Greatest Living Composer

Todd, I agree with your list (especially Ligeti, whom I consider to be the greatest living composer), but with the addition of Rautavaara.

quote:

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I must ask who thinks Hummel wrote music as good as Beethoven’s?

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Hummel's mum.

Anyone familiar with the works of Paul Schutze?

Stuff like: Site Anubis, New Maps of Hell.

Andrew

Andrew Randle
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I think this is great idea for forum.

Hello Sproggle,

Sorry to say Xenakis died early this year. I think Berio is still alive.

You like Kraftwerk -- so do I -- so don't forget Karlheinz Stockhausen who influenced them a lot.

All the best,

James H.

Wayne Shorter

John†

How about film scores e.g. John(?) Williams, or whoever did "The Big Country" or the "Fistful of Dollars" spaghetti westerns, or Michael Nyman or, if you want to include Kraftwerk, any krautrock or Chris deBurgh or...?

Or do you mean composers in the "classical" idiom?

cheers

Nigel

I won't pretend I'm well enough versed in current composers to come up with a serious stab at "best", but will simply note I've always rather enjoyed Arvo Pärt's stuff when I've come across it.

Pete.

is it?

[This message was edited by Nigel Cavendish on THURSDAY 07 June 2001 at 13:42.]

on this bit of the forum

cheers

Nigel

Quite a bit by Raymond Scott, though it wasn't actually written for the cartoons, but simply adopted for use therein.

His "Square Dance For 8 Egyptian Mummies" can be heard on the new Mr. McFall's Chamber CD, "Upstart Jugglers", which I've just got and is very good indeed. It's half of a double release with "Revolucionario" which highlights tango music, much by Piazolla. Both recommended, and you can get them here.

Pete.

How about Peter Maxwell Davies?

Arvo Pärt - the interesting point about him is that it's downright impossible to say it's classical or jazz or fusion or avantgarde or whatever.

Cheese - may all beings be happy

I hope these gentlemen are still alive, but I would want to add:

John Tavener
Henryk Gorecki
Alan Hovhaness
John Rutter

David

He died so he is out of the running. He was quite prolific. I don't like many of his compositions but some are quite good, esp. a disk with Mysterious Mountain coupeled with a Lou Harrison piece that I believe is conducted by Davies. Hovhaness and Harriso n were heavily influenced by far eastern music including Gamalan.l

Gunther Schuller

And he's definitely alive because I saw him
conduct his "Paul Klee" themes with the DSO
last Sunday.

Ron The Mon

Ain´t being dead prerequisite for being deemed important...?

Since I love those hopelessly idiosyncratic "best ... of the world"-lists, I´m anxious for having my say, too:
(in alphabetic order)

PIERRE BOULEZ (The doyen of serialism&aleatoric music -wrote few key works - I now like his merits as an outstanding conductor and interpreter of Mahler, Schoenberg, Webern etc. more than his own works - nevertheless a central figure of 20th-century music.)
PETER MAXWELL DAVIES (Englishman.)
PHILIP GLASS (Yes! - Despised by the orthodox new music faction for having sold more than 250 cd-copies - his extraordinary popularity doesn´t belittle his importance as an original composer.)
SOFIA GUBAIDULINA (Arguably the most important female composer of the 20th-century - anyway, there are not too many women in musical history who were being brought into prominence in spite of the male predominance.)
HANS WERNER HENZE (The gay, oops great old man of Germany´s 20th-century music - left Germany in 1953 due to personal conflicts and aesthetic discrepancies with the serialist dogmatism - has been living in Italy ever since - very prolific composer - very substantial music - the first German to write a ninth symphony after Beethoven!)
GIYA KANCHELI (Georgian composer - influenced by Shostakovich like all modern East European composers - very original and impressive - exciting and very good!)
GYÖRGY KURTÁG (The Hungarian Webern as some call him - writes works that are both formally tight and intensely sensuous)
GYÖRGY LIGETI (Great man, great music! - untiringly creative.)
ARVO PÄRT (Created a convincing postmodern style that is both traditional and modern - fascinating.)
KRZYSZTOF PENDERECKI (The former radical postserialist composer from Poland has become more traditional since the 70´s, but is still one of the leading postmodernists.)
WOLFGANG RIHM (The most important German composer of the post-war generation - prolific.)
KARLHEINZ STOCKHAUSEN (Once a founder of serialism - one of the fathers of electronic music - now out of his mind, floating around the universe and listening to cosmic vibrations - since 1979 obsessively working on his crazy and megalomaniacal "opus magnum" LICHT- recently composed a string quartet for four helicopters! - hopeless case.)

Agree with lots [not all] of last posting !!
Think Steve Reich should also be included.

Of living composers that I have heard I have liked and could be great, one day...

Arvo Part
James MacMillan

Anyone with any recommendations for Ligeti as a starting point?

cheers

Matthew

The Requiem is probably the best place to start. Firstly it's a great work, and secondly you've probably heard a section of it from 2001. Atmospheres and Lux Aeterna (also used in 2001) are also excellent.

David

Etudes, String Quartets, Violin Concerto, Piano Concerto, Horn Trio

I think most of the usual suspects have been mentioned. Harrison Birtwistle and John Adams should get a mention.

Personally I think Philip Glass has lost it. I can't think of any of his works in the last 10 years that I've enjoyed. However, both Symphonies 2 and 3 are being played on Radio 3 on Thursday evening, so I'll tune in to see if he can convince me otherwise.

David

Merle Hagard, hands down.

Thanks for the Ligeti recommendations. Any suggestions of worthy recordings to get my hands on would be appreciated, time to go shopping one thinks.

cheers

Matthew

Hello Matthew,

I agree with Todd Arola on which Ligeti
works to start with. Here are some suggested
recordings but first some provisos.

1) Ligeti left Hungary in 1956 [time of the
uprising]. Before that he wrote
'pseudo-Bartok'. After that he studied at
Darmstadt and wrote very advanced serial
[and I think] electronic works. After this
came the period of Lux Aeterna etc. Since
then he has mellowed [in my opinion] and
his later works are more approcable. In the
early days he was a member of 'Fluxus' and
wrote 'Symphonic Poem for 100 Metronomes'.
It' exactly what it says : wind-up [!?] 100
metronomes and let them all tick away untill#
they stop.
2) I personally like piano music a lot so I am
biased towards piano recordings.

Here goes ...

1) Sony had a 'Complete Ligeti Edition' but they
have stopped it. The piano disk of 'Etudes'
and 'Musica Ricerda' by Aimard is super.
2) Also in the sony series is a disk of chamber
music which includes a solo sonata for viola;
some wind pieces and the trio for horn, piano
and ... [I cant remember the 3rd instrument].
3) There is also an arditti string quartet cd
in the sony series with both his string
quartets.
4) There are [I think] 12 or 13 piano edudes
[i.e. book I + book II + first etude of
Book III] on the Sony disk but he has written
a few more since.
5) On DG there is an excellent CD by Boulez with
3 concertos : piano, cello and violin.
6) There are some box sets of Ligeti on Wergo
but I have never heard them.
7) I think there is a DG archive CD of Ligeti
[which is mid price] but I can't remember
the details.

Hope this helps

James H

Ligeti with his wonderful Piano Cto (twice recorded by Pierre-Laurent Aimard, on Sony and Teldec) which somehow embodies a lot of his equally wonderful Etudes (Aimard on Sony) is the obvious contender. And Dutilleux wrote a beautiful Violin Cto (Isabelle van Keulen on Koch). Two examples of composers emerging out of the 60's 70's fog to achieve a kind of greatness.

However I'd like to propose Oliver Knussen (born 1952) - not as the greatest living composer, but as a composer you want to listen to. He wrote some very interesting orchestral works (DG recorded); after all he's a conducter too. And I especially like the piano pieces Peter Serkin recorded, the Variations op 24 (RCA) and the Takemitsu memorial piece op 29 (Koch Int). And, incidentally, Peter Serkin is a very interesting musician.

John Adams is my vote for favorite, best is a horrible concept. they still haven't put out his symphony "Nieve and Sentimental Music" but I went to the Premier and thought I had heard the most amazing piece and went back the next night. Big, broad and mind bending at times