# Listening to Modern/Contemporary Music



## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Over the past year or two, I have found myself listening to a high percentage of modern/contemporary music. In fact a significant majority of my listening is post-Romantic. Most is music new to me, but I often find myself selecting a favorite modern/contemporary work. Of course, there's nothing strange or odd about that fact. But there's something interesting that I've known for some time. After listening to several days of contemporary music, I might hear an old favorite (e.g. Mozart Piano Concerto, Beethoven symphony, Brahms vocal work) while driving in my car. I am stunned by the intense beauty of those works. 

For me my favorite Romantic and earlier works are without question more beautiful than my favorite modern/contemporary works.* My first thought is that I like those works more, and maybe I do. But then why do I so often choose modern/contemporary rather than those favorites? Some might say that I'm a bit bored with the old works, but I don't think so. I love them every time I hear them (which isn't really that often). I think I'm responding to aspects of "recent" works that I find deeply appealing in the same way I find the beauty of older works so appealing. The modern/contemporary works are more fun, more varied (interesting?), often have more of a rhythmic pulse that moves me. The sounds (timbres and mixtures of timbres) are fascinating, pull me in, make me want to hear more. Maybe some would say I'm describing why I find recent works beautiful, but to me it feels a bit different. Perhaps exciting or interesting is the right work rather than classically beautiful.

So my questions to those who adore modern/contemporary music are:

What draws you to modern/contemporary music? Do you find it just as beautiful as older works? Are you drawn to other aspects, and if so, what aspects?

*NOTE: Make no mistake - the modern/contemporary works may be beautiful, just not as profoundly beautiful to me (at least for now).


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## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

I listen to quite a lot of modern music. I don't know if I would call it beautiful, in the way I call older works beautiful, but some of the things you mention draw me to it, such as the variability and the timbres, and also the excitement, the complexity, the energy, the abandon, the wildness.... Rhythm seems to be a low draw for me, but some of the qualities I mentioned imply a sense of rhythm, although it might not be constant, as in popular music.

However, despite the amount of time I do devote to modern music, I find that some of it's 'abrasiveness' (regrettably, I am sadly deficient in vocabulary that accurately describes my feelings about music) demands taking a break. There seems to be a threshold stimulus: too much doesn't give me a greater kick  Older classical music is beautiful, I suppose, because it lacks that something that I will call abrasiveness, hence it can be listened to without a need for a rest and a recovery. Nevertheless, modern music is extremely exciting to me and I return to it often for the charge that I get from it (that likely comes from just this abrasiveness). It truly does have a kind of beauty, but not the classic type, that attracts me strongly.

Of course, these generalizations apply only to some pieces and some composers, not across the board to all composers. Also, what I might perceive as abrasive, out there, unconventional, off, etc. (in a stimulating and attracting way), is not going to be perceived the same way by all listeners. My tolerance for the less conventional and my need for novel musical stimulation are relatively high, but not without limits.


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## BRHiler (May 3, 2014)

I guess I would need your definition of modern. Anything that's considered post-romantic? Last 50 years, last 20 years, etc.

Regardless, I would say that 80% of my listening is to modern music (probably 90% if you start in the year 1900), and there are several reasons. As a former wind ensemble/band guy, we don't have a lot of music prior to the 20th century. The ones we do are amazing (Dvorak Serenade and Mozart's Serenades just to name a couple). So, I was always geared to listening to and performing more modern music. As a trumpet player, the Classical and early Romantic eras sucked for us! And really, until Wagner and Mahler, there still wasn't that many great trumpet parts. So, I had to go modern.

On top of that, I just love the more varied emotions that Modern music can subject you to. On the Transmigration of Souls by John Adams is a perfect example. That piece takes me through regret, sadness, rage, despair, anguish, and acceptance. I can't think of any early to mid Romantic music that can do that. The 1st one that comes to mind to me is Tchaikovsky's 6th symphony, and that was premiered in 1893. (PS I do love that piece too!)

And not all good modern music is atonal, serial, or incredibly dissonant. It's a mind set that a lot of people have that irritates me, even if I do prefer more of the "abrasive" music


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

I find much contemporary music "as beautiful" as I do the older repertoire, and as equally sentimental, _though it is only right the sentiment is utterly different for the newer music, just as the sentiment of the Baroque is entirely different from the late romantic_... i.e. I find modern and contemporary music as equally 'beautiful' and just as 'emotive' as the earlier repertoire.


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

It's all pretty groovy. I can dig it.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

I mean c'mon, those who think atonal music is 'less expressive' than tonal music....

Berg's Violin Concerto? _Not As Expressive as Tonal Music?_ 





_That is downright flying in the face of the 'less expressive' argument to a degree which makes that argument just silly _


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## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

^ I'm a convert, since the mid-'70s. That's one of my favourites 

Also, to cite only one example, when I first heard Ligeti's Piano Concerto about 2 years ago (I don't know how I managed to miss that one for so many years  ), it sent my heart racing and I found myself in a near-orgasmic swoon, similar to what I experience from Prokofiev's Piano Concerto 5.


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

One thing that happens to me is when I explore far afield and then finally come home to something more familar it does seem a lot sweeter and more beautiful, whether I've been roaming in contemporary or even lesser known older works. 
_
What draws you to modern/contemporary music?_
Some of the same things that draw me to common practice music: rhythm, timbre, motivic acrobatics -- just not necessarily harmonic relationships.

_Do you find it just as beautiful as older works?_ 
Well, rarely. Not in the sense I would define beauty. I do find Ligeti's Lux Aeterna, Clocks and Clouds, Lontano or even Requiem to be achingly beautiful at times, but then those works have a kind of intricate harmonic structure.

On a side note, I find a lot of modern art to be less than beautiful too --not all, but a lot of it. But this could be a reflection of the ugly war-racked world that spawned it. There are some expressionist painters, Roberto Matta for instance, who produced work I find quite beautiful.

_Are you drawn to other aspects, and if so, what aspects?
_As mentioned above timbre is a big deal, especially that achieved by combining tones or microtones in Spectralism that is (if I'm grasping it correctly) not entirely unlike additive synthesis in some modern synthesizers. Very interesting effects can be achieved with timbre and the study of acoustics. Also I'll always be interested in motive driven music. I like to hear a phrase metaphorically put through the meat grinder, but this holds true for earlier music as well.

What I really don't like are cliches that seem even more prevalent in 20th century music than the music that came before. I don't want to hear any more clippy cloppy wood blocks, and I'm not too keen on slapping one's cello with the wrong end of the bow, or having the performers cry out or belch or whatever. That was clever the first 20 or so times it was done, but should now go the way of the overused "hidden" bonus tracks on pop CDs. Cliches are tediuous regardless of the century or idiom.


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## BRHiler (May 3, 2014)

I guess I need to listen to the Berg and Ligeti! I'm super intrigued now!

And I totally agree with Weston. The "special effect" things are cute the first 20 times, but they get old quick. Like a trombone doing the motorcycle revving. But, some of those effects, used correctly are amazing!


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## hreichgott (Dec 31, 2012)

Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time is a profoundly beautiful modern masterpiece.
Britten's Ceremony of Carols, maybe not a first tier masterpiece but certainly well known, oft played and very beautiful.
Berg, Lyric Suite, omg beautiful.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

BRHiler said:


> I guess I would need your definition of modern. Anything that's considered post-romantic? Last 50 years, last 20 years, etc.


Well I guess I was thinking of post-Romantic so Berg - yes, but late Sibelius - no. But more of my listening tends to be late modern and contemporary.



BRHiler said:


> And not all good modern music is atonal, serial, or incredibly dissonant. It's a mind set that a lot of people have that irritates me, even if I do prefer more of the "abrasive" music


This is certainly true. I find contemporary music to be extremely varied with a rather wide range of styles. Some I don't understand at all, while others are truly wonderful.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

*What draws you to modern/contemporary music? *

I think the sheer variety of things going on in the 20th/21st century, and how we can look back for links to previous centuries (and to things going on in the last century). The other thing is that we know more about composers' lives and times than we did previously, when things where easily lost and you have a lot missing from the record.

*Do you find it just as beautiful as older works? *

Yes, of course depending what. There are still a lot of slow movements for example that can be called beautiful without too much effort. Often it is more for things like texture and sheer sound than emotion as such, I think Messiaen is a good example of that.

*Are you drawn to other aspects, and if so, what aspects?*

I think within all that diversity, its flexibility. Look at the developments in sonority, or how thematic development is so free now, tailored to the composer's needs. So too aspects of rhythm and tonality. All these things and more of course being linked, and its not necessary as a listener to divide them up with some imaginary carving knife.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Weston said:


> On a side note, I find a lot of modern art to be less than beautiful too --not all, but a lot of it. But this could be a reflection of the ugly war-racked world that spawned it. There are some expressionist painters, Roberto Matta for instance, who produced work I find quite beautiful.


Some of my favorite art is modern (1900-1950 or so), but I agree that I find it less beautiful than earlier art. Yet I find it just as compelling if not more so. For me there may be parallels between my appreciation of modern art and modern music compared to earlier forms.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

BRHiler said:


> I guess I would need your definition of modern. Anything that's considered post-romantic?


We are all better off agreeing on 'the cant' dictionary (Groves, or similar) definition, 
_Modern_ -- music post 1890 (some say 1900) - 1975 which is not a carryover from the later romantic tradition 
_Contemporary_ -- 1975 to present.

I know the terms are silly, but they've been given and then we do not have to deal with each and every idiosyncratic 'made up from individual and egocentric place "definitions." LOL.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Sid James said:


> Yes, of course depending what. There are still a lot of slow movements for example that can be called beautiful without too much effort. Often it is more for things like texture and sheer sound than emotion as such, I think Messiaen is a good example of that.


Messiaen is a great example of my view of modern music. For example in the Turangalila Symphonie, the 6th movement is quite beautiful, but I prefer other parts such as the wild 1st movement. The whole Symphonie seems to move all over the spectrum from quiet beauty through driving rhythms, wild oscillations, and jazzy riffs. The overall experience is so full of varied timbres, diverse expressions, and sudden shifts. A thoroughly profound work.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

mmsbls said:


> Messiaen is a great example of my view of modern music. For example in the Turangalila Symphonie, the 6th movement is quite beautiful, but I prefer other parts such as the wild 1st movement. The whole Symphonie seems to move all over the spectrum from quiet beauty through driving rhythms, wild oscillations, and jazzy riffs. The overall experience is so full of varied timbres, diverse expressions, and sudden shifts. A thoroughly profound work.


Yes, there is so much in that work, and another is the two eulogy movements in _Quartet for the End of Time_. There are other similar things I can think of, one is the slow movement of Bartok's _Violin Concerto #2_, another is similarly shimmering gamelan-like passages in Peter Sculthorpe's _Piano Concerto_. I can't find that on youtube but his Djilile has a similar feel, albeit drawn from Australian Aboriginal music. Interestingly enough, he admires the music of Messiaen and Bartok for their innovations in sonority.


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## Guest (May 13, 2014)

brotagonist said:


> Older classical music is beautiful, I suppose, because it lacks that something that I will call abrasiveness, hence it can be listened to without a need for a rest and a recovery.


Older music is older, that's all. It's familiar enough so that its abrasiveness is no longer experienced as such. There's really nothing more to it than that. (This is why the older criticisms of music seem so off. And why the newer (and identical) criticisms of newer music seem so aggravating.)



Weston said:


> But this could be a reflection of the ugly war-racked world that spawned it.


Yeah, that must be why the ugly, war-wracked world of the nineteenth century (truly--it was in all the papers) spawned all that pretty, Romantic music we love so much.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

BRHiler said:


> I guess I need to listen to the Berg and Ligeti! I'm super intrigued now!
> 
> And I totally agree with Weston. The "special effect" things are cute the first 20 times, but they get old quick. Like a trombone doing the motorcycle revving. But, some of those effects, used correctly are amazing!


The same 'trendy effects' in the music of yore have faded into obscurity. As always with what is presented to us in the present, you have to do the sorting for yourself instead of waiting for several generations of experts and the general public to have done it for you 

Remember the endemic use of South American Pan pipes in both film scores and pop music for about a decade? :lol:


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

some guy said:


> Older music is older, that's all. It's familiar enough so that its abrasiveness is no longer experienced as such. There's really nothing more to it than that. (This is why the older criticisms of music seem so off. And why the newer (and identical) criticisms of newer music seem so aggravating.)
> 
> Yeah, that must be why the ugly, war-wracked world of the nineteenth century (truly--it was in all the papers) spawned all that pretty, Romantic music we love so much.


Beethoven, _abrasive?_ *Say it ain't so, Joe!*


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## Guest (May 13, 2014)

PetrB said:


> As always with what is presented to us in the present, you have to do the sorting for yourself instead of waiting for several generations of experts and the general public to have done it for you ::


Exactly. I'm always appalled at what a hard sell this obviously true observation can be. Partly, it's because so many people do not, on their own admission, like to do any sorting. (Think of all the threads about what the best this or that is.)

But truly. The largest and most significant difference between the beauties and the approachability of older and newer musics is that the one has been sorted and the other has not. Period. Listen to enough new music intelligently and receptively and you will experience its beauties for what they are; you will be less inclined to compare, or try to compare, its beauties with those of the past; and you will not need any sorting from other people to experience great joy.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

some guy said:


> Exactly. I'm always appalled at what a hard sell this obviously true observation can be. Partly, it's because so many people do not, on their own admission, like to do any sorting. (Think of all the threads about what the best this or that is.)
> 
> But truly. The largest and most significant difference between the beauties and the approachability of older and newer musics is that the one has been sorted and the other has not. Period. Listen to enough new music intelligently and receptively and you will experience its beauties for what they are; you will be less inclined to compare, or try to compare, its beauties with those of the past; and you will not need any sorting from other people to experience great joy.


Exactly, it takes -- I suppose -- a sort of bravery to not wait for the approval of anyone else, and making up your own mind for whatever reasons you care to, with whatever criteria (it is to be hoped those are 'thought about' criteria) that you decide 'work for you.'


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## Couac Addict (Oct 16, 2013)

PetrB said:


> Exactly, it takes -- I suppose -- a sort of bravery to not wait for the approval of anyone else, and making up your own mind for whatever reasons you care to, with whatever criteria (it is to be hoped those are 'thought about' criteria) that you decide 'work for you.'


That's why I have Top 10 lists and Penguin guides to tell how to think. I don't have time to form a personal opinion.


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## scratchgolf (Nov 15, 2013)

I've had 2 major obstacles keeping me from exploring modern music (20th century really). One was self imposed and had nothing to do with the music itself. The first being the music Ive been exposed to. Composers I'd never heard of until joining this site. I typically avoid these kind of threads because I simply have nothing to comment on. I do read them though and often explore some of the pieces and composers I see discussed. Examples of this would be Schuman, Stockhausen, Xenakis, Feldman, and Cage. I'm not painting them all with the same brush but I got very little out of any piece I heard. I was either bored or turned off. This wasn't 2 minute excerpts, mind you. I sat through entire performances and sampled multiple pieces. I wouldn't say I've written them off. More like moved them to the back of the storage closet until I decide to try again.

The second reason, and admittedly self imposed one, is my own tendency to gravitate towards organization, symmetry, and structure. As stupid as this may seem, I take comfort in the fact that all three professional sports teams from Pittsburgh wear black and gold uniforms. I dislike all three teams but appreciate the organization and unity it presents. With music, and especially Romantic era composers, it's very easy for me to explore. Catalogs looks like Symphonies 1-5, Piano Sonatas 1-20, Violin Concertos in A and D, String Quartets 1-15, etc.... It feels very organized to me and helps me in my discovery process. When more modern music had names like "Flying Over Earth in a Blue Hot Air Ballon" or "Upon Encountering the Elephant in the Bird's Nest", I find it much harder to even know where to begin. Perhaps some of you will laugh at me for this but I'll bet there are a few who know exactly what I'm referring to here. I really need to stop writing posts that look like short stories. The end.


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

some guy said:


> Older music is older, that's all. It's familiar enough so that its abrasiveness is no longer experienced as such. There's really nothing more to it than that. (This is why the older criticisms of music seem so off. And why the newer (and identical) criticisms of newer music seem so aggravating.)


Be careful... you're starting to make some sense.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Weston said:


> What I really don't like are cliches that seem even more prevalent in 20th century music than the music that came before. I don't want to hear any more clippy cloppy wood blocks, and I'm not too keen on slapping one's cello with the wrong end of the bow, or having the performers cry out or belch or whatever. That was clever the first 20 or so times it was done, but should now go the way of the overused "hidden" bonus tracks on pop CDs. Cliches are tediuous regardless of the century or idiom.


I agree that those things can sound cliche but I think they can still be used to great affect if used properly by a clever composer. For example, the col legno (slapping the cello with the wrong end of the bow) used in Bartok's 3rd string quartet still sounds entirely convincing and integral to the music to me, no matter how many times I hear it. Same with the cello "effects" used in Gubaidulina's "Seven Words" for Cello, Bayan and String Orchestra, for example.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Couac Addict said:


> That's why I have Top 10 lists and Penguin guides to tell how to think. I don't have time to form a personal opinion.


So busy, so important are so many. Indeed, the world today must be filled with much greater numbers of very important people than any time in the past


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## Pysmythe (May 11, 2014)

Some of these blokes are acquired tastes, for sure. The first time I ever listened to Berg, pretty much all I could think, with some violence, was "what in the hell is this bullsh-t?!" But by the third or so time I'd trekked my way through it, I believe I remember even starting to smile a little bit. It started to "dawn on me," although my impressions may have had very little to do with what Berg intended.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

scratchgolf said:


> I've had 2 major obstacles keeping me from exploring modern music (20th century really). One was self imposed and had nothing to do with the music itself. The first being the music Ive been exposed to. Composers I'd never heard of until joining this site. I typically avoid these kind of threads because I simply have nothing to comment on. I do read them though and often explore some of the pieces and composers I see discussed. Examples of this would be Schuman, Stockhausen, Xenakis, Feldman, and Cage. I'm not painting them all with the same brush but I got very little out of any piece I heard. I was either bored or turned off. This wasn't 2 minute excerpts, mind you. I sat through entire performances and sampled multiple pieces. I wouldn't say I've written them off. More like moved them to the back of the storage closet until I decide to try again.
> 
> The second reason, and admittedly self imposed one, is my own tendency to gravitate towards organization, symmetry, and structure. As stupid as this may seem, I take comfort in the fact that all three professional sports teams from Pittsburgh wear black and gold uniforms. I dislike all three teams but appreciate the organization and unity it presents. With music, and especially Romantic era composers, it's very easy for me to explore. Catalogs looks like Symphonies 1-5, Piano Sonatas 1-20, Violin Concertos in A and D, String Quartets 1-15, etc.... It feels very organized to me and helps me in my discovery process. When more modern music had names like "Flying Over Earth in a Blue Hot Air Ballon" or "Upon Encountering the Elephant in the Bird's Nest", I find it much harder to even know where to begin. Perhaps some of you will laugh at me for this but I'll bet there are a few who know exactly what I'm referring to here. I really need to stop writing posts that look like short stories. The end.


You do know that the serial music which is 'total serialism' controlling every and all aspects of a piece is about the most highly and cogently organized music that has ever been? :devil:

Some of what you say is fondness for order reads to me like being overly fond of training wheels on a bike, or a hand railing along every pathway you walk


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## Pysmythe (May 11, 2014)

I suspect that may have been part of what he was getting at by the words "self-imposed". That is, that THAT level of organization is a harder nut to crack, sometimes, and maybe even if it would seem that it should chime with the perception of our own nature. It's not so easy a chair to break in and get used to sitting in for most of us, probably even under the best of circumstances.


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## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

scratchgolf said:


> I... often explore some of the pieces and composers I see discussed. Examples of this would be Schuman, Stockhausen, Xenakis, Feldman, and Cage. ...I got very little out of any piece I heard. I was either bored or turned off. ...I sat through entire performances and sampled multiple pieces.


I sometimes get bogged down just like you did, by following mentions in others' posts and wanting to 'explore' all of it, *now*. In my experience, it doesn't work that way, not if your goal is to actually like any of it. I find that what does work for me is to recognize that I will never hear it all, so there is no reason to force myself into a panic to hear as much as I can in as short a period of time as possible. Now, when the mood for exploration appears and I have a moment when I am not feeling pressured, I will look up a piece that someone mentioned and my experience is always much more positive (even if I don't end up deciding that the piece is the next greatest thing).


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## scratchgolf (Nov 15, 2013)

The funny thing is I very much enjoy reading about the likes of Feldman, Xenakis, and Cage. I'm fascinated by all composers and much of what drives them. I'm certain someday I'll read beyond what is available on Wikipedia. Anyone who turns architectural designs into music understands structure better than I do. The type of structure I'm referring to is in the presentation and cataloging of the music. We hit on this during my "Obsession to Own Everything" thread where I said I couldn't enjoy my music if my iTunes library looked disorganized. Having music labeled with random capital and lowercase letters may not change the way the music sounds but it would push me to the brink of insanity.


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## Selby (Nov 17, 2012)

There seems to be an assumption through threads like these, which I want to contest: modern classical music is abrasive. Yes, a lot of it is, but a lot of it isn't.

In fact, some of the great romantic composers where "modern" - Bax, Sibelius, RVW, Rachmaninov. Granted, many lambast them for looking backward instead of forward, but these men wrote their oeuvres in the twentieth century.

I would also like to introduce you to Alan Hovhaness [1911-2000]. If you are looking for sweet, spiritual, melodic music to discover, look no further. 66 numbered symphonies, very easy to explore.

Symphony No. 66:





Sonata for Harp and Guitar:





Guitar Concerto No. 2:





Horn Concerto:





Symphony No. 17:


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## scratchgolf (Nov 15, 2013)

Selby said:


> There seems to be an assumption through threads like these, which I want to contest: modern classical music is abrasive. Yes, a lot of it is, but a lot of it isn't.
> 
> In fact, some of the great romantic composers where "modern" - Bax, Sibelius, RVW, Rachmaninov. Granted, many lambast them for looking backward instead of forward, but these men wrote their oeuvres in the twentieth century.
> 
> ...


There goes my evening....er....week.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

scratchgolf said:


> The funny thing is I very much enjoy reading about the likes of Feldman, Xenakis, and Cage. I'm fascinated by all composers and much of what drives them. I'm certain someday I'll read beyond what is available on Wikipedia. Anyone who turns architectural designs into music understands structure better than I do. The type of structure I'm referring to is in the presentation and cataloging of the music. We hit on this during my "Obsession to Own Everything" thread where I said I couldn't enjoy my music if my iTunes library looked disorganized. Having music labeled with random capital and lowercase letters may not change the way the music sounds but it would push me to the brink of insanity.


Okeedoh, then


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Selby said:


> There seems to be an assumption through threads like these, which I want to contest: modern classical music is abrasive. Yes, a lot of it is, but a lot of it isn't.
> 
> In fact, some of the great romantic composers where "modern" - Bax, Sibelius, RVW, Rachmaninov. Granted, many lambast them for looking backward instead of forward, but these men wrote their oeuvres in the twentieth century.
> 
> ...


In music history, modern is 'just a date,' but it really means the modern style(s), not 'just a date.' The composers you named are modern by date, Rachmaninov, if some care to listen carefully, a bit more modern by trait as well as date, but really still quite retro compared to the truly modern style.

I suppose this is a way to 'soften' the concept of modernity in music from the 'modern period,' but it really does not at all inform well as to 'what modern means' via musical traits.

You said it yourself, _these composers you named are all considered rather to extremely retro for their own times_ (about which there is nothing wrong, while that is not 'representative' of the style of their times is part and parcel of the 'retro aspect.') More accurately, these composers lived in the modern era and wrote not in the more modern of styles


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## Selby (Nov 17, 2012)

^ Yes. I understand that modern can refer to the period or the style. The OP referred to "post-romantic" leading me to believe they were referring to the period. Although I'm finding on here when I make assumptions I'm usually wrong.


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## scratchgolf (Nov 15, 2013)

Just finished Hovhaness Symphony 66. Very lovely indeed. Amazon has very few selections available in mp3 format so I'll utilize alternate means to listen further. I guess I'm not gonna find a complete symphony cycle anytime soon. Listening to the Horn Concerto now. Also very nice.


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## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

scratchgolf said:


> Having music labeled with random capital and lowercase letters may not change the way the music sounds but it would push me to the brink of insanity.


I see it more like licking the plate clean after a really delicious meal: it makes it taste even better the next time around


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Selby said:


> ^ Yes. I understand that modern can refer to the period or the style. The OP referred to "post-romantic" leading me to believe they were referring to the period. Although I'm finding on here when I make assumptions I'm usually wrong.


LOL. Here we all go... post romantic is modern, by date, while romantic lingered on in real and morphed forms, does to this day. I rather love the fact that post 1890, formal classical music began to bust loose in numerous directions and styles, but it does not make one label fits-all at all possible or easy 

There is a lot in the whole neoclassical style camp I think most anyone could enjoy, as well, decidedly 'anti-romantic' while being a kind of tonal, usually very lively and fresh-sounding as well.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Selby said:


> ^ Yes. I understand that modern can refer to the period or the style. The OP referred to "post-romantic" leading me to believe they were referring to the period. Although I'm finding on here when I make assumptions I'm usually wrong.


When I used the term post-Romantic, I was referring to the style not the period. I was more interested in what draws people to the "new" music, the new sounds. There is plenty of music that I call neo-Romantic that still sounds roughly Romantic but pushing a bit past the Romantic Era. I find much of that music enjoyable, but it's not quite distinct enough from the Romantic sound to give the music a separate feel. That's fine, of course, but here I'm interested in sounds that are truly different.


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## Selby (Nov 17, 2012)

scratchgolf said:


> Just finished Hovhaness Symphony 66. Very lovely indeed. Amazon has very few selections available in mp3 format so I'll utilize alternate means to listen further. I guess I'm not gonna find a complete symphony cycle anytime soon. Listening to the Horn Concerto now. Also very nice.


I'm glad you liked it. No, there are not a lot of downloads out there, if I was to recommend a single download it would be:

A recent recording of three concertos: one for viola (Talin), one for sitar (!!!) (Shambala), and one for trumpet, violin, piano and string orchestra (Janabar). A fantastic recording.
http://www.amazon.com/Hovhaness-Janabar-Shambala-Michael-Bowman/dp/B007XQUONW/ref=sr_1_1_bnp_1_mus?ie=UTF8&qid=1400080795&sr=8-1&keywords=janabar+shambala

Or his collection of string quartets: 
http://www.amazon.com/Hovhaness-Bagatelles-String-Quartet-Spirit/dp/B001DZ3QQQ/ref=sr_1_28?s=dmusic&ie=UTF8&qid=1400081017&sr=1-28&keywords=hovhaness

The pairing of the first guitar concerto with Symphony No. 60:
http://www.amazon.com/Hovhaness-Khrimian-Hairig-Concerto-Symphony/dp/B000S5EAIK/ref=sr_1_3?s=dmusic&ie=UTF8&qid=1400081062&sr=1-3&keywords=hovhaness

or the second guitar concerto with Symphony No. 63:
http://www.amazon.com/Hovhaness-Concerto-Symphony-Fanfare-Atlantis/dp/B001AQYHMK/ref=sr_1_4?s=dmusic&ie=UTF8&qid=1400080995&sr=1-4&keywords=hovhaness

are both fairly cheap.

Here are some superbly performed and recorded sort-of 'greatest hits' collections, which may make you crazy if looking for strong organizations.

The popular Symphony No. 2, "Mysterious Mountain" with his whale song (!!!!!) concerto:
http://www.amazon.com/Hovhaness-Symphony-Mysterious-Mountain-Gregory/dp/B001N7U5RC/ref=sr_1_1?s=dmusic&ie=UTF8&qid=1400080995&sr=1-1&keywords=hovhaness

A fantastic chamber symphony, Symphony No. 6, concerto for trumpet:
http://www.amazon.com/Hovhaness-Mountains-Without-Symphony-Celestial/dp/B004HTAKQY/ref=sr_1_11?s=dmusic&ie=UTF8&qid=1400080995&sr=1-11&keywords=hovhaness

cheers


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## Selby (Nov 17, 2012)

duplicate post .


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

* What draws you to modern/contemporary music? *Tonal music is based on sensuous qualities of sonance. It was formed on the basis of "just" intervals; the Greek tetrachords (the foundation of Gregorian chant) are formed by starting with two 4:3 'perfect' intervals and placing a 9:8 interval between them.

This is the 'beauty' of tonality that is spoken of in the opening post. It is a system based entirely on fractional divisions of the octave, heard as dissonance and consonance, in comparison with the '1' or octave (ultimate consonance and reference), and the progressions of chords away and towards this resolution and resting point. It is a goal-oriented music, moving in time towards certain goals of resolution which satisfy the ear.

Modernism, by contrast, is based more on geometric and numerical divisions of the octave, which have more to do with symmetry and geometry than they do with consonance/dissonance. Therefore, its appeal lies in its resulting forms, the pitch constructs which result, usually more linear than harmonic.

Sensual beauty of harmony is best conveyed by long sustained notes, which embody the 'smoothness' of their consonances.

Modernism is better served as linear constructs, which embody their signature qualities of symmetry and shape.

*Do you find (modernism) just as beautiful as older (tonal) works?

*Yes, but as described above, for different reasons.

*
Are you drawn to other aspects, and if so, what aspects?

*If by this you mean "other aspects" besides sheer sensuous beauty of consonant harmony, 
then, as described above, it is those qualities of modernism such as linear forms, instrumental timbre, and permutations, as well as good old dissonance, which do it for me. _I like dissonance, _such as Ives, and find it to be 'beautiful,' but not in the way you seem to be using the term.

Also, since tonality is necessarily a 'progression' through time which leads to a 'goal,' then there are aspects of _experiencing time as a moment or series of isolated events,_ rather than a narrative sequence, which appeals to me.

Actually, once this is realized, it takes _less_ cognitive awareness to take in a modernist work, such as Messiaen, than it does to cognitively follow a Mozart symphony.

Another, more external aspect of this, is that often times modern music is coming from a perspective more like that of visual art and painting. John Cage, Morton Feldman, and Philip Glass are good examples, in that they had almost nothing to do with the 'establishment' or academic music circles; their music had more in common with art and painting, and conceptual art.

The 'sensual' beauty spoken of in the OP seems to be what keeps older tonal music 'stuck' in the past.


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## Vaneyes (May 11, 2010)

"All you tonal people, we know who you are." 
- Thought Police


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## Pysmythe (May 11, 2014)

Impossible to escape them, too. They're hiding in (and in some cases behind) every last one of those semitones.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Vaneyes said:


> "All you tonal people, we know who you are."
> - Thought Police


No, New York is not like that at all. And I'm sure that all you people in Idaho do more than simply eat baked potatoes.



Pysmythe said:


> Impossible to escape them, too. They're hiding in (and in some cases behind) every last one of those semitones.


And behind big russet potatoes and grain silos.

I've heard that some of them have gone into "survivalist" mode, hoarding Beethoven symphony boxes and Mozart complete works sets, nervously awaiting the coming onslaught of serialist-derived music.


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

Selby said:


> ^ Yes. I understand that modern can refer to the period or the style. The OP referred to "post-romantic" leading me to believe they were referring to the period. Although I'm finding on here when I make assumptions I'm usually wrong.


Being _corrected_ isn't the same as being _wrong_.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

*@ Selby,* I quite like Hovhaness, especially this 2 disc set on delos, which has some of the pieces you've mentioned:










From that disc, Celestial Fantasy for string orchestra is my favourite. And yeah I'd call it beautiful.

I've also got a couple of the Naxos ones, which are reissues of Delos recordings as well.

He was important in introducing elements of non-Western music into Western classical. One is drones and melismatic type melodies. The whole 'non goal' oriented aesthetic was anti a lot of what was going on in academe, serialism and so on. He started with Neo-Classicism, and Sibelius and Vaughan Williams where early influences, then he travelled to Armenia (one of his parents was Armenian) and also other places like Japan to study different types of music.

In the 1950's there weren't that many composers into that kind of 'world music' area, another in fact was Australia's Peggy Glanville-Hicks. Even less conventional was Harry Partch, but somehow he got the imprimatur of Modernists whereas Hovhaness didn't (and Glanville-Hicks isn't nearly as known as either, I think?). None of these people where fans of serial orthodoxy, although I know that Glanville-Hicks did used it in a modified way in her music.

But it all proves, as with the music of say Ravel or Haydn, once music (or a certain aesthetic approach) gets accepted into the mainstream to an extent, it can sound conservative when in its day it wasn't that simple. Through Glanville-Hicks, who introduced Ravi Shankar to American audiences, you got that whole direction going strongly later, composers like Glass and Reich took on board many aspects of non-Western approaches in their work.

And Hovhaness was at the forefront of this trend, not jumping on any bandwagon. His _Cello Concerto _of the 1930's is amongt his earliest opuses to survive (he destroyed most of the rest of his early stuff) and already aspects of his mature style are there. Its on youtube (all of it), first movement is here. This is from one of the Naxos cd's.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Vaneyes said:


> "All you tonal people, we know who you are."
> - Thought Police


Well if the _Thought Police _send the boys around to search my house, they will find Webern in my collection. So I am off the hook, aren't I? I don't just listen to one type of Modernism, I listen to BOTH, atonal AND serial


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## Alypius (Jan 23, 2013)

This thread opened with a set of three interesting questions about one's experience of listening to modern and contemporary music. I would like to try to answer those three for myself, but given the way the terms "modern" and "contemporary" get bandied about on such threads, I want to copy a list that I put together for an earlier thread. I post this long list because I want to be specific about a database of works that are personal favorites. These are what I mean when I speak of "modern" and "contemporary". My list is chronological and I believe that this is the best way to see things, to see the many many streams that make up "modern" and "contemporary." So following PetrB, I take "modern" to be 1900-1974 and "contemporary" to be anything 1975-present, though as he suggests, one could maybe take "modern" back to 1890. 

1. Rachmaninov: Piano Concerto #2 in C minor, op. 18 (1901)
2. Mahler: Symphony #5 in C# minor (1901-1902)
3. Debussy: La Mer (1903-1905)
4. Ravel: String Quartet in F major (1903)
5. Albéniz: Iberia (1906)
6. Scriabin: Piano Sonata #5, op. 53 (1907)
7. Ravel: Gaspard de la nuit (1908)
8. Webern: Passacaglia for Orchestra, op. 1 (1908)
9. Rachmaninov: Piano Concerto #3 in D minor (1909)
10. Mahler: Das Lied von der Erde (1909)
11. Schoenberg: 5 Pieces for Orchestra, op. 16 (1909)
12. Debussy: Preludes, Book 1 & 2 (1910, 1913)
13. Stravinsky: L’Oiseau de feu (Firebird) (1910)
14. Stravinsky: Petrushka (1911)
15. Schoenberg: Pierrot Lunaire (1912)
16. Stravinsky: Le Sacre du printemps (Rite of Spring) (1913)
17. Prokofiev: Piano Concerto #2 in G minor, op. 16 (1913)
18. Ravel: Piano Trio in A minor (1914)
19. Ives: Piano Sonata #2 (“Concord”), S. 88 (1915)
20. Sibelius: Symphony #5 (1915, rev. 1919)
21. Holst: The Planets, op. 32 (1917)
22. Prokofiev: Violin Concerto #1 in D major, op. 19 (1917)
23. Prokofiev: Piano Concerto #3 in C major, op. 26 (1921)
24. Berg: Wozzeck (1922)
25. Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue (1924)
26. Villa-Lobos: Choros #8 for large orchestra & 2 pianos (1925)
27. Janáček: Sinfonietta (1926)
28. Szymanowski: String Quartet #2, op. 56 (1927)
29. Bartók: String Quartet #4, Sz 91 (1928)
30. Schoenberg: Variations for Orchestra, op. 31 (1928)
31. Bartók: Piano Concerto #2, Sz. 95 (1931)
32. Ravel: Piano Concerto in G (1931)
33. Medtner: Piano Sonata in B flat minor (“Sonata Romantica”), op. 53/1 (1932)
34. Syzmanowski: Symphony #4 (“Symphonie Concertante”), op. 60 (1932)
35. Berg: Violin Concerto (1935)
36. Bartók: Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta, Sz. 106 (1936)
37. Orff: Carmina Burana (1936)
38. Shostakovich: Symphony #5 in D minor (1937)
39. Roy Harris: Symphony #3 (1937)
40. Martinů: Double Concerto for 2 String Orchestras, Piano and Timpani (1938)
41. Rodrigo: Concierto de Aranjuez (1939)
42. Barber: Concerto for Violin, op. 14 (1939)
43. Prokofiev; Alexander Nevsky, op. 78 (1939)
44. Messiaen: Quatuor pour la fin du temps (1940)
45. Wm. Schuman: Symphony #3 (1941)
46. Bartók: Concerto for Orchestra, Sz. 116 (1943)
47. Copland: Appalachian Spring (1944)
48. Messiaen: Vingt Regards sur l'enfant-Jésus (1944)
49. Villa-Lobos: Bachianas Brasileiras #5 for soprano and orchestra of violincelli (1945)
50. Stravinsky: Symphony in Three Movements (1945)
51. Britten: Peter Grimes (1945)
52. Barber: Knoxville: Summer of 1915 (1947)
53. Strauss, R.: Four Last Songs (1948)
54. Shostakovich: Preludes and Fugues, op. 87 (1951)
55. Carter: String Quartet #1 (1951)
56. Shostakovich: Symphony #10 in E minor, op. 93 (1953)
57. Lutosławski: Concerto for Orchestra (1954)
58. Xenakis: Metastaseis (1954)
59. Boulez: Le marteau sans maître (1955)
60. Stravinsky: Agon (1957)
61. Bernstein: West Side Story (1957)
62. Stockhausen: Gruppen (1957)
63. Ligeti: Atmospheres (1961)
64. Riley: In C (1964)
65. Ligeti: Requiem (1965)
66. Ligeti: Lontano (1967)
67. Carter: Concerto for Orchestra (1969)
68. Reich: Drumming (1971)
69. Crumb: Black Angels (1971)
70. Rochberg: String Quartet #3 (1971) 
71. Messiaen: Des canyons aux étoiles (1974)
72. Shostakovich: String Quartet #15 in E flat minor, op. 144 (1974)
73. Glass: Einstein on the Beach (1975)
74. Rzewski: The People United Will Never Be Defeated! (1975)
75. Nørgård: Symphony #3 (1975)
76. Reich: Music for 18 Musicians (1976)
77. Gorecki: Symphony #3 (“Symphony of Sorrowful Songs”) (1976)
78. Pärt: Tabula Rasa (1976)
79. Gubaidulina: Offertorium (1980, rev. 1986)
80. Holmboe: String Quartet #17, op. 152 (1983)
81. Kapustin: Eight Concert Etudes, op. 40 (1984)
82. Dutilleux: L’arbre des songes ("Tree of Dreams"): Concerto for Violin (1985)
83. Ligeti: Études pour piano (1985, 1994)
84. Adams: Harmonielehre (1985)
85. Nono: Promoteo (1985)
86. Adams: Nixon in China (1987)
87. Dusapin: Seven Solos for Orchestra (1992-2008)
88. Lutosławski: Symphony #4 (1994)
89. Rautavaara: Symphony #7 (“Angel of Light”) (1994)
90. Gubaidulina: Canticle of the Sun (1997)
91. Nørgård: Symphony #6 (“At the End of the Day”) (1999)
92. Kancheli: Styx (1999)
93. Golijov: La pasión según san Marcos (2000) 
94. Adams: Dharma at Big Sur (2003)
95. Daugherty: Fire and Blood (2003)
96. Adès: Violin Concerto (“Concentric Paths”) (2005) 
97. Tabakova: Concerto for Violincello and Strings (2008)
98. Penderecki: String Quartet #3 (“Leaves of an unwritten diary”) (2008)
99. Greenstein: Change (2009)
100. Dessner: Aheym (2013)

Having set out favorites, I'll follow this with a 2nd post in which I try to answer mmbis' original questions.


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## Guest (May 17, 2014)

Some pretty sweet music on that list, Alypius!

Given this context, I'm interested to see your answers to the original questions.

(I couldn't help noticing that there is no electronic or electroacoustic music on your list. The Crumb being the closest. That's a common thing I've noticed about lots and lots of contemporary fans--lots of really nice music but little or no electroacoustics. It's curious. When I was first exploring twentieth century music, I found very quickly that if I bought an LP with the word "electronic" on its cover, I would have something very much worth listening to. And most of the festivals I have covered in the last ten years have been quite heavy on the electronics, some of them entirely electroacoustic. That seems such a natural thing, to me, I'm always puzzled that that pattern is so infrequently duplicated. Even for every hundred people who know Varese's Poeme electronique, there's maybe only one who knows anything else aside from a couple of Xenakis titles. To get someone who knows Dhomont or Ferrari or Ferreyra or Bruemmer, you have to up your original hundred to a thousand or maybe ten thousand.

And are there ten thousand people in the world who know Poeme electronique? I wonder.)


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## Alypius (Jan 23, 2013)

*What draws you to modern/contemporary music?*

I would distinguish (to some degree) what draws me to modern works separately from what draws me to contemporary works. In the case of contemporary works, my concern is that classical music (for wont of a better term) prosper. I want to be supportive of contemporary artists. I believe that creativity is a precious thing. Artists are treasures. They can be fragile, easily misunderstood. What they do rarely offers much financial reward and they often labor in obscurity for decades. So I think it important just to be supportive. I believe that I need to follow what contemporary artists are doing, what they are trying to say to me. I may or may not like it, either at first or even in the end.  But I think it is important just to listen, to savor what they are trying to say via the medium of their music. So in the case of contemporary composers, I am much slower to judge. I realize that I don't have much historical perspective, much sense of their (and my) context to evaluate their work. I try to *hear it* in and of itself, and if I can read about it or if I can see the score, that helps. That said, there are many contemporary works that appeal to me almost immediately. I return to them often with pleasure. I don't know if some of these more contemporary works will endure as time goes on. I'm sure that there are better ones hidden out there that I've not discovered yet. And so I try to keep an ear out there for them. I find that there is a wonderful diversity and I consider it a privilege to stumble upon some new contemporary work and to savor its melodies, its harmonies, its tone colors, its perhaps stretching-the-boundaries-of-this-or-that.

"Modern music", that is, music from 1900 to 1975, is something we are just beginning to get a little perspective on. I enjoy it for its wild variety, its adventurous diversity. As my list indicates, by "modern" I don't think "modernist" as it is usually termed (e.g. the Second Vienna School), and at the same time, I do listen to and enjoy a number of "modernist" works. As for specific qualities, I especially love its frequent explorations of complex rhythms. That is one reason I especially enjoy Stravinsky and Bartok and Prokofiev and Szymanowski as well as Reich and Adams. I enjoy the incorporation of or highlighting of unusual instruments (e.g. Debussy's Sonate pour flute, alto et harpe; Bartok's use of celesta; Rodrigo's Concierto [classical guitar & orchestra]) or highlighting of unusual instrumental groupings (e.g. Boulez's Le Marteau; Reich's Music for Mallet Instruments, Voice, and Organ). I love works that have these rambunctious thrill-ride qualities (e.g. Prokofiev's 2nd piano concerto, 4th movement; the pizzicatos of the 2nd movement of Ravel's String Quartet; the end of Stravinsky's Firebird; Kapustin's Toccatina in his Etudes; Adams' Dharma at Big Sur - 2nd mvt). I enjoy the way composers skillfully draw on national folk traditions and create something utterly new, thereby adding their own unique national accents and thus expanding the expressive range of the international language of classical music (Albeniz, Bartok, Janacek, Martinu, Villa-Lobos, even Shostakovich). I enjoy more populist styles (e.g. Copland, Schuman, Harris, Adams, Daugherty) alongside more avant-garde efforts. Some who post around here may want to exclude certain more conservative composers such as Rachmaninov or Mahler from the "modern". But even if their aesthetic homebase is earlier, if their harmonic / melodic grammar is older, that doesn't mean they aren't modern. That's equally true for other conservatives, whether Barber or Medtner. I find the beauty and intensity of Medtner's compositions very much 20th century despite his own disavowals of the era. I love the way that 20th-century music seems capable of invoking mystery, the ecstatic, with an intensity and richness that the 19th-century only dreamed of doing (e.g. the opening chords of Bartok's 2nd movement of his 2nd Piano concerto; Mompou's Musica callada; Ligeti's Requiem; Part's Tabula Rasa; Rautavaara's opening of Symphony 7). Of course, Scriabin had made the ecstatic central to his aesthetic. But the 20th-century learned much from the recovery of the ecstatic in Renaissance music and found new ways to express it (most obvious in much of Part's music); think also of the acute amalgam of ecstacy and anguish in Gorecki's Symphony #3. I love the way 20th-century composers take traditional genre forward (e.g. Shostakovich's transformation of the symphony) or invent new ones (e.g. Villa-Lobos' Choros). The string quartet is perhaps my favorite genre of classical music, and so I am drawn to the exquisite diversity and richness of 20th century string quartets: from Bartok to Shostakovich to Carter and Crumb to Rochberg and Holmboe to Norgard, Penderecki and beyond. The more I explore, the more new composers or new compositions I come across and come to enjoy. There is simply so much that it is hard to begin to name or describe. I discovered Dutilleux and Lutoslawski and Rautavaara only about 5 years ago and have come to thoroughly enjoy their works. I discovered Norgard a couple of years ago, but only acquired the full range of his works recently -- and I am captivated by most. Vagn Holmboe is a recent discovery. Part of the adventure of 20th century music is its astonishing range and creativity. I feel that I have only begun to get a handle on its range, diversity, and most important composers. But I hope to keep finding new ones, lesser-known ones.

*Do you find it just as beautiful as older works?*

I actually don't even think of it in those terms. I first came to classical music via a near simultaneous discovery (as a teenager) of the music of the Baroque and of Stravinsky. So it was 19th-century music and then later music of the Classical era (1750-1800) that I found it hard to get used to, hard to find beautiful. In the case of 19th-century music, for instance, I had to struggle to hear the originality in what sounded to my then-20-something ears as overly sentimental, as so much compositional mush. It lacked rhythm, pulse, drive that I then wanted from music. Even so, in my teens, I took to Beethoven almost immediately, but others (Schubert, Schumann, Liszt, Mendelssohn, and Brahms) took some effort. I guess that, for many, "Romantic" composers were their starting point and 20th century was what they then slowly acquired a taste for. For me, 20th century music always had an immediacy of impact. Of course, I could find this or that individual work hard to get my head around, but with a few repeated listenings, most works came clear. Almost from the outset, I enjoyed the range of Stravinsky's works, from his earliest ballets (Firebird, Petruska) and his astounding Rite of Spring, his symphonies (in C, in Three Movement, of Psalms), various other works (L'histoire du Soldat, Les Noces, Agon Ballet, Requiem Canticles). Each of these had a beauty of its own, a self-defined universe -- while part of a larger trajectory in Stravinsky's career and part of a larger dialogue with literary and artistic cultures. Stravinsky, I guess, helped me learn how to listen to the whole first half of the century. I found some works beautiful from the very beginning: not only populist works like Copland's Appalachian Spring or Holst's The Planets or Orff's Carmina Burana, but also Messiaen's Quatuor and Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra. Great art doesn't need to be accessible on first hearing or even fifth hearing. It might, but as we know, often beauty peeks out later, unexpectedly. While Bartok's String Quartets #4 and #5 were appealing in terms of their rhythmic excitement from the beginning, it took me a while to savor their brilliant architecture, their nuances, the density and quicksilver shift of moods. I had enjoyed Ligeti from the very first time I heard his works in 2001: A Space Odyssey (Atmospheres, Requiem). Their beauty was obvious and wonderfully mysterious in its evocations. Other works of his took more time, more listening. I was late to discover his astonishing Etudes for Piano -- and it is interesting how quickly they have become part of the piano repertoire. Because of the density of certain 20th-century works, I find it important to listen in different ways. Take Ligeti's Etudes. I listen only to two or three at a time. I can't listen to them the way I can listen to Rachmaninov's or Faure's Preludes, to say 10 or 12 nonstop. I was slow to appreciate the Second Vienna School not because of its "atonalism" or "serialism" but because of its roots in late romanticism; I found its emotions too gushy for me. Here, their string quartets proved a helpful access point. In general, I found Messaien more immediately appealing than Schoenberg. I guess that I can't even begin to understand those who question the beauty of 20th century music. If they have trouble, start with more populist works or works rooted in national folk traditions. Or savor how radical Debussy and Ravel are and yet how obviously exquisite the beauty of their music is, and then see how such whole tone scales or pentatonic scales or colorful chromaticism imbues works of later composers.

So my short answer is: my problem has generally been finding the beauty in earlier works, not in modern ones. I do find it now, of course, and love it and appreciate it. I love Schubert's piano sonatas and Brahms' symphonies and chamber works -- but they, not the modern, were for me an acquired taste.

*Are you drawn to other aspects, and if so, what aspects?*

Enough for now. I'll maybe address this later.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

some guy said:


> Some pretty sweet music on that list, Alypius!
> 
> Given this context, I'm interested to see your answers to the original questions.
> 
> ...


Someguy, if there were still $1.99 cut-out bins at K-Mart, I'm sure that many more people would be into electronic music.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

some guy said:


> (I couldn't help noticing that there is no electronic or electroacoustic music on your list. The Crumb being the closest. That's a common thing I've noticed about lots and lots of contemporary fans--lots of really nice music but little or no electroacoustics. It's curious. When I was first exploring twentieth century music, I found very quickly that if I bought an LP with the word "electronic" on its cover, I would have something very much worth listening to. And most of the festivals I have covered in the last ten years have been quite heavy on the electronics, some of them entirely electroacoustic. That seems such a natural thing, to me, I'm always puzzled that that pattern is so infrequently duplicated. Even for every hundred people who know Varese's Poeme electronique, there's maybe only one who knows anything else aside from a couple of Xenakis titles. To get someone who knows Dhomont or Ferrari or Ferreyra or Bruemmer, you have to up your original hundred to a thousand or maybe ten thousand.


I've never really thought about the under-representation of electroacoustic music is contemporary lists, but I suspect that you are correct. I have found quite a bit of contemporary music that I like, but I seem to immediately gravitate away from electroacoustic music. I've repeatedly given other music chances by listening to many works, but for some reason I turn off electroacoustic music when I explore. My brain basically says, "In the past I heard an electroacoustic piece which I didn't enjoy so I know that I'll never enjoy any other piece at any other time." I know that sounds silly, but somehow that mindset has become fixed. Now that I realize what I've been doing, I can change my behavior. Thank you for pointing this out so now I can explore that genre again.


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

Oh, I love electroacoustic. But it's certainly not something many Classical folks talk about. We just had a thread dedicated to this genre, and it was being held up by only a few members before it fell off the cliff due to lack of interest.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Alypius said:


> I want to be supportive of contemporary artists. I believe that creativity is a precious thing. Artists are treasures. They can be fragile, easily misunderstood. What they do rarely offers much financial reward and they often labor in obscurity for decades. So I think it important just to be supportive. I believe that I need to follow what contemporary artists are doing, what they are trying to say to me.


Thank you for your whole post. Much resonated strongly with me, but I'll respond to isolated parts.

I feel the above idea is very important. As a community, supporting classical music (both the contemporary composers and performing musicians) is fundamental. Without that support we could lose something of great importance. I have come to wish that all general concerts (not explicitly Baroque or Renaissance, for example) ought to include at least one contemporary composition. I know some feel the audience might dwindle, but I'd like to see a movement in that direction.



Alypius said:


> That said, there are many contemporary works that appeal to me almost immediately. I return to them often with pleasure. I don't know if some of these more contemporary works will endure as time goes on. I'm sure that there are better ones hidden out there that I've not discovered yet. And so I try to keep an ear out there for them. I find that there is a wonderful diversity and I consider it a privilege to stumble upon some new contemporary work and to savor its melodies, its harmonies, its tone colors, its perhaps stretching-the-boundaries-of-this-or-that.


Over the past couple of years I have explored a large number of contemporary works, but I too feel as though I'm just scratching the surface. There's an enormous amount of highly varied music available, and I have so much more to explore. Every time I hear a new wonderful piece, it fills me with joy at discovering yet another composer or work that will give me pleasure. Fifteen to twenty years ago when I started truly exploring classical music, I felt like a child in a candy store. Everywhere I turned I found works of immense beauty. Back then I basically only listened to pre-modern works. In the past year or so I've begun to get a similar sensation about modern/contemporary works. It takes me longer to find things I like, but I'm starting to add works to my "must get" list quite often.



Alypius said:


> As for specific qualities, I especially love its frequent explorations of complex rhythms. That is one reason I especially enjoy Stravinsky and Bartok and Prokofiev as well as Reich. I enjoy the incorporation of or highlighting of unusual instruments (e.g. Bartok's use of celesta) or highlighting of unusual instrumental groupings.


As I mentioned, I adore the rhythms in newer music. I, too, also like new timbres such as the marimba, and love works that feature instrumental sounds in novel ways. Sometimes these sounds don't work for me, but other times they create such interesting fun.


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## Selby (Nov 17, 2012)

Alypius said:


> This thread opened with a set of three interesting questions about one's experience of listening to modern and contemporary music. I would like to try to answer those three for myself, but given the way the terms "modern" and "contemporary" get bandied about on such threads, I want to copy a list that I put together for an earlier thread. I post this long list because I want to be specific about a database of works that are personal favorites. These are what I mean when I speak of "modern" and "contemporary". My list is chronological and I believe that this is the best way to see things, to see the many many streams that make up "modern" and "contemporary." So following PetrB, I take "modern" to be 1900-1974 and "contemporary" to be anything 1975-present, though as he suggests, one could maybe take "modern" back to 1890.
> 
> 1. Rachmaninov: Piano Concerto #2 in C minor, op. 18 (1901)
> 2. Mahler: Symphony #5 in C# minor (1901-1902)
> ...


Fantastic list Alypius, we have a lot of similar taste, but I already knew that 

You doubled up on the same Carter piece #54 and 59 - not trying to be nitpicky, thought you would appreciate knowing.

regards!


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## Vaneyes (May 11, 2010)

Thank you, Alypius for your 100 list. There are five 21 C. composers near the end, that I know nothing about. I will investigate. Cheers! :tiphat:


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## Alypius (Jan 23, 2013)

Selby said:


> Fantastic list Alypius, we have a lot of similar taste, but I already knew that
> 
> You doubled up on the same Carter piece #54 and 59 - not trying to be nitpicky, thought you would appreciate knowing.
> 
> regards!


Selby, I too had noticed a considerable overlap in our taste. I need to catch up a bit on one of your favorites, Hovhaness, whose works I know only a few pieces of. Thanks for catching that doublet. I had been tinkering with things, adding and dropping items. I have now inserted one item I had meant to have on the list, namely, Barber's Violin Concerto (1939).

Vaneyes, Thanks for the encouragement. Overall I'm pleased to see that people are finding the list helpful. I originally put it together as a way to dispel the common misconceptions and prejudices that so often plague discussion of more recent contemporary music. The avant-garde, while important (and while something I enjoy), is only one stream of the century's music.


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## cjvinthechair (Aug 6, 2012)

Yes, Mr. Alypius, much appreciated.
I'm very definitely not a SQ/small ensemble person, but have quite happily been listening to Greenstein & Dessner while trying to digest some of the thoughts here, so maybe you'll have sparked a rethink even in this dinosaur...now that would be an achievement !


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## Alypius (Jan 23, 2013)

some guy said:


> Some pretty sweet music on that list, Alypius!
> 
> Given this context, I'm interested to see your answers to the original questions.
> 
> (I couldn't help noticing that there is no electronic or electroacoustic music on your list....


Some guy, Sorry to be slow to respond. I've been on the road and have had only brief access to wifi. I hope my responses made some sense. If you get a chance, please post 5-10 electroacoustic works that you would recommend getting started with. It's not a realm (or genre) that I know much about. I suspect that I would enjoy it given that I listen to a certain amount of electric jazz.


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## Alypius (Jan 23, 2013)

cjvinthechair said:


> Yes, Mr. Alypius, much appreciated.
> I'm very definitely not a SQ/small ensemble person, but have quite happily been listening to Greenstein & Dessner while trying to digest some of the thoughts here, so maybe you'll have sparked a rethink even in this dinosaur...now that would be an achievement !


cjv, Given the amount of contemporary classical that you seem to listen to, I hope that at some point you might consider both posting a list of contemporary composers together with your favorite works of theirs as well as any reflections on the questions mmsbis originally posed.


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## Alypius (Jan 23, 2013)

mmsbls said:


> Thank you for your whole post. Much resonated strongly with me, but I'll respond to isolated parts.


mmbis, Thanks for the comments. It's good to see that others share my concerns about supporting contemporary composers and performers. I went back and reread your original post. In it, you say:



> I might hear an old favorite (e.g. Mozart Piano Concerto, Beethoven symphony, Brahms vocal work) while driving in my car. I am stunned by the intense beauty of those works. For me my favorite Romantic and earlier works are without question more beautiful than my favorite modern/contemporary works ...


In reading that, I'm struck by your use of the word "beauty" and "beautiful". My sense is that for many and perhaps also for you, the word implies "lyrical" -- or perhaps "emotionally evocative." I probably use the terms "beauty" and "beautiful" in a more classical philosophical sense: i.e. "the fitting," the "just-right for the occasion." So the tragic may not be pleasant but it can be beautiful. Sometimes, telling the truth artisticallly -- even about brutal inhumane matters -- is, in a sense, beautiful. It may or may not make me or others feel good. But it is artistically beautiful. That said, the works I listed move me, make me savor my humanity. Some are indeed lyrical in the 19th-century romantic sense. Some may evoke delight or joy but others sadness, even anguish -- and so in that classical sense they are beautiful -- they are the fitting, the right sound for the occasion they are speaking. I hope that makes some sense.


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

*Listening to contemporary works?*

I listen to everything. Right now I am listening to the Berlioz _Requiem_.

I do spend a significant amount of my resources to procuring and listening to contemporary music.

Why? How shall I put this. I do not like every piece of classical music ever composed. I already have recordings of over 99% of the large body of the standard works that I really like.

I have more recordings of Beethoven than any other composer in my library. Between the vinyl and the CD's I have four sets of the complete symphonies of Beethoven including a HIP. Why four? Because three is not enough and five are too many.

Problem with Beethoven is that he has not composed anything new in over a hundred years. After listening to Beethoven's _Fifth_ over a hundred times and performing it many times there are times that I want to try something new. Most of the time it is contemporary although occasionally I discover a new 19th century composer. Now if Beethoven came out of retirement.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Alypius said:


> In reading that, I'm struck by your use of the word "beauty" and "beautiful". My sense is that for many and perhaps also for you, the word implies "lyrical" -- or perhaps "emotionally evocative." I probably use the terms "beauty" and "beautiful" in a more classical philosophical sense: i.e. "the fitting," the "just-right for the occasion." So the tragic may not be pleasant but it can be beautiful. Sometimes, telling the truth artisticallly -- even about brutal inhumane matters -- is, in a sense, beautiful. It may or may not make me or others feel good. But it is artistically beautiful. That said, the works I listed move me, make me savor my humanity. Some are indeed lyrical in the 19th-century romantic sense. Some may evoke delight or joy but others sadness, even anguish -- and so in that classical sense they are beautiful -- they are the fitting, the right sound for the occasion they are speaking. I hope that makes some sense.


Yes, beautiful is a difficult word to use for art. It almost certainly means different things to different people (and possibly even different things to the same person at different times). Maybe the term "emotionally evocative in a positive way" would be clearer. I used to think that beauty was my sole method of judgment for music. Now I think differently. There are works by Raff, Farrenc, and even Mozart that I find more beautiful than Messiaen's Turangalila Symphonie, but I like the Turangalila Symphonie more. It seems to move me in a manner that the others don't. Maybe it is emotionally evocative, and I need to find more specific concepts to illuminate the difference.


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## Guest (May 19, 2014)

Alypius said:


> Some guy, Sorry to be slow to respond. I've been on the road and have had only brief access to wifi. I hope my responses made some sense. If you get a chance, please post 5-10 electroacoustic works that you would recommend getting started with. It's not a realm (or genre) that I know much about. I suspect that I would enjoy it given that I listen to a certain amount of electric jazz.


Me too. That is me too with the on the road and intermittent access to wi-fi. In fact, I only have about ten minutes left here in the airport in Zagreb.

Well, I didn't have any new emails, so I strolled over here to TC to see the happs.

I'll get to your request. Your responses made a lot of sense, just by the way.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Re: beauty -- beautiful


Alypius said:


> My sense is that for many and perhaps also for you, the word implies "lyrical" -- or perhaps "emotionally evocative." I probably use the terms "beauty" and "beautiful" in a more classical philosophical sense: i.e. "the fitting," the "just-right for the occasion." So the tragic may not be pleasant but it can be beautiful. Sometimes, telling the truth artisticallly -- even about brutal inhumane matters -- is, in a sense, beautiful. It may or may not make me or others feel good. But it is artistically beautiful.


Thanks. I just thought it was a point so well put that many could benefit from reading it twice


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## cjvinthechair (Aug 6, 2012)

Alypius said:


> cjv, Given the amount of contemporary classical that you seem to listen to, I hope that at some point you might consider both posting a list of contemporary composers together with your favorite works of theirs as well as any reflections on the questions mmsbis originally posed.


Kine of you, Mr. Alypius; fear you credit me with far too much - I merely stumble along where others lead ! 
Frankly, if you want fairly definitive looks at what's available in contemporary music, you could do much worse than spend some time in the company of 'John 11 Inch', 'New Music XX', 'Wellesz Company' et alteri on You Tube.
It's so easy on YT, with their recommendations coming up to the right of the piece being played, to spend an entire afternoon on a 'trail' through 50+ composers, at least some of whom will appeal.


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## Svelte Silhouette (Nov 7, 2013)

If Leonard Cohen is contemporary I listened to his Songs of love and hate earlier and survived laughing Len's lugubriousness


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## Guest (May 20, 2014)

Alypius,

I believe that exploring is a good thing. 

Of course, we all do have our favorites, but in the first place, I have many more than five or ten favorites and secondly, they are only my favorites. They might not turn out to be yours.

But your list did intrigue me. I wondered what such a list would look like if I made one.

I shouldn't really take the time to do this; I really have a ton of stuff I should be doing. But oh well.

What I won't do is try too hard to arrange it in any way.

Michele Bokanowski, L'etoile absinthe
Ludger Brümmer, La cloches sans vallees
Denis Smalley, Neve
eRikm, Steme
Zbigniew Karkowski, One and Many
Edgar Varese, Poeme electronique
Francis Dhomont, Frankenstein Symphony
Beatriz Ferreyra, L'autre Rive 
Berangere Maximin, La Mécanique Des Ombres 
Ricardo Mandolini, El angel del tiempo 
Christine Groult, La Condition Captive 
Luc Ferrari, Societie II
John Cage, Cartridge Music
Christian Marclay, Records
Natasha Barrett, Sub terra
Emmanuelle Gibello, Labyrinthe/c104 goto N901
Felipe Otondo, Tutuguri
Adam Stansbie, Isthmus
David Tudor, Anima Pepsi
Helmut Lachenmann, Grido
Marc Andre, ...als... II 
Ingvar Lidholm, Riter
Alice Shields, Coyote (from the electronic opera Shaman)
Sachiko M, 1:2
Busratch, Memorium
Otomo Yoshihide, Turntable solo
Doug Theriault, Orange
Martin Tetriault, Grrr (with Otomo Yoshihide)
Xenakis, Persepolis
Lucia Dlugoszewski, Space is a Diamond
Gordon Mumma, Hornpipe
Robert Ashley, In Sara, Mencken, Christ and Beethoven there were men and women

Well, that's a start, anyway. But I'm tired and need my beauty rest. Have you ever seen a picture of me? I need beauty rests. Lots of beauty rests.

Not all of the above is electroacoustic, either. I just started listing some favorites is all.


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## Guest (May 20, 2014)

To put that list into a larger context, I thought it would be amusing (to myself) to make a list of favorite twentieth century pieces. 

Why? Because I've had my nice nap, and now I don't feel like working. When you're my age, you'll be 62; I mean it!

Possibly in chronological order, mas o menos:

Bartok Bela, Kossuth
Jean Sibelius, Symphony nr. 4
Igor Stravinsky, Petrushka
Igor Stravinsky, Le Sacre du printemps
Bartok Bela, Bluebeard's Castle
Carl Nielsen, Symphony nr. 4
Charles Ives, Symphony nr. 4
Carl Nielsen, Symphony nr. 5
Igor Stravinsky, Les Noces
Bartok Bela, Miraculous Mandarin
Igor Stravinsky, L'histoire du soldat
Carl Nielsen, Aladdin
Edgard Varese, Octandre
Carl Nielsen, Symphony nr. 6
Kurt Schwitters, Ursonate
Maurice Ravel, Daphnis et Chloe
Shostakovich, Symphony nr. 4
Bartok Bela, Music for strings, percussion, and celesta
Bartok Bela, Violin concerto nr. 2
Bartok Bela, String quartet nr. 6
Serge Prokofiev, Semyon Kotko
Francis Poulenc, Animaux modeles
John Cage, Credo in US
Serge Prokofiev, Symphony nr. 6
Francis Poulenc, Stabat mater
Edgard Varese, Deserts
Iannis Xenakis, Pithoprakta
Francis Poulenc, Dialogues des Carmelites
Mauricio Kagel, Transicion II
Stravinsky, Movements for piano and orchestra
Roberto Gerhard, Symphony nr. 3 (Collages) -- same year as Cage's Cartridge Music
George Brecht, Incidental Music

After this it becomes simply too difficult. And pointless. These two lists were pointless enough, I fear.


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

some guy said:


> To put that list into a larger context, I thought it would be amusing (to myself) to make a list of favorite twentieth century pieces.


Great--now at some point I'm going to have to go back and find all the many posts where you claimed not to have preferences and give them "likes."


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## Guest (May 20, 2014)

Haha, do it!!

..................


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

some guy said:


> After this it becomes simply too difficult. And pointless. These two lists were pointless enough, I fear.


Decidedly not pointless. I have already copied your lists (minus the works I know) into my "to listen" list. Thanks for your "suggestions" (I know you don't think of them that way, but that's OK).


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## Alypius (Jan 23, 2013)

some guy said:


> Alypius,
> 
> I believe that exploring is a good thing.
> 
> ...


Some Guy, Thanks so much for the list. I am collector of such lists. They are a great help in my various explorations. While I own or at least have heard most of your 2nd list, all these are new to me. I appreciate it.


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## Guest (May 20, 2014)

Given that mmsbls seems to like lists, he/she would do well to read *Georges Perec's* _La Vie, mode d'emploi_ ("Life, A user's manual"). In this oeuvre she/he would find great succour. May I also point out that Monsieur Perec is to considered an _écrivain_ and _verbicruciste_.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

TalkingHead said:


> Given that mmsbls seems to like lists, he/she would do well to read *Georges Perec's* _La Vie, mode d'emploi_ ("Life, A user's manual"). In this oeuvre she/he would find great succour. May I also point out that Monsieur Perec is to considered an _écrivain_ and _verbicruciste_.


Seems like a potentially interesting novel, but it doesn't appear to have much to do with why I like certain lists.


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

some guy said:


> To put that list into a larger context, I thought it would be amusing (to myself) to make a list of favorite twentieth century pieces.
> 
> Why? Because I've had my nice nap, and now I don't feel like working. When you're my age, you'll be 62; I mean it!
> 
> ...


What? No Bax? :devil:


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## hreichgott (Dec 31, 2012)

Alypius what a great list!


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## Alypius (Jan 23, 2013)

hreichgott said:


> Alypius what a great list!


Heather, Thanks. I'm glad that people are finding it helpful.


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

TalkingHead said:


> Georges Perec


Anyone can compose a novel without using the letter "e," but a list of great 20th-21st century composers?--_that_ would be a challenge.


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## dgee (Sep 26, 2013)

TalkingHead said:


> Given that mmsbls seems to like lists, he/she would do well to read *Georges Perec's* _La Vie, mode d'emploi_ ("Life, A user's manual"). In this oeuvre she/he would find great succour. May I also point out that Monsieur Perec is to considered an _écrivain_ and _verbicruciste_.


One of my favourite books - so beautiful!


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## Albert7 (Nov 16, 2014)

mmsbls said:


> Over the past year or two, I have found myself listening to a high percentage of modern/contemporary music. In fact a significant majority of my listening is post-Romantic. Most is music new to me, but I often find myself selecting a favorite modern/contemporary work. Of course, there's nothing strange or odd about that fact. But there's something interesting that I've known for some time. After listening to several days of contemporary music, I might hear an old favorite (e.g. Mozart Piano Concerto, Beethoven symphony, Brahms vocal work) while driving in my car. I am stunned by the intense beauty of those works.
> 
> For me my favorite Romantic and earlier works are without question more beautiful than my favorite modern/contemporary works.* My first thought is that I like those works more, and maybe I do. But then why do I so often choose modern/contemporary rather than those favorites? Some might say that I'm a bit bored with the old works, but I don't think so. I love them every time I hear them (which isn't really that often). I think I'm responding to aspects of "recent" works that I find deeply appealing in the same way I find the beauty of older works so appealing. The modern/contemporary works are more fun, more varied (interesting?), often have more of a rhythmic pulse that moves me. The sounds (timbres and mixtures of timbres) are fascinating, pull me in, make me want to hear more. Maybe some would say I'm describing why I find recent works beautiful, but to me it feels a bit different. Perhaps exciting or interesting is the right work rather than classically beautiful.
> 
> ...


What draws me to modern/contemporary music is their unique form of beauty. Indeterminism, lack of resolution, mystery, intellectual Rubik's cubism, and just sheer brilliance of the part of these composers! 

I celebrate all forms of music honestly. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.


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## Albert7 (Nov 16, 2014)

arpeggio said:


> What? No Bax? :devil:


Ah, the joys of Bax.


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