contemporary music

P.S. my two parrots do like Weber's Op. 21 becuase of the tone colors.

They are big fans of Bach and any music from the Baroque and Classical eras

 

When it comes to me and atonal music... at first I hated all of it.

My first composer I ever got into was Rachmaninoff... then I worked backwards all the way to Buxtehude...

But when I first heard a piece by Schoenberg, I hated it immediatly. I still try to listen to him today, but I really can't stand his music.

12 Tone Theory bothers me immensily, because it is litterally just trying to be as random as possible, by making sure that you never favor any one key more than another, so you must make random jumps, abandoning all classical harmonic developmental ideals...

However, when I first an atonal work by Scriabin (the 9th sonata), I hated it. However, as I continued to listen to it, I began to love it. Now, I really enjoy Scriabin's late works, and think them to be just as wonderful to listen to as any other piece of music.

I still can't stand schoenberg, webern, etc.

I always liked Prokofiev, because my first two pieces I ever heard were his Suggestion Diabolique, op. 4, no. 4, and his Toccata in D Minor, op. 11(?). They were able to lead me in gently to his world... and I always loved it.

I would consider myself to be mildly modernist. I do love Scriabin's later works, and have ever written 2 atonal preludes in a style that I feel is similar to his, but still kinda my own thing.

However, I am truely a romantic at heart. I love Scriabin's early works the best, just like I love Rachmaninoff, Chopin, etc.

But I don't like Liszt.
He's far too flashy for my tastes.

--- My rant for the day.

 

Prokofiev's Toccata was easy for you to listen to? :shock: He said himself about it that it was supposed to sound like "carrying 100 china plates and then dropping them all"!

Anyway... I love most atonal stuff, as long as it's written well. For example, George Crumb's "A Little Suite For Christmas" or Corigliano's Etude-Fantasy among others...

It's impossible to have a favourite composer in my opinion... but Prokofiev is as close as it comes for me. What really gets me about his music is that in some places it's so romantic, and then it just morphs into this cataclysmic mess, but you can never quite tell when it happened. The famous 2nd piano concerto is a perfect example of this (especially the 1st movement... the opening is so beautiful, and the end of the cadenza is so huge, monstrous, and ominous). I WILL learn that one day if I die trying hahaha

Anyway what bugs me is when a composer DOES write completely random noise that's not sophisticated at any level, and doesn't have any structure or purpose of any sort, and tries to convince people that it's music... (like when it's written in the score to play the same note over and over for 30 seconds... or to choose 3 random notes and play them in quick succession 5 times or something stupid) That's not music. It's just dumb...

 

Hmmm... The toccata in d minor was actually one of the first pieces piano pieces I ever heard.

Actually... it was the third keyboard piece I've ever heard... 2nd piano piece.

I had just "discovered" that my favorite halloween music has a name: "Bach's" toccata and fugue in d minor (I don't think Bach wrote it... but that's for another thread...), and I was searching for Toccata in d minor... and I happened to find a recording of Agerich playing Prokofiev's toccata...

At first, I was mildly confused. By my second time listening to it, I loved it.

It builds up very nicely.
And I like the whole "crashing plates" thing... I don't know why.

I like heavy music in general...

Btw... the first piece, prior to the two toccatas... was Rachmaninoff's prelude in C# Minor.
It was also the first piece I ever learned how to play... And when my great-grandmother passed away, my parents suggested that my brother and I leave something in the casket to remind her of us... I chose the sheet music to that piece. That way, when ever I play it, she can remember me.

Sooo... that piece is kinda special to me... although for some reason my skills with it have atrophied after not playing it for a few months...

But I like Prokofiev.

--- RANT #2!!!

 

:lol: I know what you mean.

 

:evil: Liszt haters! :evil:

 

Huh... Corigliano's Etude-Fantasy atonal ??? I find that an eminently melodious work that does not even seem particularly 'contemporary' compared to some things written hald a century earlier.

 

Ok, I understand pianolady but why the contempory music must atonal and only atonal.
Do you Steve Reich or Gavin Bryars ?
I remember the piece of Bryars 'New York', a very good composition and magnifical harmonies and sound. I will like to listen again !

Chris

 

Hmmmm... I guess you're right! Not all contemporary music is atonal... ex. Shostakovich.

I really like Shostakovich!

But... unfortunately, our world has been flooded by the "music" of Brittney Spears and the like...
Sadly... that could also be considered "Contemporary music"

I suppose that there are always different methods of expression in different times, but there generally tends to be one view that tends to dominate that time, perhaps stereotypically.

 

Who, I disagree with that. It's not music... this stuff files under "shit noise", or to coin my favourite phrase once more, poppy drivel. I don't want to go as far as to say that ALl popular music is bad, but the stuff you hear on MTV and TMF is low-life trash.

 

And that's why I used quotations

I agree completely that most of it is "Shit noise."

However.... I also use that term for a lot of Schoenberg's works as well...

I also use it for a lot of Mahler's works too... :shock:

I'm now expecting at least a few people to jump down my throat...

 

Pianolady wrote:

Well,back in France, I was required to play each year two modern pieces. The "Handgelobnis" was one of them and it was actually the last modern piece I played before moving to the USA.
To be honest,I,myself didn't quite like modern music.
But then in 2001,when I joined the student body at the University of Kansas, I began to look for a repertoire not often played that would get me noticed. And I also became member of the University of Kansas Wind Symphony. Being a member of the Wind Symphony made me discover great composers such as Maslanka,Mackey,Colgrass,Pann and others.
And when I met Carter Pann in 2001/2002, that turned things for me and I really began enjoying his music and decided to give priority to modern music.
The above is quite simplistic,but I think explains enough,lol
Now,this said,I refuse to play Boulez,Stockhausen or any of the serial/atonal guys .I like melodies,I like clear writing.
All the modern composers I play have that in their music.
For an example of modern repertoire recital,check the program for my upcoming recital at http://pianosociety.com/new/phpBB2/view ... 8012#18012

 

Oh good grief.

I love how 'contemporary' music is considered. That term is so outdated it's ridiculous.

How many of these 'contemporary' composers mentioned are even alive today? How many were born in the 19th Century? I noticed that some people mentioned Reich, Glass, and Adams. Not bad, we're starting to get somewhere.

Now, I am of course biased as I'm working on a dissertation that concerns post-minimalist music, basically nothing written before 1980, but this term 'contemporary' really gets on my nerves.

It isn't exactly our fault either. I'm in a theory class that is actually called 'contemporary' music, but it only covers Schoenberg and Stravinsky. Huh. That's weird... If you want to see what's going on in music now, you've really got to do a lot of leg work yourself, which is really a tragedy.

Thoughts?

 

Apologies for the lack of introduction. I posted some about myself in the Audition Forum.

All I was saying is that the term contemporary is a misnomer since a lot of the music being discussed was written many decades ago. Labeling music since the turn of the 20th Century, is rather difficult since composers really began to branch out in a lot of different directions simultaneously. In teaching this music, classes I've seen typically label it all as 20th Century music, and divide as pre- and post-WWII. I just wanted to get people thinking about the term and its connotations.

My other point was how hard it is to get a hold of or learn about really recent art music. I had to go to the composers themselves in most cases for my research, as many of these pieces would be held by only one library (university or otherwise) in the US. I think that says a lot about how we as performers view music vs. those around 1900.

Personally, I get excited thinking that I could (in a very small way) help shape what music enters the standard repertoire in the coming years. By performing and teaching new music, I see myself as part of a larger dialogue, and I personally think that's pretty cool.

 

I think it's all still called "contemporary" because it hasn't really caught on yet. :lol:

 

I think the term "Romantic" was already in use by Chopin's time, though he didn't think it applied to him. He saw himself as being separate from the "romantic" style of composing, and in many ways, he was. The term "classical" wasn't used in reference to that era until the 19th century, though, and the term "baroque", being a fairly derogatory term, was definitely not used until the classical style was gaining ground. Monteverdi (early baroque) called his style "seconda prattica" as opposed to the "prima prattica" of Palestrina et al., but other than that I don't know much.