# Warming up to Contemporary classical



## fugueforthought (Nov 28, 2013)

Hello all, 
New here, and been trying slowly but surely to make a systematic listen of the more (and some less) standard classical repertoire. I'd like to be familiar with classical music (in all its different eras) as I am with popular music of the past 40-50 years. I'm just as interested in the history and culture of the pieces and the composers and the stories behind it all as I am the music, and have been working on a very amateur-but-enjoyable project the past few months. 
The most recent piece was Messiaen's Turangalîla Symphonie, and I gave it nearly a dozen listens before I started to warm up to it or understand it better. 
I gravitate much more toward the romantic repertoire. Have been listening to lots of Sibelius lately, and Rachmaninoff, Chopin, Brahms, and Tchaikovsky are mainstays in my iPod. I am very fond of Scriabin's solo piano works, but aside from his piano concerto, haven't spent much time on his symphonic works. 
That being said, I'm having a very difficult time opening up to or beginning to enjoy the very modern classical music. Scriabin led me to more 'avant-garde' Russian composers (Stanchinsky, Roslavets, Feinberg, etc.) and I can appreciate them. I've tried to listen to Honegger, Schnittke, Babbitt, Schoenberg, Boulez, etc., and I just can't appreciate it (yet). It's music I want to understand (or appreciate), at least on an intellectual level. 
Needless to say, I know it will take at least a few listens, but I haven't been able to devote that to it yet. I watched a documentary about Babbitt on YouTube and enjoyed hearing him speak. He seems like a very interesting fellow, but I don't get his music yet (granted, I haven't really tried very hard). When Schoenberg comes up, Webern and Berg also come to mind, and although I haven't listened to much of their works, I find Berg's piano sonata quite pleasant. 
My question, I suppose, is this: is there any number of works by the above (or other) composers that would provide a primer or introduction to understanding (maybe even appreciating or liking) the far more modern repertoire? Something not as severely modern that could provide something of a transition, perhaps less 'challenging' to the listener? 
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

fugueforthought said:


> My question, I suppose, is this: is there any number of works by the above (or other) composers that would provide a primer or introduction to understanding (maybe even appreciating or liking) the far more modern repertoire? Something not as severely modern that could provide something of a transition, perhaps less 'challenging' to the listener?


There are any number of "ways in" do to speak. If you find one that works for you, good!

I think it's a good idea to not overload yourself by listening repeatedly to the same thing. Try something, and if it interests/appeals to you, great. If it doesn't, don't dismiss it out of hand, just leave it aside for a little while.

Remember that modernist music is even less monolithic than music of previous eras, as there were many styles developing at the same time, and that not everyone who enjoys it enjoys everything. I love Schoenberg, Boulez, and Webern, but the only piece by Babbitt I really love is All Set for jazz ensemble (although I find Philomel fascinating, I don't love it, per se).

Here are some paths that might work, as there are clearly traceable connections between the composers' styles from Romantic to pre/early modern to modern.

Faure - Debussy _Preludes Book II_ - Messiaen _Vingt Regards_
Wagner - Strauss _Don Juan_ - Schoenberg _Chamber Symphony No. 1_
Rimsky-Korsakov - Stravinsky _The Firebird_ - Stravinsky _Song of the Nightingale_

More generally, you should listen to the genre of music (piano works, songs, choral music, violin concerto) that you are most generally comfortable with, and start your explorations there.

Edit:
Scanning over the linked post, I disagree with this sentence: "It seems to me this piece is to be enjoyed abstractly, not directly." Messiaen's music is meant to be enjoyed very viscerally indeed. I find the Turangalila Symphony as direct and immediately communicative as anything in the repertoire.

Edit 2:
If you're still interested in an analysis of Mahler's Fifth, I went through it in great detail on my blog.


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## GioCar (Oct 30, 2013)

Mahlerian said:


> ...
> I think it's a good idea to not overload yourself by listening repeatedly to the same thing. Try something, and if it interests/appeals to you, great. If it doesn't, don't dismiss it out of hand, just leave it aside for a little while.
> ...


I agree 100%. Take it easy, and let time help you in your discovery of "modern" music.

I would also sugest you pick up and read "The Rest is Noise" by Alex Ross. One of the most enjoyable readings on the 20th century music.
Taken from the book preface:
_"The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century is a voyage into the labyrinth of modern music, which remains an obscure world for most people. While paintings of Picasso and Jackson Pollock sell for a hundred million dollars or more, and lines from T. S. Eliot are quoted on the yearbook pages of alienated teenagers across the land, twentieth-century classical music still sends ripples of unease through audiences. At the same time, its influence can be felt everywhere. Atonal chords crop up in jazz. Avant-garde sounds populate the soundtracks of Hollywood thrillers. Minimalism has had a huge effect on rock, pop, and dance music from the Velvet Underground onward.

The Rest Is Noise shows why twentieth-century composers felt compelled to create a famously bewildering variety of sounds, from the purest beauty to the purest noise. It tells of a remarkable array of maverick personalities who resisted the cult of the classical past, struggled against the indifference of a wide public, and defied the will of dictators. Whether they have charmed audiences with sweet sounds or battered them with dissonance, composers have always been exuberantly of the present, defying the stereotype of classical music as a dying art. The narrative goes from Vienna before the First World War to Paris in the twenties, from Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia to downtown New York in the sixties and seventies. We follow the rise of mass culture and mass politics, of dramatic new technologies, of hot and cold wars, of experiments, revolutions, riots, and friendships forged and broken. The end result is not so much a history of twentieth-century music as a history of the twentieth century through its music."_


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## Vaneyes (May 11, 2010)

fft, sounds like you're on the right path. I echo what Mahlerian said about overloading and repeated listenings.

Early emphasis on Mahler, Janacek, Scriabin, Myaskovsky, Rachmaninov, Bartok, Enescu, Nielsen, Sibelius, Britten, Poulenc, Prokofiev, Shostakovich. :tiphat:


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

Vaneyes said:


> Early emphasis on Mahler, Janacek, Scriabin, Myaskovsky, Rachmaninov, Bartok, Enescu, Nielsen, Sibelius, Britten, Poulenc, Prokofiev, Shostakovich. :tiphat:


I appreciate your mentions of Enescu in "Current Listening," Vaneyes--he'd slipped under my radar. What a find!

*p.s.* And welcome to the forum, fugueforthought--and happy exploring!


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## moody (Nov 5, 2011)

Blancrocher said:


> I appreciate your mentions of Enescu in "Current Listening," Vaneyes--he'd slipped under my radar. What a find!
> 
> *p.s.* And welcome to the forum, fugueforthought--and happy exploring!


Enescu--a very old fashioned contemporary composer. He was also a violin teacher and numbered Menuhin, Ferras, Gitlis, Grumiuaux and Ida Haendel among his pupils.


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## fugueforthought (Nov 28, 2013)

Thanks, guys, for all your advice. 
Interestingly, some music that would be (or is) considered more modern, I do quite enjoy. I love the works of Stravinsky that I am familiar with (Firebird, Rite, Petrushka, and some others). I suppose familiarity also breeds... familiarity. 
I realize that the composers I listed in the original post are not ALL 'modern' in the same style. Finnissy and Ferneyhough to me, at this point, are incomprehensible, while some other living composers are far more 'classical': Rautavaara and Glass come to mind. I don't mind Bartok's works, but I don't enjoy his piano concertos nearly as much as some others. I suppose the trouble for me comes when both rhythm and harmony are 'modern.' I haven't any problem with dissonance or modern tonalities; I find them beautiful in Scrabin's music (below) and Stravinsky's works, but add to that the rhythms of something like Boulez' second piano sonata, and I have nothing to grab onto. 
As far as Scriabin goes, that was probably my first concerted effort to like something and see what all the hype was about. My piano teacher (a student at a local university) has stuck more rigidly to the Romantic and Impressionist eras (Lots of Chopin, Ravel, Rachmaninoff, some Beethoven, Debussy,) but was going to start preparing the Berg sonata, which I started trying to listen to. She didn't quite understand my fascination with Scriabin's work once I really started to dig in, but I love it. That wasn't too difficult, and his later sonatas are especially unique. 
Thanks for the 'way in' suggestions. I'll try to make my way through them. Sibelius' violin concerto was a jumping off point (as for concertos, I've really only spent lots of time with piano), so I listened through Mendelssohn, Bruch, Brahms, Beethoven, and Tchaikovsky as well, and Schoenberg came up. He's obviously the most modern of that bunch, but it seemed so foreign. 
Anyway, thanks for the advice!


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## fugueforthought (Nov 28, 2013)

Also, as to the post I linked to:
everything I write there is as much an opinion (aside from whatever perusing I did on Wikipedia about the history of the piece) as anything you'll read on any other blog. It began as a convenient place for me to take notes about what I listened to, somewhere I could refer back to, and it's all within the context of someone with a very amateur high-school band-geek musical background nearly a decade ago who has finally taken up piano lessons and started devouring everything I can about the classical repertoire in the past year. 
I'm not a professional, state nothing as fact, but from an amateur's perspective, listening as a hobby and challenging myself to understand new music, read the scores (if I can get them) and appreciate them as much as possible, that's what's there. Less and less of the general population appreciates classical music, and I don't expect to be any kind of ambassador, but some friends have found the suggestions interesting, if nothing else. That is all. Thanks again!


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## hreichgott (Dec 31, 2012)

Hi there fugueforthought!
If you like Romantic music but don't get Schoenberg, start with early Schoenberg, like Transfigured Night. Those are a lot more Romantic in nature. Then try moving into his later stuff.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Typically, some lists will give the biggest and what are considered the "most important" works, others may be better thought as to an introduction and what is more readily accessible.

To that, Re: Messiaen: 
Piano music, any of the readily available of the twenty pieces from his cycle _Vingt regards sur l'enfant Jésus_.





_Trois Petites Liturgies Pour la Presence Divine_, three movements, orchestra, and unison female chorus. It has all the composer's hallmarks, is intensely lyrical, and is far briefer than Turangalila.













Honegger:
Pastorale d'ete





Une Cantate de Noël 





Concertino for piano and chamber orchestra





are all pretty directly likeable music which still well represent this composer's style and sound.

As recommended by hReichgott, and I strongly second it, start with the late romantic Schoenberg. Here is a fine performance of _Verklärte Nacht_ in its original string sextet version -- I'd be surprised if this does not satisfy your hunger for romantic sound, while it is a kind of "high chromatic" typical of the later end of Romanticism.
_Verklärte Nacht_:









Then try his not yet serial but pithy and turgid _Kammersinfonie, Op. 9_
If the composer wrote chamber music, I find that is always another way of good introduction, by nature "distilled" while their basic harmonic language is present.

If you don't know the late romantic / modern Carl Nielsen, I think his _Helios Overture_ would ring your bell, while his _Fifth Symphony_ is more directly modern, and widely loved and admired.





You can hear direct influences of Richard Strauss, echoes of Wagner, in earlier works of Bartok, especially his Ballet score, _The Wooden Prince_, while there is still plenty to recognize as "Bartok" in that piece.

You can also start with more current music, since stylistically, the century is all over the place, nicely so. John Adams' _Chamber Symphony_ (no. 1) is an interesting combination of influences, including his using the _Schoenberg Kammersinfonie_ as a named influence.

If some larger work on your list doesn't grab you, though you are good to think to give it repeat listenings, it can sometimes work well to not be so methodical, or put something on, check the sound of it, bookmark it or put it in a playlist, and listen to it again later, rather than one time after the next. Too, letting some of those pieces run in a playlist while actually doing something else allows for you to get used to the sound, the lay of the land -- so to speak -- without needing to concentrate on it. After all thought invested, music should to some degree just 'happen to you,' i.e. you allow it to be itself, just listen, and stop thinking about it 

Find a composer who interests you, or one you find a hard nut to crack, you are at the right site to ask for something 'easier' or more accessible from the same composer, or other pieces you might like to check.

Youtube is fantastic for being on one link and adventurously clicking on another piece by the same composers in the grab-bag selections to the right on the page. I would not force yourself to listen through completely, or worry about what you think of it, not all the time. Some varied and somewhat chance picks, a taste, are part of what works -- you are surveying this sort of fare, after all, initiating yourself. Methodical is good, but mixing it up, nosing about, and putting that in a time frame later also has a value, and mixing the two approaches I think will bring you to a quicker understanding, and more quickly help you find your way to what you care for most at this moment.


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## fugueforthought (Nov 28, 2013)

PetrB said:


> Typically, some lists will give the biggest and what are considered the "most important" works, others may be better thought as to an introduction and what is more readily accessible.


Fantastic suggestions! Thank you. For the most part, I end up listening to these 'more difficult' pieces at work and only half-focusing on the music. I've gone through Boulez' second piano sonata about half a dozen times when I don't feel like listening to anything in particular. 
I do quite enjoy Nielsen's work; I remember enjoying most of his symphonies, and have a coworker who has performed and loves his clarinet concerto. I can listen to Bartok, but it isn't as pleasant to me as, for example, Prokofiev's piano concerti, which were only a few decades earlier and yet still 'modern' relative to 19th century works. 
I will add these to my "watch later list," and enjoy them through the coming week. I especially like how you expressed how music "happens to you." I will use that. So far, the most frighteningly incomprehensible, unlistenable orchestral piece (maybe aside from Xenakis....) was Schnittke's first piano concerto, with the noise and applause and direct "quotes" of Tchaikovsky's PC in there. I just can't appreciate it. 
In any case, I am interested to 'learn' about this just to have it all in perspective. Thanks very much for your excellent recommendations and explanation!


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