21st century classical music

[pencils]

Is this the place to mention Jacob ter Veldhuis without getting rocks thrown at you?  I will try not to call him Jacob TV

His Rainbow Concerto is simply beautiful, and I am enjoying the postmodern foolery of some of his compositions.

Either that, or Johan de Meij? Symphony 4 just completed... 

[San Antone]

This is the place to mention music written since 2000.  You won't get rocks thrown at you by anyone other than "someguy" who pounced on my inadvertent post about a work written in 1989.

My bad.

[kyjo]

Two of the most beautiful orchestral works composed in the 21st century:

Joep Franssens (1955-): Grace for Orchestra (2008):
Part 1: http://youtu.be/Y5QSEuHS108
Part 2: http://youtu.be/RaN5NHRNdFY

Imants Kalnins (1941-): Symphony no. 6 for chorus and orchestra (2001): http://classical-music-online.net/en/production/4305

[some guy]

But that is because music and artists plays a decidedly different role in todays society then it did then, as you surely are aware.

This is a contrary position to mine in what way? (I believe that you are just restating my point here. Differently than I would state it, but it seems to be the same point.)

As for rock throwing, this is the internet, so at least it's all virtual.

And the throwing back at me has been virtually noted.

Funny how expressing certain opinions gets classified as "rock throwing" while personal attacks of the putative thrower are considered perfectly fine. Things that make you go "hmmmm."

[San Antone]

This is a contrary position to mine in what way? (I believe that you are just restating my point here. Differently than I would state it, but it seems to be the same point.)

As for rock throwing, this is the internet, so at least it's all virtual.

And the throwing back at me has been virtually noted.

Funny how expressing certain opinions gets classified as "rock throwing" while personal attacks of the putative thrower are considered perfectly fine. Things that make you go "hmmmm."

I must have missed the personal attack on you.

One of the things I like about the 21st (and 20th) century is the freedom composers have for expression.  There is no dominant style; composers are free to use whatever method they wish, or combine them in any form they wish.  I consider this a good thing.  To me, it is good that there are living composers writing music that might, on the surface, sound like Sibelius - but I also think it good that other composers are writing music that is breaking absolutely new ground in the 21st century, very far from Sibelius's soundscape - and it's good there's all those composers in between and beyond.  Basically I'm a "more is more" kind of listener.

I refuse to judge any composer on their choice of method(s), and find myself responding to their music based on how it strikes my ears.  I also try to ignore the various partisan camps and their rants as to why composers X, Y and Z are writing music that is not worth hearing.

Now, something on topic:

Lucas Fagin: "Arquetipo" (2007)

http://www.youtube.com/v/FGX77ERPcJg

[pencils]

As for rock throwing, this is the internet, so at least it's all virtual.

No offence intended  .... certainly not in the direction of anyone here ... I am just aware that my appreciation for JacobTV (Blast! Did it again!) isn't necessarily shared in lots of places in 'Classical Music Land'. I think he is a little populist for some people 

[Karl Henning]

We want our JTV!

[pencils]

I am a real sucker for this. Not only the Rainbow, but the Tallahatchie AND the Goldrush. Still working with the Paradiso, I have to confess.

[dyn]

Nowadays, concert audiences will go ape-shit over pastiche.

That's not quite true. Pastiche composers do enjoy short-term popularity similar to that enjoyed by popular musicians but it is usually the groundbreakers who survive in the long term. Throughout the 19th century there were dozens of popular composers who wrote instructive sonatinas and salon pieces in a style not far removed from the Classic masters, whereas Wagner was considered taxing, ultramodern and unlikely to be of lasting importance. Only towards the end of his life was he recognised and even then it was by a small "cult" of wealthy elites and intelligentsia. The most popular composer of the day was probably Johann Strauss II whose music anyway possesses a certain timelessness due to what one might call its harmonic neutrality.

Imagine a composer in 1813 writing in the school of Vivaldi.

In the nineteenth century the style of 1713 (more specifically Bach and Handel) and mastery thereof carried prestigious connotations. Hence all the fugues in Beethoven, the entire career of Mendelssohn and similar repercussions as far forward as Reger. Of course no one would set out to write a piece that sounded exactly like Vivaldi, but hardly anyone sets out to write a piece that sounds exactly like Sibelius either (except musicologists trying to reconstruct a lost Sibelius symphony or something)

As well, for quite a long time following the death of Palestrina composers writing music for official Catholic usage were expected to compose in more or less the same style (or even a significantly simplified style).

[San Antone]

https://www.youtube.com/v/2FVxQLrRysw

[modUltralaser]

I've been digging the music of Radulescu lately. I really enjoy his style. Very poetic. The link below leads to his second piano sonata.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4izgfNDN7Nk

[some guy]

sanantonio, I apologize for getting to this so long after the fact. (That's twice now for me on this thread. One more and I'm out.

One of the things I like about the 21st (and 20th) century is the freedom composers have for expression.  There is no dominant style; composers are free to use whatever method they wish, or combine them in any form they wish.  I consider this a good thing.

On the surface, this sounds very attractive. It is very much how I feel about things. In actual fact, however, I don't think everything is equally valuable.

Nor, come to think of it, that "expression" is all it's cracked up to be.

In 2013, there are indeed many styles and many methods. Some of them are recent. Some of them are retrograde. The retrograde ones are not so good. Here's how I see it. There are innovative composers. These are the ones with the fresh ideas, the unprecedented ideas. They are the leaders. There are consolidater composers. These might not be able to come up with innovations, but they can immediately recognize the value of the innovations and use them in their work. Both of these are fine.

Then there are composers who reject the new, who are disgusted by the innovations of their own time, preferring the innovations (and consolidations) of earlier times. These are what might be termed the nostalgia composers. These composers appeal very strongly to listeners who have also rejected the innovations and consolidations of the present. No surprise. In this world, everything is familiar. Everything is from the past, so of course it's well-known. It's shapes and sounds have already been vetted, as it were, and are comfortable and easy.

In practice, so far as I can see, most people who celebrate the diversity and freedom of the 20th and 21st centuries to this extent--"composers are free to use whatever method they wish"--are really only celebrating the freedom of certain composers who are free to please them by writing comfortable music that they already know, even before they hear it. (Lowell Liebermann just did this very thing last Saturday in Portland, with his "new" piece Four Seasons.) And that is some genuine partisanship, if you please.

To me, it is a bad thing "that there are living composers writing music that might, on the surface, sound like Sibelius." That is, I want my living composers to live in the present, not in the past. I too am a "more is more" kind of listener. And the proof of that is in my collection, which includes Monteverdi and Mumma, Vivaldi and Varese, Bach and Boerman, Haydn and Hodgkinson, for example. I just don't see that a composer living and working in 2013 who is writing as if it were 1931 as contributing to that more. That composer is simply reproducing a part of the more that has already been done, and done quite a lot better, by someone who was alive and working in 1931.

I certainly do not reject the sounds of 1931 or 1831 or 1731. But someone in 2013 who is freely working with the methods from those times is not adding anything to the stock of worthwhile work in the world. That person is simply going over the same ground that's already been gone over. If I want to hear Brahmsian melodies and textures, I simply listen to some music by Brahms. I do not want someone contemporary with myself to offer me regurgitated Brahms. I've got genuine Brahms to satisfy any Brahmsian cravings I might have.

In short, I do not think that "methods" are neutral things, nor that they are equally valuable. I do not think that creating genuine art is a matter, simply, of using "methods." And I am a little bit suspicious of "based on how it strikes my ears" as that could be just as prejudicial and partisan as anything else. (Your ears, like mine, are connected to a mind that has prejudices and preferences and partisanship and perhaps several other p words as well. One exception: no pair of ears is pure.)

[The new erato]

I certainly do not reject the sounds of 1931 or 1831 or 1731. But someone in 2013 who is freely working with the methods from those times is not adding anything to the stock of worthwhile work in the world. That person is simply going over the same ground that's already been gone over. If I want to hear Brahmsian melodies and textures, I simply listen to some music by Brahms. I do not want someone contemporary with myself to offer me regurgitated Brahms. I've got genuine Brahms to satisfy any Brahmsian cravings I might have.

But working from a perspective of having to do things that haven't been done before, with the accumulating weight of all that's done before, from a larger and larger artistic community working from the same perspective; where does that lead? Not that I wouldn't like to agree, but I see inevitably this will lead to a situation where the public will have no chance to absorb the new; and new music being more and more a goal in itself (instead of something that should involve the receiving end)?

Edit: Much of the greatest music I know was born (I'm only guessing here) from a will to communicate with an audience. Of course, that may be done withe different levels of skill, originality, expertise and invention. But when the overriding motive becomes "to do something differently" doesn't that have implications? And where does that lead?

[San Antone]

In practice, so far as I can see, most people who celebrate the diversity and freedom of the 20th and 21st centuries to this extent--"composers are free to use whatever method they wish"--are really only celebrating the freedom of certain composers who are free to please them by writing comfortable music that they already know, even before they hear it. (Lowell Liebermann just did this very thing last Saturday in Portland, with his "new" piece Four Seasons.) And that is some genuine partisanship, if you please.

I can't speak for anyone else, but that does not describe me.  I don't much care for a Sibeliusian style, even from him.

To me, it is a bad thing "that there are living composers writing music that might, on the surface, sound like Sibelius." That is, I want my living composers to live in the present, not in the past. I too am a "more is more" kind of listener.

While I stop short of saying it is "bad" for a composer to work in a style which might sound like Sibelius, I do not gravitate to those kinds of works.  But, then again, the kinds of works I do gravitate to could be accused of using a older style as well.   For example, I enjoy the music of Charles Wuorinen, whose style is drawn, by and large, from approximately 50 years ago.  However, his compositions are extremely well-written and provide plenty of satisfaction when I listen to them.   He is by no means the only one, or the only kind of music - just one example. 

The "present" can cover a lot of ground, IMO.  For many people the Sibelius sound is still current and "in the present" since so much of the music around us, e.g. film scores, is in that style. 

In short, I do not think that "methods" are neutral things, nor that they are equally valuable. I do not think that creating genuine art is a matter, simply, of using "methods." And I am a little bit suspicious of "based on how it strikes my ears" as that could be just as prejudicial and partisan as anything else. (Your ears, like mine, are connected to a mind that has prejudices and preferences and partisanship and perhaps several other p words as well. One exception: no pair of ears is pure.)

I do consider methods neutral.  But they are not relevant, IMO, to anyone other than the composer, and often not that very important to them either.  Of course I realize my ears, as are everyone's, are biased, and I'm okay with that.  Which is why I try not to make value judgments about other people's preferences.

For me, 21st century classical music is that which is written after 2000.  No styles or methods barred.

[some guy]

Much of the greatest music I know was born (I'm only guessing here) from a will to communicate with an audience.

I suppose that the impulse to make music, great or not, comes from a variety of places, including the will to communicate with an audience place.

One must be very careful when talking about motivations, however, even if one has the composer's own words about what he or she intended. That is, I do not think that one can know that a composer's overriding motive is "to do something differently."

Having said that, I'm going to carelessly say that I don't think the point is really to do something differently; it is to do a different thing. It is to bring to life a new thing, a something that was not a something until that composer made it. And I do not think, as a practical matter, that that implies that there won't be communication with an audience. Every human is connected somehow with other humans. Part of what makes up a human is the quality of sociability. I would think it would be practically impossible for any individual human to make something that no other human could possibly like.

Every composer communicates with an audience. Might not be the audience you're in, but what of that? The audience you're in is not the only audience that exists. I attend upwards of three hundred concerts a year. I have never been to one where I was the only audience member. The ones--it's possible they exist--where only the composer attended are ones I would not know about. Are at least ones I would not have attended. Logically.

No, I don't think the communication thing is at all separate. I think communication is natural and inevitable, no matter what else is going on. And always will be. I have seen it frequently concluded by auditors that have not understood what was being said that therefore nothing was being communicated. But that is a hasty and invalid conclusion.

[some guy]

I can't speak for anyone else, but that does not describe me.  I don't much care for a Sibeliusian style, even from him.

I am aware of that, and I apologize for failing to work that into my post. I wanted to, but I didn't succeed in doing it. I should have tried harder.

Wourinen doesn't thrill me much, but I would consider him a consolidator, not a nostalgia composer. Though that's a close one!

The "present" can cover a lot of ground, IMO.  For many people the Sibelius sound is still current and "in the present" since so much of the music around us, e.g. film scores, is in that style.

For many listeners, the Sibelius sound is still current. But for many listeners, even Schoenberg is too modern. There may be no excuse for that (I don't think there is), but it's understandable. For a professional, however, a working composer, Sibelius should not be current at all in any way. There's certainly no excuse for a professional to not be current in her field. And the only way I that I can understand the contribution of a Gerber is to conclude that he operates by a combination of cynicism and cupidity. I may be wrong. I'm just saying that that's how I can make sense of what he does.

I do consider methods neutral.

As I read this just now, I realized that it's not so much that I think methods are not neutral as it is that I think that "methods," in their time, they are not really methods, are they? The techniques of a time are the embodiment of the thoughts and feelings and ideas of that time. Only after their time is past do they become "methods," and I'd say that once a living idea has become a method, it is dead and that using methods is just a handy way to create what I have already elsewhere referred to as zombie music. It's dead, but it's sort of alive in a really creepy and even dangerous way.

I don't care for zombies, but some of my best friends are necrophiles. I guess that makes me a live and let live kinda guy, but not a live and allow to be resuscitated kinda guy.

[San Antone]

I guess I was using the word "method" to describe a composer's process. 

Interesting discussion, someguy.

[some guy]

Agreed. I've enjoyed our conversation very much as well!

[dyn]

If I want to hear Brahmsian melodies and textures, I simply listen to some music by Brahms. I do not want someone contemporary with myself to offer me regurgitated Brahms. I've got genuine Brahms to satisfy any Brahmsian cravings I might have.

i'm not sure why this is the one thing i chose to respond to from this quite interesting discussion, but ok.

Composers and musicians (as opposed to record collectors) don't necessarily work like that. Part of that is due to the nature of the musical memory training every composer must undergo as part of their craft. If you are a composer with a passion for Brahms, perhaps the first time you heard a Brahms symphony was a revelatory experience. The second, fifth, tenth time you heard it it was still fresh and with more to discover under the surface. But eventually (probably within 15-20 listenings or so) you will know the symphony. You can call up to mind any given passage from the symphony at will, plunk out large portions of it on the piano (or whatever your instrument may be) and have more or less every twist and turn of the music memorised. A GMG member may of course be satisfied to then acquire fifty recordings of the symphony and argue with his friends over which interpretation is best, but composers are unlikely to own more than one or two recordings of a given piece, and when they listen to those recordings their mind's ear will supply their own interpretation of the symphony rather than that of whatever conductor happens to be credited on the case. What you want is the thrill of discovery back—a new Brahms symphony, one you've never heard before, perhaps one not coloured by hundreds of historical interpretations or one that solves structural problems posed by a Brahms symphony you already know. You want Brahms's Fifth.

From here there are a couple of ways things tend to go. If you are a composer in touch with the times you may write a large orchestral work, or a lengthy piece for ensemble, or similar under a title along the lines of "Homage to Brahms" and write more or less in the contemporary vernacular, trying to replicate the passions and drama of Brahms in a musical language whose edge is not blunted by the familiar, comfortable surface prettiness of tonal music—but quite possibly working in actual Brahms quotes or bits of pastiche and feeling a secret thrill down your spine every time the orchestra lands on a major triad. (Sometimes I wonder if the Pessons and Adèses and Rihms of the world have secret vaults full of style copies they were inspired to write and immediately felt ashamed of.) If you are a composer who dislikes or feels alienated from the music of your time, who feels music history stopped with Schoenberg and picked up again on the silver screen with Korngold, you have no problem sitting down and writing a symphony in as close to the style of Brahms as you are capable of, but for some reason it will inevitably come out sounding like John Williams instead and you will feel vaguely disappointed. If you are a musicologist or Robin Holloway you will spend months immersed in research and then emerge with a few scraps of Brahms manuscripts from which to "reconstruct" a putative symphony, and the result may even sound very much like a Brahms symphony, or at least a symphony by Friedrich Gernsheim or Robert Fuchs or some other highly talented but less inspired contemporary of Brahms.

If you're an innovator? I think it's unlikely for an innovator to ever be in that position. Due to the nature of where most genuinely new music comes from, modern innovators may have never heard Brahms or have no interest in his music. They may develop strong emotional connections to composers/artists who died recently enough that their influence is still filtering through, but music from Palestrina to Prokofiev is unlikely to be on their list of interests and may even all sound more or less the same. But that's mostly conjecture based on one person's limited experience of modern music.

What allows composers to develop these kinds of connections with music that has been "obsolete" for more than a century is exactly what you said: "I've got genuine Brahms to satisfy any Brahmsian cravings I might have." The existence of recorded music and the fact that major classical music organisations limit themselves to standard repertoire makes much standard repertoire music more "contemporary" than a lot of more recent music that simply doesn't get played or recorded as much. A newly released record is much more likely to be Brahms than any living composer of equal stature. Most of the music someone who has undergone classical training will listen to is by people who are dead, simply because of availability and people sticking with what they know. I don't think there's any cynicism or "writing down" involved in the work of someone who wants to write Brahms's Fifth—just that "classical listeners" and "classical composers" come from the same demographic pool and therefore share a lot of the same preferences. If you want something different, look for different audiences, with different demographics.

[Johnll]

If James will permit me to borrow a clap of his thunder, here is one from Stockhausen that is very fine and not at all morose. In the next few days I will post a few more C21s that are not afraid of sunshine. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qy1h0MTJBoE&list=PL5D97B133EFC005D3