# Contemporary Music - Current Listening



## Blancrocher

A thread for modern/contemporary music you're currently listening to. Positive comments & recommendations based on others' posts are welcomed.

There is a group for those interested in contemporary music here, in case anyone wants to start side-discussions about music/composers mentioned in this thread: http://www.talkclassical.com/groups/contemporary-music.html


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## Blancrocher

Current listening: Sofia Gubaidulina - Triple Concerto






Looking forward to a studio recording of this one.


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## 20centrfuge

Makes me think of this less known work by Gubaidulina that I think is a little pearl - her trumpet trio (1976)


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## mmsbls

As long as we're talking Gubaidulina, her Piano Quintet was the first work of hers I liked.


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## Kjetil Heggelund

Voyage IX (2007) for Guitar, strings and percussion by Toshio Hosokawa.

Unfortunately the youtube link "wasn't available" so here are spotify and dailymotion links. Hosokawa is very dreamy and with some special techniques for soloist and strings and interesting percussion.
The Schott-page says...Hosokawa drew his inspiration for the Voyage cycle as follows: The soloist symbolizes a human being that throws a song to the ensemble/orchestra standing for the universe enclosing the human being, and the universe responds the song. The song reaches the universe and the reaction returns to the human being again. Hosokawa called the process of these exchanges Voyage, and thought a sense of unity develops between human beings and the universe through the journey.

...Maybe it's spacey as well as dreamy


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## 20centrfuge

I try occasionally to understand why Jennifer Higdon is so popular. I tried to get into this piece, but it just didn't do it for moi


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## ArtMusic

Jay Greenberg, _Symphony no.5_ (2005), his very famous symphony that echoes late Romanticism and contemporary accessibility with rich harmonies. Powerful.


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## Kjetil Heggelund

Chemins V by Luciano Berio, based on his monumental Sequenza XI, a masterpiece of modern guitarmusic. I used to think it was the ultimate, most difficult piece along with Changes by Carter. I like when music is difficult and hard to play, especially modern music, it gives me a sense of another world unfolding in sound without bounderies, and the performer must overcome that challenge. Now I know it's not the hardest, there are several new contenders. Berio made it a whole new piece with adding a chamber orchestra.


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## arpeggio

ArtMusic said:


> Jay Greenberg, _Symphony no.5_ (2005), *his very famous symphony that echoes late Romanticism and contemporary accessibility with rich harmonies. Powerful.*


Jay Greenberg is a very talented and fine composer who was a prodigy. My problem is with the post not the composer.

One of the problems I have with the remark is that it implies that contemporary music that is dominated by atonalish works. This is not true. Many of us have been furnishing examples of contemporary tonal music for years like Richard Danielpour, Mark Camphouse, David Maslanka and many others. I have attended many music festivals and I have had the privilege of meeting many composers. Some are very avant-garde, some very tonal.


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## Portamento

*Nishimura*: _String Quartet #2 "Pulse of the Lights"_

This is just great. As one commenter put it, very "efficient" music.


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## Blancrocher

Linda Catlin Smith - Invisible Cities (Nicholas Papador)


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## DeepR

Not classical, I get that, but certainly not "pop" either. Ambient/soundscape music. Is that ok?
One of Steve Roach' finest pieces: The Eternal Expanse. 
https://steveroach.bandcamp.com/track/the-eternal-expanse-2

There will be "new age bias", but I will make a case for this.

This is in fact challenging, expertly crafted, richly layered soundscape music that's not so easy to appreciate. So I ask not to judge quickly. If you're not used to this kind of music, even for modern/contemporary aficionados, it takes a few listens to get used to its spacious sound and to find the right state of mind to listen to it (not necessarily with complete attention, it's ambient after all, but not entirely in the background either). 
After a while, you start to notice the fine nuances throughout the piece. Once you really hear it, when you feel it and simply ride along the waves of sound, you can enjoy it many times again like I did.

I find this piece liberating in the way it creates these beautiful, wide open vistas. There's an ebb and flow that gives an extraordinary sense of space that can't be found in any other music. And what happens near the end is simply sublime.

Well, happy listening!


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## JeffD

I struggle with this. To me "ambient/soundscape" music is like wallpaper. To focus on it specifically negates its purpose. How to hear without listening. Its crazy.

To create a sonic environment that is ripe for a musical subject, for an event, that never happens. Setting the table, but we are not eating the table setting, and no food is brought out. Hard to get my head around it.


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## isorhythm

Saariaho - _Frises_






One of the most successful acoustic-electronic fusions I've come across recently.


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## tortkis

Histories - Sophia Subbayya Vastek (innova recordings, 2017)









Michael Harrison: Jaunpuri (Rendition of a Raga) (2012, revised 2015), Hijaz Prelude (2011)
John Cage: She is Asleep (1943), A Room (1943), Dream (1948)
Donnacha Dennehy: Stainless Staining (2007)

Sophia Subbayya Vastek (piano, just intonation piano, prepared piano), Nitin Mitta (tabla), Megan Schubert (voice), Michael Harrison (tanpura)

https://www.sophiahistories.com/
https://sophiasv.bandcamp.com/album/histories

Pianist Sophia Subbayya Vastek's debut album. Beautifully played melancholic, introspective and hypnotic works.


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## DeepR

JeffD said:


> I struggle with this. To me "ambient/soundscape" music is like wallpaper. To focus on it specifically negates its purpose. How to hear without listening. Its crazy.
> 
> To create a sonic environment that is ripe for a musical subject, for an event, that never happens. Setting the table, but we are not eating the table setting, and no food is brought out. Hard to get my head around it.


Why yes, a sonic environment is exactly what it is. It doesn't really go anywhere musically speaking, but there is movement and that can be enough.
I've compared it to staring at the clouds in the sky. Your mind in a blank state, not really giving it much attention and thought. It all seems kind of random and similar at first glance, but when you look a little longer you start to notice more and more details and changes over time which can be quite fascinating on itself. Now switch the clouds for sound and you basically have ambient music. 

It's music that's just there, not forcing itself upon you while carefully laying out its entire story from a to z. It's a supportive, sonic environment that allows the mind to wander more freely. And in this case I think it's very effective.


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## 20centrfuge

Exploring. First piece I've heard from Sally Beamish:


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## tortkis

'Round Midnight ~ Hommage to Thelonious Monk - Emanuele Arciuli (piano) (Stradivarius, 2011)









Arrangements, variations on, and compositions inspired by the Monk's famous piece, by Caine, Rzewski, Babbitt, Harbison, Daugherty, Bolcom, Torke, et al.


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## Omicron9

This morning, it is Rihm string quartets (Arditti).


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## Omicron9

Portamento said:


> *Nishimura*: _String Quartet #2 "Pulse of the Lights"_
> 
> This is just great. As one commenter put it, very "efficient" music.


Cool; enjoying this, and thanks for sharing it. New composer for me.


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## Kjetil Heggelund

Solo marimba piece by Jeffrey Holmes, whom I studied alongside at SFCM. Recently he wrote the setpiece for the GFA guitar competition, so he seems to be doing very well. We're pals on facebook and he gave me the score to the guitar-piece


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## Simon Moon

Thailand is not a place that most people think of with regards to classical composers, but these pieces are pretty convincing.


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## mmsbls

I heard Crumb's Black Angels years ago and thought it wasn't "real music." I listened again for the first time in many years. Wow, what a difference listening to _lots and lots_ of new music makes! It was at times weird, at times fantastic, at times fun, and always engaging. I'm listening again and loving it.


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## Janspe

*U. Chin: Akrostichon-Wortspiel, Fantaisie mécanique, Xi & Double Concerto*
Ensemble Intercontemporain









Chin's music is really fascinating. My favourite's form this collection were probably the _Akrostichon-Wortspiel_ and the Double Concerto. Even _Xi_, which I felt a bit reluctant about at first due to my resistance towards electronics in music, stole my attention with it's eerily pulsating form - it almost felt as if the piece was breathing... I warmly recommend this album to all fans of contemporary music!


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## Dirge

James DILLON: _Siorram_ ("in an enchanted sleep") (1992)
:: Knox [Montaigne '96]
Dillon translates the Scots Gaelic word _siorram_ as "in an enchanted sleep," though every translation that I find on the Web gives its meaning as "sheriff." Be that as it may, this work for solo viola has a mystical, mythical, mediæval fantasy quality about it that conjures up thoughts of a pre-dawn watch along the parapet of a castle by the sea, the foggy morning mist rising to your boots and obscuring all below so that you think yourself walking atop the clouds … well, maybe not, but it does sound kind of like something you might hear in a BBC miniseries about King Arthur or Robin Hood.

Frank CORCORAN: Symphony No. 3 (1994)
:: Pearce/NSO of Ireland [Marco Polo '98]
https://play.spotify.com/album/6cdQNNEOORBIntvwVkcoQ0 
This is a brutal, craggy, volatile, percussive work that moves along with all the grace of a caveman pushing a stone-filled cart fitted with square wheels. The music is forged into a 14-minute single movement that develops from a core of six notes-C sharp, D, E flat, F, G, A flat. This allows for a good deal of harmonic ambiguity and contributes to the primordial building-block atmosphere of the goings-on, which has something of a raw and primitive Varèse-like sense of growth about it. The music struggles to make full-fledged melodies and harmonies out of melodic fragments and tone clusters, to make order out of chaos. In the process, the musical arsenal gradually expands from its core of six notes to neighboring notes until only one note is left to sound: C. Curiously, "the Sacred Birth of the note C" (as Corcoran puts it) on flute and tambourine is buried in the work and isn't all that prominent. After this, the music eventually builds to a rambunctious final climax wherein the strings lift the baby C above the din for all to behold. The climax eventually peters out, and the building blocks of chords and motifs that were previously lost in the din of the music-making are laid bare. In the most elemental of ways, Corcoran's Third Symphony sounds like the prehistoric progenitor of Carl Nielsen's Fourth & Fifth Symphonies.

Wolfgang RIHM: _Styx und Lethe_ (1998)
:: Fels, Zender/SWR Sinfonieorchester Baden-Baden und Freiburg [Hänssler '98]




Trying out one of the all-too-many works of the all-too-prolific Rihm is always a crap shoot, one that usually comes up snake eyes for this listener, but this grungy, gutter-dwelling, bottom-feeding cello concerto is less of loser than most. The gritty, grinding, relentlessly burrowing quality of the solo part does give it a subterranean feel, but I can't say that the rivers Styx or Lethe come to mind-evil moles, deranged gophers, and Morlocks are more like it. It suffers from long bouts of desperate minimalistesque repetition for the soloist, but I suppose that's part and parcel of the relentless character. Most of the interesting goings-on take place in the orchestra as the cello borrows its way through, a characteristic that gives the work the feel of an inverted concerto. The writing for the soloist often reminds me of Shostakovich, with hints of the Cello Concerto and the insistent movements of the Eighth Symphony, and for the orchestra there's a trumpeted passage in the latter part of the work that's reminiscent of the gallop to the finish of the First Piano Concerto.

James DILLON: _the soadie waste_ (2003)
:: Kawai & Arditti String Quartet [NMC '07]




This exuberant work, with the John Fahey_esque_ subtitle "wedding receptions, dances and housie housie," is as insistently energetic and quirkily volatile a piano quintet as you'll likely encounter-a piano quintet run amok, or very nearly so-one haunted by the half abstract and three-quarters mad "spirit of the dance" … something that Berlioz might have composed had he been a 21st-century avant-garde composer from Scotland. It's not a particularly complex work by Dillon standards, and it's a bit repetitive to boot, but it makes a fairly dazzling first impression and is sophisticated enough to stand up to the occasional listen thereafter. Kawai and the Ardittis have the rhetorical chops to pull it off with style, and their pointed, highly charged performance has an infectious energy about it.


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## SONNET CLV

Most of my current musical listening falls into the category of contemporary classical. And this evening I took on music of Galina Ustvolskaya, her Octet from 1950, Composition No.3 from 1975, and the Symphony No.5 "Amen" of 1990. They are all on a CONIFER disc along with Shostakovich's Piano Quintet in G minor. But instead of listening to that, I turned instead to Mravinsky's reading of the Shostakovich Fifth, and Kirill Kondrashin's reading of Miaskovsky's Symphony No.15, both on an Audiophile Classics gold disc.







and








Actually, this is rather tame listening for my ears. But I've been spending the last several days immersed in Shostakovich, and these pieces came along with that flow. None were new to me, but all were refreshingly interesting nonetheless, especially that almost frightening "Amen" symphony. Welcome to the Gulag!


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## ST4

Portamento said:


> *Nishimura*: _String Quartet #2 "Pulse of the Lights"_
> 
> This is just great. As one commenter put it, very "efficient" music.


I'm very glad you know about Nishimura, I love his work :kiss:


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## ST4

I've been listening to this Sciarrino disk quite a bit:










I come from contemporary music, so I already know most of the pieces in this thread 
but lately I've only really been listening to Medieval and Renaissance, so I don't have much else to add at the moment


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## ST4

Not from the past 20 years, but I'm giving this *Cage* double CD a spin


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## 20centrfuge

I think of this thread as the last 50 years, personally


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## mmsbls

Someone somewhere on TC recommended Britta Byström. I noted it down in my long list of "Works/composers to listen to." She's a Swedish composer born in 1977. I finally got around to listening to her Invisible Cities CD of symphonic works. Most here would describe it as very accessible.


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## tortkis

Larry Polansky: Piano Study #5 (1977) for Just Fender Rhodes - Andrew C. Smith (Indexical)








https://indexical.bandcamp.com/album/larry-polansky-piano-study-5


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## SONNET CLV

I've decided to take this thread seriously, so I combed through a box of hitherto unopened discs I had lying under a desk and found a NAXOS release in the "American Classics" series, a disc featuring David Gompper, a composer unfamiliar to me but born in 1954 which makes him younger than I also. NAXOS 8.559637 features a 25 minute Violin Concerto (2009), two orchestral pieces featuring the violin, _Ikon_ (2008) and _Spirals_ (2007), and a work for chamber orchestra, the oldest work on the album, _Flip_ (1993).

These works exude contemporaneousness, but they are not harsh and noisy, not John Cagey or Stockhauseney, or Penderecki/Xenakis-like. Rather, there is melody here, though of a "modern" sort. A lot of thorny-ness, but also lyrical moments. And wonderful touches of orchestration. And the music is unmistakenly American. That's hard to describe in words, but if you've heard enough modern American music from the likes of Piston and Sessions and Schuman and Bernstein and Ned Rorem and John Corigliano and you can put your pulse on it.

Give the Violin Concerto a try. It actually achieves moments of sublime lyrical beauty and philosophical statement, something often lost in more clinical contemporary works. This music by Gompper is music with heart and soul -- human music for human listeners.

A fascinating disc. Definitely "contemporary". And definitely worth repeated hearings.


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## Kjetil Heggelund

Piano concerto! A longtime favorite


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## Kjetil Heggelund

Hope I didn't spam you guys...This is my favorite new symphony: Sir Peter Maxwell Davies no. 10.


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## 20centrfuge

Kjetil Heggelund said:


> View attachment 96652
> 
> Hope I didn't spam you guys...This is my favorite new symphony: Sir Peter Maxwell Davies no. 10.


I like PMD and I've tried to get into that one. It just seems too dense for me. I generally prefer his chamber orch works where I can hear everything that's happening.


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## tortkis

Julius Eastman: Femenine - S.E.M. Ensemble (frozen reeds)








http://frozenreeds.com/?p=300

Recorded 1974. Uplifting, pleasant minimal piece lasting for 72 min. I think Eastman succeeded in achieving his goal very well.

_"Eastman's stated aim with Femenine was to please listeners, saying of the piece that 'the end sounds like the angels opening up heaven . . . should we say euphoria?'"_ (Mary Jane Leach)


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## ST4

tortkis said:


> Julius Eastman: Femenine - S.E.M. Ensemble (frozen reeds)
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> http://frozenreeds.com/?p=300
> 
> Recorded 1974. Uplifting, pleasant minimal piece lasting for 72 min. I think Eastman succeeded in achieving his goal very well.
> 
> _"Eastman's stated aim with Femenine was to please listeners, saying of the piece that 'the end sounds like the angels opening up heaven . . . should we say euphoria?'"_ (Mary Jane Leach)


I love his work! He was one of the most radical of the so-called "minimalists". Great piece :tiphat:


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## mmsbls

Here's a chamber work work by Fred Lerdahl. The piece is written for flute, clarinet, violin, cello, percussion, and piano.

Lerdahl: Time After TIme


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## eugeneonagain

Did anyone else listen to the première of Brian Elias's Cello Concerto at the BBC Proms? It's still available here. Seems to me a good example of how the aftermath of serialism and the rebirth of 'tonal' music have now fused in 21st century concert repertoire.


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## PeterFromLA

Listening to this recent release of Szymanski's music featuring harpsichord.


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## mmsbls

This symphonic work by Joey Roukens starts off in a minimalist manner before morphing in various ways into a frenetic middle section followed by a serene coda.

Roukens: Morphic Waves (2016)


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## PeterFromLA

Listening to this marvelous (so far) recording of Ligeti pieces, featuring the BIT20 Ensemble under the direction of Baldur Brönnimann. I'm thinking this may be the best recorded version of Chamber Concerto since one of the originals, as performed by the London Sinfonietta under David Atherton


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## tortkis

PeterFromLA said:


> Listening to this recent release of Szymanski's music featuring harpsichord.
> 
> View attachment 96739


This looks interesting and I am looking forward to digital release. Now listening to Szymański's string quartets again, played by Royal String Quartet on Hyperion. His music is hard to describe. There are elements of barque to romantic to blues/jazz, weird glissandi and repetitions, yet coherence can be felt.









Paweł Szymański (b1954): Five pieces for string quartet (1992), Four pieces for string quartet (2013), Two pieces for string quartet (1982)


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## Blancrocher

Gubaidulina: Violin Concerto, "In Tempus Praesens" (Mutter/Gergiev)

knocks me out every time


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## ST4

*Richard Barrett - Dark Matter* (cycle of mixed media ensemble and voice works)

It's been three weeks since I last listened to it and I'm still madly in love with this, without a shed of doubt one of the greatest works ever written :tiphat: :kiss::cheers:


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## Johnnie Burgess

Jonathan Leshnoff: Baltimore Chamber Orchestra and violinist Charles Wetherbee.










Markand Thakar is the conductor for the Baltimore Chamber Orchestral

On Spotify.


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## tortkis

Some works by Scott Wollschleger (b.1980), who will release an album Soft Aberration from New Focus on October 20. I was reminded of Feldman, though a little more expressive.

Brontal No. 3 (2012) for ensemble





America (2013) for solo cello


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## Portamento

I've been listening to a lot of electronic music recently (as per the TC Top Recommended list).
















etc., etc...


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## starthrower

Tristan Murail's Aeon CD, especially the more recent composition Contes cruels featuring electric guitar.


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## Chatellerault

Listening to *Terry Riley*'s keyboard studies (1966). It's amazing that, without tape loops or any other manipulation he can create the same kind of meditative trance of A Rainbow in Curved Air and others


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## Kjetil Heggelund

https://robertblackbass.bandcamp.com/album/possessed
Streaming the free track now. This might be something completely different...

Recorded and filmed among the arches, cliffs and otherworldly rock formations of the Moab Desert in Utah, Possessed documents one musician's self-actualized journey toward musical discovery and enlightenment. Equipped with only his upright bass and an intrepid production crew, Robert Black ventured into Moab in the summer of 2013 with the specific goal of engaging the environment itself in a duet, improvising his way toward a finished recording that perfectly captures the haunting majesty, mood and power of the American desert.


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## Blancrocher

Penderecki: String Quartets (Royal)

Repetitiously listening to this one. Very interested in hearing the Szymanski/Royal cd mentioned upthread, btw--quite likely to purchase soon.


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## Simon Moon

Getting into Thea Musgrave a lot recently.

Here's a her clarinet concerto.


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## tom5678

Boulez Notation II for orchestra


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## Nereffid

Lou Harrison: Violin concerto and Grand Duo.









This year is the 100th anniversary of Harrison's birth, by the way. NPR article.


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## Blancrocher

Unsuk Chin: 3 Concertos (Myung-Whun Chung)


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## 20centrfuge

I've been exploring the music of Kurtag. Right now listening, on and off, to his concertante, op 42, and others.

Any of you have any Kurtag pieces you like?


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## mmsbls

20centrfuge said:


> Any of you have any Kurtag pieces you like?


I really enjoy ...concertante... for violin, viola, and orchestra (2003).

I also find his 12 Microludes for string quartet fascinating and engaging.

I'm not sure which other composers are similar to Kurtag. Supposedly he was influenced by Messiaen, Milhaud, and Bartok.


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## tortkis

Kyle Gann: Rings of Saturn (2016-17)
mp3 (13:31) http://www.kylegann.com/RingsofSaturn.mp3
score: http://www.kylegann.com/RingsofSaturn.pdf

_"I have invariably envisioned what effect I wanted my music to create, and then constructed a scale that would produce that effect. For decades I never used the same scale twice [...]"_ (Kyle Gann)

_"Rings of Saturn uses minimalist processes of repetition, additive process, and phase-shifting, variously combined, in each of its five sections, to create organic forms easy to follow on some level but full of anomalies and variation. Technically speaking, the piece continues (as with the Pavane) my exploration of the harmonic series as a mode, most of its tonalities being based on the third harmonic of their respective harmonic series. This gives a scale of 1/1, 13/12, 7/6, 5/4, 4/3, 3/2, 5/3, 11/6, and a tonality which contains a subdominant (something one otherwise rather comes to miss when working with the harmonic series) and no dominant. The bluesy 7/6-5/4 step colors the melodic feel throughout. Rarely in my life has a piece required so much revision during the process, some sections having been rewritten several times."_

This is a movement from Hyperchromatica (2015-17), a collection of pieces for three Disklaviers tuned in the 13-limit just intonation. 33 pitches per octave are assigned to the keys of 3 pianos, all of which are harmonics of Eb. I listened to this many times, and it still sounds very strange. However, after repeated listening, I am finding interesting, beautiful transitions of harmonies, which sound totally new. I think this ambitious attempt of "reinventing tonality" is fascinating and very rewarding.


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## Nereffid

A superb recent release of music by British composer Jonathan Dove.









The chamber works might be considered "English post-minimalist", perhaps. The song cycle _In Damascus_, settings of the Syrian poet Ali Safar, is certainly the high point of the album. It got quite a rave review from _Gramophone_: "Traversing a huge emotional range - from the bleakness of Warlock's Curlew, if you will, to the hypnotism of Reich's Different Trains - this half-hour-long masterpiece should leave the listener utterly exhausted."


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## TurnaboutVox

*Jonathan Harvey*
String quartet No 1
String quartet No 2
String quartet No 3
*Arditti Quartet* [Aeon, 2009]

I have finally ordered this double CD of the Arditti Quartet playing Jonathan Harvey's string trio and quartets - which I came across in our TC Top 200 String Quartets game some time ago. Disc 1 has string quartets 1 - 3 which are vivid, surprisingly lyrical and indeed undeniably beautiful. These are spectralist works, sometimes contemplative and reflective. but at others thrillingly incisive and percussive.


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## mmsbls

More works by Kurtag:

Double concerto op. 27 No.2 for cello and piano

The work apparently requires two cellos and retuning during the performance.

...quasi una fantasia... for piano & orchestra, Op. 27/1 (a short piano concerto)









This is a 4 CD set including works from Ligeti, Furrer, Reich, Huber, and others. I heard in on Naxos but would like to get it.


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## TurnaboutVox

*György Kurtág*
Kafka Fragments, Op. 24*
Caroline Melzer, soprano; Nurit Stark, violin*
[BIS, 2015]

My most recent Kurtag acquisition. Melzer and Stark interpret most effectively.


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## Blancrocher

Esa-Pekka Salonen: Cello Concerto (2017)

Nicolas Altstaedt, cello
Finnish National Opera Orchestra, Esa-Pekka Salonen
11 August 2017, Helsinki Festival, Helsinki Opera
Concert with Ravel (Le tombeau de Couperin), Stravinsky (Perséphone)


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## Kjetil Heggelund

Completely new composer for me. Peter Ruzicka that is, who is already a veteran. So far I can say it's full of surprises


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## mmsbls

Friedrich Cerha: Clarinet Quintet

I have heard his String Quartet No. 3 and 4 and enjoyed them very much. This quintet was new to me, and I enjoyed it as well.


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## tortkis

Terry Riley, Stefano Scodanibbio: Dark Queen Mantra - Del Sol String Quartet with Gyan Riley (Sono Luminus)








Terry Riley: Dark Queen Mantra (2015), The Wheel & Mythic Birds Waltz (1983)
Stefano Scodanibbio: Mas Lugares (su Madrigali di Monteverdi) (2003)

melodious and fluid.


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## Kjetil Heggelund

https://www.srf.ch/kultur/musik/patricia-kopatchinskaja-steckt-mit-musikalischer-neugier-an
Violin Concerto by Heinz Holliger played by Patricia Kopatchinskaja who says:
"Until September 31 you can still hear the live recording of Holligers violin concerto, the most difficult piece I ever played (Click picture, Interview from 48:10, concerto from 52:45)"
...THIS IS GREAT  You got to hear it. I did "in pieces" this morning/afternoon. It might be my favorite new piece (for now).


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## Nereffid

"The Space Between Us" - Akropolis Reed Quintet

New music by David Biedenbender, Rob Deemer, Gregory Wanamaker and John Steinmetz commissioned by the quintet, plus a 2003 work by Jacob TV. For me the first and last tracks are the standouts: TV's _Jesus Is Coming_ makes use of recordings of babies and post-9/11 street preacher, while Steinmetz's _Sorrow & Celebration_ requires the performers to teach the audience some musical elements - vocalising and clapping - before the performance so that the audience's contribution is an essential part of the performed work.


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## Joe B

"Boiling Point" by Kenji Bunch, performed by the Alias Chamber Ensemble


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## TurnaboutVox

*Michael Tippett*
String Quartet No. 4 (1978)
String Quartet No. 5 (1990-91)
*Heath Quartet* [Wigmore Hall Live, 2016]

Late Tippett counts as 'contemporary', yes? This is my first audition of disc 2 of the Heath Quartet's live cycle of all of Tippett's 5 string quartets. I found the fourth quartet in particular irresistible. The fifth has more to chew on, though, I suspect.



> Caution is thrown to the winds most memorably in the Fourth Quartet, the cycle's charged flashpoint. The Heaths maintain tension throughout, withholding arrival-points from this birth-to-life narrative, whereas The Lindsays allow breathing space in the central, Bartókian nocturne. Both approaches are persuasive, but no one has dramatised the finale's palindrome, with a spooky hall of mirrored harmonics at its centre, with the poise of the Heaths. A tremendous achievement.
> ~ Gramophone


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## tortkis

Alex Wand: The Great Hunt (2011-2015) (Microfest Records)









Alex Wand (vocals, Just Intonation National steel guitar, well tempered classical guitar), Laura Jean Anderson (vocals), Derek Stein (cello), Erin Barnes (percussion), Archie Carey (bassoon), Christine Tavolacci (flute, alto flute), Alison Bjorkedal (harp)

http://microfestrecords.com/the-great-hunt-notes/






Very nice folkish song cycle on Carl Sandburg's poems.


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## Kjetil Heggelund

I stumbled onto this. Penderecki for guitar?? Apparantly the composer and guitarist transcribed it together. Maybe it originally is for viola?


----------



## Portamento

So amazing!


----------



## Andolink

After being bowled over by the _Variazioni_ for cello and orch. of 1974 I found the remaining works on this 3-disc set rather hit and miss.










This Sciarrino disc of recent orchestral works however is an unqualified success; strongly recommended--


----------



## Portamento

Andolink said:


> After being bowled over by the _Variazioni_ for cello and orch. of 1974 I found the remaining works on this 3-disc set rather hit and miss.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> This Sciarrino disc of recent orchestral works however is an unqualified success; strongly recommended--


_Vagabonde Blu_ and the violin caprices are my favorite Sciarrino works. Still need to explore the operas, though.


----------



## SuperTonic

Based on a recommendation I read on another forum, I have recently discovered the music of the young (b. 1976) Chinese-American composer Huang Ruo. Right now I'm listening to the 4 Chamber Concertos on this disc:









(If you have Amazon Prime you can stream the whole CD from their site). I am really enjoying this music. I find it to be a refreshing mix of the familiar and the exotic. If you like percussion there is a lot here that you will enjoy because he makes very heavy usage of it in most of these works. I'll definitely be looking for more from this composer in the future.


----------



## Kjetil Heggelund

Peter Maxwell Davies' latest album  Hope they keep coming! The contemporary composer I've heard the most lately (along with Edison Denisov). For some reason I really love how this sounds.


----------



## tortkis

Dai Fujikura: ice (Kairos)








International Contemporary Ensemble, Daniel Lippel (solo guitar), Jayce Ogren, Matthew Ward

Works for guitar, electronics, ensemble (2004-2013). Cool.


----------



## Casebearer

Well, I'm not really listening to it now but I just found out the very interesting Dutch pianist Ralph van Raat made a cd last year with all piano works by the (also Dutch) composer Theo Loevendie. I can't wait to hear that combination.


----------



## Kjetil Heggelund

The violin sonata. I find it very beautiful, shouldn't scare off people unfamiliar with contemporary classical music.


----------



## Kjetil Heggelund

Portals Before Dawn by Mario Diaz de Leon and my wife hasn't complained... 
"Mario Diaz de Leon is a composer and performer, whose output encompasses modern classical music, experimental electronic music, and extreme metal."...
My kind of guy! The piece I'm listening to is not too hard on the ears and I think it's a kind of "sound painting" which is meditative and captivating. Just preordered his new album.


----------



## tortkis

Caprices - Irvine Arditti, violin (Aeon)









Sciarrino: Sei Capricci (1975-76)
Carter: 4 Lauds (1984-2000)
Nunes: Einspielung I (1979)
Boulez: Anthems I (1991-92)


----------



## Andolink

*Michael Pelzel*: _...Danses Oniriques..._
Florian Müller & Marino Formenti, piano 
Klanforum Wien/Enno Poppe


----------



## tortkis

Tom Johnson: Plucking - Just Strings (Microfest)









Rational Melodies - in rational tunings (1982)
Plucking for nine different plucked instruments (2015)
Failing: a very difficult piece for solo double bass (1975)
Doublings for Double Bass (1980)

http://microfestrecords.com/plucking/


----------



## Omicron9

Ferneyhough: Complete string quartets/trios; Arditti. Wow.


----------



## Nereffid

Getting a lot of play at the moment:









"Petits Artéfacts" - Nick Photinos (cello) & guests

Music by Florent Ghys, David Lang, Molly Joyce, David T Little, Bryce Dessner, Pascal Le Boeuf, Andrew Norman & Angélica Negrón.


----------



## starthrower

I've been getting into George Crumb, York Holler's NEOS CDs, and Adriana Holszky.


----------



## Blancrocher

Penderecki: Violin Concerto #2 "Metamorphosen" (Mutter)


----------



## Kjetil Heggelund

Oktett by Jörg Widmann, for clarinet, horn, bassoon, 2 violins, viola, cello & double bass. The composer is a successful clarinettist too. His music is often very classical in style, but changes here and there. So maybe it fits the "polystylism" genre. I've enjoyed all the pieces I've heard by him so far. Hurra for the NEOS label.


----------



## tortkis

Volts - Quatuor Tana (Paraty)









Fausto Romitelli: Natura Morte Con Fiamme, pour quatuor à cordes et bande électronique, 1991
Juan Arroyo: Smaqra, pour TanaInstruments (hybride), 2015
Remmy Canedo: Cluster****, pour TanaInstruments (hybride), 2016
Gilbert Nouno: Deejay, pour quatuor à cordes et électronique, 2014
Christophe Havel: Disidence 4, pour TanaInstruments (hybride), 2016

Tanainstrument


----------



## Nereffid

Currently reminding myself of the music of Mary Ellen Childs, whose bio says she is "acclaimed for creating both rhythmic, exuberant instrumental works and bold, kinetic compositions that integrate music, dance and theater in fresh and unexpected ways".

I only have a few bits from a handful of albums, so this one is going on the to-buy list:


----------



## Blancrocher

David Lang - Just (from the biblical "Song of Songs")

Program Note:



> just (after song of songs) is a setting of a text I made by finding certain things in the Song of Songs. The original text is of course the most passionate and erotic of the ancient Jewish books, and it is always strange to encounter it in the Bible. In 2008 I wrote a choral piece called for love is strong, in which I made a similar text from the Song of Songs, trying to use the words to see through the relationship between the man and the woman in the story to the relationship between Man and God. According to Jewish tradition the Song of Songs is a metaphor for our passion for the Eternal, so the words themselves become very important.
> 
> One thing that has always interested me about the text is that the man and the woman in the Song of Songs have attributes, they notice things about each other, they own things, they have features that are desirable. In a love between people this would be no surprise. In a love between Man and God, however, that might mean that in this text are clues to the nature of God's own attributes, and a record of how they might attract us.
> 
> For my text I listed everything personal or owned that is attributed to the man and to the woman. To clarify who is speaking I started every phrase of his with 'just your' and every phrase of hers with 'and my.' It is interesting that in a text about a love that is shared there are only seven instances of 'our.'
> 
> just (after song of songs) is dedicated to my friends Amy Podmore and Frank Jackson.
> 
> just (after song of songs) was written for the combined forces of Trio Mediaeval and Saltarello, and was commissioned by Eamonn Quinn for Louth Contemporary Music Society, funded by the Arts Council / An Chomhairle Ealaion.


----------



## Blancrocher

David Lang - This Was Written By Hand

Program Note:



> I was taught to write music with a pencil. I remember those days so well - I would sit patiently at my desk, singing the music to myself and then writing it down. If I was tense about a project or a deadline I would hold the pencil so tight that I would get blisters on my fingers, and my arm would cramp up, and take weeks to recover. Writing music was an intensely physical activity. I got my first computer in 1993 and I have not written music with a pencil ever since, but I often wonder how - or if - the means of my writing had any effect on the writing itself. I wrote this piano piece to find out.
> 
> this was written by hand was written for the pianist Andrew Zolinsky and was premiered 23 June 2003 at Wigmore Hall, London. It is dedicated to Peter Helm, in honor of his fiftieth birthday.


----------



## hpowders

Christopher Rouse Symphony No. 4

A highly accessible, tonal, Romantic piece. Hard to believe this was written in 2013.


----------



## arpeggio

hpowders said:


> View attachment 98737
> 
> 
> Christopher Rouse Symphony No. 4
> 
> A highly accessible, tonal, Romantic piece. *Hard to believe this was written in 2013.*


Why? I listen and perform lots of contemporary music by living composers that is tonal.

At our last concert this past weekend the City of Fairfax Band performed Eric Whitacre's _October_. I have performed this work several times but I dare not say it is becoming part of the concert band repertoire since it may not have been performed in Wisconsin.

The McLean Symphony, an orchestra I play with, premiered Nikita Wells' _Two Counts at Stake: Fantasy Overture._ It is a very tonal romantic work. Here is the biography of Mr. Wells that appeared in out program:

"Nikita Wells, Composer of the Fantasy Overture, has dabbled in music most of his life. His parents were famous ballet dancers who performed with the Anna Pavlova Ballet company, Diagielev Ballet Russe, International Ballet (London), etc. so he was raised in a musical family. Nikita has created and managed the National Lyric Opera Company, which was performing in Lisner Auditorium and Warner Theater in Washington, D.C. The company performed fully staged operas by Verdi and Puccini.

Nikita is also a baritone and has performed in the United States and in Europe. Lately, Nikita has turned to composing romantic music. He is working on his new Halloween Opera, "Two Counts at Stake." For the overture to the opera, Maestro Wells received a Silver Medal from the Global Music Awards Group. The performance by The McLean Symphony represents the premiere of the piece."

I can list several more works like these I have performed over the past year.

We have been down this path so many times I am embarrassed to bring this up again. I started a thread about this a few years ago. I tried to find it but I could not locate it because the search engine is messed up.

It seems that no matter how many contemporary tonal composers we mention, we have members who insist that all contemporary music is non-tonal.


----------



## hpowders

Contemporary Finnish composer Seppo Pohjola's impressive Symphony No. 1 from 2002.

Tonal. Quite accessible. Tribute-quote from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, midway through its first movement and another one from Beethoven's Fifth Symphony in the fourth movement coda.


----------



## Blancrocher

Pascal Dusapin - 7 piano etudes (Ian Pace)


----------



## Blancrocher

Pascal Dusapin - Cello Concerto "Outscape"


----------



## tortkis

Carlo Alessandro Landini: Changes - Arditti Quartet (Stradivarius)

__
Sensitive content, not recommended for those under 18
Show Content


----------



## tortkis

21st Century Spanish Guitar, Vol. 1 - Adam Levin (Naxos)









Very fine, tuneful guitar pieces of Eduardo Morales-Caso (b. 1969), Salvador Brotons (b. 1959), David Del Puerto (b. 1964), Carlos Cruz De Castro (b. 1941), Ricardo Llorca (b. 1962), Leonardo Balada (b. 1933), and Octavio Vazquez (b. 1972), composed from 2009 to 2011.


----------



## PeterFromLA

On my CD rotation these days is this recording of GF Haas works; I'm especially tuned into "...und..." Enthralling stuff.


----------



## Nereffid

PeterFromLA said:


> View attachment 98976
> 
> 
> On my CD rotation these days is this recording of GF Haas works; I'm especially tuned into "...und..." Enthralling stuff.


Listening now to Haas's _Limited Approximations_ - a splendid piece.


----------



## tortkis

Metafagote - Rebekah Heller (New Focus)









Exquisite music for bassoon of Rand Steiger, Dai Fujikura, Jason Eckardt, and Felipe Lara. Fantastic playing.


----------



## Kjetil Heggelund

This is fantastic! My favorite piano concerto


----------



## Blancrocher

Mark-Anthony Turnage, Remembering "In memoriam Evan Scofield" (Rattle, 2017)

A very attractive elegy.


----------



## Nereffid

Speaking of elegies:








Tonu Korvits: Moorland Elegies, a 2015 choral work.


----------



## laurie

Just discovered this today (Thanks to LezLee!) ~ a Violin Concerto, "Affairs of the Heart" (1997) by Canadian composer Marjan Mozetich. It is _amazing_, stunningly gorgeous ~ I think you need to drop everything & listen to this _right now_! 

I'll be spending the rest of my day listening to whatever I can find of Mozetich on YouTube (while cleaning the kitchen from yesterday's feast!)


----------



## mmsbls

I listened to several works from a favorite contemporary composer - Lowell Liebermann

Piano Quintet
Nocturnes 
Symphony No. 2


----------



## Johnnie Burgess

Shaheen Farhat: Symphony # 15 in C Minor Op. 85: Vladimir Sirenko, Ukraine National Symphonic Orschestra:










on spotify. Published 2009.


----------



## tortkis

Simeon Ten Holt: Palimpsest (1993) for string septet









Euphoric. I wish more recordings of Ten Holt's chamber music will be released.


----------



## mmsbls

I had heard Canto Ostinato by Ten Holt and much enjoyed it. I had not heard Palimpsest, and after just listening to it, I found it wonderful. I will definitely look into more works by Ten Holt. Thanks for sharing this.


----------



## mmsbls

Chris Theofanidis: On the Edge of the Infinite for Violin & Orchestra

Written for the 700th anniversary of the Grimaldi Empire (which I'd never heard of before).


----------



## Blancrocher

Michel van der Aa, Violin Concerto & Clarinet Concerto "Hysteresis" (Janine Jansen & co)

The violin concerto has a quite memorable opening. The second piece is also interesting, and I like the use of electronics, though I find the static noises at the beginning distracting.


----------



## Blancrocher

Bent Sorensen - Triple Concerto

Grawemeyer winner, 2018


----------



## TurnaboutVox

To-day and yesterday:

*Harrison Birtwistle*
The Tree of Strings (2007)
9 Movements for String Quartet (1991-6)
*Arditti Quartet* [Aeon, 2012]










*Brian Ferneyhough*
Sonatas for String Quartet
String Quartet No. 2 
Adagissimo*
Arditti Quartet* [Aeon, 2014]

This is 'difficult' music which really requires full concentration to appreciate it properly - unfortunately I've not been able to give it that this afternoon. As usual with the Arditti Quartet in modern British repertoire the interpretation is precise and masterful. The Aeon sound is exemplary.

This is a 3 disc set with much interesting music to chew over - at my leisure.


----------



## Blancrocher

Anna Clyne ‎- Blue Moth / 2012 / full album


----------



## Kjetil Heggelund

Nightshade Trilogy was composed by Poul Ruders over a span of 17 years- between 1986 and 2003. In the composer's words, it is "a collection of compositions that evoke for me an almost Gothic association with pale moonlight, tombstones crypts and the elusive shadows deep inside an ancient forest at the deep of night."
In my own words this is just the way I like contemporary music, full of "sound paintings" and surprises.


----------



## Kjetil Heggelund

Hello! It's me again. Checking out Grammy nominees and Zhou Tian (1981) from China is one, with Concerto for Orchestra from 2016. For anyone not used to 20th century dissonance, this piece must be thrilling to hear! To me it is very accessible


----------



## mjqjazzbar

I am enjoying this very, very much.








> Rhys a Meinir, the debut orchestral performance written by Ciarán was premiered and performed by the 90-piece BBC National Orchestra of Wales at BBC Hoddinott Hall, Cardiff on Friday 4 November 2016,
> 
> Adding a further layer of ecitement and intrigue to the project Rhys Ifans has recorded the Welsh-language narration for the production contributing his seasoned, dramatic delivery to the traditional Welsh folk tale of love and loss.
> 
> As well as a voice of Ifans' pedigree, Ciarán also welcomes the conductor, Alastair King to the fold, who brings credits as impressive as Pirates of the Caribbean and Doctor Who to the production.


----------



## mmsbls

I listened to Jefferson Friedman's 2nd string quartet. I had never heard the composer before but I enjoyed the energy of the first movement and the beauty of the second. I am listening to his 3rd string quartet  and enjoy it as well.


----------



## mmsbls

I've been listening to Brett Dean lately. The Lost Art of Letter Writing won the Grawemeyer Award.

The Lost Art of Letter Writing (Violin Concerto)

Viola Concerto

Epitaphs (String Quintet)

The quintet is recorded on a Naxos CD with two string quartets.


----------



## spidersrepublic

Three of my favorite contemporary compositions:

The greatest Saxophone concerto of the 20th century:




(Psathas' Abhiskeha is also excellent some of the best use of microtones: 



 )

Rautavaara's Harp Concerto:





Schnittke's Concerto for Piano and Strings: (not sure if this counts as contemporary any more... ?)


----------



## Kjetil Heggelund

I usually enjoy Pasieczny's music, now too  This piece is from 2012.


----------



## Kjetil Heggelund

My turn again  I heard Andriessen's "La Commedia" just before Christmas, and wanted to hear more from this composer. I like many composers born in the 30's.


----------



## tortkis

Lachenmann: Marche fatale (2017) version for large orchestra





This is lovely.


----------



## tortkis

Curious Minds - Latitude 49









Refreshing contemporary chamber works. Schumann and Moorefield are most impressive.

Garrett Schumann: Five-Note Chord, seen from the porch of a curious mind (2013)
https://latitude49.bandcamp.com/tra...f-a-curious-mind-composed-by-garrett-schumann

Virgil Moorefield: A Wish for the Displaced (2015)
https://latitude49.bandcamp.com/track/a-wish-for-the-displaced-composed-by-virgil-moorefield


----------



## tortkis

Steve Reich: New York Counterpoint / Marc Mellits: Black - Julian Bliss (Signum)









Good minimalism. I heard Mellits for the first time. I enjoyed Tight Sweater and this wonderful piece for saxophone ensemble.

Marc Mellits: ExtraSensory Perception (2018) for 17 saxophones - Eastman Saxophone project


----------



## tortkis

Laura Schwendinger: Quartets - JACK Quartet, Jamie Van Eyck, Christopher Taylor (Albany)








Rich, dramatic, adventurous. There is no dull moment.


----------



## Guest

Kjetil Heggelund said:


> My turn again  I heard Andriessen's "La Commedia" just before Christmas, and wanted to hear more from this composer. I like many composers born in the 30's.


This is excellent: De Staat


----------



## Guest

BERIO: Epifanie

<it's on you tube>

Luciano Berio (1925-2003): Epifanie, per voce e orchestra su testi di Proust, Machado, Joyce, Sanguineti, Simon, Brecht (1961).

Cathy Berberian, voce
Orchestra della RAI di Roma diretta da Luciano Berio.

Registrazione dal vivo, Roma, 15 Marzo 1969.

I'm really enjoying what little I have heard of Luciano Berio so far.


----------



## TurnaboutVox

*Modern Lied
Heinz Holliger* / Sechs Lieder nach Gedichten von Christian Morgenstern
*Salvatore Sciarrino* / I. Occhi stillanti; II. Occhi stellanti
*Helmut Lachenmann* / Got Lost
*György Kurtág* / Requiem po drugu, Op. 26
*Wolfgang Rihm* / Ophelia Sings 
*Bernhard Lang* / Wenn die Landschaft aufhört

*Sarah Maria Sun, soprano; Jan Philip Schulze, piano*
[Mode, 2017]

My new disc this week. The Holliger and Sciarrino songs were the first to catch my attention. Very interesting. It is apparently available on Spotify.












> Soprano Sarah Maria Sun's collection of songs with piano is, she says, the result of her attempt to "find out what some of the path-breaking composers of our time think about voice and Lied". Because of the dominance of pop music today, she thinks, there's no longer any common ground among composers for presenting the complex music and texts that Lieder has traditionally dealt in. Certainly there is very little that's shared stylistically between the settings by the six composers that she includes in this anthology, which ranges from the late 1950s to 2015.
> 
> Perhaps not unexpectedly, the earliest songs here, Heinz Holliger's six settings of poems by Christian Morgenstern, composed while Holliger was still in his teens, come closest to what one thinks of as the mainstream of the Lieder tradition. Their language seems rooted in Alban Berg, though there are also echoes of Debussy and Ravel. Salvatore Sciarrino's Due Melodie are relatively early pieces too, dating from 1978, though the fluttering, trembling style of vocal writing that's so typical of Sciarrino's later music is already apparent, as is the equally nervous piano writing.
> 
> György Kurtág's 1987 Requiem for the Beloved - tiny settings of poems by one of the composer's favourite writers, Rimma Dalos - is typically exquisite and typically expressionist. In Wolfgang Rihm's Ophelia Sings from 2012, consistency goes out of the window as the music swings tipsily from romantic seriousness to folksy reverie, and the sung words of the songs from Hamlet are punctuated with spoken phrases of the text that surrounds them in the play. Bernhard Lang's Wenn die Landschaft Aufhört is different again, delivering its stream-of-consciousness text in a breathless fusion of rap and sprechgesang.
> 
> Sun and her pianist Jan Philip Schulze take all of these stylistic excursions in their accomplished stride, but it's the extended centrepiece of the disc that demands the most of both of them. Helmut Lachenmann's Got Lost, composed in 2008, is an exuberant showpiece, built around three sharply contrasted texts - a fragment of Nietzsche, a poem by Fernando Pessoa, and a sign asking for the return of a lost laundry basket that Lachenmann spotted in a Berlin elevator. The soprano veers from whispering to shouting, from droll speech to elevated arioso, while the pianist has to exploit all the acoustic resources of his instrument, from inside and outside. Sun and Schulze never flinch.
> 
> Andrew Clements / The Guardian 20th September 2017


----------



## tortkis

Bolcom: The Complete Rags for Piano - John Murphy (Albany)









Contemporary rags by William Bolcom. Modern, sophisticated, with rich varieties of moods.

Graceful Ghost Rag


----------



## mmsbls

Julian Anderson's Book of Hours has been recommended in a number of threads, and it's a wonderful work. This CD also has Eden and Imagin`d Corners. Eden utilizes hockets (melodies shared between instruments) and non-tempered tunings to great effect. Imagin`d Corners for 5 horns and orchestra has 4 solo horns move about the stage during the performance (although it's hard to hear the effect at home). I enjoyed both works.


----------



## San Antone

Here's four new composers I've interviewed in the last year. I've profiled about 75 composers since 2014 and am committed to spreading the word about young composers doing what I consider exciting work.

*Kate Soper* is a composer, performer, and writer whose work explores the integration of drama and rhetoric into musical structure, the slippery continuums of expressivity, intelligibility and sense, and the wonderfully treacherous landscape of the human voice. 





*Louis Goldford* is a composer hailing from St. Louis. Recent performances include those by the JACK Quartet, Ensemble Dal Niente, Ensemble Modelo62, the Meitar Ensemble, the NOMOS Group, and Rage Thormbones. Louis was recently named the winner of the 2017 Suzhou (Chou's) Composition Commission, and this spring will see the premiere of a new piece for Yarn/Wire. He will also take part in the 2018 IRCAM Cursus program for advanced computer music composition in Paris. 





*Nomi Epstein*, D.M.A, is a Chicago-based composer, curator, performer and music educator. Her compositions center around her interest in sonic fragility, where structure arises out of textural subtleties. Her music has been performed throughout the US, Europe, and Asia by such artists as ICE, Ensemble SurPlus, Mivos Quartet, Wet Ink, Dal Niente, Noble Fowl Trio, Quince Vocal Ensemble, Rhymes With Opera, Seth Josel, and Eliza Garth, and at festivals such as Ostrava Days, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Darmstadt, Bang on a Can, and Akademie Schloss Solitude. 





*Gleb Kanasevich* is a clarinetist, composer, and experimental electronic musician. He has appeared as a soloist with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Belarus National Philharmonic, soundSCAPE Ensemble, Atlantic Music Festival Orchestra, Peabody Symphony Orchestra, and more.


----------



## tortkis

John Luther Adams: Everything That Rises - JACK Quartet (Cold Blue)









http://coldbluemusic.com/cb0051/
_"Everything That Rises, commissioned by SFJAZZ and the JACK Quartet, is an ever-in-motion virtuosic just-intonation work built of a series of 16 ascending musical "clouds." Its pitches are derived from the harmonics of the piece's subsonic fundamental tone (C0)."_


----------



## Score reader

*Nico Muhly - Viola Concerto*

Nadia Sirota and the Detroit Sympony Orchestra in the U.S premiere a couple of years ago:

http://site-323590.bcvp0rtal.com/detail/videos/10.25.15-a-little-night-music/video/4579346681001/nico-muhly-viola-concerto


----------



## tortkis

Robert Honstein: Unwind - New Morse Code





Beautiful polyrhythmic piece for percussion.

Simplicity Itself, an album by New Morse Code (Hannah Collins and Michael Compitello), who commissioned Unwind, includes works of Honstein, Tonia Ko, Caroline Shaw and Paul Kerekes. Each of them is accessible and new sounding.


----------



## Kjetil Heggelund

Non-Places, a piano concerto by Isabel Mundry.


----------



## Kjetil Heggelund

Violin concerto "Still" by Rebecca Saunders from 2011.


----------



## Kjetil Heggelund

I guess only I am listening to contemporary music...


----------



## Guest

Kjetil Heggelund said:


> I guess only I am listening to contemporary music...


Yeah same. I'm currently listening to a guitar quartet called _"qui ainsi me refait ... veoir seulement et oïr"_ by Nigerian-born composer Charles Uzor.


----------



## Janspe

Kjetil Heggelund said:


> I guess only I am listening to contemporary music...


Happy to see this video being shared! I was at the concert (on both evenings, just couldn't help myself...) and I can report that it was a very memorable performance indeed. The Francesconi concerto kept everyone one their toes, and the Mahler 6th that came afterwards swept the table clean. The combination worked really well. Josefowicz is, fortunately, a very frequent visitor here in Helsinki: this season I saw her play Bernd Alois Zimmermann's concerto, which was one of the strongest musical experiences of my life.

As for contemporary music - yesterday I listened to Carter's late work _Interventions_ for piano and orchestra, which was a typical example of why I really love his music; it stimulates my thinking in ways that few other composers manage to pull off. A very specific kind of expression. I also listened to Gubaidulina's _Et expecto_, which is basically a solo sonata for bayan. Powerful music! I find myself more and more attracted to bayan (and accordion-esque instruments in general) thanks to this composer.


----------



## Guest

Janspe said:


> Happy to see this video being shared! I was at the concert (on both evenings, just couldn't help myself...) and I can report that it was a very memorable performance indeed. The Francesconi concerto kept everyone one their toes, and the Mahler 6th that came afterwards swept the table clean. The combination worked really well. Josefowicz is, fortunately, a very frequent visitor here in Helsinki: this season I saw her play Bernd Alois Zimmermann's concerto, which was one of the strongest musical experiences of my life.
> 
> As for contemporary music - yesterday I listened to Carter's late work _Interventions_ for piano and orchestra, which was a typical example of why I really love his music; it stimulates my thinking in ways that few other composers manage to pull off. A very specific kind of expression. I also listened to Gubaidulina's _Et expecto_, which is basically a solo sonata for bayan. Powerful music! I find myself more and more attracted to bayan (and accordion-esque instruments in general) thanks to this composer.


Sounds like it must have been an excellent concert! It would have been amazing to hear some BA Zimmerman live (though he's been gone for an unfortunately long time). Actually, this December I am hoping to see a concert featuring his music performed by BRSO.


----------



## Guest

In other news, listening to this 'opera' by James Dillon


----------



## Janspe

shirime said:


> t would have been amazing to hear some BA Zimmerman live (though he's been gone for an unfortunately long time). Actually, this December I am hoping to see a concert featuring his music performed by BRSO.


It seems that the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, under its chief conductor Hannu Lintu, has something of a Zimmermann project going on: they're also doing the _Die Soldaten_-derived _Vokalsinfonie_ next season, and recording it too, apparently to be released together with the _Violin Concerto_. I can't wait! It's not quite the same as seeing the full opera live, but at least the concert arrangement was done by the composer himself. I'm sure it'll be a concert to remember.


----------



## PeterFromLA

Listening to this Arditti recording of Abrahamsen string quartets.


----------



## Guest

I managed to squeeze in this entire opera in what has been a fairly busy day


----------



## Guest

I've listened to this a few times. Recommended for fans of Sciarrino's operas as the vocal writing is quite similar. Perhaps it's something about the Italian language that lends itself to these kinds of melodies and gestures?


----------



## tortkis

Music for Violin, Erik Carlson

Aldo Clementi: Second Violin Concerto (Carlson, violin; Kyle Armbrust, viola; Steven Beck, celesta; David Byrd-Marrow, horn; Michael Caterisano, vibraphone; Claire Chase, flute; Joshua Rubin, clarinet)





Juste Janulyte: Psalms (Carlson, violins)





Rytis Mažulis: The Sleep (Carlson, violin; Susanna Phillips, soprano)
https://erikcarlson.bandcamp.com/track/rytis-ma-ulis-the-sleep

Many of the works in this collection sound like sonic study or experiment, but there are beautiful pieces. These are some of memorable works I was impressed by.


----------



## Kjetil Heggelund

Love this! When a modern composer has been deceased for over 25 years, is it still contemporary music? (Just a strange thought...)


----------



## millionrainbows

John Cage, Music for Keyboards 1935-1948. This goes back all the way, to when Cage was studying with Schoenberg; some of these early pieces are 12-tone, although Cage uses the system very idiosyncratically, and it "sounds like Cage" to me, although this may just be my imagination. This first came out on vinyl in 1970, as a 2-LP set, and was one of my earliest experiences of Cage. It still sounds good all these years later. I've put the original LP cover, which I've always liked, as well as the CD reissue, which also includes some Morton Feldman.


----------



## Kjetil Heggelund

Heard this several times the last days. Maybe she is the new voice of Iceland


----------



## nobilmente

*Takashi Yoshimatsu [吉松 隆] - Symphonies*





Symphonies #2 and #3 are really striking works IMO, showing a complete mastery of the form. A particularly distinctive characteristic is an intense rhythmic drive, often using a large percussion section. There are other smaller and more meditative works a la Takemitsu, but the symphony cycle (there are five now) is full-on, with some wonderful climaxes to be enjoyed.


----------



## nobilmente

*Jeop Franssens*

He is a contemporary Dutch composer in a tonal idiom, with influences from minimalism and jazz, but nevertheless quite distinctive. He builds the most extraordinary and ecstatic climaxes I've heard in recent times. He is best known for his complex choral work _Harmony of the Spheres_, setting fragments of text by Spinoza, but here are two other contrasting works:


----------



## nobilmente

*Dobrinka Tabakova*

A young Bulgarian/British composer who writes beautifully for strings, q.v. Mvt II of this concerto:






And another similar piece:


----------



## Guest

Out of the 100 significant contemporary composers I believe there are, here is a small selection:
-Iannis Xenakis: Kraanerg, Echange, Akrata
-Pascal Dusapin: 7 Solos for orchestra, 7 Piano Etudes, Requiem
-Philippe Manoury: Pluton, Tensio, Le Livre des Claviers
-John Luther Adams: Become Ocean, Inuksuit, The Wind in high Places
-Steve Reich: Music for 18 Musicians, Different Trains, Music for mallet instruments
-Thomas Ades: Asyla, Piano Quintet, The Tempest
-Georg Friedrich Haas: Hyperion, Aus-Weg, SQ 8-9
-Wolfgang Rihm: Chiffre-Zyklus SQ 3 & 5, Jagden und Formen
-Jörg Widmann: Armonica, Implosion, Zweites Labyrinth
-Saariaho: Du Cristal à la Fumée, Verblendungen, Nymphea Reflection
Enjoy


----------



## starthrower

Fagerlund and Aho works for Bassoon


----------



## Haydn70

The superb Cuban-American composer, Aurelio de la Vega:


----------



## Dimace

nobilmente said:


> Symphonies #2 and #3 are really striking works IMO, showing a complete mastery of the form. A particularly distinctive characteristic is an intense rhythmic drive, often using a large percussion section. There are other smaller and more meditative works a la Takemitsu, but the symphony cycle (there are five now) is full-on, with some wonderful climaxes to be enjoyed.


This is quality contemporary music, not modern bull sh…s. Well driven music, with tense and spontaneous calmness, which manages to reassure the listener for its purpose with clear melodic lines (you called it form) I ordered this symphony (I didn't know the composer) and he will find a place alongside Takemitsu in my collection. Thanks a lot!


----------



## Kjetil Heggelund

I've been listening to the Grawemayer award winning compositions for some days now. I like them all! They are mostly in extended tonality, neoromantic or postmodern style. I have no idea why people get wild with the postmodernism label...


----------



## tortkis

Peter Thoegersen: Three Pieces in Polytempic Polymicrotonality
http://www.newworldrecords.org/album.cgi?rm=view&album_id=95240








Milko (2018), Irrational Quartet (2018), Herniated Lumbar Discs Much Better Now (2018)

These works use different tempos and tunings at the same time. Complex, but they have good clarity to ears. Irrational Quartet is like microtonal Nancarrow.


----------



## SuperTonic

tortkis said:


> Peter Thoegersen: ... Herniated Lumbar Discs Much Better Now (2018)


This sounds like a title that Satie would come up with.
My interest is piqued. I'll have to check him out.


----------



## tortkis

SuperTonic said:


> This sounds like a title that Satie would come up with.
> My interest is piqued. I'll have to check him out.


According to the liner notes, "it was indeed written following a painful interlude of back pain."


----------



## Kjetil Heggelund

__
https://soundcloud.com/zadmoultaka%2Fcalvario
Pablo Marquez plays "Calvario" by Zad Moultaka. This is pretty amazing! Written in 2008 for guitar and fixed sounds.


----------



## tortkis

An album of Dodecaphonic String Quartets - The Ars Combinatoria String Quartet
https://erikcarlson.bandcamp.com/album/2-dodecaphonic-string-quartets









Two very short string quartet works. Dieter Schnebel's Stücke (1954-55) is a pointillistic Webernian piece. Eva-Maria Houben's Nothing More (2019) is restrained but uses various styles in the 5 movements lasting for just 5 min. (Here is the score PDF.) The group recorded Babbitt's string quartet no. 2-6, which are very good too.


----------



## tortkis

Alex Weiser: and all the days were purple, for Singer, Piano, Percussion, and String Trio (2017)









Eliza Bagg (voice), Lee Dionne (piano), Maya Bennardo (violin), Hannah Levinson (viola), Hannah Collins (cello) and Michael Compitello (percussion)
https://alexweiser.bandcamp.com/album/and-all-the-days-were-purple

A beautiful song cycle.


----------



## millionrainbows

tortkis said:


> An album of Dodecaphonic String Quartets - The Ars Combinatoria String Quartet
> https://erikcarlson.bandcamp.com/album/2-dodecaphonic-string-quartets
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Two very short string quartet works. Dieter Schnebel's Stücke (1954-55) is a pointillistic Webernian piece. Eva-Maria Houben's Nothing More (2019) is restrained but uses various styles in the 5 movements lasting for just 5 min. (Here is the score PDF.) The group recorded Babbitt's string quartet no. 2-6, which are very good too.


These recordings are not available as CDs; they are digital files only.


----------



## tortkis

millionrainbows said:


> These recordings are not available as CDs; they are digital files only.


Yes, but lossless files such as FLAC and WAV are available and all the digital releases of Erik Carlson are worth checking out, IMO: (almost) complete string quartets of Babbitt and violin works of many contemporary composers.


----------



## Blancrocher

I've been listening to some Kaija Saariaho albums, not having done so for some time. I've already decided to purchase the recent Jennifer Koh cd featuring Graal Theater. I'm also revisiting an older disk featuring Graal Theater, Solar, and Lichtbogen (Ondine); It seems less polished, but all the works are attractive.


----------



## Blancrocher

"Hommage a Penderecki" (with Anne-Sophie Mutter)

2 new works, La Follia for solo violin and the Duo Concertante, combined with reissues of the 2nd Violin Sonata and "Metamorphosen" Violin Concerto. 

Amazing 2-cd set.


----------



## tortkis

Bartók, Eötvös & Ligeti: Violin Concertos - Patricia Kopatchinskaja, Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, Ensemble Modern, Peter Eötvös (Naive)









I am listening to Eötvös lately. A very unique composer, I think.


----------



## tortkis

Sergey Akhunov: -in your never- three pieces for violin & piano








https://sergeyakhunov.bandcamp.com/album/in-your-never-three-pieces-for-violin-piano

Akhunov's music is always touching.


----------



## Janspe

Blancrocher said:


> "Hommage a Penderecki" (with Anne-Sophie Mutter)
> 
> 2 new works, La Follia for solo violin and the Duo Concertante, combined with reissues of the 2nd Violin Sonata and "Metamorphosen" Violin Concerto.


Actually, the 2nd Violin Sonata is the only work of the four _not_ to be a reissue, it was recorded specifically for this release. All of the other works have appeared on Mutter's CDs previously!


----------



## Blancrocher

Janspe said:


> Actually, the 2nd Violin Sonata is the only work of the four _not_ to be a reissue, it was recorded specifically for this release. All of the other works have appeared on Mutter's CDs previously!


You're right--well, better late than never on my part!


----------



## arpeggio

*Phillip Glass Symphony #10*

In a recent issue of BBC Music they had a recording of Phillip Glass's _Tenth Symphony_. I really enjoy his more recent work as compared to his earlier music. The wind parts are so good at times I think I am listening to a band work.


----------



## Art Rock

(David Matthews [1943] - symphonic poem "Music of Dawn").

Groundbreaking? No. But I like it a lot.


----------



## arpeggio

^^^^
I know everyone on my ignore list would consider it noise.

I like it as well. I have heard the name many times but I have never had the pleasure of hearing his music. I will have to check out his other works. Thanks.


----------



## Art Rock

I played this CD (I have a number of CDs by this composer). The third work on it, A vision and a journey, is very rewarding as well. This CD would be my recommended starting point.


----------



## Blancrocher

Henry Brant: Ice Field (Michael Tilson Thomas) - on Spotify


----------



## xankl

Jennifer Koh - Limitless, disc one.
Wow.


----------



## Blancrocher

Watching clips and previews of Brett Dean's new opera "Hamlet," which has gotten fairly good reviews.


----------



## tortkis

Terry Riley: Sun Rings - Kronos Quartet (Nonesuch)








https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/8654725--terry-riley-sun-rings

The first time release of the 2002 recording. Music for string quartet, choir and space sounds sent back to Earth by Voyager 1 and other spacecraft.


----------



## tortkis

Meara O'Reilly: Hockets for Two Voices








https://bangonacan.org/store/music/hockets_for_two_voices

Hockets creating the effect of pseudo-polyphony or melodic fission. This is mesmerizing.


----------



## tortkis

Wolfgang von Schweinitz: Plainsound String Trio KLANG auf Schön Berg La Monte Young
Stimmübung im Lobgesang
für Streichtrio mit live-elektronischer Ringmodulation ad libitum, op. 39 (1999-2000)
Goeyvaerts String Trio


----------



## Kjetil Heggelund

https://reliefmusic.bandcamp.com/releases
The Gloaming by relief. Electro-acoustic sound sculptures here! Very different from what I've heard before but fun and surprising.


----------



## Minneapple

Babbitt, Three Compositions for Piano
Rautaavera; 'Vincent" Symphony (6)


----------



## Kjetil Heggelund

Now some electronic music that I've heard before (but can't remember). Earth Haze from the album Puzzle Wood by Natasha Barrett. I think I can get used to electronic music! I will make myself a "musical diet" that will broaden my musical taste even further. Electronic music is something a bit awkward for me still. I see that as a challenge! This piece is a bit like a movie


----------



## Lilijana

Kjetil Heggelund said:


> Now some electronic music that I've heard before (but can't remember). Earth Haze from the album Puzzle Wood by Natasha Barrett. I think I can get used to electronic music! I will make myself a "musical diet" that will broaden my musical taste even further. Electronic music is something a bit awkward for me still. I see that as a challenge! This piece is a bit like a movie


Natasha Barrett's work is really good. Do try some Daniel Blinkhorn at some point as well. There isn't a lot on spotify of his, though. Where do you usually listen to these pieces?


----------



## Kjetil Heggelund

Thanx for the tip! I tried searching spotify for several composers of interest from ircam.fr and like you said wasn't available. I have heard some on bandcamp and soundcloud. Do you know of any other platforms?


----------



## Guest

John Corigliano, Symphony 1:


----------



## Kjetil Heggelund

Stefan Fraunberger - Quellgeister #3 Bussd...from his homepage: quellgeister - beelzebub's organs
'quellgeister' (engl. source-spirits) are research / compositions concerning the influence of non-humans on terrestric pipe-organs indwelling deserted saxon churches in transylvania. the project aims to reflect the sonic climate and material manifestations of decaying ritual-machines undergone complete change while being left alone by human presence...
This sounds haunting and different from anything I've heard before. It's on spotify too!

Read myself up on this project. This album is no. 3 of Stefan Fraunberger improvising on worn-down organs in abandoned churches in Transylvania. It's fantastic!!!


----------



## Kjetil Heggelund

Me again! Now I've decided to get used to electronic music and Stockhausen is a never ending source.


----------



## tortkis

Salvatore Sciarrino: Ombre nel mattino di Piero, Lassus Quartett









Sciarrino's string quartet no. 9 sandwitched by Ockeghem's Misa Mi-Mi.


----------



## tortkis

Kjetil Heggelund said:


> Stefan Fraunberger - Quellgeister #3 Bussd...from his homepage: quellgeister - beelzebub's organs
> 'quellgeister' (engl. source-spirits) are research / compositions concerning the influence of non-humans on terrestric pipe-organs indwelling deserted saxon churches in transylvania. the project aims to reflect the sonic climate and material manifestations of decaying ritual-machines undergone complete change while being left alone by human presence...
> This sounds haunting and different from anything I've heard before. It's on spotify too!
> 
> Read myself up on this project. This album is no. 3 of Stefan Fraunberger improvising on worn-down organs in abandoned churches in Transylvania. It's fantastic!!!


I listened to Elegie. The sound is full of sorrow. Very impressive.


----------



## erki

Peeter Vähi. This is rather old(1986) piece, but rather interesting synth incorporation.






Or something more "classical" piece "Maria Magdalena" Oratorio


----------



## Janspe

*Peter Ablinger: Der Regen, Das Glas, Das Lachen; Ohne Titel für 14 Instrumentalisten; Quadraturen IV "Selbstportrait mit Berlin"*
Klangforum Wien, led by Sylvain Cambreling









I've never heard any music by this composer before, so if nothing else this was definitely an interesting detour from my usual fare. I can't say I got _that_ much out of the pieces but I didn't dislike them either, just felt kinda disinterested. The first piece was pretty cool but it felt like it didn't change at all over the course of its 22-minute span... I'd say the _Quadraturen IV_ was the most enjoyable piece of the bunch. Despite my reaction to the music, it's always interesting to explore new music!


----------



## Janspe

*Gérard Grisey: Quatre chants pour franchir le seuil*
Klangforum Wien, led by Sylvain Cambreling
Catherine Dubosc, soprano









I've been meaning to listen to this piece for a very long time but never really got around to do it. But I'm so glad I finally did, because I _love_ this piece! Amazing from start to finish - haunting, moving, exciting. Will definitely relisten soon...


----------



## 20centrfuge

I forgot about this thread! Thank you everyone for rekindling.

I've been listening to this album of Chin concertos. The cello concerto, in particular, is STUNNING!


----------



## Janspe

20centrfuge said:


> I've been listening to this album of Chin concertos. The cello concerto, in particular, is STUNNING!
> 
> View attachment 136768


This is one of my favourite albums of contemporary music! Chin is simply a marvel. I heard the piano concerto live some time ago (feels like a utopia now to attend a concert!) and it really made a huge impression.

I wish her works were more widely recorded, although there's a lot more available on YouTube. I should explore the Clarinet Concerto more in-depth...


----------



## Kjetil Heggelund

Mark Andre-Hij 2 from 2012. The titles of Andre's music are a bit confusing. This one is for 24 voices and electronics.


----------



## tortkis

Horațiu Rădulescu: The Complete Cello Works - Catherine Marie Tunnell, Ian Pace (Mode)









Rădulescu's music is very original and imaginative. L'Exil Intérieur for cell and piano is amazing.


----------



## Allegro Con Brio

One of the most rewarding recent contemporary pieces I've heard is Kaija Saariaho's clarinet concerto *D'om Le Vrai Sens*. A subtle, ravishing dreamscape that sounds like floating through outer space.


----------



## Mandryka

tortkis said:


> . L'Exil Intérieur for cell and piano is amazing.


I much prefer Pre Existing Soul of Then.


----------



## Simon Moon

Some relatively new discoveries for me.

Colin Matthews - Hidden Variables






Poul Ruders - Piano concerto






John Harbison - Symphony 4


----------



## Enthusiast

Janspe said:


> *Gérard Grisey: Quatre chants pour franchir le seuil*
> Klangforum Wien, led by Sylvain Cambreling
> Catherine Dubosc, soprano
> 
> View attachment 136765
> 
> 
> I've been meaning to listen to this piece for a very long time but never really got around to do it. But I'm so glad I finally did, because I _love_ this piece! Amazing from start to finish - haunting, moving, exciting. Will definitely relisten soon...


I agree. A very great piece. I _think _the Dubosc recording (the one you pictured) is my favourite one but Barbara Hannigan recently recroded the work as well and she is always rewarding and worth listening to.


----------



## tortkis

Pascal Dusapin - Accroche Note








TRIO ROMBACH pour clarinette, violoncelle et piano (1998)
WOLKEN pour soprano et piano (2014)
BY THE WAY pour clarinette et piano (2014)
BECKETT'S BONES pour soprano, clarinette et piano (2016)
ENSEMBLE ACCROCHE NOTE: Françoise Kubler (soprano), Armand Angster (clarinette), Christophe Beau (violoncelle), Wilhem Latchoumia (piano)

Delicate, lyrical chamber music


----------



## tortkis

Guðmundur Steinn Gunnarsson: Sinfónía








https://gudmundursteinn.bandcamp.com/album/sinf-n-a

This is strange music with "dynamic or animated screen notation" using "non pulsating, messed up rhythms" and microtonal tunings." It sometimes sounds like stripped down gamelan, John Cage, ritual or nature sounds.


----------



## calvinpv

I really ought to make use of this thread more often.

I've been listening to Manoury's _Fragments pour un portrait_ (1998-1999) the past couple of days, as well as read this fantastic introduction to the work by Manoury himself (it's in French, so I just ran it through google translate). The piece was inspired by painter Francis Bacon's series of studies on Velázquez's _Portrait of Pope Innocent X_ from 1650. Manoury isn't interested in the subject matter of these studies so much as the very nature of representation that these studies evoke. Each of them is a standalone, finished work of art in itself, and yet, the content of these paintings consist of a sketch, or "study", of some imaginary, ideal work that will never be realized, with each of these studies approaching that imaginary work from a different angle. Whatever the ideal work is, it's not the original Velázquez; the Bacon studies are creepy, gothic, surrealist distortions of the original.

Anyways, the Manoury work comprises of seven movements. Each movement can stand on its own, yet they all point to some unrealized musical structure/essence that has only been partially explored. For example, the gesture that finishes the first movement returns as a transition in the third movement, as a set of unanticipated outbursts in the fourth movement, and as the main subject matter in the fifth movement. This gesture is essentially being viewed from multiple perspectives, which in turn changes its inner nature as well as its functional role.

Personally, I think Manoury is overstating this musical discovery of his, of this paradoxical relationship between complete work and fragment. If I recall correctly, I think Dusapin does something similar in _Seven Solos for Orchestra_. But that doesn't mean the music isn't any good. It's full of nuance, elegance (of a Boulezian kind), color, and atmosphere.

Score here.

Playlist here.


----------



## calvinpv

Been slowly working my way through all of Manoury's music; also explored some Gabriela Lena Frank who was featured in the string quartet listening thread a couple of weeks ago. But in the meantime, I re-listened to Hector Parra's single act opera _Hypermusic Prologue_. The story/libretto is a bit corny and geeky (it was written by a physicist and it shows), but the music is out of this world good. It's like Ferneyhough mixed with IRCAM-flavored electronics.

Playlist here (including interview with Parra and physicist Lisa Randall)


----------



## 20centrfuge

I've been inspired by people listing their favorite contemporary composers. So I've come up with a list of 11 works I'm going to personally explore over the next several weeks. I'm going to list them here and eventually give my thoughts on each of them. Please bear with me as it will help me focus my listening to give a personal review of each work. Thanks to Ravn and Calvinpv in particular for their recommendations and thank you to Trout for "A Contemporary Music Repertoire" that I mined to get some works on composers I don't know too well.

Side note: it seems that some of you out there are able to digest music quickly and easily, being the musical equivalents of voracious readers. I would say I am the opposite. I digest music slowly. I really have to live with works for a while to feel like I understand them. That's why _listening groups _work well for me.

Anyway, here are the 11:

Lachenmann: Schwankungen am Rand
Radulescu: SQ 5
Grisey: Vortex temporum
Daugherty: Deus ex Machina
Steen-Andersen: Double Up
Thorvaldsdottir: In the Light of Air
Ferneyhough: Le chute d'care
Kurtag: Stele
Vasks: VC "Distant Light"
Xenakis: Eonta
Birtwistle: Moth Requiem


----------



## calvinpv

20centrfuge said:


> Lachenmann: Schwankungen am Rand
> Radulescu: SQ 5
> Grisey: Vortex temporum
> Daugherty: Deus ex Machina
> *Steen-Andersen: Double Up*
> Thorvaldsdottir: In the Light of Air
> Ferneyhough: Le chute d'care
> Kurtag: Stele
> Vasks: VC "Distant Light"
> Xenakis: Eonta
> Birtwistle: Moth Requiem


For Steen-Andersen, _Double Up_ is a good choice if you don't plan on purchasing any CDs/DVDs and just want to use youtube. But his best work is far and away _Black Box Music_. Steen-Andersen is a multimedia composer like van der Aa, and the way he integrates video and music is pretty neat. As good as _Double Up_ is, there's no video component. Unfortunately, only excerpts of _Black Box Music_ are on youtube; you'll have to get the DVD (which also includes a really creative piece called _Run Time Error_). It's up to you, but the cheapest I could find the DVD on amazon is here:

https://www.amazon.com/Black-Box-Music-Simon-Steen-Andersen/dp/B00P3521GS/ref=tmm_dvd_title_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1594125784&sr=8-1

I'm not too familiar with Vasks, Birtwistle, and Daugherty, but your other choices look good.


----------



## aioriacont

wow Kaija Saariaho is becoming one of my top composers ever.

Please, Kaija, never stop!!


----------



## calvinpv

20centrfuge said:


> Side note: it seems that some of you out there are able to digest music quickly and easily, being the musical equivalents of voracious readers. I would say I am the opposite. I digest music slowly. I really have to live with works for a while to feel like I understand them. That's why _listening groups _work well for me.


Oh, I'm like you. I can only listen to 2-3 new works per week (maybe 80 minutes worth of music), and in my 21st century list I'm creating, I need to listen to a work about 3-4 times before I feel comfortable giving it a (subjective) ranking. I also feel a strong need to read liner notes, interviews, reviews, any papers not behind a paywall, scores if they're available online -- all of which just adds further time -- because when it comes to contemporary music, every single composer (in fact, every single composition) is literally reinventing the wheel with brand new theoretical systems, so I can't just enter a new piece with pre-existing knowledge of other music, I have to understand the composer's intentions.


----------



## 20centrfuge

Thanks for the recommendation Calvinpv on Black Box Music. I just ordered it! and Van der Aa’s pocket opera: One


----------



## 20centrfuge

Listening to “Double Up” now. A fun work - a collage of sounds and melodic fragments. A solid work but not a really a “must-listen.”


----------



## calvinpv

20centrfuge said:


> Listening to "Double Up" now. A fun work - a collage of sounds and melodic fragments. A solid work but not a really a "must-listen."


I forgot to mention that we covered Steen-Andersen in the "Exploring Contemporary Composers" thread several months ago. I wrote some descriptions of _Black Box Music_ and _Double Up_ in that thread if you're interested:

https://www.talkclassical.com/53126-exploring-contemporary-composers-38.html#post1724761


----------



## 20centrfuge

I found Daugherty: Deus ex Machina to be clever and energetic but ultimately not very satisfying for me. Oh well.


----------



## 20centrfuge

Kurtag: Stele program notes

https://www.laphil.com/musicdb/pieces/3643/stele

Until the creation of Stele - Greek for an inscribed memorial slab - for Claudio Abbado and the Berlin Philharmonic in 1994, the Hungarian composer György Kurtág was chiefly known as a miniaturist, meticulously crafting small pieces, often of profound emotional scope, for small forces, among them Kafka Fragments (1986) for soprano and violin (performed last month on the Green Umbrella series), Grabstein für Stefan (1989) for solo guitar and ensemble, and numerous of the ongoing Játékok ("Games," by no means all playful ones) series for piano.

Stele, in three brief, connected movements, is an elegy of crushing weight and impact dedicated to a fellow Hungarian, the composer-conductor-teacher András Mihály (1917-1993), whom Kurtág had already memorialized a year before, shortly after his friend's death, in the piano miniature Mihály András in memoriam, one of the Játékok. The final section of Stele incorporates the theme of said piano piece.

Kurtág, in one of his several, sometimes contradictory, descriptions of Stele - the composer himself was conflicted in his thoughts on such emotional complexity as the listener might be - has said, it is music "of someone lying wounded on a battlefield. The fighting rages all around him, but he sees only a very clear, very blue sky... His feeling is that nothing is as important as this sky."

In his superbly penetrating recent book The Rest is Noise, Alex Ross, music critic of The New Yorker, comments on the kinship between Stele and the music of the imprisoned Florestan in Beethoven's Fidelio: Stele begins with octave Gs, "an unmistakable reference to the opening of Beethoven's Leonore Overture No. 3 [with its Fidelio themes] - a representation of the topmost step of the staircase that goes down to Florestan's dungeon... Kurtág, too, leads us to a subterranean space but [unlike Florestan] we never get out. The final movement, muted and maximally eerie, fixates on a spread-out chord that repeatedly quivers forth in quintuplet rhythms. At the very end the harmony shifts to the white-note keys of the C-major scale, all seven of them sounding in a luminous smear... Beethoven's overture marches off into C-major jubilation. Stele, by contrast, limps through a parched, depopulated landscape..." ending, as Kurtág stated in a conversation with Claudio Abbado, with "the rhythm of a gaunt figure staggering on."

Those opening octave Gs lead via slowly-moving glissandos and shuddering vibrations into darkest lamentation, with falling minor seconds suggestive of hopelessness. At the end of the adagio Kurtág employs to striking effect a quartet of Wagner tubas - "Feierlich [solemnly] Homage à Bruckner," as the composer writes above the notes. Where movement I (the introduction, in effect) is all downcast, movement II, which follows without a break, is marked by snarling, explosive anger and battering sonorities. But there is a transcendent moment after the deafening climax: a brief silence, then, as if beamed in from far out in space, the gentle sound of six flutes, before the full orchestra resumes its attack. The finale, with its ritual repetition of a bell sounding through the orchestra, is an elusive mix of despair and ultimately, as suggested above, that hobbled figure moving on into... what?

Kurtág has stated, "My mother tongue is Bartók, and Bartók's mother tongue was Beethoven." Words spoken well before Stele was written, but unavoidable in the context of this work, with its clear allusions to Fidelio at the outset and more subtly, in the finale, with its reference to the "Lake of Tears" episode in the young Bartók's opera Bluebeard's Castle.


----------



## 20centrfuge

where do you look for scores to contemporary works?


----------



## tortkis

Kory Reeder: Orchestra Music








https://koryreeder.bandcamp.com/album/orchestra-music

The Location of Lines (2017) for orchestra
Walls of Brocade Fields (2019) for orchestra
Flute Concerto (2019) for flute and orchestra
How Little is Within (2019) for soprano and orchestra

The music moves gracefully and the orchestra sounds are rich and exquisite. There are some similarities to Dufourt's music, but I think these works of Reeder are more lyrical.


----------



## Kjetil Heggelund

Hey everybody! There's a new music festival going on. Maybe some of you got a newsletter from bachtrack.com...I did! I will listen to some of these. Soon to be current listening. https://bachtrack.com/search-events/medium=2,3/venue=12207?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Bachtrack%20Streaming%20Highlights%20en_GB%20%2010%20July%202020&utm_content=Bachtrack%20Streaming%20Highlights%20en_GB%20%2010%20July%202020+CID_bf7dae92791f1f63cddb06ef7d428778&utm_source=Campaign%20Monitor&utm_term=Watch%20the%20festival%20on%20demand


----------



## calvinpv

20centrfuge said:


> where do you look for scores to contemporary works?


I just type into google the composer name, work name, and "score". I don't always find one -- maybe 15-20% of the time (and, frankly, that's a lot higher than I expected with contemporary music).

But there are a couple go to places to look. Universal Edition will often allow you to peruse scores on their site without downloading them. Which for me is good enough, since I only want to read along with the music. I know at the very least Boulez, Berio, Rihm, and Haas publish with UE. Schott is another publisher like this, and off the top of my head I know they publish Penderecki, Czernowin, Vasks, but there are several others that I can't think of at the moment. Faber Music is also like this, with a focus on British composers. I've seen Ades, George Benjamin, Julian Anderson, and Sculthorpe on there. Edition S publishes mostly Danish composers, including Steen-Andersen. Issuu.com is an electronic distributing platform where some composers put out their scores that they've published with other publishing houses; for example, Manoury publishes with Durand but you can peruse some of his scores on issuu.

Also look on the composer's website if they have one. I've seen Saariaho put out some of her works on her website. Billone offers excerpts of his works on his site. Kyle Gann same thing.

Also, many youtube videos will have the scores to read along.


----------



## calvinpv

calvinpv said:


> Also, many youtube videos will have the scores to read along.


On this last point, three channels to check out are:

Score Follower
incipitsify
Mediated Scores

Judging by the design of the video thumbnails, I'm guessing the same group of people run all three channels. But there's an incredible amount of music here to read. All three seem to emphasize really young composers trying to make a name for themselves. But there are some established composers here as well such as Saunders, Billone, Furrer, Steen-Andersen, Bernhard Lang, Czernowin.


----------



## tortkis

Plainsound Music Edition home page has links to composers' pages where pdf scores for selected works can be downloaded. (Marc Sabat, Wolfgand von Schweinitz, Andrew McIntosh, Chiyoko Szlavnics) Catherine Lamb's score can be purchased from her page which contains pdf files of score excerpts.


----------



## Kjetil Heggelund

https://bachtrack.com/search-events/medium=2,3/venue=12207?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Bachtrack%20Streaming%20Highlights%20en_GB%20%2010%20July%202020&utm_content=Bachtrack%20Streaming%20Highlights%20en_GB%20%2010%20July%202020+CID_bf7dae92791f1f63cddb06ef7d428778&utm_source=Campaign%20Monitor&utm_term=Watch%20the%20festival%20on%20demand
It's the same link as last time...I just listened to the first recital and got a bit excited! I didn't listen to the famous guys talking and heard works by Boulez, Borowski and Amargianaki. There are links to all 4 concerts and there are only world premieres by hot contemporary composers besides the works by Boulez.


----------



## Kjetil Heggelund

Thought I would listen more to the New Music Festival from the Pierre Boulez Saal tonight, but suddenly saw this instead. First piece is "Tierra, polvo, tumba" (2019) for guitar quartet by Núria Giménez Comas. Second is "endlos die nacht / senza ritorno" (2015) for guitar quartet and electronics by Marko Nikodijevic.
These guys are really awesome in new contemporary guitar music.


----------



## Kjetil Heggelund

Something a bit different! Pamela Z


----------



## tortkis

By and After Satie - R. Andrew Lee









Gnossiennes and austere piano pieces by Eva-Maria Houben (drei choräle, zwei choräle) and William Duckworth (Meditations on Satie).


----------



## norstick

Hyperion and Equinox by Georg Friedrich Haas. Both are absolutely stunningly beautiful works. Haas isn't always to my liking, but when he is I find his writing to be absolutely remarkable.


----------



## tortkis

Chris Brown: Some Center (New World Records)








Some Centre (2019), First Light (2016)
The Chromelodia Project: Theresa Wong (cello & voice), Kyle Bruckmann (oboe), Chris Brown (piano)

Beautiful microtonal song cycles.


----------



## Allegro Con Brio

*Stockhausen - Gruppen*
Claudio Abbado/BPO

Alright, so Stockhausen's electronic stuff (really all electronic stuff) has yet to click for me. But this sounds like millions of colorful bubbles, floating and bursting in midair. Beautiful, mind-expanding stuff!


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## 20centrfuge

Diving into the works of Unsuk Chin


----------



## calvinpv

Last night I re-listened to Natasha Barrett's incredible _Trade Winds_. If you like Francis Dhomont, such as his _Forêt profonde_, then you'll like Barrett; in fact, I think she's even better, because Dhomont sometimes has a tendency to over-rely on human speech fragments in his tapes. The very essence of the acousmatic tradition of electronic music is that the sources of sounds are unidentifiable, allowing the listener to free associate and develop his or her own narrative using the synthetic noises as a blank canvas. As good as Dhomont is, I feel like sometimes he forces too much of a narrative through the spoken text aspects, and I often have to rewind the music to catch everything that's said, ruining the immersion. Barrett, on the other hand, has struck the perfect balance in the sense that she has offers a couple of jumping-off points for you to begin your journey but is otherwise hands-off. Also, I think her transitions between sounds are much more fluid.

Playlist here.


----------



## aioriacont

Kaija Saariaho is the best thing ever. She is the new Bach. She blows even my once beloved Beethoven and Schubert out of the water. The holy trinity of composers are Bach, Kaija and Yuki Kajiura.


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## tortkis

Hlynur Aðils Vilmarsson: bd (2013)
Percussive, intriguing sonority, reminding of Stravinsky a little.

from Recurrence - Iceland Symphony Orchestra (Sono Luminus)


----------



## calvinpv

So I just revisited everything by Natasha Barrett that I've heard previously (six pieces total). It's amazing how a year ago when I first heard them, I had a great difficulty distinguishing the pieces in my head, but now, having heard a lot more contemporary music and possessing greater understanding and a more finely-tuned ear, I can begin to notice the different approaches of each work (mind you, with the help of the liner notes, but I can now understand what they're saying).

_Puzzle Wood_ is a true acousmatic piece, unlike the others: you can hear no traces whatsoever of the underlying recorded material, and your mind is left to conjure up a fantastical setting using the evocative title of the piece (the name of a forest in Gloucestershire). _Earth Haze_ seems to use a single recording but filters it out just enough that you're only left with a faint silhouette (it doesn't go all the way like _Puzzle Wood_), though sometimes the veil is punctured through to hear the recording unedited. In _Racing Unseen_, I could hear its two-part structure, with the second part retreading the same ground as the first; can't say I was a huge fan of structuring it like that. _Little Animals_, my favorite of the shorter works, uses sounds from inanimate objects to make the sounds of living animals; and it's quite convincing. Here, Barrett is violating one aspect of acousmatic music by imposing a desired interpretation (that we hear living beings) but is reinforcing another aspect (deception). _Animalcules_ takes the basic material from _Living Animals_ and forms an etude out of it in the sense of a quick survey; to be honest, it felt a bit lazy after having heard _Living Animals_. And then there's _Trade Winds_, which I talked about a couple posts above.

Playlist here.


----------



## Itullian

Schiff's Beethoven cycle on ECM.
Wonderful stuff.


----------



## Phil loves classical

Allegro Con Brio said:


> *Stockhausen - Gruppen*
> Claudio Abbado/BPO
> 
> Alright, so Stockhausen's electronic stuff (really all electronic stuff) has yet to click for me. But this sounds like millions of colorful bubbles, floating and bursting in midair. Beautiful, mind-expanding stuff!


I have the Abbado recording, but it never clicked for me. Just now I listened to the composer's own version, and it made a lot more sense, not only in the gestures, but the stereo has a lot more separation, which this work needs to be appreciated more fully.


----------



## tortkis

Daniel Schmidt: In My Arms, Many Flowers - The Berkeley Gamelan (Recital)













heavenly music. Daniel Schmidt (b 1942) is an American Gamelan composer, studied with Lou Harrison, Jody Diamond and Paul Dresher. Recorded 1978-1982.


----------



## calvinpv

Just re-listened 3 times the last couple of days my single favorite contemporary work. I get goosebumps every time I hear it.


----------



## calvinpv

tortkis said:


> Daniel Schmidt: In My Arms, Many Flowers - The Berkeley Gamelan (Recital)
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> heavenly music. Daniel Schmidt (b 1942) is an American Gamelan composer, studied with Lou Harrison, Jody Diamond and Paul Dresher. Recorded 1978-1982.


I feel like every time I check this thread and see one of your posts, I learn about a new composer. Daniel Schmidt, Hlynur Aðils Vilmarsson, Chris Brown, Eva-Maria Houben, William Duckworth, Kory Reeder: I have never heard of any of these names until coming here (well, maybe Duckworth, but that's beside the point).

It's for new discoveries like these that we need more contemporary music threads on TC.


----------



## tortkis

calvinpv said:


> I feel like every time I check this thread and see one of your posts, I learn about a new composer. Daniel Schmidt, Hlynur Aðils Vilmarsson, Chris Brown, Eva-Maria Houben, William Duckworth, Kory Reeder: I have never heard of any of these names until coming here (well, maybe Duckworth, but that's beside the point).
> 
> It's for new discoveries like these that we need more contemporary music threads on TC.


I too wish that there would be more threads about contemporary music and people posts new music they like. I appreciate your detailed and informative posts. There have been many threads about modern / avant-garde / contemporary / non-standard music and I found a lot of great composers & works that were new to me.


----------



## calvinpv

Grisey: *Le Noir de l'étoile*, for six percussionists, tape and in situ transmission of astronomical signals (1989-1990)

This piece is a fascinating revival of ancient ritual practices. I'm no anthropologist, but I'm sure that in lot of ancient rituals, the shaman would pray to the stars and celestial bodies and ask for blessings from them, and they would do so by dancing and so forth and at some point in the ritual, the celestial deity would grant the shaman's wish and "appear" in person (obviously just an actor in a costume).

Well, this is the modern version of that. Six percussionists placed around the auditorium play to the rhythms of signals from two pulsars, a pulsar being a neutron star that emits electromagnetic radiation out of its magnetic poles and can only be detected when the poles are pointing towards Earth; Grisey zooms inward and outward to capture the "macroforms" and "microforms" of these signals. At two points in the piece, the percussion stops and the actual signals of the two pulsars are transmitted from radio astronomy towers to the auditorium for a couple of minutes each. Again, it's like the shaman's wish was granted and the deity is appearing in person. And what's most interesting is that these signals, for reasons I don't understand, don't always get received by Earth, which means this piece can only be played at certain times of the year and at certain times of the day. Also, one of the pulsars, called Vela (the other is called 0329+54), can only be received in the southern hemisphere, so for performances in the northern hemisphere, a tape recording has to be used in place of real-time transmission. This is a roundabout way of saying that the "deity" is actually dictating the conditions of the performance; we can even say this work is a more authentic ritual than those of ancient times.

The more I listen to Grisey, the more I'm convinced he's one of the most creative composers of the mid- to late-20th century.

Playlist of commercial recording here.

Live performance:


----------



## calvinpv

Johannes Boris Borowski: *Allein* (for orchestra, 2018-2019) and *Eternity* (for orchestra, 2018-2019)

Last week, I checked out the link Kjetil Heggelund provided above to the Pierre Boulez Saal. Not realizing there was a time limit to viewing the videos, I was only able to catch the concert featuring Borowski. But that led me to some other works of his, and I must say, there's a naturalness and fluidity to his orchestration that's very French, reminding me of Boulez, Dutilleux, and Manoury. He'll probably become a household name over the next decade as he matures into his own style.

His program notes are obscure and a little weird, but they can be found here (you'll have to use google translate to get them into English). The _Eternity_ note describes more his expectations of the piece and his reaction when it didn't come out the way he expected, rather than the piece itself.

The _Allein_ note talks about how the birth of an idea in our head often gives way to a chain of associations that ultimately makes what's familiar to us feel alien and unfamiliar, and you can definitely hear that in the piece: the simple motif at the beginning becomes more and more crazy as time goes on. Kind of reminds me of Enno Poppe's music and is probably my favorite of the two. Also, a cell phone goes off in the audience a few minutes in, but it blends in perfectly with the music.

Eternity:






Allein:


----------



## calvinpv

Grisey: *Jour, contre-jour* (for electric organ, 13 musicians & tape, 1978)

The piece's structure is based on the sun casting shadows of varying length as it travels through the sky, with the middle point of the piece representing high noon where no shadows are cast. It opens at "daybreak" where a high sine tone on tape projects a deep shadow-like vibration into the bass. Gradually, a harmonic spectrum gets filled out in between until the half-way point where a fully consonant bell-like sonority is played across the ensemble. The piece then sinks back into its initial state, much as the sun sinks into the horizon at dusk. This is Grisey at his most austere, very reminiscent of Radulescu.


----------



## Guest

Does anybody have a strong feeling, good or bad, about Peteris Vasks ?


Please correct my approximate English


----------



## calvinpv

Roland Paingaud said:


> Does anybody have a strong feeling, good or bad, about Peteris Vasks ?
> 
> Please correct my approximate English


I've only heard his Credo. I remember it being okay, kind of like Arvo Pärt's music but with a touch more romanticism.


----------



## mmsbls

Roland Paingaud said:


> Does anybody have a strong feeling, good or bad, about Peteris Vasks ?
> 
> Please correct my approximate English


I wouldn't say I have a strong feeling, but I do enjoy several of his works. I quite like his Viatore for String Orchestra and his String Quartet No. 4. I also enjoy the Violin Concerto "Distant Light" although perhaps a bit less. I've heard parts of his cello concerto that others here have recommended.


----------



## Guest

@calvinpv

Clear.
Thank you.


----------



## Guest

@mmsbls

True guidelines.
Thank you.


----------



## calvinpv

Rihm: *Dritte Musik* for violin and orchestra (1993)

Two recordings, with the better one first:


----------



## Mandryka

calvinpv said:


> Rihm: *Dritte Musik* for violin and orchestra (1993)
> 
> Two recordings, with the better one first:


It's a very interesting recording that, the whole thing, not just Dritte Musik (which I tend to listen to less because I'm not much into orchestral music at the moment.) The klavierstuck and the pieces for cello and violin with piano show an aspect of Rihm's music I'm quite curious about.


----------



## Mandryka

calvinpv said:


> Just re-listened 3 times the last couple of days my single favorite contemporary work. I get goosebumps every time I hear it.
> 
> View attachment 141633


The title's strange: hunts and forms. I can't make sense of it.

For me it's a bit too relentless, with that pulse driving things forward all the time. It's supposed to be related to the Chiffre cycle in some way but I'm not sure how exactly (overpainting?)


----------



## Mandryka

I'm listening to Kathinkas gesang from Stockhausen's Samstag, for flute and something which sounds like a bicycle pump. Very very good. This recording at the moment.


----------



## calvinpv

Mandryka said:


> It's a very interesting recording that, the whole thing, not just Dritte Musik (which I tend to listen to less because I'm not much into orchestral music at the moment.) It's shows an aspect of Rihm's music I'm quite curious about.


Also on that recording is _Kolchis_, which is part of a triptych of pieces _Pol-Kolchis-Nucleus_. That triptych makes up the backbone of Jagden und Formen, which is why I listened to it. Then I saw the recording had Dritte Musik and so listened to that as well.


----------



## calvinpv

Mandryka said:


> The title's strange: hunts and forms. I can't make sense of it.
> 
> For me it's a bit too relentless, with that pulse driving things forward all the time. It's supposed to be related to the Chiffre cycle in some way but I'm not sure how exactly (overpainting?)


This is the piece I'm presenting next week in the 1980-2000 listening group, so I'll explain it there. It's related to the Chiffre cycle conceptually (however, not through overpainting, that's from the fleuve cycle), but it doesn't borrow any material from Chiffre.

For me, it's precisely that relentlessness that makes it so good.


----------



## calvinpv

Rihm: _Vers une symphonie fleuve III_ for orchestra (1992-1995)

What a great piece. Why haven't the other fleuve pieces been recorded? There's five fleuve symphonies plus six satellite pieces making a total of 11 pieces in the cycle. Only three have been recorded.


----------



## tortkis

Michael Finnissy: Works for String Quartet - Kreutzer Quartet








Nobody's Jig (1980-81), String Quartet No. 1 (1984), Plain Harmony (1993), Sehnsucht (1997), Multiple forms of constraint (1997)


----------



## Mandryka

tortkis said:


> Michael Finnissy: Works for String Quartet - Kreutzer Quartet
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Nobody's Jig (1980-81), String Quartet No. 1 (1984), Plain Harmony (1993), Sehnsucht (1997), Multiple forms of constraint (1997)


Im very keen on Nobody's Jig. I need to listen again to the first quartet - all I can remember is that it starts very quietly!


----------



## tortkis

Mandryka said:


> Im very keen on Nobody's Jig. I need to listen again to the first quartet - all I can remember is that it starts very quietly!


String Quartet No. 1 is a strange work, mostly soft and quiet, with long elusive melodies and a couple of sudden bursting moments (which don't sound harsh.) Other pieces are also interesting. I liked the delicate details of his music.


----------



## calvinpv

*Contemporary Music Youtube Channels*

So I just compiled a list of contemporary music youtube channels for all of you to bookmark. Some of these channels -- especially the first few and most especially the channel "grinblat" -- are literal goldmines that are worth exploring. I didn't include any channels that had just a couple of contemporary pieces, only those where contemporary music made up at least a sizable part of their videos. I also focused on channels dedicated to more recent contemporary music, not music from the post-war period (though there's a lot of that too).

Enjoy.

grinblat
gɹinblat

belanna000
belanna111
belanna999

Score Follower
incipitsify
Mediated Scores

Live New Music Channel

Contemporary Classical

Philip Mckelvey

Victor Alexander

hu

Sebastian Ars Acoustica

Pour ce que le langage a désertés

Silicua hibrido

OMaclac

Raúl

pelodelperro

art&music

Boris Sitnikoff (just Stockhausen's Klang)

Wellesz Theatre
TheWelleszCompany
Wellesz Modern
Wellesz Opus
Wellesz Rhapsody

George N Gianopoulos


----------



## Lisztian

calvinpv said:


> *Contemporary Music Youtube Channels*
> 
> So I just compiled a list of contemporary music youtube channels for all of you to bookmark. Some of these channels -- especially the first few and most especially the channel "grinblat" -- are literal goldmines that are worth exploring. I didn't include any channels that had just a couple of contemporary pieces, only those where contemporary music made up at least a sizable part of their videos. I also focused on channels dedicated to more recent contemporary music, not music from the post-war period (though there's a lot of that too).
> 
> Enjoy.
> 
> grinblat
> gɹinblat
> 
> belanna000
> belanna111
> belanna999
> 
> Score Follower
> incipitsify
> Mediated Scores
> 
> Live New Music Channel
> 
> Contemporary Classical
> 
> Philip Mckelvey
> 
> Victor Alexander
> 
> hu
> 
> Sebastian Ars Acoustica
> 
> Pour ce que le langage a désertés
> 
> Silicua hibrido
> 
> OMaclac
> 
> Raúl
> 
> pelodelperro
> 
> art&music
> 
> Boris Sitnikoff (just Stockhausen's Klang)
> 
> Wellesz Theatre
> TheWelleszCompany
> Wellesz Modern
> Wellesz Opus
> Wellesz Rhapsody
> 
> George N Gianopoulos


I've been binging on a few of these the last few months, truly excellent resources and so many composers discovered I'd never even heard of. You listed some channels I hadn't come across so thanks a lot for that.

One I'd like to add that I discovered a couple of days ago is Alinéa Ensemble, which is a fairly new channel that also has quite a bit of contemporary music, mixed with excellent, in-depth interviews with the composers (among the most interesting writing today, I might add!) of the works they will be presenting. Highly recommended!

There are many more ensemble based channels that are also excellent, although many of them aren't posting much at present with the pandemic going on. Good ones I've come across:

Ensemble Contrechamps

Ensemble Linea

ensembleprotonbern

and, an ensemble that doesn't post much (hasn't at all the last three years), but I'll include because I think they are one of the best: elisionensemble

Oh and here's another good channel along similar lines to the 'Wellesz' ones, but generally with more obscure music: Thorsten Gubatz


----------



## calvinpv

Lisztian said:


> I've been binging on a few of these the last few months, truly excellent resources and so many composers discovered I'd never even heard of. You listed some channels I hadn't come across so thanks a lot for that.
> 
> One I'd like to add that I discovered a couple of days ago is Alinéa Ensemble, which is a fairly new channel that also has quite a bit of contemporary music, mixed with excellent, in-depth interviews with the composers (among the most interesting writing today, I might add!) of the works they will be presenting. Highly recommended!
> 
> There are many more ensemble based channels that are also excellent, although many of them aren't posting much at present with the pandemic going on. Good ones I've come across:
> 
> Ensemble Contrechamps
> 
> Ensemble Linea
> 
> ensembleprotonbern
> 
> and, an ensemble that doesn't post much (hasn't at all the last three years), but I'll include because I think they are one of the best: elisionensemble
> 
> Oh and here's another good channel along similar lines to the 'Wellesz' ones, but generally with more obscure music: Thorsten Gubatz


These are fantastic. I think I've seen the Ensemble Linea channel before, but forgot about it. The others are new to me. Thanks for this.

Here's also the channel SWR Classic, which has videos of the SWR-run orchestras. There's a playlist of live video of some recent Donaueschingen Musiktage performances.

And here's some live performances by the WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln (WDR Klassik).

What I find most interesting about some of these channels is that they're not just uploading commercial CD recordings, but rather uploading world premieres, often with video. To me, this indicates that the owners of these channels either 1. are fanatics traveling around Europe to all the different music festivals or 2. they're closely connected with the new music scene. I hope it's the latter because that makes it less likely these videos get taken down by youtube in the future.


----------



## tortkis

John Luther Adams: Become River - Seattle Symphony, Ludovic Morlot (Cantaloupe)









A rich and fascinating sound current.


----------



## SanAntone

*Sungji Hong - Elevatus for Ensemble *(2018)



> Ensemble Mise-en
> Moon Young Ha, conductor
> 
> Program Note: It consists of three ideas as follows: the ghostly fleeting ascending glissandi, fluctuating air sounds, and the swelling suspended notes. The whole piece develops around or between these three gestures turning on themselves or going through transformations.
> 
> The inspiration for this piece is based on the fresco L'Ascensione (c.1305, The Scrovegni Chapel in Padua, Italy) by Florentine artist Giotto di Bondone.
> Elevatus was completed in 2018. It is scored for flute, clarinet, trombone, piano, vibraphone, violin, and violoncello. It received its first performance by Ensemble Mise-en under the direction of Moon Young Ha on 17 May 2018 at The Cell, New York (NY).


Wonderfully evocative. But by the end I was not enjoying the Straussian references.


----------



## SanAntone

*Kieran Timbrell - Penillion* (w/ score) (for 9 musicians) (2017)



> Echoshed ensemble. For Flute, Saxophone, Guitar, Piano, 2 Violins, Viola, Cello and double bass
> 
> Conductor: Mark Biggins


Timbrell mines a single motif with interesting results.


----------



## SanAntone

*Filippo Zapponi: "L'Horizon absolu"* (2009) for string quartet, performed by Quatuor Leonis.

It develops slowly, and coming in at over 20' it takes some hanging-in-there to last - but a very interesting piece of music for string quartet.


----------



## Kjetil Heggelund

SanAntone said:


> *Filippo Zapponi: "L'Horizon absolu"* (2009) for string quartet, performed by Quatuor Leonis.
> 
> It develops slowly, and coming in at over 20' it takes some hanging-in-there to last - but a very interesting piece of music for string quartet.


Wow, SanAntone! You're moving way to fast to keep up  I even have my own things I'd like to listen to...like Scarlatti and Vltimas \m/


----------



## SanAntone

Kjetil Heggelund said:


> Wow, SanAntone! You're moving way to fast to keep up  I even have my own things I'd like to listen to...like Scarlatti and Vltimas \m/


That's it for today.  Is there a one-clip-a-day informal rule? I don't want to cross any lines.


----------



## Kjetil Heggelund

Haha! You posted some impressive links of never heard of contemporaries! How did you find them?


----------



## SanAntone

Kjetil Heggelund said:


> Haha! You posted some impressive links of never heard of contemporaries! How did you find them?


Using the post earlier of YouTube channels for contemporary music. There's a lot out there.


----------



## calvinpv

Rihm: *Styx und Lethe* for cello and orchestra (1997-1998).

I just listened to the three concertos on this CD the last few days. The first time I listened to _Styx und Lethe_, I thought "Is this really an inferior work to _Dritte Musik_ and _Musik für Oboe und Orchester_? There's no way." Well, thank goodness I listened again just now and got my senses knocked back into me. _Styx und Lethe_ is far and away the better concerto (though the other two are pretty good). And I was reading the score alongside the music, and that cello part looks hellish difficult.

Here's part of the program note in German and in English (run through google translate + some fixes). This piece premiered at the Donaueschingen festival in 1998:



> Styx und Lethe. Der Titel stammt noch aus der Anfangsphase des Kompositionsprozesses, als alles noch ganz anders werden sollte. Aber es wurde etwas ganz anderes. Ich ließ den Titel stehen. Denn: unterschwellige Flußformen sollten es sein und sind es geworden. Wenn auch andere. Und der "gehaßte" Fluß, der Styx, bleibt aus eigener Kraft nicht überwindbar. Bleiern, grundlos - vielleicht ein See? Und Lethe, Vergessen, ist vielleicht der Musik ähnlich: sie ist ein "Gebirg", sie birgt etwas. Wahrheit? A-Lethe-ia? Musik "vergißt", deutlich vernehmbar, im Augenblick ihr Vorher. Sie ist selbstvergessen. Das kann man fühlen, mitfühlen. Ein Nerven-Subjekt (Nerven wie Draht-Saiten!) zuckt und "nervt" sich aus der Tiefe ins Hohe. Dort singt es. Wie Metall. Alles ist energetisch, vielleicht Wildnis. Vielleicht wieder ein dunkles Spiel? Ein Monodram? Am Anfang sollte es das nicht werden. Es sollte gedämpft, kühl, keusch, "klassisch", am Rande des Hörbaren fließen. Warum kam alles so anders? Ich weiß es nicht. Fragt es selbst. Da kommt es.





> Styx and Lethe. The title comes from the early stages of the composing process, when everything was about to turn out very differently. But it became something completely different. I left the title. Because: subliminal river forms should be and have become. Albeit different. And the "hated" river, the Styx, cannot be crossed on its own. Leaden, bottomless - maybe a lake? And Lethe, forgetfulness, is perhaps similar to music: it is a "mountain" [Gebirg], it holds [birgt] something. Truth? A-Lethe-ia? Music "forgets", clearly perceptible, in the moment beforehand. It is forgotten. You can feel that, sympathize. A nerve-subject (nerves like wire strings!) twitches and "annoys" [nervt] itself from the depths to the heights. There it sings. Like metal. Everything is energetic, maybe wilderness. Maybe another dark game? A monodrama? In the beginning it shouldn't be. It should flow muted, cool, chaste, "classic", on the edge of the audible. Why did everything turn out so differently? I don't know. Ask it yourself. There it comes.


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## SanAntone

performed by Latvian Radio Choir
*Nirvana by Jug K. Marković* (2017)


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## tortkis

Marc Sabat: Gioseffo Zarlino (2015/2019) - Harmonic Space Orchestra (Sacred Realism)









This work uses just intonation based on the harmonic theory of Gioseffo Zarlino (1518-1590). Melodies are played repeatedly over one hour, using gradually changing instrumentation.

1. viola & cello
2. voices, (+violin), viola & cello
3. (+harp), organ, violin, viola & cello
4. (+guitar), harp, organ, violin
5. guitar, harp, organ, voices, violin, (+viola & cello)
6. bass flute, guitar, harp, organ, voices, violin, viola & cello
7. [-bass flute], guitar, harp, viola & cello
8. (+bass flute), [-guitar], organ, voices
9. [-flute], (+guitar), organ

score: https://marsbat.space/pdfs/gz.pdf


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## SanAntone

*Hakki Cengiz Eren - O Yer* (2017)
performed by Ensemble Composit

More about the composer *here*.


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## SanAntone

*Katharina Rosenberger - blur* (2019)
performed by ensemble für neue musik zürich

*More about the composer.*


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## calvinpv

Rihm: *Verwandlung* for orchestra (2002)
Rihm: *Verwandlung 2* for orchestra (2005)

Program notes from Universal Edition (where Rihm publishes his music):



> This fifteen-minute piece could be the slow movement of a lost late-Romantic symphony. Or, more likely, it could be a dream of such music, a reach towards memory, in which echoes from Bruckner, Mahler, Berg, Richard Strauss and others are reheard in an atmosphere of exquisite difficulty and regret. The gestures we seem to recognize: melodies of search and dissatisfaction, that keep restarting, or sombre horn chords, or a solo violin bent on the heights, or freshness bubbling in on flutes and clarinets. These and other events are drawn into a narrative we are likely to find compelling. But the underlying logic is missing. The experience is a bit like that of watching a passionate film scene with the sound turned down. Things of great moment and expressive power are happening; we can sense that, and feel it. At the same time there is a mystery in how things go, will go.
> 
> Rihm wrote the work in 2002 as a seventy-fifth birthday tribute to a fellow German composer, Wilhelm Killmayer. For the same occasion he wrote a plaudit in words, suggesting that his feelings for Killmayer have to do with qualities he would surely wish us to find in his own music, and not least in this piece: 'Killmayer's music looks nowhere for protection, least of all by hiding behind technique....Everything is open, transparent-if you will, "defenceless". But of such great strength in itself.'
> 
> Strength in this piece is achieved with a relatively modest orchestra, more on a Beethoven than a Strauss-Mahler scale. Moreover, there are no tuttis; rather, the ensemble is constantly changing, with only the horns and the strings as more or less permanent players. The resulting fluidity of colour may be one connotation of the title, which means 'transformation'. Certainly, though, there are others. The magical opening has a single note - the G just over the treble staff - repeated by different instruments and groupings, constantly transformed. Right after this, the strangely and affectingly hesitant passage begun by strings is based on a melody that starts out from a rising fifth. One might have the impression of an old-style passacaglia, where a short melody is repeated over and over again beneath variations. Here, though, the melody is itself subject to variation, and eventually it dissolves - though it will make a return shortly before the end. Yet another transformative aspect of the piece has already been described: the misted mirror it offers to the musical world of around a century ago.
> 
> There is more than this. The mirror is not only misted but cracked. The music shocks. As the piece winds its elusive way, the power of imagination - to define, to redefine, to retrieve and indeed to transform - is assaulted by a different kind of power. Yet this is not the end. The movement goes on.





> According to Wolfgang Rihm's remarks about Verwandlung 2, the title Verwandlung ('Metamorphosis') refers to a musical process whose basic unity is subjected to constant change. The basis of the piece is thus the idea of permanent transformation. It begins pianissimo: of the whole large orchestra (two each of flutes, oboes, clarinets and bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, bass tuba, timpani and percussion (one player each), harp and strings), only the first violins and two solo cellos are heard at the beginning. The two-bar motif which they expose is a kind of germinal cell, from which the generation of the whole work ensues. While this germination proceeds in the form of a continual weaving in and out of short phrases, this initial motif remains omnipresent in manifold variants - at times scarcely still recognisable except as distinct memory, then once again emerging clearly. Gradually more wind and string instruments are added, plus harp, but the instrumentation remains transparent and the impression of delicacy is maintained. The brass remain silent until the voice of a muted trumpet introduces a new colour into the sound world, whereupon in a further phrase (Meno mosso, fließend) the two trumpets are joined by the horns. The ongoing development glides imperceptibly into the next session (Andante), and now for the first time all the instruments are used. Here the strings fan out into divided parts, the scene becomes more animated (Subito un poco più mosso, inquieto). A section bearing the heading 'Con moto', with tremolo woodwinds, awakens memories of the opening, but even as one is listening to these the development proceeds apace, leading to a passage in which the percussion come to the fore. Over and over again recognisable ideas resurface in new guises, at once familiar and alien: an immense diversity of transformational possibilities is extracted from the basic unity of the material.


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## tortkis

Jon Gibson (1940-2020)

Ne ( x ) tworks Live Vol. 2: Music by Jon Gibson









Multiples (1972) [Greenwich House 2010]
Anthem from Relative Calm (1981) [2008]
Untitled - Trio, excerpt (1975) [2007]
Multiples (1972) [Issue Project Room 2019]

Minimalism, but very expressive and evocative. The performance is engaging and sympathetic.


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## janxharris

Dobrinka Tabakova Concerto for violoncello and strings (2008) second movement.






(Kristina Blaumane, FIMM FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA, Federico S. Morresi)


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## tortkis

James Rushford: See the Welter (2016)









This long, meditative piano work recalls Feldman's late piano pieces. Mompou on the same album is also very good.


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## runssical

*Eckert, Gerald (b.1960): "melting away" (2016/17) for drums, organ and electronics*


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## tortkis

Kory Reeder: Codex Symphonia (2021) for orchestra and choir, with percussion, viola, and soprano
















Codex Symphonia, by Kory Reeder


8 track album




koryreeder.bandcamp.com




Soloists: Jùlia Coelho, soprano; Kathleen Crabtree, viola; Brandon Waters, percussion
Orchestra conducted by the composer


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