Most "modern" classical music being made?

[amw]

Some exceptions to this general trend, just speaking broadly—all of which impressed me with their originality on first listen and still stand apart on repeat listens.

Evan Johnson's music, in general (even if it is sort of like a love child of Ferneyhough and Feldman)
Richard Barrett's big cycles (Dark Matter, Opening of the Mouth, Construction), the smaller pieces to a lesser extent
Vanessa Rossetto Whoreson in the Wilderness, Dogs in English Porcelain, Exotic Exit & a couple of others (I haven't heard much of her recent work)
Liza Lim The Navigators, some of the orchestral pieces, Tongue of the Invisible
Enno Poppe various works, such as Rad or Salz
everything I've heard by Jennifer Walshe
everything I've heard by José Maceda which is not all that much
post-2004 Sciarrino
Annea Lockwood's river-related projects
Fausto Romitelli & Pauline Oliveros are no longer with us but still sound quite contemporary and unique
some of Dmitri Kourliandski's work
James Weeks, sometimes (esp TIDE)
Wolfgang Mitterer's Coloured Noise
Hans Abrahamsen, occasionally, when he can stop his compulsive referencing of the past >.>
Ben Johnston, often, and also sometimes Tom Johnson and William Duckworth if they're still alive
I'll think of more later.

There are also plenty of "unoriginal" or "derivative" composers whose music I enjoy a lot, and being "new" is no indication of quality. I do like all of those people above though.

[some guy]

Well, for what it's worth, here's my take on it.

The original post is asking that two things be considered as one thing, and asking it with no awareness that the two things are two.

Modern classical.

It's also asking that modern be taken as both a description and an honor, but it does at least acknowledge that those are two different things.

To take that one first--the word "modern" can easily mean both "something good" and "a thing with certain characteristics." (It can also just as easily mean "anything done at a certain time," but I'm not a big fan of that one.) The problem arises when, armed with those multiple meanings, one indulges in a spot of equivocation. In one paragraph, it's used as "good" and in another as "with certain characteristics" without any acknowledgement that while the word is the same, the meanings have changed.

Second, if it makes sense to consider the history of the word "classical," then here's what one sees--at its first coinage, it sets off the past as a special place and the products of the past as privileged. So at least in its original sense, it is purposely the antithesis of "modern," which, at the time, would have been late Beethoven, Schubert, Webern, folks like that. Possibly the first person to use "modern" to refer to something as being different from the past was M. Berlioz. All people who have become assimilated into the wider, less precise, meaning of "art music," it being possible to use "classical" to mean "art" when that word is modifying "music."

Whatever ideas one has about the term "art music," it is clear that modifying "art music" with "modern" causes none of the contradictions that modifying "classical music" with the word "modern" most definitely does.

Further, it is maybe interesting to realize that all music of the baroque era was produced without any benefit of the term "baroque." And most of the so-called "classical era" had run its course before the term "classical music" was even coined. That is, one needn't have a term to do the work. Or, one needn't have a stylistic, umbrella term to write music that is stylistically similar to all the other people writing music around you at the same time.

[Mandryka]

Some exceptions to this general trend, just speaking broadly—all of which impressed me with their originality on first listen and still stand apart on repeat listens.

Evan Johnson's music, in general (even if it is sort of like a love child of Ferneyhough and Feldman)
Richard Barrett's big cycles (Dark Matter, Opening of the Mouth, Construction), the smaller pieces to a lesser extent
Vanessa Rossetto Whoreson in the Wilderness, Dogs in English Porcelain, Exotic Exit & a couple of others (I haven't heard much of her recent work)
Liza Lim The Navigators, some of the orchestral pieces, Tongue of the Invisible
Enno Poppe various works, such as Rad or Salz
everything I've heard by Jennifer Walshe
everything I've heard by José Maceda which is not all that much
post-2004 Sciarrino
Annea Lockwood's river-related projects
Fausto Romitelli & Pauline Oliveros are no longer with us but still sound quite contemporary and unique
some of Dmitri Kourliandski's work
James Weeks, sometimes (esp TIDE)
Wolfgang Mitterer's Coloured Noise
Hans Abrahamsen, occasionally, when he can stop his compulsive referencing of the past >.>
Ben Johnston, often, and also sometimes Tom Johnson and William Duckworth if they're still alive
I'll think of more later.

There are also plenty of "unoriginal" or "derivative" composers whose music I enjoy a lot, and being "new" is no indication of quality. I do like all of those people above though.

I listened to Weeks's Tide last night, the transitions are very good, I like it.

[Mandryka]

Here's something I've just found which has made me prick up my ears.

[Karl Henning]

That's a funny oxymoron, isn't it? – Historical / Avant-Garde

[Karl Henning]

How? I always seen 'avant garde' as more of an attitude?

Oh, and it is that.

[Mandryka]

https://soundcloud.com/migro/sets/historical-documents-of-the-irish-avant-garde-album-sampler

[millionrainbows]

So, yes, labels fail us. "Modern classical' most broadly means 'music made with traditional instruments, which were designed to produce discreet sustained pitches, played by human hands.' The problem is the 'trickle-down' effect of technology and electronic sound, along with 'artistic' conceptions of 'sound as music,' thanks to John Cage, and more extensive use of percussion and non-pitched sound.

Boulez' piano sonatas are traditionally 'classical' and make that connection to the classical tradition in the sense that they are played on 'normal' pianos (no preparation), with hands on the keys (not plucked or otherwise altered).

The rest of all this electronic and 'pure sound' without pitch is the result of trickle-down from electronics and technology, and "art" concepts of music.

[amw]

Here's something I've just found which has made me prick up my ears.

Honestly I love Jennifer Walshe forever for this project. The amount of imagination involved in inventing a fictional musical history and composers for an entire country is amazing... I've also always enjoyed making up composers and historical movements but never saw how it could be applied creatively to actual works of art until she did it >.>

(for the uninitiated: all composers and musical works described in this book and album are products of Jennifer Walshe's imagination)

[Karl Henning]

That explains the oxymoron!

[Mandryka]

DISCLAIMER:

Thank you for reading the fine print, because I have a confession to make – the composers featured on this release are fictional. The Aisteach Foundation and the "Historical Documents of the Irish Avant-Garde" are a communal thought experiment, a revisionist exercise in "what if?", a huge effort by many people to create an alternative history of avant-garde music in Ireland, to write our ancestors into being and shape their stories with care. We played fast and loose with history and the truth and we like to think Flann O'Brien would have approved. Please visit aisteach.org to explore the project further.

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

When I think of Irish Avant-Garde I picture musique concrète made with field recordings from the pub on St. Patrick's day. Best regards to my Irish friends and relatives.

[chadfeldheimer]

I don't think for me as a listener a piece of music needs to contain a certain amount of (to me) unknown or new that I can find it fresh or truly apreciate it. If this was the case, the order in which I first get faced with (to me) new music would be crucial. Of course the order plays a certain role, but not the leading role.

Maybe however for composers it is important to have the believe to created something new, unheard maybe even groundbreaking or shocking, because of the enthusiam and excitement connected to it, which shines through to the music itself. Maybe for this reason the works created in the beginning of a musical movement or era often (at least imo) remain the freshest of that movement, era even after a lot of time has passed.

[some guy]

Enthusiasm and excitement are good things, it's true, but I think the whole business of groundbreaking or shocking maybe muddies the discussion. What one wants generally as a maker is to make something that did not exist until you made it. I say generally, because there are people now and again who want to imitate something--to make a piece of music, for instance, that sounds as if they were living in the baroque era, say.

But I think that impulse is not so much a genuine, creative impulse as it is a kind of nostalgia. That person has an itch to make things (as all persons do, I think) and a love of baroque music as a consumer. The urge to make more baroque music comes more from the consumer side of things than the creator side, I would think. "I like x, y, or z, and so I want to make more of that," as opposed to "I want to make something that doesn't exist, yet, until I make it--something (therefore) that I personally may not even like, yet."

I don't think the shock thing can ever be much of a goal for a genuine artist. More an inevitable consequence of doing something new. Some people accept that, grudgingly, and some welcome it. That's all.

I think there's a lot less baggage, in other words, about uniqueness and newness for an artist than there seems to be for consumers of art. An artist wanting to do something that hasn't been done yet is just ordinary, business as usual. If something's been done already, there's really no need to do it, again. But for consumers, the situation is a bit different. New things, unknown things, unfamiliar things, can be seen as an affront, a slap in the face of the person who wants what they already know and are comfortable with. It's not, but it's easy to see it that way.

[Karl Henning]

I think there's a lot less baggage, in other words, about uniqueness and newness for an artist than there seems to be for consumers of art. An artist wanting to do something that hasn't been done yet is just ordinary, business as usual. If something's been done already, there's really no need to do it, again. But for consumers, the situation is a bit different. New things, unknown things, unfamiliar things, can be seen as an affront, a slap in the face of the person who wants what they already know and are comfortable with. It's not, but it's easy to see it that way.

Good.

[millionrainbows]

Enthusiasm and excitement are good things, it's true, but I think the whole business of groundbreaking or shocking maybe muddies the discussion. What one wants generally as a maker is to make something that did not exist until you made it. I say generally, because there are people now and again who want to imitate something--to make a piece of music, for instance, that sounds as if they were living in the baroque era, say.

But I think that impulse is not so much a genuine, creative impulse as it is a kind of nostalgia. That person has an itch to make things (as all persons do, I think) and a love of baroque music as a consumer. The urge to make more baroque music comes more from the consumer side of things than the creator side, I would think. "I like x, y, or z, and so I want to make more of that," as opposed to "I want to make something that doesn't exist, yet, until I make it--something (therefore) that I personally may not even like, yet."

I don't think the shock thing can ever be much of a goal for a genuine artist. More an inevitable consequence of doing something new. Some people accept that, grudgingly, and some welcome it. That's all.

I think there's a lot less baggage, in other words, about uniqueness and newness for an artist than there seems to be for consumers of art. An artist wanting to do something that hasn't been done yet is just ordinary, business as usual. If something's been done already, there's really no need to do it, again. But for consumers, the situation is a bit different. New things, unknown things, unfamiliar things, can be seen as an affront, a slap in the face of the person who wants what they already know and are comfortable with. It's not, but it's easy to see it that way.

I think human experience vs. history is worth looking at. There are so many things we use, like refrigeration, that were the product of cooperation and shared discovery. Now, nobody really needs to "understand" it, but just use it. But geniuses (Feynman) have demonstrated over and over that to really understand something, you cannot take things for granted, but start fresh & discover for yourself the most basic givens.
Humans only live about 90 years anyway, so there is always a re-loading go human experience. With the huge baggage of history, now, it gets harder to escape. especially with recorded music, this makes it even harder with music to be new.
New technology can give us new sounds. Human experience will be new. History will always be the wall.

[Contemporaryclassical]

Interesting thread, I'm a bit out of my league when it comes to contemporary music but this is an interesting thread regardless

[Mandryka]

If I wasn't so off my head when I made the original post here,

Well I think you should get stoned more often because the thread has caused an interesting discussion.

[Mandryka]

So what does "off your head" mean in American English? In British English it means stoned.

[Mahlerian]

So what does "off your head" mean in American English? In British English it means stoned.

In my experience, it's not a phrase used much in American English.  Plenty of other phrases for the same concept, though.