# Which composer has had the greatest impact on modern music?



## Argus (Oct 16, 2009)

Who would you say has exerted the most influence upon music written today?

And the follow up question is what would modern music sound like if your choice had never composed any music?

If you think someone who didn't write any music has had a greater influence than any sole composer/musician, then add their names as well.

I've got a few in mind but I want to see what the first replies are before naming them.:tiphat:


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## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)

Do you mean literal "today"? If so, my answer could be Satie. 

He started the minimalist thing with all it's ideology (ideologies rather, as there are many) and most of young composers that I know (at age 20+) compose under the influence of minimalism and influence of this style is easy to see in music of almost all mature composers of our times. 

I assume that it will take at least one more generation to finally finish with this wretched movement. 

Another answer could be John Cage, but it's diffrent kind of influence. Apart from music, he had huge impact on people's awareness of what can be considered music, I belive that he is the cause for which we have so much works that are more about idea than the music itself. 

There are also many reason for which Stravinsky could be the man. 

Or the sonorists with Penderecki on the foreground. 

I can't tell, I'm just a rabbit :tiphat:


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## Guest (Sep 2, 2010)

I would give my vote to Jean Sibelius. I think that, more than any other early modern composer, Sibelius revolutionized the symphony and kept it viable. A huge number of 20th century composers are or were influenced greatly by Sibelius' example (Rautavaara especially, being the best example of a living symphonist and a superb one at that). 

If Sibelius had never composed, I fear the symphony may have either died or become a lost relic.


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## Argus (Oct 16, 2009)

Yeah, I meant modern as in 2010, or whenever the present is at the time of reading this thread.

Satie and Cage were amongst the few I had in mind.



Aramis said:


> I assume that it will take at least one more generation to finally finish with this wretched movement.


Minimalism was a justified reaction to the predominance of serial and atonal entrenchment in Europe, although early on it retained much of the experimentalist mindset. Personally, I dig the more out-there West Coast minimalism but the rigid, structuralised sounds of Reich and Glass I enjoy too.


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## Argus (Oct 16, 2009)

Jeff N said:


> I would give my vote to Jean Sibelius. I think that, more than any other early modern composer, Sibelius revolutionized the symphony and kept it viable. A huge number of 20th century composers are or were influenced greatly by Sibelius' example (Rautavaara especially, being the best example of a living symphonist and a superb one at that).
> 
> If Sibelius had never composed, I fear the symphony may have either died or become a lost relic.


I like Sibelius but I really can't hear an awful lot of his influence in modern music, compared to composers active at the same time as him. I see him as an outsider continuing doing his own thing whilst the global music scene changed around him.

Morton Feldman might agree with you however:



Wikipedia said:


> In 1984, American avant-garde composer Morton Feldman gave a lecture in Darmstadt, Germany, wherein he stated that "the people you think are radicals might really be conservatives - the people you think are conservatives might really be radical," whereupon he began to hum Sibelius' Fifth Symphony


On the other hand, both Leibowitz and Adorno claimed Sibelius was the worst composer in the world.:trp:

Wouldn't Shostakovich have carried on with his symphonies even if there was no Sibelius? Does modern music even need the symphonic form?


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## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)

> (Rautavaara especially, being the best example of a living symphonist and a superb one at that).


If Rautavaara is influenced by Sibelius then I assume that he took from him every little trace of kitsch and builed his music on it.

Sibelius is like Brahms, his music was fruitless, it's value (great value, of course) ends upon itself and does not influence modern music, perhaps it inspire some, but influence? No.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

Maybe you guys aren't going deep enough. I think it was J.S.Bach. The influence is accumulative.


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## emiellucifuge (May 26, 2009)

How about Schoenberg?


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## Nix (Feb 20, 2010)

I second Bach. His music will always have the greatest impact because almost every composer after him has used him as a model.


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## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)

> How about Schoenberg?


Didn't his influence end a long time ago? How many active composers are out there to compose in his system? Schoenberg is surely one of those that prepared ground for modern music, but real influence of his ideas is already dead, at least in my view.



> I second Bach. His music will always have the greatest impact because almost every composer after him has used him as a model.


Yeah, all those extra-polyphonic fugues written in last decades, how could we forget them!


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## Argus (Oct 16, 2009)

Aramis said:


> Didn't his influence end a long time ago? How many active composers are out there to compose in his system? Schoenberg is surely one of those that prepared ground for modern music, but real influence of his ideas is already dead, at least in my view.


True, his influence has become submerged, but imagine if Schoenberg hadn't wrote any music or invented his systems of organising sounds. Would modern music have moved in the same direction and arrived at the point we are at today? I'm sure plenty here would rather Schoenberg had never wrote any music, but surely it's easy to see he was the genesis of what was to come later in the century. I'd say he's up there with the Stravinsky in that respect.



> Maybe you guys aren't going deep enough. I think it was J.S.Bach. The influence is accumulative.


Didn't Bach go largely without fanfare until Mendelssohn revived interest in him by performing his St Matthews Passion in the 1830's?. His son, C.P.E, might be more important by moving away from Baroque counterpoint into Rococo and towards Classical.

For an earlier composer Monteverdi would be my choice. However, the further the composer was in time from the present day, the harder it is to guage their impact.:tiphat:


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## Guest (Sep 2, 2010)

Aramis said:


> Sibelius is like Brahms, his music was fruitless, it's value (great value, of course) ends upon itself and does not influence modern music, perhaps it inspire some, but influence? No.


What about Schoenberg? I believe Schoenberg was very influenced by Brahms. As were the other members of the Second Viennese School (Webern's op. 1 is a homage to the finale of Brahms' 4th Symphony).

But my point about Sibelius was that, more than any other composer of his generation, he kept the symphony alive. I mean, composers still write symphonies today (I cited Rautavaara as an obvious example because he studied with Sibelius).



Argus said:


> Wouldn't Shostakovich have carried on with his symphonies even if there was no Sibelius? Does modern music even need the symphonic form?


Eh, it's tough to say. I think Sibelius' symphonic innovations (particularly with form) had a bigger impact than Shosty's symphonies. And Jean came before Dmitri, so maybe that's why critics weren't so warm to him, because he was changing things before it was fashionable? Who knows.


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## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)

> What about Schoenberg? I believe Schoenberg was very influenced by Brahms. As were the other members of the Second Viennese School (Webern's op. 1 is a homage to the finale of Brahms' 4th Symphony).


I know only that Schoenberg admired Brahms, but that's all, can you point some aspect of his music that would prove influence of Brahms composintions?



> But my point about Sibelius was that, more than any other composer of his generation, he kept the symphony alive. I mean, composers still write symphonies today (I cited Rautavaara as an obvious example because he studied with Sibelius).


I doubt if Sibelius somehow saved the genre. Year after his last symphony Shostakovich finished his No. 1 which is hardly influenced by Sibelius. Year before Sibelius last symphony von Zemlinsky premiered his famous Lyric Symphony. I can't see how without Sibelius symphony form would lost it's everlasting popularity.


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## emiellucifuge (May 26, 2009)

Yes it is true there are not many composers writing in a serial style nowadays.

but, dont be so quick to rule out his general contribution to the development of harmonic practise. I do not attribute the breakaway from tonality as a single event, nor do I attribute it to Schoenberg - however I still believe he personally had the greatest possible influence on composers today by making the final leap of faith into the chaos of atonality.

Also, dont forget his work in expressionism - a philosophy that still has strong currents running through much music.


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## emiellucifuge (May 26, 2009)

@ Aramis,

According to Elliot Carter, Schoenberg took influence from Brahms in his linear treatment of material. That every part of the piece is impregnated with the original idea of the piece. 

From wikipedia:
"The only motivic elements that persist throughout the work are those that are perpetually dissolved, varied, and re-combined, in a technique, identified primarily in Brahms's music, that Schoenberg called "developing variation". Schoenberg's procedures in the work are organized in two ways simultaneously; at once suggesting a Wagnerian narrative of motivic ideas, as well as a Brahmsian approach to motivic development and tonal cohesion."


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## Guest (Sep 2, 2010)

Aramis said:


> I know only that Schoenberg admired Brahms, but that's all, can you point some aspect of his music that would prove influence of Brahms composintions?


Ever hear of "developing variation?" Schoenberg attributed it to Brahms and used it frequently, especially in Transfigured Night. There are other things too, but if you read some of Arnold's books you'll get a greater sense of the impact Brahms had on him. (Also, Schoenberg liked Brahms' first piano quartet so much he even orchestrated it).

EDIT: emiellucifuge beat me to it.



Aramis said:


> I doubt if Sibelius somehow saved the genre. Year after his last symphony Shostakovich finished his No. 1 which is hardly influenced by Sibelius. Year before Sibelius last symphony von Zemlinsky premiered his famous Lyric Symphony. I can't see how without Sibelius symphony form would lost it's everlasting popularity.


Hey, it's only my opinion. People are still divided on whether Shostakovich was a revolutionary or not, and I say that he wasn't as much of one as Sibelius. Sibelius wrote his last symphony in a single movement (I believe the first ever?) before Shosty even wrote his first, as you pointed out. Sibelius even wrote his seventh in the key of C, which was considered fruitless (although Vaughan Williams was a huge fan). And Zemlinsky has not had nearly the long lasting impact as Sibelius.


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

I think you may all be wrong. I think it's Miles Davis. Also other "non-art" musicians.


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## ScipioAfricanus (Jan 7, 2010)

Wagner, Wagner, Wagner.


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## djmomo17 (Aug 12, 2010)

I second Wagner. I think modern music is either an extension or a reaction against Wagner. The most prevalent orchestral music today is film music, the most well known tune Star Wars - which is derived from Wagner (and Holst). On the other hand you have people like Jerry Goldsmith and Bernard Herrmann. They sound like Debussy and the impressionists (reaction against Wagner). There's a little bit of avant-garde there too but it's only for horror movies. As far as modern composers in the classical realm, John Adams and Philip Glass are the only _really_ successful composers. I guess you mostly hear their music in car commercials and documentaries? 

Here's the most popular composers today:
http://instantencore.blogspot.com/2010/01/instantencores-top-100-composers-of.html

Actually Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails probably has the greatest direct impact on modern music in the largest sense. What is modern music even?


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Cage, Varese, Xenakis, Stockhausen, Boulez (hard to name just one) - especially their electronic & electro-acoustic music, were highly influential, at least in the decades immediately after WW2. Of course, this has spilled over into the more popular forms of music - like films scores and techno. The concept of sampling things electronically and building things up layer by layer (which also happens in rap and hip hop) originated in those heady days after the war, when the technologies to do this became available...


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## Toccata (Jun 13, 2009)

Is "influence" any easier to measure than "greatness", in the context of classical music composers? 

I doubt it, but some of the people who are running around offering their favoured man as the top influencer are the same people who sneer at the concept of greatness as a meaningful concept. These people probably know I'm mainly getting at, especially someone who has actually gone out on a limb in the past to rubbish the concept of greatness.

Even if "influence" was a measurable concept, or one which could be quantified subject to a margin of error by some estimation technique, it is surely most likely that the most common style of classical music being composed today would be traceable to very many past composers, not just one or two or even three. In other words, it must be extremely unlikely that the absence of any one famous historical individual - whether J S Bach, Wagner, or even Satie (God forbid) or whoever else - would make the slightest difference to the way classical music is actually composed today.

For this reason I believe that the whole concept underpinning the OP is badly flawed, and all discussion arising from it is untestable and therefore pointless speculation.


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

The point of speculation is to enjoy it, not necessarily to test or prove anything.


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## Falstaft (Mar 27, 2010)

Opal said:


> Even if "influence" was a measurable concept, or one which could be quantified subject to a margin of error by some estimation technique, it is surely most likely that the most common style of classical music being composed today would be traceable to very many past composers, not just one or two or even three. In other words, it must be extremely unlikely that the absence of any one famous historical individual - whether J S Bach, Wagner, or even Satie (God forbid) or whoever else - would make the slightest difference to the way classical music is actually composed today.
> 
> For this reason I believe that the whole concept underpinning the OP is badly flawed, and all discussion arising from it is untestable and therefore pointless speculation.


Quite the hardline positivist! I wasn't aware that our informal forums needed to be limited to empirically quantifiable results based on objective, testable criteria! ::rushes to complete his degree in music informatics:: 

Seriously though, I think I agree with some of the implications of what you're saying in general Opal -- namely that the broad arc of music history is guided by accumulative trends (and extramusical factors, too) more than the contributions of any single individual, and influence certainly != aesthetic value. But I don't see why that should stop us from discussing those particular individuals whom we speculate had a proportionally great influence on the shape of modern music. Surely our musical landscape would look different today had the various figures mentioned in this thread never been born. I am willing to grant that some musical developments would have probably happened anyway. I'd wager atonality, of *some* sort at least, was bound to happen because of the great stresses 19th century composers placed on the major/minor system, and indeed it did happen multiple times (Ives, Schoenberg, Stravinsky, heck you can drag in poor Liszt if you really want). Style is the product of one's times, no one would dispute that except someone who unrepentently believes in sui generis genius or inspiration. But as for specific tendencies that then take firm root (and I would certainly count the quite unintuitive advent of 12-tone serialism here) we may often find it is individuals who were responsible for their origins. Especially with modernism, where rapid individual innovation was such a requisite, many musical tendencies (regardless of how they take off) are the result of some single composer testing out some new idea of their own.

So, most people would agree that Schoenberg had a greater hand to play in the explosion of twelve-tone music than poor Hauer. Or Debussy and Ravel on the importation of impressionist harmonies in modern jazz than Griffes or Mompou. Like a lot of the arts, music is subject to the kind of network effect of snowballing influence that happens when one composer (for better or worse) gets their foot in the door of broad awareness in compositional communities.


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## Toccata (Jun 13, 2009)

Falstaft said:


> Seriously though, I think I agree with some of the implications of what you're saying in general Opal -- namely that the broad arc of music history is guided by accumulative trends (and extramusical factors, too) more than the contributions of any single individual, and influence certainly != aesthetic value. But I don't see why that should stop us from discussing those particular individuals whom we speculate had a proportionally great influence on the shape of modern music.


What I was reacting to in the OP was firstly the notion that one specific historical composer stands out as the clearly most dominant influencer of contemporary classical music, and secondly the notion that if this individual hadn't composed anything then music written today would sound materially different from the way it does.

I don't believe any single historical composer stands out clearly above all others in terms of influencing the general shape of music written today. Nor do I believe that that even a duo or threesome of composers can lay claim to this achievement. By "music written today" I mean classical music of all persuasions (naturally weighted according to its popularity), not any single sub-class of the total new supply. I find it equally unlikely that if any nominated historical composer had not composed anything at all that there would be a discernible difference in the way music written today sounds.

Take a few examples. Someone suggested J S Bach as the most influential composer. If Bach hadn't composed anything there would still be a very rich legacy of Baroque music of almost equal (some would say superior) quality from various others including most notably Handel. I'm definitely not suggesting that Baroque music in its entirety would sound much the same regardless of whether Bach had lived, only that the essential baroque influence (after a lapse of two and a half centuries) on contemporary music is independent of particular composers from that period, since there were very good substitutes at the time.

Wagner. Yes of course he was probably the 19th C man who took the boldest strides to develop a new style of music, and many leading composers followed his lead and was much admired (for his music, that is), but all the same it is very difficult to argue that without his major contribution music today would be very different. I don't believe, some 127 years after the death of Wagner, that music today has any noticeable similarity. For example, while Wagner influenced opera very significantly, that's all largely in the past. And surely there was already sufficient momentum behind the eventual disintegration of tonality as not to rely on the Tristan chord as its sole cause, without which it would never have happened in due course.

It's the same story for anyone who may be selected as the candidate for the most important influencer. Their individual efforts get subsumed into a rolling mass that becomes ever bigger over time, and you soon finish up with an amorphous splodge of historical influence. Besides all this, it doesn't pay to over-emphasise the alleged influence of specific historical predecessors on the output of current composers since that might tend to reduce the value of their own achievements in suggesting that it is not autonomous but conditioned mainly by that of past masters.


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

Totally agree with Falstaft. Of course, every composer does not invent his musical language from scratch - likewise he/she is not totally determined by the musical conventions or forms of the past (or the present) either. In this respect, music can be seen as a language system in continous development, but with endless possibilities of variation and innovation. The extreme diversity of 19th - 20th century music (leaving any concept of "classical music in general terms" eroded and probably mainly relevant as regards its mainstream institutions and performance traditions, or a simple definition by chronological means, rather than for an alleged unified musical language in itself) is a proof of the possibility of individual ideas spreading to other composers, twisting and varying inherited forms. Countless tutor-pupil-relations, the emergence, development and meandering of various national and regional schools and traits, international cross-border tendencies etc. also testify the possibility of the single composer to play an individual and influential role. But it also means that few composers can be said to influence in the very broadest sense or scale. 

Wagner initiated an international avalance of epigones who gradually became more independent (to a varying degree) later in their career, and he likewise had a huge influence in the other arts, inspiring poetry and painting. Stravinsky, The Neue Wiener Schule, Les Six and the Impressionists (sic) also had international influence. However the power of composers can grow and diminish with time - sometimes with occasional revivals. At the highlight of post-WWII Modernism, Webern was recognized by Boulez as one of the most influential composers of the past and (as far as I remember) the most important member of the Neue Wiener Schule. Whereas nowadays Berg seems to be gaining territory, and is becoming more and more recognized for his stylistic variety and his humanism, as a prophet - or initiator - of later tendencies. 

Scelsi experienced a revival in his later years and a lot of interest from other composers, but perhaps it was only short-lived. In the USSR, Shostakovich has been completely dominating until at least 1990, resulting in many epigones (Boiko, Peiko, Ovchinnikov, Parsadanian and many more) and he was a strong inspiration even for alternative minds such as Schnittke, Tischenko, and Slonimsky - but gradually less important for composers like Gubaidulina, Denisov, Smirnov or Artyomov. However I find it difficult to think that he has had any influence outside the former Eastern Block and Finland; perhaps his fate was so much winded up and emblematic with the strictly totalitarian regime that his influence is diminishing. In general terms, he contributed to revitalize and popularize the "old" forms of symphony, quartet and sonata again, though - also for Western audiences. 

Influence, I suppose, has usually mostly been regional or national, unless something really "important" is going on.


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## Boccherini (Mar 29, 2010)

Andre said:


> *Cage, Varese, Xenakis, Stockhausen, Boulez *(hard to name just one) - especially their electronic & electro-acoustic music, were highly influential, at least in the decades immediately after WW2. Of course, this has spilled over into the more popular forms of music - like *films scores and techno*. *The concept of sampling things electronically* and building things up layer by layer (*which also happens in rap and hip hop*) originated in those heady days after the war, when the technologies to do this became available...


If what you're saying is truthful, curse the ones you've mentioned.


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## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

Funny thread. All the usual great composers have contributed to music and its development in just the same way as any other school of thought in the sciences, where by each generation built up from the previous' development.

Some of you mentioned J. S. Bach. Let's take the instrumental concerto genre. He definitely preferred the Vivaldian three movement format instead of the Corellian multi-movement concerto grosso. But so what? Bach was largely forgotten after he died. To single out one composer is to elevate his contribution above all others; misleadingly so, as if all of his contemporaries mattered not, at least that could be the way many classical newbies would interpret. If Bach never wrote his harpsichord concertos, I think Mozart would have written all of his piano concertos anyway. But if Bach, Mozart and Beethoven never wrote any of their harpsichord/piano concertos, then things could be a little more different.

This is like one of those "greatest of all / this and that" threads. We just love to neatly categorise a composer into nice little slots, especially if one is fond of his music.

I think the greatest influence of modern music of all and for all eternity is Stockhausen. Nothing beats his music. :tiphat:


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## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)

> developing variation thing


Okay, I can't deny it :tiphat:

-------

As for Wagner, that could be right, but the example of movie music and other stuff is rather silly.

But perhaps the greatest influence did not come from composer that had many followers, but from one that was the most controversial ie. evoked many musical responses. Since post-Wagnerian era there was long process of offloading music, at the turn of XIXth and XXth century, when German music was filled with Mahlers, Strausses and young Second Viennese School many composers started to make the charge of sound lower and lower, way from impressionism to Orff's primitiveness and minimalism could be effect of reaction to overloaded German music.

So it is possible that all those music representing today opposite of Wagnerian ideas and his followers is influenced more by Wagner than by any other composer from anti-Wagnerian lineage.


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## emiellucifuge (May 26, 2009)

djmomo17 said:


> I second Wagner. I think modern music is either an extension or a reaction against Wagner. The most prevalent orchestral music today is film music, the most well known tune Star Wars - which is derived from Wagner (and Holst). On the other hand you have people like Jerry Goldsmith and Bernard Herrmann. They sound like Debussy and the impressionists (reaction against Wagner). There's a little bit of avant-garde there too but it's only for horror movies. As far as modern composers in the classical realm, John Adams and Philip Glass are the only _really_ successful composers. I guess you mostly hear their music in car commercials and documentaries?
> 
> Here's the most popular composers today:
> http://instantencore.blogspot.com/2010/01/instantencores-top-100-composers-of.html


I may agree with you about Wagner, but I think you've given all the wrong reasons. Let's face it - apart from superficial aesthetics, film music has contributed barely nothing to music.

Also, as evidenced by the list in that link, John Adams and Phillip Glass are hardly the only successful modern composers. People such as Bernstein, Carter, perhaps Messiaen all appeared before the two you mentioned.


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## Argus (Oct 16, 2009)

djmomo17 said:


> What is modern music even?


That is a very salient question. That is where I thought the discussion might gravitate towards. 'Modern music' in my mind, is any music being composed in the present. The problem with that definition is that there are plenty of people composing in old styles that cannot in any way be described as modern. So both time and style are key factors, but seeing as there is no clear definition, just use your own idea of what 'modern music' implies. It doesn't help for clarification that eclecticism and fusion are strong traits nowadays

To the people who are complaining about the flaws of the questions in the OP, I'll just say this: It's all just opinion and speculation. Hopefully there is some disagreement, as this will engender discussion. As Weston said.



Weston said:


> The point of speculation is to enjoy it, not necessarily to test or prove anything.





> I think you may all be wrong. I think it's Miles Davis. Also other "non-art" musicians.


The man behind your avatar, Robert Moog, can have a claim as being one of the greatest non-musician influences on modern music. Synthesizers and electronics dominate modern pop music and play a huge role in most other genres. Naturally, William Shockley, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain, also played their part by inventing the transistor, which made the leaps in computing technology possible.

Les Paul and Leo Fender too are important. One *practically* inventing and the other popularising and making affordable the most popular instrument of our times.

Scott Joplin is another name that springs to mind. By massively popularising ragtime, he paved the way for jazz, rhythm and blues, rock and roll and who knows what else.


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## Argus (Oct 16, 2009)

emiellucifuge said:


> Also, as evidenced by the list in that link, John Adams and Phillip Glass are hardly the only successful modern composers. People such as Bernstein, Carter, perhaps Messiaen all appeared before the two you mentioned.


Messiaen and Bernstein are dead, and Carter is 102. How can they be classed as modern composer. They may have influenced modern composers, but modern they are not.

Aramis, that Wagner point is good, though. Along with the direct influence of Wagner on Strauss or Mahler etc, the reaction against his style of music after the war, when it came to symbolise Fascism at its worst, is also an indirect reactionary influence that is just as valid.

Philip Glass' music is very influential and there are numerous times when I'll be watching film or a TV show and either think it's composed by Glass or is a blatant rip-off. But Glass was massively under the influence of Reich in his early composing years. That's why Satie is seen as a good starting point where minimalism grew from. Something like his Vexations is like extreme minimalism before the term was coined. There will be instances of minimalist tendencies before Satie but he really cemented the notion that it is a viable method.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Debussy. He was not the first to do certain things with harmony (liszt for example has predated his experiments, and there's also Scriabin) but i think his influence was huge on many composers (Ravel, Delius, Messiaen, Charles Ives, Szymanowski, Dane Rudhyar, Griffes, Alec Wilder, Mompou, Manuel de Falla, Lili Boulanger, Charles Koechlin, Dutilleux, Cyrill Scott, Henri Tomasi, Toru Takemitsu, Sorabji and many others. 
His influence on all the history of jazz is just incredible from Billy Strayhorn and Ellington, Mary Lou Williams, Art tatum, Bix Beiderbecke, etc to Bill Evans, Gil Evans, Coltrane and McCoy Tyner, Horace Silver, Miles Davis, Teddy Charles, Mingus, Herbie Hancock, Marian Mcpartland, Oscar Peterson, Rob McConnell, Lenny Breau, Wayne Shorter, Clare Fischer, George Russell, and many, MANY others. There are traces of his influence also in pop music i think.

Then Schoenberg, probably. And Stravinsky.


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## emiellucifuge (May 26, 2009)

Right then, Argus, forget those three, but the list also includes composers such as Higdon, Golijov, Part, Takemitsu and others above Phillip Glass.


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

Thanks for the link to the InstantEncore-database, didn´t know it. Interesting and illuminating reading. But I´d like to suggest that in spite of its claims it probably leans a bit towards the musical life of the US (including more "local" concerts there), perhaps also Britain with "a bit of" France and Germany. Hence the rocketed placement of Copland as no.24 on an international scale. If you take a cross-over view of all the classical concerts in 2010 in, say Russia, Germany, Scandinavia or the like, and include small and local events there, I think the picture would be very different, not at least on a local, national scale. Also, of course, the placing of a composer on concert programmes does not necessarily reflect the amount of interest other composers are showing in him.


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## djmomo17 (Aug 12, 2010)

joen_cph said:


> Thanks for the link to the InstantEncore-database, didn´t know it. Interesting and illuminating reading. But I´d like to suggest that in spite of its claims it probably leans a bit towards the musical life of the US (including more "local" concerts there), perhaps also Britain with "a bit of" France and Germany. Hence the rocketed placement of Copland as no.24 on an international scale. If you take a cross-over view of all the classical concerts in 2010 in, say Russia, Germany, Scandinavia or the like, and include small and local events there, I think the picture would be very different, not at least on a local, national scale. Also, of course, the placing of a composer on concert programmes does not necessarily reflect the amount of interest other composers are showing in him.


Good question about the Instant Encore survey. I wondered about that too (how English-centric the listings are). Nonetheless I searched through their database and they list concerts in Beijing so I assume it does have some degree of internationality (?), tho probably not as much as its Englishinicity. (I have a head cold so I'm semi-W. Burroughs-ing here...)


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## bassClef (Oct 29, 2006)

Don't forget Carl Orff. His Carmina Burana (O Fortuna) seems to be used everywhere, either directly or has influenced music in the same style in films, adverts, tv clips, games, etc. And his huge body of work "Schulwerk", his musical education programme for children, must have had quite an influentual legacy, at least in Germany where it was used quite heavily before and after WWII.


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## Guest (Sep 3, 2010)

Let's also not forget where Orff got all his best ideas from.

...

...

...

Oh dear. We _have_ forgotten, haven't we?


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## Argus (Oct 16, 2009)

emiellucifuge said:


> Right then, Argus, forget those three, but the list also includes composers such as Higdon, Golijov, Part, Takemitsu and others above Phillip Glass.


Takemitsu is 15 years in the ground and Part developed his style in the 70's, but I'll concede that Higdon and Golijov can be described as modern, although their music does have strong ties to the past (tonality and neo-Romantic elements).

Like joen_cph said, maybe their respective legacy is greater in their spheres of influence (Takemitsu in the Far East and Part in the former-Bloc countries, etc). In Part I hear a reconciliation of the minimalist movement coming from America with the deep tradition of European religious music, whilst creating something pretty fresh. Takemitsu wears his impressionist influences for all to see.

Some other important figures are probably the person who first found a way of notating sounds into visual form, and also the first person to separate the octave into 12 semitones using a cycle of fifths (Pythagoras?).

Whilst other forms of notation and divisions of the octave exist, 12 TET written in standard notation is still by far the most common and has been for many centuries.



some_guy said:


> Let's also not forget where Orff got all his best ideas from.
> 
> Oh dear. We have forgotten, haven't we?


A few have already been mentioned in this thread.:tiphat:


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## bassClef (Oct 29, 2006)

some guy said:


> Let's also not forget where Orff got all his best ideas from.
> 
> ...
> 
> ...


ALL his best ideas? Have you only heard O Fortuna?


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## JAKE WYB (May 28, 2009)

For film music - Wagner

for concert hall (original) music - *SIBELIUS*

every other contemporary composer seems to personally cite sibelius as the major influence behind the formal genesis of their music wether it be a symphony or not. Though sibelius rejuvinated geniune symphonic form more than any other composer since beethoven, his way of symphonic thinking (eg tapiola) goes beyond into all forms of music - and has informed the underlaying structural thinking behind modern music as much as figures like schoenberg maybe more. Certainly british and american composers owe more to sibelius than schoenberg, bach, beethoven, debussy wagner.


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## Guest (Sep 5, 2010)

JAKE WYB said:


> for concert hall (original) music - SIBELIUS
> 
> every other contemporary composer seems to personally cite sibelius as the major influence behind the formal genesis of their music wether it be a symphony or not. Though sibelius rejuvinated geniune symphonic form more than any other composer since beethoven, his way of symphonic thinking (eg tapiola) goes beyond into all forms of music - and has informed the underlaying structural thinking behind modern music as much as figures like schoenberg maybe more. Certainly british and american composers owe more to sibelius than schoenberg, bach, beethoven, debussy wagner.


Thank you! I knew I wasn't the only one.


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

I'll concede that Higdon and Golijov can be described as modern, although their music does have strong ties to the past (tonality and neo-Romantic elements).

Of course what composer doesn't have ties to the past outside of one who embraces experimentation for the sake of experimentation? Is it also not quite possible that atonality/tonality is a dead issue and will become increasingly irrelevant to contemporary and future composers? Hanging on to the notion that atonality=modern and tonality=dated Romanticism is as ridiculous as the notion that abstraction=modern and figuration=dated 19th century academia in painting.


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

Personally, I think the original question is impossible to answer. If it were 1910 we might say Wagner with some degree of certainty citing his influence upon Debussy, Delius, Mahler, Bruckner, Richard Strauss, Rachmaninoff, and a whole host of others. If it were 1950 I might go with Schoenberg simply as a result of the influence of his developments in atonality upon a whole slew of leading composers. Today? There seems to be such a broad array of musical styles or directions that it is impossible to cite a single (or even a couple) leading influence(s). Claims for Sibelius... as much as I like him... seem grossly inflated and rest upon the efforts of later symphonists such as Hovhaness, Rautavaraa, Per Nørgård, etc... This presumes, however, that the symphony remains a central issue in contemporary music... which I much doubt. Looking at Takemitsu, Daniel Catan, Tristan Murail, Gérard Grisey, and Julian Anderson I might be tempted to suggest Debussy... but then he surely has little impact upon Reich, Glass, Adams, Golijov, Crumb, Carter, Saariaho, Taverner, McMillian, Dusapin, Rorem, Tarik O'Regan, Bolcolm, Schwantner, Arvo Pärt, Erkki-Sven Tüür, etc... If I had to cite a single largest influence I would say it was the accessibility and exposure to music outside of the tradition of classical music from the Baroque through Post-Romanticism and Modernism. Jazz, the Blues, Middle-Eastern, Asian, and Medieval musical traditions have all come into play. Julian Anderson, Jonathan Harvey, Giacinto Scelsi, Arvo Pärt John Taverner, Saariaho, the minimalists, John Cage, etc... are all clearly indebted to the droning sounds of medieval music and non-Western traditions. Bolcolm, Schwantner, Philip Glass, Osvaldo Golijov, John Zorn, and others have drawn inspiration from pop and rock, jazz, and even klezmer. Again... I can't see a single greatest influential composer... unless I reiterate the suggestion of Bach... for clearly Bach is God.


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

every other contemporary composer seems to personally cite sibelius as the major influence behind the formal genesis of their music wether it be a symphony or not. 

Who?


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## Argus (Oct 16, 2009)

StlukesguildOhio said:


> Of course what composer doesn't have ties to the past outside of one who embraces experimentation for the sake of experimentation? Is it also not quite possible that atonality/tonality is a dead issue and will become increasingly irrelevant to contemporary and future composers? Hanging on to the notion that atonality=modern and tonality=dated Romanticism is as ridiculous as the notion that abstraction=modern and figuration=dated 19th century academia in painting.




I never said tonality/atonality was the deciding factor in whether a piece of music is modern or not. Glass and Reich were modern in the 70's even though they were far more tonal than the previous avant-garde/experimentalists of the 50's and 60's. Similarly, the Beatles sounded modern when they released stuff like Rubber Soul and Revolver at a time when guys like Stockhausen were at the height of their influence. Miles Davis' fusion era albums sounded more modern than Ornette Coleman at the same time, even though Davis utilised more harmonic structure (or structure in general).:trp:

There are different components of music. Harmony is just one of them. Using new timbres is another way of making modern sounding music. Wendy Carlos' Switched on Bach sounded modern in the 60's even though it was almost exactly the same music that was written 250 years prior, simply by utilising modern instruments.

By tonality I was meaning specifically diatonicism, as there are and will be constantly changing structures around a single tone than the old major/minor system.

From what I've heard Golijov and Higdon's music could have been written decades ago. It uses more traditional qualities than merely the harmonic structure. The format, the instrumentation and overall the content doesn't strike me as being particularly fresh. Whereas say Tetrault or Jeck or one those other musicians some_guy really likes, sound newer and different.


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## djmomo17 (Aug 12, 2010)

I still don't understand the exact nature of what the question is. Music written today? Tetrault or Jeck or Runzelstern and Gurglestock etc sound new and different but less than 100 people probably write in that method. Maybe if a list of "modern composers" were listed, then we could choose a single composer who influenced them the most. I do like this topic tho.


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

From what I've heard Golijov and Higdon's music could have been written decades ago.

I'll agree with you with regard to Higdon... not so much Golijov. But then he's all over the place.


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## Webernite (Sep 4, 2010)

I'm going to go for Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Wagner, Bach and Brahms. Schoenberg because he made it acceptable to write music that is not conventionally "pleasing" to listen to. Stravinsky because he created an interest in new aspects of music, particularly the use of complex rhythms. Wagner because of his contribution to the break up of tonality. Bach and Brahms (and Schoenberg again) because of their commitment to complexity, depth, detail and very careful planning in everthing they composed.


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## toucan (Sep 27, 2010)

The most influential composer of modern times is Richard Wagner, more spcifically, the Tristan Prelude, the dissolution of tonality that begins there.

From Wagner, two great streams derive: The Bruckner, Mahler, Schoenberg lineage (and all that follows from Schoenberg: Webern + Boulez avant-guarde). And the Rimsky-Korsakov/Debussy lineage (and all that derives from Debussy: Stravinsky, Scriabin, Bartok, Szymanowsky, Varese, Messiaen, Dutilleux, Lutoslawski et alii)

Of course, it is possible that composers like Sibelius or Shostakovich are better liked than, and more often heard than, Debussy and Schoenberg and all the great and innovative composers that derive from them. But from the standpoint of the history of music that counts for no more than the gregorian chant that was still performed and composed in the eras of Monteverdi, of Bach, of Mozart, or of Liszt.


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## JMJ (Jul 9, 2010)

in terms of expanding & opening doors so convincingly in music of the highest order/level... the harmonic vocabulary ... the 2nd Viennese School, especially Webern .. for rhythm Stravinsky - Bartok opened pathways monumentally ... for the 2nd half ... visionary-composer Stockhausen for his pioneering work in the field of electronic music (a new 20th century medium) which set the stage not just for computerised art music but also for the sampling techniques central to much of today's pop, rock, hip-hop & electronica ... and no other composer explored spatialization so throughly and with the monumental _Gesang der Jünglinge_ ...the first-ever electronic composition to use surround-sound.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

This thread needs a counterpoint. The _*least*_ influential major composer must be Bartók. The modern music schools that formed or reformed after WW2 rejected his music completely, for a variety of reasons I won't go into. You can Google on "Adorno Bartók" for a typical opinion in the West.


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## Very Senior Member (Jul 16, 2009)

Hilltroll72 said:


> This thread needs a counterpoint. The _*least*_ influential major composer must be Bartók. The modern music schools that formed or reformed after WW2 rejected his music completely, for a variety of reasons I won't go into. You can Google on "Adorno Bartók" for a typical opinion in the West.


Why does it need a counterpoint? If it does, surely the least influential composer would be some twit no-one has ever heard of, except possibly the guy's mother?


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

Very Senior Member said:


> Why does it need a counterpoint? If it does, surely the least influential composer would be some twit no-one has ever heard of, except possibly the guy's mother?


1) For the same reason that Bach needed counterpoint.

2) True, and irrelevant. The subject is _major_ composers.

:tiphat:


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## AlphabetG (Oct 4, 2010)

Schoenberg certainly shattered the dogmas of tonal thinking, and Stravinsky too in his own right. Beethoven was competent enough in his limited scope, but I'd love the opportunity to correct his often clumsy symphonic work, and I certainly have a superior knowledge of orchestration, informed by a more modern perspective.

Well, they say it's lonely at the top. It's been a long and arduous road, gaining a complete mastery over the art of composition, and at the end of that journey, one finds that in Mozart, Beethoven, and the rest of the "greats", there are fewer and fewer, if any, things to be learned.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

AlphabetG said:


> Schoenberg certainly shattered the dogmas of tonal thinking, and Stravinsky too in his own right. Beethoven was competent enough in his limited scope, but I'd love the opportunity to correct his often clumsy symphonic work, and I certainly have a superior knowledge of orchestration, informed by a more modern perspective.
> 
> Well, they say it's lonely at the top. It's been a long and arduous road, gaining a complete mastery over the art of composition, and at the end of that journey, one finds that in Mozart, Beethoven, and the rest of the "greats", there are fewer and fewer, if any, things to be learned.


:trp: :lol: Excellent parody, AlphabetG. As good as the best of Monty Python!


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## Air (Jul 19, 2008)

Well, Debussy, Wagner, Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Bach - can't leave out ol' Bach though his influence is certainly harder to measure, especially compared to the others mentioned.

... and Edgard Varèse, anyone?


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## Falstaft (Mar 27, 2010)

AlphabetG said:


> Beethoven was competent enough in his limited scope, but I'd love the opportunity to correct his often clumsy symphonic work, and I certainly have a superior knowledge of orchestration, informed by a more modern perspective.


First impression: Yikes!! Brilliant parody, or weird overconfidence!

Second impression: What would it mean to enhance Beethoven's orchestral works with today's modern perspective on the craft of orchestration? Mahler did something similar though I'm not sure those "amended" versions are played often today.

I trust you don't mean filling it with artificial harmonic glissandi or flutter tounging trombone clusters. Though I have always wondered what the allegretto from the 8th would sound like played by a prepared piano in drop-2 voicing and doubled by flute multiphonics! 

In all seriousness, I am curious if you are coming at this from the perspective of a performer? An orchestrator? Composer?


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## Ian Elliott (Nov 15, 2010)

Claude Debussy for harmony. Igor Stravinsky for rhythm. Erik Satie for minimalism. Without them, I think D'Indy and Max Reger might have had more impact.


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