Classical Music R.I.P.
Sun, Jul 22 2012, 2:05PM
#2
RE: Classical Music R.I.P.
Good stuff folks!
Look I has nothing to declare. Why is you pickin' on me? Is it cos I is a yoof and listens to art music?
Ok in my flight bag I have; Gorecki, Tippett, Lutoslawski, Penderecki, Part, Knussen, Hugh Wood and loads of others. This one is legal; it's called Never mind the Boulez here's Pierre. Me has borrowed that from Arbutus.
I'm not sure I can do a list Uber. Mussessein your list looks interesting. You rate Penderecki 7 and 8? I know only the first four, but very interesting indeed.
Really there are so many composers to explore...
Mark
Sun, Jul 22 2012, 5:28PM
#3
RE: Classical Music R.I.P.
Good stuff folks!
Look I has nothing to declare. Why is you pickin' on me? Is it cos I is a yoof and listens to art music?
Ok in my flight bag I have; Gorecki, Tippett, Lutoslawski, Penderecki, Part, Knussen, Hugh Wood and loads of others. This one is legal; it's called Never mind the Boulez here's Pierre. Me has borrowed that from Arbutus.
I'm not sure I can do a list Uber. Mussessein your list looks interesting. You rate Penderecki 7 and 8? I know only the first four, but very interesting indeed.
Really there are so many composers to explore...
Mark
More unfamiliar stuff for me to explore! Thanks to Uber's OP
Mon, Jul 23 2012, 12:43AM
#4
RE: Classical Music R.I.P.
Beyond the fun so far, I think that Uber Alice has made some point, indeed.
So far, the works mentioned are some sort of above or around mediocrity or average compositions compared to the 15 Symphonies & 15 String Quarterts as well as a good deal of great Instrumental and Chamber Music works by Shostakovich. Prokofiev, Stravinsky, Bartok, R. Strauss, Britten and quite a few others wrote a good number of monumental, influential, extremely interesting and quite fascinating works, in every field (wonderful and audaciously original and inspired ballets, great vocal works, splendid and memorable Operas, spectacular and breathtaking Symphonic & Orchestral works, etc.).
Where the "Popel Vuh" and Ginastera himself can stand? Who knows (and truly cares for) "Pro et Contra" and Gubaidulina herself? As for Beamish, Matthews or Maxwell Davies, can they stand with any really memorable or influential composition? And how many do really care for or even know them and their production outside UK?
So, maybe it's not the "end of the world" after 1975, nor the end of Classical Music, but contemplate the idea that maybe, after Aug. 1975, we enter the era of all types of "mediocrity" (lower the bar, deal with the incomprehensible: you don't have to follow or understand anything; just enjoy the...sonorities, the colours; forget the design, the form, the structure, the fine melodies, solid orchestrations...).
To sum up: despite there are quite a few examples of works of some kind of genuine interest, after Aug. 1975, we have not seen any Symphony even close to Shostakovich, Prokofiev or R. Strauss, a String Quartet of the calibre of any of Shostakovich or Bartok (or even Ravel and Faure) and so on. The bar is lowered and along with that our mindset is being compromised.
However, I won't say never again. We can always hope. Who knows?..
Parla
Mon, Jul 23 2012, 9:12AM
#5
RE: Classical Music R.I.P.
It sounds like 'Opera in Venice after Monteverdi'.
Mon, Jul 23 2012, 10:26AM
#6
RE: Classical Music R.I.P.
"It sounds like 'Opera in Venice after Monteverdi'."
A brilliant observation!
Chris
Mon, Jul 23 2012, 12:38PM
#7
RE: Classical Music R.I.P.
Parla: 'So, maybe it's not the "end of the world" after 1975, nor the end of Classical Music, but contemplate the idea that maybe, after Aug. 1975, we enter the era of all types of "mediocrity" (lower the bar, deal with the incomprehensible: you don't have to follow or understand anything; just enjoy the...sonorities, the colours; forget the design, the form, the structure, the fine melodies, solid orchestrations...)'.
Though we all make generalizations, myself included, I have to say that I find the likes of Gorecki, Lutoslawski, Part, Messiaen and Ligeti raise the bar for me rather than lowering it.
It is of course eminently possible Parla to have sonority, colour, form, design, structure, melody and orchestration all to a fine level and as a total package in a piece. Personally the above composers tick those boxes for me.
Mark
Mon, Jul 23 2012, 1:03PM
#8
RE: Classical Music R.I.P.
Uber - hope you like the Part CD. Let me know what you think!
Mark
Mon, Jul 23 2012, 5:18PM
#9
RE: Classical Music R.I.P.
As for Beamish, Matthews or Maxwell Davies, can they stand with any really memorable or influential composition? And how many do really care for or even know them and their production outside UK?
But I'm not outside the UK, and if those abroad are too narrow minded to listen to these composers why should I care.
The original post asked:
"I merely ask one question. Give me the name of one work written after 09/08/75 that is any good. I don't mean stands up against Beethoven or even Brahms or even Britten. I just mean 'a little bit good', worth listening to"
I suggest that all the above have written works that (at least) fall into that category.
Tue, Jul 24 2012, 1:03AM
#10
RE: Classical Music R.I.P.
CW, your reply answers the second question of mine and partially. However, the critical one is the first. Can they stand with any memorable or influential composition? I have quite a few CDs of all of these three and I do not and cannot find anything of this sort.
By the way the "original post" asked about works, not composers.
Parla
Tue, Jul 24 2012, 12:59PM
#11
RE: Classical Music R.I.P.
CW, your reply answers the second question of mine and partially. However, the critical one is the first. Can they stand with any memorable or influential composition? I have quite a few CDs of all of these three and I do not and cannot find anything of this sort.
By the way the "original post" asked about works, not composers.
Parla
Another potentially interesting thread ruined by Parla's humourless, pompous, mostly incorrect, pedantic, and deeply uninteresting posts.
It's amazing how someone who apparently knows everything doesn't understand how this works.
I'm off.
Tue, Jul 24 2012, 8:27PM
#12
RE: Classical Music R.I.P.
Mark --
I didn't have any particular hierarchy in mind -- my list was vaguely chronological, if anything. Sorry if I caused any confusion.
Parla, I would not hold any items on my list to the "Beethoven or above" standard. But I found genuine pleasure and musical insight in each of the works listed. Beyond that, I make no claims.
Enjoy!
Tue, Jul 24 2012, 9:02PM
#13
RE: Classical Music R.I.P.
I would not hold any items on my list to the "Beethoven or above" standard.
You cannot get 'Beethoven or above' standard. That is like saying 'infinity plus one', it doesn't exsist.
Tue, Jul 24 2012, 10:00PM
#14
RE: Classical Music R.I.P.
A late response to this thread, but I've recently been listening again to some Rubbra symphonies, and the last two (10 & 11) I think would technically count as post-mortem-Shostakovich. More importantly, they connect with an earlier sequence much of which I think is excellent.
In particular, I'm really taken at the moment with the 6th Symphony (1954) - the very fine BBC NOW/Hickox recording on Chandos and perhaps the even better (more robust, seemingly more-at-home-with-the-score, if marginally less glamorously polished) Philharmonia/Del Mar recording on Lyrita. Rubbra's 9th is also a great score, openly paying hommage to Bach, and composed in 1972.
I think Alice has got a rough point about a generation of music: not necessarily a generation of music-makers (who may have been born some time before the 1970s), so much as an approach to musical communication and values deemed fashionable since then. I guess it's an argument we've been having for a good century - century and a half - since we as listeners (for various reasons: education, the economics of the concert hall then recorded sound, etc) became critics and arbiters of quality. This forum is vivid testimony to it. The stuff we don't like we consider upstart trash. Much of it no doubt is. The abiding question is where we draw the line, and whether we're right.
That question rumbles on...............
Still, I'm happy to commit to saying that I thoroughly like a tune or two, and what sounds to my layman's ears like craftsmanship. I want music to challenge me but also to engage me, and encourage me to take some sort of intellectual and emotional journey. Rubbra's 6th, to cite an example, does that.
Most music by composers writing today doesn't do that. It's either too simple or incomprehensible. (Hoping there that I'm not paraphrasing some Viennese critic on Mahler's 6th at the time of its first performance, though I probably am.)
Tue, Jul 24 2012, 10:28PM
#15
RE: Classical Music R.I.P.
To John Gardiner: Couldn't agree with your more about Rubbra, especially the 6th Symphony. I have the Del Mar recording but I always thought he took the outer movements too quickly, most notably the finale - it seemed rushed and over before its time. Then the Hickox recording came out and, I could be wrong, read that he took it even faster. Then in a used record store I found a live performance done in London in 1971 by Sir Adrian Boult and the RPO. There was what I seemed to be missing - a first movement 10.24 minutes long (Del Mar is 9.13) and a fourth movement 12.01 minutes long (Del Mar is 9.35). Rubbra could have been in the audience at the time and maybe Boult even consulted him about the tempi, or maybe it was just Boult being Boult but it is a performance I cherish and play frequently. It is on the Intaglio label along with the first performance of the 8th Symphony (Groves, RLPO). I could name other Rubbra works I enjoy (Soliloquy for Cello & Orchestra, Violin Concerto, the 5th Symphony (Barbirolli & Schonzeler), 7th Symphony, etc.) but the list would be too long. As you say, his music is an "intellectual and emotional journey."
Ladies and Gentlemen, this is captain Uber Alice welcoming you aboard
Coconut Airways flight 372 to Bridgetown Barbados
We will be flying at an 'ight of 32000 feet and at an airspeed of approximately 600 miles per hour
Refreshments will be served after take-off, kindly fasten your safety belts
and remember our security personell will be around checking to make sure nobody has brought a Pierre Boulez record on board.
........and our chief steward Michael Tippett will be coming round the cabin later with a selection of his own CDs for purchase............