POLLERO!: ILM's Top 100 Notated Pieces of Music Since 1890

if you can overlook the fact that it's set in the 'desert' of New Orleans, the finale is one of the most heart-wrenching in opera. Sola, perduta, abbandonata!

I'm going to see Sondra Radvanovsky play Manon in November, which should be great.

sharivari, for the playlist -- Caballe or Callas?

Not much to choose between them. Callas if it's the remastered version, Caballe if not perhaps.

We've had some pretty dramatic contrasts between neighbouring pieces so far but the upcoming one is definitely up there.

84 Steve Reich - Piano Phase Points: 354 Votes: 4 #1 Votes: 0

http://flo.szk.fr/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/pp.png

feel like Reich and most of his minimalist compadres were playing a double game, not only aware of conventional melody but carefully constructing a method that accommodated it

i admire his theory and enjoy its execution but he always feels lightweight to me

i have a shitload of reservation there too but

pop is a technique that crosses all genres

How is that a double game? I'm pretty sure both Reich and Glass have explicitly said as much.

As much as I intellectually admire the concept of having two pianists play the exact same melody while one keeps speeding up gradually, I also just enjoy the headfuck of hearing it, on that jittery line. That said, this is a lesser Reich piece for me and didn't make my final ballot.

How is that a double game? I'm pretty sure both Reich and Glass have explicitly said as much.

Or am I misunderstanding you?

"double game" = accepting being read as theoretically rigorous at the same time as making sweet populist tunes but i don't intend this as serious criticism, just thinking out loud about why that school is lower tier in terms of my own aesthetic/sense of importance.

am being ornery and rockist in ways that i wouldn't normally countenance but i think the minimalists are mostly minor

not a get out but an acknowledgement = i've had a couple of beers tonight. stand by this empty prejudice tho.

Oh, I think with both Reich and Glass, part of the point is that there does not need to be an opposition between theoretical rigour (or at least innovation) and populism/surface appeal, and if there were a conflict, both have shown they would favour the latter (Glass much more blatantly). I am actually not that sure that 'theoretical rigour' has ever been a core value for Glass.

I mean, Glass briefly mentioned the Jefferson Airplane among his influences when he spoke to my PhD seminar.

Rigour be damned: gimme something I can rock &/or bliss out to.

yeah, i accept that as a core value this isn't something they've necessarily claimed.

what i'm quibbling about is really my personal perception of over-exposure within a narrative history of modern compostion but i love the work well enough, i just think they hit lazy grooves. John Adams is a way lesser composer to me but i think he tried harder in the long term to explore interesting places.

And, at the same time, I was studying with Luciano Berio and writing 12-tone music. The way I wrote 12-tone music was like, “Don’t transpose the row. Don’t retrograde the row. Don’t invert the row. Just repeat the row over and over, and you can try to sneak in some harmony.” And Berio said, “If you want to write tonal music, why don’t you write tonal music?” And I said, “That’s what I’m trying to do.”
... I could respect the purity of spirit in John Cage’s work, and I could certainly appreciate the mastery in Berio and Stockhausen, but my heart wasn’t in the game. I became a composer because I loved Bach, because I loved Stravinsky, because I loved jazz. And this was answering none of those. There was no fixed pulse, there was nothing you could tap your foot to, there was nothing you could whistle to, there was no key to hang on to; it was the very antithesis of that...

... In popular music, you had Junior Walker coming out of Motown who was playing a tune called “Shotgun,” which had a repeating bass line throughout the whole tune and no B section [sings bass line] for the whole tune. And you never heard that before. It was always a release: the B section and back to the A section. In Bob Dylan’s “Maggie’s Farm,” there was a kind of spontaneous gravitation towards constancy of harmony. [Also] minimizing harmonic movement coming from Africa, coming from Bali, which we didn’t mention, and of course a very big influence on me was preparing “In C” with Terry Riley. Which put all of these things--snapped it all--together.

- quotes from Reich, from: http://musicmavericks.publicradio.org/features/interview_reich.html

semi-drunkly exploring my own judgement process as much as anything

but lol Berio otm as far as i'm concerned

and again to me Riley is way more out there in his pop fuckery but draws more from that source

i mean fuck it nothing is bad here i just want to create my own moany old man perspectives

i'm coming in late on this, but are we really recommending the joplin piano roll? god that thing is sad. tertiary syphilis is a terrible thing.

John Adams is a way lesser composer to me but i think he tried harder in the long term to explore interesting places.

I usually feel like he is exploring Broadway or neo-Romanticism, which are not my favourite places to go to. Nixon in China is cool, though.

(But working on it.)

oddly adams always feels much more actively regressive than reich or glass to me. i recall in that mostly not-great bbc 4 series on the 20th century musical avant-garde he was playing the role of the fusty old conservative who hated schoenberg, hated cage, thought we needed to escape the pernicious influence of intellectualism, and it reinforced a lot of the negative feelings i already had about his work

I usually feel like he is exploring Broadway or neo-Romanticism, which are not my favourite places to go to...

oddly adams always feels much more actively regressive than reich or glass to me.

I wonder if maybe this is NV's point, that Reich/Glass are neither populist/trad enough (like Adams) nor intellectually rigorous enough (like Berio)?

Minimalism is just fun. Saw Music in 12 Parts live recently with the Philip Glass Ensemble, and yeah, it was really really fun, one of the funniest classical concerts I've been to in a long time. Think I voted for it as well. I don't really rate Glass that highly otherwise, I just don't like the sound of it. Reich isn't particularly theoretically vigorous, but there's just something about the way his best work sounds. Piano Phase, Music for 18 Musicians, Sextet. I don't know what it is, but perhaps it's just the harmonics of it? I feel like if it was 'that' easy to do the minimalist copycats would have been better, though. And Adams, well, Nixon in China is a great piece of theater, of history. And the album The Chairman Dances is a great recording, kinda like Tabula Rasa by Pärt - I think I've already said this upthread. John Adams is, like, Arcade Fire. Not that many original thoughts, but they're done nicely every now and then.

i do think some of reich's early theoretical stuff develops on cagean ideas in interesting ways, e.g. the 'music as a gradual process' essay, but from around music for 18 musicians on he seems less interested in having a cohesive aesthetic vision

The early writings were the reason why I singled out Glass as never have been concerned with theoretical rigour. I agree that Reich was, in his own way, prior to the mid-70s.

This is a pretty opera-heavy stretch.

83 Antonin Dvořák - Rusalka Points: 356 Votes: 2 #1s: 0

http://www.musicalcriticism.com/opera/met-rusalka.jpg

Is everyone watching the US debate? Because we've got another American great coming up.

82 George Gershwin - An American In Paris Points: 361 Votes: 4 #1s: 0

http://originalvintagemovieposters.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/An-american-in-Paris-2271.jpg

I listened to all of disc 1 of the '92 Naxos Manon Lescaut + a YT of the finale and I actually quite enjoyed it, despite having literally never listened to Italian opera for recreation before.

An American in Paris, on the other hand, is definitely something that I have on more than one occasion.

I get most of my Italian opera through Liszt solo piano fantasias but Verdi was a breakthrough thing for me

Despite my image, I was assuming that An American in Paris meant the symphonic poem from 1928, not the film from 1951, but I wonder if anyone was voting for that film's soundtrack.

We've got one more opera left for the night. Any guesses?

I'm not huge on Italian opera, but Rossini is a favorite. Haven't heard Manon Lescaut, though. Doing Verdi's Requiem at Copenhagen opera house this friday, btw. This has nothing to do with anything, but I can't fall asleep so I just wanted to write something.

I'm guessing Maskarade by Carl Nielsen!

Lulu!

Oh, that's v cool, Frederik!

Our last piece for the night ties together some of today's themes, in a way.

American post-minimalist opera:

81 Philip Glass - Akhnaten Points: 363 Votes: 3 #1s: 0

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/aPvTwoTtFCA/maxresdefault.jpg

I'd like to see this live sometime. Of course I've missed at least a couple of chances already living here.

Btw, frustratingly this is not on Spotify so I had to cobble together what I could from the essential glass compilation and the couple of interludes on a Naxos disk.

Thanks so much for your work with the playlist!

I've never seen one of his 'operas' live! I would love to.

I wonder if maybe this is NV's point, that Reich/Glass are neither populist/trad enough (like Adams) nor intellectually rigorous enough (like Berio)?

rhanks sund4r this is definitely the gist of what i was rambling about

Minimalism is just fun.

and this is why, because i hate fun.

and if i'd've got it together to vote i wd've definitely placed pieces by Glass and Reich in my ballot but there's something...they've been too subsumed into pop music acceptance somehow, it's too easy a pleasure mostly. feel the same about Pärt or Gorecki - too obviously pretty, nothing to chew on

not a thought processs i could honestly sustain or defend for any length of time, more a private caveat

Saw Akhnaten earlier this year at the ENO and it was one of the most incredible performances I've ever seen. I know nothing about opera but this was truly jaw-dropping. The same production is coming to the LA Phil in November and any interested parties should definitely make the effort to attend.

I usually like Glass when he gets to the point (Glassworks, North Star) and Reich best when he stretches out. But I almost never dislike Reich, while there is plenty of later Glass that is of little interest to me. Would totally watch a Glass 'opera' live though.

Recap so far:

81 Philip Glass - Akhnaten 363 3 0
82 George Gershwin - An American In Paris 361 4 0
83 Antonin Dvořák - Rusalka 356 2 0
84 Steve Reich - Piano Phase 354 4 0
85 Giacomo Puccini - Manon Lescaut 350 2 0
86 Claude Debussy - Etudes 346 2 0
87 Scott Joplin - The Entertainer 345 4 0
88 luciano berio - Sequenza III (for female voice) 342 5 0
89 Igor Stravinsky - Symphonies of Wind Instruments 340 3 0
90 Ennio Morricone - For A Few Dollars More, film score 335 4 0
90 Les Baxter - Quiet Village 335 4 0
92 Glenn Branca - Symphony no. 13 ('Hallucination City') 333 3 0
93 Maurice Duruflé - Requiem 332 2 0
94 Arvo Pärt - Magnificat 329 3 0
95 Gustav Mahler - Symphony no. 3 328 3 0
96 John Cage - First Construction in Metal 327 3 0
97 Meredith Monk - Dolmen Music 323 4 0
98 Iannis Xenakis - Metastasis 322 4 0
99 Benjamin Britten - The Turn of the Screw, opera after Henry James 320 2 0
100 Gérard Grisey - Les espaces acoustiques 318 2 0