# Exploring Modern and Contemporary Music



## StlukesguildOhio

Building off Enjoying Life's request:

As someone who has tried very hard to listen to and enjoy 20th Cent music, I have a request. Could a few of you who enjoy and understand it please pick a piece you like and explain or describe it for me. Maybe pick a piece on YouTube so I can listen to it and we can refer to the same recording. Tell me what you like or see in the music or how it effects you. Highlight parts that are special or important (refering to the time on the YouTube performance so I can find it).

That might help me better understand the music and those who like it. If i knew why you liked a certain piece that might help me to like it also.

I have long thought this was a good idea. Rather than just talking about Modern and Contemporary music in an abstract sense, why not have a little dialog about specific works and why you particularly like them:

I'll start with Giacinto Scelsi's piece, _Pfhat_:






Scelsi is an interesting figure whose music shares elements with Minimalism and Spectralism is spite of the fact that he worked largely outside of any movement. As a lover of early medieval chant, Indian, Asian, and Middle-Eastern music I find Scelsi's modal droning to be quite hypnotic and suggestive of something primitive... like Tibetan horns or gongs. The imagery of the video perfectly conveys this sense to me.

I especially like the way the voices in the middle section ebb and surge... almost like the tides... again suggestion something primordial.

In contrast to these elements of the music the chorus suggests something unearthly... almost supernatural. Indeed I can't help but think of Kubrick's _2001: A Space Odyssey_ in which the music of Ligeti conveys a similar feeling.

In spite of Scelsi's complete rejection of atonalism... and return to harmony... yet a harmony stripped down to the most minimal the music as a whole impresses me with the variety of musical colors, moods, and atmospheres created through an unexpected use and array of instruments.


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## emiellucifuge

Would be glad to contribute once I get a decent connection here in Andalucia.


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## HarpsichordConcerto

A friend of mine sent me a link to this piece (and she knows of my aversion to weird nonsense type of music), suggesting that the composer here is "not that bizzare". (Thank you, if you are reading this).

*Wolfgang Rihm* (born 1952), (accoring to Wikipedia, is Head of the Institute of Modern Music at the Karlsruhe Conservatory of Music, and honoured in 2001 by the French Order of Arts & Letters), seems to know what he is doing.

I'm not very over the moon with this piece but as it goes on, it has this disturbing sense of vigour and it sounds listenable to me. Thriller-ish sounds, and it sounds structured to me. Bartok-ish? Suprisingly, I did get some enjoyment out of it, but will I rush out to buy a CD of it, probably not in the immediate future.

String Quartet #5, 1st movement.


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## jurianbai

good, because the name Rihm is the one that always pop up in my search engine for contemporary string quartet. apart from the disturbing opening (literally) the rest is ,well,... approachable.

for the first video, it's actually a good geographic music. however the pieces will most probably out of my catchy eyes for the reason its has the not so soundable title.... Pfhat

edit:for this two videos, it will be nice if Could a few of you who enjoy and understand it please pick a piece you like and explain or describe it for me.


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## Weston

StlukesguildOhio said:


> I'll start with Giacinto Scelsi's piece, _Pfhat_:


Yes, this is quite similar to how Ligeti makes me feel. I found it interesting that one of the video comments proclaims Scelsi a "microtonal master." I am very interested in mircrotonal music, but it would be hard to say if this qualifies exactly. I enjoy it, whatever it is. For me it implies floating, as in suspension, as in suspense, but also eternity because it doesn't seem to end exactly. Rather it just stops. I would enjoy painting or drawing to this.

Sigh . . . Another composer to add to to my ever more unwieldy want list. Thanks for offering to finally explain what to listen for in contemporary music to those of us who are not fluent in that musical language.


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## Enjoying Life

Thanks for the new thread and the posts. I am working through the videos you list and your comments.


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## Nix

Good idea for a thread. The trouble with contemporary music is that there is so much mediocrity out there, it takes awhile before you can figure out who the modern day Brahms and Wagners are, so to speak. I've only skimmed the surface of contemporary music so I won't offer specific suggestions just yet, but my suggestion is this: listen to more accessible music first and work your way forward at your own pace. A lot of the most avant garde and complicated music was written because the composer was bored with what came before... so move forward and when you get bored or have had enough of the era, move forward. And I think you'll find that once you take the time to understand a modern piece of music, understanding pieces from the classical and romantic era becomes very easy. 

As for as easy listening composers of today, try some John Adams.


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## MJTTOMB

*Scriabin, Vers la Flamme*

One of my favorite pieces of all time. It has such a tremendous build to it, and the structural integrity is as solid as a rock. It begins with a sigh and ends with a moan. After the dark rumblings of the opening, something begins to stir in the music and polyrhythms collide and clash and the music grows more and more dissonant, and the excitement builds and builds, and then finally the music breaks forth into this wondrous splash of shimmering light and movement and motion, and from there it's just soaring ecstasy. Absolutely beautiful music. Difficult to listen to the first time (I hated it the first time I heard it), but the more you listen, the more beautiful and exciting it becomes.

It's strange. One would think you'd gain some clarity through many listens, but it's just the opposite: the music gets even more mysterious each time.

Edit: Scriabin's a good "Gateway" composer to modern music, especially considering that he really bridged the gap between romanticism and modernism.


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## TresPicos

_ …lend your ears to music, open your eyes to paining, and… stop thinking! Just ask yourself whether the work has enabled you to "walk about" into a hitherto unknown world. If the answer is yes, what more do you want?

- Wassily Kandinsky, in On the Spiritual in Art, 1910
_

This piece definitely takes me into another world:

*Rudolf Escher - Toccata (from Arcana) (1944)*





Traditional harmonies feel so confined in comparison. This is like suddenly being able to fly and just soar freely in the sky. I especially like the switching between and mixing of almost random notes and almost normal harmonies.

*Bela Bartók - String Quartet No. 4 - Mvmt 5 (1928)*





This one I love because of its ferocious ugliness. It just cuts out the pain from your soul and leaves you soothed and very much alive. Rage Against the Machine works too, of course.

*Wojciech Kilar - Orawa (1988)*





A beautiful adrenalin kick! 

*Dutilleux- Sonate pour piano (1949)*





Like the Escher piece, this one is freshly unpredictable, with liberating harmonies, but still catchy in a way. After I heard this the first time, I somehow felt that I was in perfect balance, like every note had been played the same number of times in total, as if that could create a whole new level of harmony within.


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## Argus

> …lend your ears to music, open your eyes to paining, and… stop thinking! Just ask yourself whether the work has enabled you to "walk about" into a hitherto unknown world. If the answer is yes, what more do you want?
> 
> - Wassily Kandinsky, in On the Spiritual in Art, 1910


Pretty much.

*Music should speak for itself.*

Some piano music.






















Nix said:


> The trouble with contemporary music is that there is so much mediocrity out there, it takes awhile before you can figure out who the modern day Brahms and Wagners are, so to speak


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## StlukesguildOhio

Music should speak for itself.

In this case it certainly does:

Gorecki Symphony No. 3 "Sorrowful Songs" - Lento e Largo:


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## StlukesguildOhio

One recent work that blew me away was Osvaldo Golijov's _La Pasión según San Marcos_ which combined elements of the traditional Passion as realized by J.S. Bach with elements of native Latin American folk and classical music and the Latin American interpretation of the Passion as a Passion Play/carnival-like event:






The most marvelous moment of the entire work is surely the elegiac _Lúa descolorida_ (Colorless Moon) that comes right before the climax of Christ's crucifixion. The piece suggests elements of Hispanic/Mozarabic chant. This version, in a different orchestration, comes from Dawn Upshaw's _Voices of Light_ disc:






Again, I don't seriously imagine that this work... nor much of Golijov's oeuvre demands explanation. I find it highly accessible in spite of his use of a broad array of influences: Latin American, Western Classical, Klezmer, Spanish/Mozarabic, Middle-Eastern, Hebrew, etc...

While I quite love _La Pasión según San Marcos_ I think that Golijov's strongest work to date must be his short opera, _Ainadamar_, which deals with the Spanish Civil War and the execution/murder of the poet, Federico Garcia-Lorca:


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## HarpsichordConcerto

Interesting picks here in this thread so far. I must say I found them quite listenable, mostly avoiding the extreme bizzare types. Good.


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## emiellucifuge

So, my choice for now is Bernard Alois Zimmermann's _*Photoptosis*_

The main thing to look for is the texture. He gained the inspiration for this piece after viewing the painting shown in the youtube video. It is basically a gold canvas but subtle textural changes that occur throughout create illusionary colours and an emotional landscape. This music too is composed to provide subtle shifts in musical texture and everything is carried through this. Also look out for quotes from other music. You can very clearly hear Scriabin's Poeme d'Extase and also less cleary Tchaikovsky's little waltz from the nutcracker on the celesta.










Music does speak for itself but not everyone understands the language.


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## schrodingasdawg

I actually registered to respond to this topic. (New member and all. Hi everyone!)

Before actually picking and explaining my choice, I want to say something about acquired tastes. A lot of the trouble people have with modernist, postmodernist and contemporary classical music is that it does not meet the expectations they have of music. This doesn't necessarily make it more 'advanced' (though a few composers do write music that is formally quite complicated, not all of them do) or anything of the sort, and it doesn't make those who get and love these types of music any smarter than those who don't. However, in order to love these sorts of music, the listener has to be aware of the ways in which they subvert their expectations and the listener has to anticipate and desire these violations.

(This doesn't just apply to enjoying contemporary classical, to be sure. Someone who's only ever listened to pop music with a verse-chorus-verse-chorus-solo-chorus-chorus form will have a difficult time listening to the sonata allegro movements in Mozart and Haydn until they understand the 'development' sections are supposed to break apart phrases into motifs and play around with them in odd ways.)

One expectation a listener might have is that the small-scale structure of a piece will consist of small contrasts between tension and release in a fairly predictable way, using melodic contour and well-established harmonic progressions. A lot of contemporary music doesn't use such familiar contours and progressions and creates tensions in other ways, such as through texture. If someone listens to music expecting tension to be created in a certain way and it never is, they'll be bored by the piece.

Another common expectation is that of an underlying, steady beat. A lot of common practice period music has large sections written in a single time signature, with all the parts constantly in rhythm with each other. A lot of contemporary music, in contrast, uses polyrythyms, constantly changing rhythms, both, or lacks a steady beat entirely. Expecting the music to be carried forward in a particular way and not hearing it, again, will make the listener bored.

There is one aspect of a lot of modern music that's more difficult than just expectations, however, and that's the matter of dissonance. Dissonance is, as far as I can tell, inherently unpleasant to new listeners. However, I can tell you from experience - and my experience has been corroborated by others', too - is that it's quite possible to become accustomed to dissonance and to no longer find it unpleasant. It's quite like the experience of acquiring a taste for alcohol or for spicy food, actually. And one respect in which it's like subverting other expectations is that you should want to desire to hear the particular sonorities if you're to enjoy the music (which is admittedly difficult when you find them unpleasant).

So, here is the piece of music I choose.





 (part 1)




 (part 2)

It's a sonata for flute, oboe, cello and harpsichord by Elliott Carter. I can't really say anything about the theory behind his pitch class choices (I think Allen Forte wrote a book on the method, though), but a lot of his rhythmic development is based on a method he called metric modulation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_modulation

A lot of the motifs used are fairly lyrical, and the sonorities aren't that dissonant, so I suppose it's fairly "mild" in a way. The rhythms themselves are fairly straightforward, but it's the way that they're constantly shifting that's interesting.


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## HarpsichordConcerto

Thanks for your notes, which was interesting and a useful read. And of course, welcome.

I have listened to the Carter piece you posted before. What drew me to it was the combination of instruments - one might normally think it came from the Baroque or early Classical. So it was interesting indeed to see how Carter took it to the 20th century with all the sound textures. Experiencing the _sound texture_ as it is; nothing more, nothing less would perhaps be the way to go with it. The old harpsichord suddenly sounded very "modern". That's just about all the good features I could say about it, though it lacked the emotional appeal to warrant immediate repeated listening based on urges that would come from my heart.

Many parts of it actually sounded "comical" to me, like it was used somewhere in old comedy movies of _The Pink Panther_ type/genres. Who knows.


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## Argus

schrodingasdawg said:


> I actually registered to respond to this topic. (New member and all. Hi everyone!)
> 
> Before actually picking and explaining my choice, I want to say something about acquired tastes. A lot of the trouble people have with modernist, postmodernist and contemporary classical music is that it does not meet the expectations they have of music. This doesn't necessarily make it more 'advanced' (though a few composers do write music that is formally quite complicated, not all of them do) or anything of the sort, and it doesn't make those who get and love these types of music any smarter than those who don't. However, in order to love these sorts of music, the listener has to be aware of the ways in which they subvert their expectations and the listener has to anticipate and desire these violations.
> 
> (This doesn't just apply to enjoying contemporary classical, to be sure. Someone who's only ever listened to pop music with a verse-chorus-verse-chorus-solo-chorus-chorus form will have a difficult time listening to the sonata allegro movements in Mozart and Haydn until they understand the 'development' sections are supposed to break apart phrases into motifs and play around with them in odd ways.)
> 
> One expectation a listener might have is that the small-scale structure of a piece will consist of small contrasts between tension and release in a fairly predictable way, using melodic contour and well-established harmonic progressions. A lot of contemporary music doesn't use such familiar contours and progressions and creates tensions in other ways, such as through texture. If someone listens to music expecting tension to be created in a certain way and it never is, they'll be bored by the piece.
> 
> Another common expectation is that of an underlying, steady beat. A lot of common practice period music has large sections written in a single time signature, with all the parts constantly in rhythm with each other. A lot of contemporary music, in contrast, uses polyrythyms, constantly changing rhythms, both, or lacks a steady beat entirely. Expecting the music to be carried forward in a particular way and not hearing it, again, will make the listener bored.
> 
> There is one aspect of a lot of modern music that's more difficult than just expectations, however, and that's the matter of dissonance. Dissonance is, as far as I can tell, inherently unpleasant to new listeners. However, I can tell you from experience - and my experience has been corroborated by others', too - is that it's quite possible to become accustomed to dissonance and to no longer find it unpleasant. It's quite like the experience of acquiring a taste for alcohol or for spicy food, actually. And one respect in which it's like subverting other expectations is that you should want to desire to hear the particular sonorities if you're to enjoy the music (which is admittedly difficult when you find them unpleasant).
> 
> So, here is the piece of music I choose.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> (part 1)
> 
> 
> 
> 
> (part 2)
> 
> It's a sonata for flute, oboe, cello and harpsichord by Elliott Carter. I can't really say anything about the theory behind his pitch class choices (I think Allen Forte wrote a book on the method, though), but a lot of his rhythmic development is based on a method he called metric modulation.
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_modulation
> 
> A lot of the motifs used are fairly lyrical, and the sonorities aren't that dissonant, so I suppose it's fairly "mild" in a way. The rhythms themselves are fairly straightforward, but it's the way that they're constantly shifting that's interesting.


Quality first post.

I've yet to hear anything by Carter that even slightly interests me. I find it boring and uninspiring. I can't say why, but his music just doesn't appeal to me.

For modern chamber ensemble I prefer stuff like this:














This next piece probably doesn't belong here, but I really like it and all the Construction series.


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## jurianbai

that's thread by *schrodingasdawg* is what I expected to read in this thread, not just member posting random modern music video without giving back any clues (we have many threads in this style already). I mean, the OP spirit of talk was , to take one video and talk in more details, not just abstract explanation.


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## schrodingasdawg

There are a lot of details in that piece and I feel it hardly does it justice to only listen to the texture. It takes a lot of time to become accustomed to the sorts of sonorities used so I can sympathize with not focusing on harmony for new listeners, but the rhythm modulations are one of the most important elements of Carter's music, and while irregular to a new listener, aren't nearly as difficult to become accustomed to as the harmonies. So I'd highly recommend focusing on rhythm while listening to the piece (or anything else by Carter).

Regarding emotions, that's a difficult one. There are certain aspects of music that generally provoke certain moods, and with a lot of period music - especially of the Romantic era - which emotions should be evoked are quite obvious. Not only that, the emotional associations are strongly reinforced by so much of our culture, and some of the music (again, especially Romantic music) indulges quite liberally in emotion-inducing elements. Modernist music has an emotional appeal too, I've found, but the emotions that it provokes aren't as clearly delineated as giddiness, melancholy, euphoria, rage, etc. and they're generally rather subtle.

As for the Carter piece, for me it relates, overall, a feeling of restlessness: the sort characterized by short bursts of mania, fleeting calms, and racing thoughts marginally related to each other. (Actually, this sort of feeling seems to be characteristic of a lot of Carter's works. I know with Night Fantasies, at least, the composer said it was his intention to provoke such an atmosphere.) The various short sections with their own tempos have their own moods, but they're too short to engulf the listener in the way that Mahler does, for instance.


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## Pierrot Lunaire

The following composition by Iannis Xenakis is great to view in youtube because it contains a graphical score that you can follow while you listen. This was supposedly an actual blueprint he used when he was initially creating the piece before converting it to traditional notation.

Xenakis was partly inspired by his experiences in warfare where he would often hear the distinct overall sound of gunfire without being able to hear the sound of each individual gun. He liked the idea of a distinguishable sound made up of many indistinguishable sounds (while you can't make out what each stringed instrument is playing, you can undeniably make out that it is the sound of many strings playing at once). With that in mind, I like to think of this piece as a depiction of war similar to the way a visual artist or filmmaker would depict a battle scene only done by an orchestra instead of painted or photographed.






You can see how it starts off in the first movement (0:00) with gradually ascending and descending glissandi. In fact, these are the 46 strings in the piece all starting from a single common pitch and slowly moving toward another one (actually 46 different pitches for each unique player). When they finally get to their respective locations (0:58) they then "fire" their notes in rapid succession (1:18). Personally, I love the conflicting directions the strings take in this movement like I'm being pulled in two different directions and then it climaxes with the repeating notes. It's a very original way to build tension I think. I also like the way he throws in seemingly random sounds from the winds and percussion that provide contrast and add to the overall cacophony.

The second (2:50) and third movements are based more on serial techniques which after the onslaught of the first movement come as a sort of relief (not every day you hear that one). However, he uses a Fibonacci sequence to gradually extend duration and, in the third movement (5:10), push the pitches toward smaller glissandi which slowly increases the tension again.

In the conclusion (7:47), he reverses the introduction by having the strings glissandi toward a common pitch although this time it is a different pitch than the one he started with, which says to me that after all you've just gone through you're not quite the same as when you started.


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## StlukesguildOhio

I've bumped this thread back into active circulation in the hope that we can engage in a bit more civil discussion and sharing of examples of that Modern and Contemporary music which members have found speaks to them... for whatever reason. It seems understandable that we all should wish to share what we admire... even love... with others... but I'm thinking that there must be a better means of doing this than engaging in arguments which do little more than insult and/or dismiss the music that others admire (Whether it be as "electronic fart music" or "boring, Neo-Romantic pastiches").

I am thinking that posts which essentially offer up some thoughtful description and personal responses to a given work of music are far more likely to intrigue or interest others than comments which essentially proclaim the superiority of one's own preferences and the inferiority of everybody else'.

I'll make the effort to begin once again with some thoughts on Tristan Murail:

Tristan Murail was born in 1947 in Le Havre, France. Murail is commonly associated with a group or movement in music known as "Spectralism". The philosophy/science behind this musical direction largely leaves me numb. A brief overview can be found here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectral_music

I'll skip all the science of Murail's approach to music, his rejection of Boulez' serialism, his use of the analysis of the sound spectrum in the composition of his music, and his employment of microtonalities... most of which simply leave me baffled... and instead I'll just offer some of my own thoughts in response to the music.

To my ears, Murail's music is clearly rooted or linked to the tradition going back to Impressionism and Claude Debussy and including the efforts of Messiaen, Toru Takemitsu, Giacinto Scelsi, some works by György Ligeti, Gerard Grisey, Julian Anderson, Jonathan Harvey, and Kaija Saariaho.

In spite of all the science and philosophy, the music itself is sensuous, sumptuous, and gloriously beautiful. Like Debussy and the Impressionists... as well as Messiaen and Takemitsu there is much in Murail's music that suggest an embrace of nature. *Winter Fragments*... for all the electronics... marvelously suggests the icy-coldness of winter, the crystalline frost on the window panes and the barren white landscapes:











In spite of the wealth of atonality and dissonance, the resulting music is almost stunningly, yet frighteningly beautiful.

Probably the central work (as of yet) within Murail's oeuvre is *Gondwana* In paleogeography, Gondwana was the southernmost of two supercontinents (the other being Laurasia) that formed part of the Pangaea supercontinent from approximately 510 to 200 million years ago. Gondwana included most of the landmasses in today's Southern Hemisphere, including Antarctica, South America, Africa, Madagascar and the Australian continent, as well as the Arabian Peninsula and the Indian subcontinent, which have now moved entirely into the Northern Hemisphere.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gondwana










Murail's website ( ) ) describes the music of Gondwana as abounding "in wave-like patterns of rise and fall, such as crescendo-decrescendo, acceleration-deceleration and tension-relaxation. If these waves of sound recall the regendary, sunken Gondwana, the geological Gondwana's turbulent history is vividly evoked in the music's more dramatic moments, especially in the volcanic "eruption" near the end of the work." There is something to the music that suggests a structure of expansion... like rings expanding ever outward in a pool of water... or the expanding rings of sound itself. I am especially struck by the almost primordial nature of the music... but again equally by the absolute beauty or sound:











:tiphat:

Hopefully others will join in on sharing with us all some of the Modern... and especially the Contemporary music that they find of interest.


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## Sid James

I have listened to some of the videos above, and would particularly like to thank stlukes for posting the Murail, a composer who I've heard of & read about, but never heard until this point. I think _Gondwana_ was interesting, it reminded me strongly of Messiaen & Dutilleux.

I personally have been getting away from the more "dark" and "serious" music and turning towards lighter music, much of it based on song and dance.

My favourite composer of the moment is the Argentinian *Astor Piazzolla*(1921-1992), who is one of the most popular more contemporary chamber composers around. His music presents a heady blend of the tango, jazz, Baroque counterpoint and contemporary avant-garde techniques. Kind of like a "one stop shop" for a lot of what had happened before in classical music, both Western and not. He started out working in tango and jazz bands in his native Buenos Aires, composing on the side. When the pianist Artur Rubinstein came to Argentina, he met the young Piazzolla and encouraged him to study classical music in a formal way. Piazzolla subsequently studied with Nadia Boulanger in Paris and fellow Argentinian Alberto Ginastera at home. He developed a style that broke down the barriers between so-called "high" and "low" art. He's very popular. Chances are that non-classical listeners who don't have a clue who Stockhausen, Xenakis or Boulez are will find they know Piazzolla if you hum them the theme from things like the "Libertango." Piazzolla was very prolific, and many arrangements have been made of his music by by himself and others - from mixed acoustic and rock instruments, to orchestral, to piano trio, string quartet, you name it.

Here's "Libertango" played by the composer on bandoneon (Argentinian button accordion) with an ensemble. This is his most famous tune, and you probably know it! (btw, isn't that Yo-yo Ma on cello?)






"Autumn" from the "Four Seasons" suite, here in an arrangement for piano trio (the first cello solo gets me every time!)






The same piece, played by the composer on bandoneon with a quartet of musicians.


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## jhar26

The complete Corigliano "red violin concerto."


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## mmsbls

Andre said:


> My favourite composer of the moment is the Argentinian *Astor Piazzolla*(1921-1992), who is one of the most popular more contemporary chamber composers around.
> 
> "Autumn" from the "Four Seasons" suite, here in an arrangement for piano trio (the first cello solo gets me every time!)


My wife bought this CD which includes Piazolla's Four Seasons.










At first I did not like it. I listened to it several times in preparation to hearing it played in concert. I have an entirely different view of them now. They are a mixture of fun, beauty, and excitement with hints of Vivaldi's Four Seasons sprinkled in. My favorite movement is Winter.

I had thought they were written as concertos for violin since that was all I had heard (and the original was written that way). I just checked on Naxos's site and see arrangements for almost every ensemble.

Andre, Do you know if his original composition was for orchestra?


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## emiellucifuge

Here is one of my favourite compositions. I dont think it requires much explanation as its written in a very 'traditional' and romantic idiom.

Penderecki's 3rd Symphony (ranked 99 in our top 150 symphonies) - written for the 100th anniversary of the Munich Philharmonic.



> Symphony No. 3 exhibits a number of stylistic features which exemplify Penderecki's music of the 1980s, including motor rhythms, passages of free rhythm, chromatic scalar figures and emphasis on the minor second, dissonant intervals, and expanded percussion section.[4]


Theres a nice simple analysis with score excerpts on the Wikipedia page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._3_(Penderecki)

Please pay special attention to the Allegro Con Brio which is fantastic.


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## tdc

emiellucifuge said:


> Here is one of my favourite compositions. I dont think it requires much explanation as its written in a very 'traditional' and romantic idiom.
> 
> Penderecki's 3rd Symphony (ranked 99 in our top 150 symphonies) - written for the 100th anniversary of the Munich Philharmonic.


Nice choice. You have good taste in music. :tiphat:

Nice suggestions by all in this thread of late actually...

Slightly O/T, Emiel - I hope you decide to weigh in some votes for Penderecki later on in the classical music project. (Before too long I'm also thinking of renominating Webern's six orchestral pieces.)


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## tdc

Here are some excerpts of a nice piece by a modern composer named Roberto Sierra. I've been gaining some interest in Sierra since seeing a wonderful guitar piece of his called 'Folias' performed by Manuel Barrueco last year.


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## Sid James

mmsbls said:


> Andre, Do you know if his original composition was for orchestra?


I'm really not sure, mmsbls. There are a number of arrangements out there, some done by Piazzolla himself, others done by other composers authorised by him, and yet others done since his death...


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## Polednice

This is a great thread that I keep coming back to - I've particularly enjoyed the Escher and Rzewski so far. Thanks guys


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## Guest

I resisted posting in here, not because of animosity, but because, while there are some modern/contemporary works and composers that I quite like, I didn't feel I had the knowledge to speak more about why I do. Most of the time it is nothing more than that something clicked in my head while listening.

First, the greatest surprise to me was Messiaen. In general, my order of preference for the different periods is Baroque, Classical, Romantic, Modern/Contemporary. Messiaen is so different, to me, then much of what I normally enjoy, but somehow I have come to enjoy his work. It isn't the first thing I turn to, but I always enjoy it when I do. The first work that turned me onto him was the Vingt Regards Sur L'Enfant-Jesus. I'll be the first to say that atonal music doesn't appeal, but Messiaen is the exception. I also have his complete organ works, and the Quartet for the End of Time, and the Turangalila symphony. His works for keyboards appeal the most, but I really enjoy the quartet from time to time.

Arvo Part - his choral music appeals to me much more than his orchestral works, but two pieces that really drew me in were Alina and Spiegel im Spiegel. I think the choral works appealed to me because I happened upon him when I was heavily exploring renaissance choral works. I got hooked.

Samuel Barber - I know, he is really more part of the late Romantic period, but still, 20th century. I sampled his works due to a thread I started asking for recommendations from the Naxos catalog, and it didn't take much to draw me in. Of all his works, I enjoy most his violin concerto and his string quartet - it is from this that his Adagio for Strings was derived, but I confess I prefer it much more in string quartet format, it seems so much more bleak and heart-rending than with a full orchestra.

I did listen to Hilary Hahn's recording of Schoenberg's violin concerto, and have to confess that I actually enjoyed it a bit, despite not having enjoyed much else from him beyond Verklarte Nacht.

Hovhaness - while I haven't sampled as much from him, I do have a recording of some of his symphonies, and quite enjoyed them.


----------



## jhar26

Daugherty's Metropolis Symphony - first movement....






Hakola's Clarinet Concerto - fourth movement....


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## Sid James

Thanks for posting the Hakola piece, jhar. Very bright & bouncy stuff. Parts of it reminded me a bit of klezmer or other Middle Eastern type music...


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## HarpsichordConcerto

Benjamin Britten, _Phantasy_ op. 2 for Oboe, Violin, Viola, and Cello (1932).

A sensible piece.


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## StlukesguildOhio

I'll need to wait 'til tomorrow to add to this discussion. Too many good strong British and Belgian beers in me and I'm listening to the best music for such an occasion:






Slipping rapidly into inebriation...

:tiphat:


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## Sid James

I've just bought a disc of c20th flute and guitar music on ABC Classics. Some of these pieces I've managed to track down on youtube (these are only excerpted movements from the complete works, look hard enough and you'll be able to hear the complete works) :

Brazilian composer *Celso Machado's* "Pacoca" from Musiques populaire brésiliennes -






American guitarist & composer *David Leisner's *"Tango Solitaire" from Dances in the Madhouse -






American composer *Robert Beaser's *"Barbara Allen" from Mountain Songs -






& *Astor Piazzolla's *"Cafe 1930" from Histoire du Tango -


----------



## Sid James

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> Benjamin Britten, _Phantasy_ op. 2 for Oboe, Violin, Viola, and Cello (1932).
> 
> A sensible piece.


Thanks for posting, I enjoyed it. Not too bad at all. A bit reminiscent of Bartok, who's chamber works I'm finding it a bit hard to warm up too - quite serious stuff. Vaughan Williams' pastoralism was never far away either.

That Britten piece (the _Phantasy_) will be played at Sydney Conservatorium next Monday. I'm not sure if I'll be able to go.

If you're interested in Britten's chamber music, check out his _Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge_, a veritable tour de force for string orchestra. It was one of the first works which won him international recognition in the 1930's (premiered at the Salzburg Festival) & a particular favourite of mine. Here's the final fugue:


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## wingracer

StlukesguildOhio said:


> I'll need to wait 'til tomorrow to add to this discussion. Too many good strong British and Belgian beers in me and I'm listening to the best music for such an occasion:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Slipping rapidly into inebriation...
> 
> :tiphat:


Hell yeah, now that is 20th century music at its finest.


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## HarpsichordConcerto

Andre said:


> Thanks for posting, I enjoyed it. Not too bad at all. A bit reminiscent of Bartok, who's chamber works I'm finding it a bit hard to warm up too - quite serious stuff. Vaughan Williams' pastoralism was never far away either.
> 
> That Britten piece (the _Phantasy_) will be played at Sydney Conservatorium next Monday. I'm not sure if I'll be able to go.
> 
> If you're interested in Britten's chamber music, check out his _Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge_, a veritable tour de force for string orchestra. It was one of the first works which won him international recognition in the 1930's (premiered at the Salzburg Festival) & a particular favourite of mine. Here's the final fugue:


What a coincidence about the Britten _Phantasy_ piece!

You might like this piece. *Howard Blake* (born 1931, London) clarinet concerto (1984). Commissioned by clarinet player Thea King, and premiered in 1984 conducted by the composer, performed by the English Chamber Orchestra. I have the CD on the Hyperion Helios (budget) label. I think Blake is more well known as a film score composer and this concerto might at times feel that way a little.


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## StlukesguildOhio

Schoenberg ain't got nothin' on John Lee Hooker!

Here's the original... even better:





To say nothing of this one:






:tiphat:


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## StlukesguildOhio

Andre and HC... I picked up a number of Britten pieces recently icluding some choral works, songs, the violin and piano concerto, _Peter Grimes_ and _The Turn or the Screw_. I think that Britten has long been the 20th century composer whose work has been the least underrepresented in my collection in contrast to the strength of the oeuvre as a whole. (Verdi is probably the composer who is must under represented in my collection as a whole). Perhaps I'll be able to offer up some thoughts on Britten in the near future.


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## mmsbls

During that past few days I've been thinking about starting a thread where modern/contemporary works could be suggested and discussed so those who do not enjoy modern music could get better exposed to pieces that perhaps they could begin to appreciate. I checked to see if someone had started a thread like that in the past and found that StlukesguildOhio had started this thread last year. What really surprised me was that I had already posted in this thread. I guess we all have periods where our brains don't work too well.

Anyway I'm very happy to revive this thread. StlukesguildOhio had to revive it several weeks ago, and I hope that people will keep it alive this time. There are not many modern works I really like (at least that are not neo-romantic), but Arvo Part's Tabula Rasa is one I love.

Part's Tabula Rasa 1st movement: Ludus





The work, written in 1977 and dedicated to Gidon Kremer, is for 2 violins, string orchestra and prepared piano. It is referred to as a minimalist piece, and certainly there are elements of minimalism in it, but it differs significantly from conventional minimalism. There is an ethereal theme that grows throughout this movement, and the theme is supported on and off throughout the movement by driving string chords.
I have yet to find other works by Part that I enjoy.


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## Polednice

Thanks for the revival mmsbls. I'm comparably naive when it comes to contemporary music, so I doubt I'll post my own suggestions, but I love checking out everyone else's recommendations, so keep them coming


----------



## Webernite

Here's some comic relief:






Part 2: 



Part 3: 




(Just a warning: subpar headphones/speakers completely ruin this piece.)


----------



## StlukesguildOhio

One of the contemporary composers I quite enjoy... but rarely hear mentioned... even in passing... is Ned Rorem. Rorem was born in 1923 in Indiana and studied in Chicago, Philadelphia, Julliard in New York, and later in Paris. Rorem has composed a number of quite marvelous orchestral and chamber works. His piano concerto clearly builds upon the Modernist traditions:











Rorem's real love, however, clearly lay in music that employed the lilting Romantic melodies of American folk and popular music, and the works of composers such as Copland and Barber:






In 1966 Rorem gained a degree of notoriety when he published _The Paris Diary of Ned Rorem_ which revealed much with regard to his sexual relationships with Leonard Bernstein, Noel Coward, Samuel Barber, Virgil Thompson, and others. Rorem continued to write... including a good deal of music criticism... and his prose was much admired. His critical writings often questioned the orthodoxies of the _avant-garde_, and his barbed observations on Pierre Boulez and other prominent Modernists were much admired by many who felt Modernism in music had become too dominant.

Rorem's mastery with words combined with his love of melody led naturally to songs. Rorem had a great respect for language and a perfect sensibility as to how given lyrics or poem should be set. His songs can be as sophisticated and witty as those of Noel Coward... or quite touching... achingly melancholy. As a result, Rorem has generally been acknowledged as the greatest living American composer of art songs, and his works have been recorded by any number of leading singers. Over the last few years there has been an increasing interest in recording entire recitals of Rorem's songs. Among some of my favorites I would include:


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## StlukesguildOhio




----------



## tdc

^Great clips there Stlukes, after listening through several of those Rorem clips I'm quite astounded I haven't heard more about this composer myself, clearly an incredibly talented artist.


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## mmsbls

Argus posted Steve Reich's Eight Lines. I think someone posted a link to the same piece in another thread because a few weeks ago I listened to the piece and did not like it. I had heard minimalist works several times before and always felt that the music was not interesting or enjoyable. They felt monotonous and rather blah.

I have listened to Eight Lines along with Reich's Sextet and Piano Phase a couple of times since then. The pieces seem much more enjoyable and even fascinating at times. I especially like the Sextet (below). I still have occasional problems when I hear too little change and get a bit bored.

One question for anyone who has played minimalist works. My daughter has complained that the cello part of the Pachelbel Canon is incredibly boring because it doesn't change. Is playing a minimalist piece boring and much less fun because for significant periods the music you play does not vary enough?

Reuch's Sextet Movement 1 and 2.





The interplay among the marimbas and vibraphones is fascinating and lovely at times. I never thought I would see a marimba played with a bow. The second movement (after the marimbas stop) is less interesting for me and one of those places where I get a bit bored.


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## Argus

mmsbls said:


> One question for anyone who has played minimalist works. My daughter has complained that the cello part of the Pachelbel Canon is incredibly boring because it doesn't change. Is playing a minimalist piece boring and much less fun because for significant periods the music you play does not vary enough?


I make quite minimalist music and never find it boring to play. That might be because it's my own music and it's mostly improvised. If I was performing someone elses music that was notated exactly how it is to be performed in the score, I might get bored, but it's more likely I'll get into a trance-like meditative state of emptying my mind and just listening without focussing on playing. Maybe I'm just lazy and would prefer simple over complex for ease in performance. Economical musicianship. I think Pachelbel Canon's cello part is just repetetive without extending to a deeper level of sound resulting from the repetions like minimalism strives for.

There's various styles of minimalism too. The heavy repetition is the one that most people think of first, but there's also the drone element and the very spacious approach to the music. Then there's the acoustician type composers who seem more content with sonic experiments than any previous musical goal.

Here's some good examples:

Heavy droning flutes of Phill Niblock (not for new listeners):





Slightly more lively microtonal floating strings of Charlemagne Palestine:





Just intoned piano of Michael Harrison (in the mould of La Monte Young):





Fairly accessible Buddhist inspired orchestral colours of Somei Satoh (recommended for minimal beginners):





Ethereal reeds of Urban Sax:


----------



## Argus

More:

The shimmering busy piano of Lubomyr Melnyk (another good artist for beginners):





Alvin Lucier's acoustical expeditions:





Glenn Branca and his rock band reconfigurations:





That's without touching on the Big Four minimalists.

Check out the psychoacoustics in this piece. It should sound like tones are being created in your actual ears and then dance around inside your head (about half way through the track):


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## HarpsichordConcerto

Listening to one or two would be enough, but to all nine clips posted above seem to be an utterly boring endeavour at best.

I much rather listen to this one, which I think Mozart would have loved too, considering how much Mozart loved to joke about farts.


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## mmsbls

Unfortunately, this thread doesn't seem to get people interested in discussing modern music. I will keep trying for awhile hoping that others will be drawn to explore and share their thoughts.

If a slightly different thread focused on modern music would be more interesting to TC members, please let me know.

I had only heard a few Ligeti works before I concluded that he was not for me. In the past week or so Air suggested I might try the Etudes (Ligeti wrote 3 books), and Meaghan suggested the Bagatelles. They are quite different works, but both were very approachable. The following two short works are the first and third Bagatelle from his Six Bagatelles for wind quartet.

The first is a jazzy, bouncy fun tune. The second has a ethereal theme passed back and forth by the saxophones on top of a background of bubbly falling tones. I've heard these works probably 6-8 times now, and I'm liking them more and more. I still can't believe this is the same composer who wrote Atmospheres.


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## Argus

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> Listening to one or two would be enough, but to all nine clips posted above seem to be an utterly boring endeavour at best.
> 
> I much rather listen to this one, which I think Mozart would have loved too, considering how much Mozart loved to joke about farts.


No one's forcing you to listen to them. Some people are able to appreciate more music than others. There's nothing wrong with being ignorant.



mmsbls said:


> Unfortunately, this thread doesn't seem to get people interested in discussing modern music. I will keep trying for awhile hoping that others will be drawn to explore and share their thoughts.


Probably because they don't like modern music. Too many people living in the past. Rampant retrophilia at TC.

I'm also of the opinion that the only way for people to like a piece of music is to hear it and judge for themselves. Praising and explaining the music won't change its nature, no matter how enthusiatic or credential ridden the reviewer is.

Any opinion on those minimalist videos I posted? Or was that wasted effort?

You mentioned you didn't like any Arvo Part apart(?) from Tabula Rasa. Try his Lamentate or Trivium.


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## mmsbls

Argus said:


> Any opinion on those minimalist videos I posted? Or was that wasted effort?


The drone minimalism is not for me. The droning effect bothers my ears. It reminds me of bagpipes and a favorite joke. 
Q: Why do pipers march?
A: To get away from the noise.

I did like the Michael Harrison, but the droning effect still bothers me.



Argus said:


> You mentioned you didn't like any Arvo Part apart(?) from Tabula Rasa. Try his Lamentate or Trivium.


I've never been a fan of organ probably partly due to the drone that always exists to some extent.


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## HarpsichordConcerto

Argus said:


> No one's forcing you to listen to them. Some people are able to appreciate more music than others. There's nothing wrong with being ignorant.





Argus said:


> Opera - I used to think it was rubbish, but now I think it's worse than that.


Indeed, member Argus. Indeed, HarpsichordConcerto is an ignorant pig.


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## HarpsichordConcerto

That _Klaiverstuck_ no.6 by Wolfgang Rihm (born 1952) seemed like a pretentious piece. Really, three minutes of what???

But as for the overture to _Rinaldo_, that was the first time I listened to it played out in full on a harpsichord. Very nice. In the movie _Farinelli_ (1994), there was a scene of Handel composing that overture by improvisation/at an organ, while the castrato Farinelli was eavesdropping. Interesting scene! For a spectacular original version of an aria with a brilliant harpsichord solo, also from _Rinaldo_:-


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## Polednice

mmsbls said:


> Unfortunately, this thread doesn't seem to get people interested in discussing modern music. I will keep trying for awhile hoping that others will be drawn to explore and share their thoughts.


Sorry for not commenting more, but I'm a fan of this thread, and have mentioned already that I'm thankful for being introduced to Escher and Rzewski, whose works I've been exploring more in my own time recently.

My only potential problem with the thread is that I, at least, need to take listening and appreciation a little slower than some people might like. If there are 10 videos posted in a day, then I'm afraid 9 of them are just going to go over my head :/ I have neither the time nor the concentration to give so many new works the thinking time they deserve.


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## mmsbls

The original intent of this thread was not to bash modern music. StlukesguildOhio stated his original idea as:



StlukesguildOhio said:


> Rather than just talking about Modern and Contemporary music in an abstract sense, why not have a little dialog about specific works and why you particularly like them:


I am not a fan of modern music. In general I do not especially like most of what I hear even from major modern composers. I have pushed this thread because I would like to learn more and attempt to find interest and/or beauty in certain modern pieces. From there I hope to develop an appreciation for a significant (if not most) number of works and composers.

Classical music is one of my greatest loves. Everyday I listen to works that evoke joy, sadness, awe, or bliss. Realizing that works of the past 80 years or so do not contribute to my everyday pleasure disturbs me. Thinking that future works - works of today's greatest (and not so great) composers - might not appeal to me further bothers me. I want to be able to enjoy contemporary art/music and have it enrich my life.

If I can find a way to do that, wonderful. If not, well I believe that would be my loss.

I've had my say, but obviously you can post whatever you wish here (well within TC's TOS).


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## mmsbls

Polednice said:


> Sorry for not commenting more, but I'm a fan of this thread, and have mentioned already that I'm thankful for being introduced to Escher and Rzewski, whose works I've been exploring more in my own time recently.
> 
> My only potential problem with the thread is that I, at least, need to take listening and appreciation a little slower than some people might like. If there are 10 videos posted in a day, then I'm afraid 9 of them are just going to go over my head :/ I have neither the time nor the concentration to give so many new works the thinking time they deserve.


I understand completely. I don't have time to listen to everything on the threads I look at either. I try to sample most and give some much more attention. Ideally there would be a couple of pieces posted a day with commentary. More ideally, those who posted would be very knowledgeable about the music and love it as well.

When I first joined TC, I thought there were many who enjoyed modern music, and perhaps that's true. Unfortunately, I feel that those who enjoy modern music do not have the inclination to join this thread. Maybe there are fewer than I thought. maybe it just needs a bit more time to become more popular.


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## Guest

mmsbls said:


> _deally, those who posted would be very knowledgeable about the music and love it as well._


_Indeed. But, as always online, the bashers win. And when bashers win, everyone loses.



mmsbls said:



When I first joined TC, I thought there were many who enjoyed modern music

Click to expand...

There was a brief time when it seemed that this was true.



mmsbls said:



Unfortunately, I feel that those who enjoy modern music do not have the inclination to join this thread.

Click to expand...

Too true._


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## emiellucifuge

fasolo said:


> Bravo, bravo! What a load of rubbish and insult to all music. If Handel, Vivaldi, Couperin, etc. ever heard this they would be laughing. These "composers" would have never survived in Baroque era--not even the Renaissance era would have accepted this crap.
> 
> This modern music is no where near the creativity of the old harpsichord music


Honestly? Different times, different values, different styles, different philosphies. Grow up.



> How come modern music sounds like something from a horror movie? It seems that they want to be different from the old music but ran out of ideas. I feel you StlukesguildOhio , stick with old music......​


Something tells me you havent really listened to a lot of modern music.

This thread was created for people to learn about modern music. You may not like the music, but I would expect you to be adult enough not to bother coming in here just to **** us off and post Baroque music which is completely irrelevant. Once again, please grow up.

Now, one of the great masterpieces of the 20th century. Luciano Berio's _Sinfonia_
The third movement, a musical collage, in particular is striking. Allow yourself to be carried on the sound, dont think, dont identify the words - just hear them.


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## petrarch

I enjoy modern music quite extensively. I must say that the usual bashing as found earlier (Rihm is one of my favorite composers) is comical and just shows how close-minded and close-eared some can be. I don't really care about debates framed in such terms--mostly because I can find better ways to spend my time--but since you asked with genuine interest, the essential leap that needs to be made is that one type of music is not incompatible with the other; if you dig under the surface, modern composers typically build on top of what went on before, radical breaks notwithstanding. Moreover, it is totally misdirected to try to find the same idioms and aesthetic concerns in music created 300 years apart. If you want a painting with blue skies, a yellow sun and green grass you shouldn't get a Rothko or Pollock.


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## mmsbls

Still trying to keep the thread alive. Here's a work that's quite a bit different from other modern works posted. It is most definitely neo-romantic. I know there are those here who think there's no point in writing music that "has been done before." I find this piece simply beautiful. This is the first movement of Rota's Piano Concerto in E minor. It was written in 1978. All of the works I have heard by Rota are romantic or neo-romantic.


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## StlukesguildOhio

*Daniel Catán* (April 3, 1949 - April 8, 2011

I have to add Daniel Catán to this discussion, having just found out of his untimely death a few days ago at the age of 62. Catán was born in Mexico of Russian Sephardic Jewish descent, studied philosophy at Sussex University, and received a Ph.D. from Princeton University, where he studied with Milton Babbitt.

Catán's music has been described as Neo-Impressionistic, employing richly lyrical tonalities, often painting evocative colours with the orchestral palette, with lush, sensuous and soaring melodies atop. Critics have noted elements in his music suggestive of Puccini, Debussy, Richard Strauss and Heitor Villa-Lobos and elements of his Mexican/Latin-America culture.

Catán was most known as an opera composer. His opera, _Rappaccini's Daughter_, based upon Octavio Paz translation of Nathaniel Hawthorne's classic short story, became the first opera written by a Mexican composer to have been produced in the U.S. Highlights of this opera were recorded by Naxos. This disc was my first introduction to Daniel Catán and remains a favorite:










Catán's second opera, _Florencia en el Amazonas_ was given a lush production by the Huston Opera, and resulted is a huge success. One cannot help but see why considering the gorgeous, lush score and the libretto, ripe with heady elements of the latin-American tradition of "magic realism" the narrative concerning love lost and love rekindled in on a riverboat in the midst of the humid and sensuous Amazon river jungle.

























Catan's last opera, was _Il Postino_, concerning the poet, Pablo Neruda, staged by the LA Opera and featuring Placido Domingo.






Catan's music is the perfect antidote for those who imagine that beauty, sensuality, and soaring melodies are not to be found in the work of contemporary composers. Unfortunately, _Il Postino_ has not yet been released on either CD or DVD and even _Florencia en el Amazonas_ remains relatively obscure, the best recording still being that of the Huston Opera premier recording. Little of his music is to be found on YouTube either... but hopefully enough to intrigue... especially anyone with an interest in contemporary opera.


----------



## Sid James

@ mmsbls - I really like what I've heard of Rota's music. I have the concert suite of his classic score to Fellini's _La Strada_ & it's a very fine & moving score. I also saw his _Trio for Clarinet, Cello and Piano_ last year at Sydney Conservatorium & I remember the final movement as having a similar fairground, circus-like feel as some of his music to _La Strada_. I'll have to listen to the clip you posted above when I have the time.

@ stlukes - Catan sounds like an interesting composer, I'll have to get that Naxos disc at some stage. & he wasn't that old when he died - my mother was born the following year in 1950. I'm sorry to hear of this...


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## mmsbls

StlukesguildOhio said:


> Catan's music is the perfect antidote for those who imagine that beauty, sensuality, and soaring melodies are not to be found in the work of contemporary composers.


I'm not much of an opera fan so I expected not to finish those pieces, but each one I started I had to listen to the end. Quite lovely.

Since I'm rather ignorant about opera (and vocal works in general), I have wondered if vocal works can be dissonant (or more than modestly dissonant). The relatively few modern vocal works I've heard all sound fairly nice to me (i.e. not like much of modern music in dissonance or atonality). Anyone have examples to show vocal works that are very dissonant?


----------



## Argus

mmsbls said:


> Anyone have examples to show vocal works that are very dissonant?


Parts of this:


----------



## emiellucifuge

Dissonant choral music:


----------



## mmsbls

Thanks for the vocal dissonance examples. Two rather different works. I had a chance to listen to several other movements of the Schnittke Requiem, and for the most part they were very mildly dissonant or not dissonant.


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## mmsbls

This is a dance piece by Astor Piazzolla called Oblivion. I have heard it performed by quite diverse groups including chamber symphony, cello quartet, various duos, accordion. and my favorite - piano trio (below). It has a lush romantic melody that is simply gorgeous.

Two versions of Piazzolla's Oblivion for piano trio. The first is more classical and the second includes some rather jazzy percussion (hard to keep still while listening to it).











Here is a piano etude by Ligeti from his second book of etudes. When I hear it, I have the impression of a rising waterfall.


----------



## Polednice

I thought I'd add my own recommendation to the discussion for a change.

As most of you are probably aware from my ravings, I'm a Brahms-zealot, but I have a particular soft-spot for Scandinavian music. Recently, I've been listening to Einar Steen-Nokleberg's complete recordings of Grieg's piano music and, through the same pianist, discovered the piano works of Harald Saeverud (d. 1992), who I am already very fond of now.

There's not much of him on YouTube (so I couldn't find anything more 'contemporary' of his), but here's his orchestral 'Ballad of Revolt', written during WWII.


----------



## vamos

I'm very happy to see this thread right now.

I would like to become an 'expert' on the most modern music of the past 20-30 years.

Right now I have my own personal opinions on the progression but I'm not sure how accurate they are.



My favorite composers from this period are Alfred Schnittke and John Zorn. Zorn is possibly comparable to Mozart and definitely comparable in some way to Schnittke. Though the progression may seem confusing to elders, it is certainly there.


----------



## mmsbls

Polednice said:


> As most of you are probably aware from my ravings, I'm a Brahms-zealot, but I have a particular soft-spot for Scandinavian music. Recently, I've been listening to Einar Steen-Nokleberg's complete recordings of Grieg's piano music and, through the same pianist, discovered the piano works of Harald Saeverud (d. 1992), who I am already very fond of now.
> 
> There's not much of him on YouTube (so I couldn't find anything more 'contemporary' of his), but here's his orchestral 'Ballad of Revolt', written during WWII.
> ]


The Ballad of Revolt was enjoyable and certainly quite Romantic. I listened to his violin concerto (written in the 1960s I believe) along with some other violin pieces (Elegie, Romance, and violin duos). The concerto was quite removed from Romantic music. I did not much like it, but the Elegie was lovely. The duos were quite short and interesting. I see that the Elegie and some duos are on Youtube.


----------



## mmsbls

vamos said:


> I'm very happy to see this thread right now.
> 
> I would like to become an 'expert' on the most modern music of the past 20-30 years.
> 
> Right now I have my own personal opinions on the progression but I'm not sure how accurate they are.
> 
> My favorite composers from this period are Alfred Schnittke and John Zorn. Zorn is possibly comparable to Mozart and definitely comparable in some way to Schnittke. Though the progression may seem confusing to elders, it is certainly there.


There does not seem to be much interest in the thread. I would love anyone who has an interest in modern/contemporary music to post music and discuss what they find interesting or likeable about what they post. Please feel free to post examples of composers you like, find interesting, or just want to explore.


----------



## Polednice

mmsbls said:


> The Ballad of Revolt was enjoyable and certainly quite Romantic. I listened to his violin concerto (written in the 1960s I believe) along with some other violin pieces (Elegie, Romance, and violin duos). The concerto was quite removed from Romantic music. I did not much like it, but the Elegie was lovely. The duos were quite short and interesting. I see that the Elegie and some duos are on Youtube.


The Ballad is certainly very enjoyable, though - while I'm no expert on Saeverud at all - I don't think it's really representative of his style. The work I've enjoyed the most so far is his piano sonata, but I can't find a video of it anywhere. If anyone has access to the Naxos Music Library, they should look up Steen-Nokleberg's recordings on there.


----------



## mmsbls

Polednice said:


> The Ballad is certainly very enjoyable, though - while I'm no expert on Saeverud at all - I don't think it's really representative of his style. The work I've enjoyed the most so far is his piano sonata, but I can't find a video of it anywhere. If anyone has access to the Naxos Music Library, they should look up Steen-Nokleberg's recordings on there.


I just listened to Steen-Nokleberg's recording of the sonata coupled with short piano works (on Naxos). His piano music seems rather different from the violin music I heard (concerto, duos, etc.). I thoroughly enjoyed several of the short pieces. I agree that the Ballad does not appear representative of his style.


----------



## tdc

mmsbls said:


> There does not seem to be much interest in the thread.


I am not sure why you keep saying this. This seems to be a pretty popular thread with a lot of suggestions, and where a lot of people (including myself) have expressed gratitude at the many modern music suggestions others have posted. Relative to most other threads in this forum, I would say this is a pretty successful and popular thread that consistently gets re-bumped and which many posters have participated in.


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## Argus

tdc said:


> I am not sure why you keep saying this. This seems to be a pretty popular thread with a lot of suggestions, and where a lot of people (including myself) have expressed gratitude at the many modern music suggestions others have posted. Relative to most other threads in this forum, I would say this is a pretty successful and popular thread that consistently gets re-bumped and which many posters have participated in.


That's about right. This thread is a roaring success compared to most others about contemporary music (John Cage slagfests aside).

I think the problem is there are many people here who have limited knowledge in this area. The people who can contribute have done, but many just aren't interested in this kind of music. They don't like it and can't be bothered to search for the stuff they do like.

Anyway, I heard a great piece of music this morning on the radio. It was called Across the Meadow Bells by Robert Worby. It's not on youtube but look out for it anyway.

Ingram Marshall doesn't get enough love. His Gradual Requiem is great fusion of acoustic and electronic:






As for vocal music, Meredith Monk is probably the most interesting vocal composer of the past 50 years if not longer:






Stockhausen's Stimmung needs mentioning as well, one of his most agreeable works:


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## mmsbls

tdc said:


> I am not sure why you keep saying this. This seems to be a pretty popular thread with a lot of suggestions, and where a lot of people (including myself) have expressed gratitude at the many modern music suggestions others have posted. Relative to most other threads in this forum, I would say this is a pretty successful and popular thread that consistently gets re-bumped and which many posters have participated in.


Yes, you are right. The thread had to be bumped a couple of times and for a few days I felt as though I was the only one posting. But yes there have been several people posting, and compared to many other threads, this one is actually quite popular.


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## mmsbls

Argus said:


> Ingram Marshall doesn't get enough love. His Gradual Requiem is great fusion of acoustic and electronic:
> 
> As for vocal music, Meredith Monk is probably the most interesting vocal composer of the past 50 years if not longer:
> 
> Stockhausen's Stimmung needs mentioning as well, one of his most agreeable works:


I didn't have time to listen to all of this, but I did hear the Marshall piece. Parts were quite beautiful. Very ethereal sounding. Almost mystical at times.

I have read from a number of people and other places that Stimmung is a masterpiece. I will honestly say that I am completely lost when I hear it. It sounds like experimentation with vocals and electronics rather than a musical work. What am I missing? Are people mostly interested in the unusual sound effects? Do people find it beautiful? Can someone give me a sense of why this work is considered important?


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## StlukesguildOhio

Yes... I must keep Ingram Marshall in mind. He's been on my wish list for some time... if only because the Paul Hillier and the Theater of Voices saw fit to record his music and I have long been impressed with the new music that they have uncovered. Stockhausen's _Stimmung_ is among these. While I'm not a big Stockhausen fan, I absolutely love this work. As Argus suggests, the work is quite accessible... it is clearly tonal in a manner suggestive not only of Minimalism... but also non-Western music, and medieval chant. If you are comfortable with any of these genre, you should be able to get into _Stimmung_. The work builds upon a single droning tonality... not unlike the work of such "spectral" composers as Gerard Grisey, Tristan Murail, Giacinto Scelsi, and Kaija Saaraiho. Within this limited structure vocalas are build up in layers as complex as anything by Bach.






I'll throw in a work that's new to me: Jennifer Higdon's _Splendid Wood_, which I came upon on the radio today. The piece was composed for 3 marimbas and the title refers to the sound of the wood blocks of the instrument. Higdon has been something of a target for Modernists who revile anything the least "retro" in style, but I actually quite enjoy this piece with its elements of Latin-American music, Minimalism, and even Gamelan:


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## vamos

so why do people slag off John Cage?

I really can't wrap my head around that.

he introduced some interesting ideas, in the same way Xenakis or Ligeti may have introduced ideas. however he does not get similar levels of respect, in general, at least here.


I basically understand, I prefer those two composers to him. But still, that is more a matter of personal preference. I think his work has great depth for those who wish to seek it out.


The prepared sonatas and interludes are my favorite. His ideas are most important to me... that is, aleatoric methods.


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## vamos

ok. i'm going to explain John Zorn

read this

http://artofthestates.org/cgi-bin/piece.pl?pid=205

listen

then realize that this






is like a 'jazz surf rock sonata'

as if Mozart was writing pieces for Jazz trio, or something of the sort

unbelievably fascinating to me. and representative of the future as we know it in the art music world.

say goodbye to insane and absurd dissonance and complexity a la Babbit. say goodbye to minimalism.

say hello to polystylism and hyperrealism / new complexity


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## Argus

StlukesguildOhio said:


> Higdon has been something of a target for Modernists who revile anything the least "retro" in style, but I actually quite enjoy this piece with its elements of Latin-American music, Minimalism, and even Gamelan


Mentioning gamelan reminded me of another composer: Lou Harrison. He is probably most known through his Indonesian inspired works but he has a lot more to him than just gamelan. He ranks as one of the greatest melodists I've heard amongst 20thC classical composers. Much of his music is very influenced by Eastern traditions, mostly Indonesia, China and Japan, but he blends them so effortlessly with a very American sound that reminds me of both early 20thC composers like Barber and the Appalachian folk music.

His output from the 80's is his most accessible whilst being very hard to categorise. His Suite for Violin, Piano and Small Orchestra and his Piano Concerto are both very Romantic influenced, without being plain slushy, and as alaways rhythmically vibrant:











However, his gamelan pieces seperate him from other American composers of the time. They are masterclasses in how to produce seemless fusion of different musical cultures:











His earlier work from the 40's is also full of interesting pieces. Much rawer than his later work but probably more intriguing to me:






Even a work like his 6 Sonatas for Cembalo manage to sound like nothing composed for that old instrument until Ligeti. They still contain a slight Eastern tinge, but remain quite close to classicism at times, and are full of inventive melodies:


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## Hesthehero

Vespertina is a pop tour-de-force that combines catchy hooks with the drama and fantasy of opera. Comprised of critically acclaimed producer Stoupe, of hip hop group Jedi Mind Tricks, and vocalist/pianist Lorrie Doriza, Vespertina is a classically inspired trip-pop plunge into a deranged storybook rabbit hole. The fusion between Doriza's original compositions and Stoupe's trademark drums and production, with additional arrangements by up-and-coming Philadelphia producer, z. gillespie, give a wonderfully dramatic platform from which to weave her tale. Using a blend of both electronic and live instruments, along with a chorus of harmonies, Vespertina's sound is as big and theatrical as their live shows. Doriza's voice is at once powerful and coy, vengeful and sweet, but always a perfect complement to the music and always in character.

Doriza and Stoupe first worked together on the song "Find A Way" from Stoupe's 2009 solo album "Decalogue."


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## Hesthehero

Another one I really like


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## Kopachris

A a very simple ostinato mingling with a very minimal melody. Very cold and dark. It doesn't have much going on, which makes it much easier to listen to than most of Schoenberg's other works.


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## mmsbls

Eric Ewazen teaches at Juilliard. He seems to write for smaller ensembles, and many of his concertos are scored for string orchestra. Here is a movement of his violin concerto with string orchestra. Unfortunately, there is very little on youtube for Ewazen so this is by a high school orchestra. The sound is not great.

Ewazen's Violin Concerto with String Orchestra - second movement





I have heard his Sinfonia for String Orchestra as well and love both works.


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## StlukesguildOhio

Joseph Schwantner is an intriguing contemporary composer who quite often makes extensive use of percussion instrumentation in his works. Velocities is a virtuoso piece for marimba that features shifting textures and rhythms:






The _Concerto for Percussion and Orchestra_ is an energetic piece that strikes me as laden with elements of Stravinsky, Bartok, Hollywood film scores, and even jazz. It seems to me that the strongest art has always brought something new to the table... but never completely thrown out the old. That among contemporary music which I dislike often seems to be that which would be nearly unrecognizable as music by the standards of older composers, whereas something like Schwantner's work doesn't avoid the new or even challenging elements... but neither does it completely reject the past. Just my opinion, of course .





















continued......


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## StlukesguildOhio

Beyond the more percussive and energetic work, Schwantner has shown the ability to compose the most beautiful and delicate of works in an almost Impressionistic manner, such as the lovely _Black Anemones_:






At the same time, he has crossed over to the other side of the spectrum at times producing thorny dissonant works such as _Diaphonia Intervallum_, the title itself meaning Dissonant Interval:






:tiphat:


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## mmsbls

Wow, that's quite a cadenza in the concerto! I'm not much of a flute fan, but the Black Anemones was rather beautiful. The marimba is a wonderful instrument. My wife has a friend who bought an harp and said that the nice thing about harps is that no matter what you play (or almost how you play them), they sound really nice. I feel similarly about the marimba. I have heard a wide range of music played on them and find almost everything enjoyable. There's just something about the timbre that always appeals to me.

I listened to an orchestral work - From a Dark Millennium. It also contains significant percussion sections including an extended solo with a driving beat (No youtube video).


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## robert

Polednice said:


> The Ballad is certainly very enjoyable, though - while I'm no expert on Saeverud at all - I don't think it's really representative of his style. The work I've enjoyed the most so far is his piano sonata, but I can't find a video of it anywhere. If anyone has access to the Naxos Music Library, they should look up Steen-Nokleberg's recordings on there.


Saeverud a Norwegian, has some wonderful music available on Simax and Bis. . His symphonies,( I have 4-9), Cello, Violin concertos are fabulous. He reminds me of Bartok, Vaughan Williams..I am not aware of any chamber music....Something to investigate. Highly recommended stuff....

Robert


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## delallan

Coming quite late to the party on this one, but listened to this piece for the first time this morning, and was intrigued by it, although it isn't something that I would listen to more than once or twice, and certainly not something that I find I could get 'lost' in. There are elements of it that are jarring, which might be a good thing.



StlukesguildOhio said:


> Building off Enjoying Life's request:
> 
> As someone who has tried very hard to listen to and enjoy 20th Cent music, I have a request. Could a few of you who enjoy and understand it please pick a piece you like and explain or describe it for me. Maybe pick a piece on YouTube so I can listen to it and we can refer to the same recording. Tell me what you like or see in the music or how it effects you. Highlight parts that are special or important (refering to the time on the YouTube performance so I can find it).
> 
> That might help me better understand the music and those who like it. If i knew why you liked a certain piece that might help me to like it also.
> 
> I have long thought this was a good idea. Rather than just talking about Modern and Contemporary music in an abstract sense, why not have a little dialog about specific works and why you particularly like them:
> 
> I'll start with Giacinto Scelsi's piece, _Pfhat_:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Scelsi is an interesting figure whose music shares elements with Minimalism and Spectralism is spite of the fact that he worked largely outside of any movement. As a lover of early medieval chant, Indian, Asian, and Middle-Eastern music I find Scelsi's modal droning to be quite hypnotic and suggestive of something primitive... like Tibetan horns or gongs. The imagery of the video perfectly conveys this sense to me.
> 
> I especially like the way the voices in the middle section ebb and surge... almost like the tides... again suggestion something primordial.
> 
> In contrast to these elements of the music the chorus suggests something unearthly... almost supernatural. Indeed I can't help but think of Kubrick's _2001: A Space Odyssey_ in which the music of Ligeti conveys a similar feeling.
> 
> In spite of Scelsi's complete rejection of atonalism... and return to harmony... yet a harmony stripped down to the most minimal the music as a whole impresses me with the variety of musical colors, moods, and atmospheres created through an unexpected use and array of instruments.


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## mmsbls

Let's see if we can move this thread along again. Here are the first two movement's of Witold Lutoslawski's Piano Concerto written in 1987.






This is the fourth (and last) movement.






I'm not really at home with the first two movements which give me a somewhat disjointed feel although the frequent ethereal, flirty piano parts can be lovely and fun. The third movement begins with a long solo piano "song" and then enters a dialogue between the piano and the orchestra. The fourth movement is my favorite. It apparently consists of a series of 12 variations (although I struggle to hear them).

Here is a wonderful performance of Lutoslawski's Paganini Variations for two pianos






This piece is also played with Piano and Orchestra but I like the two piano version much better.


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## tdc

I'm a big fan of the Lutoslawski Piano Concerto. A great piece to explore, that rewards repeated listens.
I'd recommend the recording with Zimerman.


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## mmsbls

tdc said:


> I'm a big fan of the Lutoslawski Piano Concerto. A great piece to explore, that rewards repeated listens.
> I'd recommend the recording with Zimerman.


I have the Zimerman / BBC Symphony recording with Chain 3 and Novelette. The piano concerto made a much bigger impression on me so I listened several times to that. Perhaps the other pieces would grow on me with more listenings.


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## BelaBartok

I love this thread and would hate to see it die. One modern piece that would be an example that shows "emotion" would be Ligeti's "Lux Aeterna". However, it's not the typical happy/sad/in love kind of emotions of the Romantic period, it reminds me more of when I was a kid and I would look up at the stars and contemplate how mysterious and huge it all was.






Another piece in the same "mysterious" vein would be Schnittke's "Requiem", the opening (and closing) of it is in this video:






Finally, I don't think the composer of this is any sort of big shot composer nor is this work really "deep" in any way or pretends to be. However, being a percussionist myself, I love listening to this snare drum concerto in a way only a percussionist can.


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## BelaBartok

Some other additions.

More Schnittke. I can't really explain why I love this, but I do. The most "listenable" movement is the 5th movement, which starts at 18:50, for those who don't want to endure a full 30 minute plunge into rather dissonant music.






This one is very early modern (1910), but still appropriate for this thread. This is absolutely one of my favorite piano pieces, composed by Berg but still not atonal, just "borderline tonal" centered on the key of B minor. It apparently applies Schoenberg's principle of "developing variations". I don't really know what that means, but I feel smart saying it.


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## mmsbls

BelaBartok said:


> I love this thread and would hate to see it die.


Great to see another with this interest. I have tried to post regularly to this thread, but I am new to modern and contemporary music so I know comparatively few works.

I liked Schnittke's "Requiem" and the Berg is interesting. I will have to listen more to the Sonata to get a better sense of it.

Thanks for posting.


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## violadude

What about Schnittke's 2nd concerto grosso? A wacky kaleidoscope of "silent night" Baroque music, contemporary music, march music, jazz and more. It's pretty mind blowing O.O


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## Polednice

Thanks for the Schnittke. I hadn't listened to much by him before, but I enjoyed some of what's been posted.


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## SuperTonic

I've been going through a Schittke phase the past few days. I agree with BelaBartok and violadude about the concerti grossi. Those pieces are very typical of his style. I think my favorite piece of his is the Piano Quintet. A very dark and haunting piece.





If you liked Ligeti's Lux Aeterna, you may also like his Lontano. It is purely instrumental, but it is in a similar style.


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## GoneBaroque

Since I am a fairly recent member of the Forum I just came upon this thread and agree that it should not die out. It leads us to music we would not normally be aware of; music which might challenge us. As I type this I am listening to Elliot Carter's Sonata for Flute, Oboe, Cello and Harpsichord (Four of my favorite instruments) and am finding it very enjoyable and interesting..I look forward to going through the thread and making other interesting discoveries. Keep them coming.

Rob


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## violadude

8 songs for a mad king by Peter Maxwell-Davies

Davies is a really great composer. This work is especially strange, but hey, it's pretty much what you would expect a mad king to sound like.


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## schigolch

I love flute's solo pieces. I find this is a deceptively simple, but fascinating instrument.

And some contemporary composers are the ones that really have understood better the flute.

One of my favourites is this lovely _Cassandra's dream song_, by Brian Ferneyhough, where you can find all kind of extended techniques. But this is not pyrotechnics, it is used as a powerful, and beautiful, (albeit a little bit complicated) way to compose expressive music.


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## Huilunsoittaja

schigolch said:


>


Oh dear...

You really can do weird things with flute, I've heard some, and this included now. Gonna have to learn it eventually, so might as well get use to it.

This is a quite different flute solo work, made in 1990. I've learned how to play it:






Personally, I don't like many of these youtube recordings, I play it better. :/


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## Argus

Huilunsoittaja said:


> This is a quite different flute solo work, made in 1990. I've learned how to play it:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Personally, I don't like many of these youtube recordings, I play it better. :/


I liked that.

Hey, if you know someone else who plays flute, you should both learn this:






Staying on the flute theme, here are a couple of nice flute and percussion pieces:


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## Huilunsoittaja

Both were really interesting. The first one is definitely do-able with a flute choir, unless you get some flutists who know how to circular breathe. The Greek studies were pretty. 

I might post up my recording of Kokopeli on here sometime. I like the Native American influence in it.


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## SuperTonic

You may also like a couple of pieces by the Chickasaw composer Jerod Tate called Tracing Mississippi and Iholba', both of which are for flute and orchestra. Unfortunately neither are on YouTube, but you can listen to samples on Amazon.com.

http://www.amazon.com/Works-Jerod-Impichchaachaaha-Tate/dp/B0015I2PMC/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1309562649&sr=1-1


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## Whistlerguy

I just accidentally discovered Philip Glass' Symphony No. 8 composed in 2006.

I am quite surprised how traditional and accessible this sounds. Quite good work on first hearing.


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## Tomposer

Wow, what an excellent thread. Really good selections everyone!! "Contemporary music" is alive and well, contrary to what a lot of people go on about. It is a small force, it's true, but these days that's not really an issue - there are many such things happily co-existing in the modern world.

Let me add a couple of things which are a bit "from left field." In this day and age I don't think we can afford to overlook exciting innovations in musics which aren't readily classifiable into the "western art music" tradition. There are some huge influences of mine which come to mind here....

NO. 1 (absolutely, positively)
Bjork





Also, electronic artists are, right now, doing utterly amazing things.

Look up Amon Tobin, for example.

__
https://soundcloud.com/amon-tobin%2Fsets

I can't resist posting a tune that my teacher created:


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## Sid James

StlukesguildOhio said:


> I have long thought this was a good idea. Rather than just talking about Modern and Contemporary music in an abstract sense, why not have a little dialog about specific works and why you particularly like them...


I agree with this positive statement. Judging from what at least some people have posted elsewhere on this forum, I think there may be a kind of "positive groundswell" for this kind of thread? So I'm attempting to revive it here a bit & maybe add things regularly. I'm particularly interested in breaking down any "barriers" some people may be having with these types of newer musics.

Here's something I got into last night -

*Alberto GINASTERA* - Piano Concerto #1, Op. 28

This is in the modern "atonal" style (composed 1962). Someone called it "Bartok on the Pampas" (regarding the Argentinian grassy plains). Bartok's, influence is discernible, as is guys like Stravinsky & Schoenberg. It opens with a piano solo that has a Liszt-like feel, but kind of "atonal." A lot of what follows is kind of nightmarish & dreamlike, yes, a sense of landscape is clearly present here, & it does sound much like the Pampas looks, it's a "flat" landscape. Not much jagged peaks, but the final 4th movt. may give you a bit of a shock! The piano plays a modern Toccata theme, which is punctured by these jolting, harsh rhythms. It's like Bach gone totally off the deep end. It's a huge battle between the piano & orchestra, much like the end of Tchaikovsky's first concerto, but much wilder. Just before the end, the Toccata played by the pianist sounds like she's in a total frenzy, gone apesh*t, bashing the keyboard (but the melody still shines through all this). Pure genius, but I'm up in the air as to who "wins." I think this can prove to be a very appealing work to those who get to know it, but I think the main factor holding it back from live performances is the difficulty, esp. of the piano part. Rock outfit Emerson, Palmer & Lake rearranged this final movt., much to the delight of the composer...

Below are youtube links to the whole work & the disc it's taken from (same one I've got) below that (this is not the best sound - an issue with youtube, not the CD which has great sound - but it will maybe give you some idea of what this work is about) -

(whole concerto lasts 28:22)

*First movt.: *Cadenza e varianti (9:14)





*Second movt.: *Scherzo allucinante (6:52)





*Third movt.: *Adagissimo (6:16)





*Fourth movt.: *Toccata concertata (6:01)


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## StlukesguildOhio

I should probably post this here as well as the "Currently Listening" thread:

Lowell Liebermann is called one of America's most frequently performed and recorded living composers and referred to by the New York Times "as much of a traditionalist as an innovator." For a more in depth bibliography, the composer has his own website here:

http://www.lowellliebermann.com/index.html

I honestly had never heard of him until someone on the net recommended him as a contemporary composer who was at once marvelous and accessible.










As a lover of the clarinet (think Mozart's clarinet quintet, Brahms works for clarinet, etc...) I gave this disc a listen-to on Spotify which has just begun it's US debut and really seems worth the money. The works are quite strong. There are elements of Brahms and late Romanticism which cross over in to more post-Schoenberg tonalities from time to time... yet remain anchored in traditional tonality.

The songs, settings of texts by Raymond Carver is also quite strong. It's not surprising that Liebermann counts Jake Heggie, one of the strongest composers of American "art songs" IMO among his circle of friends.

Liebermann seems to have composed works in a broad array of traditional classical forms or genre:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=BKSzXmCvy4Q#at=27


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## Sid James

*@ stlukes *- Thanks for posting Liebermann's things. I listened to the _Piano Quintet _(1st movt.) & liked his sense of melody & how he opens that work in a slow, serene way. I think that he has a similar natural feel for melody like Gershwin in his day (or Schubert?), I think you are right, this guy must be a "natural" in the art-song realm. Now listening to your next clip, the Piano Sonata #1 (1st movt.) - do you think this is a type of "homage" to J.S. Bach? It sounds very much like him, esp. _The Well-Tempered Clavier_. But the lower notes of the keyboard at the very beginning reminded me a bit of Boulez initially, I thought it'd go into more "atonal" territory, but he completely took me by surprise & kind of went "tonal" & Baroque. It's kind of maybe to grab your attention & then do what he's interested in, the more "traditional" stuff. Ok well I'll listen to the other two next time, these have been interesting. Busy & got to head off now, keep posting your "new" music stuff here, I'll try to as well. Hopefully we can get more listening to eachother's things (all members) as well as commenting on them...


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## mmsbls

@Sid: Thanks for reviving this thread. It's great that people are continuing to post and discuss these works.

The Ginastera concerto was an interesting work. Your description of the 4th movement intrigued me. It certainly has frenetic feel as it hurls toward the conclusion. Quite a contrast from the serene almost dream-like 3rd movement. Overall thoroughly enjoyable. I have made a note to come back to this work.


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## mmsbls

StlukesguildOhio said:


> Lowell Liebermann is called one of America's most frequently performed and recorded living composers and referred to by the New York Times "as much of a traditionalist as an innovator."
> 
> I honestly had never heard of him until someone on the net recommended him as a contemporary composer who was at once marvelous and accessible.


I don't think I had ever heard of Liebermann. I listened to the Piano Quintet and the Nocturne. Both are quite melodic and as you mention immediately accessible.

I listened to another couple of Nocturnes on youtube as well. Finally I heard his Concerto for Violin, Piano, and String Quartet on Naxos. As with the other works, it was full of gorgeous melodies and just lovely overall.

Thanks for calling attention to him. I'll certainly explore much more of him. I noticed a recording of his piano music which has seven nocturnes. I'm strongly tempted to get it.


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## Sid James

mmsbls said:


> @Sid: Thanks for reviving this thread. It's great that people are continuing to post and discuss these works.


Thanks for reading my post above. I also enjoyed your response re Liebermann, good that you mentioned some of his other things, they are worth getting by the sounds of it (I have a "soft spot" for concertos, as you can see from my Ginastera entry!).



> The Ginastera concerto was an interesting work. Your description of the 4th movement intrigued me. It certainly has frenetic feel as it hurls toward the conclusion. Quite a contrast from the serene almost dream-like 3rd movement. Overall thoroughly enjoyable. I have made a note to come back to this work.


Yes, his first concerto can be immediately appealing, it marries a strong sense of melody with "atonal" techniques, as well as things like Stravinsky's rhythmic innovations. & of course (as in the Liebermann Sonata above, as well as Boulez's first two sonatas, counterpoint - & I think through that J.S. Bach - is almost always a part of these things, no matter whether they're "traditional" or "atonal" or anything "in-between). I just see the different techniques as just that - techniques. These need not be "barriers" to a variety of listening, no matter what the "style" or "era." Of course, some things are "harder" that others to appreciate more deeply than others, but with time it is possible to "access" them in many ways, often in my own individual way. Eg. I listened to that Ginastera again last night & was able to hear a slight "echo" of the opening cadenza & the concluding toccata. Repeated listening often seems to "bear fruits" for me in that kind of way. Indeed, I don't own that much discs, but I get a lot from what little I own & there's always room for expansion based on that, imo.

Given what time I have, I will try to post as comprehensively as I did above (& I thank stlukes for doing the same, some level of explanation is needed with this often lesser-known repertoire). I am happy that you have gotten something out of my "ramblings" & don't hesitate to come back for more (here or on other threads also).  ...


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## StlukesguildOhio

*Richard Gavin Bryars* (b. 1943) is an English composer and double bassist. He has been active in, or has produced works in, a variety of styles of music, including jazz, free improvisation, minimalism, experimental music, avant-garde, etc...

Bryars's first works as a composer owe much to the New York School of John Cage (with whom he briefly studied), Morton Feldman, Earle Brown and minimalism. One of his earliest pieces, _The Sinking of the Titanic_ (1969), is an indeterminist work which allows the performers to take a number of sound sources related to the sinking of the RMS Titanic and make them into a piece of music.

Bryars has written a large number of other works, including three operas, and a number of instrumental pieces, among them three string quartets and several concertos. He has written several pieces for choreographers, including Biped (2001) for Merce Cunningham. Between 1981-1984 he participated in the CIVIL warS, a vast, never-completed multimedia project by Robert Wilson.

*David Lang* (b. 1957) is an American composer living in New York City. He was awarded the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Music for _The Little Match Girl Passion_, a marvelous moving piece that I had the good fortune to hear performed live with the composer.

Lang's music is informed by modernism, minimalism, and rock - and can perhaps be best described as post-minimalist or totalist.

He was a major contributor to the music performed by the Kronos Quartet in Requiem for a Dream being the arranger in studio. He is also well known for his work with choreographers Shen Wei, Benjamin Millepied, Susan Marshall and Édouard Lock / La La La Human Steps, and has collaborated with composers Julia Wolfe and Michael Gordon and librettist/illustrator Ben Katchor in the composition of the "comic strip opera" as well as the Scandinavian vocal group Trio Mediaeval.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gavin_Bryars

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Lang_(composer)

http://www.davidlangmusic.com/

http://www.gavinbryars.com/splash

Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty-ballets at once iconic and mutable-undergo what must be their most extreme deconstructions to date with *Amjad*. Created by the ever-inventive Édouard Lock and performed by La La La Human Steps, a troupe of commanding, supremely disciplined dancers, *Amjad* flirts with the ballets' intense Romanticism even as it plays gorgeous havoc with notions of love, gender, and narrative.

Set to music by Gavin Bryars, David Lang, and Blake Hargreaves that weaves Tchaikovsky's themes into another world, *Amjad* casts aside 19th-century decorum in favor of primal, often startling transformations. Five arm-waving ballerinas costumed in black suggest a feathery swarm; a shape-shifting prince becomes a glorious swan, dancing full-out on pointe. The stark set-projections of blood-red petals, luminous pearls, a tangled forest-emphasizes the fairy tales' exotic underpinnings.

An absolutely fascinating deconstruction of... or series of variations upon Tchaikovsky's well-known music by two of the of the most intriguing contemporary composers.






http://www.bam.org/view.aspx?pid=122


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## Sid James

*Roger SESSIONS* (1896-1985)
_Second Sonata for piano_ (1946)

Since buying this disc & the other volume of it - American Piano Sonatas played by Peter Lawson - I have been slowly absorbing it, bit by bit. Last night, I listened to this work by American composer Roger Sessions. This is an "atonal" piece (but not using the serialist techniques - he got into that some years later). This is the only work that I've heard so far from this composer, who was a major voice of "serious" music in the USA of the c20th.

Speaking to the work, it has three movements in the usual format: fast - slow - fast. The outer movements are quite rhythmic & have a kind of jazzy or be-bop feel. Indeed, if you'd hear this kind of thing played by Charlie Parker on the saxophone, it wouldn't sound out of place in that way. The middle slow movement has a kind of soft edge to it, the liner notes say it's "sinuous," & the night musics in Bartok's piano concertos, or the blurry notes & feel of tonality not resolving & just hanging around - as in a lot of Debussy - is not far away either. The last movt. incorporates march-like rhythms, apparently mirroring the goose-stepping of German soldiers during the war not long past, invading other countries. It comes across as kind of manic. The ending sounds to me pretty resolved & emphatic, though I don't know if that's true in a "tonal" sense (but don't really care). The liner notes also give a quote from the composer that is a bit illuminating as to the reason of the more programmatic last movt., he said "What we ask of music, first and last, is that it communicate experience." Here is the whole work on youtube (I haven't been able to listen to this to check it out properly, I hope it does the work some justice, esp. the nuanced slow movt.).

i. Allegro con fuoco - ii. Lento - iii. Misuranto e pesante (Whole work lasts about 15 mins.)





Disc image of what I listened to at home below (Piano Sonatas by Sessions, Ives, Griffes) -


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## StlukesguildOhio

Andre, I must admit that Roger Sessions is one composer I have yet to explore... although I discovered several pieces available on Spotify including his First Symphony... which seems quite promising from what I have heard so far.

One area of recent focus has been the work of Benjamin Britten. I can't believe I put him off for so long considering my love of vocal music and his strength in the genre. Britten is a marvelous composer not only of opera, but also choral music, and song. I recently picked up this disc:










As a William Blake fanatic I should be ashamed of myself for not having jumped on this work sooner. A great deal of Britten's vocal oeuvre was written for tenor with his life-long partner Peter Pears in mind. This disc, however, focuses upon some of the finest work that Britten composed for baritone... often with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau in mind.

The first four works on the disc are comprised of settings of folk-songs. "She's Like the Swallow" and "I Wonder as I Wander" are especially beautiful.

The major work presented here is Britten's setting of William Blake's _Songs of Innocence and Experience_ and the _Proverbs of Hell_ from the _Marriage of Heaven and Hell_. These songs are quite a bit more "thorny"... modern... and theatrical. In some ways these songs are almost operatic in the manner in which the voice and the piano accompaniment act out in a manner that truly "illuminates" (to use Blake's term) the text.

The closing grouping, entitled Tit for Tat, is a selection from Britten's early poems (written between ages 14-17). The composer suggests that he made only the slightest changes in the arrangement, but the songs do not sound all that far stylistically from his other later songs.

Unfortunately, I can't find any reasonably good performances of the works from this disc online, so I can only say that I highly recommend it... especially to anyone who is particularly fond of the "art song", Britten, or William Blake. As expected, Gerald Finley gives a marvelous performance.


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## StlukesguildOhio

Well... I was able to listen to Roger Session's First Symphony on Spotify this afternoon:










I must say I am quite impressed and will be certainly on the lookout for my by him. The symphony in question is a three-movement symphony with the opening and closing movement being quite bold and the middle movement following the tradition role as more calm... elegiac... beautiful. While the symphony doesn't really venture into greatly into atonality, there is little doubt that it is a modern as opposed to Romantic work. In this sense it is not unlike the symphonic works of Prokofiev and Shostakovitch... which Sessions work would stand well alongside of:






Anyone interested might look into the entire slew of Sessions' symphonies presented in their entirety with rather clear sound on YouTube:











Again, I feel these are examples of some truly magnificent work by a Modern composer that is also quite accessible.


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## Sid James

Thanks for posting the Sessions symphonies (as well as the earlier Bryars & Lang clips; also enjoyed your "takes" on Britten). I'll endeavour to listen to all these in the next few days, then report back here for what I think. It's good that we can share & bounce off ideas about different works by the same composer. I must say I had been a bit "daunted" by Sessions in the past - but more his "image" or his kind of "granitic" reputation - for being very "uncompromising" & "challenging" for first-time listeners. But as you suggest with bringing up other composers of the time, who may well have been influences on him, if we relate what we know to what we don't it can often become a "win-win" scenario (or has more chance to compared to not thinking of these possible links). Speaking to that, how you described the structure/form/content of that symphony exactly corresponds with his _Second Sonata for piano_ that I was posting about above -



StlukesguildOhio said:


> ...The symphony in question is a three-movement symphony with the opening and closing movement being quite bold and the middle movement following the tradition role as more calm... elegiac... beautiful...


...except the piano sonata was "atonal" - the disc notes said this, comparing it with the sonata by Griffes on it that was still "tonal" being written earlier - but it goes to show that "atonality" isn't the be-all & end-all, a composer often does things in similar ways, not matter what techique he is using. There is a disc on Naxos of Sessions' chamber music which will be another possible "next step" for me, once I get around to it (I think those works were from his next "phase" - going into serial techniques)...


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## Sid James

*Pierre BOULEZ* (born 1925)

*Piano Sonata No. 1* (_Première Sonate pour Piano_) (composed 1946)

I think this work is a good introduction to Boulez's cycle of three piano sonatas. It's quite short at just over 10 minutes & some aspects of the structure of the second part is maybe not as hard to hear as in his other sonatas. I personally approach these kinds of works with an ear for dynamics (contrasts between loud & soft sounds) rather than for "hunting" for a melody, which is too hard for me, this music is quite fragmented to do that easily. Of course, the tempos vary as well, & there are quite a few silences, breaking up the patterns in the work. This can be a bit confusing at first, but personally I just listen for the dynamics & some of the other nuances can become more apparent after that. The overall mood throughout this work is quite surreal to me, a kind of night-time world, full of mystery. The rapid changes can also be kind of exciting because you kind of don't know what exactly to expect next.

The work is in two sections with a break in between. The first section has a lot of "stops and starts" & flourishes, which kind of makes me think of the jagged peaks of the Alpine ranges which obviously inspired Webern & Messiaen in their piano music (or music with piano). This must have rubbed off in some ways on Boulez, he admired both composers music & was actually taught by the latter. The second movement (coming at 4:30 in the clip below) starts off building up to a jagged toccata, which comes and goes throughout the movt. The mysterious and quiet atmosphere of the first movt. also comes and goes. The toccata idea, with the two "voices" interweaving, comes back quite strongly towards the end (at about 7:50), only to peter out in a false ending (about 9:50). But the work ends quite decisively with the toccata idea dominating.

Here is Idil Biret playing on the Naxos recording I've got on CD (this was recorded for Radio France & this disc with all of Boulez's three sonatas won a coveted Diaposon D'Or award). Biret plays it in a kind of passionate and "high on contrast" way. There are also other recordings of this work on youtube, incl. one with Pierre-Laurent Aimard which displays the score (I haven't heard that one).

(Whole work lasts about 10 minutes)
I. Lent -- Beaucoup plus allant - II. Assez large -- Rapide


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## Vazgen

Sid James said:


> I must say I had been a bit "daunted" by Sessions in the past - but more his "image" or his kind of "granitic" reputation - for being very "uncompromising" & "challenging" for first-time listeners.


Glad you liked the Sessions sonata, Sid. Roger Sessions has some excellent early works (such as the First Symphony or the Violin Concerto) that should sound familiar to anyone who's heard Copland, William Schuman and Walter Piston. His symphonies became progressively more complex after that. Though they are intense, exciting works requiring stunning virtuosity from musicians, these later symphonies probably won't be of much appeal to anyone concerned with "accessibility."

-Vaz


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## violadude

Sid James said:


> *Pierre BOULEZ* (born 1925)
> 
> *Piano Sonata No. 1* (_Première Sonate pour Piano_) (composed 1946)
> 
> I think this work is a good introduction to Boulez's cycle of three piano sonatas. It's quite short at just over 10 minutes & some aspects of the structure of the second part is maybe not as hard to hear as in his other sonatas. I personally approach these kinds of works with an ear for dynamics (contrasts between loud & soft sounds) rather than for "hunting" for a melody, which is too hard for me, this music is quite fragmented to do that easily. Of course, the tempos vary as well, & there are quite a few silences, breaking up the patterns in the work. This can be a bit confusing at first, but personally I just listen for the dynamics & some of the other nuances can become more apparent after that. The overall mood throughout this work is quite surreal to me, a kind of night-time world, full of mystery. The rapid changes can also be kind of exciting because you kind of don't know what exactly to expect next.
> 
> The work is in two sections with a break in between. The first section has a lot of "stops and starts" & flourishes, which kind of makes me think of the jagged peaks of the Alpine ranges which obviously inspired Webern & Messiaen in their piano music (or music with piano). This must have rubbed off in some ways on Boulez, he admired both composers music & was actually taught by the latter. The second movement (coming at 4:30 in the clip below) starts off building up to a jagged toccata, which comes and goes throughout the movt. The mysterious and quiet atmosphere of the first movt. also comes and goes. The toccata idea, with the two "voices" interweaving, comes back quite strongly towards the end (at about 7:50), only to peter out in a false ending (about 9:50). But the work ends quite decisively with the toccata idea dominating.
> 
> Here is Idil Biret playing on the Naxos recording I've got on CD (this was recorded for Radio France & this disc with all of Boulez's three sonatas won a coveted Diaposon D'Or award). Biret plays it in a kind of passionate and "high on contrast" way. There are also other recordings of this work on youtube, incl. one with Pierre-Laurent Aimard which displays the score (I haven't heard that one).
> 
> (Whole work lasts about 10 minutes)
> I. Lent -- Beaucoup plus allant - II. Assez large -- Rapide


Thanks a lot for this! I've been struggling with Boulez's piano sonatas for quite some time.


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## StlukesguildOhio

German composer, Wolfgang Rihm's, _Vigilia_ (2006) is a composition for mixed voices and chamber ensemble. Lasting an hour, it alternates seven instrumental sections ("Sonatas") with seven motets, some a cappella and some accompanied, and it culminates in a grand _Miserere_, some 16 minutes long. The work is clearly Modern/Contemporary... but one could still imagine it being employed in a liturgical setting. The Latin texts, derived from Biblical texts relating to Good Friday, are somber and mostly contemplative. The music, mostly dark and brooding in tone, is clearly suited to the text. The instrumental "sonatas" are often dark and droning... suggestive of the modal thrumming of some works of Scelsi or Jonathan Harvey. The choral passages (the "motets") could initially pass for late medieval/Renaissance pieces employing the use of polyphonic conventions of the era. At times there is a great contrast between the "heaviness" or aural density of the instrumental passages with the far lighter, transparency of the choral passages, lending a variety to the work as a whole. Some choral passages, however, are accompanied by the instruments gaining a greater density. At times the great kettle drums rumble ominously in the background as if suggesting an approaching storm. In the culminating _Miserere_, the voices take on a similarly solemn density with the instrumental passages and the mood of the work (and subject) as a whole.

I would certainly recommend this work to anyone interested in exploring contemporary music... especially if they had a specific interest in vocal, choral, or liturgical music.
Unfortunately, there are no examples of this piece to sample on YouTube, however, the entire work is available on Spotify.

:tiphat:


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## Sid James

*@ Vazgen *- Yes, the Sessions 2nd piano sonata can prove to be a very "accessible" work, & although I'm not that worried about "access" issues, what you said suggests it's a good idea to hear his earlier works first before jumping in to the later more complex ones. As I said, I'll probably get that Naxos disc with some of his chamber works as a "next step," as chamber music is one of my favourite things.

*@ violadude* - Thanks for reading & hope you get something out of my impressions on that Boulez work. I'll probably return here in later weeks to do the same with his 2nd & 3rd sonatas. They're all interesting & unique in many ways.

*@ stlukes* - Thx for posting re Rihm. I like how you related this new music to the things of the past. That's how I often do things to, to make sense of/appreciate these things more. I like Rihm, judging from a chamber work I heard live last year. Quite expressive & dramatic music, you're right he's definitely worth getting into...


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## Sid James

Just got this guy's disc "out of the blue" quite by chance yesterday & thought I'd share his great music with you all!

His "artist" name is *Guem*, he is a percussionist born in Algeria who has been living & working in France for decades. I got a disc of his from the 1980's called _Le Serpent _(on the Harmonia Mundi label). He uses percussion instruments - both modern and traditional, I think? - and does tracks using overdubbing technology (playing both on his own and with others). This music is very rich & layered, there are several things going on at once, but it's all united by a kind of melodic chant-like African beat. One of the tracks has a recording of birds in the background, another has a wordless vocalist chanting. There's a lot of variety on this disc of about an hour, I just couldn't turn it off! It's kind of a combination of "world" music, classical (Steve Reich's own more recent percussion music, heavily laced with African rhythms, comes to mind) & modern "Afro" beats.

Here is the title track from the album, in very good sound (for once!) on youtube. It's only 5 minutes or so long & there's quite a bit of his other stuff on youtube as well. The music does make me think, a bit, of the movement of a snake. Get right into these groovy Afro beats & enjoy! -

GUEM - "Le Serpent"

Entry about Guem on French Wikipedia translated into English


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## Sid James

*John CAGE* (1912-1992)

_*Credo in Us *_(1942)
For four performers - pianist, two percussionists, & a peformer playing recordings &/or radios

This is one of Cage's earliest works incorporating "real" and recorded sound. A friend of mine thought it was kind of "anarchist," but in a good/interesting way. It brings together some of Cage's interests in chance, non-determinism, subversion of the old & blending/contrasting it with the new. This is I think a "fun" piece. It involves the acoustic "real" players interacting with the sounds of the recordings. Here the introduction is something Russian (Tchaikovsky? Prokofiev? whatever) & in the second part (clip) below there's a bit of techno thrown in for good measure. Listen at about 1:54 in the second part/clip for some good old "honky tonk" piano. I think the parts for acoustic instruments are written down in a fairly traditional way but the recorded bits that can be thrown in can be different in every individual performance (Cage was to do more "radical" things, esp. regarding notation, later).

Piece in total lasts about 16 minutes, here on youtube split into 2 parts, watch out for the very "Cagean" touch of kind of spontaneous dancing.

Credo in Us - Part One

Credo in Us - Part Two

Wikipedia entry on the work - in English


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## Sid James

*Virgil THOMSON *(1896-1989)

*Louisiana Story *(orchestral suite) from the Film "Louisiana Story" dir. Robert Flaherty (1948).

As can be seen with my posting the Cage & Sessions "reviews" above, I'm really getting into American music now, it's such a rich and diverse area. Virgil Thomson is most known for his film music of the 1930's and '40's. Like Aaron Copland, he trod the well-worn path to music teacher Nadia Boulanger's door in Paris during the 1920's, staying there until about 1940. In "the city of light" he got to know the "who's who" of the contemporary arts scene._ Louisiana Story _is my favourite work that I know so far from him, mainly for the epic fugue that ends the work. It has the feel of a titanic struggle between light and dark, reminding me a lot of the same kind of ending to Vaughan Williams' _Symphony No. 4_. In the clip below, it starts at about 12:30, so quite a long time into the piece. The earlier bits are fine and dandy, quite enjoyable, but it's this "grand finale" that really "rocks my boat" every time I hear it. This represents the main character of a film - a boy defending his pet racoon! - struggling with an alligator. The alligator's snapping jaw is easy to hear in the cymbal clashes towards the end especially. I like how Thomson builds up the tension, bit by bit, and how it all ends with this fortissimo kind of drum/percussion roll, making me think of a waterfall or something. Listen to this & you probably won't be surprised that the composer won a coveted Pullitzer Prize for this very score!

Here it is with the Philadelphia Orch., Eugene Ormandy at the helm (Total Duration - 16:51)

It's all on the one clip, but the sections are:
1. Pastorale (0:00)
2. Chorale (4:36)
3. Passacaglia (7:40) and Fugue (12:30)


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## StlukesguildOhio

I stumbled upon this disc while playing around with Spotify:










Once again, as a William Blake fanatic, the cover alone was enough to pique my interest, and after discovering that the disc contained two choral works by contemporary English composers I was intrigued enough to give it a listen.

Paul Patterson (born 1947) is a British composer and Professor of Composition at the Royal Academy of Music. Patterson studied trombone and composition at the Royal Academy of Music. He returned there to become Head of Composition and Contemporary Music until 1997, when he became Manson Professor of Composition. In his time at the Academy, it is fair to say that Patterson has almost single-handedly been responsible for the creation of the Contemporary Music Department. Patterson is an important figure in the choral field and his enthusiasm for music both challenging and enjoyable to performers and audiences has produced a number of important large-scale choral works. The first work included on this disc is Patterson's 5-movement _Missa Brevis_. This work is quite clearly modern... but avoids any obvious "modernist" elements. The mass is a setting of the traditional Latin texts and includes a Kyrie, Gloria, Sanctus, Benedictus and Agnus Dei. This work is quite pleasant and highly accessible... if not the most daring of original choral work I've heard.

Michael Berkeley (born 1948) is a British composer and broadcaster on music. His father was the composer Sir Lennox Berkeley. Michael was a chorister at Westminster Cathedral, and he frequently sang in works composed or conducted by his godfather, Benjamin Britten. Berkeley was educated at The Oratory School, an independent school in the village of Woodcote, near Henley-on-Thames in Oxfordshire. He studied composition, singing and piano at the Royal Academy of Music, but it was not until his late twenties, when he went to study with Richard Rodney Bennett, that he concentrated on composition. Berkeley has partnered on several occasions with the writer Ian McEwan. He has produced 3 operas with the writer, icluding one setting the author's well-known novel, _Atonement_.

The work by Berkeley/McEwan included here is _Or Shall We Die?_, an oratorio addressing the issue of nuclear war. The text written by Ian McEwan dates from the year in which Ronald Reagan announced that not only was a nuclear war in Europe thinkable, but it was winnable. This was followed by the stationing of cruise missiles in England. The text quotes scientists at Taos, the _Upanishads_, the _Bhagavad Gita_ (the ancient Hindu scripture from which Robert Oppenheimer took his famous quote, I am become death, destroyer of worlds.") as well as the poems of William Blake, an early opponent of Newtonian Physics and science without humanity.

The music in this piece is quite varied. The composer employs soloists, choir, and orchestra in a manner that conveys a broad array of textures. The whole is quite dramatic... perhaps not unlike the manner of Benjamin Britten. There are delicate passages employing a childrens' choir, sensuous lines for the soprano, fragile duets played against an almost Asian (Japanese) sounding instrumentation, rumbling, explosive drums... even a section that sounds more like a Broadway spectacle meets Gospel. Unfortunately, the text can come off rather shrill... and even ignorant... in spite of the seriousness of the question posed by the oratorio as a whole: "Do we change, or must we die?"

In a final note, I must state that the Spotify version is quite irritating in the fact that it does not offer the music in a lossless format. Thus, as one track ends and merges into the next, there is a second of silence... a few times at a rather climactic moment. This is certainly an issue that Spotify must rectify if they hope to maintain an audience that includes classical music fans... of anyone that listens to music in which one track runs into the next (Dark Side of the Moon, Abbey Road, opera, live recordings, etc...


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## mmsbls

@Stlukes/Sid: Thanks for the posts, which have such a wide range of music. I was a bit behind on listening. It's funny that I have at times bemoaned the lack of posts to this thread, but when there are so many I almost want to say, "Slow down. I need time to listen."

Sessions' first symphony was a joy to hear. The second movement, as Stlukes said, is quite beautiful. I actually thought of Prokofiev's first symphony while listening to it. I felt less of a connection to the 9th. Perhaps I need more time to listen.

The Guem was a surprise. I have listened to very little World music. Sid mentioned the layered rhythms on top of the fundamental beat. It made me feel like dancing in my chair as I listened.

I have not listened to much film music other than in films I'm watching, but then it's really background. The Thomson opening Pastorale is beautiful. After reading what the ending Fugue represents, It's hard not to visualize the boy's struggle while listening. I've wanted to explore more film music, but generally there's so much else on my plate that I never get to it.

After two hearings of the Boulez sonata I still feel lost with the work. To me there is a strong sense of random tones, and I simply can't follow much of it. I seemed to connect for short periods in the second part (movement?), but overall I don't "get" it for lack of a better term.


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## schigolch

I love the work of japanese composer Toshio Hosokawa.










He was born in Hiroshima, in 1955. His musical education took place mainly in Germany, though he also explored japanese traditional music. He has written some very interesting operas: _Hanjo_, _Vision of Lear_ and _Matsukaze_.






A thoughtful exploration of japanese sounds, the silence, incorporate Nature into his works, along a complete understaning of the western classical and avant-garde music, shape Hosokawa's style.

_I'm searching for a new way to understand the music and the spirit of Japan, one way that allows me to be faithful to myself and my origins. We japanese must think again Western world, ponder its influence on us, to incorporate into our self.

Transience is beatiful. A note breaks the silence, is alive, and then returns to the silence.

*Toshio Hosokawa*​_
In 1991, Hosokawa completed the _Hiroshima Requiem_, in three movements. The first, "Night", recounted in instrumental music the eve of Little Boy's explosion, the night before the world changed forever. The second, "Death and Resurrection" merged the music with the voices of Hiroshima's children, extracted from this book:










in which boys and girls between five and fifteen years old in 1945, told us, in a naive and moving way, how they remembered living in Hiroshima just before and after August, 6th.

The third and last movement, "Dawn", was about Hirohisma coming back to life, from radioactive ashes.










To Hosokawa, the bomb was not a personal experience, but his mother and father told him about the terrible hours, and the death toll. However, after completing the Requiem, he was not satisfied, because he considered the new Hiroshima, a city of around one million inhabitants, impossible to tell from other similar japanese cities, has now turn its back to Nature. An assignment from Baviera radio was all he needed to revisit the piece, and create in 2001, _*Voiceless Voice in Hiroshima*_.

The new work consists of five movements. The first one, "Prelude-Night", is very similar to the first version, just changing the orchestration, reinforcing brass and strings, and adding one celesta.






We can review together the remaining four movements in coming posts.


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## schigolch

Hell is something that normally we only think about. But I've touched Hell, I've smelt Hell, and this I will take with me to Heaven.

I can't speak about it. It hurts me so... I can't speak with my mom about that day.

My mother and my little brother dissapeared. When I saw my father, he was not my father. It was just a jumble of bloody flesh in military rags. He died soon after.

I dream all nights about home, about my parents. I want to see them, I miss them so much.

I look at my face in a mirror, and only want to die.

I only ask the doctors each day, that they kill me.

*From the book "Children of Hiroshima"*










_Little Boy was launched from Enola Gay, a B-29 bomber, at 8:15 AM, August, 6th, 1945.

It was three meters hight and weighted four tonnes

It was made with Uranium 235.

The bomb exploded 850 meters above the city of Hiroshima.

Air temperature reached one million degrees.

The energy liberated by the explosion was the equivalent of 15,000 tonnes of TNT.

Some 140,000 people die, the city was destroyed._​
In the second movement, _Death and Resurrection_, we hear some experiences from Hiroshisma's children, in japanese and english, a Requiem Mass, some radio speeches from Hitler and Tojo, sounds of bomb explosions,... To play this movement we need three narrators, four soloits, mixed choir, children choir, orchestra and prerecorded tape.


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## StlukesguildOhio

From what I have heard here of the music of Toshio Hosokawa, as well as a few samples from what is available of Spotify, his music suggests elements of Takemitsu, Messiaen, and Tristan Murail. The unifying element in all of these is Impressionism... which has a deep link with Japanese art and culture... especially in the love of nature, the use of passages of silence, etc...

I'm currently listening to this disc:










The music features guitar, flute, and soprano and is clearly rooted in the simple Japanese classical and folk music traditions. I think especially of the Shakuhachi flute music which I am familiar with... and which Takemitsu also built upon.

Here is some similar music by Hosokawa... sans the vocals. Notice the great use of silences. You can see what John Cage was building off.






This perhaps the closest I can find online to the lovely songs by this composer. There are a great many other works online... and these show an incredible diversity of genre and instrumentation.






I seriously think I will need to do some exploration of this composer.


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## schigolch

Let's also try his last opera, _Matsukaze_, which was broadcasted by Belgian radio Musiq3. Just four characters and a small chorus, accompanied by approximately fifteen musicians in the pit. 

Toshio Hosokawa - Matsukaze -Beggining of the opera


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## schigolch

_Winter Voice_, for choir and orchestra is the third movement in the suite. Inspired in a poem by Paul Celan (not my translation):

_Heimkehr

Schneefall, dichter und dichter,
taubenfarben, wie gestern,
Schneefall, als schliefst du auch jetzt noch.

Weithin gelagertes Weiss.
Drüberhim, endlos,
die Schlittenspur des Verlornen.

Darunter, geborgen,
stülp sich empor,
was den Augen so weh tut,
Hügel und Hügel,
unsichtbar.

Auf jedem,
heimgeholt in sein Heute,
ein ins Stumme entglittenes Ich:
hölzern, ein Pflock.

Dort: ein Gefühl,
vom Eiswind herübergeweht,
das sein tauben, sein schnee-
farbenes Fahnentuch festmacht._

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
_Homecoming

Snowfall, denser and denser,
dove-coloured as yesterday,
snowfall, as if even now you were sleeping.

White, stacked into distance.
Above it, endless,
the sleigh track of the lost.

Below, hidden,
presses up
what so hurts the eyes,
hill upon hill,
invisible.

On each,
fetched home into its today,
an I slipped away into dumbness:
wooden, a post.

There: a feeling,
blown across by the ice wind
attaching its dove- its snow-
coloured cloth as a flag.
_

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

it seems like we are immersed in a cold winter landscape. Choir lines reinforce the feeling of loneliness, interrupted by interludes that break the ocean of silence, and then die submerged in the water. We can even perceive the swell, a soft sound, gently beating.

This indifference, like a programmed mechanism, is what Hosokawa believes to be the heart of the industrial reconstruction of Japan, that has all but killed the spirit of japanese civilization.

Hosokawa-Voiceless Voice in Hiroshima-Winter Voice


----------



## schigolch

The fourth movement, Signs of Spring, is a piece for alto, choir and orchestra. The text comes from a haiku by Matsuo Basho.










_Carefully looking
Blooming shepherd's purse
Under the hedge_

A small flower, that we can find if we pay attention to our surroundings. This is, for Hosokawa, as present in the 21st century, as it was for Basho in the 17th.

And this is the meaning of Signs of Spring, in the words of Hosokawa, music for a new hope, a new balance between Man and Nature.

Hosokawa-Voiceless Voice in Hiroshima-Signs of Spring


----------



## schigolch

Let's complete this brief introduction to _Voiceless Voice in Hiroshima_, with the fifth and last movement.

It's _Temple Bells Voice_, for choir and orchestra, again based on a haiky by Basho. In the buddhist temples of Japan, the biggest bell in each temple, is tolled at New Year's Eve, a total of 108 times, for the elimination of the 108 desires that cause suffering to a human being.










_Where is the Moon?
The Temple's bell
is sinking in the depths of the ocean_​
Hosokawa-Voiceless Voice in Hiroshima-Temple Bells Voice


----------



## schigolch

The late Fausto Romitelli was a musician, and also a explorer of sounds.










Arguably his best piece, he worked on _Professor Bad Trip_ during three years, inspired by Francis Bacon's triptychs. It's divided in three "Lessons". The first is written for flute, bass flute, bass clarinet, electric guitar, piano, violin, viola and cello, plus electronics. In the other two "Lessons", there is no electronic, but a trumpet and an electric bass are added.

On top of this blending of acoustic and electronic sounds, Romitelli is also incorporating extended play techniques.

Recently, a coreography based on _Professor Bad Trip_ was presented in Paris, and we can see the result in youtube:


----------



## Sid James

schigolch said:


> Let's complete this brief introduction to _Voiceless Voice in Hiroshima_, with the fifth and last movement.
> 
> It's _Temple Bells Voice_, for choir and orchestra, again based on a haiky by Basho. In the buddhist temples of Japan, the biggest bell in each temple, is tolled at New Year's Eve, a total of 108 times, for the elimination of the 108 desires that cause suffering to a human being.
> 
> _Where is the Moon?
> The Temple's bell
> is sinking in the depths of the ocean_[/CENTER]
> 
> Hosokawa-Voiceless Voice in Hiroshima-Temple Bells Voice


Thanks for that link, schigolch & also your info on the work. Listened to it twice & enjoyed it to the max. Love how he used the choir - quite unexpected - & the subtle textures (muted instruments?). This guy is pretty unique, imo. I aim to listen to yours and others excellent clips here, this thread is quite a rich resource. I hope to put some stuff here as well when I have the time - it's a toss up between listening & posting & I'm glad this time I chose to listen to this Hosokawa piece in depth. Rewarding all round...


----------



## schigolch

Glad you like Hosokawa, he is the best japanese composer to me (there are others that are also very good, of course). The first time I heard this piece, I was with a friend, not a very emotional guy, that was moved to the point of crying. I'm a little bit more stolid, but was also very much impressed.


----------



## schigolch

Among young composers (let's say under forty ), I think Matthias Pintscher is one of the more interesting.






This _Osiris_, (piece for large orchestra, around 20' lenght) premiered in Chicago a few years ago, and dedicated to Pierre Boulez, it strikes me as very expressive, rich in colour, with a good development line, and great lines for trumpet and contrabassoon.


----------



## StlukesguildOhio

I should have posted this to this thread... so...










First listen...

And undoubtedly it will take a number of hearings to really delve into this disc. Donnacha Dennehy is an Irish composer, born in Dublin in 1970. This disc contains two works: _Grá agus Bás_ and a song cycle entitled _That the Night Come_ which consists of settings of the poems of William Butler Yeats.

_Grá agus Bás_ is a 25-minute piece rooted in a form of unaccompanied Irish vocal music known as _sean-nós_ which are traditionally highly ornamented. The vocals in this recording are taken by the Irish folk singer Iarla Ó Lionáird. The piece begins slowly... with clear elements suggestive of Irish/Celtic folk music, minimalism, medieval music, and even the "spectralism" of composers such as Tristan Murail, Kaija Saariaho, Jonathan Harvey, and Julian Anderson... especially in terms of the orchestration. This piece builds and surges... punctuated with percussion and dissonance... until it comes to a climactic wall of sound with the soaring sound of the electric guitar and other electronics.

The song cycle, _That the Night Come_, is by comparison, far more subdued, composed primarily for voice and piano. The cycle was written for the performer, Dawn Upshaw, who is known for her willingness... even preference... for exploring new music (She has performed Osvaldo Golijov, Henryck Gorecki, Olivier Messiaen, Vernon Duke, and Earl Kim, among others). The music is simple... perfectly accompanying both the voice of the singer and the marvelous lyrics of Yeats poetry. In the song, The Old Men Admiring Themselves in the Water, for example, the piano creates a rippling effect suggestive of the rippling water... not unlike that manner in which Schubert frequently reveals some aspect of the text through the music.

This is not one of those discs of new music that immediately grabbed me (I think of David Lang's _Little Match Girl Passion_ or Peter Lieberman's _Neruda Poems_, for example), but it is a disc that I am certain will be worthy of and reward repeated listening.


----------



## StlukesguildOhio

Another older post I should have placed here:

A first listen to this:










Karl Ignaz Weigl (Vienna 2 February 1881 - 11 August 1949) was one of the many composers whose career was truncated by the rise of the Nazis. Weigl's father was a Jewish banker and keen amateur musician. The composer studied under Alexander Zemlinsky. He continued studies at the Vienna Music Academy and the University of Vienna. His classmates includes Anton Webern. At the age of 23 he was appointed by Mahler as his rehearsal conductor. His circle of friends included Zemlinsky, Mahler, Schoenberg, and Webern. In 1903 the _Vereinigung scaffender Tonkunstler_ was founded by Zemlinsky, Schönberg and Weigl under the patronage of Mahler, and was programmed much 'new' music, including works by Mahler, Richard Strauss, Zemlinsky, Schönberg , Pfitzner, Reger and Bruno Walter, as well Weigl's own compositions.

In 1906 Weigl left the Vienna Opera to concentrate on composing, and his chromatic harmonies and imaginative orchestration, which did not follow the musical path of his friend Schönberg, achieved considerable success. His Phantastisches Intermezzo, was performed by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra under Furtwängler, and the Rose Quartet premiered several of his chamber works. Other champions of his work included George Szell and the Busch Quartet. In 1929 joined the music department of the University of Vienna, and his students included Hanns Eisler, Erich Korngold and Kurt Adler.

In 1933 the political, and cultural, map of Europe started to change. The rise to power of the Nazis saw the start of discrimination against non-Aryan musicians and music. After Hitler annexed Austria in March 1938 Weigl's music was removed from publisher's catalogues, and exile became inevitable. In October 1938 he arrived in New York with the conductor Kurt Adler and the cellist Emanuel Feuerman. His letters of recommendation from Schönberg, Richard Strauss and Bruno Walter cut little ice in America, and Weigl struggled to survive giving private lessons. Later he held several teaching posts on the East Coast, but these were a far cry from the post in Vienna that he had left. Karl Weigl died after a prolonged illness in August 1949, eleven years after he had arrived in New York.

After this denouement it would be pleasing to report a revival of interest in Weigl's music, but sadly this has not been the case. Stokowski gave the premiere of the Fifth Symphony Apokalyptische in New York, and other performers including Richard Goode have performed his compositions. Admirably BIS have recorded his Fifth and Sixth Symphonies together with the Phantastisches Intermezzo. Both the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies were composed by Karl Weigl in America, and the poignant sub-title of the Fifth says it all - Apocalyptic.










http://www.overgrownpath.com/2007/01/mahlers-forgotten-assistant.html


----------



## StlukesguildOhio

schigolch said:


> Among young composers (let's say under forty ), I think Matthias Pintscher is one of the more interesting.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> This _Osiris_, (piece for large orchestra, around 20' lenght) premiered in Chicago a few years ago, and dedicated to Pierre Boulez, it strikes me as very expressive, rich in colour, with a good development line, and great lines for trumpet and contrabassoon.


I really like this piece. Any idea what disc it is on? I searched around on Amazon, but no luck. I did find the Hiroshima piece, by the way, but it is currently out of print.


----------



## Sid James

*@ schigolch* -

I too liked the Pintscher piece, thanks for that. Listened to the whole thing, took me a while to get used to it. Have heard this style before - one of our own most noted composers, Brett Dean, does this kind of thing. A bit Bergian, but less tightly structured? There was a bit of whimsy in there too, the wierdish bits for brass & glissandos with changing dynamics. I liked it towards the end, when things got kind of heated up & a bit "aggro." Interesting stuff, although I much prefer seeing/hearing this kind of thing live in concert to hearing it on record. In one Brett Dean piece, trumpets were placed inside the "bells" of tubas, creating a wierd muted underwater effect. The mythological aspect reminded me of a work by Hovhaness I heard this week - his _Meditation on Orpheus_ (1950's). Similarly experimental, but earlier/different style. Was going to post about that work here, but it's not on youtube. Seems like these ancient stories/histories still have the power to inspire our current composers, as they always have.

Anyway, thanks & keep them coming.


----------



## Sid James

*Charles Tomlinson GRIFFES* (1884-1920)
_Piano Sonata in F sharp minor _(1919)

Just sneaking in to the "modern" bracket, I thought I'd share this as I've been getting into it this week. An interesting work, bringing together European influences of the time with something different. Griffes studied with Humperdinck in Berlin, but was also interested in the French trends represented by Debussy & Ravel. Pianist Harold Bauer wrote of this sonata that it was "a splendid piece of writing, broad and noble in outline...From a man who can write such music, we may look for even greater things." Sadly, Griffes died prematurely in his thirties, before the next year was out. Listening to this, I kind of think like he may well have been an "Ives in embryo."

This piano sonata is in three movements, performed without a break. It incorporates whole-tone chords as well as pentatonic scales (listen to the predominance of the black keys esp. in the middle movt.). There is an overall "Oriental" feel, but also some of the rhythms of Native American music/chant, which is esp. apparent in the jaunty final movt. I can hear knowledge of J.S. Bach's counterpoint in here too, combined with a "Romantic" Lisztian tinge. Here is is on youtube, played by an unnamed pianist -

Whole work lasts about 15 mins.
I. Feroce - Allegretto con moto - Tempo primo - Tranquillamente / II. Molto tranquillo - Appassionato (10:07, second movt. starts about 6:45)

III. Allegro vivace - Appassionato - Lento - Presto (4:25)

HERE is the EMI disc I have, which incl. the Griffes sonata, as well as sonatas of Roger Sessions (which I posted about earlier) & also Charles Ives.


----------



## schigolch

StlukesguildOhio said:


> I really like this piece. Any idea what disc it is on? I searched around on Amazon, but no luck. I did find the Hiroshima piece, by the way, but it is currently out of print.


Well, there is no recording, as far as I'm aware, apart from the youtube. I got it in more quality sound, if you want. Actually, I listened first the piece in the concert hall. There is, however, a recorded version of _Towards Osiris_, only eight minutes long, with the same material.



Sid James said:


> *@ schigolch* -
> 
> I too liked the Pintscher piece, thanks for that. Listened to the whole thing, took me a while to get used to it. Have heard this style before - one of our own most noted composers, Brett Dean, does this kind of thing. A bit Bergian, but less tightly structured? There was a bit of whimsy in there too, the wierdish bits for brass & glissandos with changing dynamics. I liked it towards the end, when things got kind of heated up & a bit "aggro." Interesting stuff, although I much prefer seeing/hearing this kind of thing live in concert to hearing it on record. In one Brett Dean piece, trumpets were placed inside the "bells" of tubas, creating a wierd muted underwater effect. The mythological aspect reminded me of a work by Hovhaness I heard this week - his _Meditation on Orpheus_ (1950's). Similarly experimental, but earlier/different style. Was going to post about that work here, but it's not on youtube. Seems like these ancient stories/histories still have the power to inspire our current composers, as they always have.
> 
> Anyway, thanks & keep them coming.


Pintscher's idea was exactly that, in his own words: "Out of this comes a formal structure for me, consisting of various stages of fragmentation and reanimation: the initial condition of unity, the disintegration into individual parts and their reconstruction and metamorphosis".

I know about Brett Dean, just listened to a recording of the radio broadcast of _Bliss_ some months ago. I watched on youtube something about Donnacha Dennehy, I will need to collect some more material.


----------



## mmsbls

@Sid: I had not heard Griffes before. I listened to the sonata along with some other piano works (Winter Landscape, Rhapsody in B, and Roman Sketches). I also heard some orchestral music (The White Peacock and The Pleasure Dome of Kubla Khan).

All were enjoyable, but I think I like his piano works more. I hear the Impressionist influence more in piano pieces than in the orchestral ones. Here is The Fountains of the Acqua Paola from the Roman Sketches. This is the most impressionistic piece of all the works I heard.






@schigolch: I heard Pintscher's Osiris (thanks for posting and joining this thread) and then listened to several concertos - en sourdine for violin and Reflections on Narcissus for cello.They all had a very similar feel. Below is the first movement of Reflections on Narcissus. Although described as a concerto, I would probably describe it as a tone poem for cello and orchestra.


----------



## Polednice

It's been a while since I looked at this thread properly - I'm going to have a little catchup now. But, while I do, here's a little something that I was just listening and which I rather enjoyed. It's called _Petroushkates_ by Joan Tower, for flute, clarinet, violin, cello, and piano. A few of the sections lost my interest, but overall it was nice!



The Lady Herself said:


> The title Petroushskates combines two ideas that are related to this piece. One refers to Stravinsky's Petroushka and the opening Shrovetide Fair scene which is very similar to the opening of my piece. The celebratory character and the busy colorful atmosphere of this fair provides one of the images for this piece. The other is associated with ice skating and the basic kind of flowing motion that is inherent to that sport. While watching the figure skating event at the recent winter Olympics, I became fascinated with the way the curving, twirling, and jumping figure are woven around a singular continuous flowing action. Combining these two ideas creates a kind of carnival on ice - a possible subtitle for this piece.


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## Sid James

*@ schigolch* - Yes, "fragmentation" is the word with these kinds of pieces. Have been listening to Debussy's _Jeux_ lately, so this approach has been around for a while. An acquaintance of mine saw Brett Dean's recent opera which you mention _Bliss_ here & he said it was good. I haven't seen it, but it's said to have had some success in Germany. Strong connections there for this Aussie, he worked there several years incl. as violist in the Berlin Phil. Am looking forward to attending some concerts later of his music, they are a treat, such a talented man (I have his first orch. work on disc, which is similar style to _Osiris_, it's called _Beggars and Angels_, comp. back in 1999).
*
@ mmsbls* - good that you listened to the Griffes sonata. It's such a unique work, I like how he pushed things in that. I'll have to listen to yours (& *Polednice's*) clips here when I get the chance. Got a busy week coming up but rest assured, "I'll be back." Thanks guys, let's get some positive discussion/listening to these guy's things...


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## HarpsichordConcerto

Roger Sessions' violin concerto (1935) sounded a "blended" approach, "tonal/atonal". The violin solo tended to sing, while the orchestra carried it through almost on its own, but never sounding out of place. "Modern counterpoint"? I enjoyed it.


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## StlukesguildOhio

I gave this one a spin on Spotify... and quite likely I will find myself picking it up in CD form down the road. Jouni Kaipainen (b. 1956) is simply one more in that great wealth of marvelous composers from Scandinavia that followed in the footsteps of Sibelius. The central piece here, the _Second Symphony_, is a fully mature work... beautifully... richly... orchestrated. There are undoubtedly elements of Romanticism... but Kaipainen far more of a polystylist... well removed from Sibelius. There are elements that remind me of Hovhaness... and of Rautavaara. I'm also reminded of Murail and Takemitsu in the manner in which Kaipainen can employ so much atonality... so much dissonance... and still the work comes off as exquisitely beautiful. This two movement work is not divided neatly into the traditional fast movement, slow movement, etc... Each movement evolves through moments of lush almost romantic beauty, delicacy, dark brooding passages, and explosive drama that for a brief moment recalled Stravinsky.

The second work on this disc is the _Oboe Concerto_ op.46. The opening movement initially suggests something of a folk dance... with a call and response. There are aspects that suggest Stravinsky, Bartok, and especially the humor of Prokofiev. This is not the sensuous oboe of Mozart with the beautiful melody slowly unfolding. This oboe is like the noisy characters of Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf raising its voice excitedly to be heard over the horns and percussion (of which there is a good deal). This piece follows the traditional concerto structure to a good extent. The second movement, and adagio, begins slowly with single note being held by the oboe for over half a minute before it breaks into a something of a melody that wanders back and forth from atonality and back to a tonal center. For a moment one senses elements suggestive of blues or jazz... but then the movement grows increasingly dark, dramatic, and ominous... before opening into a passage suggestive of the modal structures of Spectralism. Against this... the oboe solos almost playfully... slipping into moments suggestive of Gershwin and then into something more atonal or even modal like the line of an Islamic chant. The last movement, also the shortest, is perhaps even more playful with the oboe dancing about the marimba with moments again suggestive of Prokofiev.

_Sisyphus Dreams_ is basically a tone-poem, alternating black moods with moments of hopeful solitude.

Unfortunately YouTube has little by Kaipainen... and nothing from any of the works on this disc.


----------



## Edward Elgar

Krzysztof Penderecki's 'De Natura Sonoris No.2'






I don't know much about this piece. I know I like it.

I like the notation, I like the cluster chords, I like the suspense, I like the aggression. I like the way it doesn't really sound like an orchestra, it opens up a new orchestral language that is alien and monstrous.


----------



## schigolch

I watched Wolfgang Mitterer's opera _Massacre_, about the Huguenots killings in France, two years ago.

From a musical point of view, the experience was fascinating, with some sound effects for instruments and voices, really fantastic. On the other hand, the drama was just not there. Mr. Mitterer's considerable talent as a composer, was not extended to his work as librettist. Anyhow, it's nice listening to this opera:






Or this lied for baritone, prepared piano and electronics:






On purely instrumental grounds, this is the _Konzert für Klavier, Orchester und Electronics_. Quite interesting, in my view, how he manages the "electronics" part.


----------



## schigolch

Emmanuel Nunes (Lisboa, 1941) is arguably the foremost portuguese composer, though he had spent most of his career in Germany and France.

Nunes, as many composers today, has been searching for his own musical language, rejecting the serialism of his teacher Boulez, but open to many influences, from the past, the spectralism, electronics,...

Back in 2008, I attended the premiere of his first opera, _Das Märchen_, based on some tales by Goethe, in Lisbon. Though some moments were outstanding from a purely musical point of view, it was too long, and void of drama. Also, the vocal writing was not really the best thing about this opera.

However, in my opinion, _Quodlibet_ written for orchestra and a percusion ensemble, with two different conductors, is one of the most interesting pieces in the second half of the 20th century.


----------



## StlukesguildOhio

I quite like _Quodlibet_... a lot actually. I agree that the works shows definite links with "Spectralism". I could not help but think of Tristan Murail, Gerard Grisey, Julian Anderson, and Jonathan Harvey. Unfortunately YouTube seems to have far more of Nunes' music available than either Amazon.com or Spotify... so I ended up downloading the whole of _Quodlibet_ and _Lichtung I_. Luckilly I have a couple Terrabits of space on my computer to download such stuff.


----------



## schigolch

I've also several terabytes devoted to the same purpose. 

For instance, speaking of Jonathan Harvey, this piece premiered in the PROMS a few years ago:


----------



## violadude

*7 last words on the cross by Sofia Gubaidulina*

This is a really great, intense, graphic and expressionate piece, written in 1986. It is scored for Bayan, Cello and strings. Gubaidulina uses sounds and gestures from the strings and the soloists (bayan and cello) to depict certain images. For example, the image of the cross is symbolized by the gesture of the cello "moving through the glissandi of the strings" as she put it. So you hear this and many other, leitmotif-like gestures and symbols from throughout the piece. There is an arc to the piece, where it starts sort of mysterious and wandering, kind of in the dark. It get's increasingly intense until the "it is finished" movement. Then it calms down again after that. The last symbolic gesture used is the cello playing on the other side of the bridge, symbolizing a crossing over into heaven, or another world or whatever.
Movements 1-3





Movements 4 and 5





Movements 6 and 7


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## HarpsichordConcerto

violadude said:


> Gubaidulina uses sounds and gestures from the strings and the soloists (bayan and cello) to depict certain images.


Reminded me of her string quartet. Not my cup of tea but here it is if you are interested in her music.






Now for something much less bizzare, Aaron Copland's clarinet concerto with Benny Goodman (who commissioned the work).


----------



## Sid James

I quite like *Gubaidulina's* _Seven Words_ (I have the Naxos recording). I like the austerity & kind of raw expression/power. & the quirkiness as well, some quite wierd sounds there. The bayan (Russian button accordion) is like the human voice, the voice of Christ on the cross (at one stage, air is let out of it, a bit like a sigh). Despite quite liking this work, I haven't connected much with her more recent things. Her violin concerto, dedicated to Anne Sophie Mutter, ticked very few (if any) boxes with me. Kind of too "new agey" for my taste, and a bit of a take off of what Schnittke had done decades before. Nevertheless, a good friend of mine heard the recording with me, and he gave this work his "thumbs up."

As for the *Copland* _Clarinet Concerto_, I'll have to listen to it, I've recently got it on vinyl (the same recording with the dedicatee, Benny Goodman). The other side of that record is his _Old American Songs_ for baritone & orch., which I have heard, a very "homely" American as apple pie work. One that you may well wish to check out, HC, esp. if you haven't heard the man's vocal music...

[EDIT - I think I've discussed both the Gubaidulina concerto & Copland songs on my blog, so dip in there for my impressions]...


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## violadude

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> Reminded me of her string quartet. Not my cup of tea but here it is if you are interested in her music.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Now for something much less bizzare, Aaron Copland's clarinet concerto with Benny Goodman (who commissioned the work).


Yes I have a recording of her string quartets as well. I haven't listened to them as much as the piece I posted but I plan to in the future.

I have played the Copland Clarinet Concerto in my former youth symphony as well. Let me tell you, this concerto is the devil to perform, even for the viola part. Especially with only 4 or 5 rehearsals of it...


----------



## violadude

Sid James said:


> I quite like *Gubaidulina's* _Seven Words_ (I have the Naxos recording). I like the austerity & kind of raw expression/power. & the quirkiness as well, some quite wierd sounds there. The bayan (Russian button accordion) is like the human voice, the voice of Christ on the cross (at one stage, air is let out of it, a bit like a sigh). Despite quite liking this work, I haven't connected much with her more recent things. Her violin concerto, dedicated to Anne Sophie Mutter, ticked very few (if any) boxes with me. Kind of too "new agey" for my taste, and a bit of a take off of what Schnittke had done decades before. Nevertheless, a good friend of mine heard the recording with me, and he gave this work his "thumbs up."
> 
> As for the *Copland* _Clarinet Concerto_, I'll have to listen to it, I've recently got it on vinyl (the same recording with the dedicatee, Benny Goodman). The other side of that record is his _Old American Songs_ for baritone & orch., which I have heard, a very "homely" American as apple pie work. One that you may well wish to check out, HC, esp. if you haven't heard the man's vocal music...
> 
> [EDIT - I think I've discussed both the Gubaidulina concerto & Copland songs on my blog, so dip in there for my impressions]...


That's the recording I have. It's my favorite piece on the disc. "In Croce" and "Silenzio" don't "tickle my fancy" quite as much as the above piece.


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## schigolch

Some years ago, José María Sánchez-Verdú's most ambitious work, the full-length opera _El Viaje a Simorgh_, was performed for the first time, in Madrid. Reactions were ambivalent, praising the music, but wondering if there was any real drama involved.

El Viaje a Simorgh - Introduction

It was not the first opera for Sánchez-Verdú, that had enjoyed a succesful premiere of his chamber opera GRAMMA, back in 2006. We can hear the full piece in youtube:

GRAMMA / Sánchez-Verdú

But the most beautiful works by Sánchez-Verdú are still _Taqsim_, _Maqbara_ and _Alqibla_, in my view. Let's hear the last one:


----------



## robert

Sid James said:


> I quite like *Gubaidulina's* _Seven Words_ (I have the Naxos recording). I like the austerity & kind of raw expression/power. & the quirkiness as well, some quite wierd sounds there. The bayan (Russian button accordion) is like the human voice, the voice of Christ on the cross (at one stage, air is let out of it, a bit like a sigh). Despite quite liking this work, I haven't connected much with her more recent things. Her violin concerto, dedicated to Anne Sophie Mutter, ticked very few (if any) boxes with me. Kind of too "new agey" for my taste, and a bit of a take off of what Schnittke had done decades before. Nevertheless, a good friend of mine heard the recording with me, and he gave this work his "thumbs up."
> 
> As for the *Copland* _Clarinet Concerto_, I'll have to listen to it, I've recently got it on vinyl (the same recording with the dedicatee, Benny Goodman). The other side of that record is his _Old American Songs_ for baritone & orch., which I have heard, a very "homely" American as apple pie work. One that you may well wish to check out, HC, esp. if you haven't heard the man's vocal music...
> 
> [EDIT - I think I've discussed both the Gubaidulina concerto & Copland songs on my blog, so dip in there for my impressions]...


I have that disc. I find myself not listening to the Bach....just the Gubaidulina ...but then again I like Gubaidulina.......I feel a Gubaidulina series coming on..........


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## robert

violadude said:


> Yes I have a recording of her string quartets as well. I haven't listened to them as much as the piece I posted but I plan to in the future.
> 
> I have played the Copland Clarinet Concerto in my former youth symphony as well. Let me tell you, this concerto is the devil to perform, even for the viola part. Especially with only 4 or 5 rehearsals of it...


I enjoy all four Quartets......At the moments they are in my listen to pile.....


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## Sid James

Just put up some info & clips of three short orchestral works by *William Walton *on "his" thread HERE...


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## violadude

I know it's not a recording of a piece per se, but for those of you that struggle to enjoy the music of the second V. school but would like to, here is the first part of a really great documentary about modern music by Simon Rattle. I thought this would be a pretty good place to post this.


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## Sid James

Thanks very much *violadude*, I remember watching that series on TV, I will watch those links as soon as I get the chance...


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## hespdelk

Scelsi has been mentioned in this thread a few times, but I'll highlight another work of his - *Uaxuctum*:


























I don't know that I enjoy this music.. yet I keep coming back to me.. it fascinates me.. perhaps, captivates is the word? Even after repeated hearing it leaves a profound impression.

I feel that way about nearly all his orchestral or large ensemble works.. the chamber pieces thus far have left me cold on the otherhand.. perhaps I'm expecting the wrong things from those pieces.

Eccentric and on the fringe - but at the same time I see him as one of the most important composers in the second half of the 20th century.


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## violadude

*12 Mikroludien for string quartet by Gyorgy Kurtag*

Gyorgy Kurtag has a very interesting musical language. It is interesting because his music clearly derives influence from two different early 20th century influences. His music is in many ways a continuation and extension of the musical tradition of the Second Viennese School, most notably Webern. Webern developed a unique musical style in which everything was short, sweet and to the point. Many times, the movements of his pieces were barley over a minute long and the musical expression was very concentrated and concise.This made the form of the music very straightforward as there are usually no sections, no different themes, little formal development. Just one minute or so of pure music, simply stated. Kurtag's music is very similar to this. However, being Hungarian, this Webernian style is synthesized with echos of the rough, angular, Hungarian Folk style of Bela Bartok. These 12 Mikroludien for string quartet are perfect examples of Kurtag's musical language.

The title of this pieces says it all. They are 12 mini movements for a string quartet. Although the longest movement of the 12 is 2'14″, which isn't too too short, most of them are under one minute, the shortest of them being 17 seconds.

The most amazing and important thing about these pieces to me is their range of expression. Mikroludien #1 is kind of droning and sombre. #2 is so tense and pensive, #3 is wild, with the frenzied higher strings providing a backdrop for a stomping irregular folksy melody on the cello, #4 is mysterious, quietly coming and going very quickly, like a soft wind blowing by. #5 is luminous and has a very beautiful other worldly quality to it. #6 is disturbing, as some of the strings play a peaceful and serene series chord, while the remaining strings seem bent on interrupting and destroying the peace. #7 is strange in that it bursts with energy right at the beginning but then the rest is very quiet and calm, like a candle that quickly flickers out. #8 is very violent and stomping and is probably one of the most Bartok-influenced movements of the piece. #9 is fun and dance-like. However, it is a strange irregular dance, with weird whimpery sounds from the violin. It is probably the bounciest of the movements. #10 is crazy and chaotic as it seems the strings just go all out with all kinds of different seemingly random noises, but it is still very quiet. #11 sounds dark and gloomy, with rather tragic undertones and #12 is almost like a viola aria. The other strings provide the chord while the viola has a very high, head in the clouds solo.

So anyway, my point in describe the mood of each of the mikroludien's was to show how each one has it's own distinct personality. Sometimes the expression is quite quirky and sometimes it is very beautiful and sometimes it is very angry or sad. That's what makes this piece so great I think is the range and concentration of mood and expression. Also, another kudos to Kurtag for taking full advantage of the different sounds string instruments can make to create these moods. You can clearly hear the influence that both Bartok and Webern had on Kurtag in this piece.

There's really not a lot to say about this piece other than that. The movements are so short that form is somewhat irrelevant, even though some of the pieces are very clearly in a very condensed ABA form, it really doesn't matter. To me these are just all about the intensity and range of personal expression Kurtag creates and I think it is really great.


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## mmsbls

@violadude: Thanks for posting the Leaving Home documentary. I had not heard of it but found it quite enjoyable. I've always liked Transfigured Night, but I've not been able to find a way to enjoy any other works by Schoenberg, Berg, or Webern. I'm psyched now to give them yet another shot.


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## hespdelk

One of the many interesting composers to have come out of Finland in the last 60 years, I've always found appreciation for the works of Aulis Sallinen. The above is a an excerpt from his piece for cello and orchestra "The Nocturnal Dances of Don Juan Quixote" which is a very entertaining romp - unfortuneatly its only an excerpt, but its all I could find.

This is only one side of the composer whose output is quite varied.


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## schigolch

Indeed, one of the works defining "modern and contemporary music", in the splendid performance of the Kronos Quartet:


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## hespdelk

Thinking of very recent music, I recently discovered this after reading a review at sa-cd.net - concert performance is up on youtube:











Giacomo Cataldo is a new composer to me so I can't offer much commentary as yet, but having been in a Scelsi listening mood lately this particular piece struck me.. its not really like Scelsi but seems to have some affinity.. perhaps colliding with Mahler.. The other pieces I've heard on youtube so far have surprising stylistic range.


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## mmsbls

@hespdelk: I liked the short except from The Nocturnal Dances of Don Juan Quixote. I listened to the entire work (on Naxos) along with several other pieces from one CD - Violin Concerto, Variations for Orchestra, and String Quartet No. 3 (arranged for string orchestra). The Nocturnal Dances are wonderfully melodic at times playful at times somber with a tango sounding dance thrown in. My favorite work was the String Quartet, which is a funeral march with a series of variations. The concerto was enjoyable with a striking second movement that sounded at times oriental with unusual percussion. When I have a chance I'd like to listen to some of Sallinen's symphonies.

Thanks for posting.


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## hespdelk

mmsbls said:


> @hespdelk: I liked the short except from The Nocturnal Dances of Don Juan Quixote. I listened to the entire work (on Naxos) along with several other pieces from one CD - Violin Concerto, Variations for Orchestra, and String Quartet No. 3 (arranged for string orchestra). The Nocturnal Dances are wonderfully melodic at times playful at times somber with a tango sounding dance thrown in. My favorite work was the String Quartet, which is a funeral march with a series of variations. The concerto was enjoyable with a striking second movement that sounded at times oriental with unusual percussion. When I have a chance I'd like to listen to some of Sallinen's symphonies.
> 
> Thanks for posting.


I'm glad you enjoyed the music of Sallinen. 

The symphonies are pretty varied works, some of which may appeal to you immediately others of which may yield rewards after repeated hearings. Finlandia has a series of them, and so those CPO.

Another work of his that I enjoy is the orchestral prelude "Shadows". This is taken from music from the opera "The King goes forth to France" which is a work I've been trying to track down for years. Sallinen has written a number of operas, I only know "Palatsi" a little, and if it is any indication the others should be worth getting to know as well.


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## schigolch

Beat Furrer is one of the top conductors of contemporary music, in my view, having made some wonderful work with his ensemble, Klangforum Wien.

But he is also a great composer. I particularly like his opera _Fama_, and this Piano Concerto, where the attentive listener can find a host of small pins, that just appear, stay for the flickerest of moments, and hide again.


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## schigolch

This composition by Vinko Globolar is inspired on the famous watercolor by Klee:










and the interpretion made by Walter Benjamin, about the "Angel of History" and how he is dragged by the storm we call progress.






It's quite dense, 90 minutes long, and uneven, but it won't leave many listeners indifferent. We can hear above the beginning of the first movement _Zerfall_.


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## ooopera

Must see:

Mr. Globokar himself


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## StlukesguildOhio

Currently listening to this:










This disc collects four of Stockhausen's chamber works: _Kontra-punkte, Refrain, Zeitmasze_, and _Schlagrtrio_.

_Kontra-punkte_ employs The piece an ensemble of ten instruments... beginning with all ten they gradually drop out, leaving the piano at the end with a demanding solo. The work has been called "cool and sleek"... suggestive of something composed by scientist in white lab coats... but seriously, I actually found the work quite playful.











_Refrain_ was composed several years later for piano, vibraphone (doubling glockenspiel), and celesta, pitched and unpitched percussion instruments, and phonetically defined but unpitched vocal sounds. Again... the music strikes me as quite playful... and yet intelligently constructed. The vocals are perhaps the most unique element... suggesting, according to one writer, "the Modern Jazz Quartet with Milt Jackson on vibes... trying for that sort of hipster cool but without the swing."

_Zeitmasze_... composed sometime between_ Kontra-punkte _and _Refrain_ is in some ways the most challenging... or perhaps the most "angular" with burst of dynamic virtuoso passages.

_Schlagtrio_, is the earliest piece. Scored for piano and timpani the work is the somber and ritualistic... serialism played out to a driving, primitive drum beat "schlagging" away.

These four chamber works all average just a bit over 12 minutes yet offer some truly intriguing listening than is not all challenging for anyone with a basic familiarity with Bartok, Stravinsky, and Schoenberg.


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## jalex

StlukesguildOhio said:


> These four chamber works all average just a bit over 12 minutes yet offer some truly intriguing listening than is not all challenging for anyone with a basic familiarity with Bartok, Stravinsky, and Schoenberg.


Dunno. I am familiar with (and actually _like_) at least some music by all three of the named composers (including Pierrot Lunaire and other pieces often regarded as monstrosities) and I couldn't make head nor tail of the Stockhausen. I suppose that's because I stopped liking much music after serialism took over. Can someone show me the light with serialism? I do like a few pieces (eg. Webern String Quartet and Berg Violin Concerto if that counts) but most of it, including pretty much everything written after Schoenberg, Berg and Webern, just leaves me lost.


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## StlukesguildOhio

Unlike some, I'll not suggest that when your taste matures you'll come to like it... or that you'd like it if only you really understood it. I find these notions pretentious. We like what we like. The fact that I know that lima beans are good for me will never lead me to actually enjoy them. In all liklihood there are those who like Schoenberg and Stockhausen and Scelsi who struggle with opera, or lieder or Gregorian chant, etc... My own tastes in art have always been rather eclectic. I'm always looking for something new... new to me. Some years ago I purchased a disc of music by Rameau. It left me absolutely cold. As a result I pretty much accepted the bias that I read in the critical writings of others that suggested the whole of the French Baroque was effete and passionless. Then about two years ago I began to delve deeper into the Baroque as a whole and I picked up a few recordings of French Baroque composers... even Rameau... and I was absolutely enthralled. I went back to that old Rameau recordings... and my response was the same. What was I thinking? I wondered. By the same token, I had long been indifferent to Berlioz... until not more than a month ago when I picked up a recording of _Nuits d'Ete_ and I was absolutely in love.

I wouldn't suggest that you follow John Cage's suggestion that if you don't like something after one hearing play it twice, and if you still don't like it play it 4 times... 8 times... 16 times. This seems a prescription for Pavlovian conditioning more than gleaning pleasure from a work of art. On the other hand... I would suggest that it can be enlightening to go back and listen to things that you disliked some 2 or more years ago. I would estimate that a third or more of my listening experience involves music that is new to me... or that I struggled with in the past. Certainly, some of this music leaves me indifferent... puzzled... or even with a more negative response. At the same time, I must say that I have discovered some absolute gems among new music.. works that I would place along-side some of the greatest musical works of the core repertoire.

Peter Lieberson's _Neruda Songs_ for example...
















:tiphat:


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## mmsbls

hespdelk said:


> I don't know that I enjoy this music.. yet I keep coming back to me.. it fascinates me.. perhaps, captivates is the word? Even after repeated hearing it leaves a profound impression.


I listened to Uaxuctum briefly a couple of days ago and was unmoved. I came back to it today because you nominated it in the music project. I had a very different reaction this time, and while I was trying to think exactly how I felt, I realized that your words capture my feelings reasonably well.

I don't know that I would want to listen to the work much, but I did find it fascinating almost haunting. I read a description of the work (about the Mayans) and could follow the movements quite well. It seems one is left with a strong impression of a tumultuous time and then a mystical, ethereal absence as though the Mayans have gone elsewhere.


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## hespdelk

mmsbls said:


> I listened to Uaxuctum briefly a couple of days ago and was unmoved. I came back to it today because you nominated it in the music project. I had a very different reaction this time, and while I was trying to think exactly how I felt, I realized that your words capture my feelings reasonably well.
> 
> I don't know that I would want to listen to the work much, but I did find it fascinating almost haunting. I read a description of the work (about the Mayans) and could follow the movements quite well. It seems one is left with a strong impression of a tumultuous time and then a mystical, ethereal absence as though the Mayans have gone elsewhere.


Yes I agree, it isn't a piece that I would listen to just at any time.. but when my mind is 'aligned' to what it has to say.. it has proved to be one of most profound musical experiences I've had. I actually got the complete set Accord put out of the orchestral works.. there have been times when I've downright wallowed in this music.. and then I don't want to touch it for a long time after.. I always seem to come back to it though.

The enigmatic origins of the pieces and the elusive figure of Scelsi himself certainly have a mischievous appeal..


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## mmsbls

@Stlukes: _Kontra-punkte_ is the first work of Stockhausen that I felt I could understand somewhat. It's still not really my cup of tea, but it didn't leave me mystified. I guess that's not the strongest of praise, but I'm glad I heard it. Thanks.


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## schigolch

I love Steve Reich's work, I think he is one of the really fundamental composers of the 20th century.

Within his worklist it would came as no surprise if I choose one of his most celebrated pieces, _Different Trains_, for string quartet and tape, as my favourite.

Wonderful music, and set to open new grounds, concepts that are not always synonyms.


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## jalex

StlukesguildOhio said:


> x


Now see, I thought those songs were good too (not sure I'd go as far as you in their praise) but still I would pay money for that CD and listen to it with a degree of regularity. Like I said, I have no problem with atonality in general, only the kind practised by Stockhausen and Boulez (amongst others, but these are the two big names I struggle with) which aims to 'do away' with two important things I associate with music: melody (not necessary in a Romantic sense, I mean more the idea of a discernible line moving in a purposeful manner), and rhythm. I can manage with pieces which maintain at least one of those things but when both go I am generally left. I like, for example Schoenberg's Five Orchestral Pieces which are quite rhythmic (and also have melodic moments), but I think they are so effective precisely because of their brevity. They are like little explosions of emotion. Listening to twelve minutes of what sounds like the result of a random note generator on Sibelius acting under rudimentary guidelines is not my idea of fun.


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## nosmelc

try listening to some chamber works by stravinsky. they have a polarity rather than a tonality. as he put it. they are usually quite accessible and still ticklishly odd due to the not quite fully satisfying cadences.


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## Sid James

[I copied this post I did today on "current listening" to here & added youtube clips of two of the works]

Just listened to this last night after getting it on the same day - it's complexity & novelty kind of warranted back-to-back listening -

*Qigang Chen* (b. 1951)

_Iris dévoilée _(Iris unveiled) - suite concertante for 3 female voices, 3 traditional Chinese instruments & grand orch. (2001)
Soloists / Muhai Tang, cond.

_Reflet d'un temps disparu _(Reflection of a vanished time) - for cello & orch. (1995-6)
Here on youtube in three parts - Beginning - Middle - Conclusion (Total duration 24 minutes)
Yo-Yo Ma, cello / Charles Dutoit, cond.

_Wu Xing _(The five elements: water, wood, fire, earth, metal) - suite for orch. (1999) (Duration - 10:05)
Didier Benetti, cond.

All items with Orchestre National de France, recorded live, world premiere recordings (Virgin Classics)

Mr Chen was born in China but has been living in France since 1984. He started four years of study that year with Olivier Messiaen. I can't hear Messiaen more in Chen's music than other post-war composers, really. There's a lot of influences here, allied with Chinese folk/traditional music elements.

The most interesting work for me here was the first one, it's the most substantial work on the disc (about 40 mins.). It's kind of operatic, incorporating both European opera and Beijing/Peking Opera with that high wierd voice. There are bits where both the two sopranos and Beijing Opera singer cross paths, this is kind of wierd but wonderful. I'd hazard a guess you won't hear this kind of thing anywhere else.

The cello concerto here is a meeting between old and new. An ancient Chinese song by 4th century AD composer Huan Yi (I'm amazed it has survived after all that time) is contrasted with modernistic elements. Towards the end, the song is "revealed" in a soaring romantic melody, which I kind of found tacky on the first listen, but on the second listen I just loved it. As usual, Mr Ma's playing is rich and woody, this is the first recording I've owned of his.

The final_ Wu Xing _suite is kind of whispy and surreal, the structure kind of reminding me of the c20th Vienna Schools' works titled _Five Pieces for Orchestra_. But Chen's piece, at about 10 minutes, has this Webernian conciseness. It is quite colourful and imaginative, showing his understanding of orchestration. I found the rhythms in this work very much similar to aspects of Stravinsky, his flexibility & sense of constant change.

So, all in all, this was a good disc to get, of a composer I didn't know about at all, and it makes the second composer of Chinese origin to find his way into my collection (the other is one of Huang Ruo's discs on Naxos, which I got ages ago, & he's pretty good too, I may have to get the other disc)...


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## StlukesguildOhio

Andre... I'll have to come back and check out Chen. Right now things are crazy with the start of the new school year.


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## Sid James

*@ stlukes *-

Well, feel free to hear those two works of Qigang Chen I posted above at a later time, I was lucky to find them on youtube (the exact same recordings, which are the only ones). I don't think he's nearly as famous as Tan Dun, but I can't compare them much as I'm not highly familiar with the latter. I think I remember that you enjoy Takemitsu, who was much influenced by guys like Messiaen. I think aspects of Chen's music do have some aspects of his teacher Messiaen, but Chen sounds more kind of eclectic (eg. the unabashedly romantic soaring melody in the third part of the cello concerto above). In any case, I think you also like another Messiaen student, Tristan Murail, so Qigang Chen may well be a logical step for you in that sense...


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## mmsbls

I just want to say a thanks to all of you who have posted recently in this thread. I'm a bit swamped with listening to piano music (for the TC Top 150 Recommended Solo Keyboard Works - perhaps a silly game, but a great way to learn about new music) and keeping up with the posts here. I'm glad there are those of you who are happy to share your knowledge of modern music so those with much less knowledge (like me) can explore. Please keep the works coming, and I'll try to do my share when I get more time.


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## Sid James

I'm the same as you, mmsbls, I don't like spending too much time at the computer in my spare time. But just now I did listen to Stockhausen's _kontra-punkte _& thank stlukes for posting the link above. This sounded quite dark to me, in contrast that you thought it was playful.

My fav piece by him so far is_* Tierkreis*_, a chamber piece based on the 12 signs of the zodiac, and I think it to be very playful, saw it live twice last year. I say saw (& heard, of course), because it's quite a theatrical piece. A lot of fun to see, jump to it if you get the chance.

Here are a few excerpts on youtube with the group I saw it played by. Not the best sound, but anyway. The four performers play all manner of instruments. The performers are members of Ensemble Offspring, under the direction of Claire Edwardes. They're not in any order, I don't know the order, but in any case, it's variable.

Aquarius - here, the main "theme" is heard on the flute in the middle part, all of these pieces having three connected parts.

Aries, Taurus

Leo

Pisces

Scorpio

& there are more parts of _Tierkreis_ like this on youtube if you're interested in hearing more...


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## schigolch

Kaija Saariaho's _L'amour de Loin_ is perhaps the best opera written in the last fifteen years.

But of course, Saariaho had already completed a big number of compositions before this opera.

With the flute, one of her favorite instruments is the cello, working often with his friend, the finnish cellist Anssi Karttunen. Saariaho was fascinated by the different techniques to play the cello, and how they influence the structure of the armonics emitted by the instrument.

In 1988 she wrote _Petals_:






with a gradual transformation of the sound, flirting with microtonality, stretching up to the frontier of noise, and coming back to the beginning.

And we can compare her evolution with a piece from year 2000, _Sept Papillons_:






where the cellist movements resemble the wings of a butterfly, and Saariaho play with the standard sound of the instrument.


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## nosmelc

unfamiliar music possesses a sameness that quickly becomes boring. if you have come to enjoy the music of schoenberg, berg and webern, i suggest giving kontrapunte a bit more of your time. also listen to polyphonie X or some other boulez work of the same period. this music is difficult but not more so than a piece like pierrot. i think given the necessary concentrated attention serial music will provide its rewards to the listener. it took me quite some time before i could listen to schoenbergs piano concerto and hear beautiful music. the often pointalistic nature of serial music makes it flow and progress in a manner to which we are unaccustomed. familiarity will either breed acceptance or contempt.


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## nosmelc

i find it curiously funny that a person who finds nothing in the music of carter, appreciates the about piece by Xenakis, with its painful timbres that proceed without reason or respite to my ears. the reich is classical elevator music. music that does very little over long periods of time. as i am a rather energetic soul who enjoys the challenge of following things closely i must admit a deep personal aversion to minimalism as music that wastes my time and effort.


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## jalex

nosmelc said:


> unfamiliar music possesses a sameness that quickly becomes boring. if you have come to enjoy the music of schoenberg, berg and webern, i suggest giving kontrapunte a bit more of your time. also listen to polyphonie X or some other boulez work of the same period. this music is difficult but not more so than a piece like pierrot.


I respectfully disagree. I regarded Pierrot Lunaire as a masterpiece on the first listening. I regard Polyphonie X (along with everything else I have heard by Boulez) to be an unpleasant, indecipherable cacophony after _repeated_ listening.


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## Argus

nosmelc said:


> i find it curiously funny that a person who finds nothing in the music of carter, appreciates the about piece by Xenakis, with its painful timbres that proceed without reason or respite to my ears. the reich is classical elevator music. music that does very little over long periods of time. as i am a rather energetic soul who enjoys the challenge of following things closely i must admit a deep personal aversion to minimalism as music that wastes my time and effort.


You are the anti-me. We must never meet in the flesh or something cataclysmically bad will happen.


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## schigolch

One of the most appealing features of contemporary music is perhaps the incredible richness of percussion.

In the percussion family, one of my favourites instruments is the marimba. Minoru Miki wrote this piece, _Marimba Spiritual_, in 1984, arguably the best known work for marimba in the repertoire:


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## ooopera

I'm afraid that my friends percussionists play all the time the same pieces: Ney Rosauro Marimba Concerto, Emmanuel Sejourne Marimba Concerto, Anders Koppel Marimba Concerto, and hundreds of compositions writen by Keiko Abe and Nebojša Jovan Zivković.


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## ooopera

Here's another interesting percussion composition.
*Morton Feldman: The King of Denmark*. You can read about it here: http://www.cnvill.net/mfblumking_eng.pdf


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## joen_cph

*Blake-interested people *might find the you-tube site of* Dmitri Smirnov *interesting; the poet is a lasting inspiration for this Russian composer living in London, resulting in song cycles and instrumental works.

http://www.youtube.com/user/dmitrinsmirnov

(if interested check out the early you-tube posts there, as well as the ballet "The Moonlight Story")


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## schigolch

From the spanish composer Elena Mendoza, now teaching and working in Berlin, winner of the Musikpreis Salzburg 2011 and the Premio Nacional de Música 2010, we can listen below to a chamber piece written some years ago, _Diptico_, arguably her best youth piece (she was 28 years old at the time).


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## hespdelk

I don't think Giya Kancheli has been mentioned in this thread (if he has, I apologize I didn't double check again).

One of the most interesting composers of our time in my view.

Here are links to his viola concerto "Styx":











I also highly recommend his symphonies. They trace a path in his stylistic evolution from his early Shostakovich influenced work to his later highly idiosyncratic style.


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## schigolch

_Music is the preparation of silence. Sometimes, this silence becomes music. To create this kind of silence is my goal as a composer_.

Giya Kancheli

I also like Kancheli's music.


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## Curiosity

Georgy Sviridov - Reveille


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## schigolch

English composer Cornelius Cardew died still young, at 44 years old. He was a great talent, that perhaps his restless life prevented him from developing completely.

This is a piece for ensemble and electronics, composed in 1961, dedicated to abstract expressionist painter Jasper Johns, an experiment on improvisation and musical continuity:






and this is the piece recorded for last year PROMS. the interesting _Bun No. 1_:


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## schigolch

In 1979, Dutch composer Simeon Ten Holt completed his work _Canto Ostinato_, an european asnwer to american minimalism.

The premiere of the piece was played with 3 pianos and one electric organ, but there are other combinations possible, even with a single piano.

Listened in its entirety, it could be a little bit monotous, with a certain background music flavour, but on the other hand it could please many people with many different tastes.


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## johnfkavanagh

schigolch said:


> English composer Cornelius Cardew died still young, at 44 years old. He was a great talent, that perhaps his restless life prevented him from developing completely.
> 
> This is a piece for ensemble and electronics, composed in 1961, dedicated to abstract expressionist painter Jasper Johns, an experiment on improvisation and musical continuity:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> and this is the piece recorded for last year PROMS. the interesting _Bun No. 1_:


Cardew abandoned the musical values of the avant-garde in the 1970's. This piece is far more representative of the work he was doing just before he died:


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## schigolch

After receiving a commission for composing a piece of music to celebrate the "Bicentennial", Messiaen decided to pay a tribute to Utah's canyons and birds, finally performed at New York, in 1974. Though it's clear that anyone gazing at those landscapes will get impressed, Messiaen's work describes much better the soul of the composer, than Bryce Canyon.

The piece is written for piano, horn, glockenspiel, xilorimba and a 43 instruments orchestra, with a complex and colorful percussion. Some incredible sounds are extracted from this ensemble. It's a very lyrical work, far from Messiaen's compositions in the 1950s and 1960s, closer to earlier pieces like _Turangalila_. Specially the last movement, 'Zion Park et la cité céleste', is powerful and calm at the same time, a little window opening into Eternity.


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## mmsbls

johnfkavanagh said:


> Cardew abandoned the musical values of the avant-garde in the 1970's. This piece is far more representative of the work he was doing just before he died:


I rather enjoyed this piece. The opening romantic portion was quite unexpected after hearing the two works posted by schigolch. It almost had the feel of 4 or 5 short pieces played together as it progressed from that opening through to the somewhat turbulent ending.

I'm always amazed that composers (I guess modern ones) can compose such wildly varying music. I'm much more used to Baroque, Classical, and Romantic composers who sifted subtly throughout their career compared to some modern ones who can move from neo-Romantic to atonal and even avant-garde.


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## schigolch

From this interesting CD published by Col Legno:










featuring music by Charles Uzor, a Nigerian composer trained in Switzerland, we can hear _Ricercare_, a piece from 1991, written for piano, two harps, string ensemble and drums:


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## starthrower

Any fans of Magnus Lindberg here? I did a search and nothing came up. I just learned of him last week. After listening to some samples, it sounds right up my alley. He has some Lutoslawski influence.


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## mmsbls

Here is a work by Australian composer Carl Vine. The work, Smith's Academy, is based on his string quartet No. 3 and written for string orchestra. The inner "movement" has a gorgeous solo violin over a tranquil background while the outer "movements" have a driving, pulsating accompaniment underneath the melody line.


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## schigolch

Wolfram Schurig is an Austrian composer, an avant-garde composer that curiously enough, sometimes seems to be a kind of 'retro' avant-garde composer.

"Ultima Thule" is an exploration of sound, and the limits of our perception of sound. It's written for five ensembles, and it's a piece recommended strictly for lovers of avant-garde music only.


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## Pierrot Lunaire

I was watching this clip and thought of this thread. It's a cello concerto by Henri Dutilleux called "Tout un monde lointain". I love the work of Dutilleux but I always thought this piece was kind of boring. After watching it played I have a newfound respect for it and I realize that this keeps happening to me with Dutilleux. I listen to a piece and think it is ok but nothing great and then when my expectations are out of the way I can sit down and enjoy the subtleties that I missed at first. All of a sudden I find myself listening to it routinely. Beautiful stuff.


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## schigolch

From Romanian composer Horatiu Radulescu's worklist, we can watch complete in youtube one of his most beautiful pieces, the Piano Concert _The Quest_, written in the mid 1990s.


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## StlukesguildOhio

Where I have always struggled with Schoenberg and found him too "lumpen" and leaden... like Brahms at his worst without the tonality... this is not so of Berg. And once again I find I immediately warm to Berg's work. I already have another version of the Lyric Suite, but I find this one "special" on several accounts. Surely the Kronos Quartet plays this music in a manner at once deft... sensuous... fluid... and lyrical.

The work was famously an expression of Berg's tragic love for Hanna Fuchs-Robbetin. Berg had already been married some 14 years, but he was overwhelmed with a grande passion for Hanna, the sister of the Austrian novelist Franz Werfel, the wife of a Prague industrialist and mother of two. Divorce for either was unthinkable and only rarely, through missives sent via trusted confidants count the two communicate or arrange the rare clandestine meetings. The affair was impossible and heart-breaking for both. Hanna broke down in tears at seeing Berg at an opera house. Berg drunkenly wandered the streets for hours and ending standing beneath his beloved's window in a silent parody of the ritual of courtly love.. The two resigned themselves to a silent suffering of this love that could not be.

Berg's Lyric Suite was laden with symbolic expressions of this love which were only later (1977) deciphered by the musical scholar George Perle who had access to the original annotated copy of the score sent by Berg to Hanna. With this, Perle discovered that the suite originally concluded with a setting for quartet and soprano of Baudelaire's poem, _De profundis clamavi_ in the German translation by the German Symbolist, Stephan George. This concept of transcending the inarticulate expression of the instrumental with song was of course born of Beethoven's 9th Symphony in which the bass soloist suddenly silences the orchestra to announce the song of brotherhood. Berg's mentor, Schoenberg, adapted the idea to his string quartet, the final movements of which adapt Stephan George's poems, _Litany_ and _Transport_.
Berg must have suspected that the performance of the suite with the original intended vocal finale would have resulted in a too obvious comparison with Schoenberg... but also... considering the lyrics of the chosen text by Baudelaire:

_To you, you sole dear one, my cry rises
Out of the deepest abyss in which my heart has fallen.
There the landscape is dead, the air like lead
And in the dark, curse and terror well up...

I envy the lot of the most common animal
Which can plunge into the dizziness of a senseless sleep...
So slowly does the spindle of time unwind._

it would have led to unwanted speculation among the scandal-mongering Viennese, and so once again Berg resigned himself to silence, and the melody composed for Baudelaire's words was dispersed among the instruments of the quartet. This melody was reconstructed by Perle. By placing this melody once again before the quartet, the shattering finale draws clearer thematic connections to Wagner's _Tristan und Isolde_, itself a masterpiece of love and suffering in silence. In Berg's setting the voice ends before the quartet, conveying, perhaps, that there are no longer any words fitting to such suffering. Each instrument of the quartet then equally dies away... losing its voice in silence.


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## Sid James

^^ I've got no access to sound today here, which is a shame, considering all the goodies on offer here now. I'll come back when I have the chance in the following week.

Thank you* stlukes *for your discussion of Berg's _Lyric Suite_, I didn't know that a vocal finale was intended. You summarised the history of the work well. It is a much more challenging piece for me than his_ String Quartet Op. 3_, which I have loved for ages, but it is still a journey I like to go on, I listen to both fairly regularly, I like them both.

As for that you said Schoenberg is too heavy, I can see what you mean. Berg is more refined and so is Webern, at least in the sense that they are maybe less intense, their music turns down the intensity from time to time and ramps it up. But with Schoenberg, often it's intensity all the way (eg. _Moses und Aron_, or the_ Violin Concerto_, or_ Pierrot Lunaire_). But I love these works for that reason, they're very highly charged and extreme compared to the other two, imo.

Schoenberg said something that his music isn't modern, it's just played badly. Your mention of Brahms is apt, Schoenberg admired his music, as he did that of Wagner (Schoenberg was a Wagnerian, he attended all of the operas by him live many times over throughout his life, esp. in his earlier period in Europe before exile in the USA). Anyway, his music kind of brings these two together, the structure of one, the tonal adventures of the other. Both of their ways with working with themes impacted on Schoenberg, he said this.

In terms of lumpy and laden, I had similar experience. I had von Karajan's recording of _Transfigured Night _about 15 years ago and I thought I didn't like Schoenberg. It was very dark, brooding, extremely angsty. Nevermind the _Pelleas and Melisande Suite _on the other side of the tape, I almost never continued to that,_ TN _was just too full on and heavy.

That was over 10 years ago. This year, I borrowed a CD of one of your very fine orchestras, the Orpheus Chamber Orch. They played TN and I fell in love with it the first listen. I found it not just all dark and brooding, or introspective, but more nuanced and the colours like technicolour, not von Karajan's black and white or sepia tones. The OCO's version is more delicate, subtle, it is more chamber-like, it isn't pumped on steroids and only dark like Penderecki or something. They treat it as a Modern piece, but not as like heavy "atonal" but more Impressionistic. Anyway, bottom line is, you might want to explore other recordings of Schoenberg's music, you may not like every work you hear (I don't) but you might end up liking some of his works, which can be rewarding and enjoyable, just like you love Berg...


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## StlukesguildOhio

Andre... I actually like the Karajan _Verklarte Nacht_. Karajan seems to have reiterated Schoenberg's argument that his music was just poorly performed by insisting that the music needed to be played with as much care, professionalism, and passion as any Romantic symphony by Beethoven, Mahler, or Bruckner. His performance makes clear the links between Schoenberg and Wagner, Mahler, and Richard Strauss more than those with Brahms or Modernist Expressionism.

Certainly I agree that the recording can change everything... something I note with the Berg as well as with the Gergiev _Scheherezade_ that I recently listened to and wrote of. While Schoenberg is far from being a favorite, I actually own some 10 recordings of his music... including the 5-disc set by Boulez. Contrary to certain tied-in-the-wool defenders of the faith (in Modernism) who bristle at any and all criticism of any Modern or Contemporary music, I do make an effort to give a composer an honest effort before making any judgment... one way or the other. I am actually currently listening to this disc:










I find that I quite like Uchida's "light" and deft take on Schoenberg (as well as Berg and Webern) honed, as it is, upon the repertoire of Mozart, Schubert, and Debussy. She is able to erase the sense of leaden-ness that plagues many of the recordings I have heard of Schoenberg.

I am actually looking forward to the arrival of this recording as well:










The critic Robert Levine suggests that Hahn's interpretation stresses the elements of Schoenberg that are an outgrowth of Romanticism and _"the result is lyrical, songlike, and, well, Romantic."_ Levine continues to suggest that _"the 12-tone thorniness is clear, but each melody makes sense not only within itself, but throughout the whole concerto... the Andante sounds practically like a Viennese Waltz and the finale is not only like a feat by a virtuoso, but a culmination. This is the most approachable performance of this work available." _ I had similar thoughts after hearing various samples of this recording and so I will let you know my thoughts upon listening to the entire disc.


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## starthrower

I have that Hahn disc. I need to listen to it more. I've also been listening Schoenberg's Chamber Symphonies. I like these a lot!


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## Sid James

Thanks for your reply, stlukes, it was a good read.



StlukesguildOhio said:


> Andre... I actually like the Karajan _Verklarte Nacht_. Karajan seems to have reiterated Schoenberg's argument that his music was just poorly performed by insisting that the music needed to be played with as much care, professionalism, and passion as any Romantic symphony by Beethoven, Mahler, or Bruckner. His performance makes clear the links between Schoenberg and Wagner, Mahler, and Richard Strauss more than those with Brahms or Modernist Expressionism.


I would never argue that the likes of von Karajan didn't get Schoenberg right in that recording. Actually, I know that recording is seen by the pundits as the best there is. But I think I just didn't like his dark take on it, he did it very emotionally and gloomily. It's me not him that's the issue it's my taste. I heard it again on youtube and my reaction was the same - not positive. I just think that the Orpheus Chamber Orch. did it in a lighter and more colourful way. Maybe they used a smaller orchestra or different combination of strings, I don't know, that kind of thing happens all the time, this stuff isn't cast in stone it terms of performance/interpretation.

Anyway, I'd be a fool to blame von Karajan, but with this work his "take" didn't work at all. But with things like R. Strauss' _Metamorphosen for 23 solo strings_, I like von Karajan's recording, I have loved it for over 20 years. His performance made me understand and love it, he made me go hear it live like 3 times (& there could have been a fourth this week, but I missed it!). So I'm not rubbishing HvK, I'm just saying that one didn't work for me.



> ...Contrary to certain tied-in-the-wool defenders of the faith (in Modernism) who bristle at any and all criticism of any Modern or Contemporary music, I do make an effort to give a composer an honest effort before making any judgment... one way or the other....


I know that you are a listener with wide listening experience and I think it's okay to like what you like and the reverse, not like what you don't. It's commonsense. It's like trying anything, giving it a go. Schoenberg's music took me over a decade to enjoy, and even now I don't enjoy everything by him, or everything equally. A theatrical performance this year of _Pierrot Lunaire _(his seminal song-cycle) was basically a revelation. I think if I hear something live, and in that case see it presented visually with lighting, dancing, choreography, it all makes sense. It's emotional not just boring. So that's what I try to do, get off my backside, as you have clearly been doing with buying & listening to the cd's, etc.



> I find that I quite like Uchida's "light" and deft take on Schoenberg (as well as Berg and Webern) honed, as it is, upon the repertoire of Mozart, Schubert, and Debussy. She is able to erase the sense of leaden-ness that plagues many of the recordings I have heard of Schoenberg.


I saw that in the shops but didn't get it (I must have bought something else with the money avaialble). Since you say it's light, sounds perfect. I've got Alfred Brendel's 1950's recording on vinyl of Schoenberg PC. I've only heard it once, got it recently. It did have a Brahmsian flavour, but it may have been polyrhythmic like Milhaud or Stravinsky around that time (1930's-40's). There was definitely more than one or two rhythms going on at once a lot of the time, but most of it was gentle, lyrical and not so intense as some of Schoenberg's other things. It was as if he spit up the orchestra into several sections, but this isn't unusual, Mahler did it all the time (but with larger orch. of course).



> ...The critic Robert Levine suggests that Hahn's interpretation stresses the elements of Schoenberg that are an outgrowth of Romanticism and _"the result is lyrical, songlike, and, well, Romantic."_ Levine continues to suggest that _"the 12-tone thorniness is clear, but each melody makes sense not only within itself, but throughout the whole concerto... the Andante sounds practically like a Viennese Waltz and the finale is not only like a feat by a virtuoso, but a culmination. This is the most approachable performance of this work available." _ I had similar thoughts after hearing various samples of this recording and so I will let you know my thoughts upon listening to the entire disc.


I think Mr Levine is spot-on. This is a lived performance by Ms Hahn, not just joining the dots, it's fully real and emotionally expressive. The first two movts., i am nonetheless still not sure what's fully going on, but in the final movt., he reveals the "theme" which is a crazy dance. Firstly both the violinist and orch. play it together but then a snare drum interrupts and it kind of falls apart, becomes even more fragmented than before. The violin's cadenza/s here, in this movt., are more angsty imo that they were in earlier movts. (these are the HARDEST cadenzas, Jascha Heifetz said they were unplayable but he was wrong, he was just not able to adapt to these new techniques, Ms Hahn discusses in the notes that it took her a long time to change her way of holding the violin, the pressure of the bow, etc. with this concerto). I could go on, I think I've talked of this on the Schoenberg thread. The final movt. talks to me of exile and being in the USA while his people were being slaughtered. I am very emotional about this movt., as I had people in my family who went through that at the time, they suffered as civilians in wartime Europe, but they were not Jewish, they saw everything, it was horrible. Schoenberg's music brings me to their headspace like no other, highly intense, so you can understand I don't lisen to this casually or all the time. But Ms Hahn's rendition is very emotional and it was one thing that convinced me of the greatness of Schoenberg in many ways. Hope you enjoy it and please tell us what you feel, etc. about it...


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## Sid James

I am getting into some less intense Modern music now and recently got a disc of harp music, from the Baroque until the Modern period. One of the works on the disc is French composer *Germaine Tailleferre's* _Sonata for harp _from 1957. This is a very light and whimsical work in the Modern style, it is very interesting, the bouncy final movement is my favourite part. I think this is the only work of hers that has entered the chamber repertoire, it is an important work for this instrument.

Total Duration 10 minutes.
Germaine Tailleferre - Sonata for harp (Isabelle Moretti, harp)
I. Allegretto
II. Lento
III. Perpetuum mobile (Allegro gaiement)

Another area I've been getting into is guitar music. I've been listening to not only Modern guitar music, but also traditional composers - eg. Vivaldi, J.S. Bach, & a couple of more obscure Baroque composers.

Our elder statesman of music, *Peter Sculthorpe*, has composed some really beautiful works for guitar. One of the best is _From Kakadu_, dedicated and played by John Williams, but it's not on youtube as far as I can tell. Another one is _Into the Dreaming_. There is also a guitar concerto called _Nourlangie_, also written for Mr Williams. All of these works are about our fragile landscape, they are based on traditional Aboriginal melodies from the Top End or Northern Australia, and in the right hands they sound very rich even though it's only one instrument playing.

Here is his _Djilile_, one of his most arranged works, this is the solo guitar version. I think this performance and recording doesn't show it off to it's best advantage. But it will give you an idea of the work. It is very soulful and lyrical. If you like this and are interested in Australian guitar music, I just got THIS recording which I think is great and has this work, others by Sculthorpe and a number of other Aussie composers, all living.

Wulfin Lieske plays Djilile by Peter Sculthorpe


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## schigolch

Swiss composer Michael Jarrell has been for the last thirty years one of the most exciting musicians in Europe.

_Sillages_ is a piece written in 2005, and a transcription of his earlier work _Congruences_, stripping the electronic music, and creating some new developments. The piece is scored for flute, clarinet, oboe and orchestra.


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## ooopera

Great, thanks. And that Cassandre sample also sounds very interesting.

http://www.michaeljarrell.com/en/discographie.html


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## StlukesguildOhio

Just starting to listen to this disc. Very minimalist in some ways. Feldman was an interesting figure. He studied composition under Wallingford Riegger, one of the first American followers of Arnold Schoenberg, and Stefan Wolpe, a German-born Jewish composer who studied under Franz Schreker and Anton Webern. Feldman and Wolpe spent most of their time the was intended for "study" simply talking about music and art.

In early 1950 Feldman went to hear the New York Philharmonic give a performance of Anton Webern's Symphony, op. 21. After this work, the orchestra was going to perform a piece by Sergei Rachmaninoff, and Feldman left immediately before that, overwhelmed by Webern's work. In the lobby he met John Cage, who too attended the concert and was leaving for precisely the same reason. The two composers quickly became good friends. cage introduced Feldman to composers such as Henry Cowell, Virgil Thomson, and George Antheil. He also encouraged Feldman to write pieces which had no relation to compositional systems of the past, such as the constraints of traditional harmony or the serial technique. Perhaps most important, cage introduced Feldman to many of the leading figures in the visual arts: Robert Rauschenberg, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, and Philip Guston. Feldman found inspiration in their works and wrote a number of pieces dedicated to the various artists.

Feldman became best friends with the painter, Philip Guston, whose delicate abstractions were sometimes referred to as examples of "Abstract Impressionism".










Like many of the artists and composer of the era, Feldman was a firm believer in the late Modernist dogma. In 1969, Guston made a drastic shift in his painting, turning to a figurative art rooted in German Expressionism, primitive cave painting, graffiti, and comic books. Guston had grown disgusted with the purity and dogma of Modernist abstraction and wanted a "less pure" art that would allow him to engage the various social issues that had always been his passion.










Feldman accused Guston of "selling out" and as a result the two refused to speak to each other for the rest of their lives. Both artists regretted the estrangement... but could not find a means of reconciliation. Guston created a painting entitled, _To M.F_. that showed the profile of the chain-smoking Feldmen turning away from the viewer/artist:










Following Guston's death in 1980, Feldman composed a 4-hour elegy for his old friend entitled, _For Philip Guston_.


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## Sid James

^^ Interesting, & I think there's a Guston hanging in our national art gallery here, I remember something very similar to the middle painting with the bottles...


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## schigolch

The first movement from Mathias Spahlinger's piece _Furioso_, written in 1991:


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## Rapide

A very little bit jazzy.


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## ooopera

György Kurtág: Stele






My favourite part it's from 7:18 onwards.


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## Art Rock

Listening for the first time to a CD by Donnacha Dennehy (with Dawn Upshaw - my main reason to get this one). Love it.


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## schigolch

*Leonid Desiatnikov - The Leaden Echo*.

It's based on a poem by the Victorian writer Gerard Manley Hopkins, and written for countertenor voice and chamber orchestra.






_How to keep-is there any any, is there none such, nowhere known some, bow or brooch or braid or brace, láce, latch or catch or key to keep
Back beauty, keep it, beauty, beauty, beauty, … from vanishing away?
O is there no frowning of these wrinkles, rankéd wrinkles deep,
Down? no waving off of these most mournful messengers, still messengers, sad and stealing messengers of grey?
No there 's none, there 's none, O no there 's none,
Nor can you long be, what you now are, called fair,
Do what you may do, what, do what you may,
And wisdom is early to despair:
Be beginning; since, no, nothing can be done
To keep at bay
Age and age's evils, hoar hair,
Ruck and wrinkle, drooping, dying, death's worst, winding sheets, tombs and worms and tumbling to decay;
So be beginning, be beginning to despair.
O there 's none; no no no there 's none:
Be beginning to despair, to despair,
Despair, despair, despair, despair._


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## StlukesguildOhio

In this disc the always interesting violinist, Gidon Kremer, coming off performances of Vivaldi's Seasons and works by Astor Piazzola built upon the same theme, paired an original composition (again based upon the seasons) by the composer Leonid Desyatnikov with an arrangement by Alexandr Raskatov of Tchaikovsky's _The Seasons_ in order to create a Russian take on the theme that has so enthralled Kremer.

Desyatnikov (b.1955) takes authentic music and text from the collection called _Traditional Music from the Russian Lake District_ and sets them as four 'concertos' each with three 'movements' in a form similar to Vivaldi's Four Seasons. His scoring is similar too (string orchestra and solo violin) but Desyatnikov also adds a solo female voice for some numbers since his 'seasons' are different to Vivaldi's. They explore human experiences (love, separation, death and commemoration, for example) while following the quarterly rituals of the Orthodox Church.

In keeping with the idea of 'seasonal' relationships between musicians, Desyatnikov has apparently said that one of his other aims when composing The Russian Seasons was to bring together many different compositional styles. These range from 'almost uncivilised roughness to European elegance', the melding of which he feels is embodied in the work of Kremer and his orchestra. As a consequence, and although the work is wholly new, its twelve numbers all contain allusions to other composers - those who like musical challenges can amuse themselves by spotting the influences from Steve Reich, Dufay, Berg, Bach, Stravinsky and Pärt which are sprinkled liberally throughout. Desyatnikov has his own style however, and this music is often folksy but it is also wry, tender, tuneful and harmonically interesting at every turn. There's Russian irony here too: listen to the second piece, Lullaby, before reading the translated text, as an example.

Raskatov's (b. 1953) The Seasons Digest is a different kind of work though concerned with the same preoccupations as Desyatnikov's. It is a re-working of Tchaikovsky's piano cycle The Seasons op37a for a string orchestra, violin solo, percussion and prepared piano in a 'digest' form which distills the Tchaikovsky tradition nicely, but debunks it soundly too. To do this, opulent string melody is interrupted by the prepared piano and reinterpreted by percussion. Musicians are instructed to 'roam freely beyond the boundaries of their own parts' so that string players play percussion instruments sometimes. There are crops of not quite right 'modern' harmonies. Everyone whispers the 'Requiem Aeternam' in the movement for March and sings during the 'peasant minimalism' of July. Some aspects of this cannot be appreciated from a CD of course, but the excellent explanatory sleeve-note by Tatjana Frumkis fills in some of the irony and explains the intention behind what is heard. The old music is always familiar, but never exactly so: it questions how far New Russia has moved from Old Russia and how far such movement is good.

quoted from review by Bill Kenny:

http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2004/Apr04/Desyatnikov.htm


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## Rapide

Nice thread to development appreciation of contemporary music. Many interesting posts. 

Paul Hindemith wrote much chamber music which I find enjoyable. I can recommend say his clarinet pieces, sonata, quintet and quartet all for the clarinet/


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## Sid James

Click link HERE to the Australian composers thread for my thoughts on a piece by *Matthew Hindson*, _Rush_ for guitar quintet...


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## Thonolan

Hi there, first post here 

This is actually the thread that made me register. I'm not an expert in contemporary music by any means, so I'm afraid I cannot contribute with too many recommendations, but given that I'm deeply interested in it I'm sure I'm going to find a lot of nice stuff here. I have not read the whole thread yet and still have to hear most of the pieces posted here (I already knew a few ones anyway), but I think this is great as, let's say, a guideline for those of us who feel a little bit lost when it comes to contemporary music and don't know where to start or continue. Yeah, I know it's just a collection of random pieces, but at least one can read why the users who posted them like (or dislike) them and that also makes the possibility of an interesting discussion.

Judging by my experience on this field I tend to think that most people whose first love was the common practice period classical music usually find modern music ugly, noisy, shapeless and ultimately unlistenable. Personally I *love* baroque, classical and romantic music, but that was not what brought me to contemporary music. It was my interest in some other forms of music (non-classical music) which I find linked to contemporary classical in some ways. I mean some modern jazz, progressive rock and other experimental and avantgarde music. I already loved it before my first contact with contemporary classical and I'm absolutely sure that it helped me to appreciate it a lot quicker. I was already used to the abstract soundscapes and dissonance I found later in modern composers, and I even have to say that some things sounded familiar. In fact, I love dissonant music, it's something I found really attractive as a listener.

So, it might be me, but I thought it was interesting to explain this rather atypical approach to contemporary music. I know some other people who got interested in it in a similar way but I don't think it's too common.

Anyway, I'll try to listen to all recommendations posted here little by little and write some impressions about them. This thread cannot die!


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## schigolch

Conlon Nancarrow - String Quartet nº 3.


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## schigolch

Avet Terteryan died in the mid 1990s, at 65 years old, but left behind numerous works. Perhaps the most remarkables are his nine symphonies. We can hear a fragment of the Fifth, premiered in 1978:


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## schigolch




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## schigolch

Some years ago the Kronos Quartet and two musiciens from Finland: Kimmo Pohjonen (electric accordion and voice), and Samuli Kosminen (strings and sampling) worked together to create _Uniko_.

The piece has been successful enough:


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## ooopera

Louis Andriessen


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## Thonolan

Sid James said:


> My favourite composer of the moment is the Argentinian *Astor Piazzolla*(1921-1992), who is one of the most popular more contemporary chamber composers around. His music presents a heady blend of the tango, jazz, Baroque counterpoint and contemporary avant-garde techniques. Kind of like a "one stop shop" for a lot of what had happened before in classical music, both Western and not. He started out working in tango and jazz bands in his native Buenos Aires, composing on the side. When the pianist Artur Rubinstein came to Argentina, he met the young Piazzolla and encouraged him to study classical music in a formal way. Piazzolla subsequently studied with Nadia Boulanger in Paris and fellow Argentinian Alberto Ginastera at home. He developed a style that broke down the barriers between so-called "high" and "low" art. He's very popular. Chances are that non-classical listeners who don't have a clue who Stockhausen, Xenakis or Boulez are will find they know Piazzolla if you hum them the theme from things like the "Libertango." Piazzolla was very prolific, and many arrangements have been made of his music by by himself and others - from mixed acoustic and rock instruments, to orchestral, to piano trio, string quartet, you name it.
> 
> Here's "Libertango" played by the composer on bandoneon (Argentinian button accordion) with an ensemble. This is his most famous tune, and you probably know it! (btw, isn't that Yo-yo Ma on cello?)
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> "Autumn" from the "Four Seasons" suite, here in an arrangement for piano trio (the first cello solo gets me every time!)
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The same piece, played by the composer on bandoneon with a quartet of musicians.


This is wonderful, as most of Piazzolla's music is, and those are some fantastic performances. But do you really consider him a classical composer? I always hear such a strong tango essence that I tend to see his music as an advanced, complex form of *popular* music. Not that I care too much about it, I love it anyway.


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## kv466

I was thinking the same thing as it's been included in programs and I've always thought of it as 'filler'...good filler but some else just the same. 

If it's Sid liking it, though, I'll give it a click or two!


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## Thonolan

I think this one has not been mentioned yet. It's probably one of my favourite modern piano pieces, by one of my favourite modern composers: Ligeti. Not exactly a beautiful, easy listening composition, but I love the tension it creates. I have heard some other interpretations but this is the one I like the most. Such intensity! (hilarious intro included haha)


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## schigolch

German composer York Höller won the Grawemwyer Prize last year with his work for orchestra _Sphären_. During the six years he spent writing this piece, Höller faced up an unstoppable blindness and the death of his wife. _Sphären_ is dedicated to her memory.

We can listen here to a splendid composition from 1978, _Arcus_, for Percussion, Chamber Ensemble and tape.


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## schigolch

*Julio Estrada - Yuunohui'Tlapoa 'Se*, for violin and harpsichord:


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## Praeludium

Thanks a lot for this thread !


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## schigolch

This was not a great movie, not by any means, but the soundtrack using modern classical music was quite good. This was the track list:

Disc 1

"Fog Tropes" (Ingram Marshall) - (Orchestra of St. Lukes & John Adams)
"Symphony No. 3: Passacaglia - Allegro Moderato" (Krzysztof Penderecki) - (National Polish Radio Symphony & Antoni Wit)
"Music for Marcel Duchamp" (John Cage) - (Philipp Vandré)
"Hommage à John Cage" - (Nam June Paik)
"Lontano" (György Ligeti) - (Wiener Philharmoniker & Claudio Abbado)
"Rothko Chapel 2" (Morton Feldman) - (UC Berkeley Chamber Chorus)
"Cry" - (Johnnie Ray)
"On the Nature of Daylight" - (Max Richter)
"Uaxuctum: The Legend of the Mayan City Which They Themselves Destroyed for Religious Reasons - 3rd Movement" (Giacinto Scelsi) - (Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra)
"Quartet for Strings and Piano in A Minor" (Gustav Mahler) - (Prazak Quartet)

Disc 2

"Christian Zeal and Activity" (John Adams) - (The San Francisco Symphony & Edo de Waart)
"Suite for Symphonic Strings: Nocturne" (Lou Harrison) - (The New Professionals Orchestra & Rebecca Miller)
"Lizard Point" - (Brian Eno)
"Four Hymns: II for Cello and Double Bass" (Alfred Schnittke) - (Torleif Thedéen & Entcho Radoukanov)
"Root of an Unfocus" (John Cage) - (Boris Berman)
"Prelude - The Bay" - (Ingram Marshall)
"Wheel of Fortune" - (Kay Starr)
"Tomorrow Night" - (Lonnie Johnson)
"This Bitter Earth"/"On the Nature of Daylight" - (Dinah Washington & Max Richter; Arrangement by Robbie Robertson)​


----------



## ooopera

Another (awesome) movie using modern music is _The Shining_.


----------



## schigolch

*Mieczyslaw Weinberg - Requiem*


----------



## schigolch

_Each sound must have its own entity and life. What I am doing in my compositions is to create a web of intertonal relationships, while trying to safeguard the possibility of aurally perceiving the individual entity and life of every single tone in that relationship._

Jo Kondo​
Sight Rhythmics - 1975


----------



## Igneous01

schigolch said:


> This was not a great movie, not by any means, but the soundtrack using modern classical music was quite good. This was the track list:


Besides the good selection, I find it hard to insult this movie. It is one of the better movies that was made in this decade.

But I would rather not go off topic anymore, just express my thoughts.


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## Polednice

Here's a strange one for you: a cello/acting performance based on an Old English poem called _The Seafarer_. The poem itself is in a manuscript dated from the 10th century (though the poem itself may be decades or centuries older), and is generally considered an elegy - the lament of an exile for lost joys, and a depression at the transience of life and worldly things. Here's the performance:






I gave it a proper review treatment on my blog, but here's my summary:

There are two things to separate and consider here: first, the music, second, the performance. Though in the context of this video (perhaps not in a concert-hall recital) the music is a little difficult to focus on, I thought the effects achieved were generally fitting. There was certainly a sense of desolation, and the occasional capturing of the speaker's thought process was evocative. However, I was left largely with a sense of a great disconnect between the music and the words.

However, I feel willing to give the music the benefit of the doubt in light of the unexpected (and quite surreal) acting. Perhaps exacerbated by the truncation of the poem, necessarily leaving out some important pivotal moments that help us understand the seafarer's state of mind, I thought it was unduly angry. It was _hateful_, really, and I have never read the poem with a sense of such overwhelming bile before. Of course there is resentment, but there is also sorrow, hope, and, underpinning it all, a profound, disarming depression.


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## Polednice

This is a bit filmy and repetitive, tacky really, but it's still quite fun. I actually came across this composer by hearing the Detroit Symphony play one of his pieces in their live stream the other night, but I had to go to bed so haven't heard it all yet. That one sounded quite a bit more interesting than this, so hopefully I'll get chance to hear it properly soon.


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## mmsbls

This thread has been dormant for awhile, but I just started exploring Lou Harrison and thought I'd post a couple of his works. The first is his Piano Concerto (1983). The piano is tuned in Kirnberger's #2 temperament so the orchestra only has instruments that can play the tones - trombones, percussion, harp, strings. The clip has all four movements, which sound quite different to me. The third movement, Largo, is rather beautiful.






The second work is Harrison's Suite for Violin, Piano and Small Orchestra. He was influenced by Asian music and wrote music for the gamelan or music that sounded similar to the gamelan.


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## emiellucifuge

Here you have Boulez explaining one of his compositions while he performs it.


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## PetrB

Thonolan said:


> This is wonderful, as most of Piazzolla's music is, and those are some fantastic performances. But do you really consider him a classical composer? I always hear such a strong tango essence that I tend to see his music as an advanced, complex form of *popular* music. Not that I care too much about it, I love it anyway.


Maybe it is 'lighter' classical and 'heavier' tango! Piazzolla studied with first fellow countryman Alberto Ginastera, and then later with Nadia Boulanger in Paris: when his classical works were coming along well enough, something absent made them 'less,' which was the composer's lament to Boulanger. It was Boulanger who said, well you should write Tango!

[Similarly, Steve Reich was 'saddled' writing in the current contemporary vein when his teacher at Mills College, Darius Milhaud, said, "You don't seem to care for or have a feeling for this (current) vocabulary. I think you should be writing tonal music."]

... you get to the top rank, and the 'academics' are open-minded and flexible. They will find and advocate the pupil's strengths, help them develop those and steer them in that direction, regardless of the teacher's personal taste or current trends... so much for lesser petty academics and other teachers.

Ergo, trained as he was combined with his true musical reflexes, we get Piazzolla's advanced harmonic vocabulary as not the accident of a popular musician who stumbled upon it, and it is very audible, i.e. the training 'shows.' The music is miles more genuine than so much of the genre imitative dance by those classical composers who make 'postcard snapshots of dance from another genre], and Piazzola has far more musically interesting than the expected 'straight' harmony usually expected within the genre.

"Nuevo tango," is what it is called. Maybe that is enough


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## PetrB

mmsbls said:


> ... I just started exploring Lou Harrison.... The second work is Harrison's Suite for Violin, Piano and Small Orchestra. He was influenced by Asian music and wrote music for the gamelan or music that sounded similar to the gamelan.


Ive found The Suite for Violin, Piano and Small Orchestra to be a wholly successful piece, 'holding up well upon repeated listening, and very pleasant listening at that.


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## PetrB

StlukesguildOhio said:


> Just starting to listen to this disc. Very minimalist in some ways. Feldman was an interesting figure. He studied composition under Wallingford Riegger, one of the first American followers of Arnold Schoenberg, and Stefan Wolpe, a German-born Jewish composer who studied under Franz Schreker and Anton Webern. Feldman and Wolpe spent most of their time the was intended for "study" simply talking about music and art.
> 
> In early 1950 Feldman went to hear the New York Philharmonic give a performance of Anton Webern's Symphony, op. 21. After this work, the orchestra was going to perform a piece by Sergei Rachmaninoff, and Feldman left immediately before that, overwhelmed by Webern's work. In the lobby he met John Cage, who too attended the concert and was leaving for precisely the same reason. The two composers quickly became good friends. cage introduced Feldman to composers such as Henry Cowell, Virgil Thomson, and George Antheil. He also encouraged Feldman to write pieces which had no relation to compositional systems of the past, such as the constraints of traditional harmony or the serial technique. Perhaps most important, cage introduced Feldman to many of the leading figures in the visual arts: Robert Rauschenberg, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, and Philip Guston. Feldman found inspiration in their works and wrote a number of pieces dedicated to the various artists.
> 
> Feldman became best friends with the painter, Philip Guston, whose delicate abstractions were sometimes referred to as examples of "Abstract Impressionism".
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Like many of the artists and composer of the era, Feldman was a firm believer in the late Modernist dogma. In 1969, Guston made a drastic shift in his painting, turning to a figurative art rooted in German Expressionism, primitive cave painting, graffiti, and comic books. Guston had grown disgusted with the purity and dogma of Modernist abstraction and wanted a "less pure" art that would allow him to engage the various social issues that had always been his passion.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Feldman accused Guston of "selling out" and as a result the two refused to speak to each other for the rest of their lives. Both artists regretted the estrangement... but could not find a means of reconciliation. Guston created a painting entitled, _To M.F_. that showed the profile of the chain-smoking Feldmen turning away from the viewer/artist:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Following Guston's death in 1980, Feldman composed a 4-hour elegy for his old friend entitled, _For Philip Guston_.


The Trio is gorgeous: So much of Feldman's music is 'gorgeous' it is amazing that it was not a trick of one sort, or prettiness which make them so remarkable.


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## PetrB

schigolch said:


> In 1979, Dutch composer Simeon Ten Holt completed his work _Canto Ostinato_, an european asnwer to american minimalism.
> 
> The premiere of the piece was played with 3 pianos and one electric organ, but there are other combinations possible, even with a single piano.
> 
> Listened in its entirety, it could be a little bit monotous, with a certain background music flavour, but on the other hand it could please many people with many different tastes.


Since your posting, now several years later, there are two full-length long play youtube links available; each performance is with four pianos:
The first, duration ca. 1 hr, 40 min.





The second, duration ca. a few minutes less than three hours.





And his other four-piano piece of similar format, 'Horizon.'
This link is one long-play, ca. one hour and twenty minutes. It is also quite pleasant.


----------



## egoldstein

Hello,
I recommend _Arquetipo_ by Lucas Fagin. In my my opinion, this is a piece plenty of coulours and strong ideas. There are no thematic melodies. the sound is a like a substance perturbed by the media in a continuos motion and tension. The timbre is beautiful and refined. It is like an imagery cosmogony: http://www.babelscores.com/en/catalog/instrumental-music/large-ensamble-20-35-instruments/arquetipo. I meet the composer a few years ago in Tokyo. I hope you will like it.


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## mmsbls

Another bump for this long running thread.

I recently discovered Philip Glass's Aguas da Amazonia. I fell in love immediately. Apparently the Brazilian musicians, Uakti, make many (all?) of their instruments. The works use keyboards, flutes, and marimbas as well as some other exotic instruments. This is a score composed for a dance company.


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## science

This is a great thread. I followed it once upon a time but then it got up to 18 pages when I wasn't paying attention, and then followed a link from hillisg's recent thread to get here. A lot of great stuff has been recommended herein. My thanks to all the participants! 

For my own contribution, I enjoy: 

- Bun-Ching Lam: … Like Water (available from Tzadik) 
- Ge Gan-Ru: Fall of Baghdad (Naxos) 
- Partch: Delusion of the Fury 
- The Now Ensemble: Awake 
- Ryu Jeajoon: Violin Concerto (Naxos) 

That's enough for now! I would second a lot of the other recommendations here, though. Fortunately there are many more that I haven't heard yet, so I have work to do.


----------



## PetrB

Without looking through the past seventeen pages, these pieces listed are at risk / probability of being redundant. Nonetheless.
These I feel all could be called, one way or another, "ambient" in that there is an unfolding musical fabric not clearly dependent upon theme, development.

Jonathan Harvey ~ Tranquil Abiding (a vacillation / oscillation of two chords, with 'wreaths' of activity set therein, thereon)





John Adams ~ Common Tones in Simple Time





Robert Moran ~ Requiem; Chant du Cygne (I'm an advocate of this piece, find it beautiful, and when the dust settles, think it might be later considered an 'important' work.)





Morton Feldman ~ Piano and String Quartet (Another work I am probably unreasonable about, thinking it "sublime," beautiful, static and timeless.)


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## millionrainbows

I gained a new-found appreciation of Webern's Piano Variations when I saw GG play it on video. It is a "dance" of the hands, with mucho hand-crossing. I can actually hear where the row stops in the middle, and begins its backwards ascent. 
For me, the best part of Webern is that you can listen for "interval areas" where there are predominant intervals, such as fifths/fourths or m3/M6, etc. This makes his music have "harmonic coherence." The newest complete box on DG with Boulez has beautiful renditions of his lieder.

The Zeitmasse by Stockhausen shows how his music has a basic beauty which makes it transcend any limitations the serial method might impose on a lesser composer. The woodwind textures, and the group gestures, make it very interesting listening.


----------



## Igneous01

Some good recommendations here 

As for me, I currently am digging Kalevi Aho's "Insect" Symphony, a very interesting work.

The first movement reminds me of Varese's Ameriques, which I also enjoy.

The second movement sounds very 50's American Parade 'ish, It feels as though I travelled back and am witnessing a giant party in the New York night.

The fifth movement (Ants) reminds me of Holst's the planets, actually come to think of it - the whole symphony feels very close to that style. Its a very theatrical but stylish work that is pretty accessible. I know that Kalevi Aho's later symphonies return to more traditional harmony and tonality, but his early work is quite good.

The other movement's are pretty good too, but they dont stick out for me immediately, but the flow from movement to movement is good.





(quick links to the movements are in the description of the video, if you dare to travel so far)


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## millionrainbows

Speaking of insects, I wish *Richard Maxfield's Night Music *were available on CD. It was released as an LP on Odyssey. It's a quirky piece, consisting of very elementary oscillator sounds, which chirp, buzz, and make very insect-like sounds, finally culminating in a huge number of simultaneous sounds.


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## PetrB

*Re: MORE LOU HARRISON:*


mmsbls said:


> I just started exploring Lou Harrison and thought I'd post a couple of his works. The first is his Piano Concerto (1983). The piano is tuned in Kirnberger's #2 temperament so the orchestra only has instruments that can play the tones - trombones, percussion, harp, strings. The clip has all four movements, which sound quite different to me. The third movement, Largo, is rather beautiful.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The second work is Harrison's Suite for Violin, Piano and Small Orchestra. He was influenced by Asian music and wrote music for the gamelan or music that sounded similar to the gamelan.


Let's add 
Mass to St. Anthony (here original instrumentation, chorus and percussion)




The _Gloria_ therefrom in another registration





Varied Trio for violin, piano and percussion


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## PetrB

If I have not dropped Lucia Dlugoszewski's _Fire Fragile Flight_ into this thread, that is remiss, here then corrected:
Lucia Dlugoszewski ~ Fire Fragile Flight


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## arpeggio

*Great observation*

In another forum that I monitor I read the following great observation concerning avant-garde music by a gentleman who uses the handle 'mancheeros':

"The avant-garde composition of the 20th century will always be a minority taste, and so will avant-garde jazz, avant-garde rock and avant-garde improvised music. But it matters not. No one will wipe away the worthwhile histories of these musics. They will never become popular and appeal to mainstream listeners, but then they were never intended to appeal to mainstream listeners. These avant-garde musical traditions were forged for those who like to stretch their ears and imaginations. Schoenberg and Webern will go on into the future like Mozart and Beethoven because there will always be inquisitive people who ask the question: 'What lies beyond the mainstream?'

Avant-garde musics are not endangered species; they do not need saving because there will always be people bold enough to play them and listen to them." 

(Note: I did not want to start another thread and I thought this one would be a good home for it. It was in a thread started by 'some guy' entitled "How to save the twentieth century".)


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## Joris




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## Guest

Rothko Chapel.

Magical.

(Both of them.)


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## Blake

arpeggio said:


> In another forum that I monitor I read the following great observation concerning avant-garde music by a gentleman who uses the handle 'mancheeros':
> 
> "The avant-garde composition of the 20th century will always be a minority taste, and so will avant-garde jazz, avant-garde rock and avant-garde improvised music. But it matters not. No one will wipe away the worthwhile histories of these musics. They will never become popular and appeal to mainstream listeners, but then they were never intended to appeal to mainstream listeners. These avant-garde musical traditions were forged for those who like to stretch their ears and imaginations. Schoenberg and Webern will go on into the future like Mozart and Beethoven because there will always be inquisitive people who ask the question: 'What lies beyond the mainstream?'
> 
> Avant-garde musics are not endangered species; they do not need saving because there will always be people bold enough to play them and listen to them."
> 
> (Note: I did not want to start another thread and I thought this one would be a good home for it. It was in a thread started by 'some guy' entitled "How to save the twentieth century".)


That's heartfelt, indeed. But the lasting quality of Avant-Garde is held together by assumptions. I quite enjoy Avant-garde, but we really don't know what the future holds and where conscious attention will be. Any reference to future events are just hypothesis built from what's familiar in our time. It's an educated guess, pretty much.


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## spradlig

I'd recommend

Berg's _Chamber Concerto_ for piano, violin, and thirteen winds,
_Atmospheres_ by Ligeti (it was used in the film _2001: A Space Odyssey_), and
_Turangalila-Simphonie_ (sp?) by Olivier Messaien.

For what it's worth, I'm pretty sure all these works and their composers are highly-regarded by critics. I find the Berg work challenging to listen to but with moments of extreme beauty. I have not heard the entire Messaien piece in a long time, but there is at least one part that is extremely accessible, one might even say "catchy".


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## mmsbls

I've been exploring Lutoslawski lately. I mentioned his piano concerto before. His Symphonic Variations (1938) is a wonderful early tonal work - fun, colorful, with gorgeous sections.

His later Chain 3 is quite different with overlapping sections of various timbres that blend into each other. Hearing one section meld into the next is fascinating.


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## millionrainbows

Morton Feldman...yes...a good way in...relaxing, dark...contemplative...simple...profound...Varese...Webern...Berg...Dallapiccola...Glass...Riley...Adams...Reich...Kronos Quartet...


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## mmsbls

In the _Classical Music Project_ thread _berghansson_ nominated a late work by Messiaen - _Un sourire (A Smile)_. I had not heard it, but today I have listened to it several times.

Messiaen composed it as a tribute to Mozart on the anniversary of his death. Un sourire means "A smile." Messiaen felt that Mozart always smiled in life and in his music. There are 2 alternating, disparate themes - one quiet, slow and serene; the other energetic and almost frantic.


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## KenOC

A piece I can strongly recommend: Ligeti's Violin Concerto, from 1992. The recording by Patricia Kopaniskaja and Peter Eotvos won Gramophone's recording of the year for 2013. And no wonder!

BTW the accompanying Bartok #2 is the best I've heard.


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## chalkpie

Nix said:


> Good idea for a thread. The trouble with contemporary music is that there is so much mediocrity out there, it takes awhile before you can figure out who the modern day Brahms and Wagners are, so to speak. I've only skimmed the surface of contemporary music so I won't offer specific suggestions just yet, but my suggestion is this: listen to more accessible music first and work your way forward at your own pace. A lot of the most avant garde and complicated music was written because the composer was bored with what came before... so move forward and when you get bored or have had enough of the era, move forward. And I think you'll find that once you take the time to understand a modern piece of music, understanding pieces from the classical and romantic era becomes very easy.
> 
> As for as easy listening composers of today, try some John Adams.


Nicely said.............


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## hpowders

^^^^Nicely pithy! Are you sure you belong here?


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## chalkpie

I'll play. "Ars Moriendi" by Mr. Bungle. Composed by Mike Patton, a composer who gains huge respect from me and many others. Why do I love this? Because its FUN! Its also immaculately produced and performed. The album is their third and final CALIFORNIA (1999).


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## samurai

Vesuvius said:


> That's heartfelt, indeed. But the lasting quality of Avant-Garde is held together by assumptions. I quite enjoy Avant-garde, but we really don't know what the future holds and where conscious attention will be. Any reference to future events are just hypothesis built from what's familiar in our time. It's an educated guess, pretty much.


I would think that this is as true of *any music* composed and listened to by people who are still alive at the time of the "current music" being disseminated, be it in the 21st or 16th centuries--or, for that matter--even earlier. Each generation's appraisal of its own time frame's musical output must of necessity remain just that--"hypothesis"-- awaiting the "verdict" of ensuing generations as to whether the music is truly lasting or merely ephemeral, a "flash in the pan" so to speak.


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## Morimur

*Stockhausen + Lutosławski = A Jolly Good Time!!*


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## Morimur

*Lachenmann + Sciarrino = More Fantastic Fun!!*


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## PetrB

Vesuvius said:


> That's heartfelt, indeed. But the lasting quality of Avant-Garde is held together by assumptions. I quite enjoy Avant-garde, but we really don't know what the future holds and where conscious attention will be. Any reference to future events are just hypothesis built from what's familiar in our time. It's an educated guess, pretty much.


The lasting quality of anything is assumption until is demonstrated that it has lasted. Those early 20th century composers? There music is still around, played in performance and recorded more now than when the music was new -- just as it was with Bach, Mahler, and some other composers. Some of those other more instantly recognized and popular early 20th century composers, who many thought at the time 'were it'? Some now have one or two of all their works in circulation, the rest gathering dust someplace (Hindemith comes to mind, Honegger not much less 'out of circulation -- for a while, they were considered 'the guys and the way' of new contemporary music.)


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## Blake

PetrB said:


> The lasting quality of anything is assumption until is demonstrated that it has lasted. Those early 20th century composers? There music is still around, played in performance and recorded more now than when the music was new -- just as it was with Bach, Mahler, and some other composers. Some of those other more instantly recognized and popular early 20th century composers, who many thought at the time 'were it'? Some now have one or two of all their works in circulation, the rest gathering dust someplace (Hindemith comes to mind, Honegger not much less 'out of circulation -- for a while, they were considered 'the guys and the way' of new contemporary music.)


Right. I'm assuming I'll wake up tomorrow, but the lasting quality of my heart-beat is strangely unknown to me. I've found that 99% of people's lives are built around assumptions. As sweet or logical the assumption of knowledge may sound, life is still wildly elusive.


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## PetrB

Vesuvius said:


> Right. I'm assuming I'll wake up tomorrow, but *the lasting quality of my heart-beat is strangely unknown to me*. I've found that 99% of people's lives are built around assumptions. As sweet or logical the assumption of knowledge may sound, life is still wildly elusive.


*Right!* The reason you should not wait until dead to have others certify the music of your own time as "having withstood the test of time." LOL.


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## mmsbls

I'd heard a few works by Per Norgard, but nothing really stuck with me. Recently I noticed several members strongly recommending his 3rd symphony so I gave it a try.

The work, like many others by Norgard, is partially based on his infinity series. Both movements are filled with remarkable and gorgeous music. The 2 choirs are prominent in the second.

I was moved enough to continue exploring Norgard (his quartets). I expect to listen to many more works, and I'm quite glad to have given him another try.


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## Le Beau Serge

I just want to thank the thread starter this thread is great for me who is new to this music. I look forward to reading through it thoroughly. I'm no expert but may I suggest a few recordings:










*Hosokawa - Penderecki - Norgard: Viola Space Japan 10th Anniversary*










*Henryk Gorecki: String Quartet No 3*

Both of these recordings are available for free on Spotify and I really enjoy them and I hope you will to.​


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## Guest

I think the point about any new music is not whether it has lasted (of course it hasn't; it's new) or even whether it will last (of course that's speculative), but whether it gives pleasure now. Not necessarily to you, but to someone.

Time to quote Robert Frost yet again.

"It is absurd to think that the only way to tell if a poem is lasting is to wait and see if it lasts. The right reader of a good poem can tell the moment it strikes him that he has taken an immortal wound, that he will never get over it. That is to say, permanence in poetry as in love is perceived instantly. It has not to wait the test of time. The proof of a poem is not that we have never forgotten it, but that we knew at sight that we never could forget it. There was a barb to it and a toxin that we owned to at once."

I suppose that this is such a hard sell because in any particular instance, there will be listeners who don't particularly like a particular piece. And those listeners will loudly inveigh against it, regardless of anyone else's enjoyment. That is, personal experience trumps logic. Oh well.

Anyway, to finesse the Frost a bit, I don't think that questions of quality are germane to new music. It is also very much not the point that most new music ("of any era") is mediocre. Most new music is new. (Yes, I know. There's this wee quibble of new meaning new and new also meaning recent, ya know.) Mediocre doesn't really enter into it, any more than great does, except for individual listeners.

Hey, that's true for old music as well, isn't it?


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## Igneous01

I recently found this splendid work from a rather obscure Finnish composer:






It features a lot of cluster chords, but there presented in a very accessible way for new comers. I personally love the melodic shaping with them. The beginning theme almost implies a Rachmaninov like touch in clusters.

Here is a symphony, by Valentyn Silvestrov. I personally think it is one of the most sweet and delicate symphonies I have had the pleasure of hearing. Again, very accessible. Also check out his 2nd and 3rd String Quartets if you can find them as they are also very nice.


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## violadude

Igneous01 said:


> I recently found this splendid work from a rather obscure Finnish composer:


Rather obscure? Don't take this the wrong way, but either you've been living under a rock for the past few years or I'm way more in the know than I thought I was. O.O


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## Igneous01

violadude said:


> Rather obscure? Don't take this the wrong way, but either you've been living under a rock for the past few years or I'm way more in the know than I thought I was. O.O


Its probably the former; it ain't easy finding these guys sometimes!


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## DeepR

Igneous01 said:


> Here is a symphony, by Valentyn Silvestrov. I personally think it is one of the most sweet and delicate symphonies I have had the pleasure of hearing. Again, very accessible.


Thanks. I'm listening to the entire piece right now and I'm really enjoying it.

Here are all three links:













I love the lingering, dreamlike quality. Still seems very refined beneath the surface. Very much my kind of music, actually.


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## Alypius

Igneous01 said:


> Its probably the former; it ain't easy finding these guys sometimes!


Igneous, If you enjoyed that track from Einojuhani Rautavaara, try the whole box of concertos. The 4 disc box set prices at around $20. BIS does a fine job of promoting his works -- including making them available at a good price. My favorite, by the way, is Piano Concerto #3:










Actually, though, I would recommend starting with Rautavaara's symphonies, especially #7, #8, and #3. Once again, available in a BIS box set for about $20:


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## Morimur

György Kurtág 
Richard Barrett
Brian Ferneyhough
Helmut Lachenmann
Michael Finnissy
James Dillon
Kalevi Aho


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## Jobis

Lope de Aguirre said:


> György Kurtág
> Richard Barrett
> Brian Ferneyhough
> Helmut Lachenmann
> Michael Finnissy
> James Dillon
> Kalevi Aho


Your display picture is terrifying, where's it from?


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## hpowders

Jobis said:


> Your display picture is terrifying, where's it from?


Yes. I find myself looking away....more so than usual.


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## aleazk

Jobis said:


> Your display picture is terrifying, where's it from?


Seems like german actor Klaus Kinski. Although I couldn't say if it was extracted from a film or real life, lol.


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## Morimur

Jobis said:


> Your display picture is terrifying, where's it from?


It's from the 1986 film, _Crawlspace_.


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## Blake

Seems pretty level-headed.


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## Ian Moore

Lope de Aguirre,

György Kurtág
Richard Barrett
Brian Ferneyhough
Helmut Lachenmann
Michael Finnissy
James Dillon
Kalevi Aho

I really interesting list. Especially, with Barrett, Ferneyhough and Dillon on it. I find myself closely associated with James Dillon. He's a fascinating man. I am really interested in why you have included Kalevi Aho. He seems to be different from all the other composers. What was your thinking on this matter.

Ian Moore


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## mmsbls

This thread has been dormant long enough. I plan to post music from contemporary composers I have somewhat recently found and enjoyed. Hopefully others will follow.

Matthew Hindson is an Australian composer born in 1968. I've recently listened to a number of his works, but I especially enjoy Pulse Magnet and Rush.

Pulse Magnet





Rush





Both have wonderful rhythmic textures.


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## cjvinthechair

To my (untutored) mind, a fantastic Channel on YT: Aleksandr Shymko

This is Chronos


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## Albert7

Mason Bates is another composer whom I appreciate and enjoy quite a bit.


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## mmsbls

cjvinthechair, thanks for posting the Aleksandr Shymko channel work. I enjoyed Chronos and was reminded vaguely of Arvo Part (I think the strings in the beginning especially).

I continued listening to the channel and found Shymko's Double Concerto for violin and viola.






I really liked this work. The interplay between the violin and viola was quite effective I thought, and the cadenza is just gorgeous.


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## mmsbls

I've bumped this thread because there seem to be TC members looking for threads that get people excited about modern music but lack contentious posts. This is/was one of my favorite threads on TC. There are many wonderful suggestions and some discussion about many works here. The last post is almost 2 years old so many members may never have seen this thread. Please read through the thread, listen to lots of new music, and contribute suggested works for others to hear.


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## mmsbls

Hans Abrahamsen is a contemporary composer whose music I find beautiful and compelling. One of my favorite works is his Double Concerto for violin, piano and string orchestra (2011). Another wonderful work is Märchenbilder for chamber orchestra.

Finally a striking vocal work from 2013 - Let Me Tell You. Several on TC have raved about this work.


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## Phil loves classical

Sci-fi movie fans may have heard more modern, or whatever you want to call it, music than they may have thought. See if this sounds familiar:






Kubrick was a fan of modern music and used some in both the Shining and 2001.


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## mmsbls

Here's a work by George Crumb that's at times unfamiliar, stark, wild, and ethereally beautiful.

Music for a Summer Evening (Makrokosmos III) for Two Amplified Pianos and Percussion


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## haydnguy

I was just reading the thread entitled, "Exploring Contemporary Composers". As I was reading through the posts I saw that the original poster said that he had made a mistake. He had originally called it, "Exploring Modern and Contemporary Composers". 

This thread is old but was wondering if anyone would be interested in starting a similar thread as that one but focus on Modern composers. Basically, the idea is to focus on one composer for a week or more. That way, it gives everyone more time to focus on more of a given composers music before going on to the next one. 

I intend to follow along with the other thread but as I know virtually nothing about Contemporary Composers it will hard for me to contribute.


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## Roger Knox

haydnguy said:


> This thread is old but was wondering if anyone would be interested in starting a similar thread as that one but focus on Modern composers.


I'm not planning to start a thread, but I'm interested in the distinction between Modern and Contemporary composers as you see it. For me, Modern would have indicated Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Bartok, Ives, Hindemith, Milhaud, Messiaen (all born before 1920). Contemporary Music *used to* mean composers like Boulez, Stockhausen, Cage, Berio, Ligeti, Crumb, Birtwhistle (all except Cage born after 1920). But terms used for 20th and 21st century composers and eras now are different than the ones I learned decades ago.

Whatever is meant, your idea is a good one because I think "Modern and Contemporary Composers" just covers too great a time span.


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## haydnguy

Roger Knox said:


> I'm not planning to start a thread, but I'm interested in the distinction between Modern and Contemporary composers as you see it. For me, Modern would have indicated Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Bartok, Ives, Hindemith, Milhaud, Messiaen (all born before 1920). Contemporary Music *used to* mean composers like Boulez, Stockhausen, Cage, Berio, Ligeti, Crumb, Birtwhistle (all except Cage born after 1920). But terms used for 20th and 21st century composers and eras now are different than the ones I learned decades ago.
> 
> Whatever is meant, your idea is a good one because I think "Modern and Contemporary Composers" just covers too great a time span.


My thinking is the same as yours. My thought was to have a thread that was more along the lines of the composers you listed as Modern (Schoenberg, Stravinsky, etc.). I know enough about them to appreciate them but want to do more "digging" into them. With the Contemporary composers you mentioned, I know virtually nothing much less the newer composers than those.

I'm not sure how people classify these differently now but that was what I was meaning.


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## Jacck

Contemporary composers should mean *living*, IMHO. Modern music for me begins with the end of romantism, ie beginning of the 20th century. Anyway, I recently discovered 4 living composers, who in my opinion compose great music, so I want to share them. Maybe others can enjoy them too.

*1) Zbygniew Preisner - Polish *
respect to Poland, our neigbor country. Czech composers seem to have died out, but Poland took over and produced some of the great composers of the second half of the 20th century and is still producing





2) Fazil Say, Turkish, this is just unique, original. Check also his violin concerto Thousand Nights etc





3) Marjan Mozetich - a Canadian Composer





4) Bright Sheng - An Chinese-American composer


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## haydnguy

I very much apologize for muddying the water here. I purposefully posted in this thread because it was old. I believe that the current running thread for posting about Contemporary music is at the link below. I will shut up now. 

Discussion for "Exploring Contemporary Composers"


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## Roger Knox

I think Jacck's idea of Contemporary composers as living composers makes sense to me. However like Haydnguy, I am interested in a thread that discusses music after 1900 that is modern (not romantic or post-romantic). Is this forum it? Is there another one? Should one be started? What do you think?


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## haydnguy

I don't know if the original poster of this thread could change the title to "Exporing Modern Music" but I'm sure the admin. could. Short of that, it might be best to start a new thread.

I will leave someone else the honors. I'll be right behind you.


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## mmsbls

I would be happy to start a set of threads parallel to Exploring Contemporary Composers and Discussion for "Exploring Contemporary Composers" but aimed at Modern composers (roughly post 2000 but not including late Romantic). The general idea would be to pick a list of modern composers and discuss them one at a time for some period (say a week or so). People can look at initial posts in two threads and get the idea.

If there is interest in that, let me know.


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## Roger Knox

mmsbls said:


> I would be happy to start a set of threads parallel to Exploring Contemporary Composers and Discussion for "Exploring Contemporary Composers" but aimed at Modern composers (roughly post 2000 but not including late Romantic).
> 
> If there is interest in that, let me know.


I am interested in a Modern composers set of threads but I don't understand "post 2000," to me that would be Contemporary.


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## mmsbls

Roger Knox said:


> I am interested in a Modern composers set of threads but I don't understand "post 2000," to me that would be Contemporary.


Sorry, I meant post 1900. Post 2000 would even be only a modest percentage of contemporary.


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## Roger Knox

mmsbls said:


> Sorry, I meant post 1900. Post 2000 would even be only a modest percentage of contemporary.


mmsbls, that's what I guessed. Thanks for the clarification. Looking forward to this!

My areas of knowledge are music theory and composition, and the well-recognized Modern composers -- much less on recordings and on under-recognized composers.


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