the GMG recommendations project

[Gaspard de la nuit]

It might make them curious of contemporary works if they see them listed alongside the warhorses in our estimation.

That would be awesome. But we all know that probably won't happen. Either way, thanks for taking my post seriously and not just bashing Modernsim like so many others on this site.

[Androcles]

Perhaps we should add a rule that you can only vote for or against things that you have actually heard?

This thread has actually challenged me to listen to a few things I've never heard before. I really enjoyed Machaut's Messe and Boulez' Marteau, but didn't like Grisey Espaces, therefore I voted that one down....

[Ken B]

That would be awesome. But we all know that probably won't happen. Either way, thanks for taking my post seriously and not just bashing Modernsim like so many others on this site.

No-one bashes Modernism. Some of us mock the attitude that some others here evince: that Modernism is edgy, transgressive, outside the box, advanced stuff. That would have been true 90 years ago, when people heard very little music really, but we all live in a world with movie music, death metal, electronica, etc. So the smug comments about shocking the blue haired ladies in the audience are just silly.  The out of the box music is precisely the stuff so different from the mainstream popular music that marinates our lives: renaissance polyphony for example.

[SimonNZ]

No-one bashes Modernism. Some of us mock the attitude that some others here evince: that Modernism is edgy, transgressive, outside the box, advanced stuff. [/i]That would have been true 90 years ago, when people heard very little music really, but we all live in a world with movie music, death metal, electronica, etc. So the smug comments about shocking the blue haired ladies in the audience are just silly.  The out of the box music is precisely the stuff so different from the mainstream popular music that marinates our lives: renaissance polyphony for example.

I'm loathe to get into this because its the kind of fight that made TC such a toxic environment. Except to say: that's a projection by the people unfamiliar with the music or its current supporters. There was some sabre-rattling rhetoric from a few big names many decades ago, but nobody - nobody - who loves C20 and contemporary classical talks like that.

[Ken B]

I'm loathe to get into this because its the kind of fight that made TC such a toxic environment. Except to say: that's a projection by the people unfamiliar with the music or its current supporters. There was some sabre-rattling rhetoric from a few big names many decades ago, but nobody - nobody - who loves C20 and contemporary classical talks like that.

The paraphrase about the blue haired ladies comes from a comment made here on GMG within the past few weeks. And I at least have detected the attitude from more than one poster here. So I must disagree with you that nobody talks like that anymore.

[ritter]

Let's all try to avoid bringing that kind of toxicity over to GMG, shall we? There's room for all tastes here, in my experience...

[SimonNZ]

Debussy Preludes +2
Berio Sinfonia +1
Grieg Piano Concerto -1

[Androcles]

I am not a musician, and have no musical education to speak of. I do have a mild obsession with the world of classical music and its sheer variety, however. I am just as likely to listen to Tallis, Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Prokofiev, Rubbra, Carter or Stockhausen and get different positive experiences from each. Modern(ist) music, just like any other genre, can be absolutely fascinating, powerful and rewarding. I guess with the older stuff, theres been more time to weed out the not so good stuff.

I would like to encourage people to explore, but modern(ist) music will be quite difficult to many people, so we ought to be quite careful recommending it as 'central repertoire'. Often, learning to listen to it is a quite a significant skill, and those who like it underestimate this, because they have learned this skill. Composers like Carter or Ferneyhough to my mind sit here. On the other hand, some of it might be great for the 'unintiated' if they have no preconceptions about what music should sound like I took my 5 year old daughter to see Messiaen's Turangalila Symphony as her first classical concert and she loved it, perhaps due to all the interesting sounds and a lack of preconceptions on her part.  So I would recommend the Turangalila over many other modern pieces.

[Chronochromie]

Monteverdi: L'Orfeo +2
Mussorgsky: Boris Godunov +1
Bach: Brandenburg Concertos, BWV 1046-1051 -1

[Mahlerian]

I am not a musician, and have no musical education to speak of. I do have a mild obsession with the world of classical music and its sheer variety, however. I am just as likely to listen to Tallis, Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Prokofiev, Rubbra, Carter or Stockhausen and get different positive experiences from each. Modern(ist) music, just like any other genre, can be absolutely fascinating, powerful and rewarding. I guess with the older stuff, theres been more time to weed out the not so good stuff.

I would like to encourage people to explore, but modern(ist) music will be quite difficult to many people, so we ought to be quite careful recommending it as 'central repertoire'. Often, learning to listen to it is a quite a significant skill, and those who like it underestimate this, because they have learned this skill. Composers like Carter or Ferneyhough to my mind sit here. On the other hand, some of it might be great for the 'unintiated' if they have no preconceptions about what music should sound like I took my 5 year old daughter to see Messiaen's Turangalila Symphony as her first classical concert and she loved it, perhaps due to all the interesting sounds and a lack of preconceptions on her part.  So I would recommend the Turangalila over many other modern pieces.

I think that classical listeners overlook how difficult it is for non-classical listeners to appreciate Bach, Mozart, or Beethoven.  Like the different perspective required by a fully chromatic harmonic palette, classical music feels alien to listeners who have grown up entirely with popular music.

I suggest that recommendation threads such as this be used to put forward what we as individuals consider to be of especially high quality, regardless of idiom.  Perhaps optimistically, I believe that any great art will reveal itself to one who puts in the effort.

[Androcles]

I think that classical listeners overlook how difficult it is for non-classical listeners to appreciate Bach, Mozart, or Beethoven.  Like the different perspective required by a fully chromatic harmonic palette, classical music feels alien to listeners who have grown up entirely with popular music.

I suggest that recommendation threads such as this be used to put forward what we as individuals consider to be of especially high quality, regardless of idiom.  Perhaps optimistically, I believe that any great art will reveal itself to one who puts in the effort.

I think you are right, of course, about how difficult it can be to listen to Bach, Mozart and Beethoven. It look me a long time to appreciate any of these three. In fact the first classical music I listened to seriously was Bruckner and then Mahler (Mahler particularly appealed to my late teenage sensibilities). I also think you are right about hoping that quality will speak for itself. On the other hand, I remember several years later working my way through early Schoenberg and then Berg and eventually Webern. It took me many hearings to eventually get to grips with the Three Pieces for Orchestra. Now I think its a work of genius. With Webern, I didn't get it at all until I listened to all the opus numbers in order. Then it was an intense and beautiful experience. So, I think, I wouldn't want these composers to be ignored. Then, neither would I want them to be right at the top of the list as in reality I don't think many 'newbies' would really respond until they'd at least had a crack at some of the easier stuff (unless they were already into experimental 70s prog rock of the Captain Beefheart variety or avantgarde jazz or some such thing before giving classical music a spin). In fact, as an example, sending them straight to Carter's 3rd String Quartet (which I consider to be one of the greatest 20th century works in the genre), would probably not be the best way of getting people into Carter's 3rd Quartet. Ultimately, although Bach, Mozart and Beethoven have layers that you may discover after many hearings, there is generally a surface appeal too. I'm just a little afraid that recommending some pieces would be a bit like recommending Hegel's 'Phenomenology of Spirit' or Heidegger's 'Being and Time' at your local reading club.

I think there's a question of balance here, which hopefully would be ironed out in the process suggested for this thread, which I think is a very helpful one for achieving the stated aims. Ie, for the more controversial 'modern' pieces, those who love them will put +2, and those who hate them will put -1. And hopefully what we get in the end will be about fair, representative and hopefully some quite challenging pieces will be mixed in with the more standard repertoire to give the list a bit of a interesting twist.

[Ken B]

I think that classical listeners overlook how difficult it is for non-classical listeners to appreciate Bach, Mozart, or Beethoven.  Like the different perspective required by a fully chromatic harmonic palette, classical music feels alien to listeners who have grown up entirely with popular music.

I suggest that recommendation threads such as this be used to put forward what we as individuals consider to be of especially high quality, regardless of idiom.  Perhaps optimistically, I believe that any great art will reveal itself to one who puts in the effort.

Exactly right. This is related to the point I was making earlier, that older music is in fact stranger in many ways to modern ears saturated in contemporary music (as we all are) .

[Gaspard de la nuit]

The paraphrase about the blue haired ladies comes from a comment made here on GMG within the past few weeks. And I at least have detected the attitude from more than one poster here. So I must disagree with you that nobody talks like that anymore.

Which posts on this thread conveyed that message to you?  I certainly agree there is now an "attitude" on this thread but I don't see any that match your outrageous claims. 

[Ken B]

Which posts on this thread conveyed that message to you?  I certainly agree there is now an "attitude" on this thread but I don't see any that match your outrageous claims.

Who said this thread? Do you understand a poster is a person, and posters post on various threads? You are also pretty new here. Have you been reading the site for years secretly, or might there be posts you haven't read. 

Really, I'm done with you since you get in such a rude snit when people say things you disagree with.

[Gaspard de la nuit]

Who said this thread? Do you understand a poster is a person, and posters post on various threads? You are also pretty new here. Have you been reading the site for years secretly, or might there be posts you haven't read. 

Really, I'm done with you since you get in such a rude snit when people say things you disagree with.

OMG, you did. You literally just said that you "detected the attitude from more than one poster here". At least own up to your own words. You started with the snarky comment about how it's not Modernist music that's the problem it's just Modernist listeners that try to embellish how "edgy" the music is. Then, after being called out on this, you claimed that they were on this very thread. So I ask you, point them out.

Don't say things if you have no intention of backing them up. And don't you dare think you can try to belittle me with a sentence that starts out "do you understand..." and not expect me to fire back. From where I come from you don't talk down to people and then think you can walk away unscathed. I'll eat you for breakfast Kenny Boy and then take seconds.

[Androcles]

It might make them curious of contemporary works if they see them listed alongside the warhorses in our estimation.

(and, yeah, I hope the people that vote them down have actually heard them, and not just doing it as some kind of policy)

Looking back, I think I agree with this, as long as 'alongside' doesn't mean not voting for or voting down the 'warhorses' just for the sake of it or not being able to vote down modern music I don't like... Listening to new music is very important - the 'warhorses' were all new once, and they stuck in the repertoire because people both started and kept listening to them, found extra depth in them etc.

[Androcles]

Why would anyone need to be recommended these hugely famous works by Beethoven, Bach and company? Does anyone really need help discovering Beethovens Ninth or the Mass in B minor? I get the impression that many are just trying to see their favorite (very well known) works listed above Modernist works. I'm going to recommend recent works that people might actually need help discovering and I hope they're not going to be voted off by people who've never even heard them.

+2 Saariaho Je sens un deuxième coeur
+1 Hans Abrahamsen Let me tell you
-1 Beethoven Violin Concerto

Thanks for the Abrahamsen suggestion. Its very good.

[Ken B]

OMG, you did. You literally just said that you "detected the attitude from more than one poster here". At least own up to your own words. You started with the snarky comment about how it's not Modernist music that's the problem it's just Modernist listeners that try to embellish how "edgy" the music is. Then, after being called out on this, you claimed that they were on this very thread. So I ask you, point them out.

Don't say things if you have no intention of backing them up. And don't you dare think you can try to belittle me with a sentence that starts out "do you understand..." and not expect me to fire back. From where I come from you don't talk down to people and then think you can walk away unscathed. I'll eat you for breakfast Kenny Boy and then take seconds.

"detected the attitude from more than one poster here"
I did say that, and despite explaining it you still don't understand it!
poster = person who posts, on various threads. Post = particular post. So nowhere did I restrict my point to just posts (not posters, posts) on this thread, as you repeatedly, wrongly claim. My comment, I repeat, is about what people have said on various GMG threads.
So you clearly did NOT understand.

[Gaspard de la nuit]

I would like to apologize to those that put up with my argument.  Coming from a popular music background, I am not used to that distinctly "classical" snobby attitude but I can see this is still a major problem on this forum.  (I do not doubt that most do not even realize they are doing it, but if the tables were turned they would undeniably see it.)  It just gets very frustrating when you see the music you love bashed over and over again by people who have no interest in it.  Honestly, I have yet to find a thread that does not have some comment, snub or blatant attack against contemporary music as soon as the topic comes up. 

Anyway, I do not wish to derail this thread any longer so I will simply move on while my head is still held high.  Lord knows, a fan of contemporary music cannot do that for very long around here. 

[Ken B]

Chausson, Op. 21, Concert in D for piano, violin, and string quartet (1889–91) 2
Adams Harmonielehre 1
Messiaen, Turangalila -1