April 2019

[perpetuo studens]

Reha (sandalwood) has been providing us with excellent monthly questions since I took over as admin. He's currently having some long term network connection problems so he sent me a couple of prospective questions in case he wasn't able to post as usual on the first of the month. I picked this one. Enjoy!

Great composers of our times
Wagner died in 1883, Liszt in 1886, Franck 1890, Tchaikovsky 1893, Bruckner 1896, Brahms 1897, Verdi 1901, Dvorak 1904, Grieg 1907. Add a hundred years to the above dates. Isn't it a blessing that there was no similar "decade of farewells" for the great composers of our times? So, they should still be with us. Do you know them?

[RJB54]

I'm afraid that I am not familiar with most composers who are currently active.

I occasionally hear a piece by a current composer on the radio but not enough to really have an opinion of them. I also can't afford to buy random CDs to check out composers I'm not familiar with.

The end result is that, sadly, I have no opinion as to who the great current composers are.

[Ron]

I'm afraid that I am not familiar with most composers who are currently active.

I occasionally hear a piece by a current composer on the radio but not enough to really have an opinion of them. I also can't afford to buy random CDs to check out composers I'm not familiar with.

The end result is that, sadly, I have no opinion as to who the great current composers are.

You don't need to buy random CDs to discover the great composers of today. YouTube has recordings of just about anyone who has ever recorded anything. I just typed "contemporary composers" into Google and got a list of the top couple of dozen. Click on any of their names, et voila!

[Patrick O'Keefe]

Actually, the recent "minimalist" thread gave a starter set:  Philip Glass, John Adams, John Luther Adams, Steve Reich, Arvo Pärt.  Add to that John Corigliano, George Crumb, Brian Ferneyhough (I'll put him on the list, but that doesn't mean I have to listen to his stuff).

As Ron mentioned, Google uncovers lots ... most of which I've never heard of.

[Michel.R.E]

I like some of Corigliano's music. I briefly studied with him in New York when I was younger.
I particularly love both his piano and flute concertos.
Although at a certain point later on his music seemed to stagnate and become a bit cloying.

[sandalwood]

Here are the works by the living composers in the Classic FM 2018 Hall of Fame, ranking better than 300th.

283 Seal Lullaby-Eric Whitacre
263 Vln Conc-P Glass
239 Banjo Kazooie-Grant Kirkhope
223 Musical Zodiac-Debbie Wiseman
201 Pirates of the Caribbean-Klaus Badelt
188 Kingdom of Hearts (vid game)-Yoko Shimomura
162 Christmas Blessing-Philip Stopford (1 more work in the list)
161 Conc. Antico for Guitar-Richard Harvey
127 I Giorni-L Einaudi (2 more works in the list)
123 O Magnum Mysterium-M Lauridsen
119 Ladies in Lavender-N Hess
115 Danzon No 2-Arturo Marquez (1 more work in the list)
99   Final Fantasy (vid game)- Nobuo Uematsu
90   Gladiator- H Zimmer
86   Romeo Juliet (film)-Craig Armstrong
65   Mission-E Morricone
60   Spiegel in Spiegel-A Part
48   Ashokan Farewell-Jay Ungar
29   Lord of the Rings-H Shore
23   Schindler's List-J Williams (9 more works in the list)
20   Armed Man-K Jenkins (2 more works in the list)

Just a hall among the halls! By the way. I saw somewhere in the Classic FM site H Gorecki mentioned as the most commercially successful composer of recent times.

[Jerry Engelbach]

Reha,
 
Very useful list. Thank you. I'll try to listen to as many as possible.
 
Cheers,
Jer