What's with Modern musicians?!

[shinerl]

Good to be back for a long time.    

I do not understand their compositions,  REmember the last time I asked about John CHage.

They are famous for composing like Grade 5.

[pies]

[njalli]

HAHAHAHA, so true. I once went on a concert with and there were some contemporary music playd (modern music) and each not were just random... no melodie lol. 

[thalbergmad]

You peasants, how much "modern" have you actually listened to before you formed your opinions.

You need to get out more.

Thal

[ahinton]

You peasants, how much "modern" have you actually listened to before you formed your opinions.

You need to get out more.

To contemporary music concerts, perhaps...

Best,

Alistair

[retrouvailles]

To contemporary music concerts, perhaps...

Best,

Alistair

Thank you. Just what I was about to say. Go to a contemporary music concert and your eyes will be opened. I go to about 5 per month, and it's a very gratifying experience.

[richard black]

Go to a contemporary music concert and your eyes will be opened.

No, go to SEVERAL contemporary music concerts. There certainly is some rubbish being put on (probably always was, if the truth be known) and one has to attend a few concerts before finding out just what the range is, from quality music to random plonking.

[anda]

I frequently go to modern/contemporary music concerts, and I also have played a lot of works by living composers. True, there is a lot of garbage out there - mainly written by composers who consider "originality" being the most important aspect of composing... But there are also a lot of valuable compositions. You have to understand that in modern music structure, form, harmony, and all that was top priority for classical composers, are no longer important - the most important aspect is the feeling and the atmosphere. More then ever, now you have to listen and feel, and not try to understand and rationalize. Try going to more contemporary music concerts, and you'll start to differentiate.

best luck

[avguste]

I agree with anda.
Some modern composers,I will pass on.
However other composers like John Arrigo,Carter Pann,Raina Murnak,Maslanka,John Mackey,Federico Garcia and others are great to perform and listen to.

[retrouvailles]

I agree with anda.
Some modern composers,I will pass on.
However other composers like John Arrigo,Carter Pann,Raina Murnak,Maslanka,John Mackey,Federico Garcia and others are great to perform and listen to.

Are you a wind ensemble performer? I dare say that the music of Carter Pann and John Mackey for that medium is some of the best I've heard. But seriously, there is much more to modern music than wind ensemble. Many wind ensemble performers cannot get out of their small niche of modern music to find other gems for other mediums.

[communist]

There is a lot of great contemporary but a lot of contemporary crap, and the bad contemporary composers I.E Boulez, Finnisy take away fame from the good ones I.E Rautavaara, Ades, Rzewski.

[ryguillian]

There is a lot of great contemporary but a lot of contemporary crap, and the bad contemporary composers I.E Boulez, Finnisy take away fame from the good ones I.E Rautavaara, Ades, Rzewski.

The name is actually "Finnissy". And I don't think Michael has taken fame from anyone...

[communist]

The name is actually "Finnissy". And I don't think Michael has taken fame from anyone...

is he not famous?

[ryguillian]

is he not famous?

Nowhere near as famous as Boulez. He's perhaps notorious on this forum, but that's about it...

[communist]

Nowhere near as famous as Boulez. He's perhaps notorious on this forum, but that's about it...

OK, i was not aware of that.

[loonbohol]

THere is a lot of crap.
But sure Midori Hirano is cool with her ability to blend atonal to tonal.
Japan is a perfect country.

[retrouvailles]

THere is a lot of crap.
But sure Midori Hirano is cool with her ability to blend atonal to tonal.
Japan is a perfect country.

Is the only late 20th century music you listen to Japanese pop/game/anime/film music? There is far better stuff out there, even from Japan. Composers like Toru Takemitsu, Toshio Hosokawa, and Toshiro Mayuzumi are miles above all of the people you have mentioned.

[avguste]

Are you a wind ensemble performer? I dare say that the music of Carter Pann and John Mackey for that medium is some of the best I've heard. But seriously, there is much more to modern music than wind ensemble. Many wind ensemble performers cannot get out of their small niche of modern music to find other gems for other mediums.

I am a classical pianist.I did however play for the Kansas University and Texas Christian University Wind Ensembles.
Which is how I know Carter Pann and John Mackey(just to name a few).
Many of the composers performed in wind ensemble have also written for solo piano and/or piano concertos.
Take Carter Pann.He has written many piano pieces such as "Upstate Rag", "Fantasy-Inventions", "The Bills",piano concerto for piano and orchestra,piano concerto for piano and wind ensemble and much more. Same goes for Michael Daugherty, John Adams,Messiaen and many others.
Also, for disclosure purposes,I am a friend of Carter Pann. I am also the pianist performing on the Naxos CD "Redline Tango" which can be purchased athttp://www.amazon.com/Redline-Tango-Charles-Ives/dp/B000F1IQE6/ref=sr_1_6/105-0687548-3814817?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1187726936&sr=1-6

I perform plenty of modern music and in each recital I perform at least one piece written by Carter Pann.

To see the modern composers I currently perform(along with locations and dates),please check https://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php/topic,33343.0.html

[jabbz]

How can anyone describe either Boulez or Finnissy (two of the greatest living composers) as bad? Is it because there isn't a nice wee tune to hum along too?

[ahinton]

FIrst, let's define "modern". Better still, let's accept that few members would end up agreeing on any such definition, so let's make one up, just for the sake of convenience. For the purpose of this specific exercise, let's assume "modern music" to mean "music by living composers" (and even then I am immediately aware that this would identify Carter non Pann's Pocahontas from the later 1930s as "modern", which already seems to undermine even that arbitrary definition). The sheer diversity of styles, media, techniques etc. that have been developed and explored during those last 70 or so years are what most potently reveal that there's no such thing as "modern music" about which one can speak or write in any useful way. Four important piano sonatas were composed in the immediate aftermath of WWII, Carter's, Dutilleux's and the first two by Boulez; just look how different they are from one another - even the two Boulez works might be thought to be separate by far more years than is the case. Musique concrète and the earliest vestiges of electronic music were being hatched at the same time, while Shostakovich was having one of his longest pauses between symphonies and Britten had not long completed Peter Grimes. And that was pre-1950; look at what has happened since. We have Stevenson and Xenakis, Sorabji and Stockhausen, Rubbra and Ferneyhough, Carter and Glass, Finnissy and (George) Lloyd, James Dillon and James MacMillan, all working contemporaneously - and I have omitted literally thousands of others working in many different ways. This is why it is impossible to construct any meaningful definition of "modern music" that will be acceptable to and accepted by all. I think what may be alluded to here is "unfamiliar music", of which, however, there is plenty from pretty well every years of the last eight or so centuries for most people to get to know. Case closed, peut-être?...

Best,

Alistair

[avguste]

I would say it is a pretty good definition.

[ahinton]

I would say it is a pretty good definition.

If by that you mean the one that I posited (for all its shortcomings), "music by living composers", its sheer diversity lays open the question of how anyone can seek to argue about "modern music" as though it is by nature some kind of readily identifiable phenomenon capable of discussion and inviting reactions that are, like itself, somehow separate from all other music (which appears to be the original implication)? I know that I put it forward myself as an example, but one of its several flaws is that what constitutes "modern music" would change every time a composer dies and, for example, seven entire decades of Elliott Carter's creativity would suddenly cease to be classifiable as "modern music" immediately upon his death (assuming that he will eventually die, which is by no means certain)...

Best,

Alistair