# Most Anomalous Sounding Composer from Each Period



## regenmusic (Oct 23, 2014)

Which composers are the most out of place in each major musical period? 

I realize that this may be hard to find real red herrings, and I'm not looking for that. I'm realizing that I can't expect a composer I haven't heard from the Baroque period to only sound like others I have heard from that period. Some might think, "what's the point" if they all sound so much alike, but I think we begin to realize after a while that they don't all sound alike.


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## Casebearer (Jan 19, 2016)

Ludovico Einaudi - in the present period


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

It's true that they don't all sound alike. Some have very quirky sonic signatures within the idiom of their time. 

The trick is to think of one. I don't know enough about every period, but I do know the baroque and late classical fairly well. For baroque I nominate D. Scarlatti. He is instantly recognizable. No one else sounds anything like him until you get to the Haydn keyboard sonatas. It's not that Scarlatti was ahead of his time. He just had a unique fingerprint with wide interval leaps and rapid modulations. 

For late classical it's hard not to go with Beethoven, but that's so obvious. How about Rossini? He doesn't quite seem to fit with what everyone else was doing and perhaps rang in the romantic period far more than Beethoven, whom I consider still very much classic period.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Weston said:


> I don't know enough about every period, but I do know the baroque and late classical fairly well. For baroque I nominate D. Scarlatti. He is instantly recognizable. No one else sounds anything like him until you get to the Haydn keyboard sonatas. It's not that Scarlatti was ahead of his time. He just had a unique fingerprint with wide interval leaps and rapid modulations.


Scarlatti was by far the best composer that was doing things like he was doing, but not necessarily the strangest or even the first. You can pretty much instantly recognize him, and the only composers you could really confuse him for are Sebastian de Albero(younger and shorter lived contemporary who actually copied his manuscripts) or Antonio Soler(clearly inspired by his example). Carlos Seixas, while stylistic different and not always nearly so sharp, I think actually started writing sonatas before Scarlatti and there is enough resemblance to wonder if Domenico didn't discover it and combine it with his knowledge and personality.

But otherwise, I agree with you, he is very much a baroque outlier. J.S. Bach, and C.P.E. Bach both also come close. And Antonio Vivaldi was really very unprecedented in a lot of things he did, but the problem is he fueled a movement that followed him. Still nobody composed quite like Vivaldi.

Also, check out this piece of Biber. Telemann, and some other german baroque composers seemed to have done similar strange things, but Biber's work here is among the strangest and earliest:


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

For the romantic era, we have many options but the first one that came to mind was Hector Berlioz, and second was Charles Valentin Alkan(who may in fact be odder considering his dates, sounding like classicism meets modernism in the early romantic early romantic is pretty strange indeed) Claude Debussy also seems like a logical choice, since he practically popped out of thin air. Mussorgsky too.


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

clavichorder said:


> Also, check out this piece of Biber. Telemann, and some other german baroque composers seemed to have done similar strange things, but Biber's work here is among the strangest and earliest:


Biber was not put away for this? 

[Edit: I should have read the video description before launching into the piece. I'm not exactly a spring chicken anymore! Now it makes a little more sense.]


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## regenmusic (Oct 23, 2014)

Jean-Féry Rebel:

" Many of his compositions are marked by striking originality that include complex counter-rhythms and audacious harmonies that were not fully appreciated by listeners of his time. His Les caractères de la danse combined music with dance, and presented innovative metrical inventions. " Wikipedia

Jean-Féry Rebel (1666-1747): Les Élémens. Symphonie de danse (1737/38)
No. 1: Le Cahos. Très lent


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Jeez, I remember hearing that before and not believing my ears. Thanks for reintroducing it to me, I think it pretty much takes the cake for baroque music.


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## Lukecash12 (Sep 21, 2009)

This isn't as hard when you think of Renaissance period music. Some composers had a way more developed understanding of music than others. Gombert, Gesualdo, Isaac, and Monteverdi can hardly be compared to their contemporaries, whether one is thinking of polyphonic density and imitative lines, scale, anomalous developments within a genre/form, or tonal texture.


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

This thread is blowing my mind. I wonder why these pieces have not been held up as examples to suggest the futility of the tonal / atonal wars? (Except that I find the drama entertaining and often enlightening.)


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## GioCar (Oct 30, 2013)

clavichorder said:


> For the romantic era, we have many options but the first one that came to mind was Hector Berlioz, and second was Charles Valentin Alkan(who may in fact be odder considering his dates, sounding like classicism meets modernism in the early romantic early romantic is pretty strange indeed) Claude Debussy also seems like a logical choice, since he practically popped out of thin air. *Mussorgsky* too.


Seconded that. In particular Mussorgsky's works are well ahead their time imo.


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