Modern composers

[Henk]

I like modern, contemporary composers more then the old composers. I find their work more intruiging, fresh, lively, far more interesting to listening to I've discovered and I've really tried a lot old composer's music (of course I like some pieces).
Modern classical music sounds really different then the "old stuff" I think. But is there really such a sharp boundary to draw between them? Maybe it began with Satie and Schoenberg?
However, I don't like all modern composers. Composers I don't like are Messiaen (except his Turangalila symphonie), Bartok, Berio. Bartok and Messiaen are a bit overestimated IMO or simply I don't like them. Composers I like are Schoenberg, Webern, Satie, Ligeti, Rihm, Wuorinen, Varese, Lachenmann, Goebbels, Kagel, Vivier. I would like to hear if I forget some important names so I can discover some other works..

Henk

[Mark]

Henk, Pierre Boulez famously claimed that 'modernism' in classical music began with Debussy's 'Prelude a l'apres-midi d'un faune'. Perhaps the music of the older of these two Frenchman might give you an interesting perspective on the meeting of old and new.

[Fëanor]

I like modern, contemporary composers more then the old composers. I find their work more intruiging, fresh, lively, far more interesting to listening to I've discovered and I've really tried a lot old composer's music (of course I like some pieces).
Modern classical music sounds really different then the "old stuff" I think. But is there really such a sharp boundary to draw between them? Maybe it began with Satie and Schoenberg?
However, I don't like all modern composers. Composers I don't like are Messiaen (except his Turangalila symphonie), Bartok, Berio. Bartok and Messiaen are a bit overestimated IMO or simply I don't like them. Composers I like are Schoenberg, Webern, Satie, Ligeti, Rihm, Wuorinen, Varese, Lachenmann, Goebbels, Kagel, Vivier. I would like to hear if I forget some important names so I can discover some other works..
Henk

I'm neither a musician nor musicologist but it seems to me that a fairly clear distinction can be made between tonal music and atonal on the other hand.  Arnold Scheonberg pretty much invented atonal music, (12 tone or serial if you like), and his early followers were Anton Webern and Alban Berg.  Stravinsky wrote some atonal, and Bartok, Messiaen, Scriabin, and Hindemith for example dabbled a bit, but their music that I'm most familiar isn't really atonal.  The likes of Prokofiev, Shostakovich (a favorite of mine), Satie, Ives, Britten, and Tippett never really wrote atonal music even though they are certainly "Modern".

But for atonal, in addition to the already mentioned Ligeti, Rihm, Wuorinen, Varese, Boulez, and Birtwistle (whose Earth Dances I really like), I want to add Elliot Carter (I'm a big fan), Iannis Xenakis, Krysztof Penderecki, Witold Lutosławski, and Henryk Gorecki (who has mainly gone back to tonality).

[hornteacher]

Consider trying the music of Steve Reich:

Music for 18 Musicians
New York Counterpoint
Clapping Music

[Josquin des Prez]

Personally, the spirit of European art was annhilited between the world wars, and there's very little past 1945 which i would call "great", mostly, coming from composers who were born when things were still holding on, if barely.

Other then that, contemporary art is an absolute catastrophe of unprecedented proportions. European civilization is as good as dead, and with American prestige and influence waning the entire west is on a culture death struggle for which i see no resolution.

[Robert Dahm]

Personally, the spirit of European art was annhilited between the world wars, and there's very little past 1945 which i would call "great", mostly, coming from composers who were born when things were still holding on, if barely.

Other then that, contemporary art is an absolute catastrophe of unprecedented proportions. European civilization is as good as dead, and with American prestige and influence waning the entire west is on a culture death struggle for which i see no resolution.

Golly, that's a rather extreme view. I'd contend that the total loss of faith the world experienced ca 1918 and the subsequent economic, social and political unrest allowed a radical re-thinking of exactly what the questions were that art could ask, resulting in works of amazing mental/emotional virtuosity that could never have been possible before the war.
On the other hand, I would also contend that the rise of subjectivism after the first world war is also responsible for a certain belief that it's invalid to criticise bad art if it's 'ideologically' valid, which in more recent years has turned into the vile belief that it's invalid to criticise 'creative expression' full-stop.

Bartok and Messiaen are a bit overestimated IMO or simply I don't like them.

I don't think that either of these composers is over-rated, but I do think that their reputations rest on works which do not deserve said reputation. I loathe B's Concerto for Orchestra, but check out the String Quartets. Similarly with Messiaen, have you tried Vingt Regard? St. François d'Assise?

[Mark]

On the other hand, I would also contend that the rise of subjectivism after the first world war is also responsible for a certain belief that it's invalid to criticise bad art if it's 'ideologically' valid, which in more recent years has turned into the vile belief that it's invalid to criticise 'creative expression' full-stop.

Excellent point, well put.

[Henk]

Henk, Pierre Boulez famously claimed that 'modernism' in classical music began with Debussy's 'Prelude a l'apres-midi d'un faune'. Perhaps the music of the older of these two Frenchman might give you an interesting perspective on the meeting of old and new.

I'll try that work. This is an interesting link, which arguments that Satie was the first Modernist: http://solomonsmusic.net/Satie.htm.

Henk

[Mark]

I'll try that work. This is an interesting link, which arguments that Satie was the first Modernist: http://solomonsmusic.net/Satie.htm.

Henk

Interesting link.

Certainly, Satie does have a unique sound which clearly doesn't belong to the late Romantic period. But there is, perhaps, a tendency to dismiss the composer as not being 'serious' - his eccentricity can't have helped him any in this respect. Why Boulez should've chosen the Debussy work over anything by Satie as the birth of Modernism in music is anyone's guess.

[Henk]

I'm neither a musician nor musicologist but it seems to me that a fairly clear distinction can be made between tonal music and atonal on the other hand.  Arnold Scheonberg pretty much invented atonal music, (12 tone or serial if you like), and his early followers were Anton Webern and Alban Berg.  Stravinsky wrote some atonal, and Bartok, Messiaen, Scriabin, and Hindemith for example dabbled a bit, but their music that I'm most familiar isn't really atonal.  The likes of Prokofiev, Shostakovich (a favorite of mine), Satie, Ives, Britten, and Tippett never really wrote atonal music even though they are certainly "Modern".

But for atonal, in addition to the already mentioned Ligeti, Rihm, Wuorinen, Varese, Boulez, and Birtwistle (whose Earth Dances I really like), I want to add Elliot Carter (I'm a big fan), Iannis Xenakis, Krysztof Penderecki, Witold Lutosławski, and Henryk Gorecki (who has mainly gone back to tonality).

Thanks for this clarification. I think I like atonal music more, although I like Satie also (you can maybe call it "soft modernism" :-)). I also like Elliot Carter. I found a list of composers who wrote atonal music:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serialism
I read that in atonal music all tones are evenly important in opposition to tonal music.

Henk

[Henk]

Consider trying the music of Steve Reich:

Music for 18 Musicians
New York Counterpoint
Clapping Music

I know the first too pieces, I have this cd:
I like to play it when I'm packing stuff to leave home for a while .

Henk

[Wanderer]

You may also want to investigate the music of Nikos Skalkottas, one of Schoenberg's most gifted students. In his serialist works he developed a personal method, using more than one tone-rows per work (he also wrote tonal and atonal music).

[karlhenning]

Re: Satie (much though I do enjoy his music) . . . .

No one composer is "the first modernist."  In ways similar to the improbable idea of a single "world's greatest composer," such a statement arbitrarily selects perhaps one of a great many 'modernist' elements in music as somehow supposedly "defining," and (surprise, surprise) the composer whose work that one element favors becomes "the first modernist."

[gomro]

I like modern, contemporary composers more then the old composers. I find their work more intruiging, fresh, lively, far more interesting to listening to I've discovered and I've really tried a lot old composer's music (of course I like some pieces).
Modern classical music sounds really different then the "old stuff" I think. But is there really such a sharp boundary to draw between them? Maybe it began with Satie and Schoenberg?
However, I don't like all modern composers. Composers I don't like are Messiaen (except his Turangalila symphonie), Bartok, Berio. Bartok and Messiaen are a bit overestimated IMO or simply I don't like them. Composers I like are Schoenberg, Webern, Satie, Ligeti, Rihm, Wuorinen, Varese, Lachenmann, Goebbels, Kagel, Vivier. I would like to hear if I forget some important names so I can discover some other works..

Henk

Try Roberto Gerhard, who began as somewhat neo-Classical, ala Stravinsky, but evolved a Schoenbergian with his own aesthetic. This disc is a good starter:

The Symphony is an electro-acoustic work ala Varese's Deserts, and I prefer it to Deserts.

How about Iannis Xenakis? This disc has a great take on Jonchaies, one of his most ferocious pieces:

http://www.amazon.com/Xenakis-Orchestral-Works-Vol-II/dp/B00005RTSE/ref=sr_1_12?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1205794116&sr=1-12

[bhodges]

Try Roberto Gerhard, who began as somewhat neo-Classical, ala Stravinsky, but evolved a Schoenbergian with his own aesthetic. This disc is a good starter:

The Symphony is an electro-acoustic work ala Varese's Deserts, and I prefer it to Deserts.

A huge "yes, yes, yes" to this one.  I only discovered Gerhard's music in the last year or so, and wow, such gorgeous stuff.  I also like the Chandos CD with the Fourth Symphony:



--Bruce

[gomro]

A huge "yes, yes, yes" to this one.  I only discovered Gerhard's music in the last year or so, and wow, such gorgeous stuff.  I also like the Chandos CD with the Fourth Symphony:



--Bruce

Just seeing that image made me put on the Fourth Symphony. There's a fine work! Very much in the universe of Varese and Schoenberg, but completely Gerhard's own.

[Henk]

Try Roberto Gerhard, who began as somewhat neo-Classical, ala Stravinsky, but evolved a Schoenbergian with his own aesthetic. This disc is a good starter:

The Symphony is an electro-acoustic work ala Varese's Deserts, and I prefer it to Deserts.

How about Iannis Xenakis? This disc has a great take on Jonchaies, one of his most ferocious pieces:

http://www.amazon.com/Xenakis-Orchestral-Works-Vol-II/dp/B00005RTSE/ref=sr_1_12?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1205794116&sr=1-12

Never heard of Gerhard, thanks for that suggestion. I will try. I have this cd of Xenakis, which is playing now:


Henk

[Josquin des Prez]

But for atonal, in addition to the already mentioned Ligeti

I don't think Ligeti counts as atonal, or at least he's not 12-tone. I think.

[Fëanor]

I don't think Ligeti counts as atonal, or at least he's not 12-tone. I think.

I'm techical ignoramous but I believe that atonal is a much broader category than 12-tone (which is a subset of it).  On that basis I would say that Ligeti's work is primarily atonal, and more consistently so than that of, say, Penderecki and Lutoslawski whom I also mentioned.

[lukeottevanger]

Ligeti - the Ligeti of the Second SQ and works of that sort of time - is certainly atonal. The later Ligeti, of the Etudes, the Horn Trio, the Piano Concerto etc. - often has enough modality about him to make the classification vary from piece to piece.