21st century classical music

Started by James, May 25, 2012, 04:30:28 PM

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Mirror Image

Quote from: North Star on May 28, 2012, 09:53:05 PM
And if you replace Ruders with Aho, they're all Finnish.

Haven't heard any Aho yet. Waiting on BIS to release an Aho box set.

DieNacht

Interesting surveys your are giving here, thanks James.

snyprrr

Quote from: some guy on May 27, 2012, 10:06:55 PM
Depends on how you define "awesome," I guess. (A lot of younger composers strike me with awe.)

But has it occurred to you that you may just be seeing a bit of how history and looking backwards works? Would you have thought Bartok was "awesome" if you'd first heard of him in 1932? (Think of all the awesome work he did after 1932, too. So there's that, too. Someone born in 1980 is only 32. And not everyone gets started as early as Mozart or Schubert--or, fortunately, gets cut off as soon.)

In any event, looking at wiki is questionable. Wiki is in the same "too recent to tell" quandary you find yourself in, which quandary you would not find yourself in were you to just get out there and listen to some music! Plenty of stuff going on now that's worth hearing by composers born since 1957. More than plenty.

The only precipitous decline, I'd venture to guess, is in the number of awesome young composers you'd be likely to find in wiki.

...but... but...


I guess I'm just bitter.

I don't need new Composers. I will allow the older Composers (the ones James is listing) to continue composing, as they can be 'grandfather claused' into my view of things. Seriously, just look at those long lists... who has time for anyone under 60 when these guys are pumping out so much stuff? Add Lachenmann, Sciarrino, and all the other famous names we know,... how can anyone have time to listen to...

ok, I'm just being a dick now,... hold on...


ok, better now...


I just don't think I can trust the MIND of young people. If they got their first memories after 1984, I just don't (probably) trust their worldview, and so, I will be wondering if this a 'Green' Symphony, or 'Holocaust' Symphony, or whatnot. I just blankly believe that the younger set is totally indoctrinated into a political thinking, and so, I won't even bother to listening to anyone's 'Violin Sonata', or what not.

What are the subjects of their Operas? What programmic affectations do they cultivate? I'm MUCH more interested in young Composers' politics than hearing ANYTHING.... ANYTHING...

I can't WAIT for the electricity to run out!!

There is a GLUT of... we've had, what? 600 years of Masterpieces?,... I don't even want to KNOW what qualifies as a Masterpiece today. Frankly, until every last 'famous', 'nameable' Composer born before 1957 dies, I will not even care...


I sit here thinking about things I'd like to Compose. Hmmm... a solo flute piece? C'mon, really? A Violin Concerto?...I mean, what? Can't I find EVERY single thing I could possibly ever want, within the years 1946-1996?

Just like I've heard too much academic serialism from US University Composers during the '70s,... I 'act' like I've heard everything anyone's doing... I NEED to be impressed... I just won't turn on the radio just to hear 'music'...

oy... I'm quite bitter this morning... forgive me....


ok... all these younger Composers... they get ONE PIECE, one chance with me... haha, and not only that, it had better get me within the first minute or it's to the boiler room... NO!!, I WILL NOT automatically 'respect' you because you decided to be a Composer...


Oh, and another thing... WHO are these youngsters who want to be Composers anyhow? I assume most are rich Jewish kids from NYC... yea, I know, that's a horrible attitude to have, but who but the rich kids are even going to have the money to go to  University or whatever? I don't care to have ANYONE in this current world dictate ANY music to me. We have been to the Individualist's Heaven (the era of High Modernism 1959-79),... and now it's being destroyed (can't we all just get along?)... the only Composer I want to hear from is someone from Gaza

nevermind


All of a sudden I want to say, I HATE MUSIC!! >:D


DIE DIE DIE


ok, I feel a little better... like I said, just feeling a bit bitter today...


So, why isn't this Post music? I DECLARE it so,... why is it not so? Why don't I just publish this Post, and challenge people to 'play' it? That's the kind of bitter attitude I get when I fantasize about what a University Composition teacher must be like...


ok, perhaps I'm getting politics and music confused (how can that BE??)... oy, I just get these thoughts of Janet Napolitano giving an award for most Statist Composer...

Maybe I've got Rzewski on the brain... and he annooooooooooooooooooys me big time.


I feel like the thing to do creatively is to OFFEND... the 'Holocaust Revisionist' Symphony... the 'Dream Act' Symphony... the 'I Wanna Marry My Dog' Symphony...the 'You Go Grrrl' Symphony... the 'Sub Prime' Symphony... the 'Fat' Symphony...

THERE!!, that's it... the 'Fat' Symphony, Dedicated to the 600,000,000!! Now I score it for 6 tubas and one violin... oh, and a reciter reciting some 'progressive' bs...

no?, not offensive enough?

How about the 'Torture' Symphony? I would string up actors around the stage, and they would be beaten IN TIME!!, so that we hear a moan there, a shriek here,... dedicated to Our Troops...

how bout the 'US Soldiers Safe-Guarding the Production of Opiates' Symphony?

the 'US Congress is Owned by Tel-Aviv' Symphony?


grrrr....music >:D,... pah... fffft...


I'm gonna go with Stockhausen and declare that 9/11 was the greatest work of Art perpetrated on the world.

Or, Adorno,... how can there be poetry after the holocaust?...


ahhhhhh :o


ahhhhhh :o

ahhhhhh :o


did I mention is was feeling bitter?



Just find me something from 1977-79 and I'll go away...


The world doesn't deserve music today.


...I'm comin' Elizabeth...

Does the devil make music out of the entrails of his victims?



snyprrr

Quote from: James on May 30, 2012, 05:22:22 AM
Dum transisset I–IV for string quartet (2007)

Now THAT's some incredible stuff! On YT



Karl Henning

Quote from: snyprrr on May 30, 2012, 07:06:46 AM
I don't need new Composers.

Thank you, I'm sure.

Quote from: snyprrr on May 30, 2012, 07:06:46 AM
There is a GLUT of... we've had, what? 600 years of Masterpieces?

Surely, more good art can only be a good thing?

Surely, that not all art says the same thing in the same ways, can only be a good thing?
Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

springrite

Quote from: Mirror Image on May 28, 2012, 09:59:08 PM
Haven't heard any Aho yet. Waiting on BIS to release an Aho box set.

Instead of waiting for that better deal, I dare you to buy them individually. I dare you.
Do what I must do, and let what must happen happen.

Mirror Image

Quote from: springrite on May 30, 2012, 07:23:20 AM
Instead of waiting for that better deal, I dare you to buy them individually. I dare you.

Haha...I've made it this long without Aho. I can wait until a box set is released. :)

springrite

Quote from: Mirror Image on May 30, 2012, 07:24:38 AM
Haha...I've made it this long without Aho. I can wait until a box set is released. :)
They won't because he is still composing new symphonies.  :P
Do what I must do, and let what must happen happen.

Mirror Image

Quote from: springrite on May 30, 2012, 07:25:48 AM
They won't because he is still composing new symphonies.  :P

I have no luck. :)

Karl Henning

As Varèse said (and Zappa often quoted): The present-day composer refuses to die.
Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

springrite

Quote from: Mirror Image on May 30, 2012, 07:29:29 AM
I have no luck. :)

Quote from: karlhenning on May 30, 2012, 07:37:21 AM
As Varèse said (and Zappa often quoted): The present-day composer refuses to die.

And I want him to live long enough to out-compose Segerstam in number of symphonies composed!
Do what I must do, and let what must happen happen.

some guy

An anonymous quote from an anonymous blog just doesn't quite do the old convincing thing. Not for me, anyway. Who asked this question? Who answered it? Are either of them (if it's two different people) worth listening to? (I.e., do they know enough about contemporary music to be authoritative? (Are Turnage and Lindberg representative?))

The most sensible answer to "After Stockhausen, Cage, Scelsi, Xenakis - what can actually come?" is "All the things that actually have come."

As for snyprrr's bitterness, I actually find that to be unconvincing as well. You're bitter about the putative qualities of music that you report as not listening to? There's a sensible solution to that situation as well. Listen to it. (And do it without lamenting that it's not like x, y, or z from the past. Let it be itself. Fair's fair. I'll wager you're never bitter that Varese doesn't sound like Brahms. Or that Brahms doesn't sound like Berlioz....)

Karl Henning

Quote from: some guy on May 30, 2012, 09:42:05 AM
As for snyprrr's bitterness, I actually find that to be unconvincing as well.

Yup. Is snypsss bitter? Wait fifteen minutes . . . .
Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

snyprrr

Quote from: some guy on May 30, 2012, 09:42:05 AM
An anonymous quote from an anonymous blog just doesn't quite do the old convincing thing. Not for me, anyway. Who asked this question? Who answered it? Are either of them (if it's two different people) worth listening to? (I.e., do they know enough about contemporary music to be authoritative? (Are Turnage and Lindberg representative?))

The most sensible answer to "After Stockhausen, Cage, Scelsi, Xenakis - what can actually come?" is "All the things that actually have come."

As for snyprrr's bitterness, I actually find that to be unconvincing as well. You're bitter about the putative qualities of music that you report as not listening to? There's a sensible solution to that situation as well. Listen to it. (And do it without lamenting that it's not like x, y, or z from the past. Let it be itself. Fair's fair. I'll wager you're never bitter that Varese doesn't sound like Brahms. Or that Brahms doesn't sound like Berlioz....)

You know I just can't get over that 'scratched' cd on Tzadik. They 'scratched' a cd and then asked me to pay $20 for it (Tzadik was full price back in the day).

I suppose it gets me that I don't hear ANY criticism from you about anything, making me wonder if you go with Cage and say that anything our ears hear must be beautiful Art? I mean, doesn't ANYONE suck? And, sucking IS important!

I feel like I want to kidnap you a la 'Alex' in A Clockwork Orange, and MAKE you listen to the most horrible crap until you... well, I don't know what would happen, but, I can guarantee, if you started LIKING it, I'd make you listen to Metal Machine Music till you beg for Lady Gaga!! :-*

WWLD?

I'm going to start asking the question: What Would Liszt Do?

What would he do if had to listen to an evening of Eve Beglarian, the 'balloon' lady? And so forth...

I'd like to hear what the Masters of the past,... go ahead, bring Varese on,... you think he'd like?... I'm sorry, I guess everything I've heard on the 'Only the New' Thread...


I used to be one of those 'Music Is God' people, until I realized there is more to life than one's own personal grail. Music is just a tool, like a bullet, and, it CAN be used for evil!!! I get the impression certain people believe that no evil can come from ANY music, but surely I can concoct a 'Subliminal' Symphony for nefarious purposes??

Ah, I argue in vain.


I mean, the stuff James puts up here (Saunders, Romitelli, Ferneyhough) is what I'm going to call 'normal' music from the late 80s, early '90s. I think, generally, all the Living Composers I love have something to do with 1989-93...

I mean, even my faaaaaaaaavorite Composer, Xenakis, kinda started to suck in the end (the reason doesn't matter). Carter??? Do I really want to plow through his 1001 Compositions that he's written since he turned 90+??

Boulez??? Ay ay ay... take a Viagra and finish something, you blowhard!!

Dutilleaux(sic)??? I'm not going to say anything bad about him, he seems humble enough.

H. Owen Reed??? Yes, I think he's still alive.



Just to wrap up the Morning Rant: I declare that most of the Living Composers of the High Modernism, the ones who came to prominence around the year 1971, and still out there TRYING to impress me,... Ferneyhough et al... they're still quietly working the outer limits. I don't even consider them when we talk about these subjects. I guess I automatically append this 70s generation to the Stockhausen-Nono-Boulez-Xenakis-Ligeti generation. I consider Ferneyhough et al to be a part of THAT era, even though these living ones are... still living.


Someone just seems to be acting like Composition classes all around the world aren't filled with the same post-9/11, indoctrinated youth (especially here,... wait,... how many PUBLIC school children go on to become Composers??) as all the other disciplines?

Please, someguy, just throw me a bone and show me some examples of stuff that SUCKS. If 'nothing' sucks, then, can 'anything' be Great?

I WANT to hear condemnation. I want you to personally hold up some young aspiring Composer and tell them to their face that the don't have 'IT'!! 'It' shouldn't be so 'common' that everyone should be able to get it. 'It' SHOULD be aloof.

I DEMAND 'Greatness'!! I will NOT be subjected to EVERY students' pathetic attempt to describe things for which they have no internal greatness to do so.

Are we acting as if there IS no glut??


I'm just going to flat out reply to the Brahms/Le Sacre thing, that 2013 is by NO MEANS 1913!! Surely you know what I mean.

I mean, shall we just go ahead and let the machines Composer for us now??


The only interest in music in the 21st Century will be, How Can 'We' Use Music to Control the People? Music has be used to long simply for people's enjoyment, when the leaders of the world should be 'using' music for their own ends.


WHAT music is being played for the prisoners at Guantanamo?? Hmm??


I would LOVE to see Music used to dismantle this UN/IMF/WTO world!!


Let's see if Music really DOES have the Power to do ANYTHING world changing. Now would be the time.


tap tap tap

tap tap tap








Frankly, I think I'm making lots of great points,... it's just that they may be well hidden! ;) 8)



Karl Henning

Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

some guy

It's not so difficult as you make it out to be snyprrr.

I tend to avoid making negative comments simply because anything I fault will be something someone else likes and why rain on their party? My tastes and predilections are only the end all and be all for myself. And even there, why they change from time to time.

If I talk, I praise. If there's something I dislike, I mostly just shut up.

Mostly.

Otherwise, I do not demand greatness as you do. OK. We are different. What I demand, from myself, is attentive and sympathetic listening. I don't demand or expect or desire (to the best of my abilities) anything from the composers. Why? They've already done their job if I can hear their music. That is, they've written some music. That's what composers do. They have nothing else to do, no meeting me halfway or trying to impress me or whatever silliness that I've heard other listeners demand from them.

They've done their job. Now it's my turn. And if I fail, then I tend to shut up about my failure, that's all. I like talking (and hearing) about successes.

snyprrr

Quote from: some guy on June 01, 2012, 09:29:31 AM
It's not so difficult as you make it out to be snyprrr.

I tend to avoid making negative comments simply because anything I fault will be something someone else likes and why rain on their party? My tastes and predilections are only the end all and be all for myself. And even there, why they change from time to time.

If I talk, I praise. If there's something I dislike, I mostly just shut up.

Mostly.

Otherwise, I do not demand greatness as you do. OK. We are different. What I demand, from myself, is attentive and sympathetic listening. I don't demand or expect or desire (to the best of my abilities) anything from the composers. Why? They've already done their job if I can hear their music. That is, they've written some music. That's what composers do. They have nothing else to do, no meeting me halfway or trying to impress me or whatever silliness that I've heard other listeners demand from them.

They've done their job. Now it's my turn. And if I fail, then I tend to shut up about my failure, that's all. I like talking (and hearing) about successes.

AHHHHH!!!! :o

I'm going to take a nap; I can't type with my hands shaking like this!! Please be prepared to soothe me by explaining how most, if not all, Composers are not on the taxpayer dime. You did mention the word 'job'.

Uncontrollable shaking... Is it the left side? or right side? that stiffens up during a...

Leon

Cross-posted from the Listening thread-

Quote from: Arnold on June 04, 2012, 06:51:27 AM
Lera Auerbach : 24 Preludes for Violin and Piano
Vadim Gluzman, Angela Yoffe

[asin]B00009W8M3[/asin]

Some near-21st Century music (1999) that is very nice.  The piece has been described as "riveting and spellbinding" and "fabulously spectral work, haunting in its ominous use of bleak lyricism, relentless in its hypnotic attraction, and thoroughly inventive in its somber mood and design" - but don't that scare you away. 

For anyone suspicious of "new music" this work might act as a good entry point.  But that is not to say that it is not extremely well-written and somewhat (to use an over-used word for new music) demanding; it is - but it is also accessible.

:)

UB

Glad you brought up Auerbach. She is certainly accessible. She was born in Russia but moved to the US in 1991 at the age of 18. She is multi-talented as she not only writes music but also is a talented pianist and a published writer.

Although I rather liked exploring her music, I can not say that she is among top 20 living composers on my list but she probably would be in a list of my top 10 composers born in 1970 or later. I think it will be interesting to see what she is writing in 5 or 10 years. I found her more interesting and original when she writes for solo or smaller groups but some of her shorter music for orchestra seem to me to have enough to say that it does not sound tired before it ends.

She wrote 24 preludes for piano which she then used as a basis for those 24 preludes for violin and piano you mention above. But my favorite version is written for cello and piano. I think they are a good place to start with her music. My other suggestions are her 2006 Serenade for a Melancholic Sea and her Russian Requiem.

As with many of the younger composers she has a very good interactive website where you can listen to complete recordings of 75% or so of her music to see if what you like and if you would like to hear more.If you do not know this composer I suggest you give her a try and report back what you found that you liked or didn't like.
I am not in the entertainment business. Harrison Birtwistle 2010

snyprrr

Quote from: James on June 02, 2012, 08:02:12 AM
An active, award-winning, commission-busy Spaniard ..

Alberto Posadas
Versa est in luctum (2002) for 4 instruments & electronics
Snefru (2002) for accordion & electronics
Liturgia Fractal (2003–2007) for string quartet
Nebmaat (2004) for ensemble
Anamorfosis (2006) for ensemble
Cripsis (2007) for ensemble
Nebmaat (2008) for quintet
Oscuro abismo de llanto y de ternura (2009) for ensemble
Glossopoeia (2009) for 3 dancers, 4 musicians, video, electronics

[asin]B002AG2NIY[/asin]

[asin]B004BI2R7G[/asin]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alberto_Posadas



(more to come)


I have that SQ disc. He sounds a lot like his teacher Guerrero. There is also Jesus Rueda, whose SQs are also on Kairos (also recorded by the Arditti in an impossible to find set) but not available in the US yet. I find the whole Guerrero influence quite a grimy affair,... it's not really attractive to me in any real way, and his students seem to have taken him literally. It's kind of like Xenakis, but as if only one aspect were focused on and microscope-d. I haven't bought a Modern SQ since, and would end up getting the Lachenmann if I did.

I'm pretty sure I can sniff out good VS bad when it comes to SQs. I'd love to just hear some SQ stuff from everyone who wants to be considered. I'll admit I was pleasantly surprised by Ades'.