# Your first modern piece



## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

The word modern is still used to describe music from, say, Stravinsky-Prokofiev-Bartok-Schoenberg onward (up to, I don't know, Britten and Lutoslawski?). Some of us started our enjoyment of classical music with it but many started with earlier music. And some of us have never got on with this modern music at all. I just wonder what was the first modern piece you enjoyed and when it happened in your musical journey?

For me it was Prokofiev's Love of Three Oranges suite. I remember it well. I was maybe 12 or 13 years old and already knew and loved a lot of Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms (along with some slightly lesser giants). I was lying in bed with a fairly high fever - I had a bad cold or something like that - and Prokofiev's music seemed to merge with the slightly hallucinatory experience to create an experience that I will never forget. I still hear that piece in the same way: not at all Prokofiev's intention (judging by the opera it comes from) I think but magical for all that.


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

My classical journey of discovery started about a year ago with A Color Symphony by Arthur Bliss (an excellent work) and then I jumped straight to modern. I started with Prokofiev symphonies, specifically his symphony 2, which I consider his best symphony to this day. I had no difficulty getting into most of modern music, being it Bartok, Varese, Lutoslawski or Ligeti. I struggled a little with Schoenberg, but not anymore. I had to struggle to get into romatic (that was not too difficult) and especially classical. You could say that I am still struggling with Mozart


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Stravinsky - Sacre du printemps

Relatively early in my listening to classical music (about 2 years in or so, having started off with the classical and romantic periods). It was a tough nut to crack at first, but after a few listens I started to love it.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

Art Rock said:


> Stravinsky - Sacre du printemps
> 
> Relatively early in my listening to classical music (about 2 years in or so, having started off with the classical and romantic periods). It was a tough nut to crack at first, but after a few listens I started to love it.


Exactly the same with me.


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

I guess by the definition suggested by the OP it must have been Prokofiev's _Lieutenant Kijé_. I was unaware at the time that whether something was "modern" or not was supposed to be significant, so I didn't process it as "modern" per se. There was a time subsequently when I would have made that categorisation. But these days I just can't take seriously the idea that something composed 75-100 years ago should be called "modern".


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## Torkelburger (Jan 14, 2014)

I was 10 years old and attending a private school where we would travel to compete in these Literary Meets once per year. You would spend several months studying for them. I competed in the Music Memory competition where you had to write down the name of the piece and the composer to about 50 classical pieces when played over the sound system. The first time I studied for it, I got the list and the tape and when it got to modern pieces the first one up was Stravinsky's Rite of Spring which I had never heard before. The excerpt was the Sacrificial Dance and when it played I thought it was the most incredible thing I had ever heard. It was music I had always known I wanted to hear and experience.


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## Marinera (May 13, 2016)

Stravinsky's Oedipus Rex. 

I heard the live performance when I was 15 or so and it left quite an impression. Any recorded version of Oedipus Rex still fights the uphill battle trying to unsuccessfully shift it off the pedestal. Magic of the live performance for the young impressionable mind perhaps.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

I sort of started out with modern. After being introduced at home to the recordings of Tchaikovsky and The Five, and Debussy and Ravel, it was a short jump for me to gravitate to the early Stravinsky ballets, the other 20th century Russians, and Bartók. I had several friends paralleling my musical evolution--we would swap LPs: "You gotta hear this!". Perhaps the most palpably "modern" piece I recall from those days as "modern" was Bartók's _Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta_. I thought: "This is weird, but I like it."


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## Gordontrek (Jun 22, 2012)

Couldn't tell you the first one I ever heard because it's been so long...but the first one I really took to was John Adams's Short Ride in a Fast Machine. I played it in a student orchestra (trumpet) at a summer music festival several years ago. Hands down the most difficult piece I've ever played in any ensemble but holy cow it was awesome.


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## CnC Bartok (Jun 5, 2017)

Does Carmina Burana count?

If not, I think it was either The Rite or Shostakovich 5.


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## Vasks (Dec 9, 2013)

Art Rock said:


> Stravinsky - Sacre du printemps
> 
> Relatively early in my listening to classical music (about 2 years in or so, having started off with the classical and romantic periods). It was a tough nut to crack at first, but after a few listens I started to love it.


That was me too when I was around age 17. I bought it thinking it would be like the Firebird Suite. Couldn't connect at all with it, but with a small record collection, I was drawn back to rehear it a number of times and then it finally clicked.


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## D Smith (Sep 13, 2014)

I have to agree with some of the other posters that my idea of modern is different, as my early classical listening featured healthy doses of Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Copland and so on. The pieces that I remember enjoying early on that were definitely 'modern' were Stockhausen's Kontakte and Ligeti's Atmospheres.


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## bz3 (Oct 15, 2015)

Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf. Saw the animated short when I was fairly young (6 or 7 or 8 perhaps) but I remember it distinctly.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

My dad had a bunch of 78s stored away. One of them was Stravinsky's L'Histoire du Soldat. That one hooked me in.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

I'm not sure which would technically be the first modern work I enjoyed. I'm guessing it might be Shostakovich's 5th symphony or maybe Prokofiev's 1st symphony. Both of those works I enjoyed on my first listening. More interesting might be which work did I strongly dislike but later come to enjoy. Again I'm not sure but one of the early ones was Berg's Violin Concerto. The first several times I heard the concerto I felt as though I was often listening to a random series of notes. I seemed incapable of finding anything enjoyable in the work. Once I made the transition, I couldn't hear the work as anything but powerful and beautiful.


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## Gallus (Feb 8, 2018)

Webern's variations for piano, actually a long time before I started listening to classical music seriously. It was just something I found randomly on the web and enjoyed as something simple and directly (to me) emotional.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Prokofiev's slightly bizarre and magical _Cinderella._ I was 7, 8, 9? Excerpts were used to accompany the narration on a golden yellow 45 rpm. It was nothing like Disney (but why didn't Disney use it the way he later used Tchaikovsky's _Sleeping __Beauty?_) I didn't hear the music again till college. It remains a favorite.


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

Another vote for THE RITE.


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## Guest (May 12, 2018)

Ligeti - Requiem, Atmospheres and Lux Aeterna, courtesy of the film 2001: A Space Oddysey in 1968 (aged 8).

First full work/s: Bartok's String Quartets, sometime in the early 80s I'd guess.

Still love them.


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## Marinera (May 13, 2016)

The first modern cd I actually bought was Glass - Satyagraha. Yep, before Ravel, before Debussy, before Stravinsky or Prokofiev, before anyone.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Debussy-La Mer is the first modern piece I listened to in 1984.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

In my case I'm fairly sure it was Bartók's string quartets - I do know that the Takács Quartet set on Decca was my first chamber purchase. I was prompted to get them after catching quite by accident while channel-hopping what turned out to be one of Bartok's violin duos, and I immediately realised I wanted some of that. Some time before that I read an interview with Robert Fripp in _Mojo_ magazine in which he referred to the quartets as being an influence on some of his work with King Crimson, and I thought it would be interesting to hear them one day, despite not being into classical back then.


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## Joe B (Aug 10, 2017)

Like others, the "Rite of Spring" was the first 'modern' piece I ever heard.


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## Guest (May 12, 2018)

elgars ghost said:


> In my case I'm fairly sure it was Bartók's string quartets - I do know that the Takács Quartet set on Decca was my first chamber purchase. I was prompted to get them after catching quite by accident while channel-hopping what turned out to be one of Bartok's violin duos, and I immediately realised I wanted some of that. Some time before that I read an interview with Robert Fripp in _Mojo_ magazine in which he referred to the quartets as being an influence on some of his work with King Crimson, and I thought it would be interesting to hear them one day, despite not being into classical back then.


I think I read that Fripp interview. Wasn't he referring to LTIA ?


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## Biffo (Mar 7, 2016)

I can't recall first hearing something that was 'modern'. In music lessons at school we watched a rather antiquated film about the instruments of the orchestra. The piece played was Britten's Young Person's Guide. We also listened to the 1st movement of Tippett's Concerto for Double String Orchestra; I remember we were told, with its jazzy rhythms, it was a 'typical' piece of modern music. Britten and Tippett were both still alive at the time and the Concerto was less than 30 years old.

No idea what the music teacher's musical tastes were but we stuck to fairly safe stuff.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

dogen said:


> I think I read that Fripp interview. Wasn't he referring to LTIA ?


I can't remember now, but I've kept all my old _Mojo_s so I might try and dig it out. I recall him saying that he envisaged KC as sounding like a cross between Bartók and Hendrix (he may have been referring to _21st Century Schizoid Man_ here) but I can't recall if that was from the _Mojo_ interview or not. If I get around to finding it I'll let you know. The choppy violin and guitar work in _LTiA_ pts 1 and 2 certainly sounds Bartókian to me.


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## Guest (May 12, 2018)

I reckon I made that connection myself at the time. There is a section in SQ 4 (or 3?) that just sounds pure LTIA2.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

dogen said:


> I reckon I made that connection myself at the time. There is a section in SQ 4 (or 3?) that just sounds pure LTIA2.


Yeah, that driving Magyar folk rhythm - I think it's present in both the 3rd and 4th.


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## Olias (Nov 18, 2010)

Holst's Planets. Not sure if that counts as "modern" but it is 20th century.


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## distantprommer (Sep 26, 2011)

Are we considering anything composed in the 20th century and later as "modern"? I do not. When I truly started to listen to music (classical), I was a pre-teen. I never considered Stravinsky, and others "modern" as distinct to all other music from earlier periods. When I was studying piano, I followed the Bartok Microcosmos method. Was it modern? I loved Shostakovich early on, Was this modern? Not for me. 

My revelation to what I consider modern music was a perfomance of the Turangalîla Symphony at a prom in the 60s. Do I consider it still modern? Maybe, maybe not. I do not even consider Schönberg and his school as necessarily modern.

Now, contemporary may inlude active minimalists and composers the likes of Joey Roukens, Nico Muhly and others from the 21st century. Modern. Yes, if you consider their work as modern. I do.


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## Jan Merseyside (May 27, 2013)

My first modern piece was Stravinsky's 'Rite of Spring' which was a vinyl copy my late father had. I've heard it dozens of times since, but it's always fresh and I hear something new every time.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Nereffid said:


> I guess by the definition suggested by the OP it must have been Prokofiev's _Lieutenant Kijé_. I was unaware at the time that whether something was "modern" or not was supposed to be significant, so I didn't process it as "modern" per se. There was a time subsequently when I would have made that categorisation. But these days I just can't take seriously the idea that something composed 75-100 years ago should be called "modern".


I agree. So what term if a term is needed should be used? Post-romantic doesn't work too well because lots of 20th Century works are essentially Romantic. Lots of different terms for different strands (neoromantic, neoclassical etc) could get cumbersome. It does seem that modern and contemporary (for what comes later) might be the best we can manage? Maybe I'm just ignorant and there is already a term in use that I just haven't picked up on.

But your first modern (or whatever) piece example does show up another weakness in the term. I probably did know Lieutenant Kijé (and Peter and the Wolf) long before the experience I wrote about.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Torkelburger said:


> The excerpt was the Sacrificial Dance and when it played I thought it was the most incredible thing I had ever heard. It was music I had always known I wanted to hear and experience.


Yes! That exactly describes what I felt with my first "modern" (or whatever) encounter. In my case I was maybe helped by already being in an "altered state of consciousness" (I had a fever).


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

Borrowing from my local library, I remember becoming fascinated by cassette recordings of Bartok´s Piano Concertos with Kovacevich, Prokofiev´s ditto with Ashkenazy, and Shostakovich´s 8th Symphony/Haitink, plus Bartok´s Concerto for Orchestra and Janacek´s Sinfonietta/Taras Bulba with Ancerl.

It took quite a while before getting more interested in say post-1960 music. Keuris´ piano concerto and Shostakovich´s 15th Symphony/Haitink were some early, quite easily accessible examples.


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## Room2201974 (Jan 23, 2018)

In my teens I was listening to a British rock and jazz band called Blodwyn Pig. A music critic had noted a similarity between their song _See Me Way_ and Ravel's _Bolero_. So I thought, what does the _Bolero_ sound like? But that's really not the piece that hooked me on "modern" classical. It was another Ravel piece! I became fascinated with the way that a guitar, bass, and cymbals sounded like the crashing of the waves on the shore in CSN's _Wooden Ships_. A friend suggested that if I thought that was pretty good I should listen to Ravel's _Jeux d'eux_. And that piece became my gateway drug.


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

Enthusiast said:


> I agree. So what term if a term is needed should be used? Post-romantic doesn't work too well because lots of 20th Century works are essentially Romantic. Lots of different terms for different strands (neoromantic, neoclassical etc) could get cumbersome. It does seem that modern and contemporary (for what comes later) might be the best we can manage? Maybe I'm just ignorant and there is already a term in use that I just haven't picked up on.


It's a dilemma. There's nothing that quite works, but "modern" to me is too useless an option because of its double meaning as both "contemporary with now" and "100 years old". I'm happy enough with "post-Romantic" as an imperfect catch-all for (roughly speaking) the first half of the 20th century. One-word labels are convenient but aren't always appropriate, and the same can be said for the distinctions between "periods". As I said, the idea that there was or should be a clear separation between (say) Mussorgsky and Prokofiev wasn't obvious to me until I was told, and for me the story of music tends to be about gradual change rather than about discrete periods (though of course there are some definite breaks in the narrative flow).


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## QuietGuy (Mar 1, 2014)

There were two vinyl LPs my mother had. One was Ravel's ballets (Bolero, La Valse, & Ma Mere l'Oye); the other was Copland's ballets (Rodeo, Billy the Kid, Appalachian Spring). I was 12 or 13. I liked them all, but was especially dazzled by the orchestration of La Valse. I was just beginning to study harmony, composition & orchestration, and on some level I set for myself the goal of learning to orchestrate as well as Ravel did. (OK, yes I know that was as naive then as it sounds now. Oh to be young and foolish again!) I never did learn how to orchestrate as well as Ravel, but my point is that it inspired me to keep studying and learning and trying.


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## kingtopher (Aug 5, 2013)

I got into classical music through a pretty strange portal I guess. I was a teenager in the 90’s and loved a lot of electronic music like Autechre, Aphex Twin and such. In 2006, as I was mostly losing interest in that type of music an album came out called Warp Works & Twentieth Century Masters which featured songs by Aphex Twin and Squarepusher juxtaposed with works by Nancarrow, Ligeti, Reich, Cage and some others I can’t think of off the top of my head, all performed by the London Sinfonietta. Ligeti especially hooked me and I quickly acquired all the Ligeti Edition/Project discs. I then moved on to Reich, Adams and Messiaen. Only after listening to a lot of 20th century music did I move backwards into the rest of the repertoire.


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese (Jan 8, 2013)

Ionisation .


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

If Takemitsu's _From Me Flows What You Call Time_ and Crumb's _Black Angels_ count as modern, those were my first two.

If they are something like "post-modern" or whatever instead, then something by Schoenberg was. Perhaps one of his string quartets or a work for solo piano. Whatever it was, I thought it was absolutely bonkers. Which is funny, because now nothing by Schoenberg sounds at all strange to me that way. I doubt anything that could be played with traditionally-tuned western instruments could sound as strange to me as that first Schoenberg did. Which is too bad because I loved that experience.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

This was the earliest modern piece was Bartok I remember. From piano lessons


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## fliege (Nov 7, 2017)

Definitely gravitated to 17th and 18th century at first first. The first modern music I heard that agreed with me was probably minimalist piano music by Glass or Adams, but I've not listening much to that. The first piece of modern music that I _really_ liked was Glass' 2nd violin concerto, which I was also lucky enough to hear live last year. Since then I've also got into Shostakovich a little bit: 4th symphony, 1st violin, cello, and piano concertos.


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