# In Praise of 20th Century Music



## Alypius

At any given moment on Talk Classical, there are one or more active threads begun by someone who wants to fret about or simply denounce the music of the 20th century--dismissing it as dissonant or atonal or unfeeling or merely intellectual or whatever. Such threads typically being with a poll or with some (inaccurate) claim that 20th-century music is somehow "atonal." Then (understandably and rightly) those conversant with the music of the Second Vienna School jump in and make serious, detailed, and conscientious efforts at clarifying matters. The Second Vienna School, whatever its significance, is hardly summative of 20th music. (It is, I would argue, only a minority trend). In such threads, the richness of the music of the 20th-century is left aside or clouded over amid unnecessary polemics.

I suggest starting on a different footing--what I would argue is a more factually accurate footing: diversity. The diversity of 20th-century music is _the fact_ that too often gets missed, papered over, or dismissed in too many threads. I personally love the music of the 20th century, and I love it precisely for its wild diversity. To clarify that diversity, I will add a second post that lists 100 works of 20th century music that I recommend and that highlights the fact of that wild diversity of styles and trends.

I would like this thread to be is a place where one speaks *in praise of 20th century music*. And so if you do not like music of the 20th century, I ask that you please *post your complaints elsewhere*.

A pair of lead-off questions:

*What _specific_ works of 20th century music do you most enjoy? (Please tell us why).

*What practical approaches or broader perspectives would you suggest to help those who have a _hard time_ appreciating 20th-century music?


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## Alypius

Here is a list of 100 major works. It highlights, I believe, the extraordinary diversity of 20th-century music. I list them in chronological order because, I believe, chronology undermines many of the frequent and inaccurate generalizations made about 20th-century music. Chronology illustrates how diverse styles co-exist and interweave in complex ways:

1. Rachmaninov: Piano Concerto #2 in C minor, op. 18 (1901)
2. Mahler: Symphony #5 in C# minor (1901-1902)
3. Ravel: String Quartet in F major (1903)
4. Debussy: La Mer (1905)
5. Albéniz: Iberia (1906)
6. Scriabin: Piano Sonata #5, op. 53 (1907)
7. Ravel: Gaspard de la nuit (1908)
8. Rachmaninov: Piano Concerto #3 in D minor (1909)
9. Mahler: Das Lied von der Erde (1909)
10. Debussy: Preludes, Books 1 & 2 (1910, 1913)
11. Stravinsky: L’Oiseau de feu (Firebird) (1910)
12. Stravinsky: Petrushka (1911)
13. Schoenberg: Pierrot Lunaire (1912)
14. Stravinsky: Le Sacre du printemps (Rite of Spring) (1913)
15. Prokofiev: Piano Concerto #2 in G minor, op. 16 (1913)
16. Webern: Five Pieces for Orchestra, op. 10 (1913)
17. Ravel: Piano Trio in A minor (1914)
18. Ives: Piano Sonata #2 (“Concord”), S. 88 (1915)
19. Sibelius: Symphony #5 (1915, rev. 1919)
20. Holst: The Planets, op. 32 (1917)
21. Prokofiev: Piano Concerto #3 in C major, op. 26 (1921)
22. Varese: Ameriques (1921, rev. 1927)
23. Berg: Wozzeck (1922)
24. Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue (1924)
25. Villa-Lobos: Choros #8 for large orchestra & 2 pianos (1925)
26. Janáček: Sinfonietta (1926)
27. Kodaly: Háry János Suite (1926)
28. Berg: Lyric Suite (1926)
29. Szymanowski: String Quartet #2, op. 56 (1927)
30. Bartók: String Quartet #4, Sz 91 (1928)
31. Schoenberg: Variations for Orchestra, op. 31 (1928)
32. Bartók: Piano Concerto #2, Sz. 95 (1931)
33. Ravel: Piano Concerto in G (1931)
34. Medtner: Piano Sonata in B flat minor (“Sonata Romantica”), op. 53/1 (1932)
35. Syzmanowski: Symphony #4 (“Symphonie Concertante”), op. 60 (1932)
36. Berg: Violin Concerto (“To the memory of an Angel”) (1935)
37. Bax: Symphony #6 (1935)
38. Bartók: Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta, Sz. 106 (1936)
39. Orff: Carmina Burana (1936)
40. Shostakovich: Symphony #5 in D minor (1937)
41. Roy Harris: Symphony #3 (1937)
42. Martinů: Double Concerto for 2 String Orchestras, Piano and Timpani (1938)
43. Rodrigo: Concierto de Aranjuez (1939)
44. Prokofiev: Alexander Nevsky, op. 78 (1939)
45. Messiaen: Quatuor pour la fin du temps (1940)
46. Cage: Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano (1941-1943)
47. Wm. Schuman: Symphony #3 (1941)
48. Bartók: Concerto for Orchestra, Sz. 116 (1943)
49. Copland: Appalachian Spring (1944)
50. Messiaen: Vingt Regards sur l'enfant-Jésus (1944)
51. Villa-Lobos: Bachianas Brasileiras #5 for soprano and orchestra of violincelli (1945)
52. Stravinsky: Symphony in Three Movements (1945)
53. Britten: Peter Grimes (1945)
54. Strauss, R.: Four Last Songs (1948)
55. Shostakovich: Preludes and Fugues, op. 87 (1951)
56. Carter: String Quartet #1 (1951)
57. Shostakovich: Symphony #10 in E minor, op. 93 (1953)
58. Lutosławski: Concerto for Orchestra (1954)
59. Xenakis: Metastaseis (1954)
60. Boulez: Le marteau sans maître (1955) 
61. Stravinsky: Agon (1957)
62. Bernstein: West Side Story (1957)
63. Stockhausen: Gruppen (1957)
64. Shostakovich: String Quartet #8 in C minor, op. 110 (1960)
65. Penderecki: Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima (1960)
66. Ligeti: Atmospheres (1961)
67. Barber: Piano Concerto, op. 38 (1962)
68. Grimes: War Requiem (1962)
69. Riley: In C (1964)
70. Ligeti: Requiem (1965)
71. Carter: Concerto for Orchestra (1969)
72. Reich: Drumming (1971)
73. Crumb: Black Angels (1971)
74. Rochberg: String Quartet #3 (1971) 
75. Messiaen: Des canyons aux étoiles (1974)
76. Glass: Einstein on the Beach (1975)
77. Rzewski: The People United Will Never Be Defeated! (1975)
78. Nørgård: Symphony #3 (1975)
79. Reich: Music for 18 Musicians (1976)
80. Gorecki: Symphony #3 (“Symphony of Sorrowful Songs”) (1976)
81. Pärt: Tabula Rasa (1976)
82. Schnittke: Concerto Grosso #1 (1977)
83. Takemitsu: A flock descends into the pentagonal garden (1977)
84. Gubaidulina: Offertorium (1980, rev. 1986)
85. Holmboe: String Quartet #17, op. 152 (1983)
86. Kapustin: Eight Concert Etudes, op. 40 (1984)
87. Dutilleux: L’arbre des songes ("Tree of Dreams"): Concerto for Violin (1985)
88. Ligeti: Études pour piano (1985, 1994)
89. Adams: Harmonielehre (1985)
90. Nono: Promoteo (1985)
91. Adams: Nixon in China (1987)
92. Takemitsu: From me flows what you call time (1990)
93. Dusapin: Seven Solos for Orchestra (1992 ff.)
94. Pärt: Berliner Messe (1992)
95. Henze: Symphony #8 (1993)
96. Lutosławski: Symphony #4 (1994)
97. Rautavaara: Symphony #7 (“Angel of Light”) (1994)
98. Kurtág: Stele (1994)
99. Schwantner: Percussion Concerto (1994)
100. Gubaidulina: Canticle of the Sun (1997)


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## hpowders

Charles Ives Concord Piano Sonata (1911-1915). One of the most colorful, original scores I've ever heard. A kaleidoscope of dissonance and moving hymn tunes from a time in America that has long since past. One of the greatest of all piano sonatas.

Highly recommended to those not stuck in the rut of musical conservatism.

My favorite performance is by Easley Blackwood.

For those who consider Charles Ives a musical lightweight, you need to hear this work.


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## SeptimalTritone

Alypius said:


> *What practical approaches or broader perspectives would you suggest to help those who have a _hard time_ appreciating 20th-century music?


I would say that modern music does a much much better job at describing and illustrating the thought patterns of the human mind. It has much more inner stillness, yet within that stillness arises all the complexity of human thought, and this includes joy, devotion, fear, uncertainty, and everything in between. This makes it infinitely more intimate.

The above statement is important in understanding even Schoenberg: I was listening to the wind quintet and 4th string quartet a day or two ago and their thoughtful intimacy is directly related to the patterns of human thought.

A few 21st century masterpieces (this is important too!):

Georg Haas- In Vain (2000)
John Adams- Dharma at Big Sur (2003)
Hans Abrahamsen- Schnee (2006)
Sofia Gubaidulina- In Tempus Praesens (2007)
Tristan Murail- Les Sept Paroles (2010)
Stefano Gervasoni- Dir Indir (2010)


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## starthrower

I'm not a huge string quartet listener, but I'm on a bit of a kick at the moment listening to Bartok, Schnittke, Henze, Szymanowski, and Janacek. I love the Chandos CD featuring the last two composers I mentioned.










And if more conservative listeners find these too modern, perhaps Hindemith or Barber might fit the bill?

Two symphonies that come to mind are the fourth by both Honegger and Schuman. These are beautiful works with memorable themes, and pretty easy on the ears.

For concertos, I always go with 20th century works, because I find the rhythms and harmonies more appealing to my ears. I get very bored with romantic concertos., even though they may be brilliant pieces with a lot of technical fireworks. Two favorites I'll mention are Ligeti's violin concerto, and Prokofiev's piano concerto no. 2.


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## GioCar

Berio - Sinfonia (1968-69)

As far as I remember, it was the first work of 20th Century Music I heard when I was a teenager (excluding maybe Le Sacre, but I was hooked by the dinosaurs...)

For me Berio's Sinfonia was just nonsense. At that time my heroes were Beethoven, Wagner, Tchaikovsky and few others.

Then growing up I broadened my knowledge, started to listen to much more composers from many different periods, etc...
I still remember my excitement when I listened to Berio again in my twenties and "oh...but this is Mahler's second symphony!"
Later, I started recognizing some Stravinsky, some Schoenberg, even some Beethoven in it. It was all so exciting!

It's a marvellous work, and a very special one to me indeed.

And it is not in Alypius' list


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## DiesIraeCX

*Schoenberg *- String Trio - Pelleas und Melisande - (Verklarte Nacht 1899)
*Stravinsky *- Rite of Spring - Firebird - Jeu De Cartes - Petrushka
*Mahler *- Symphonies 5 - 10, Das Lied Von Der Erde
*Bartok *- String Quartets - Violin Concertos
*Debussy *- La Mer
*Ligeti *- String Quartet 1
*Shostakovich *- String Quartets, Symphony No. 5

I'm positive there are a few I'm forgetting about.



> *What specific works of 20th century music do you most enjoy? (Please tell us why).


I would say, _not including Mahler_, I enjoy Schoenberg, Stravinsky, and Bartok above all. I loved Schoenberg's String Trio, Stravinsky's Rite of Spring and Petrushka, and Bartok's string quartets, especially #4.



> *What practical approaches or broader perspectives would you suggest to help those who have a hard time appreciating 20th-century music?


I had a fairly particular way of "getting my feet wet" in 20th century music. I believe I can safely assume that it was thanks to Mahler's symphonies that was the first step for preparing me for modern era music. After that, it was Schoenberg and Stravinsky, _Verklarte Nacht_ and _Rite of Spring_ respectively. The *main *reason, though, that enabled my appreciation was opening my mind to new sounds and techniques. I feel it is absolutely necessary to leave all preconceptions (prejudices) at the door. You have to ready your mind for it, when you do, you become more receptive and the rest will fall into place. I say this not because this is a type of music that inherently requires this type of preparation (it does not), I only advise this to those who do have difficulties with understanding modern era music.


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## Jobis

The 20th century was so great for music I worry about the 21st being able to match it! Contemporary composers have their work cut out if they are to rival in genius the likes of Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Bartok, Messiaen, Ligeti and the rest! I don't know if it can be done, but I suppose they said the same at the turn of the 20th century?

As you may be able to tell, I can be a bit of a pessimist when it comes to the future of human achievements


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## OlivierM

I would recommend a few (maybe in the lesser-know range):

Hanns Eisler - String Quartets, Op 75
Edith Canat De Chizy - String Trio 'Moving'
Pierre-Yves Macé - Crash Test II (Tensionial Integrity)
Wolfgang Rihm - Musik Für Drei Streicher
Krzysztof Meyer - his chamber music
René Koering - String Quartets No 2 & 3
André Boucourechliev - String Quartets
Matthias Pintscher - In Nomine
Jay Schwartz - Music For Six Voices
Horatiu Radulescu - String Quartet No 4
Elliott Sharp - String Quartets
Gloria Coates - String Quartets
Annie Gosfield - her first three cds
Jean Cras - his music in general
Andreas Romberg - String Quartets
Pascal Dusapin - String Quartets
Giacinto Scelsi - Trilogia
Ivan Wyschnegradsky - Quartets / String Trios
Toshio Hosokawa - Koto-Uta, Silent Flowers, Tabi-Bito, Sen VI, Die Lotosblume
and the list goes on...


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## SiegendesLicht

Mahler, Richard Strauss, Sibelius... it was not a bad century at all.


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## SeptimalTritone

GioCar said:


> Berio - Sinfonia (1968-69)


I'll quote myself for more Luciano Berio, if you or anyone else is interested in pursuing these haunting works:



SeptimalTritone said:


> I listened to Luciano Berio seriously for the first time today. *Why isn't he more famous???* Is there anyone else who was so prolific and explored so many of the expressive possibilities of serial music, combining a Schoenberg mentality of expression (i.e. expressive romanticism) with a Webern one (i.e. contemplative objectivity) and going far beyond into the most amazing of musical places? Seriously this guy is the real deal.
> 
> I don't remember exactly everything I listened to, but here are some works in no particular order that struck me as good:
> 
> Coro
> 
> 
> 
> Epifanie
> 
> 
> 
> Requies
> 
> 
> 
> Stanze
> 
> 
> 
> Cocnerto for two pianos
> 
> 
> 
> Formazioni
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Edit: If I wasn't clear enough (lolol), Luciano Berio is _amazing_!


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## SeptimalTritone

Jobis said:


> The 20th century was so great for music I worry about the 21st being able to match it! Contemporary composers have their work cut out if they are to rival in genius the likes of Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Bartok, Messiaen, Ligeti and the rest! I don't know if it can be done, but I suppose they said the same at the turn of the 20th century?
> 
> As you may be able to tell, I can be a bit of a pessimist when it comes to the future of human achievements


Actually, I think the delicacy and complexity of the 21st century has been taken to great places! Especially with the works I posted above. I think that composers are writing more and more intimate and human music actually, and this can only get better as they master more in sound color and microtonal harmony.


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## Alypius

GioCar said:


> Berio - Sinfonia (1968-69)
> 
> As far as I remember, it was the first work of 20th Century Music I heard when I was a teenager (excluding maybe Le Sacre, but I was hooked by the dinosaurs...)
> 
> For me Berio's Sinfonia was just nonsense. At that time my heroes were Beethoven, Wagner, Tchaikovsky and few others.
> 
> Then growing up I broadened my knowledge, started to listen to much more composers from many different periods, etc...
> I still remember my excitement when I listened to Berio again in my twenties and "oh...but this is Mahler's second symphony!"
> Later, I started recognizing some Stravinsky, some Schoenberg, even some Beethoven in it. It was all so exciting!
> 
> It's a marvellous work, and a very special one to me indeed.
> 
> And it is not in Alypius' list


Gio & Septimal, Thanks for the addition(s). My original list was made a while ago, and I then filled it in with some recent discoveries. And I forgot Berio! Thanks.


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## arpeggio

*Attack of the Band Junkie*

It falls upon me to uphold the genre, again.

See following post: http://www.talkclassical.com/31882-greatest-20th-century-composer-2.html#post652053

To the above fine list I would add the following living composers:

David Maslanka
Donald Grantham
Mark Camphouse
David Gillingham
Frank Ticheli

As a bank junkie 99% of the most worthy band works have been composed since 1913. Two of the best pre-20th century examples are Handel's _Royal Fireworks_ (which is composed for a baroque band) and the Mendelssohn _Overture_. Of course Mozart composed a few works for wind ensemble. There are a few others.

There are some band junkies who only want to play Sousa Marches and selections from _My Fair Lady_.

Note: _My Fair Lady_ is a great musical and I am a big fan of the movie. But I have never performed a decent arrangement of the music for band.


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## Alypius

Ezra Pound in the 1910s famously declared as a dictum shaping much 20th century art: "Make it new!" That ideology has led to much misunderstanding of the actual history of the arts of the 20th century, whether literature, painting, or music. I want to begin with the second question of my opening post, namely:

*What practical approaches or broader perspectives would you suggest to help those who have a hard time appreciating 20th-century music?

I am conscious of those who find the music of the 20th century forbidding, an unfamiliar world. For those who find it so, I recommend beginning with one of the finest composers of the century: *Samuel Barber*. It is an unusual recommendation in some way because Barber (1910-1981) was a conservative in terms of his chosen artistic idiom. He had a gift for lush romantic melodies. But he is important counter-example to those who presume that progressivism and artistic excellence are necessarily joined. Barber was a deeply creative conservative. In the history of art, there are many such cases (e.g. Fra Angelico, Bach in his later days). Barber did not embrace the trends around him, at least not readily. Yet he brought such skill and artistic integrity to his work that it still seems fresh, vibrant. Let me recommend four works of his to begin with:

**Adagio for Strings*, op. 11 (1938). Recommended performance: Leonard Bernstein / New York Philharmonic. Arturo Toscanini rarely performed American composers, but on reading through the score he announced: "Semplice e bella" ("Simple and beautiful"). The work has become, ever since the funeral of John Kennedy, the American music for public mourning. There is a richness to this yearning and anguish.

**Violin Concerto*, op. 14 (1939). Recommended performance: Hilary Hahn / Hugh Wolff & the St. Paul Chamber Symphony. One of the lushest, most romantic works of the 20th century. A lyricism here that makes much 19th-century romanticism seem tame.

**Knoxville, Summer of 1915*, op. 24 (1948). Recommended performance: Dawn Upshaw / David Zinman & St. Luke's Orchestra. One of the great vocal works of the 20th century.

**Piano Concerto*, op. 38 (1962). Recommended performance: John Browning (piano) / George Szell & Cleveland Symphony. This is the most "modernist" composition of Barber's works that I know. Yet its sound world is more early 20th century than the era in which it was written. It reminds me of the piano concertos of Prokofiev from the 1910s and 20s: vigorous, athletic, dazzling virtuoso works. I should add that for all his decidedly romantic idiom, all of Barber's works press the performers to the limit. However accessible their melodies, they are daunting to perform. When John Browning was rehearsing this, he appealed to Barber that certain sections were unplayable. Barber consulted with Vladimir Horowitz about the matter, and Horowitz confirmed their unplayability, and so he modified things. For all the rigors of the 1st and 3rd movements, the 2nd is unbelievably lush and lyrical in an almost 19th-century sense of it.


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## senza sordino

I have catalogued my collection in excel, and the median date of composition is about 1915. Half of my collection was written before 1915 and the other half after 1915. That, I think, tells you a lot about what music I like and spend my money on.

Some of my favourite

*violin concerti*
Barber
Szymanowski #1
Shostakovich #1
Prokofiev #1
Bartok #2
Khatchaturian 
Adams
Stravinsky 
Berg
Korngold
Gubaidulina (Offertorium)
RVW (the Lark Ascending)
Sibelius
Ligeti

*Piano Concerti*
Gershwin Concerto in F
Bartok #2
Rachmaninov #2
Prokofiev #3
Shostakovich #2
Ravel In G
da Falla nights in the Garden of Spain

*Orchestral*
Holst The Planets
Mahler 5&9
Bartok Concerto for Orchestra
Copland Appalachian Spring&Rodeo
Sibelius 2,5&7
Barber Adagio for strings
Lutosławski Symphony #3
Strauss Metamorphosen 
Walton Symphony #1
Shostakovich #5&10
Britten Four Sea Interludes
Debussy La Mer
Grofé Grand Canyon Suite
Prokofiev Romeo and Juliet
Resphighi Pines of Rome
Stravinsky Firebird, Petrushka, Rite of Spring

*Chamber Music*
Shostakovich String Quartet #8
Shostakovich Piano Trio #2
Bartok String Quartets
Britten String Quartet #1
Kreisler Three Vienese Pieces
Messiaen Quartet for the end of time
Debussy Violin Sonata
Part Tabula Rasa

*With singers*
Britten Serenade for tenor horn and strings
Puccini Tosca, Turandot
Villa Lobos Bachianas Brasileras 5
Bernstein West Side Story
Strauss Four Last Songs
Orff Carmina Burana

*Guitar*
Rodrigo Concierto Da Aranjuez 
Villa Lobos Concerto & Preludes
Castelnuovo Tedesco Concerto
Myers Cavatina

That's all I can think of off the top of my head.


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## Weston

There are too many to list and too many already mentioned to absorb, but I can't resist throwing in a few of my favorites works.

*Ligeti: Requiem. * 
This music was something akin to a religious experience for my 11 year old imagination when it was first heard around the world as the sound of the monolith in 2001: a space odyssey.

*Ligeti: Clocks and Clouds.*
Fires my middle aged imagination just as much.

*Ralph Vaughan Williams: Symphony No. 7, "Sinfonia Antartica."*
While this may be dismissed as a movie soundtrack, so is Prokofiev's Alexander Nevsky and many others now considered part of the repertoire. The wordless soprano always gets to me.

*Hugo Alfvén: Symphony No. 4 in C minor, "Från havsbandet."*
Speaking of wordless soprano, this one features it in abundance along with tenor. It's killer. I need to be emotionally sturdy before tempting its power.

*John Cage: Sonatas and Interludes for prepared piano*
Or at least the No. 1. I find this music quite compelling and listenable. It is amazing to me that Cage transformed the piano into what almost sounds like an electronic instrument, but it's not a gimmick. He proceeds to do something within the limitations of the new instrument. I do note however that performance is crucial to the success of these pieces. Too heavy handed and it doesn't come off correctly to my ears.

*Wojciech Kilar: Exodus*
Takes the sword and sandal epic soundtrack idiom and combines it with what _Bolero_ aspired to be to create an amazing masterpiece in deceptive simplicity.

Oh, I could go on and on and on anon. But I'll leave more for later.


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## Alypius

SiegendesLicht said:


> Mahler, Richard Strauss, Sibelius... it was not a bad century at all.


One could read the post quoted above as a cynical jab. But I choose to read it positively. The trio of Mahler, Strauss, and Sibelius did mark an auspicious beginning to the century's music. In the opening chapter of _The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the 20th Century_, Alex Ross recounts the friendship and friendly rivalry between Mahler and Strauss. For him, they belong to the music of the 20th century not only because of chronology but because of the profound creativity and musical achievement that they brought into the opening decade(s) of the century. He goes on to recount the complex and rather tragic story of Sibelius whose music found widespread favor among audiences when those defining the fashion discounted his works. Sibelius' favored idiom was older but he was a shrewd listener. One day violinist Yehudi Menuhin was visiting the composer who asked him "Who is the greatest composer of the 20th century?" Menuhin was in a double bind: should he be diplomatic? or honest? While he hesitated, Sibelius spoke up and answered the question himself -- and the answer might be a surprise: "Bartok," he insisted.

I have two favorite collections of Sibelius' Symphonies: the cycle by Osmo Vänskä & the Lahti Symphony and the cycle by Paavo Berglund & the Bournemouth.


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## Crudblud

Igor Stravinsky - _Agon_ (1957)

Among Stravinsky's ballets, _Agon_ is the awkward, slightly lumpy one lurking in the back; it isn't a show-stopper like his earlier ballets, it's got that fatal 12-tone fungus on its toes, and it begins and ends with almost the same passage of music. Oh, how could he? How could the guy who wrote the intense but not too demanding favourites of the 1910s come up with this... thing? Well, Gerald, I'll have you know that for all the stuff that inflames your mother's bunions it has more of what I value in Stravinsky than _Le Sacre_, _Petrushka_, and _Firebird_ put together.

_Agon_ moves through its numbers with an odd and characteristically Stravinskian gait, darting about between smooth and spiky terrains, going up and down and generally looking all around, only to end up back where it started, but apparently quite chuffed as along the way it discovers a bunch of tone rows, and boy do they have a fine old time together. What it most often reminds me of is the smaller pieces, the chamber works, blown up to larger scale yet retaining a chewy and nutty texture. To keep me from using any more words typically reserved to describe food in what was at one time a music review, I will simply recommend this recording, by Hans Rosbaud, and bid you adieu.


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## ArtMusic

There are lots of very fine 20th century music that I admire and consider as great, as so do a lot of classical music listeners.

Turandot by Puccini
Tosca by Puccini at the turn of the century

Rachmaninoff piano concertos

Stravinsky especially his famous neoclassical period when he wrote The Rite of Spring

etc. etc.

Without a doubt these great works will remain in the core repertorie that the 20th century will be most proud of.


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## schigolch

Well, that's a hell of a question...

For today, I would go with Alban Berg's _Lulu_.

After the success of _Wozzeck_ everyone was expecting from Berg another avant-garde opera, both musically and dramatically. His decision to adapt Wedekind's plays was not a surprise to anyone... with the possible exception of Arnold Schönberg, that wrote: "I have never understood why such an amiable and refined person as Berg, is so interested to put in opera this kind of piece, that carry the risk of a big failure".

But, actually, Wedekind was much more in fashion in the 1920s than at the beginning of the century. The initial shock that received his plays, was replaced by a reputation of cinic and amoral writer, but something of a closet scandal. The atmosphere was ripe for an adaptation to the opera house,... even if Nazism was just there, waiting in the shadows.

Wedekind's plays were even more complex to put into music than _Wozzeck_. Berg decided to use a formal symmetry hiding a complex and elusive message. In this way, the first act and the first half of the second, are devoted to the rise of Lulu. Just in the center there is the pinnacle, the silent film (itself a palindrome), and then the rest of the second act, and the full third act present Lulu's downfall, ending in her death at the hands of Jack the Ripper. The silent film is also a bridge, joining together "Erdgeist" and "Pandora", the original plays by Wedekind.

Berg kept the structure in one prologue and seven scenes of the original plays but, for practical reasons, he needed to reduce the duration. Admirably, he not only maintain the drama alive, but he improved it in the process. The silent film was really a stroke of genius, a very effective tool. Incredibly, some stage directors supress this movie, just projecting slides or with the orchestra playing with a closed curtain... a complete misreading of the opera.

Only the protagonists are fully named in _Lulu_, the secondary roles are just called by their function: Athlete, Painter, Student, Professor, Manservant, Marquis, Doctor, Animal Tamer,.. In yet another stroke of genius, he further stressed the symmetry making that Lulu's three husbands, are also the three clients of the last act: the Doctor becomes the Professor, The Painter a Negro, and Schön, Jack the Ripper. For each character in _Lulu_, Berg not only provide a role in the drama, but also a musical identity based on a 12-tone series, a timbre, a rythm, a musical form,...

Regrettably Berg died with the third act of _Lulu_ being still unfinished. Then Friedrich Cerha completed the score in the 1970s. He used Berg's piano reduction for the third act, the libretto, some hand-written papers by Berg, and Lulu's suite. With this material, and Berg's intention of using symmetry as the driving force for the opera, Cerha completed a great job. It's clear we will never know how Berg's third act would have developed, but personally I'm persuaded it would be very similar to Cerha's.

This is a great recording, available in youtube:


----------



## violadude

ArtMusic said:


> Stravinsky especially his famous neoclassical period when he wrote The Rite of Spring


Actually, The Rite of Spring was written during his so called "Russian" period. His Neo-classical period contains stuff like the Violin Concerto and the Rake's Progress.


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## Couac Addict

A good list by the OP. Anyone exploring 20th century music can find plenty to like there. I'll a add a few extra...not sure if others listed them. I think that a few are 21st century but I'm sure no one minds.

Harvey - Bhakti
Andriessen - De Staat
Feldman - Rothko Chapel
Kagel - Sankt-BachPassion
Tavener - Protecting Veil
Birtwistle - Earth Dances
Maxwell Davies - Worlde Bliss
Maw - Life Studies
Weir - Illuminare, Jerusalem 
Part - Spiegel Im Spiegel
Lachenmann - Gran Torso
Nyman - The Draughtman's Contract
Murail - Gondwana
Knussen - Horn Concerto
Ruders - Symphony no.1
Rihm - Deus Passus
Saariaho - Nymphea
Lindberg - Aura
MacMillan - The Confession of Isobel Gowdie
Benjamin - At first light
Turnage - Blood on the floor
Torke - Four Proverbs
Adès - Asyla


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## Guest

:tiphat: to Alypius for the sentiment.

Here's my wee quibble with the list, however. It does not illustrate the extraordinary diversity of 20th century music. What it does do is show how persistently 19th century sounds and ideas continued on throughout the century. Now, while that may indeed be a characteristic of the century, it is not characteristic of the century, if you catch my drift.

To show the extraordinary diversity of the 20th century, the list would have to include some different composers--Nielsen, Schwitters, Ignace, Young, Oliveros, Shields, Ferrari, Lachenmann, Amacher for example--and different pieces by the ones who are already listed. For Ives, Unanswered Question, Three Places in New England, symphony no. 4 instead of (or at least in addition to) the Concord Sonata. For Lutoslawski, Venetian Games, symphony no. 2, Livres et cetera.

For Cage, Music of Changes, Cartridge Music, Freeman Etudes and so forth.

For instance.

It would have to include things that would illustrate not only serialism and minimalism of the repetitious variety, but other non-CPT musics and other kinds of minimalism. And things like the early Italian experiments in noise, like polyrhythm and polytonality, like extended intrumental techniques, electronics, indeterminacy, improvisation, happenings, explorations of acoustics, serious explorations of non-Western musics (beyond just the exoticism, that is).

It is always good to remind ourselves that the musics of the twentieth century were good and valuable. Best, however, to do that without recourse to the musics that are imbued mainly with the sounds and patterns of the previous century. It's tempting to try to defend the much maligned and constantly beleaguered twentieth century by pointing to all the "pretty" music that was composed within the time span, music that practically anyone conversant only with 17th, 18th, and 19th century musics could readily understand if not enjoy. But why? That is not a contribution _of_ the twentieth century. That is simply something that happened--contributions of previous centuries living on into (or resuscitated _for_) the next century.


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## Alypius

Crudblud said:


> Igor Stravinsky - _Agon_ (1957)
> 
> Among Stravinsky's ballets, _Agon_ is the awkward, slightly lumpy one lurking in the back; it isn't a show-stopper like his earlier ballets, it's got that fatal 12-tone fungus on its toes, and it begins and ends with almost the same passage of music. Oh, how could he? How could the guy who wrote the intense but not too demanding favourites of the 1910s come up with this... thing? Well, Gerald, I'll have you know that for all the stuff that inflames your mother's bunions it has more of what I value in Stravinsky than _Le Sacre_, _Petrushka_, and _Firebird_ put together.
> 
> _Agon_ moves through its numbers with an odd and characteristically Stravinskian gait, darting about between smooth and spiky terrains, going up and down and generally looking all around, only to end up back where it started, but apparently quite chuffed as along the way it discovers a bunch of tone rows, and boy do they have a fine old time together. What it most often reminds me of is the smaller pieces, the chamber works, blown up to larger scale yet retaining a chewy and nutty texture. To keep me from using any more words typically reserved to describe food in what was at one time a music review, I will simply recommend this recording, by Hans Rosbaud, and bid you adieu.


Crudblud, Thanks for your advocacy of _Agon_. When I first read your post, I panicked and dashed back to my 100 list, worrying: "Did I actually leave off one of my favorite works of Stravinsky -- and of the 20th century?", and realized that I had not. I love _Agon_. I was privileged to see a fine live performance of the work a couple of years ago by Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco when they were commemorating the 100-year anniversary of Stravinsky's _The Rite of Spring_. Thanks for the link. I am listening to the Rosbaud performance and it is a fine one. There are some for whom seeing it as dance helps their appreciation. Here's a YouTube link to a brief 1960s documentary which films the original Balachine choreography: 





Here's the account from Alex Ross' _The Rest is Noise_:


> "If Stravinsky's twelve-tone writing failed to satisfy the implacable Boulez, it did restore the composer's faith in himself. Despite the change of technique, characteristic traits and tics remained. Like Berg before him, Stravinsky manipulated the series in order to generate whatever material, tonal or atonal, he required; and he delighted in the hidden continuities that emerge from repetitions of the twelve-tone row--'like so many changes in a peal of bells,' to quote Stephen Walsh. In other words Stravinsky's old bopping, bouncing patterns keep churning beneath the variegated surface....
> 
> Agon came into being at the behest of George Balanchine and Lincoln Kirstein, the choreographer and impresario, respectively, of the New York City ballet.... Stravinsky filled Balanchine's time slots down to the second; Balanchine invented moves that were organically related to Stravinsky's gestures, at once athletic and abstract ... Kirstein had sent along a copy of Francois de Lauze's seventeenth-century manual Apologie de la danse; Stravinsky and Balanchine eventually decided to translate these ancient steps into modern forms, radically reinventing them in the process...
> 
> This last great Stravinsky ballet, for twelve dancers in twelve sections, mixes sounds and styles from several centuries of musical history as well as from several decades of the composer's career. Regal, neo-Renaissance trumpet fanfares set the piece in motion and return several times as organizing punctuation. Driving Rite-like rhythms and creeping chromatic lines give shape to the Double and Triple Pas-de-Quatre. Stately Baroque rhythms decorate the Sarabande, surreal Renaissance twanglings animate the Galliarde. Twelve-tone writing comes into play in the Coda of the First Pas-de-Trois, joined to scrappy violin solos that recall Histoire du soldat. Tensely expressive string lines, vaguely reminiscent of Berg's Lyric Suite, make for a melancholy Pas de Deux. Finally, in the Four Duos and Four Trios, the archaic-modern ritual acquires a jitter of jazz.
> 
> All this is highly absorbing in itself, but the music really pulses with life when it is played alongside the Balanchine action that Stravinsky had in mind as he wrote: the streetwise look of the dancers in their rehearsal clothes; the four males standing stone-still at the outset of the piece, their backs turned to the audience; the acting out of the smallest details in the score, not just the rhythms but the placement of chords high or low, the differentiation of timbre, the lengthening or shortening of note values; the way the dancers register beats in every part of their bodies, with twitchings of the shoulder, snaps of the wrist, extensions or lashings of the arm; and the cohesiveness of the entire conception, reconciling brain and body, the cerebral and the sexual."-Alex Ross, The Rest Is Noise, p. 422-424


----------



## Weston

A couple more 20th century wonders.

Electronic music, perhaps beginning with *Olivier Messiaen's Fête des Belles Eaux* (I will not count the Turangasilly-Symphonie. I just can't get into that any more), and on into *Morton Subotnik's Silver Apples of the Moon* eventually to be embraced as just another tool or instrument as in when Esa Pekka Salonen uses recorded processed sounds in _Wing on Wing _(which I know is 21st century but the groundwork was laid in the 20th).


----------



## Alypius

schigolch said:


> Well, that's a hell of a question...
> 
> For today, I would go with Alban Berg's _Lulu_.
> 
> After the success of _Wozzeck_ everyone was expecting from Berg another avant-garde opera, both musically and dramatically. His decision to adapt Wedekind's plays was not a surprise to anyone... with the possible exception of Arnold Schönberg, that wrote: "I have never understood why such an amiable and refined person as Berg, is so interested to put in opera this kind of piece, that carry the risk of a big failure"....
> 
> This is a great recording, available in youtube:


schigolch, Thanks for your advocacy of _Lulu_. I know it far less well than _Wozzeck_, and for that reason had not included it on my original 100. Thanks also for the link. That looks to be a high quality performance. I've bookmarked it.


----------



## Alypius

*The Populist Thread in 20th-Century Music*

Let me again return to the second question in the opening post: "What practical approaches or broader perspectives would you suggest to help those who have a hard time appreciating 20th-century music?" One strain that runs through the century is populism (which is related to a second strain, namely, building on national folk musics-but I'll save that development for a later post). This populist thread is one that tends to get left out of most people's views on 20th-century music (whether its opponents or its advocates). Thus my wanting to highlight it here. One of the works I left off my initial 100 list was Kurt Weill's and Berthold Brecht's _Three Penny Opera_ (_Die Dreigroschenoper_, 1928) (adapted from John Gay's 18th century play, The Beggar's Opera). Here populism and avant-garde meet. Everyone is familiar with the song "Mack the Knife", which comes from this play.

A similiar sophisticated populism is found in the works of various American composers that I had on my original list: George Gershwin, Aaron Copland, and Leonard Bernstein. For those who struggle to find their way into 20th century music, I often recommend their works. Michael Tilson Thomas a few years ago put together a fine pair of records of Copland's works. One was entitled _Copland the Populist_, which includes his most popular ballets: _Appalachian Spring_ (1943-1944), _Billy the Kid_ (1938), and _Rodeo_ (1942). In many respects Copland's works from this period came to define what most people think of when we speak of American classical music. The music is accessible, spirited, and one of the best doorways I know into the music of the 20th century. Tilson Thomas has an earlier and equally well-done version of Copland's earlier works that are slightly more challenging, thus the title, _Copland the Modernist_. This includes his works in the wake of his Paris studies under Nadia Boulanger, one of the great pedagogues of the century. They are: _Piano Concerto_ (1926), _Symphonic Ode_ (1927-1928) and _Short Symphony_ (1931-32). As Alex Ross has noted, Copland's populism was fueled by his (sometimes naive) political convictions--namely, his socialism. And they were rooted in the 1930s and 1940s New Deal politics of Roosevelt's America.

I should mention that that populist style has been continued among various contemporary composers. One is Michael Daugherty, whose _Route 66 _(1998) is an entertaining and high-spirited romp.


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## Guest

Alypius said:


> tends to get left out


Tends to _dominate,_ seems to me. Even in the short span of this thread itself, it has dominated. In the original list and in many of the comments. It certainly--as Alypius illustrates--dominates the 20th century offerings of the major labels.

And it is inevitable in any thread about 20th century music that eventually someone who clearly dislikes most of the characteristically 20th century musics will start listing favorite 20th century pieces--pieces that look backwards, that present the essentially already familiar even if they are "new" in a superficial sense. And with that, the floodgates open. "The twentieth century is full of 'accessible' or 'approachable' or 'beautiful' (meaning pretty and familiar) music! It's not all this 'atonal' or avant-garde crap."

So no, I don't see this as a neglected area at all but the only area that most people are familiar with.


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## brotagonist

ArtMusic said:


> There are lots of very fine 20th century music that I admire and consider as great, as so do a lot of classical music listeners.
> 
> Turandot by Puccini
> Tosca by Puccini at the turn of the century
> 
> Rachmaninoff piano concertos
> 
> Stravinsky especially his famous neoclassical period when he wrote The Rite of Spring
> 
> etc. etc.
> 
> Without a doubt these great works will remain in the core repertorie that the 20th century will be most proud of.


Pardon me, ArtMusic, but I had to chuckle when I read that :lol: Like senza sordino, Alypius and the many other respondents, music of the 20th Century makes up a huge part of both my collection and the time I spend listening to music. To reduce a century of stellar greats, the numerosity of which has likely never been known by any century before (except the Romantic era, no doubt), to just three--Puccini, Rachmaninov, Stravinsky--elicited more than a smirk. But coming from you...


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## Alypius

some guy said:


> Tends to _dominate,_ seems to me. Even in the short span of this thread itself, it has dominated. In the original list and in many of the comments. It certainly--as Alypius illustrates--dominates the 20th century offerings of the major labels.
> 
> And it is inevitable in any thread about 20th century music that eventually someone who clearly dislikes most of the characteristically 20th century musics will start listing favorite 20th century pieces--pieces that look backwards, that present the essentially already familiar even if they are "new" in a superficial sense. And with that, the floodgates open. "The twentieth century is full of 'accessible' or 'approachable' or 'beautiful' (meaning pretty and familiar) music! It's not all this 'atonal' or avant-garde crap."
> 
> So no, I don't see this as a neglected area at all but the only area that most people are familiar with.


If you have music of the 20th century that you wish to praise, please do so.

However, concerning your claim about this thread as a whole, your claim that "backward" looking works "dominate ... many of the comments," I must disagree. I would hardly consider Gio's and Septimal's recommendations of Luciano Berio recommendations to be easily "accessible" music; nor would I consider DiesIrae's recommendation of Schoenberg's String Trio and Ligeti's String Quartet #1 to be recommendations of easily "accessible" music; nor would I consider Oliver's recommendations of Gloria Coates' and Elliott Carter's String Quartets to be of easily "accessible" music; nor would I consider Weston's recommendations of Ligeti's Requiem and Clouds and Clocks to be of easily "accessible" music; nor would I consider Crudblud's recommendation of Stravinsky's Agon to be of easily "accessible" music; nor would I consider schigolch's recommendation of Berg's Lulu to be of easily "accessible" music. I therefore must disagree with your generalization about this thread. That I personally have chosen to accent certain composers and works comes from the 2nd question that I asked. My own tastes are clearly reflected in the range of works that I listed in the 100 that I originally posted, and hopefully that illustrates that I listen to works of a rather wide range -- from more conservative styles to rather avant-garde styles. That I chose to accent certain things thus far says nothing about the thread as a whole nor about my personal preferences.

That said, if you have works that you would like to recommend and discuss, please do so.


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## Guest

Alypius said:


> If you have music of the 20th century that you wish to praise, please do so.
> 
> ...if you have works that you would like to recommend and discuss, please do so.


What an extraordinarily vertiginous feeling that produces, an invitation to do what one has already done.


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## Crudblud

some guy said:


> What an extraordinarily vertiginous feeling that produces, an invitation to do what one has already done.


comment rescinded


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## JACE

I think Carl Ruggles' "Sun-treader" (1926-31) is extraordinary, one of the great 20th century American compositions.

I would recommend either of Michael Tilson Thomas' recordings:









with the Boston SO (DG)









with the Buffalo PO (originally issued on Columbia; reissued on Other Minds)


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## Guest

response to crud's rescinded post rescinded.

(fair's fair!)

(Apologies to Wood, who may have to unlike this, now.)


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## hpowders

I'm giving a shout out in favor of Schoenberg's Piano Concerto.
Sounded like random noise on first hearing.
Upon repeated hearings, I discovered a haunting, nostalgic piece most likely about a Vienna long gone.
One of my favorite 20th century works, especially as played by Mitsuko Uchida with Cleveland/Boulez.
Glad I stayed with it!!


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## KenOC

Alypius suggested I post here about Shostakovich's 24 Preludes and Fugues, but I wanted to be a bit more general -- to talk (at stunning length!) about the "great middle" of the 20th century, the 15 years from 1945 through 1959, when a lot of things were happening.

The Soviet Union had just won its Great Patriotic War, probably the most costly military victory in history. For whatever reason, a lot of the century's most enduring music was written by Soviet composers in the years immediately following. Prokofiev, near the end of his productive career, still had a few very significant works: The 6th and 7th Symphonies, the Symphony-Concerto, the Cello Sonata, and some might add other works as well.

But Shostakovich seemed to be at the peak of his inspiration, even though he was severely criticized in this period and under a thick and dangerous political cloud from about 1948 until after Stalin's death in 1953. Here are what I consider his greatest works from the 15-year period. All of these are favored listening today and seem likely to remain so:

Op. 70: Symphony No. 9 in E-flat major (1945)
Op. 73: String Quartet No. 3 in F major (1946)
Op. 77: Violin Concerto No. 1 in A minor (1947–1948)
Op. 79: From Jewish Folk Poetry, song cycle for soprano, contralto, tenor and small orchestra (1948)
Op. 83: String Quartet No. 4 in D major (1949)
Op. 87: Twenty-Four Preludes and Fugues for piano (1950–1951)
Op. 92: String Quartet No. 5 in B-flat major (1952)
Op. 93: Symphony No. 10 in E minor (1953)
Op. 97: Music to the film The Gadfly (1955)
Op. 101: String Quartet No. 6 in G major (1956)
Op. 102: Piano Concerto No. 2 in F major (1957)
Op. 103: Symphony No. 11 in G minor The Year 1905 (1957)
Op. 107: Cello Concerto No. 1 in E-flat major (1959)

Among these, the 24 Preludes and Fugues stand out as an unusual and totally unexpected contribution. Obviously inspired by Bach and following his form (except in the order of key signatures), the bottles may seem similar but it's a far different wine. The originality of musical ideas, incredible variety, and force of expression, though, are also reminiscent of Bach.

As in Bach's case, there is a lot of discussion over how these should be listened to -- straight through or in smaller groups? I don't know if Shostakovich spoke clearly about this, but in his time they were often performed as smaller groups between longer works; these groups were, of course, carefully chosen. The whole set is about 2 hours and 30 minutes long.

There are quite a few recordings, none of them bad. My own preference is Melnikov. Some of the pieces, the fugues particularly, can pack quite a wallop. If you don't know the Op. 87, you can maybe get an idea what it's all about by listening to the E minor and F-sharp minor fugues


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## nightscape

I've been listening to Khachaturian's Piano Concerto a bit recently (Jarvi/SNO) in preparation of an upcoming concert. I'm really digging it.


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## hpowders

Alypius said:


> *If you have music of the 20th century that you wish to praise, please do so. *
> 
> However, concerning your claim about this thread as a whole, your claim that "backward" looking works "dominate ... many of the comments," I must disagree. I would hardly consider Gio's and Septimal's recommendations of Luciano Berio recommendations to be easily "accessible" music; nor would I consider DiesIrae's recommendation of Schoenberg's String Trio and Ligeti's String Quartet #1 to be recommendations of easily "accessible" music; nor would I consider Oliver's recommendations of Gloria Coates' and Elliott Carter's String Quartets to be of easily "accessible" music; nor would I consider Weston's recommendations of Ligeti's Requiem and Clouds and Clocks to be of easily "accessible" music; nor would I consider Crudblud's recommendation of Stravinsky's Agon to be of easily "accessible" music; nor would I consider schigolch's recommendation of Berg's Lulu to be of easily "accessible" music. I therefore must disagree with your generalization about this thread. That I personally have chosen to accent certain composers and works comes from the 2nd question that I asked. My own tastes are clearly reflected in the range of works that I listed in the 100 that I originally posted, and hopefully that illustrates that I listen to works of a rather wide range -- from more conservative styles to rather avant-garde styles. That I chose to accent certain things thus far says nothing about the thread as a whole nor about my personal preferences.
> 
> That said, if you have works that you would like to recommend and discuss, please do so.


Yes, exactly. Your introductory post was quite clear on this. If someone wants to go in another direction, he should start a thread with different parameters.


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## arpeggio

some guy said:


> an invitation to do what one has already done.


One of the quandaries with participating in these forums is that many times some of us who have been doing this for a few years get a bit grouchy. At times I realize that I should exercise more patience with many of the newer members.

'some guy', many others and myself are veterans of the great is modern music music wars for many years not only here but in other forums.

If one references the posts of some 'some guy' one can find many excellent suggestions.

I was weary of submitting my previous post because I was concerned that the reactions of some would be, "There goes 'arpeggio' again talking down to us."

The only area that I may possibly make a contribution is in the area of band music and maybe some of the contemporary tonalists. If any one is interested I could provide links some of my old posts.

Sorry about acting like the Grinch.


----------



## Wood

Alypius said:


> *What _specific_ works of 20th century music do you most enjoy? (Please tell us why).
> 
> *What practical approaches or broader perspectives would you suggest to help those who have a _hard time_ appreciating 20th-century music?


At last, a positive thread about modern and contemporary music!

I'm not sure about the two questions though. Comparing enjoyment levels between a huge range of music styles seems like a pretty impossible task with little purpose.

Those having a 'hard time' are either lazy or wilful, or both. It is hard to believe that someone who 'gets' music from earlier centuries is unable to find any twentieth century music that appeals. I would suggest that such people should get on their #rse and actually listen to the stuff.


----------



## Alypius

Wood said:


> At last, a positive thread about modern and contemporary music!
> 
> I'm not sure about the two questions though. Comparing enjoyment levels between a huge range of music styles seems like a pretty impossible task with little purpose.
> 
> Those having a 'hard time' are either lazy or wilful, or both. It is hard to believe that someone who 'gets' music from earlier centuries is unable to find any twentieth century music that appeals. I would suggest that such people should get on their #rse and actually listen to the stuff.


Wood, Thanks. Concerning your 2nd paragraph, I agree in some instances and disagree in others. There may be some who are lazy or willful, but my own approach is to presume good will (until I see repeated evidence to the contrary). I believe that many who first fall in love with classical music from earlier eras do have legitimate and not ill-willed struggles with certain 20th-century musics. I believe it important that if people express genuine struggles with making sense of certain works or certain composers, it may be the case that they have started in the wrong spot, jumping in the deep end, so to speak -- and thus perhaps overgeneralized their wariness. In such instances, a gradualist approach often works, starting people with where they are at, moving from familiar to unfamiliar. Thus my second question. As for my first question, I also believe that learning works best when one starts with specific works. I could put together my 100, and senza and others could put together their good long listings because of hours and hours (no, years and years) of listening. That can be overwhelming to those unaccustomed to the 20th century and its vast pluralism. What I had hoped to avoid was partisanship. Sticking with specifics helps to some degree. If you see other questions that should shape discussion, please suggest them.


----------



## Crudblud

Kaija Saariaho - _Noa Noa_ (1992)

A surreal little (in length, by no means in impact) experience, _Noa Noa_ begins with seductive Shakuhachi inflected lines which recall Takemitsu's pieces with traditional Japanese instruments in colour and phrasing, mostly sitting somewhere between that and Messiaen's transcribed birdsong. However, the piece is more than just a mish-mash of things already done, as soon enough the flautist is having what appears to be a four-way dialogue with themselves. As the piece progresses, multiple voices and flutes begin to dance mysteriously around each other, coming to what I would call a "subtle eye-widener" of a climax. It's real bravura stuff on every level, but it never feels like mindless virtuosity, it's expertly judged and everything said is well worth saying.


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## Weston

hpowders said:


> I'm giving a shout out in favor of Schoenberg's Piano Concerto.
> Sounded like random noise on first hearing.
> Upon repeated hearings, I discovered a haunting, nostalgic piece most likely about a Vienna long gone.
> One of my favorite 20th century works, especially as played by Mitsuko Uchida with Cleveland/Boulez.
> Glad I stayed with it!!


I've been wanting this album for some time. I've partially heard it streamed. If anyone can make Schoenberg sound haunting and nostalgic, it's Uchida. Maybe I'll stay with it too.


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## PetrB

SiegendesLicht said:


> Mahler, Richard Strauss, Sibelius... it was not a bad century at all.


Better half-full than not at all I suppose, but, _lol_, your 20th century died when it was but forty-nine years old! Nyah Nyah, mine lived its full hundred years


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## Guest

Unfortunately I was unaware that contemporary music wasn't as good as the older stuff, so I'm afraid I appear to have got it wrong-headed and some of the most enjoyable music to have come my way so far is rather newish...

Barber, Webern, Schoenberg, Rzewski, Penderecki, Part, Gorecki, Prokofiev...


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## Blake

CPO has an excellent Hindemith series that should not be overlooked.


----------



## Alypius

KenOC said:


> Alypius suggested I post here about Shostakovich's 24 Preludes and Fugues, but I wanted to be a bit more general -- to talk (at stunning length!) about the "great middle" of the 20th century, the 15 years from 1945 through 1959, when a lot of things were happening....
> 
> But Shostakovich seemed to be at the peak of his inspiration, even though he was severely criticized in this period and under a thick and dangerous political cloud from about 1948 until after Stalin's death in 1953. Here are what I consider his greatest works from the 15-year period. All of these are favored listening today and seem likely to remain so:
> 
> Op. 70: Symphony No. 9 in E-flat major (1945)
> Op. 73: String Quartet No. 3 in F major (1946)
> Op. 77: Violin Concerto No. 1 in A minor (1947-1948)
> Op. 79: From Jewish Folk Poetry, song cycle for soprano, contralto, tenor and small orchestra (1948)
> Op. 83: String Quartet No. 4 in D major (1949)
> Op. 87: Twenty-Four Preludes and Fugues for piano (1950-1951)
> Op. 92: String Quartet No. 5 in B-flat major (1952)
> Op. 93: Symphony No. 10 in E minor (1953)
> Op. 97: Music to the film The Gadfly (1955)
> Op. 101: String Quartet No. 6 in G major (1956)
> Op. 102: Piano Concerto No. 2 in F major (1957)
> Op. 103: Symphony No. 11 in G minor The Year 1905 (1957)
> Op. 107: Cello Concerto No. 1 in E-flat major (1959)
> 
> Among these, the 24 Preludes and Fugues stand out as an unusual and totally unexpected contribution. Obviously inspired by Bach and following his form (except in the order of key signatures), the bottles may seem similar but it's a far different wine. The originality of musical ideas, incredible variety, and force of expression, though, are also reminiscent of Bach.
> 
> As in Bach's case, there is a lot of discussion over how these should be listened to -- straight through or in smaller groups? I don't know if Shostakovich spoke clearly about this, but in his time they were often performed as smaller groups between longer works; these groups were, of course, carefully chosen. The whole set is about 2 hours and 30 minutes long.
> 
> There are quite a few recordings, none of them bad. My own preference is Melnikov. Some of the pieces, the fugues particularly, can pack quite a wallop. If you don't know the Op. 87, you can maybe get an idea what it's all about by listening to the E minor and F-sharp minor fugues


Ken, Thanks so much for the extended discussion -- and for putting Preludes and Fugues into the context of Shostakovich's musical chronology. I don't know a couple of those (the _Jewish Folk Poetry_ and the _Gadfly_ soundtrack). It's easy to lose sight of the lag between Shostakovich as a writer of string quartets and Shostakovich the symphonist -- that the SQ begin only in the middle of his career. When I first heard the Preludes and Fugues just a couple of years ago, I was astounded by their richness, their range, and creativity. I listen to them to the same way I listen to Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier, namely, in smaller groupings of 3 or 4 Prelude/Fugues pairs at a time. Otherwise, I lose my concentration. I would count the Preludes/Fugues among my favorite works by Shostakovich, and as you probably saw, included them in my 100 list. And like you, I would count Melnikov's performance the best that I've heard:


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## Wood

Alypius said:


> Wood, Thanks. Concerning your 2nd paragraph, I agree in some instances and disagree in others. There may be some who are lazy or willful, but my own approach is to presume good will (until I see repeated evidence to the contrary). I believe that many who first fall in love with classical music from earlier eras do have legitimate and not ill-willed struggles with certain 20th-century musics. *I believe it important that if people express genuine struggles with making sense of certain works or certain composers,* it may be the case that they have started in the wrong spot, jumping in the deep end, so to speak -- and thus perhaps overgeneralized their wariness. In such instances, a gradualist approach often works, starting people with where they are at, moving from familiar to unfamiliar. Thus my second question. As for my first question, I also believe that learning works best when one starts with specific works. I could put together my 100, and senza and others could put together their good long listings because of hours and hours (no, years and years) of listening. That can be overwhelming to those unaccustomed to the 20th century and its vast pluralism. What I had hoped to avoid was partisanship. Sticking with specifics helps to some degree. *If you see other questions that should shape discussion, please suggest them*.


Yes, re the first bolded bit, I think if you narrow it down to 'certain works' and 'certain composers', then I'm more with you. I read your OP as listeners struggling with the whole of 20th century compositions. I would have little patience with that.

The majority of the more popular composers of the last hundred years or so are quite accessible. On the other hand, I'd imagine there are a significant proportion of works prior to the 20th century that present considerable challenges: WTC, Brahms and opera spring to mind.

Whilst reading this thread, I was listening to Billy The Kid and Rodeo for the first time. I enjoyed them, but cannot see how they could be classed as inaccessible.

In terms of shaping the discussion...

I like where you are coming from. To quote the OP; ' I personally love the music of the 20th century, and I love it precisely for its wild diversity' is exactly my feeling too. 

But I think it would be more effective to recognise this diversity by offering a thread for each aspect of 20th century music that you wish to evangelise about. Some Guy and Vesuvius have done a great thread on <some weird sh#t>. I've been listening to a lot of neoclassical music recently. It is great and the appreciation of it could also justify a thread in itself. The 'jazzhole' thread is also quality.

Whatever, I'm on your side in any case!


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## mmsbls

I'll give three examples of 20th century works I enjoy. 

Tarik O'Regan: Fragments from a Gradual Process

This work is for violin and 4 percussion instruments. It's clearly very percussive, and I especially love the varying rhythms. They seem to constantly shift giving the impression of an ambiguous beat. I love the timbre of marimbas and xylophones which are prominent throughout the work. In general the percussive nature and varying rhythms is something that has drawn me to 20th century music. 

Boulez: Sur Incises

When I first heard this work, I was decidedly not pleased. I heard a youtube video where Boulez discusses the work along with a performance. I came to love the short figures which get elongated and resonate back and forth between the instruments. The music appears to be a sequence of related events but not in a pre-20th century manner. Silence often breaks the flow causing one to focus on each figure. 

Messiaen: Turangalila Symphonie

Another work I did not enjoy at first. Continued listening to this and other 20th century works allowed me hear what now sounds like so much fun (in some of the movements). There are some truly lovely melodies. As with much 20th century music, the timbres are so varied and strikingly different from earlier music.


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## hreichgott

There are many 20th c. pieces that I admire and value, so to narrow it down, here are a few that I listen to or play regularly not just because I admire them, but because something inside me needs to hear them:

Shostakovich - Prelude and Fugue no. 4 in E minor, Piano Quintet
Berg - Lyric Suite
Prokofiev - Symphony no. 5, Cinderella
Ives - Concord Sonata (I love the Denk live performance that's on imslp)
Britten - War Requiem, Ceremony of Carols
Debussy - Preludes book 1
Janacek - On an Overgrown Path

edit: Ravel - Tombeau de Couperin! How could I have left that one off...


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## mmsbls

Alypius said:


> *What practical approaches or broader perspectives would you suggest to help those who have a _hard time_ appreciating 20th-century music?


I joined TC specifically to learn answers to this question. Back then, there were some 20th century works I liked, but I had heard nothing from Stravinsky, Shostakovich, or Bartok, for example, which I enjoyed. So the issue really is, "What works?"

I often see people saying that one must have an open mind. That's true and a very important point, but in a sense it's incomplete. One can't know when their mind is open, and it's rather difficult to teach someone how to have an open mind. Maybe a different way to approach this idea is to say that one needs to _believe_ that modern music can be beautiful/enjoyable/approachable. If one doesn't believe it's possible to enjoy modern music, she won't give any effort or certainly not the effort required. The simplest way to believe modern music can be enjoyed is to read threads such as these. Clearly, many TC members adore modern music so why would any particular TC member be incapable of enjoying it?

_If_ someone can convince themselves that it's certainly possible to enjoy the music, the next step is to try. Listening is a start, but it may not be that simple. I listened and listened and listened, and most of the music still eluded me. I think what helped me most was to understand that I must listen for new aspects of the music - aspects generally unlike what I had heard in earlier music. Focus on rhythm and timbre. Listen to isolated, short parts of works - not necessarily long melodic lines. Try to hear what's there rather than what one expects (this is definitely not as easy as it sounds).

I have a composer friend who composes in the modern/contemporary style. He loves modern music, but it took him awhile to get there. He spoke of learning a new language, and this metaphor has always stuck with me. The new sounds are different and confusing for some of us. We must learn the new language before we can appreciate/enjoy/love the music. Learning the language consists of listening and listening but also listening in the right way (again hard to explain).

So... maybe one approach is:
1) Accepting that if many others can love the music, so can you.
2) Listening and listening and listening for new aspects of the music.
3) Accepting that it might take awhile and repeated listening can gradually (maybe very gradually) allow one to find some, then more, then a lot of enjoyment in this past century's music.


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## dgee

Some pieces I adore with electronics and live performers, which is a rather obviously C20 formulation and the source of some of my favourite music. Listening to these is wonderful, and then, for me at least, going back to everyday instruments can be a rude shock

Repons by Boulez
Tombeau de Messiaen by Harvey
Winter Fragments by Murail


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## Alypius

mmsbls said:


> I joined TC specifically to learn answers to this question...
> 
> _If_ someone can convince themselves that it's certainly possible to enjoy the music, the next step is to try. Listening is a start, but it may not be that simple. I listened and listened and listened, and most of the music still eluded me. I think what helped me most was to understand that I must listen for new aspects of the music - aspects generally unlike what I had heard in earlier music. Focus on rhythm and timbre. Listen to isolated, short parts of works - not necessarily long melodic lines. Try to hear what's there rather than what one expects (this is definitely not as easy as it sounds).
> 
> I have a composer friend who composes in the modern/contemporary style ... He spoke of learning a new language, and this metaphor has always stuck with me. The new sounds are different and confusing for some of us. We must learn the new language before we can appreciate/enjoy/love the music. Learning the language consists of listening and listening but also listening in the right way (again hard to explain)...


mmsbis, Thanks so much for the eloquent post. You speak to an array of issues that I had hoped this thread might address. My hope--remember I'm a teacher--was to provide a space where those who honestly struggled might find guidance and where those who were at ease with the music might share their vast wealth of expertise (and their enthusiasm) so that the music that I so love might find new hearers. I had hoped that this thread might serve a teaching (rather than a debating) space. I've been happy to see that that has been coming to pass. All the best.


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## mmsbls

Alypius said:


> mmsbis, Thanks so much for the eloquent post. You speak (eloquently) to an array of issues that I had hoped this thread might address. My hope--remember I'm a teacher--was to provide a space where those who honestly struggled might find guidance and where those who were at ease with the music might share their vast wealth of expertise (and their enthusiasm) so that the music that I so love might find new hearers. I had hoped that this thread might serve a teaching (rather than a debating) space. I've been happy to see that that has been coming to pass. All the best.


When I first came here, I was very frustrated that I "could" not like such a vast amount of classical music. I had this vague hope that I could talk to those who "got it" and have an aha! moment where I figured out exactly what to do. Well, things aren't quite that simple or straightforward, of course. There's no single clear cut method. What I found was many people who had somewhat differing experiences, but the majority (everyone I know personally and many here at TC) spoke about listening to many different works over a relatively long period of time (years). I learned that there was no question that I could learn to like modern music and that I likely had to listen for awhile. In some sense it feels like a miracle when I find myself enjoying a work that I distinctly disliked earlier. I understand the process to some degree; nonetheless, it's amazing (and wonderful!).

I have always felt that the threads or posts where people argue (or worse) about whether modern music is any good could be so much more enjoyable and productive if people would discuss _why_ some "struggle" to enjoy it and what practices could effect a change, There are many threads where people express their love for this music, and from the beginning, I avidly read every post (even though I usually still didn't enjoy the works they discussed).

I'm thrilled you started this thread because, for those in my position several years ago, this type of _positive_ discussion helps so much.


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## Alypius

*The Nationalist (Folk Music) Trend*

While the history of 20th century music often is cast in confrontational terms, "modernist" vs. "romantic" or "atonal / serialist" vs. "tonalist," those perspectives, to my mind, skew the history, or at least skew the perception of it. Certainly there were big battles, both early and again at mid century, and those issues were part of the discussion.

But one of the biggest trends of the century gets little discussion: that is, the nationalist trend. One of the richest dimensions of 20th century classical music was the trend to exploring (and exploiting) national folk musics. No one epitomizes that trend more than *Zoltan Kodaly* and his colleague *Bela Bartok*, who spent much time and effort exploring and cataloguing folk traditions initially in their native Hungary and then later through Eastern Europe and beyond. While Bartok had strong modernist aspirations, he ended up joining those to the folk idioms that he and Kodaly studied -- and that joining powerfully shaped the idiom and direction of his music (most obviously in his piano music and his string quartets). That nationalist / folk trend is obvious in the career of *Aaron Copland*, and most obviously in his use of a Shaker tune in the climax of his ballet _Appalachian Spring_. Ongoing research into Stravinsky's early ballet, especially the _Rite of Spring_, has revealed how rooted in folk idioms some of Stravinsky early works were. It is prominent also in a number of later Soviet composers, notably, Shostakovich. Such folk idioms were widely exploited by a number of composers. A few examples:

*Czech composers such as *Leoš Janáček* (1854-1928) and *Bohaslav Martinu* (1890-1959)
*Spanish composers such as *Isaac Albeniz* (1860-1909), *Joaquin Turina* (1882-1949), and *Joaquin Rodrigo* (1901-1999).
*Latin American composers such as *Heitor Villa-Lobos* (1887-1959), *Alberto Ginastera* (1914-1983), and *Silvestre Revueltas* (1899-1940).
*British composers such *Gustav Holst* (1874-1934), *Edward Elgar* (1857-1934), and *Benjamin Britten* (1913-1976).

All of these composers exploited national idioms in unique ways and, often enough, in varied ways over the course of their individual careers. This culminative significance of this trend is that it greatly expanded the vocabulary of classical music -- making it more a "United-Nations" phenomenon rather than simply a European one (or, as it was often enough, an Austro-German one). A number of the works that I cited in my list of 100 give examples of their folk-inspired compositions.

When I encounter people who struggle with 20th-century music, I often point them in the direction of these composers who exploited folk traditions in creative ways. For a discussion of this folk trend in regards to the career of Bartok, see the thread: http://www.talkclassical.com/31828-cycle-review-bartok.html#post650340

At some point later, I want to discuss a few of these in more detail, especially Janáček and Martinu.


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## Guest

Some thoughts of a newbie: I try to listen with an open mind, keep a beginner's mind. Rules are essential, but they are also there to be broken. No advancement ever came from remaining in compliance. In the popular music world I think there is less concern with wrong and right, nothing really shocks. In comparison, the Rite of Spring is still spoken of as shocking, it seems. 

Feel free to correct my ignorance!


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## SiegendesLicht

hpowders said:


> I'm giving a shout out in favor of Schoenberg's Piano Concerto.
> Sounded like random noise on first hearing.
> Upon repeated hearings, I discovered a haunting, nostalgic piece most likely about a Vienna long gone.
> One of my favorite 20th century works, especially as played by Mitsuko Uchida with Cleveland/Boulez.
> Glad I stayed with it!!


Sounds like a very interesting piece. I put it on my to-check-out list.


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## science

Alypius said:


> Wood, Thanks. Concerning your 2nd paragraph, I agree in some instances and disagree in others. There may be some who are lazy or willful, but my own approach is to presume good will (until I see repeated evidence to the contrary). I believe that many who first fall in love with classical music from earlier eras do have legitimate and not ill-willed struggles with certain 20th-century musics. I believe it important that if people express genuine struggles with making sense of certain works or certain composers, it may be the case that they have started in the wrong spot, jumping in the deep end, so to speak -- and thus perhaps overgeneralized their wariness. In such instances, a gradualist approach often works, starting people with where they are at, moving from familiar to unfamiliar. Thus my second question. As for my first question, I also believe that learning works best when one starts with specific works. I could put together my 100, and senza and others could put together their good long listings because of hours and hours (no, years and years) of listening. That can be overwhelming to those unaccustomed to the 20th century and its vast pluralism. What I had hoped to avoid was partisanship. Sticking with specifics helps to some degree. If you see other questions that should shape discussion, please suggest them.


That is beautifully considerate. I really appreciate this post. I needed to read something like this tonight!


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## science

If Crumb's _Black Angels_ were a horse I'd've ridden it to death by now. But it would've been the ride of my life. Here I go again!

I suspect that for a lot of people it's everything that's wrong with 20th century music. The opening is literally painful. It's hard for me to believe that any music ever shocked anyone more than that shocked me the first time I heard it.

But I loved it immediately, and for that reason. I'd never realized there could be music like that. I bought the album (Kronos Quartet) as soon as I had the money and I've played it to death. If I lose that CD, I'll buy it again immediately. There is no one that knows me relatively well that hasn't heard at least the first minute or so.

The thing is, it really is simply just music. There are motifs, there are contrasts between different sections, there are various moods.... When you let it be what it is instead of wanting it to sound like Haydn or Brahms, it's just music. And it is packed with emotion - perhaps not the sort of emotion that you want to feel when looking at pictures of your childhood, but other emotion, no less powerful, no less authentic. It is utterly moving music.

I have no thought that everyone could or should appreciate something like that, and I don't think less of people who don't. For a lot of people, perhaps with enough time they could acclimate themselves to it and tolerate it, but I don't see why anyone should bother. Listen to something that you love, and if it's not Crumb's _Black Angels_, the world spins on blissfully indifferent.

But it also interests me to see students respond to it. I use music in my history classes a lot - a certain portion of students respond very well to that, and they can learn the history that they have to learn more easily when they can connect it something we heard in class, just as other students need visual stimulation and other students need to speak or write or debate - so inevitably, early in our acquaintance my students ask what music I like. As I have a reputation, perhaps they know what's coming. I'll play them a bit of Reich's _Music for 18 Musicians_, a bit of Takemitsu's _From Me Flows What You Call Time_ (I'll do a post on that if no one beats me to it), maybe another work or two (Ligeti, Stockhausen, Nono, whatever I happen to think of), and there'll be mixed reactions of course. Well, when I play the Crumb, there's inevitably a student who perks up, gets this look in their eye like, "Wait a minute, I want to hear that, I've always wanted to hear that and didn't realize it until now. _What_ is that?" I'll wager that I have turn more teenagers onto classical music with Crumb than with Mozart. Perhaps that's not a flattering thing to say about today's teenagers, but what the heck do we care, as long as they get it one way or another? I was one of them once too!


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## science

Alright, on to Takemitsu's _From Me Flows What You Call Time_.

This for me was not a case of love at first hearing. The first time I heard it I disliked it a bit. I didn't hate it, I just didn't feel like it was music that I would want to listen to. But I was young and had no money of my own and I wasn't in the kind of family that would let me buy a bunch of music, so now and then I listened to it.

(It was a gift from my grandparents, who'd gotten it free in an issue of a BBC music magazine that they'd also gotten for free. I was the weird grandkid, so they gave it to me. I'm proud of that! My grandmother really loved me, and my grandfather liked me well enough.... Let the monotheisms be true, I'd love to meet them one more time!)

I probably only had to listen to it four or five times to begin to get it. I'd started enjoying it well when I was still in high school, before I decided to enjoy classical music or to learn about it. I thought it was just one random thing; no one I knew liked it or anything like it; I had no idea that there was a world of music like that out there. But I started to like it. Then I loved it.

So, what is it? It doesn't really conform to any particular set of expectations that I know how to name. But it is a purely acoustic work, mostly winds and percussions, a very peaceful, thoughtful exploration of timbres and rhythms, a gentle mingling of various Asian (not only Japanese) and European musical traditions. Sure, there are some moments of "dissonance" (or something like that); after all, the music isn't meant to accompany a bubble bath and massage. It's meant to be heard, felt, perhaps at times endured. And there is a comfort with silence, with space, with just being for a moment.

With performance gestures meant to represent Tibetan Buddhism, with instruments from Indonesia and Pakistan and Turkey sharing the stage with an oboe d'amore and trombones and harps and a celesta and steel drums and a marimba, it's a thoroughly postmodern work, which I don't mean entirely in a complimentary sense, but for better or worse we are in a postmodern world, so we might as well accept and make beautiful music.

It's a lovely work in itself but it's really instructive to compare/contrast it to Crumb's _Black Angels_. Neither of them are anything Dvořák, Mahler, Rachmaninoff, or Fauré might've been expected to compose. Normal people (whatever the precise meaning of such words is supposed to be) would probably have to call them both "atonal," and even if they're "tonal" (adopting the scare-quotes again to account for anomalous usages) they're not obviously about melodies or harmonies seeking resolutions. They both involve some unusual instrumentation: Takemitsu carries on the acoustic tradition but with some exotic (from the POV of the classical music tradition) instruments; Crumb also uses some exotic percussion instruments (a tam-tam, maracas), but most obviously he uses an electric string quartet. Takemitsu modifies the instruments a bit, but Crumb does so a lot, and with things like thimbles and paperclips. (Edit: I'd like to add here that structurally _Black Angels_ is probably the more traditional work, even if its sound is less "approachable" or whatever to many listeners.) Anyway, all that is practically beside the point. The main contrast is obviously in mood. Where Crumb is abrasive, angry, tortured, Takemitsu is a little uneasy perhaps at times, but mostly meditative, calm, thoughtful.

Together they embody two important aspects of the 20th century - _Black Angels_ is from the century of concentration camps, mustard gas, tanks, atom bombs, napalm. It is still our world, as we would see every day if we bothered to read the bad news. And _Black Angels_ expresses the only decent response we can have to that reality. _From Me Flows What You Call Time_ is from the century when McDonalds went to Tokyo and sushi restaurants opened in Kansas, when "world music" became a marketable commodity, and most of all the century of people like Thomas Merton, Huston Smith, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Bede Griffiths, Thich Nhat Hanh, that discovered the humanity of all races, the human inner truth of all the great religious and musical traditions.

I wouldn't want to be without either work, or without what they embody and express. Both great works of human genius.


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## Xaltotun

Some of my favourite 20th century pieces straddle the line between the old and the new, like Walter Braunfels' _Te Deum_ and Franz Schmidt's _Das Buch mit sieben Siegeln._ They also combine the hope with the horror.


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## Alypius

science said:


> Alright, on to Takemitsu's _From Me Flows What You Call Time_....


Thanks for the discussion of Takemitsu's _From me flow what you call time_. On the "Toru Takemitsu" thread, I've posted my own reflections on that and several other works by Takemitsu:
http://www.talkclassical.com/2563-toru-takemitsu-5.html#post709241

He's a quite new discovery for me, and in August I plunged pretty intensely into studying his work. There is a richness to his works that continues to amaze me.


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## Alypius

Alypius said:


> *The Nationalist (Folk Music) Trend*
> 
> While the history of 20th century music often is cast in confrontational terms, "modernist" vs. "romantic" or "atonal / serialist" vs. "tonalist," those perspectives, to my mind, skew the history, or at least skew the perception of it. Certainly there were big battles, both early and again at mid century, and those issues were part of the discussion.
> 
> But one of the biggest trends of the century gets little discussion: that is, the nationalist trend. One of the richest dimensions of 20th century classical music was the trend to exploring (and exploiting) national folk musics. ...
> 
> *Latin American composers such as *Heitor Villa-Lobos* (1887-1959), *Alberto Ginastera* (1914-1983), and *Silvestre Revueltas* (1899-1940).


Earlier I had noted that one of the important (and least controversial) trends in 20th-century music is the diversity of national musics that are drawn upon and "classicized" (i.e. using European instruments, musical ensembles, methods of harmonizing). Playing off the 2nd question in the opening post, I find that these often folk-inspired compositions a helpful entrance into 20th century music. Some are challenging to those not used to 20th century music (e.g. certain works of Bartok), but many are not. But even those less challenging in harmonic terms are often innovative rhythmically or in their melodic materials or their contrapuntal methods. Let me highlight a pair of Latin American composers, the Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos and the Mexican composer Silvestre Revueltas.

First, *Revueltas (1899-1940)*. There is a pretty thin article on him in Wikipedia: : Biography of Revueltas. At least it gives the basics. For all his talents as a violinist and aptitude as a conductor and composer, he fell victim to alchoholism -- thus his short career. Two outstanding works of his are:

*Sensemayá (1938). (Recommended performance: Gustavo Dudamel / Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela, _Fiesta_ (Deutsche Grammophon, 2008)
*La noche de los mayas (1939). (Recommended performance: Gustavo Dudamel / Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra, _Rite: Stravinsky / Revueltas_ (Deutsche Grammophon, 2010)

















_Sensemayá_ plays on a poem by Nicholas Guillén about a Afro-Carribean theme of killing a white snake. Thematically, it's playing off African religious traditions (preserved by slaves). One could describe this musically as Revueltas' answer to Stravinsky's _Rite of Spring_.

Second, *Villa-Lobos (1887-1959)*: For a fine discussion of Villa-Lobos, see the article by Tom Service of _The Guardian_. Here's the link:
http://www.theguardian.com/music/tomserviceblog/2014/mar/07/villa-lobos-brazil-bbc-symphony-orchestra-total-immersion 
As Service notes:



> "Villa-Lobos's output is so gigantic that anything apart from about a month of total immersion couldn't get you close to his real achievement as a musician. The common criticism is that Villa-Lobos simply wrote too much music, that he lacked a critical filter that allowed him to hone his craft, and instead gave full rein to his natural musical effulgence.... But such critical carping rather misses the point of a musician who, arguably more than any other composer of the 20th century, summed up an entire country in his music. Villa-Lobos said that his first harmony teacher was a map of Brazil, and his life in music is a reflection of the expansive, explosive cultural, geographical, and musical diversity of his home country ... Villa-Lobos was attempting to use music from the native Brazilian populations he visited in the Amazon, from the street-corner chorus bands he played in as a teenager, from the European traditions that he knew as a cello player, and from the modernisms he discovered in Paris, and to put them all together in a musical language that would be truly synoptic and representative of the totality of the Brazilian experience in the early decades of the 20th century... Villa-Lobos manages something that most of his European modernist colleagues couldn't. When Villa-Lobos uses melodies from the native populations of Brazil, or from the popular music he heard in Rio; when he turns his orchestra into a rainforest through some astonishing onomatopoeia, or uses some high-modernist dissonance, he's not doing so with irony, parody, or critical distance ... he's allowing the different worlds of Brazil - its different peoples, its wildly divergent landscapes, its unknowable richness of forest, of animal and plant life - to coexist alongside and on top of one another, sometimes in harmony, but often in conflict and irresolution, too."


While his _Bachianas Brasileras_ (esp. #5) are his most famous, I recommend starting with his _Choros_, esp. 1, 8, and 10. Each of these are scored with different instrumental arrangements, from solo piano or guitar to odd chamber mixes to vast orchestral works.


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## senza sordino

I have a connection to Villa Lobos that goes way back to my childhood. My mother met his widow. I've known the Bachianas Brasileras and the guitar concerto, preludes and Etudes for guitar for decades. I'd like to explore more.


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## Alypius

*Leoš Janáček (1854-1928)*

In 1926, Leoš Janáček addressed a London audience:

"Not everyone understands a fellow man. Once an educated German said to me: 'What, you grow out of folk song? That is a sign of a lack of culture!' As if a man on whom the sun shines, on whom the moon pours out its light, as if all that surround us was not a part of our culture. I turned way and let the German be."

Such snobbishness continues to repeat itself today, both in avant-garde circles and in conservative circles. It leads to not listening and, in the long run, not understanding. I find Janáček a brilliant listener who defies catgories.

Janáček has been called the "oldest composer of the 20th century" because he was older than Mahler and Richard Strauss, and for all his romantic roots (both musically and biographically) his music is decided break from what came before. And in his final 12 years, there was an explosion of creativity that is little short of astounding. Between the age of 62 and 74 he composed a string of operas, a setting of the Old Slavonic Mass (_Glagolska mse_, "Glagolitic Mass"), a major orchestral work (_Sinfonietta_), a pair of amazing string quartets, chamber concertos. As Richard Taruskin has noted: "It seemed virtually a life's work crammed into a dozen years, testifying to a revived and rejuvenated creative vitality wihtout precedent or counterpart in the work of any other composer."

One of my mantras to so many on various ideological fronts is one that I take from the avant-garde theorist John Cage: "Are you listening?" We don't listen very well. Janáček was a listener. He was one of those pioneers of ethnomusicology. Once, during a return to his home village in Moravia, he described listening to local street musicians: "Flashing movement, the faces sticky with sweat; screams, whooping, the fury of fiddlers' music: it was like a picture glued on to a limpid gray background." For Janáček, folk music is fierce, vivid. He refused to domesticate it in classical garb. Like one of his contemporaries, Vincent Van Gogh, Janáček observed the life of the poor and portrayed it sympathetically in his art. It's an innovative turn -- and a decidedly modernist one -- and one that has nothing to do with technical developments in harmony.

He also listened to how people talked. He would transcribe people's speech habits into melodies. He noted, for example, that when a student said "Good evening" to his teacher, the words began on a high note followed by three at a lower pitch, but when he said "Good evening" to a pretty girl the last syllable was subtly higher, as if they were familiars, as if there was a subtle sexual innuendo. That sensitivity to speech would make its way into his operas and give them a unique, distinctive melodic quality. _Jenufa_ was the opera that catapulted him from a regional composer to the international stage.

That ability to listen to speech, to hear it musically, as revelatory of character, imbues how he writes melodies -- and not just in his operas. It gives his works a sometimes gritty realism, a very 20th-century quality. Janáček is not avant-garde harmonically. A literary analogy: James Joyce advanced 20th-century literature in all sorts of ways, but notably by technical innovations embodied in the stream-of-consciousness techniques he used in his novel _Ulysses_; at the same time, a very different sort of literature appears in the works of John Steinbeck, an artist who observed and dramatized the life, and joys, and tragedies of the poor. His innovation was his subject matter, his empathy. I think of Janáček in those terms.

Three works that I enjoy and recommend (besides his operas). First, his final work, _String Quartet #2_, which Janáček himself entitled _Intimate Letters_. It celebrated his impassioned love for a woman some 35 years his junior, to whom he had written hundreds of love letters (both Janáček and the woman were married to others through it all). It was the last work Janáček completed. While there are many fine performances, I especially enjoy that of the Pavel Haas Quartet (Supraphon, 2008).










Second, a piano masterpiece, _On an Overgrown Path_. Originally a series of 10 movements. Often inspired by his narrative orientation. They are short stories, so to speak, some literary-inspired, some autobiographical. Note the titles: "A blown away leaf", "They chattered like swallows", "Words fail!", "Unutterable anguish", "The barn owl has not flown away!" Around the same time as these, Debussy was doing sound-painting of a similar sort over in Paris. The critic Robert Cowan has noted: "Janáček's ability to switch mood-sometimes within a mere two or three bars of music-from hopelessness to reconciliation, from despair to rage or affirmation, is unique. One marvels at the music's inherent spontaneity while, at the same time, admiring the skill of its design." The movement "They chattered like swallows" tries to capture the chatter of women at a picnic, mixing their speech-patterns with birdsong and folk dance-melodies. The barn owl refers to a folk tradition about the fable of owls flying away as a person dies; Janacek wrote this remembering his daughter's near-death experience, his experience as a parent standing over what could have been her deathbed. Recommended performance: András Schiff (ECM, 2001) (I've not heard the new performance by Marc-André Hamelin, which has gotten excellent reviews).










Third, the closet he ever came to writing a symphony, his brilliant brass-dominated _Sinfonietta_. Recommended performance: Charles Mackerras (who specialized in Czech music) and the Czech Philharmonic (Supraphon, 2004). For a discussion of the work, see Tom Service's "Guide to the Symphony": http://www.theguardian.com/music/tomserviceblog/2014/may/20/symphony-guide-janacek-sinfonietta


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## GioCar

^^^
I have a problem with Janáček's Sinfonietta.
Every time I listen to it, 1Q84 comes to mind. Both works have been closely linked in my head since I read the book.
Those familiar with Murakami's novel know what I mean.


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## starthrower

I'm very much enjoying Akrata for 16 wind instruments by Xenakis at the moment!


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## senza sordino

I am an intermediate violin player, I can muddle my way through the Bach Violin Concerti and the Mozart G major (#3) concerto. The 20th century repertoire is mostly inaccessible for me, it's just too difficult. I told my violin teacher I'd like to play some 20th Century music, and he suggested *the Kabelevsky Violin Concerto, *it's fast but not too technically challenging. I am quite excited about playing this. I have the *RVW Lark Ascending* also to learn to play, but it's a bit too much, so I'll put it aside for a few months.

That I can't play much music from the 20th Century says something about it's technical challenges, compared with earlier centuries. Perhaps the technical challenges to play 20th century music equates to listening challenges too for the audience. It takes a bigger effort to play and listen to 20th Century music.


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## science

Alypius, you do 200 of those and you've got a book.


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## Ian Moore

How about the new Complexity crowd?


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## Alypius

*Bohuslav Martinů (1890-1959)*

Yesterday, I highlighted Janáček. Today, I would like to highlight another gifted Czech composer, Bohuslav Martinů. In most listings of great 20th-century composers, Martinů's name would not appear, at least in the first rank. Yet his life and music capture much of what is emblematic of the 20th century. Like Janáček, he draws on Czech folk traditions. Like Stravinsky, his use of those folk traditions involves drawing out all sorts of rhythmic complexities. As with performing Stravinsky, performing Martinů requires a shrewd and lively rhythmic sense. Like Stravinsky, Martinů spent important parts of his career in Paris so that his music has a certain urbane sophistication. He is usually classified as a "neoclassical" composer -- and much of his work overlaps with Stravinsky's so-called "neoclassical" phase. He was also swept up in the anguish of World War II and watched his native country first annexed by Hitler and then later controlled by the Soviet Union. And so he, like so many Eastern European (and German and Russian) composers of the 20th century, fled to and settled in the United States. Martinů was an unusually prolific composer (something for which certain people criticize him) and has works in a wide variety of orchestral and chamber combinations. While I have a fair amount of his work, I'm sure that there are all sorts of gems that I've yet to come across.

A few recommendations for those unfamiliar with his work:

1. _Double Concerto for 2 String Orchestras, Piano & Timpani_, H. 271 (1938). This is for me his masterpiece. I would describe it as his answer to Bartók's _Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta_. It also anticipates Stravinsky's _Symphony in Three Movements_ -- with the role of the piano as a rhythm instrument. Recommended performances: Jiří Bĕlohlávek and the Czech Philharmonic (Chandos, 1991); Charles Mackerras / Czech Philharmonic (Supraphon)










2. _Symphonies_, esp. #2 (1943), #5 (1946), and #6 ("Fantasies symphoniques") (1953). Martinů embarked on symphony writing later in his career, only after his arrival in the United States. So they are the product of his mature style. Some have strong rhythms and folkloric melodies (#2, it may remind some of Copland, who was writing in a similar populist style around this time). The Sixth uses a slow-fast-slow pacing that harkens back to Debussy's _La mer_ and _Three Nocturnes_ -- and similar in its free form surface with an underlying carefully crafted architecture. There are a number of excellent cycles. Among the recent ones, Jiří Bĕlohlávek / BBC Symphony (Onyx, 2011); two very inexpensive ones: Bryden Thomsen / Scottish National (Chandos, 1991); Neeme Jarvi / Bamberg Symphony (Brilliant, 2008). Karel Ancerl did not do a complete cycle but he remains one of Martinů's best interpreters.










3. _Three Sonatas for Cello and Piano _ (1939, 1941, 1952). Martinů was exceptionally gifted as a composer of chamber works. And his cello sonatas are among the finest in the 20th-century repertoire. Steven Isserlis has recorded them twice, once with Peter Evans (Hyperion, 1988 / reissue: Helios, 2004) and just this year with Olli Mustonen (BIS, 2014)

All that is the tip of the iceberg. Also recommended: 
*Two violin concertos: 
Performance: Joseph Suk / Vaclav Neumann / Czech Philharmonic, _Martinů: Violin Concertos_ (Supraphon, 1973; reissue: 2009)










*Five Piano Concertos, esp. #4 ("Incantation") (1956)
Performance: Emil Leichner / Jiří Bělohlávek / Czech Philharmonic,_ Martinů: Piano Concertos_ (Supraphon, 1993)

*Two Piano Quintets, esp. #2, H298 (1944)
Performance: Martinů Quartet / Karel Kosárek, _Martinů: Piano Quintets_ (Naxos, 2007)


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## starthrower

science said:


> Alypius, you do 200 of those and you've got a book.


Keep 'em coming! I'd like to read your take on Honegger's symphonies.


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## Alypius

starthrower said:


> Keep 'em coming! I'd like to read your take on Honegger's symphonies.


starthrower, that's one you're going to have to do. I don't feel sufficiently conversant with Honegger as a composer. I've not even heard his symphonies. Please write up something if you get a chance. All the best.


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## Chordalrock

Carter's Double Concerto should be mentioned. I think the inclusion of the harpsichord is a brilliant idea and the music especially in the harpsichord part can be quite characterful, which to my unaccustomed ears is somewhat rare in atonal music.


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## Jobis

I've never been able to get into Takemitsu, and I don't know why. Its partly because of the pretentious names he gives to things, but I don't know why that should affect my listening. 

I guess I just find there are other composers who did similar things in more interesting ways;
Webern, Messiaen and late Stravinsky, for example.


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## Mahlerian

Jobis said:


> I've never been able to get into Takemitsu, and I don't know why. Its partly because of the pretentious names he gives to things, but I don't know why that should affect my listening.
> 
> I guess I just find there are other composers who did similar things in more interesting ways;
> Webern, Messiaen and late Stravinsky, for example.


I enjoy Takemitsu's music because of its subtle attention to sonority, harmony, and development, its uniquely Japanese conception of time and rhythm, and just the way everything in it feels purposeful.

Webern, Messiaen, and late Stravinsky gave us many fine works, but none of them do exactly what Takemitsu does.

I don't really consider his titles pretentious, either; his music often reflects the natural phenomena or poetic expression (many of the titles are directly taken from poetry or lines of Finnegans Wake) in the titles, though in an abstract way rather than pictorially.


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## millionrainbows

I like 20th century music almost as much for its theorists and musical thinkers as its music.

Hindemith was a good theorist, and developed a whole new set of harmonic criteria for resolving tension, and it makes total sense in a pervasive way, applied to all music. It really frees-up the old academic theories about "dissonance," yet it is still "tonality" which functions harmonically.

Schoenberg's Harmonilehre is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, music theory book.

Peter Schat, the Norweigan theorist and composer, has a book about his "tone clock," which is a harmonically-based system of creating tonalities using triads.

CP tonality was rigid and dated. It was good in its time, but time marches on. Modernism has proven that there is still plenty of music to be written which will be "tonal" in the broad sense, and can have *competing harmonic systems* as well.


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## Jobis

Mahlerian said:


> I enjoy Takemitsu's music because of its subtle attention to sonority, harmony, and development, its uniquely Japanese conception of time and rhythm, and just the way everything in it feels purposeful.
> 
> Webern, Messiaen, and late Stravinsky gave us many fine works, but none of them do exactly what Takemitsu does.
> 
> I don't really consider his titles pretentious, either; his music often reflects the natural phenomena or poetic expression (many of the titles are directly taken from poetry or lines of Finnegans Wake) in the titles, though in an abstract way rather than pictorially.


I don't like flowery titles, in a way I find they distract too much from the music itself. I may be a bit of a philistine but I wish pieces stuck to straight-forward titles like 'sonata' or 'fugue', except in the case of opera or programmatic music.

I guess it makes sense in a piece that's name is heavily steeped in what the piece is about, like the example of black angels; obviously much of the meaning would be lost were it merely called 'string quartet', but 'from me flows what you call time'? Just sounds like bad, navel-gazing poetry to me.


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## millionrainbows

Jobis said:


> I don't like flowery titles, in a way I find they distract too much from the music itself. I may be a bit of a philistine but I wish pieces stuck to straight-forward titles like 'sonata' or 'fugue', except in the case of opera or programmatic music.
> 
> I guess it makes sense in a piece that's name is heavily steeped in what the piece is about, like the example of black angels; obviously much of the meaning would be lost were it merely called 'string quartet', but 'from me flows what you call time'? Just sounds like bad, navel-gazing poetry to me.


Takemitsu's titles, such as "A Flock Descends Into the Pentagonal Garden" resonate ancient Chinese poetry to me. Of course, I have familiarized myself with Eastern art and literature. The Toa Te Ching by Lao Tsu is a beautiful book. If you see such things as "navel-gazing" in this, you are missing out.


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## Jobis

millionrainbows said:


> Takemitsu's titles, such as "A Flock Descends Into the Pentagonal Garden" resonate ancient Chinese poetry to me. Of course, I have familiarized myself with Eastern art and literature. The Toa Te Ching by Lao Tsu is a beautiful book. If you see such things as "navel-gazing" in this, you are missing out.


I suspect there is something of their quality that is lost in translation. I don't have anything against eastern art and literature, when it retains its original character.


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## Alypius

Jobis said:


> I've never been able to get into Takemitsu, and I don't know why. Its partly because of the pretentious names he gives to things, but I don't know why that should affect my listening.
> 
> I guess I just find there are other composers who did similar things in more interesting ways;
> Webern, Messiaen and late Stravinsky, for example.


If you don't enjoy Takemitsu, fine and good. What music and what composers do you enjoy? -- and therefore ones that we too should explore. Please, note the title of the thread and the focus of the OP. Thanks.


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## Mahlerian

Jobis said:


> I guess it makes sense in a piece that's name is heavily steeped in what the piece is about, like the example of black angels; obviously much of the meaning would be lost were it merely called 'string quartet', but 'from me flows what you call time'? Just sounds like bad, navel-gazing poetry to me.


Once again, though, the title does not originate with Takemitsu. It is taken from a line of poetry by a fellow countryman (written in English, I believe). Perhaps it may help to know the context, where the subject speaking is not a human, but the landscape itself, and thus the intent is very close to Shelley's Ozymandias.

Furthermore, it _does_ describe both Takemitsu's approach to composition (the treatment of time as a fluid, rather than discrete, property) and the character of the piece.



Jobis said:


> I don't like flowery titles, in a way I find they distract too much from the music itself. I may be a bit of a philistine but I wish pieces stuck to straight-forward titles like 'sonata' or 'fugue', except in the case of opera or programmatic music.


There is a good reason why such titles are not used for these pieces. The forms that they indicated are also not used, and the form that replaces them is ad hoc, constructed for the individual piece on the basis of its content. Could one call "Requiem for Strings" "Ternary Form Piece with Coda"? Yes, but why would that be preferable? Requiem in this case is an associative title that connects both with the content of the piece and its inspiration.


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## PetrB

Jobis said:


> I don't like flowery titles, in a way I find they distract too much from the music itself. I may be a bit of a philistine but I wish pieces stuck to straight-forward titles like 'sonata' or 'fugue', except in the case of opera or programmatic music.
> 
> I guess it makes sense in a piece that's name is heavily steeped in what the piece is about, like the example of black angels; obviously much of the meaning would be lost were it merely called 'string quartet', but 'from me flows what you call time'? Just sounds like bad, navel-gazing poetry to me.


I advocate never paying first attention to titles, sung texts, etc. My wont is to find first and foremost if the music says something to me or does something for me, and I believe that it _must_ be able to do that without any appended or attached knowledge of the composer, their biography, their dates, the culture they were from, what the texts say, and that includes musical references, symbols and quotes within the piece.

This particular criterion? -- for me, _the notes must work completely on their own_, even if it is a vocal work, and whatever the title or the rest of the 'non-musical information' the work, if it can not not stand on its own musical feet without all the non-musical association of titles, other references -- is weak. (There is no bettering a piece of music via non-musical means

Ignore the title, the biography, any further references and listen to the piece first. You can, and probably 'should,' then look into the rest of it, but only after you have listened to it as a piece of music.

My tenet, works very well for me. For others, I strongly advocate trying the approach if that is not what is already done.


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## PetrB

I've seen this thread for some time, and would think 'what to say' in it.

I started listening to classical when I was about four something years old, my introductory pieces were Prokofiev's _lieutenant Kije Suite,_ Kodály's _Harry Janos Suite_, Landowska playing Bach on the Harpsichord, Rimsky-Korsakov, and very soon thereafter, age six piano lessons, I worked from Bartók (_Microkosmos_), Schumann (_Album für die Jugend_), simple Bach, and some other conservative neoclassical 20th century pieces.

From that base, I continued, both training and devouring classical, the other classical composers, the romantics, baroque, etc.

Somewhere rather early on, I became more and more involved with the 20th century music. Post conservatory, excluding most of what I played professionally, the vast majority of what I have listened to since, continue to listen to and still search out more of is the 20th century and contemporary repertoire. That, _all the while not abandoning the music of the earlier masters._

My criteria for 'good music' and 'good performance' are pretty demanding. Those criteria have not changed over time, but actually become further refined and even more rigorously demanding throughout this now many decades journey.

_I would like to point out to any who might think the old music is from great masters and the newer music 'not.'_

*I listen to a lot of 20th century and contemporary masters, as well as the old masters.

I would not, for one second, be so involved with 20th century and contemporary music if it did not satisfy me, and my criteria, at least as much as does the work of the earlier masters. *


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## Chordalrock

PetrB said:


> I've seen this thread for some time, and would think 'what to say' in it.
> 
> I started listening to classical when I was about four something years old, my introductory pieces were Prokofiev's _lieutenant Kije Suite,_ Kodály's _Harry Janos Suite_, Landowska playing Bach on the Harpsichord, Rimsky-Korsakov, and very soon thereafter, age six piano lessons, I worked from Bartók (_Microkosmos_), Schumann (_Album für die Jugend_), simple Bach, and some other conservative neoclassical 20th century pieces.
> 
> From that base, I continued, both training and devouring classical, the other classical composers, the romantics, baroque, etc.
> 
> Somewhere early on, I became more and more involved with the 20th century music. Post conservatory, excluding most of what I played professionally, the vast majority of what I have listened to since, continue to listent to and continue to look into for more, is the 20th century and contemporary repertoire. That, _all the while not abandoning the music of the earlier masters._
> 
> My criteria for 'good music' and 'good performance' are pretty demanding. Those criteria have not changed over time, but actually become further refined and even more rigorously demanding throughout this now many decades journey.
> 
> _I would like to point out to any who might think the old music is from great masters and the newer music 'not.'_
> 
> *I would not, for one second, be so involved with 20th century and contemporary music if it did not satisfy me, and my criteria, at least as much as does the work of the earlier masters.
> 
> I listen to a lot of 20th century and contemporary masters, as well as the old masters.*


Do you see the possibility of the next hundred or two hundred years of (some) composers improving greatly on 20th century music, though in similar vein in terms of harmonic language and conception of structure? Or is this the best that humanity can do, in your estimation?


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## PetrB

Chordalrock said:


> Do you see the possibility of the next hundred or two hundred years of (some) composers improving greatly on 20th century music, though in similar vein in terms of harmonic language and conception of structure? Or is this the best that humanity can do, in your estimation?


There is no 'possibility of later composers "improving" on 20th century music," any more than Mozart could have "improved on 16th century music," any more than Josquin could have "improved' on 12th century music," etc. Whatever the construct, it is really wise to realize (_and accept_) that each era had its contemporary composers writing very contemporary music, that there is no 'progression' in music history but it is instead a series of developments which hinge upon what composers do and how their contemporaries and later audiences react(ed) to that music.

I think each musical era has been a pinnacle of its own time, and the following are similar. I don't know if it 'gets improved,' and find that a very odd if not totally lame concept. It keeps staying good, interesting, maybe even great, in its own contexts and times.

In fact, I don't understand your question as any real possibility even in thought, let alone actuality. Maybe it is impelled by believing past music of some era was 'greater' than later great music of another (completely different?) era?

There is not telling about 'future music,' anyway, a moot thought, a futile mental exercise.


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## Chordalrock

Well, I think Beethoven improved on Mozart and Haydn, quite a bit too, while working in a similar vein. Yet had there not been Beethoven, you would still be making the argument that the classical period reached an unsurpassed pinnacle of its own.

I agree that it's difficult to compare different eras, but let's assume that the next two centuries don't distinguish themselves enough from the late 20th century to be considered different musical eras. Isn't it possible that to the Mozarts and Haydn's of our era would be added the Beethovens of the future?


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## PetrB

Chordalrock said:


> Well, I think Beethoven improved on Mozart and Haydn, quite a bit too, while working in a similar vein. Yet had there not been Beethoven, you would still be making the argument that the classical period reached an unsurpassed pinnacle of its own.
> 
> I agree that it's difficult to compare different eras, but let's assume that the next two centuries don't distinguish themselves enough from the late 20th century to be considered different musical eras. Isn't it possible that to the Mozarts and Haydn's of our era would be added the Beethovens of the future?


The assumption _that two centuries of composers_ would somehow not distinguish themselves "from the late 20th century to be considered different musical eras" _is such a wildly presumptuous assumption_ that so flies in the face of all probability that it gave me a laugh. I can not imagine the mindset, or the cynicism perhaps, which would even formulate such a postulation!

The example you gave of greatness and those composers 'taking a style further' and / or influencing later musical directions is typical, but temporally really in near a simultaneous second or minute of time on the overall classical music time chart, again making the whole notion you've posited just moot.

Any conjecture, with the only possible basis a knowledge of any past history, cannot nearly predict 'where music will go in the next several centuries.' Conjecture on this is, uh, useless. You never know, whether it is a several decades or more general trend of one predominant style or an era of polystylism, with people writing all sorts of ways, when any composer will come along with such a unique take on music that it then becomes both influential to other composers and 'popular.' Just no telling, saying, etc.

The great composers of our era will later be proclaimed great. We think we know who they are, but even the best guesses by the most educated cannot really name them with certainty; looking at what is now consumed, considered popular, who knows if either the music of John Adams, Reich, Glass, Berio, Stockhausen, Carter, Haas, etc (to go to several different branches of the same generally conservative classical tree), will be played at all, or as played and revered as the more time-sorted roster of names we have from over 100 years ago?

No one.


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## jim prideaux

at the risk of stating the obvious the term '20th century' is in itself an inappropriate generality that in the hands of some is used as a dismissive or critical term-the century is often associated with dissonance and challenge to the listener-yes this may be true of certain composers and their works but might I also suggest that there are also many pieces that are accessible and enjoyable-funnily enough works that in some instances have been readily dismissed as 'conservative'....anyway fro me any century which saw the following cannot be too easily criticised!

Any work by Sibelius composed during the 20th century-totally biased generality-so shoot me!
Martinu-six symphonies, a range of concertos and other works-the only thing bothering me is the 'what if' ie I only began listening to his music recently and I might have missed it completely-much to my loss!
Soviet music-do not wish to get into the range of debates, only to note that Prokofiev, Shostakovich and supposed lesser composers (Myaskovsky,Kabalevsky etc) all produced music during the 20th century.......

actually I think I might be beginning to be involved in stating the obvious but I would also like to make the point that it is often the 'lesser composers'of the century that provide continuous sources of wonder eg British composers such as Moeran,Finzi and Alwyn.........

now reached the point where on reflection I cannot even see the point of the argument.....although I suspect those who might condemn the music of the 20th century condemn out of ignorance and pure laziness!

and I have not even mentioned my current listening interests-Atterberg and Tubin!


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## Guest

"Conservative" is not necessarilty a dismissal. It might just be a description.

And I hate the way the words "accessible" and "enjoyable" have been co-opted--not by jim, of course (!), but by everyone who wants to narrow their meanings to "accessible" and "enjoyable" to "a particular subset of listeners, the subset to which I belong."

When I was first exploring the new world of twentieth century music--new to me, anyway--I found Bartok and Prokofiev and Stravinsky to be accessible and enjoyable. Carter not so much. Carter soon became both accessible and enjoyable, however. Varese and Ives were always so. As was Xenakis. Boulez and Scelsi, not so much. Most of what Turnabout and Columbia Records were presenting as "electronic" music was both accessible and enjoyable. Eimert, Henry, Pousseur, Stockhausen, Dockstader, Ferrari. Accessible and enjoyable.

Using words like accessible and enjoyable to point only to conservative (!) musics is inappropriate. Those words point to a relationship between a listener and a piece of music. They don't point to the listener or the music but to the relationship. You know, the same with beautiful or ugly. They are words that point to the reaction, not to the reactor or to the thing being reacted to. As soon as you use "enjoyable" to point only to Sibelius or Kabalevsky or Finzi or Tubin--distinguishing them thereby from people like Xenakis or Ferneyhough or Karkowski--then what you are really doing is privileging the experience of people who prefer the former. 

And since my experiences are just as valid as yours, my pantaloons become bunched up when you privilege your experiences and the experiences of your conservative buddies over mine. Just sayin'. Lachenmann was instantly enjoyable to me. Karkowski was instantly enjoyable to me.

And, just by the way, Tubin was just as instantly not at all enjoyable to me. (Though probably still "accessible.") Same for Finzi and for most of Myaskovsky for that matter. 

I would never try to distinguish Karkowski from Tubin, however, by insisting that the difference is that Karkowski is enjoyable. I enjoy Karkowski, and I dislike Tubin. But that's just me.


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## binkley

some guy said:


> And I hate the way the words "accessible" and "enjoyable" have been co-opted--not by jim, of course (!), but by everyone who wants to narrow their meanings to "accessible" and "enjoyable" to "a particular subset of listeners, the subset to which I belong."


I agree regarding "enjoyable", but it seems to me there are objective measurements for "accessible". Which music gets programmed most often? Which recordings sell best? Which garner a more enthusiastic audience response?

I enjoy both Stravinsky's early and late works, but there's really no question which are more "accessible".


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## Guest

binkley said:


> I agree regarding "enjoyable", but it seems to me there are objective measurements for "accessible". Which music gets programmed most often? Which recordings sell best? Which garner a more enthusiastic audience response?


You are measuring an audience here. A fairlly conservative audience. (Come to think of it, that's a pretty poor way to use "conservative." Sorry!)

An audience that for what ever reason prefers more familiar music will buy recordings of familiar music. A programmer interested in capturing a large portion of an audience that prefers more familiar music will program just that. Same with the enthusiasm. See? You've simply privileged one audience and made it the only audience (or at leat the only audience worth considering).



binkley said:


> I enjoy both Stravinsky's early and late works, but there's really no question which are more "accessible".


I heard Stravinsky's early works fairly early in my listening career and found them to be accessible. I heard Stravinsky's late works later in my career and found them to be accessible. Indeed, given where I was in my listening when I first heard each, the later works were probably _more_ accessible to me. Accessible is no more a quality of the music than enjoyable is. You have to have both the music and a listener present before you can use either of those words. And when you do, you find that the words point to neither the music nor the listener but to what happens when the two are put together.

Using the audience you privileged, I would guess that the middle works are the most accessible. To them. For many people here at TC, only the early works will do. There have been numerous posts to that effect on numerous threads.


----------



## Polyphemus

binkley said:


> I agree regarding "enjoyable", but it seems to me there are objective measurements for "accessible". Which music gets programmed most often? Which recordings sell best? Which garner a more enthusiastic audience response?
> 
> I enjoy both Stravinsky's early and late works, but there's really no question which are more "accessible".


This goes back to the 'Bums on seats' argument. There are many works I would love to see performed live but I know I never will because the ticket buying public would not support these concerts in sufficient numbers. So i will never see Utrenja performed in Dublin and Schnittke is also a rarity.
Contemporary music performances are in general poorly attended hence they are not staged as often as one would wish. On the other hand put on William Tell Ov/Rach 3 Pno Conc & Dvorak Symph 9 and it will be sold out. Luckily though the much maligned record industry have provided a lot of otherwise unavailable works to delight us.


----------



## PetrB

some guy said:


> Using words like accessible and enjoyable to point only to conservative (!) musics is inappropriate.


Using 'difficult' to describe music which is music other than what a person generally consumes is also inappropriate.
.....The so-called 'difficult' music for a listener is _*"outside of my realm of musical experiences and the expectations and listening habits I have acquired as a result of those experiences."*_ ... far more to the pith of that 'difficult' matter.


----------



## starthrower

Alypius said:


> starthrower, that's one you're going to have to do. I don't feel sufficiently conversant with Honegger as a composer. I've not even heard his symphonies. Please write up something if you get a chance. All the best.


I hope you get around to them eventually. I'm not too good at trying to describe symphonic works in words. I just happen to be listening to Takemitsu this morning, and I see there was quite a discussion on the previous page. I'm a big fan! I think his titles are beautiful, and the flow and grace of his works I find very appealing. Millionrainbows mentioned the Tao Te Ching, and Takemitsu's music has this character. The inevitable flow of life, the way, no resistance, be at peace. That's what it represents to me.


----------



## Cosmos

I support the notion that Prokofiev's Piano Concertos are some of the best from the repertoire of the century


----------



## binkley

some guy said:


> You are measuring an audience here. A fairlly conservative audience. (Come to think of it, that's a pretty poor way to use "conservative." Sorry!)
> 
> An audience that for what ever reason prefers more familiar music will buy recordings of familiar music.


But "accessible" and "familiar" are pretty much synonymous, aren't they?



> A programmer interested in capturing a large portion of an audience that prefers more familiar music will program just that. Same with the enthusiasm. See? You've simply privileged one audience and made it the only audience (or at leat the only audience worth considering).


I see your point and I agree. It's a vicious circle: the only way for works to become familiar/accessible is for them to be promoted at performances, on the radio, or by recording studios, but they're only interested in promoting things that are already familiar/accessible.


----------



## Blake

PetrB said:


> Using 'difficult' to describe music which is music other than what a person generally consumes is also inappropriate.
> .....The so-called 'difficult' music for a listener is _*"outside of my realm of musical experiences and the expectations and listening habits I have acquired as a result of those experiences."*_ ... far more to the pith of that 'difficult' matter.


It's funny we keep having to go back to kindergarten for the basics. Usually whatever comes out of a person's mouth that isn't some form of applied mathematics is opinion. Most of us know this, but we keep waisting time with the few who seem troubled by the matter.


----------



## Tristan

Cosmos said:


> I support the notion that Prokofiev's Piano Concertos are some of the best from the repertoire of the century


I would agree 

I love 20th century classical music. I'd say a good third of the music I own is from the 20th century, even if it is mostly early and mid-20th. I especially enjoy the music of Shostakovich, Prokofiev, and Stravinsky. For some reason the Russians are always my favorite. Shostakovich's symphonies are some of the best 20th century works there, and that is partly because many of them aim to capture the (not so great) spirit of the century (at least in Russia). Yes, some of them are better than others and often they are very heavy and plodding, but that's what I like about them. Sometimes I want to listen to music that hammers away at something 

Recently I've also gotten into composers like Szymanowski and Bartok. I could listen to them all day


----------



## tdc

Came across this yesterday, and really enjoyed this piece and the performance (bad video though). Its too bad it appears Eniko Ginzery only has upcoming performances in Germany. This is a musician I'd love to see live. On her website it shows her working on pieces alongside composers like Kurtag and Hespos. She performs music on the Cimbalom from the middle ages to the present but states her main interest is interpreting works for contemporary composers.

Hans Joachim Hespos - _Santur_


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## Blake

That was excellent, tdc.


----------



## PetrB

jim prideaux said:


> at the risk of stating the obvious the term '20th century' is in itself an inappropriate generality that in the hands of some is used as a dismissive or critical term-the century is often associated with dissonance and challenge to the listener-yes this may be true of certain composers and their works but might I also suggest that there are also many pieces that are accessible and enjoyable-funnily enough works that in some instances have been readily dismissed as 'conservative'....anyway fro me any century which saw the following cannot be too easily criticised!
> 
> Any work by Sibelius composed during the 20th century-totally biased generality-so shoot me!
> Martinu-six symphonies, a range of concertos and other works-the only thing bothering me is the 'what if' ie I only began listening to his music recently and I might have missed it completely-much to my loss!
> Soviet music-do not wish to get into the range of debates, only to note that Prokofiev, Shostakovich and supposed lesser composers (Myaskovsky,Kabalevsky etc) all produced music during the 20th century.......
> 
> actually I think I might be beginning to be involved in stating the obvious but I would also like to make the point that it is often the 'lesser composers'of the century that provide continuous sources of wonder eg British composers such as Moeran,Finzi and Alwyn.........
> 
> now reached the point where on reflection I cannot even see the point of the argument.....although I suspect those who might condemn the music of the 20th century condemn out of ignorance and pure laziness!
> 
> and I have not even mentioned my current listening interests-Atterberg and Tubin!


Whether the actual music of the 20th century and that of this or later centuries might be _in part_ as conservative relative to their times as are the works you listed relative to the entire 20th century repertoire, I'm sure their will be composers and works from the current day and in to the future which are, relative to the later new works and ways of writing of their own times, equally as conservative / and "accessible" to those future listeners as those works on your list of 20th century music now are to so many listeners in the early 21st century.

To think that 'one way' of writing, or any one extreme (conservative or its opposite) would have a complete hold on all musicians and the public is to imagine a future society so drone / clone-like it does not bear imagining  Variety now, similar variety later, is all I would think to safely 'predict.'


----------



## science

This thread had made it to page 6 as a purely positive thing rather than another modern vs. anti-modern thing.



Alypius said:


> I would like this thread to be is a place where one speaks *in praise of 20th century music*. And so if you do not like music of the 20th century, I ask that you please *post your complaints elsewhere*.


I would us to respect the OP's wishes here because this has been a great thread. There are a gajillion other threads on TC already dedicated to the pros and cons of modern music and the attitudes that listeners are supposed to approach them with.

If you don't like modern music, _please_ for the love of music discuss that in a different thread.

Equally, if you don't like the things that are said by people who don't like modern music, _please_ for the love of music take that discussion to a different thread too.


----------



## dgee

Jonathan Harvey's rather wonderful and deceptively simple Ricercare Una Melodia (1984) - originally conceived for trumpet and live electronics it's been a versatile beast, often heard for oboe (including a great recording by Ictus Ensemble) and here on one of my favourite underrated instruments, the euphonium. A century of versatile expression!


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## Guest

I agree, science, though I'm having some trouble finding what this is in reference to.


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## science

some guy said:


> I agree, science, though I'm having some trouble finding what this is in reference to.


I don't think it'd be helpful - and it might even violate the TOS - for me to point out particular posts.

Instead, why don't you tell us about a work of 20th century that you love?


----------



## SilverSurfer

Here is one of the many works of 20th century I love, which I used once to ask "Who is afraid of 20th century music?":

*Cobalt, scarlet* (Two colours of dawn), wirtten on 2.000 by Luca Francesconi (Milano, 1956-)

His own words are very clear, and, although he says it's not descriptive music, the fact is that one can nearly "see" those 2 differents sundawns, one slow and one agressive, that is why the piece is useful as an approach to contemporay music:

_"The piece is not a symphonic poem… there's no descriptive intention at all. The idea came out in a northern light, like dawn, in which I was watching slow movement of light in a very slow transformation. This gave me the idea of a dynamic time, which is never static, it sort of transforms itself all the time, and I had this image of something which is completely on the opposite side, which is something typical of Mediterranean or warmer climates, in which the sun is a male presence… the first transformation is a sort of cloud melody and harmony which is slowly, slowly transforming, and this is idea number one. Then we have idea number two, which is this huge, violent rhythm that you can't miss. The idea is more about trying to make a process transparent, and it's a dialectic process"._

There are 2 recordings of the work, the first one on Ricordi...

http://www.amazon.de/Wanderer-Cobalt-Scarlet-Luca-Francesconi/dp/B000005ST0

... and the second on Stradivarius...

http://www.amazon.de/Cobalt-Scarlet...r_1_12?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1412174966&sr=1-12

(don't pay attention to the second hand price), from which this video is taken:


----------



## SilverSurfer

By the way, Francesconi has also works harder to listen to, but that (excellent, for me) Cd on Stradivarius includes his concert for cello *Rest*, which shows a sense of humour not easy to find in contemporary music: after a real _tour de force_, the soloist reaches the final in dialogue witha trumpet with sordine sounding like a duck... and is the trumpetist who has the final word ("cuack!"):


----------



## Guest

science said:


> I don't think it'd be helpful - and it might even violate the TOS - for me to point out particular posts.


Well, it would certainly help us understand why you suddenly broke into a long and quite friendly conversation about 20th century music with this: "If you don't like modern music, please for the love of music discuss that in a different thread."



science said:


> Instead, why don't you tell us about a work of 20th century that you love?


Instead of you doing something, I should do something completely different? I don't understand. Instead of you washing the dishes, I should go buy groceries? That kind of thing? But in that scenario, the dishes would still be dirty....

Besides, haven't I already done this thing that you're challenging me to do?

Why, it's deja vu all over again.

(Hint, one example, in this thread, is post #24. There are other examples. Post #24 is the best.)

Be careful, in any event, what you ask for--I really love twentieth and twenty-first century music.

A lot.

And I've been doing it for over forty years. If I got started naming favorite pieces from the twentieth century, I might not be able to stop. I'm a real fan, you know. Do you really want to open up this thread tomorrow morning to find two or three hundred posts, all by some guy?

I dunno about you, but I shudder at the thought.


----------



## Blake

some guy said:


> Do you really want to open up this thread tomorrow morning to find two or three hundred posts, all by some guy?


Dude, yea. Do it.


----------



## Crudblud

It seems a better use of the forum's virtual space to engage in meaningful dialogue that is on topic than to sit about gabbing excuses "oh but I've already done it", as if to do it once then gives one license to not ever do it again, hanging about like a fly bothering a donkey all the while arguing that previously this was not the case. I already apologised for making a similar comment previously, which I rescinded, and I apologise now for not engaging in meaningful dialogue that is on topic, but hopefully the rest of this post will somewhat make up for that.

Add.: As it turns out, it didn't make up for it, but at least I'm cheap.

[HR][/HR]
Olivier Messiaen - _St. François d'Assise
_
One of those "misunderstood" works, or so it seems, and to be truthful it is likely misunderstood even by those who like it, as I do, and I am certainly just as poorly qualified to talk about it as anyone else. Perhaps, then, you think, I overestimate it, but I say that maybe no one is qualified to talk about any music, we can analyse structure till the cows come home, but what do we prove in doing so? Our own love of chatter to posterity, a kind of literary onanism without which very little might ever be said about anything. And there I go, too, all 2,500+ posts I have made here are the same self-serving nonsense, all of which will be lost to time soon enough.

That's a side-track, of course, but I'm in a mood to discuss in some way not only why I talk about things I love, but why I love to talk about them, and obviously it falls to the fact that on some level it serves my ego to state a case and leave it before the public like a statue of myself. Can the same be said of Messiaen? Is _St. François_ the work of the self-serving or the humble? Is it a gleefully sycophantic encomium or an even handed portrait? To the last question we might say it is neither; Messiaen is up front about his interest, and that is not so much in St. Francis himself but what he represents - not man, not the physical, but the soul and the spiritual. Francis is a symbol of humility before the mystery of God, of acceptance of suffering, of the challenging of the self to be good and strong.

Messiaen does not go in for biography, he was criticised for this, and particularly for leaving out the juicy bits. There's nothing of the Oedipal, romantic or mythical stuff found in the many biographies available, and some might (and do) say there isn't much of anything at all. Over the course of nine episodic scenes, all of which are largely minimalistic in their action, and contain much repetition of "blocks" (anyone who has heard _Turangalîla-Symphonie_ will know what I'm talking about), often having the appearance of a kind of static time. It is the story of a man who becomes divine, becomes eternal, and I wonder if there isn't something to the idea that this kind of repetition, used so surely here, is presaging this idea.

This is, as all those who are bored enough to do so will read, the most far-flung reach I am going to make here: if we could experience eternity would it appear to us as a kind of loop, a very long loop, that eventually we would consider it in summation as a repeated block, and in doing so feel that we are really at a standstill? It's a ridiculous idea, don't think for one second that I expect you to take it seriously - these are the ramblings of a man who is awake at 02:42 on a Thursday morning, not an essay a professor would present to a class (on any subject) as an example of great writing. But let's go for just a moment with the idea that much of _St. François _can feel like a standstill, something happens, then it happens again, and we appear to be no closer to a conclusion than we were five minutes ago, there is at least a _feeling_ of the eternal from the opening _J'ai peur sur la route_-s, all three of them.

The composer is said to have settled on the St. Francis story after deeming himself unworthy to do the Passion or the Resurrection of Christ. This might seem somewhat odd, after all, the Passion is practically a form of oratorio unto itself, and Messiaen had produced works "about" Christ throughout his life, from the Nativity to the Transfiguration, and most famously his _Vingt Regards_. Perhaps for him it was all good and well in the realm of the abstract, that there was something in the act of lending a voice to a previously only implied Christ character that turned him off. In his _La Transfiguration de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ_ Messiaen uses a text, but it is sung by a choir, not a solitary voice that proclaims itself to be Christ, and possibly more importantly is taken from the Bible and the writings of Aquinas. In other words, the onus was not on the composer to find the words of Christ within himself, only to select from those already written and accepted.

Bird song. It's a topic that always comes up when discussing Messiaen, and why not? His works are littered with it, whether we look to his works for piano, chamber ensembles, orchestra, even this opera, the flocks are everywhere. It's even where we get the hilarious dismissal "Messiaen, it's for the birds" which I'm sure has you all in stitches, for it is such a great example of caustic wit. _St. François_ features perhaps the most complex use of his transcriptions, each character is associated with a bird, much like leitmotif is used in the works of Wagner. The question for some is whether or not, for all the composer's intentions, we can even comprehend this while listening to what is often extremely dense music. For all I've said about repetition the music is startlingly voluminous in variety, aside from some obvious recalled themes here and there, the grand scheme of it may well seem quite incoherent. A better question still might be whether it matters if we comprehend the use of birdsong here at all, as ultimately we experience or at least remember all elements of a piece in capsule form, does dissection really serve us as listeners? In lieu of an answer I will say I haven't quite lost my mind yet, so let us continue.

Or even, let us conclude. Conclude _what_ exactly, I'm not sure. What I am sure of is that I will read this the next day, in the sobriety afforded by a warm flannel to the face, a shave and a cup of coffee, and wonder just what in the hell I was thinking when I suddenly, without preparation, leapt into this endeavour to discuss something while not making any actual point. Perhaps better still I will be too embarrassed to revisit this thread until many pages have passed between my waffling and the present. I think, in the spirit of the OP, I intended to praise very highly this sole opera of Messiaen, but, as I said I would in the beginning, have only succeeded in erecting another monument to my own pomposity and tasteless comportment. I do apologise for this, safe in the knowledge that I will do it again, and it will seem that we have gotten nowhere, and we will continue along this loop for eternity.


----------



## Guest

Crudblud said:


> as if to do it once then gives one license to not ever do it again


Ahem.

Get your old self back on track here, Crudblud. You surely cannot be seriously accusing me of talking about contemporary music and specific contemporary pieces only one time?

Say what?

Otherwise and also and in addition, there is more to life than TC.

Do you know how much time I spend listening to and talking about contemporary music outside of TC?

Do you know how many contemporary composers I have come to know personally because of my indefatigable efforts to promote their music?

Do you know how far behind I am in making new posts to my online music magazine because of how much time I fritter away on this particular board?

[Hah. It's that last one that really hurts. OK. Enough silliness. I really do have a lot of work to do. Toodles!]


----------



## Jobis

Crudblud said:


> It seems a better use of the forum's virtual space to engage in meaningful dialogue that is on topic than to sit about gabbing excuses "oh but I've already done it", as if to do it once then gives one license to not ever do it again, hanging about like a fly bothering a donkey all the while arguing that previously this was not the case. I already apologised for making a similar comment previously, which I rescinded, and I apologise now for not engaging in meaningful dialogue that is on topic, but hopefully the rest of this post will somewhat make up for that.
> 
> Add.: As it turns out, it didn't make up for it, but at least I'm cheap.
> 
> [HR][/HR]
> Olivier Messiaen - _St. François d'Assise
> _
> One of those "misunderstood" works, or so it seems, and to be truthful it is likely misunderstood even by those who like it, as I do, and I am certainly just as poorly qualified to talk about it as anyone else. Perhaps, then, you think, I overestimate it, but I say that maybe no one is qualified to talk about any music, we can analyse structure till the cows come home, but what do we prove in doing so? Our own love of chatter to posterity, a kind of literary onanism without which very little might ever be said about anything. And there I go, too, all 2,500+ posts I have made here are the same self-serving nonsense, all of which will be lost to time soon enough.
> 
> That's a side-track, of course, but I'm in a mood to discuss in some way not only why I talk about things I love, but why I love to talk about them, and obviously it falls to the fact that on some level it serves my ego to state a case and leave it before the public like a statue of myself. Can the same be said of Messiaen? Is _St. François_ the work of the self-serving or the humble? Is it a gleefully sycophantic encomium or an even handed portrait? To the last question we might say it is neither; Messiaen is up front about his interest, and that is not so much in St. Francis himself but what he represents - not man, not the physical, but the soul and the spiritual. Francis is a symbol of humility before the mystery of God, of acceptance of suffering, of the challenging of the self to be good and strong.
> 
> Messiaen does not go in for biography, he was criticised for this, and particularly for leaving out the juicy bits. There's nothing of the Oedipal, romantic or mythical stuff found in the many biographies available, and some might (and do) say there isn't much of anything at all. Over the course of nine episodic scenes, all of which are largely minimalistic in their action, and contain much repetition of "blocks" (anyone who has heard _Turangalîla-Symphonie_ will know what I'm talking about), often having the appearance of a kind of static time. It is the story of a man who becomes divine, becomes eternal, and I wonder if there isn't something to the idea that this kind of repetition, used so surely here, is presaging this idea.
> 
> This is, as all those who are bored enough to do so will read, the most far-flung reach I am going to make here: if we could experience eternity would it appear to us as a kind of loop, a very long loop, that eventually we would consider it in summation as a repeated block, and in doing so feel that we are really at a standstill? It's a ridiculous idea, don't think for one second that I expect you to take it seriously - these are the ramblings of a man who is awake at 02:42 on a Thursday morning, not an essay a professor would present to a class (on any subject) as an example of great writing. But let's go for just a moment with the idea that much of _St. François _can feel like a standstill, something happens, then it happens again, and we appear to be no closer to a conclusion than we were five minutes ago, there is at least a _feeling_ of the eternal from the opening _J'ai peur sur la route_-s, all three of them.
> 
> The composer is said to have settled on the St. Francis story after deeming himself unworthy to do the Passion or the Resurrection of Christ. This might seem somewhat odd, after all, the Passion is practically a form of oratorio unto itself, and Messiaen had produced works "about" Christ throughout his life, from the Nativity to the Transfiguration, and most famously his _Vingt Regards_. Perhaps for him it was all good and well in the realm of the abstract, that there was something in the act of lending a voice to a previously only implied Christ character that turned him off. In his _La Transfiguration de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ_ Messiaen uses a text, but it is sung by a choir, not a solitary voice that proclaims itself to be Christ, and possibly more importantly is taken from the Bible and the writings of Aquinas. In other words, the onus was not on the composer to find the words of Christ within himself, only to select from those already written and accepted.
> 
> Bird song. It's a topic that always comes up when discussing Messiaen, and why not? His works are littered with it, whether we look to his works for piano, chamber ensembles, orchestra, even this opera, the flocks are everywhere. It's even where we get the hilarious dismissal "Messiaen, it's for the birds" which I'm sure has you all in stitches, for it is such a great example of caustic wit. _St. François_ features perhaps the most complex use of his transcriptions, each character is associated with a bird, much like leitmotif is used in the works of Wagner. The question for some is whether or not, for all the composer's intentions, we can even comprehend this while listening to what is often extremely dense music. For all I've said about repetition the music is startlingly voluminous in variety, aside from some obvious recalled themes here and there, the grand scheme of it may well seem quite incoherent. A better question still might be whether it matters if we comprehend the use of birdsong here at all, as ultimately we experience or at least remember all elements of a piece in capsule form, does dissection really serve us as listeners? In lieu of an answer I will say I haven't quite lost my mind yet, so let us continue.
> 
> Or even, let us conclude. Conclude _what_ exactly, I'm not sure. What I am sure of is that I will read this the next day, in the sobriety afforded by a warm flannel to the face, a shave and a cup of coffee, and wonder just what in the hell I was thinking when I suddenly, without preparation, leapt into this endeavour to discuss something while not making any actual point. Perhaps better still I will be too embarrassed to revisit this thread until many pages have passed between my waffling and the present. I think, in the spirit of the OP, I intended to praise very highly this sole opera of Messiaen, but, as I said I would in the beginning, have only succeeded in erecting another monument to my own pomposity and tasteless comportment. I do apologise for this, safe in the knowledge that I will do it again, and it will seem that we have gotten nowhere, and we will continue along this loop for eternity.


I think its one of the great masterpieces of the last century, (possibly my favourite) and funnily enough, despite what I've said in other threads about contemporary music, I never really stopped to analyse or manually process the music. It makes sense to me, in its use of repetition, if just because certain motifs are connection to certain recurring ideas and themes, if you will. The loop idea is interesting! Its great to hear you commend the piece, since its surprisingly neglected on here.

Sooner or later I'll write up something I noticed from listening to Saint François a few times through.


----------



## Jobis

If I'm not mistaken (I am making a stab in the dark here) Saint Francois has many moments of near monophony. That is; the orchestra plays in perfect unison with the human voice; or if not in unison then in close parallel motion; offset by a certain interval to provide harmonic 'depth' to the melody. So you might call it homophonic. I think this is inspired from two sources, which are more or less the same; Claude Debussy, who greatly influenced Messiaen, and the Gregorian chant. I say they are the same source because Debussy was himself very interested in medieval music, hence his use of parallel fifths, which were almost entirely avoided in the baroque and classical periods. So Messiaen carries on this medieval aspect of Debussy's music to an even further degree; by eliminating any sense of functional harmony in favour of these chant-like vocal lines, backed by parallel motion in orchestra. It makes perfect sense in the opera, since Gregorian chant was a standard of worship and prayer in the Catholic Church for hundreds of years. So we could view these short, repeated vocal motifs as like prayers, incantations or more accurately, chants. This recollection of bygone musics, (monophony is almost universal, and ancient) helps give the opera its timeless feeling, of communicating with the eternal. Plus it sounds magnificent hearing the human voice accompanied almost in unison by the whole weight of a large orchestra.


----------



## Mahlerian

Jobis said:


> If I'm not mistaken (I am making a stab in the dark here) Saint Francois has many moments of near monophony.


It's actually been a little while since I've listened through all of the opera, but I know for a fact that Messiaen used plenty of monophony in other works, like the "recitative" bits in La Transfiguration.


----------



## Guest

ArtMusic said:


> the 20th century will be most proud of.


Taking this at face value, many of those who might 'belong' to the 20th C and/or any century since, and/or have sufficient cognisance of the music produced during that 100 year span would almost certainly disagree quite fundamentally about which works they are proud of.

Not taking it at face value, a century can't take pride in anything.


----------



## schigolch

My favorite piece from Bernd Alois Zimmermann (alongside with "Die Soldaten") is "Stille und Umkehr", written just before the suicide of the composer, in which he calmly anticipated his own end, in a somewhat minimalist aesthetics.

A colorfoul orchestration (flutes, clarinets, cellos, double bassews, violin, viola, harp, corn, saxophone, accordion, timbals, musical saw,...), slow diynamics, always between pp and mp, the note D omnipresent, like death itself... I just love this music:


----------



## hpowders

Let me once again put in a good word for Vincent Persichetti's 12 piano sonatas. Among the best of twentieth century classical creations.


----------



## Mahlerian

This topic is once again sorely needed.










Feel free to discuss these, or any other 20th century works.


----------



## Blake

Messiaen: _Quartet for the End of Time._






Feldman: _Triadic Memories._


----------



## hpowders

I love Persichetti's 12 Piano Sonatas. A few are abstract but 9 of them are witty neoclassical works that are easily approachable.


----------



## Blake

Akutagawa - _Ellora Symphony_






Yoshimatsu - _Threnody to Toki_






Satoh - _Stabat Mater_


----------



## cjvinthechair

schigolch said:


> My favorite piece from Bernd Alois Zimmermann (alongside with "Die Soldaten") is "Stille und Umkehr", written just before the suicide of the composer, in which he calmly anticipated his own end, in a somewhat minimalist aesthetics.
> 
> A colorfoul orchestration (flutes, clarinets, cellos, double bassews, violin, viola, harp, corn, saxophone, accordion, timbals, musical saw,...), slow diynamics, always between pp and mp, the note D omnipresent, like death itself... I just love this music:


Thanks so much for this - allowed me to spend time catching up with a fair bit of Zimmermann I didn't know on YT !


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## Blake

I've been quite impressed with Yoshimatsu. Incredible lyricism while maintaining an undeniable freshness... tastefully incorporating the avant-garde. Those hesitant in checking out 20th century should look into this guy. It's not all scary modernism.


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## hpowders

I think there are worse things than people becoming familiar with William Schuman's Symphonies No's. 3-10.


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## science

Let's bump this in case anyone is able to make more contributions. I've loved this thread.


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## SilverSurfer

Well, if you insist, these days is taking place the "Mini-Maxi" Ars Musica festival 2014 in Brussels, and I already mentioned somewhere that in the 80's a mouvement called Belgian Wave was born there (young people playing minimalism like a rock band, to summon it up) and this year is dedicated to them, here is one of the pieces from the 2nd recording by the group that began it all, MAXIMALIST!:


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## hpowders

Most of my musical interest is twentieth century. I have to praise it!


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## OldFashionedGirl

Another 20th century music fan here! Long life to 20th century music.


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## Blake

It's definitely one of the greatest eras in my book. Starting with Mahler, Schoenberg, Webern, Berg, Bartok, Stravinsky, Cage, Feldman, Nono, Ligeti, Xenakis, Messiaen, Berio, Maderna, Gubaidulina, Adams, Glass, Reich... oh, lawd.


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## science

I think we are safely in the majority here.


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## tdc

Vesuvius said:


> It's definitely one of the greatest eras in my book. Starting with Mahler, Schoenberg, Webern, Berg, Bartok, Stravinsky, Cage, Feldman, Nono, Ligeti, Xenakis, Messiaen, Berio, Maderna, Gubaidulina, Adams, Glass, Reich... oh, lawd.


Some excellent names there Vesuvius, but to be a bit of a stickler here, I think most would agree the 20th century started with Debussy.


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## Blake

tdc said:


> Some excellent names there Vesuvius, but to be a bit of a stickler here, I think most would agree the 20th century started with Debussy.


I'm good with either one. Of course, there were quite a few names left out.


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## tdc

Vesuvius said:


> I'm good with either one. Of course, there were quite a few names left out.


I've always viewed Mahler as more of a progressive Romantic. He certainly has some modernist traits in his music, but I'm not sure anymore so than R Strauss or even Wagner.


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## Mahlerian

tdc said:


> I've always viewed Mahler as more of a progressive Romantic. He certainly has some modernist traits in his music, but I'm not sure anymore so than R Strauss or even Wagner.


A passage like this would sound strange in Wagner:









The first violin line enters, _ff_, and as it is a variation on what we've heard before as "second theme," we expect it to play out much as before with perhaps a slight amount of development, but this is, _within the same bar_, interrupted by the upbeat of a completely separate phrase in the woodwinds, _in a different key_. This kind of free treatment of phrase and rhythm is also characteristic of Reger and Schoenberg.

Other specifically modern (for their time) elements in Mahler's work include:
- Bitonality
- Previously unclassified harmonies
- A style of orchestration that anticipates klangfarbenmelodie in its division of single lines among instruments and registers
- Progressive tonality (ending a composition, even a movement, in a different tonality from the one in which it started)
- Simultaneous thematic/motivic development (i.e. new variations introduced simultaneously rather than in succession)


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## tdc

Mahlerian said:


> A passage like this would sound strange in Wagner:
> 
> View attachment 56514
> 
> 
> The first violin line enters, _ff_, and as it is a variation on what we've heard before as "second theme," we expect it to play out much as before with perhaps a slight amount of development, but this is, _within the same bar_, interrupted by the upbeat of a completely separate phrase in the woodwinds. This kind of free treatment of phrase and rhythm is also characteristic of Reger and Schoenberg.
> 
> Other specifically modern (for their time) elements in Mahler's work include:
> - Bitonality
> - Previously unclassified harmonies
> - A style of orchestration that anticipates klangfarbenmelodie in its division of single lines among instruments and registers
> - Progressive tonality (ending a composition, even a movement, in a different tonality from the one in which it started)
> - Simultaneous thematic/motivic development (i.e. new variations introduced simultaneously rather than in succession)


Some good points, so there _are_ elements within Mahler's music more modern than Wagner, but what of R Strauss? I believe he was also pushing into some new territory - yet also staying within a largely Romantic framework. Proving Mahler was more modern in ways than Wagner hardly shows that he was a critical composer in opening the doors towards modernism.

I'll also point out you've chosen a passage as an example composed around 1908, over a decade after Debussy had already (as many feel) opened the doors towards modernism with his _Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune_.


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## Mahlerian

The passage may be from 1908, but the elements listed date back to the beginning of Mahler's career. There's a passage in the original (1880) version of Das Klagende Lied with an off-stage band playing in a key a semitone away from the main orchestra that sounds almost like Ives. All of the songs in Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (c. 1886?) end in different keys from the ones they start in (the third begins in D minor and ends in E-flat minor!).

It's important to note that not only were Mahler and Strauss (before Rosenkavelier) considered modern in their day, they were considered extremists. Mahler's approach to contemporary music was of course very different from Debussy (and Debussy had no interest in what little he heard of Mahler's music), but just as Debussy led to Stravinsky's early works, Mahler's music, along with Strauss's, forms the most important link to the "other" modernism of the Second Viennese School.


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## tdc

Mahlerian said:


> The passage may be from 1908, but the elements listed date back to the beginning of Mahler's career. There's a passage in the original (1880) version of Das Klagende Lied with an off-stage band playing in a key a semitone away from the main orchestra that sounds almost like Ives. All of the songs in Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (c. 1886?) end in different keys from the ones they start in (the third begins in D minor and ends in E-flat minor!).
> 
> It's important to note that not only were Mahler and Strauss (before Rosenkavelier) considered modern in their day, they were considered extremists. Mahler's approach to contemporary music was of course very different from Debussy (and Debussy had no interest in what little he heard of Mahler's music), but just as Debussy led to Stravinsky's early works, Mahler's music, along with Strauss's, forms the most important link to the "other" modernism of the Second Viennese School.


Fascinating - I wasn't aware Mahler was so experimental in the late 19th century. But in regards to the key figure in terms of starting modernism I'll point out Pierre Boulez thoughts on the matter:

"_(Boulez) regards Claude Debussy as the starting point for the 20th century's innovations; after that the stream of modernism divides into two, with the expressionism and subsequent serialism of the Second Viennese School...(and) the two composers who in their different ways enriched and expanded the rhythmic vocabulary of music, Stravinsky and Bartok_."

-_Andrew Clements DG_

Lastly, I think many (including Boulez) have come to see Webern as the most modern of the Second Viennese School composers, and I find his music sounds closer to Debussy, than the late Romantic aesthetic of Schoenberg and Berg.


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## Mahlerian

To be fair, of course, the aforementioned moment is unusually extreme and done for a specific programmatic purpose; broadly speaking, Mahler's music is usually rooted (albeit often tenuously) in diatonic tonality. In a number of ways Debussy's music does more obviously break with the past (although it too has clear roots in The Five and Grieg, etc.), and it doesn't carry the aesthetic and formal baggage of a work consciously within the German-Austrian symphonic tradition.

Regarding Webern, although I know he was enamored of both Debussy and Mahler, I hear mostly the influence of Schoenberg, who was a little more wary of Debussy, though he expressed admiration at times. In Berg, of course, the influence of Mahler is both obvious and pervasive. At any rate, the first two decades of the 20th century were certainly a time of exploration for everyone involved.


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## GioCar

The last 6 posts should be framed and stuck in the home page under the thread title "Guidelines on how to discuss in TC"


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## hpowders

People hear "Twentieth Century" and freak out like it's automatically "incomprehensible" atonal music.

I hear twentieth century and I think Mahler, R. Strauss, Copland, etc; It's not all "modern" and "incomprehensible".


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## millionrainbows

I agree with Mahlerian and tdc on most of this, but still, I see Wagner as being the root of Mahler. He took a lot from Wagner (use of voice, large forms), and I don't see him as being in the Brahms camp.

Likewise, I see Wagner as a big influence on Schoenberg, esp. the early stuff like Gurrelieder, Pelleas, and Tran. Nacht.

Debussy was primarily a pianist, and I see a lot of Chopin in him. This is where, I think, the harmonic adventurousness and poetic wanderings came from, not Wagner or Brahms.

The Second Viennese composers were not really pianists, so I see them as continuing a Germanic tradition, using mainly Wagner as the model, but Brahms as well, since the 12-tone method involved a lot of counterpoint and motivic variation.

I think, in terms of sheer harmonic innovation, that Debussy made a bigger departure. In many ways, the 12-tone method was too arbitrary and too much of a break to be as "developmental" and as a "continuation" of what came before, much as they wished it to be perceived as a "historical continuation" or "progress" of music..
I think they skipped a lot of "harmonic middle ground" that needed to be explored first. In other words, Debussy broke with tradition more radically, because Schoenberg was still immersed in counterpoint and thematic development.

In other words, I see the "baggage of tradition" is what needed to be discarded or broken with, and I see Debussy doing this more completely than the 2nd Viennese school.


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## binkley

"I was never _revolutionary_. _The only revolutionary_ in our time was Strauss!"

-Arnold Schoenberg


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## millionrainbows

binkley said:


> "I was never _revolutionary_. _The only revolutionary_ in our time was Strauss!"
> 
> -Arnold Schoenberg


Yes, I will not question that; the part about himself, I mean. I see Richard Strauss as retreating into a Mozartian conservatism in his later works (Four Last Songs, Oboe Concerto).

His "revolutionary high point" was _Metamorphosen_ and _Elektra._


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## binkley

Messiaen has already gotten a lot of praise on this thread, but I can't resist linking to this charming clip on bird song, featuring Messiaen and the pianist Yvonne Loriod (to whom he was married):


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## MoonlightSonata

Sorry to bump a thread - I know it is sometimes frowned upon - but it is a very positive thread. and positivity is something that is occasionally a bit lacking on this forum.

Today I had a look at a book of 20th Century New Zealand music and was stunned by how incredibly varied and vibrant it was. More that any other era of music, the 20th century had an *incredible* range of music, and the wonderful thing about it is that just when you think you've heard all the best composers, another obscure gem will turn up and you won't know how you ever lived without that music.


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## Dim7

I don't there's really any 20th century haters on this forum. It just makes zero sense to speak 20th century classical as a lump - much less than it does with preceding centuries. Sure, some of the "atonal",12-tone music or particularly strange varieties of avant-garde is still pretty "controversial, but along with the late-late-romantics there's also impressionism, Bartok, neoclassicism, "Russian-period" Stravinsky, minimalism - which have become largely accepted even those whose tastes are considered "conservative" here.


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## Guest

MoonlightSonata said:


> bump


Appropriate to keep this positive thread alive


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## Dim7

Mahlerian said:


> - Progressive tonality (ending a composition, even a movement, in a different tonality from the one in which it started)


Maybe I'm just tone deaf but I've never understood why people talk like this was some kind of interesting feature of Mahler's music. Unless you have perfect pitch it should hardly make very big difference whether after several movements the last movement has the same or different tonal centre.


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## Mahlerian

Dim7 said:


> Maybe I'm just tone deaf but I've never understood why people talk like this was some kind of interesting feature of Mahler's music. Unless you have perfect pitch it should hardly make very big difference whether after several movements the last movement has the same or different tonal centre.


I think that it does have an effect on the seeming unity of a work, and this is why we have Mozart, for example, laboring to structure his later operas within specific keys and setting up each part accordingly.

Mahler dramatizes both the move away from the initial key and the revelation of the final key of a work, so it's an important aspect of his musical thinking.

In case anyone was wondering, Nielsen and Mahler wrote their first symphonies using "progressive tonality" around the same time.


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## EdwardBast

Dim7 said:


> Maybe I'm just tone deaf but I've never understood why people talk like this was some kind of interesting feature of Mahler's music. Unless you have perfect pitch it should hardly make very big difference whether after several movements the last movement has the same or different tonal centre.


I think there is research in the field of music perception supporting your intuition, but I can't cite chapter and verse. I remember reading about one study in which naive listeners were presented with two versions of piano pieces from the classical repertoire, one of them rewritten to end in the wrong key. I believe the conclusion was that for works longer than a few minutes, it made little difference. Now, of course, who knows what a "naive listener" is; but it is not us.

I think it is an interesting feature of Mahler's music, if only because it went against long standing tradition. I don't find it at all problematic.


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## science

I've long assumed that past generations were more sensitive to keys than we are today. If they weren't, it wouldn't've been such a big deal. But it obviously was a big deal. I suspect that as tonality got stretched and stretched, so that we (over generations) got more and more used to chromaticism, we also stopped feeling the keys as much.


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## millionrainbows

As Berg said in that radio interview, people who cry out for tonality are not really craving the relationship to a central note, but want the _sheer sensual beauty of simple consonant triads._ Thus, Debussy is easier to swallow for otherwise conservative listeners than Schoenberg.

Mahler, R. Strauss, and Wagner were the first vestiges of modernism, because of the inherent symmetries of our 12-note division of the octave, which emerged with smaller chromatic intervals and the structures projected from these smaller intervals, such as diminished 7th and augmented 7th chords, whole tone collection, octatonic scales, and chromaticism.

All of these elements tended to weaken the tonal language, which was based on 7 semitone intervals (fifth) and 5 semitone intervals (fourth).


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## Albert7

In tribute of Alypius, I would like to drop a line acknowledging my deep respect for his tastes and his open mind to forge new territory.

And yes, despite my Feldman month, I admit that I am rather lacking in hearing 20th century music. I promise to rectify that next month. All thanks to you, Alypius.


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## DeepR

My favorite thing in 20th century music is the rise of music that concerns itself not so much with composition, based on notes, systems and rules, but more with sound itself and its possibilities to create texture, colour, atmosphere, ambience. Perhaps less appealing to our emotion and intellect, but more so to the imagination. Music of sounds, both tones and noises, being shaped, blended and structured to form aural paintings, landscapes, soundworlds, where there are no rules and boundaries. And of course the potential for this kind of music was enhanced dramatically with the development of the most wonderful of instruments, the synthesizer. That is what opened up a new door to infinite possibilites.


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## dgee

DeepR said:


> My favorite thing in 20th century music is the rise of music that concerns itself not so much with composition, based on notes, systems and rules, but more with sound itself and its possibilities to create texture, colour, atmosphere, ambience. Perhaps less appealing to our emotion and intellect, but more so to the imagination. Music of sounds, both tones and noises, being shaped, blended and structured to form aural paintings, landscapes, soundworlds, where there are no rules and boundaries. And of course the potential for this kind of music was enhanced dramatically with the development of the most wonderful of instruments, the synthesizer. That is what opened up a new door to infinite possibilites.


You'll have to let us in on what that is tho dude. Composers and works please!!! For your favs and what leaves us cold


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## Guest

DeepR said:


> My favorite thing in 20th century music is the rise of music that concerns itself not so much with composition, based on notes, systems and rules, but more with sound itself and its possibilities to create texture, colour, atmosphere, ambience. Perhaps less appealing to our emotion and intellect, but more so to the imagination. Music of sounds, both tones and noises, being shaped, blended and structured to form aural paintings, landscapes, soundworlds, where there are no rules and boundaries. And of course the potential for this kind of music was enhanced dramatically with the development of the most wonderful of instruments, the synthesizer. That is what opened up a new door to infinite possibilites.


Yes I like that notion too, but then I think: doesn't music always require prior use of systems, rules, notes...?


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## Larkenfield

......bump......


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## DeepR

I see I got a little enthusiastic there. I was probably under the spell of some favorite music. I was mostly referring to ambient music in the broadest sense of the word. An example would be Brian Eno - Ambient 4: On Land. Especially the last track, "Dunwich Beach, Autumn, 1960" is a brilliant example of this, I think. I realize there are roots in classical music.


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## David OByrne

Best century for classical music, hands down!


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## bigboy

In the hopes of getting this thread fired up again....

One thing I love about contemporary music is the wide range of collections of instruments composers will write for. For instance, and correct me if I’m wrong but there aren’t many romantic era harpsichord concertos and I for one am quite happy about the revival in fortune the instrument had in the 29th century (I’m thinking about Carter’s Double Concerto at the moment, but there are other great examples).

Berio’s Sinfonia 1968 is another great collection of instruments, featuring in particular an electric organ, saxophones and a guiro in addition to more standard forces. Even if you’re not fond of the music itself, there is something to be said for the sensuous delight in hearing so many different sounds!

Of course this doesn’t even touch on the realm of things like prepared piano (I’m thinking Schnittke here in particular) or truly “non-standard” instruments (I saw a piece performed by a chamber orchestra involving a bowed saw). 

I don’t mean to say that these unusual instrument combinations are always effective (or are even in the service of good music for that matter), but if I’m going to be disappointed I’d rather be disappointed in a new way  and sometimes I’m delighted in a completely unexpected way.


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## millionrainbows

The Twentieth Century can be "all about" tonality, if you want to hear it that way. Music theory, the theory of how chords move, how 'key areas' are related, how to move through different key areas: all of these things are a part of the "new" music theory, and it is all a part of the present age of music. Tonality is not dead yet, and even without it, music can still be consonant and beautiful, if we want it. The possibilities are endless. We have entered an "enormous room" in which many wonderful things are happening.
And then there are always birds chirping, and the sounds of traffic, dogs barking in the distance, sirens, the wind blowing...


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