# Best contemporary movement?



## ZJovicic (Feb 26, 2017)

In Wikipedia article on contemporary classical music several movements are mentioned.
Which of these makes most sense to you? Pick one and elaborate your choice!

The movements are:

1) High Modernism (mostly based on serialism)
2) Polystylism & Eclecticism
3) New complexity
4) New simplicity
5) Minimalism & Post-minimalism
6) Neoromanticism
7) Historicism
8) Some other school/tradition


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

I'm not going to sit your exam but the terms do make sense. I suppose such terms help us to discuss music but they can also confuse by seeming to represent hard boundaries whereas I think the reality is much more fluid and that there are many works that have elements of several of these "movements". And, now I have written the word, I am not sure they represent movements as I understand the term. Approaches seems a better word to me.


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## Guest (Feb 18, 2019)

I don't think any of them can really be considered 'best' and quite a few composers don't exactly fit neatly in any of them or might dabble in or cross over from one to another frequently.

A lot of composers I especially enjoy I wouldn't know how to categorise. Where does Simon Steen-Andersen go? Beat Furrer? Liza Lim? Rebecca Saunders? Misato Mochizuki? Olga Neuwirth? Natasha Barrett? Well, I guess Barrett could be more easily described as a composer who works mainly in electroacoustic music, but that just describes a medium of composition and no two composers of that kind of music will be creating stuff that sounds at all alike.


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## Bwv 1080 (Dec 31, 2018)

What about spectralism? Dont know about ‘best’ but Murail, Grisey et all wrote some good music


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## Botschaft (Aug 4, 2017)

I prefer the bowel movement.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

High modernism, electronic music (which wiki mentions but OP omitted), and spectralism are my favorites, and new complexity is fun, but some minimalist works knock me out - especially in live performance. 

I'd never use the word "eclecticism," but I'm extremely interested in something you might call "classical world fusion" - composers who take influences from nonwestern cultures or from western folk cultures and integrate them into classical music.


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## Guest (Feb 18, 2019)

Improbus said:


> I prefer the bowel movement.


lmao I guess?


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

Why does there always has to be just one?


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Seems like the old ‘give a fancy name to something to imply substance’.


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## Merl (Jul 28, 2016)

Improbus said:


> I prefer the bowel movement.


Well done Improbus for beating me to 'Most puerile post of the Thread'. Lol


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## ZJovicic (Feb 26, 2017)

science said:


> High modernism, electronic music (which wiki mentions but OP omitted), and spectralism are my favorites, and new complexity is fun, but some minimalist works knock me out - especially in live performance.
> 
> I'd never use the word "eclecticism," but I'm extremely interested in something you might call "classical world fusion" - composers who take influences from nonwestern cultures or from western folk cultures and integrate them into classical music.


True, but I omitted it because I think electronic music is more about the devices you use rather than a movement. I guess you can use electronic devices in many different movements, but perhaps I'm mistaken.


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