Favourite 20th Century composers?

cornbb

By that, I mean of course experimental composers. And I mean composers in the same sense as in classical music.

I'm gonna say Stravinsky and Steve Reich.

fish-head

Can I say Debussy? Alexander Scriabin was pretty fantastic too, as an experimental guy.

Steve Reich is pretty hip in my books too.

John

I'm not that familiar with Reich's work, I only really know "Pendulum Music" but I've read a lot of interviews of his and I find his views intriguing.

Personal favourites range from the obvious with John Cage who I absolutely love. His music is one of the few types of music that I may not enjoy listening to all the time but always makes me think about the nature of music.

Another favourite is Phill Niblock, he works with microtones, drones and volume. The best description of him is "No melodies, no harmonies, no rhythm, no bull****." I highly recommend his work (a few albums on Touch that should be easy enough to find).

My final super favourite is Tod Dockstader. More utterly marvellous work. Most recently has been doing compositions made from radio waves. Beautiful stuff.

Also have soft spots for Satie (I want to hear Vexations in its entirety someday), Lucier and Ferrari.

cornbb

Yeah, Debussy was one cool mother****er. Satie was the business as well. He pretty much invented ambient music.

fish-head

Gerald Barry, the Irish composer is quite cool aswell. His Piano Quartet No.1 was on the LC syllabus this year, really wierd stuff but great all the same. Needless to say, most people studying music didn't like it too much but alot of people in my class really dug it.

Aard

I like Gerald Barry. "Au Millieu" and "Triorchic Blues" are fantastic too.

Atm I'm obsessed with Prokofiev. I love his symphonies, and I'm learning his "Diabolical Suggestion".

I mentioned Kyle Gann in another thread. I've only found his music in the past few weeks, and already I'm hooked. I guess it's the microtonality and minimalism.

Speaking of which, Arvo Pärt deserves a mention. I've only heard "Fratres", "Tabula Rasa" and "Cantus in memory of Brittain" but I've listened to each countless times. Maybe Pärt doesn't count as very experimental, but I think he's an important 20th Century composer.

I haven't listened to much Schoenberg apart from "Verklärte Nacht" which is fantastic. I like his pupil Berg though. His "Violin Concerto" and "Lyric Suite" are particular favourites. [EDIT: And "Kammerkonzert"; how could I forget?]

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I'll try to get some Phill Niblock and Tod Dockstader; thanks for recommending them!

All I've heard of Stravinsky is "Rite of Spring" which tbh I don't like very much, although one piece is hardly enough to judge a composer; I'll have to get more of his stuff.

Ghost Rider

There are passages in "The Rite of Spring" which are uncannily close to early thrash metal. (Not that that's necessarily a recommendation...)

Aard wrote:

I like Gerald Barry. "Au Millieu" and "Triorchic Blues" are fantastic too.

Atm I'm obsessed with Prokofiev. I love his symphonies, and I'm learning his "Diabolical Suggestion".

I mentioned Kyle Gann in another thread. I've only found his music in the past few weeks, and already I'm hooked. I guess it's the microtonality and minimalism.

Speaking of which, Arvo Pärt deserves a mention. I've only heard "Fratres", "Tabula Rasa" and "Cantus in memory of Brittain" but I've listened to each countless times. Maybe Pärt doesn't count as very experimental, but I think he's an important 20th Century composer.

I haven't listened to much Schoenberg apart from "Verklärte Nacht" which is fantastic. I like his pupil Berg though. His "Violin Concerto" and "Lyric Suite" are particular favourites. [EDIT: And "Kammerkonzert"; how could I forget?]

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I'll try to get some Phill Niblock and Tod Dockstader; thanks for recommending them!

All I've heard of Stravinsky is "Rite of Spring" which tbh I don't like very much, although one piece is hardly enough to judge a composer; I'll have to get more of his stuff.

Ghost Rider

The first Steve Reich pieces that blew me away were the tape loop experiments "It's Gonna Rain" and "Come Out" (both available on the CD "Early Works"). It was as if he'd accidentally hit on some common ground between modernism/the avant-garde on the one hand and something tribal and non-Western on the other. Best of all, those pieces felt immensely visceral and exciting, even in the early 1990s, nearly 30 years after their recording.

Fusing the modern with the primal had been tried before but one of Reich's genius moves was to use voice samples from African Americans (both in situations of emotional distress). Through extreme repetition of these samples, he abstracted the semantic content of the voices in such a way that the form of the sound was pushed to the fore, in the process evoking something ancient, haunting and tribal. It also resonated powerfully with aspects of the civil rights struggle in the US at that time.

Both pieces were superb examples of how the well-judged use of an experimental technique (repetition of voice recordings using tape loops) could yield something intellectually provocative yet immediate and full of intensity. It also showed how the use of technology in the very composition of music need not drain the results of meaning or emotional power: quite the contrary.

I think that was Reich's one punk moment. Later works of his, even the majestic "Drumming" and the uncannily hypnotic "Music for 18 Musicians", feel a little bit lobotomised when compared to those raging tape loop pieces.

And, as has happened to some of Arvo Part's stuff, the aping of Reich's minimalist style has become something of a cliché in contemporary documentary films. It's no fault of either composer, of course, but it does change the way we listen to them, perhaps irrevocably.

jtsuited

debussy is my alltime favourite composer.
Steve Reich is pure genius and nobody comes close to him in his field.

metrovelvet

cornbb wrote:

Yeah, Debussy was one cool mother****er. Satie was the business as well. He pretty much invented ambient music.

Lol. Both those guys remind of shopping for bras. Its become lingerie department music.