The greatest art music since 1985...

[Sean]

By which I mean of course Adam's Nixon in China, finished '87 and very much the last masterpiece in the evanescence of artistic expression.

The age of art is over and as you already well know there's not going to be any more. Most of the crazies posting here had at least the benefits of living through its high period of dissemination but needless to say 2013 is as decadent, irrelevant and as worthless a cultural existence as history has spewed up.

Rhetoric aside I'd be pleased to hear of any works, plus indeed even any performances, in the last quarter century that you genuinely feel are any kind of match for the great works of previous decades and centuries. Naturally I'm not expecting a long thread here, no worries.

A opening gesture is Glass's 1990 The Voyage, a second rate opera with fascinating holistically structured music and libretto; at least it was lyrical.

Do kindly give me your worst to have a good laugh at from Saariaho, Lachenmann, Carter, Birtwistle- who's an interesting figure but little more...

[dyn]

1985??? As though you suggest that the "music" of the two hundred years before that could in any way be considered "art"? Already with Beethoven we have left the domain of art and entered the domain of cacophonous bluster and bombast and the blatant sexualisation of music with wanton chromaticism and impure harmonies. The "Romantics" and "Moderns" alike had no care for art, only their own sensual gratification. I challenge you to provide me with a single example of art music after Mozart's Piano Concerto KV 595. All the Webers, Chopins, Schuberts, Wagners, Bruckners, Stravinskys and Ravels put together couldn't write a note of it.

[Sean]

dyn

Your idea is that the present postmodern post-everything non-existent total mush is comparable to other historical periods- it isn't at all. As for sexualization, noticing the American spellchecker doesn't like the COD z, the visceral is the very nature of music and art, preceding the intellect in the mind- art is abstracted sexuality.

So Mozart PC27 is as good as it got for you?, the Clarinet concerto succeeded it by the way. Admit it, you have no more answers than me.

You're a woman aren't you?

[Gurn Blanston]

1985??? As though you suggest that the "music" of the two hundred years before that could in any way be considered "art"? Already with Beethoven we have left the domain of art and entered the domain of cacophonous bluster and bombast and the blatant sexualisation of music with wanton chromaticism and impure harmonies. The "Romantics" and "Moderns" alike had no care for art, only their own sensual gratification. I challenge you to provide me with a single example of art music after Mozart's Piano Concerto KV 595. All the Webers, Chopins, Schuberts, Wagners, Bruckners, Stravinskys and Ravels put together couldn't write a note of it.

I also thought that this was a given...

[Sean]

Art was a response to alienation in life. Now we've lost art, but alienation is absolutely worse than ever with psychotic 'communication technology' barriers to communication. This is a nasty, precipitous situation.

[TheGSMoeller]

I was trying to locate a copy of Nixon in China to purchase. But having trouble locating the Art Music section. Should I try the classical music section?

[Sean]

No, don't worry, you missed the boat and there are no such categories any more. Just carry on as if nothing happened and you'll be just fine. You're not alive but neither is anyone else so all's well. Best, Sean

[Brian]

1985??? As though you suggest that the "music" of the two hundred years before that could in any way be considered "art"? Already with Beethoven we have left the domain of art and entered the domain of cacophonous bluster and bombast and the blatant sexualisation of music with wanton chromaticism and impure harmonies. The "Romantics" and "Moderns" alike had no care for art, only their own sensual gratification. I challenge you to provide me with a single example of art music after Mozart's Piano Concerto KV 595. All the Webers, Chopins, Schuberts, Wagners, Bruckners, Stravinskys and Ravels put together couldn't write a note of it.

Man, I was gonna reply, but this post is way more awesome than anything I could come up with.

[bhodges]

I also thought that this was a given...

Man, I was gonna reply, but this post is way more awesome than anything I could come up with.

Ditto.

--Bruce

[dyn]

Your idea is that the present postmodern post-everything non-existent total mush is comparable to other historical periods- it isn't at all.

By the time one reaches a such state of cultural decadence that Tristan und Isolde is taken seriously as a "work of art" rather than banned as aural obscenity, society has reached rock bottom and started to dig. It's only a small step from there to complete atonality, legalised prostitution and the complete breakdown of authority.

As for sexualization, noticing the American spellchecker doesn't like the COD z, the visceral is the very nature of music and art, preceding the intellect in the mind- art is abstracted sexuality.

A common excuse from so-called "Romantics" and their cult of "sexual liberation". Keep that kind of "art" in the bedroom where it belongs.

So Mozart PC27 is as good as it got for you?, the Clarinet concerto succeeded it by the way.

You're a woman aren't you?

I bring up Mozart as a counterpoint to those who rightly point out that the music of Bach and his followers is full of unkempt chromaticisms and dissonances, and that therefore one should consider the age of art in music to have ended with Palestrina: the Enlightenment was the final flowering of art. Bach can be excused his licenses for they were committed in the name of true religion, of which he was among the last practitioners (modern religion is as undeserving of the name as modern art). Had the Enlightenment lasted, and not been displaced by Romanticism and its male-dominated worldview, I imagine women's suffrage would have been universal by 1825.

[Cato]

Some GMG members should be mentioned here:

Karl Henning's Nuhro, Out in the Sun, Sonata for Viola and Piano, Annabel Lee all come to mind.

Luke Ottevanger's piano works e.g. Around Fern Hill would also come under this topic.

Paul Nauert's Episodes and Elegies.

And where have Luke and Paul been recently?!

Elliott Carter's Symphonia Sum Fluxae Pretium Spei

And the final version from 1993 of explosante fixe by Pierre Boulez.

One should also mention that Karlheinz Stockhausen was quite active in the era given!   0:)

[jochanaan]

Is this a comedy thread, or what?!

[Gurn Blanston]

Is this a comedy thread, or what?!

Sean is the King of Comedy. Glad he's back, life is much more entertaining now.

[Brian]

Well, okay, if we're just gonna list some great art music since 1985...

Penderecki's Sextet for clarinet, horn, violin, viola, cello, and piano

Penderecki's Horn Concerto

Adams's Harmonielehre

Glass's Symphony No. 3

Auerbach's Twenty-four preludes for cello and piano

Lutoslawski's Piano Concerto

Dorman's Mandolin Concerto

G.L. Frank's Leyendas

Higdon's Quintet for piano left-hand and strings

A. Koppel's Saxophone Concerto no. 2

[snyprrr]

By the time one reaches a such state of cultural decadence that Tristan und Isolde is taken seriously as a "work of art" rather than banned as aural obscenity, society has reached rock bottom and started to dig. It's only a small step from there to complete atonality, legalised prostitution and the complete breakdown of authority.
A common excuse from so-called "Romantics" and their cult of "sexual liberation". Keep that kind of "art" in the bedroom where it belongs.
I bring up Mozart as a counterpoint to those who rightly point out that the music of Bach and his followers is full of unkempt chromaticisms and dissonances, and that therefore one should consider the age of art in music to have ended with Palestrina: the Enlightenment was the final flowering of art. Bach can be excused his licenses for they were committed in the name of true religion, of which he was among the last practitioners (modern religion is as undeserving of the name as modern art). Had the Enlightenment lasted, and not been displaced by Romanticism and its male-dominated worldview, I imagine women's suffrage would have been universal by 1825.

Wolfy's music isn't Sessy??  Naughty boy!!

I'll agree with you about all that Devil Music. Perhaps, then, the greatest example of the Devil's Music could perhaps be Babbitt's String Quartet's 3-4? Serial in every way. Conformist to the Ideology of Musical Atheism?

What of WEBERN then? Is he 'Resurrection' from the 'Grave' that Wagner took every one? Or just Music of the Living Dead?

I mean, we're still not all agreed that Mozart even existed...

[MishaK]

Is this a comedy thread, or what?!

Since we've apparently lost art, comedy is all we've got.

[Sergeant Rock]

Wolfy's music isn't Sessy??  Naughty boy!!

Girl, snyprr, girl. Pay attention! She's a she.

Sarge

[Sergeant Rock]

Since we've apparently lost art, comedy is all we've got.

Sarge

[Cato]

Since we've apparently lost art, comedy is all we've got.

Comedy is Art also!

e.g.

http://www.youtube.com/v/Pp8y62pn1PE

[some guy]

The age of art is over and as you already well know there's not going to be any more.

Well, for sure the age of argument is over. And the only things left are unsupported assertions and quarrelling. (Oh, and comedy.)

I prefer Morton Feldman's take on it: Down with masterpieces; up with art.

Now there's a pithy statement with real pith to it.

As for dyn's "legalised prostitution and the complete breakdown of authority"--not too up on history there are we? Legalized prostitution and the complete breakdown of authority have been around for thousands of years. Maybe more. At least as long as there's been history, there's been legal prostitution and the idea that authority is completely broken down. (I don't know if ancient Sumeria or Assyria or China or Greece had anything like "atonal" music. )