Favourite/most important piece composed during your lifetime?

[KevinP]

Title says it all.

You can even pick two: one personal favourite and one most important.

The older you are, the more choices you have.

Can't be a piece you composed. :-)

[bhodges]

Only because I heard it live a few weeks ago (by the Curtis Institute 20/21 Ensemble), going to go with Louis Andriessen's Workers Union (1975). Anticipating the concert, I felt like I was about to hear the Eroica, no joke. Andriessen was highly influential to a generation of composers since, and this is one of his most iconic creations.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workers_Union_(Andriessen)

Runners-up, which I would look forward to with equal enthusiasm:

Wolfgang Rihm: Jagden und Formen (1995-2001)
Frederic Rzewski: De Profundis (1995)
Luciano Berio: Sinfonia (1968)

-Bruce

[Spotted Horses]

Shostakovich Symphony No 15.

[bhodges]

Shostakovich Symphony No 15.

OK, I like that choice.

-Bruce

[KevinP]

I'm still considering mine. It will most likely be Shostakovich, but probably not that one (good as it is).

[bhodges]

I forgot that one of my favorites, No. 11, is from 1957, so it would just barely qualify. But all of the later ones would make great choices, too.

-Bruce

[Maestro267]

Interesting question. How do we define "most important" piece? I don't even know if anything written since 1989 has genuinely entered the Core Repertoire of regularly-performed concert works that put bums in seats.

[Wanderer]

Well, Turangalîla-Symphonie was revised in 1990, so that's my pick in both categories. 😇😎

[71 dB]

I don't know. Too difficult question. Makes my brain hurt...

Pärt? Glass? What work?

[Jo498]

can one systematically search for compositions in a date range? I am not sufficiently versed in music of the last 50 years to know the dates...

[Papy Oli]

Summa by Arvo Pärt came to mind first (in its different incarnations), with 3 years to spare  0:)

[aukhawk]

I think probably Britten's War Requiem.  Though I'm more than old enough to include DSCH Preludes & Fugues Op.87 !!

(Actually, I was tempted to put the cat among the pigeons by suggesting John Coltrane's A Love Supreme.     )

[Mandryka]

Some important pieces, things which really fundamentally altered how people understood what music can be, are

Cornelius Cardew's Treatise
Luc Ferrari's Presque Rien
Helmut Lachenmann's Gran Torsso
Trevor Wishart's Red Bird
John Zorn's Goddard/Spillane
Eliane Radigue's Trilogie
Stockhausen's Hymnen

That there are so many is in itself quite interesting.

[ritter]

Easy for me.... 

Pierre Boulez: Répons (1981-85)

[Todd]

How is importance determined?

[j winter]

This is a very low-brow answer, and says a lot about my ignorance of late 20th century serious music...  but if we're talking about the work that has received the most playtime and has provided the most pleasure in my lifetime, then it's not even close for me...

[pjme]

For me

Britten's War requiem ( deeply impressed after the first live performance)
Penderecki's Saint Luke's passion (idem)

( and, because live concerts: Messiaen 's In expecto , Saint François, Ligeti Requiem)

[relm1]

This is a very low-brow answer, and says a lot about my ignorance of late 20th century serious music...  but if we're talking about the work that has received the most playtime and has provided the most pleasure in my lifetime, then it's not even close for me...

Great answer and this is Johnny's finest.

[Maestro267]

Favourites on the other hand is a bit easier and a bit more relaxing, without the whole philosophical debate required when importance is brought up. Some of mine:

MacMillan - The Confession of Isobel Gowdie (1990)
Schnittke - Cello Concerto No. 2 (1990)
Lloyd - A Symphonic Mass (1993)
Adés - Asyla (1997)
Penderecki - Piano Concerto (2002)
Norman - Sustain (2018)

[bhodges]

Loving all these lists and comments, and making me revise slightly, after being reminded of some of these pieces.

Favorite: Berio Sinfonia. One of my entry points to 20th century music, and brain still lights up whenever it's scheduled on a program.
Most important: Lachenmann Gran Torso. First heard it by an Ensemble Sospeso string quartet years ago, and came away impressed but stumped. What are all these scratching sounds? Changed my life.

-Bruce