'Classical' music from the last 50 years (or so)

[StarThrower]

I've been listening to these composers lately.

Alfred Schnittke

Hans Werner Henze

Aulis Sallinen

Magnus Lindberg

Per Norgard

Penderecki

William Schuman

Conlon Nancarrow

Karl Hartmann

Gyorgy Ligeti

Lutoslawski

Edited February 26, 2012 by starthrower

[Chuck Nessa]

I've been listening to these composers lately.

Alfred Schnittke

Hans Werner Henze

Aulis Sallinen

Magnus Lindberg

Per Norgard

Penderecki

William Schuman

Conlon Nancarrow

Karl Hartmann

Gyorgy Ligeti

Lutoslawski

Looks like a decade of listening. Can you give us insights as to why you ignored Carter, Maxwell Davies, Boulez, Feldman, etc?

[StarThrower]

Haven't gotten around to them is a better way of putting it than ignored. I do have several Carter discs. I've only listened to one Boulez recording. The Rituel/Eclat/Multiples on Sony. It's interesting you mentioned a decade of listening, because I've said to myself that I'm trying to cram 10 years of listening into two. Most of the composers on that list are new to me in the past few years, and some only in the past few months. And I forgot to mention the Second Viennese School. I love Alban Berg, and several Schoenberg and Webern pieces. And hell, I forgot to mention Varese, Ravel, Dutilleux, and Poulenc. Too many internet music forums turning me on to too much music.

I suppose I'm trying to make up for lost time. I was mostly absorbed with jazz oriented music over the past 25-30 years.

[A Lark Ascending]

Thanks for all the positive contributions.

It's not for me to dictate but this thread probably works best with mentions of single works or discs with a few reasons why. That tends to be the thing that grabs my interest and gets me exploring (not getting at you starthrower! I see you've already been ticked off!).

I've been enjoying this which I've had a while:

Hard to describe; definitely contemporary but with a clear sense of harmony. Has that fresh, crystalline, see-through feel that I like in Britten.

[Stefan Wood]

An entryway into Morton Feldman's music:

And something more challenging:

[StarThrower]

It's always hard to know what another listener is looking for in a piece of music. It's best to go straight to the source and listen to some stuff. I use the library and YouTube. I don't know what gave you the impression than I'm ticked off about something? That certainly isn't the case.

Since you mentioned the winds disc from the Stravinsky set, here are two CDs I can recommend.

Edited February 27, 2012 by starthrower

[A Lark Ascending]

It's always hard to know what another listener is looking for in a piece of music. It's best to go straight to the source and listen to some stuff. I use the library and YouTube. I don't know what gave you the impression than I'm ticked off about something? That certainly isn't the case.

You misunderstand me! I was referring to you being ticked off by Mr. Nessa! Don't worry. He does it to all of us.

I've been exploring that series myself over the past year. Can't claim to have internalised it but I've liked what I've heard including that disc.

I was watching the first DVD of this set last night:

Wagner > R.Strauss/Mahler > Schoenberg/Berg/Webern.

Shows its age and limited production values and tells a tale that is pretty familiar. But what I found interesting was hearing his illustrations at the piano of tone rows and serialism. The sort of thing that, as I have no musical training, book accounts have only vaguely got across.

Edited February 27, 2012 by A Lark Ascending

[paul secor]

It's always hard to know what another listener is looking for in a piece of music. It's best to go straight to the source and listen to some stuff. I use the library and YouTube. I don't know what gave you the impression than I'm ticked off about something? That certainly isn't the case.

You misunderstand me! I was referring to you being ticked off by Mr. Nessa! Don't worry. He does it to all of us.

You can speak for yourself, but not for "all of us."

[StarThrower]

I'm not ticked off at Chuck Nessa. I was happy to respond to his inquiry.

[spangalang]

I am a big Michael Nyman fan, but I do sometimes wonder how much of that stems from my obsession with Peter Greenaway films...

[Д.Д.]

OK here's my second contribution. I am going to stick to recommending compositions and not CDs, although in this case I only know the work from CD.

Really with Hans Werner Henze I want to attract attention to two. One is the Requiem, an instrumental piece with major parts for trumpet and piano that started life as two separate concertos. The recording by Metzmacher is a classic and I know it has fans on this board.

Henze is very like Strauss in his love of sensuous immediacy and very free approach to form. He is also very much a vocal composer. The comparison with the reactionary Strauss would no doubt annoy Henze politically and aesthetically, but it helps explain that the centre of gravity in his works cannot be found in his symphonies, many of which are symphony in name only and several of which are derived from his operas. An exception is the 7th which he called 'germanic' and the 9th.

The 9th I find of intense interest but it is harder to approach than the Requiem. It is not musically more difficult, but it is a choral symphony in which the choir presents the narrative of The Seventh Cross by Anne Seghers, a novel about an escape from a German concentration camp. This means that in practical terms it is helpful to have the libretto, if not the score, as it has to be followed. It also means the work is quite dour and jarring, as it is a refusal of the optimism of Beethoven's Ninth. It is also a very dense work and therefore hard to record, which means you very much have to listen through the recording. I have the EMI version but the Wergo version is reported to be similar. Despite all those caveats, and although the work is not clearly a 'success', I think its existence is interesting and getting (somewhat) to grips with is a worthwhile exercise. I am interested in works intended to be public and from that point of view this is one of the more notbale of recent decades.

One of my favorite "modern" composers too. I can highly recommend the Henze Symphonies 1-6 set on Brilliant (Henze himself conducting).

Edited February 27, 2012 by Д.Д.

[Д.Д.]

Another composer I would highly recommend is Galina Ustvolskaya. She wrote only about 30 pieces. Very austere music, very rigorous. Does not sound like anything else. Shostakovich (her teacher in the conservatory) was apparently enraptured, writing in his letters that her music was influencing him. I have this CD of hers, and Shostakovich work really pales in comparison to hers:

[A Lark Ascending]

I've been really smitten by Michael Tippett's Fourth Symphony in recent months. Really gripping - there's a wonderful, ghostly set of harmonies at the start that permeate the piece and haunt you afterwards. Woke up in the middle of the night to them a while back.

[StarThrower]

I picked up this one recently. Three fine works excellently performed and recorded.

Edited March 1, 2012 by starthrower

[Stefan Wood]

Into the abyss.....

[A Lark Ascending]

A bit outside the period but heading the right way, I'm really enjoying this series. Seem to have had them sent from the DVD hire warehouse out of sequence but doesn't really matter.

Episode was on 'Colours'.

DEBUSSY: Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune; STRAVINSKY: L'oiseau de feu; SCHÖNBERG: Fünf Orchesterstücke Op. 16; DEBUSSY: Jeux; BOULEZ: Notations for piano; MESSIAEN: Et expecto resurrectionem mortuorum; TAKEMITSU: Dream / Window; RAVEL: Daphnis et Chloé.

Edited March 3, 2012 by A Lark Ascending

[A Lark Ascending]

This is a very beautiful disc. 5 pieces at between 10-16 minutes framed by two short brass chorales.

Debussy and Messiaen are all over the music - in Debussy's case very directly with fragments of 'La Mer' drifting in and out of 'Quotation of Dream'.

All pieces from between 1985-93.

Played today, partly as a result of hearing part of 'Dream/Window' in the Rattle DVD, partly because it's pouring with rain. Always makes me think of Takemitsu for pretty literal reasons.

Edited March 4, 2012 by A Lark Ascending

[Д.Д.]

Into the abyss.....

[Д.Д.]

Excellent composer that is rarely mentioned: Viktor Suslin. Here is one piece from youtube:

Madrigal for two cellos

[Mark Stryker]

I thought this was pretty good list. Compiler was coming from a particular place (explaned herein) but it's a good post-war survey.

http://www.sequenza21.com/carey/2012/03/sixty-postwar-pieces-to-study/

[ejp626]

A bit outside the period but heading the right way, I'm really enjoying this series. Seem to have had them sent from the DVD hire warehouse out of sequence but doesn't really matter.

Episode was on 'Colours'.

DEBUSSY: Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune; STRAVINSKY: L'oiseau de feu; SCHÖNBERG: Fünf Orchesterstücke Op. 16; DEBUSSY: Jeux; BOULEZ: Notations for piano; MESSIAEN: Et expecto resurrectionem mortuorum; TAKEMITSU: Dream / Window; RAVEL: Daphnis et Chloé.

Looks interesting. Does Rattle play entire pieces or just segments? As an aside, I do enjoy BBC Radio 3's Discovering Music where they break down segments of the piece at length, but then do play the entire piece straight through. I've learned quite a bit when I've had the time to listen to the entire program (not as often as I would like).

[ejp626]

This is a very beautiful disc. 5 pieces at between 10-16 minutes framed by two short brass chorales.

I'll try to check this out. You might be interested in this disc Rattle-Bream that is a bit more guitar-focused but includes Takemitsu's To the End of Dream. Rattle is conducting with Julian Bream soloing.

I'm going to have to admit that I ordered this disc but simply haven't had a chance to listen to it properly. Maybe I can dig it out and listen tonight.

[A Lark Ascending]

A bit outside the period but heading the right way, I'm really enjoying this series. Seem to have had them sent from the DVD hire warehouse out of sequence but doesn't really matter.

Episode was on 'Colours'.

DEBUSSY: Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune; STRAVINSKY: L'oiseau de feu; SCHÖNBERG: Fünf Orchesterstücke Op. 16; DEBUSSY: Jeux; BOULEZ: Notations for piano; MESSIAEN: Et expecto resurrectionem mortuorum; TAKEMITSU: Dream / Window; RAVEL: Daphnis et Chloé.

Looks interesting. Does Rattle play entire pieces or just segments?

Only segments - the programmes are 50 minutes.

I suspect at the time of broadcast - if it was BBC, I can't recall - there would have been full broadcasts on the radio. They tend to do that now.

This is a very beautiful disc. 5 pieces at between 10-16 minutes framed by two short brass chorales.

I'll try to check this out. You might be interested in this disc Rattle-Bream that is a bit more guitar-focused but includes Takemitsu's To the End of Dream. Rattle is conducting with Julian Bream soloing.

I'm going to have to admit that I ordered this disc but simply haven't had a chance to listen to it properly. Maybe I can dig it out and listen tonight.

Don't think I have that anywhere. Sounds my sort of thing. I love Takemitsu on a rainy day (I'll never make a classical buff with reactions like that!).

[A Lark Ascending]

Peter Maxwell Davies has been catching my attention of late.

I think he was the first contemporary composer I tried out in the early 80s - connected with a trip I made to Orkney where he has long lived. The couple of LPs I bought never seemed to produce the promise of a place so steeped in geographical and historical distinctiveness and I lost interest.

But what I've heard recently has got me curious again. He seems to have taken a path from enfant-terrible to born again monarchist and appears to pour music out, much of it currently lost due to the collapse of Collins and Unicorn Kanchana. The symphonies on Collins have just started to reappear on Naxos; hopefully they'll pick up the other Collins things. They seem to have a commitment, having commissioned a string quartet cycle.

[A Lark Ascending]

Been enjoying myself exploring a range of this music, swirling round and getting a glimpse here and a charge there.

Currently the focus seems to be:

• 
  
  
• Lutoslawski
  
• Ligeti
  
• Boulez
  
• Carter
  
• Saariaho
  
• Maxwell Davies
  
• Birtwistle
  
• Harvey (Jonathan)
  

I imagine I'll be slowly making some sort of sense of them over the next few decades. Exciting journey.