Simon Steen-Andersen (1976-; Danish)
Steen-Andersen has some of the most creative music I've ever heard. He's a hybrid of Lachenmann's extended techniques, Cage's philosophizing, and Kagel's theatrics, but he goes in a direction all his own. It's the way he combines sampler sounds with instruments, or the way he prepares the instruments, or the way he integrates visual media with sound, or the way he uses everyday tactile objects, that is unlike anything I've heard. Some of his early stuff can be hit or miss -- though if you're familiar with the ideas behind the music and have a good ear, they're still pretty interesting, the problem with them is that they're very performance dependent -- but starting with his work
Run Time Error, he's really taken off with some great pieces.
Run Time Error in particular is an experimental piece fertile in musical ideas like Cage's 4'33" (in my opinion, it's more interesting than 4'33"); in fact, I'd go as far as to say that, were it not for the cultural milieu Steen-Andersen is currently composing in and were
Run Time Error created in the fifties like 4'33", it would've achieved the level of infamy 4'33" currently has.
The 2 pieces I recommend hearing first are:
TRIO, which premiered at the 2019 Donaueschingen festival and is an amazing spectacle of video and sound (piece starts at 1 hour 39 minute mark)
Run Time Error, a site specific video installation performance, where every performance of it is essentially a different composition (this youtube video is one such performance)
I've posted a bit about his music here on TC, so I'll just link to some of my posts:
post on TRIO that I wrote last week in one of those stupid "I hate contemporary music" threads.
post on Run Time Error
post on his Piano Concerto
couple posts on Black Box Music and Double Up
As far as ranking the pieces for Trout's list, I weighed different types of evidence. I checked for number of performances on youtube, checked for what's been commercially recorded, checked for amount and variety of information from a simple google search, the number of performances listed on the Steen-Andersen's
personal website, and my personal opinions of the pieces (I listened to every work I could find and read the scores while listening; most of the scores and program notes can be found
here). I've also listened to a couple interviews on youtube and this
2 hour lecture given by Steen-Andersen on his own music. But the best pieces of evidence are:
This essay
"Have you Seen the Music"
The only two books I've read on more recent contemporary music had extended discussions on Steen-Andersen's
Run Time Error and
Black Box Music. I doubt that's a coincidence.
This
2017 survey of over 100 music professionals asking who they thought were the best composers since 2000 and what were the best works (when you click on the link, then click on "Get More Information" for the survey results). Steen-Andersen had the second highest point total, behind only G. F. Haas. As an aside, this survey is a *fantastic* place to start checking out 21st century music.
Anyways, here's the list. Some notes:
1. loloopop is more of a visual art installation than a piece of music and is a collaboration effort with artist Carl Krull. I included it because I found it to be pretty interesting and I think it showcases in a different way the connections between Steen-Andersen's music and other artistic media, but if you think it's beyond the scope of this list, you can take it down.
2. It's rather difficult to give the instrumentation for (Self Reflecting) Next to Beside Besides. Steen-Andersen composed a work called Besides in 2003. He then wrote 13 solo pieces (the first of which is called Beside Besides, the others called Next to Beside Besides) that are each different takes on the coda of Besides. These 13 works can also be played simultaneously in any combination. This is the Next to Beside Besides series. Steen-Andersen then added an option for these solos to be projected onto video screens while other solos are being played, again in any combination. This is the Self Reflecting Next to Beside Besides series. I put "Self Reflecting" in () in order to condense these two series into one entry while indicating that the video part is optional. I'll leave it up to you if you have a better way of writing it. I'm also gonna leave the individual entries in the series below, so that you have the complete information, but I know you'll want to condense it all down to one line. Again, I'm not sure how to phrase the instrumentation in such a way so that I capture all the necessary information, so I'm leaving it up to you
3. TRIO would easily be a *** piece except for two things. First, it was only composed two years ago. Second, it's the product of a specific time and place and is essentially a glorification of the SWR radio station and the Donaueschinger festival (whose 100th anniversary is this year). This implies that only the SWR orchestra can play it and can only be played for a short while before it loses its wider significance, thus limiting the number of performances. But other than that, it's an impeccably composed work. I gave it **, but if you think otherwise, go for it.
- String Quartet No. 1 (1999)
- Praesens [14 musicians] (2001)
- Besides [amplified piccolo flute, amplified piano, amplified violin & dampened string trio] (2003)
- Rerendered [amplified & prepared piano solo, 2 assistants & video installation] (2003, rev. 2004)
- (Self-Reflecting) Next to Beside Besides [combinations of 1 or more solo instruments (optional video installation)] (2003-2008)
o Beside Besides (Next to Beside Besides No. 0) [dampened cello solo (optional amplification)] [2003]
o Next to Beside Besides No. 1 [amplified & dampened double bass solo] [2005]
o Next to Beside Besides No. 2 [amplified & dampened saxophone solo] [2005]
o Next to Beside Besides No. 3 [amplified & prepared accordion solo] [2005]
o Next to Beside Besides No. 4 [amplified & prepared snare drum solo] [2006]
o Next to Beside Besides No. 5 [amplified & prepared piccolo solo] [2006]
o Next to Beside Besides No. 6 [amplified, dampened & prepared violin solo] [2006]
o Next to Beside Besides No. 7 [amplified & prepared piano & whammy pedal] [2006]
o Next to Beside Besides No. 8 [amplified & prepared guitar solo] [2006]
o Next to Beside Besides No. 9 [amplified & prepared double bass solo] [2007]
o Next to Beside Besides No. 10 [miniature camera & visual installation] [2007]
o Next to Beside Besides No. 11 [amplified vibraphone solo] [2007]
o Next to Beside Besides No. 12 [amplified & prepared accordion solo] [2008]
o Next to Beside Besides No. 13 [amplified & prepared guitar solo] [2008]
- Amid [flute, Bb clarinet, prepared piano, guitar, percussion, dampened violin & dampened cello] (2004)**
- Amongst [amplified guitar solo & orchestra] (2005)
- loloopop (with Carl Krull) [audio-visual installation] (2006)
- In spite of, and maybe even therefore [amplified flute, amplified Bb clarinet, contrabassoon, amplified & dampened F horn, percussion, prepared piano & double bass] (2007)
- Studies for String Instrument Nos. 1-3 [1 or more string instruments, whammy pedal & video installation] (2007-2011)**
- Difficulties Putting it into Practice [2 or 4 amplified musicians] (2007, rev. 2010/2014)
- On and Off and To and Fro [prepared soprano saxophone, vibraphone & double bass; 3 prepared megaphones] (2008)
- Pretty Sound (Up and Down) [amplified piano solo] (2008)
- Ouvertures [amplified gu-zheng solo, sampler & orchestra] (2008-2010)
- Run Time Error [site-specific video installation performance] (2009-present)***
- Double Up [chamber orchestra & sampler] (2010)**
- History of my Instrument [amplified & prepared harp, amplified toy harp & video installation] (2011)
- Black Box Music [conductor solo, sinfonietta, amplified black box & video installation] (2012)***
- String Quartet No. 2 [with amplified & prepared bows] (2012)
- Inszenierte Nacht [music theater & live electronics] (2013)
- Buenos Aires [opera] (2014)
- Piano Concerto [piano solo, orchestra, sampler & video installation] (2014)**
- Asthma [amplified accordion & video installation] (2017)
- TRIO [orchestra, big band, choir & video installation] (2019)**