# Gloria Coates



## BurningDesire

Gloria Coates is a contemporary American composer, born in 1938. Her music is very interesting, just discovered her work recently. 






I like it :3


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## Manxfeeder

She's not for everyone, but I've enjoyed what I've heard from her so far.


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## Prodromides

Yes, the music of Gloria Coates is very interesting.

My understanding is that she lives/works in Germany, even though she is American.

That YouTube clip comes from a 1996 CD on the CPO label:










http://home.wanadoo.nl/eli.ichie/cd/cpo147.html

Her symphony No.8 ("Indian Sounds") which appeared on New World Records is, I consider, the most impressive 8th symphony that I have in my music collection.


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## HarpsichordConcerto

Utter, utter crap music.


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## Art Rock

Her nine string quartets (3 Naxos CD's) make an interesting cycle.


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## BurningDesire

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> Utter, utter crap music.


Utter utter worthless contribution to our discourse.


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## quack

Here's that indian symphony Prodromides praised so highly. Like her string quartets, beautiful and uncanny.


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## KenOC

I've heard a very few of her works, none all the way through because I found them disagreeable at the time. But there have been so many positive mentions, here and elsewhere, that it's time to give her another try. Thanks BD!


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## BurningDesire

KenOC said:


> I've heard a very few of her works, none all the way through because I found them disagreeable at the time. But there have been so many positive mentions, here and elsewhere, that it's time to give her another try. Thanks BD!


You know it!~


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## PetrB

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> Utter, utter crap music.


As is, and as plainly evident as being _"utter crap music,"_ all of Tchaikovsky. 
Hope you get the import and point of the above.


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## HarpsichordConcerto

PetrB said:


> As is, and as plainly evident as being _"utter crap music,"_ all of Tchaikovsky.
> Hope you get the import and point of the above.


? Spell it out, by all means. I'm not here to decode riddles.


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## Chi_townPhilly

All right... everybody put down the flamethrowers and take one step backwards.

And (speaking for the Leadership Team), 
we've just about had enough of people _belittling_ other people's taste in music. mad


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## Manxfeeder

She's one of those composers who I like but don't know exactly why.


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## millionrainbows

Chi_townPhilly said:


> And (speaking for the Leadership Team),
> we've just about had enough of people _belittling_ other people's taste in music. mad


Although the poster in question did not actually make direct reference generally or specifically _to any member's taste in music,_ but only _the music itself,_ I am glad this moderator intercession has taken place, to demonstrate that the technique of _"oblique ad-hominems"_ which cleverly avoid any direct _personal_ reference _(and, indeed, bait innocent members into ad-hominem retorts),_ is a strategy which has now been exposed.

_The attempt to "bait innocent members into ad-hominem retorts" can be clearly seen in posts #10 and #11._

Remember, refer to _the music or composer only_ when responding to such bait. The retort, which unfortunately used the word "you," was probably what alerted moderation, not the original smear.


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## Delicious Manager

I have been familiar with Coates' music for a little while, through some of the symphonies. I have now received the Naxos set of her nine string quartets to review. Her music is weird - intentionally so. Coates wants to disarm people, to make them feel uncomfortable and question things. On the surface, a lot of her music sounds the same as it is saturated with slow string _glissandi_. These _glissandi_ are always very precisely written out and carefully calculated to achieve specific sonic effects. There is also a great deal of canonic writing, although this won't be immediately apparent to the listener much of the time. Coates lives near an airfield in Germany. There must be a lot of old turbo-prop aircraft coming and going, as her music is imbued with the sliding drone sounds that one can encounter when aeroplanes are landing, taking off, taxiing and circling. Hers is a sound world unlike anything else I have encountered in music. I am not ready to start writing my review of the quartets boxed set yet; I need more time to digest and try to make sense of this most peculiar of styles.


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## PetrB

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> ? Spell it out, by all means. I'm not here to decode riddles.


Somewhere in the collection of music you love and admire, which is also loved and admired by others, including 'officially' in literature written about music by experts, is a composer whose work someone else, musically experienced and intelligent, with a cultivated ability to discern, i.e. years of experience and a well developed sense of 'what is good,' thinks .... well, what I said of Tchaikovsky, but about 'your guy.'

Now, if you had bothered, from your point of perspective, to be more articulate about why you think the music of Gloria Coates is utter 'crap' -- and made a good argument for it, well, that's discussion, then, even if you may not be correct


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## millionrainbows

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> ? Spell it out, by all means. I'm not here to decode riddles.


Yes, PetrB, by all means, take the bait and make your move; your own inertia will be your undoing, for I am like the hollow reed.


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## xuantu

Another great find! I feel myself liking her already! And _Delicious Manager_ (or _Art Rock_), do tell us what you think of GC's String Quartets on Naxos. She does seem to be a lady who has a way with the strings.


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## Manxfeeder

xuantu said:


> Another great find! I feel myself liking her already!:


Cool! Depending on your ears, her quartets either sound like a jet plane taking off or fingernails on a chalkboard. They appeal to me, but my wife makes me wear headphones.


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## Renaissance

Listenable symphony, not bad. Way better than most other works from that period.


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## aleazk

Nice piece (Symphony No.14, composed in 2002), very interesting composer, so far I like all the pieces by her that I have listened.


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## sjorstakovitsj

I have her 1st, 5th, 6th and 9th string quartet and her 1st, 7th and 8th symphony, all must-haves if you ask me. The 14th symphony which aleazk mentioned is also great!


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## SimonNZ

How can anyone not love a seven-minute full-movement single glissando? I mean that quite seriously.

My absolute favorite of all her trademark glissandi is the second movement of Holographic Universe.






But that shouldn't and doesnt overshadow the many other exciting aspects of her music. I've become a big fan.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde

Out of the works I've heard, the 7th symphony stands out to me the most. Amazing work!


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## Manxfeeder

One thing I've appreciated from Edgard Varese is his use of the pitch continuum, particularly by his use of sirens. Are Gloria Coates' glissandi extensions of the pitch continuum concept, or am I reading too much into this?


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## Guest

Bumping this thread for Ms Coates, because I'm in love!


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## brotagonist

dogen said:


> Bumping this thread for Ms Coates, because I'm in love!


I'm glad you did  I'm just into the second movement of Symphony 15. Wow!  I definitely need to hear more of her works.


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## Guest

I've just listened to 15 on Youtube. She's definitely my favourite composer currently. I can see me getting a lot more of her works. The SQs are uniformly stupendous, to these ears.


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## Guest

There are times, and this is one of them, when my paltry words don't do justice to a topic. So here, blithely lifted from her Wikipedia entry are some fine words about this music that I find so…transcendental…

"Her music is postminimalist, marked by the tension not only between material and technique (...an attempt to give structure to chaos), but even more so between what would have to be termed 'sober-technical' compositional principles and the genuine direct expressive power and emotionality of the music.

For Gloria Coates, artistic expression is a spiritual necessity. She has great interest and significant participation in painting, architecture, theater, poetry, and singing-but it is through composing that she taps into a wellspring of abstracted emotionality that the others cannot reach. Whatever the veiled expressions of her work may be, there is an undoubted emotional richness present, which if not concretely knowable is at least viscerally felt by the audience. Canons constructed of quartertones and glissandos evoke gloomy instability, but also unearthly beauty.

Coates is a master of microtones, of taking a listener to aural places you never knew could exist and finding the mystical spaces between tones.

Behind the variety of such techniques, behind even the varying deployment of similar structures, one hears Coates's constant aesthetic: her sense of each movement as a unified gesture, her almost post-minimalist unidirectionality. Above all, while sadness, anger and mysticism appear in her work with stylized clarity, they are subsumed to an overarching tranquility that often has the last word, and always the most important one."

-various- from:

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


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## Nereffid

I too have been very impressed by Coates's Symphony no.15, but I've somehow never got round to investigating more of her music. Aside from the 3 works on the Naxos recording of the symphony, I only know one other piece - a recent work for harp and vibraphone called "Perchance to Dream". It's an eerie - not to mention sad and lonely - work inspired by the harper's songs from Goether's "Wilhelm Meister" (Schubert and Wolf set them).


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## Guest

SimonNZ said:


> How can anyone not love a seven-minute full-movement single glissando? I mean that quite seriously.


Hehe! Well it may be an acquired taste....

but when I sink into this music....seven minutes? ... the clock has stopped...


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## Guest

...interesting interview...


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## Avey

I'm glad this thread was brought back up, because I was unfamiliar with her music and y'all's comments over the past week or so have given me a reason to explore. Loving what I have heard so far.


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## Nereffid

Nereffid said:


> I too have been very impressed by Coates's Symphony no.15, but I've somehow never got round to investigating more of her music. Aside from the 3 works on the Naxos recording of the symphony, I only know one other piece - a recent work for harp and vibraphone called "Perchance to Dream". It's an eerie - not to mention sad and lonely - work inspired by the harper's songs from Goether's "Wilhelm Meister" (Schubert and Wolf set them).


I just want to take this opportunity to apologise for misspelling Goethe, and to thank everyone for not pointing it out and laughing at me.


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## Guest

Nereffid said:


> I just want to take this opportunity to apologise for misspelling Goethe, and to thank everyone for not pointing it out and laughing at me.


Rest assured, if I had noticed it I would have both Pointed AND Laughed.

But you got away with it!

Coates' Symphony no 15 is winging its way towards my letterbox as we speak.


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## Guest

There doesn't seem to be all of her symphonies available on CD; unless someone can enlighten me?

This is most vexing!!


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## Capeditiea

:O i am shocked, after looking through all the pages here... (i could have possible over looked her name upon here...)
that i didn't find one thread on Gloria Coates. 

I absolutely love her Symphony No. 2 

And her String Quartets (i only heard her first 8... she has 11..) 

How about you?


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## Manxfeeder

I've liked everything I've heard of her. It seems her music hits people like the Yanny/Laural effect; some hear nails on chalkboards and some hear jet engines starting up.


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## Capeditiea

i hear jet engines. :3 

i am currently listening to her seventh for the first time.  i am having a hard "time" not paying attention to it. 

(so i kinda sat here with my eyes closed while listening forgetting about the rest of the world.)
Yeah, the seventh is also another favourite of mine.


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## Guest

I have quite a bit of her oeuvre; namely:

































I posted this in the Female Composers thread:


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## Art Rock

Capeditiea said:


> :O i am shocked, after looking through all the pages here... (i could have possible over looked her name upon here...)
> that i didn't find one thread on Gloria Coates.


Gloria Coates



Anyway, interesting composer. I have five of her Naxos CDs, and I like the string quartets in particular.


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## Capeditiea

Bumping the Original Gloria Coates Thread.



She is one of my top 8 composers of all time... (funny how my top 8 is mostly contemporary, post modern, or baroque.) Yet each of the top eight kinda grants the missing epochs. Coates grants the Renaissance Theories in her scores. (from what i read...here )


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## Guest

Perhaps the 2 threads should be combined?


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## Guest

dogen said:


> Perhaps the 2 threads should be combined?


Probably, yeah.

Coates wrote some terrific symphonies. The 14th is my favourite. There is an extraordinarily musical, intuitive sense to how she deals with microtones, glissandi and stuff like that, where I think she makes that kind of aesthetic work a lot better than Haas, who has explored similar ideas.


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## Manxfeeder

Manxfeeder said:


> I've liked everything I've heard of her . . . some hear nails on chalkboards and some hear jet engines starting up.


Looking at the old Gloria Coates thread, I said the same thing back in 2012. Oh, well, at least I'm consistent.


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## Guest

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> Out of the works I've heard, the 7th symphony stands out to me the most. Amazing work!


Hell yeah, this stuff is good


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## Guest

Spookily, that's the one I'm listening to now.


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