# Musical fads among groups of composers



## violadude (May 2, 2011)

What are some "fads" you can think of that certain group of composers all did?

I bring this topic up because I think it is incredibly fascinating how certain stylistic details stick in some areas among certain composers and don't in others. 

For example, among post-romantic/early 20th century German composers, inserting distorted parodies of Viennese Waltzes became kind of a thing. Mahler, Schoenberg, Korngold, Berg and I believe Zemlinsky and Weil all did this sort of thing at some point. Shostakovich did as well, even though he wasnt really part of that same group of composers...he sort of did that by extension since he was pretty influenced by Mahler.

I bring this topic up because I think it is incredibly fascinating how certain stylistic details stick in some areas among certain composers and don't in others, and why that is as well. So think along those lines.

I think the reason for my example above is that, many German composers and artists around this time period felt like society was crumbling and since the Waltz was such a prominent part of the pop culture there at the time, that was their way of expressing the degradation of the culture through music.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Using a few ideas from jazz could be seen to have been a bit of a fad, done by Copland, Shostakovich, Antheil and so on. I don't suppose they count as a group, but it seems like it was a thing each of them did awhile, but not permanently.


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## Air (Jul 19, 2008)

Don't forget Ravel! He composed maybe the craziest, most intoxicated Viennese Waltz of them all and also did some really classy things with jazz. And by that, I mean _real_ classy.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Perhaps "prepared piano" was a fad. 

The problem is that "fad" can sound dismissive, and I don't mean it in that sense. But it does seem to be a thing that a lot of people tried for awhile. 

I think you might want something more specific than this of course.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

science said:


> Using a few ideas from jazz could be seen to have been a bit of a fad, done by Copland, Shostakovich, Antheil and so on. I don't suppose they count as a group, but it seems like it was a thing each of them did awhile, but not permanently.


Well, Jazz became quite a hit of course among American composers, but also among French composers as well. I'm fairly certain the reason Jazz stuck in French culture was because it was music that fit the "emotionally cool" aesthetic that was already forming in Paris at the time. Shostakovich was a bit of an outlier as far as I know...not many other Soviet composers wrote as much Jazz inspired music as he did, but someone could prove me wrong on that one!


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

science said:


> Perhaps "prepared piano" was a fad.
> 
> The problem is that "fad" can sound dismissive, and I don't mean it in that sense. But it does seem to be a thing that a lot of people tried for awhile.
> 
> I think you might want something more specific than this of course.


Ya, maybe fad was a bad choice of words on my part. By fad, I basically just mean a stylistic element that a group of similar composers took up for a certain amount of time.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Air said:


> also did some really classy things with jazz. And by that, I mean _real_ classy.


See the 5th post of the thread


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

violadude said:


> Ya, maybe fad was a bad choice of words on my part. By fad, I basically just mean a stylistic element that a group of similar composers took up for a certain amount of time.


Perhaps tendency would be a better term...


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## regressivetransphobe (May 16, 2011)

Trend, maybe.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

regressivetransphobe said:


> Trend, maybe.


Ya, that's a good one too. Ok, change thread title to "Musical trends among groups of composers!"


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

One of my favourite composers,* Haydn*, had all sorts of trademarks if you will in his numerous symphonies. Eg. drones of bagpipes, bells ringing (with only the kettle drums, no big percussion sections back then, not even tubular bells), also the *Austrian landler dance which Mahler & Bruckner would incorporate later*, gypsy music he heard from those musicians, and Croatian folk tunes which he heard when growing up, near what is today's Croatian-Austria border, approximately. In a way, Haydn was one of the first using a kind of *collage technique*...


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## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

violadude said:


> What are some "fads" you can think of that certain group of composers all did?


Experimental noise music of Stockhausen, Cage, Xenakis; you know the bunch.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Lol. Wide-interval disjunct lines in the post-romantic duodecaphonic crowd - bled into all other vocabularies - on an international scale - still with us. Chalk it up to 'expressionism.'

Virgil Thomson's 'American sound' the open spacing and fourths (where Copland got it and pretty much trademarked it) was prevalent in the 1940's amongst many an American composer (young Lukas Foss, for one.)

That flash popularity of Pachelbel's pleasant but now massively overplayed/exposed Canon in D generated a lot of use or 'comment' pieces by other composers, and variations on its ground. Two interesting survivors (i.e. I consider them 'successful') from that era are:
Brian Eno ~ Three Variations on the Canon in D Major by Johann Pachelbel (a very nice 'deconstruct,' now played by acoustic instruments with the original electronics - a clear improvement)
I. Fullness of wind; II. French Catalogues; III. Brutal Ardour













George Rochberg, String quartet No. 6 (for Isaac Stern); III - Variations (on Pachelbel) -- in which he takes it through seamless paces up to a vocabulary closer to Schönberg's Verklärte Nacht and back.





John Adams, Violin Concerto -- the second movement, 'Chaconne: Body through which the dream flows' uses Pachelbel's ground as its bass / basis.

Along with Eno's Pachelbel deconstruction was a vogue of deconstruction, the best I still recall is Lukas Foss' "Baroque Variations," where in he masterfully, knowing and loving this old music so well - Bach, Scarlatti and Handel - totally undid and reworked them, with new material and in a brilliant and fresh orchestration. As menacing as some may sound, there is not a whiff of parody or satire in any of them. Good trick if you can pull it off. (wish there were a link available, sadly, not.)

And then came the 'quote' pieces, the most most painfully egregious and obvious to me is George Crumb's Black Angels, with a wholesale quote from Schubert's 'Der Tod un das Mädchen' quartet just plunked in as a reference. The still with us and shining best of quote pieces to beat all others is the third movement of Luciano Berio's Sinfonia. [following links are from a playlist, the premiere recording with the composer conducting. Hope they work.]


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