Good modern classical?

[eskay]

I've recently been on a huge binge of modern classical music. I've been listening to a lot of early 20th century composers like Gershwin and Copland, but also some more avant garde stuff like Cage or minimalist composers like Reich (Music for Eighteen Musicians has to be my favourite piece of classical music right now). Does anyone have some really good 20th/21st century pieces to recommend?

[tekla]

Phillip Glass

[eskay]

I have listened to a bit of Phillip Glass, but his stuff seems somewhat weaker than Reich's generally. Are there any particular pieces from him you'd recommend? I've only heard a smattering, so it's possible I'm just lame. :\

[tekla]

I always like the suite he did for Eadweard Muybridge, The Photographer, and the soundtrack for The Illusionist as well as Songs from Liquid Days (1985).

But it's really the soundtrack for the three movies by Godfrey Reggio that continue to amaze me.  Koyaanisqatsi: Life Out of Balance (1982) Powaqqatsi: Life in Transformation (1988) and Naqoyqatsi: Life as War (2002).

I listen to some Hindemith, Bartók, Schoenberg, and Shostakovich, particulary Bartok, Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta (1936), and the Concerto for Orchestra (1943) and the Third Piano Concerto (1945) are all pretty fine.  And they will for sure clear out the guest at closing time.

Also, check out any of the students of Nadia Boulanger.  20th Century music started in her parlor.  A bunch of stuff that Frank Zappa wrote late in career is pretty adventurous also.  But the best 20th Century composer, in terms of both short and long range impact is going to be Robert Johnson.  A charter member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, #5 on the Rolling Stone list of the top 100 guitar players of all time, those 29 songs that come down to us are the real deal.  Never to be duplicated.

[Kay]

20th century composers?
.
You've mentioned a couple of the main American composers.
.
Also try...
.
Rachmaninoff (piano concertos)
.
Prokofiev (he composed a lot of good symphonic pieces, but my favorite will probably
always be "Peter and the Wolf" as narrated by Sterling Holloway (aka Winnie-the-Pooh )
.
Leonard Bernstein (Candide, West Side Story, and a bunch of others)
.
If you're looking for something different, you could try Stravinsky's Firebird or Rite of Spring,
which are fairly famous pieces.  (I never really cared for his style, but you might)
.
Most of the other recent composers that I like are probably not considered particulary modern.
(most of them died within 30 years of 1900, so technically they're probably considered "Romantic" rather than "20th Century/contemporary." 
.
(more recently) John Williams  (Most people know him for Star Wars and other
popular movies, or the theme often played when the Olympics come around. 
I actually liked his soundtrack to "Far and Away" a lot, and his work with the Boston Pops.)

[Susan Baum]

20th century composers?

John Williams  (Most people know him for Star Wars and other
popular movies, or the theme often played when the Olympics come around. 
I actually liked his soundtrack to "Far and Away" a lot, and his work with the Boston Pops.)

Speaking of Williams, his music for Schindler's List is haunting... and Perlman is at his best.

or


Susan

[PidgeTPN]

OOh, I've always loved Reich's works. I'm not familiar with any others by name, though.

[eskay]

Thanks so much for all of the suggestions, guys! I can't wait to give all of this stuff a listen!

@Tekla: I have listened to some Bartok before, and I have heard Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta. I'll have to listen to some more of him, however!

@Kay: I'm definitely a big fan of Stravinsky, but I've only heard one piece from Bernstein.

[Amelie]

Lowell Liebermann. LOVE HIM! His "Gargoyles" for piano is phenomenal.

Eric Whitacre, if you enjoy the choral side of things. Pretty tasty use of harmony. I could listen to his music all day long!

Gary Schocker's music is really fun, too. Interesting instrument combinations.

[justmeinoz]

The Glass piece I am particularly impressed with  is 'Different Trains', the first use of sampling apparently.
Also Holst's Planet Suite, and the Moody blues could be worth a listen. Locally George Dreyfus has done some interesting things.

Karen.

[King Malachite]

Not too sure if this would count but on the video game "Catherine" they have 21st century remakes of older composers you could find on Youtube.

[lilacwoman]

Stay away from awful Inaudi's boring repititions.

Try Emil von Sauer piano concerto #1 in E for sublime piano piece.

   shoudl be played a lot more.. start at 1.40 to miss the long intro speech.

[cindianna_jones]

Samuel Barber: School for Scandals  (light a fire... very exciting) and the violin concerto, and Adagio for Strings
Howard Hanson: Symphony #2  (The ultimate romantic symphony)
Katchaturian: Gayeneh and Sparticus suites (overwhelmingly beautiful)
Richard Straus: Lot's of stuff
Stravinski: Rite of Spring (you need a really good stereo with a wallop of a thumper)
The Mahler symphonies have excellent gems within the ranks. Allegrettio from #5 comes to mind.
Vaughan Williams:  Familiar old English melodies.
Edvard Grieg: Peter Gynt suite
Edward Elgar: (most known for Pomp & Circumstance at graduation cerimonies) Listen to the cello concerto
Saint Saens: cello concerto

Those are some of my favorites that come to mind.

Try this one out:
http://www.amazon.com/American-Concerto-Tribute-Sigurd-Rascher/dp/B000QZSV5K/ref=sr_1_1_title_1_mus?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1329901168&sr=1-1

Written in the sixties. A sax concerto (last three pieces on the album). Very rare. Only reccording. I'll be playing it with this same performer in a few weeks. How fun!

[cindianna_jones]

Stay away from awful Inaudi's boring repititions.

Try Emil von Sauer piano concerto #1 in E for sublime piano piece.

Why is it that the woodwinds have to screw up every community orchestra? I mean it must be some fundamental Newtonian law of physics or something!

[Padma]

The Glass piece I am particularly impressed with  is 'Different Trains', the first use of sampling apparently.

Um... that's by Steve Reich .

+1 (or plus 100) for Reich's Music For 18 Musicians, which is in my Top 3 Ever list, along with Bartok's Violin Concerto No.2 (played by Izhak Perlman) and Stravinsky's The Rite Of Spring (even the pianola version is amazing).

Other recommendations for 20th/21st century composition (I'm a big choral fan, hence the loading): Einojuhani Rautavaara (Cantus Arcticus and Violin Concerto), Benjamin Britten (Ceremony of Carols), Peter Maxwell Davies (Five Carols), Tarik O'Regan (The Night's Untruth, The Ecstasies Above), Bela Bartok (2nd and 3rd Piano Concertos), Claude Debussy (pretty much anything), Steve Reich (Tehillim, Organ Phases), Maurice Duruflé (anything), Henryk Gorecki (3 Pieces in Olden Style, Old Polish Music, Beatus Vir etc.), Zoltan Kodaly (Cello Sonata, Cello/Violin Duo, a whole slew of orchestral pieces, especially the Hary Janos Suite), Gyorgy Ligeti (anything), Olivier Messiaen (anything, but especially L'Ascension - both organ and orchestral versions), Maurice Ohana (Swan Song, Lux Noctis/Dies Solis), Carl Orff (Carmina Burana), Arvo Pärt (loads of stuff, but especially Fratres, Tabula Rasa), Krzysztof Penderecki (anything choral), Alfred Schnittke (Choral Concerto), Jean Sibelius (most symphonies), Igor Stravinsky (just about anything, but as well as TROS there's Petroushka, The Firebird Ballet...), John Tavener (The Protecting Veil etc.), Heitor Villa-Lobos (Bachianas Brasileiras)... and so on .

[schism]

i'm not really into traditional classical, i find most of it stiff and unemotional, but i'm a massive fan of epic and neo-orchestral, so i can recommend a whole bunch of mainstream composers.  what i love about these guys is that they've brought classical to a generation of kids who would hear the term and turn up their noses, but you have hundreds of thousands of people listening to them and a lot of these are kids.

so check out two steps from hell, brand x music, city of the fallen, es posthumus, audiomachine, immediate music, x ray dog, future world music, position music... amazing, amazing pieces from these guys.  TSFH and city of the fallen are probably my favourite. 

[lilacwoman]

Why is it that the woodwinds have to screw up every community orchestra? I mean it must be some fundamental Newtonian law of physics or something!

Dunno..maybe because children have to learn to play those awful recorders and the habit sticks?

[Padma]

I mentioned Tarik O'Regan - an English-Algerian composer in his 30's who writes amazing secular and sacred choral music. This is The Ecstasies Above, which I adore:

[Gretchen]

I really do not know classical at all but the two that I do know of I really like. Zoe Keating, she plays a mean cello and no collection would be complete without at least on Zappa disc and I think Yellow Shark would be pretty good but he has several others besides the Shark.