Why such negativity about Sorabji?

[pies]

Finnissy is underrated.

[indutrial]

Finnissy is underrated.

I would say under-known, like pretty much 95% of the interesting composers creating things today. Along with Finnissy, several other names are good at evoking blank stares from music students, including...

Pascal Dusapin, Hans Kox, Charles Wuorinen, Christopher Fox, Wolfgang Rihm, Sofia Gubaidulina, Galina Ustvolskaya, Rzewski and so on and so forth...

Most of these great composers are barely even "rated" at all let alone underrated. These days a good composer can't get known unless they achieve some kind of subculture notoriety, like John Zorn, whose sub-standard free jazz noodlings and dadaist nonsense reel in lots of fans and allows them to stumble over his lesser known (and far better) chamber compositions.

[ctrastevere]

These days a good composer can't get known unless they achieve some kind of subculture notoriety, like John Zorn, whose sub-standard free jazz noodlings and dadaist nonsense reel in lots of fans and allows them to stumble over his lesser known (and far better) chamber compositions.

Interesting that you should mention Zorn -- I'm a great fan of Naked City's first album. I've heard a "bit" of his classical music but haven't really investigated much into it. What would you recommend? The string quartets maybe?

[indutrial]

Interesting that you should mention Zorn -- I'm a great fan of Naked City's first album. I've heard a "bit" of his classical music but haven't really investigated much into it. What would you recommend? The string quartets maybe?

Zorn has an interesting piano piece called Carny, which is included on a disc called Enfants Terribles, which (don't quote me on this) also includes other pieces by "bad boy" composers like Tom Johnson and Sven Ake Johansson. It's on the Hat label out of Switzerland.

I would also reccomend his chamber work from the discs Magick and Mysterium. Both feature a variety of different instrumentations and are quite interesting. In terms of avant-garde classical music, Zorn also plays a very positive role in helping expose other significant composers through the use of his Tzadik label, which has put out releases by great composers like Chrisopher Adler and Charles Wuorinen.