Classical Music Outside Of Europe: Have You Explored Much?

[Mirror Image]

Have fun!

[71 dB]

I have explored but not much.

(from most favorite to least favorite)

Heitor Villa-Lobos, Philip Glass, Michael Torke, Astor Piazzolla, John Adams, Terry Riley, Samuel Barber 

[pjme]

For me it is one of the great pleasures of classical music : discovery! From Iceland to Brazil, from Turkey to Japan!

Peter

[Mirror Image]

I have explored but not much.

(from most favorite to least favorite)

Heitor Villa-Lobos, Philip Glass, Michael Torke, Astor Piazzolla, John Adams, Terry Riley, Samuel Barber

Villa-Lobos, Piazzolla, and Barber are my favorites from your list.

[Mirror Image]

For me it is one of the great pleasures of classical music : discovery! From Iceland to Brazil, from Turkey to Japan!

Peter

Tell me this: who are some of your favorite discoveries?

[ritter]

In my case, my extra-European explorations are limited to America (North and South):

From the USA: Elliott Carter (a personal favourite), Roger Sessions, Charles Wuorinen, George Crumb, some Milton Babbitt, Ruth Crawford Seeger (a recent discovery), Virgil Thompson (I've lost interest in him over the years), Charles Ives..

From Mexico: Carlos Chávez and Silvestre Revueltas. You could add Rodolfo Halffter (originally from Spain, though)

From Brazil: Heitor Villa-Lobos

From Argentina: Alberto Ginastera (another personal favourite).

Regards,

[Mirror Image]

In my case, my extra-European explorations are limited to America (North and South):

From the USA: Elliott Carter (a personal favourite), Roger Sessions, Charles Wuorinen, George Crumb, some Milton Babbitt, Ruth Crawford Seeger (a recent discovery), Virgil Thompson (I've lost interest in him over the years), Charles Ives..

From Mexico: Carlos Chávez and Silvestre Revueltas. You could add Rodolfo Halffter (originally from Spain, though)

From Brazil: Heitor Villa-Lobos

From Argentina: Alberto Ginastera (another personal favourite).

Regards

Very nice, ritter. I suppose I should share my list now.

Canada: Harry Somers, Malcolm Forsyth
USA: Aaron Copland, Samuel Barber, Charles Ives, David Diamond, William Schuman, Leonard Bernstein
Mexico: Silvestre Revueltas, Carlos Chávez, Manuel Ponce, Blas Galindo Dimas
Brazil: Heitor Villa-Lobos, Camargo Guarnieri
Argentina: Alberto Ginastera, Astor Piazzolla
Japan: Toru Takemitsu, Akira Ifukube, Yasushi Akutagawa, Toshiro Mayuzumi
South Korea: Isang Yun
China: Bright Sheng (although he's lived in the US since the 80s)
Australia: Peter Sculthorpe, Carl Vine

[pjme]

...who are some of your favorite discoveries?

20th century composers: Carl Ruggles, Alberto Ginastera, Revueltas, Chavez...are some of the obvious ones.
Oscar Lorenzo Fernandez, Francisco Mignone, Marlos Nobre, Toshiro Mayuzumi , Toru Takemitsu, Akira Nishimura, Makoto Moroi, Akira Miyoshi, Teruyuki Noda,
Ulvi Cemal Erkin, Cemal Resit Rey, Ahmed Saygun...
I was thrilled to discover music from the Brazilian baroque period, I love Turkish folk music... Charles Ives, Henry Cowell, Wallingford Riegger...
Tan Dun...

[Maestro267]

Not a lot, when I think about it. Although Russia presents a difficult issue, as geographically it traverses two continents.

Based purely on the discs I own, not works I've heard in concert.

USA: Bernstein, Gershwin, Copland, Daugherty, Corigliano, Glass, Sierra, Grofé, Barber, Diamond

Brazil: Villa-Lobos

Argentina: Ginastera

[Christo]

If we define 'Europe' as CoE (Council of Europe) membership - both politically and culturally the most apt definition, though borders are always artificial and for me the Middle-East is also very 'European' in many respects - then the subcontinent includes Russia, Turkey, Cyprus, Azerbeidzjan en sustains close relations with the US, Canada, Mexico, Israël, Korea and Japan.

In that case we may count Turkish composers I happen to love like Saygun, Erkin and Rey, as European composers - which basically they are, though Turkish folk music that I happen to love too is a case of its own - and regard Latin-America as another continent. Ginastera, Guarnieri and Villa-Lobos are the three Latin-American composers I return to most often.

[Scion7]

Couldn't disagree more with your definition of what constitutes "Europe."  The Middle-East?  (modern) Turkey??  Please!  We lost Turkey when the Seljuks came.  :-)  The blood-feud between Turkic-speaking peoples and the Balkans is hardly cause for religious, ethnic or cultural alignment.  If only there had been more men with the backbone of Dracula . . . sigh.

Anyway,  American composers, and Villa-Lobos and Ginastera, are always part of my personal rotation on the stereo.

[Christo]

Defining Europe as 'anything outside the sphere of influence of the Ottoman Empire', as you seem to prefer, doesn't make much sense to me/ You're right: I propose to include it - and don't think the Ottoman legacy is markedly less 'European' than the Roman (Byzantine) culture of roughly the same region, especially since Roman (Byzantine) culture remained an integral and even dominant element of Ottoman times as well. Modern Greek, Serbia, Bulgaria and Turkey are very comparable in cultural respects IMHO, and are either all European - or none of these is. For me, they are just as European as Russia, or Spain. The Turkish composers mentioned are indeed definitely Europeans in all respects.

But you're right in another way: since all western classical music may be called 'European', it doesn't make much sense to leave the America's or Japan or Oceania out either. 

[Scion7]

odern Greek, Serbia, Bulgaria and Turkey are very comparable in cultural respects IMHO

LOL.  Be careful saying that to a Bulgarian or a Greek - unless you like fistfights.

[Christo]

LOL.  Be careful saying that to a Bulgarian or a Greek - unless you like fistfights.

We're not discussing any of those nationalisms here, but only culture. And BTW I met enough Greek, especially, of similar opinions. (At another side of the spectrum, many of my fellow Dutchmen are far less 'European' and hardly aware of more European oriented modes of culture; everything is relative here.  )

Either we include all these excentric Europeans (Britons, Spaniards, Maltese, Icelanders, Finns, Russians, Albanians, Turks) or we leave them all out and define Europe as 'West and Central Europe' only. I myself prefer the old self-definition that includes Russia and the 'Türcken' (Ottomans), but is hesitant about 'Engeland', as in Heinrich Bünting's famous Mappa Mundi of 1581: 

[Brian]

Reza Vali has written some excellent music combining Western and Iranian musical traditions.

[Scion7]

Um, Turks are ASIANS - from the Altai Mountains - they aren't European - they don't speak an Indo-European language, they for the most part are Muslim, not Christians, and their roots and culture are very different from Europe.  Their folksongs are not related to Slavic/German/French/Dutch/Greek/Italian or any of the native European (pre-IE) folksongs. Asia Minor is Asia, not Europe.  I am glad I left Manchester in the early 70's before all this EU stuff started - ugh.

Nothing against my Turkic friends out there - people are people - this is a scientific discussion only.

[Christo]

Um, Turks are ASIANS - from the Altai Mountains - they aren't European - they don't speak an Indo-European language, they for the most part are Muslim, not Christians, and their roots and culture are very different from Europe.  Their folksongs are not related to Slavic/German/French/Dutch/Greek/Italian or any of the native European (pre-IE) folksongs. Asia Minor is Asia, not Europe.  I am glad I left Manchester in the early 70's before all this EU stuff started - ugh.

Nothing against my Turkic friends out there - people are people - this is a scientific discussion only.

In your definition, Hungarians (Bartók!), Finns (Sibelius), Estonians (Pärt), Basque (Guridi), Maltese (Camilleri), Udmurt, Mordwinian (Eshpai), Tatar (Gubaidulina!) - perhaps Bosniak, Albanian and Kosovar, and of course all Jewish - composers are not 'European' either. Considering their non-Indo-European languages and folksongs and / or non-Christian religion. I teach European Culture and this narrow ethnicism - Bartók, Schönberg and Sibelius as non-European composers, I beg your pardon - is indeed far from my approach. :-)

(BTW I begin to understand the wisdom of older cartographers, see e.g. Heinrich Brünting's map from 1581 here below, who included Finns, Russians and Turks in their definition of Europe, but left 'England' out as too insular to join the club.  ). 

[Mirror Image]

Wow, I didn't expect this thread to go in this direction. A shame really. 'Outside of Europe' means exactly what the phrase implies. It's not that difficult of a question.

[Brian]

My mother was born on the Asian side of Istanbul, but she is "Asian" by only about 12 kilometers.

[Christo]

My mother was born on the Asian side of Istanbul, but she is "Asian" by only about 12 kilometers.

Wow, I didn't expect this thread to go in this direction. A shame really. 'Outside of Europe' means exactly what the phrase implies. It's not that difficult of a question.

Agreed. There's only some discussion (as always) as where Europe ends and other parts of the world begin. A modest proposal: let's accept the common definition that accepts alll Council of Europe member states. Alternatively, lovers of the Eurovision Song Festival may opt for the Eurovision members (including Israel, Cyprus and sometimes a few North-African countries, and of course Turkey and the Trans-Caucasus) and lovers of soccer the UEFA definition (including Kazakhstan and alle the former, but not North-Africa).

In any of these definitions, Russia, Turkey, Cyprus and also Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan are part of Europe and for good cultural and historical reasons. One question remains: should we include the British Isles?