Greatest composer of the 20th century?

[Mirror Image]

Interesting about Mahler (again, a throwback to the 19th century, very Wagner/Bruckner influenced, and clearly a Romantic and the trailing off of that) .. curiously his music was largely ignored and treated with a great deal of suspicion during his time, he was more known during his life as a conductor too (mostly of others). It took many decades of proselytizing by conductors such as Bruno Walter, Wilhelm Mengelberg and, later, Leonard Bernstein before the symphonies finally caught on after WWII. Still though, a transitional figure .. but mostly of the 19th century variety and its trailing off.

For me, the 20th Century in general was one of gradual transition. There are no right or wrong ways to compose in this century. There simply are choices and personal preferences. I think you're analysis on Mahler is completely ignorant and extremely lopsided. Mahler...a throwback to the 19th Century? I think not. Sure, he constructed music in a Romantic framework, but beyond that framework lies all of the neuroticism, heartbreak, despair, and agony of a 20th Century composer. Like Sarge mentioned in another thread, this music could not have existed in the 19th Century. You simply have failed to hear these elements in the music because you're too busy trying to inform all of us that your opinion is the only one that matters here. Also, if Mahler were simply a 'throwback' then what do we make of Stravinsky, Martinu, Poulenc, etc. who all experimented and implemented a Neoclassical style that clearly pointed to the Baroque and Classical Eras? Do we badmouth these composers' music because they wanted to look to the past and filter it through a modernistic lens? No, I don't think we do and the same applies to Mahler.

[Karl Henning]

The very notion that a composer's work has to "look to the future" in order to be "of importance" is a throwback to Wagner, is outdated, and has been trailing off.

Wave goodbye to James as he's packed into the time capsule.

[(poco) Sforzando]

Have you read any of Cage's essays on music? I saw a few excerpts from the book Silence: Lectures and Writings and was intrigued enough to add it to my wish-list.

You more or less make my point. Cage is interesting as a writer, a personality, an aesthetician. None of his music that I've heard makes me want to hear any more of it, or to hear it again.

[San Antone]

This has been an interesting discussion, IMO.  I have begun to think that the 20th c. contains so many divergent styles that it is almost pointless to try and pick one composer as the "greatest" of the 20th c.  There are composers such as Sibelius, Vaughan Williams, Elgar, and other symphonists who (even while having some more modern elements) clearly hearken back to a Romantic tradition. 

Then there are the composers who consciously wanted to break with the past, the Darmstadt school, whose music sounds radically different from other composers working at the same time.

Pastiche, post-modern quotation, world music, indeterminacy, serialism, minimalism and drones, neo-Romanticism, and actual Romanticism, electronic - all these have been done in the 20th c. and some by the same composer.
.
How can we hope to boil it all down to one name?

[San Antone]

You more or less make my point. Cage is interesting as a writer, a personality, an aesthetician. None of his music that I've heard makes me want to hear any more of it, or to hear it again.

Why is that Cage's problem?  The same can be said by someone about any composer.

[Jo498]

Mahler might have been a "throwback" if he had in 1930 composed as he did in 1905.
Whereas he clearly was a modern composer around 1900, although not quite as modern/unconventional as e.g. Debussy and by the time of his death 1911 the avantgarde of Schönberg etc. had "passed" him. Still, in his generation he was by no means a reactionary. Of Strauss we think as somewhat reactionary mainly because of his post-Elektra development. But up to (and especially with) Elektra he was at the front of musical development.

In the first decade of the 20th century it was by no means obvious that the "over the top" hyperromantic stuff (including huge pieces like Mahler's 8th, Scriabin or Gurrelieder) would be a thing of the past soon. For those years it clearly was one important and influential strain of avantgarde music and almost all of the generation *after* Mahler started in this vein in these years, even Bartok wrote a few pieces that almost sound like Strauss (Kossuth). And it kept being influential. To discredit it as being backwards is at best one-sided.

[Mirror Image]

How can we hope to boil it all down to one name?

I can't which is why I didn't vote.

[Mirror Image]

And yet it did, late-Romantic. Mahler was the apotheosis of 19th century Romanticism through & through.

Shouldn't you be copying-and-pasting another Stockhausen article? This kind of discussion is beyond your comprehension.

[Mirror Image]

The very notion that a composer's work has to "look to the future" in order to be "of importance" is a throwback to Wagner, is outdated, and has been trailing off.

Wave goodbye to James as he's packed into the time capsule.

Goodbye James! We hardly knew ye!

[San Antone]

I was so inspired by this thread that I blogged about this topic and put in a plug for this forum:

HERE

[Sergeant Rock]

True .. in writing replies quickly sometimes the right words aren't chosen. I am not discrediting his achievements (we was a genius),  ..but clearly he is a late-Romantic, 19th century.

I'm sorry, I don't understand your point. Is not the Late Romantic also part of the 20th century? That music didn't end on January 1st, 1901. Hundreds of composers (e.g., Barber, Shostakovich, Diamond, Harris, Copland, Schmidt, Strauss, Sibelius, Schreker, Zemlinsky, Schoenberg, Elgar) composed Late Romantic works in the 20th century. They aren't throwbacks but a significant part of the century. Mahler lived and completed most of his works in the 20th century. Why should he be excluded just because his style isn't exclusive to the century; excluded just because he wasn't post-war avant garde or a serialist or a neoclassical composer? Bach is the greatest 18th century composer, right?...despite the fact the Baroque began in the 17th century; despite the fact Bach's style went out of style before his death.

Sarge

[Karl Henning]

(we was a genius)

Tooting your own horn, as ever, I see 

[Florestan]

I'm sorry, I don't understand your point. Is not the Late Romantic also part of the 20th century? That music didn't end on January 1st, 1901. Hundreds of composers (e.g., Barber, Shostakovich, Diamond, Harris, Copland, Schmidt, Strauss, Sibelius, Schreker, Zemlinsky, Schoenberg, Elgar) composed Late Romantic works in the 20th century. They aren't throwbacks but a significant part of the century.

You forgot Rachmaninoff and Medtner. Inexcusable omission. 

Bach is the greatest 18th century composer, right?...

He is the greatest first-half-of-the-18th-century composer. The greatest second-half-of-the-18th-century composer is actually Haydn&Mozart. 

[Mirror Image]

I'm sorry, I don't understand your point. Is not the Late Romantic also part of the 20th century? That music didn't end on January 1st, 1901. Hundreds of composers (e.g., Barber, Shostakovich, Diamond, Harris, Copland, Schmidt, Strauss, Sibelius, Schreker, Zemlinsky, Schoenberg, Elgar) composed Late Romantic works in the 20th century. They aren't throwbacks but a significant part of the century. Mahler lived and completed most of his works in the 20th century. Why should he be excluded just because his style isn't exclusive to the century; excluded just because he wasn't post-war avant garde or a serialist or a neoclassical composer? Bach is the greatest 18th century composer, right?...despite the fact the Baroque began in the 17th century; despite the fact Bach's style went out of style before his death.

Sarge

I fully agree with this post.

[Mirror Image]

Let me clarify. My point is that Mahler really isn't a 20th century man/composer, he is more belonging to late 19th century.

Your point doesn't make any sense whatsoever as the same point could be made about a composer like Janáček for example. Janacek was born in 1854 and died in 1928. Debussy is another one: he was born in 1862 and died in 1918. Did you even read Sarge's post? Probably not, because it goes against your almighty opinion.

[Karl Henning]

Let me clarify. My point is that Mahler really isn't a 20th century man/composer, he is more belonging to late 19th century.

You have not "clarified" a "point."

You have repeated an assertion.

If you had a little more wit, you would understand that "because James says so" is not an argument.

[San Antone]

I think too much is being made about dates, i.e. the fact that some of Mahler's music was written after 1900.  Music in the 20th c. is represented by many different styles, the Late Romantic style is one.  Compared to the many kinds of experimental music which were done I can't see how music which sounds closer to the 19th c. will be ultimately representative of the 20th c.

[Florestan]

Actually, the question is way too broadly posed. It would have been simpler if it were split in several parts.

Greatest Late Romantic 20th century composer?

Greatest Romantic 20th century composer?

Greatest Nationalist 20th century composer?

Greatest Atonal 20th century composer?

Greatest Serialist 20th century composer?

Greatest Modernist 20th century composer?

Greatest Neo-Classical 20th century composer?

Greatest first-half-of-the-20th-century composer?

Greatest second-half-of-the-20th-century composer?

Greatest 20th-century-ish 20th century composer?

Now these are much more interesting and easier questions. 

[Mirror Image]

Nah .. that's just dumb.

Is it time for James Bingo?!?!?

[San Antone]

But the 20th Century isn't defined by one specific style but of many styles. The fragmented plethora of musical styles is the very reason why the 20th Century can't be defined merely by one composer.

Agreed.  However, of all the styles used in the 20th c. I think the Late Romantic is least representative since it is more associated with the late 19th c.  Since the 20th c. has so much stylistic variety and experimentation why would the style which is the least experimental be seen as uniquely representative of the 20th c.?