New Music.

Mark, your "jesting" is well received. I sincerely hope you may get mine as well.

In any case, I am the messenger too. (All the time!).

However, the message is valid, indeed.

Parla

Apparently the Jedi Master loves to sing as well.

Hopefully it's not: YODA -LAAY- EEEH -OO!

Mark

Clarinet & violin concerti by Edward Gregson (former principal Royal Northern College of Music) on Chandos.

I've heard a few singers who seemingly weren't discouraged by a similar lack.

Yes you've got a point there Tagalie. I've got to be honest, but I've never really explored the 'New Manchester School' as they were called. I can't think why.

Perhaps it was a televised prom many years ago, in which Max's St. Thomas Wake was performed, and included scaffolding pipes et al in the percussion section! I must have formed the impression that they were a bit 'enfant terrible' in their own way. Dare I say it Novelty stuff!

However, I am aware that Maxwell Davies has composed a good few symphonies and the 'Strathclyde Concertos' series which must be worth exploring at some point I guess!

The only Max I have is the 1962 Sinfonia and a couple of masses. Maybe time I listened again.

Of the little Birtwistle I've listened to, well there's no doubt it is earthy stuff and of great power, but it just didn't really do it for me at the time.

It might be time for a re-visit. And haven't heard much of Alexander Goehr, son of Walter, recently either....

Best wishes

Mark

Thanks for that Tagalie. I'll put 5 and 6 on my list of things to listen to. It's just that, at the moment, with so many good suggestions from the early music, new music and choral music threads - the list is growing!

Thanks for your comment on my advocacy of early music - and you've reminded me about the Haydn late masses again.

This topic has got me thinking about how we define 'new' music, since as you rightly say, it does seem strange to think of Havergal Brian as new.

I sometimes think of composers who are living or who have died in my lifetime as 'new', though that's probably a personal definition since, in that case, I could class Britten and Shostakovitch (both died in 75) and Frank Martin (who died of course in 74) as 'new'. As Parla says as well, maybe what we encounter as new to us we also tend to think of as new. And then there's what strikes us as sounding fresh, and to me at any rate the Polish post-war school still does that.

And as FW says, perhaps we're talking about music written in the last 50 years or so generally speaking as new.

Interesting...

Regards

Mark

Composers, new or otherwise, are subject to the vagaries of fashion. Ligeti is a great example. He was all the rage after Kubrick used some of his music in the film 2001, dropped out of sight for a while and seems to be now on his second wind.

My vinyl and cd collection is full of what's impolitely, in the pop world, called 'one-hit-wonders' - not that they only wrote one piece, but they've been recorded rarely, e.g. Goehr (mentioned above), Hugh Wood, Nystroem, Koppel, Norgard, Blomdahl, Benjamin, Crosse, Buller, Maw, Jones, Riisager, Eller, Raid, Maconchy, Lutyens, Hoddinott, Mathias. A big range there, from the ultra-conservative to the way-out.

The boys, above, have captured the main composers worth pursuing imho. I'd certainly add my support for Gerhard and Henze. Of my one-hit discs, two stand out, music to which I return often and composers of whom I'd love to hear more:

Farquhar (sounds like a friend of Bertie Wooster), a New Zealander, appeared only once to my knowledge with a symphony accompanying works by Lilburn (since recorded on Naxos). A conservative work but a unique voice that has continued to haunt me over the 30 or so years I've owned the recording.

A relatively recent cd of guitar concertos by Harvey and Gray, played by John Williams. Well worth hearing.