# Your top 10 post-1920 composers



## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

What I mean is, imagine if the only music that existed was music written after 1920. Who would be your top 10 composers?


My list:

1. Partch
2. Messiaen
3. Webern
4. Ravel
5. Medtner
6. Boulez
7. Bartok
8. Prokofiev
9. Stockhausen
10. Schoenberg


Honorable mentions (in no particular order):

Cage
Strauss
Shostakovich
Elgar
Sibelius
Rachmaninoff
Berg
Takemitsu
Ligeti
Babbitt
Gorecki
Stravinsky
Ives
Gubaidulina
Schnittke
Britten
Pettersson

Top 5 nations for CM in the past 100 years:

1. USA
2. France
3. Germany
4. Russia
5. England (if you are more conservative) / Italy (if you lean more towards the avant-garde)


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

1. Shostakovich
2. Ravel
3. Bax
4. Sibelius
5. Strauss, R
6. Gubaidulina
7. Moeran
8. Vaughan Williams
9. Takemitsu
10. Britten


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

I didn't have to think too hard about the first six, but they are in no particular order - I've also picked them on the basis that all or the vast majority of their output is from 1920 onwards. The remaining four candidates would have to come from a wider pool which makes it less easy to choose.

Britten
Hindemith
Schnittke
Shostakovich
Simpson
Weill


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## Chilham (Jun 18, 2020)

BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist said:


> ....
> 
> Top 5 nations for CM in the past 100 years:
> 
> ...


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Top 5 nations for CM in the past 100 years:

1. UK
2. Soviet Union/Russia
3. Germany
4. Finland
5. France


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

OK, let me explain why I have the US at #1. Originally I had France in that spot, and to be fair France holds 3 spots in my top 10 whereas the US only has 1 (and 3 honorable mentions). Furthermore, I tend to find some of the most highly regarded American composers (Bernstein, Copland, Gershwin, some of Ives) extremely overrated.

So why do I put the US at #1?

To be provocative  . OK, in all honesty it probably belongs at #4 in my list. I could also see switching Russia and Germany.

My real list:

1. France
2. Russia
3. Germany
4. USA
5. UK


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## ORigel (May 7, 2020)

1. Bartok (most of his work was post-1920)
2. Shostakovich
3. Stravinsky (neoclassical and serial Stravinsky is good Stravinsky)
4. Schoenberg (_Moses und Aron_ is my favorite work by him)
5. Xenakis
6. Schnittke
7. Ravel (works composed after 1920 include the piano concertos, the orchestration of _Pictures At An Exhibition_, and Bolero)
8. Berg (Lyric Suite; Violin Concerto)
9. Prokofiev
10. Part


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## Coach G (Apr 22, 2020)

My favorite composers who composed their entire oeuvre post-1920:

1. Shostakovich (was 14 in 1920)
2. Britten (was 7 in 1920)
3. Copland (was 20 in 1920, Wikipedia lists his first important piece to be _Cat and Mouse_, composed in 1920)
4. Barber (was 10 in 1920)
5. Hovhaness (was 9 in 1920)
6. Takemitsu (born 1930)
7. Messiaen (was 8 in 1920)
8. Zwillich (born 1939)
9. Hailstork (born 1941)
10. William Schuman (was 10 in 1920)

Unless those composers I've listed as being born before the year 1920 were composing when they were very little, they all meet the mark. Wikipedia indicates that Copland did compose a few things prior to 1920, that are probably under the category of student works and nobody ever listens to them, so close enough.)


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## HerbertNorman (Jan 9, 2020)

1. Shostakovich
2. Ravel
3. Sibelius
4. Britten
5. Stravinsky
6. Barber
7. Bartok
8. Vaughan Williams
9. Schnittke
10. Hindemith


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## Coach G (Apr 22, 2020)

BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist said:


> OK, let me explain why I have the US at #1. Originally I had France in that spot, and to be fair France holds 3 spots in my top 10 whereas the US only has 1 (and 3 honorable mentions). Furthermore, I tend to find some of the most highly regarded American composers (Bernstein, Copland, Gershwin, some of Ives) extremely overrated.
> 
> So why do I put the US at #1?
> 
> ...


I think that the predominance of a nation in classical music has to do with where the epicenters of cultural life were at the time. I know that Vienna was where Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven were active, and that Vienna continued to be the hub of musical knowledge and creativity through to the days of Brahms, Bruckner, and Mahler. Then between the big world Wars, Paris was the center of the cultural universe when Stravinsky, Picasso, Virgil Thomson, Gertrude Stein, Alice Toklas, Nadia Boulanger and her, then, young students such as Aaron Copland were handing out there. Post World War II New York City becomes the center of the cultural solar system.

Prior to that modern times, I don't know. Italy was the center of the Renaissance period, and I know there was a Netherlands school in the days of Orlando di Lassus, now fairly obscure but it does have it's devotees even to this day.


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## Prodromides (Mar 18, 2012)

1. Giacinto Scelsi
2. Andre Jolivet
3. Richard Rodney Bennett
4. Maurice Ohana
5. Arne Nordheim
6. Meyer Kupferman
7. Toru Takemitsu
8. Jean Prodromides
9. Luigi Dallapiccola
10. Erik Bergman

This is a subset of my favorites (with additional criteria being composer born after 1900)


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## Coach G (Apr 22, 2020)

Prodromides said:


> 1. Giacinto Scelsi
> 2. Andre Jolivet
> 3. Richard Rodney Bennett
> 4. Maurice Ohana
> ...


What an interesting list. I've been a fan of classical music since the 1980s and always thought I had a great knowledge of Early Modern and Modern, and Post-Modern composers. There's only two names to which I;m familiar (Takemitsu and Dallapiccola).


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

This list is long, but the music of the 20th century makes up the majority of my favorite classical music.

Elliott Carter
Olivier Messiaen
John Cage
Leonard Bernstein
Mieczysław Weinberg
Bruno Maderna
Astor Piazzolla
Luigi Nono
Luciano Berio
Pierre Boulez
Francis Dhomont
Morton Feldman
György Kurtág
Karlheinz Stockhausen
Per Nørgård
Christian Wolff
Helmut Lachenmann
Arvo Pärt
Charles Wuorinen
Tigran Mansurian
Gavin Bryars
Brian Ferneyhough
Krzysztof Meyer
Péter Eötvös
Gérard Grisey
Tristan Murail
Salvatore Sciarrino
Hans Abrahamsen
Wolfgang Rihm
John Luther Adams
Pascal Dusapin
Osvaldo Golijov
Olga Neuwirth
Thomas Adès
Natasha Barrett
Lera Auerbach
Jörg Widmann
Liza Lim
Catherine Lamb
Nomi Epstein
Kate Soper
Taylor Deupree
Turgut Erçetin
Rutger Zuydervelt 
Simon Steen-Andersen
Alexandra Du Bois
Chaya Czernowin
Ivan Fedele
G.F. Haas
Katherine Balch
Osnat Netzer
Jurg Frey
Jeanne Artemis Strieder
Holly Winter
Laurence Crane

And a number of new younger composers I've probably forgotten to mention.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

My 3 all-time faves are Prokofiev, Ravel, Bartok.
Next in the time frame are Varese, Schoenberg, Ligeti, Shosty, Schnittke, Lutoslawski, Henze


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## Brahmsian Colors (Sep 16, 2016)

1) Sibelius
2) Vaughan Williams
3) Ravel
4) Ernest Moeran
5) Rachmaninoff
6) Prokofiev
7) Richard Strauss
8) Barber
9) Elgar
10) Stravinsky


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## julide (Jul 24, 2020)

Boulez
Ligeti
Unsuk Chin
Harrison Birtwistle 
Magnus Lindberg
Kaija Saariaho
Gerard Grisey
Sofia Gubaidulina

not even a top 10 but these are the only composers that come to mind


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## julide (Jul 24, 2020)

Brahmsian Colors said:


> 1) Sibelius
> 2) Vaughan Williams
> 3) Ravel
> 4) Ernest Moeran
> ...


I think of them more as 19th century composers


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## Aries (Nov 29, 2012)

I think I still haven't explored much of the stuff after 1920, but currently my ranking may be this:

1. Dimitri Shostakovich
2. Martin Scherber
3. Georgy Sviridov
4. Sergei Prokofiev
5. Wilhelm Furtwängler
6. Shunsuke Kikuchi
7. Joly Braga Santos
8. John Williams
9. Carl Orff
10. Hans Pfitzner

Honorable mentions:
- Maurice Ravel
- Otar Taktakishvili
- Gavriil Popov
- Ottmar Gerster
- Richard Wetz
- Sergei Rachmaninoff

Countries:
1. Soviet Union
2. Germany


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## Kjetil Heggelund (Jan 4, 2016)

It's easy to come up with a top 10, but I will try to remember the ones I first heard and never got tired of 
1) Prokofiev
2) Britten
3) Shostakovich
4) Schnittke
5) Denisov
6) Messiaen
7) Davies
8) Nordheim
9) Takemitsu
10) Bartok
...and some current favorites
1) Gubaidulina
2) Chin
3) Lindberg
4) Birtwistle
5) Ruders
6) Grisey
7) Stockhausen
8) Cage
9) Berio
10) Kurtag
...most of them are old...


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## HenryPenfold (Apr 29, 2018)

In No particular order, and straight off the top of my head .....

My top Ten

1. Webern
2. Berg
3. Schoenberg
4. DSCH
5. Britten
6. Arnold
7. Debussy
8. Ravel
9. Messian
10. Sibelius
11. Bartok
12. Varese


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

Alphabetical Order:

Barber
Bax
Dutilleux
Myaskovsky
Pettersson
Prokofiev
Ravel
Schnittke
Shostakovich
Strauss, Richard
Tchaikovsky, Boris
Weinberg


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

julide said:


> I think of them more as 19th century composers


You're thinking wrong.


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## Coach G (Apr 22, 2020)

re: 19th century this list:

_1) Sibelius
2) Vaughan Williams
3) Ravel
4) Ernest Moeran
5) Rachmaninoff
6) Prokofiev
7) Richard Strauss
8) Barber
9) Elgar
10) Stravinsky_

I don't know Moeran; though I have a symphony of his on a NAXOS CD that I spun a couple of times. While Stravinsky, Prokofiev and Barber certainly belong to the 20th century; I can see where the others might not be, as they lived their formative years during the 19th century and composed in a style that was essentially Late-Romantic. Take Richard Strauss, for example, who composed the _Four Last Songs_ in 1948 when Schoenberg, Berg, Webern, Varese, and even Boulez were turning the music world upside down, Strauss had become more Romantic then ever; not even Late-Romantic in the spirit of Wagner or Mahler; but more-so High-Romantic, reminiscent of Schubert and Schumann. This was AFTER World War II, AFTER the holocaust, and AFTER Hiroshima; it's as if Strauss created one final burst of Romanticism; the world of flowers, trees, and birds tweeting; in a world where music was fully taken over by the atomic age, electronics, and mechanized death.

Ravel is the most "Modern" of the group that grew up in the 19th century, but even he looks backwards as much forwards; to Johann Strauss with _La Valse_, to Mussorgsky with _Pictures at an Exhibition_; and to Couperin in _Le Tombeau de Couperin_.


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## MusicSybarite (Aug 17, 2017)

Shostakovich
Vaughan Williams
Arnold
Schnittke
Prokofiev
Villa-Lobos
Martinu
Hindemith
Strauss
Sibelius


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## Aries (Nov 29, 2012)

Coach G said:


> While Stravinsky, Prokofiev and Barber certainly belong to the 20th century; I can see where the others might not be, as they lived their formative years during the 19th century and composed in a style that was essentially Late-Romantic. Take Richard Strauss, for example, who composed the _Four Last Songs_ in 1948 when Schoenberg, Berg, Webern, Varese, and even Boulez were turning the music world upside down, Strauss had become more Romantic then ever; not even Late-Romantic in the spirit of Wagner or Mahler; but more-so High-Romantic, reminiscent of Schubert and Schumann. This was AFTER World War II, AFTER the holocaust, and AFTER Hiroshima;


But what has WWII, Holocaust and Hiroshima to do with music? Only WWII affected most people, but wars happened before. Romanticism arised after the Napoleonic wars and the famine following the Tambora eruption. So why would Romanticism after WWII surprise anybody?

PS. Here is a good example for romanticism after WWII and Holocaust. The israeli composer Paul Ben-Haim wrote his Second Symphony in 1945 just after WWII and Holocaust:








Coach G said:


> it's as if Strauss created one final burst of Romanticism;


I'm not sure if Romanticism ever ended. It was supplemented by other styles in the 20th century like impressionism, neoclassizism, expressionism, but many continued with the romantic style at least into the 1960s. I'm not sure how it is today, but I guess John Williams is one of the most successful living composer and his style is basically wagnerian.



Coach G said:


> the world of flowers, trees, and birds tweeting; in a world where music was fully taken over by the atomic age, electronics, and mechanized death.


Romanticism has gloomy sides too. It is not just "happy nature kitsch".


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## chu42 (Aug 14, 2018)

1. Ligeti
2. Bartok
3. Stravinsky
4. Ginastera
5. Sibelius
6. Lutoslawski
7. Messiaen
8. Shostakovich
9. Crumb
10. Ives


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## HenryPenfold (Apr 29, 2018)

No takers for Penderecki?


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## allaroundmusicenthusiast (Jun 3, 2020)

Impossible to pick 10 and I'm sure the ranking order will be totally wrong but thinking fast:

1. Ligeti
2. Messiaen
3. Bartók
4. Webern
5. Berio
6. Feldman
7. Rihm
8. Kagel
9. Xenakis
10. Chin

Others who surely also deserve being in that top 10: Ginastera, Zimmermann, Kurtág, Saariaho, Hindemith, Poulenc, Stravinsky, Boulez, Stockhausen, Prokofiev, Ruth Crawford-Seeger...

Countries (???)
1. Germany
2. France
3. Hungary


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## calvinpv (Apr 20, 2015)

SanAntone said:


> This list is long, but the music of the 20th century makes up the majority of my favorite classical music.
> 
> Elliott Carter
> Olivier Messiaen
> ...


This is pretty much my list as well, with a few switch-outs. I'd include Scelsi, Radulescu, Varèse, Gorecki, Saariaho, Poppe, Manoury, Reich, van der Aa, Xenakis, and Billone.


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## HenryPenfold (Apr 29, 2018)

SanAntone said:


> This list is long, but the music of the 20th century makes up the majority of my favorite classical music.
> 
> *And a number of new younger composers I've probably forgotten to mention*.


Perhaps Penderecki, Lutoslawski & Gorecki for starters? Or maybe they don't float your boat?

I happen to think that Poland really took the baton from Germany/Austria concerning C20 music .........


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

HenryPenfold said:


> Perhaps Penderecki, Lutoslawski & Gorecki for starters? Or maybe they don't float your boat?
> 
> I happen to think that Poland really took the baton from Germany/Austria concerning C20 music .........


For starters, those three are not "new younger composers."  But I am not much of a fan of them, a little to conventional for my tastes, plus much of their output is orchestral, which is not my thing. However, I listen to quite a bit of solo piano and chamber music by Bach, Haydn, Beethoven, Brahms, Schumann, Debussy, Stravinsky, and a number other mainstream classical composers - as well as a lot of early music.

What attracts me to 20th century composers are those composers with a more "out of the ordinary" style.


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## haziz (Sep 15, 2017)

You mean somebody actually composed music after 1920?


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## HenryPenfold (Apr 29, 2018)

SanAntone said:


> For starters, those three are not "new younger composers."  But I am not much of a fan of them, a little to conventional for my tastes, plus much of their output is orchestral, which is not my thing. However, I listen to quite a bit of solo piano and chamber music by Bach, Haydn, Beethoven, Brahms, Schumann, Debussy, Stravinsky, and a number other mainstream classical composers - as well as a lot of early music.
> 
> What attracts me to 20th century composers are those composers with a more "out of the ordinary" style.


Yes, I didn't pick up on your 'young' reference in your original post. My taste is rather conservative, I don't venture too much past 2VS, Karlheinz, Boulez, Messiaen, Maderna, Nono, Berio et al, but I do have some exceptions like Sciarrino and Richard Barrett, for example.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

No Definite Order:

Bartok
Prokofiev
Ravel
Poulenc
Martinu
Respighi
Shostakovich
Rachmaninoff
Hovhaness
Vaughan Williams


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## Highwayman (Jul 16, 2018)

I won`t even try to come up with a list, way too difficult for me. But I`d like to express my pleasure that nobody has declared Philip Glass amongst their favourites yet.


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## eljr (Aug 8, 2015)

BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist said:


> What I mean is, imagine if the only music that existed was music written after 1920. Who would be your top 10 composers?


1 Glass
2 Richter
3 Gershwin
4 Britten
5 Bernstein
6 Gorecki
7 Shostakovich
8 Stravinsky
9 Schoenberg
0 Sibelius


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## eljr (Aug 8, 2015)

Highwayman said:


> I won`t even try to come up with a list, way too difficult for me. But I`d like to express my pleasure that nobody has declared Philip Glass amongst their favourites yet.


ROTFLMAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This was not yet posted when I went to reply to teh OP.

After I replied, this was here!

Look who heads my list. :lol:


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## D Smith (Sep 13, 2014)

In alphabetical order, composers whose work was primarily after 1920.

Barber
Bernstein
Britten
Copland
Dutilleux
Hindemith
Prokofiev
Shostakovich
Takemitsu
Weinberg


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## Highwayman (Jul 16, 2018)

eljr said:


> ROTFLMAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!
> 
> This was not yet posted when I went to reply to teh OP.
> 
> ...


This unusual incident must be somehow related to _Murphy`s Law_. :lol:


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## Highwayman (Jul 16, 2018)

duplicate post ..............


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

In no particular order: Vaugh-Williams (one of the last of the great composers), Richard Strauss (likewise when it comes to opera), Eglar, Barber, Ravel, then the next tier more or less consists of Rachmaninoff, Stravinsky, Shostakovich etc. These are all established great names of the 20th century anyway.


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## Simon Moon (Oct 10, 2013)

Highwayman said:


> I won`t even try to come up with a list, way too difficult for me. But I`d like to express my pleasure that nobody has declared Philip Glass amongst their favourites yet.


If I was asked to make this list about 20 years ago, Glass would have been on it. Now, he barely registers with me. Not to mention, I like Steve Reich better anyway.

The vast majority of the composers I listen to, created their works after 1920, so this list could get very long, but I will try to keep it on the short side.

No particular order...

Ligeti
Penderecki
Charles Wuorinen
Joan Tower
Harrison Birtwistle
Bartok
Schoenberg
Luciano Berio
Unsuk Chin
Elliott Carter
Webern
Berg
Per Nørgård
Bruno Maderna
Stefan Wolpe
Bruno Maderna
Thomas Ades
Roger Sessions

That's good for now.


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## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist said:


> ...
> Top 5 nations for CM in the past 100 years:
> 
> 1. USA
> ...


The category is irrelevant, really, but a case could be made for the USA. I think over the past 100 years it could be that at least four of the top ten orchestras in the world were US-based; in addition to producing a bunch of composers, not all of whom are my cup of tea but are important nevertheless (Copland, Schuman, Hanson, Piston, Barber, Glass, Adams, Reich and on and on), the US provided a refuge of sorts for Stravinsky, Hindemith, Bartok, Schoenberg -- while tragically also being indirectly responsible for the death of Webern. The US also produced the inimitable Leonard Bernstein. Checkmate.


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## Andante Largo (Apr 23, 2020)

Sibelius, Jean (1865 - 1957) 
Respighi, Ottorino (1879 - 1936) 
Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Mario (1895 - 1968)
Howells, Herbert (1892 - 1983) 
Graener, Paul (1872 - 1944) 
Perosi, Lorenzo (1872 - 1956) 
Wetz, Richard (1875 - 1935) 
Peterson-Berger, Wilhelm (1867 - 1942) 
Dohnányi, Ernő (1877 - 1960) 
Gretchaninov, Alexander (1864 - 1956)


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## Superflumina (Jun 19, 2020)

...........................................................


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## Superflumina (Jun 19, 2020)

Messiaen
Ligeti
Bartók
Xenakis
Grisey
Sciarrino
Berg
Schoenberg
Reich
Poulenc

Honorable mention: Dutilleux


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

consuono said:


> The category is irrelevant, really, but a case could be made for the USA. I think over the past 100 years it could be that at least four of the top ten orchestras in the world were US-based; in addition to producing a bunch of composers, not all of whom are my cup of tea but are important nevertheless (Copland, Schuman, Hanson, Piston, Barber, Glass, Adams, Reich and on and on), the US provided a refuge of sorts for Stravinsky, Hindemith, Bartok, Schoenberg -- while tragically also being indirectly responsible for the death of Webern. The US also produced the inimitable Leonard Bernstein. Checkmate.


Remove that checkmate. Russia offers Prokofiev, Shosty, Stravinsky, Scriabin, Schnittke, Weinberg, Myaskovsky, Gliere, Gubaidulina, Kabalevsky, Lokshin, Shebalin, Medtner, Tishchenko, etc.


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## Superflumina (Jun 19, 2020)

Surprised to see so many people mentioning Sibelius considering most of his major works were written pre-1920.


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## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

Bulldog said:


> Remove that checkmate. Russia offers Prokofiev, Shosty, Stravinsky, Scriabin, Schnittke, Weinberg, Myaskovsky, Gliere, Gubaidulina, Kabalevsky, Lokshin, Shebalin, Medtner, Tishchenko, etc.


A good many of those are as much 19th century as anything. (Scriabin for one died in 1915). Shostakovich and Prokofiev, yes. Stravinsky pretty much turned his back on Russia after the Revolution. As for the others, meh.


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

consuono said:


> A good many of those are as much 19th century as anything. (Scriabin for one died in 1915). Shostakovich and Prokofiev, yes. Stravinsky pretty much turned his back on Russia after the Revolution. As for the others, meh.


Yes, I shouldn't have included Scriabin. Russians still dominate.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

I too consider the USA to be home to the most interesting classical composers - especially since the latter half of the 20th century and into the 21st. Most of the new music I listen to is written by American composers, or composers trained in the USA. And, if you include Jazz, the USA has a clear prominence.

I would not trade the music of the US for any other nation.


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## Roger Knox (Jul 19, 2017)

Prodromides said:


> 1. Giacinto Scelsi
> 2. Andre Jolivet
> 3. Richard Rodney Bennett
> 4. Maurice Ohana
> ...


It's a remarkable list. We have such a vast amount of choice in the music of the past 100 years. Hilarious when people say, "Music ended in 1920 ..." (or whatever)


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## senza sordino (Oct 20, 2013)

These are the composers who've written music after 1920 I listen to with any regularity. 

Adams
Bacewicz
Barber
Bartok
Bernstein
Britten
Lutoslawski
Piazzolla
Prokofiev
Shostakovich
Stravinsky
Tippett
Vaughan Williams
Walton


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

Bulldog said:


> Remove that checkmate. Russia offers Prokofiev, Shosty, Stravinsky, Scriabin, Schnittke, Weinberg, Myaskovsky, Gliere, Gubaidulina, Kabalevsky, Lokshin, Shebalin, Medtner, Tishchenko, etc.


Also he didn't even represent America by its best composers.


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## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

Bulldog said:


> Yes, I shouldn't have included Scriabin. Russians still dominate.


Now take away Shostakovich and Prokofiev. Not all that dominant. Anyway it's pointless. The comment was more tongue in cheek than a manifesto for debate.


BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist said:


> Also he didn't even represent America by its best composers.


Who would those be? Please, not Cage and Babbitt again.


BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist said:


> My real list:
> 
> 1. France
> 2. Russia
> ...


France?? OK, Messiaen, Milhaud's La Création du monde, some Poulenc and Duruflé's Requiem.


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## StDior (May 28, 2015)

Based on music written after 1920, in no particular order:

Bartók
Shostakovich
Janácek
Stravinsky
Radulescu
Ligeti
Boulez
Lachenmann
Gubaidulina
Schoenberg

+3:
Schnittke
Stockhausen
Xenakis


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Bartok
Shostakovich
Rachmaninov
Sculthorpe
Piazzolla
Walton
Bernstein
Prokofiev
Copland
Vaughan Williams

Making this list proved to be an interesting process of deduction. I started with a list of 20. When I started to narrow it down, the first five composers came immediately to mind as standouts. It was more difficult to chose those following. My criteria was generally how many works each composer created that I have in my collection, repeatedly listen to and basically wouldn't be without.

That criteria doesn't strictly apply to Bernstein, who is included largely for his _Symphonic Suite from On the Waterfront_. I also like other works by him, but he's an exception because he edged out others who more tightly fit in with my original criteria.

Rachmaninov was included over others who where well established pre-1920 (e.g. Ravel, R. Strauss, Janacek) because I really like the music he composed during his later period, in particular _Symphony No. 3_.

Piazzolla is also different, because he composed many short pieces (songs and tangos) which I constantly enjoy. He did compose a fair amount of multi movement works but these are more or less collections of the same sorts of short pieces (e.g. _Les Quatre Saisons_ and _Histoire du Tango_). Their individual movements are often included on albums of the freestanding tangos.


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## Aries (Nov 29, 2012)

Bulldog said:


> Remove that checkmate. Russia offers Prokofiev, Shosty, Stravinsky, Scriabin, Schnittke, Weinberg, Myaskovsky, Gliere, Gubaidulina, Kabalevsky, Lokshin, Shebalin, Medtner, Tishchenko, etc.


I agree, the list of russian composers seems endless. Here is a teaser on Youtube for the "best 60" soviet composers:






It is a gold mine. It doesn't seem fair to deny Russias leading role in classical music after 1920.


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