# 20th century composers to convert/convince the skeptics



## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Looking back on my musical progress, it's fascinating to see who helped me move forward in my appreciation of the 20th century. First there was La Mer and The Rite as the principal things I admired. I couldn't get into large scale romantic works(most) so cross off Mahler and those that followed like Rach and Shosty. However Bartok's Concerto for orchestra years later after a period of regression, helped me back into it. Odd ones for other reasons like W. Schuman and Medtner helped. Then there was my live experience with Dutilleux. Pretty soon, I can't turn back, not to say I dont still love older music.

Top works I'd reccomend for the uninitiated. 

La Mer 
The Rite of spring
Bartok concerto for orchestra
Dutilleux VC
Shosty Symphony 6
Medtner's G minor sonata
Janacek's Sinfonietta

Those are only some, and the thread has officially started. Sorry, I'm on a cell phone typing this.


----------



## NightHawk (Nov 3, 2011)

Ah, yes...works to convince the skeptics! 

Here's a Six-Pack guaranteed to please!

1. A Survivor from Warsaw - Schoenberg 
2. Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima - Penderecki
3. Vietnam Oratorio: Fire - Water - Paper - Goldenthal
4. Quartet for the End of Time - Messiaen
5. Xenakis - Metastasis
6. John Cage - 4' 33"


----------



## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

NightHawk said:


> Ah, yes...works to convince the skeptics!
> 
> Here's a Six-Pack guaranteed to please!
> 
> ...


Don't forget Sorabji's Opus Clavicembalisticum.

And I suppose skeptics can be convinced in different ways, I get your drift. They can be convinced into more skepticism. Not that that applies to these works, these are easy peasy.

P.S., now I'm off that phone and on computer, but I'm still too uninvested to elaborate, but invested enough to hope others do.


----------



## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

Some that I was listening to again recently (in no particular order):-

_Der Rosenkavalier_, an opera by Richard Strauss
Double Concerto for Strings, Piano & Timpani by Bohuslav Martinu
Piano concerto #1 by contemporary Australian composer Carl Vine
String quartets by Paul Hindemith
Symphony No. 3, Op. 36 _Symphony of Sorrowful Songs_ by Henryk Gorecki


----------



## Sequentia (Nov 23, 2011)

clavichorder said:


> Don't forget Sorabji's Opus Clavicembalisticum.


The only reason why that piece is "not to be forgotten" is that the two commercially available recordings of it are crap and distort the music beyond recognition.

On topic:

Dutilleux
Carl Vine
Ligeti
Maybe Scelsi


----------



## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

I have no personal satori to relate, since the first recording I was given along with a record player when age four or five was of Janacek’s Harry Janos Suite, Prokofiev’s Lieutenant Kije, etc. When I commenced piano lessons at age six, my very first lesson had me playing the first pieces from Bartok’s Microkosmos book I, and I recall Octavio Pinto’s ‘run, run’ was part of that first year. Ergo, my first perception of ‘dissonance’ that same year was when I ran across a particular passing harmony in some simple Bach piece, the next in something from Schumann’s Album für die Jugend. Context is everything. -- I was thoroughly ‘corrupted’ when very young.


----------



## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

I listen to these kinds of post-1900 works all the time, I always put them on current listening. There are so many of them & a number of them I connected with upon first listen, without much experience with the composer in question.

Anyway, some things that lead me onto other things, opened up room for other discoveries, I list below.

These were earlier in my life -

*Berg* - _Wozzeck_ & also his _String Quartet, Op. 3_
*Walton* - _String Quartet in A minor, Viola Concerto, Henry V - film score_
*Janacek* - _String Quartets #s 1 "Kreutzer Sonata,' & 2 'Intimate Letters'_
*Messiaen* - _Quartet for the End of Time_
*Vaughan Williams* - _Symphonies #s 2, 4, 6, 7, 8; Partita for Double String Orchestra_
*Gorecki *- _Sym.# 3 'Symphony of Sorrowful Songs'_

These were in recent years, incl. since joining this forum -

*Elliott Carter *- _String Quartet #1_
*Dutilleux, Lutoslawski *-_ Cello Concertos_
*Xenakis* - _La Legende d'Eer for 8 track tape, Pleaides for percussion_
*Messiean* - song cycles, eg. _Trois Melodies, Harawi, Poemes pour Mi_
*Peter Sculthorpe* - _Sun Musics I - IV, Piano Concerto, The Fifth Continent_
*Schoenberg* - _Violin Concerto, Pierrot Lunaire, Transfigured Night_
*Ligeti *- _Requiem, Ramifications, Chamber Concerto, Etudes for piano_
*Villa-Lobos* - _Bachianas Brasileiras, Choros, Guitar Concerto_
*John Cage *-_ Credo in Us, In a Landscape, The Seasons_
*Hovnahness* - _Symphonies #s 2 'Mysterious Mountain,' 22 'City of Light,' 50 'Mount St. Helens,' Celestial Fantasy, Guitar Concerto #2 _

& plenty more. Currently exploring Australian composers, mainly.

Also don't forget, a well rounded knowledge of music of the distant past - eg. before 1900 - does contribute to deeper appreciation of the musics coming after. But of course, you guys know that...


----------



## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

PetrB said:


> I have no personal satori to relate, since the first recording I was given along with a record player when age four or five was of Janacek's Harry Janos Suite, Prokofiev's Lieutenant Kije, etc. When I commenced piano lessons at age six, my very first lesson had me playing the first pieces from Bartok's Microkosmos book I, and I recall Octavio Pinto's 'run, run' was part of that first year. Ergo, my first perception of 'dissonance' that same year was when I ran across a particular passing harmony in some simple Bach piece, the next in something from Schumann's Album für die Jugend. Context is everything. -- I was thoroughly 'corrupted' when very young.


Its interesting, 'cases' like your's, where your difficulties in the fields of music that are usually considered difficult, were overcome so early or so readily that you didn't have to "train" your listening muscles on modernism so much. I think I got hooked on Tchaikovsky and Johann Strauss II type stuff, and this left an impression in my mind of what music should be like for a long time, took a long time to outgrow.

In forcibly breaking that mold, I've sometimes felt out of my footing in terms of discernment with quality in modern music, which I why I try everything in the hopes that it will some day come together.


----------



## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

NightHawk said:


> Ah, yes...works to convince the skeptics!
> 
> Here's a Six-Pack guaranteed to please!
> 
> ...


The only change I'd suggest is, for No. 6, one of Cage's prepared piano pieces. A skeptic would harumph at 4'33" of silence, I'm afraid.


----------



## Klavierspieler (Jul 16, 2011)

I'd say a lot of Britten is good for this. It just happens to be what I'm listening to right now.


----------



## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

Here's a Six-Pack guaranteed to please!

1. A Survivor from Warsaw - Schoenberg 
2. Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima - Penderecki
3. Vietnam Oratorio: Fire - Water - Paper - Goldenthal
4. Quartet for the End of Time - Messiaen
5. Xenakis - Metastasis
6. John Cage - 4' 33"

Please who? Surely not those already skeptical concerning Modern music, not those making their first timid forays into the wilderness of Modernism.


----------



## Guest (Mar 2, 2012)

I could sit and listen to stories about how people got into this or that music all day long.

Convincing skeptics, though. Um, not so much.

I have no sympathy with skeptics, or that is I have no empathy. I never went through a skeptical phase, so I only know what it's like from observing it from the outside. It doubtless looks very different from the inside. From the outside, it really seems like convincing skeptics is roughly equivalent to making water (nice euphemism, eh?) whilst facing the wind. I've soiled my armor many a time doing just that....

Anyway, to me NightHawk's list looks very tasty. Very tasty indeed. To a skeptic, maybe not so much. Maybe the skeptic needs to just CALM DOWN!!! All those pieces are quite delightful. Well, the five that I know. I'll have to give the Goldenthal a listen, now.


----------



## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

clavichorder said:


> Its interesting, 'cases' like your's, where your difficulties in the fields of music that are usually considered difficult, were overcome so early or so readily that you didn't have to "train" your listening muscles on modernism so much. I think I got hooked on Tchaikovsky and Johann Strauss II type stuff, and this left an impression in my mind of what music should be like for a long time, took a long time to outgrow.
> 
> In forcibly breaking that mold, I've sometimes felt out of my footing in terms of discernment with quality in modern music, which I why I try everything in the hopes that it will some day come together.


It's a work in progress for me as well. I build up these experiences, like a coral reef grows, over time. A process of accretion.

In terms of older musics, eg. J. Strauss Jnr. & Tchaikovsky, you can actually use those to access new/newer musics.

Eg. Janacek didn't care for the three B's but really digged Tchaikovsky. & I can understand, Tchaikovsky was an innovator. People accuse him of various things, but I think they may not understand how he did things uniquely (eg. his concepts of thematic development and structure not always being traditional/conventional for his time).

& all of the guys of the Second Viennese School admired J. Strauss Jnr. to a huge degree, even doing chamber transcriptions of his waltzes and other dances. It may well be that with these modern composers interest in revivifying old forms - eg. theme and variations - the waltz king did provide some good insight into that. Eg. all his waltzes are done in the same format - intro/theme, then 5 variations, coda. What's amazing is that there's great variety in how Strauss applied that basic template. & I would argue that this would not have passed the Second Viennese guys by either. Of course, their home town was Vienna, so a bit of bias there? But it's much bigger than that.

So appreciating and enjoying new musics does not necessarily negate what you know or love about the older musics. It's adding to it, enriching it, that's how I see it anyway...


----------



## neoshredder (Nov 7, 2011)

I gotta say I prefer this over the 19th century. Convincing me to enjoy much of the 19th century is a different story. Bartok, Stravinsky, and Debussy are some of my favorites of this century. I should look more into the others.


----------



## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

neoshredder said:


> I gotta say I prefer this over the 19th century. Convincing me to enjoy much of the 19th century is a different story. Bartok, Stravinsky, and Debussy are some of my favorites of this century. I should look more into the others.


That's not surprising, really. I assume you like Baroque & Classical eras the most? A lot of 20th century composers, incl. those guys you mention, kind of got rid of a lot of the 19th century upholstery, for want of a better term. All of them went back to the Classical Era and beyond, Debussy at the end of his life, but just before neo-classicism took off (his late sonatas), then of course, Stravinsky and Bartok being at the forefront of the "back to Bach" movement after World War I. As I said, there's connections all over the place, and sometimes you don't even have to look far to find them...


----------



## neoshredder (Nov 7, 2011)

Good point. It is still challenging music to listen to though compared to earlier times. But rewarding in the end.


----------



## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

Manxfeeder said:


> The only change I'd suggest is, for No. 6, one of Cage's prepared piano pieces. A skeptic would harumph at 4'33" of silence, I'm afraid.


4'33" is *not* silence thank you very much. It is in fact the exact _opposite._ The whole point of the composition is for the audience to hear the sounds of the world around them. The sounds we would normally take for granted. That is the music. The piece isn't just for the audience to watch the performer(s) playing nothing the whole time.


----------



## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> 4'33" is *not* silence thank you very much. It is in fact the exact _opposite._ The whole point of the composition is for the audience to hear the sounds of the world around them. The sounds we would normally take for granted. That is the music. The piece isn't just for the audience to watch the performer(s) playing nothing the whole time.


You are, of course, correct, but remember these works were suggested for the skeptic of modern music. Those people invariably view the work as either silence or the absence of music. It _seems_ like a cute trick. Even if the meaning of the work were discussed before hearing, I don't think 4'33" helps those struggling with modern music works to better enjoy them.


----------



## sah (Feb 28, 2012)

I would include something "funny", such as Nonsense Madrigals by Ligety:











Ionisation (E. Varèse). I see this piece as a descriptive one. I think nobody knows how atoms, electrons, protons and others particles sound, but this piece can help . Imagination is or should be free.


----------



## GoneBaroque (Jun 16, 2011)

Almost anything by Hovhaness, much of Elliott Carter, Samuel Barber, Stravinsky, William Walton, and Britten come immediately to mind


----------

