# Post-WW2 Composers Who Are Tonal and Structured



## CPSeattle

Do they exist? Every single post-1945 piece played by the Seattle symphony is an unlistenable ordeal. Is it their selection that's the problem, or did every modern composer abandon tonality and theme? I've had a subscription to the Seattle symphony for a few years, but seeing as how they seem have a driving need to inflict this stuff on me at every concert, I'm in a quandary as I contemplate next season, and modernism in general.

I'm just about at the end of my tether in this stuff. I don't see any reason pay to sit through tortures like last night's Henri Dutilleux "A Whole Distant World," but before I stomp off into the night, I do wonder what I might be missing. Are there any modern composers who didn't hate their lives and want to share the misery with us? I want to keep giving the genre a chance, but is there anything that's both structured and tonal, or does every modernist consider those things banal?

If so, there are plenty of other ways to spend a thousand dollars are year, but I thought I'd ask here.


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## joen_cph

If you find the Dutilleux "Tout un monde lointain" to be hard-core modernism, you must be having a tough time in general - even Debussy or Ravel must then belong to the borderzone near the unbearable ?


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## Truckload

Being fairly new myself to this forum also, may I say

PLEASE DO NOT LEAVE!

You are needed here! You are about to be attacked by the avant-guard / modernist / atonal crowd. Please do not let that drive you away.

There are many, many people, some of them here on this site, who are in sympathy with your plight. For various reasons, it is difficult to find newly composed music of value. It is something I have been pondering about myself for many years. Let's work together to find some things we can mutually appreciate.


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## starthrower

Sounds like you're the one with the the miserable life. Why put the blame on composers you hate?


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## CPSeattle

The Debussy ("Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun") was very enjoyable. I am a big Ravel fan, and always have been. They played his "La Valse," which could have been titled, "The Angry Waltz," or "Waltz on Acid." I thought it was brilliant. It was intense, challenging, and thought provoking in the best possible way, yet also recognizable and disciplined. But, like I say, I haven't found symphonic music after 1945 to be any of those things.


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## science

Piazzolla.

Golijov.

Shostakovich.

Britten.

Bernstein.

Hovhannes.

Rodrigo.

Khachaturian.

Williams.

Of course you have the right not to go. Is it the case that _all_ their concerts have something like Dutilleux? If I were so sensitive about it, I would find out what the program is, sample the music on a recording, and if it seemed likely to bother me so much, I certainly wouldn't go!

Duran Duran came to Korea last week. I didn't go. Just like that! No stomping off into the night for me.


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## Lenfer

I prefer "classic" classical music that is not "avant-guard / modernist / atonal". Before joining here I would not have even let "avant-guard / modernist / atonal" music in the door. However over the past six months my view has changed. I feel there is a time and place for both.

To the OP I'd like to say welcome to the forum and maybe try *Arvo Pärt*. The work of his I have come across is for the most part tonal and structured.


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## joen_cph

This thread mentions some quite recent composers with Baroque inspiration. The listed Pärt Tabula Rasa concerto is an example of pleasant recent music with a mysterious, meditative stillness as well. The Spisak Bassoon concerto is entertaining also.

http://www.talkclassical.com/17017-baroque-lovers.html#post252933


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## CPSeattle

Thanks, Lenfer and joen_cph. I'll look it up and have a listen. I am looking for reasons to stay, not reasons to leave. I clicked on your link and am listening to Arvo Part "Tabula Rasa" as I type. Gives me hope. Maybe not all is lost.

science, I agree about Bernstein. He's an exception for me. Years ago, a friend took me to see Britten's Requiem in Washington, D.C., and I hated it. It was my intro to modern music, and it hasn't gotten any easier. Shostakovich is a mixed bag for me. I've liked some things, and not others. He might be right on the dividing line for me. 

And yes, you're right about checking in advance. That's what I told myself last night. No more "just going." (Which is kind of unfortunate. It's been fun to not know until I fish out the tickets and go, "Great! Tschaikovsky!") And yeah, unfortunately, they seem to sneak in a modernistic clash-fest in just about every concert. But there were two notable exceptions. One was Joshua Bell, and the other was Yitzhak Perlman. When those guys came for their special gigs, the orchestra didn't play any of the new junk. Interesting, huh?

Poldenice and startthrower, yes, I am stupid. Terribly, unforgivably stupid. But one should never openly condescend to the stupid. As stupid as we are, we figure it out.


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## joen_cph

this thread has partly dealt with some of the same issues:

http://www.talkclassical.com/17793-tolerable-modern-composers.html


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## Polednice

It really depends what you mean by "tonal", as the term is very broad. Science's suggestions are very good as a starting point for music that has a more traditional sound, but there is tonal music that doesn't sound like it's out of the 19th century, so, if you're looking to put minimal effort in and just want the same old Romanticism (nothing necessarily wrong with that), you'd be better off listening to film scores and cross-over artists like Karl Jenkins.


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## Truckload

CPSeattle said:


> Do they exist? Every single post-1945 piece played by the Seattle symphony is an unlistenable ordeal. Is it their selection that's the problem, or did every modern composer abandon tonality and theme? I've had a subscription to the Seattle symphony for a few years, but seeing as how they seem have a driving need to inflict this stuff on me at every concert, I'm in a quandary as I contemplate next season, and modernism in general.
> 
> I'm just about at the end of my tether in this stuff. I don't see any reason pay to sit through tortures like last night's Henri Dutilleux "A Whole Distant World," but before I stomp off into the night, I do wonder what I might be missing. Are there any modern composers who didn't hate their lives and want to share the misery with us? I want to keep giving the genre a chance, but is there anything that's both structured and tonal, or does every modernist consider those things banal?
> 
> If so, there are plenty of other ways to spend a thousand dollars are year, but I thought I'd ask here.


I am going to be extremely cautious in making a couple of recommendations because I realize you feel abused at this point.

First I recomend the John Williams Tuba Concerto, it is a blast to listen to and although more harmonically advanced than his movie scores it is still very tonal, very structured and who can resist the Tuba?

Second I recommend the Howard Hanson Symphony No. 2 "Romantic" which is full of beautiful melody and orchestration. This one was written in 1930, and it is his most famous and best selling work. Dont expect any of his other stuff to be as easily likable as this, but once you hear this you will hear his style in his other more "progressive" compositions. As a result, feeling a sort of connection with the composer, you can appreciate more of his music. I also always like to plug Hanson having heard him speak in the 1970's at a composition symposium in Rochester. He was a wonderful, witty, unassuming man, of tremendous personal charisma.

You can find both on YouTube. I was going to embed some links but can not get it to work.


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## Ukko

Karl Jenkins! Jeez, _Poley_.

There is a lot of tonal post-WW2 music around. As _Poley_ says, the term covers a lot of ground; some of that music may not sound much like tonal to you. I suspect you don't really care if the music is tonal or not, you want it to make connections in your head. You might be surprised at some of the music that can do that.

[_I'm whispering now_ - Some of Ligeti's music can do that - Dutilleux's Cello concerto can do that.]

Basically, what you need to do is kick back and listen without thinking - especially thinking _Agh, agh, I hate this crap!_

When I tried (and tried) that with Boulez's sonatas nothing happened, But Dutilleux is really no 'farther out' than Messiaen.

Anyway, you can survive here as a music reactionary, and most of the members won't even think you must be retarded.

:devil:


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## CPSeattle

Truckload, thank you for your suggestions. I will follow up. I don't demand "pretty" music, by the way. A little sugar goes a long way. And, while Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev, and Tschaikovsky are great fun not to mention tailor-made for a guy in a tuxedo waving his arms around, I'd hate to think that every modern composer has to do that to get a gold star from me.

There was nothing pretty about Ravel's _La Valse_, for example. In fact, it's right on the border of crazy, and it's the tension that makes it what it is. I really enjoyed that one. It probably helps that, a few years ago, I was in Vienna and did the typical tourist thing by going out to one of the palaces and hearing some Strauss. (Everyone knows Strauss, even if they don't know they know it.) _La Valse_ really works because of the way Ravel employed the form and then struggled against it, as a way of commenting on the decadence and destruction of Austria-Hungary.

What makes the post-1945 stuff so hard for me is that when you discard both melody and structure, you feel trapped in a randomized, annoying spot, which is augmented by the very nature of going to see an orchestra play: sitting in a hall, in one place, with nothing to do other than look at the players or perhaps close your eyes to concentrate on the sound. As an intellectual exercise, I think there's a lot of laziness involved. Tonality and theme are like punctuation and grammar. The post-WW2 material that they've been playing in Seattle is a word salad, and I just can't call it a novel.

I am blessed and burdened with acute hearing. I love sounds, all of them. I take sound very seriously. I'm not formally educated in music, but I have very wide tastes in it, including some fairly abstract jazz. (Archie Shepp, anyone?) And I'm a big fan of a lot of modern art, an old favorite being Jack the Dripper Pollock. So I'm not some musical Thomas Kinkaid. But man, this modernist music can send me around the bend, and not in a good way. One other thing: It's incredibly predictable. You look in the program, see that it's after 1945, and you pretty much know what's coming: The soundtrack to an old _Mannix_ TV show.

Okay, so there's the rant. I do thank those who are offering positive suggestions about things to listen to. I am stupid, but not simplistic, so I am looking for disciplined, tonal, structured modern music that I can listen to, composed by people smarter than I am and played by musicians who are better than I could ever imagine being.


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## Truckload

CPSeattle - I am in sympathy with you completely. Nice commentary on La Valse by the way. I expect that if you did a secret ballot of Symphony subscribers you would likely find the majority feel just like you do. This conflict has been going on for a long time. I am sad to see so many people such as yourself, actual classical music supporters, willing to spend money to support classical music, get turned off and stop attending live performances. Over the last 40 years or so, some orchestras tried grouping all of the "modern" music into just one or two programs per year, but found the hall would be more than half empty for those concerts so some stopped doing it. As a paying customer, you should suggest to your symphony that you would be much happier if they would group the "modern" music into just a few concerts. It may work, and it may not. Much of the symphony revenue probably comes from a few foundations and government grants, and "the one who pays names the tune" as they used to say.

Thanks for your rant. I hope you like this site. I have found it to be very stimulating.


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## Polednice

Hilltroll72 said:


> Karl Jenkins! Jeez, _Poley_.


Well you never know! It often seems as though some people trying to find enjoyment in the contemporary classical world would be better served by _that_ sort of stuff.


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## clavichorder

CPSeattle said:


> I'm just about at the end of my tether in this stuff. I don't see any reason pay to sit through tortures like last night's Henri Dutilleux "A Whole Distant World," but before I stomp off into the night, I do wonder what I might be missing. .


I was at that same concert and had an opposite reaction! I'm amazed that someone posted about it here. I used to think like you do.


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## joen_cph

Some masterpieces written in a relatively conservative style are:

*Taktakishvili*: Violin concerto 




*Kabalevsky* 1st Cello Concerto 



 ; 2nd Cello Concerto 




*Kapustin*: String Quartet 




*Pettersson* 8th Symphony 




*Nosyrev* Piano Concerto 




*Einar Englund* (2nd symphony,The Blackbird 



 ; too fast in this recording, the old Panula is better)

... enough


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## CPSeattle

clavichorder, yeah, and your group was definitely in the majority last night. That's what really scared me. The guy I was with put it well. He wondered whether he had wandered into a large group of devil-worshipping vampires. We talked about it, and I said that, at this time of the year in the Pacific Northwest, the moss starts growing inside people's skulls :lol: and you'd better watch out, plus there's the group-think.

In any case, I am well aware that the symphony isn't my personal band, and that, given that we only have one of them here, they've got to satisfy a wide range. I think the thing to do for me is scour the schedule more closely, listen to snippets in advance, and see if I can find enough that suits my tastes. I see that the new conductor is going to have some evenings of modernist music out in the lobby. Maybe this will free him from feeling an obligation to stick it into every other show.

I can say this much: If, in the end, if getting away from the latest soundtrack from Mannix means all I can do is see some "pops" treacle, they'll have to get along without me at the symphony. I'm sure they'll survive. But before I go that far, I'm going to pay more attention to the full range of what they do. Even if Benaroya Hall sounds like a felt-lined bridge overpass. I shouldn't have gone to see the New York Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall last fall. That hall spoiled my ears forever.

p.s.: joen_cph, thanks again. I'll be listening. I truly appreciate your suggestions, and to everyone else, I appreciate your tolerance for my ranting. This has been building up for a while, so I'm afraid I'm a little likea Sunday school preacher on his first drunk.


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## clavichorder

Truckload said:


> CPSeattle - I am in sympathy with you completely. Nice commentary on La Valse by the way. I expect that if you did a secret ballot of Symphony subscribers you would likely find the majority feel just like you do. This conflict has been going on for a long time. I am sad to see so many people such as yourself, actual classical music supporters, willing to spend money to support classical music, get turned off and stop attending live performances. Over the last 40 years or so, some orchestras tried grouping all of the "modern" music into just one or two programs per year, but found the hall would be more than half empty for those concerts so some stopped doing it. As a paying customer, you should suggest to your symphony that you would be much happier if they would group the "modern" music into just a few concerts. It may work, and it may not. Much of the symphony revenue probably comes from a few foundations and government grants, and "the one who pays names the tune" as they used to say.


I attended the same concert, and the OP poster might be puzzled to hear that the effects of Ravel's La Valse, though I know it to be a great piece, did not work on me as well as I felt it should have, since I was a little drained and spaced out(I can be a fidgety person) I came to the concert primarily for the Dutilleux and Martinu, two composers that I know and like, and I expected the Ravel and Debussy to be easy and enjoyable things to go along with it. That was pretty much the case, except somehow I spaced out during the Ravel, after my concentration on the more modern Dutilleux and the very texturally thick Martinu, the sleek Ravel seemed naked in parts, though the beginning was challenging. I am not always the best concert listener, since I am a young man sometimes I'm more interested in thinking about girls or my latest composition project and my mind will wander. I can't really say why I wasn't as affected by the Ravel as the rest of the audience, I just didn't feel as engrossed at that moment, perhaps I have a heart of stone.

The Dutilleux lost me for parts of the middle movements, but I found myself enraptured by its own unique brilliant construction that works on its own terms. I really think Dutilleux is a special composer.


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## violadude

Truckload said:


> I am going to be extremely cautious in making a couple of recommendations because I realize you feel abused at this point.


Oh please  abused?? How is anyone going to take you seriously if you say stuff like that? Why would anyone feel "abused" just from listening to some music they didn't like? That's ridiculous, especially when the composer in question is Dutilleaux. Don't cheapen the horrible experience of actually being abused by comparing it to listening to music please.


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## violadude

CPSeattle said:


> Do they exist? Every single post-1945 piece played by the Seattle symphony is an unlistenable ordeal. Is it their selection that's the problem, or did every modern composer abandon tonality and theme? I've had a subscription to the Seattle symphony for a few years, but seeing as how they seem have a driving need to inflict this stuff on me at every concert, I'm in a quandary as I contemplate next season, and modernism in general.
> 
> I'm just about at the end of my tether in this stuff. I don't see any reason pay to sit through tortures like last night's Henri Dutilleux "A Whole Distant World," but before I stomp off into the night, I do wonder what I might be missing. Are there any modern composers who didn't hate their lives and want to share the misery with us? I want to keep giving the genre a chance, but is there anything that's both structured and tonal, or does every modernist consider those things banal?
> 
> If so, there are plenty of other ways to spend a thousand dollars are year, but I thought I'd ask here.


Instead of seeking out composers that you find are more safe, since you live in Seattle you should come visit me and I will teach you how to appreciate modern/contemporary music :devil: We will become best buddies.


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## clavichorder

CPSeattle said:


> clavichorder, yeah, and your group was definitely in the majority last night. That's what really scared me. The guy I was with put it well. He wondered whether he had wandered into a large group of devil-worshipping vampires. We talked about it, and I said that, at this time of the year in the Pacific Northwest, the moss starts growing inside people's skulls :lol: and you'd better watch out, plus there's the group-think:


I really sympathize with you. Sometimes I wonder myself about this kind of thing. I'm not an idiot, however I am a bit fatigued at the moment, so my thoughts may not come out as fluidly as I would like! I don't really have the energy to set you straight or anything, or even know if what I'm doing is that, or what, as your own points are well rationalized and I've been there and sympathize, I would never want to make you feel dumb for not 'getting it.' All I can say, is that perhaps you'll have to figure this dillemna out on your own. It does not have to do with your intelligence, but developing a certain habit. I think a lot of concert goers have developed a habit of tolerance, and in my case, since I am a bit of a composer and a 20th century music convert, I can appreciate the overall sweep of things knowing that with more listens things will become clearer, I'll start to get to know parts of the piece, ect. Perhaps that seems absurdly stupid to you, but let me tell you that it is very hard to do what Dutilleux did, I know that as a composer.


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## clavichorder

Tonal music started to be less of an immediate emotional affair for me, and more of an intellectual delay set in when I realized that it varied as to what immediately moved people in the tonal realm. For example, I used to think Brahms was ridiculous, and Berlioz and Mahler were excessive and disordered, Beethoven's 7th was stupid, Haydn only had a few "gems" whereas Mozart was purely sublime except that overrated Jupiter Symphony and some others where people praised the intellectual art of counterpoint. Bach was only good in instances where he had a good melody like some of the things from St. Johns Passion or French Suites, god forbid those Brandeburg's or any of the more formal organ music. In order to expand, I had to get more thoughtful and used to things over time. You probably know this process. I still draw lines and think minimalism is kind of stupid, but I don't know really. I'm composing 12 tone music at the moment, and I don't even know if I like most of it, but I think my stuff is pretty cool, maybe because I'm a bit process oriented, or maybe I made it rhythmical and thematic, I'm not sure. Anyway, if I were to rely solely on my immediate intuition of the older days, the Ravel would fall in the same category as the Dutilleux. Debussy would not however, I always loved him.

Just some thoughts to share my processes, and show you that I sympathize, don't think you are an idiot, and hope you don't think I am, and who knows, maybe it will open your mind to some possibilities or better reveal to you my rationale as an example from the vampire worshippers.


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## CPSeattle

I don't feel abused, at least in this thread, at least not so far.  It's a little disquieting to be described as a musical conservative or reactionary, but I've been called worse, so I'll live!

There's no need to try to set me straight. There's no way I'm going to like that composer they played last night. I'm ranting a bit, but by comparison to some of the things people say about modernism in its various forms I think I've been pretty mild. I'm not sure who it was here who advised me not to think about it but just to listen to it. My answer is that this is always what I do. I've always been that way about art, too. You either connect with something, or you don't.

It's rare for me to get much out of the commentary in a music program, or an art catalog. But sometimes it does happen, and the commentary about _La Valse_ in last night's program was one of those times. I was listening to it go off the rails, and thought, "Hmm, what's going on?" The program note about it being completed in 1920 after the fall of Austria-Hungary really helped put it in context. I've studied just enough of that history to be dangerous, so it clicked right away.

But it wouldn't have helped one bit if the music itself wasn't interesting. So, for example, the commentary in the program, and the little talk by the conductor before the Martinu piece, and those reproductions of the frescoes that didn't translate well to the big screen, none of it mattered to me, because the music didn't connect. I think of Rembrandt. An old friend was an art history major, and took me to Art Institute of Chicago one afternoon, and pointed out why he was considered so great. Look at the light. See? Aha! Simple art commentary. But the painting had to be great to begin with.

By the way, I think people are quite accustomed to atonality and randomness. It's all around us, especially on TV. It works at times, but not for me in a symphony hall. It's not a moral issue or a political one for me. I just don't like it. And I really don't care what anyone else thinks, so last night I sat there with my arms across my chest during the standing ovation at the end of the first half. I wanted to start booing, but I figured that might be a little rude, so I didn't.

I'm also not intimidated by modernism. I was joking when I wrote about being stupid. Hell, almost 30 years ago, when I was in my mid-20s, I once gulped my second bourbon during a reception for the CEO of General Motors, and then called across the room: "Hey, when are you guys going to make a good looking car, anyway?" He actually appreciated the candor. And we all know that GM's cars were butt-ugly in the mid-1980s. I'd have no trouble at all telling a modernist composer, hopefully in the nicest possible way, that the music sucks. :lol:


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## violadude

CPSeattle said:


> There's no need to try to set me straight. There's no way I'm going to like that composer they played last night. I'm ranting a bit, but by comparison to some of the things people say about modernism in its various forms I think I've been pretty mild. I'm not sure who it was here who advised me not to think about it but just to listen to it. My answer is that this is always what I do. I've always been that way about art, too. You either connect with something, or you don't.


Are you saying that you have never disliked a composer at first and then grew to like that same composer? That's never happened in your whole life?

Edit: Not being aggressive btw, just curious.


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## CPSeattle

violadude, I can't recall it happening, but there always a first time. With that one, though, I will be surprised if it happens. What's more common for me is hearing things I hadn't heard before, and liking them even more. Or getting less enamored over time.

Rachmaninoff is an example of the latter. The first piece of orchestral music I paid for as an adult was his _Piano Concerto #2_. It's still the one I'd recommend to someone who thinks they hate classical music, and it'll always be a sentimental favorite. You know, first loves and all that. But I've found that a little Rachmaninoff goes a long way. It's a whole lot of fun, but you move on. Or Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, but maybe United Airlines killed that one for me. :lol:

Will I "move on" to, say, Phil Glass? Boy, I sure doubt it.  But you never know, maybe I'll have the kind of _Aha!_ moment that I experienced when I was 22 years old and saw the cube in Lower Manhattan. No one told me it was famous. I was on a vacation there. Walked down the street, saw it, and almost fell over in the street looking at it. Changed my view of modern art forever. I still remember going back to where I was staying and saying, "You've got to see that thing! It looks like it's about to take off!"

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/3/4527534_9fdd0b69ec.jpg

p.s.: joen_cph, thanks for the Otar Taktashavilli. Listening to it right now. Line drive to center left field. Outstanding!


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## violadude

CPSeattle said:


> violadude, I can't recall it happening, but there always a first time. With that one, though, I will be surprised if it happens. What's more common for me is hearing things I hadn't heard before, and liking them even more. Or getting less enamored over time.
> 
> Rachmaninoff is an example of the latter. The first piece of orchestral music I paid for as an adult was his _Piano Concerto #2_. It's still the one I'd recommend to someone who thinks they hate classical music, and it'll always be a sentimental favorite. You know, first loves and all that. But I've found that a little Rachmaninoff goes a long way. It's a whole lot of fun, but you move on. Or Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, but maybe United Airlines killed that one for me. :lol:
> 
> Will I "move on" to, say, Phil Glass? Boy, I sure doubt it.


Interesting. Well personally I can't tell you how many times my first impressions about a composer have been wrong, so I urge you not to make the possibility of liking a composers music out of reach for yourself. Not to offend, but in my opinion the notion of "you either make a connection or you don't" is objectively false. It's like love at first sight, no matter how much you think you love a person when you see them, it's just hormones acting up. You can't know if you have truly loved that person until you actually know more about that person. Same goes for music. As I'm sure you know, our brains are quite limited as to how much stimuli we can take in at once (they have to be or else we would constantly be barraged with over-stimulation). So when you go to a concert and hear a piece it is nearly impossible to catch everything that is going on the first time you hear it. Just like that person you think you love (or maybe hate in this case) it's likewise nearly impossible to make a sound judgement on the piece. Just something to think about. My own take on things.


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## violadude

CPSeattle said:


> Will I "move on" to, say, Phil Glass? Boy, I sure doubt it.


I think you chose an interesting phrase here, "move on." You speak of "moving on" to Philip Glass, and I think a lot of people that are suspicious about contemporary music think audiences should "move on" past Beethoven and into the future or some nonsense like that. But that is not so at all. Most people (such as myself) that promote contemporary classical music aren't asking anyone to move on, but perhaps just expand. I don't mean you have to expand your tastes in music, but I'm just saying that I certainly haven't "moved on" from older composers, just built more music on top of them.


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## Cnote11

I make sure to revisit nearly everything that I happened to dislike or things that didn't particularly inspire me. Some of my most loved pieces of art, books, music, etc. are ones that I didn't connect with at first. As people we are highly fluid and we tend to change in our perceptions of things. Upon establishing knowledge of certain things, we might then reinterpret something we had previously experienced differently, causing us to connect with it the second or third time around. I find it absurd that you'd take everything as "one and done". I'm quite certain you didn't enjoy things at five years old that you enjoy now. I find that it is a disservice to yourself not to revisit these things. I also agree with violadude in saying that your perspective is quite odd, as if there needs to be some sort of complete break. I know for a fact that they can all co-exist together. The music is just another form of expression and not some absurd usurping of the superior music throne. I did not like Penderecki years ago, but now he is one of my favorites. The same can be said for a lot of music, even outside of the classical sphere. Those who approach this modern music seem to have some idea of what it is already made up, and proceed to listen with an evident bias and a sneering attitude. I'm not here to get you to like modern classical. I really couldn't care less if you dislike it forever or not. I just find that your posts display a rampant egoism and also make wild assumptions left and right. Your attitude towards it and those who listen to it makes me question your motives.


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## CPSeattle

Well, I wouldn't get too wrapped around a tree on semantics. Always worth remembering that words are shorthand, and shorter hand yet when posting on an Internet board. You're right, "move on" isn't the best way to say it. "Expanding" is also shorthand, though. You don't really "move on," nor in my view do you "expand." Or you do both, and more. Hey, I bet whole books have been written about the subject. 

I do think that _connection_ is everything with art and music. They can be studied, and appreciated in various linear ways, but not if there's no emotional connection, I'll never do anything more than appreciate, and usually not even that. What I've trained myself to do with art is to say, and think, "I don't see the connection," rather than to say, "This sucks." Unless I'm trapped at the Whitney Museum for the afternoon. :lol: (You've got to be a real victim of modern art to love the Whitney, in my opinion.) With orchestral music, it's a lot harder to do that, because you're trapped. Maybe what I really need is an aisle seat? 

I was just out walking the dog and smoking a cigar, something that always makes me dangerous. It occurred to me, as a hypothesis, that most music, and maybe all of it, begins and ends with a heartbeat. Not in the emotional sense, but in the physical sense. If that connection is broken, it's not going to work for me. Departures, yes, but it's got to come back there. Structure in the end, might be about heartbeats. That's the nicotine-generated idea of the day.


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## CPSeattle

Cnote, my motives? I'm off on a rant, and hope to find something modern that I like. What other motives could I have? To get rich? To force the Seattle symphony to play only sweet tunes?

By the way, it's not "one and done" with me. I thought about it with respect to music, and can't remember disliking something and then coming around to liking it. The closest I can recall coming is being indifferent, and then liking it later. And that's just with music. Other things, and people, are different for me. Sorry, it's how I'm wired. If that's odd, then I'll just have to live with being odd. It's a crushing burden, but I'll have to find a way to bear it. :lol:


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## neoshredder

violadude said:


> I think I recommended this composer to you before. Try this, it's very dreamy and relaxing.


This might be what you are looking for.


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## Cnote11

CPSeattle said:


> Cnote, my motives? I'm off on a rant, and hope to find something modern that I like. What other motives could I have? To get rich? To force the Seattle symphony to play only sweet tunes?
> 
> By the way, it's not "one and done" with me. I thought about it with respect to music, and can't remember disliking something and then coming around to liking it. The closest I can recall coming is being indifferent, and then liking it later. And that's just with music. Other things, and people, are different for me. Sorry, it's how I'm wired. If that's odd, then I'll just have to live with being odd. It's a crushing burden, but I'll have to find a way to bear it. :lol:


I don't mean to come off rude with that post, but the attitude in which you are displaying in this thread makes it seem like you're hardly serious in your pursuit of what you claim. Of course, some of what I said in my last post was based off of some assumptions, but in a probing way. I realised I should have curbed my approach. Go ahead and listen to Yoshimatsu.


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## PetrB

joen_cph said:


> If you find the Dutilleux "Tout un monde lointain" to be hard-core modernism, you must be having a tough time in general - even Debussy or Ravel must then belong to the borderzone near the unbearable ?


I have to agree with this - to a point. In one context it is about as lyrical as it gets - whether it is serial or not - in the later part of the century.

If you want to rant about composers with miserable lives sharing their agonies with us, just look to the mid-late Romantic era, and audiences are still wallowing in that stuff as happy as a pig in its sty. The fact that you are used to / conditioned to it does not take away the fact it was for its contemporary audiences, often enough, 'modern music too much to bear,' their having a very similar complaint as yours about the 'new music' back then.

I am not 'the avant garde attack all other music guy - that 'type' is as limited as the mono-obsessed Wagner fanatic, the 'all baroque all the time' listener, and similar.

My tastes, strongly and not just upon occasion, span from 1300 to the present, almost all (with exception of those mid-late romantics aforementioned) I consume on a regular basis.

You've got Darius Milhaud, Arthur Honegger, Shostakovitch, Prokofiev, Benjamin Britten, Poulenc, Bohislav Martinu, and hosts of other fine classical composers from both sides of the Atlantic who remained in one way or the other, 'tonal' for the entirety or majority of their output.

Your complaint, frankly, doesn't hold much water -- the works you complain of are, in cliche concert programming, 'sandwiched' in-between repertoire both more familiar and aggressively tonal, they are almost -- should I bet you good money on this? -- Always the middle piece of three on a program.

If you cannot sit through one piece of that type, with the other two being completely accessible to you, (do Not Tell Me the 'atonal' works show up one per program throughout the subscription series - that would be hard to believe) then you are, as Charles Ives -- another lifelong Tonal Composer -- put it, A "musical sissy."

If you are aware of what you do not care for, and it works out to your financial advantage - check the symphony schedule for next season and purchase tickets for the individual concert programs you do wish to hear / attend.

Problem solved.

P.s. As far as 'structure,' unless you are living in a house with a 19th or 18th century floor-plan and proportions, you're asking way too much of music past those eras to keep the same shape. Now I realize part of your complaint is not just "Your comfort zones within the already familiar 'jostled'" - with all the counterargument being pure rationale, but that you are just not adventurous enough to check out newer buildings - that is not a criticism but something I think you should consider - if it is the case, stop 'looking for more' when there are oceans of the older format music - more than enough to keep anyone happily busy for a lifetime. And for you, resign yourself to the fact you are not, really then, 'missing anything.'


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## CPSeattle

Cnote, I like the Kabalevsky even better. Maybe the problem is with whoever at the Seattle symphony is picking the tunes. Do you live here? Go to that orchestra? I'll admit to being relatively new there, this being my third or fourth season, but the modern stuff they play is uniformly unstructured and non-melodic. In the end, I sit there thinking that these people are playing terrible music really well. 

I've sat and listened for quite a while. You don't like my original question, and suspect my motives and my seriousness. All I can tell you is that I don't go to the symphony for the status of it, and that my reaction is as honest as I can make it. Frankly, I think there are plenty of people who won't say what I've said for fear of being mistaken for that guy down the street, Phil E. Stein. I'm pretty fearless about that kind of thing, so I didn't put a whole lot of varnish on what I had to say.

I'm not one of these people who thinks everyone ought to boycott the orchestra. I just wish they wouldn't seem to be so scared to play something with a theme and a tune, written in the past 60 years. After listening to some of the things suggested here, I am perhaps wondering that even more. Since you're a lover of modernist music, can you perhaps tell me if its aficianados, or at least a big chunk of them, regard structure and melody as unsophisticated, corny, and unworthy? From what they've been playing around here, it kinda-sorta seems that way.

p.s.: Now that I'm hopeless, I might as well dig all the way to China. Do you happen to know what percentage, not exactly but in general, of modern music is written in a major scale? I realize how juvenile this is, but way back in those classes with Mrs. Doherty, the music appreciation teacher, I recall learning that the minor scale tends to communicate sadness and worry. Seems to me that just about all the new stuff is minor, hence my comment about the composers hating their lives.

p.p.s.: Not real big on the Kapustin. Did he by any chance jump off the Rte. 99 bridge?


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## CPSeattle

neoshredder, thanks. I'm listening to that right now. Maybe I'll write something sweet and dreamy.


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## Sid James

Cut the dogma, guys just answer the bloody question. I don't care if someone doesn't like a certain type of new/newer music or whatever, I think it's good that anybody listens to something from after 1945. Some listeners here can't stand Mahler for pete's sake. So what? What did Schoenberg say? "THere's plenty of good music still to be written in C" (paraphrasing), it was to an ideologue student of his in UCLA who was rubbishing Shostakovich's 5th symphony. Schoenberg defended Shosty - and by implication, "modern tonal" music - to the hilt. That was back in 1930's, so this debates is not new and will never be resolved. Just get on with it, the practical stuff, cut that crapola PLEASE!!!

Anyway, science's list is a good start. & I made some discoveries with joen-cph's list as well.

I admit that the Dutilleux cello concerto was not apparent to me at first, I did not quite know want to make of it. But he gives you a tone row in the opening cello solo which forms the basis of the whole thing. It's like a set of variations on this tone row. But I got into it by instinct and relistening, I'm not trained in music. But I'd love to hear it live. No chance of that here I'm afraid. But it might grow on you, these things take time.

Anyway, my additions would be -

*Miklos Rozsa *- did several string concertos. I've got his viola concerto (1970's) - a bit Bartok like, also romantic and filmic (he was a Hollywood film composer).

*Bernard Herrmann *- another film composer. I've been enjoying his "Echoes" for string quartet (1960's) on Naxos label. It's like a modern canon, goes for 20 minutes, a stream of consciousness. More "atonal" than say Rozsa, but with strong melodic base, and the feel for example of Mahler is not far away. Same with his score for Hitchcock's "North by Northwest."

*Peter Sculthorpe *- I have to plug an Aussie, one of our finest. After 1980's, he kind of went back to tradition more strongly than before. Try his "Little Suite for strings," a compilation of various older film scores. For some more serious things, try "Kakadu" or "Mangrove," images of our continent. Or "From Kakadu" for solo guitar, the guitar concerto "Nourlangie," his more recent "REquiem" is kind of organic minimalist, more pared down and lean, his "Songs of Sea and Sky" for flute and piano. This guy has done heaps, and it's quite good. An earlier work which is modern but still visual and melodic is "Fifth Continent," the movement "Small Town" is quite popular here (or was? it's from the 1960's).


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## neoshredder

Another one from Yoshimatsu


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## CPSeattle

Ooh, I like that one, neoshredder. Genuine thanks.


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## Cnote11

CP, I don't doubt your genuine love of music. Also, I used to think the same thing about a lot of music and about how it isn't very structured. The more I listened to it however, the more I found structure in it. This is what I feel you aren't genuine in, because I feel that you have a sort of self-serving bias going in fulfilling your record of not ever "coming around to" anything you didn't previously like. Which in the end is fine, but I feel like you aren't really giving it a real try. Maybe to you it isn't worth it, as in the end you might not end up liking it anyway, which is fine. I feel like your negative attitude towards it isn't going to help you understand it. Then again, I could simply be wrong on all of this.

I mentioned in my previous post about how it wasn't some silly idea of usurping the throne of superior music. By that I meant that, no, structure and melody are not seen as unsophisticated or unworthy in anyway. I will go on about the genius of Beethoven and Tchaikovsky and other "overblown" composers in a heartbeat. It isn't about which music is better and it isn't even about comparing the two. I recognize the function of the music, and a lot of modern music is simply choosing to express things in a different manner. That expression is one I happen to enjoy and one that you may not. I have a large interest in timbral structures and sound in general. I greatly enjoy things like field recordings and noise music. I plan on doing field recording myself in pure form but also in composing works out of natural tones from the world caught on the tapes. These are things of interest to me, so you can see that I'm inclined to be in love with conceptual and avant-garde music. I don't feel sophisticated for listening to the likes of Stockhausen. I just happen to love the music, as you love your music, which I'm certain I also love. It fulfills me in both cerebral ways and pure visceral ways. Structure to me is a pseudo-concept. I don't think it is possible to not have structure, it is just structure you are not acclimated to.

Certainly there is a lot of tonal music out there that is modern. It doesn't just go away and get swallowed into the abyss. I do think there should be more of it, in fact! The lover I am of avant-garde, I think the scene would be infinitely enriched by an influx of composers that went away from that as well. I enjoy nearly every genre on the planet, and I find all of the sounds of instruments unique and interesting. I see negative responses about composing in past idioms on here from time to time which I absolutely disagree with. I realise the importance of connecting history to the reasoning of why music was the way it was during a point in time in history, but I believe that sounds in themselves are eternal. I would absolutely love to hear a school of composers doing neo-baroque and gain some prominence. In my opinion, music has no sacred cows, nor boundaries! 

I'm sorry that I can't be of much help, but I really wish I could be.


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## CPSeattle

> I admit that the Dutilleux cello concerto was not apparent to me at first


He didn't help matters by making it five movements. I was sitting there thinking, well, at least it's a concerto so there'll only be three movements. But noooooooooooo!


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## mmsbls

I'm not sure exactly what modern music you like and dislike, but much, though not all, of what you have said resonates strongly with me. Three or four years ago I was struggling with Debussy, Ravel, Shostakovich, Bartok, and Stravinsky. Since then I have come to love many of their works. I came to TalkClassical (TC) about a year ago specifically with the desire to "learn" to like atonal music. Unfortunately, I have not made much progress on that front, or at least I have not noticed significant progress.

You may be different from me and others I know, but I certainly have come to enjoy works I explicitly disliked when I first heard them. Music that was very unpleasantly dissonant earlier is fine or even enjoyable now. I have listened to a _lot_ of modern works over the past couple of years, and I assume that exposure has broadened my listening enjoyment. I have found many modern/contemporary works that I greatly enjoy.

I will suggest a few contemporary composers/works that I love hoping they might work for you as well. They are tonal and certainly write with structure.

Eric Ewazen - Violin Concerto, Down a River of Time (Oboe Concerto)
Sylvie Bodorová - Bern Concerto for Violin, Viola & Strings
Nicholas Rota - Piano Concerto
Carl Vine - Piano Concerto, Smith's Academy

Incidentally, I listened to the Dutilleux cello concerto. Several years ago I would have strongly disliked it, but now parts were nice (although overall I did not really enjoy the work). For me at least Debussy and Ravel are vastly easier to enjoy than that work.


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## CPSeattle

> I feel that you have a sort of self-serving bias going in fulfilling your record of not ever "coming around to" anything you didn't previously like. Which in the end is fine, but I feel like you aren't really giving it a real try. Maybe to you it isn't worth it, as in the end you might not end up liking it anyway, which is fine. I feel like your negative attitude towards it isn't going to help you understand it.


I'll make this my last reply today, so I don't wind up getting into more of a spiral than this already threatens to be. I've been giving modernist symphonic music "a try" for a long time. Not just here, but elsewhere. I've sat there thinking, come on, don't be like some ol' grandpa about this. Give it a chance. This rant is long-simmering. Ol' Henri last night was the straw that broke the camel's back. But the suggestions here have been worthwhile; I won't write off _all_ modernism. Instead, I'll listen to a snippet beforehand, and if I don't like it I'll exchange the tickets.

In my primitive brain, it's hard to understand how someone could enjoy some of this stuff, but then I remember being a kid and watching Janis Joplin on the Ed Sullivan Show. My father scoffed at it for all the usual reasons, and I sat there thinking, are you nuts? She's great. Much later I learned about the trail back to Bessie Smith, but it wouldn't have mattered. You either connected or you didn't.



> Structure to me is a pseudo-concept. I don't think it is possible to not have structure, it is just structure you are not acclimated to.


We could go around and around on that, and ultimately I think it'd boil down to mostly semantic wrangling. You, or some other aficianado of modernism, would likely eventually start talking about fractal mathematics or string theory or something like that, and I'd say, there's no heartbeat anywhere and therefore it's random to human beings, and we'd talk past each other. My decision is like anyone else's: Are they offering what I'm willing to spend my time and attention on, not to mention the fruits of my labor?

It's not a matter of morality or politics or intelligence to me. Can I relate to it at a visceral level, or not? At the very least, it became quite clear last night that I can't count on being able to do that. The onus is really on me to pay more attention to the details in advance, because I can tell you that I have no intention of repeating last night's torture session.

p.s.: To all who have been coming up with ideas, once again, thank you very much. I genuinely and quite honestly appreciate your efforts, and absolutely will listen to everything that's been suggested. And don't think I've been chased out of here. I haven't. I'll be back. I just don't want to get in a knock-down, drag-out classic Internet spat, and the best way to do that is to take a break for a bit.


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## Sid James

mmsbls said:


> ...
> 
> Incidentally, I listened to the Dutilleux cello concerto. Several years ago I would have strongly disliked it, but now parts were nice (although overall I did not really enjoy the work). For me at least Debussy and Ravel are vastly easier to enjoy than that work.


I think eg. Debussy's "Jeux" is not far from Dutilleux's cello concerto, both have a non-traditional kind of structure and forward looking way of treating themes, or fragments of them. But another thing is good to know the story behind both of them, "Jeux" is kind of psychological, speaking to me more of mind games and changes in mood/vibe/atmosphere than strictly the menage a trois of the story behind it. So too, Dutilleux with it's reference to Baudelaire's poetry, "The Flowers of Evil," but the composer did not mean to do a literal join the dots thing, he said it's kind of about giving the vibe of the poetry, that rich and sensual/erotic symbolist/decadent feel, eg. in the climaxes in the work, I think of orgasms, but also showing the dark sides of sex/obsession. There's many layers to these works for sure.


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## Jeremy Marchant

Rather a lot of judgment going on in this discussion (on both sides).

In answer to the question, I nominate Michael Torke (b 1961).
_Javelin _is an entertaining work to start with.

As the only Youtube video of it is an amateur affair and unlistenable, I suggest checking it out on Spotify


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## Polednice

CPSeattle said:


> I realize how juvenile this is, but way back in those classes with Mrs. Doherty, the music appreciation teacher, I recall learning that the minor scale tends to communicate sadness and worry. Seems to me that just about all the new stuff is minor, hence my comment about the composers hating their lives.


If their music was in a minor key, it would be tonal. This makes me think that you're not really communicating what you want. Am I right in thinking that you don't want just anything that falls under the bracket of "tonal", which does refer to things you clearly don't like, but that you're looking for something that sounds like it could be lifted from the 18th-19th centuries?


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## Cnote11

Well, CP, that's alright by me. I have no concrete reason to continue to doubt your intentions, but I still think you seem a bit mixed up about a few things, purely due to unfamiliarity and perhaps familiarity as well. This isn't any sort of knock on you, nor was anything I really said. I don't think less of anybody who doesn't like this kind of music, or if you don't really care to further your investigation, or if you ever really did in the first place. I thank you for this thread, as I'm certain it will reveal to me something new and wonderful.


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## Cnote11

Polednice said:


> If their music was in a minor key, it would be tonal. This makes me think that you're not really communicating what you want. Am I right in thinking that you don't want just anything that falls under the bracket of "tonal", which does refer to things you clearly don't like, but that you're looking for something that sounds like it could be lifted from the 18th-19th centuries?


I think this is an important question, and this is why I think "semantics" are very important. Things have an array of different meanings to different people, and sometimes people are way off the mark or simply cannot express what they mean very well. This is also the problem I find in the atonal thread, where people lump anything difficult sounding directly into atonal, etc. etc. without it actually being so. It becomes such a mess because people simply are not on the same page. Modern does not equal sophisticated, nor avant-garde, nor atonal. Nor do any of those equal eachother. It becomes a bit bothersome because people approach the discussion with pre-conceived notions that aren't articulated within the debate, leaving a giant gaping hole in the discussion that will not get filled no matter how long it goes on. In Philosophy it becomes very important to make sure you are very thorough in writing out your exact definition for every term that you are using, because you can't assume your definition is standard. Many people have a hard time identifying what kind of definition they are putting forth, which also sends things flying off the rails. I realise this is just an internet forum and these things won't happen and I myself surely do not follow these things on here, but I can still point them out as a major hindrance in the process of getting anywhere. One may say they think arguing semantics is silly, but it is the crux of Philosophy and thereby understanding.


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## mmsbls

Cnote11 said:


> In Philosophy it becomes very important to make sure you are very thorough in writing out your exact definition for every term that you are using, because you can't assume your definition is standard. Many people have a hard time identifying what kind of definition they are putting forth, which also sends things flying off the rails. I realise this is just an internet forum and these things won't happen and I myself surely do not follow these things on here, but I can still point them out as a major hindrance in the process of getting anywhere. One may say they think arguing semantics is silly, but it is the crux of Philosophy and thereby understanding.


You are exactly correct here. Many thread posts argue distinctly different issues. It can be very frustrating when you are trying to make a point or have started a thread to discuss an issue. I think the best approach is to try to understand the point of view of the poster even if her post is ambiguous or unclear. Admittedly, that is easier if you know many of their prior posts, which of course is impossible if one is relatively new.

What I especially love is how people read the OP title and assume they know everything about the OP. For example, all one has to do is put the word "atonal" in the title, and many people will assume the thread is arguing against modern music.

Misunderstandings are inevitable, but with some forethought they can be minimized. Also if there is any doubt, people can ask the poster what they meant and suggest examples for clarification. As you said, that happens all too rarely.


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## Manok

Try Alfred Schnittke, he might open some doors for you. Try some of his symphonies.


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## PetrB

CPSeattle said:


> ... It's a little disquieting to be described as a musical conservative or reactionary, but I've been called worse, so I'll live!....


You will live, "But you ARE, Blanche…you ARE!" - an extreme musical retro-conservative, a reactionary, and all the rest.

It is heavily ironic that the Dutilleux should have been singled out when your 'complaint' is about unstructured music, since music of that genre is more intensely structured and organized than anything from the late romantic period.

There is no use, really, other than 'more for your pleasure with more modern harmony' to look at the conservative moderns who adhered to the old formats and procedures. The fact you are avowedly not interested in 'going there', truly, should -- please -- make you temper your complaint, and put it squarely on you that the old architecture is all you care for, and most importantly, You don't really seem to work at understanding, you just want more of the same old stuff.

That is fine and good, everyone has limits to their particular tastes. But to couch a complaint that composers should be writing for you because you spend $1200 a year on concert tickets is one of the most tyrannical and babyish whines there can be, making it much more difficult for those who do know and could provide you with more -- and god forbid maybe even stretch your musical imagination and capacity -- want to assist you at all.

In his own time, Beethoven was writing music which elicited very much the same reaction to that music as you have to the Dutilleux. Luigi Was Not Composing To Entertain just everyone. Dutilleux did not have you -- or me -- in mind when he set pen to paper. Why, a good question for another thread, should he?

It is your job to keep up. Your rant / plea almost looks as if you would like - intend to do so. Underlying it is a very fixed mind in regard to the entire matter, and 'the tired businessman's concert-going complaint,' -- "I go there to be relaxed, not confronted with music I have to really think about."

No sympathy here with that one. All great music, even the 'old' stuff to which we are accustomed, is a frighteningly disturbing encounter. The old stuff is so common Ethos you don't perceive it that way, but that is, essentially, your complaint. That makes me think you are not a real 'music lover,' but use it for some other purpose.


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## samurai

@ CPSeattle, Have you listened to either *Symphony No.2 or Symphony No.3* by Philip Glass? I think you might just be pleasantly surprised, especially by the latter. They are both available on *Spotify,* if you have it and are so inclined.


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## elgar's ghost

Maybe CPSeattle is familiar with the following couple of composers but I'll namecheck them anyway...

Barber tinkered with different methods of composition but I can't think of too much of his music that would give a person the vapours whether it's tonal or not. Korngold (d. 1957) was a conservative who rarely - if ever - strayed from tonality and as a result he was considered totally passe even in the years BEFORE WWII when he was still only in his 30s, but he wrote many fine works right up until his death.


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## clavichorder

I'd recommend the Tcherepnin symphonies, not many know them, but they are very nice and tonal, a bit like Shostakovich. The 4th and 3rd in particular.

The second movement of this symphony written in the 60s reminds one of Petrushka.


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## clavichorder

Tcherepnin Piano Concerto 6


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## clavichorder

And this may really be up your alley, Metdner's Fairy Tales that were written after the war. Medtner was a staunch opponent of Modernism, and I am a Medtner fan though I no longer am in total agreement with his views, his music is very rich, STRUCTURED


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## clavichorder

And of course, his heaping and baffling masterpiece, of a tonal nature, the third piano concerto





Medtner, a composer born in the 1880s wrote an anti modernist book. The irony is, his own tonal music is so intricate and complex that it almost baffles listeners as much as the atonal music of the time, though it sometimes has the advantage of external prettiness. I admire Medtner for doing his own independent thing for so long even in a time when it was dated.

Also, if you have not heard Rachmaninoff's symphonic dances, you are in for a treat. Rachmaninoff, Medtner's more popular parallel, had a more intuitive sense for melody and larger structure, but was less intellectually disciplined in the art of counterpoint and thematic development, and not as pithy on the small scale as my less popular friend in my opinion.

Also, to be checked out is Prokofiev's 5th symphony, refreshingly tonal, but with many wrong notes, and more immediately appealing than Shosty. For Shosty, try his 9th or his 6th.


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## PetrB

samurai said:


> @ CPSeattle, Have you listened to either *Symphony No.2 or Symphony No.3* by Philip Glass? I think you might just be pleasantly surprised, especially by the latter. They are both available on *Spotify,* if you have it and are so inclined.


The poor man is trying to go forward, not backward!


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## Sid James

PetrB said:


> The poor man is trying to go forward, not backward!


Glass' symphonies where written after Dutilleux's cello concerto - and Glass is younger too. So listening to Glass IS going forward (comparatively!). So let's leave it there???


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## violadude

PetrB said:


> You will live, "But, Blanche, You ARE!" - an extreme musical retro-conservative, a reactionary, and all the rest.
> 
> It is heavily ironic that the Dutilleux should have been singled out when your 'complaint' is about unstructured music, since music of that genre is more intensely structured and organized than anything from the late romantic period.
> 
> There is no use, really, other than 'more for your pleasure with more modern harmony' to look at the conservative moderns who adhered to the old formats and procedures. The fact you are avowedly not interested in 'going there', truly, should -- please -- make you temper your complaint, and put it squarely on you that the old architecture is all you care for, and most importantly, You don't really seem to work at understanding, you just want more of the same old stuff.
> 
> That is fine and good, everyone has limits to their particular tastes. But to couch a complaint that composers should be writing for you because you spend $1200 a year on concert tickets is one of the most tyrannical and babyish whines there can be, making it much more difficult for those who do know and could provide you with more -- and god forbid maybe even stretch your musical imagination and capacity -- want to assist you at all.
> 
> In his own time, Beethoven was writing music which elicited very much the same reaction to that music as you have to the Dutilleux. Luigi Was Not Composing To Entertain them. Dutilleux did not have you in mind when he set pen to paper. Why, a good question for another thread, should he?
> 
> It is your job to keep up. Your rant / plea almost looks as if you would like - intend to do so. Underlying it is a very fixed mind in regard to the entire matter, and 'the tired businessman's concert-going complaint,' -- "I go there to be relaxed, not confronted with music I have to really think about."
> 
> No sympathy here with that one. All great music, even the 'old' stuff to which we are accustomed, is a frighteningly disturbing encounter. The old stuff is so common Ethos you don't perceive it that way, but that is, essentially, your complaint. That makes me think you are not a real 'music lover,' but use it for some other purpose.


Definitely agree with this. That is one argument that I cannot stand in these types of discussions. When people suggest that composers and conductors and musicians should musically stop or go back in time for you just because you don't like modern music.


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## Sid James

I'm surprised you argee with that, violadude. This quote by PetrB is really not to my liking -

_*That makes me think you are not a real 'music lover,' but use it for some other purpose*._

So what's a "real" music lover?

It's his reality, could be yours, but it's not mine. Everyone's is different.


----------



## violadude

Sid James said:


> I'm surprised you argee with that, violadude. This quote by PetrB is really not to my liking -
> 
> _*That makes me think you are not a real 'music lover,' but use it for some other purpose*._
> 
> So what's a "real" music lover?
> 
> It's his reality, could be yours, but it's not mine. Everyone's is different.


I wasn't talking about that part. I was just too lazy to isolate the part of his post I was referring to.


----------



## PetrB

CPSeattle said:


> I don't feel abused, at least in this thread, at least not so far.  It's a little disquieting to be described as a musical conservative or reactionary, but I've been called worse, so I'll live!
> 
> There's no need to try to set me straight. :


No, you're a big boy, but in reviewing the thread and some of your secondary entries, I am now wondering how deeply familiar you are with much of the great (and tonal) repertoire from before 1950 - and if you have just noticed these pieces at the symphony more by date.

I would recommend: 
Honegger, the 2nd and 5th Symphonies

Stravinsky Symphony in C -a neoclassical piece

Hindemith: Symphony Mathis der Maler and his Three-movement symphonic suite 'Nobilissime Vision'

Any of the Prokofiev piano concerti, expecially Nos. 2,3,4.

Shostakovitch 'Cello Concerto No.1

Bartok music for stringed instruments, percussion and Celeste

Bohislav Martinu: The Frescoes of Piero della Francesco (there ya go, 1955); Concerto for double string orchestra, piano and timpani (pre-WWII)

Olivier Messaien; Trois petites liturgies pour la presence divine

Samuel Barber ~ Piano Concerto (1962) -- a terrific piece.













The no longer 'minimalist' while remaining very tonal John Adam's Violin Concerto from 1993. & etc.

Another thing which would be very helpful, is not a blow by blow account of your struggle / enjoyment with the Ravel La Valse, but a rather full list of music you have listened to and do enjoy from, say 1900 to the present. That would tell many here Volumes about your listening habits, and then what is suggested could be that much better tailored to taking you step by step from 'where you are.'

In a way, your dilemma, not at all atypical, is the one of a person who has, to date, read nothing much different than a novel by Dickens, or a Eudora Welty short story - One does not leap into a Don Delilo novel or James Joyce's 'Ullyses' from those jumping off points into the deeper -- or in this case, later -- end of the pool.


----------



## Sid James

violadude said:


> I wasn't talking about that part. I was just too lazy to isolate the part of his post I was referring to.


Well okay. Thing is that what you said of composers not going back, depends what "back" means. It's a gordian knot, this whole thing is. I agree in my own way, I dislike composers repeating themselves (rehash). I'm like a broken record with that word here, other places too. But I don't mind more "tonal" things, however one defines them. In any case, composers like Dutilleux, but also Thomas Ades, have put on record they don't care about the old "tonal vs. atonal" debates and turf wars. Neither are dogmatic, many musician's don't seem to me dogmatic (eg. Schoenberg's quote about key of C). People who are fans and maybe take these things too seriously, like worshipping an idol, they come across to me as fixed on dogma, hence the bunfights we have around here. Don't lead to anything.


----------



## violadude

Sid James said:


> Well okay. Thing is that what you said of composers not going back, depends what "back" means. It's a gordian knot, this whole thing is. I agree in my own way, I dislike composers repeating themselves (rehash). I'm like a broken record with that word here, other places too. But I don't mind more "tonal" things, however one defines them. In any case, composers like Dutilleux, but also Thomas Ades, have put on record they don't care about the old "tonal vs. atonal" debates and turf wars. Neither are dogmatic, many musician's don't seem to me dogmatic (eg. Schoenberg's quote about key of C). People who are fans and maybe take these things too seriously, like worshipping an idol, they come across to me as fixed on dogma, hence the bunfights we have around here. Don't lead to anything.


No I think you are misinterpreting what I said. I don't mean the style of modern composers going "back" what I mean is concert goers shouldn't expect conductors to keep the orchestra trapped in the past by only scheduling century old pieces just because they don't like modern stuff.


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## Couchie

violadude said:


> No I think you are misinterpreting what I said. I don't mean the style of modern composers going "back" what I mean is concert goers shouldn't expect conductors to keep the orchestra trapped in the past by only scheduling century old pieces just because they don't like modern stuff.


Why not? If an orchestra puts its limited time and resources towards producing some crap by a young yipp instead of a concert performance of Wagner, that is an issue!


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## violadude

Couchie said:


> Why not? If an orchestra puts its limited time and resources towards producing some crap by a young yipp instead of a concert performance of Wagner, that is an issue!


I'm not going to take your comment too seriously...since you're Couchie mentioning Wagner...

But in all seriousness, as a student composer of music myself, it truly saddens me that people's ignorance and unwillingness to accept anything modern into the concert halls could possibly stronghold me out of a chance to have a piece of mine for an orchestra ever performed. This is one of the reasons I am so passionate in my defense of modern music. It doesn't just affect other composers, but my future has a stake in this all as well.


----------



## clavichorder

Couchie said:


> Why not? If an orchestra puts its limited time and resources towards producing some crap by a young yipp instead of a concert performance of Wagner, that is an issue!


This thread needs a little Couchie!


----------



## PetrB

Sid James said:


> I'm surprised you argee with that, violadude. This quote by PetrB is really not to my liking -
> 
> _*That makes me think you are not a real 'music lover,' but use it for some other purpose*._
> 
> So what's a "real" music lover?
> 
> It's his reality, could be yours, but it's not mine. Everyone's is different.


Happy to clarify that - you accept it with all its quirks, personality, and aren't looking for it to 'agree with you' all the time. The OP is almost like a polygamist shopping for 'more like' for his harem. with some notion he is a little out of date - wants a later model, but with all the same qualities of the older ones. // wants to redecorate, but will not abandon the shape and layout of his 140 year-old house // etc.

ADD: If you love it and it has progressed and changed with time, you do not ask it to get plastic surgery and a mini-lobotomy so it appears 50 years younger and acts like it has not developed or changed for 50 years... just to make you happy!


----------



## PetrB

Cnote11 said:


> I think this is an important question, and this is why I think "semantics" are very important. Things have an array of different meanings to different people, and sometimes people are way off the mark or simply cannot express what they mean very well. This is also the problem I find in the atonal thread, where people lump anything difficult sounding directly into atonal, etc. etc. without it actually being so. It becomes such a mess because people simply are not on the same page. Modern does not equal sophisticated, nor avant-garde, nor atonal. Nor do any of those equal eachother. It becomes a bit bothersome because people approach the discussion with pre-conceived notions that aren't articulated within the debate, leaving a giant gaping hole in the discussion that will not get filled no matter how long it goes on. In Philosophy it becomes very important to make sure you are very thorough in writing out your exact definition for every term that you are using, because you can't assume your definition is standard. Many people have a hard time identifying what kind of definition they are putting forth, which also sends things flying off the rails. I realise this is just an internet forum and these things won't happen and I myself surely do not follow these things on here, but I can still point them out as a major hindrance in the process of getting anywhere. One may say they think arguing semantics is silly, but it is the crux of Philosophy and thereby understanding.


What do you expect on a forum where some are self-taught, but haven't bothered to even look up 'Romantic' or 'Tonal' as related to music? Pick your battles, on the right field, and consider the background of the participants. If you're 'ahead' in these areas, maybe a little time out on your part - perhaps not planned or desired 'to teach.'???


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## neoshredder

I don't want to get involved in these verbal attacks. There are ways to be tonal and not be outdated. Ambient music is new and it is tonal. Yes maybe they might have to steal from other tonal genres of the last 50 years. To me, Ambient Classical Music could take off. I guess that is what Satie already did. Maybe Classical Music has ran out of new ideas to express itself. I mean what comes after atonal? A blend of everything?


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## Sid James

Re both your replies, violadude & PetrB -



violadude said:


> No I think you are misinterpreting what I said. I don't mean the style of modern composers going "back" what I mean is concert goers shouldn't expect conductors to keep the orchestra trapped in the past by only scheduling century old pieces just because they don't like modern stuff.





PetrB said:


> Happy to clarify that - you accept it with all its quirks, personality, and aren't looking for it to 'agree with you' all the time. The OP is almost like a polygamist shopping for 'more like' for his harem. with some notion he is a little out of date - wants a later model, but with all the same qualities of the older ones. // wants to redecorate, but will not abandon the shape and layout of his 140 year-old house // etc.


I do agree there's little use of replicating the past, or repeating it ad nauseum. Violadude probably knows this, I have set up some threads to that effect.

I don't believe in fetishising the past, or anything really. I think music is music, not dogma, religion, etc.

Let's face it though, some people do value tradition, and they value it strongly.

It's not nice to rubbish things you don't like. I don't go on the Wagner thread - haven't been there, not in living memory - & rubbish him, even though I dislike most of his stuff. Hardly listen to it, etc. But I have heard his orchestral/choral bits in concerts, and I'm okay with that, my reaction is not over the top, like OP with Dutilleux. But at least he didn't go to Dutilleux thread and pollute that thread. I have no time for that sort of thing.


----------



## PetrB

Sid James said:


> Glass' symphonies where written after Dutilleux's cello concerto - and Glass is younger too. So listening to Glass IS going forward (comparatively!). So let's leave it there???


Sorry, just can't - the man is on the horns of the dilemma of later development 'more modern' harmony - there is nothing 'modern' about basic triadic minimalist music, harmonically, at least. Fact is a good chunk of the 'Minimalist Manifesto' is going back to the triad and music that much more harmonically simple than several eras and centuries previous.

The OP is also hoping for a recognizable structure - yes, there is 'structure to any minimlist piece that works - I used Adams 'shaker loops' as an example to one individual whose listening habits were much further 'ahead' than the OP in this instance. Glass is a terrible example as per that criterion, for this listener.

Other than your probably liking Glass, I don't hate it, recognize it is crafted, etc -- both not the point here. It is just a particularly dreadful pedagogic choice for this particular individual at this juncture -- so, I guesstimate, would be anything similarly 'minimalistic.' I think I did recommend the Adams Violin Concerto to the OP -- because it is not in the manner of 'early minimalist or Glass repetitive' -- it is in a traditional format, and very recognizably so.


----------



## PetrB

Couchie said:


> Why not? If an orchestra puts its limited time and resources towards producing some crap by a young yipp instead of a concert performance of Wagner, that is an issue!


Perhaps we have reached a point in history, like for fine art, where there are 'museums' for both the old, and a specialty one for works from about 1890 on - maybe it is time for two orchestras in each city, one with 'all the old stuff' and one with mainly 'the newer stuff.' The Festspielhaus IS A MUSIC MUSEUM.


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## PetrB

neoshredder said:


> ...I mean what comes after atonal? A blend of everything?


You're exactly right, whether you were being sardonic or not, that is exactly what is happening. Now.


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## Guest

I am also a paying customer. And I want more of the post-1945 stuff, not less.

So who gets to decide?

I enjoy Dvorak and Schumann and Tchaikovsky, too, so I don't really complain too much. I want more Lachenmann and Steen-Andersen, but I know that it's really the CPSeattle's and a truckload of others who really run the show. Not much to do about that. Been going on for over two hundred years now.

It is a bit much, however, for CPSeattle to complain about the very small sprinkling of very mild post-1945 works that the Seattle symphony infrequently plays. And an even bigger much to generalize about all the music of the past 67 years as if it were all the same. Based on the offerings of one symphony orchestra?

Anyway, how about accepting that when you go out in public, you are not alone. There are other people around you, with other needs than yours, other wants, other desires. Technology has given you a solution. If you want to listen only to familiar music, or only familiar sounding music, you can do that. At home. With your stereo.

When you go outside, however, the rules change. You're not alone. You're not the only paying customer at the symphony. Some of those paying customers have come _in order_ to hear Dutilleux. Do you have a problem with them getting what they want, too?


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## violadude

Sid James said:


> Re both your replies, violadude & PetrB
> 
> I do agree there's little use of replicating the past, or repeating it ad nauseum. Violadude probably knows this, I have set up some threads to that effect.
> 
> I don't believe in fetishising the past, or anything really. I think music is music, not dogma, religion, etc.
> 
> Let's face it though, some people do value tradition, and they value it strongly.
> 
> It's not nice to rubbish things you don't like. I don't go on the Wagner thread - haven't been there, not in living memory - & rubbish him, even though I dislike most of his stuff. Hardly listen to it, etc. But I have heard his orchestral/choral bits in concerts, and I'm okay with that, my reaction is not over the top, like OP with Dutilleux. But at least he didn't go to Dutilleux thread and pollute that thread. I have no time for that sort of thing.


A couple things, Sid.

1). Maybe not directly related to this quote but from what you said earlier. I basically agree with you that the terms backward and forwards are often not used properly with regards to music. Music isn't necessarily building towards atonality or complexity or noise music or anything like that, that is just a trend. It's true you can trace the advancing of harmony further and further from Beethoven until Schoenberg but like I said, this advancement of harmony is just one of many trends in music that developed over time, but harmonic complexity or atonality and all that isn't the "goal" of music. Therefore, when minimalism started as a trend in music, it basically became the new forward and total serialism became the new backwards.

2). I think most proponents of contemporary music aren't turned off by the fact that people don't like it, but more their attitude about it. When someone starts off by saying something way over-exaggerated and ridiculous such as listening to modern music is akin to torture or abuse then I think that immediately puts me on the defensive, especially if the person who says this admits to only having heard one piece one time by this particular composer. If anyone decides that Beethoven or Bach is trash based off of one listening or based on little to no understanding of the music they are pretty much laughed off the face of the earth, why should it be different with contemporary composers. If you think every single composer since 1945 is just a giant, talentless troll that doesn't know what the **** they are doing then I think you are pretty delusional. Not blaming the OP of this, just speaking in general.


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## starthrower

I wish I had the Seattle Symphony in my back yard.


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## Sid James

some guy said:


> I am also a paying customer. And I want more of the post-1945 stuff, not less.
> 
> So who gets to decide?
> 
> I enjoy Dvorak and Schumann and Tchaikovsky, too, ...





violadude said:


> A couple things, Sid.
> 
> ...


I actually agree for the most part with both your opinions here, but this has gone beyond this thread. It has scope for a new thread but there's been enough already on this, started by many of us here. & problem with this issue is, it's potentially divisive and emotionally laden. Very hard to make an OP on this without being too biased, objectivity is hard, and often I get emotional. So there's nowhere to go but to more specific threads, I think they're more fruitful.


----------



## PetrB

Sid James said:


> Re both your replies, violadude & PetrB -
> ... Let's face it though, some people do value tradition, and they value it strongly.


If tradition is a hollow ritual, automatic, and a lot of 'the people' have not any real connection with its meaning anymore, it has lost its value.

I maintain, and I will get fried for this one, that a Huge proportion of the more conservative music consuming pubic are consuming it like they consume bath salts, scented candles, and a cup of strong coffee - familiar, easy pleasures, 'comforting' while maybe very safely stimulating.

Artists of any period have little good to say about that kind of consumer, because no matter 'how beautiful' the work the composer is trying to make, the work is intended as some sort of 'confrontation,' never designed or intended to be 'an easy comfort.'

.... And I am convinced that many are 'escaping,' via older musical repertoire, to an imaginary glorious past which in reality never was, and that is their main attraction to it. ADD: I believe, too, this includes many who think they truly 'just' love music. END ADD.

I would be really really happy to be convincingly disabused of that notion. But the Wagnerites, the Baroque Nutters, the I'm crazy for Bruckner all the time, Chopin, Liszt, Brahms all the time crowds - those who only listen to late romantic music, ADD: or only to modern-contemporary music END ADD: etc. are all in the stack of evidence proving my hypothesis.


----------



## violadude

Sid James said:


> I actually agree for the most part with both your opinions here, but this has gone beyond this thread. It has scope for a new thread but there's been enough already on this, started by many of us here. & problem with this issue is, it's potentially divisive and emotionally laden. Very hard to make an OP on this without being too biased, objectivity is hard, and often I get emotional. So there's nowhere to go but to more specific threads, I think they're more fruitful.


Yes we have gotten a little off track, I don't nessicarily want to blame anyone here but I think if the OP had merely asked for suggestions instead of going on his rant about Dutilleaux being music from hell and not knowing why the Seattle symphony schedules this stuff it would not have blown up like this at all.


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## Guest

Sid James said:


> *Peter Sculthorpe *- I have to plug an Aussie, one of our finest. After 1980's, he kind of went back to tradition more strongly than before.


There was another poster a coupla years back, with the same aggressive attitude as CPSeattle's. An Aussie, who told us (I don't remember which board this was on) that he had cancelled his subscription to the Sidney orchestra because it played too much of that modernist crap.

He was more coy than CP, and it had to be dragged out of him, but when he named names, Sculthorpe was on the top of his list.

I don't think you can predict what anyone will like or dislike. Well, maybe what they will dislike.

Anyway, it's funny to see a recently excoriated modernist composer like Sculthorpe being recommended to an anti-modernist. But hey, maybe they'll "connect"!!

(If CP had not named Dutilleux, just by the way, I would have recommended that he try Dutilleux as someone he could enjoy! Seriously!!)


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## starthrower

Yes, the attitude of condescension towards music one is unfamiliar with or one doesn't like is a turn off. As is being harshly judgemental after one listening. I also find the "and Structured" part of the thread title rather suspect. What does the original poster think a composer does anyway? Splash notes on paper like a Jackson Pollock painting?


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## Guest

Hey starthrower! You dissin' my boy? You saying Pollock don't have no structure? 

I'm gonna havta ask you ta step outside!:lol:


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## Cnote11

Pollock sure has been mentioned a lot in this thread.


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## PetrB

some guy said:


> ... If CP had not named Dutilleux, just by the way, I would have recommended that he try Dutilleux as someone he could enjoy! Seriously!!


Dutilleux is often recommended as a gate-way drug to bring them to the 'dark side' Haaaa haaaa - Gasp - hhhha - gasp - hhaaaahhh


----------



## StlukesguildOhio

I maintain, and I will get fried for this one, that a Huge proportion of the more conservative music consuming pubic are consuming it like they consume bath salts, scented candles, and a cup of strong coffee - familiar, easy pleasures, 'comforting' while maybe very safely stimulating.

Artists of any period have little good to say about that kind of consumer, because no matter 'how beautiful' the work the composer is trying to make, the work is intended as some sort of 'confrontation,' never designed or intended to be 'an easy comfort.'

Pure pretentious twaddle. Artists make art for any number of purposes... and "confrontation" is far from being one of the primary reasons. It is interesting that you paint yourself as defending innovation in contemporary art, yet you are stuck in dated early Modernist theory which has long since calcified into academic dogma. Art most certainly can be intended to be comforting, soothing, exhilarating, enjoyable, spiritually nourishing, humorous as well as confrontational, challenging, disturbing, angst-laden, etc... The stance that you take... judging other's grasp, appreciation, and pleasure in music as inferior to your own is insulting to say the least, and just one example of the frequent pretentiousness of the champions of the Avant-Garde that turns people away.


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## PetrB

clavichorder said:


> This thread needs a little Couchie!


What, a sort of alka-seltzer bubble fest of Wagner Gas?


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## starthrower

some guy said:


> Hey starthrower! You dissin' my boy? You saying Pollock don't have no structure?
> 
> I'm gonna havta ask you ta step outside!:lol:


----------



## StlukesguildOhio

What do you expect on a forum where some are self-taught, but haven't bothered to even look up 'Romantic' or 'Tonal' as related to music? Pick your battles, on the right field, and consider the background of the participants.

What an snot-faced, pretentious *$#@#! Everyone here is clearly beneath your superior grasp of music... ill-educated morons, no doubt. "Just consider their background?!"

I'll stop now before I say something that I'll regret.


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## StlukesguildOhio

Cut the dogma, guys just answer the bloody question.

Exactly!!! As soon as I saw the title of this thread and read the OP I knew this would escalate into a battle of the supporters of the Avant-Garde vs the rest of the ignorant neophytes. I happen to quite like Henri Dutilleux... and Takemitsu... and Giacinto Scelsi... and a lot of other composers that are more Avant-Garde... but thats not what the OP asked for. Had he asked for some ideas of Baroque music, I doubt we'd have a slew of individuals assuming that it was their position to educate him on the splendors of the Classical era and Romanticism. If someone asked me for a list of Modern and Contemporary artists who painted in a manner similar or rooted in Impressionism, I wouldn't feel it was duty to introduce him to Abstract Expressionism and Conceptual Installation art.

As Sid so well put it... just answer the damn question.

My personal suggestions:

Eric Whitacre-Choral Works






Morten Lauridsen- Lux Aeterna, Nocturnes






Michael Daugherty- Metropolis Sysmphony, Route 66

Joseph Schwantner- Chasing Light, Percusion Concerto, Sparrows (look at the two Naxos discs)






Steve Reich- Music for 18 Instruments






Philip Glass- The Kiss, The Hours Soundtrack, Candyman






Peter Lieberson- Neruda Songs

Jake Heggie- Passing By (songs)

**************************


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## StlukesguildOhio

Erich Korngold- Violin Concerto






Peteris Vasks-






Arvo Part-


----------



## Cnote11

I think it was the attitude with which he approached it that caused the issue with some posters. I didn't think it was a bad thread at all, really, as far as the turnout. All this dogma of not being dogmatic! Where does it end? There are a few pieces you posted that I'm not familiar with. Looking forward to hearing them.


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## PetrB

StlukesguildOhio said:


> Pure pretentious twaddle. Artists make art for any number of purposes... and "confrontation" is far from being one of the primary reasons. It is interesting that you paint yourself as defending innovation in contemporary art, yet you are stuck in dated early Modernist theory which has long since calcified into academic dogma. Art most certainly can be intended to be comforting, soothing, exhilarating, enjoyable, spiritually nourishing, humorous as well as confrontational, challenging, disturbing, angst-laden, etc... The stance that you take... judging other's grasp, appreciation, and pleasure in music as inferior to your own is insulting to say the least, and just one example of the frequent pretentiousness of the champions of the Avant-Garde that turns people away.


"It is interesting that you paint yourself" A rather large divergence in personality here, I think. I'm not painting myself as anything, 'dude' And it sure seems like you are.

It is what I think that I am saying. Some things are said, as you obviously are trying to do, to provoke, elicit some kind of reaction where more than chit-chat would come out. Your entry here is a very telling hand - about you.

When I first joined, I quietly asked several forum members, both young and old, of what to expect from the more volatile members here. Your name came up REPEATEDLY: Your outlay here, was expected and predicted.

You are known to bludgeon people with your credentials and to challenge the credentials of others. To me, you are steeped in academe (perhaps more 'current' but if it is dogma, it IS calcified until put into free non-academic practice) and likely yearning for recognition of your composition or theoretic genius, which to date, it seems, has not been forthcoming. Do not look for that from an open-admissions forum, child.

I hope you get as far as your present want of recognition has you wanting - because it is fairly screaming in announcing itself.

Perhaps you are the one in the perfect position to compose the piece that will satisfy this particular OP without at all compromising your completely up to date theoretic knowledge and musical aesthetic. I suppose that depends upon what your personal purpose for composing is.

There are three paragraphs of "Pure pretentious twaddle" in quotes just above my response here, I think I've added enough in response to an already great heap of steaming pony dung.


----------



## CPSeattle

> I am also a paying customer. And I want more of the post-1945 stuff, not less. So who gets to decide?


Okay, I'm back. Fair question, and here's one answer. I still have last night's ticket. It says: "Morlot Conducts Debussy and Ravel." Thinking back, all I can say when I look in the mirror is: _You chump! You thought you were going to have a pleasant evening. Next time, bring your dang earplugs, so you don't have to hunch over and use your fingers._

No mention of the half of the program that was torture. Why hide the corpse flower under a bushel if it smells so great, anyway? Why not tell me they plan to strap me down and shove bamboo shoots under my nails? After all, this is Seattle. It's the polite thing to do, isn't it? If they're so proud of it, why don't they inform us? Really -- why not? Is someone a bit reluctant to tell us that they're going to give us a headache? I noticed that Microsoft sponsored that one. Next time, how about Bayer?

My next ticket, for April 7th, reads, "Schwarz Conducts Mahler's First Symphony." Mozart, Mozart, Mahler. Whew! Dodged a bullet, but too bad I'm going to be out of town and have to exchange it.

My next ticket, for April 14th, says, "Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony." No mention that the program starts with the (truly) "Infernal Machine," by Christopher Rouse, an excerpt of which I just listened to. Another unlistenable, anti-melodic, chaotic, nasty, horrible, ugly mess, composed in 1981 (surprised, Gomer?) that, sort of like a sales tax, I was expected to endure. Thanks. So much. Bait and switch, anyone? If a car company pulled this kind of a stunt, the Federal Trade Commission would be in their offices the following Monday morning with a warrant.

Then there is June 9th. Jesus Lopez-Cobos Conducts Capriccio espagnol. Normally, I'd think, great, a Spanish conductor and composer. But I'd better check, because by now I know: Trust, but verify. Whew! Richard Strauss; a Korngold concerto once considered too schmaltzy; Turina, _danzes fantasticas_, never heard of it but sounds great on YouTube; Rimsky-Korsakov, Capriccio espagnol. Hmm, a Russian? Who knew? Not me, anyway. Glad I checked, because I love them Russians. I'll keep doing that. I love it already, can hardly wait to hear it.

But I'll need to exchange April 7th because I won't be here, and April 14th because I am finished with nasty, infernal surprises sprung by people who think I'm supposed to sit there and have this stuff shoved into me like I'm some duck whose liver is being turned into pate. Like I said before, it's on me. Call me whatever you want to, but I'm not going to subject myself to audio torture anymore. Been there, done that, way too many times. Not to put too fine a point on it.


----------



## Couchie

oopppssss.....


----------



## PetrB

StlukesguildOhio said:


> What do you expect on a forum where some are self-taught, but haven't bothered to even look up 'Romantic' or 'Tonal' as related to music? Pick your battles, on the right field, and consider the background of the participants.
> 
> What an snot-faced, pretentious *$#@#! Everyone here is clearly beneath your superior grasp of music... ill-educated morons, no doubt. "Just consider their background?!"
> 
> I'll stop now before I say something that I'll regret.


You are HUGE on background, often enough directly or indirectly letting all know you are at the apex of up-to date higher learning. So, WTF?

Would you present your personal questions on advanced music theory or analysis here? You've made it clear all are beneath you here in that regard. I am not the first, if any number of members are reliable in their reportage on what they have noticed about you.

Pot calling the kettle black, boyo.


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## mmsbls

@CPSeattle: You mentioned that you've had a season ticket to the symphony for several years. Has the programming changed significantly in that period or were the concerts a few years ago similar to those now? If it has not changed, what kept you buying tickets? 

I think some people here would be interested to know what modern (post-Romantic) works you enjoy. I think it's very difficult to give good suggestions without knowing something about the music someone enjoys. Also how often do you intentionally listen to music that you now is beyond your comfort zone? Or do you have no interest in doing that?


----------



## Couchie

violadude said:


> I'm not going to take your comment too seriously...since you're Couchie mentioning Wagner...
> 
> But in all seriousness, as a student composer of music myself, it truly saddens me that people's ignorance and unwillingness to accept anything modern into the concert halls could possibly stronghold me out of a chance to have a piece of mine for an orchestra ever performed. This is one of the reasons I am so passionate in my defense of modern music. It doesn't just affect other composers, but my future has a stake in this all as well.


How much do you know about Wagner's early years? It is easier than ever to get your music out there and heard. That's part of the problem, the gems are lost in a sea of crap.


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## CPSeattle

> @CPSeattle: You mentioned that you've had a season ticket to the symphony for several years. Has the programming changed significantly in that period or were the concerts a few years ago similar to those now? If it has not changed, what kept you buying tickets?


Excellent question. One of the years I was on autopilot because of personal turmoil. A lot slipped between the cracks, and I told myself that I shouldn't make any decisions based on my reactions that year. After that, I told myself that I ought to give the modern stuff a chance. My prior symphony-going elsewhere was less frequent, so I didn't want to let a few things I didn't like color my view of the whole. To put it differently: "Give it time. Wait and see."

Now my strategy is to pay closer attention, in advance, to what they're going to play. You can't assume anything, and maybe that's as it should be. After all, there's only one symphony here, and for whatever reason, there's a bunch of people who give this stuff a standing ovation, which I have to think means there's a market for it in Seattle.

Maybe (as I suspect) it's a bunch of posers who want to display their coolness. Maybe it's over-intellectualism. Maybe it's group-think. Maybe half the crowd is from Neptune, or as my friend said, they're vampire devil worshippers. Maybe I'm from Neptune, or don't know that in fact it is me who is the antichrist. Who knows? Who cares? As long as I can dodge the bullets in the future, I'll be a happy camper, and those who go for nails on a chalkboard can have what they like too.


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## PetrB

Couchie said:


> Why not? If an orchestra puts its limited time and resources towards producing some crap by a young yipp instead of a concert performance of Wagner, that is an issue!


Wagner, at one point in his life, was a "Young Yipp." If he had not had his chance, you would not have your beloved, or your beloved obsession!


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## CPSeattle

PetrB, at one point Jeffrey Dahmer was a young yipp. And, like all of the rest of us at some point, he didn't get out of here alive. I don't think we have to give everyone a young yipp wildcard.


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## Couchie

PetrB said:


> Wagner, at one point in his life, was a "Young Yipp." If he had not had his chance, you would not have your beloved, or your beloved obsession!


Chance had nothing to do with it. Wagner's coming was written in the stars, as the Old Testament testifies. One day he will come again to judge the living and the dead. I hope you've been doing your Sabbatical _Parsifal_ listenings.


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## PetrB

CPSeattle said:


> Excellent question. One of the years I was on autopilot because of personal turmoil. A lot slipped between the cracks, and I told myself that I shouldn't make any decisions based on my reactions that year. After that, I told myself that I ought to give the modern stuff a chance. My prior symphony-going elsewhere was less frequent, so I didn't want to let a few things I didn't like color my view of the whole. To put it differently: "Give it time. Wait and see."
> 
> Now my strategy is to pay closer attention, in advance, to what they're going to play. You can't assume anything, and maybe that's as it should be. After all, there's only one symphony here, and for whatever reason, there's a bunch of people who give this stuff a standing ovation, which I have to think means there's a market for it in Seattle.
> 
> Maybe (as I suspect) it's a bunch of posers who want to display their coolness. Maybe it's over-intellectualism. Maybe it's group-think. Maybe half the crowd is from Neptune, or as my friend said, they're vampire devil worshippers. Maybe I'm from Neptune, or don't know that in fact it is me who is the antichrist. Who knows? Who cares? As long as I can dodge the bullets in the future, I'll be a happy camper, and those who go for nails on a chalkboard can have what they like too.


They're not 'posers:' they really like what they hear and they are genuinely responding to it. There are people who truly love music but have marked preference for an era or a composer, and marked disfavor or more for another. The way you couch it here is twofold interesting: You are feeling like you are missing something because others seem to really get it, enjoy it, and you don't. I bet you can think of any number of areas in your life with a similar dynamic where you could not care whether you go with the crowd. Do you care that some people dis Jackson Pollock like you've 'dissed' Dutilleux - I'd wager not!

There is another aspect, very understandable. If you are in a context where there is a lecturer, and many people in the hall are rapt with attention, respondent, and to you it is as if they are speaking a language you do not understand, it is simultaneously frustrating and irritating.

Somewhere in there can be a matter of pride at how broad your tastes are in general, and you're pissed at yourself for not getting this one tiny area of all of music. I'd say don't worry.

For me, a more recent case of 'The Emperor's New Clothes' is Brian Ferneyhough, of whom I hear a lot from 'rarified' academic circles. (He is of the style now called 'the new complexity). I have heard works by others working in that style which I found pretty wonderful - I can just hear nothing of interest - To ME in any number of the Fernyhough works I've tried. Academe, with its real ghetto-like proclivity for being ingrown, has become more so since I passed through. The flap over the new complexity is about a handful of new ways of going about making a piece, but if one does not 'look at the score' but instead 'just listens' it is in no way more 'complex' than many a piece which was written in the 1960's - 1990.

I gave you a list of works truly closer to the manner and format of that which you are already liking - and from around that same mid-century point, some prior, some later. I hope some take, because whatever the 'label' I think they are very fine pieces. Feel free to ask for more if any appeal. There is more to Barber than the Violin Concerto (which you should know of if you do not) and the Adagio for strings. So it goes for many composers. (just remembering now to add the Barber "Capricorn Concerto.")

Collectively, a forum like this is a deep chest of knowledge, and reflected personal tastes. The more you make yours known, in the positive, not the negative, the more people can direct you to that which is likely to your taste.


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## violadude

CPSeattle said:


> Maybe (as I suspect) it's a bunch of posers who want to display their coolness. Maybe it's over-intellectualism. Maybe it's group-think. Maybe half the crowd is from Neptune, or as my friend said, they're vampire devil worshippers. Maybe I'm from Neptune, or don't know that in fact it is me who is the antichrist. Who knows? Who cares? As long as I can dodge the bullets in the future, I'll be a happy camper, and those who go for nails on a chalkboard can have what they like too.


These assumptions are just as snobby and pretentious as anything anyone is saying against you.


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## Guest

PetrB said:


> Collectively, a forum like this is a deep chest of knowledge, and reflected personal tastes. The more you make yours known, in the positive, not the negative, the more people can direct you to that which is likely to your taste.


Peter, I have never gotten any sense that CP has ever wanted anything more than to vent about music he finds distasteful. And boy does he ever find it distasteful, or should I say, "boy does he ever enjoy saying how distasteful he finds it"?

It's like a game. How rabidly can I express my deep and abiding disgust with modern music? And then how affronted can I be when someone ventures to suggest that perhaps since there are some who enjoy that "disgusting" stuff, then maybe it's not really disgusting after all.

I'd like to hear a Lachenmann orchestral piece live sometime before I die. How likely is that? I've heard Varese's _Ameriques_ live exactly once, and that was written in 1921. In the forty years I've been enjoying the musics of my own time, I have heard _Ameriques_ once. I had to go to Ostrava to hear it, too. And that's not even of my time, but considerably before. What chance do I have to hear any Lachenmann live? I've heard one piece of his live, his string quartet #3, with the Arditti. So it that was good, anyway.

Still, I'd like to hear a Lachenmann orchestral piece live sometime before I die. I know it won't be here in Portland. Carlos has already told me that that would be out of the question. Too "avant garde" for this audience. I am apparently not worth being counted as part of the audience. You win, CP. You hear me, you angry concert-goer? You win and I lose. And you're the one who's complaining.

Heigh ho.


----------



## norman bates

CPSeattle said:


> science, I agree about Bernstein. He's an exception for me.


try with Alec Wilder. 













(actually the first link is a piece written in 1940 but he composed a lot until his death in 1980)


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde

Michael Nyman.


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## HarpsichordConcerto

Philip Glass


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde

Karlheinz Stockhausen


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## PetrB

violadude said:


> Oh please  abused?? How is anyone going to take you seriously if you say stuff like that? Why would anyone feel "abused" just from listening to some music they didn't like? That's ridiculous, especially when the composer in question is Dutilleaux. Don't cheapen the horrible experience of actually being abused by comparing it to listening to music please.


One can and should feel compassion for those who bought a seat on an airplane which crashed, killing them, even though 'they signed up for it.'

Someone who purchases a ticket for a symphony, voluntarily signing up to attend a performance with one particular work advertised and announced far ahead of time as part of the evening's program, but who nonetheless felt 'abused' because they voluntarily sat through that piece... Sympathy at the Symphony? What a joke.
http://www.thewambulance.com/


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## PetrB

CPSeattle said:


> .... still have last night's ticket. It says: "Morlot Conducts Debussy and Ravel." Thinking back, all I can say when I look in the mirror is: _You chump! You thought you were going to have a pleasant evening. Next time, bring your dang earplugs, so you don't have to hunch over and use your fingers._ ...No mention of the half of the program...


I looked at the symphony site for its season programming: it appears to be in general in agreement as per the lack of complete information on your ticket.

Compared to many another ('larger?') Symphony Site (San Francisco, L.A. Chicago, New York Phil), which has a full calender of all concert events, each classical program listing ALL works to be performed that night, the Seattle calender looks like a dilettante hobby project. It smacks of listing the music as if it were an hors d'oeuvre or 'bon-bon,' something 'incidental, as if its patrons were just out for 'a little bit of music' rather than giving both the music and discerning public the due respect.

I do think, for whatever reason, you and several subscribers should lobby for a complete 'disclosure' at the time the season subscriptions go on sale, both in the printed season program and the web site. That is completely reasonable and something any concertgoer has the right to expect, whether they are purchasing a single ticket for one event or a subscription series.


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## Polednice

CPSeattle said:


> Okay, I'm back. Fair question, and here's one answer. I still have last night's ticket. It says: "Morlot Conducts Debussy and Ravel." Thinking back, all I can say when I look in the mirror is: _You chump! You thought you were going to have a pleasant evening. Next time, bring your dang earplugs, so you don't have to hunch over and use your fingers._
> 
> No mention of the half of the program that was torture. Why hide the corpse flower under a bushel if it smells so great, anyway? Why not tell me they plan to strap me down and shove bamboo shoots under my nails? After all, this is Seattle. It's the polite thing to do, isn't it? If they're so proud of it, why don't they inform us? Really -- why not? Is someone a bit reluctant to tell us that they're going to give us a headache? I noticed that Microsoft sponsored that one. Next time, how about Bayer?
> 
> My next ticket, for April 7th, reads, "Schwarz Conducts Mahler's First Symphony." Mozart, Mozart, Mahler. Whew! Dodged a bullet, but too bad I'm going to be out of town and have to exchange it.
> 
> My next ticket, for April 14th, says, "Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony." No mention that the program starts with the (truly) "Infernal Machine," by Christopher Rouse, an excerpt of which I just listened to. Another unlistenable, anti-melodic, chaotic, nasty, horrible, ugly mess, composed in 1981 (surprised, Gomer?) that, sort of like a sales tax, I was expected to endure. Thanks. So much. Bait and switch, anyone? If a car company pulled this kind of a stunt, the Federal Trade Commission would be in their offices the following Monday morning with a warrant.
> 
> Then there is June 9th. Jesus Lopez-Cobos Conducts Capriccio espagnol. Normally, I'd think, great, a Spanish conductor and composer. But I'd better check, because by now I know: Trust, but verify. Whew! Richard Strauss; a Korngold concerto once considered too schmaltzy; Turina, _danzes fantasticas_, never heard of it but sounds great on YouTube; Rimsky-Korsakov, Capriccio espagnol. Hmm, a Russian? Who knew? Not me, anyway. Glad I checked, because I love them Russians. I'll keep doing that. I love it already, can hardly wait to hear it.
> 
> But I'll need to exchange April 7th because I won't be here, and April 14th because I am finished with nasty, infernal surprises sprung by people who think I'm supposed to sit there and have this stuff shoved into me like I'm some duck whose liver is being turned into pate. Like I said before, it's on me. Call me whatever you want to, but I'm not going to subject myself to audio torture anymore. Been there, done that, way too many times. Not to put too fine a point on it.


The attitude presented here is the reason why this thread could never be a simple recommendation thread. The OP began with hostility and received it in equal measure, deservedly.


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## PetrB

some guy said:


> Peter, I have never gotten any sense that CP has ever wanted anything more than to vent about music he finds distasteful. And boy does he ever find it distasteful, or should I say, "boy does he ever enjoy saying how distasteful he finds it"?


I agree with only one of the OP's later points: The Seattle symphony site does not list all works on the program, and I bet there is no more program information in real or virtual print when you are buying a subscription series... amateur night.

But for the rest I think you are being overly generous here. I think he revels in announcing his taste, knowing it is retro and it will get a big reaction, then goes out of the way to show us how 'modern' he is because he finds Jackson Pollock palatable. Meh. More practiced at patronizing vs. Patron of the arts. Patron of the arts, my [email protected]@


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## PetrB

starthrower said:


> I wish I had the Seattle Symphony in my back yard.


I have one of the top ten -- if not top five -- world-class orchestras in my back yard. Anyone with access to a good symphony is very fortunate indeed. It is always too easy for 'us' urban dwellers to take our great cultural institutions for granted. I wish you a decent symphony in your backyard


----------



## Truckload

CPSeattle said:


> Excellent question. One of the years I was on autopilot because of personal turmoil. A lot slipped between the cracks, and I told myself that I shouldn't make any decisions based on my reactions that year. After that, I told myself that I ought to give the modern stuff a chance. My prior symphony-going elsewhere was less frequent, so I didn't want to let a few things I didn't like color my view of the whole. To put it differently: "Give it time. Wait and see."
> 
> Now my strategy is to pay closer attention, in advance, to what they're going to play. You can't assume anything, and maybe that's as it should be. After all, there's only one symphony here, and for whatever reason, there's a bunch of people who give this stuff a standing ovation, which I have to think means there's a market for it in Seattle.
> 
> Maybe (as I suspect) it's a bunch of posers who want to display their coolness. Maybe it's over-intellectualism. Maybe it's group-think. Maybe half the crowd is from Neptune, or as my friend said, they're vampire devil worshippers. Maybe I'm from Neptune, or don't know that in fact it is me who is the antichrist. Who knows? Who cares? As long as I can dodge the bullets in the future, I'll be a happy camper, and those who go for nails on a chalkboard can have what they like too.


I really like the way you write. It is so refreshing! Honest and witty. I have moved in the opposite direction of most of the posters on this thread. I started out as a supporter of the traditional avant-guard in the 1970's and have gradually come to despise it. The more I have heard, the more I have studied, the more selective I have become in what I find admirable. Since what you and I might describe as the "ugly" music has been around many, many years, I have hopes that the next waive of young composers might have something completely different to offer.


----------



## PetrB

Couchie said:


> That could work. They could even have their own venues... there's no need to waste an entire concert hall sized for Beethoven on the modern repertoire which can easily satisfy its demand with a fraction of the seats.


While some credit for attempted humor is maybe deserved...

There was a several months long all-Stravinsky series at the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam. The entire series was fully attended, the audience made up of the grey-haired down to children, not 'alternate-looking' in any way, and a smaller hall just would not have held either the orchestra or the audience.

Cultural difference? Classical music is part of the European cultural heritage, with a continued interest in not just the 19th century, but in the continued newer works coming from that same tradition. Classical music is not part of the American cultural heritage.


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## PetrB

violadude said:


> These assumptions are just as snobby and pretentious as anything anyone is saying against you.


Whatever it takes to relieve his gloom, including trampling over innocent strangers - Nice Man


----------



## Couchie

PetrB said:


> While some credit for attempted humor is maybe deserved...
> 
> There was a several months long all-Stravinsky series at the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam. The entire series was fully attended, the audience made up of the grey-haired down to children, not 'alternate-looking' in any way, and a smaller hall just would not have held either the orchestra or the audience.
> 
> Cultural difference? Classical music is part of the European cultural heritage, with a continued interest in not just the 19th century, but in the continued newer works coming from that same tradition. Classical music is not part of the American cultural heritage.


Stravinsky? That guy who's seminal work will enjoy its centennial anniversary next year? Stravinsky is in my museum, sorry.


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## Couchie

PetrB said:


> The Festspielhaus IS A MUSIC MUSEUM.


I do wish, but in reality Bayreuth not only birthed _Konzept Regietheater_ but remains at the forefront of ridiculous avant-garde productions to this day.


----------



## neoshredder

I think the OP and I like some of the same music. With that said, I would never call anyone devil worshippers no matter what type of music they listen to. That is ridiculous.


----------



## mmsbls

some guy said:


> Still, I'd like to hear a Lachenmann orchestral piece live sometime before I die. I know it won't be here in Portland. Carlos has already told me that that would be out of the question. Too "avant garde" for this audience. I am apparently not worth being counted as part of the audience. You win, CP. You hear me, you angry concert-goer? You win and I lose. And you're the one who's complaining.


This argument seems to be asking the orchestra to privilege your desires over those of the other audience members. I assume you are being counted, but that the others are as well. When everyone is counted, your desires are in a small enough minority that the orchestra does not program what you would like to see. I would love to see shows on advanced physics, philosophy, and economics on TV, but I fully understand why I never will - I'm not more important than the other viewers. I'm just in the very small minority.

Actually CPSeattle is arguing, with different words and emphasis, something similar. CPSeattle wants the programming to be more like his desires rather than what it is. I assume the actual audience desires for the Seattle and Portland orchestras are somewhat different, but it would be very interesting to know and see how well the programming matched the audiences.

Several people have commented that programming Ligeti along with Beethoven is a bit like seeing Metallica and Peter, Paul, and Mary (sorry for the dated groups) in concert. You would never see it in pop concerts so why do you see it in classical concerts? I'm not arguing against the classical version of mixing genres, but I have always wondered if orchestras should program modern works together rather than placing one on a concert with Romantic works.


----------



## mmsbls

PetrB said:


> I looked at the symphony site for its season programming: it appears to be in general in agreement as per the lack of complete information on your ticket.
> 
> I do think, for whatever reason, you and several subscribers should lobby for a complete 'disclosure' at the time the season subscriptions go on sale, both in the printed season program and the web site. That is completely reasonable and something any concertgoer has the right to expect, whether they are purchasing a single ticket for one event or a subscription series.


I looked at the Seattle site and viewed the upcoming season. They list concerts by the major works (or works they think will draw in audiences) but also list the full program. For example, on November 15 or 17 they advertise in large print "Emanuel Ex Plays Brahms' Piano Concerto No. 2", and then list the entire program with Brahms, Strauss's _Till Eulenspiegels Merry Pranks_, and Dutilleux's _The Shadows of Time_ (another chance for CPSeattle to sample Dutilleux?).

That doesn't seem so different from what I've seen advertised in other orchestras and venues.


----------



## Guest

mmsbls said:


> This argument seems to be asking the orchestra to privilege your desires over those of the other audience members....
> Actually CPSeattle is arguing, with different words and emphasis, something similar. CPSeattle wants the programming to be more like his desires rather than what it is.


Wow, mmsbls, if this is what you got out of my post....

Couldn't be more wrong. ("Consider my desires" is a far cry from "privilege my desires.")

And "different words and emphasis" cannot even begin to express the vast, yawning gulf between what CP is arguing and what I am arguing.

Indeed, I really think you have accomplished Stlukesguild's fondest desire, to offend me.:lol:

Anyway, you do know the difference between addition and subtraction, don't you?*

[Edit: I went on the site, too, and there are pages with complete programs, as mmsbls has found. Very useful for avoiding all that old crap that us avant gardists distain.**]

*Yes, I know the notion that there is no such thing as subtraction. Mathematically that may be true; in life it is not. Subtraction is very real there. That's my point.

**Sarcasm. I label it to avoid the reactions CNote got to his pretend dig at Georgians, which was really a dig at the kind of people who make those kinds of comments seriously.

Seriously, do we really have to label all our jokes?? I love older music very much. I recently filled in some gaps in my Dvorak collection. And I have my eye on another Gluck opera.... In spite of that, I'm sure HarpsichordConcerto will feel free to surgically remove my joke from its context and remind people over and over again that I think old music is crap. Heigh ho. Such is life on the old interwebs....


----------



## Polednice

mmsbls said:


> This argument seems to be asking the orchestra to privilege your desires over those of the other audience members. I assume you are being counted, but that the others are as well. When everyone is counted, your desires are in a small enough minority that the orchestra does not program what you would like to see. I would love to see shows on advanced physics, philosophy, and economics on TV, but I fully understand why I never will - I'm not more important than the other viewers. I'm just in the very small minority.
> 
> Actually CPSeattle is arguing, with different words and emphasis, something similar. CPSeattle wants the programming to be more like his desires rather than what it is. I assume the actual audience desires for the Seattle and Portland orchestras are somewhat different, but it would be very interesting to know and see how well the programming matched the audiences.
> 
> Several people have commented that programming Ligeti along with Beethoven is a bit like seeing Metallica and Peter, Paul, and Mary (sorry for the dated groups) in concert. You would never see it in pop concerts so why do you see it in classical concerts? I'm not arguing against the classical version of mixing genres, but I have always wondered if orchestras should program modern works together rather than placing one on a concert with Romantic works.


I think the problem is that CPSeattle is basically complaining that the already substantial monopoly of his tastes on concert programmes just isn't large enough to satisfy him - the things he objects to aren't exactly avant-garde either. It's like someone complaining about the BBC scheduling an Attenborough documentary because there's not enough reality television.


----------



## HarpsichordConcerto

some guy said:


> And I have my eye on another Gluck opera...


Christoph Willibald Ritter von Gluck? Which opera? I have just about as many as I could get my hands on (CD, DVD/Blu-ray). Gluck's opera are relatively slowly enjoying a "comeback". His early operas sounded relatively conventional for its time but of course his mature works when he was refomring opera, was well ahead of its time with expanded stretches of music containing very little recitative.


----------



## PetrB

Couchie said:


> Stravinsky? That guy who's seminal work will enjoy its centennial anniversary next year? Stravinsky is in my museum, sorry.


Dutilleux may enjoy centennial performances when that date arrives, sorry.


----------



## PetrB

CPSeattle said:


> PetrB, at one point Jeffrey Dahmer was a young yipp. And, like all of the rest of us at some point, he didn't get out of here alive. I don't think we have to give everyone a young yipp wildcard.


Henri Dutilleaux is hardly a young yipp anymore, programming his work is not the naive and overenthusiastic and less than discerning move on the part of a young yipp. It's difficult for 'just any young yip to actually find the door to knock upon. I don't think we need worry about a sort of Clockwork Orange clan of nihilist young composers getting heard because they have brutal tactics and clubs and maces.


----------



## PetrB

Couchie said:


> Chance had nothing to do with it. Wagner's coming was written in the stars, as the Old Testament testifies. One day he will come again to judge the living and the dead. I hope you've been doing your Sabbatical _Parsifal_ listenings.


I find it rather a pity that you felt you had to abandon a dogma based on the mysticism of a neolithic nomadic tribe and then filled in that gap with Wagner, but, hey... some people just need their religion structured and ritualized, and any focal point will do


----------



## PetrB

mmsbls said:


> I looked at the Seattle site and viewed the upcoming season. They list concerts by the major works (or works they think will draw in audiences) but also list the full program. For example, on November 15 or 17 they advertise in large print "Emanuel Ex Plays Brahms' Piano Concerto No. 2", and then list the entire program with Brahms, Strauss's _Till Eulenspiegels Merry Pranks_, and Dutilleux's _The Shadows of Time_ (another chance for CPSeattle to sample Dutilleux?).
> 
> That doesn't seem so different from what I've seen advertised in other orchestras and venues.


Happy to hear it - happier if all pieces on program were given 'equal font size' though - the different sized typeface smacks of cheap advertising or dodgy contracts. That's the trouble with employing a more 'contemporary' PR person for advertising the arts - starts to use approaches found in context with Wal-Mart or the Marketing Strategies surrounding the selling of a running shoe


----------



## CPSeattle

> I would never call anyone devil worshippers no matter what type of music they listen to. That is ridiculous.


I didn't. My friend did. It was hyperbole. I laughed.



> I think the problem is that CPSeattle is basically complaining that the already substantial monopoly of his tastes on concert programmes just isn't large enough to satisfy him - the things he objects to aren't exactly avant-garde either.


How come they always pretty much sneak the modern material in? Last weekend, it was the dreck from Dutillieux that dominated the program. It was the longest piece by far, and everything else seemed to be there in relation to it. But it wasn't even printed on the ticket. Incidentally, I haven't objected to avant-garde music. I've objected to random, non-tonal, anti-melodic junk, written after 1945, that gets injected into so many shows like water into a Thanksgiving turkey.

Also, it occurs to me that my tastes in classical music are still very much being formed. I know this, and that's another reason I've endured this. If there was a "monopoly" on what I allegedly like, even though I am far from knowing everything I like, I wouldn't be ranting.



> If their music was in a minor key, it would be tonal. This makes me think that you're not really communicating what you want. Am I right in thinking that you don't want just anything that falls under the bracket of "tonal", which does refer to things you clearly don't like, but that you're looking for something that sounds like it could be lifted from the 18th-19th centuries?


Yep, any musicologist would have a field day with what I have written. It is such easy pickings. But you know what I meant; I am not exactly blazing a new path.



> But to couch a complaint that composers should be writing for you because you spend $1200 a year on concert tickets is one of the most tyrannical and babyish whines there can be


Sadly, I don't have enough money to be a tyrant. If I were only a Medici, then I'd really give you something to complain about. But seriously, if I can't boo in the concert hall (actually, I wouldn't), and if I didn't find enough to suit me, then why shouldn't I take my paltry grand and go somewhere else? I hasten to add that I am not giving up. I'm simply going to pay more attention. At this point, my rant (which has been a lot of fun, I might add, especially post #96, which had me cackling as I wrote) notwithstanding, I'm pretty optimistic.



> Korngold (d. 1957) was a conservative who rarely - if ever - strayed from tonality and as a result he was considered totally passe even in the years BEFORE WWII when he was still only in his 30s, but he wrote many fine works right up until his death.


I see that, and note that the Seattle symphony included him in something I'll be attending in June. So there's an exception to my rant right there. It's not modernism _per se_ that I object to. It's the overwhleming tendency to give us music that makes me want to slit my wrists.



> In any case, composers like Dutilleux, but also Thomas Ades, have put on record they don't care about the old "tonal vs. atonal" debates and turf wars.


Don't know about Ades, but I reckon Dutilleux didn't care about the debate because he abandoned tonality? And linearity too. Which brings up another question: Why do so many of the modernists seem to have severe cases of ADD? Is having a recognizable theme and developing it for more than, say, 45 seconds, considered unsophisticated, too?



> What does the original poster think a composer does anyway? Splash notes on paper like a Jackson Pollock painting?


No, they just put a lot of effort into making it sound that way.



> If you are in a context where there is a lecturer, and many people in the hall are rapt with attention, respondent, and to you it is as if they are speaking a language you do not understand, it is simultaneously frustrating and irritating.


That actually happened to me once. I found myself in a calculus review lecture, but I had never taken calculus to begin with. Afterwards, I went up to the professor and told him that I hadn't taken calculus. "It was like listening to someone give a lecture in crisp, flawless German. I didn't understand a word of it, but I was impressed." 

I think I alluded to this with respect to the symphony and modern music when I observed that the Seattle symphony plays horrible music very well. I don't blame the musicians. I bet that more than a few of them often don't like what they have to play.



> And boy does he ever find it distasteful, or should I say, "boy does he ever enjoy saying how distasteful he finds it"?


You've got me there. Hell, I paid for two tickets to that show, so I had to find a way to spread the pain around. Why not here? :lol:

----------

Allan Pettersson * Sinfonia n. 8, not bad, but didn't connect

Nosyrev - Piano Concerto, had its moments.

Einar Englund - Symphony No. 2 The Blackbird, on the austere side, but I liked it

Eric Whitacre-Choral Works, loved it

Morten Lauridsen- Lux Aeterna, Nocturnes, loved it

Michael Daugherty- Metropolis Sysmphony, Route 66, liked it. Lots of fun.

Joseph Schwantner- Chasing Light, Percussion Concerto. Interesting. Don't usually like this sort of thing, but it worked for me.

Steve Reich- Music for 18 Instruments, liked it at first, until the repetitiveness started getting to me. Seemed like one of those Windham Hill records.

Philip Glass- The Kiss, The Hours Soundtrack, Candyman. Liked that, I'll have to give him a chance.

Peteris Vasks - Message, liked it

Alec Wilder - Seldom the sun (july 17, 1940), wow! Who knew?

Jim Martinez Plays Marian McPartland, as someone who from time to time will randomly blurt out, "Bill Evans is God," what can I say? I loved it. Thank you! Not really classical music, not that I really care.

Alec Wilder's Quintet No. 1, 3rd mvt., written in 1954, now this is a guy I'll be looking out for. Did he write any symphonic music?


----------



## Guest

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> Which opera?


Il trionfo di Clelia.


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## mmsbls

some guy said:


> Wow, mmsbls, if this is what you got out of my post....
> 
> Couldn't be more wrong. ("Consider my desires" is a far cry from "privilege my desires.")
> 
> Indeed, I really think you have accomplished Stlukesguild's fondest desire, to offend me.:lol:
> 
> Anyway, you do know the difference between addition and subtraction, don't you?*


If I did offend you, I'm very sorry. It seemed to me that both of you wanted the programming of your local orchestras to be more in line with your desires. You feel that you lose because you won't ever hear certain works you like, and he feels that he loses because there are works he strongly dislikes. Both of you wish the orchestra's programming was closer to your personal desires. Isn't that correct? The actual programming hopefully tries to satisfy some reasonable "audience average" set of desires in each case. In your case, apparently your local audience is skewed far to the conservative end and away from what TC members, in general, would like.



Polednice said:


> I think the problem is that CPSeattle is basically complaining that the already substantial monopoly of his tastes on concert programmes just isn't large enough to satisfy him - the things he objects to aren't exactly avant-garde either. It's like someone complaining about the BBC scheduling an Attenborough documentary because there's not enough reality television.


Yes, I understand, and I understand some guy is asking for a _little more_ modern music while CPSeattle is asking for _less_ music of the kind he dislikes. I am _much_ more sympathetic to some guy's situation than CPseattle's. Still both seem to be asking for a deviation from what the orchestra programmers deem to be the, hopefully, "right" mix of works. While one wants to add works and the other wants to subtract works, both requests can be seen in the same light by orchestra programmers. Both can ask for their wish list of programming, and both can be told, "Sorry, that is not in line with our best expectations of the overall audience desires."

I realize the internet can be an awful place for arguments. My personal view of the question of orchestra programming is that I wish orchestras would play more modern music and not less. So, some guy, I would be on your side when discussing this issue with your orchestra's programmers.


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## Cnote11

I feel blessed to like the entire spectrum of Classical Music that I don't have to worry about this kind of stuff.

And oh, my opinion here, we should have more orchestras! I should be able to go down into Detroit and choose from ten orchestras all playing fabulous material all year round. :devil:


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## StlukesguildOhio

I'm not painting myself as anything, 'dude' And it sure seems like you are... It is what I think that I am saying.

Unfortunately it seems that what you "think" changes from one minute to the next... or perhaps you have gone back and edited so many of your posts to simply remove the more insulting comments you have made in order to cover your tracks?

Some things are said, as you obviously are trying to do, to provoke...

How you arrive at such a notion is surely the result of some rather creative jumps in logic. You post your comment in which you state:

*What do you expect on a forum where some are self-taught*, but haven't bothered to even look up 'Romantic' or 'Tonal' as related to music? Pick your battles, on the right field, and *consider the background of the participants.*

If such comments aren't the height of pretentiousness and intended to provoke, I don't know what is. You might as well just come out and exclaim, "What more do you expect from such ill-educated bumpkins?!"

When I first joined, I quietly asked several forum members, both young and old, of what to expect from the more volatile members here. Your name came up REPEATEDLY: Your outlay here, was expected and predicted.

Yeah... whatever.

You are known to bludgeon people with your credentials and to challenge the credentials of others.

Really? That's interesting... especially considering the fact that my "credentials" are limited to whatever experience I have had in listening to "classical music" for some period of time. I have no formal music education and have never suggested anything to the contrary.

To me, you are steeped in academe (perhaps more 'current' but if it is dogma, it IS calcified until put into free non-academic practice) and likely yearning for recognition of your composition or theoretic genius, which to date, it seems, has not been forthcoming. Do not look for that from an open-admissions forum, child.

If you wish to attack my personality, you might do well to first learn something about me... either first hand, or from a source that is slightly more reliable than the one you seem to have based your fictitious portrait upon. As I have already stated, I have no formal musical training... or at least none since middle-school (which was far too long ago to matter.) As such, I question where you get your illusion of my being steeped in academia... let alone my unfulfilled desire to be recognized for my efforts in composition (and theory). I did once write a couple egregiously bad songs back when I played guitar in a high-school band, but I can assure you that in no way do I wish to be recognized for these "achievements". Indeed, I would fully deny having written them were they ever to come into the light of day.:lol:

Perhaps you are the one in the perfect position to compose the piece that will satisfy this particular OP without at all compromising your completely up to date theoretic knowledge and musical aesthetic...

Again, what songs I have composed would more likely succeed in proving the existence of objectivity in art as a result of their being universally disliked... or laughed at.

I suppose that depends upon what your personal purpose for composing is.

I'll clarify things for you. In spite of your having supposedly learned much of me through your discreet asking about (should I be flattered that I actually have a stalker?) you somehow missed the fact that I am not a musician or composer or musicologist or academic trained in music in any way, shape, or form. I am a visual artist... a painter... something that I have made known frequently on this site. In fact, I would be surprised if any member who had been here for any period of time did not know this as well as they might know that Polednice is a Brahms fanatic and Couchie is an avowed Wagnerian.

But surely, don't let these facts dissuade you from your further efforts in the realm of fictive biography.


----------



## HarpsichordConcerto

some guy said:


> Il trionfo di Clelia.


Good. Scheduled for release next week or two.


----------



## clavichorder

@CPSeattle, I encourage you to look into my suggestions as well, seeing that you are giving reviews the Medtner and Tcherepnin from a few pages back.


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## CPSeattle

> I understand some guy is asking for a little more modern music while CPSeattle is asking for less music of the kind he dislikes. I am much more sympathetic to some guy's situation than CPseattle's. Still both seem to be asking for a deviation from what the orchestra programmers deem to be the, hopefully, "right" mix of works. While one wants to add works and the other wants to subtract works, both requests can be seen in the same light by orchestra programmers. Both can ask for their wish list of programming, and both can be told, "Sorry, that is not in line with our best expectations of the overall audience desires."


This is a very reasonable and intelligent comment, in my opinion. Underneath it, the issue is that we've got one orchestra, and several genres. I have been operating under a misapprehension, which is that a night at the symphony means I'll hear something that, owing to my not being formally trained, I can't adequately describe. Therefore, any words I use will be open to easy dissection and refutation, but so be it. I have expected to hear something that is melodic, tonal, and linear, and written for a certain collection of instruments, and which will fit into two or two and a half hours or so, including half-time.

I can still count on some of it: the instruments, the time frame, and of course the various customs that govern the audience's behavior, which essentially boils down to: all four cheeks sucked in. What I can't count on, though, is the music itself. It won't necessarily be melodic, tonal, or linear. Not all of it, anyway. In many, if not most, cases, there'll be a piece in the middle of the program that is anti-melodic, atonal, and structured in a way that radically violates what I view as structure.

So, what I am to do, and what's a symphony to do?

What I should do is what I will do: investigate in advance. My assumptions have been wrong. That fact was driven home last weekend, sure as the last spike in the transcontinental railroad. It is up to me to know in advance. As for the symphony, I sympathize with them. Judging from the standing ovation for Dutillieux last Saturday, _someone_ likes it, and likes it a lot. Now, if the symphony had to pack the hall by handing out tubs full of free tickets to music programs, then the standing ovation means less than I think it did.

But I'm going to presume that this didn't happen, and that the hall was full of paying customers. If not, then I'd say: Program for those who pay you. That's the way it has always worked, everywhere.

So, what's the symphony to do? Try to satisfy both crowds is what they ought to do. Give all of us enough of a reason to buy a season subscription, and to hear what we'd like to hear. If it turns out that too much of what I want to hear is larded with the unlistenable, then I have a decision to make: get an aisle seat and quietly disappear for a while, or stop going altogether. One decision I will _not_ make is to ever again sit still for what happened on Saturday night. I am never under any obligation to do it, and I won't do it. I am absolutely unintimidated at the thought of being considered unsophisticated. I like them tapestries of them dogs playin' poker, don't you?

I do have to wonder, though, why the symphony sneaks this stuff in. Why print Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony on my ticket, and not tell me about the uber-modern dreck that it's going to start with unless I go to the website? Conductor Morlot, are you that ashamed of the first piece, or are you just afraid that if you put it right up there with Tchaikovsky that half your audience would disappear? If the answer to either of those questions is "Yes," then I am not the only one who ought to be thinking things over.

p.s.: claichorder, thanks. I assure you that every single suggestion given is going to get a listen, and a brief comment. I truly appreciate it that people have stepped forward in this thread and offered ideas. You'll notice that the worst I've said about anything is that I haven't connected to it.


----------



## StlukesguildOhio

Originally Posted by PeterB- *What do you expect on a forum where some are self-taught*, but haven't bothered to even look up 'Romantic' or 'Tonal' as related to music? Pick your battles, on the right field, and *consider the background of the participants.*

_Originally posted by SLG-What an snot-faced, pretentious *$#@#! Everyone here is clearly beneath your superior grasp of music... ill-educated morons, no doubt. "Just consider their background?!"_

_I'll stop now before I say something that I'll regret._

PeterB- You are HUGE on background, often enough directly or indirectly letting all know you are at the apex of up-to date higher learning. So, WTF?

Would you present your personal questions on advanced music theory or analysis here? You've made it clear all are beneath you here in that regard. I am not the first, if any number of members are reliable in their reportage on what they have noticed about you.

Pot calling the kettle black, boyo.

(Looking over his shoulder...) "Are you talkin' to me?"

If you are going to attack my personality or my history here at TC, as opposed to addressing my comments dealing with your clear expressions of disdain for the musical knowledge of members here, you would do far better if you were actually addressing me and not the fictive image of me that you got from who knows where. Considering that I have no formal education in music (beyond a few years on the trombone in middle-school... )it would seem highly unlikely that I would be at all big (let alone HUGE) on "background" or "credentials"... directly or indirectly. With this in mind, I am somewhat perplexed as to just where in my past postings I have endeavored to engage in discussions of advance music theory in such a manner as to suggest that I look down upon others with regard to the same.

Leaving discussions of fiction for the moment, I will draw your attention to the fact that in my posts here I in no way questioned Modern or Contemporary music. I quite like a good deal of music that our OP has suggested is too avant-garde for his taste. I argued that I found it rather pointless to berate someone for disliking this or that music, and suggested that rather than insulting his musical tastes or attempting to convert him into a sworn Modernist, why not simply offer some examples of contemporary music that might suit his desires. Who knows... perhaps he'll eventually build off of these and end up discovering that Dutilleux is not that bad, and Scelsi is quite fascinating.


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## CPSeattle

A note to those who are making this personal: Why not limit yourself to dumping on the music you don't like? And to those who are accused of some sin (stupidity, snobbery, etc.), the best way to disarm your critic is to plead guilty. Then add some insult about yourself that they haven't thought of yet.

Example:



> Not only am I a snob, but I am fat and lazy. And just wait until they check the crawl space under my house.


I found that this tactic works pretty well on the Internet. I mean, really, what can they say?


----------



## Polednice

I think it's a shame that you describe being at a concert listening to music you don't enjoy in terms of endurance, torture, unwillingness, coercion, disappointment, when it could still be unenjoyable, but nevertheless a glimpse into the tastes of others, a challenge to your ideals, and a source of questions about why you disliked the music and why you enjoy other kinds. I wouldn't say there's anything intrinsically wrong with your approach, but you seem like you'd rather have music serve you, and have it be something you can consume for a particular purpose, rather than as something to explore, with bad experiences as valuable as good ones.


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## clavichorder

This thread, for those of you who remember, reminds me very much of our good friend Herlocksholmes aka Dodecaplex's entrance into the forum. His issue was with Romantic music that was pretentious. CPSeattle is reviewing pieces and listening to everything with that same eagerness, which is great.


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## CPSeattle

> you seem like you'd rather have music serve you, and have it be something you can consume for a particular purpose, rather than as something to explore, with bad experiences as valuable as good ones


Bad experiences can have value, depending on the specifics. Last Saturday's was valuable, in that it coaxed a certain furry little animal out of my brain cage and out onto the front lawn, so I could go after it with a shotgun. Call me what you will, but I don't go to the symphony to have a rotten time. Now, if I were the kind to hire, or hire myself out as, say, a leather-clad, whip-wielding interrogator for an evening's worth of private challenge, maybe the Dutilleux would come in handy. Are there recordings?


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## Polednice

CPSeattle said:


> Bad experiences can have value, depending on the specifics. Last Saturday's was valuable, in that it coaxed a certain furry little animal out of my brain cage and out onto the front lawn, so I could go after it with a shotgun. Call me what you will, but I don't go to the symphony to have a rotten time. Now, if I were the kind to hire, or hire myself out as, say, a leather-clad, whip-wielding interrogator for an evening's worth of private challenge, maybe the Dutilleux would come in handy. Are there recordings?


That's just the thing - some people could go to a concert, hear something they don't like one bit, and _still_ not have a "rotten time". But we approach music in fundamentally different ways, so it's probably best to leave it at that.


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## CPSeattle

> That's just the thing - some people could go to a concert, hear something they don't like one bit, and still not have a "rotten time". But we approach music in fundamentally different ways, so it's probably best to leave it at that.


There's something about being stuck in your seat with nowhere to go and nothing to do but listen to it, that for me makes this something I wouldn't willingly do. And I suppose there's the emotional side too. I could get more out of a bad painting, or a bad play, or a bad movie, than I could out of a piece of bad music. It's tougher for me to approach music with the degree of analytical detachment that would permit me to appreciate something I detest.


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## mmsbls

@CPSeattle: There seem to be quite a few Seattle symphony concerts next year that do not involve an atonal/modern work. Could you just limit yourself to those concerts? Maybe if you don't get a subscription series each individual concert will be more expensive, but overall the listening experience might be more enjoyable for you.


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## CPSeattle

mmsbls, I'm going to be studying next year's schedule shortly to see if I can find enough of interest. Remember, I am looking for reasons to stay, not for reasons to stomp off into the night.


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## StlukesguildOhio

Originally Posted by some guy- Il trionfo di Clelia.

HC- Good. Scheduled for release next week or two.

Any links to this up-coming recording?


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## HarpsichordConcerto

StlukesguildOhio said:


> Originally Posted by some guy- Il trionfo di Clelia.
> 
> HC- Good. Scheduled for release next week or two.
> 
> Any links to this up-coming recording?


MDG label, 3 CDs ("World Premiere Recording ...")


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## Cnote11

I want that now


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## Guest

Interesting clip. I liked the noodling bit very much, but once they started playing an actual bit from the opera, why all the camera shutter sounds? Oh well. Camera shutter sounds are fine, on their own. But a trifle distracting.

As is Helene le Corre. Only she's distracting in a good way.

That bit they played, though. Yeah. I want this now even more than before.

I am totally moving to Bordeaux, too. I mean it!:lol:


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## HarpsichordConcerto

Note there are 7 clips altogether. I posted the first. These clips are always very interesting.


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## CPSeattle

Been going through next season's modern music at the Seattle symphony. I'll select away from, or exchange if they wind up in my series, Messiaen's _Turangalalia_; Berg's _Violin Concerto_; (naturally) Dutilleux _Shadows of Time_; a premiere of something by John Luther Adams, whose other stuff leaves me cold; Britten's _War Requiem_ and _Cello Symphony_. I was a bit surprised to kind of like Martinu's _Symphony No. 6_.

I'm glad to see that they're playing Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky either alone or with other traditional stuff, rather than bundling it with unlistenable dreck. I'll get another crack at Tchaikovsky's _Symphony No. 4._ And I'll be able to hear Rachmaninoff's _Piano Concerto No. 2_, my old friend, and all kinds of fun. Bottom line is that I can sidestep the music that's sure to **** me off. As I suspected, all I really needed to do is pay more attention in advance, so I don't feel ambushed like I did last weekend. As for that hard-sounding hall they play in, well, we all have our crosses to bear. At least the parking's convenient.

Still haven't gone through the rest of the suggestions in this thread, but I will.


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## clavichorder

One more suggestion for you CP, since you kind of liked Martinu's 6th, you'll probably like the Cello Concerto


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## clavichorder

And more authentically up to your criteria, Alan Hovhaness, Mysterious Mountain


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## samurai

@ CC: Stunning choice! Well-done indeed!


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## CPSeattle

Alan Hovhaness, Mysterious Mountain -- really like it. Thanks.

I'd like to say that this has turned out to be a very, very productive exercise. Many thanks to those who have resisted the temptation to blast me into the next galaxy. I've learned more about music here than I ever could have imagined.


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## clavichorder

CPSeattle said:


> Alan Hovhaness, Mysterious Mountain -- really like it. Thanks.
> 
> I'd like to say that this has turned out to be a very, very productive exercise. Many thanks to those who have resisted the temptation to blast me into the next galaxy. I've learned more about music here than I ever could have imagined.


Hmm, productive exercise? Interesting choice of wording. Your ranting was fully genuine wasn't it? Just curious.


----------



## norman bates

CPSeattle said:


> Alec Wilder - Seldom the sun (july 17, 1940), wow! Who knew?
> 
> Jim Martinez Plays Marian McPartland, as someone who from time to time will randomly blurt out, "Bill Evans is God," what can I say? I loved it. Thank you! Not really classical music, not that I really care.
> 
> Alec Wilder's Quintet No. 1, 3rd mvt., written in 1954, now this is a guy I'll be looking out for. *Did he write any symphonic music?*


No, unfortunately he didn't for many reasons. Wilder was very critical of the grandeur of a lot of symphonic music, but he wrote a lot of chamber music for a lot of different instruments. And he wrote a lot of great songs (and Bill Evans too played I'll be around and others).
His "famous" thirty octets for harpsichord and woodwinds in particular are just beautiful, though there isn't a complete collection. You have to find this (my favorite one)

http://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/alec_wilder/alec_wilder_octets/

and this
http://learning2share.blogspot.it/2007/10/78s-from-hell-alec-wilder-octet-circa.html

and this
http://www.amazon.com/Frank-Sinatra-Conducts-Music-Wilder/dp/B000AY4Z66

and others, but it's a good start (in the album "conducted" by Sinatra there are other pieces, and then if you're interested there's the site wilderworld
http://wilderworld.podomatic.com/


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## norman bates

Ennio Porrino - I Shardana

this is not very well known even in italy, but it is considered by many the most important opera written in italy after ww2. I'm not too much into opera but i think it's a magnificent work with a lot of great melodies, it reminds of something between De Falla, Stravinsky and Bartok.


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## CPSeattle

> Your ranting was fully genuine wasn't it?


I assure you, it was fully genuine. I wound up amazed at how much I learned here.


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## PhileasFogg

I'm new here. Is this considered too old a thread to post on? Some forums highly discourage thread necroing, while others highly discourage reposting topics without searching for an existing one first.


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## clavichorder

You are not going to get banned or anything for bringing back an old thread. What's your business here though? This thread treads dangerous waters...


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## PhileasFogg

I'm also looking for recent-decades composers who adhere fairly strictly to Common Practice methods, preferably modern-day composers of Late Romantic music or something very similar.

Most of the suggestions on this thread are far too non-traditional for what I'm currently for


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## clavichorder

Well, aside from the debating aspects of this thread, you might want to mine some of the musical suggestions offered for a starting point. 

If you are a composer yourself, know that there is plenty of freedom for music like that to be written nowadays, and it is being written too.

Common practice and other related tonal shoot-off or predecessors are still kickin', but I can't think of any large scale conceptions that are well known/regarded enough to be played in concert halls. Miniatures for piano or ensembles, and even suites, are pretty common thing for talented students to write, and it can very good, heartfelt music.


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## KenOC

clavichorder said:


> Common practice and other related tonal shoot-off or predecessors are still kickin', but I can't think of any large scale conceptions that are well known/regarded enough to be played in concert halls. Miniatures for piano or ensembles, and even suites, are pretty common thing for talented students to write, and it can very good, heartfelt music.


Post-WW II "common practice" masterpieces -- I'll mention only Shostakovich and suggest: Symphony #10, Violin Concerto #1, Cello Concerto #1, Symphony #15. These may be insufficiently conservative for Mr. Fogg. In which case I think he's in a bit of a bind unless he looks to the choral music of Messrs. Lauridsen, Whitacre, et al.


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## PhileasFogg

Shostakovich is conservative enough for the most part, I have been looking into some of his works. I had been wondering though if anything from the 1970's or 1980's or so onward was completely or almost completely tonal, I had been having difficulty finding some which is why I first found this thread. I am not an expert on classical music by any means, but it is my understanding that impressionism is not 100% tonal, and I do like impressionism as well, though it seems not much of that has been produced since the 1920's.


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## clavichorder

KenOC said:


> Messrs. Lauridsen, Whitacre, et al.


Well, there's some attractive ones of even the Shostakovich generation that I like more. Bohuslav Martinu, Alexander Tcherepnin, Arthur Honegger. Later than that, Alan Hovhaness seems to be a big exception to most things that were going on, and it can be an interesting thing to sort through his massive sea of music and find the worthwhile pieces.


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## clavichorder

PhileasFogg said:


> Shostakovich is conservative enough for the most part, I have been looking into some of his works. I had been wondering though if anything from the 1970's or 1980's or so onward was completely or almost completely tonal, I had been having difficulty finding some which is why I first found this thread. I am not an expert on classical music by any means, but it is my understanding that impressionism is not 100% tonal, and I do like impressionism as well, though it seems not much of that has been produced since the 1920's.


Well, you question is nicely phrased and I have to admit that I don't know enough to answer this question fully for things that are onward from the 1980s. I hesitate to recommend "neo romantics," because such recommendations never satisfied me with what I was looking for, I find all pretty and no wit in much of that music. Nonetheless, if you didn't know they existed, there's something. You also may have heard that (warning, oversimplified, no pun intended) minimalism got more complex and is being called post minimalism. John Adams is a name for that, but he's certainly a modernist, though I think one of the only classical composers who makes enough for a living on his career in this day.


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## PhileasFogg

I've heard of both neo-romanticism and post-minimalism (admittedly only from wikipedia) but I don't truly understand what they are. I tried listening to Penderecki and Hovhaness but they weren't similar enough to what I'm looking for. I did like a Thomas Ades piece that I heard on youtube, but it seems to be that neo-romantic music, whatever that may be, is not really very similar to romantic music at all.


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## KenOC

All these labels aren't very helpful (to say the least). Suggest you just listen and see what you like.


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## neoshredder

The labels can help you find Composers with that label. I made a thread recently about the most accessible late 20th Century Composers. Might want to check it out.


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## arpeggio

If the above suggestions are too much for you than there is nothing that I can recommend. Many of the ones that I am familiar with are band composers and most classical music buffs that I know of dislike concert band music: for example Mark Camphouse, Phillip Sparke and Donald Grantham. Even the most conservative contemporary tonal composers are going to sound modern to 19th Century Romanticism. Maybe you can try the English composer George Lloyd. If that does not work for you then there is nothing more that I can suggest.


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## neoshredder

Here's the thread. http://www.talkclassical.com/22601-poll-most-accessible-contemporary.html


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## joen_cph

Don´t know if it has been suggested already, but

*Pärt*: Tabula Rasa 




*Silvestrov*: Postludium & Meta-Musik for piano & orchestra etc. on this album, not on you-t:
http://www.amazon.com/Silvestrov-Aleksei-Alexei-Lubimov-piano/dp/B00008MNCG

*Englund*: Symphony 2 



 (the Panula recording is broader and better though)

*Anders Koppel*: Concerti, issued by the Dacapo label (not on you-t)

*Pettersson*: Symphony 8 (it´s a dark work though): 




*Lajtha*: Symphony 4 http://www.youtube.com/results?sear....2j2j6j1j0j1j1.13.0...0.0...1ac.1.bluwDj0EbuE

_EDIT_: and of course the pleasant music of *Jean Francaix* in general, such as the Octet


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## PhileasFogg

The last one (Lajtha) seems a little more traditional and kind of reminds of me of Stravinksy a little but perhaps I don't know what I'm talking about.

What type of music are the other ones considered? They sound similarly atonal but atmospheric. Part is minimalist isn't he? Are the others minimalist as well? Maybe I like minimalism after all because the Part one in particular is very intriguing to me.

I'll have to look into the ones in that thread that was posted as well


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## joen_cph

As you probably know, it is usually possible to hear some mp3-samples say at amazon or other sites, like for instance-

*Koppel*:
http://www.dacapo-records.dk/en/recording-works-for-saxophone-and-orchestra.aspx
http://www.dacapo-records.dk/en/rec...one-piano--concerto-for-accordion-violin.aspx
http://www.dacapo-records.dk/en/rec...--tuba-concerto--concerto-for-flute-harp.aspx

*Silvestrov*
http://www.amazon.com/Silvestrov-Aleksei-Alexei-Lubimov-piano/dp/B00008MNCG

*Francaix is* definitely very conservative.


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## millionrainbows

Shostakovich was the first thing I thought of, and this should have been mentioned twelve pages ago. Be forewarned, however, that Shostakovich. at times, hated his life and wanted to share the misery with us. He usually snaps out of it, though, into a resigned acceptance at the end. But if you really must have "happy happy joy joy" all the time, I suggest Disney. Zip-ah-dee-doo-dah!


There's plenty of good post WW2 tonal stuff out there: Stravinsky, Lou Harrison, George Lloyd, Howard Hanson, David Diamond, late Penderecki, Arvo Part, Glass, etc...


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## Mahlerian

PhileasFogg said:


> Shostakovich is conservative enough for the most part, I have been looking into some of his works. I had been wondering though if anything from the 1970's or 1980's or so onward was completely or almost completely tonal, I had been having difficulty finding some which is why I first found this thread. I am not an expert on classical music by any means, but it is my understanding that impressionism is not 100% tonal, and I do like impressionism as well, though it seems not much of that has been produced since the 1920's.


Impressionism is tonal in the sense that it generally centers around a key or note, although some of Debussy's later stuff has been described as atonal. It does not adhere to common practice period tonality, though. For that matter, neither do Stravinsky, Bartok, and any number of other composers, save for one or two token gestures usually added jokingly or for matters of formula.

Composers generally don't write using the language of the 19th century anymore, and I think you've realized that Neoromanticism is not by any means the same thing as Romanticism. Thomas Ades is a good example. The best way to summarize, I suppose, would be using the large-scale gestures and emotional content of 19th century Romanticism utilizing an updated, 20th century tonal language.

If you like impressionism, though, you may be interested in Messiaen (particularly his works from the 30s and 40s) and Takemitsu's later work (from the 70s, 80s, and 90s), both of whom cited Debussy as their greatest influence. Neither uses common practice period tonality, and it may take some adjustment, but there's a real connection there.


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## PhileasFogg

I had an epiphany of sorts today. I was driving home from work listening to Arvo Part- something that would have considered unthinkable as recently as yesterday- when I realized that the reason I was finding myself surprisingly comfortable in the atmosphere created by him and similar composers posted on this thread, was that I had been surrounded by atonal music all the while, and hadn't even known it. Some of my favorite soundtracks are composed largely of music that is not tonal in the slightest.
Soundtrack example:




 



 



From the uninitiated's perspective, this is not all that dissimilar to mystic minimalism.
I had not made the connection between atmospheric music and atonality until now. Most of the more common youtube hits for searches like "atonality" and "schoenberg" remain unlistenable to me. But it is not tonality per se that I've been seeking, it's atmosphere and emotion. And in composers like Part and Górecki it's been there all along.


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## Mahlerian

The reason most people don't like Schoenberg and co. is because their music is dense. VERY dense. Part, Gorecki, et. al (who have links to tonality in varying degrees) are anything but.

I mean, if you don't like Schoenberg's atonal music, I doubt you'd enjoy his tonal work either.
ex.





Sounds plenty emotional to me, but if it's not your cup of tea, it's not your cup of tea. Listen to music you like, not music you don't.


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## millionrainbows

Mahlerian said:


> The reason most people don't like Schoenberg and co. is because their music is dense. VERY dense.


Of course, this is the objective view. Conversely, the subjective version would be "The reason most people don't like Schoenberg and co. is because they are dense. VERY dense.":lol::devil:


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## Sid James

^^(to Mahlerian and the issue in general), Schoenberg can be like that but Webern isn't that dense (hardly anything there), and Berg is probably less dense than Mahler. Well, shorter in length anyway. I agree re Schoenberg, he was not easy for me to get into, but it may not just be density. Eg. Pierrot lunaire has got the singer with something like 7 instruments. Hardly a 100 piece orchestra, is it? I think the reasons he was hard for me in that work was the darkness, that rawness and angst. But now, over a decade later, its a quality of it I actually like or at least appreciate. Seeing a performance of it a few years back, which was staged as a theatrical piece (similar to cabaret, with choreographed bits) bought it all together for me. But in terms of Transfigured Night, Maestro von Karajan's 'on steroids' approach to it put me off for ages, its the more 'Modern' interp of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra with a kind of lighter and airy impressionistic vibe really made it click with me. With Schoenberg, I think how interpreters do his music makes a huge difference, a bigger difference to me with some of his works than with other composers, with them I've tended to be less fussy.


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## Mahlerian

Pierrot Lunaire is still dense in terms of ideas and counterpoint. There's a distinct lack of repetition, and every instrument is treated as a soloist. One of the settings (I forget which) is a double canon that also moves in retrograde, but it all goes by so fast that you can only sort of hear it without looking at the score.*

Webern, again, is dense in that every note is important. With Strauss, a lot of notes are thrown at the listener, but you can just try to take in the whole and not worry about this or that instrument's individual part. Webern requires the listener to pay attention to every single note to be able to follow his ideas.

In regards to interpretation, it's extremely important. I get the feeling that a lot of early recordings, especially, get the notes, but don't know how to shape them correctly. Phrasing is very important in this kind of music, and if you just play the notes, the expression gets lost in the shuffle. I think we're starting to get to the point where orchestras can play Schoenberg more authoritatively and sympathetically, but for a long time, it was difficult. It's much easier to find good recordings of his chamber and solo music.

EDIT:
*I looked it up. It's 18, Der Mondfleck. It is a double canon, with 6 "voices". The violin and cello take one canon, with the other taken by the clarinet, piccolo, and piano (seperately in each hand).


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## Sid James

Mahlerian said:


> Pierrot Lunaire is still dense in terms of ideas and counterpoint. There's a distinct lack of repetition, and every instrument is treated as a soloist. One of the settings (I forget which) is a double canon that also moves in retrograde, but it all goes by so fast that you can only sort of hear it without looking at the score.*...


Well that does make sense to me, in terms of Schoenberg being contrapuntal music. I would say that his first chamber symphony, though only for 15 instruments, I'm still getting used to it. These things take time (as Pierrot did for me). I am aware of the old forms like canons and gavottes he used in some pieces, incl. that one. He does do repetition in some works, but near-repetition (for want of a better name), not literal repetition. I think the fragmented nature of his music is what was not easy for me, and its similar in some ways to others like him, but with time I have come to enjoy this type of music.

But my meaning of density was more in terms of heaviness, say in Wagner or R. Strauss who you mention, maybe Mahler or Bruckner (but I find them more to my taste than the other two). I know early on Schoenberg kind of aped that 'bigger is better' aesthetic (eg. with Pelleas or Gurrelieder) but he departed from that and pared things down. He got away from that 'music on steroids' approach. Which is why 'old style' interps of his music kind of don't go down well with me.

But in terms of complexity, of the sheer number of layers, Harry Partch's music leaves Schoenberg, or the other two Viennese guys, or even Carter for dead. Partch is full on, but because he is not atonal or serial (he thought it was a waste of time for him) but incoporated Asian and African and other ancient musics into his style, it was very easy for me to absorb from the word go. Having said that, Berg's Wozzeck was exactly the same, from the first listen I took it in, there was no barrier, even though my experience with that sort of music at the time was limited. It all kind of grew from that (& other things like Messaien's Quartet for the End of Time).

Dunno if this was exactly relevant but what I'm saying is that some things where harder for me to 'break down' than others. Some stuff is worth my effort doing that, other stuff is not. Recently coming back to Bartok's string quartets, its definitely been more enjoyable and 'easy' than they where on first listen. These things take time as I said. But if some people don't want these things, good for them. We all make decisions in accordance to our needs. Thats why I don't see a need for some of the more dogmatic/judgemental type views we had when this thread was fresh, and I was the only one (or one of a few) to talk of my own experience in 'breaking down' the Dutilleux cello concerto, it was hard for me too but now I love it:



Sid James said:


> ...
> I admit that the Dutilleux cello concerto was not apparent to me at first, I did not quite know want to make of it. But he gives you a tone row in the opening cello solo which forms the basis of the whole thing. It's like a set of variations on this tone row. But I got into it by instinct and relistening, I'm not trained in music. But I'd love to hear it live. No chance of that here I'm afraid. But it might grow on you, these things take time.
> 
> ...


So I validate people's 'issues' with newer music. Some things come easy, others don't. That's life.


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## PetrB

PhileasFogg said:


> I had an epiphany of sorts today. I was driving home from work listening to Arvo Part- something that would have considered unthinkable as recently as yesterday- when I realized that the reason I was finding myself surprisingly comfortable in the atmosphere created by him and similar composers posted on this thread, was that I had been surrounded by atonal music all the while, and hadn't even known it. Some of my favorite soundtracks are composed largely of music that is not tonal in the slightest.
> Soundtrack example:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> From the uninitiated's perspective, this is not all that dissimilar to mystic minimalism.
> I had not made the connection between atmospheric music and atonality until now. Most of the more common youtube hits for searches like "atonality" and "schoenberg" remain unlistenable to me. But it is not tonality per se that I've been seeking, it's atmosphere and emotion. And in composers like Part and Górecki it's been there all along.


Sorry to inform you, but all three of the links you posted are tonal music 
You just responded to the ultra simple consonance of basic common practice triads with Part and the 'spiritual minimalists.'


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## PetrB

millionrainbows said:


> Of course, this is the objective view. Conversely, the subjective version would be "The reason most people don't like Schoenberg and co. is because they are dense. VERY dense.":lol::devil:


Ah, syntax is all - were the composers 'dense,' or the listeners 'dense, VERY dense.'


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## hpowders

Christopher Rouse, composer in residence of the NY Philharmonic from 2012-2015.

His music is tonal and approachable.

His Symphony No. 4 from 2013 is terrific!


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## Tchaikov6

Not sure if Romeo Cascarino has been mentioned yet...


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## Pugg

kremen6a said:


> Hello, could you contact me in Facebook or contacts on the site www.anticonuovo.com
> thanks ! Kremena Nikolova


Any particular reason why we should do so ?


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## JAS

Pugg said:


> Any particular reason why we should do so ?


Maybe you will be blessed with secrets of how to make lots of money on the internet from home.


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## Pugg

JAS said:


> Maybe you will be blessed with secrets of how to make lots of money on the internet from home.


I never click on links from first time posters.....


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## JAS

Pugg said:


> I never click on links from first time posters.....


As well you shouldn't. (If it wasn't obvious, my post was a reference to the ubiquitous fake posts found littering the internet everywhere about miraculous claims that "my mother makes $$$" or "my sister makes $$$ from home" which are clearly just lures for the unwary.)


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## Selby

Dobrinka Tabakova would be a good entry into recent 'tonal' classical. Her concerto for cello and strings will give you goosebumps.


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