[Trout]

Incredible list, Marc! I think I've heard of most of them, but I can only claim to be really familiar with a small handful of them. I hope to give them all their due as a listener when I have the time.

 

[tortkis]

How about Christian Wolff? Maybe not as popular as Cage or Feldman, but he seems regarded highly and there are substantial number of recordings.

 

[science]

I was looking for this and I figured since I appreciate Trout's work here so much it's worth bumping in case anyone hasn't seen it!

 

[Trout]

Thanks again science for the kind words.

Just an update to say that Kaija Saariaho's entry has been added. One of my favorite composers, Saariaho manages to elicit a profound intellectual and emotional response from me, the latter of which much of contemporary music either fails to or fails at attempting to. This is not necessarily a dig on current music as not everything has to move me to be enjoyable. However, I do find it increasingly less common for composers to strive for this expressly, focusing instead on a more visceral and intellectual approach. Thankfully, Saariaho manages to do all the above in her own beautiful language. Some of her pieces with electronics were among the first that I encountered that really blew my mind and widened my view on how the medium can be used.

I've finished up a couple other entries in the interim, and I'm hoping that this project will be a bit more active in the near future.

 

[Portamento]

I'm liking the Young entry. Have you ever heard Just Charles & Cello in the Romantic Chord? The sole recording by the dedicatee is extremely elusive (and expensive!)-according to the CD's liner notes: "The new work was composed specifically for Charles Curtis, who has studied the performance technique with Young in the guru-disciple method of oral transmission over a period of years. The work is not intended to be played by other cellists unless they study it with Young in the same way...."

If you ask me, that's bordering on pretentious.

 

[Trout]

I'm liking the Young entry. Have you ever heard Just Charles & Cello in the Romantic Chord? The sole recording by the dedicatee is extremely elusive (and expensive!)-according to the CD's liner notes: "The new work was composed specifically for Charles Curtis, who has studied the performance technique with Young in the guru-disciple method of oral transmission over a period of years. The work is not intended to be played by other cellists unless they study it with Young in the same way...."

If you ask me, that's bordering on pretentious.

Young's music is notoriously hard to find and listen to. I've only heard a couple short samples of that piece that I found available on some obscure site and, well, they were all just cello drones. Any special performance technique was lost on me, though I admit Young's music is not exactly my cup of tea and, thus, I haven't paid the closest attention to the sounds. I respect his vision and style, but the music doesn't hypnotize me in the way Riley's or Glass's manages. I do find much of The Well-Tuned Piano quite fascinating though.

And since the cat's out of the bag, here's a link to Young's ironically short entry (unlike much of his music).

And in other news, there is one new addition to Haas's entry: his Solstices (2019). I hope you're happy if you're reading this, Marc!

 

[Trout]

I recently stumbled upon a fascinating survey of 21st-century classical music (click on "Get more information") from 113 leading conductors, critics, art directors, and musicologists in Europe's contemporary music scene. The results unsurprisingly seem to skew toward a similar avant-garde aesthetic, that of the so-called "Third Viennese School", but I still find them to be rich with recommendations.

I've incorporated all the relevant results in my current tallies, thus bumping up the following works:

Abrahamsen: Four Pieces for Orchestra (now listed)
Adams: The Gospel According to the Other Mary (now listed)
Adès: In Seven Days (now 2-star)
Berio: Piano Sonata (now listed)
Boulez: Dérive 2 (now 3-star)
Chin: Le Silence des Sirènes (now listed)
Furrer: Enigma I-VI (now listed)
Furrer: FAMA (now 3-star)
Gubaidulina: Glorious Percussion (now listed)
Haas: Atthis (now listed)
Haas: dark dreams (now listed)
Harvey: Speakings (now 2-star)
Kurtág: Colindă Baladă (now listed)
Lachenmann: Concertini (now 3-star)
Lachenmann: Schreiben (now 2-star)
Murail: Terre d'Ombre (now listed)
Rihm: Dionysos (now 2-star)
Rihm: Sieben Passions-Texte (now listed)
Saariaho: Laterna Magica (now 2-star)
Van der Aa: Blank Out (now 2-star)
Van dar Aa: One (now listed)

 

[Trout]

Two completed entries to announce:

Frederic Rzewski

Salvatore Sciarrino

Both composers I have come around to recently and now enjoy quite a lot. Sciarrino's music, especially, has left a really great impression. A number of his works like Studi per l'intonazione del mare are immensely evocative through its quiet, yet powerful timbres. And his work Efebo con radio is a delightful sound collage, not too far removed from those by Schnittke or even Ives.

 

[Portamento]

Bump.

Aho, Kancheli, Silvestrov are three of the best-known names not included in this project thus far. I hope you still plan to continue.

 

[Trout]

Aho, Kancheli, Silvestrov are three of the best-known names not included in this project thus far. I hope you still plan to continue.

Thanks for the bump, Portamento.

Yes, at the very least, I'll soon finish the half-complete Silvestrov entry collecting digital dust on my laptop. Available free time and motivation for this project (and classical/contemporary music in general) are fairly cyclical for me and the latter especially has been at a bit of a trough in the past couple months. Not that I don't love it still, but other interests, like film, have prioritized themselves recently.

When I do "return" to this, the following composers would be among the next entrants:

Aho, Kalevi
Benjamin, George
Corigliano, John
Dhomont, Francis
Dusapin, Pascal
Ferrari, Luc
Hovhaness, Alan
Kancheli, Giya
Lindberg, Magnus
MacMillan, James
Monk, Meredith
Oliveros, Pauline
Parmegiani, Bernard
Radulescu, Horatiu
Rochberg, George
Romitelli, Fausto
Sculthorpe, Peter
Silvestrov, Valentin
Tavener, John
Vasks, Pēteris
Wuorinen, Charles

 

[science]

Let's bump this! It's one of the best things going on here!

 

[chu42]

Nice list. I will wait patiently for the addition of Ives.

 

[Trout]

Nice list. I will wait patiently for the addition of Ives.

Thanks, chu. Ives unfortunately falls outside the scope of this project as he composed during the early part of the last century. I'm looking for more recent composers. The cutoff for this project to determine if a composer qualifies is seeing if they have a sizable body of work since the 1970s. If you know of any important ones missing, please do let me know!

 

[jiraffejustin]

This is a tremendous resource, especially for somebody like me that doesn't really know which way to look for music recommendations. Thanks so much for your hard work.

 

[science]

So I find myself consulting this again...

 

[Portamento]

So I find myself consulting this again...

Yup. I do it almost weekly.

 

[Trout]

I appreciate all the support, guys. I really want to try to get back to this at some point in the near future. Life has been really busy the past month or so and will continue to be probably until the holiday season. But I hope that you all continue to show your enthusiasm for contemporary music both in this thread and on the forums. I am always interested in finding new names to explore and blind spots to uncover. I hope that we ultimately help create a contemporary music repertoire (not just referring to this project) that is as large, diverse, and informative as possible.

Thanks a lot.

 

[Portamento]

I found a video of La Monte Young's elusive Just Charles & Cello in the Romantic Chord! There's a Wayback Machine archive of a taken-down YouTube video from 2011.

https://web.archive.org/web/20121007215033/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7-hQ6TZTGk

I'll definitely be hearing this soon.

 

[Trout]

Happy holidays everyone.

I'm just bumping this to announce that I finally added a new entry: Peteris Vasks. I myself am quite a fan of Vasks' music, especially his highly recommended Violin Concerto and his 4th String Quartet with its haunting final movement.

 

[Trout]

I also just completed the entry for the late, great Giya Kancheli. My personal favorites of his works are his Symphony No. 5 and his Lament, but I definitely plan to explore more.