# deeply polyphonic contemporary music?



## Chordalrock (Jan 21, 2014)

In particular anything reminiscent of Ockeghem and such? Doesn't have to be choral music - I'm just curious if the early Renaissance aesthetic appears in contemporary music but with modern harmonic language.

Basically, free polyphony (not canon or fugue centered), texture based on the equality of the voices, not melodramatic.


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

This is NOT an answer to your question, because it's an example of deeply MONOPHONIC contemporary music. 

There's a plainsong Dum Transisset which influenced Christopher Tye to write some viol consort music. And this in turn inspired Ferneyhough to write some absolutely astonishing string quartet music (called Dum Transisset) - strongly recommended. I'm really posting this because I'm hoping that someone who knows about music will explain the link to me - I can't hear anything really in common between the Tye and the Ferneyhough (except that there are four of them.)

An even more unsatisfactory answer is that Ferneyhough wrote some In Nomines - inspired by Taverner.


----------



## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Mandryka said:


> This is NOT an answer to your question, because it's an example of deeply MONOPHONIC contemporary music.
> 
> There's a plainsong Dum Transisset which influenced Christopher Tye to write some viol consort music. And this in turn inspired Ferneyhough to write some absolutely astonishing string quartet music (called Dum Transisset) - strongly recommended. I'm really posting this because I'm hoping that someone who knows about music will explain the link to me - I can't hear anything really in common between the Tye and the Ferneyhough (except that there are four of them.)
> 
> An even more unsatisfactory answer is that Ferneyhough wrote some In Nomines - inspired by Taverner.


I haven't heard it, but recommend looking for some sort of Missa Parodia element. It would no longer be obvious, like a highly diminished rhythmic value to the line only present in the bass, it could be hocketed, partial, tangentially used in one way or another. Missa parodia, too, can be done using the original as a basis, _and from the start, not having it appear, at all_ 

Good luck.


----------



## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Ockeghem and Ligeti
http://www.academia.edu/1844043/OCKEGHEM_AND_LIGETI_THE_MUSIC_OF_TRANSCENDENCE


----------



## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

Yes, Ligeti's micropolyphony.





 (in french)

Atmospheres, Requiem, Lux aeterna, Lontano.


----------



## Chordalrock (Jan 21, 2014)

I listened to Lux aeterna and it doesn't really have independent voices, at least any that the listener can hear as independent. Is there really nothing that would compare to an early Renaissance mass but with post-tonal idiom? Again, it could be a string quartet or something. I listened to a Frank Martin mass and it's closer to what I'm looking for, but perhaps too melodramatic and not thoroughly polyphonic / voices equal enough.


----------



## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

How about this, then?


----------



## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Chordalrock said:


> I listened to Lux aeterna and it doesn't really have independent voices, at least any that the listener can hear as independent. Is there really nothing that would compare to an early Renaissance mass but with post-tonal idiom? Again, it could be a string quartet or something. I listened to a Frank Martin mass and it's closer to what I'm looking for, but perhaps too melodramatic and not thoroughly polyphonic / voices equal enough.


There is a quodlibet -- I think at the climax -- in Honneger's _Une Cantate de Noël_





Stravinsky ~ _Anthem, the Dove Descending Breaks the Air_, nothing but multiple strands of a capella polyphony. 





A bit off the path, but I would be disappointed if you were not both impressed and moved by it, the final chorus of Ravel's _L'enfant et les sortileges_ "_Il est bon enfant_," is a stunner (and shows Maurice learned his modal counterpoint more than well from teacher Gabriel Faure.) When the figure of oboes in pairs and the fuller orchestra enters in under and with the chorus, that is yet another contrapuntal element, the theme and introduction of the very beginning of the piece. (Begins @ 03'17'')
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozIf-d8WarY#t=03m17s

In looking for just one sort of aspect, you're missing out on some hot stuff:
David Lang: 
_I Lie_, for a cappela female chorus




_Child,_ for chamber ensemble (here, the 1st of its 5 movements)


----------



## Chordalrock (Jan 21, 2014)

I like the Threni, based on the first movement. Not quite what I was looking for as a whole but something I'd like to have a modern recording of. Pity that the Robert Craft recording is out of print and only available as a single over-priced used copy.

So far I've also listened to the Honegger but not with full attention.

The contemporary aesthetic seems to be opposed to the early Renaissance aesthetic so I'm not surprised there's not a ton of fitting recommendations so far, but thanks anyway. I'll be listening to these others soon.


----------



## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Chordalrock said:


> The contemporary aesthetic seems to be opposed to the early Renaissance aesthetic so I'm not surprised there's not a ton of fitting recommendations so far, but thanks anyway. I'll be listening to these others soon.


Well, of course! Isn't that why it's a different era?


----------



## Chordalrock (Jan 21, 2014)

violadude said:


> Well, of course! Isn't that why it's a different era?


There's neo-classicism, there's even neo-Romanticism - I find both of these aesthetics in post-tonal music, but I don't find neo-Netherlandish School.


----------



## SuperTonic (Jun 3, 2010)

Coincidentally, I just posted a link to this work over in the Alphabetical Composers thread, but its appropriate here too. 
Ernst Krenek's Lamentatio Jeremiæ Prophetæ.
This source actually mentions that Krenek used Ockeghem's music as a model for some aspects of this piece.


----------



## Ian Moore (Jun 28, 2014)

Early Boulez is full of polyphony and micro-polyphony.


----------



## Chordalrock (Jan 21, 2014)

SuperTonic said:


> Coincidentally, I just posted a link to this work over in the Alphabetical Composers thread, but its appropriate here too.
> Ernst Krenek's Lamentatio Jeremiæ Prophetæ.
> This source actually mentions that Krenek used Ockeghem's music as a model for some aspects of this piece.


Heh, I just bumped into this in the library earlier today - the description seemed like exactly what I was looking for and I was wondering why nobody mentioned it here. Haven't listened to it yet though.


----------



## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

I guess that Arvo Part (like other holy minimalists) was influenced by Ockheghem and other composers like Perotin who composed music with a sort of protominimalist feeling. but harmonically his music isn't particularly daring to my ear.


----------



## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Arvo Pärt.

Oh crap!! Didn't see the post just above mine!!! :lol:


----------



## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Chordalrock said:


> I like the Threni, based on the first movement. Not quite what I was looking for as a whole but something I'd like to have a modern recording of. Pity that the Robert Craft recording is out of print and only available as a single over-priced used copy.


There really isn't a great recording of the piece out there. Stravinsky's own is quite shaky, and Craft's 90s(?) version for Koch is only so-so, lacking the fire that the composer's has.


----------



## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

The first movement of Schnittke's Third Symphony is polyphony so densely woven that it is hard to sort into lines - or at least it is hard for me to tell when I am projecting imaginary lines into it rather than hearing what is actually there. Toward the end, however, he disentangles the weave enough that one can more readily grasp the patterns. In fact, there is lots of Schittke like this.

Arvo Pärt's _Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten_ is densely canonic with simple diatonic materials.


----------



## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Chordalrock said:


> I like the Threni, based on the first movement. Not quite what I was looking for as a whole but something I'd like to have a modern recording of. Pity that the Robert Craft recording is out of print and only available as a single over-priced used copy.


It's available in this box set as well:


----------



## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

violadude said:


> It's available in this box set as well:
> View attachment 52663


I thought he was specifically looking for a modern recording, though. Stravinsky's is from the 50s.

There's a performance here from a complete survey of Stravinsky's sacred choral works at Trinity Church Wall Street. Not the same in acoustics or performance as a modern professional recording might be, but the singers seem more comfortable with the idiom than those on the Columbia recording.


----------



## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Mahlerian said:


> I thought he was specifically looking for a modern recording, though. Stravinsky's is from the 50s.
> 
> There's a performance here from a complete survey of Stravinsky's sacred choral works at Trinity Church Wall Street. Not the same in acoustics or performance as a modern professional recording might be, but the singers seem more comfortable with the idiom than those on the Columbia recording.


Someone should get on this immediately.

Conducters, stop recording Rite of Spring for a while, there's enough of those, and start recording Threni!


----------



## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

There is sort of the modally influenced music of Bohuslav Martinu to consider. Some of it does have a neo renaissance feel to my ears.


----------



## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Chordalrock said:


> In particular anything reminiscent of Ockeghem and such? Doesn't have to be choral music - I'm just curious if the early Renaissance aesthetic appears in contemporary music but with modern harmonic language.
> 
> Basically, free polyphony (not canon or fugue centered), texture based on the equality of the voices, not melodramatic.


I would add that pieces with a singer are not going to meet this requirement, as this was the start of homophonic texture, and the bass became more important in defining chord movement.

In the renaissance, pieces could either be sung or played by instruments, as long as the individual voices were intact.

How about Schoenberg's Chamber Symphony No. 1, arr. for 4 hands?


----------



## Gesualdo55 (Dec 19, 2016)

Try:

__
https://soundcloud.com/carson_kievman%2Fsine-nomine-auctore-ignoto


----------



## Kjetil Heggelund (Jan 4, 2016)

Try some Lutoslawski. He used a technique called aleatoric counterpoint. I know the 3rd symphony has some of that.


----------



## Gesualdo55 (Dec 19, 2016)

*Sine nomine (auctore ignoto)*

Try: SINE NOMINE (AUCTORE IGNOTO)


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Chordalrock said:


> In particular anything reminiscent of Ockeghem and such? Doesn't have to be choral music - I'm just curious if the early Renaissance aesthetic appears in contemporary music but with modern harmonic language.
> 
> Basically, free polyphony (not canon or fugue centered), texture based on the equality of the voices, not melodramatic.


Shapey: Concertante 1, Evocation II

Carter: Syringa, (maybe also Penthode, I'm not sure)

Birtwistle: Verses for Ensembles (after the prologue, it may be too melodramatic for you.)


----------



## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)




----------



## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Wrong thread. Sorry.


----------



## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

millionrainbows said:


>


Great recording! I found it at my library a few years back.


----------

