Are today's symphony composers better than yesterdays?

[Bob]

And for today's I'm thinking of movie symphonic composers I guess.  I don't listen to a lot of new symphony works.  It's very rare someone strolls into town with a brand new symphony they wrote. 

Because for movies they can imitate the style of an older composer.  Right?

And I imagine there are plenty of opportunies for today's composer to learn all about everything symphony-related.  There's just no place to play their stuff.


I'm listening to a symphony now and I was thinking, "Hey, that sounds like John Williams... except not quite as developed,"  at least in sound.  Not as fleshed out.

But if someone wrote a symphony today in an older style, they would be criticized.  Movie composers have a lot of flexibility that way.  It doesn't have to be new.

So I'm wondering if composers today, maybe more on the movie side, might be better than older ones?  It doesn't seem like anyone would care though unless they did something very new.  If they copied an older style, it wouldn't count.

Agree?  Disagree?

That's leaving a lot with form.  Movie composers are stuck on that and I suppose they're probably not really developing their ideas so much. 

The one that keeps coming to mind is John Williams.  I'm not really thinking of another movie composer who has their own sound so much, and might possibly be developing an idea.  Developing an idea through a form that is.  Not just transforming the theme.  And that's assuming developing an idea is a quality that makes the music better.

[thierry13]

John Williams is a genius and an amazing composer, one of the best alive. Not all movie music composers are as great as him tough.

[retrouvailles]

I don't think John Williams is a great composer of concert music. yes, his film scores are great, but his symphonic works do not even begin to touch works written by better concert music composers. Some great composers that are still alive and write symphonies today are Einojuhani Rautavaara, Kalevi Aho, Krzysztof Penderecki, and many others. The three composers I named have at least 8 symphonies to their name, and all of the ones I have heard of them are great and do justice to the history of the symphony (for the most part). And I don't think that if people write a symphony "in the older style", they will be criticized. Some of the symphonies by the three I mentioned sound a bit antiquated. But they always have that element of progression in their music, which is one of the most essential things for a composer today to be successful, in my opinion. As for form, one would think that anything goes today. Sure, many people disregard the old form of the symphony and do what they want with it, but there are plenty of people that preserve or add on to the "norm".

It's very rare someone strolls into town with a brand new symphony they wrote.

That is quite the false statement. New symphonies are being written all the time today. Sure, not all of them are great, but a lot of them are good.

[Bob]

Well they're not being performed around me.  I heard one somewhat recently and wasn't impresed.  It sounded like a copy.  Fine.  But it didn't sound finished.  Even the composer said that.

Where can I go to get a taste of these?  If it's not live... CDs of course.. I just need names and titles.

[retrouvailles]

Yeah new symphonies don't get performed much in the public. New music still is a bit of a taboo in the classical music world, which is a damned shame, for it shouldn't be. It wasn't 100 years ago and it should not be today. It is the reason why the general classical music crowd doesn't know anything about new classical music.

That said, you can find almost anything at Amazon. The three names I mentioned are a great starting point. For some more great symphonists of today, take a look at these: Valentin Silvestrov, Per Nørgård, Witold Lutosławski, Carl Vine, Alfred Schnittke, and there are undoubtedly many others. Just spend some time on Wikipedia and you will come up with more names.

[Bob]

I think what I'd be looking for is some type of compilation maybe.  Best of.. Best of the last 30 years of new symphonies.  A little from each. 

[retrouvailles]

It also depends what kind of sound or style you are looking for. I don't think any "Best of"'s  exist, so if you give me what you are looking for, I or someone else can perhaos suggest a specific composer and/or work that you should look for.

[Bob]

I like Romantic and late-Romantic.  And at least some tonality. 

[retrouvailles]

You might like Penderecki's later symphonies if you want something with a Romantic influence. Also maybe the 8th symphony of Rautavaara. If you want something that is a bit more in the Mahlerian vein go for the 6th symphony of Silvestrov. I would particularly recommend the 7th and 8th symphonies of Penderecki for starters. If you want something that sounds a bit more film scorey, you could go for Carl Vine, who is a real crowd pleaser with his 5th and 6th symphonies. This is just stuff off the top of my head. I'm sure I will think of more later.

[indutrial]

I like Romantic and late-Romantic.  And at least some tonality. 

I wholeheartedly second the recommendations of Carl Vine and Kalevi Aho. Both are stunning composers. Beyond his symphonies, Aho's concertos are also good symphonic pieces.

I've been listening to the symphony cycles of Per Norgard and Vagn Holmboe and both are very impressive. They are obviously tougher to get into than classical/romantic symphonies, but the long term rewards one can reap are almost boundless.

[sevencircles]

I love glissandos and interplay between different instruments and their timbre similar to some of Gubaidulina and Xenakis but more tonal and melodic perhaps.

Any recomendations?

[retrouvailles]

I love glissandos and interplay between different instruments and their timbre similar to some of Gubaidulina and Xenakis but more tonal and melodic perhaps.

Any recomendations?

Rautavaara's symphonies and other symphonic works would be good for what you are looking for I think. Also, some of Ginastera's later symphonic works would do well (no symphonies though).

I have recently gotten into the symphonic works of Roberto Gerhard. This guy needs more recognition for his work. His brand of serialism combined with Catalan nationalism is similar to what Ginastera did in his later works and is just as attractive.

[rachfan]

For the film music genre, Ennio Morricone comes to mind.  This Italian composer has two entirely different composing idioms it seems--spaghetti western music on one hand and lush neo-romantic music on the other.  For the latter, think "Cinema Paradiso" for example.   

[indutrial]

For the film music genre, Ennio Morricone comes to mind.  This Italian composer has two entirely different composing idioms it seems--spaghetti western music on one hand and lush neo-romantic music on the other.  For the latter, think "Cinema Paradiso" for example.   

I forget what the hell it was called, but there was a blog I frequented a while back that was dedicating itself to gathering together as many Morricone scores as possible, most of which were out-of-print LPs ripped to MP3. The range of styles and the overall consistency of his output is pretty phenomenal. I like some of his spare-sounding scores, like the music he did for one of my favorite films of all time, John Carpenter's The Thing. As if that movie couldn't be any creepier, Morricone's soundtrack keeps you in perpetual suspense. I even like his soundtrack to Sacco & Vanzetti, which features a lot of warbling vocals by Joan Baez.

A lot of the soundtracks I've heard from him feature bizarre combinations of electric/rock instruments with more traditional orchestral instruments. Reminds me a bit of the approach game composers like Yasunori Mitsuda and Nobou Uematsu took with games like Chrono Cross and the Final Fantasy games for SNES/PS1/PS2, which all used instrumental palettes that crossed genre boundaries at the drop of a hat.

[Etude]

The orchestra has expanded a lot from the beginning of the symphony...  I would say that, disregarding stylistic differences, modern composers of orchestral music have a greater range of timbres to choose from, with the development and addition of new instruments to the orchestra.

[Bob]

I have heard of Morricone several times.  Always positve.