# Which composers influence your works the most+who's influence do you desire?



## clavichorder

Sometimes it can be hard to tell, but we are all certainly influenced by certain composers. I fancy that my work will one day resemble a sort of Schoenberg inspired tonal(atonal) vocabulary with the spice, humor and wit of my idol composers, Tcherepnin, Alkan, Telemann, Rigel and other quirky sounding composers like that. I fancy that I'm already on the way to that with my present two creations of which I will hopefully make four more.


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## aleazk

Ravel and Debussy (in my first style, and little less now, but they are still there!), Ligeti (now).


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## Iforgotmypassword

Well the only piece that I've composed that I am acutally proud of is a piece for solo violin. I feel that it is influenced by Arvo Pärt's style, but my grandparents, when they heard it, told me that it reminded them of Bartok... so I have no idea haha


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## Crudblud

With absolutely no effort to spell any foreign names correctly and without further ado:

Zappa, van Vliet, Messiaen, Ravel, Mahler, Webern, Stravinsky, Zorn, Satie, Ligeti, Bartok, Xenakis, Schoenberg, Berg, Takemitsu, Tchaikovsky, Dvorak, Stockhausen and Partch.

There are others, but I feel that these -especially the first six (the rest aren't in any order)- have influenced me the most.


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## Dodecaplex

Bach (fugal style), Alkan (quirkiness (what I call "sarcastic ambiguity")), Sorabji (layers upon layers upon layers), and Mozart (spontaneous creation).


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## emiellucifuge

This is what people have said to me:

Debussy, Wagner, Varese, Shostakovich


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## Igneous01

hmm..

im sure most people here will know who is the primary source of influence for me (ala Schnittke)

but to continue:
Bach's counterpoint
Bartok/Prokofiev
Schubert (Structure, 3 theme sonata form, his magnificent key relationships)
Stravinsky


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde

Hildegard, Palestrina, Tallis, Byrd, Monteverdi, Lully, Vivaldi, Bach, Schoenberg, John Adams and Anthony Pateras.


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## Lenfer

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> Hildegard, Palestrina, Tallis, Byrd, Monteverdi, Lully, Vivaldi, Bach, Schoenberg, John Adams and Anthony Pateras.


 *Ligeti*?


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde

Lenfer said:


> *Ligeti*?


Not so much *Ligeti.* I do learn from him but I'm not so much influenced my him if you know what I mean. I do love *Ligeti's* music though.

One I forgot to mention: Wagner


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## Praeludium

Moondog : false simplicity.

Gesualdo : true avant-garde, which still sounds avant-garde centuries after it has been written.

Scelsi : amazing work on the sounds, the timbers and the perception.

Henze : cool guy.

Liszt : cultivated man, virtuoso instrumentalist and terrific composer.

Tristan Murail : a bit like Scelsi.


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## aleazk

Praeludium said:


> Moondog : false simplicity.
> 
> Gesualdo : true avant-garde, which still sounds avant-garde centuries after it has been written.
> 
> Scelsi : amazing work on the sounds, the timbers and the perception.
> 
> Henze : cool guy.
> 
> Liszt : cultivated man, virtuoso instrumentalist and terrific composer.
> 
> Tristan Murail : a bit like Scelsi.


I have the same opinion. On the other side, he was a sanguinary killer!!


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## clavichorder

aleazk said:


> I have the same opinion. On the other side, he was a sanguinary killer!!


This is kind of overblown actually. He did kill his wife and her lover, but such was a customary(and actually legal) option of the time, to kill if cheated on. Wild times. At any rate, being mad with jealousy or some sort of honor, and later being racked with guilt and insanity in part because of this decision(this is how I understand it), is not the way of a cold blooded killer. Plus he probably feared the revenge of her family.


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## Sofronitsky

I am always influenced by composers I hate, or used to hate..

My composition professor tells me most of my passionate work sounds like Early Scriabin when I really want it to sound like Copland


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## violadude

Iforgotmypassword said:


> Well the only piece that I've composed that I am acutally proud of is a piece for solo violin. I feel that it is influenced by Arvo Pärt's style, but my grandparents, when they heard it, told me that it reminded them of Bartok... so I have no idea haha


I would kill to have grandparents familiar with Bartok....that must be awesome.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde

I think my music is more inspired by visual artists and writers/poets than actual composers.

Victor Vasarely, Bridget Riley, Salvador Dali, Pablo Picasso, Shaun Tan (and more) all have compositions by me directly inspired by some of their individual works.


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## StevenOBrien

I'd say I've definitely learned the most from studying Mozart. As for influences, the strongest are Chopin, Beethoven and Glass.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> I think my music is more inspired by visual artists and writers/poets than actual composers.
> 
> Victor Vasarely, Bridget Riley, Salvador Dali, Pablo Picasso, Shaun Tan (and more) all have compositions by me directly inspired by some of their individual works.


Oh, and Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lewis Carroll.


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## Iforgotmypassword

violadude said:


> I would kill to have grandparents familiar with Bartok....that must be awesome.


My grandfather had Stravinsky in the audience at one of his performances of his (Stravinsky's) pieces. He had a "contemporary music festival" that he was at least partially in charge of and the composers themselves would come to the productions and so Stravinsky sat in the audience for his piece.

So yeah my grandparents are both very familiar with music and composers.


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## Tomposer

I think most of my strong influences have been mentioned in this thread already, at least from the "art music" side of things. I also draw a lot of influence and inspiration from non-classical music (in the traditional sense), and without consciously copying them I greatly admire Bjork, Sufjan Stevens, and many others besides. 

I've also learned that it is possible, no bad thing, and sometimes desirable, to be influenced by artists who I once had an aversion to. There's all sorts of things that can be learned, and learned in many ways, from music you imagine at first is off-putting but seems to appeal to many other people.


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