Favourite/most important piece composed during your lifetime?

[vandermolen]

These ones stand out for me:

Rautavaara: Symphony No. 8
Penderecki: Piano Concerto, Symphony [No. 6]
Vasks: Symphony No. 2, Viola Concerto, Violin Concerto

+1 for Rautavaara (Symphony No.Eight) and Vasks (Symphony No.2).

[amw]

As a side note, electronic dance music peaked in 1992. It was the "magic year" of that genre.

Yes, that's fair—consider my post amended to be discussing only academic classical music as a scene; I have little exposure to other genres. I know there was still some new stuff going on in hip-hop in the 1990s, and technology led to a production revolution in the 2000s-2010s that produced new and seminal works in almost all genres that rely on electronics (except classical music, which mostly used that to refine the principles of live electronics developed in the 1960s). I simply don't have the time to obtain my current level of classical music obsession in any other genre.

amw and vers - maybe we should start a Diner thread for millennials and younger, no old folks allowed to post or reply 

I feel like there used to be at least twice as many of us a couple of years back (including ComposerOfAvantGarde, EigenUser, nathanb, alien guy), yet now we are a dwindling minority confined to the distant steppes, practicing our ancestral traditions of not texting back, obsessively commenting on HBO shows that we watch using our parents' subscriptions, farming avocados for our traditional national toast dish, and reminiscing about using ChatRoulette in 2008, as we have for thousands of years. The pandemic maketh a mockery of all flesh, I assume.

Not sure what the most "important" work of the last 33 years is, amw might be right that it is "Become Ocean." Actually, the most performed work might be Morten Lauridsen's "O magnum mysterium" (1993)?

Oh wow, I didn't actually know that was written during my lifetime. Yeah, with the whole choral tradition and the subsequent transitions of people like Jonathan Dove and Eric Whitacre into orchestral music and opera, that may actually be the most influential work of our generation. I was annoyed to have just missed out on the nearest competitor, Musica Celestis (1990), all because my parents didn't want to have a baby in the midst of the Yugoslav economic recession, but honestly if we still have string quartets/orchestras in 2122 after the rest of the post-1976 cultural heritage has sunk into obscurity, that's the piece I would put money on surviving.

[aukhawk]

I was disappointed to only just miss out on citing Honegger's wonderful 3rd symphony. 

[vandermolen]

I was disappointed to only just miss out on citing Honegger's wonderful 3rd symphony. 

One of the great 20th Century symphonies IMO but before my time too.

[Mandryka]

One of the great 20th Century symphonies IMO but before my time too.

Yes, this come up in a conversation quite recently and so I listened to it, I did know it before but I'd forgotten the details - I'd just remembered it as intense  music. It is probably true that it's one of the great symphonies from the first half of the 20th century at least. The only recording I own is Munch's so I may well at some point listen to some others - I just don't listen to big symphonies much though.

[Christo]

These ones stand out for me:

Rautavaara: Symphony No. 8

Vasks: Symphony No. 2, Viola Concerto, Violin Concerto

Same here, though I should add Pärt's Te Deum and Kanon Pokajanen

[vers la flamme]

I feel like there used to be at least twice as many of us a couple of years back (including ComposerOfAvantGarde, EigenUser, nathanb, alien guy), yet now we are a dwindling minority confined to the distant steppes, practicing our ancestral traditions of not texting back, obsessively commenting on HBO shows that we watch using our parents' subscriptions, farming avocados for our traditional national toast dish, and reminiscing about using ChatRoulette in 2008, as we have for thousands of years. The pandemic maketh a mockery of all flesh, I assume.

[Brian]

Did I ever tell the story of the time I met someone on ChatRoulette and went on vacation to Sweden with them? It ended badly 

[kyjo]

amw and vers - maybe we should start a Diner thread for millennials and younger, no old folks allowed to post or reply 

-

Not sure what the most "important" work of the last 33 years is, amw might be right that it is "Become Ocean." Actually, the most performed work might be Morten Lauridsen's "O magnum mysterium" (1993)?

As for my own favorites...
Christopher Rouse's flute concerto and Symphony No. 5
David Matthews' Symphony No. 9
Esa-Pekka Salonen's cello concerto
Fazil Say's violin concerto "1001 Nights in the Harem"
Lera Auerbach's preludes for cello and piano
Gabriela Lena Frank's chamber music
Jonathan Leshnoff's cello concerto and violin concerto No. 2
Aaron Jay Kernis's musica celestis
Penderecki's Sextet and horn concerto "Winterreise"
Kalevi Aho's Symphony No. 9, Symphonic Dances, flute concerto, trombone concerto, horn concerto

You and I have very similar tastes in contemporary music, Brian! Rouse, D. Matthews, Leshnoff, Say, Kernis, and Aho are some of my favorite composers of recent times. The others I need to investigate further.

[Roberto]

Gubaidulina: In tempus praesens
One of my biggest experience in contemporary music, absolutely a masterpiece.

Giya Kancheli: Styx
Lindberg: Clarinet concerto
Ligeti: Síppal, dobbal, nádihegedűvel

[Pohjolas Daughter]

Gubaidulina: In tempus praesens
One of my biggest experience in contemporary music, absolutely a masterpiece.

Giya Kancheli: Styx
Lindberg: Clarinet concerto
Ligeti: Síppal, dobbal, nádihegedűvel

Love that Lindberg clarinet concerto!  Don't know the other works.  I'll have to check them out.  By the way, did you go to a performance of the Gubaidulina work or listen to a recording of it?

PD

[Roberto]

Love that Lindberg clarinet concerto!  Don't know the other works.  I'll have to check them out.  By the way, did you go to a performance of the Gubaidulina work or listen to a recording of it?

PD

I have this recording about Gubaidulina:
In tempus
I think we can call it "reference" recording because she wrote it to Mutter and she supervised this recording. If you will listen to it I will be curious about your opinion.
Lindberg was here in Budapest months ago and there was a conversation with him. After the conversation I asked him to sign the Clarinet concerto CD. He was kind and we talked about supercomputers.
His 1st Violin concerto is also very good. I like contemporary music when it has strong drama in it. I think Lindberg and Gubaidulina also very good in creating tension and how to resolve it. At least in the pieces I know from them (not too many).
Kancheli's speciality is the catchy tunes and harmonies and strong dynamic contrasts. At one moment he writes pianissimo passages and fortissimo in the next second and vica versa.