# Recommend a modernist or contemporary piece of music -- and describe why!



## Waehnen (Oct 31, 2021)

The world is full of lists.

There could be more recommendations with descriptions on why precisely some piece of music has touched, moved, stimulated or resonated positively.

I would be very interested in going for a modernist and contemporary music journey where the people who recommend a piece of music would tell what the piece is about and why they are honestly excited about it.

If nothing more can be said of a modernist or contemporary piece, than something like: "An emancipation of dissonance is executed through heartfelt usage of the major 7th and the minor 2nd interval and then processed into a stream of wonderful orchestral colours" --- --- --- Let´s just say, there is more to modernism and contemporary music than the emancipation of dissonance, lack of pulse and the focus on tone colours.

Indeed it would be lovely to hear what excites people about the modernist and the contemporary! And if someone was able to even analyse or describe what kind of aesthetic movements there are nowadays on the modernist field, I would be most interested.


----------



## composingmusic (Dec 16, 2021)

This is an amazing idea! I'll definitely contribute to this, when I've got the time – I want to write some thoughtful contributions to this thread.


----------



## composingmusic (Dec 16, 2021)

I'll start with Gérard Grisey's _Quatre Chants pour franchir le seuil:_ the harmonic language and colour palette is simply extraordinary. It is the final piece in Gérard Grisey's output, and sadly he passed away before the premiere of the piece. Grisey worked on this piece from 1996 to 1998, and it was premiered in 1999 by Valdine Anderson and the London Sinfonietta, conducted by George Benjamin. 

First, the ensemble enters with breathing sounds, and emerges into a muted, mid-low register space, where the voice appears in short bursts and individual held notes. A moment that I find particularly extraordinary is when the voice and trumpet enter simultaneously for the first time: the way the trumpet reinforces the voice is quite something. It's also fascinating how the different instruments and voice change roles throughout the pieces, and how textures are transferred from one group to another: the first movement prominently features descending patterns which are embedded into a very specific type of harmonic language. In the second movement, the texture is much more static, with longer lines in the voice – there are longer range ascending lines that move more slowly than in the first movement, and the vocal line is the fastest moving feature in the texture. There's almost a mystical feeling to this movement, which is reinforced by the low register and use of harmonies that incorporate beating (among other things). 

Much of the texture of the third movement does feel like it connects to the first two movements, but it's been remade into something different. This creates a sense of connection, while also preventing it from becoming too predictable. There's sweeping gestures that move from high register to low register, but these also incorporate more localized upward moving gestures that could potentially refer to the second movement. Glittering percussion is used to punctuate phrases. About halfway into the movement, we get references to the second movement through harmonies and static chords that hark back to similar effects in the second movement (although here everything is in a much higher register). This gradually dissolves into a section with indefinitely pitched percussion, that morphs straight into the fourth movement without an interlude (as we've had between all of the previous movements). In the fourth movement, the energy intensifies until we get to a climactic passage with punctuating wind runs (these are also imitated in strings sometimes), held brass notes, and a very virtuosic soprano part. The energy gradually fizzles out and moves into a lower register – this then moves into the a section that cross-references earlier sections of the piece. Everything comes to a big dramatic pause, and then we a section with very slow descending lines. This section also comes to a big dramatic pause, which is followed by an epilogue with rich harmony that refers to various sections from earlier in the piece, and has some truly exquisite harmonies and colours. 

There's so much more one could write about this piece, but I'd need to go write a proper scholarly article to articulate everything!


----------



## Simon Moon (Oct 10, 2013)

I will definitely be paying attention to this thread.

The vast majority of my classical listening is music from the Second Viennese school and newer. Mostly from the mid 20th century to the present.

My problem is, I do not have the musical language to precisely describe why some piece of music has touched, moved, stimulated or resonated positively with me.

Once I see some recommendations posted, I may get a better feel for what the OP is looking for, and I will chime in.


----------



## Waehnen (Oct 31, 2021)

Simon Moon said:


> I will definitely be paying attention to this thread.
> 
> The vast majority of my classical listening is music from the Second Viennese school and newer. Mostly from the mid 20th century to the present.
> 
> ...


I think everyone are free to join however they want. My only wish is that something meaningful is said of the piece of music. You do not need to be able to analyse the music thoroughly or use specific terms. Just try to describe why you are interested in the piece.

What @composingmusic just did with the first post is great. Because he hears and sees so much in the music he posted, I feel encouraged and motivated to listen. 

I don´t have enough time to listen to the piece carefully tonight but already I started my orientation by reading something on the composer and listening to a few minutes here and there, just to get a picture of the techniques used, the atmospheres, textures, processes and the drama. That music sure SOUNDED delicately good!


----------



## composingmusic (Dec 16, 2021)

Waehnen said:


> What @composingmusic just did with the first post is great. Because he hears and sees so much in the music he posted, I feel encouraged and motivated to listen.
> 
> I don´t have enough time to listen to the piece carefully tonight but already I started my orientation by reading something on the composer and listening to a few minutes here and there, just to get a picture of the techniques used, the atmospheres, textures, processes and the drama. That music sure SOUNDED delicately good!


Thank you! I'll continue doing these when I've got time – a piece here and there, that I particularly enjoy. Glad to hear that I've encouraged and motivated people to listen, and that's also a great motivator for me to do more of these!


----------



## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

This is from a CD that I bought and I enjoy the entire disc. Like Simon Moon, I can't give technical or compositional reasons for why it appeals to me it just does. There are many, many contemporary composers who I'll never have the time to devote the proper attention to in order to get to know their music. But in addition to Svend H. Nielsen, I have some CDs by Adriana Holsky that I enjoy as well.


----------



## Waehnen (Oct 31, 2021)

composingmusic said:


> I'll start with Gérard Grisey's _Quatre Chants pour franchir le seuil:_ the harmonic language and colour palette is simply extraordinary. It is the final piece in Gérard Grisey's output, and sadly he passed away before the premiere of the piece. Grisey worked on this piece from 1996 to 1998, and it was premiered in 1999 by Valdine Anderson and the London Sinfonietta, conducted by George Benjamin.
> 
> First, the ensemble enters with breathing sounds, and emerges into a muted, mid-low register space, where the voice appears in short bursts and individual held notes. A moment that I find particularly extraordinary is when the voice and trumpet enter simultaneously for the first time: the way the trumpet reinforces the voice is quite something. It's also fascinating how the different instruments and voice change roles throughout the pieces, and how textures are transferred from one group to another: the first movement prominently features descending patterns which are embedded into a very specific type of harmonic language. In the second movement, the texture is much more static, with longer lines in the voice – there are longer range ascending lines that move more slowly than in the first movement, and the vocal line is the fastest moving feature in the texture. There's almost a mystical feeling to this movement, which is reinforced by the low register and use of harmonies that incorporate beating (among other things).
> 
> ...


OK, so today I had the time to listen to *Gérard Grisey's Quatre Chants pour franchir le seuil.*

This is music to which you must have referred to as the French approach: everything must be heard. Yes, everything can be heard and the outcome is most delicate and refined.

Just like you, I found the long note sustained intervals with the soprano and the trumpet very appealing. Also all the ornamentation of the vocals is gorgeous and the vocal parts as whole were very well thought out.

Also I liked that there were distinct phases, and the quiet drum rolls (at least they sounded like that) were a repeating feature between the phases.

At first listening, maybe this piece of music was a bit too long for my likening -- maybe 30 minutes would have been enough not to make me lose my intensive listening focus at times. But this tells more about me than the music, maybe. And I might later think differently.

Thanks for the great link, @composingmusic !


----------



## Prodromides (Mar 18, 2012)

I'm recommending a 21-minute piece so Waehnen won't fall asleep.

If he falls into anything - it will be autumn: *Autumn Sonata* (1993) for Bass Clarinet & Orchestra.
It's composer - Thea Musgrave - is a Scot transplanted into U.S.A. since 1972.

No detailed reasons here as to why I selected this opus - other than I feel we should all hear as many concerti for bass clarinet as possible before we die (we don't get too many of these).

You can read more colorful emancipated stuff herein: Autumn Sonata - Concerto for Bass Clarinet and Orchestra | Thea Musgrave - Wise Music Classical

YouTube split its movements into seperate video clips; so here is part I





I apologize for the digital stereo - this work doesn't have any desirable vintage archive recordings in scratchy-sounding mono.

[afterwards, if you have time, you can watch Ingmar Bergman's 1978 film *Autumn Sonata* with Ingrid Bergman.]


----------



## fbjim (Mar 8, 2021)

Frederic Rzewski - De Profundis (1994)




For speaking pianist. As with any coupled text and music (including any lieder or opera) a great deal of the appeal comes from seeing how the music complements the text (or when it doesn't), but more relevently this is Rzewski- you get his typical delight in mixing up modernist composition, Bach pastiches, and his favored extended techniques of finger percussion, hand slapping and playing a comedic "harpo horn" at one point. 

Text is also excellent, a curated selection of Oscar Wilde's writings while jailed for "sodomy" - like a lot of Rzewski this was political, and written for the AIDS crisis around that time.


----------



## feierlich (3 mo ago)

I'd always recommend Marco Momi, especially his _LUDICA II_. This is my initial experience of his compositions, not long (10 mins) but an absolute banger. It's immediate and accessible while at the same time simply great.

Another composer is Clemens Gadenstätter, and I recommend his _Comic Sense_. About an hour long but still it overwhelmed me immediately the first time I heard it. As the title says it's got remarkable musical humour throughout so it's also great fun listening to it.

Don't forget to put your best headphones on!


----------



## RandallPeterListens (Feb 9, 2012)

Steve Reich's Music for 18 Musicians. While not the first piece of musical minimalism, it is certainly one of the most notable and best and can perhaps stand as representative of the whole genre. 
So, is it really classical music? Yes, since it is meant to be listened to: not sung to, danced to, accompanying a ballet or film. It is as radical a departure from traditional Western classical music as serialism.
Now, does it have "legs" or destined to be some kind withered branch off the main trunk of Western music? I think probably the latter. True minimalism was already abased and adulterated from the time it first appeared (sorry, Philip Glass can take a good deal of credit for that).
There is something about minimalism which seems to echo or parallel the ethos of "culture" in the late 20th century. I can't put my finger on what, but there's some kind of connection.


----------



## composingmusic (Dec 16, 2021)

Waehnen said:


> OK, so today I had the time to listen to *Gérard Grisey's Quatre Chants pour franchir le seuil.*
> 
> This is music to which you must have referred to as the French approach: everything must be heard. Yes, everything can be heard and the outcome is most delicate and refined.
> 
> ...


Really glad to hear you've enjoyed this! I'll come back and do another one of these soon, once I've got the time (hopefully within the next day or two).


----------



## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

I found this one interesting. Saunder's To an Utterance. It has some sounds produced in the lower range I never heard anywhere else before. But after a while it gets repetitive (or just more of similar to be more accurate).


----------



## Doublestring (Sep 3, 2014)

Roland Dyens - Hommage à Villa-Lobos

My favorite modern guitar work, played by the composer himself. It has complex rhythms, special techniques, virtuosity, jazzy elements and subtle harmonies. At first it seems unplayable, but it becomes possible if you study it bar by bar.


----------



## composingmusic (Dec 16, 2021)

Oliver Knussen's O Hototogisu! – his last completed work. 

Video here: 



Score here: O Hototogisu! | Faber Music

The piece starts with a bird-call like figure in the flute, which gets taken up as a resonance in string harmonics. The hototogisu is a type of Japanese bird, and it is a popular motif in haiku poetry (conveniently the name is five syllables long). On the wikipedia page, you can hear what this species of birdcall sounds like, and compare that to the opening flute melody: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lesser_cuckoo

At around 1:40, the texture really opens up: we get low register piano, bass drum, and low harp notes for the first time. For me, this is a magical moment, and it's a moment of potential just before the singer enters – it really sets the scene in quite an incredible way. The type of chords that are introduced here then appear in dialogue with the singer, alternating in phrases. 

Wood block and flute punctuate the end of the second poem, and make way for the third one. Here we get an interesting effect of the movement sounding as though it's moving at a faster rate, even though the metronome mark itself has slowed down. There is greater dynamic contrast, with more angular figures. The flute, which was largely absent after the initial introductory section in the first song, plays an important role in this section. A dialogue between the birdcalls in the flute and the soprano unfolds, culminating at just before 4 minutes (into poem 5). Poem 5 begins with a texture that resembles the moment I've outlined at 1:40, with low register material entering and giving the texture some grounding. 

As we can see, wood block and percussion in general play a structural role in this piece, serving as punctuation. At the start of the fifth song (4:01), we get a percussive chord in the winds, punctuated by wood block and pizzicato viola. Again, there is so much detail in the score: the singer is reinforced by sul tasto harmonics in the violas, which move to a sul tasto trill in the second violins (all the while the first violin holds a high harmonic). Muted brass gestures, moving at a slower rate than the singer and flute, appear just after the fifth song as a very brief interlude, and these continue to feature in the sixth song. At first, they provide contrast by alternating with the faster moving flute and soprano gestures. However, these brass gestures gradually speed up and move into a similar time scale to the faster material, and this brass material becomes increasingly fragmented. 

The final song begins on a held C sharp in the strings (5:50), and the singer enters a few octaves down on the same pitch. The first two lines of the poem are followed by a long interlude featuring flute and piano playing birdsong-like material, with the rest of the ensemble providing a slowly moving harmonic backdrop that has a beatiful internal luminosity. The piece ends with the words "O Hototogisu!" sung unaccompanied, apart from the last syllable, which is doubled in the rin (Japanese standing bells) and pizzicato viola.


----------



## Waehnen (Oct 31, 2021)

I listened to the Youtube link pieces today. Everything else I liked but the piece with the pianist hiccuping and burping was not to my liking. It was most irritating and I just could not continue listening to it! Sorry!

Need to come back to these works, but at this moment my favourite remains the Grisey piece.

(Then again, this thread is not about others posting and then me stating whether or not I liked what I heard.)


----------



## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Waehnen said:


> I listened to the Youtube link pieces today. Everything else I liked but the piece with the *pianist hiccuping and burping *was not to my liking. It was most irritating and I just could not continue listening to it! Sorry!
> 
> Need to come back to these works, but at this moment my favourite remains the Grisey piece.
> 
> (Then again, this thread is not about others posting and then me stating whether or not I liked what I heard.)


Which one was that? The Saunders I posted?  Wouldn't be surprised.


----------



## Waehnen (Oct 31, 2021)

Phil loves classical said:


> Which one was that? The Saunders I posted?  Wouldn't be surprised.


No, it was the Rzewski!


----------



## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

^ Oh I didn't listen to it before just now. After sampling it, I found it quite entertaining, with the added whistling.


----------



## calvinpv (Apr 20, 2015)

Beat Furrer's _Percussion Quartet_ (1995)






I can't say this is my favorite contemporary piece, only because I heard it for the first time yesterday and need time to digest it. But if you're looking for pieces people get excited over, this is certainly one of those types of works. Before yesterday, the only other works I knew by Furrer was _spur_ and his _Piano Concerto_, and so I decided to remedy that (_spur _is a great piece worth checking out; the _Piano Concerto_ is good, but you need to be in the right mood to enjoy it).

The _Percussion Quartet_ has many interesting aspects to it. I recommend listening with a good set of headphones:

1) There are sequences of gestures that remind me of certain Futurist artworks like Umberto Boccioni's very famous _Unique Forms of Continuity in Space_ or Marcel Duchamp's _Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2_. Futurists re-imagined motion as no longer involving a 3-dimensional solid body changing its spatial coordinates through empty space but rather as a sequence of 2-dimensional energy-ridden, pulsating surface-images. In the Furrer piece, there are a couple moments where a single very basic percussive gesture (usually a "gliding" sound, for lack of a better word) is multiplied and overlapped into a rapid sequence, with variation in timbral qualities within each iteration of the gesture. Although movement per se isn't getting represented here, you do get a weird feeling of transubstantiation from one place/state to another that is reminiscent of Futurist motion. The sequences that I'm thinking of can be found at [1:10-1:30], [2:20-2:30], [4:44-4:54] [18:55-19:07], [19:30-19:41], but there are many other smaller ones.

2) Related to the above point, there are a couple sequences that also seem to grow in complexity as they unfold. I know this is a subjective impression, but I get an image in my head of a flower coming into bloom. I hear one at [12:45-13:10].

3) There is a rather Cage-like approach to silence. On the one hand, sounds seem to exert themselves in isolation, thereby betraying their own outer limits beyond which you hear the emptiness of the auditorium. There is very little in the way of verticality in the piece: there are no harmonic approaches to the music that remain suspended and overwhelm your ears to the point where silence becomes a conceptual impossibility. Rather, the music develops more "horizontally", with one idea at a time getting presented -- allowing your ears to trace out a discrete geometric shape in the air with its own outer boundaries. And you are also able to pick out each percussionist's individual role.

On the other hand, the opposite happens in the quieter sections, where a multitude of rustling whispers color and shade the silent backdrop, making the silence a sort of "5th percussionist". See [22:00-22:45].

4) There's a marimba-heavy section at [6:40-7:30] that gives the impression of a never-ending Shepard scale, although I doubt that's what Furrer was going for (then again, maybe he was; I don't know too much about how that scale works, so what do I know).

5) There are some very cool rhythmic sections, which I think is important to point out in this case because the word "noise" often comes with the connotation of being uncontrolled and unregulated chaos. But Furrer (and certainly other noise composers as well) shows how easy it is to discipline noise into a rhythmic pattern with precise durations. For example, at [16:20-18:30], though really the whole piece is full of rhythm.


----------



## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Although this is from 1968, I don't feel it's aged or become outdated one bit. To me all contemporary quartets seem to have been born out of this. This one I feel has real lasting value, and is a masterpiece in my mind. I think the boldness and originality real stands out.


----------



## feierlich (3 mo ago)

calvinpv said:


> I can't say this is my favorite contemporary piece, only because I heard it for the first time yesterday and need time to digest it. But if you're looking for pieces people get excited over, this is certainly one of those types of works. Before yesterday, the only other works I knew by Furrer was _spur_ and his _Piano Concerto_, and so I decided to remedy that


Beat Furrer is surely a composer who needs more recognition! I love almost all of his work, and I say almost only because I haven't heard all of it! Apart from this album (of which I own a CD), I also recommend his _Aria_ and _String Quartet No. 3_.


----------



## Simon Moon (Oct 10, 2013)

feierlich said:


> Beat Furrer is surely a composer who needs more recognition! I love almost all of his work, and I say almost only because I haven't heard all of it! Apart from this album (of which I own a CD), I also recommend his _Aria_ and _String Quartet No. 3_.


I agree.

Furrer is a recent discovery of mine, and I'm really liking what I hear.

I also recently discovered the Kairos label, which seems to have all sorts of interesting music and composers.

I bought Furrer's, Concerto per pianoforte e orchestra (2007) from Kairos just a couple of weeks ago.


----------



## feierlich (3 mo ago)

Simon Moon said:


> I also recently discovered the Kairos label, which seems to have all sorts of interesting music and composers.


Yes, Kairos is a great label! So far I've collected a couple of dozens of their CDs. The only thing is they tend to be more expensive than others, but I see this as a way to support the classical music industry since most of the label's composers are alive (and therefore need to eat!)


----------



## composingmusic (Dec 16, 2021)

It's been a while since I've posted here – life has kept me quite busy, as I've just finished up a piece I've been writing for some time now, and that's been fairly intense. Here's another piece I'm quite fond of: 




Tristan Murail's _Winter Fragments_

It's quite amazing how the electronics unfold from the acoustic instruments. I'm not sure what processes Murail used to create these sounds, exactly, other than he's using various types of spectral sound processing based on recorded sounds (if I'm remembering this correctly). What I can comment on is that the electronics are triggered by someone playing on an electronic keyboard, and there is a rather complicated MAX MSP patch that links the keyboard to these sounds, which are triggered by pressing specific keys. The synthesizer part isn't difficult technically, but it's got to be absolutely together with the ensemble, and the synth player has no control of the dynamics at all (that's all done at the mixing desk). Even though there's a lot happening in real time, the sounds themselves are entirely pre-recorded. 

This piece begins with a rather bright synthesizer chord, doubled in piano and flute. The next gesture, which consists of cello harmonics and a flute glissando gesture, is mirrored in the electronics, and Murail has created a sense of space in the echoing electronics that follow. These two gestures are central to this first section of the piece. Around a minute into the piece, these gestures and their electronic counterparts start to vary more in pitch and duration. There's a brief moment of recall at around 1:30, but this is quickly shattered by what happens at 1:40, where the low range is introduced for the first time in this piece. Suddenly, the texture is much thicker: violin trills, low piano, and cello pizzicatos blend to produce a more expansive sound than the single lines we've had previously. 

Murail does cross-reference the first section, keeping the bright chords from the opening, and the glissando gesture that originated in the flute. However, this next section is much more active and prominently features the low range. There's a certain foreboding quality to this music, in my opinion at least. At 2:10 or so, the music starts to move back into the higher range again, and becomes more familiar – it's now quite similar to the beginning once more, but Murail has kept some of the low register material in the distant background, which gives the music a particular type of resonance. From 2:20, something extraordinary happens: the bright chords start to evolve into arpeggiated overtones, and this creates a sense of opening up in the high register. Then, the music accelerates and moves back down to the low range. A darker, more foreboding section follows at 2:43, which cross-references material from 1:40. This then transforms into what seems to me to be a time-stretched (and pitch-shifted) version of the opening material. 

At 4:02, there is a sudden shift to a much higher activity level and faster rate of change in general. Murail introduces a series of cascading gestures that occur over very bright electronic sonorities (see the opening of the top register that started at 2:20). These also start combining the earlier instrumental gestures and electronics in various ways, and the individual gestures tend to gradually slow down and lose energy before restarting at a higher energy level once more. Finally, this energy dissolves at around 5:30, and Murail recalls the earlier time-stretched and pitch-shifted version of the opening material. It's important to note that this is not an exact repeat; the material is being continuously transformed throughout the piece. This dissolution of energy continues to 6:10, where we are left with just electronic resonance. 

6:20 marks an important formal moment: the foreboding low energy material returns with a vengeance in a big gesture. This ushers in a section that combines the low electronic gestures from 1:40, along with a higher register version of the violin material from this section and the opening flute gesture (note: in a more expansive form, and louder dynamic). As the energy level increases, Murail returns to the cascading gestures from 4:02 (this is at 6:52). The texture eventually thins out to a degree, and something very interesting happens at 7:24 – Murail quotes Gérard Grisey's _Prologue_ from _Les Espaces Acoustiques_ in the string parts. This is another musical gesture that will return several times in the final sections of the piece. At 7:32, we return back to the high-energy cascading gestures once more.

Murail keeps recombining these bright cascading gestures with earlier material, including the low electronic gestures from earlier, bright synthesizer chords, and flute glissandos. At 8:26, he quotes _Prologue_ for a second time, but this time slowed down from the earlier instance. This leads into 8:41, where a large upward swoop transforms into a high-register, pointillistic texture between piano and strings. As the energy intensifies once more, the texture morphs into a cascading texture (which is less energetic than previous instances). Gradually, the music dissolves into overlapping fragmented instances of the opening gesture. 

There is another large formal boundary at 10:02 – after the piece has faded into complete silence, a loud, low electronic gesture appears. This gesture is juxtaposed against an extremely soft gesture in the flute and string harmonics, which is then followed up by another similar gesture. Murail follows this up with a few bright chords in the electronics, and enters a sound world similar to the initial opening at 10:37, although the gestures here are more expansive and contain more variety in pitch content. This is almost immediately combined with material similar to 1:40, and here Murail starts combining and recombining material from several different sections (bright chords, flute glissandos, low electronic material from various sections, arpeggiated overtones, etc). 11:50 in the flute and clarinet really reminds me of the earlier Prologue quotes, but this is more of a distant memory than a direct quote, for me at least. There's an extremely quiet section that fades into 12:09 or so, after which the energy begins to snowball once more. 

12:21 leads into one last hurrah, with a final section of descending glittering cascades – this dissolves into the softer section following at 12:35. Here, the cello and violin directly quote _Prologue_ repeatedly, and this becomes almost obsessive. The texture slows down and thins out until only the cello is left. A final, partial iteration of Grisey's quote is then followed up with one last bright synthesizer chord, which is doubled in the piano. 

Winter Fragments is dedicated to Gérard Grisey, in memoriam. Grisey had passed just a year before the completion of this work.


----------



## Roger Knox (Jul 19, 2017)

RandallPeterListens said:


> Steve Reich's Music for 18 Musicians. While not the first piece of musical minimalism, it is certainly one of the most notable and best and can perhaps stand as representative of the whole genre.
> So, is it really classical music? Yes, since it is meant to be listened to: not sung to, danced to, accompanying a ballet or film. It is as radical a departure from traditional Western classical music as serialism.
> Now, does it have "legs" or destined to be some kind withered branch off the main trunk of Western music? I think probably the latter. True minimalism was already abased and adulterated from the time it first appeared (sorry, Philip Glass can take a good deal of credit for that).
> There is something about minimalism which seems to echo or parallel the ethos of "culture" in the late 20th century. I can't put my finger on what, but there's some kind of connection.


I think Steve Reich's _Music for 18 Musicians_ is a classic. I don't think there is a main trunk of Western classical music anymore. Nor is it western; Asian and other countries are highly involved. I agree with your last paragraph. Minimalism has a sense of exhaustion with the twentieth century and is part of an ongoing search for peace and spiritual growth. But it can convey a sense of hypocritical complacency, of core detachment from the real. And in my experience minimalism when thoughtless can become aggressive, a sort of relentless unstoppable bulldozer, like someone who thinks they are always right and seldom is.


----------



## Simon Moon (Oct 10, 2013)

feierlich said:


> Yes, Kairos is a great label! So far I've collected a couple of dozens of their CDs. The only thing is they tend to be more expensive than others, but I see this as a way to support the classical music industry since most of the label's composers are alive (and therefore need to eat!)


I did not find them to be that expensive at all. 

I ordered 3 CD's, they were $13 each, and shipping was free. Maybe I lucked into some special sale.


----------



## Simon Moon (Oct 10, 2013)

I've been listening to George Perle's "Serenade No. 3 for Piano and Chamber Orchestra (1983)" quite a bit lately. 

He had his own idiosyncratic take on serialism. To me, this piece comes off as being quite playful.


----------



## Vasks (Dec 9, 2013)

Simon Moon said:


> I've been listening to George Perle's "Serenade No. 3 for Piano and Chamber Orchestra (1983)" quite a bit lately. He had his own idiosyncratic take on serialism. To me, this piece comes off as being quite playful.


Really fine composer. You can follow his usage of motives regardless of the harmonic language. And yes, his mood can often be playful


----------



## HerbertNorman (Jan 9, 2020)

I saw this performance of the *Witold Lutoslawski Concerto for Cello and Orchestra* and I was quite blown away. I knew the composition but it's power was overwhelming when I saw it live . There is so much to enjoy and discover in the piece that I would recommend it to each listener that is not acquainted with his work or even that of the second half of the 20th century.






Another one I treasure , *György Ligeti's trio for Violin, Horn and Piano * ... just a great piece of modernist chamber music. A special composition , that has a lot to offer. One to enjoy live too!


----------



## composingmusic (Dec 16, 2021)

HerbertNorman said:


> I saw this performance of the *Witold Lutoslawski Concerto for Cello and Orchestra* and I was quite blown away. I knew the composition but it's power was overwhelming when I saw it live . There is so much to enjoy and discover in the piece that I would recommend it to each listener that is not acquainted with his work or even that of the second half of the 20th century.


Indeed, it's a marvellous piece. I've done a good deal of analysis on this piece, as part of my coursework for my current degree (I'm studying composition), and there is quite a lot to unpack. 

It's worth mentioning that this is one of a number of pieces that Rostropovich commissioned. He also commissioned Dutilleux to write a cello concerto (that's another piece that I'm a big fan of), Prokofiev, Shostakovich, and Gubaidulina. Rostropovich was also critical for Messiaen's _La Transfiguration de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ_ and Boulez’s _Messagesquisse_ for cello septet – in the Messiaen, there's a large solo cello part that's written for Rostropovich, and _Messagesquisse_ was a commission by Rostropovich for Paul Sacher. 

Lutoslawski's concerto begins with a 4-5 minute solo cadenza, which ends with brass interruptions. This dynamic, with the cello being interrupted by various instrumental groups, is a central idea of the piece – there is an ongoing power struggle between the cello and the orchestra. 

The first movement consists mostly of this aforementioned cadenza, and ends with the brass interruptions that I mentioned. This feeds into the second movement, titled _Episodes_: each episode begins with pizzicato cello gestures, and ends with brass interruptions that mirror the end of the first movement. There's a specific, very chromatic, symmetrical hexachord (0,1,2,6,7,8) that these brass interruptions use. Another thing worth mentioning about these episodes is that Lutoslawski tends to focus on specific instrumental groups – there's something quite block-like about how he's doing this. In some ways, it reminds me of Stravinsky and Messiaen's use of blocks of material (purely in how these people tend to construct blocks of material and use them as objects, even if they sound completely different from how Lutoslawski is using his material). It's also worth pointing out that there is a kind of pitch anchor on the cello's open D string. This is not to say that this music is tonal, but there is a prevalence of this specific pitch, and I think it acts as a pitch centre of sorts.

Following these episodes, Lutoslawski moves into a more lyrical approach for the third movement, _Cantilena_. At the start of this movement, the strings play Arco for the first time in the entire piece. Longer phrases appear in the instrumental texture, although we can still see passages where Lutoslawski is using the earlier short, interrupting passages. Lutoslawski also introduces a new pitch anchor, which is a low E at the bottom register of the cello. Gradually, the intensity of the music begins to grow, and leading into the fourth movement, Lutoslawski presents an extraordinary passage where all of the strings join the solo cello in unison, in fortissimo. This melodic passage is very compact in range (a perfect fifth spanning G to D), and the line itself moves by major and minor seconds. Another thing that makes this passage particularly striking is the turbulent nature of the relationship between cello and orchestra, which I've mentioned earlier; however, here these two opposing forces are acting together instead of against each other. 

The final movement grows from a series of interruptions, as various sections of the orchestra interrupt each other in growing intensity. This culminates in a climax that contains all of the 12 pitches of the chromatic scale. There are juxtapositions here between passages where the cello plays completely alone, and the entire orchestra functions as a single, extremely loud, extremely chromatic, monolithic object. Gradually, the energy dies down, and the cello has an epilogue that mirrors the opening passage. The piece ends with a repeated A in the cello, two octaves above the open A string.


----------



## staxomega (Oct 17, 2011)

Henze Symphony 5

Like Martinů Henze creates a captivating sound world in his symphonies, I feel like the fifth conveys this quite well. It's almost like an ultra modern ballet in its rhythms, the tension, and release.


----------



## haziz (Sep 15, 2017)

As someone who is allergic to most 20th century and 21st century classical music, I will be watching this thread with some interest. I am certainly open to anyone who can cure me of my allergy! My allergy does not extend to all musical genres, I will happily consume some 20th century Jazz, as well as late 70s - 80s pop, although again I can be selective there.

I will nominate a couple of compositions I find interesting or moving despite the above mentioned allergy. I suspect some may argue that some of them are not 'modernist', but the fact that they are by living composers makes them 'modern' as far as I am concerned.

Jennifer Higdon: Blue Cathedral

Anna Clyne: DANCE

John Adams: On the Transmigration of Souls


----------



## Vasks (Dec 9, 2013)

haziz said:


> I suspect some may argue that some of them are not 'modernist', but the fact that they are by living composers makes them 'modern' as far as I am concerned.


Haziz - The O.P. said modernist or contemporary. It's perfectly fine to consider the difference between the two as "modernist" being more atonal/non-melodic while others who are still living ("contemporary") who prefer some form of tonality and motivic/melodic usage.

May I suggest that with your taste expressed you may enjoy Paul Moravec, Aaron Jay Kernis, Michael Daugherty, Paul Schoenfield, Christopher Theofanidis and maybe with a slight stretch George Tsontakis.


----------



## HerbertNorman (Jan 9, 2020)

composingmusic said:


> Indeed, it's a marvellous piece. I've done a good deal of analysis on this piece, as part of my coursework for my current degree (I'm studying composition), and there is quite a lot to unpack.
> 
> It's worth mentioning that this is one of a number of pieces that Rostropovich commissioned. He also commissioned Dutilleux to write a cello concerto (that's another piece that I'm a big fan of), Prokofiev, Shostakovich, and Gubaidulina. Rostropovich was also critical for Messiaen's _La Transfiguration de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ_ and Boulez’s _Messagesquisse_ for cello septet – in the Messiaen, there's a large solo cello part that's written for Rostropovich, and _Messagesquisse_ was a commission by Rostropovich for Paul Sacher.
> 
> ...


Thanks for this @composingmusic , it's just a must listen for people who like the cello and the cellist here Hayoung Choi , played the cadenza just right imo. You could see and feel the suspense and enthousiasm grow in the crowd , for most of them (myself included) it was the first time they had experienced a live performance of the piece. I can say that the live performance completely convinced me of its greatness...


----------



## RandallPeterListens (Feb 9, 2012)

Roger Knox said:


> I think Steve Reich's _Music for 18 Musicians_ is a classic. I don't think there is a main trunk of Western classical music anymore. Nor is it western; Asian and other countries are highly involved. I agree with your last paragraph. Minimalism has a sense of exhaustion with the twentieth century and is part of an ongoing search for peace and spiritual growth. But it can convey a sense of hypocritical complacency, of core detachment from the real. And in my experience minimalism when thoughtless can become aggressive, a sort of relentless unstoppable bulldozer, like someone who thinks they are always right and seldom is.


I agree. There is an awful lot of "bad" minimalist compositions (again, apologies to Philip Glass). Steve Reich doesn't always hit a home run for me, either. But a few, like "Tehillim" really stand out. There seems to be a tendency for minimalists (both Glass and Reich) to become more "traditional" (development of thematic materials by change of key, rhythm, sense of moving forward with a theme) over time. I haven't found many of these types of composition particularly successful. For me the earlier minimalism (incremental development or change over a static core) was more successful.


----------



## Simon Moon (Oct 10, 2013)

Here's a piece that, without a doubt sounds completely contemporary, yet is also completely approachable, IMO. 

Augusta Read Thomas - Hemke Concerto "Prisms of Light" (2014)


----------



## composingmusic (Dec 16, 2021)

Wanted to revive this thread because it's great – I'll hopefully post another longer take on a piece in the next few days!


----------



## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

Simon Moon said:


> Here's a piece that, without a doubt sounds completely contemporary, yet is also completely approachable, IMO.
> 
> Augusta Read Thomas - Hemke Concerto "Prisms of Light" (2014)


I quite liked that, thanks Simon. It`s consonance and line are certainly easy enough to grasp.


----------



## PeterKC (Dec 30, 2016)

It for me, has to be Ives' The Unanswered Question. In the space of 4 and a half minutes this music truly puts me in a calm but uncomfortable state of reflection. Something no other music has done.


----------



## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

This speaks for itself. Apart from Hannigan being absolutely on theatrical, virtuosic and hilarious top form, the piece goes down a storm with the full audience.....now that says something about how contemporary music can and does make an impact and yes, a humorous and entertaining one at that.


----------

