness Visible, at a Green Umbrella concert sponsored by the LA Philharmonic. This was in 1993 or 1994. The young lad strode out onto the stage seemingly champing at the bit, sat himself down and struck an impressive figure as he played through his composition. Others in the audience that night included Betty Freeman, the legendary new music patron who connected Ades to the LA music scene, and from which an important series of collaborations ensued. Continue to ensue, I should say, as Ades is now a part-year resident in Los Angeles who also has a formal relationship to the orchestra. 

In addition to Darkness Visible, I'm taken by several of his works, including Asyla, Powder Her Face, Tevot, and Arcadiana.


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## mmsbls

*Composer: Marjan Mozetich (1948 -)*


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## Art Rock

A composer I first heard about at TC on one of Bulldog's game threads. I'm still exploring him on YouTube (no CDs in my collection).

This is the piece that opened the door for me (violin concerto _Affairs of the heart_):


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## HenryPenfold

Art Rock said:


> Gubaidulina is my favourite living composer, I have over 30 CD's of her works.
> 
> My first encounter of her music was courtesy of the Kronos Quartet. Here is her fascinating 4th string quartet from 1993:
> 
> Youtube link part 1
> Youtube link part 2


I'd been flirting with Gubaidulina's music for a few years and decided to get stuck in last year and bought quite a few recordings. I must say I enjoy the string quartets and would agree that #4 is at least fascinating! I bought the set by Quatuor Molinari on a Hi-Res download.


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## LezLee

I first heard Mozetich on a BBC Radio 3 programme 'Through The Night' a sequence of music starting at midnight. I was completely mesmerised by 'Eldorado' and have been a fan ever since.
I've managed to introduce his gorgeous violin concerto 'Affairs of the Heart' to various TC polls and am delighted at the great reception it's received.
These 3 are my favourites:





 Eldorado





 Affairs of the heart





 Passion of Angels

I also like 'Postcards from the Sky' but it's only on YT in separate movements

I suppose I'm quite old-fashioned in finding some later composers - Boulez, Carter, Birtwistle etc. unpleasantly dissonant and enjoy Mozetich's melodic nature.


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## mmsbls

I had not heard any Mozetich until just recently.

His string quartet, Lament in the Trampled Garden, has many varied moods including swing morphing into an eerie section and finishing with a lovely melancholy ending. A very enjoyable piece. This may be my favorite work of Mozetich so far.

I also heard El Dorado which has rather beautiful moments. Harp seems to be a favorite instrument for Mozetich.

The most unusual piece is Ice for flute, trombone, piano, and viola. I'm not sure I've ever heard a work with that combination of instruments. The work has minimalist elements with the piano, flute, and viola playing long repeated sections. The trombone's timbre seems to occasionally punctuate the other lines with short explosive outbursts.

I listened to the CD Affairs of the Heart with the violin concerto of that name. The CD has a nice Concerto for 2 Harps as well.


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## mmsbls

I heard a piano trio called, Scales of Joy and Sorrow. The work is built around scales and scale fragments played with varying accompaniment and in various moods. It's a very romantic work (as are many of Mozetich's works). One review used the word lush to describe his music.

Another romantic work is Angels in Flight a triptych in three panels for Harp, Flute, Clarinet, and String Quartet. A review states that the work "evokes emotions of sadness and beauty." I would say that description could apply to much of Mozetich's work.


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## Melvin

thanks for recommending this composer!
Here is the CD I listened to (it has Eldorado on it):








Here's an interesting piece
Concerto for Bassoon and Strings with Marimba

and this one
Trio in Jest


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## Enthusiast

Melvin said:


> I was able to get about 8 Ades CDs from the library, all on the EMI label, and had the opportunity to listen the past few days. So far, I liked his first two CDs of his early works: "Life Story", and "Living Toys". I also had the time to listen to "Powder Her Face", which was enjoyable. I particularly enjoyed his Piano Quintet. I would like to investigate the opera of "The Exterminating Angel"... I like Bunuel.
> 
> Also got a CD that had MacMillan paired with Ades, conveniently for my listening. MacMillan, (to go back once more,) impressed me a lot. His music sounds reminiscent of Stravinsky with its furious rhythms... I liked MacMillan's piano concertos, of which he has three, and also was fond of those of his religious choral pieces that I listened to.


The comparison or juxtaposition of Ades and MacMillan is an interesting case. I nearly always find MacMillan's music very powerful and interesting on first hearing but somehow - so far - the pieces don't grow on me. Ades is a somewhat opposite case as on first hearing I am not always blown away but I find myself loving what I know of his music (which is not a lot and I have avoided the little pieces that seemed to be the first to get recorded) on subsequent hearings.


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## mmsbls

*Composer: Kaija Saariaho(1952 -)*


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## starthrower

mmsbls said:


> *Composer: Kaija Saariaho(1952 -)*


Her music is very strange and interesting.


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## schigolch

I love her music.

My favorite piece is her first opera, "L'amour de loin":


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## mmsbls

The Violin Concerto, Graal Theatre, may be my favorite work of hers. Having just listened to it, I still can't really say exactly what draws me to the piece.


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## PeterFromLA

One of the top tier composers working today. Has plenty of pieces that have been taken up by prominent soloists and conductors. I'm very partial also to her first violin concerto, Graal Theatre, and also to her 2010 clarinet concerto, D'OM LE VRAI SENS (not sure why it's written in all caps). She first came to my attention around 1990 with some electro-acoustic and tape pieces (Lichtbogen and Verblendungen), and then a follow-up that featured the Kronos Quartet plus electronics, Nymphéa, and she has replenished the solo chamber literature with delightful small pieces as well (such as "Fall," a piece for harp with electronics, or "Petals," for cello and electronics). Her works, which always convey a remarkable sense of three dimensional space, show the influence of the Spectralist school, which was setting the tone in Paris while she was studying there, affiliated with IRCAM. I wish I was discovering those early works today, they made quite an impression on me, and it's been great to see her career develop.


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## mmsbls

Thanks for sharing Fall and Petals. I especially enjoyed Fall. The combination of the harp and electronic content produce an unusual timbre that was wonderful.

Cendres, a piano trio for flute and cello that I first heard in the Top TC Recommended Piano Trios thread, seems representative of Saariaho's work. She loves to use flute and cello. A blog on the Tonality Systems Press states, "...the opening pages of Cendres show very restrained harmonic content from spectral analysis this is gradually coloured with inharmonicity, those extra and not always clearly heard parts of the sound spectra." The contrast between the defined pitch of the piano and the breathy "notes" of the flute is rather striking.


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## mmsbls

*Composer: Per Nørgård (1932 -)*


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## Art Rock

I tried to get into his symphonies (I got 3-5 on CD), but so far without too much result. On the other hand the string quartets I heard (can't recall the numbers right now) did click with me.


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## schigolch

His beautiful opera, "Nuit des Hommes", based on poems by Apollinaire, is complete in youtube:


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## Phil loves classical

I find his I Ching pretty interesting, since I'm a fan of percussion.


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## mmsbls

My favorite Norgard concertos are:

Concerto in due tempi (1996 Piano Concerto)

Borderlines (Violin Concerto No. 2)

I've listened to a number of Norgard works, but there are many I have not heard so I'll be interested to see what others enjoy.


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## PeterFromLA

I very much enjoy his first three symphonies. His Third Symphony is the most well-regarded by contemporary music folks, but personally I enjoy the Second a bit more. Another piece I recommend is for orchestra: Terrains Vagues. It's much more motoric than is typical for Norgard, and it features a prominent role for an instrument not usually heard among an orchestra's musicians: the accordion. The Terrains Vagues work is coupled on a Chandos CD with another symphony, the Sixth, which is one of the more impressive of his later entries in the genre.


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## Guest

Few favorites in my library off the top of my head:


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## mmsbls

It seems several people like Symphony 3, and it's my favorite of those I've heard. I need to make time to listen to Norgard symphonies I have yet to hear, but of course, there's simply too much music. I listened to Arsfrise-91 and enjoyed that.

A relatively short orchestral piece I enjoy is Fugitive Summer.


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## tortkis

Nørgård's music is full of woderful sound color and texture. I like the works for harp/voice, and Symphony No. 3.

Nova Genitura, for soprano, violin, recorder, harpsichord, lute & viola da gamba





I have String Quartets No. 7-10 by Kroger Quartet. I thought they were not so impressive (rather monotonic), but I listened to No. 10 again yesterday and found it fascinating. I want to check out early quartets too.


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## mmsbls

*Composer: Marc-Andre Dalbavie (1961 -)*


----------



## Guest

Lovely so far. I am enjoying the way Dalbavie seems to combine rather contemporary orchestration methods with a sort of modal pitch language that establishes and temporary 'modal centres' to deviate and grow out from without any binding law limiting the harmonies that can be explored.


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## PeterFromLA

Dalbavie's music is influenced by the Spectralist School in France, where he hails from. The music shimmers and is translucent, finding aurally intoxicating colors to please the ear. But his music is also dramaturgically composed, with a sense of development and dialectical tension being worked out, making the music less about about sound per se, in contrast to other spectralists. The music has lovely surfaces and elegant lines, placing the composer in the tradition of Debussy and Ravel. He studied conducting with Pierre Boulez, from whom he has also learned lessons about orchestration, and Boulez premiered and recorded early large pieces. His work has been taken up by such distinguished soloists as Leif Ove Andsnes and Emmanuel Pahud and such prominent conductors as Salonen and Eschenbach.

Dalbavie has compiled quite an output, including two operas, several concertos, and many large orchestral pieces. For those new to his music I make the following recommendations (restricted to what I could find on youtube… there are other wonderful works not yet available through that portal):

A recent work for counter-tenor and orchestra is a captivating addition to the vocal-orchestral repertoire. The piece is titled "Sonnets de Louise Labé" and it does a nice job of showing what a wonderful orchestrator Dalbavie is, plus how capably he creates dramatic tension. There's another version on youtube in which the composer can be seen taking a bow at the work's end:






I recommend a number of his other works. The Flute Concerto is a mellifluous work, showing the influence of both Spectralism and Minimalism:






His Sinfonietta is grand piece, an homage to Janacek, though it sounds nothing like the earlier work, except in the predominant role given to the brass section of the orchestra:






(I'm not sure why the Sinfonietta begins at the 8 minute mark; I tried re-setting it several times, to no avail.)

He has a number of small scaled pieces, too. The Palimpset for sextet is alluring, launched with a kaleidoscopic opening:


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## Guest

Wonderful post, PeteFromLA. It's good to learn of some of that context. I'm listening to these pieces now.


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## mmsbls

I have not heard much of Dalbavie's works, but the few I've heard I've generally enjoyed so I'm looking forward to exploring more. The Palimpset is wonderful.

Another chamber work I like a lot is the Piano Quartet.


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## Madiel

thank you people, the composition I am posting was the only work by Dalbavie that I knew, but today I have enjoyed your suggestions, especially Sinfonietta


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## Art Rock

Dalbavie is a new name for me. I'm going through all the suggestions (thanks), but I'm starting with a work that has not been mentioned, the piano concerto (in 4 parts available in YouTube). So far, interesting, but not fascinating.


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## Art Rock

Turns out that the piano concerto is the least interesting compared to the ones that others have posted. I like the _Sinfonietta _(although perhaps a bit too long) and especially _Diademes_. Interesting composer, glad to have got to known him a bit via this thread.


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## Steve Mc

Some unique texture in Dalbavie's music. I like how he keeps a sense of center in his compositions, using reoccurring, yet not rigid, thematic and instrumental motifs to ground his pieces, as it were. This kind of structural attention allows his music to maintain a sense of direction. The _Sinfonietta[/I.] is of especial interest. The central movement does much to bind the work together._


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## Guest

I agree, the Sinfonietta is perhaps the strongest work here. Wonderful orchestration.


Generally, I feel his music has a very diatonic edge to it, would others agree?


----------



## Steve Mc

shirime said:


> I agree, the Sinfonietta is perhaps the strongest work here. Wonderful orchestration.
> 
> Generally, I feel his music has a very diatonic edge to it, would others agree?


I would say, yes, his musical language does have a distinct diatonic flavor, if you will.


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## mmsbls

I listened to the CD:









The CD has three works - Color, Violin Concerto, and Ciaccone. While I generally liked all of them, by far the most interesting and enjoyable was the Violin Concerto. The solo violin does not stand out as much as in other concertos (described on one review as a first among equals). Apparently the orchestra is spread out with some perhaps distributed in the audience, but one can't hear that effect on the CD.


----------



## Guest

^^^^ must be a fantastic work to experience live! Having some orchestra members _actaully in the audience_ would be kinda difficult on a practical level though, wouldn't it be?


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## mmsbls

shirime said:


> ^^^^ must be a fantastic work to experience live! Having some orchestra members _actaully in the audience_ would be kinda difficult on a practical level though, wouldn't it be?


I'm not sure how to interpret what I read about the work. The actual wording was, "The orchestra is arranged in 12 groups around the soloist, with some dispersed in the crowd." Crowd is an unusual word so I'm not sure it actually means audience. When I read that, I was somewhat reminded of Stockhausen's Gruppen (Gruppen is only 3 groups, but those groups can surround part of the audience).

My daughter just played a work where she sat in the balcony very close to audience members. It's clearly different, but I imagine most halls could accommodate some orchestra members placed judiciously near the audience.


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## mmsbls

I heard Concertate il suono and loved much of the work. As with his Violin Concerto, Dalbavie spatially separates parts of the ensemble.

From a short biography:



> If, for him, the eighties were devoted to timbre and colour (Miroirs transparents, Diadèmes...), the nineties would be devoted to space and location. The composer feels strongly about applying the concept of work in situ to musical creation, thus demonstrating the possibilities offered by the spacialisation generated by orchestral composition.


From Chicago Symphony Program Notes:



> "The idea," he said at the time, "was to take a very conventional form and put it into space, destabilize the
> form." Concertate il suono (which was commissioned by the Chicago Symphony and the Cleveland Orchestra to honor
> Boulez's seventy-fifth birthday) carried the idea further, placing chamber groups of instruments throughout the concert
> hall.


Again, a recording has trouble conveying what an audience member might hear at a live performance.


----------



## PeterFromLA

Good also to hear another performance of Eclat/Multiples, thanks for posting.


----------



## mmsbls

*Composer: Carl Vine (1954 -)*


----------



## Guest

I'm going to see the premiere of his 8th symphony next month, how about that.


----------



## mmsbls

Several years ago I listened to several of Vine's works and enjoyed many. For some reason I simply have not returned to listen to more. I'll now have the opportunity.

I especially enjoy Smith's Alchemy for String orchestra. The work is essentially a rearrangement of Vine's 3rd string quartet.

I also enjoy the Piano Concerto No. 1

First movement. 
Second movement
Third movement

I've wanted to hear his Violin Concerto and Piano Concerto No. 2, but I don't know of any online recordings.


----------



## silentio

Carl Vine's _Five Bagatelles_ (1994) seems to become the staple in the contemporary solo piano repertoire.

Here is my favorite performance by the young Grosvenor:


----------



## Larkenfield

silentio said:


> Carl Vine's _Five Bagatelles_ (1994) seems to become the staple in the contemporary solo piano repertoire.
> 
> Here is my favorite performance by the young Grosvenor:


Hard to imagine a better performance than by the young Grosvenor. He seems total free and at home with Vine. I wonder how he'd play the Bagatelles today? Quite a serious young man then!


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## Guest

Possibly because of its many appearances I have seen in piano competitions, there's also his Piano Sonata no. 1, which is one of my favourite piano sonatas:


----------



## Fredx2098

shirime said:


> Possibly because of its many appearances I have seen in piano competitions, there's also his Piano Sonata no. 1, which is one of my favourite piano sonatas:


That's phenomenal. Do you have any recordings you'd recommend to buy? Or a collections of his works?


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## juliante

Fredx2098 said:


> That's phenomenal. Do you have any recordings you'd recommend to buy? Or a collections of his works?


Agreed - What a ride! Quite a feat for the musician, from my untrained ear at least.


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## Guest

Fredx2098 said:


> That's phenomenal. Do you have any recordings you'd recommend to buy? Or a collections of his works?


There's this CD. It has the second piano sonata, bagatelles and some other piano works on it: https://www.australianmusiccentre.com.au/product/the-piano-music-1990-2006


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## Enthusiast

shirime said:


> I'm going to see the premiere of his 8th symphony next month, how about that.


The only Vine I know is the set of the first 6 symphonies. I found some of them quite fresh but they don't sound too much like your thing in contemporary music judging by your postings here! Is it the Australian connection? Probably your range and taste is even broader than you have shown us ... .

I'd certainly like to know more about Australian music, which doesn't get so much attention in Britain, I think. I am only slightly aware of Vine and Sculthorpe (I find his Earth Cry haunting - but wonder if I'm just being like those who don't know a culture or tradition but like some pieces that those who are more deeply into it find run-of-the-mill or even cliched).


----------



## Fredx2098

Enthusiast said:


> The only Vine I know is the set of the first 6 symphonies. I found some of them quite fresh but they don't sound too much like your thing in contemporary music judging by your postings here! Is it the Australian connection? Probably your range and taste is even broader than you have shown us ... .
> 
> I'd certainly like to know more about Australian music, which doesn't get so much attention in Britain, I think. I am only slightly aware of Vine and Sculthorpe (I find his Earth Cry haunting - but wonder if I'm just being like those who don't know a culture or tradition but like some pieces that those who are more deeply into it find run-of-the-mill or even cliched).


I thought the piano sonata was great and modern. I don't know if it's similar to his other music though.


----------



## Guest

Enthusiast said:


> The only Vine I know is the set of the first 6 symphonies. I found some of them quite fresh but they don't sound too much like your thing in contemporary music judging by your postings here! Is it the Australian connection? Probably your range and taste is even broader than you have shown us ... .
> 
> I'd certainly like to know more about Australian music, which doesn't get so much attention in Britain, I think. I am only slightly aware of Vine and Sculthorpe (I find his Earth Cry haunting - but wonder if I'm just being like those who don't know a culture or tradition but like some pieces that those who are more deeply into it find run-of-the-mill or even cliched).


I do love quite a few of his pieces! The only ones I heard that I haven't found myself really enjoying _yet_ are his fifth and sixth symphonies and his first piano concerto. The first four symphonies are fantastic, I think!

Oh and as for Australian composers in Britain, I think Brett Dean had an opera at Glyndebourne last year (or the year before?) that is coming out on DVD/Bluray. Very humble and lovely man with who writes some very *big* sounding music.


----------



## Enthusiast

Fredx2098 said:


> I thought the piano sonata was great and modern. I don't know if it's similar to his other music though.


I had to wait for the radio to be turned off before listening. I certainly liked the music. I'm still not sure I hear it as that "contemporary sounding" but that is not a criterion for my enjoyment (either way).


----------



## Fredx2098

Enthusiast said:


> I had to wait for the radio to be turned off before listening. I certainly liked the music. I'm still not sure I hear it as that "contemporary sounding" but that is not a criterion for my enjoyment (either way).


What do you mean by contemporary sounding? Just curious.


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## Guest

Well, Carl Vine writes fantastic new music in a regressive musical language. Even though a lot of the stuff he does in his music wouldn't be out of place in music 70 or 80 years ago there is something idiosyncractic to his style that I can't really seem to place in any time period....... Sure, it doesn't sound like any other music being written today, but it doesn't _quite_ sound like the music of the past, even though that's where it so strongly sounds to come from.


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## Enthusiast

Fredx2098 said:


> What do you mean by contemporary sounding? Just curious.


I think shirime has just said it better than me. As I say, I meant no criticism - almost the opposite, I think, as new music that is in an apparently "older" language seems to be accessible for far more people - and yet (_I_ think) rarely manages to remain interesting. Vine does seem to manage it in some pieces for me (I only know the symphonies 1 to 6) - it may be something to do with being a little understated (rather than overblown)? I wouldn't describe myself as a fan but I do hear life and intelligence in his music - you can really hear that in the piano sonata posted earlier.


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## Lisztian

I actually picked up two CD's with Vine's music at a sale a few weeks ago, and hadn't gotten around to listening to them yet: time to rectify this!

Tonight it's this CD: https://www.australianmusiccentre.com.au/product/three-symphonies

Hadn't heard any of his music before so didn't know what to expect. I liked the Microsymphony, compact and rather dynamic, if not too memorable. Wasn't huge on the second symphony, where a lot of the writing seemed a bit obvious (although it did have some lovely moments). The standout, however, was the third: another fine entry of the tried-and-true darkness to light trope. I found the writing far more fluid and accomplished in this one, with lots of beautiful and poignant music, and it seemed to hold together well. It would be great to see live!

Of course, my first listens very frequently don't prefigure what I will think of a work when I'm more familiar with it. I'll listen to them a few more times over the next few months, and I'm especially looking forward to getting to know the third better.


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## Fredx2098

Personally I think music is timeless (except maybe some strict common practice things, but that's not very relevant). I think every composer should compose in whatever style they wish. Sometimes the joy is in the composition.


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## Lisztian

Today listened to:

http://www.buywell.com/cgi-bin/buywellic2/afly.html?mv_arg=01347

Really liked the two piano sonatas, exciting music and effective writing for the piano. I wasn't fully focused on the second one as my fairly new kitten decided play time couldn't wait, but what I did hear was impressive. Quite a few bits actually reminded me of Rautavaara's piano writing. Again, these works would be great to see in a recital with a pianist who is up to their challenges...


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## Enthusiast

Fredx2098 said:


> Personally I think music is timeless (except maybe some strict common practice things, but that's not very relevant). I think every composer should compose in whatever style they wish. Sometimes the joy is in the composition.


I'm sure that is right _*but *_.... it does tend to be the case that music that repeats what has already been done eventually becomes less inspired or relevant or something like that! What I mean is that when a composer uses a language that is fairly familiar there does seem to be _less chance _of the music having real life (something that I think the Vine sonata posted did have). There are exceptions but as time goes by there are fewer and fewer of them.

To look at some big name example, I think both Britten and Shostakovich found unique and totally effective musical languages to say exciting and highly relevant things even though they used fairly conventional methods at a time when others were producing music in much newer forms and with much newer methods. Their music compares well with the best of their time (which means the best of any time!). But I think the scope for this to happen shrinks as time passes and I do not think anyone after them has managed to produce music of the same potency by using similar means. I say this even though I do revere what composers like Pettersson and Scnittke achieved with means that were not that much newer. But as time goes by there seem to be fewer and fewer worthwhile example. At the same time there have been composers who came after Britten and Shostakovich and who I think have equaled or are equaling their achievement ... but they have used newer languages. This is just a personal observation - you may not agree. But could it be that the joy of the new is part of what prompts great composers to produce great music?

There was a thread a while back in which we were asked as a thought experiment to imagine that a work as great as a Beethoven symphony, and in the same language, had been written today. We were asked would we value it as highly. Some - myself included - thought we would (because that was part of the premise) but that such an event was an absolute impossibility. Others couldn't even imagine such an event and argued that the work could only be a pastiche and would not be so valuable or wonderful. Some used the experiment to argue that the value we ascribe to the great works of history is an artifact of tradition rather than a true valuing of their merit. (I hope I represent the positions accurately).


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## mmsbls

Lisztian said:


> ...I liked the Microsymphony, compact and rather dynamic, if not too memorable. Wasn't huge on the second symphony, where a lot of the writing seemed a bit obvious (although it did have some lovely moments). The standout, however, was the third: another fine entry of the tried-and-true darkness to light trope. I found the writing far more fluid and accomplished in this one, with lots of beautiful and poignant music, and it seemed to hold together well. It would be great to see live!


I finished listening to the first 3 symphonies, and my response is quite similar to Lisztian's. I definitely enjoyed the first (Microsymphony). The ending I thought was wonderful. The second was nice with "some lovely moments". The third, significantly longer than the others, was more interesting to me. I entered that one in my very long list of music to hear again and decide whether to purchase.


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## Steve Mc

What I've heard of Vine so far has been quite interesting. I do like it when a composer integrates old and new within his own distinctive voice. I'll be listening to his string quartets next, and will report back when I've gotten through them.


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## Steve Mc

I enjoyed Vine's Second and Third String Quartets, especially the second movement of the latter.
But the Fifth String Quartet just blew me away. Great harmonic vitality in the 1st movement, absolutely gorgeous 2nd, and a surprising, lively dance movement at the end. Vine really shows a mature voice in the piece, fully developing the elements he had started to explore in the other quartets.
A pleasure to listen to.





Also heard his Sonata for Violin and Piano. Very nicely textured piece. Link to it on Spotify.


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## mmsbls

I listened to String Quartets 2-5. All had wonderful parts, but I agree with Steve Mc that the 5th quartet stood out.


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## Guest

I've been listening to the fifth quartet. The other string quartets I have heard from him seemed to be a bit less to my taste, but so far the 5th has quite a few really lovely moments mixed with some other moments that seem stylistically out of place or somehow overpowering the _Carl Vine_ element of Carl Vine's music with some other faceless allusions to late-Romantic aesthetics or popular 'film score' aesthetics.


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## mmsbls

*Composer: Mark Camphouse (1954 -)*


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## arpeggio

*Mark Camphouse*

I guess it is my turn to get the ball rolling since I have worked with the man on several occasions.

As a member of the City of Fairfax band I first met Mr. Camphouse in 2006 when we premier _Foundation_. It was commissioned by the Band in memory of Ray Abell, longtime president of the Band and a dedicated arts advocate. The hymns Be Still, My Soul (played to Sibelius' Finlandia melody) and How Firm a Foundation are woven into the work, which were played at Mr. Abell's memorial service in 2006.

Mr. Camphouse is now professor of music at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia.

I have found the following links for Mr. Camphouse.

Link to his web page: https://www.markcamphouse.com/

Link to biography on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Camphouse

Link to his page at George Mason University: https://cvpa.gmu.edu/profile/view/5027

I could not find a decent live performance on You Tube. I found the following which I think was prepared by the publisher with a studio band:











This is a very powerful work for me. Whenever I perform it or listen to it I think of my friend Ray and I have trouble maintaining my composure. Ray's daughter Sharie Stegeman is the principal flutist with the band. Ray's grandson is a bassoonist and played the premier with us.

Sadly there are currently no commercial recordings available. The recording I have is of the City Band preforming the premier.

I recently submitted a post about Mr. Camphouse in the thread "Wind Ensemble Compositions to Center Stage (Round Three)"

https://www.talkclassical.com/56114-wind-ensemble-compositions-center.html#post1477840


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## mmsbls

I enjoyed Foundation. A program note mentions that the hymn, Be Still, My Soul, is "played to Sibelius' Finlandia melody." I recognized Finlandia, but I've never heard of that hymn.

I listened to another Camphouse work that I especially liked, Watchman, Tell Us of the Night. I heard it on a recording by the Concordia University (Chicago) Wind Symphony with Richard Fischer.


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## arpeggio

*Mark Camphouse Interview*

I found the following interview of Camphouse discussing _Watchman, Tell Us of the Night_:


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## arpeggio

*FINLANDIA-"Be Still, My Soul"*



mmsbls said:


> I enjoyed Foundation. A program note mentions that the hymn, Be Still, My Soul, is "played to Sibelius' Finlandia melody." I recognized Finlandia, but I've never heard of that hymn.


I found this article which discusses the various hymns that have been set to Finlandia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finlandia_hymn


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## LezLee

arpeggio said:


> I found this article which discusses the various hymns that have been set to Finlandia:
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finlandia_hymn


We (well, not me personally) used to sing 'Be Still My Soul' in school assembly in the 1960s. It was a long time before I found out it was Finlandia.


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## Steve Mc

Just heard his piece _Homage to The Dream_ on his website. Quite good. Full bodied Americana writing with more than a little cinematic flair, something I rather appreciate.


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## Guest

This is nice, Hollywoodesque stuff. I'm glad we have composers writing great music for wind band; since the 20th century there certainly seems to be a canon of repertoire now.


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## mmsbls

I listened to Whatsoever Things and loved it. The work is dedicated to John Paynter, Northwestern University's Director of Bands, who Camphouse studied under. The theme, St. Anthony Chorale by Haydn (also heard in Brahms' Haydn Variations), is heard throughout. The Northwestern University Hymn is sung to that theme.


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## Guest

Steve Mc said:


> Just heard his piece _Homage to The Dream_ on his website. Quite good. Full bodied Americana writing with more than a little cinematic flair, something I rather appreciate.


To a non-American such as myself, can someone explain to me what 'Americana' is, exactly? I've seen the term thrown around a lot, but I have no idea if it is some kind of particular style, technique, state of mind or something else.


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## KenOC

shirime said:


> To a non-American such as myself, can someone explain to me what 'Americana' is, exactly? I've seen the term thrown around a lot, but I have no idea if it is some kind of particular style, technique, state of mind or something else.


I think "Americana" is used to describe works from the Eastman school and other sources, written in the USA and based on American themes, legends, places, and so forth. Most of it is not harmonically advanced and tends to be tuneful. Examples are works by Gershwin, Grofe, Gould, Bergsma, Carpenter, Kennan, and quite a few more.


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## Steve Mc

There's a stylistic component to Americana. Like KenOc says, it tends to be rather simple harmonically, but this is because it is conciously populist, reflecting the American ideal of moving into the future while celebrating the pioneer spirit of the common man.
Copland's Fanfare For The Common Man and Appalachian Spring are pretty much the cornerstones of Americana writing.
John Williams's score for Lincoln is an excellent modern example.


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## mmsbls

*Composer: Michael Torke (1961 -)*


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## Art Rock

I have his Argo CD which contains _Music on the floor_, _Four proverbs_, _Monday_, and _Tuesday_. Have not played it for many years, and don't recall that it made a strong impression - apparently I never had the urge to get further CD's - I do have his saxophone concerto on a miscellaneous CD. I'm curious to see what recommendations will be made.


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## mmsbls

Michael Torke has synesthesia - stimulation in one sensory pathway leads to experiences in another pathway. Often sounds "look" like colors. Torke has written many works with color titles "to celebrate without modulation a single color." Several of these compositions have been recorded on the CD, Color Music. My favorite of these works is Ash, although apparently this is the only work on the CD that actually modulates and is written for chamber orchestra.


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## Art Rock

Somewhat relevant short older thread.


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## mmsbls

Here's a Torke work called Adjustable Wrench. I love the rhythms in the work.


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## Art Rock

Art Rock said:


> I have his Argo CD which contains _Music on the floor_, _Four proverbs_, _Monday_, and _Tuesday_.


I dug it up. _Four proverbs_ is a short 15 min song cycle for voice and band (sounds like a wind ensemble - unfortunately this is one of the CD's that fell victim to severe rain leakage in our house 10 years ago, and although the disc is fine, the CD booklet is not). Reminded me sometimes a bit of Michael Nyman, albeit more interesting. The 4th proverb is easily the most interesting, also in the interaction of the voice and band. A piece that is not a masterpiece, but it was a pleasant surprise all in all. _Monday _and _Tuesday _are 11-12 min orchestral interludes in a somewhat jazzy minimalistic style, not bad, but slightly outstaying their welcome. _Music on the floor_ is a 3-part 21 min orchestral work which works much better for me, and I found the somewhat slower second part really beautiful. Definitely a work that invites repeated hearing.

So.... yes, I think I need to explore him more.

YouTube links:
Music on the floor 1 2 3


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## Guest

mmsbls said:


> Here's a Torke work called Adjustable Wrench. I love the rhythms in the work.


Interesting! Can a lot of his music be described as pop-infused light music? I find it rather more striking and original than other composers writing 'light music' today.


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## mmsbls

I'm not sure how much would be considered pop-infused, but Adjustable Wrench has been described that way. One TC member wrote that he couldn't understand why the work was not called Torque Wrench . Torke's works that I have heard would likely be considered lighter music than other contemporary classical music. I tend not to think about whether music is "light" or not but rather whether I enjoy the work so I don't always categorize music that way.


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## KenOC

I think anybody who enjoys Torke's music is likely to enjoy certain works by John Adams as well. Here's _Lollapalooza_.


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## Fredx2098

mmsbls said:


> Here's a Torke work called Adjustable Wrench. I love the rhythms in the work.


That's so happy and beautiful! It reminds me very much of Reich, but perhaps with more jagged rhythms and chromaticism. And the slap bass just came in, a very interesting piece of music.


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## Joe B

I'm glad to see Michael Torke has made it into this thread. I've posted *"Adjustable Wrench"* on several occasions but only a few ever seemed to respond to it.

Might I suggest the music of *Kenji Bunch*?


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## Guest

Having a little look at this






And yeah I think his music definitely feels like the kind of 'easy listening' music I'd expect from composers like Karl Jenkins, Eric Whitacre etc. but Torke's music just seems to me to be a little more interesting, something more along the lines of a double harp concerto Karl Jenkins wrote.


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## KenOC

I read an interview with Michael Torke a while back. He was bemoaning the fate of composers when they were no longer the "new thing." Like himself, of course.

Torke has written a lot of things worth hearing. One very striking piece is Javelin, written for the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta as I remember.


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## Guest

KenOC said:


> I read an interview with Michael Torke a while back. He was bemoaning the fate of composers when they were no longer the "new thing." Like himself, of course.
> 
> Torke has written a lot of things worth hearing. One very striking piece is Javelin, written for the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta as I remember.


Nice piece. I don't really see if there is anything for him to bemoan. Certainly his music won't really be of interest to many who are passionate about contemporary music festivals around the world, but Karl Jenkins, Eric Whitacre, Ludovico Einaudi seem to be doing pretty well, as does Torke himself.


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## KenOC

shirime said:


> Nice piece. I don't really see if there is anything for him to bemoan. Certainly his music won't really be of interest to many who are passionate about contemporary music around the world, but Karl Jenkins, Eric Whitacre, Ludovico Einaudi seem to be doing pretty well, as does Torke himself.


Ah, the names roll off your tongue with the slightest curl of the lip. Nice!


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## Joe B

shirime said:


> Having a little look at this
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> And yeah I think his music definitely feels like the kind of 'easy listening' *music I'd expect from composers like Karl Jenkins, Eric Whitacre etc.* but Torke's music just seems to me to be a little more interesting, something more along the lines of a double harp concerto Karl Jenkins wrote.


Perhaps that describes this particular piece of music for you, but I don't think you could possibly say that about his "Concerto for Orchestra", "Three Manhattan Bridges", etc. I'm a fan of Jenkins and Whitacre, and to me, putting Torke in their company is a grievous mistake.


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## Guest

I see. I think I enjoy finding similarities and differences between various composers and styles. Torke is very interesting because his music (to me) doesn't sound too far removed from 'easy listening' and on the other hand his music sounds a bit more Hollywood film score, if that makes sense. I don't know of many composers writing concert music in either idiom, so it's probably something I would have to investigate further.


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## Fredx2098

shirime said:


> Having a little look at this
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> And yeah I think his music definitely feels like the kind of 'easy listening' music I'd expect from composers like Karl Jenkins, Eric Whitacre etc. but Torke's music just seems to me to be a little more interesting, something more along the lines of a double harp concerto Karl Jenkins wrote.


If this is easy listening then so is Reich, though I'm not exactly sure what you mean by that term. It's extremely pleasant to listen to I think, but when I hear "easy listening" I think of adult contemporary, new age, elevator music. I enjoy music that is "easy" just as much or perhaps even more than music that's "hard". Torke's music that I've heard so far is extremely interesting and full of development, whereas I'd call something "easy listening" if it's more like generic background music. His music reminds me very much of Reich's Music for a Large Ensemble and Octet, if you haven't heard those. They're very cheerful and upbeat like that (and obviously minimal).

Aside from that, I hope to someday have mastery over keyboard instruments, at least the mallet percussion variety, so I can play music such as that, which takes great skill . Anything but the most rudimentary piano and keyboard percussion "works" (usually more like exercises) completely and utterly baffle me. Even then I don't feel confident except for the most rudimentary exercises possible. I was being classically trained in college by a great guy and pushing my limits in a small percussion chamber ensemble, but of course my health got in the way!


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## mmsbls

*Composer: John Corigliano (1938 -)*


----------



## Art Rock

From Wikipedia:
John Paul Corigliano (born 16 February 1938) is an American composer of classical music. His scores, now numbering over one hundred, have won him the Pulitzer Prize, five Grammy Awards, Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition, and an Oscar. He is a distinguished professor of music at Lehman College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and on the composition faculty at the Juilliard School.

I first got to know him via his first symphony, inspired by the death by AIDS of fellow-musicians. The quote of Albeniz' tango is haunting (YouTube link to the complete CD).

Perhaps his best work is in his concerto. The percussion concerto Conjurer is a personal favourite, but his most successful one is possibly the clarinet concerto (YouTube).


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## 20centrfuge

I agree about Symphony No. 1. A very effective work.


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## Guest

I haven't really listened to any Corigliano before, so to get a little taste I put this on and it's quite fun!






A nice bunch of quotations, much more 'in your face' and blatant in its polystylism and string of quotes which isn't exactly the most interesting use of musical quotations as I have found (from composing in that kind of way), as it seems to be more like a curated collection of snapshots rather than a collage to create something new out of the older repertoire. My favourite part of the piece is the opening minute and a half and I spent the rest of the piece wishing that he would bring something back of that waviness in the contour of melody and timbre that he established so firmly and so effectively.

I will listen to some other pieces as well. Symphony no. 1 seems to be the place to go..............

EDIT: The symphony has a very nice opening, very rich and attractive sonorities, though certainly a more 'blended' orchestral sound than that I usually prefer. However, this makes the contrasting colouristic details more significant, more present. It's a lovely work so far.


----------



## Guest

Yeah so far the symphony no. 1 is certainly a fascinating work. It actually raises many questions in my mind.........there's something bizarre going on with the contrasting styles of music; it isn't jarring like music I've heard by Mortiz Eggert or Bernhard Gander.......there's a much softer edge to it. I feel like the music is being somehow 'cushioned' at all times, perhaps it's like a tamed beast rather than a wild one, something very carefully choreographed to represent something larger than itself without going too far and destroying itself in the process. It gives a feeling of unease and comfort at the same time, suitably cathartic.

I think the only thing I don't like about the majority of what I have so far heard is that Corigliano seems to like to present one idea at a time, despite evidently having an interest in the complex arrangements of contrasting quotations and aesthetic/historical styles. This is probably what makes his music sound so 'in your face' to me.


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## Kiki

I find the sense of loss (and the anger that comes with it) quite touching in Corigliano’s Symphony No. 1. Reading the composer's own intro in the booklet also helped set the context. However, I find the Epilogue a little unfulfilled. There is no victory, nor salvation, just reinstating the loss and fading away. I don't understand why.


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## Steve Mc

Sorry I've been out for quite a while.
Here's a concerto Corigliano assembled from material he wrote for the film The Red Violin.


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## PeterFromLA

For me, Corigliano is possibly the best living representative of "mainstream" American classical music. I really can't think of anyone who does the sort of thing that he does better. From his early Piano Concerto to such later works as the String Quartet #1, his opera, "The Ghosts of Versailles," the Second Symphony (which is based on the First String Quartet), to the Flute Concerto ("Pied Piper Fantasy") and Clarinet Concerto, to the Fantasia on an Ostinato (originally for piano, then arranged for orchestra, it draws from Beethoven's Symphony 7 quite nicely), and even in a brief orchestral piece like "To Music," he's just always entertaining and even at times quite stirring. If I want to go tonalish, there are worse composers to listen to. A really talented orchestrator, it's hard to believe this former young gun turned 80 this year.


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## Steve Mc

Quite good, thanks.


----------



## joen_cph

shirime said:


> I haven't really listened to any Corigliano before, so to get a little taste I put this on and it's quite fun!
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> A nice bunch of quotations, much more 'in your face' and blatant in its polystylism and string of quotes which isn't exactly the most interesting use of musical quotations as I have found (from composing in that kind of way), as it seems to be more like a curated collection of snapshots rather than a collage to create something new out of the older repertoire. My favourite part of the piece is the opening minute and a half and I spent the rest of the piece wishing that he would bring something back of that waviness in the contour of melody and timbre that he established so firmly and so effectively.
> 
> I will listen to some other pieces as well. Symphony no. 1 seems to be the place to go..............
> 
> EDIT: The symphony has a very nice opening, very rich and attractive sonorities, though certainly a more 'blended' orchestral sound than that I usually prefer. However, this makes the contrasting colouristic details more significant, more present. It's a lovely work so far.


The Piano Concerto with Barry Douglas is very, very catchy.


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## mmsbls

*Composer: Toshio Hosokawa (1955 -)*


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## Steve Mc

I've been listening to a little of Hosokawa's work. There are some interesting moments in his writing, but overall he fails satisfy me, on an artistic and personal level. I'd really like to hear what you guys think, though.


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## Guest

I'm currently learning a piece of his called _Serenade_. It's one of the most beautiful guitar works I've heard. I'm a big fan of Hosokawa so there's not really much to explore this time around.


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## Fredx2098

I listened to this piece a few days ago after shirime recommended his music. It's very beautiful, but I also found it a bit ominous and unsettling. I'm listening to Fragmente II now and loving it, and it seems a bit more relaxing and eventful as well. He has quite a unique style. It reminds me of the screechy sounds of Xenakis and Guerrero Marin, but more subdued and gentle, which I love.

Checked out Serenade after that and loved it!


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## Steve Mc

shirime said:


> I'm currently learning a piece of his called _Serenade_. It's one of the most beautiful guitar works I've heard. I'm a big fan of Hosokawa so there's not really much to explore this time around.


I'll have to agree. It is quite a good piece. 
Do you think this is a good performance of it?


----------



## Kjetil Heggelund

I like the performance! Don't have the sheet music in front of me right now, it's in my shelf, so can't tell if I agree with the rhythms. He has a nice sound and makes clear dynamics and a nice, calm atmosphere. The scale motives at around 6 minutes makes me want to do a better job, haha. Hosokawa is a composer I listened to more than 20 times, so he must be good


----------



## schigolch

I love his music, and his unique way to blend Western contemporary techniques, and Japanese aesthetics. Or how he manage to incorporate silence.

He has written so far five operas, the last one premiered this same year, at the Staatstheater in Stuttgart. All are fine pieces, we can listen two some of them in youtube:

"Hanjo" (2004) - 




"Matsukaze" (2010) - 




Also his instrumental works are really impressive. My favorite is still "Voiceless Voice in Hiroshima" (2001):


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## joen_cph

I´ve got the two first Naxos CDs with Hosokawa orchestral music (a third one has also been released). Those discs include a piano concerto and a horn concerto. The music tends to be somewhat discreet; I haven´t made up my mind as to how much I like it, but the sound picture often reminds of Takemitsu, who I am a fan of.

https://www.naxos.com/person/Toshio_Hosokawa/20268.htm


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## eugeneonagain

Has Heather Schmidt been discussed in this thread?


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## mmsbls

eugeneonagain said:


> Has Heather Schmidt been discussed in this thread?


The composers we've discussed are listed here. The composers scheduled for the future are listed here. If you wish to nominate a composer for discussion, you can post in the Discussion thread.


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## mmsbls

I listened to the Naxos CD Orchestral Works II.

I enjoyed Woven Dreams and Blossoming II, but I especially liked Circulating Ocean.


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## mmsbls

Hosokawa wrote several works called Landscapes. Landscape I for string quartet and Landscape V for sho (mouth organ) and string quartet are both sparse and dissonant. Landscape V was inspired by Mark Rothko's paintings where 2 very similar colors merge together. The work is filled with short periods of silence followed by one or two notes gradually joined by others in a dissonant crescendo which then fades.

Landscape III is a Violin Concerto and my favorite of the three. I heard all 3 on the NEOS label.


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## mmsbls

*Composer: Dmitri Kourliandski (1976 -)*


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## mmsbls

nathanb nominated Dmitri Kourliandski, and unfortunately nathan is no longer part of TC so he can't give us any insights or suggestions.

I listened to several works and will say I'm not sure whether I will find something to draw me into his music. I will continue to listen to some other pieces.

Innermost Man
The first 5 minutes did little for me. The score is rather unconventional, and I imagine performers would require a lot of work to perform it. At the 5 minute mark, some of the score becomes conventional, and there were parts I enjoyed. Still it's not a work I would revisit.

The Riot of Spring
This work has many performers in the audience walking around with audience participation on many instruments including trumpet (that was interesting). The work includes a very long drone with other effects gradually working into the music over time. The orchestra members gradually leave their seats and enter the audience until essentially none are left on stage. The audience certainly got a kick out of the performance, and it would clearly be a very different experience to see it live than hear a recording.


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## Guest

I haven't had much time to listen to so much music lately, but I'm quite familiar with his music. Not too much to discover for me here, but I'm looking forward to reading other people's opinions.

Here's something that was performed in my city recently. I think it's very fun to listen to. There's certainly a lot of interesting things going on in terms of the variety of sounds that can be heard in such a short space of time, or even simultaneously. It's almost orchestral in approach, despite being a solo violin piece.






Here's another one I particularly like. Again, he shows an amazing command for colour and texture, quite engaging to listen to as well.


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## Guest

Does anyone have anything to say about Kourliandski? He's one of my faovurite Russian composers so I'm extremely curious to hear what others have to say about him.


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## mmsbls

I listened to Emergency Survival Guide 2 for 2 automobiles and orchestra. I would love to ask Kourliandski 2 serious questions.

1) I get the impression that he decided to use cars in a work and later decided what kind of sounds to get from them. Is that true, or did he want certain sounds and realized a car was a good way to produce those sounds?

2) He used a full orchestra but, as far as I could tell, none of the sounds the orchestra produced were sounds that the members had practiced for years on their instruments. Why use an orchestra?

I know those questions might sound like a simple dismissal of of avant-garde music, but I'm actually rather curious about the process of composing works such as these.

shirime, since you know and like the composer, and since you certainly have a vastly better understanding of works such as this, do you have thoughts on these questions?


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## Steve Mc

In response to shrime, I have not got too much to say. While I respect the process and recognize the vision behind Kourliandski's work, I, subjectively, cannot bring myself to a place of appreciation of it.


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## Guest

mmsbls said:


> I listened to Emergency Survival Guide 2 for 2 automobiles and orchestra. I would love to ask Kourliandski 2 serious questions.
> 
> 1) I get the impression that he decided to use cars in a work and later decided what kind of sounds to get from them. Is that true, or did he want certain sounds and realized a car was a good way to produce those sounds?
> 
> 2) He used a full orchestra but, as far as I could tell, none of the sounds the orchestra produced were sounds that the members had practiced for years on their instruments. Why use an orchestra?
> 
> I know those questions might sound like a simple dismissal of of avant-garde music, but I'm actually rather curious about the process of composing works such as these.
> 
> shirime, since you know and like the composer, and since you certainly have a vastly better understanding of works such as this, do you have thoughts on these questions?


I listened to this piece again with these questions in mind, and whilst I don't think this is Kourliandski's best piece I do enjoy it for its strangled and almost helpless feel that he manages to create with the instruments at his disposal. My guess is that he was asked to write a piece using this instrumentation or exploring the theme of emergencies/survival and did what he could with the cars though his own experimentation in collaboration with the percussionists who play them. There is a practical side to how he used the cars as well, I think; each individual sound need not be produced on a fully built car, but can also be replicated on a series of smaller instruments like a pane of glass, a car horn etc. For performances where it's just not practical to put two cars on stage, it is possible to perform it with a collection of car _parts_, and this kind of treatment harks back to the earlier composers who were experimenting with percussion in large ensembles and orchestral music like Varèse and Antheil.

The sounds the orchestra makes doesn't actually look too far removed from standard blowing or bowing techniques, but the way different registers are balanced and pitted against one another create a very unusual sound that I described earlier as strangled or helpless, and I think that's quite fitting for the piece. Orchestration is all about finding ways to balance and blend different sounds and I think Kourliandski finds some interesting solutions here that are suitable to the kind of music he is writing. As to how quickly it would take to learn new techniques probably comes down to how clearly they are described in the score. Clear instructions and clear engraving will result in the music being learnt efficiently. Music universities these days often have courses in contemporary classical music where students get a better understanding of extended techniques and how to approach playing scores such as this one.


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## eugeneonagain

shirime said:


> I haven't had much time to listen to so much music lately, but I'm quite familiar with his music. Not too much to discover for me here, but I'm looking forward to reading other people's opinions.
> 
> *It's almost orchestral in approach, despite being a solo violin piece*.


Do you think you could explain what you mean by the part I put in bold? In what ways is it 'orchestral in approach'?


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## Guest

eugeneonagain said:


> Do you think you could explain what you mean by the part I put in bold? In what ways is it 'orchestral in approach'?


Composing using a vast array of timbres with unique qualities to them, much like different instruments in a large ensemble but condensed into a single instrument. Due to the sheer speed of the different sounds that are produced in quick succession doesn't sound too dissimilar to a colourfully orchestrated piece of music.


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## eugeneonagain

The thing about an orchestra is that all those different timbres and qualities occur simultaneously and together to create a new aggregate quality, that's the point of making an ensemble out of them. I heard nothing in that performance that captured the qualities that, for example, the brass section brings to an orchestra or timpani or an oboe. 

Such remarks strike me as somewhat insincere. I apologise if you are sincere, but I am sceptical.


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## Jacck

I listened to it too (Emergency Survival Guide 2 for 2 automobiles and orchestra) and it is more of a theatrical piece than music. As music, it cannot stand on its own for me, ie is not listenable, is not something I would enjoy to hear on headphones without the visual accompaniment. A modern composer I like is for example Connesson


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## Guest

eugeneonagain said:


> The thing about an orchestra is that all those different timbres and qualities occur simultaneously and together to create a new aggregate quality, that's the point of making an ensemble out of them. I heard nothing in that performance that captured the qualities that, for example, the brass section brings to an orchestra or timpani or an oboe.
> 
> Such remarks strike me as somewhat insincere. I apologise if you are sincere, but I am sceptical.


I don't mean that it literally sounds like an orchestra, rather, the violin shows it has the capacity to almost sound like a larger ensemble in the variety of sounds produced in quick succession. And don't worry, I'm quite used to people being sceptical in this way.


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## eugeneonagain

Okay it's a loose simile, but really it has the capacity to sound like a violin and all the usual knocks and ticks and _sul ponticello_ type effects you can get out of the violin body. In a similar way one can get a flute to warble, rumble and produce a host of other sounds, but is it then 'like an orchestra'? Or just like a flute.

I'm pressing this point not because I'm attempting to pull apart an innocent remark, but because I feel there is a lot of spurious 'art talk' spoken about music like the piece posted above. Whatever its merits and meaning (if meaning is even an appropriate word) it's like people invent things to say about it out of a lack of anything substantial to say about it.

I'm not necessarily saying you have nothing substantial to say about this or any other work - what do I know I'm not a composer - but it seems to me that with music that can't really make the sort of audience connection made between audience and more conventional music, it then requires something more than in the way of explanation than the way in which pre-modern music is discussed (since the latter already has a sort of in-built grammar allowing more general remarks about it).

Perhaps I'm misguided about this? What do you think?


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## mmsbls

Normally, I would have started a new composer, but there was a late flurry of activity. I'll wait until tomorrow to start Bernhard Lang.


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## Guest

eugeneonagain said:


> Okay it's a loose simile, but really it has the capacity to sound like a violin and all the usual knocks and ticks and _sul ponticello_ type effects you can get out of the violin body. In a similar way one can get a flute to warble, rumble and produce a host of other sounds, but is it then 'like an orchestra'? Or just like a flute.


They're very violin-y techniques, that's for sure, everything about the piece is idiomatic to the violin, you're absolutely right with this and the comparison to flute as well.



> I'm pressing this point not because I'm attempting to pull apart an innocent remark, but because I feel there is a lot of spurious 'art talk' spoken about music like the piece posted above. Whatever its merits and meaning (if meaning is even an appropriate word) it's like people invent things to say about it out of a lack of anything substantial to say about it.
> 
> I'm not necessarily saying you have nothing substantial to say about this or any other work - what do I know I'm not a composer - but it seems to me that with music that can't really make the sort of audience connection made between audience and more conventional music, it then requires something more than in the way of explanation than the way in which pre-modern music is discussed (since the latter already has a sort of in-built grammar allowing more general remarks about it).
> 
> Perhaps I'm misguided about this? What do you think?


I haven't really paid much attention to 'art-talk' at all, and I don't even know if I could recognise it if I saw it. The way I write about music is in an attempt to show how I connect to the music I listen to, really. I don't have the kind of vocabulary of a musicologist who specialises in contemporary music, so I don't really know all the terms or any baggage they might have.

I wouldn't go so far as to say there's a lack of anything substantial to say about any kind of music, because the connections we make with music and the emotional and subjective responses we have to music as listeners is certainly an experience worth talking about. There's a lot of 'substance' in that experience, I guess.

Does that answer your question? I hope I'm not misguided either!


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## Guest

mmsbls said:


> Normally, I would have started a new composer, but there was a late flurry of activity. I'll wait until tomorrow to start Bernhard Lang.


Looking forward to this one! Big fan of Lang.


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## mmsbls

*Composer: Bernhard Lang (1957 -)*


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## Guest

Love this composer, looking forward to what others have to say before I post my responses.....


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## Steve Mc

Well, this is quite distant from what my general ideal for music is. 
But, I suppose I have a better sense of what Lang is trying to do here than for some others who write in this style, for lack of a better word.

Still, it seems I have something of a visceral emotional and intellectual reaction against this sort of writing.


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## joen_cph

Steve Mc said:


> Well, this is quite distant from what my general ideal for music is.
> But, I suppose I have a better sense of what Lang is trying to do here than for some others who write in this style, for lack of a better word.
> 
> Still, it seems I have something of a visceral emotional and intellectual reaction against this sort of writing.


I haven't heard works by him before, but really liked the first 10 minutes so far, glad the initial, rhythmic simplicity (I was reminded of the famous dadadada-dadadada string passage a little while into Sacre) didn't just continue, but was replaced by new moods and hopefully a bit complexity ...


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## Steve Mc

The first ten minutes or so were pretty good, and I also found the ending to be quite interesting.
But some of the vocal and orchestral choices in between rubbed me the wrong way completely.


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## Iota

Steve Mc said:


> Well, this is quite distant from what my general ideal for music is.
> But, I suppose I have a better sense of what Lang is trying to do here than for some others who write in this style, for lack of a better word.
> 
> Still, it seems I have something of a visceral emotional and intellectual reaction against this sort of writing.


I enjoyed that! It seemed a little like an avant garde cabaret at times. He seems a very gifted orchestrator to me, colours spilling out every which way, and I found quite a bit of humour in it. I'll certainly listen again, it's one of the more characterful contemporary pieces I've heard recently.


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## Guest

The DW cycle is full of some really fun music. Often very repetitive and somewhat tribal in a similar sense to Stravinsky's Rite of Spring.


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## Guest

Get a load of this:






It certainly sounds like one of those sewn together patchwork 'quote' pieces or something relentlessly polystylistic to the extreme that the actual content of each 'patch' sewn together is barely Lang at all, but the craft of sewing them all together shows a broader essence of his style that can easily be more attributed to him than other composers.


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## aleazk

eugeneonagain said:


> Okay it's a loose simile, but really it has the capacity to sound like a violin and all the usual knocks and ticks and _sul ponticello_ type effects you can get out of the violin body. In a similar way one can get a flute to warble, rumble and produce a host of other sounds, but is it then 'like an orchestra'? Or just like a flute.
> 
> I'm pressing this point not because I'm attempting to pull apart an innocent remark, but because I feel there is a lot of spurious 'art talk' spoken about music like the piece posted above. Whatever its merits and meaning (if meaning is even an appropriate word) it's like people invent things to say about it out of a lack of anything substantial to say about it.
> 
> I'm not necessarily saying you have nothing substantial to say about this or any other work - what do I know I'm not a composer - but it seems to me that with music that can't really make the sort of audience connection made between audience and more conventional music, it then requires something more than in the way of explanation than the way in which pre-modern music is discussed (since the latter already has a sort of in-built grammar allowing more general remarks about it).
> 
> Perhaps I'm misguided about this? What do you think?


I have seen that phrase ("it sounds orchestral") being used by some composers and critics, and usually referring to music which is particularly colorful, no matter the instrumentation or even if it's a solo work (e.g., "Ravel's or Debussy's solo piano music is orchestral"). I never bothered to make too much about it, but I tend to express myself with more direct and to the point phrases (i.e., to simply say that the music is very colorful). Although, as with most metaphoric or literary phrases, there's indeed some suggestive concept in the orchestral thing phrase, which seems to try to point out how remarkably colorful is the music. It's just a metaphor, it loosely tries to point out, by loose analogy, an aspect of something. Aldous Huxley says in some essay that the difference between language in the sciences vs language in poetry is that in the latter one deliberately looks for certain vagueness (and that the very art of poetry lies in how one handles that vagueness when writing it), while this would be an absolute sin in the former.


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## eugeneonagain

I think I share the view of others here that DW9 is good for the first 8 or so minutes, but the first 5 minutes of voice is very grating. I skipped forward a little. The small orchestra/ensemble gives it a sound very much like those turn-of-the-century (the 20th century!) 'cafe orchestras' in Paris up to the 1920s, which is why Iota's remark that it has a 'cabaret' sound struck a chord with me.

The second selection from Lang is not quite so interesting.


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## Guest

Having listened to the second piece a couple of times through, I don't think it's close to Lang at his best.

Has anyone listened to The Saucy Maid?


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## eugeneonagain

shirime said:


> Having listened to the second piece a couple of times through, I don't think it's close to Lang at his best.
> 
> *Has anyone listened to The Saucy Maid?*


I probably should.


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## eugeneonagain

Here's one I listened to this morning (half of it anyway. I clicked on a piece in the sidebar by Gerard Grisey which was a lot better - Vortex Temporum). I'm listening to the rest now. It's best from about 5 minutes in.


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## Iota

I can relate to people finding the vocal aspect of DW9 arcane/off-putting or whatever, but when you've got to know and really admire (as I do) Richard Barrett's Dark Matter for example, the expressive possibilities of such departures from vocal norms become very clear. 

This one in context seems to balance very well what precedes and follows it, and as an episode is dotted with an appealingly wide range of nuance to my ears, humour/tenderness whatever. These things are really just an expansion of timbral and expressive possibilities, but if they annoy you obviously that won't count for much.

Will check out works suggested above.


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## Guest

I read somewhere that this is considered his 'masterpiece' and I do have to say it is one of the strongest pieces in the Differenz Wiederholung cycle. One of my favourite uses of the 'glitch' aesthetic in classical music as well.






Also, Iota, nice to meet another fan of _Dark Matter._ Incredible cycle of compositions as well! Personally I find the vocal style very beautiful.


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## Guest

Some of his smaller ensemble works are absolutely delightful, and I think generally have a bit more of a quirky/fun kind of charm than the compositions for larger forces. DW3 and DW1.2 spring to mind.






cw horrendous engraving that hurts my eyes:


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## mmsbls

*Composer: Elena Rykova (1991 -)*


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## Guest

Alright, my turn now I guess.

Elena Rykova is a Russian born composer currently working primarily in the United States. On her website there is a very short biography:


> Composer, performance artist, improviser.
> 
> Born in 1991, in Ufa, Russia, I studied piano, composition and conducting at music college. After graduation in 2010, I decided to continue as a composer in Moscow State Conservatory with prof. Yuri Kasparov for the next five years. In 2015 I started my master program in composition at Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln with prof. Johannes Schöllhorn. And since Fall 2016 I am a PhD candidate at Harvard University, studying instrumental composition with prof. Chaya Czernowin and electroacoustic composition with prof. Hans Tutschku.


It's best to keep in mind that Rykova's compositions are far more interdisciplinary than purely musical. Often there's an important and theatrical performance aspect to it and a visual score that itself is quite beautiful to look at as a work of art. In fact, she does have examples of both scores and visual art that she creates herself on her website.

As for stuff to watch and listen to....here are some of my favourites:






101% Mind Uploading plays out as a kind of surgical operation on the inside of a piano. She creates a musically rich soundscape that is still very rewarding to listen to as much as watch because of her attention to lines of counterpoint and careful balance of sounds against one another.

Some more stuff I also like:





















I hope you have fun exploring her website and her creations as much as I do.


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## DaveM

Why is one of those surgeon’s masks not covering his nose?


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## eugeneonagain

I listened to all the Rykova videos posted. Only the last two held any interest for me. My willingness to listen is often tested by the excessive retreats into either nothingness or extreme pianissimos, both of which I can get more effortlessly wearing earplugs in my bedroom.

I'm concerned that I couldn't discern the "attention to lines of counterpoint" because I have a fairly good grasp of counterpoint and I heard none. 

I'm sorry to say this one hasn't worked for me. It's a pity. Carry on chaps, I'll watch to see how others experience it.


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## Guest

Bumping this thread because I've seen links to Rykova's music in other threads. Looking forward to more discussion. 

On the topic of 'counterpoint,' I am using the term to describe the attention to individual and interdependent lines of sound and the way they interact to create an overall multilayered texture, like the passage around 6 minutes in, in the first video. I personally think it sounds interesting, entertaining and tends to really lead my ears into different musical textures and soundscapes. I also understand that Rykova has an excellent understanding of how to balance sounds of varying intensities and resonances really effectively to achieve this in her music.


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## eugeneonagain

Counterpoint really refers to independent melodies in combination, and how they combine and are heard. I don't think it helps to use a private definition of the word when the matter under discussion is also about music. It just causes complications.

The texturing of sounds as you describe it is not 'counterpoint'.


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## Kjetil Heggelund

I'm (a bit) sorry that I don't participate in this thread so often. I've been busy exploring contemporary composers...There is SO MUCH MUSIC that I haven't heard, but should have, and I also should practice myself  Right now I'm giving "Thousand splinters of a human eye" a go, without watching. This music makes my mind alert, so I like it. Regarding how you define counterpoint: Is that way, a modern definition as used in composer education? I think I can hear it...


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## Guest

eugeneonagain said:


> Counterpoint really refers to independent melodies in combination, and how they combine and are heard. I don't think it helps to use a private definition of the word when the matter under discussion is also about music. It just causes complications.
> 
> The texturing of sounds as you describe it is not 'counterpoint'.


Using a strict, musical definition, you are of course correct. I'm afraid there aren't too many agreed upon terms that describe this kind of phenomenon in music that isn't structured around definite pitch, so I have to approximate the terminology as best I can in order to describe what I hear.


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## mmsbls

I listened to 101% Mind Uploading and The Mirror of Galadriel, and I must admit I find it hard to view these as music. They seem to be performance art. Such works are obviously fine, but I have less interest.


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## Steve Mc

Likewise with me.


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## Art Rock

I tried the Thousand splinters of a human eye video. I did not care at all for the visual elements, and the music did not grab my attention for one moment. I'll give this one a pass for further exploring.


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## mmsbls

*Composer: Magnus Lindberg (1958 -)*


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## PeterFromLA

Kraft (1983-85). That's the piece that introduced me (and many others) to Lindberg's music. It's an explosive and exuberant racket, a seemingly punk rock-influenced piece that gives the performers a workout (some of them would be better off wearing running gear). Lindberg thrust himself to head of the generational class with this work, and although subsequent compositions were more sophisticated harmonically, they did not recapture the nose-thumbing qualities of this earlier, youthful work.

This is a video of Esa-Pekka Salonen conducting the Toimii Ensemble, for whom Lindberg wrote the piece (Lindberg himself can be viewed performing as well):






Lindberg, who studied with Einojuhani Rautavaara, Vinko Globokar and Gérard Grisey has likely been surpassed by peers in his age cohort (composers born in the 1950s, including fellow Finns, Saariaho and Salonen), but there's no denying his talents. Other pieces by Lindberg I recommend are the Clarinet Concerto (probably his most popular piece), Violin Concerto #1, Piano Concerto #1, and the orchestral work Aura (In Memoriam Witold Lutoslawski). He has a number of enjoyable chamber pieces as well.


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## KenOC

Magnus Lindberg is big time, but let's not forget the "other" Lindberg, Christian, a professional trombonist who also composes. Here's his flute concerto, _The World of Montauagretta_.






This is part 1, check out part 2 also.


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## Josquin13

Back in the mid 1990s, I decided that my knowledge of post World War 2 composers was too limited, and wanted to become better acquainted with music of this period (as I'd covered virtually everything else in the history of music). So, I asked a composer friend if he could recommend several 'most representative' post WW2 composers that I should listen to. There was silence on the other end of the phone, followed by an audible sigh. Finally, my friend spoke, "No. There are too many. I can't possibly recommend a few composers. I wouldn't know where to begin." His response surprised me, as my friend had always been so kind and generous with his recommendations. Undeterred, I pressed on, "Are there no composers that stand out? who I could at least start with?", I asked, hoping to get some suggestions, any names. Finally, he acquiesced and mentioned two recordings of music by a couple of post WW2 composers: (1) the first, a box set of works by Olivier Messiaen, performed by pianists Reinbert De Leeuw & Peter Donohoe with the Netherlands Wind Ensemble, and (2) the second, a single Ondine CD of several works by a young Finnish composer at the time, named Magnus Lindberg, who my friend said had impressed him.

https://www.amazon.com/Magnus-Lindb...1541517256&sr=1-2&keywords=lindberg+joy+marea
https://www.amazon.com/Lindberg-Kin...1541517256&sr=1-1&keywords=lindberg+joy+marea
https://www.amazon.com/Messiaen-Exs...r&keywords=messiaen+netherlands+wind+ensemble

After I had thanked him, and we got off the phone, of course I immediately made a trip to Tower Records, where I bought both recordings, & as it turned out, the Ondine CD served as my introduction to the music of Magnus Lindberg (& to Messiaen as well)--a composer whose career I've continued to follow with great interest (thanks to my dear, late friend). The CD contains three Lindberg works--"Kinetics", "Marea", and "Joy". "Marea" & "Joy" are performed by the Avanti! Chamber Orchestra, which was founded by Esa-Pekka Salonen and Jukka-Pekka Saraste in 1983 to focus primarily on an eclectic mixture of contemporary music (from Finnish and foreign composers). While "Kinetics" is performed by the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Saraste. I later learned that all three works showed a new development or progression for Lindberg at the time, as a composer & orchestrator from his earlier "Kraft", which PeterFromLA mentions, so I think they're worth hearing. On first listening, I immediately saw why my friend was so impressed by Lindberg. The entire album can be heard on You Tube:






In addition, I subsequently got to know Lindberg's 1996 "Engine", which I likewise found to be interesting music. Here it is performed & recorded by the London Sinfonietta, conducted by the late Oliver Knussen:






I know there are Lindberg fans out there that feel these earlier works--from the 1980s & 90s ("Kraft", "Marea", "Kinetics", "Joy", "Engine", etc.)--represent Lindberg's most vital period to date, but I can't entirely agree. For me, a good portion of the music he's composed in the 2000s is even more interesting. Although I would agree that Lindberg has become more traditional, on the surface, or at least less blatantly experimental, and now subtly embraces certain 'romantic' elements in his music. But that is the direction the arts in general have been moving since the 1960s & 70s--back towards more traditional & time-honored techniques, and classical music has been gradually changing too (although don't misunderstand me, I'm not claiming that music is becoming 'romanticism' again--no, something new is being forged, as is always the case. By the way, contemporary composers have also been embracing certain musical elements of the Middle Ages & early Renaissance as well--such as Moody, Pärt, Tavener, O'Regan, Bryars, Jackson, etc.). It's happening in painting too.

Like Peter, I'd recommend Lindberg's Violin Concerto No. 1, Clarinet Concerto, Piano Concerto No. 1, and "Aura"; as well as his new Violin Concerto No. 2 (which has been recorded by the notable violinist Frank Peter Zimmerman), & another recent work that it comes coupled with, entitled "Tempus fugit" (in 5 parts)--usually translated as "Time flies" (the expression comes from book 3 of Virgil's Georgics--'fugit inreparabile tempus: "it escapes, irretrievable time"--Wikipedia). In addition, I'd recommend hearing Lindberg's 2007 "Seht die Sonne" (which is reminiscent of Schoenberg's Gurrelieder), and his 2009 "Graffiti" (for chorus & orchestra)--which was inspired by ancient 'graffiti' writings on the walls of the destroyed city of Pompeii. Both works show the good extent that Lindberg's skills as an orchestrator have developed or expanded since the 1990s, in my estimation. They come coupled together on a single CD: https://www.amazon.com/Lindberg-Gra...=1541525262&sr=1-1&keywords=lindberg+graffiti), and both can be heard on You Tube, as well:

Seht die Sonne:





Graffiti:





Tempus fugit & Violin Concerto No. 2: 




https://www.amazon.com/Lindberg-Tem...5186&sr=1-1&keywords=lindberg+violin+concerto

Clarinet Concerto: 




https://www.amazon.com/Clarinet-Con...26&sr=1-1&keywords=lindberg+clarinet+concerto

With that said, my favorite Lindberg work to date remains his 2006 Violin Concerto No. 1--which deserves to become standard repertory in our concert halls, in my view. I remember when the world premiere CD came out, I was making my way through (& enjoying) a box set of recordings by the Italian violinist Uto Ughi, which included a number of the "old warhorse" violin concertos by Bruch, Mendelssohn, and others, which I hadn't heard in years. The new Lindberg VC arrived in the mail around the same time, so I found myself alternating between listening to Lindberg's VC and the old standard VC repertory; which made for some interesting comparative listening--that is, between the old and new. I recall one day losing my patience with the the 'arch' romanticism of Bruch's Violin Concerto No. 1, for instance, and putting Lindberg's VC back on again for a 3rd or 4th time. I don't mean to put down Bruch's VC, as it rightly deserves to be considered a major VC, but that day I much preferred listening to Lindberg's concerto, as I thought it showed greater imagination and a more inventive range of sound possibilities, and frankly, it held my interest more keenly. (Though I suppose I wasn't in the mood for any 'heart on sleeve' romanticism at the time, and the Bruch piece suddenly seemed so bloated & overdone in that regard, especially when directly juxtaposed to Lindberg's work.) Around that time, I was also avidly listening to Esa-Pekka Salonen's new Violin Concerto, played by violinist Leila Josefowicz (another recent arrival in the mail), and was similarly impressed. After several hearings, I decided that Lindberg's VC was even more brilliant than Salonen's--although I've continued to listen to & like both concertos: 



.)

To date, there have been two impressive recordings of Lindberg's Violin Concerto No.1--the first a world premiere by the phenomenal violinist Lisa Batiashvili, with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Sakari Oramo, and the second, a recording by another exceptional violinist, Pekka Kuusisto, leading the Tapiola Sinfonietta. Presently, I may slightly prefer Batiashvili's recording, but these two superb young violinists offer such brilliant, contrasting interpretations--which bring out different qualities in the music--that it makes for some fascinating comparative listening. Suffice it to say, I'm glad to have heard (& own) both recordings.

Lisa Batiashvili--the recording has been (frustratingly) broken into two parts on You Tube:









Pekka Kuusisto:





In closing, I can add one more composer to Peter's list of Lindberg's former teachers (in addition to Rautavaara, Globokar, & Grisey): my understanding is that he also studied with Finnish composer Paavo Heininen. Considering that Heininen and Rautavaara are both formidable symphonic composers, it surprises me that Lindberg has yet to compose his first symphony.


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## mmsbls

Thanks, Josquin13, that's a great introduction to Lindberg. I like several of the works you mention especially the Clarinet Concerto and Seht die Sonne. You have mentioned a number of works I have not heard so I'll listen to those.

Another work I enjoy that was not mentioned is Sculpture (2005).


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## Steve Mc

Currently listening to the Violin Concerto. Really like it. I agree that it is a repertoire work. Fine, indeed.
Will continue exploring.


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## mmsbls

I listened to the Violin Concerto and Graffiti. The Violin Concerto was quite enjoyable, and I added it my very long list of works to explore further.

I also heard Gran Duo which several TC members have discussed on other threads. This is a work for brass and winds and described as a conversation between the two (or even between subsets of the two). I enjoyed this work enormously. I saw this analysis from Music Finland:



> Lindberg has composed Gran Duo as a dialogue between the two orchestral families of wind and brass, each with their respective musical material. Their individual characters, initially equating to the poetic stereotypes of 'masculine' and 'feminine', become progressively blurred and androgynised during the course of the work.


I think the anthropomorphism is perhaps a bit over the top, but maybe those who understand the music more may get a sense of what is meant.


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## mmsbls

*Composer: Valentin Silvestrov (1937 -)*


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## PeterFromLA

Valentin Silvestrov is the most famous Ukrainian composer writing today. His career developed while Ukraine was within the Soviet Union. Perhaps for this reason, he first came to widespread notice in the West during the Glasnost era (circa 1985) as a "Soviet composer," alongside other such composers of his generation who were then also starting to receive attention, including Gubaidulina, Pärt, Schnittke, Denisov, Kancheli, and so forth. Silvestrov, like those others of his generation, had closest contact with developments in Western contemporary music through a figure who was sanctioned by the Soviet Government (via Tikhon Khrennikov), despite his modernist outlook: Luigi Nono, who, besides being a brilliant composer, was a member of the Italian Communist Party, and who favored trips to the Soviet Union, the East Bloc, and Cuba during which he dazzled Silvestrov, Schnittke, and their colleagues with compositional developments in the West, including aleatoricism, electronic music, and, of course, serialism.

Having said all that, in fact the music for which Silvestrov is most know and today celebrated is the music he wrote once he ceased writing in a modernist idiom (dating to the mid-1970s). This later style has been called "meta-music" or "post-ludial music," as in music that appears at the end: the epilogue, the music that occurs after the musical argument has been set forth and resolved, music that is now recalled rather than lived in real time. Silvestrov's music harkens back to Schnittke's in the sense that both composers are hyper-aware of music history and self-consciously write in its shadows. But where Schnittke took a here playful, there aggressive approach to the past, blending genres and stretching its conventions (such as in the combination Concerto Grosso 4/Symphony 5, or his Viennese pastiche/horror show, (K)ein Sommernachtstraum), Silvestrov takes another route. He writes a music that luxuriates in the memory of what has been heard in the history of music, what lingers after the musicians have left the stage. Silvestrov's oeuvre is a metaphor for being at the end of music history, writing music when so much wonderful music is already in abundance. The composer thus turns inward, to music as a kind memory space, that which has been imprinted upon him and which he uses as his starting point. (Pawel Szymanksi, a Polish composer has a similar philosophy, but his music sounds quite different because he mimics and subtly deconstructs antique musics.) The music can be a bit meandering in some of the larger orchestral pieces, you really just have to go with its flow at such times to "get it," I guess.

The work through which Silvestrov made a huge impression, and got Western commentators interested in tracking his production, was the Fifth Symphony. (In the performance linked here there appears to be a strange jump at just before the 11 minute mark, not sure what's up there.)






Two vocal works that have acquired sincere devotees are the Requiem (for Larissa)






and the Silent Songs (for baritone and piano). There is also a terrific recording on ECM of his liturgical music that I highly recommend:









I also am personally fond of his work for piano and orchestra, "Postludium,"






as well as the First and Second String Quartets (he recently premiered a Third, but I haven't heard it). Finally, a small piano piece, Der Bote (The Messenger), is a delight.






There's also a version for chamber orchestra and piano. It's a bit reminiscent of Schnittke's Gratulationsrondo, without the demonic twists and turns, thereby nicely illustrating how Schnittke and Silvestrov mine similar territory but do very different things with it. Schnittke admired Silvestrov's music, in any case, and called him "one of the greatest composers of our generation," while Arvo Pärt refers to him as "unconditionally the most interesting contemporary composer."

Thankfully, there is no shortage of performances and recordings available to form one's own assessment of it. ECM in particular has been steadily recording his pieces with top drawer performers, but you can also find great recordings on Melodiya (licensed to the West for distribution on other labels).


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## Steve Mc

I've just heard the 5th Symphony. Sublime. Perhaps it loses a little direction as it goes on, but the heart of the piece is simply gorgeous. A lot to like here. Definitely a reflection, but a worthy one. Definitely want to hear more.


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## Steve Mc

I am finding this piece quite lovely.


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## mmsbls

I had heard Silvestrov's 5th symphony a few years ago and enjoyed it enough to to put his name in my list of composers to further explore. Unfortunately, I never did explore him. Now I have the chance. 

I listened to The Messenger and Symphonic Poem for Piano and Orchestra "Postludium". I especially liked the Postludium and The Messenger grew on me during a second listen. 

According to the entry on Wikipedia he said, "I do not write new music. My music is a response to and an echo of what already exists."


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## starthrower

The only piece by Magnus Lindberg I really took to is his clarinet concerto. The soloist, Kari Krikku, is phenomenal. His earlier stuff from the 80s has a lot of energy and violence, but it doesn't do much for me. And now he's settled into a more conservative mode. But the Ondine CD with the concerto, Gran Duo, and Chorale is a solid set.


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## starthrower

I tried to get into some of Silvestrov's music but all that dreary spaciness and miles of icy reverb doesn't sound very interesting. ECM is a good home for him. Manfred Eicher loves that stuff. I'm going listen to Aho's 16th symphony again. That's a fairly new piece that sounds good to me right now.


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## mmsbls

I listened to a vocal work, Diptych.

The Lord's Prayer
Testament

I did enjoy the piece (really two coupled together) though I found it somewhat simple. Testament is a patriotic Ukranian poem, and Silvestrov dedicated this work to the first casualty in the recent Ukranian riots in Kiev.


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## Steve Mc

Silvestrov's religious work has a welcome simplicity to it, but it lacks some of the profundity you find with Part (who does seem to greatly admire Silvestrov)




I am certainly enjoying our exploration of Silvestrov.


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## Steve Mc

A Silvestrov piece I am currently listening to. Seems interesting. I do enjoy Silvestrov's music, since I rather appreciate composers who create something new without completely breaking from what has come before.


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## mmsbls

*Composer: John Williams (1932 -)*


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## Steve Mc

Though by far most famous for his often iconic soundtracks, John Williams has also written a respectable amount of concert works. 
These works showcase a style of writing that is somewhat more modernistic than his film work. For the most part, his style is rather neo-romantic, with an emphasis on lyricism tempered by sometimes striking harmonic choices. Orchestration is a strength. Structural organization, perhaps a weakness. 
Here are a few of his most striking concert works to start things off.
















(Particularly modern in approach, this work was written after the death of his wife in 1974. The second movement is dedicated to her)


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## arpeggio

Some of his more adventurous works (Very versatile composer):

_Flute Concerto:_






_Sinfonietta for Wind Ensemble (1968)_


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## Steve Mc

Oh, yes, thanks for bringing up those two. The Essay For Strings from this period (60s, early 70s) is also of interest.


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## Guest

I _really_ love the flute concerto. I hadn't heard it before and I've just been listening to it. Thanks for bringing it up, arpeggio!


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## arpeggio

At the other end of the spectrum is "Merry Christmas". I have performed this with the City of Fairfax Band and the Fairfax Choral Society. Fun piece


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## Steve Mc

Speaking of choral matters, this is quite a good composition, actually.


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## Steve Mc

shirime said:


> I _really_ love the flute concerto. I hadn't heard it before and I've just been listening to it. Thanks for bringing it up, arpeggio!


Perhaps the most similar thing Williams has done to his Flute Concerto would be his Harp Concerto. Not quite as daring, but still interesting in its soundscape, particularly the first movement. The second is more straightforward, if you will.


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## Steve Mc

I think you guys really should take a listen to one of Williams's most recent works _Markings_ for Violin, Harp and Strings.
Nicely textured work, good example of the composer's attempt to balance almost-lyrical melodic lines, with rather atmospheric dissonant passages.


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## Red Terror

I recommend everything by György Kurtág and Vyacheslav Artyomov.


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## mmsbls

*Composer: Michel Van der Aa (1970 -)*


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## Guest

I don’t know where to start with him so I’ll look forward to a more knowledgeable member recommending some works.


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## mmsbls

I'm not very knowledgeable about van der aa, but I have listened to several works.

Imprint is a work for solo violin and Baroque orchestra. van der Aa says it should be played with instruments tuned to a Baroque 415 Hz tuning. I enjoyed parts of the work, but unfortunately for me, towards the end the violinist plays a long chord on a portative organ. The drone is annoying (I never have liked drones).

I heard his violin concerto played by Janine Jansen. I especially enjoyed the frantic energy of the third movement. van der Aa describes the third movement as "performed at breakneck speed and close to the edge of possibility."

van der Aa creates some of his musical works to be played in conjunction with film. One such work is Up Close for solo cello, string ensemble, and film. I enjoyed the music, but I found the film rather distracting.


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## mmsbls

I heard van der aa's Clarinet Concerto - Hysteresis.

Hysteresis I
Hysteresis II

Hysteresis refers to physical systems whose future states depend not only on the present state but also on past states. Van der aa uses the idea of musical memory by recording live parts and bringing those sounds back in some electronic form. Admittedly, I had trouble hearing the "hysteresis" in the piece.

I enjoyed certain parts quite a bit (8:00 on in the first movement and much of the second movement).


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## starthrower

The clarinet concerto sounds great! I love Kari Kriikku, he's a phenomenal player.


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## 20centrfuge

His work: "Up-Close" (2010), a concerto for solo cello, string ensemble/orchestra, soundtrack and film, won the Grawemeyer Prize and is a really amazing work that I think will stand the test of time and will be considered an important work from the early part of the 21st century. I think it's groundbreaking in how it crosses genres.


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## mmsbls

I have found two other works of van der aa - Transit  for piano, film, and tape, and Oog for cello and soundtrack.

Similar to Up Close, Transit is a multidisciplinary work where the music accompanies the film. While I enjoyed the music for Up Close, I was much less interested in the music of Transit. I think Up Close could easily stand alone as a cello concerto, but Transit seems more like a film score. Oog is the only work by van der aa in the Naxos Music Library. I didn't find the work very interesting.

I couldn't find additional works by van der aa not discussed here. Does anyone know of other works we could hear?


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## 20centrfuge

He wrote an opera based on the libretto by one of my favorite authors: David Mitchell. The opera is entitled "The Sunken Garden."

It premiered in 2013, I believe. It also uses some film elements. I don't believe the whole opera is available but there are snippets on YouTube.


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## 20centrfuge

Mask for ensemble and soundtrack






The more I explore of Van der Aa, the more I realize how enamored he is with film and synthesized music (soundtrack) happening alongside the acoustic music.


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## 20centrfuge

Spaces of Blank (2007), song-cycle for mezzo-soprano, orchestra and soundtrack


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## 20centrfuge

More of the opera, Sunken Garden


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## mmsbls

*Composer: Brett Dean (1961 -)*


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## Lisztian

Brett Dean is one of the finest living Australian composers. His music doesn't belong to any specific school or style, but is simply colorful, dramatic music that, generally, has an extra-musical concern at its heart.

Some of my favourites:

*Twelve Angry Men* (based on the 1957 film) for 12 cellos:






*Game Over* for orchestra and electronics (not on youtube)

*Koramov's Fall *(based on the death of Vladimir Koramov):






*The Lost Art of Letter Writing* (based on letters written by Brahms (and, in the first movement, material from his 4th symphony), Van Gogh, Wolf and Ned Kelly in times of distress; won the Grawemeyer in 2009):





(second movement is missing for some reason)









When I was not as familiar with this composer I was thinking his style/concerns would be very good for use in opera: I was right. His opera *Bliss* (which uses some material from 'Game Over,' mentioned above) is an inspired work that doesn't have many weak moments: he seemed to have put the best of him into this work...

Until he wrote his second opera, *Hamlet*, which I haven't heard yet but is generally considered to be superior to the earlier work. Its reception was overwhelmingly positive and was comparable to that of L'amour de loin and Written on Skin, so I'm looking forward to hearing it.

Another interesting thing about Brett Dean is that he didn't start composing until he was 27. Are there any other examples of composers that are this accomplished who started this late?

He also seems like a great guy, very humane and funny...


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## Guest

I met and talked quite a bit with him backstage at the Sydney Opera House before the Australian Premiere of his trumpet concerto for Håkan Hardenberger (also a very cool work!) and he is a very quiet person, much the opposite of his music somehow, and he always seems larger than life on the stage when conducting his works, so his personality almost came as a surprise to me.

The first work of his that I heard was _Bliss_ (vimeo link: 



) which I watched on TV in a live broadcast when it premiered. I was 12 at the time, so his music was something I grew up listening to throughout my teens. I wish I saw _Hamlet_ at the Adelaide Festival recently, but unfortunately I didn't have time to make it over. I did watch the broadcast from Glyndebourne, and that was certainly fun! 





His music is what I would describe a kind of neo-romantic or neo-expressionist style, with a tendency towards some Lutosławskian 'strict aleatory' in some of his larger works.

His operas I think are a logical continuation from Alban Berg, though without serialism.

Also I think he started composing as his main gig later, after he had been playing viola in the Berliner Philharmoniker for a while. (at 1:10, the guy closer to the camera without the glasses)


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## mmsbls

I have not heard much of Dean, but I have heard a couple of works that I like a lot.

Etudenfest grew out of a "prepared improvisation" at the end of a week of master classes for string players. It starts with simple warm up exercises then adds other layers. Dean compares it to the combined sound of many students playing in practice rooms (Ivesian). A piano enters toward the end of the work and adds to the frenzied chaos (but never quite complete chaos). The work ends with soft piano and softer strings sounds that are rather beautiful.

Dean's viola quintet, "Epitaphs", is a collection of 5 movements dedicated to 5 Australians who recently died.


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## Lisztian

Re-listened to his *Vexations and Devotions* today, a large-scale cantata concerned with the impersonal and alienating nature of an 'electronic' modern life, the composer believing we have 'retreated from the real world to something fabricated.' Very dramatic piece: perhaps a bit over the top at times for some (including myself), but lots of effective and beautiful writing. Like all Dean I've heard, it's both accessible and engaging in equal measure.


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## mmsbls

I heard Twelve Angry Men and found it quite enjoyable. I could very generally match parts of the music with scenes from the play, but I don't remember the play quite well enough. I do love the cello so any work which features many of them is always interesting to hear.


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## mmsbls

I listened to Testament for 12 violas. Later Dean rewrote this for orchestra. Testament refers to Beethoven's will and testament, and the work (written 200 years after Beethoven wrote his will and testament) is based to some extent on Dean's reading of the will. Dean says:



> Without the usual traction that rosin provides, a rosinless bow glides with an eerie surface noise over the strings, only occasionally and sporadically able to bring out a full tone in the usual manner. Through this way, the main material for the piece is presented almost as if behind a gauze, or as if itself hampered by a hearing ailment. One sees much action, but it is an indeterminate aural experience.


I enjoyed this even more than his Twelve Angry Men (for 12 cellos).


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## mmsbls

I just finished Dean's Viola Concerto (selections heard here - I couldn't find a full version on youtube). I heard the BIS CD with 12 Angry Men and Komarov's Fall.

While I prefer violin, I love many modern/contemporary viola concertos (e.g. Gubaidulina, Schnittke, Muhly, Hindemith, Rubbra). Dean's concerto starts with a very short movement, Fragment, that is airy and beautiful. The second movement is darker and agitated. Dean describes it as:



> This is music of jagged virtuosity and rhythmic edginess, the kind of hybrid that might have arisen if Paul Hindemith had played in a band with Tom Waits...


That is a rather amusing visual. The work ends with an elegy, "Veiled and Mysterious," that contains some lovely viola writing. Altogether I find the work a nice addition to the modern/contemporary viola repertoire.


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## mmsbls

*Composer: Joseph Schwantner (1943 -)*


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## millionrainbows

From WIK:
_Joseph Clyde Schwantner (born March 22, 1943 in Chicago, Illinois) is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer, educator and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters since 2002. 
He was awarded the 1970 Charles Ives Prize._
_Schwantner is prolific, with many works to his credit. His style is coloristic and eclectic, drawing on such diverse elements as French impressionism, African drumming, and minimalism. His orchestral work Aftertones of Infinity received the 1979 Pulitzer Prize for Music.

One of Schwantner's early works, Diaphonia intervallum (1967) distinctly foreshadowed the important style traits that would later exist in his music. Beyond its serial structure such elements as individualized style, pedal points, timbre experimentation, instrumental groupings, and the use of extreme ranges were apparent even at this formative stage of Schwantner's career.

Upon his appointment to the faculty of the Eastman School of Music, Schwantner's work Consortium I was premiered in 1970. This piece clearly illustrates his personal use of serialism, including many twelve-tone rows hidden among the texture and using a specific intervallic structure to provide cohesion. Consortium II also continued this emphasis on his personal application of serialism.

From these works, Schwantner turned from this focus on serialism to delve into the effects of tone color in his compositions. This is clearly noticed in his extended use of percussion instruments. Examples of his use of timbre as an important compositional element are found in In aeternum (1973) and Elixir (1976). This can be seen in his larger works for band as well. In ...and the mountains rising nowhere (1977) the six percussionists play a total of 46 instruments in an effort to give the percussion section a more prominent role than what was typical for band works during the 70's.

From this stage he began to also concentrate on obtaining clearer tonal centers in works such as Music of Amber (1981) and New Morning for the World: 'Daybreak of Freedom'(1982). Even as he embraces tonal centers, Schwantner resists the very conventional employment of the dominant-tonic relationships and the Western music expansion of that concept. Rather, Schwantner's tonal centers are created by pitch emphasis, perhaps like the American composer Aaron Copland in a piece like El Salón México. His serialism roots even purvey his tonal structures; clearly defined major and minor scales are scarce in Schwantner's music. Instead, he uses pitch sets to establish organization. Schwantner's later works have integrated minimalist elements. This can be seen in his monumental percussion concerto. However, a very present focus on timbre and tone remain quite evident. His scores are published by the Schott Helicon Music Corporation.

_I first heard Scwantner on this recording:









What struck me about his music was the color; he creates "spectral" effects by doubling pitched instruments like flute with percussion and bells/chimes. The overtones the chimes create produce a spectral effect, which sounds like an extension of the instrument's overtones.
Also, this work seems very timely, although a couple of days late:

 Try his music; it is very sensual and colorful.


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## Guest

A Play of Shadows is really cool! It’s sort of your classic Americana orchestral showpiece with a bit of French flair to it. Colourful, approachable, agreeable music. Would be a nice crowdpleaser for a flautist an orchestra in concert. I’m not too aware of a lot of American music, but the music that makes it outside to Europe tends to sound pretty cool to me. I hope Schwanter gains a bit more prominence outside his home country.


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## mmsbls

I'm don't often like flute music, but I definitely found A Play of Shadows to be colorful and quite enjoyable.

Here is a marimba piece called Velocities. I love the timbre of marimba and find a lot of solo marimba works fun and enjoyable. Schwantner uses varying texture and continuously shifting meter in the work. Apparently Leigh Stevens, who worked with Schwantner on the work, wanted Schwantner to expand the short explosive pattern of notes at the end so Stevens could "rock out." Schwantner extended the ending an additional 10 measures (see I-Jen Fang).

There are a remarkable number of versions of Velocities on youtube. I'm guessing that it's something of a standard for marimba players.


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## mmsbls

Schwantner wrote a work called Aftertones of Infinity. The piece won the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1979. The piece has a light, ethereal background that gets punctuated by intense rhythmic bursts from brass and percussion. The ethereal sections perhaps evoke vast sections of space or time while the bursts focus one's attention back on the here and now. The end uses glass harmonica and gentle voices to produce a serene effect. Anyway, I enjoyed the work.


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## mmsbls

I just heard and the mountains rising nowhere for extended winds and brass, string bass, percussion, piano, and glass crystals at the end. Actually I listened 4 times, because I absolutely love this work. The large percussion section plays 46 instruments. Schwantner apparently wanted the percussion to be on roughly equal footing with the winds and brass.

There's a wide range of timbre effects produced by all the instruments, and they work together seamlessly. I loved everything but especially the piano coupled with the varied percussion sounds.

I had heard Velocities before but I'm not sure what else I had heard from Schwantner. I'm becoming quite a fan of his music.


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## mmsbls

Here's a chamber work for flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano, and percussion called Music of Amber. The first movement is light and ethereal while the second movement 
has more rhythmic energetic parts. I enjoyed it though not one of my favorite Schwanter pieces.

Another work I enjoyed is his Concerto for Piano and Orchestra. Overall I thought it was less interesting than some of the others discussed here.


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## starthrower

Schwantner is pleasant enough but not very original. From the sound of some of these pieces he's a big Messiaen fan. It's colorful and mostly tonal, which reminds me of one of his fellow composers, the slightly younger Kalevi Aho.


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## mmsbls

*Composer: Panayiotis Kokoras (1974 -)*


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## Jacck

Panayiotis Kokoras - Superstrings




and listened to the Superstrings and it is quite an enjoyble collection of weird sounds. I especially enjoy the flushing effects at cca 3:00, the hens at 1:29, the whispering wires at 3:52, and bird at 5:47, I quite enjoy it and can imaging listening to it occasionally.


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## mmsbls

I listened to Cycling for flute. At first I was not much engaged, but as I listened I found it more interesting than I expected. I know relatively little about the sounds flutes can make, and many of the sounds from Cycling were new to me.

I have a question for anyone who plays the flute. Would someone who has played flute through music school in college be familiar with the techniques needed to play this piece or would they likely have to learn how to play certain parts?


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## mmsbls

I heard Holophony for amplified string quartet. I found much of the piece disjointed as though I was simply hearing disparate sounds at the same time. The last minute and a half seemed distinctly different. The sounds seemed more integrated and the effect was quite enjoyable.

On his site Kokoras says this about Holophony.



> Each independent sound (phonos), contributes equally into the synthesis of the total (holos). Thus, Holophonic musical texture is best perceived as the synthesis of simultaneous sound streams into a coherent whole with internal components and focal points.


I'm not sure how this differs from music say of the Classical or Romantic period. Does he mean, for example, that there is no intent to create pitches that have specific relations to each other? Perhaps the disjointed sense I had listening to Holophony comes from the intent at synthesizing independent sounds streams.


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## Guest

I’m familiar with most of the works he’s got on YouTube. I’m a fan of his works for solo instrument and tape most of all. Looking forward to reading more comments!


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## mmsbls

I listened to a couple more works by Kokoras.

Susurrus did not interest me too much.

The actual sounds from the work Conscious Sound seemed random and unconnected as does much of his music. What interested me was the notation. The work is for clarinet, piano, violin, and cello. The piano was designated not by letters (pno.) but rather by a drawing of a piano. While the clarinet music appeared on a staff with lines for notes, the piano, violin, and cello music appeared inside a staff without such lines.


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## Jacck

Cymatics (2018) for cymbal




this is the essence of much of modern music. They take an old instrument and start using it in various creative but originally unintended ways to make sounds. Not all of it is bad. I enjoy this music in the same way as the ASMR videos, ie it can induce relaxation or even tingles occassionally.


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## mmsbls

*Composer: Lera Auerbach (1973 -)*


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## Kjetil Heggelund

Nobody listening to Auerbach these days? I've heard violin and piano pieces by her before. Decided to put on the "Celloquy" album. Preludes op. 47 for cello & piano. I think her style is pleasant and evocative. Maybe neoclassic is the right term for her music. I bet Shostakovich is a hero! So she studied with Milton Babbitt and Robert Beaser (doesn't tell me much).I have waited to hear violin concertos, but haven't found them yet.


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## Jacck

I also listened to her
24 Preludes for Violoncello and Piano - this is great
Symphony No. 1 Chimera (2006) - not bad for a modern symphony, but some somewhat cinematic (film music like). The Requiem for Icarus is the best part
a the Dreams and Whispers of Poseidon (2005) is an interesting piece too




I feel that Lera writes pretty good music, but is somewhat lacking in the melody department


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## mmsbls

I like her Symphony No. 1 as well. Perhaps my favorite work of hers is the Dialogues on Stabat Mater (after Pergolesi). There is shortened version, Sogno di Stabat Mater, requested by Gideon Kremer (who performs on the youtube video).


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## Guest

I've heard a bunch of works from her on youtube and found it all to be quite pleasant, but in a rather distant way, as if I am half understanding a language but missing a lot of the finer details and probably not being as moved/affected by this music as much as I am with most other music. It might take some more listening to really feel like I am understanding where she is coming from in her music, but so far just letting it wash over me without thinking too much about what I am hearing amounts to a pleasant experience for short periods of time.

This stuff is great:


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## mmsbls

I listened to Auerbach's two piano trios.

Piano Trio No. 1 
Piano Trio No. 2, Triptych - The Mirror with Three Faces

The first was fine but did not make me want to hear more (she wrote it at 20). The second was much more engaging. I see her compared to Shostakovich and Schnittke.



Kjetil Heggelund said:


> ...I have waited to hear violin concertos, but haven't found them yet.


She's written 4 violin concertos, but I haven't found any recordings or videos of them aside from this very short segment from her 4th performed by the NY Philharmonic. I would love to hear one of her later concertos.


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## Kjetil Heggelund

https://www.sikorski.de/13663/en/0/a/0/april_5_11_2014.html
Some news from the publisher of Auerbach. Maybe somebody here has the opportunity and will to go to a performance...


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## mmsbls

*Composer: Jörg Widmann (1973 -)*


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## Kjetil Heggelund

Hey there! I nominated Widmann because I enjoyed the pieces I've heard of him, but don't remember which ones I listened to (I plough through very many pieces). I believe he can be appreciated by many, maybe even as an ear opener for modern music for those not used to that. Right now I put on the last album with his music, which is live from Hamburg January 2017-ARCHE: Oratorium für Solisten, Chor, Orgel und Orchester. It doesn't really start before 2 minutes. Give it a chance! Reading about the composer gives me an idea of him as one of the most successful "young" guys around. He's even younger than me!


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## Jacck

His Viola concerto is pretty good, listening right now


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## Guest

Big fan of this composer (and clarinettist) but I will hold off on posting my comments until I find some new works of his to listen to. In the meantime, I'm enjoying what other's have to say. Widmann is one of the most regularly performed composers alive and has a very wide range of works....there's a lot I still want to hear as well.


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## Guest

my favourites for widmann are: 
-orchestral: Violin Cto 1, Zweites Labyrinth, Armonica, Lied, Implosion
-chamber: Sqs 3 & 5
-piano: sonata les fleurs du mal
-clarinet: fantasy


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## Bkeske

I caught a 'world premier' on the Digital Concert Hall (Berliner Philharmoniker) of a work by *Anna Thorvaldsdottir* that was spell binding to listen to and watch. She only has one recording on Tidal, which I have yet to listen to. Not sure about YouTube, which I really don't use to watch any music as the sound in may cases can be so bad.

I don't believe I saw her listed on this thread yet, and she might be worth checking out.

In general, I like to seek out very modern avant grade composers, but few actually hold my interest. But that is a subjective thing. For instance, I began really taking a liking to Pierre Boulez as he dipped his toe into these waters many times, and also seemed to prefer conducting the 'more modern' composers, but to be honest, some of his own compositions have just left me 'cold', others not so much. But regardless, still one of my favorite conductors because of that.

Back in the late 70's/early 80's I had a friend who loved listening to Phillip Glass, and I didn't even know he was classified as a 'classical' composer at the time, he was also very into Brian Eno and some of his avant garde compositions. Glass never really 'spoke' to me, Eno did more at times.

I will have to take a closer look into these pages and check out some of the composers in the various lists, many of which I am unfamiliar. It is something I do seek out and enjoy, but few 'grab me'.


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## PeterFromLA

Thorvaldsdottir has several recordings, you can find them listed on her website. I think she's a highly gifted composer.

http://www.annathorvalds.com/


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## Bkeske

Thanks, I'll check that out.


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## mmsbls

I just heard Widmann's Violin Concerto and loved it. It reminds me of Berg's concerto, which I also love. I bookmarked the CD and will try to hear Antiphon and Insel der Sirenen (the other two works on the CD).


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## mmsbls

I listened to his last 3 string quartets (3-5). The 5th was my favorite with stunningly beautiful vocals. I listened several times thoroughly enjoying the work. The 4th is quiet with measured pizzicato throughout. The 3rd is a wild ride with rather boisterous parts. Admittedly the late, annoying, guttural vocalizations from the cellist required action but killing him seemed somewhat over the top.


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## Guest

Lately I have been listening to quite a bit of Widmann. His viola concerto is as spectacular and boisterous as I remember, but I've also listened to this piece which I hadn't heard before Friday:






I like Widmann's music and often it has a very clear trajectory through time. He does a great job at guiding the listener through a very cohesive and 'whole' musical experience. Sometimes, however, I find that the trajectory is a little bit _too_ clear, as if he's holding the audience's hand and guiding them through a safe journey like a child rather than surprising us with a few more twists and turns.


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## Enthusiast

mmsbls said:


> I just heard Widmann's Violin Concerto and loved it. It reminds me of Berg's concerto, which I also love. I bookmarked the CD and will try to hear Antiphon and Insel der Sirenen (the other two works on the CD).


In some ways it seems to inhabit such a similar sound world to the Berg concerto that ... well you wouldn't put both of them as couplings on the same CD. Great work, though.


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## mmsbls

I listened to Polyphone Schatten. The initial few minutes were less enjoyable, but I thoroughly enjoyed the remainder. I loved the interplay between the viola and clarinet. I read a positive review that had this somewhat humorous comment:



> The fragmented notes and gestures that emerge seemingly piecemeal at first from the solo instruments gradually seem to 'wake' up the other players, whose pointillistic, percussive interjections eventually coagulate into something one might recognise as an orchestra.


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## mmsbls

*Composer: Tristan Perich (1982 -)*


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## Duncan

mmsbls said:


> *Composer: Tristan Perich (1982 -)*







Brilliant... absolutely brilliant - first became aware of classic minimalist Tristan Perich through Bang On A Can All-Stars Canadian pianist Vicky Chow. Her recording of "Surface Image" (written for solo piano and 40-channel one-bit electronics) was voted # 4 on Rolling Stone Magazine's 20 Best Avant Albums of 2014.


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## mmsbls

I just heard Surface Image today. It's wonderful. The combination of the continuous, rapid piano notes with the 40 speakers is mesmerizing. I've never heard anything quite like it.


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## Guest

I listened to about a quarter of that piece to jog my memory of it (I have heard all of this before). Whilst I like the idea, and I love the idea of post-minimalism in general, I often find that the pitch material itself remains completely restricted within a general modal sound. For a piece that is driven primarily by pitch and rhythm, the transformation of rhythmic cells keeps this piece alive whereas there really isn't much in the piece that gives any movement or deviation from the overall pitch language. Lovely rhythms and the development and transformation on that level is really engaging for me, but there is nothing equally as interesting on the level of pitch.


----------



## Duncan

Tristan Perich - "1 Bit Symphony" - 




"Tristan Perich's 1-Bit Symphony is an electronic composition in five movements on a single microchip. Though housed in a CD jewel case like his first circuit album (1-Bit Music 2004-05), 1-Bit Symphony is not a recording in the traditional sense; it literally "performs" its music live when turned on. A complete electronic circuit-programmed by the artist and assembled by hand-plays the music through a headphone jack mounted into the case itself. The album is available from Physical Editions."









"A return to the format of Perich's lauded 1-Bit Music (described by the Village Voice as "technology and aesthetic rolled into one"), 1-Bit Symphony further reduces the hardware involved while simultaneously expanding its musical ideas. 1-Bit Symphony utilizes on and off electrical pulses, synthesized by assembly code and routed from microchip to speaker, to manifest data as sound. The device treats electricity as a sonic medium, making an intimate connection between the materiality of hardware and the abstract logic of software."

http://www.1bitsymphony.com/





 - Interview and demo of electronic circuit.


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## mmsbls

The 1-Bit Symphony was not nearly as enjoyable as Surface Image. Clearly a major difference is the lack of an acoustic instrument. The combination of piano and 1-Bit (square wave excitation of speakers) created both an interesting and pleasant sound. Square waves sounds are not especially pleasing to me so it's hard to stay engaged.

Drift Multiply (except) was somewhat in between Surface Image and 1-Bit Symphony. Drift Multiply has 50 violins along with 50 1-Bit chips driving speakers. Unlike Surface Image, the acoustic instruments (violins) were strong constrained in that it appears they simply saw away at a single note for an extended period with different violins playing different notes at varying rhythms.


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## mmsbls

*Composer: Michael Pisaro (1961 -)*


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## Duncan

mmsbls said:


> *Composer: Michael Pisaro (1961 -)*







" A mist is a collection of points, while a grid is an organized collection of points. There is the unspoken tension in this work between regular and aperiodic, solid and vague, artificial and organic, order and sprawl. This interplay takes place from one section to the next, and also in the interactions between the parts: between the pianist (Phillip Bush), the percussionist (Greg Stuart), and the sine tones (by Michael Pisaro). It affects the melody and the resonance, the timing and the coordination between parts. The intermingling of shadow pitches and extended resonances creates effects that are at least as vivid as any articulation.

Gradual change is a feature of the entire work, on the most local scale (measure by measure) and on the macro scale as well. Timing, resonance, melody, register, and dynamics are all intertwined in these slow transformations. "The work is essentially about the morphology and topography of this resonance." This recording, like the piece itself, best reveals itself when it is "let loose in an environment," played on speakers rather than headphones, in order to continue to develop its shape."

If you're interested this is a link to the liner notes -

http://www.newworldrecords.org/uploads/fileKs5mP.pdf


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## Portamento

I have a Wandelweiser box set which includes some of his works and also a disc entitled _fields have ears_. Very cool stuff, but requires many listens to 'crack'.


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## mmsbls

*Composer: Natasha Barrett (1972 -)*


----------



## Guest

Looking forward to seeing the replies on this one. One of my favourite composers currently active! I highly recommend _Little Animals_ as a good starting point. Enjoy!


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## Duncan

mmsbls said:


> *Composer: Natasha Barrett (1972 -)*











Link to complete album -






"A master in electroacoustic music and digital sound manipulation, English composer Natasha Barrett leaves few traces of familiar sounds or instruments in her music, although the audio sources often are acoustic. Here she performs five of her compositions composed between 1994 and 1997. The album's newest composition, 'Animalcules' is from 2010."

"The title Puzzle Wood refers to a forest in Gloucestershire, where Barrett grew up, and also gives name to this album's key track, and oldest composition. The technology available at the time in 1994, did not suffice in creating what Barrett viewed as a representative master. Hence, this is the first time the piece is now available in an edition which brings forth musically important elements lost in the original version."

"The term acousmatic sound refers to sound that you hear, but cannot see the origin of. Barrett's intention is that the removal of visual information frees the listener's 'audio-fantasy'. A master in electroacoustic music and digital sound manipulation, Barrett's works are performed all over the world. She has received numerous accolades, among them the Nordic Council Muzic Prize (Nordic countries), the Giga-Hertz Award (Germany) and the Edvard Prize (Norway). Puzzle Wood is her 11th album release. Natasha Barrett has a PhD in composition and is a leading figure in contemporary acousmatic music."









Link to complete album -






"In 2006 Natasha Barrett was awarded the prestigious Nordic Council Music Prize for her work …fetters… released by Aurora. Her new album consists of one work only: "Trade Winds" is a fantastic voyage down to the mythical and physical depths of the wide oceans."

"The piece is inspired by the vast expanse of sea - unleashing the musical potential of recordings from the 100-year-old sailing ship Dyrafjeld, from above and within harbour, shore and open oceans around the world, and the spoken narrative of an old Norwegian captain. From a narrative listening position Trade Winds' macrostructure consists of two halves, the first exploring culture and fables, the second exploring nature and science. The central pivot is inspired by the chapter Mobilis in Mobili from 20000 Leagues under the Sea by Jules Verne. Throughout Trade Winds the reference to Captain Nemo is evident in various manifestations of organ recordings."

"Musical narrative is not necessarily a predictable linear chain of events, and surprise is essential to a compelling story. Natasha Barrett launches multiple narratives in parallel and lets them take turns, interrupt each other, unfold simultaneously, or twist backwards. Sounds emerge from the depths and sweep dramatically across the sound stage in an ever evolving dance of sonic patterns."









Link to complete album -






"The pieces on Kraftfelt (Force Field) take place in the space between the abstract moving and the concrete descriptive. Natasha Barrett uses organic samples as a basis, and moulds her musical material from that. Her works unfolds in the twilight-zone between the world as we hear it around us and our inner experiences. She presents both an external narrative and a psychological process for the listener to take part in."

Genuinely interesting musical narrative - superbly crafted multi-layered soundscape - every note precisely placed...


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## deprofundis

Im exploring Paul Creston & Alan Hovhaness two great ,americain composer, that flabbergast me over the year, and perhaps, the very esoterical, magical ,world of Giacinto Scelsi : Natura Renovator my favorite work of his, beautiful yet spooky travel trought space and time , a leap of faith, incredible music (mandatory listen everybody) you will love it, and accessible for contemporarie of 20 century, very great composer.


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## Guest

Any more people listening to Barrett?


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## Guest

yes, i listen to natasha but i admit it is difficult music for me, although i will not quit on her; my approach is to listen again to some of the electronic masters like lucier, dhomont, bayle, R.barrett, ferrari, bates, sciarrino and then to go back to natasha; somehow i get lost in her music which is not the case with the others mentioned


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## millionrainbows

I think Natasha Barrett is definitely worth looking into. I like Francois Bayle; I think he's worthy of his own thread. The real "old masters" of electronic music for me are Stockhausen, Otto Luening, Vladimir Ussachevsky, Babbitt, and Walter Carlos (pre "Switched-on Bach).


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## PeterFromLA

Listening to Barrett, on headphones. It's very appealing stuff. A cross between the electronic music of Stockhausen, Saariaho, and Ingram Marshall. None of these composers worked in the medium for very long, so it's good to hear someone working with this material in such depth. In particular, her Trade Winds is remarkable. Such a sense of space and depth, brings to mind Marshall's Fog Tropes and other pieces.


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## Kjetil Heggelund

I'm also listening, to "Racing Unseen" from Puzzle Wood...
"Puzzle Wood is a revelation. Containing five works, four of which date from the mid-1990s, the revelatory aspects are three-fold: first, how accomplished Natasha Barrett was at this early stage in her career; second, how consistent these pieces are (aesthetically speaking) with her subsequent work; and third, how distinct and different they are from the majority of British electronic and acousmatic music being composed around that time, sounding neither remotely dated, nor in thrall to or at the mercy of the technology being used to create them. Rare indeed! And in each and every piece, Barrett’s unique, unpredictable yet organic approach to both the moment-by-moment handling of sounds as well as to their structural arrangement and distribution makes for the most vividly immersive experience. There’s something of an ambient sensibility in the way sound objects gradually acquire or deplete mass and momentum, drifting in space and meeting and melding under their own gravitational forces (particularly in 1997’s Little Animals). But equally these works exhibit a remarkable ‘demonstrative range’, from infinitesimal, quasi-static suspensions to muscular, aggressive effusions. And quite apart from any of this, they all sound completely gorgeous. Only superlatives are adequate in situations like this: this is simply some of the most jaw-droppingly fabulous electronic music I’ve ever heard."
review by Simon Cummings from 5 against 4.
...
I'm also enjoying it and I'm not so used to electronic music.


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## Sangburd

Very much enjoying Barrett, although it's hard for me to group this together with "classical music". I still need some getting used to it, I guess...


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## mmsbls

I listened to several works from Puzzle Wood. There are certainly interesting as well as pleasurable parts, but I still basically hear them as sounds rather than as music. I realize some will say sounds are music, but I mean that I would place listening to these works in a similar category to seeing a light show, tasting a variety of foods, or maybe walking along the beach. They are sensory experiences that can be enjoyable or not, interesting or not, but distinct from how I listen to music. That of course may be my limitation, but I don't seem to be able to relate the sounds to each other in the manner that I generally can with music. 

Anyway, I can imagine others finding these captivating.


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## millionrainbows

mmsbls said:


> I listened to several works from Puzzle Wood. There are certainly interesting as well as pleasurable parts, but I still basically hear them as sounds rather than as music. I realize some will say sounds are music, but I mean that I would place listening to these works in a similar category to seeing a light show, tasting a variety of foods, or maybe walking along the beach. They are sensory experiences that can be enjoyable or not, interesting or not, but distinct from how I listen to music. That of course may be my limitation, but I don't seem to be able to relate the sounds to each other in the manner that I generally can with music.





mmsbls said:


> Anyway, I can imagine others finding these captivating.




That description sounds to me as if listening to music is for you a very conscious process; and involves scrutiny, deliberation, and weighing and examining the reasons for and against a choice in music.

Natasha Barrett's music, for me, represents the other emerging side of yin and yang. This music embodies the yin or female aspect: weather, water, the Earth, and in this way demands just the opposite: an almost unconscious process, suspending judgement, waiting, being receptive. This is the "John Cage" aesthetic, more Eastern. Listening to music from a female like this makes me more keenly aware of how "male" or "yang" oriented Western music is.


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## philoctetes

shirime said:


> Any more people listening to Barrett?


I just took off some Dufay to hear Little Animals on Spotify... It's ok but honestly I live in the woods so it sounds like recent Monday mornings when the birds are chirping and the Alhambra truck comes down the street...


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## mmsbls

millionrainbows said:


> That description sounds to me as if listening to music is for you a very conscious process; and involves scrutiny, deliberation, and weighing and examining the reasons for and against a choice in music.


I think listening to anything is a conscious process. One may hear sounds in the background when focused elsewhere, but I assume most people would not then say they were listening to the music. Rather the music was on in the background.

I'm certainly not aware of scrutinizing or examining music. I generally listen to see what I find interesting or enjoyable. Before listening, I already had good reasons for choosing to listen to those works. Why would I examine or weigh those reasons while listening?


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## millionrainbows

It seemed that you came to a conclusion, and I explained what I thought that conclusion might be based on.


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## mmsbls

millionrainbows said:


> It seemed that you came to a conclusion, and I explained what I thought that conclusion might be based on.


Fair enough. I don't know exactly why I view Barrett's music the way I do.


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## millionrainbows

I'm going to throw this in, as I stumbled across it in my search for the Barrett CD "Tradewinds." This music seems to be based more on "drones" which slowly change. In this sense, it reminds me of the Francois Bayle that I've heard. He was an IRCAM guy. Also, Jean-Claude Risset comes to mind, also IRCAM.


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## mmsbls

*Composer: Georg Haas (1953 -)*


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## mmsbls

Limited Approximations for 6 micro-tonally tuned pianos and orchestra was the first micro toned work that I enjoyed. The pianos are tuned to twelfth tones which Haas says are not heard as intervals but rather as shadings of a single tone.

In Vain is another microtonal work. It's a long work (about an hour) composed in response to the rise of the right wing in Austria. In general I can never hear much of a relation between music and the composer's intentions.

I have wanted to explore Haas more especially his chamber works so hopefully I'll use the next couple of weeks to listen to works others suggest and works I have had in mind to hear.


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## Enthusiast

I know two pieces by Haas - In Vain and the Trombone Concerto - and like both of them. They are quite similar and I am not sure I have a proper sense of who Haas is as a composer, his range etc.


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## philoctetes

my first thought was of Pavel Haas  this guy's full name sounds like a baroque composer...

I'm getting way too many good recs today, thanks

Now playing:


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## philoctetes

mmsbls said:


> Limited Approximations for 6 micro-tonally tuned pianos and orchestra was the first micro toned work that I enjoyed. The pianos are tuned to twelfth tones which Haas says are not heard as intervals but rather as shadings of a single tone.
> 
> In Vain is another microtonal work. It's a long work (about an hour) composed in response to the rise of the right wing in Austria. In general I can never hear much of a relation between music and the composer's intentions.
> 
> I have wanted to explore Haas more especially his chamber works so hopefully I'll use the next couple of weeks to listen to works others suggest and works I have had in mind to hear.


Wanted to see some of the score, just for curiosity, but the synopsis was interesting enough:

"The twelfth-tone interval is so small that it is no longer heard as an interval, but rather as the shading of a single note. A single tone played by a romantic orchestra has a wider frequency. The aural effect of a scale in twelfth-tone intervals is thus similar to a glissando. The effect of a cluster of twelfth-tones depends on the register: higher up, it is sharp, abrasive, biting, lower down it is soft, melting, rich. Of course it is also possible to build raw, dissonant chords with twelve-tone intervals - much more differentiated (also in the degree of acuteness) than with the traditional 12 tones per octave. But it is also possible to build much more "consonant" chords then in the traditional twelve-note scale: a close approximation of the twelve-tone scale can be produced in the overtone scale, accurate up to a twelfth of a tone."

I don't get much insight into how modern harmony works so scraps like this are illuminating...


----------



## Kjetil Heggelund

These guys are doing very interesting things for guitars these days. They have made a bunch of world premieres and continue to do so. Here as well there is microtonality of course


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## Iota

mmsbls said:


> Limited Approximations for 6 micro-tonally tuned pianos and orchestra was the first micro toned work that I enjoyed. The pianos are tuned to twelfth tones which Haas says are not heard as intervals but rather as shadings of a single tone.


Thanks for posting this, I found myself drawn into it. Generally, a little spectral music goes a long way for me and I normally find after ten or fifteen minutes, listening becomes more a question of persistence than pleasure, but I was happy to stay the half hour of this one. 
He seems to use the expressive possibilities of microtonality to great effect, and the music feels at times very visual - at one point my brain threw up the peculiar but vivid impression of riding bare-chested on a stegosaurus, for the chill feeling one passage gave me! - and there were a few other highly arresting moments.

Having said that, first hearings of new music for me, are sometimes followed by underwhelming second hearings, so will wait to see what fruit (or dinosaurs ) it bears at our next meeting.


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## Portamento

Haas is in my opinion one of the greatest living composers, although he is a bit inconsistent. Favorites of mine include _in vain_, _String Quartet No. 3 "In iij. Noct."_, _Hyperion_, and _limited approximations_. The two concerti grossi from 2014 are interesting takes on a genre that has had somewhat of a 20th-century blossoming (with composers such as Bloch, Martinů, Vaughan Williams, and Schnittke taking up the cause).


----------



## millionrainbows

mmsbls said:


> Limited Approximations for 6 micro-tonally tuned pianos and orchestra was the first micro toned work that I enjoyed. The pianos are tuned to twelfth tones which Haas says are not heard as intervals but rather as shadings of a single tone.


I underwent a test using two wind chimes tuned 2 cents apart. I could tell which one was higher, but it appeared as a "brighter" sound.
A semitone is 100 cents, so a twelfth tone would be 8.333... cents. That's quite a bit, actually, enough to hear pitch differences, I think. I'd like to hear this work, so I will listen to the link. Is this Spectralism? Cool!

I notice in the Youtube comments: "Just another horror movie soundtrack." and "Yawn." Oh, well...
It's interesting that Haas has found a way around micro-intervals using traditional instruments. If you think about it, the pioneers used pianos as well: La Monte Young's "The Well-Tuned Piano" and Terry Riley's "The Harp of New Albion." It makes sense; traditional instruments are not as precisely able to control, _instantly, _and very consistently, micro-intervals.
An important thing to remember is that "just" intervals can be approximated as well, not just microtonal dissonances. That's why Harry Partch used a 43-tone scale.

The piece gets very interesting around the 15-minute mark.


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## philoctetes

Listening to the Kairos disc reminds me of phasing effects in electronic music, there was also a Reich-like section... the microtones enable a lot of versatility in sounding... rolling tones over and inside out as if holographic...

And right now I'm listening to the Arditti from the Sony Ligeti project and it's not hard to link Ligeti to Haas...


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## tortkis

I re-listened to Limited approximations and found it more interesting than before. At the first listen it reminded me of Ligeti but now I also hear some similarity to pure intonation drones of La Monte Young and others. Last year, New Focus Recordings released his early work, Trois Hommages (1982/1984), for two pianos tuned a quarter tone apart, dedicated to Ligeti, Hauer and Reich. It is more strict and repetitive compared with the later works.


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## Iota

Iota said:


> first hearings of new music for me, are sometimes followed by underwhelming second hearings


.. not this time! If anything it gained in drama and viscerality second time.

I read in the mmsbls link above that Haas doesn't do formal structure, nonetheless the balance of momentum between episodes seems so well judged, and I'm left at the very least with the impression of a group of very coherently hung tableaux.

The score seems full of very arresting moments, such as the piano arpeggiations at about 20 mins which are like the blooming of some luminescent alien algae. And the piano flourishes in the last minute of the piece, which I find truly unachored and hypnotic.
I sometimes, perhaps not surprisingly, get the impression of solid structures melting, a la Dali, with microtonality. Particularly on the piano I think.


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## millionrainbows

I like those descriptions.


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## philoctetes

I haven't heard anything by Aperghis I don't like. Add one more to the list... we don't even have a guestbook for him... listening to this, I rate it a 94, Mr Clark... you can dance to it


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## millionrainbows

philoctetes said:


> I haven't heard anything by Aperghis I don't like. Add one more to the list... we don't even have a guestbook for him... listening to this, I rate it a 94, Mr Clark... you can dance to it
> 
> View attachment 119242


Really? you can dance to an accordion concerto? :lol:


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## philoctetes

millionrainbows said:


> Really? you can dance to an accordion concerto? :lol:


Dancing in Your Head... after that one played last night, I let Spotify keep playing more Aperghis... for the moment I'll call it Acid Eraserhead Cabaret - nothing quite like it, every voice and instrument is alive, talking in some animal language, birds, mammals, invertebrae.. or maybe just aliens... recalling old Pink Floyd a bit... I dozed off while listening, woke up to a chorus of hilarious cackles... here is one in my collection, saxes and viols in conversation... scarecrow wrote a fine review - don't you miss him?


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## millionrainbows

philoctetes said:


> Dancing in Your Head... after that one played last night, I let Spotify keep playing more Aperghis... for the moment I'll call it Acid Eraserhead Cabaret - nothing quite like it, every voice and instrument is alive, talking in some animal language, birds, mammals, invertebrae.. or maybe just aliens... recalling old Pink Floyd a bit... I dozed off while listening, woke up to a chorus of hilarious cackles... here is one in my collection, saxes and viols in conversation... scarecrow wrote a fine review - don't you miss him?


Oh, yeah! Scarecrow! Ye, I miss him! Did you know I was the one who got him to come to Amazon? I read some of his Amazon record reviews, and messaged him to come over & advocate for modern. I always liked his weird punctuation & typing.


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## denisov

As for Haas, I recently heard _Im Schatten der Harfen_ for two microtonally-tuned harps and the premiere of his trio _Equinox_. Im Schatten der Harfen was a very colourful piece, especially because of the interesting microtonal interaction between the harps. In contrast, Equinox for piano, cello and clarinet was built on tonal triads with one added tone, and while the cello and piano parts were very virtuosic, the clarinet played a descending chromatic scale with the clarinetist using circular breathing througout the piece.


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## mmsbls

I just finished listening to Haas's Solstices (2019), a work for 10 musicians to be performed entirely in the dark. Apparently, almost all the music is memorized along with some improvisation. It's the kind of work that I would have quizzically shook my head about 5 years ago and dismissed as, well, who knows what. At times it sounds mildly like an orchestra tuning. at times its minimalist, at times its repeated chords, and at other times it sounds magnificent. The "very precisely tuned" piano seems to lead the instruments through episode after episode of mixed sounds. It's 70 minutes, and to my surprise the time went by rather quickly.

The work is clearly not for everyone, but I found it a wonderful ride.


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## mmsbls

*Composer: Ross Edwards (1943 -)*


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## denisov

I listened into pieces from his violin concerto and 2nd symphony. His music has beautiful melodies and an interesting atmosphere, embracing elements of different styles while remaining emotionally intense.


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## Lisztian

I've heard around five works by Edwards and, while generally attractive, found four of them somewhat underwhelming. However, I found his 'Full Moon Dances' to be quite wonderful. Recommended for anyone fond of a neo-romantic/modal mixture, with some early Stravinskian touches. I have it on this disc, which I recommend as a whole for a good introduction to three top Aussie composers: https://www.amazon.com/Island-Songs-Amy-Dickson/dp/B016V9JQ9E


----------



## mmsbls

I listened to Edwards' Full Moon Dances and found it thoroughly enjoyable. I seemed to enjoy the work more as I heard each movement.

I also heard his Marimba Dances which I did enjoy although I wouldn't say it made a strong impression. I love the timbre of the marimba so I would probably enjoy just about anything I heard. I did find it curious that the work is performed with a single mallet in each hand rather the two. I'm not sure I've ever seen a work performed with a single mallet per hand.


----------



## mmsbls

I heard Edwards Piano Concerto and Piano Trio

Concerto
Movement 1
Movement 2
Movement 3

His music seems generally rather melodic and somewhat constrained. Both the concerto and trio have conservative 2nd movements with beautiful passages. Probably my favorite movements were the concertos first and the trio's quirky 3rd movement.

The piano concerto apparently was "[m]isunderstood and vilified in the 1980s by orthodox modernists" but was later accepted and is now one of Australia's more popular works.


----------



## mmsbls

Here's Edwards' Dawn Canticle, an arrangement from his Dawn mantras. I'm not much of a fan of throat singing or the didgeridoo, but somehow they seems to work well with the children's choir in this work.


----------



## mmsbls

*Composer: Martin Amlin (1953 -)*


----------



## millionrainbows

From WIK:

Martin Amlin (born June 12, 1953) is an American composer and pianist. He was born in Dallas, Texas.
He serves as Professor of Music and Chair of the Department of Composition and Theory at the Boston University College of Fine Arts as well as the Director of the Boston University Tanglewood Institute Young Artists Composition Program.

Martin Amlin received Master of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees and the Performer's Certificate from the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester. At Eastman he studied piano with Frank Glazer and composition with *Joseph Schwantner, *Samuel Adler, and Warren Benson. He studied with *Nadia Boulanger* at the Ecoles d'Art Américaines in Fontainebleau and at the Ecole Normale de Musique in Paris.
Amlin has been a resident at Yaddo, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and the MacDowell Colony. He has performed as soloist with the Boston Pops Orchestra and is a rehearsal pianist for the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Tanglewood Festival Chorus. He has appeared on the FleetBoston Celebrity Series and with the M.I.T. Experimental Music Studio. He has recorded for the Albany, Ashmont Music, Centaur, Crystal, Hyperion, Koch International, MSR Classics, and Wergo labels, and his music is published by the Theodore Presser Company.

Unfortunately, there are no YouTube clips of the music I really like, from this CD:















Here are some clips, from a recording I don't have:









He is concerned with intervals, which i find very interesting. In his flute pieces, he "cycles" through intervals, and since the flute has a limited range, it lends itself well to "cycling" intervals through its range. There's something about the presence of fifths in his music that I really like.


----------



## mmsbls

I listened to several works from the CD Music for Flute, Clarinet, and Piano including the Clarinet Sonata. My favorites were Intrada and Trio Sonatina (Rhapsody, Scherzo, Interlude, and Aria).

Apparently he likes to feature seventh chords and non-strict usage of tone rows. Intrada uses a 4 note pitch class set, and the Scherzo from the Trio Sonatina includes a full tone row.


----------



## mmsbls

I listened to two of Amlin's works on the CD _In Shadow, Light_ (shown in millions' post above). The Sonatina Piccola is available here although I heard it from the CD on the Naxos Library. I enjoyed the Piccolo Sonata especially the Invention, Variations, and, Pantoum. The Invention is based on Bach's Invention.

Unfortunately, there are not many works of Amlin available on Youtube. The Naxos Library has the two CDs I've heard along with some additional music (mostly solo piano). I will try to listen to some of the piano works soon.


----------



## mmsbls

*Composer: Unsuk Chin (1961 -)*


----------



## Kjetil Heggelund

Hey! I recommended her! Actually she was festival composer/artist in residence at Bergen International Festival this year. I will dig up some more news and pieces to hear very soon. Fishsoup upstairs now!


----------



## Kjetil Heggelund

Unsuk Chin made her breakthrough with this piece in 1994...maybe 93...

Composer's Notes

I Hide and Seek
II The Puzzle of the Three Magic Gates
III The Rules of the Game - sdrawkcab emiT
IV Four Seasons in Five Verses
V Domifare S
VI The Game of Chance
VII From the Old Time

Akrostichon-Wortspiel (Akrostic-Wordplay), Commissioned by the Gaudeamus Foundation, was composed in 1991 for the occasion of the 1991 Gaudeamus Prizewinner's Concert and its first performance, in incomplete form, was given by the Nieuw Ensemble in Amsterdam conducted by David Porcelijn. The piece was completed two years later and this definitive version received its premiere at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London on 8 September 1993 with George Benjamin conducting the Premiere Ensemble.

Akrostichon-Wortspiel consists of seven scenes from the fairytales The Endless Story by Michael Ende and Alice through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll. The selected texts have been worked upon in different ways: sometimes the consonants and vowels have been randomly joined together, other times the words have been read backwards so that the symbolic meaning alone remains.

Each of the seven pieces is constructed around a controlling pitch centre but in their means of expression they are fully differentiated from one another. Seven different situations of emotional states, as described in the fairytales, ranging from the bright to the grotesque are brought to expression.

The tunings of some of the ensemble instruments are adapted from one quarter to one sixth of a tone to achieve a fine microtonality. The solo soprano fluctuates between these two tuning systems, depending upon which she perceives at any time.

Unsuk Chin, 1993

The recommended recording from the publisher Boosey & Hawkes is: Piia Komsi, soprano / Ensemble Intercontemporain / Kazushi Ono on the Kairos label.


----------



## Kjetil Heggelund

Here's a piece from 2007 for violin & electronics. I'm hearing it for the first time, like the one in the previous post (and the next).


----------



## Kjetil Heggelund

Here's a third piece to start off. This one's from 2012. The composer has quite a lot to say about this. Here's a link to boozey.com:


----------



## Janspe

Unsuk Chin is my favourite contemporary composer. Her work is brilliantly written, always exciting and imaginative. There are echoes of Ligeti in her work - he was her (brutal) teacher after all - but at the end of the day her style is completely her own.

_Gougalōn_ (2009-11) is a fantastic work, one of the pieces I'd show to anyone trying out her music:






I'm also very, _very_ fond of the concertos she's written: the _Piano Concerto_ (1996-97), the _Violin Concerto_ (2001) and the _Cello Concerto_ (2009-13) in particular, but they're all worth listening to.

I saw the piano concerto live this spring in Helsinki and it was one of the most powerful musical experiences of my life. Chin was there in the audience; when I saw her I felt ridiculously star-struck!

The above-mentioned _Akrostichon-Wortspiel_ is definitely one of her most playful scores.

The strange little quintet _Fantaisie mécanique_ (1994-97) for trumpet, trombone, two percussions and piano is a lot of fun too.

There's of course a lot of other great pieces waiting to be discovered. All in all, I haven't encountered a work of Chin's that I don't like yet!


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## mmsbls

I love her concertos as well. The Double Concerto for prepared piano, solo percussion and ensemble (2002) is a wonderful blend of textures and timbres. The work does not really sound like a concerto because the solo instruments do not stand out as in normal concertos. Here's a brief discussion.


----------



## mmsbls

I listened to her 6 piano etudes. She studied with Ligeti in the late 1980s, and there seem to be similarities to his etudes. The 6th was written for Boulez's 75th birthday. Apparently though Chin is a pianist, she does not compose at the piano but chooses to use her aural imagination.

I liked all of these works especially the 1st and 5th.


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## PeterFromLA

Chin is to my ears an essential composer. By that I mean that she is one of those composers whose output I stay abreast of. I'm always interested in purchasing recordings of her work, and I'm delighted when I get a chance to hear her pieces in concert or to see previously unknown clips of concerts of her work on you tube (her facebook page often features clips of new pieces). She is one of the most interesting composers at work today, and her aural imagination I find riveting. 

Of all of Ligeti's students, she is the one who most emulated the master, not in terms of sounding like him (though sometimes she does), as much as in creating an identifiable sense of musical space and syntax. Each piece is distinctive, like a performed map of a somewhere that depicts life, fauna and flora both. Her Acrostic word play, Cello Concerto, Violin Concerto, Piano Etudes, Xi, and so forth never cease to engage and stimulate my ear buds.


----------



## mikeh375

I must confess to having only heard snippets of Chin so far, but that was enough, she's is on my 'must get to know very,very well' list, so these recommendations are most appreciated. 

I like your description @PeterFromLA of what is a modern trend..."creating an identifiable sense of musical space and syntax". This is possible to the farthest reaches imaginable thanks to the rhythmic legacy of the 20thC. Composer's freed from the obligations of regular pulse are able to wander uncharted territory much more uniquely and seemingly on a whim sometimes (which more often than not is probably tightly controlled). 

From one who has no wish to travel so far creatively, I can only marvel at the creative conviction, stated with such vivd elan and technical prowess in works by the likes of Chin and her peers.
Can anyone recommend any more excellent CD's?


----------



## schigolch

The opera "Alice in Wonderland" is the piece by Unsuk Chin that interests me the most.

Her "Alice" was premiered back in 2007, at the Bayerische Staatsoper, and runs for about 2 hours.

The music is quite eclectic, with a wide range of sounds... perhaps a trifle too wide. The vocal writing could be more personal.

However, the libretto (written by the composer and David Henry Hwang) is lively, and overall is an enjoyable opera. There is a DVD available:


----------



## mikeh375

Janspe said:


> Unsuk Chin is my favourite contemporary composer. Her work is brilliantly written, always exciting and imaginative. There are echoes of Ligeti in her work - he was her (brutal) teacher after all - but at the end of the day her style is completely her own.
> 
> _Gougalōn_ (2009-11) is a fantastic work, one of the pieces I'd show to anyone trying out her music:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I'm also very, _very_ fond of the concertos she's written: the _Piano Concerto_ (1996-97), the _Violin Concerto_ (2001) and the _Cello Concerto_ (2009-13) in particular, but they're all worth listening to.
> 
> I saw the piano concerto live this spring in Helsinki and it was one of the most powerful musical experiences of my life. Chin was there in the audience; when I saw her I felt ridiculously star-struck!
> 
> The above-mentioned _Akrostichon-Wortspiel_ is definitely one of her most playful scores.
> 
> The strange little quintet _Fantaisie mécanique_ (1994-97) for trumpet, trombone, two percussions and piano is a lot of fun too.
> 
> There's of course a lot of other great pieces waiting to be discovered. All in all, I haven't encountered a work of Chin's that I don't like yet!


What an unusual and intriguing piece, played with such conviction by one of the best ensembles in the world. It's interesting to see how 'sound design' has become more and more free of convention in the new over the last 100 years or so. We have the emancipation of the notes, rhythm_ and_ timbre...we are spoilt for choice as creators and listeners.
Is that a bottleaphon?? and who got to drink the contents?..she knows how to please her musos...


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## mikeh375

mmsbls said:


> I listened to her 6 piano etudes. She studied with Ligeti in the late 1980s, and there seem to be similarities to his etudes. The 6th was written for Boulez's 75th birthday. Apparently though Chin is a pianist, she does not compose at the piano but chooses to use her aural imagination.
> 
> I liked all of these works especially the 1st and 5th.


I thoroughly enjoyed these too. A very satisfying intellectual and musical listen that appeals to ears, mind and soul in equal measure. I always prefer a score on first listens so thanks for the link mmsbls.


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## mmsbls

*Composer: György Kurtág (1926 -)*


----------



## Art Rock

Interesting. Over the decades, I accumulated six Kurtag CD's*, but they did not make me want to explore him further. It will be good to see which works are recommended.

*
- Scenes from a novel, Quasi una fantasia, Troussova messages (Various, Sony)
- String quartet, Aus der Ferne III, Ligatura etc (Keller Quartett et al, ECM)
- Holderlin-Gesange, Signs games and messages etc (Widmer et al, ECM)
- Complete works for ensemble and choir (Asko/Schoenberg, de Leeuw, ECM, CD 1/3)
- Complete works for ensemble and choir (Asko/Schoenberg, de Leeuw, ECM, CD 2/3)
- Complete works for ensemble and choir (Asko/Schoenberg, de Leeuw, ECM, CD 3/3)


----------



## Kjetil Heggelund

I can recommend the ensemble/choir album from ECM. Earlier this summer I only listened to Kurtág for almost a week. His Kafka-fragments for soprano and violin is recorded several times. Also there's a recording of the premiere the recent opera on youtube right here...


----------



## Iota

Though generally I've not quite found my way into Kurtag's work yet, I'd nonetheless unreservedly recommend the magnificent _Stele_, for me an unequivocal 20th century masterpiece. I'll follow other contributions with interest.


----------



## Enthusiast

I love his music. There are those who say he is our greatest living composer and I certainly don't have any arguments against that view. The Kafka Fragments is great, of course, and Stele is another fine work. I also enjoy Signs, Games and Messages (for solo viola) and this record is one that I have played often since buying it a couple of years ago (there are many fine works on it):


----------



## PeterFromLA

I'm one of those who consider Kurtag the greatest living composer. His utterances are poetic, imbued by history, and enigmatic, like shards of broken beauty that we are left to marvel at.

Even his Jatekok, or Games, which are intended as "pedagogical performance pieces" are a delight. He has been writing them for decades, with a ninth volume appearing just a couple of years ago. Some of the pieces are for two hands, some for four hands, and I treasure the recordings of him and his elderly wife performing the latter works, interspersed with pieces by JS Bach. A true pleasure.

I agree that Kafka Fragments and Stele are among his great works, but he has several fantastic works besides, including works for solo violin, solo viola, piano plus voice, and piano plus ensemble, that are worth seeking out. The works travel well, as can be seen when he arranges them for different instruments and combinations of instruments. He's a composer to know, even if you don't get him yet. At some point it may just "click" for you.


----------



## Red Terror

PeterFromLA said:


> I'm one of those who consider Kurtag the greatest living composer. His utterances are poetic, imbued by history, and enigmatic, like shards of broken beauty that we are left to marvel at.
> 
> Even his Jatekok, or Games, which are intended as "pedagogical performance pieces" are a delight. He has been writing them for decades, with a ninth volume appearing just a couple of years ago. Some of the pieces are for two hands, some for four hands, and I treasure the recordings of him and his elderly wife performing the latter works, interspersed with pieces by JS Bach. A true pleasure.
> 
> I agree that Kafka Fragments and Stele are among his great works, but he has several fantastic works besides, including works for solo violin, solo viola, piano plus voice, and piano plus ensemble, that are worth seeking out. The works travel well, as can be seen when he arranges them for different instruments and combinations of instruments. He's a composer to know, even if you don't get him yet. At some point it may just "click" for you.


I'd have to agree that Kurtág is most probably the greatest living composer. I really cannot wait for a proper recording of his opera "Fin de partie".


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## mmsbls

*Composer: Steve Reich (1936 -)*


----------



## schigolch

I love Steve Reich's work, I think he is one of the really fundamental composers of the 20th century.

Within his list of works my favorite is one of his most celebrated pieces, _Different Trains_, for string quartet and tape.

Wonderful music, and set to open new grounds. This is a recent perfomance:


----------



## mmsbls

I also love a lot of Reich's music. Music for 18 Musicians is one of my favorites although I came to it much later then much of Reich's other music. I love his work for percussion whether in ensembles with other instruments or percussion alone.

Music for 18 Musicians


----------



## PeterFromLA

Music for 18 is of course great, as is Drumming. Those are Reich's two most famous pieces, I guess... plus Different Trains. (I was at the performance of the piece by Eighth Blackbird that mmsbls links just above, held at the MOCA in Chicago. It was exhilirating, but be sure to check out the performance of the Ensemble Modern, as Steve Reich himself is playing with them: 



)

I love the famous works, but I also enjoy very much his less celebrated pieces. Octet for instance, later rescored and retitled Eight Lines, here allegedly performed by Ensemble Modern, but to my ears it actually sounds like the original recording, by Reich's band, on ECM -- no one has captured that same fleet, transparent, and tightly-coiled quality of sound that Reich and his group managed:






The best recording of another piece I enjoy very much I have only seen on video. It is of the Sextet, and it's really quite an engrossing show:






A small piece, Duet (for two violins and string orchestra, written on behalf of Yehudi Menuhin, is unexpectedly lyrical. It's one of my favorite small pieces by Reich:






And for the Reich nerds in the house, there's David Cossin's iteration of Piano Phase, Piano/Video Phase:


----------



## Portamento

I echo schigolch's words in that Reich is one of the 20th century's greatest composers. He fundamentally changed how composers write for percussion and his influence is probably seen in the majority of those working today.


----------



## schigolch

Steve Reich has been rather refractory to opera.

However, working with his wife, the visual artist Beryl Korot, he created in the 1990s, "The Cave", what they called a 'multimedia opera'.

Exploring further the concept, they released another 'multimedia opera', "Three Tales", back in 2002. It's based on three episodes of the 20th century: the Hindenburg's zeppelin accident, the atomic tests on the Bikini atoll, and the cloning of the sheep Dolly.

It has been released both as a CD, with the music by Reich, and as a DVD, including images by Korot:


----------



## mmsbls

*Composer: Dai Fujikura (1977 -)*


----------



## calvinpv

One thing that's really intriguing about Fujikura's music is that it's absolutely impossible to pigeonhole and has a truly international feel to it. I hear no influences from musique concrète instrumentale, no spectralist influences, no influences from the music theater aesthetic, no folk, nationalist, or popular influences, just nothing. In fact, I've read in a couple of interviews that whenever his Japanese heritage pops through his music, Fujikura actively rewrites the music and represses said heritage.

I'll explore some of his music over the next few days and post what I like, but from what I've already heard, I really enjoy these:

Atom (2009)





Phantom Splinter (2009, revised 2013)





Prism Spectra (2009)





Sparking Orbit (2013)


----------



## Portamento

calvinpv said:


> In fact, I've read in a couple of interviews that whenever his Japanese heritage pops through his music, Fujikura actively rewrites the music and represses said heritage.


That's extremely fascinating. I remember really liking _Sparking Orbit_ from the electronic works project, so I'm looking forward to revisiting it and others.


----------



## millionrainbows

calvinpv said:


> One thing that's really intriguing about Fujikura's music is that it's absolutely impossible to pigeonhole and has a truly international feel to it. I hear no influences from musique concrète instrumentale, no spectralist influences, no influences from the music theater aesthetic, no folk, nationalist, or popular influences, just nothing. In fact, I've read in a couple of interviews that whenever his Japanese heritage pops through his music, Fujikura actively rewrites the music and represses said heritage.


I guess I'm just a pigeonholing kind of guy, but I hear things which remind me of other things. Luciano Berio used tape & musique concrete methods to modify real instruments, alongside of those unmodified instruments. Fujikura seems to be expanding on that idea, with "Prism Spectra" which features mainly violin/string sounds, and "Phantom Splinter" which features woodwind sounds.

Also, the music seems very "musique concrete" to me throughout.

As far as Japanese heritage is concerned, it's "Japanese" to even take this kind of music/sound seriously, unlike most Westerners you will encounter. The Asian mind is more receptive.

BTW, I like it, enough to purchase "Ice" and "Mirrors."


----------



## mmsbls

I listened to Atom and Ice. Both were enjoyable although I liked Ice more. I'm not a great fan of guitar, but I actually liked the guitar parts the most in Ice.

I also heard Diamond Dust (Piano Concerto No. 2). Fujikura describes the work saying, "As the piece progresses, the piano creates more and more material which is added to this fragmented diamantine labyrinth of distorted harmonic textures which constantly behave unpredictably yet slowly forms a crystal castle that imprisons the piano and vibraphone which then struggle to escape."

I'm not sure I hear that struggle, but then, I often don't hear what composers intend in their music.


----------



## calvinpv

mmsbls said:


> I listened to Atom and Ice. Both were enjoyable although I liked Ice more. I'm not a great fan of guitar, but I actually liked the guitar parts the most in Ice.


According to the liner notes for _ice_, the guitar is vigorously strummed high up on the fingerboard and the higher strings are tuned upwards a step in order to give the impression of ice cracking apart into shards or two ice sheets grinding against each other. I agree, the guitar part is pretty nice.

In fact, this seems to be a recurring theme in Fujikura's music: the use of regular or extended techniques and electronic processing of sounds in order to give an impression of some everyday object or event. For example, in _Phantom Splinter_ the wooodwinds play a "warm rain of multiphonics" to give the impression of walking under the canopy of a forest. In _wondrous steps_, Fujikura tries to recreate the range of emotions a toddler feels when they try to walk for the first time (or fail to walk), and towards the end there is an upbeat pulse in the woodwinds, suggesting triumph on the part of the child as they successfully run around the house. And in _I dreamed on singing flowers_, a single chord on a sho plus the sounds of traffic around Royal Albert Hall in London were recorded and electronically processed, and the intended impression one is supposed to have is of walking through traffic or a city park.

Now I'm not sure that Fujikura always succeeds on this front (for example, _I dreamed of singing flowers_ reminded me more of an exotic landscape than of the local traffic), but this seems to be what he's doing.

Here's _ice_ for those of you who are curious. It's definitely one of Fujikura's better works:


----------



## mmsbls

His Cello Concerto ensemble version was written in 2016 based on his sole cello work, osm. He later expanded it for full orchestra. There are parts of this work that I love.

Fujikura has said that he loves writing concertos, and so far those are my favorite works from him.


----------



## calvinpv

When writing _Calling_, Fujikura had in mind the image of a guardsman in some ancient village sounding the alarm before an invasion. I must say, the music does a pretty good job capturing that image.

Also, that looks like some tough bassoon writing!


----------



## mmsbls

*Composer: Pawel Szymanski (1954 -)*


----------



## PeterFromLA

Pawel Szymanski is a composer Lutoslawski considered to be a leading light of the upcoming generation. He would often mention him when asked about recent developments in contemporary Polish music. The music sounds nothing like Lutoslawski's - neither Luto's folk period, his limited aleatoricism period, nor his later lusher and more melodic period. What Szymanski does have, that the elder Pole had, however, is an uncanny ability to produce expertly and well-crafted pieces of music that start as mysteries and may eventually reveal themselves through patient and apt listening. If Szymanski takes his nod from any contemporary composer or trend, it's probably either Alfred Schnittke or post-modernism. He typically takes antique forms and revives them with his own particular twist. He isn't a polystylist, like Schnittke however, so his works don't approach the collage or juxtaposed structures favored by the Soviet composer.

I enjoy listening to his Two Etudes for Piano (



) (



)

his Piano Concerto (



)

the Partita III (



)

and the Lux Aeterna (



)


----------



## mmsbls

I listened to Lux Aeterna, Miserere, and Phylakterion from this CD by Szymanski.









Miserere was fine if not memorable. The vocals in Phylakterion include whispering and spoken word, which I don't find enjoyable. But I absolutely loved Lux Aeterna. The instrumentation is unusual (2 pianos, 2 celestas, 2 harps, percussion), but the effect is stunning. Overall the work was simply beautiful and gripping.


----------



## calvinpv

So I just listened to the CD posted above, and I have to echo mmsbls's thoughts: _Lux Aeterna_ was the best of the works, _Miserere_ was good but not great (and I'll add _In paradisum deducant te angeli_ to this category as well), and _Phylakterion_ was mostly whispering and chant and not a whole lot of singing (and even less instrumental accompaniment).

As far as Szymanski's style is concerned, I found this quote by him on the choices an artist faces in today's world and the path he's taken:

"The modern artist, and this includes composers, finds himself tossed within two extremes. If he chooses to renounce the tradition altogether, there is the danger of falling into the trap of blah-blah; if he follows the tradition too closely, he may prove trivial. This is the paradox of practicing art in modern times. What is the way out? Since you cannot fully free yourself from the trivial, you need to play a game with it, treat is as a material allowing you to stick to certain elements of the convention, while keeping it at bay through the use of quotation marks, metaphors and paradoxes. Such treatment may result in a tangle of means leading to eclecticism. Censured and rejected in avant-garde times, and, to a large extent, rightly so, eclecticism is now coming back under the guise of postmodernism. However, there are many methods to stay out of eclecticism despite playing games with tradition. An important method for me is to violate the rules of the traditional language and to create a new context using the elements of that language."

I'll give his _Piano Concerto_ and _Partita_ a go before I post more.


----------



## PeterFromLA

Yeah, I own the CD being discussed; I didn't recommend it as an entree to the composer for a reason. Agree that the Lux Aeterna is the best piece on there. I'd check out the Partita 3, etc, that I linked above.


----------



## calvinpv

Having just listened to the Piano Concerto and Partita III, I'm kinda glad I didn't write more in my earlier post because knowing only those four choral works gave me a slightly warped picture of Szymanski's music. But only slightly. At the time, I was having a hard time hearing the connection to Schnittke; in fact, I was hearing a weird mix of holy minimalism and Kurtág in those choral works. But I now see a Schnittke connection via the piano concerto. The piano writing in the middle section sounds like a full-blown imitation of some of Schnittke's violin/viola pieces in which the solo violin writing becomes extremely jagged and the number of beats in a given tuplet becomes irregular.

However, I'm still not sure Schnittke is the best comparison to make, considering I heard similarities between the two only when Szymanski was at his most dissonant and not when he was evoking tradition. Whenever Schnittke evokes past forms, he seems to do so for purposes of parody or for juxtaposing against modern dissonance. Szymanski, however, seems to hold a sort of reverence for the past and has no desire for making crude distortions of conventional forms. This is not unlike the holy minimalists, though unlike them, Szymanski is not _too_ strict with his use of past forms; as the quote I posted earlier indicates, he wants "to create a new context using the elements of [the old] language." So I think Szymanski is staking out a middle ground between the holy minimalists and Schnittke: he doesn't want to distort the basic elements, but he doesn't mind placing these elements into new situations or into new combinations with other basic elements.

A good example of what I mean is the first etude for piano. In this piece, Szymanski is using the most basic elements of the common practice period: triads and seventh chords. And those chords are being placed into pretty simple harmonic progressions. Yet, there is a slight twist to the "context," so to speak. If I'm hearing correctly (and maybe I'm not), it almost sounds like each hand on the piano is going through its _own_ harmonic progression, which you would not see during common practice period.


----------



## mmsbls

*Composer: John Coolidge Adams (1947 -)*


----------



## mmsbls

I thought Adams would be popular enough to get lots of posts, but we'll see.

Adams is one of my favorite contemporary composers. I like a lot of his works, but I have only heard a small part of one opera (Nixon in China). One of my favorites is Harmonielehre. I seem to especially like earlier works such as Common Tones in Simple Time, Phrygian Gates, Grand Pianola Music, and Short Ride in a Fast Machine.

There are many later works that I like as well such as Chamber Symphony, Son of Chamber Symphony, Dharma at Big Sur, and Scheherazade 2.

Hopefully we can get others to post their thoughts on his works.


----------



## calvinpv

I've been listening/relistening to several of Adams' works over the past couple of days, and one thing that occurred to me was that his music is even more minimalist than the minimalism of, say, Reich. In Reich's minimalism, you often have a highly rhythmic phrase that's played simultaneously across multiple instruments but played at different tempi or played on different beats, thus creating a sort of higher-order rhythm that phases in and out depending on the alignment of the lower-order rhythms.

In Adams' minimalism, this aspect seems to be missing. And the reason for this is that Adams *loves* to use repeated notes, trills, tremolos, etc. When you repeat notes over and over, you end up with no vertical movement in your music, vertical movement being an essential component to establishing rhythm. It's much harder to establish a rhythm if you just play the same note than if you constantly change notes (think of the extreme case of Scelsi, where there's no rhythm at all because his music is restricted to a single note).

Thus, the end result with Adams is that his music just moves from one collection of notes to the next, where each note in a given collection just repeats ad nauseam. And where there is rhythm, it's just the rhythm that result from repeated notes or trills landing on the strong beat (i.e. the rhythm is a very locomotive-sounding *1*-2-*1*-2-*1*-2... -- the strong beat is in bold). In some pieces like _Phrygian Gates_ or _Shaker Loops_, I find this brand of minimalism quite compelling, but in others like pieces like _Common Tones in Simple Time_ (take note of the name of this piece), my mind did begin to wander. Here's _Shaker Loops_, which I think is a great example of what I'm trying to get at in this post:






I'll be listening to more of his music over the next few days, especially some of his more recent stuff where he seems to depart from this minimalist aesthetic (_The Dharma at Big Sur_ is a fantastic piece).


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## Sangburd

Saw Adams' Girls of the Golden West last year (DNO Amsterdam), which is another co-production between Adams and Peter Sellars based on the California gold rush. Very much enjoyed myself there


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## Sangburd

I don't know if it has been recorded already.


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## mmsbls

calvinpv said:


> I've been listening/relistening to several of Adams' works over the past couple of days, and one thing that occurred to me was that his music is even more minimalist than the minimalism of, say, Reich. In Reich's minimalism, you often have a highly rhythmic phrase that's played simultaneously across multiple instruments but played at different tempi or played on different beats, thus creating a sort of higher-order rhythm that phases in and out depending on the alignment of the lower-order rhythms.
> 
> In Adams' minimalism, this aspect seems to be missing. And the reason for this is that Adams *loves* to use repeated notes, trills, tremolos, etc. When you repeat notes over and over, you end up with no vertical movement in your music, vertical movement being an essential component to establishing rhythm. It's much harder to establish a rhythm if you just play the same note than if you constantly change notes (think of the extreme case of Scelsi, where there's no rhythm at all because his music is restricted to a single note).
> 
> Thus, the end result with Adams is that his music just moves from one collection of notes to the next, where each note in a given collection just repeats ad nauseam. And where there is rhythm, it's just the rhythm that result from repeated notes or trills landing on the strong beat (i.e. the rhythm is a very locomotive-sounding *1*-2-*1*-2-*1*-2... -- the strong beat is in bold). In some pieces like _Phrygian Gates_ or _Shaker Loops_, I find this brand of minimalism quite compelling, but in others like pieces like _Common Tones in Simple Time_ (take note of the name of this piece), my mind did begin to wander. Here's _Shaker Loops_, which I think is a great example of what I'm trying to get at in this post:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I'll be listening to more of his music over the next few days, especially some of his more recent stuff where he seems to depart from this minimalist aesthetic (_The Dharma at Big Sur_ is a fantastic piece).


This is an interesting idea. I like much of Reich and Glass's music, but I always felt that their music was "simpler" than Adams. I'm not sure I can define simpler well, but Adams music appeared less minimalist to me. There certainly are parts of Adams where what you say jumps out at us. I think Grand Pianola Music is a good example (I do love the work however).


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## calvinpv

mmsbls said:


> This is an interesting idea. I like much of Reich and Glass's music, but I always felt that their music was "simpler" than Adams. I'm not sure I can define simpler well, but Adams music appeared less minimalist to me. There certainly are parts of Adams where what you say jumps out at us. I think Grand Pianola Music is a good example (I do love the work however).


I should've been clearer. I think if we're talking about harmony, then, yes, Adams seems less simple than Reich and Glass -- mostly because Adams seems to take an actual interest in traditional chord progressions, whereas Reich and Glass (I'm less familiar with Glass, so I may be wrong about him) seem to focus on literally just one or a few chords per piece but nevertheless try to create rhythmic variety within those few chords in the way I suggested earlier.

So I think it's with respect to rhythm that Adams is simpler, though after listening to Adams's later works, I now think this only applies to his earlier works. Since the mid-1990s, he has definitely departed from this type of minimalism, and his recent stuff sounds almost like film music.

As for the term "minimalism", I know that Adams has called some of his own music minimalist, but I would agree that maybe it's not the best term to use.


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## KenOC

A much-performed piece by Adams is his "Lollapalooza." Is this minimalism? Here's a nice wind band arrangement.


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## Vasks

KenOC said:


> A much-performed piece by Adams is his "Lollapalooza." Is this minimalism?


Adams left true Minimalism behind him by the early 1980's. However, there often minimalistic elements, obvious or subtle, in all of his pieces since.


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## KenOC

Can't stop myself! John Adams, El Dorado Part 1: A Dream of Gold.


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## mmsbls

*Composer: Simon Steen-Andersen (1976 -)*


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## calvinpv

At the heart of Steen-Andersen's music is a desire to move away from music's inherent abstract nature and to try to "concretize" music as much as possible. For him, the abstract side of music is "all the elements that only pertain to intramusical matters -- that is, where music refers only to itself ... its opposite, the concrete, is understood as the tangible aspect or all that relates to the world outside the music" (taken from the liner notes of _Black Box Music_). For example, if I play a C Major triad on the piano, a concrete aspect would be, say, that specific timbre of the chord that refers to an outside world object (the piano), while some abstract elements would be, say, the fact that the chord possesses a major third interval, a minor third, and a perfect fifth (an interval being an intramusical relationship).

So by creating a concrete music that points only to the outside world and not inward towards itself, what we get in Steen-Andersen's music is a sort of onomatopoeic quality in that the music is literally trying to recreate the sounds you would get from striking an object, any object. Now, a lot of composers today do that from time to time. But I think what separate Steen-Andersen from the others is that he does it better than everyone else (in my opinion, at least). His piece _Black Box Music_ is a great example of his concrete music and is, therefore, a great place to start listening; in fact, the piece takes the notion of concrete music a bit further by including a essential visual element (this visual element being so essential that without it, the music literally becomes meaningless). I would say _Black Box Music_ is easily one of the best pieces of contemporary music that I've heard. There are no full youtube videos of the piece, unfortunately (only an excerpt here); you'll have to buy it on DVD.

Below is a description of _Black Box Music_ that I wrote a couple of months ago in the "Pieces that have blown you away" thread. I don't feel like reinventing the wheel, so I'll just copy and paste it here:

_Black Box Music_ is essentially a concerto for conductor in three movements. Yes, conductor. To achieve this, Steen-Andersen blurs the line between a conductor who just gives instructions to an orchestra via hand signals and a puppet master who creates the illusion of sounds actually emanating from the hands (or puppets).

The conductor places his hands in a box, and everything that happens inside the box is projected onto a screen in front of the audience. On both sides and behind the audience are three ensembles of 5 musicians each. When the conductor "plays", he will sometimes give instructions typical of a conductor. For example, if he points to the left, the ensemble on the left will play; if he raises his hand, the ensemble(s) will respond with increased dynamics; if he puts up the stop-sign hand sign, the musicians will stop playing. However, there are a few moments when the conductor gives signals and the musicians refuse to acknowledge. At these points, the conductor will humorously throw up his hands in exasperation or will wag his finger as if giving a stern lecturing.

The best parts, though, are when the conductor gives everyday hand gestures like the V-sign, the telephone sign, the middle finger, paper/scissors/rock, the talking hand gesture, the finger gun, etc. Or when the conductor plays with knick-knacks in the box like rubber bands, plastic cups, and an electric fan. At these moments, the ensembles either play music that match our expectations of what the hand gestures should personify (e.g. the telephone signals give way to a telephone-sounding noise coming from the ensembles) or play music that comes eerily close the the actual tactile sounds of the knick-knacks. Either way, we're given to the illusion that the conductor himself is the source of these sounds. This is the concerto aspect of the work, the conductor being the soloist.


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## Red Terror

*György Kurtág*

Musical Period
*20th Century, Contemporary*

Born
*February 19, 1926 in Lugoj, Romania*

Genre
*Classical*
*Avant-Garde*


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## calvinpv

_Double Up_, for orchestra and sampler, is a piece whose title refers to the risky strategy of doubling up on the stock market or at the casino; it can also refer to the doubling up on drinks at the bar. Thus, the sampler plays samples of sounds you would normally hear at the bar or at the casino, such as the sounds of a slot machine, drunken singing, and pouring of drinks (How these samples refer to doubling up in particular, I don't know).

But the most interesting aspect of the piece is the orchestra imitating, or "doubling up", those very samples. Listen very closely and you can hear instruments playing alongside and melting into the samples. This is another example of the onomatopoeia that I referred to in the previous post, and here it's even more convincing than in _Black Box Music_ (what puts _Black Box Music_ over the top for me, though, is the visual element, which is absent here).

The piece can be divided into two. The first half tries to tell a story through the samples (perhaps a story of winning big on the stock market? -- again I don't know); the second half organizes those samples into musical scales to form a musical "story", so to speak. The halves are divided by a speech from the sampler about doubling up on the market.

This is yet another incredible piece by Steen-Andersen.


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## mmsbls

I listened to Double Up. I found the second part more enjoyable, but I'm not sure I can say exactly why other than that I was distinctly more engaged. 

I watched the Black Box Music video excerpts. I found it fun although I don't know what the full 32 minute video would feel like. I'm still slightly confused by the performance. I assume the musicians play a set score, and the conductor must time his hand gestures to that score. In other words, the conductor does not affect the music. The performer response seems too fast to be otherwise. Is that correct?


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## calvinpv

mmsbls said:


> I listened to Double Up. I found the second part more enjoyable, but I'm not sure I can say exactly why other than that I was distinctly more engaged.
> 
> I watched the Black Box Music video excerpts. I found it fun although I don't know what the full 32 minute video would feel like. I'm still slightly confused by the performance. I assume the musicians play a set score, and the conductor must time his hand gestures to that score. In other words, the conductor does not affect the music. The performer response seems too fast to be otherwise. Is that correct?


Yes, they play a set score, and for the first two movements, every musician and the conductor use "click track" (i.e. wear in-ear headphones that play a metronome). Not so for the third movement because there are several moments where the conductor has to set up the black box with rubber bands, mini fans, etc., and in setting up, he may encounter unexpected difficulties, so while the conductor sets up, the musicians repeat _ad libitum_ whatever musical gesture they're on until the conductor is ready to go (obviously, the conductor shouldn't dilly-dally around). And yes, the conductor must time his hand gestures to the score.

Reading through a few of his scores over the weekend, these types of safeguards seem to be omnipresent in Steen-Andersen's music. And it makes sense. He's trying to recreate with instruments sounds from the outside world. Such an endeavor, to be successful, leaves little room for error and even less room for free interpretation. So he puts in all these safeguards, provisos, and warnings in his scores to the effect of "Hey, musician, this passage coming up is difficult and fraught with uncertainty. You should practice it X times the normal amount and, if necessary, consider these alternative techniques." For example, in the piece _in spite of, and maybe even therefore_, the horn, clarinet, and flute have to play a Beethoven bagatelle while dismantling their instruments and placing all the pieces on a table. Steen-Andersen acknowledges that every brand of clarinet, flute, and horn are built a little differently, so he asks the players to know the ins and outs of their brand of instrument so that they can disassemble in a timely manner, and he also asks them to, if necessary, find a personal solution to playing the right notes on their broken-down instruments.

Finally, I'm glad you used the word "fun" to describe his music. His music may not be pretty; in fact, without knowing the concepts behind the music, it can be pretty darn ugly. But it's fun.


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## mmsbls

*Composer: Tristan Murail (1947 -)*


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## Portamento

I'm not extremely familiar with Murail, but I like everything I've heard. Associated with the spectral school of composition, his magnum opuses are generally thought to be two works from the early '80s: _Gondwana_ (1980), for orchestra, and _Désintégrations_ (1982), for magnetic tape and 17 instruments. Neither of them is long, and I find his general aesthetic very appealing. Maybe he's slightly less aggressive than Grisey?

_*Gondwana*_
_*Désintégrations*_
_*Winter Fragments*_ (2000) - beautiful work


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## starthrower

Murail's recordings on the aeon label are recommended and affordable. Unfortunately, I haven't seen the Naive disc with Godwana at a reasonable price anywhere.


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## mmsbls

It took me awhile to develop a taste for spectralism. I think it's possible that Gondwana was the first such piece I liked. I had not heard it in several years, and on hearing it now, I enjoyed it even more than I remember. Winter Fragments has beautiful parts, but I find Gondwana more interesting. Gondwana, Désintégrations, and Winter Fragments all made the TC Top 200 Recommended Post-1950 Works List, and Désintégrations, and Winter Fragments made the The TC Top 50 Recommended Electronic Works List.

I have not heard other works besides the 3 mentioned above. On TC I have seen recommendations for Territoires de l'oubli, L'esprit des dunes, Le Lac for Ensemble, and Le Partage Des Eaux. I will try to find them and listen.


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## calvinpv

mmsbls said:


> It took me awhile to develop a taste for spectralism. I think it's possible that Gondwana was the first such piece I liked. I had not heard it in several years, and on hearing it now, I enjoyed it even more than I remember. Winter Fragments has beautiful parts, but I find Gondwana more interesting. Gondwana, Désintégrations, and Winter Fragments all made the TC Top 200 Recommended Post-1950 Works List, and Désintégrations, and Winter Fragments made the The TC Top 50 Recommended Electronic Works List.
> 
> I have not heard other works besides the 3 mentioned above. On TC I have seen recommendations for Territoires de l'oubli, L'esprit des dunes, Le Lac for Ensemble, and Le Partage Des Eaux. I will try to find them and listen.


I remember liking _L'esprit des dunes_ a lot, and _Le Lac_ and _Le Partage des eaux_ are pretty good too. Territoires de l'oubli I haven't heard. There's also a recent piano concerto _Le desenchantement du monde_. Personally, I think it's good not great, but I believe there are a few others on TC that regard it much more highly.


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## Kjetil Heggelund

I'm sorry I didn't respond earlier since I nominated this composer. I've been listening to old music for a long time. This here is a piece I love. It's frantic and loud! The hight pitched harmonics make my ears wobble


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## PeterFromLA

I witnessed Marilyn Nonken perform Murail's complete works for piano one Sunday afternoon at the Cleveland Museum of Art. She was amazing. Her stamina, precision, and poetry made a deep impression, and thankfully the set was recorded by her shortly thereafter, preserved on a double CD.


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## mmsbls

*Composer: Terry Riley (1935 -)*


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## calvinpv

For as big of a name as Terry Riley, I'm only familiar with two of his works, _In C_ and _You're No Good_. The latter is like the early tape pieces of Reich (where two duplicates of a track play out of sync, creating a rhythm that phases in and out) except that it's quite catchy, unlike the ones by Reich where after 30 seconds, you get the gist and mentally check out.

I'd be curious to know what his other big pieces are and what people think of them. Or any piece for that matter.


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## Enthusiast

I do quite like Riley's music and feel he was an interesting composer. I greatly like this ...








(Requiem for Adam, Kronos Quartet)


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## mmsbls

I listened to "In C" for the first time in awhile. I heard the Shanghai Film Chinese Orchestra perform the work so it had a distinct Asian sound. I definitely enjoyed it. 

I also listened to part of a long piano work that I had heard awhile back, The Harp of New Albion. The work is almost 2 hours long in 10 movements. I only listened to the first 3. The first movement, The New Albion Chorale/The Discovery, is quite beautiful. 

There is much music of Riley that I have not heard so hopefully I'll have time to sample several more of his works.


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## PeterFromLA

Terry Riley's Keyboard Studies #1 and #2 are my go to Riley works. Love them both. If you like the Reich and Riley movement from the Ligeti self portrait piece for two pianos, you will know why it sounds as it does after you hear #2. And if you know The Who's Baba O'Riley opening, you will understand why Pete Townsend gave the song its title.


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## mmsbls

I listened to Riley's Requiem for Adam (also known as Requiem Quartets). They were written during a period of extreme tragedy for the Kronos Quartet which had worked closely with Riley. In particular, the son (Adam) of one member died at 16. 

The first movement, Ascending the Heaven Ladder, gives s sense of ascending as the motive rises in pitch. The sound is light a flowing, and it was my favorite movement. The second, Cortejo Fúnebre en el Monte Diablo, begins with glaring electronics with percussive components that clash with the first movement and perhaps with what one normally expects in requiems. The final movement is the most varied. The three movements don't seem to fit together, but my understanding is that Riley intended that sense given the "absurdity" of a 16 year-old death.


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## tortkis

The Harp of New Albion was the first work of Riley I heard and is still one of my favorites. I had not heard anything like that before.

His string quartet works are very good, and Cadenza On The Night Plain is the album I like the most. G Song may be Riley's most melodic composition, and other works on the album are beautiful too.

When I heard the original recording on Columbia, In C sounded too harsh and chaotic to me, but I found some different performances which are really nice. The koto ensemble version and the Africa Express version were particularly impressive.

His electric organ works are wonderful. Mysterious and meditative.


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## mmsbls

In another thread millionrainbows suggested Riley's Sunrise Of The Planetary Dream Collector. The work is for string quartet, French horn, Guitar, and percussion. I believe it was the first work Riley wrote for the Kronos Quartet. The work is similar to In C in that the performers have freedom to perform various modules as they see fit although this work has more freedom since the performers can perform the modules in whatever order they wish. I enjoyed In C somewhat more though I liked both works.


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## mmsbls

*Composer: Michael Nyman (1944 -)*


----------



## Art Rock

A composer I've tried to get into, but so far there's not enough for me to want to explore him further. I have 3 CD's:

The piano concerto, MGV (Argo)
Harpsichord concerto, Sax+Cello concerto, Trombone concerto (EMI)
String quartets 1-3 (Argo)

I like the CD with the less usual concertos best. I'm curious to see what others recommend. Maybe I'm missing something.


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## Lilijana

Basically the place to go to get his best stuff is the Peter Greenaway Film Scores and related works composed specifically for his Michael Nyman Band. Non-film score works I like include _After Extra Time_, _Water Dances_, _And Do They Do_ and _Musique à Grande Vitesse_, the last of which is probably my favourite work of his. It's loosely a set of variations where aspects of the main theme are present at the end of each 'region', the 'regions' being longer passages of their own unique character.






His music is fun, and more what I would describe as highly original take on classical-popular crossover music, I guess. Nobody really sounds quite like him, due to the fact his band of musicians is such an unusual combination of saxes, brass, strings, bass and piano, all amped up to maximum volume.

I believe his story into becoming a composer is quite bizarre as well; he was tasked with re-creating some venetian town band music for a play, but due to lack of much source information he had to put together his own ensemble of rebecs, a banjo, some early wind/brass instruments. Afterwards when they updated to more modern instruments and wanted to continue playing together, there was no repertoire for their unusual ensemble combination so Nyman found himself having to come up with music that would suit the ensemble. Luckily enough for him, his newfound style all came together from arranging the first sixteen bars of the _Madamina_ aria from Mozart's Don Giovanni, which he had always found an interesting texture and harmonic progression:






I find it difficult to really describe his music. It's often loud and raucous, post-minimalist, post-modern, post-classical, drawing on music by Mozart, Purcell and others, but so far removed from anything else going on in classical music that it's really just a product of the unique situations he found himself in and the collaborations he built with the musicians and film directors he knew.

Even _An Eye for Optical Theory_ sounds quite different here than it does in the very bizarre Greenaway film _The Draughtsman's Contract_ where it was used in the soundtrack....but I think it's more well known outside of the context of that film, like most of his other Greenaway soundtrack pieces.


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## mmsbls

Out of the Ruins is a choral work commissioned for the first anniversary of the 1988 Spitak earthquake in Armenia 7 December 1988. I have seen a few people compare this sound to Arvo Part.

The music from Out of the Ruins is used in his Sring Quartet No.3. Apparently, he frequently "reuses" parts of works in other works through a process he calls translation. The quartet is the basis for part of the film score to Carrington and is also used in several other works.

I liked Out of the Ruins significantly more than the string quartet.


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## mmsbls

Nyman's For John Cage was finished the day Cage died. Nyman dedicated the work to him both for that reason and because "Cage was the most revolutionary practical music thinker of the 20th century." Nyman says Cage's "influence on my music may be perceived under the 'very un-Cagein' surface."

The work is scored for 10 brass instruments and seems to move between periods of serenity to jazziness to chaotic sounds. It does not seem much like the other music I've heard from Nyman.


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## tortkis

mmsbls said:


> Nyman's For John Cage was finished the day Cage died. Nyman dedicated the work to him both for that reason and because "Cage was the most revolutionary practical music thinker of the 20th century." Nyman says Cage's "influence on my music may be perceived under the 'very un-Cagein' surface."
> 
> The work is scored for 10 brass instruments and seems to move between periods of serenity to jazziness to chaotic sounds. It does not seem much like the other music I've heard from Nyman.


This is beautiful. I didn't know of this work. Nyman wrote Experimental Music: Cage and Beyond (which is rather difficult to me), but I rarely think of Cage while listening to Nyman's music. It would be interesting to know about the Cage's influence on Nyman. His early works like 1-100 may have some similarities.


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## mmsbls

tortkis said:


> This is beautiful. I didn't know of this work. Nyman wrote Experimental Music: Cage and Beyond (which is rather difficult to me), but I rarely think of Cage while listening to Nyman's music. It would be interesting to know about the Cage's influence on Nyman. His early works like 1-100 may have some similarities.


Yes, I just learned about Nyman's "Experimental Music: Cage and Beyond," and I was rather surprised that Nyman would be interested in experimental music given that his own music seems far removed. I believe his early career was as a musicologist who focused on Baroque music. I would like to sample some of his early works to see if his style changed significantly.


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## tortkis

I ordered Time Will Pronounce (Argo) that includes For John Cage. I will check what Nyman tells in the liner notes.

There are so many good works by Nyman, and I particularly love his 1980's works, which I think have some sort of hypomaniac/hysteric craziness in the catchiness of the music (The Kiss and Other Movements, film score such as The Draughtsman's Contract, Drowning by Numbers, etc.)


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## mmsbls

*Composer: George Benjamin (1960 -)*


----------



## Enthusiast

Benjamin is a composer I like a lot. There are many works of his that I enjoy greatly but Palimpsests and Written on Skin probably top my list. A student of Messiaen - and I credit him with helping me to get Messiaen (I got Benjamin before I got Messiaen) - who is increasingly engaged in operas. His latest opera, Lessons in Love and Violence, was shown on BBC TV quite recently.


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## mmsbls

I don't know George Benjamin's music so I'll have to explore. Several TC members have mentioned Written on Skin as a notable work. Unfortunately, I doubt I'll have time to listen to the opera.

I heard A Mind of Winter for soprano and orchestra based on Wallace Stevens's poem, The Snow Man. The music is stark depicting a cold snow covered field with gusts of wind. Some reviews suggested there are clear hints of Varese and Xenakis. I'm not sure I hear that, but possibly. I did enjoy the work though I wasn't blown away by it.


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## Enthusiast

^ I feel Benjamin's sound is generally too subtle, cool and open to sound like Xenakis. I enjoy Xenakis but I hear his sound world as fairly crude.


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## mmsbls

Benjamin's Ringed By the Flat Horizon was inspired by a photograph of a thunderstorm over the New Mexico (USA) desert. A recurrent semitone evokes a lightning strike while percussion or low registers sound like thunder. One can certainly imagine a storm arising and moving off with the final drum roll. It's an engaging work that I enjoyed.


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## mmsbls

Benjamin's Sudden Time is similar to Ringed By the Flat Horizon in that the work was also inspired by a storm. Benjamin says the idea for the work came to him in a "dream in which the sound of a thunderclap seemed to stretch . . . as if in a spiral through my head." The title comes from a poem by Wallace Stevens with the line, "It was like sudden time in a world without time."

I feel this work is more involved with more detail than Ringed By the Flat Horizon. I found it more engaging and thoroughly enjoyed it.


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## mmsbls

*Composer: Pierluigi Billone (1960 -)*


----------



## calvinpv

A few weeks ago, Billone's _1 + 1 = 1_ was featured in Art Rock's post-2000 game, and I wrote up a little blurb on the piece. I'll reproduce it here:



> Though Pierluigi Billone is considered a composer of the style musique concrète instrumentale, in lockstep with his teachers Lachenmann and Sciarrino, his overall musical philosophy and approach is more Berio-esque. Lachenmann asks us to throw out the window all of our preconceptions about music and to find beauty where none was thought possible: in those wispy, gritty, scratchy sounds we usually call "noise", in contrast to pitched notes we find in so-called "music". Berio's approach, however, is almost diametrically opposed to Lachenmann's, despite yielding similar sounding music in his _Sequenza_: rather than throw out all our musical preconceptions, we should retain and catalogue said preconceptions -- especially our preconceptions of instruments and how they should be played -- so that they can be organized into a family lineage of sorts, a lineage that not only reflects and exposes the changing human and cultural experiences that produced our preconceptions of these instruments but also a lineage that identifies the outer boundary of what has hitherto been considered possible so that we can move beyond it.
> 
> It is this second approach that Billone takes. Like an archaeologist, Billone exhumes from the metaphorical ground many layers of historical playing techniques so that he can compare and contrast, form connections and mark differences, and eventually develop new means to produce sound and "achieve perfection" in any given instrument. This explains two peculiarities about Billone. First, his insistence on incorporating and exploiting the individual playing style of the performer who is commissioning a piece, as an individual style offers yet more tools to work with, more ways to fully understand an instrument. Second, the fact that many of his pieces are written for one or at most a few identical instruments, as if each piece is meant to serve as a complete and exhaustive profile of the instrument under examination.
> 
> _1 + 1 = 1_ is a piece for two Bb bass clarinets. They are stationed 15 meters apart in the auditorium, just far enough to allow for isolated treatment of either instrument while retaining the possibility of resonated sound from them working together. According to Billone, bass clarinets have a diverse array of modes of attack, from the smallest and most isolated to the loudest and most complex vibrations and everything in between. This, combined with their 15 meter separation, gives Billone the power to produce sophisticated multiphonics that neither instrument can produce by themselves, thereby throwing the listener in the auditorium off balance as to where the sounds are coming from (unfortunately, this is partially lost on CD). There are 8 movements in the piece, each movement emphasizing different modes of attack and articulation. There are also many moments where the two players chant nonsense syllables, adding a sort of ritualistic element to the music.


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## calvinpv

The other work I'm familiar with is the incredible triptych of pieces for solo electric guitar, titled _Sgorgo_. Probably one of my favorite works in all of contemporary music, especially the first piece in the triptych _Sgorgo Y_ ("Y" standing for Yaron Deutsch, the guitarist in the recording below).


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## mmsbls

I listened to about half of 1+1=1. I had seen the title several times before but never thought much about what it might mean. Now it's clear. I admit that I had trouble listening to much more than 10-15 minutes of this work. I find some aspects fascinating such as the possible sounds individual clarinets can make and the sounds two clarinets can produce together. But at some point I lose interest. Interestingly, in the thread, Become Ocean, others made similar comments about the extended length not holding one's interest; whereas, I have no problem listening with joy throughout the work.

I read several reviews of his works and found Billone views himself as sort of an archaeologist. One review  of his work FACE says, "For Billone the voice has become what he calls a 'fossil.' He is a composer-archaeologist who explores the remnants of voices past." I'm not really sure what that means other than perhaps exploring the range of sounds voices and instruments can produce.


----------



## Duncan

*Pierluigi Billone: OM. ON*

*Yaron Deutsch (electric guitar), Tom Pauwels (electric guitar)*

Link to complete CD -






"OM ON - the title of the new release is equally cryptic and associative, even musical.

Its two syllables are both opposing and attracting through their similarity. The name of the piece is therefore also a metaphor for the two musicians who interact while remaining distinctly individual.

It is also a homage to the two guitarists Tom Pauwels and Yaron Deutsch whose names are behind the two syllables.

While ON is (as the opposite of OFF) a state of sound, OM stands for something important in Billone's music: the sphere of ritual, particularly in Hinduism and Buddhism."









*Pierluigi Billone: ITI KE MI & Equilibrio. Cerchio*

*Marco Fusi (viola/violin), Marco Fusi (viola), Marco Fusi (violin)*

Link to complete CD -

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_nOdpPccRQJPQgVYDl0eBmzi-gWBYR73dU

"With these two compositions, Billone adds new phonic resources to the possibilities of bowed instruments, new technical capacities, new perspectives of inquiry.

He even composed works which are not completely comfortable, because they take the performers far from their well-known territory. This reminds us of the importance of researching without compromise, in unexplored territories, with curiosity and confidence."


----------



## 20centrfuge

I first heard Y, N, Oo in the 21st century listening chain thread. I enjoyed it. It's definitely not music to be entered into if you have just a few spare minutes. It's similar to Feldman in that it feels like diving into something entrenched and psychological. A commitment of sorts.

I am curious about Billone's background and compositional process.


----------



## calvinpv

Just listened to OM.ON. A solid piece, but not nearly as good as Sgorgo Y. N. oO. I think it spends too much time performing subtle modulations in the white noise during the first 50 minutes. It's by design, mind you: the white noise, according to the liner notes, is analogous to the Hindu symbol "OM", which is that primordial sound from which the universe springs (or in this case, the occasional outbursts of music). Still, I needed a little bit more variety. Fortunately, the last half hour piqued my interest a lot more.

The liner notes describe the best way to listen:



> "From a far distance, the work looks like an ocean of sound, with islands of culmination. This conscious omitting of a focused development calls for a different expectation of the listener: As this music does not develop in a logical manner, there is no need for anticipating or analytic reception. This work benefits from contemplative listening, like meandering through a landscape without purpose, passing remarkable and insignificant locations as they come. The journey is the reward, not its destination."


----------



## calvinpv

I listened to _Equilibrio. Cerchio_ today ("Equilibrium. Circle"), and the more I think about, the more I find it remarkable. There are two contradictory tendencies in the music. First, continuous, slow, formless glissandi that possess at least two notes and which are restricted between F3 and F4 on a musical staff, give or take. One can, however, intuit a sort of primitive pulse or rhythm in the glissandi and after a while, you sense some lyricism. This part of the music reminds me a lot of Scelsi's single-note pieces. Second tendency, violent pizzicatos on the four strings simultaneously up near the pegbox plus a stuttering motion with the bow behind the bridge. These motions often interrupt the glissandi, though as the piece progresses, one can say that it's the glissandi that interferes. Here I'm reminded far less of Scelsi and more of the texture music of Penderecki or Xenakis. Like yin and yang, these two tendencies dance around each other, often waxing and waning in prominence.

There's a commercial recording that Duncan mentioned above, but I find the recording below much more compelling. Plus, it has a score to follow along with.






I've listened/re-listened to five Billone works over the past week, and so far I'd rank them as follows:

Sgorgo Y. N. oO. -- 10/10
1+1=1 -- 9.5/10
Equilbirio. Cerchio -- 8.5/10, possibly 9/10
Muri IIIb -- 7.5/10
OM.ON -- 7.5/10


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## calvinpv

I listened to a few more Billone works over the past couple of days. The highlight for me was definitely _ITI KE MI_ ("New Moon, Mouth, Feminine" in ancient Sumerian), for solo viola. Basically, Billone wants the viola to role-play as something other than what it's traditionally intended to be, such as a human voice, or a bird cry, or the screeching of train wheels on a steel track. To achieve this, Billone first makes a conceptual distinction between those traditional techniques and sounds that are familiar to the listening ear and those harsh, grating noises that we've repressed from our awareness, despite them always lurking in the background (e.g. a simple example: listen to any note played on a string instrument. Our ears are trained to listen for the note by itself, but listen more closely and you can hear the rubbing of the bow on the strings.). He then gives these grating noises their own preferential treatment and amplifies them at the expense of any traditional sonorities. And by amplifying them, what arises instead are not traditional pitches but sonorities that are multidimensional and that have vocal intonations, like what can be found in humans. The lesson here is that 1. different intensities and energy inputs into the bowing of strings instruments yield different sounds and by extension different ways of organizing music; 2. that what we are normally accustomed to makes up but a small bandwidth in a wider spectrum of what's possible.

All of this is probably obvious, but still, I'm really impressed at what Billone is able to muster out of the viola in this piece. The entire first half, for example, sounds like a bunch of different intonations from a wheezing old man or maybe one of those weird synthetic android voices you hear in sci-fi movies. It's kinda surreal.

Progam note here.


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## mmsbls

*Composer: Stefan Prins (1979 -)*


----------



## Lilijana

Ooo now this guy is doing some interesting things. I have listened to the pieces on the CD here a great many times via spotify, but you can purchase the CD and DVD here from the link-when it comes back in stock:



This is one of the pieces on the DVD and I think it's a very immersive piece that really manages to somehow (for want of a better word) 'beautify' sounds with a very high noise content:


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## mmsbls

I watched Generation Kill . Normally I would say I listened to or heard the work, but watched is a much more appropriate term. Jess, I'm not sure how much you know about the work, but I have several questions. There appear to be 8 -10 performers. From another video of the work with the same group there are 4 musicians (cello, percussion, guitar, and violin). There are also 4 game controllers and a sound person.

Here's a short review from Alex Ross on the piece.

Do you know how much control the game controllers have over the performance? It's not clear exactly what they are controlling.

Would you call the game controllers musicians or use some other term?


----------



## calvinpv

mmsbls said:


> I watched Generation Kill . Normally I would say I listened to or heard the work, but watched is a much more appropriate term. Jess, I'm not sure how much you know about the work, but I have several questions. There appear to be 8 -10 performers. From another video of the work with the same group there are 4 musicians (cello, percussion, guitar, and violin). There are also 4 game controllers and a sound person.
> 
> Here's a short review from Alex Ross on the piece.
> 
> Do you know how much control the game controllers have over the performance? It's not clear exactly what they are controlling.
> 
> Would you call the game controllers musicians or use some other term?


The game controllers are manipulating the videos on the screens. The whole piece is basically a commentary on how the real and virtual worlds interact. The musicians in the videos can be thought of as avatars (like you would see in games or on social media) onto which the game controllers want to project their wishes and desires. And in this case, they want to dictate how the musicians should play (even if they have to play at superhuman speed). The real musicians behind the screens represent the real world. However, I'm not really sure how the actions of the real musicians relate the those of the virtual ones. Are the real musicians resisting the game controllers, in an attempt to be autonomous? Are they mimicking the avatars, in an act of conformity? Both? Neither? I have the DVD composer jess mentioned above, which includes this piece and some liner notes, but they're not really informative on this relationship. All I know is that Prins wrote the piece in response to the Arab Spring, and one thing noteworthy about those protests was that footage of the events on the ground went viral on social media (especially Twitter) and thereby accelerated the protests even further.

Is this interpretation right, composer jess? I think this is a fascinating piece, but I'm not sure that I'm understanding it correctly. Another question: are the video manipulations pre-determined in the score, or are they spontaneous decisions on the spot (obviously, the drone footage is pre-determined)?


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## mmsbls

*Composer: Vyacheslav Artyomov (1940 -)*


----------



## science

I have not paid enough attention to this thread!

The only work by Artyomov on our list of recommend works is The Way to Olympus [1978].

He has some fun-sounding titles so that is a good start....


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## mmsbls

*Composer: Harrison Birtwistle (1934 -)*


----------



## Kjetil Heggelund

An introduction to Harrison Birtwistle's music
by David Beard

Harrison Birtwistle's music reflects an intensely personal vision of the world in which degrees of musical complexity may be related to our experience of the world by metaphors of journeying, ritual, or multiple perspectives of the same object. Although influenced to varying degrees by Stravinsky, Messiaen, Boulez and Cage, his distinctive characteristics include wind- and percussion-led antiphony, extended melodies freeflowing over a mechanical ground, and shifting pulses that question our ability to count clock time. Textures may become densely layered, but from such soundscapes individual voices speak with fanfare- or dance-like gestures. Birtwistle's music, in other words, is always firmly grounded in the body. This should come as no surprise given his early experience of musical theatre in Accrington, where he played clarinet and saxophone in the pit, and his role as Director of Music at London's National Theatre from 1975 to 1983.

Breakthrough works from the 1960s including Tragoedia, Verses for Ensembles and his first opera Punch and Judy, together with the orchestral Earth Dances - Birtwistle's Rite of Spring - are muscular and extrovert, guided by Stravinsky. Yet there is also an introspective side to Birtwistle that turns inwards to technical experiment, restrained lyricism, or dark melancholy. Examples include The Corridor, an exercise in experimental theatre that examines Orpheus's loss of Eurydice through a series of increasingly urgent laments, the darkly evocative, brooding orchestral processionals The Shadow of Night and Night's Black Bird, the ethereal Three Latin Motets for a cappella choir from the opera The Last Supper, the intricately mechanical yet nuanced, jazz-like dialogue between piano and percussion in The Axe Manual, the crisp, finely-etched Crowd for solo harp, and the perfectly-timed build in tension to the Minotaur's first appearance in his recent opera The Minotaur.

While Birtwistle is remarkable for the consistency of his musical vision there are fascinating signs of a 'late' style in his recent music. Most obvious is a turn to string writing following an earlier preference for winds and percussion. Recalling The Minotaur and the saxophone solo in Panic, the soloist in the Violin Concerto has a frenetic energy that is balanced by moments of dreamy introspection; the Fantasias and Friezes for string quartet in Pulse Shadows - a key work that sets Holocaust-related poems by Paul Celan - are intricately crafted; Bogenstrich and Trio explore fugue and surprisingly Romantic string timbres, albeit on Birtwistle's own terms; arrangements of Bach fugues for string quartet also suggest a re-examination of technique. String Quartet: The Tree of Strings is masterful: earthy and poignant, it reveals Birtwistle's deep relationship with landscape, which echoes earlier British composers. And while themes are carried forward, such as the inseparability of the human or the material from the divine explored in Robin Blaser's libretto for The Last Supper, which is revisited in Angel Fighter and The Moth Requiem, Birtwistle has been casting his eye back over earlier accomplishments, as in the stunning ensemble work In Broken Images, inspired by the antiphonal music of Giovanni Gabrieli. Here glimpses from Birtwistle's own past are viewed in a light that is provocative yet stimulating, fractured yet eternally regenerative.

David Beard, 2012
(Senior Lecturer in Music at Cardiff University; author of Harrison Birtwistle's Operas and Music Theatre [Cambridge University Press, 2012]; co-author of Musicology: the Key Concepts [Routledge, 2005].)


----------



## Kjetil Heggelund

Thought I would give you an introduction, or I mean let David Beard do so. I'm pretty new to Birtwistle. I have a CD from NMC recordings with the orchestral works Night's Black Bird, The Shadow of Night & The Cry of Anubis. I loved it from the first note, but now it's been a while since I heard it. Good occasion to get more familiar with him. I will try out works mentioned in the text by mr. Beard. I found it on boosey.com


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## Lilijana

Silbury Air is a remarkable short work from the 1970s (although it was revised more recently) and I reckon serves as a great introductory piece to his music.


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## Duncan

mmsbls said:


> *Composer: Vyacheslav Artyomov (1940 -)*











*Artyomov: The Way To Olympus*

*Evgeny Smirnov (violin), Tatiana Grindenko (violin), Yelena Adjemova (violin), Anton Batagov (piano), Pyotr Meshchaninov (piano)

USSR State Academic Symphony Orchestra, Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra, Timur Mynbayev, Dmitri Kitayenko, Gennady Rozhdestvensky
*

*Link to complete album - 
*

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_lXQk2rJbArqh4-uUQXyt0rTwOAzDx3N4U

Review of above from MusicWeb International -

http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2018/Jun/Artymov_Olympus_DDA25171.htm

"What does Artyomov's music sound like? I would suggest that if listeners are comfortable with Alban Berg and late-Scriabin, they will enjoy this CD. Other parallels would include the music of Arvo Pärt, Krzysztof Penderecki and even some modern film music. Sometimes the mood heads toward a big-band sound. Don't take these comparisons as hard and fast; just use them as a yardstick."

*Works*

Artyomov: Concert of the 13
Artyomov: Gurian Hymn
Artyomov: Preludes to Sonnets
Artyomov: Way to Olympus









*Artyomov: Orchestral Works
*
*Oleh Krysa (violin), Oleg Yanchenko (organ), Aleksandr Rudin (cello), Stanislav Bunin (piano)

Academic Symphony Orchestra of the Moscow State Philharmonic, Chamber Orchestra Musica Viva, USSR State Academic Symphony Orchestra, Dmitri Kitaenko, Murad Annamamedov, Timur Minbayev*

*Link to complete album - *

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_m3i3bxWA6kuRVY3Vh6JLGoAt_VrYfacno

"Vyacheslav Artyomov is considered by many to be Russia's greatest living composer. His music is deep, ultimately spiritual and brilliantly crafted, with influences from the Russian symphonic tradition coloured by Mahler, Scriabin, Honegger and Messiaen to name a few - but melded into a unique voice."

*Works*

Artyomov: In Memoriam
Artyomov: Lamentations
Artyomov: Pietà
Artyomov: Tristia I


----------



## Duncan

mmsbls said:


> *Composer: Harrison Birtwistle (1934 -)*











*Birtwistle: Panic & Earth Dances*

J*ohn Harle (saxophone), Paul Clarvis (percussion)

BBC Symphony Orchestra, The Cleveland Orchestra, Sir Andrew Davis, Christoph von Dohnanyi*

*Link to complete album - *

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_nB9GqAZ1SUb9RFRMMKLJwpiESQzjKv5XY









*Birtwistle: Night's Black Bird
*
*Owen Slade (tuba)

The Hallé Orchestra, Ryan Wigglesworth*

*Night's Black Bird -*






*The Shadow of Night -*






*The Cry of Anubis -*














*Birtwistle: The Moth Requiem*
*
Roderick Williams (baritone)

BBC Singers & Nash Ensemble, Nicholas Kok
*

*Link to complete album -*

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_kOAbW8DgTZpeDsatdN85ZPbPl05JOfaNI

"As 2014 marks the composer's 80th year, Harrison Birtwistle remains one of the most popular voices in contemporary composition in the UK and beyond. This new collection of premiere recordings draws together recent commissions with older works to mark the occasion, with characteristically flawless performances from the BBC Singers under Nicholas Kok. They are joined on this disc by the Nash Ensemble and baritone Roderick Williams."

"This is a wonderful and important release of his powerful and often delicate works. Best, perhaps, to begin with On the Sheer Threshold of the Night, which is a kind of spin-off from The Mask of Orpheus...This disc is the most fitting tribute imaginable to Birtwistle on his 80th birthday."
- BBC Music Magazine

_"I doubt whether anything the year brings for Birtwistle's 80th birthday is going to dim the lustre of this excellent recording of his choral music. Nor surpass it in importance, perhaps."_
- Gramophone

_"The centrepiece of this outstanding disc of choral works by Harrison Birtwistle, all recorded for the first time, is one of the beautiful and most intensely personal of his recent scores...It's an important, scrupulously presented collection."_
- The Guardian

*Works*

Birtwistle: Carmen Paschale
Birtwistle: Latin Motets (3) from The Last Supper
Birtwistle: Lullaby
Birtwistle: On the Sheer Threshold of the Night
Birtwistle: The Moth Requiem (2003)
Birtwistle: The Moth Requiem (2012)
Birtwistle: The Ring Dance of the Nazarene









*Birtwistle - Secret Theatre*

*London Sinfonietta, Elgar Howarth*

*Link to complete album -*

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_kU_-rK3wIn2DAGbdy_IwqE2v0n9N0QLe0

_"When these recordings first appeared Birtwistle enthusiasts were still absorbing the impact of three 1986 premieres, Earth Dances, The Mask ofOrpheus and Yan Tan Tethera - works which helped to catapult a highly regarded composer into something as close to superstardom as contemporary classical music can provide. SecretTheatre, the longest of the three works, was itself a mere three years old in 1987: more than two decades on, its elaboration and refinement of basic formal and textural elements present in Silbury Air and Carmen Arcadiae Mechanicae 
Perpetuum (both from 1977) is ever more striking.

Written between The Mask of Orpheus and the no less epic enterprise of Earth Dances, SecretTheatre really does mark a great leap forward, and this performance captures the special, pioneering dedication and enthusiasm which Elgar Howarth and the London Sinfonietta were able to summon up in those days. The recording, even with sensitive remastering, can't give a full picture of the spatial processes at work, involving the tension and interaction between separated individuals and groups, but it is still a highly charged, eloquent account of one of the composer's most powerful and most personal scores.

The more starkly differentiated mechanisms of the other pieces now seem like relatively unelaborated blueprints for the riches to follow, and despite the very different connotations of their titles - the Wiltshire landscape in Silbury Air, a Paul Klee canvas in Carmen Arcadiae - there are evident similarities, as well as moments which now sound unexpectedly derivative (for example, of Ligeti at the opening of Silbury Air). But that simply reinforces Birtwistle's importance as part of the European modernist mainstream, something to which his substantial and distinctive contribution remains a thing to wonder at as he approaches his 75th birthday."_
- The Gramophone Classical Music Guide

*Works*

Birtwistle: Carmen Arcadiae Mechanicae Perpetuum
Birtwistle: Secret Theatre
Birtwistle: Silbury Air


----------



## Kjetil Heggelund

The first pieces I heard by Birtwistle were for large orchestra. These are nice, evocative, dreamy pieces for duos and trios.


----------



## HenryPenfold

Duncan said:


> View attachment 133684
> 
> 
> *Birtwistle: Panic & Earth Dances*
> 
> J*ohn Harle (saxophone), Paul Clarvis (percussion)
> 
> BBC Symphony Orchestra, The Cleveland Orchestra, Sir Andrew Davis, Christoph von Dohnanyi*
> 
> *Link to complete album - *
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_nB9GqAZ1SUb9RFRMMKLJwpiESQzjKv5XY
> 
> View attachment 133685
> 
> 
> *Birtwistle: Night's Black Bird
> *
> *Owen Slade (tuba)
> 
> The Hallé Orchestra, Ryan Wigglesworth*
> 
> *Night's Black Bird -*
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> *The Shadow of Night -*
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> *The Cry of Anubis -*
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> View attachment 133687
> 
> 
> *Birtwistle: The Moth Requiem*
> *
> Roderick Williams (baritone)
> 
> BBC Singers & Nash Ensemble, Nicholas Kok
> *
> 
> *Link to complete album -*
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_kOAbW8DgTZpeDsatdN85ZPbPl05JOfaNI
> 
> "As 2014 marks the composer's 80th year, Harrison Birtwistle remains one of the most popular voices in contemporary composition in the UK and beyond. This new collection of premiere recordings draws together recent commissions with older works to mark the occasion, with characteristically flawless performances from the BBC Singers under Nicholas Kok. They are joined on this disc by the Nash Ensemble and baritone Roderick Williams."
> 
> "This is a wonderful and important release of his powerful and often delicate works. Best, perhaps, to begin with On the Sheer Threshold of the Night, which is a kind of spin-off from The Mask of Orpheus...This disc is the most fitting tribute imaginable to Birtwistle on his 80th birthday."
> - BBC Music Magazine
> 
> _"I doubt whether anything the year brings for Birtwistle's 80th birthday is going to dim the lustre of this excellent recording of his choral music. Nor surpass it in importance, perhaps."_
> - Gramophone
> 
> _"The centrepiece of this outstanding disc of choral works by Harrison Birtwistle, all recorded for the first time, is one of the beautiful and most intensely personal of his recent scores...It's an important, scrupulously presented collection."_
> - The Guardian
> 
> *Works*
> 
> Birtwistle: Carmen Paschale
> Birtwistle: Latin Motets (3) from The Last Supper
> Birtwistle: Lullaby
> Birtwistle: On the Sheer Threshold of the Night
> Birtwistle: The Moth Requiem (2003)
> Birtwistle: The Moth Requiem (2012)
> Birtwistle: The Ring Dance of the Nazarene
> 
> View attachment 133726
> 
> 
> *Birtwistle - Secret Theatre*
> 
> *London Sinfonietta, Elgar Howarth*
> 
> *Link to complete album -*
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_kU_-rK3wIn2DAGbdy_IwqE2v0n9N0QLe0
> 
> _"When these recordings first appeared Birtwistle enthusiasts were still absorbing the impact of three 1986 premieres, Earth Dances, The Mask ofOrpheus and Yan Tan Tethera - works which helped to catapult a highly regarded composer into something as close to superstardom as contemporary classical music can provide. SecretTheatre, the longest of the three works, was itself a mere three years old in 1987: more than two decades on, its elaboration and refinement of basic formal and textural elements present in Silbury Air and Carmen Arcadiae Mechanicae
> Perpetuum (both from 1977) is ever more striking.
> 
> Written between The Mask of Orpheus and the no less epic enterprise of Earth Dances, SecretTheatre really does mark a great leap forward, and this performance captures the special, pioneering dedication and enthusiasm which Elgar Howarth and the London Sinfonietta were able to summon up in those days. The recording, even with sensitive remastering, can't give a full picture of the spatial processes at work, involving the tension and interaction between separated individuals and groups, but it is still a highly charged, eloquent account of one of the composer's most powerful and most personal scores.
> 
> The more starkly differentiated mechanisms of the other pieces now seem like relatively unelaborated blueprints for the riches to follow, and despite the very different connotations of their titles - the Wiltshire landscape in Silbury Air, a Paul Klee canvas in Carmen Arcadiae - there are evident similarities, as well as moments which now sound unexpectedly derivative (for example, of Ligeti at the opening of Silbury Air). But that simply reinforces Birtwistle's importance as part of the European modernist mainstream, something to which his substantial and distinctive contribution remains a thing to wonder at as he approaches his 75th birthday."_
> - The Gramophone Classical Music Guide
> 
> *Works*
> 
> Birtwistle: Carmen Arcadiae Mechanicae Perpetuum
> Birtwistle: Secret Theatre
> Birtwistle: Silbury Air


How about the operas?


----------



## mmsbls

I have lots of Birtwistle to explore. I listened to Antiphonies for piano and orchestra. The work was described this way on the UniversalEdition website:



> This work is not a "piano concerto" in the way the term is usually understood; it is a struggle between the solo instrument - perhaps a struggle for survival - and the menacing, often demonic powers of the orchestra.


Much of the work had a hectic, perhaps antagonistic, sound, but somehow it worked for me. Some of the quieter sections were simply lovely. The "battle" between piano and orchestra is actually quite enjoyable.

I also listened to Silbury Air. It has a similar sense to Antiphonies. On that youtube page there a quote from allmusic.com:



> Birtwistle's 16-minute score for 15 players is a remarkable "music of cruelty," submitting to a preeminent determination, bound fiercely, rapt in tensions.


----------



## Duncan

HenryPenfold said:


> How about the operas?











*Birtwistle: The Mask of Orpheus*

*BBC Symphony Orchestra and the BBC Singers, Andrew Davis and Martyn Brabbins*

*Link to complete opera - *

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_l8a9FcqgOu3pq-MW4MSlfbR3nJ_FXVS70

"Birtwistle's awe-inspiring masterpiece is a key work in the development of post-war opera, groundbreaking in its fusion of music, song, drama, myth and electronics."

_"Birtwistle's opera is about the Orpheus myth, but the familiar story has been fragmented. Each of the principal characters is represented by two singers and a (silent) dancer, and much of what happens isn't directly described in the libretto. Without following the libretto you won't be able to follow everything being sung; at times very little (the text is sometimes broken up; some passages, including much of Act 3, are sung in an invented language).

Rituals are often at their most powerful when they appeal to the imagination rather than to reason, and here the sense of ritual is awesomely powerful.

It's an extraordinarily patterned opera, with many varied repetitions, all meticulously labelled ('First Structure of Decision', 'Second Time Shift' and so on) in the score. The ritual repetitions, the elaborate patternings and allegorical structures make their own effect. In the boldest of these, the 17 'arches' over which Orpheus passes in his quest for Euridice in Act 2, Birtwistle aids comprehension by quite extensive use of speech. But the music says far more than the sometimes enigmatic words, and the ceremonial retelling of the whole story in Act-3, would perhaps have less impact if the words of the song verses were comprehensible.

Birtwistle communicates his refracted but gripping myth with, above all, orchestral colour: an orchestra of wind, percussion and plucked instruments (plus tape, sampler and a small chorus) used with vivid mastery. The sheer sound of this opera is quite haunting and moving. The Mask of Orpheus is a masterpiece, and this performance is fully worthy of it. There are no weak links at all in the extremely fine cast. Although it's unfair to single out any singer for special mention, Jon Garrison's portrayal of Orpheus the Man is outstanding.

The recording, direct and pungent but by no means lacking in atmosphere, leaves nothing to be desired."_
- The Gramophone Classical Music Guide


----------



## Duncan

HenryPenfold said:


> How about the operas?











*Birtwistle: Gawain*

*Marie Angel (Morgan le Fay), Anne Howells (Lady de Hautdesert), Francois Le Roux (Gawain), John Tomlinson (The Green Knight/Bertilak de Hautdesert), Penelope Walmsley-Clark (Guinevere), Richard Greager (Arthur), Omar Ebrahim (The Fool), Alan Ewing (Agravain), John Marsden (Ywain), Kevin Smith (Bishop...*

*Link to complete opera - *

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_mbSc5493ptNGQ1uOotAMi1RpRaULtsiwM

_"Tomlinson pulls off the feat magnificently. There's a deep, grainy quality to his voice that catches the sorrow and cynicism of the Green Knight perfectly...Another strength of this recording is the weirdly intense vocal sound of Marie Angel...As for the orchestral playing, it catches both the dark fatalistic quality of the score and its moments of beauty."_
- BBC Music Magazine

"It's a listening experience that's not for the faint-hearted: from the first downbeat, Birtwistle's music pins you to the spot with its densely scored, dissonant harmonies and dramatic, sinewy vocal lines...The cast put in sterling efforts across the board, but it is Tomlinson's Green Knight/Bertilak that really carries the performance."
- Opera Now

And Henry, make sure you listen to both operas, eh? - There's going to be a quiz later...


----------



## HenryPenfold

Duncan said:


> View attachment 133804
> 
> 
> *Birtwistle: Gawain*
> 
> *Marie Angel (Morgan le Fay), Anne Howells (Lady de Hautdesert), Francois Le Roux (Gawain), John Tomlinson (The Green Knight/Bertilak de Hautdesert), Penelope Walmsley-Clark (Guinevere), Richard Greager (Arthur), Omar Ebrahim (The Fool), Alan Ewing (Agravain), John Marsden (Ywain), Kevin Smith (Bishop...*
> 
> *Link to complete opera - *
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_mbSc5493ptNGQ1uOotAMi1RpRaULtsiwM
> 
> _"Tomlinson pulls off the feat magnificently. There's a deep, grainy quality to his voice that catches the sorrow and cynicism of the Green Knight perfectly...Another strength of this recording is the weirdly intense vocal sound of Marie Angel...As for the orchestral playing, it catches both the dark fatalistic quality of the score and its moments of beauty."_
> - BBC Music Magazine
> 
> "It's a listening experience that's not for the faint-hearted: from the first downbeat, Birtwistle's music pins you to the spot with its densely scored, dissonant harmonies and dramatic, sinewy vocal lines...The cast put in sterling efforts across the board, but it is Tomlinson's Green Knight/Bertilak that really carries the performance."
> - Opera Now
> 
> And Henry, make sure you listen to both operas, eh? - There's going to be a quiz later...


Gawain and The Mask Of Orpheus are superb, but don't forget Punch And Judy and The Minotaur (I have the DVD). The rest, I believe, are yet to be recorded.

I'm rubbish at quizzes!


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## Duncan

HenryPenfold said:


> Gawain and The Mask Of Orpheus are superb, but don't forget Punch And Judy and The Minotaur (I have the DVD). The rest, I believe, are yet to be recorded.
> 
> I'm rubbish at quizzes!


The Minotaur DVD isn't available but there are a random series of clips available - none of which seemed particularly memorable...

Here's Punch and Judy -









*Birtwistle: Punch and Judy*

*Stephen Roberts, Phyllis Bryn-Julson, Jan DeGaetani, Philip Langridge, David Wilson- Johnson & John Tomlinson

London Sinfonietta, David Atherton*

*Link to complete album - *

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_m2Ijsf32TnXPrXbC0uLju9XYcre5Ijvbs

"Punch and Judy elaborates the traditional puppet-play into an opera of stylised violence and ritual. While the simplicity of the children's entertainment is retained in the opera by the characters-familiar and puppet-like-by the invented 'nursery-rhymes' of the libretto, and by the waltzes, lullabies and serenades of the music, the tragi-comic actions of a homicidal puppet are raised almost to the status of myth as Punch murders Judy over and over again."

_"It's almost 40 years since the 1968 premiere of Punch and Judy, celebrated in legend as a rude gesture in the face of Aldeburgh primness, and with hindsight as one of the finest achievements by Britten's most gifted British successor in the field of opera composition.

Good though it would be to have a new performance, the chances of something recent outclassing this 1979 version are remote. David Atherton has total empathy with the tricky blend of short numbers and culminative intensity, and draws brilliantly polished and characterful playing from the London Sinfonietta.

The dream cast is headed by Stephen Roberts's stunning portrayal of Mr Punch as a demented Oxbridge choral scholar, and by David Wilson- Johnson's suave, sinister Master of Ceremonies, while Philip Langridge and John Tomlinson make telling contributions.

This, it need hardly be said, is not 'slice of life' opera, but the characters are animated and individualised, as they should be, through music which fits Stephen Pruslin's hilariously concise word-games like a glove. And if all this weren't enough, the fabulous Phyllis Bryn-Julson comes into her own in the final stages, a succession of vivid, poignant musical moments which Birtwistle has never bettered. And given NMC's no-deletion policy, this classic set is here to stay. No collection should be without it."_
- The Gramophone Classical Music Guide

*Winner - Contemporary
Gramophone Awards
1980*


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## Knorf

I'm a bit late to this party, still discovering the numerous interesting threads around here!

Anyway, I've been a fan of Birtwistle for a long time. My first CD of his music was this one:










The glorious violence and energy of _Verses for Ensembles_ blew me away!

From this and pieces like _Earth Dances_ and _The Triumph of Time_ I learned how violence can be beautiful. We tend to think of violence as ugly, and certainly human on human violence typically is (although depictions of it aren't necessarily ugly, e.g. _Le Sacre du printemps_.) But then think of something like a volcanic eruption-horrifying to anyone or anything living near it, but from a distance: absolutely spectacular, and indeed beautiful (or at least potentially so.) Lightning, thunderstorms over the plains, calving icebergs: all terrible in their violence, but also beautiful.

Or think of the slow violence of plants. On a human time scale, nothing special in terms of aggression or violence. But on a much larger scale, imagine watching camera footage sped up: those roots crush that stone into dust, those vines tear down walls, and that grass rips through asphalt and concrete.

Come to think of it, this is also how _Le Sacre_ to me is beautiful, when you think of Stravinsky saying the inspiration behind the music was as much the sheer explosion of life emerging after a long winter: springtime in Russia.

_Earth Dances_ and _The Triumph of Time_ are violent, terribly sad and tragic, but also both pieces have this extraordinary grandeur that rises above the pathos. It's not life-affirming from a human perspective, exactly, but transcends that limited experience and becomes sublime.

Extraordinary stuff!


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## Kjetil Heggelund

The Triumph of Time "spinning" on spotify here, with Philharmonia Orch./Hogwarth. I've heard the piece some times and might have been the first one ever for me. Earlier Peter Maxwell Davies overshadowed all other British composers in my mind. I'm glad there so much to discover! This is fantastic!


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## mmsbls

I had heard Earth Dances, but it apparently did not make much of an impression on me. I listened again after reading a bit about the work and Birtwistle, and I definitely enjoyed the work more. I like the short bursts of energy from the percussion and brass. When I read about his music, there always seems to be reference to something like brashness, loudness, or harshness; for example, The Guardian speaks of "...primordial churnings and explosions that turn the orchestra into an assemblage of sonic elements..." and a Gramophone review describes a "volcanic life force of jagged rhythms and harsh harmonies...". Yes, I hear loud, forceful soundscapes, but I hear them perhaps somewhat more tempered than the reviews might suggest.

I also heard Theseus Game, which is on the same CD as Earth Dances conducted by Boulez and reviewed in the Gramophone reference above. Theseus Game requires two conductors since the two sections of the ensemble play with different tempi. The work is described as requiring significant listening to hear the contrasting sections. Perhaps, but on my first hearing I found it quite engaging. Theseus enters a labyrinth to find and slay the Minotaur, and the music perhaps includes similar difficulties in following the "true path." I enjoyed this work more than Earth Dances, and I will certainly vote it up in our list of suggestions on _The Talk Classical Community's Favorite and Most Highly Recommend Works_ thread.


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## Art Rock

_Earth dances_ was my introduction to Birtwistle. He remains a composer I sometimes struggle with. Perhaps my favourite in his repertoire is _The Cry of Anubis_, a stunning tuba concerto.


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## mmsbls

Carmen Arcadiae Mechanicae Perpetuum is a wonderful short work for orchestra. The inspiration comes from a painting by Paul Klee, The Twittering Machine, which is based on the song of a mechanical bird. Birtwistle creates 6 musical ideas and juxtaposes them throughout the work creating what often sounds like a jagged, rough work punctuated by long held notes.

The effect worked well for me, and I found this one of my favorite Birtwistle pieces. Universal Edition says the piece "has become a standard work in the ensemble repertoire everywhere in the decades since" it was first performed (1978). I had never heard of the work, and I wonder if it's standard in England but not really elsewhere.


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## mmsbls

*Composer: Richard Barrett (1959 -)*


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## HenryPenfold

*Richard Barrett *(b. December 1959)

The first composition of Richard Barrett that I came across some years back, is '_*Vanity*' 1990-94 (for orchestra, sax, percussion, 2 pianos, bass guitar and strings)

It is a large orchestral work of 3 seamless movements. The music is at turns fierce, melancholic, broody, muscular and sensitive. The textures and sonorities that Barrett produces are both challenging and gorgeous. Although it's best to just listen to the piece and find out for oneself, as pointers, I would say that one might think of Wolfgang Rihm, Harrison Birtwistle, Luigi Nono or even Helmut Lachenmann.

In under 30 minutes, it is a rollercoaster of beautiful ensemble highs and further highs, bewitching orchestral writing and an utterly mesmerising soundscape.

I would strongly recommend it as a starter for anyone wanting to get to know this incredibly interesting and wholly underestimated and almost neglected living composer (he only turned 60 at the end of last year).

Here is an interesting essay written by Barrett on this composition - _https://richardbarrettmusic.com/VanityAnalysis.html_

_


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## mmsbls

*Composer: Missy Mazzoli (1980 -)*


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## HenryPenfold

*I've been listening to *Richard Barrett's *natural causes I, IV, X, XIV for 16 performers and electronic sounds (2016-2017) a fair bit lately and I look forward to its completion - the intention being sixteen compositions which can be performed in different interleaved combinations. Read more here.

When thinking about this contemporary composer's thread, I went back to the first piece of Richard Barrett's music that I first heard; a work that convinced me on one hearing that I was listening to a very special contemporary composer indeed. The work that I refer to is 'Vanity'. I still find it an astonishing work.

Many of us have enjoyed subsequent works such as "DARK MATTER" (1990-2003), "CONSTRUCTION" (2005-2011) and in recent years , the release of "life-form", "nacht und träume" and "Blattwerk" (music for cello and electronics featuring Arne Force on 'cello). This was my personal choice for CD of the year for 2016.

I would say that anyone interested in music that his happening nowadays, should check out 'Vanity' then follow up on the subsequent music that RB has composed.

**



*


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## HenryPenfold

Just wanna give a huge 'thank you' to Richard Barrett for writing this music, and to Arne Deforce for performing it. 

Composer and performer taking music to another, different, exciting and challenging level.

This is how the music that we all love can move on, and keep going for centuries ..........


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## mmsbls

One suggestion a member made to get more activity in this thread was to supply some suggested works by the composer. I have not heard a large number of works from Mazzoli, but I have heard several that I enjoy. Here is a list of some works with youtube links for people to sample:

Still Life with Avalanche

Harp and Alter

Set That on Fire


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## 20centrfuge

Mazzoli: Im wrapping my brain around it. Alt-Classical? New Age Classical? It seems to take cues from minimalism, pop music, maybe even folk music. She’s certainly been successful. I wonder if some classical institutions are hoping she’ll be the key to unlocking a new younger fan base.

There don’t seem to be any Mazzoli super fans here on TC. ARE YOU OUT THERE?


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## Mandryka

HenryPenfold said:


> Just wanna give a huge 'thank you' to Richard Barrett for writing this music, and to Arne Deforce for performing it.
> 
> Composer and performer taking music to another, different, exciting and challenging level.
> 
> This is how the music that we all love can move on, and keep going for centuries ..........


Yes indeed. By coincidence just today I listened to Ne songe plus à fuir - it's a shame Arne Déforce didn't record that one.






My only regret about Barrett is that there isn't more small scale chamber work - this is just my preference for home listening, that's all.

There's quite a bit of Barrett on soundcloud, if you haven't found it. And his doctoral thesis for Swansea University is worth a look, it is online, I can find a link for you if you want.

Arne Deforce's website is also worth a look.


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## Mandryka

Richard Barrett, by the way, is especially interesting in improvisations, his compositions are often about inspiring improvisation. fOkt and the Codex series are goof examples.

He also has a book (which I haven't read.)


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