Living Composers

[Uhor]

This month I decided to create a list of not-so-well-known living composers in the vein of "timbral texturalism". So far the list (that has no particular order to it) is reaching almost 50 composers.

In general these composers use complex, delicate textural writing, playing with shimmering lights and devouring dark hues of excellently exploited timbral colours.

1. Alexey Retinsky�
2. Saad Haddad�
3. Chinary Ung�
4. Fabien Lévy�
5. Sarah Nemtsov�
6. Anthony Cheung�
7.Agata Zubel�
8.Ashley Fure�
9. Tansy Davies�
10. Misato Mochizuki�
11. Sasha Blondeau�
12. Daniel Serrano�
13. Tobias Feierabend�
14. Tom Coult�
15. Diana Rotaru�
16. Javier Quislant García�
17. Masahiro Yamauchi�
18. Yan Ee Toh�
19. Laurence Osborn�
20. Carolina Heredia�
21. Yu-Hui Chang�
22. Martin Matalon�
23. Brice Pauset�
24. Quentin Lauvray�
25. Jean-Luc Herve�
26. James Weeks�
27. Patrick Ellis�
28. Martyna Kosecka�
29. Richard Barrett�
30. Adrien Trybucki�
31. George E. Lewis�
32. Lawrence Dunn�
33. Anya Pospelova�
34. Clemens Gadenstätter�
35. Katharina Rosenberger�
36. Barnaby Martin�
37. Alexey Sioumak�
38. Philipp Maintz�
39. Yair Klartag�
40. Annesley Black�
41. Adrien Trybucki�
42. George E. Lewis�
43. Lawrence Dunn�
44. Clemens Gadenstätter�
45. Katharina Rosenberger�
46. Augustin Braud�
47. Anna Pospelova�

General trends in these composers:

Timbre takes center stage: The purpose of the composition is to generate its own sound-world and different, sometimes exotic, instruments are used or highlighted for their evocative power.
Limpid harmonies: the tones of the chords all blend well and sound clean as opposed to strident, blurry or muddy.
Detailed rhythmic patterns that can be performed with good fidelity by top musicians.
Rhythmic dissonance is preferred over harmonic harshness: complex polyrhythms permeate the compositions and the many interactions between them are at the crux of climaxes.
De-emphasis of counterpoint: Any multiple lines present are treated primarily as texture rather than as independent lines.
Clear self-similar textures: every element of the textures is necessary and can be discerned well, the textures seem to be constructed either by expanding a motivic pattern (bottom-to-top) or by carving a large structure in an ordered way (top-to-bottom).
Textural layering: different contrasting textures are juxtaposed, each with their own direction or function, supporting each other or generating chaos.
Abrupt accentuation: contrasting sounds that appear as point-objects can mark the transition from one section to another and/or have a smaller role as foreign elements that spice up the music.

[Brian]

Katharina Rosenberger is listed twice!

[BWV 1080]

What about Yann Robin and Franck Bedrossian?

[Mandryka]

Try Mark R Taylor here

http://www.anothertimbre.com/tayloraftermaths.html

And Catherine Lamb's Divisio spiralis, there's a recording by The Jack Quartet.

[André Le Nôtre]

Can you suggest some pieces as an intro to this style and these composers? A list of 50 composers I have never heard of is a bit overwhelming.

I am not sure, based on the descriptions, it seems that this style would include at least some of the music o fJohn Luther Adams and Pauline Oliveros (?)

In some respects: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEqvpnsE1bs

[Atriod]

Would Alan Fletcher qualify?

[Daverz]

Would Anna Thorvaldsdottir fit the style?

[pjme]

Stefan Prins
https://www.stefanprins.be/eng/index.html



Annelies Van Parys
https://www.anneliesvanparys.be/works/orchestra/

[pjme]

https://joeyroukens.com/

[pjme]

https://www.mathildewantenaar.com/

[pjme]

Camille Pépin :

Sleep has taken your imprint - concerto for violin and orchestra.
1. Le sommeil a pris ton empreinte
Et la colore de tes yeux I.
2. Le Temps déborde
3. Le sommeil a pris ton empreinte
Et la colore de tes yeux II.
4. Le Phénix
5.. Le sommeil a pris ton empreinte
Et la colore de tes yeux III

Inspired by Paul Eluard.

Website Camille Pépin

[pjme]

Bram Van Camp

Bram Van camp

Introduzione - Agitato
Recitativo
Allegro capriccioso

[Toni Bernet]

 There are pieces of music that can jump out at you immediately. That's what happened to me with the Violin Concerto (2015) by Andrew Waggoner. Whether it was the recognition of the world of fifths, which is fundamental to violin playing and on which everything the violin produces is built. Whether it was the symbolic depth of the world of fifths, which is always inherent in the art of violin playing and which becomes the theme of this violin concerto?

"Following an opening movement in which everything is in some way an acoustical trace of the solo violin's open A and E strings, and a second movement, itself arising from the open D and A, in which this buzzing of fifth-based resonance becomes a kaleidoscopic, at times unhinged,perpetuum mobile, the third is an elegy that wanders through a series of free variations until it explodes in a catharsis that is both excruciating and ecstatic. Theviolin and orchestra become unstuck from each other after this revelation, with the orchestra retreating into hushed echoes while the violin pushes farther outward, upward, deeper into its own anguished process of discovery. It is as if too many ghosts have been disturbed by the violence of the climax, and the orchestra wants to return them to rest, while the violin is determined to make them speak, to answer for something long neglected and denied." (Andrew Waggoner)
 

What additionally fascinates me about Andrew Waggoner is his reflection on music and his statements about what music can existentially open up and bring about:

"You see, I want in music to be seized; terrified; bathed in immersive beauty; dismembered and reborn; I want to be forcibly plunged into its political, social, and sensual dimensions; I want my relationships to memory, the passing of time, and my own mortality laid bare; I want to be in the presence of the other. This, for me is real presence. This is my call from across the Styx. Our completion as human beings, our access to the expansion of soul that music makes possible, demands this encounter with its otherness. This is true whether we are doubters, atheists, or are unshakable in our faith. The experience need not extend out there, running up the overtone series and into the music of the spheres, but simply illuminate the unseen yet essential dimensions of the here and now." (Andrew Waggoner)


And about the approach to his music, Andrew Waggoner said:


"I think the best way for people to approach me and my music is to know going into it is that the two paramount values for me in any musical exchange are strangeness and beauty.

I say "strangeness" because the most arresting, durable encounters we have with creative work are marked by a level of confusion, or of the numinous, of something that immediately strikes us as "other," but that, hopefully, the work itself gives us the tools to sort out over the course of the experience.

"Beauty" is perhaps a little more self-evident, but it can manifest in myriad ways, of course, including beauty of form, of shape or dramatic arc. Much of the music I love most (J.S. Bach, Beethoven, Stravinsky, Duke Ellington (below), Miles Davis, Harbison (really!), Elliott Carter, Pierre Boulez) moves me at the level of the big shape as much as at that of surface sensuality.

That said, sensuality is hugely important to me, and when I feel I've found a unity of shape and surface beauty that makes a listener want to stay with a piece long enough to figure out where its strangeness is coming from and what it means, I feel like I've hit the jackpot. This doesn't happen all the time, of course." (Andrew Waggoner in an interview)

You find a listening guide and more on:

https://unbekannte-violinkonzerte.jimdofree.com/e-5/waggoner/

[Scion7]

There are pieces of music that can jump out at you immediately. That's what happened to me with the Violin Concerto (2015) by Andrew Waggoner.

Well, this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQLRsAeqIYw
... doesn't grab me. Just shows how tastes can vary.

[foxandpeng]

Would this thread be better if it were retitled? 'Timbral texturalism', maybe?

I keep seeing it and thinking, 'Cool. A thread on 21st century composers!', and then realising it is about something far narrower.

Just a thought, not a criticism 🙂

[pjme]

In 2013, Monumenta I, an orchestral work with 95 real parts by Yann Robin, was created. Today, the composer offers us the second part of what now forms a diptych, the composition of which has been significantly enriched, since the orchestra is joined by two solo pianos, an organ, a vocal ensemble and a choir : a monumental, almost Berliozian workforce. If the presence of two solo pianos leans the work towards the concerto side, that of the organ and choirs leans it towards the mass. This orchestral experience was combined with vocal work which gave rise to Five Sacred Studies (2021) for six mixed voices on texts from the Requiem which constitute the matrix of Requiem Æternam. Monumenta I. From Ockeghem to Ligeti via Verdi or Berlioz, composers have made choices among the different parts of the text of the Mass for the Dead. Yann Robin kept seven: Introitus – Kyrie – Dies irae – Tuba mirum – Rex tremendae - Confutatis and Lux aeterna, abandoning Sanctus and Agnus dei which would undoubtedly have too much reinforced the religious dimension of the work. The notion of solo writing is added to this fusion between the secular writing of Monumenta I and that of the Five Sacred Studies. According to Yann Robin, "the orchestra can be seen [here] as a monument in itself. [...] The immense 'sound jaws' of this fabulous and phenomenal 'sound factory' are for the imagination both fertile sources and sometimes inevitable traps. »
Yann Robin does not avoid this clash between concerto and requiem, this quest for the sacred in a profane world, "access to transcendence through art, here music. »
https://brahms.ircam.fr/en/yann-robin

[pjme]

More world premieres at Radio France.
Versnaeyen is a very Flemish/Belgian name...which isn't unusual as she was born in Arras (Atrecht - Comté des Flandres).
Anyway a rather lovely work .

Anne-Sophie Versnaeyen is a French film music composer and songwriter based in Paris.
From her classical background studying at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris - Formation Supérieur aux Métiers du Son, she has developed a successful career as a film composer notably writing the music for Nicolas Bedos' La Belle Epoque which was nominated for 11 César Awards and presented at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival.
"It was in a village in Pas-de-Calais, Rivière, that I had the chance to spend part of my childhood. Childhood, this ephemeral but profoundly significant period of our lives, is a web of memories woven from moments of innocence, discoveries, suffering and pure emotions. Rivière is a sound exploration that immerses the listener in the introspective journey at the intersection between childhood, the evocative misty and mysterious landscapes of Pas-de Calais and the universal theme of death.

The work opens with a soft and melancholy atmosphere evoking the first emotions, innocent games and crystalline laughter. The melodies evoke the wild beauty of this region, capturing the gentle melancholy of infinite horizons and the quiet power of nature. However, as the work progresses, a darker and more contemplative dimension emerges, addressing the themes of drama, death and transcendence. Through elaborate sound textures and recurring motifs, the music explores the duality between the last breath and the eternity of the soul."

[Karl Henning]

My friend David Bohn lives in Wisconsin, and our mutual friend Carson Cooman is here in Massachusetts.

[hopefullytrusting]

Been on the search for ditties:

Nicholas Ho's Etudes
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oETGxKy0K6Y&pp=ygURbmljaG9sYXMgaG8gZXR1ZGU%3D

From the composer:
"As with William Bolcom's Twelve New Etudes for Piano (1977– 1986), the primary goal of this set of études is the "creation and execution of pieces of music," which happen to be exercises focused on different technical aspects of piano-playing. Just as how Beethoven used his piano sonatas as an "experimental lab" in developing ideas that would make "their way into larger settings" such as symphonies, I endeavored to use the piano étude genre in experimenting with my ever-evolving compositional voice."

A truly delightful, amazing little set of pieces. :-)

[hopefullytrusting]

Composer: Andres Soto
https://m.youtube.com/@AndresSotoMarin/videos

Piece: Bailongo, o Danzas de Pasion y Desden

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=M3buNSzhyJw

When a piece starts with the conductor grinning, you know it is going to be good. It is delightfully "Latin," and you'll be shaking your rump long before you reach the end. You can tell everyone was having fun playing it, and that just adds to its allure. :-)