Contemporary Classical Music for the Traditional Venue

Terry Teachout elegantly responded to my challenge with a list of classical music he likes since 1950. Of course, he tossed the ball back to me.

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Context:

Much of the classical music written since 1950 that I listen to is fiercely dissonant and somewhat tuneless.  (I will support uncompromising modernism until my dying day.)  At the other end of the extreme, I also spend time with the most important movement in classical music since 1970, minimalism.

However, I imagine that everybody who likes to go to a conventional classical concert has noticed that neither harsh modernism or minimalism “fits” on the program very well. (This is really the only fair point of Queenan's diatribe.)

Classical music from Bach to Stravinsky generally presents a tune or tunes and develop those tunes through sophisticated but audible means. Along the way the performers get to showcase both their own virtuosity and how they handle the journey of unfolding variation.

Neither harsh modernism or minimalism uses theme, development, or virtuosity in this traditional way. In the context of Bach, Beethoven and Brahms, both Milton Babbitt or Philip Glass are just too different to make much sense.  Indeed, the best uncompromisingly modernist concerts are usually by chamber groups that specialize in new music, and the best minimalism is presented by bands that have more in common with a rock group than a symphony orchestra.

But there is still music being written that “works” at a traditional classical concert. That is what the music on Terry’s list is all about.

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I am no expert, but I can add a few things to Terry’s list. (Actually, the only piece on his list I already know is Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms, so that gives you an idea of my lack of breadth. He gave ten, but I’ll only offer five; surely there is much, much more.)

György Ligeti, Violin Concerto (1992). In the 1960’s, Ligeti was still writing music that was severely “slash and bang.” After that, his palette became became more delicate.

I have been listening to Hillary Hahn’s new Schoenberg/Sibelius disc recently. It’s a great record. In the liner notes, she claims that the Schoenberg Violin Concerto is a hit with audiences. I hope it is, but every time I have seen 12-tone Schoenberg played in a concert hall at least half the audience shuts down.

Hahn must try Ligeti’s concerto, which is vibrant and accessible. The violin writing grows straight from the open strings of the instrument, the slow movement features clear variations on a folk tune, and the violinist even gets to write their own cadenza (!). My wife took a friend to a mixed program at Carnegie Hall one night, and afterwards both women could only talk of the middle piece, the Ligeti Violin Concerto.

Alfred Schnittke, String Trio (1985). This powerful work begins with a sad little G minor dance and ends up suggesting catastrophe on an epic scale. It ranks easily with any other String Trio written by any other composer. Like Ligeti, Schnittke wrote a lot of “slash and bang” music earlier on (his Quasi Una Sonata is one of the grimmest listening experiences of my whole life) before settling down to write music informed by developing thematic variation. If Schnittke’s best work was regularly in front of traditional concert audiences he would soon become accepted as one of the great composers.

Frederic Rzewski, North American Ballads (1978-79). Rzewski’s music ranges from the simple to the obdurate. His most famous composition is the monumental set of variations on The People United Will Never Be Defeated!, but that is an evening-length work. The North American Ballads are astounding transfigurations of famous folk songs, and I have heard one or two of them “work” on a program with Haydn and Chopin in a way that - great as they are - Elliot Carter's Night Fantasies or John Adams's Phrygian Gates just wouldn't.

Rzewski is one of the greatest living pianists, and his own recording of the Ballads is essential.  It available in the giant Nonesuch box, although I prefer the rare earlier version on Hat Hut paired with his delightful Squares. 

Morton Gould, StringMusic (1994). The members of major orchestras take pride in how their ensemble plays together. Professionals discuss how the Berlin tribe is different than the Vienna; how the Cleveland is different from L.A., how the NY Phil is different from the Met. Orchestra players often don’t like to play modern music, since how tribal can the players be when confronted with pages of dissonant cross-rhythms or endlessly repeating tonal figures?

It feels like Gould is going to be one of the forgotten figures of American classical music, which is too bad. Sure, a lot of his vast output is only casual, but the best Gould showcases a brilliant musical mind, something like the intersection of Stravinsky and Richard Rodgers. I personally find Gould as good (indeed, often better) as Copland or Bernstein at putting the American vernacular in concert music.

Gould was a spectacular orchestrator, and StringMusic allows the band to show off traditional string ensemble strengths. If an orchestra can’t “have at it” with this piece, the players really are dead. StringMusic was Gould’s valediction, and it won a Pulitzer Prize, too.

Thomas Adès: almost everything. One reason this younger British composer already has major career is simply because you can comfortably put him on a conventional program. I have heard the Berlin Philharmonic with Simon Rattle play Adès’ symphonic masterwork Asyla (1997) alongside Mozart and Ravel with no problem. Likewise, when I saw Imogen Cooper play Traced Overhead (1996) on a program with Schubert and Schumann, I didn’t feel the audience’s general attitude underwent a huge change.

Adès perhaps most clearly shows his belief in the concert hall tradition of classical music on a recording where he plays piano on both Schubert’s “Trout” quintet and his own Piano Quintet.

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UPDATE: I originally asked for further contributions and got several smart responses:

Gabe Kahane

...What I find interesting (and to my liking) is that all of the composers you've listed strike me as "unideological"-- for me, the big three unideological composers are Ligeti, Adès, and Rzewski. By unideological, I mean that none of them is/was beholden to a preconceived procedure or school-- I think this is the (relatively obvious) rub with the new music scene. On the one hand, you have the Wuorinens of the world (fiercely ideological and generally inaccessible even to those of us with refined ears) and on the other hand, there are the Glasses-- ideological in their dogma toward art that is conceptual and perhaps a bit populist to the extreme. I would argue that John Adams has become less and less ideological as he's gone on, oddly away from the minimalism that he sought out West after Harvard.

All of this is to say that what sets Ligeti and Adès apart, and for me makes them my favorite composers of the second half of the twentieth century, is that there is an elegant and graceful appropriation of elements from all corners of the musical earth in their works, and they seem to be unencumbered by the ideological concerns of the thorny modernists or of the ready-to-please minimalists. (I do NOT place Steve Reich in that latter category, as I find his work to be, almost without fail, deeply compelling and emotionally resonant. And, for that matter, I wouldn't put Adams in that category.)

Hubert Dupont (among other things, Dupont is the bassist in the spectacular Kartet w/Benoit Delbecq)

About the classical composers after 1950, I just would put in the list:
 
- Benjamin Britten 's three cello suites (versions by Tim Hugh, or Jean-Guihen Queyras)
 
- Sandor Veress : Musica Cantante (for strings)
- Sandor Veress : Quattro Danze Transilvane (string ensemble ; there is a ECM recording of it)

Veress is a hungarian, comes after Bartok or Kodaly, taught Ligeti. Great music.

Larry Kart (This list has quite a lot of harsh modernism on it, but I love the positive note he ends on.)

Classical music since 1950 that I like, leaving it at actual or adopted Americans for the hell of it --  throw in composers from other cultures (e.g. Michael Finnissy, Bill Hopkins, Robin Holloway, Franco Donatini, Salvatore Sciarrino, Helmut Lachenmann) and I could go on and on:

Stefan Wolpe:
Chamber Piece No. 1
Quartet for Trumpet, Tenor Saxophone, Percussion, and Piano
Symphony
Ten Songs from the Hebrew

Morton Feldman:
Triadic Memories
Three Voices

Elliott Carter:
Symphony of Three Orchestras
Night Fantasies

Milton Babbitt:
Concerto for Piano and Orchestra

Paul Cooper:
Violin Concerto No. 2

Martin Boykan:
Elegy

The above list (eleven now, I see) is mostly off the top of my head because most of my CDs are inaccessible right now.

I could fill up ten spots with Wolpe and Feldman works with no trouble.

In fact, with all the teeth-gnashing and wailing about the woes of modern music, I spontaneously concluded many, many years ago that it was amazing that I was alive at a time when so much exciting new (in several senses) music was being written.

Barry Lyons’ list was originally in response to Joe Queenan, so there is pre-1950 music here

Generally unknown but accessible 20th-century works:

Orchestral Music
Alwyn: Symphony No. 2
Hendrik Andriessen: Symphony No. 3
Britten: Piano Concerto
Busoni: Berceuse Elegiaque
Harrison: Piano Concerto
Martinu: Double Concerto
Lourie: Concerto da Camera
Pettersson: Symphony No. 7
Prokofiev: Lieutenant Kije
Rubbra: Symphony No. 6
Shapero: Symphony for Classical Orchestra
Tippett: Concerto for Double String Orchestra

Piano and Chamber Music
Barber: Piano Sonata
Dohnanyi: Sextet
Enescu: The Two String Quartets
Fernstrom: String Quartet No. 5
Fine: Notturno for Strings and Harp
Griffes: Piano Sonata
Howells: Sonata (for Oboe and Piano)
Herrmann: Clarinet Quintet
Janacek: The Two String Quartets
Messiaen: Preludes
Prokofiev: Cello Sonata; Quintet
Shostakovich: Piano Quintet

I think that's enough for now. But if Queenan were to find even the
Griffes (a neglected masterpiece) and Howells works too "thorny",
well, there's no hope for him. C'mon, Joe, you gotta get with the
modern program (as it were). Do you really mean to say that you don't
think the Britten cello suites (not listed above, in deference to your
delicate ears) aren't brooding masterpieces? Wow.

(While I'm here, Ethan, I thought you might like to know that Alexander
Goehr's Piano Trio was just reissued by Lyrita. Also, have you ever
heard Tristan Keuris's Piano Trio from the 1980s? That was released on
the Attacca Babel label, and I'm still waiting for a CD
reissue. And if you haven't heard it already, you need to hear
Wolfgang Rihm's "Attempts for Piano Trio" on CPO.)