# What is going on today



## miroirs (Jan 5, 2015)

The 20th Century was arguably the most productive century we've had for a while, politically, philosophically and artistically. We had free atonality in the second decade, serialism and neoclassicism in the third, in the fourth and fifth we had the rise of 'Americana', the sixth brought the first serious attempts at electronic music, aleatoric music and chance music, with the seventh decade bringing about tape music and minimalism, with the seventies developing minimalism further and the rise of popular electronic music. In the eighties, post minimalism was formed, but since then, I can't think or find anything which is 'new' in music. Perhaps it is because it takes time for these things to reported. Can you guys see anything which is 'new' and original happening today, in the twenty first century, preferably the second decade, but anything that I haven't mentioned after the 1970s feel free to tell me.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Spectralism? Music blending instruments with live electronics rather than tapes? Those and the dull Neoromanticism which seems to be swamping American music today.


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## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)

Dull neoromantic recommendations?


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Dim7 said:


> Dull neoromantic recommendations?







I find nothing of interest in this music. Nothing whatsoever.


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## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)

My first, superficial impression is that it's a nice, evocative colorful work with a sense of "adventure". What makes it so dull to you?


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## Epilogue (Sep 20, 2015)

@Mahlerian

Is anything new even happening in spectral music since the 1990s, though? There's Haas combining it with other things to make program music in _in vain_, I guess (ugh, that orthography), but I'm not sure that counts as much of an innovation, and anyway, even that was 15 years ago.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Dim7 said:


> My first, superficial impression is that it's a nice, evocative colorful work with a sense of "adventure". What makes it so dull to you?


There are no interesting musical ideas anywhere, the manner of connection is dull and obvious, the orchestration is skillful but produces a samey thickness of sound, the harmony does nothing to propel or direct the music, and it all sounds like diluted Bartok mixed with diluted Copland. What's there to like?


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## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)

I guess it's the skillful orchestration then? I have always found Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra incredibly dull BTW, though I like his string quartets.

But hey, this is from a guy who likes symphonic/neoclassical metal....


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

Mahlerian said:


> There are no interesting musical ideas anywhere, the manner of connection is dull and obvious, the orchestration is skillful but produces a samey thickness of sound, the harmony does nothing to propel or direct the music, and it all sounds like diluted Bartok mixed with diluted Copland. What's there to like?


Totally agree. As I was listening to her Concerto for Orchestra, the word that kept running through my brain was 'rehash', and not a good one either. Higdon and others like her thrive on familiarity; unfortunately, the listening public eats it up.


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## Epilogue (Sep 20, 2015)

Well, _most_ of the listening public is eating up the Weeknd and Keith Urban.


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## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)

Bulldog said:


> Totally agree. As I was listening to her Concerto for Orchestra, the word that kept running through my brain was 'rehash', and not a good one either. Higdon and others like her thrive on familiarity; unfortunately, the listening public eats it up.


Haha, there's been recently a shortage of audience-despising elitists....


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

Paging member some guy for links to obscure composers using the sound of subatomic particles hitting a plate in the large hadron collider, slowed down and amplified ten thousand times. . .


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

I have two sets of questions:

If one looks at musical change starting for, say, 1700, how many decades would show anywhere near the kind of change suggested by the OP (free atonality, serialism and neoclassicism, 'Americana', electronic music, aleatoric music, chance music, tape music and minimalism)? Should we expect such change every 10-15 years? 

If Higdon is dull, is that true of all Neoromatics? If so, are they a unique group in classical music history (i.e. a group composing uninteresting music in contrast to much music around them)?


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Epilogue said:


> @Mahlerian
> 
> Is anything new even happening in spectral music since the 1990s, though? There's Haas combining it with other things to make program music in _in vain_, I guess (ugh, that orthography), but I'm not sure that counts as much of an innovation, and anyway, even that was 15 years ago.


I'm not sure. Most of the more recent spectral music I've heard from the composers who made their names in that aesthetic in the 80s sounds much the same as the earlier, but I wouldn't call myself any kind of expert.



mmsbls said:


> I have two sets of questions:
> 
> If one looks at musical change starting for, say, 1700, how many decades would show anywhere near the kind of change suggested by the OP (free atonality, serialism and neoclassicism, 'Americana', electronic music, aleatoric music, chance music, tape music and minimalism)? Should we expect such change every 10-15 years?


It's true that the amount of change and development in the 20th century was propulsive and came so quickly that some trends seemed to appear and disappear overnight (futurism or the brief fetishes for graphic scores and works with parts that can be rearranged into new orders).



mmsbls said:


> If Higdon is dull, is that true of all Neoromatics? If so, are they a unique group in classical music history (i.e. a group composing uninteresting music in contrast to much music around them)?


I find most of the American neoromantic music dull, but Higdon's is shockingly empty on top of that.

I'd say that uninteresting music is more the norm than the exception throughout history.


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## SeptimalTritone (Jul 7, 2014)

There's still a lot of good pure electronic music out there in the 21st century, which evolved from people like Schaeffer, Varese, Stockhausen, Xenakis etc. It's reached a much higher level of detail.

eRikm 



Francisco Lopez 



Beatriz Ferreyra 



Keith Rowe 



Bernard Parmegiani 



Michael Pisaro


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## SeptimalTritone (Jul 7, 2014)

Mahlerian said:


> Those and the dull Neoromanticism which seems to be swamping American music today.


Um... isn't John Adams (who you've recommended) neoromantic? Some of neoromanticism seems to be decent.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

I think the best indicator of style in today's music are the recorded Donaueschinger Musiktage festivals on NEOS. They are rather difficult to find in my country (Australia) but I managed to get hold of the 2008 one for a good price. On Spotify there are quite a few to listen to. Another great resource would be the YouTube channel Incipitsify which has a bit more of a tendency to focus in new complexity above other styles.

...and ever since Carter died the USA has just been producing its usual neoromantic trash.


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## SeptimalTritone (Jul 7, 2014)

Yes, incipitsify, Belanna999, and Score Follower youtube channels are great for instrumental chamber music.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

SeptimalTritone said:


> Um... isn't John Adams (who you've recommended) neoromantic? Some of neoromanticism seems to be decent.


Yes, and I prefer John Adams and composers whose neoromanticism came out of post-minimalism to those who simply seem to come to it through naivete.


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

Mahlerian said:


> Yes, and I prefer John Adams and composers whose neoromanticism came out of post-minimalism to those who simply seem to come to it through naivete.


And what constitutes naivete? Not coming to it out of post-minimalism?


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

Mahlerian said:


> Yes, and I prefer John Adams and composers whose neoromanticism came out of post-minimalism to those who simply seem to come to it through naivete.


Or who come out of it from bluegrass and rock.

Oh wait, I just realised that I've been composing neoromantic music quite a fair bit recently. I feel weird and kind of hypocritical now. :/


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## Dr Johnson (Jun 26, 2015)

Due to a combination of deteriorating eyesight and not zooming in enough I have been reading *neoromantic* as *necromantic*.

Sounded intriguing.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

Becca said:


> And what constitutes naivete? Not coming to it out of post-minimalism?


Well Higdon herself explains it rather well as a composer who was rather a bit of a late beginner who had a background in shallow popular styles.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

Dr Johnson said:


> Due to a combination of deteriorating eyesight and not zooming in enough I have been reading *neoromantic* as *necromantic*.
> 
> Sounded intriguing.


Sometimes I would say that's even an accurate description.


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> Well Higdon herself explains it rather well as a composer who was rather a bit of a late beginner who had a background in shallow popular styles.


I would hope that there should have been a comma amongst the last few words ... but suspect not.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Becca said:


> And what constitutes naivete? Not coming to it out of post-minimalism?


My problem is not so much the fact that she came from a background in popular music, but rather that her music does not show any assimilation of tradition, nor any real engagement with the vitality of the popular styles she grew up with.

I would criticize the music of Michael Daugherty similarly.

Among composers working in a Neoromantic style that I'm not entirely averse to, I would list Ellen Taaffe Zwilich and John Corigliano.


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## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)

Dr Johnson said:


> Due to a combination of deteriorating eyesight and not zooming in enough I have been reading *neoromantic* as *necromantic*.
> 
> Sounded intriguing.


You just gave a very potent verbal weapon for the anti-neoromantics. Trying to desperately keep a dead style alive, aren't those necromantic neoromantics...


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## Guest (Sep 28, 2015)

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> I think the best indicator of style in today's music are the recorded Donaueschinger Musiktage festivals on NEOS. They are rather difficult to find in my country (Australia) but I managed to get hold of the 2008 one for a good price. On Spotify there are quite a few to listen to. Another great resource would be the YouTube channel Incipitsify which has a bit more of a tendency to focus in new complexity above other styles.
> 
> ...and ever since Carter died the USA has just been producing its usual neoromantic trash.


I've got the 2010 Musiktage: some magnificent works on there; including Haas' limited approximations.


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## Polyphemus (Nov 2, 2011)

Dr Johnson said:


> Due to a combination of deteriorating eyesight and not zooming in enough I have been reading *neoromantic* as *necromantic*.
> 
> Sounded intriguing.


Absolute magic.


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## Epilogue (Sep 20, 2015)

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> ...and ever since Carter died the USA has just been producing its usual neoromantic trash.


I'm not sure neoromanticism a la Higdon is even the dominant trend in the USA today. Lately it's been the post-minimalists - Caroline Shaw, John Luther Adams, Julia Wolfe - who have been racking up Pulitzers.

And then Mikel Rouse is a different kind of post-minimalist, and Harry Partch acolytes such as Kyle Gann and Kraig Grady are something else again - not any better, necessarily, but different.


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> I think the best indicator of style in today's music are the recorded Donaueschinger Musiktage festivals on NEOS. They are rather difficult to find in my country (Australia) but I managed to get hold of the 2008 one for a good price. On Spotify there are quite a few to listen to. Another great resource would be the YouTube channel Incipitsify which has a bit more of a tendency to focus in new complexity above other styles.





dogen said:


> I've got the 2010 Musiktage: some magnificent works on there; including Haas' limited approximations.


Some of these are available as mp3 bargains at the CD Universe site. Well, bargains in terms of how much music you get anyway. I've been vacillating on purchasing but I think you folks have finally sold me on them.

There's also a bargain called the "Damstadt Aurel Documents" I've been wondering about.


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

By the way, I have found some interesting new music from listening to the podcast, Composer Conversations. Some of it is amazing and it has convinced me that this genre bending "new music," however you define it, will be to the 21st century what modernism was to the 20th, the main difference being that people aren't likely to still be arguing about it 100 years later.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

Postscript said:


> I'm not sure neoromanticism a la Higdon is even the dominant trend in the USA today. Lately it's been the post-minimalists - Caroline Shaw, John Luther Adams, Julia Wolfe - who have been racking up Pulitzers.
> 
> And then Mikel Rouse is a different kind of post-minimalist, and Harry Partch acolytes such as Kyle Gann and Kraig Grady are something else again - not any better, necessarily, but different.


I have to admit, it _is_ the neoromantics who get the big commissions in the end.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Mahlerian said:


> I find nothing of interest in this music. Nothing whatsoever.


There's a great deal going on but nothing memorable actually happens most of the time. It reminds me of the time a violinist friend and I were watching a Yanni concert on PBS (don't ask why) in which everyone was playing without scores, and he said "How can they remember where they are in the music?"


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

Woodduck said:


> There's a great deal going on but nothing memorable actually happens most of the time.


This is how I would describe a good 75 percent of the classical music I listen to from all eras. 

Actually the Higdon piece is just too frenetic for me, though I have liked some of her other works.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

Re Higdon, I find that at least she seems to have her own idiosyncratic aesthetic even though there are many who don't like her works.

Neoromanticism does seem to be a trend that has come out best in composers who were 'avant-gardists' in the 60s and 70s, like Penderecki for example, and Rautavaara who was writing serial music early on in his career.

Actually, now that I remember it, when I first checked out Higdon's _Concerto for Orchestra_ I noticed one of the comments spoke of American orchestras being funded by the private sector and composers who are premiered by these orchestras tend to write music more to donors' taste. Perhaps their taste in general is somewhat more conservative than the aesthetics of most composers today and this influences which American composers become more famous through large scale works.

Higdon once (stupidly) stated in an interview that American music was the way it is because they were more 'ahead' than European music who were (according to her) still doing what [american composers] were doing decades ago.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Weston said:


> This is how I would describe a good 75 percent of the classical music I listen to from all eras.


Really? Man, you're listening to the wrong stuff!


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

I never understood why Adams gets a pass for writing this stuff, personally.


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

isorhythm said:


> I never understood why Adams gets a pass for writing this stuff, personally.


It's probably just that the people who are handing out the passes aren't you.


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

Nereffid said:


> It's probably just that the people who are handing out the passes aren't you.


Well, that's unacceptable!


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Spectralism, IRCAM, Messiaen, France, computers, microtonality, fractals, minimalism. Ew are moving too fast, just went through a time warp, must wait at least 50 yrs for new technology to kick in, or major global catastrophy.
Still much to explore, backlog. As soon as everybody is listening multi-ch 196 kHz, 24 bit, early Stockhausen can finally be explored. Lots of IRCAM stuff sitting in vaults. No movie about Messiaen yet. No Darmstadt trading cards illustrated by R. Crumb yet.


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## Gaspard de la Nuit (Oct 20, 2014)

Salonen has some nice orchest rational/ compositional ideas, although I don't think as highly of Apple as he does.

But in all seriosity, I find it difficult to criticize composers, they work incredibly hard and their self-worth is usually tied to what they do. Being close to the creative process and having the composer elucidate on each part of their work invariably makes me like it more - if I had a choice between having to listen to some of the popular modern composers (Salonen, corigliano, tower, tan dun, Torke, Ades, Higdon, etc), and listening to Beethoven, Mozart, Bach, Rachmaninov or Tchaikovsky for the 60,000th time, I would unhesitatingly choose the former.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Gaspard de la Nuit said:


> if I had a choice between having to listen to some of the popular modern composers (Salonen, corigliano, tower, tan dun, Torke, Ades, Higdon, etc), and listening to Beethoven, Mozart, Bach, Rachmaninov or Tchaikovsky for the 60,000th time, I would unhesitatingly choose the former.


I'm grateful to be nowhere near 60,000. Fortunately, death will rescue me in time.


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> I'm grateful to be nowhere near 60,000. Fortunately, death will rescue me in time.





















'Such' the drama queen (well, okay: Drama 'King,' "Lohengrin").

Rufus Wainright should have written an opera about you instead of himself.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

As to what is going on in music today, I posted on the Music Theory Forum recently about the work of Leonard Meyer of the music department of the U. Of Chicago. In his fascinating book _Music, the Arts, and Ideas_, 1967, Meyer postulated that we are in an era of indefinite length that is marked by stasis in the arts, due to the sheer number of rapid, constant, small-scale creations and extinctions of trends, schools, genres, techniques, etc., without any achieving more than a tiny audience or group of adherents. He likens the phenomenon to molecular Brownian motion, or the snow on an old TV screen. Alex Ross' more recent book, _The Rest is Noise_, reinforces this view, though Ross inexplicably does not mention Meyer's extensive analysis of this phenomenon. Both books are well worth reading, though Meyer's is very densely argued.


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