Not trying to be arrogant here, but who listens to this?

[bluefuzz]

What would be the right term?

I'd call it something like modernist or 20th Century modern.

 

[bluefuzz]

But I'd very much like music to be something that makes me want to move or moves me in some way or another.

Try Arvo Pärt or Gavin Bryars perhaps ...

 

[mhardy6647]

just casting another vote for Rite of Spring.
It still sounds new and fresh and... for wont of a better word, modern.
And it makes me think of Bernstein.

 

[chelgrian]

Try Arvo Pärt or Gavin Bryars perhaps ...

Pärt really needs to be experienced in person, there's something about it that just responds to being sung in a massive reverberant acoustic.

Alexander Levine is good Russian style, he's Russian but lives in London, you think it's Rachmaninov then he reminds you he really isn't.

Also try Joby Talbot particularly the Path of Micracles which was commissioned for Tenebrae.

The thing is that even there was a lot of dross written over the centuries and most of it has been forgotten or lost so it's easier to pick out good music from that those eras where as for contemporary music it's the other way round there are some gems which need to be found in a sea of dross.

 

[Willem]

Try Rite of Spring. On a good system too!

I know Gergiev's politics are objectionable to many outside Russia, me included, but the Bluray with his recording of the Rite of Spring and the Sacre is remarkable, with reconstructed period costumes for the dancers. And performed at the Mariinski theatre, of which I have fond memories (how long will it be before I can visit again?)
This leads me to argue that ballet music and opera need the video to be fully appreciated.

 

[steabert]

"This piano stress" does makes me want to move, but that's as far away from the piano as possible

I like a lot of different music, and some of it can definitely be described as stressful. Playing the kind of music you listen to helps to appreciate it more and discover what's good or bad within a genre.

I can understand some people find atonal music stressful, but then I feel there is a lot of extremely dull music in other genres. To say it with your words, for me it's random guy sitting down just jamming aimless away on the guitar.

 

[ahofer]

My Nephew is a metal musician of some success. (https://www.ibanez.com/na/artists/detail/1554.html)

I respect his chops, but I can never really sit through the music. De gustibus…

I often think some of the atonal stuff is more fun to play than to listen to, and a good break from the classical warhorses that bring in the paying elderly patrons.

 

[ahofer]

This is a pretty good recording.

 

[Twelvetone]

FWIW, Messiaen's work is, generally speaking, very far from atonal. He is the poster-boy of polytonality, combining two (or more) key-centers at once to obtain more complex harmonic structures and movements. If you listen to the posted example with an open ear you should easily discern this: triads/chords from different keys stacked upon one another and moving in ways to create new kinds of harmonic tensions that tease the ear/brain. (Ives did much the same, but with a conscious effort to avoid euphony.) It's arisen (IMO) from the dilemma of what to do with a harmonic system that was pretty much past its "use-by" date with Mahler (who stretched it mightily himself), Zemlinksy, and early Schoenberg. (Listen to the latter's "Gurreleider" to hear tonality's weave being loosened, strand by strand, by a genius.) Serialism (later Schoenberg, et al) was one major escape-route; Messiaen's was another. Minimalism (Reich, some Adams, etc.), is a more recent third. On a more hifi-centric note, M. was a brilliant orchestrator (like both Mahler and Stravinsky) whose wonderfully transparent orcerhstral textures are essential listening for serious audio systems. N.B.: Regarding a comment higher up, the Rite of S. is also about as non-atonal as you can get; it's clearly tonal, and can easily be modally "keyed." If you think of the Rite as atonal music, you ain't gettin' around much. Viz: Carl Ruggles' "Suntreader," or Henry Brant's "The Ice Field" for truly atonal masterworks.

 

[DonR]

I started a thread you might be interested in. I have found a lot of wonderful music there: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...-century-and-later-classical-composers.40107/

 

[Chrispy]

Definitely not something I'd spend much time with, then I rarely listen to classical at all either. Interesting information about this one in this thread, tho.

 

[Kal Rubinson]

just casting another vote for Rite of Spring.
It still sounds new and fresh and... for wont of a better word, modern.

I was imprinted on this at a young age and continue to love it but, imho, it is hard to regard it as modern these days.

 

[Rednaxela]

This is probably useless to you but in NL there was one person whom one would turn to with questions like these - Reinbert de Leeuw.

[...]

I went and transcribed the interview and ran the result through Google Translate. It's not perfect, but hopefully it does make some sense:

I have always seen Messiaen as the composer for whom it is possible to use things that would be kitsch in someone else's hands. He pushes the boundaries. A piece like the Turangalîla symphony, one of the great works, is over the top. And you can't judge that on good taste - those laws don't apply to Messiaen. Messiaen is the composer - and I've always felt that way - who was able to do that in one way or another. He could write down things that would be unbearable in the hands of another. That you think: you can't write this down, can you? Then you can't make it. But he does.

> Why is that?

That's a very complicated question - I can't answer it that easily. But Messiaen has incredible faith. And that faith is also strongly religious with him, Catholicism. But he can do things because of the naivety of faith. He believes in that and therefore what he does is always true. He can do it because it is without irony. He has created a language - and in Messiaen that is incredible for a composer of the 20th century - it is a language in which the harmony is immediately recognizable. You hear two chords and you know: this is Messiaen. And in that harmony he creates the space in which it can be very complex, but it can also be just E major. How Messiaen can write an E major chord - it will make you fall off your chair. You think it's like hearing it for the first time. And that can. That it's a natural thing in his music, that he can, that's because he had an incredible sense of harmony. And actually no other composer in the 20th century has that. That you have that richness in the harmony that is completely logical and convincing.

> Can you give an example why an E major chord works so special with Messiaen?

The loss of tonality in 20th century music, at least of the beautiful consonant sounds, is a huge loss. You can then try to yearn for it nostalgically, which composers have also done. You can wallow in

>neo-romantic

yes, but that doesn't really work anymore. It's all been done in such a way that you can't get over it. And Messiaen has succeeded with his musical thinking. This has a lot to do with the fact that for him a harmony is not primarily a harmony, but also a colour.

I remember when I performed the Transfiguration and we were dealing with him and Cherry Duyns made a movie about this, I tried to ask him a question. But my French was quite limited. So I had prepared a question that I asked him how is it possible that in your music the conflict between consonance and dissonance, tonality and atonality, whatever it is that dominates all of 20th century music, that crisis that we feel so that it, as it were, does not exist with you? That it is apparently possible for you to write an enormously complex dissonant harmony just as easily and a little later a radiant E major, and that it is all possible. And that it's not a craving for anything at all. It's just original. It belongs to his language. I had prepared this question to ask him. And he looks at me with a look: what is that man talking about? We were in his studio in Paris. There was a red carpet on the floor. He pointed to that red and he said, E major is red, what are you talking about? The question did not occur to him. The question that haunts all of 20th century music: How do you still achieve that, that beautiful language in which E major or any triad that in itself gives such satisfaction - he didn't know that problem, so to speak. He denied that. And that is also possible in his music and that is unique.

In my younger years, when I was a bit stricter about music, I would undoubtedly have thought: this is going very far. But I've always embraced it too. And I also think that you can only really judge Messiaen if you look at the whole spectrum. In the 1950s and 1960s, he was a great inspiration to the Boulez generation. But he has always remained true to himself. And in a piece that I have played a lot since around 1973, perhaps the most, Quatuor pour la fin du Temps, there is a cello solo in it. How many E major chords are there in the piano? That's unbelievable. You just play that E major, and it's insane. So incredibly beautiful.

What is also beautiful and is in the last part of l'Ascencion is that enormously slow pace that makes you think when it starts: don't let this stop at all for a while. You enter a completely different experience of time. He already did that other time experience with Messiaen at the age of 22. It is already in Les Offrandes Oubliées. You can already find it in the very earliest pieces, and certainly also in the last part of l'Ascencion. You get metronome figures like 1/8 = 30. Then you think: that is incredibly slow. But it's essential. You learn that that pace is an essential thing. In the famous Louange from the cello solo from the Quatuor it says 1/16 = 44. How long such a measure lasts is unbelievable. There are performances where you notice that people are uncomfortable in that slow part. Then they think let's play it a bit faster, but then it becomes a kind of Fauré or something. Pace is essential. And in my encounters with Messiaen, I learned a lot how incredibly essential the pace is, especially the slow pace. That has to do with infinity. It is also a religious concept for him. But that sense of time is totally unique, and you already have that in the very first pieces of Messiaen.

> You have often worked with Olivier Messiaen on pieces, including in The Hague with students. Some composers are very difficult. They're on top. How was he?

That first time, that was in The Hague, when we did the Turangalîla symphony, that was great. Then he arrived with his wife Yvonne Loriod who played the piano part. Her sister Jeanne Loriod played the Ondes-Martenot part. So his whole family was there with that whole history of that play. That in itself was fantastic. And the Turangalîla Synphony is a piece that has actually been played by all major orchestras around the world. That has been played so incredibly much. And how many times has he been there, traveling with his wife. So it was not the first time for him, but it was the first time that young people did that. And later you saw that youth orchestras could actually play that, but at that time it was still considered too difficult. So that was the first time. He thought that was fantastic. So he was basically there like it was the premiere. He was involved in everything. We had conversations about the tempo, but also how he noticed every tap and every little thing in the percussion in the orchestra. That is essential in his music. And in a very generous, courteous way, but very present. That first time with Messiaen was unforgettable for me. I am also of a certain generation. Messiaen was already a great composer when I was at the conservatory. So that was the history. The first time you see Messiaen is a bit like meeting Beethoven, I would say. I have worked with many composers who are much more of my generation. Or Ligeti, who was maybe ten years older or something, but that was more my generation. I also had a great admiration for that, but that is something different from working with the legendary Messiaen, who was already in my time at the conservatory. Those are just unforgettable things.

Maybe there is something in it for you.

Happy to provide clarification if needed.

 

[ahofer]

N.B.: Regarding a comment higher up, the Rite of S. is also about as non-atonal as you can get

That’s why I called it a gateway drug. But certainly Mozart is more “non-atonal” than Stravinsky. Perhaps you meant 20th century.

The story of its premiere, whichever version you believe, is fun.

British Library

www.bl.uk

 

[Tremolo]

I think you started with the right approach, curiosity. Dont't try to "understand" why other people may like it or why the composer wrote it in that way. Keep the curiosity on and try to find out if that song provides you something different from what you usually look for in music. The answer can be "No", there is nothing wrong in not liking a composition as long as you don't state that is s**t just because you don't like it

 

[JaMaSt]

But certainly Mozart is more “non-atonal” than Stravinsky.

Atonality has a specific meaning in music. Stravinsky's Rite of Spring is tonal.

 

[ahofer]

Atonality has a specific meaning in music. Stravinsky's Rite of Spring is tonal.

Does “non-atonal”? That was the term, not atonal.

 

[Tremolo]

... But certainly Mozart is more “non-atonal” than Stravinsky. Perhaps you meant 20th century.

 

[JaMaSt]

Does “non-atonal”? That was the term, not atonal.

Here's a good explanation of what is going on in the Rite of Spring. I've keyed to where Bernstein begins a discussion of bi-tonality.

 

[Prana Ferox]

When artists produce art for other artists, they often use challenge as a metric of (one could say substitute for) creativity. "It is difficult to listen to" or "I can't tap my foot to this" transforms into "subverting norms" or "discovering untread ground" etc. You can build an appreciation for this sort of stuff if you want, or don't, and I don't think it makes you less sophisticated to dislike it. I've inadvertently listened to a lot of 'modern classical' and the linked performance didn't sound that weird to me, but people can have different artistic Overton windows without one being 'better'. As the Bernstein vid above shows, there is quite a bit of art in the noise - but it is, and is fully intended to be, recognizable by comrade artists, laypeople be damned.

The somewhat more mainstream equivalent of 'modern classical' with its "pushing a piano down the stairs" sound is free jazz, or most of modern jazz in general, fully freed from its roots of entertaining club dancers, and some would say the resulting noodlings of bloops and scranks are unlistenable wankery. I know I've grown to appreciate it more, but I've still got albums I have to cut off or skip through thinking "ugh I don't want to listen to this."

This isn't specific to or I think even prevalent in music, which still has a large audience and also is still generally tied to mainstream consumption. Compare that to painted art, whose casual audience has completely evaporated, and the remaining audience of endowments and investors value distinctiveness of vision and rarity of product beyond any recognizable artistic skill. Meanwhile the layperson looks at a million dollar painting and think it looks like someone's dog threw up. And while we tend to see this as a modern thing, I suspect it's gone back through the ages, but those sorts of works are a lot less likely to be preserved.