# Modern and contemporary art music



## Waehnen (Oct 31, 2021)

Let's have a thread for our thoughts and recommendations on modern and contemporary art music.

There sure is much beautiful works but the problem often is how to find the quality stuff with some efficiency.

The idea of contemporary music being just ugly atonal stuff not worth of exploring is simply not fruitful or useful.

I start by (randomly) recommending this one work I found half a year ago. I used to play the Bass Clarinet so the sound is dear to me. That's how I found this piece. It's from year 2000.

*Ulrich Leyendecker: Quintet for Bass Clarinet and String Quartet*

This is just beautiful in my ears and mind, heart even.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

There are already a number of threads for this music

21st Century Chamber Music
New Orchestral Music - Works of the 21st Century
The Contemporary String Quartet: works written since 1970
Orchestral Works Written from 1970-1999

These have a number of pages and many great works posted already.


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## Waehnen (Oct 31, 2021)

Here is an absolutely magnificent modern and contemporary orchestral piece of music!

*Esa-Pekka Salonen: LA Variations*






Salonen is able to balance the invigorating modern approach and techniques with understandable and enjoyable harmonies, melodies, textures, gestures and architecture.

I was in the concert hall when Salonen first conducted this in Helsinki. One of the greatest musical moments of my life.


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## Nawdry (Dec 27, 2020)

Waehnen said:


> Here is an absolutely magnificent modern and contemporary orchestral piece of music!
> 
> *Esa-Pekka Salonen: LA Variations*
> 
> ...


On first experience, I found the Salonen more intriguing and engaging than the Leyendecker ...


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## Waehnen (Oct 31, 2021)

Nawdry said:


> On first experience, I found the Salonen more intriguing and engaging than the Leyendecker ...


Me too!  LA Variations has already been established a significant part of modern symphony orchestra repertoire.


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## Nawdry (Dec 27, 2020)

SanAntone said:


> There are already a number of threads for this music
> 
> 21st Century Chamber Music
> New Orchestral Music - Works of the 21st Century
> ...


But this particular thread is broader and more comprehensive in scope. With respect to the astonishingly rich development of classical music in the 20th century, new treasures continue to be discovered.


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## Waehnen (Oct 31, 2021)

Here is a lovely modernist duo for Accordion and Clarinet. I have loved this piece for many years.

*Tapio Nevanlinna: Foto*






The instruments are used as a superinstrument. An exciting way of showing virtuosity: the extremely quiet and long and stable accordion notes in the end.


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## composingmusic (Dec 16, 2021)

Waehnen said:


> Here is a lovely modernist duo for Accordion and Clarinet. I have loved this piece for many years.
> 
> *Tapio Nevanlinna: Foto*
> 
> ...


Yay for Finnish contemporary composers! I'll post a few things here later.


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## HenryPenfold (Apr 29, 2018)

Nawdry said:


> But this particular thread is broader and more comprehensive in scope. With respect to the astonishingly rich development of classical music in the 20th century, new treasures continue to be discovered.


Agreed

Just listened to the LA Variations. First time in a long time. Wonderful music.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

I like Fagerlund's bassoon concerto. It's on a BIS CD paired with Aho's bassoon concerto.


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## composingmusic (Dec 16, 2021)

starthrower said:


> I like Fagerlund's bassoon concerto. It's on a BIS CD paired with Aho's bassoon concerto.


Seconding Fagerlund's bassoon concerto. There's also his Höstsonate, cello concerto, and recent orchestral piece Water Atlas (the last of these I had the pleasure of seeing in live performance).


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## Opisthokont (Dec 16, 2021)

Modern and Contemporary music is a lot! That's may be longer in time than the entire range of classical-period and romantic combined. So I'm going to restrict myself to one work per composers and just have some discussion. Hopefully by listing a few I'll include something people haven't seen before and will enjoy. I'll also avoid the biggest hitters (webern, schoenberg, berg, cage, boulez, stockhausen, saariaho, ferneyhough, xenakis) since they're already so well known.

Milton Babbitt - Reflections
One of Babbitt's masterworks. Listening to it may have taught me more about music than anything else.

Ernst Krenek - String Quartet 3 
All of krenek's work is good, but I think this quartet in particular is probably best for introducing people of a more romantic bent into modernist works.

Herbert Eimert - Klangstudie II
This was composed by Eimert while he was head of the WDR electronic studio (before stockhausen). I think it's an incredible statement and introduction in the wild world of electronic composition that would become so ominpresent in music.

Mauricio Kagel - Die Stucke der Windrose
Mauricio Kagel's magnum opus in my opinion. I think this is an excellent piece here because it's close enough to "good ol' classical music" but also innovative enough that it should hopefully keep people's attention. As one commentor says: "It's like a mad Astor Piazzolla"

Thelonius Monk
I know he's not classical but I'm including him anyways, because I think it's hard to appreciate US contemporary classical music without understanding some jazz. There is no denying his influence on everyone from babbitt to aaron jay kernis.

Monique Rollin - Etude Vocale
There are lots of woman composers in the 20th century who pioneered electronic composition methods and electronic music in general, a lot of whom tend to get ignored.

Johanna M. Beyer - Music of the Spheres
Another pioneer of electronic music, but here you can also see the sorts of compositional aesthetics that will come to dominate lots of contemporary music take shape.

Ruth Crawford: Suite for Wind Quintet
Crawford needs no explanation tbh. This work is from her later period which tends to be slightly ignored, but I think the suite for wind quintet in particular is lovely. I really love wind quintet in general for its variety of textures and crawford is a master of texture.

Julius Eastman - Gay Guerrilla
There has been an Eastman revival recently - and for good reason! He's one of the most interesting of the minimalists.

Ustvolskaya - Piano Sonata 6
Ustvoslskaya.

Jean Francaix - Quasi improvvisando 
Do yourself a favor and listen to this, one of the funniest pieces of classical music out there.

George Antheil - Ballet Mecanique
Also a very early experimental film. Maybe one of the earliest pieces of "film music"?

Bohuslav Martinu: Les Rondes
Popular to contrary belief, 'neoclassical' does not mean boring!

Wuorinen - Microsymphony
All of Wuorinen is beautiful, but I think this is the gentlest introduction I can think of.

Elliott Carter - Sonata for flute, oboe, cello and harpsichord
Carter might be my favorite american composer in overall oeuvre? Brilliant man.

Richard Barrett - Fletchwork
One of my favorite new complexity pieces. I don't think new complexity is as colorful as serialist music but it's often times more texturally interesting?

Lachenmann - Interieur I 
Lachenmann methods, I don't understand them. They sound bizarre, alien soundscapes? They're super important for contemporary music though.

Boris Blacher - Trio
I honestly know very little about boris blacher but this work is wonderful and elegant.

Henry Cowell - Snows of Fujiyama
As I said in another thread I would consider him the most influential american composer of the 20th century. Snows of fujiyama is a wonderful introduction to his work.

Alexander Mosolov - Piano sonata No. 5 
The early soviet avant-garde often gets ignored but there is some brilliant stuff there if you look!

Henze - Violin Concert No. 1
Henze is just brilliant and this is one of my favorite violin concertos out there!

Terry Riley - In C (Africa Express)
One of the innovations of the minimalists that's often forgotten are their views on the relationship of the composer to performers, orchestrators and the audience. I think this version of In C does a lot to show how much a single minimalist work can very on interpretation and performance just by how they're written.

Conlon Nancarrow - Tango?
Nancarrow, nancarrow - the genius of rhythm. A lot of my love and understanding for all this music comes from listening to Nancarrow on repeat as a kid.

Walter Piston - Ricercare for Orchestra
Piston is absolutely wonderful, I really love his more serial works.

Skalkottas - String Quartet 3
Incredible expression here - one of the lesser known members of SVS but brilliant nonetheless.

Ben Johnston - String Quartet 10
Johnston is one of the masters of just intonation. I'm not sure if it will catch on, but it regardless remains a fascinating area of exploration.

I could go on and on honestly, there are a ton more recommendations and examples I have but this comment is already so long. If there is some interest I can make some more posts with more composers. I have lot of music and most of it is modern and contemporary!


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## Waehnen (Oct 31, 2021)

Opisthokont said:


> Modern and Contemporary music is a lot! That's may be longer in time than the entire range of classical-period and romantic combined. So I'm going to restrict myself to one work per composers and just have some discussion. Hopefully by listing a few I'll include something people haven't seen before and will enjoy. I'll also avoid the biggest hitters (webern, schoenberg, berg, cage, boulez, stockhausen, saariaho, ferneyhough, xenakis) since they're already so well known.
> 
> I could go on and on honestly, there are a ton more recommendations and examples I have but this comment is already so long. If there is some interest I can make some more posts with more composers. I have lot of music and most of it is modern and contemporary!


Thank you for the list, Opisthokont! I will listen to these works with thought during the next a few weeks.

Would you mind if I comment on the basis of my first impressions and if needed, ask you (and others) more insight on some of the pieces?

Well thought out and educated lists are a wonderful chance for me to systematically widen my horizons.


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## Opisthokont (Dec 16, 2021)

Waehnen said:


> Thank you for the list, Opisthokont! I will listen to these works with thought during the next a few weeks.
> 
> Would you mind if I comment on the basis of my first impressions and if needed, ask you (and others) more insight on some of the pieces?
> 
> Well thought out and educated lists are a wonderful chance for me to systematically widen my horizons.


Yeah, I love talking about individual pieces! I'd be curious to hear your thoughts. I'm not sure how much insight I can provide though - a lot of the time my analysis doesn't go that much deeper than liking the way things sound. I am starting to read some music theory books to try and get a grounding in that area, but that's a slow process!


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## Waehnen (Oct 31, 2021)

Opisthokont said:


> Milton Babbitt - Reflections
> One of Babbitt's masterworks. Listening to it may have taught me more about music than anything else.


Please tell us what you have learnt from this Babbitt organ piece and what it is that you admire!

(Behind the link was Manifold music, not Reflections, I think.)

The first hearing just brought me to the obvious analysis: the melody, harmony, rhythm, the overall architecture and the narrative/drama have all been deconstructed probably through methods of serialism.

The music just exists, doesn´t express anything and doesn´t move from a point a to a point b. So what is left? The instrument and that there is some music generated to be played on this instrument.

*I do see value in this kind of music though, *being devoid of all that is human. It requires some skill to be able to create music that doesn´t really carry any traits of the tradition yet is pleasant enough to listen to.

So I do not object to the music and above I am probably just stating the obvious.


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## Waehnen (Oct 31, 2021)

Now I did listen to the real Reflections by Milton Babbitt. This piece of music is much more interesting to my ears than the Manifold music!






Here we have also "constructing" something new other than just "deconstructing the past". That is the way it ought to be, in my opinion.

This is also just beautiful.


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## Opisthokont (Dec 16, 2021)

Sorry, I meant to link reflections there! It's my fault - I completely agree, I think reflections is a more enjoyable piece of music. Reflections has a lot more movement to it: manifold music I find interesting but it's much more of a landscape than a narrative or bridge.


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## Waehnen (Oct 31, 2021)

Speaking of Saariaho, here is *Stilleben:*






An adorable radiophonic piece of music.


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## Opisthokont (Dec 16, 2021)

That said, in Babbitt's work I very much admire the color above all else. When the language of tension and release places a smaller role in the music I find that one can really start to see the color and qualities of the harmony over their relative dissonance and consonance. Babbitt I think is a very skilled painter with those colors. And I agree there is an inhuman quality to it - but honestly I find that aurally pleasing: I tend to have very poor patience and Babbitt's work keeps my ears awake and listening moreso than any other composer.

That 'inhuman' quality, present in Babbitt's work, is probably a constant throughout my musical taste in general. That sense of exploration of the unknown, living on a foreign planet I find both beautiful and exhilarating!


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## Waehnen (Oct 31, 2021)

Opisthokont said:


> That said, in Babbitt's work I very much admire the color above all else. When the language of tension and release places a smaller role in the music I find that one can really start to see the color and qualities of the harmony over their relative dissonance and consonance. Babbitt I think is a very skilled painter with those colors. And I agree there is an inhuman quality to it - but honestly I find that aurally pleasing: I tend to have very poor patience and Babbitt's work keeps my ears awake and listening moreso than any other composer.


Yes, especially Reflections immediately makes you concentrate on the sounds and colours. I must admit it is a rather rare quality in modern art music to so forcefully be able to say: _Here is the point, listen to this._ A bit like a good modern painting. I really liked that Babbitt work. So thank you!


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## composingmusic (Dec 16, 2021)

Another composer who has a really impressive use is Boulez, in my opinion. The way he considers instrumental gesture and colour, particularly in works like Éclat, Pli selon pli, or Rituels is quite impressive and striking.


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## Waehnen (Oct 31, 2021)

composingmusic said:


> Another composer who has a really impressive use is Boulez, in my opinion. The way he considers instrumental gesture and colour, particularly in works like Éclat, Pli selon pli, or Rituels is quite impressive and striking.


Yeah, listened to Éclat. It sounded like Gestures & Colours -music to me. I didn't find the gestures nor the colours following serialist organization for there were clear timbral and instrumental combinations solely based on artistic decision. For me it is a clear sign of artistic intention: listen to this.


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## composingmusic (Dec 16, 2021)

Waehnen said:


> Yeah, listened to Éclat. It sounded like Gestures & Colours -music to me. I didn't find the gestures nor the colours following serialist organization for there were clear timbral and instrumental combinations solely based on artistic decision. For me it is a clear sign of artistic intention: listen to this.


Well, he adhered less and less strictly to serialism as he matured - it was more of a structure that he used to create a scaffold, but he made a lot of artistic decisions independent of serialism, especially later in life.


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## composingmusic (Dec 16, 2021)

Actually, I heard that quite late in his life, he said that adhering so strictly to serialism and being dogmatic about it earlier in life had been a mistake…


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Waehnen said:


> Yeah, listened to Éclat. It sounded like Gestures & Colours -music to me. I didn't find the gestures nor the colours following serialist organization for there were clear timbral and instrumental combinations solely based on artistic decision. For me it is a clear sign of artistic intention: listen to this.


Yes he talked about this I think in the context of _Marteau_, Boulez's phrase for it was _local indiscipline_. Similar idea in Stockhausen, he talks about _excursions_.

He rejected total serial organisation very early on in his career -- after Notations 1a, which he thought showed that the structure of serial music wasn't something which a listener could perceive. Even though it wasn't random, it sounded random.


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## Opisthokont (Dec 16, 2021)

When we talk of "total serialism" it's always worth keeping in mind that there is no specific "total serialist method" - even in 12-tone serialism there are lots of variations on the idea that different composers play around with. This is similar to how there is no single method of counterpoint. Each of the total serialists have their own different methods and the methods they use gives each of them their separate voice. It's arguably even broader than counterpoint: counterpoint has some rules more important than others: total serialism has nothing sacred - you can make your own rules - the only law is perpetual variation: everything must get used once!

I'm curious to see what you think of the Wuorinen piece I linked - from his writings it seems like his methods always pay very close attention to large scale structure and motive.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

This discussion put me in mind of Stockhausen’s Plus Minus, and I’ve been enjoying Ming Tsao’s recorded realisation this morning.

What seems to me to be lacking in this type of music is the opportunity for the musicians to respond to the physical properties of their instrument. It’s all very composed, all very controlled, the people actually making the sounds are on rails, slavishly doing what they’ve been told to do.


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## Waehnen (Oct 31, 2021)

Mandryka said:


> This discussion put me in mind of Stockhausen's Plus Minus, and I've been enjoying Ming Tsao's recorded realisation this morning.
> 
> What seems to me to be lacking in this type of music is the opportunity for the musicians to respond to the physical properties of their instrument. It's all very composed, all very controlled, the people actually making the sounds are on rails, slavishly doing what they've been told to do.


For me music is expression. Expression isn't limited to only certain compositional techniques/methods. That's the main reason why I do not listen to music through it's technique.

The only problem comes when the composer has limited his means of expression by a strict compositional technique. Then the question is: what is being expressed if anything at all?

If nothing is being expressed, not even a landscape or a beautiful soundscape, then the music is meaningless to me. Then it is a compositional etude.

Luckily only minority of music is "dead" the way I tried to express above.

Another line is the Line of Interest in relation to it's expressive powers/contribution to the musical world. For example, I am not interested enough in the Babbitt organ piece ever to listen to it again. Then again the Boulez Éclat is interesting enough for me to get back to it one day.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Yes well my access to music is often through listening. What motivates me to spend time with music is something which is ineffable, a sort of magic which happens in performance. So I enjoy field recordings, this sort of thing






Babbitt's fabulous, I listened to the 6th quartet yesterday.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Opisthokont said:


> Modern and Contemporary music is a lot! That's may be longer in time than the entire range of classical-period and romantic combined. So I'm going to restrict myself to one work per composers and just have some discussion. Hopefully by listing a few I'll include something people haven't seen before and will enjoy. I'll also avoid the biggest hitters (webern, schoenberg, berg, cage, boulez, stockhausen, saariaho, ferneyhough, xenakis) since they're already so well known.
> 
> Milton Babbitt - Reflections
> One of Babbitt's masterworks. Listening to it may have taught me more about music than anything else.
> ...


I just played the Skalkottas 3rd quartet for the first time. Very good. Anyone who enjoyed Schoenberg's last two quartets and string trio should give this one a try.


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

Skalkottas is an example of a great serial composer who could compose great tonal music (_Greek Dances_).


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## Waehnen (Oct 31, 2021)

Opisthokont said:


> Wuorinen - Microsymphony
> All of Wuorinen is beautiful, but I think this is the gentlest introduction I can think of.


I would describe this Wuorinen Microsymphony excellent sounding and translucent in it´s textures. Here the question of compositional techniques applied seems irrelevant since the composer appears to be free and on top of his music. In a way listening to this is hedonistic for the music offers something every second.

So far my favourite of the compositions on the Opisthokont-list, surpassing even the Boulez mentioned!


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Waehnen said:


> Wuorinen Microsymphony


I mean, it's not even really a "microsymphony", when you consider there are even 6~7 minute "symphonies" from the Classical period. Wuorinen should have written it so that it's only 4 minutes 33 seconds long, and indicated to the performers that it must always be played within that time length, as an homage to Cage.


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## Torkelburger (Jan 14, 2014)

Mandryka said:


> Yes he talked about this I think in the context of _Marteau_, Boulez's phrase for it was _local indiscipline_. Similar idea in Stockhausen, he talks about _excursions_.
> 
> He rejected total serial organisation very early on in his career -- after *Notations 1a*, which he thought showed that the structure of serial music wasn't something which a listener could perceive. Even though it wasn't random, it sounded random.


I think you meant to write _Structures 1a_. There is no such thing as _Notations 1a_. His _Notations_ for piano is an early work that is rather easily approachable and transparent, and generally held in much higher regard.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Torkelburger said:


> I think you meant to write _Structures 1a_.


Indeed, my mistake.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Opisthokont said:


> Modern and Contemporary music is a lot! That's may be longer in time than the entire range of classical-period and romantic combined. So I'm going to restrict myself to one work per composers and just have some discussion. Hopefully by listing a few I'll include something people haven't seen before and will enjoy. I'll also avoid the biggest hitters (webern, schoenberg, berg, cage, boulez, stockhausen, saariaho, ferneyhough, xenakis) since they're already so well known.
> 
> Milton Babbitt - Reflections
> One of Babbitt's masterworks. Listening to it may have taught me more about music than anything else.
> ...


I'd forgotten how good the Johnston quartet 10 is! This cycle should be better known.


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