Top 10 post 1950 composers

[some guy]

Not a big fan of zero discussion threads, but since there did seem to be quite a lot of the same names from list to list, and a lot of people who just barely made it into the fifties, I thought I would make a list of my own, consisting entirely of composers not yet mentioned. I did not succeed, but there are so many really wonderful composers here, I offer this list, anyway:

Maryanne Amacher
Michèle Bokanowski
Christian Calon
Iancu Dumitrescu
eRikm
Beatriz Ferreyra
Emmanuelle Gibello
Jonty Harrison
Toshi Ichyanagi
Elsa Justel
Zbigniew Karkowski
Francisco López
Francisco Meirino
Andrea Neumann
Bob Ostertag
Bernard Parmegiani
Israel Quellet
Eliane Radigue
Michael Schumacher
Doug Theriault
Galina Ustvolskaya
Giovanni Verrando
John Wiese
Iannis Xenakis
Otomo Yoshihide
Christian Zanézi

[Cato]

Not a big fan of zero discussion threads, but since there did seem to be quite a lot of the same names from list to list, and a lot of people who just barely made it into the fifties, I thought I would make a list of my own, consisting entirely of composers not yet mentioned. I did not succeed, but there are so many really wonderful composers here, I offer this list, anyway:

Maryanne Amacher
Michèle Bokanowski
Christian Calon
Iancu Dumitrescu
eRikm
Beatriz Ferreyra
Emmanuelle Gibello
Jonty Harrison
Toshi Ichyanagi
Elsa Justel
Zbigniew Karkowski
Francisco López
Francisco Meirino
Andrea Neumann
Bob Ostertag
Bernard Parmegiani
Israel Quellet
Eliane Radigue
Michael Schumacher
Doug Theriault
Galina Ustvolskaya
Giovanni Verrando
John Wiese
Iannis Xenakis
Otomo Yoshihide
Christian Zanézi

First one who came to mind: our own Karl Henning.

https://www.youtube.com/v/H1GX6gAmom8



Also Lera Auerbach:

https://www.youtube.com/v/rpRr-tTEpfw

[amw]

Not a big fan of zero discussion threads, but since there did seem to be quite a lot of the same names from list to list, and a lot of people who just barely made it into the fifties, I thought I would make a list of my own, consisting entirely of composers not yet mentioned. I did not succeed, but there are so many really wonderful composers here, I offer this list, anyway:

I appreciate the alphabetisation!

It's not hard to pick out my personal favourites, but putting together a full list of recommendations would be a challenge. There's a lot of good music out there.

My personal short list would contain some of the following names:
Oren Ambarchi
Mark Andre
Georges Aperghis
Ana-Maria Avram
Malin Bång
Natasha Barrett
Richard Barrett
Luciano Berio
Christophe Bertrand
Pierluigi Billone
Olivia Block
Pierre Boulez
Anthony Braxton
Sylvano Bussotti
John Cage
Cornelius Cardew
Aaron Cassidy
Niccolò Castiglioni
Aldo Clementi
Alvin Curran
Chaya Czernowin
Nguyen-Thien Dao
Chris Dench
Frank Denyer
James Dillon
Milica Djordjević
Franco Donatoni
Hugues Dufourt
Julius Eastman
Peter Eötvös
Ahmed Essyad
Franco Evangelisti

...and that's only the first 5 letters of the alphabet..... honestly would be much easier to prepare sub-lists of composers by genre, medium, or whatever.

[some guy]

And thank you, amw, for posting some names that are unfamiliar to me.

Not that easy to do, if all your names are people who write new music.

(I'm going to start with Milica Djordjević, partly because my knowledge of Serbian composers is practically zero.)

[schnittkease]

Interesting. I know Frank Denyer from his amazing Ustvolskaya cycle, but didn't know he was a composer as well.

[amw]

If y'all want my recommendations for F thru Z they are ready to go anytime <.<

And thank you, amw, for posting some names that are unfamiliar to me.

Not that easy to do, if all your names are people who write new music.

I think we have somewhat different tastes, I'm less into electro & generally keep much better track of people who do composed music. Not that there aren't some improvisers, sound artists, etc who I believe everyone interested in post-1950 music should hear at least to form an opinion, of course. But I am pretty sensitive to sound and get migraines so I'm always a bit wary of heading out to the Audio Foundation lol

[some guy]

Somewhat. Lots of overlap, though.

And, just for the record, I am "into" electro because I'm sensitive to sound.

I do want to see F through Z. Pretty sure you already knew that!

[amw]

I do enjoy it, but when attending live concerts can result in me being in a significant amount of pain for some time afterwards (& this isn't limited to electro, it's anything involving amplification or high volume—the first time I remember getting a migraine from music was at a performance of the Shostakovich 11th Symphony where I guess we were seated too close to the percussion)

Anyway:

Jean-Luc Fafchamps
Morton Feldman
Brian Ferneyhough
Luc Ferrari (personal top 3 post-1950)
Michael Finnissy
Christopher Fox
Luca Francesconi
Mamoru Fujieda
Ellen Fullman
Beat Furrer
Clemens Gadenstätter
Roberto Gerhard
Stefano Gervasoni
Rune Glerup—also one of my favourite composer names
Heiner Goebbels
Karel Goeyvaerts
Annie Gosfield
Gérard Grisey
Francisco Guerrero (not the 16th century one)
Jean-Pierre Guézec
Cristóbal Halffter
Bryn Harrison
Jonty Harrison
Lou Harrison (some of these guys should have considered a new surname)
Hans Werner Henze
Hans-Joachim Hespos
Rolf Hind (another pianist-composer)
Noriko Hisada
Wieland Hoban
Heinz Holliger (also personal top 3 post-1950)
Vagn Holmboe
Jexper Holmen
Adriana Hölszky
Klaus K. Hübler
Clara Iannotta
Kristian Ireland
Zoltán Jeney
Pierre Jodlowski
Evan Johnson
Ben Johnston
André Jolivet
Mauricio Kagel.... sometimes
Dominik Karski
Roland Kayn
Wilhelm Killmayer
Jo Kondo
Włodżimierz Kotoński
Dmitri Kourliandski
Zygmunt Krauze
Ernst Krenek
Hanna Kulenty
György Kurtág
Yannis Kyriakides
Helmut Lachenmann
René Leibowitz
Kenneth Leighton
Georges Lentz
George Lewis (not the New Orleans bandleader, but also a jazzer)
György Ligeti
Liza Lim (maybe top 4?)
Annea Lockwood
Francisco López, already mentioned above by some guy
Alvin Lucier
Witold Lutosławski
José Maceda
François-Bernard Mâche
Bruno Maderna
Bruno Mantovani (not the guy with his own orchestra)
Tomás Marco
Benedict Mason
Timothy McCormack
Olivier Messiaen
Brunhild Meyer-Ferrari
Costin Miereanu
Wolfgang Mitterer
Ole-Henrik Moe
Ikue Mori
Isabel Mundry
Tristan Murail
Paweł Mykietyn
Conlon Nancarrow
Olga Neuwirth
Chris Newman
Ştefan Niculescu
Luigi Nono
Arne Nordheim (possibly my favourite of the "Nørdic" group of composers that also includes Nørgård, Nordgren, Nørholm, Nordstrom & maybe others I don't know about)
Maurice Ohana
Pauline Oliveros
Else Marie Pade
Åke Parmerud
Brice Pauset
Gérard Pesson
Goffredo Petrassi
Michael Pisaro
Enno Poppe
Henri Pousseur
Dick Raaijmakers
Éliane Radigue
Horațiu Rădulescu
Maja S.K. Ratkje (I have no idea what the S.K. stands for)
Roger Reynolds
Rolf Riehm
Jean-Claude Risset
Fausto Romitelli
Lucia Ronchetti
Vanessa Rossetto
Poul Ruders
Rebecca Saunders
Steffen Schleiermacher
Dieter Schnebel
Salvatore Sciarrino (top 5?)
Stefano Scodanibbio
Kazimierz Serocki
Roger Sessions
Howard Skempton
Denis Smalley
Bent Sørensen
Mathias Spahlinger
Simon Steen-Andersen
Karlheinz Stockhausen
Marco Stroppa
Chiyoko Szlavnics
James Tenney
Anna Thorvaldsdottir
Jukka Tiensuu
Tôn-Thất Tiết
Michael Tippett
Jakob Ullmann
Galina Ustvolskaya
Claude Vivier
Matthew Waldron (who records as "irr. app. (ext.)")
Rolf Wallin
Jennifer Walshe
James Weeks
Stefan Węgłowski
Mieczysław Weinberg
Christian Wolff
Iannis Xenakis
La Monte Young
Isang Yun
Bernd Alois Zimmermann
John Zorn
Agata Zubel

All from ordering my iTunes library by composer and picking the names that stand out to me as exceptional. Some have little recorded presence though. I'm also open to recommend specific pieces.

[some guy]

Those are some fine people, there.

I'll do the same as before, get going on the names I don't know.

That is a seriously great list of really lovely composers. And you know how I usually deprecate lists. Hmmm. Maybe it's not lists, as such....

[Rinaldo]

Lots of worthy picks but the names I'm missing are Dobrinka Tabakova, Caroline Shaw and Anna Clyne

[some guy]

Lots of worthy picks but the names I'm missing are Dobrinka Tabakova, Caroline Shaw and Anna Clyne

That's why we have more than one member.

I've liked Anna's music for many years now. She's pretty cool, too.

[Mirror Image]

Lots of worthy picks but the names I'm missing are Dobrinka Tabakova, Caroline Shaw and Anna Clyne

I'm still wondering what the hell is going on with Tabakova and ECM Records? Her recording String Paths received universal acclaim and was also nominated for a Grammy Award (not that this means much these days given the current musical climate we all inhabit), but this was six years ago. I still believe that her Cello Concerto is one of the best newer works to be recorded in a long time. This work is accessible (without ever dumbing down to achieve mass appeal), emotional, deeply moving, and fiery passionate. It certainly is a piece with a lot of heart. It's just too bad we can't hear more of her music.

[schnittkease]

Tabakova seems not to have written anything major since 2013 -- only a few small choral works.

[Mirror Image]

Tabakova seems not to have written anything major since 2013 -- only a few small choral works.

Interesting. I hope the muse hasn't left her too early.

[Ken B]

In no particular order except the first two

Shostakovich
Nyman

Britten
Simpson
Glass
Reich
Ten Holt
Sondheim

[San Antone]

Most of the names I would suggest have already been named.  Although a few have not:

Krzysztof Meyer
Osvaldo Golijov
Francis Dhomont
Bernard Parmegiani

[Mirror Image]

Let's see if I can assemble a list (in no particular order):

Takemitsu
Lutosławski
Schnittke
Scelsi
Kurtág
Ligeti
Silvestrov
Pärt
Xenakis
Górecki

I feel kind of bad for leaving off Lou Harrison, John Luther Adams, and I didn't choose composers like Stravinsky, Shostakovich, Barber, Copland, or Britten, for example, for the simple fact that I don't really feel that their aesthetic is much a part of the 1960s through our present time. They represent an older generation that came to prominence in the early half of the 20th Century (with some notable exceptions with several of these composers' works getting recognition in the mid-30s and around WWII and, in Stravinsky's, case in the 1910s since he was much older than Shostakovich, Barber, Copland, etc.).

[Ken B]

Let's see if I can assemble a list (in no particular order):

Takemitsu
Lutosławski
Schnittke
Scelsi
Kurtág
Ligeti
Silvestrov
Pärt
Xenakis
Górecki

I feel kind of bad for leaving off Lou Harrison, John Luther Adams, and I didn't choose composers like Stravinsky, Shostakovich, Barber, Copland, or Britten, for example, for the simple fact that I don't really feel that their aesthetic is much a part of the 1960s through our present time. They represent an older generation that came to prominence in the early half of the 20th Century (with some notable exceptions with several of these composers' works getting recognition in the mid-30s and around WWII and, in Stravinsky's, case in the 1910s since he was much older than Shostakovich, Barber, Copland, etc.).

I knew you would kick Shostakovich to the curb one day John! Today is that day.

Late symphonies, most quartets, concerti, late song cycles, preludes and fugues all 1950 or later.

[Mirror Image]

I knew you would kick Shostakovich to the curb one day John! Today is that day.

Late symphonies, most quartets, concerti, late song cycles, preludes and fugues all 1950 or later.

Shostakovich is one of my favorite composers and no one kicked anyone to the curb. I explained the reason for my choices.

[SymphonicAddict]

In my case:

Schnittke
Simpson
Penderecki
Pettersson
Lloyd
Englund
Vasks
Arnold
Lutoslawski
Holmboe

Pärt, John Coolidge Adams and Rautavaara would be the the next candidates.