# Greatest symphony of the last 100 years?



## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Clever way to shut Mahler out, eh? Anyway, I vote Shostakovich's 10th. How about you?


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

My vote goes to Symphony #25 "The Epic" by Kirkousuki Menalige 

He's kinda obscure but he shouldn't be, he's one of the best composers in the last 300 years and deserves more attention. 

I also like his symphony #3 "Forest of Darkness". So dark and epic.


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## MoonlightSonata (Mar 29, 2014)

I vote Shostakovich 7.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Definitely one by Shostakovich, in my opinion the last of the great composers.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

ArtMusic said:


> Definitely one by Shostakovich, in my opinion the last of the great composers.


Yup, musical talent just dun did disappeared from the human gene pool right after 1975.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

violadude said:


> My vote goes to Symphony #25 "The Epic" by Kirkousuki Menalige
> 
> He's kinda obscure but he shouldn't be, he's one of the best composers in the last 300 years and deserves more attention.
> 
> I also like his symphony #3 "Forest of Darkness". So dark and epic.


Great name! You _must_ write your own libretti.


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## Richannes Wrahms (Jan 6, 2014)

I vote for 4′33″



Woodduck said:


> Great name! You _must_ write your own libretti.


Well the guy is called Roderick, I don't know of anybody with a name cooler than that.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Richannes Wrahms said:


> I vote for 4′33″
> 
> Well the guy is called Roderick, I don't know of anybody with a name cooler than that.


Just to make matters cooler, my middle name is Wolfgang.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Gorecki 3 for me.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

I'd like to choose Sibelius 8, but if it wasn't good enough for him who am I to argue?

I don't like Shostakovich so that's that.

That leaves me with Sibelius 5 and 7 and Nielsen 4. All great, noble, humanist statements. Sibelius 7 seems most stripped down to essentials, like a life stripped down to what finally matters, a looking back over the journey with total acceptance of both triumph and pain. Where could the 8th have gone from there?

All right then. Sibelius 7.


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## Richannes Wrahms (Jan 6, 2014)

violadude said:


> Just to make matters cooler, my middle name is Wolfgang.


Is there any fault in your divine luck we miserable midgardians may curse upon?


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

Elliott Carter: symphonia sum fluxae pretium spei


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

Don Gillis _Symphony 5½_.


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## Andolink (Oct 29, 2012)

KenOC said:


> Clever way to shut Mahler out, eh? Anyway, I vote Shostakovich's 10th. How about you?


Hey!? Your time frame doesn't really shut all of Mahler out. The revised version of the 6th Symphony dates from 1906 and that's the symphony that gets my vote as the greatest.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

violadude said:


> My vote goes to Symphony #25 "The Epic" by Kirkousuki Menalige
> 
> He's kinda obscure but he shouldn't be, he's one of the best composers in the last 300 years and deserves more attention.
> 
> I also like his symphony #3 "Forest of Darkness". So dark and epic.


But certainly, the _Symphony No. 2_ by Ephraim Splendide*, subtitled by the composer _'The Dark and Epic,'_ or indeed my own** electro-acoustic choral work _Preludes I: i, ii, iii._ trump any of the works by Kikousuki Menalige?

*Ephraim Splendide [ ™/© ] (1948 -- )
**PetrB [ ™/© ] (1948 -- )

ADD: It would not be surprising that the OP has a bit of a hope that the date envelope and the word symphony would not open the box to possibilities like:

Stravinsky ~ Symphony of Psalms / Symphony in C
Elliot Carter ~ A Symphony of Three Orchestras
Luciano Berio ~ Sinfonia

... to name only three on the more conservative side of _many_ legitimate works which could be offered up for consideration, and instead is cast more in hopes as if asking something rather like: *"Greatest Georgian-style building designed and built within the last one hundred years?"* LOL.

Point is 'Symphony,' common practice period adhering to the older form as then set, vs. a great many more contemporary works not quite in that same floor plan, yet glorious large scale symphonic works. "Symphony," in that context of definition, and composed within the last 100 years" begins to winnow it down to the more retro-conservative works littering the 20th century, written by the likes of Shostakovich, Rubbra, etc. Within that context, I would readily nominate Nielsen's 5th, a truly great work which towers (imo) over any of the Shostakovich Symphonies.

Then, there is always Mahler ~ _Das Lied van der Erde_ which so readily blows many another 'great work' completely out of the water


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## ptr (Jan 22, 2013)

Andolink said:


> Hey!? Your time frame doesn't really shut all of Mahler out. The revised version of the 6th Symphony dates from 1906 and that's the symphony that gets my vote as the greatest.


You jest Sir? Ain't 1906 ever so slightly older then the stipulated 100 years!

Myself.. Ten Years ago I would have said "Shostakovich Fourth Symphony" in a second, today I'm not that cocksure, but Olivier Messiaen's Turangalila-Symphonie rates high with me!

/ptr


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

violadude said:


> Just to make matters cooler, my middle name is Wolfgang.


Well, I agree you have one helluva cool 'rings well' sounding name, but I think you are neck in neck with Coag's given names, which are not for me to divulge, but trust me, they're seriously kewl as given to him


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

My vote goes for Ives - Symphony No. 4


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## Badinerie (May 3, 2008)

Being a 20th century kind off guy I would pick Vaughan Williams Symphony no 7 Sinfonia Antartica. Its Movie Music, Its Classical Music, Romantic and Modern. It manages to be so much yet so majestic and beautiful.


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

Bartok's Concerto for orchestra. Which is of course actually a symphony.


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## Guest (Dec 28, 2014)

There have been a lot of symphonies written in the past 100 years, some of them fairly traditional, some of them not at all. There may be more than two options, but there are at least two: a composer writing a symphony in the past 100 years is going to either try to fit in with the tradition, move past the tradition, or mock the tradition. Three. Three options. 

But I digress. There have been a lot of symphonies written in the past 100 years. No one on this board has listened to more than a fraction of them, so any "voting" is extraordinarily premature. None of the many symphonies in the fraction that I've listened to is trying to do the same thing, so I don't know how to apply "greatest" to any of them. They're all doing different things. There's not even a greatest Shostakovich symphony. There are fifteen of those, and they're all different from each other, in spite of some very obvious similarities.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

Oh just remembered that I quite enjoy Messiaen's one and only Turangalîla-Symphonie.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> Oh just remembered that I quite enjoy Messiaen's one and only Turangalîla-Symphonie.


Unless "a lot of fun" disqualifies a work, its a lulu


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

Webern's Symphony
Gerhard's 4th Symphony, "New York"
Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms
Messiaen's Turangalîla
Carter's A Symphony of Three Orchestras


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Because I like to advocate / promote this symphony wherever opportunity arises, because I think it is a terrific work:

Lucas Foss ~ Symphony No.2, "Symphony of chorales." (1958)


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

tdc said:


> My vote goes for Ives - Symphony No. 4


I hate these vote for the top / playoff kinda thingies, but yeah, the Ives 4th is a genuine masterpiece, and I certainly think it a big time very major-leagues contender, to a degree where it is not even a question that it blows a nomination for any of the Shostakovich symphonies, and many of the other nominations so far, completely out of the running.


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## Balthazar (Aug 30, 2014)

My pick is Messiaen's Turangalîla.


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## Aecio (Jul 27, 2012)

Sibelius 7th. One of the most mystical and spiritual pieces of music ever written. Sibelius doesn't talk about a kind God but I suppose that after 40 Finnish winters you don't believe in the same kind of God that St. Francis felt on the Tuscan hills...


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## SeptimalTritone (Jul 7, 2014)




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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Peter Mennin Symphony No. 7.


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## omega (Mar 13, 2014)

Chostakovitch, Symphony #5


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

There are so many.

Today for me it might be *Szymanowski, Symphony No. 3 Op. 27, "The Song of the Night,"* which I believe just barely qualifies within the time frame.

It's odd to see so many liking Turangalîla-Symphonie. I find it to be Messiaen's "Wellington's Victory." I must not have a Messiaenic complex.


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## Skilmarilion (Apr 6, 2013)

I don't know about "greatest" -- does anyone? -- and as some guy alludes to, I would be amazed if I've listened to even 1% of all symphonies from the last 100 years.

So I'll have to choose instead a "favourite" from that less than 1%, and it turns out, Sibelius' 7th is the one.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)




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## Albert7 (Nov 16, 2014)

Too many great symphonies honestly.

I will go for personal favorite:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._15_(Shostakovich)

The James Joyce of composition musically I must say. Very complex shebang.


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

Like many others, I'm reluctant to call any single work the "greatest." So I'll say that the preeminent symphony of the last 100 years is Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Well others have suggested these as well but I'll second them (in some cases more than second):

Messiaen Turangalila
Ives 4
Stravinsky Symphony of Psalms


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## GreenMamba (Oct 14, 2012)

Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms for me, but on other days I might choose Ives 4 or Vaughan Williams 5.


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## JACE (Jul 18, 2014)

As others have said, can anyone determine the "greatest"? In any case, *Ives' Fourth Symphony* would get my vote for FAVORITE. 










Followed closely by:
- Shostakovich 4, 10, 13, 15
- Sibelius 6, 7


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## Nevum (Nov 28, 2013)

Alan Petterrssohn #8


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

albertfallickwang said:


> Too many great symphonies honestly.
> 
> I will go for personal favorite:
> 
> ...


-- musically James Joycean and a very complex shebang -- 
uh, Luciano Berio ~ _Sinfonia, third movement,_ anyone?




2 of 2:


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## Guest (Dec 28, 2014)

Yep, Dmitri Shostakovich was the last great composer, Morton Feldman was a minimalist punk, and if Alma Deutscher can't do it, we should probably give up on this "music" nonsense right now.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, a blurb from the TC terms of service.



> Trolling is not welcome. A troll is someone who intentionally posts derogatory or inflammatory messages *with the deliberate intent to bait users* into responding, ranging from subtle jibes to outright personal attacks.


Let's everyone give that a good read before giving *me* the infraction.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

arcaneholocaust said:


> Yep, Dmitri Shostakovich was the last great composer, Morton Feldman was a minimalist punk, and if Alma Deutscher can't do it, we should probably give up on this "music" nonsense right now.
> 
> Meanwhile, back at the ranch, a blurb from the TC terms of service.
> 
> ...


*Oh, Yeah!*

...and meanwhile, after sustained years of this implicitly alleged troll continuing to troll, mods go all soft and wussy, saying "But it is implicit," and still cop to not having the wherewithal to take direct action about a long-term troll presence on the site. -- Yeah, right....

"Punk troller rolls right over mods, site owner and all members, unabated after several years of activity." (aka, "TC, as usual.") ~ Film at eleven.


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## Richannes Wrahms (Jan 6, 2014)

^ shhhh.... If you use the word that shall not be written too much you increase your chances of infraction by 20%.

There's also Rautavaara's 7th and 8th which are quite nice, though many wouldn't call them 'great'.


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## nightscape (Jun 22, 2013)

I would call both of them great, but greatest of the last 100 years? Not exactly.


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## SimonNZ (Jul 12, 2012)

PetrB said:


> Because I like to advocate / promote this symphony wherever opportunity arises, because I think it is a terrific work:
> 
> Lucas Foss ~ Symphony No.2, "Symphony of chorales." (1958)


Has there ever been an lp or cd of any recording of this work? I can't see one.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

For me, my favorites have been Dutilleux's 1st and 2nd symphonies.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

SimonNZ said:


> Has there ever been an lp or cd of any recording of this work? I can't see one.


Not that I know of. It is in the area of criminal if it got but a few live performances and never made it to a recording, because top ten or other, imo it is a stunningly good piece.

[[ Add / interject: Found this listing, both 'unreleased CD recordings,' also with the Boston Symphony, but at Tanglewood. Two listings, same piece and ensemble at Tanglewood, two different dates.
http://recordings.online.fr/record.php?i=156&m=4
If you pursue this, and as the English say, "find some joy," please let me know via PM? ]]

If I began to think of any number of wonderful pieces "I would like to see recorded," this one would by right up there.

P.s. I am alternately spelling the composer's name correctly, _Lukas Foss,_ or misspelling _Lukas_ with a c


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## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

A lot of my favourites have already been mentioned. Don't make me rank them


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## sharik (Jan 23, 2013)

KenOC said:


> I vote Shostakovich's 10th. How about you?


vote his 7th, hands down.


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## sharik (Jan 23, 2013)

honestly speaking, we all know the list of winners:

1. Shostakovitch - 7th
2. Shostakovitch - 8th
3. Prokofiev - 5th


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

sharik said:


> honestly speaking, we all know the list of winners:
> 
> 1. Shostakovitch - 7th
> 2. Shostakovitch - 8th
> 3. Prokofiev - 5th


Maybe we need a poll. I'm not sure it will turn out like this. Will wait for a few more opinions...


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

No less conservative than any Shostakovich, and I think maybe 'better,' but it is far more dense than any Shostakovich symphony, ergo, though I think at least as worthy, if not more so, while I think because of its density that it will never gain the same general popularity as that of any Shostakovich symphony:

William Schuman ~ Symphony No. 6


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## Guest (Dec 29, 2014)

Choosing the greatest symphony, part deux.

Here's a pie chart of all the symphonies written in the last one hundred years. The black wedge represents the number of symphonies that any given person is likely to have heard. It is probably too big, but it needed to be visible.









At this stage, choosing the greatest symphony of the past hundred years could be compared to choosing the greatest piece by Prokofiev after having heard _Toccata, Classical Symphony,_ and _Peter and the Wolf._

Alas, this numerical absurdity need never even arise, as "greatest" is a silly concept. What does "greatest" even mean? What are the criteria to choose a "greatest" symphony? Is everyone going to agree on those criteria? Should they?

Many posters have quite sensibly just gone for "favorite." Even favorite from among the tiny slice of "all" makes sense. Even favorite from among _Toccata, Classical Symphony,_ and _Peter and the Wolf_ makes more sense than "greatest."

It's still kinda silly, but it at least makes sense.

Ives' symphony no. 4 is a splendid work. It is unlike any other symphony written in the past one hundred years. It's a blast to listen to. Ain't that enough?

Dhomont's Frankenstein Symphony is a splendid work. It is unlike any other symphony written in the past one hundred years. It's a blast to listen to. Ain't that enough?

Z'ev's Symphony no. 2 is a splendid work. It is unlike any other symphony written in the past one hundred years. It's a blast to listen to. Ain't that enough?

Searle wrote five symphonies. All worth listening to.
Sessions wrote nine symphonies. All worth listening to.
Gerhard wrote four symphonies. All worth listening to.
Zimmermann wrote one symphony. Well worth listening to.
Webern wrote one symphony. Well worth listening to.
Rawsthorne wrote three symphonies. All worth listening to.

And so on.

Narrowing that already narrow wedge on the pie chart down to one symphony seems to me to be an alarmingly reductionist task. Why not spend one's time making that wedge wider? I know. Listening to music. It's not very popular round here. Gimme the best of the best, and that's all I'll need.


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## sharik (Jan 23, 2013)

some guy said:


> What does "greatest" even mean?


the one that matters most.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

sharik said:


> honestly speaking, we all know the list of winners:
> 
> 1. Shostakovitch - 7th
> 2. Shostakovitch - 8th
> 3. Prokofiev - 5th


Honestly speaking, that is _your list of winners_


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## MagneticGhost (Apr 7, 2013)

Listing my favourite symphonies of the last 100 years.

Shostakovich 5, 10 and 15. Probably No. 5 is my favourite. It's pretty much perfect. Gun against head and I can only pick one, then Shosty 5 would win.

Messiaen's Turangalila. --- Tote Amazeballs - as my daughter might say. This should be as well known and as well played as Beethoven's 9th

Lutoslawski - Symphony No.4 -- This dude rocks.

Panufnik - Sinfonia Sacra -- I find this work to be sensational. But I think I'm in a small minority.


I could probably think of loads more that are just as great but I'll stop here as these probably came into my head first for a reason.


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## sharik (Jan 23, 2013)

PetrB said:


> Honestly speaking, that is _your list of winners_


a bit late for that remark of yours, isn't it?.. could have been posted a couple of posts earlier.


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## Gaspard de la Nuit (Oct 20, 2014)

The first movement of Walton's 1st is honestly the most impressive movement of a symphony proper I've ever heard, it has everything and almost makes the other movements seem superfluous. As a whole symphony, Vaughan Williams' 5th is one that I genuinely liked and somehow failed to bore me, which is a pretty momentous achievement in itself.



PetrB said:


> From some posters one could say that an even average intellectual capacity had just dun up and disappeared from the human gene pool post 1975


Maybe so, but I'd rather be an idiot than be a lot of other things.


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## aajj (Dec 28, 2014)

I choose Ives No. 2.

Honorable mention to Prokofiev No. 5.


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## GreenMamba (Oct 14, 2012)

Oh, just remembered *Lutoslawski*. Has he received any mentions yet? 3rd or 4th, not sure which i prefer.


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## Orfeo (Nov 14, 2013)

So many to choose from (I wish I can). I'll pick *Myaskovsky 27th Symphony*.

_-->After the disgraceful 1948 Zhdanov affair (and decree) when Myaskovsky, "The Musical Conscience of Moscow", was already terminally ill with cancer, this composer went on and responded to this bs with this immensely dignified, profound work, a work that summed up all that he went through before and beyond 1948. It is as genuine as it is graceful, and I cannot think of a better slow movement than this (Brucnker's 8th is in a league of itself, but...). That movement is wonderful: again graceful yet with dignity and no lip service. The finale, a bit leaning to the party's "official" taste, is nevertheless Myaskovskian all over, and it shows how much of a man of principles he was. _

Again, so many to choose from (Gliere's Third, Shostakovich's 8th, Schmidt's Fourth, and on and on and on). But I'll stop here before I get overboard. :angel:


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## sharik (Jan 23, 2013)

dholling said:


> _After the disgraceful 1948 Zhdanov affair (and decree) when Myaskovsky, "The Musical Conscience of Moscow", was already terminally ill with cancer, this composer went on and responded to this bs with this immensely dignified, profound work, a work that summed up all that he went through before and beyond 1948._


what does Zshdanov decree have to do with Maskovsky?.. he was doing quite well with the party line.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

sharik said:


> what does Zshdanov decree have to do with Maskovsky?.. he was doing quite well with the party line.


According to Wiki, under the Zhdanov decree "in 1947 Myaskovsky was singled out, with Shostakovich, Khachaturian and Prokofiev, as one of the principal offenders in writing music of anti-Soviet, 'anti-proletarian' and formalist tendencies. Myaskovsky refused to take part in the proceedings, despite a visit from Tikhon Khrennikov pointedly inviting him to deliver a speech of repentance at the next meeting of the Composers' Union. He was only rehabilitated after his death from cancer in 1950..."


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## Orfeo (Nov 14, 2013)

KenOC said:


> According to Wiki, under the Zhdanov decree "in 1947 Myaskovsky was singled out, with Shostakovich, Khachaturian and Prokofiev, as one of the principal offenders in writing music of anti-Soviet, 'anti-proletarian' and formalist tendencies. Myaskovsky refused to take part in the proceedings, despite a visit from Tikhon Khrennikov pointedly inviting him to deliver a speech of repentance at the next meeting of the Composers' Union. He was only rehabilitated after his death from cancer in 1950..."


Exactly. And Myaskovsky had run-ins with Party officials during the 1930s (at the time, he was a leading member of the Association of Contemporary Music or ACM, which went afoul with the Russian Association of Proletarian Musicians or RAPM).

One of a more daring things he did was to dedicate the 21st Symphony to Frederick Stock, chief conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, in French. It was composed out of Stock's commission to celebrate the ensemble's jubilee anniversary.

Not exactly the party's favorite.


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## JACE (Jul 18, 2014)

sharik said:


> the one that matters most.


Matters most *to whom*?


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## sharik (Jan 23, 2013)

KenOC said:


> According to Wiki, under the Zhdanov decree "in 1947 Myaskovsky was singled out, with Shostakovich, Khachaturian and Prokofiev, as one of the principal offenders in writing music of anti-Soviet, 'anti-proletarian' and formalist tendencies. Myaskovsky refused to take part in the proceedings, despite a visit from Tikhon Khrennikov pointedly inviting him to deliver a speech of repentance at the next meeting of the Composers' Union. He was only rehabilitated after his death from cancer in 1950..."


strange, that, because later in 1950 he, as well as Shostakovitch and Prokofiev in 1951, was awarded Stalin prize for some of his works.


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## sharik (Jan 23, 2013)

dholling said:


> Myaskovsky had run-ins with Party officials during the 1930s...Not exactly the party's favorite


he got four Stalin Prizes later on, well enough to be the party's favorite.


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## sharik (Jan 23, 2013)

JACE said:


> Matters most *to whom*?


to history of music.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

sharik said:


> to history of music.


Shostakovich's Seventh has probably had not more than a shred of influence on the history of music outside of the parody in Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra.


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## sharik (Jan 23, 2013)

Mahlerian said:


> Shostakovich's Seventh has probably had not more than a shred of influence on the history of music outside of the parody in Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra.


the talk was of last 100 years music.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

To be fair to Sharik, Stalin prizes were prestigious and did come with large financial rewards, but in the case of Prokofiev, DSCH etc I'm not totally convinced that the carrots tasted quite as sweet when you couldn't actually see where the stick was.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

sharik said:


> the talk was of last 100 years music.


Yes, and what composers/pieces have been inspired by this work in the last 70 years?


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Mahlerian said:


> Yes, and what composers/pieces have been inspired by this work in the last 70 years?


A good question. I know of none, and in fact feel that DSCH's music hasn't been very influential in general, at least in the West. But in Russia there are a whole crop of composers who are said to be influenced by DSCH, though they are seldom heard outside Russia. So I suppose that echoes of the 7th might be found among the works of those composers...

Maybe Sharik knows of such works.


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## Heliogabo (Dec 29, 2014)

I vote Ein Alpensinfonie op 64, of Richard Strauss.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

KenOC said:


> A good question. I know of none, and in fact feel that DSCH's music hasn't been very influential in general, at least in the West. But in Russia there are a whole crop of composers who are said to be influenced by DSCH, though they are seldom heard outside Russia. So I suppose that echoes of the 7th might be found among the works of those composers...
> 
> Maybe Sharik knows of such works.


Shostakovich in general has been influential, on Britten as well as some Soviet/post-Soviet composers, but I'm wondering how the Seventh itself has been influential. After all, Sharik's rationale was that the piece was the single most important Symphony to the history of music written in the 20th century.


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## sharik (Jan 23, 2013)

Mahlerian said:


> Yes, and what composers/pieces have been inspired by this work in the last 70 years?


Ralph Vaughan Williams - _Symphony №6._


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## sharik (Jan 23, 2013)

Heliogabo said:


> I vote Ein Alpensinfonie op 64, of Richard Strauss.


agreed... this one completely slipped my memory.


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## Orfeo (Nov 14, 2013)

sharik said:


> he got four Stalin Prizes later on, well enough to be the party's favorite.


You do realize that Stalin prizes were awarded based more on politics than matters of artistic value and aesthetic?


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

sharik said:


> Ralph Vaughan Williams - _Symphony №6._


It has been described as being influenced by Shostakovich, but the Seventh in particular? Do you have a citation for this, or any particular musical evidence?


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## sharik (Jan 23, 2013)

dholling said:


> You do realize that Stalin prizes were awarded based more on politics than matters of artistic value and aesthetic?


really?.. doesn't seem like that at all.


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## sharik (Jan 23, 2013)

Mahlerian said:


> It has been described as being influenced by Shostakovich, but the Seventh in particular? Do you have a citation for this, or any particular musical evidence?


the musical evidence is Williams 6th itself, what more evidence needed?


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

sharik said:


> really?.. doesn't seem like that at all.


Aren't you a Russian?


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

A list of most of the Stalin Prize winners through the years can be found here, for those interested:

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalinpreis


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## sharik (Jan 23, 2013)

Morimur said:


> Aren't you a Russian?


yes i am, so what?


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## Heliogabo (Dec 29, 2014)

sharik said:


> agreed... this one completely slipped my memory.


It was composed in 1915! We´re gonna have the 100th anniversary


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

sharik said:


> yes i am, so what?


It's a well known fact that the Stalin Prize had nothing to do with artistic value, and everything to do with politics (propaganda), as stated by dholling. Just figured most Russians would be aware of this fact.


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## sharik (Jan 23, 2013)

Morimur said:


> It's a well known fact that the Stalin Prize had nothing to do with artistic value, and everything to with politics (propaganda), as stated by dholling. Just figured most Russians would be aware of this fact.


the fact is that Stalin prize was given to outstanding persons for outstanding achievements, as practice shows.

you might read up on it - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USSR_State_Prize


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

sharik said:


> the fact is that Stalin prize was given to outstanding persons for outstanding achievements, as practice shows.
> 
> you might read up on it - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USSR_State_Prize


Yes, so long as these achievements were in line with Bolshevik (Socialist) philosophy. In other words: Propaganda. Artistic excellence in relation to music had very little to do with the prize, as evidenced in most of Shostakovich's programmatic output.


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## GreenMamba (Oct 14, 2012)

I'm not sure the Stalin Prize list is any worse than Pulitzers, Academy Awards, etc.

It's nice to see Shostakovich won for his Piano Quintet, maybe my favorite piece of his.


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

GreenMamba said:


> I'm not sure the Stalin Prize list is any worse than Pulitzers, Academy Awards, etc.
> 
> It's nice to see Shostakovich won for his Piano Quintet, maybe my favorite piece of his.


One might convincingly argue that these contemporary prizes are actually worse.


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## sharik (Jan 23, 2013)

Morimur said:


> Yes, so long as these achievements were in line with Bolshevik (Socialist) philosophy. In other words: Propaganda.


but one does not exclude the other. Shostakovitch was a stalwart Bolshevik and still a brilliant composer.



Morimur said:


> Artistic excellence in relation to music had very little to do with the prize, as evidenced in most of Shostakovich's programmatic output.


didn't his 7th deserve to be awarded the prize?


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Morimur said:


> Yes, so long as these achievements were in line with Bolshevik (Socialist) philosophy. In other words: Propaganda. Artistic excellence in relation to music had very little to do with the prize, as evidenced in most of Shostakovich's programmatic output.


I think this is a bit simplistic. In some cases, at least, Stalin prizes were awarded for music that was both very good and met Party goals per the prevailing aesthetic doctrine. In the 1930s and 1940s, that doctrine was socialist realism, music intended to appeal to the proletariat -- certainly not just to urban intellectuals, Shostakovich's own crowd, who were always viewed with suspicion. In any event, propaganda (of the external type) seems to have had little role in awarding the prizes.

The denunciations and betrayals within the music world continued apace during those decades. But the prize awards don't seem very connected with that. In 1936 Shostakovich was denounced in the harshest terms in Pravda -- the worst place it could have been published. But four years later he won the Stalin Prize for his Piano Quintet, obviously well-deserved. He was denounced again in 1948 and dismissed from his professorship at the Conservatory -- yet only two years later, still several years from rehabilitation, he won another Stalin Prize for his Trio No. 2.

Go figure.


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

Let's be real here: The VAST MAJORITY of art produced (and approved) under Stalin's rule was absolutely worthless and devoid of any real artistic expression and creativity. Under Stalin, the sole purpose of all artistic activity was the glorification of State and Soviet power (Stalin). Shostakovich was a composer of mediocre talent, and the bulk of his output stands today, as testament to that very mediocracy.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Morimur said:


> Let's be real here: The VAST MAJORITY of art produced (and approved) under Stalin's rule was absolutely worthless and devoid of any real artistic expression and creativity. Under Stalin, the sole purpose of all artistic activity was the glorification of State and Soviet power (Stalin). Shostakovich was a composer of mediocre talent, and the bulk of his output, stands today, as testament to that very mediocracy.


Oooooh, la! I tend to agree, but, well, You've really done it and gone the extra yard to boot! I think that deserves some sort of congratulations, so -- Some sort of congratulations 

*"Dmitri Shostakovich revealed as an almost entirely worthless composer who was at best mediocre!"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~TC's World In Flames!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Film At Eleven*


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Morimur said:


> Let's be real here: The VAST MAJORITY of art produced (and approved) under Stalin's rule was absolutely worthless and devoid of any real artistic expression and creativity.


Soviet music from 1930 and into the 1970s is at the center of the repertoire from those years. Look at the top-ten entries, decade by decade, here.

https://sites.google.com/site/kenocstuff/ama/best-works-by-decade



Morimur said:


> Under Stalin, the sole purpose of all artistic activity was the glorification of State and Soviet power (Stalin).


Not entirely, or even in majority. Music was expected to serve the State, certainly, but that went well beyond glorification of individuals. A lot of music was simply intended to be entertaining, as in any other culture. Even the cranky Tikon Khrennikov, president of the Composer's Union during the bad years, wrote a bit of light music that's still listened to in Russia.



Morimur said:


> Shostakovich was a composer of mediocre talent, and the bulk of his output stands today, as testament to that very mediocracy.


Well, we all have our opinions. But I pretty carefully toted up the results of the "best of decade" voting games mentioned above for the eight decades 1900-1979, awarding points to each represented composer for each entry, the number of points depending on the work's position from 1 to 10. So the results take into account the number of top-ten entries and their positions. Here are the results -- note that Shostakovich had twice as many points as Bartok in #2.

1 - Shostakovich
2 - Bartok
3 - Mahler
4 - Stravinsky
5 - Sibelius
6 - Prokofiev
7 - Messiaen
8 - Lutoslawski
9 - Ravel
10 - Poulenc


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

KenOC said:


> Soviet music from 1930 and into the 1970s is at the center of the repertoire from those years. Look at the top-ten entries, decade by decade, here.
> 
> https://sites.google.com/site/kenocstuff/ama/best-works-by-decade
> 
> ...


Stravinsky ranking below Shostakovich -- This list is a joke.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Shostakovich over Mahler or Prokofiev or Sibelius? 

Wish I heard it in the music, but I don't.

For some of the music he composed, he shoulda been made to walk the Poulenc.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

I hope you both looked at the decade-by-decade results rather than just the list. It's sometimes helpful to see the data!


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## Kibbles Croquettes (Dec 2, 2014)

KenOC said:


> I hope you both looked at the decade-by-decade results rather than just the list. It's sometimes helpful to see the data!


I would have liked to see how many votes there actually were for each of the pieces.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

hpowders said:


> Shostakovich over Mahler or Prokofiev or Sibelius?
> 
> Wish I heard it in the music, but I don't.
> 
> For some of the music he composed, he shoulda been made to walk the Poulenc.


Dontcha just luv it when someone pulls out a defense of a composer via hauling out *the results of a populist popularity poll?

"...well, this very well demonstrates Lady Gaga is by far greater than Stravinsky."*
Ha haaaa haaaaaa.....


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Kibbles Croquettes said:


> I would have liked to see how many votes there actually were for each of the pieces.


Didn't work that way. For each decade 30-50 works were nominated (many more were proposed but failed nomination). Each work was given 5 points and the entire voting list was then voted on and the rank order determined by elimination. Each player could vote twice a day, awarding one point to one piece and subtracting a point each from two others. As a piece dropped to zero points, it left the list. Each decade game took, usually, a week to two weeks to complete.


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## Kibbles Croquettes (Dec 2, 2014)

KenOC said:


> Didn't work that way. For each decade 30-50 works were nominated (many more were proposed but failed nomination). Each work was given 5 points and the entire voting list was then voted on and the rank order determined by elimination. Each player could vote twice a day, awarding one point to one piece and subtracting a point each from two others. As a piece dropped to zero points, it left the list. Each decade game took, usually, a week to two weeks to complete.


Ok, right, it was that elaborated.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

KenOC said:


> Each player could vote twice a day, awarding one point to one piece and subtracting a point each from two others.


The twice a day vote for one individual (and too, over how many days? ... and was it people willing to fork a bit of change over to their telephone providers?  further proves such polls, regardless of their results, are a travesty. Loads of laughs, thanks for the entertainment.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

PetrB said:


> The twice a day vote for one individual (and too, over how many days? ... and was it people willing to fork a bit of change over to their telephone providers?  further proves such polls, regardless of their results, are a travesty. Loads of laughs, thanks for the entertainment.


The voting was for works of music, not composers. In any event, I figure that looking at the consensus opinion of a number of people who are conversant with and enjoy classical music may be of more value than simply saying "Shostakovich was a composer of mediocre talent, and the bulk of his output stands today, as testament to that very mediocracy."

Don't you agree?


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## Orfeo (Nov 14, 2013)

Morimur said:


> Let's be real here: The VAST MAJORITY of art produced (and approved) under Stalin's rule was absolutely worthless and devoid of any real artistic expression and creativity. Under Stalin, the sole purpose of all artistic activity was the glorification of State and Soviet power (Stalin). Shostakovich was a composer of mediocre talent, and the bulk of his output stands today, as testament to that very mediocracy.


Even Stalin praised Ivan Dzerzhinsky's opera "Quiet Flow the River Don", even though it is no where near Shostakovich's "Lady Macbeth" in artistic value, boldness, and greatness. And yet not only was the latter attacked by Pravda, the opera and the attacks against it became to be served as basis in which all other works would be judged after 1936.

I must respectfully disagree with your assessment of Shostakovich as a composer of mediocre talent. I think he is a composer of great talent (as his opera in particular attests and demonstrates), but lacking consistency. Most composers had that problem, but many managed to achieve greatness in the final analysis.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Catching up -- here are the symphonies mentioned in posts with a single "nomination".

Bartok Concerto for orchestra
Berio Sinfonia
Carter symphonia sum fluxae pretium spei
Foss 2 "Symphony of chorales"
Gillis Symphony 5½
Gorecki 3
Ives 2
Ives 4 (3 mentions)
Mennin 7
Messiaen Turangalila-Symphonie (3 mentions)
Myaskovsky 27 
Petterrsson 8
Schuman 6
Shostakovich 5
Shostakovich 7 (2 mentions)
Shostakovich 10
Shostakovich 15
Sibelius 7 (3 mentions)
Strauss Ein Alpensinfonie
Stravinsky Symphony of Psalms (2 mentions)
Szymanowski 3 "The Song of the Night"
Vaughan Williams 7 "Sinfonia Antartica"


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

KenOC said:


> The voting was for works of music, not composers. In any event, I figure that looking at the consensus opinion of a number of people who are conversant with and enjoy classical music may be of more value than simply saying "Shostakovich was a composer of mediocre talent, and the bulk of his output stands today, as testament to that very mediocracy."
> 
> Don't you agree?


Only in that Shostakovich is the 'modernist' composer so far retro-conservative enough that it is very easy to understand why he is in the top of popularity polls... he is "accessible" in that very much old manner way; a few displaced notes and mild dissonance, etc.

Yeah, he could definitely compose, but I think the better / best of Dmitri is found in the concerti and some of the stage works, and not at all in the symphonies, the string quartets, and absolutely not in the 24 preludes and fugues, which I find an "academic" complete bore /bust (an opinion like any other, i.e. just an opinion.)

That said, any poll re: "Symphony in the 20th century" almost inevitably goes to the more conservative, good bad or indifferent, so the fact that poll is allegedly 'about 20th century music' is, to me, very marginally actually about the most interesting, better / best of the 20th century, i.e. it becomes a kind of de facto canard.

To me, he is far from a high-status "great composer," and whether it was the man reacting to circumstance, or just a being with an innately more neurotic, nervous, and emotionally febrile nature, _he wrote a lot of really bad music, in proportion to the whole where I again can not consider him 'great,'_ but rather he hit it right a handful of times only. Perhaps it is not so much a matter of 'mediocre talent' as much as a heap of what he wrote, I believe, is mediocre.


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

dholling said:


> Even Stalin praised Ivan Dzerzhinsky's opera "Quiet Flow the River Don", even though it is no where near Shostakovich's "Lady Macbeth" in artistic value, boldness, and greatness. And yet not only was the latter attacked by Pravda, the opera and the attacks against it became to be served as basis in which all other works would be judged after 1936.
> 
> I must respectfully disagree with your assessment of Shostakovich as a composer of mediocre talent. I think he is a composer of great talent (as his opera in particular attests and demonstrates), but lacking consistency. Most composers had that problem, but many managed to achieve greatness in the final analysis.


He was more than 'inconsistent'. His competent work is ridiculously outweighed by the vapid, superficial pieces you've all come to know and love.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

PetrB said:


> Only in that Shostakovich is the 'modernist' composer so far retro-conservative enough that it is very easy to understand why he is in the top of popularity polls... he is "accessible" in that very much old manner way; a few displaced notes and mild dissonance, etc.


Well, it's possible of course that Shostakovich's popularity is due to the inferiority of most classical music listeners. Or is your first paragraph suggesting something different?

As for inconsistency, I don't see that matters much. Based on what people actually listen to and enjoy, he seems to place well ahead of any other composer of the last 100 years. Who cares about the rest? The guy had a day job for the Party, after all. :lol:


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## Orfeo (Nov 14, 2013)

Morimur said:


> He was more than 'inconsistent'. His competent work is ridiculously outweighed by the vapid, superficial pieces you've all come to know and love.


Like his 8th and 13th Symphonies for instances?


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

KenOC said:


> Well, it's possible of course that Shostakovich's popularity is due to the inferiority of most classical music listeners. Or is your first paragraph suggesting something else?
> 
> As for inconsistency, I don't see that matters much. Based on what people actually listen to and enjoy, he seems to place well ahead of any other composer of the last 100 years. Who cares about the rest? The guy had a day job for the Party, after all. :lol:


"popularity is due to the inferiority of most classical music listeners." Please, let's not equate 'inferior' with what is merely a retro-conservatism. It was you who said, rather plaintively about two modern works, that the more conservative of the two was "At least in a syntax with which I am familiar and can understand." -- and that could be said, as genuinely heartfelt, by a majority of the classical music listeners, including the membership of TC. That any like those conservatives have 'not gone all the way,' could be criticized, not as inferior but as less adventurous and less willing to make an effort and take those extra steps -- truly, even that 'syntax with which I am familiar' would be no more valid if you were a contemporary of Beethoven and had a negative reaction to his more adventurous stuff from the Eroica and later, i.e. you would likely be arguing for the older stuff, and the more radical Beethoven works might sit in that same realm of a syntax with which you were neither comfortable or familiar.

"As for inconsistency, I don't see that matters much. Based on what people actually listen to and enjoy, he seems to place well ahead of any other composer of the last 100 years. Who cares about the rest?"

Well, Bubeleh, I do care about the rest, actually, because you are just putting forward that very same argument I completely pinned and deconstructed, i.e. _"Lady Gaga is the greater composer because she is far more popular than Stravinsky."_

I guess your belief in this sort of popularity equating to greatness in the fine arts comes maybe more from the world of business, where no matter the integrity, what sells most must be the best? Sorry, I just don't think that holds water when it comes to popularity and the fine arts... the obvious lag in the general public (even the 'knowing' general public) 'catching up' to the great stuff, taking fifty to over one hundred years from when the works were produced, is too consistent a history to be denied.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

PetrB said:


> Sorry, I just don't think that holds water when it comes to popularity and the fine arts... the obvious lag in the general public (even the 'knowing' general public) 'catching up' to the great stuff, taking fifty to over one hundred years from when the works were produced, is too consistent a history to be denied.


Not sure where you get your history. Haydn and Mozart were the most popular "serious music" composers in Europe during their lifetimes. Beethoven ditto, the darling of publishers because they could sell so much of his sheet music (apologies to Rossini of course). This pretty much continued through the 19th century (with exceptions like Schubert), even fuelling the holy war between the Brahms and Wagner schools. *Almost* all the composer from that era who we value today were at center stage during their lifetimes.

Few people today claim those composers were popular because they were pandering in a "populist" way, or because their audience was unsophisticated. That seems to be more an argument of the late 20th century.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Hmmm. There's always debate about how good Shostakovich is. Could someone be more specific as to why? 

I don't care for him in general. I don't easily resonate to the angst and depression, or what feels to me like vulgarity. But he can impress me deeply at times. A fresh and brilliant first symphony, a terrifying fourth, a beautiful fifth, two striking violin concertos, some finely wrought piano works - just off the top of my head. Is anything wrong with pieces like these? As a non-fan I may not be in the best position to rate him overall, but didn't he turn out quite a bit of music that a lot of experienced classical listeners rate highly? Is it only because he also turned out a lot of less impressive (maybe mediocre) stuff that some think he doesn't deserve to be called great? Are there other standards besides consistency that people are using to judge him? Is he technically incompetent? If he is I don't hear it.

I'm hesitant to judge composers whose work I don't know well or don't care for enough to get to know better. Shostakovich is not one I listen to often, there are works of his I really dislike, and there are works, some major, that I've never heard at all. Yet he still sounds to me like a masterful and important composer. What am I missing?


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

I don't care much for Shostakovich's music either, but I think calling him a 'mediocre' composer is pretty ridiculous. I think he was a composer of considerable talent. From observing posts here on this forum his music has clearly moved a lot of people deeply (many of them hardcore classical listeners that appreciate a wide range of music new and old), I think that is one of the surest signs of a "great" composer. 

I don't think being on the cutting edge of innovation is the only thing that defines "greatness". If inconsistency is the issue then I guess Mozart is out of the running as a "great" composer.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

KenOC said:


> Not sure where you get your history. Haydn and Mozart were the most popular "serious music" composers in Europe during their lifetimes. Beethoven ditto, the darling of publishers because they could sell so much of his sheet music (apologies to Rossini of course). This pretty much continued through the 19th century (with exceptions like Schubert), even fueling the holy war between the Brahms and Wagner schools. *Almost* all the composer from that era who we value today were at center stage during their lifetimes.
> 
> Few people today claim those composers were popular because they were pandering in a "populist" way, or because their audience was unsophisticated. That seems to be more an argument of the late 20th century.


Well you're right and you're wrong, once again conveniently eliding over the fact that many a contemporary listener found Mozart "Difficult," if not more near to nonsensical noise, and ditto when it came to Beethoven from his 3rd symphony and forward. Of that particular cherry-picked tactic, I'm weary, or as Yogi Berra said, _"It's like déjà vu all over again."_ The rather odd fact that his piano sonatas sold well, to almost exclusively the home amateur, that (whether there were piano recitals in that era is a good part of this... but) only one of them was performed publicly in his lifetime, that the string quartets were consumed and played in homes more than anywhere else, is attributable to the fact there were that many more good amateur players and the only way to have music at home was to make it yourself. Indeed, those genres, Schumann's Liebeslieder, and scores of other scores were many a composer's bread and butter, and too, it had people playing at home not just the most populist / popular of those composer's works. The amateur players of those eras, it could be said, were generally at least a titch less conservative than today's near wholly passive classical music consumer.

Sure, they were popular, just as Stravinsky was popular in his lifetime -- _for their more readily 'accessible' works._ This still, however you choose to manipulate it, does not, via popularity polls, make Shostakovich the "top" or "greatest" 20th century composer. Indeed, when it comes to a Soviet-era composer, it is not only what was generally accessible but the fact there were no royalties involved in programming what was then and still is music which otherwise _would have cost more to perform and record_ -- a little bit of business and pragmatica to consider along with why his music got the exposure it did.

Still, this ever so slight modernism cloth over otherwise 'no real news' adequate music which resonates enough like "the old stuff" which _is_ Shostakovich is enough, along with the fact it cost little to program or record, has (I'm certain) a good deal to do with his popularity.

And wasn't it Britten and another composer or musician pal who had that dialogue, "Is Shostakovich a great composer?" "No, Ben, he is a terrible composer who wrote a few great operas!" LOL.

But harp all you choose to harp on the "popular must therefore = great" strings, and that also harped upon point of general accessibility and an artist holding to _"a syntax with which the public is familiar and which they can readily understand"_ as if that is some absolute prime criterion for having something to do with greatness all you want. It still won't make it so.


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## SeptimalTritone (Jul 7, 2014)

I'm going to nominate a piece that blows away anything done by Shostakovitch by lightyears.

Stockhausen's Sternklang for 5 groups of spatially separated vocal/instrumental musicians, connected through loudspeakers.

Might as well count as a symphony.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

tdc said:


> I don't care much for Shostakovich's music either, but I think calling him a 'mediocre' composer is pretty ridiculous. I think he was a composer of considerable talent. From observing posts here on this forum his music has clearly moved a lot of people deeply (many of them hardcore classical listeners that appreciate a wide range of music new and old), I think that is one of the surest signs of a "great" composer.
> 
> I don't think being on the cutting edge of innovation is the only thing that defines "greatness". *If inconsistency is the issue then I guess Mozart is out of the running as a "great" composer.*


I agree that innovativeness is not a primary qualification for excellence. As for inconsistency, plenty of great composers were inconsistent. Sibelius turned out a lot of minor stuff - not bad music, but music that wouldn't have gotten him far on its own. Wagner? Didn't have time for much besides opera, but aside from the _Siegfried Idyll_ and the _Wesendonck Lieder_ most of his incidental stuff is quite mediocre (which he himself recognized), and even the operas have less inspired pages. Mozart is always supremely competent - but always great? How many dances, serenades, and other miscellaneous entertainments do we need? Brahms kept a fire going for his rejects, but even so are all the songs, choral pieces, and organ works masterpieces?

Well, enough rumination. I await the arguments demonstrating Shosty's mediocrity.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

PetrB said:


> Well you're right and you're wrong, once again conveniently eliding over the fact that many a contemporary listener found Mozart "Difficult," if not more near to nonsensical noise, and ditto Beethoven.


And I also elided over the fact that Mozart's tunes were played in the streets and there was an entire cottage industry arranging them for different instruments and writing variations on them. Even Beethoven picked up a bit of coin doing that! I mean, really. This is becoming absurd.


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

KenOC said:


> Catching up -- here are the symphonies mentioned in posts with a single "nomination".
> 
> Bartok Concerto for orchestra
> Berio Sinfonia
> ...


I personally think it is impossible to answer this question. My entry concerning the Gillis _Symphony 5½_ is a light hearted attempt to be humorous. Gillis had a little Peter Schickele in him. He composed a march which he called _January February March_. The _Symphony 5½_ is light heated romp that, like the Shostakovich 9th, makes fun of symphonies. It really is not a great symphony.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

arpeggio said:


> I personally think it is impossible to answer this question. My entry concerning the Gillis _Symphony 5½_ is a light hearted attempt to be humorous. Gillis had a little Peter Schickele in him. He composed a march which he called _January February March_. The _Symphony 5½_ is light heated romp that, like the Shostakovich 9th, makes fun of symphonies. It really is not a great symphony.


I don't think a "great" symphony has to be furrow-browed or portentous. I'm personally very fond of DSCH's 9th and consider it a "great" symphony (Zhdanov would disagree or course). So now I've gotta check out this Gillis fellow.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

SeptimalTritone said:


> I'm going to nominate a piece that blows away anything done by Shostakovitch by lightyears.
> 
> Stockhausen's Sternklang for 5 groups of spatially separated vocal/instrumental musicians, connected through loudspeakers.
> 
> Might as well count as a symphony.


No offense intended, but how does that bit of outlandish hyperbole tell us anything except that you're mad for Stockhausen? Does taking a gratuitous swipe at a composer many consider great somehow make your boy look better? Or might it actually make your advocacy seem a bit suspect?


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

> *Myaskovsky 27th Symphony*.
> 
> _-->After the disgraceful 1948 Zhdanov affair (and decree) when Myaskovsky, "The Musical Conscience of Moscow", was already terminally ill with cancer, this composer went on and responded to this bs with this immensely dignified, profound work, a work that summed up all that he went through before and beyond 1948. It is as genuine as it is graceful, and I cannot think of a better slow movement than this (Brucnker's 8th is in a league of itself, but...). That movement is wonderful: again graceful yet with dignity and no lip service. The finale, a bit leaning to the party's "official" taste, is nevertheless Myaskovskian all over, and it shows how much of a man of principles he was. _


To me, this illustrates just _how much_ a listener's perception of what they hear from the music alone can be affected by their knowing of "the story" behind the music. I hear nothing at all in this piece but a distinct enough voice in a slightly mid-20th century vernacular musical vein, and I mean slight, which I hear as competent yet bland and really only barely tinged by any of the more signifying colloquial traits of the mid-20th century which would better hold my attention. To me, it is pleasant enough but wholly forgettable music which cannot hold my ears' interest as it plays, in any of its movements.

Yet the above contextual attachment to what another listening to the same music allegedly hears in it has me marveling at the effect it has on that listener's perception, like those perfume ads which show how much happens if she puts on just on drop of scent, i.e. "It does _all that?_"


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Well, right. This thread is supposed to be about the greatest (or more likely most favorite) symphony of the last 100 years. It's apparent that some don't care for Shostakovich, which is fair dinkum, or who maybe hold all whose opinions differ from theirs in contempt (which in my book is not).

Maybe we can talk about the "best" symphony of the last 100 years without contemptuously blasting those with different opinions? Maybe? I really need another swig from this bottle...


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## Chronochromie (May 17, 2014)

SeptimalTritone said:


> I'm going to nominate a piece that blows away anything done by Shostakovitch by lightyears.
> 
> Stockhausen's Sternklang for 5 groups of spatially separated vocal/instrumental musicians, connected through loudspeakers.
> 
> Might as well count as a symphony.


I'm going to nominate a piece that blows away anything done by Stockhausen by lightyears.

Shostakovich's Jazz Suite No. 2
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Just kidding


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

KenOC said:


> Well, right. This thread is supposed to be about the greatest (or more likely most favorite) symphony of the last 100 years. It's apparent that some don't care for Shostakovich, which is fair dinkum, or who maybe hold all whose opinions differ from theirs in contempt (which in my book is not).
> 
> Maybe we can talk about the "best" symphony of the last 100 years without contemptuously blasting those with different opinions? Maybe? I really need another swig from this bottle...


Remove any reference of 'best' as the criterion in the OP, then. Whoops, too late That, of course is what so colors the reading of some of these opinions, a sub-text of "this is by far the greater / greatest piece of music / composer"... even if the person who gave the opinion really was only thinking, "My Favorite," or, "One of my favorites."

But hey, if it were "Favorite" instead of "Greatest / best" -- then everyone is just listing their favorites -- and I just cannot resist: that leaves those majority polls merely on and about favorite vs. great -- and where would that leave those who really think their taste is the sine qua non standard with which others should rightly concur?

:lol: :tiphat: :lol:


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

PetrB said:


> Remove any reference of 'best' as the criterion in the OP...


The OP doesn't have this reference. It's really easy to check. It does have the word "greatest," which doesn't confuse most people.



PetrB said:


> ...and where would that leave those who really think their taste is the sine qua non standard with which others should rightly concur?


Probably about where they belong.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

"...and where would that leave those who really think their taste is the sine qua non standard with which others should rightly concur?"



KenOC said:


> Probably about where they belong.


Ahhh, but exactly so! -- including then all opinions on.... 'any of the greatest.'

Last I checked, BTW, "greatest" is one of those singular only superlatives, as many a superlative is; using it is already an invitation for very passionate and heated opinion.


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## MJongo (Aug 6, 2011)

Ives Symphony 4


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

KenOC said:


> And I also elided over the fact that Mozart's tunes were played in the streets and there was an entire cottage industry arranging them for different instruments and writing variations on them. Even Beethoven picked up a bit of coin doing that! I mean, really. This is becoming absurd.


If more of the reality of this universal popularity, i.e. not quite so universal as made out, were not so presented, others might just not react with what seems like an equally imbalanced counter to it. Just sayin.

The dilettante critic who wrote of Mozart's Quintet for piano and winds that the parts sounded completely unrelated to each other, rhythmically in conflict, and that the whole of that piece was a discordant jumble of no sense or beauty whatsoever was not an isolated nut. Ditto for many such a comment about works by Beethoven. The truth then, is not wholesale globally wide instant popularity for either composer, nor naught but resentful misunderstanding or dislike, but both. And that is where I very much resent the whitewash "they were completely wildly popular" and that rumbling sub-text as well, i.e. that more contemporary composers just don't have it because they are not popular in that same (misrepresented) manner.


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## sharik (Jan 23, 2013)

Morimur said:


> The VAST MAJORITY of art produced (and approved) under Stalin's rule was absolutely worthless and devoid of any real artistic expression and creativity.


take for example Hollywood, of which biggest part produced under its bosses rule is complete rubbish devoid of any real artistic expression and creativity.



Morimur said:


> Under Stalin, the sole purpose of all artistic activity was the glorification of State and Soviet power (Stalin).


how for example Shostakovitch 8th does glorify the State?



Morimur said:


> Shostakovich was a composer of mediocre talent, and the bulk of his output stands today, as testament to that very mediocracy.


a rather bold statement, that.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

PetrB said:


> If more of the reality of this universal popularity, i.e. not quite so universal as made out, were not so presented, others might just not react with what seems like an equally imbalanced counter to it. Just sayin.
> 
> The dilettante critic who wrote of Mozart's Quintet for piano and winds that the parts sounded completely unrelated to each other, rhythmically in conflict, and that the whole of that piece was a discordant jumble of no sense or beauty whatsoever was not an isolated nut. Ditto for many such a comment about works by Beethoven. The truth then, is not wholesale globally wide instant popularity for either composer, nor naught but resentful misunderstanding or dislike, but both. And that is where I very much resent the whitewash "they were completely wildly popular" and that rumbling sub-text as well, i.e. that more contemporary composers just don't have it because they are not popular in that same (misrepresented) manner.


I'm not aware that anyone has ever argued that the works of Mozart or Beethoven or Tchaikovsky or Sibelius were instantly and globally popular. The question I think you and KenOC are debating is: was these composers' music, and that of whomever else you choose, recognized and celebrated and enjoyed by a substantial listening public within a reasonably short time of its introduction? Or did it take, as you suggested a couple of posts back, fifty to a hundred years?

We can find find uncomprehending and disparaging reactions by critics toward virtually any notable artist in history. Anything new and different will get people on edge temporarily. Mozart's music was more complex, structurally and expressively, than many would accept right away. It was not, however, in a fundamentally strange idiom, and its complexity was not an insuperable obstacle to Mozart being acclaimed, through his short lifetime, as a very great composer, and making a goodly amount of money at it. Haydn was constantly coming up with new musical ideas, which didn't prevent him from being celebrated and well-financed virtually all his life. Bach made the church ladies grouse about his complicated chorale settings, but no one doubted his genius, and he was sufficiently compensated producing his profound, daring, difficult music to support a house full of kids. Beethoven startled his hearers and the critics carped, but everyone knew he was the greatest composer in the world. Even Wagner, setting out to reform everything in sight and virtually succeeding, pushed past the critical pitchforks and had audiences literally weeping and fainting to sounds that were unimaginable to anyone a decade or two earlier. Even up to the early years of the twentieth century, composers of challenging but excellent music had every reason to expect success with a decent segment of the public, and even if the premieres of their works were inauspicious (a bit of an understatement with _Sacre!_), acclaim was usually not long in following.

I can't help suspecting that the myth of great artists throughout history encountering long-lasting incomprehension, opposition and neglect was mostly an invention of mediocre and alienated Romantics, an ego-balm for failed poets and painters freezing in garrets, and a bit of historical revisionism adopted by modernists to rationalize the incomprehension with which their artistic revolutions were greeted. It could even allow one to wear non-acceptance as a badge of honor: "Beethoven's works were misunderstood... My works are misunderstood... Hey!"


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## Saxotoon (Dec 30, 2014)

:tiphat:Shostakovich, nr 5


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## Guest (Dec 30, 2014)

There's another thing Ken has skated over, the sea-change in audience attitude towards new music around the turn of the century from the 18th to the 19th. It took most of the 19th century to effect this change--from new is better to old is better--but by the 20th century it was firmly in place and has yet to be dislodged in any general way. There are plenty of exceptions, of course, but generally classical listeners think old is better than new. There were exceptions in the 18th century as well, but generally the idea was that new is better.

As for this assertion, "*Almost* all the composer from that era who we value today were at center stage during their lifetimes," that one skates over the composers who were at center stage then who are now completely forgotten. So even if that assertion were true (and "center stage" looks quite different to a contemporary than to someone looking back in time), it would still be no more than partly true. And "partly true" is easily just as false as "completely false."


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> Right up to the early years of the twentieth century, composers of challenging but excellent music had every reason to expect success with a decent segment of the public, and even if the premieres of their works were inauspicious (a bit of an understatement with _Sacre!_), acclaim was usually not long in following.
> 
> I can't help thinking that the mythology of great artists throughout history encountering long-lasting incomprehension, opposition and neglect is mostly an invention of alienated Romantics with delusions of grandeur, adopted by modernists to rationalize their problems of acceptance and even permit them to wear non-acceptance as a badge of honor. "Beethoven's works were misunderstood... My works are misunderstood... Wow!"


I think there are numerous differences between now and then, and I'm not sure that the most important are necessarily musical. In the past, art--and not just music--was a "prestige" commodity. In the Classical period, first-rate compositions were ordered and consumed by society's elite (though only the truly discerning tended to give composers money). Most of the composers you mention--right up to Stravinsky--were comfortable rubbing elbows with the rich and famous. Even an irascible character like Beethoven walked around palaces like he owned them, and despite various indignities was accepted as "one of them." Similarly, many courts throughout Europe and elsewhere had resident painters we now revere as old masters; some of them were treated as the friends of royalty even when they weren't born into the position. Stravinsky--a true artistic radical--was yet another scion of the elite, a cache that lingered even in Hollywood. I personally have no nostalgia for openly hierarchical cultures, but I do think they help to explain the kind of popular, big-orchestral hits that great composers created: they knew they'd be performed.

History was not kind to many of my favorite works of the past, even by composers who were acknowledged geniuses, for various reasons. Someone may be able to correct me, but I'm not sure that masterpieces like Mozart's Adagio in B minor or Beethoven's Diabelli Variations received much notice until the 20th century. Schubert is a better example: a composer from humble beginnings who (unlike Beethoven) seems to have been uncomfortable around the kind of people who could have served as patrons. Many of his best compositions--including the miraculous Piano Sonata in G major--had to wait until the 20th century for a substantial following. I suspect that part of the reason for their reemergence (apart from great interpreters and, of course, recording technology) is that the 20th-21st centuries have excelled in producing so many soulful, private, and superficially repetitive works. Morton Feldman isn't for everyone (and no composer has to be!), but I myself enjoy listening to him side-by-side with my beloved Schubert.

Having said all that--even though I like contemporary music, it doesn't bother me in the least if nobody else likes it. They're still making music I like, which is all that matters to me! Not to mention the cheap concert tickets.

*p.s.* I'll add Tubin's 4th Symphony to the list of greats (though it's OK if it's not official, Ken, since I already made one), for anyone who doesn't mind neo-Romantic music. I just got a good recording by Volmer & co. to replace my old one by Neeme Jarvi, which had very disappointing sound.


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## Skilmarilion (Apr 6, 2013)

KenOC said:


> ... the symphonies mentioned in posts with a single "nomination"...*
> 
> Strauss Ein Alpensinfonie*


This is a tone poem.

There's been some discussion re: Shostakoich's 7th. I think its first movement is so ridiculous, so devoid of artistic integrity, that it cannot be taken seriously enough to warrant a place among other works on this 'list' that has been compiled.

In general I am no Shostakovich fan but why are we questioning his talent now? I listen to his 4th symphony, and whilst not caring for it, do marvel at the extraordinary level of genius behind such a work. The skill, craft and imagination required just to conceive of a work like that is unimaginable.

If only I had a thousandth of Shostakovich's talent!


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

It was not me who was, imho, foolish enough to use the word "Greatest" in the OP, so all the contentious palaver over Shostakovich's genius, or talent, or highly talented but banal, etc. is never going to court, because all that is so subjective that no verdict could ever be justly arrived at -- if taken to court, it would be both costly and futile, and whatever the opinions flying about, no thread participant (or observing reader) has yet had the content of this thread produce a third degree burn because the lid on that scalding hot coffee from the food chain carry-out fell off... because this is all about 'just music.'

The composite list of those composers and works named so far (including the update of adding the one just mentioned above) is so ridiculously uneven and parsecs away from being at all a good or well-representative selection of "great symphonies from the last 100 years" that it is near a bad joke about our collective idiosyncratic choices, looking rather like a list made up by highly under informed music fans, and making of the entire thread a patently clear TC in house party of people just naming their favorites. 

*"Hey! I think your favorite ranks lower than my favorite, dontcha know?"*

This also means, with absolute certainty, that the entire collective of all those musicians, music historians, musicologists and cognoscenti experts who author Groves, the Larousse Encyclopedia of Music and Musicians, The Harvard Dictionary of Music and all like tomes should hang their heads in shame, hang up their vests, turn in their guns and badges, because they are all wrong and the collective TC membership are right! 
:lol: :lol: :lol:


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## Guest (Dec 30, 2014)

KenOC said:


> Catching up -- here are the symphonies mentioned in posts with a single "nomination".
> 
> Bartok Concerto for orchestra
> Berio Sinfonia
> ...


Of those, I suppose I'd go with the Stravinsky, Messiaen, Bartok, and Berio for sure. Then probably Ives 4 and Carter. Of course I like all the composers on there (besides the ones I haven't heard) but let's be serious here.

Hey Pete, were you talking about rolling your own smokes (tobacco and paper..) or something else? I used to do that, but they had this little courtyard thing in the middle of the library and I felt real shady rolling one in the bottom floor of the library for a break so I started buyin' packs.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

arcaneholocaust said:


> ...you talking about rolling your own smokes (tobacco and paper..) or something else? I used to do that, but they had this little courtyard thing in the middle of the library and I felt real shady rolling one in the bottom floor of the library for a break so I started buyin' packs.


First, its all straight-ahead tobacco, a 'rolling machine,' and pre-fabricated filtered tubes. I've never had a problem with anyone thinking I was making anything but a cigarette I do manufacture them quite readily so tend to make a supply to take with if I'm going out -- much less bulk than a can of tobacco + a box of the tubes + the rolling device. Soooo wayyy offf topic, though, I've PM'd you on this. But no, nothing at all to do with contraband... I'm pretty boring that way 

BTW, there are far shadier and more prosecutable acts you could be doing on the floor of the library, but to even hint at them further here I'm sure would be against the ToS!


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Schoenberg's music was always divisive, but the second performance of his 5 Orchestral Pieces, with the composer conducting, was _hugely successful_ with the audience and some critics. Pierrot lunaire was a massive popular success. The early 12-tone works were relatively well-acclaimed _before people were aware of the method behind them, at which point they began to criticize them more heavily_. A Survivor from Warsaw was such a success at its debut that the New York Philharmonic was forced to program it again, in spite of the critics.

Most of Schoenberg's later works, tonal and non-tonal, were commissioned, and he received relatively handsome fees (including a very high fee for the six-minute Genesis Suite Prelude something akin to $17,000 in modern terms).

Does this imply widespread popularity for Schoenberg or his idiom? No. It does, however, match up with the level of popularity and controversy accorded other radical composers of earlier eras.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Woodduck said:


> I'm not aware that anyone has ever argued that the works of Mozart or Beethoven or Tchaikovsky or Sibelius were instantly and globally popular. The question I think you and KenOC are debating is: was these composers' music, and that of whomever else you choose, recognized and celebrated and enjoyed by a substantial listening public within a reasonably short time of its introduction? Or did it take, as you suggested a couple of posts back, fifty to a hundred years?
> 
> We can find find uncomprehending and disparaging reactions by critics toward virtually any notable artist in history. Anything new and different will get people on edge temporarily. Mozart's music was more complex, structurally and expressively, than many would accept right away. It was not, however, in a fundamentally strange idiom, and its complexity was not an insuperable obstacle to Mozart being acclaimed, through his short lifetime, as a very great composer, and making a goodly amount of money at it. Haydn was constantly coming up with new musical ideas, which didn't prevent him from being celebrated and well-financed virtually all his life. Bach made the church ladies grouse about his complicated chorale settings, but no one doubted his genius, and he was sufficiently compensated producing his profound, daring, difficult music to support a house full of kids. Beethoven startled his hearers and the critics carped, but everyone knew he was the greatest composer in the world. Even Wagner, setting out to reform everything in sight and virtually succeeding, pushed past the critical pitchforks and had audiences literally weeping and fainting to sounds that were unimaginable to anyone a decade or two earlier. Even up to the early years of the twentieth century, composers of challenging but excellent music had every reason to expect success with a decent segment of the public, and even if the premieres of their works were inauspicious (a bit of an understatement with _Sacre!_), acclaim was usually not long in following.
> 
> I can't help suspecting that the myth of great artists throughout history encountering long-lasting incomprehension, opposition and neglect was mostly an invention of mediocre and alienated Romantics, an ego-balm for failed poets and painters freezing in garrets, and a bit of historical revisionism adopted by modernists to rationalize the incomprehension with which their artistic revolutions were greeted. It could even allow one to wear non-acceptance as a badge of honor: "Beethoven's works were misunderstood... My works are misunderstood... Hey!"


I think the romantic mythology sprang up _in the later romantic era,_ and is still with us. It began with the lionization of Beethoven, and the highly romanticized (and fictional) noble struggle of the profoundly great artist lingers on and on.

Too, this complaint so often mentioned _comes currently from the young beginning composers,_ and those who really, avant garde or retro-conservative, are just writing plain bad music to which neither those hungry for conservative music or the most sensational of the new respond to!

Where, please, are all these type of plaints from Stravinsky, the other successful major or minor 20th or 21st century composers; Steve Reich, Philip Glass, John Adams, Dutilleux, David Lang, the spectralists, Haas, Beat Furrer, Ligeti, Arvo Part, Essa-pekka Salonen, Magnus lindberg, Tomas Ades, Ferneyhough, Messiaen etc. etc. etc. -- name me one successful composer of any stripe as per style who is also known for this kind of complaint... there really just aren't any.

Perhaps the younger generation, wholesale dissed in that rather famous book from the late 1980's or 90's, titled _A Generation of whiners,_ are the ones from whom these type of complaints emanate?

I must also comment on so called 'academic music.' Truth be told, that lies also in two camps of contrasting nature: the academic conservative whose music sounds adept but has absolutely nothing to say, is dull as ditchwater and speaks to no one, or the avant-garde sensationalist whose music meets the same reaction. Similar complaints come from the conservative comsumers who -- and I have no idea how they could rationally come up with this one -- seem to think it would all be better if composers today were writing more like John Williams, or Ralph Vaughan Williams, or even more in the 'old style' of Beethoven, or Mahler, for example. Go figure.

Meanwhile, to repeat, there are "tonal" composers who have successful careers, who have works commissioned, performed, recorded and in circulation, and about every degree from the tonal conservative through the less popular but still successful avant-garde composers have quite parallel successes.

Where then, is there any real problem? With the failed or failing composers, and the conservative and wrongly disappointed consumer who dislikes the newer music, whether that is the neo-romantic tonal or the avant garde.

The conservative composer who is writing something 'new' but dull as ditch water and does not understand why 'people do not want that' is as egocentrically insulated and out of touch as the also dull avant-garde sensationalist who has an equally non-resounding non-success, while others writing in 'a similar vein' get their works done, performed and are well received.

Why anyone should give any of that any attention or mention is beyond me. It is all moot in the light of the reality that there are many successful contemporary composers making a living and getting by writing new music which has enough about it that a fair amount of the public wants it. Those who are successful but whose works are not as widely consumed deal with it, and carry on, and their works also get done.

So the myth is perpetuated by the least talented trying to make a go of it -- some of the younger generation of those likely prone to an entitled view of the world and who feel that their loud and childish complaints should be heard and the world revise itself in order to accommodate them -- and that camp of those who are mainly conservative non-musician fans and consumers who buy records and attend concerts.

It is only because of this gilded picture of the wholesale popularity of composers of the past that I repeatedly counter with the fact they were not universally popular, nor universally understood in their own time. (Beethoven's fiddle concerto got one or two performances, then lingered gathering dust for 40 years. The impression of Beethoven being always popular, and popular right through after his death, is completely shattered with this piece, now thought of as either "THE violin concerto,' or the first of three to five which are now "THE violin concerti" lol.) I'm of a temperament which finds even that a negative myth -- if overemphasized, but it is no more negative than overemphasizing the whitewashing of the popularity of composers of the past.

One other thing, those audiences of the past were consuming _nothing but new music which was the music of their time,_ and further, they were quick to drop the recent works for the even more recent works, not expecting to hear a work of Mozart or Beethoven more than perhaps two times, if they attended that concert which ran for several days. Over and done with, and _NEXT!_ There was only a slight divergence from composer to composer, i.e. what was in the air was generally 'an international style,' which, btw for better or worse, I think is now emerging in the contemporary music scene, especially as heard coming from the younger generation of east Europeans...

A lot of hyperbole hoopla of what happened, how people received it and how that has all changed now, where classical music, all in our current era where a wider variety than ever available in any prior era is being made and readily enough consumed. It is no one's fault but the consumer who has 20 sets of the Beethoven symphonies and who expects (feels entitled to, even because they purchase a ticket to the symphony, dontcha know?) still a lot of Beethoven regularly programmed, or somehow think that in the big picture, the way it works is for contemporary composers to write more like Bruckner, Brahms, Elgar, or Vaughan Williams.

The whining about lack of acceptance, the dearth of new music more comfortably like the old, and the argument it was all so much better back then, should all lie down together and and just die, and leave a bit of silence for all the music to speak.


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## spradlig (Jul 25, 2012)

Shostakovich is the Rodney Dangerfield of the classical music world.

"I tell ya, I don't get no respect!" 



Woodduck said:


> No offense intended, but how does that bit of outlandish hyperbole tell us anything except that you're mad for Stockhausen? Does taking a gratuitous swipe at a composer many consider great somehow make your boy look better? Or might it actually make your advocacy seem a bit suspect?


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## SeptimalTritone (Jul 7, 2014)

Mahlerian said:


> The early 12-tone works were relatively well-acclaimed _before people were aware of the method behind them, at which point they began to criticize them more heavily_.


GAAH this sentence angers me so much. I wonder if his music instead of being called 12-tone, or atonal, or serial, was called "method of total-chromatic harmony and counterpoint" people would like his music more.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

SeptimalTritone said:


> GAAH this sentence angers me so much. I wonder if his music instead of being called 12-tone, or atonal, or serial, was called "method of total-chromatic harmony and counterpoint" people would like his music more.


Hey, any business person with experience in PR and even the slightest of research in marketing would tell you that what it is called is at least equally important as what the product is 

Late, or The Latest Romanticism -- might've been good.

Imagine if Schoenberg like the English royal family's Lord Battenberg, who after WWI felt the need to distance himself from being German by changing his name to the merely translated Lord Mountbatten, if all of Schoenberg's music was known to the world as being the Post-Romantic music of Arnie Mountbeauty... or if all that high chromatic late romantic music had been instead authored by one Arnaud Montbeau or maybe even better, Arnaud de Montbeau


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

spradlig said:


> Shostakovich is the Rodney Dangerfield of the classical music world.
> 
> "I tell ya, I don't get no respect!"


Wrong! :lol: Shostakovich is the Van Cliburn of classical composers.


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## senza sordino (Oct 20, 2013)

I'm late to the party, as usual. And I offer no resolution to the question, which is the greatest symphony of the last 100 years? Do you expect me to choose from the following?

Sibelius 5 (1915, 1919)
Sibelius 7 (1924)
Walton 1 (1935)
Shostakovich 5 (1937)
Vaughan Williams 7 (1952)
Shostakovich 10 (1953)
Lutosławski 3 (1983)


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## Il_Penseroso (Nov 20, 2010)

If I had to choose only one, that would be Sibelius No.5


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## distantprommer (Sep 26, 2011)

No mention of Shostakovich 4th? IMHO the greatest.


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## sharik (Jan 23, 2013)

Skilmarilion said:


> Shostakoich's 7th. I think its first movement is so ridiculous, so devoid of artistic integrity


could you please elaborate further on that?


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## Skilmarilion (Apr 6, 2013)

sharik said:


> could you please elaborate further on that?


I was referring to the "Bolero" treatment which he gives to the invasion theme, a theme which itself is fairly obnoxious. That he does this in the middle of a serious composition, a symphony -- a form which he generally treated as the "heavyweight" of all genres, as his icon Mahler did, immediately discredits the entire movement for me.

My view was that, if he had sought to maintain his integrity as an artist, he wouldn't be fooling around with such nonsense.


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

The VAST MAJORITY of art produced (and approved) under Stalin's rule was absolutely worthless and devoid of any real artistic expression and creativity. Under Stalin, the sole purpose of all artistic activity was the glorification of State and Soviet power (Stalin). Shostakovich was a composer of mediocre talent, and the bulk of his output stands today, as testament to that very mediocracy.

The majority of art produced under any political system is mediocre at best. I don't see the results under Stalin as having been much worse than under other systems:

Sergei Eisenstein
Grigori Chukhrai
Marina Tsvetaeva
Anna Akhmatova
Vladimir Mayakovsky
Boris Pasternak
Yevgeny Yevtushenko
Alexander Blok
El Lissitzky
Aleksander Rodchenko
Vladimir Tatlin
Lyubov Popova
Kazimir Malevich
Wassily Kandinsky
Mikhail Bulgakov
Osip Mandelstam
Andrei Bely
Yevgeny Zamyatin
Sergei Prokofiev
Reinhold Glière
Alexander Glazunov
etc...

... to name just a few of the artists of real merit who continued to make major contributions under the Soviet system.

Under Stalin, the sole purpose of all artistic activity was the glorification of State and Soviet power...

I assume you have some knowledge of the arts across the span history? How many masterpieces from across the span of history did not involve the glorification of the powers that be whether these were religious, economic, military, or political?

To state that Shostakovitch was a "mediocre talent" supposes your own superior critical acumen. You "dislike" Shostakovitch. That is fine. But to make such a sweeping statement concerning the "mediocrity" of Shostakovitch is no different from those who make blanket statements as to just how badly "Schoenberg sucks."


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

^^^^
It must be said though, that a majority of these names are mostly famous for works produced outside of the Stalin period, or in exile from the USSR. Popova and Blok didn´t even live into the Stalin period. But the list of interesting Soviet artists, especially in the 1920s or post-Stalin, is indeed very long. To some, the Stalin regime meant physical destruction (Roslavets, Mandelstam, Mosolov etc.)


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## sharik (Jan 23, 2013)

joen_cph said:


> To some, the Stalin regime meant physical destruction (Roslavets, Mandelstam, Mosolov etc.)


why tell lies? Mosolov was doing relatively well under Stalin rule http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Mosolov


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Mosolov "doing well"? Well yes, except for that time he spent in the Gulag. And not for his music -- he was such a rowdy!


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## sharik (Jan 23, 2013)

Skilmarilion said:


> I was referring to the "Bolero" treatment which he gives to the invasion theme, a theme which itself is fairly obnoxious.


for gosh sake why?



Skilmarilion said:


> if he had sought to maintain his integrity as an artist, he wouldn't be fooling around with such nonsense.


not 'fooling around' at all. Bolero is well representative of a military industrial machine theme. Shostakovitch was spot on that he had used it for the Invasion piece in his 7th.


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## sharik (Jan 23, 2013)

KenOC said:


> Mosolov "doing well"? Well yes, except for that time he spent in the Gulag. And not for his music -- he was such a rowdy!


as you might guess, gulags were intended for criminals and offenders of all sorts, not political prisoners who were a minority there.


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

sharik said:


> why tell lies? Mosolov was doing relatively well under Stalin rule http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Mosolov


We all know your views, and you might disagree from your point of view, but please abstain from accusing anyone of telling lies here. Mosolov was sentenced to 8 years in the Gulag, but his sentence was later reduced http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Mosolov


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

sharik said:


> as you might guess, gulags were intended for criminals and offenders of all sorts, not political prisoners who were a minority there.


Minorities should be counted with too.


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## sharik (Jan 23, 2013)

joen_cph said:


> We all know you views


and what my views are?



joen_cph said:


> Mosolov was sentenced to 8 years in the Gulag, but his sentence was later reduced http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Mosolov


reduced to 1 year actually, and then replaced with an exile from the major capitals, that is what you failed to point out for some reason.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

sharik said:


> as you might guess, gulags were intended for criminals and offenders of all sorts, not political prisoners who were a minority there.


Indeed. I seem to remember that Mosolov conducted the camp orchestra while he was there.


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## sharik (Jan 23, 2013)

joen_cph said:


> Minorities should be counted with too.


well yes, but let us not distort the truth by saying that the life under Stalin was a living hell.


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

sharik said:


> well yes, but let us not distort the truth by saying that the life under Stalin was a living hell.


You have made your point.


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## Skilmarilion (Apr 6, 2013)

sharik said:


> not 'fooling around' at all. Bolero is well representative of a military industrial machine theme. Shostakovitch was spot on that he had used it for the Invasion piece in his 7th.


I'm sure there are explanations for what he wrote there, but that is not important for me. Regardless of whatever he's trying to convey, the music doesn't work for me, and as I mentioned, I particularly don't care to hear such a thing in a symphony .

-- [symphony here meaning the kind of "heavyweight" form that it meant to Mahler; the old school tradition which Shostakovich aspired to follow on from]

And also, even Ravel acknowledged that Bolero was "orchestral tissue *without music*".


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## Vronsky (Jan 5, 2015)

Shostakovich Symphony No. 5


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

Skilmarilion said:


> And also, even Ravel acknowledged that Bolero was "orchestral tissue *without music*".


I haven't listened to the Shostakovich movement in question, so can't comment on that but as far as the Ravel quote I believe he was referring specifically to the Bolero that he composed, not the form in general.


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