Wherein We Elect Our Favourite Classical Compositions of… the 2000s – Part I (2000-2004)

I'm always happy to hear more Rihm, which is saying something given how insanely prolific the man has been and continues to be, but along with the string quartets, Jagden und Formen is the one I return to the most.

Btw budo, make sure you check out the video recording of L'amour de loin with Dawn Upshaw, Gerald Finley and Monica Groop. It comes with a gorgeous mise en scène courtesy of Peter Sellars, and Esa-Pekka Salonen is at the helm.

Nine Rivers

^^^likely to be my vote as well

Is "The Blue Notebooks" too populist to make the cut? I was looking forward to finally being able to cast a vote

I'm sorry, but yes, resoundingly so.

Someone could do a Boomkat-style classical poll. I even like some of it.

write in for my fav arvo part my heart's in the highlands and the last lou harrison piece scenes from nek chand. we really should have had david axelrod before really

My Heart's in the Highlands is a good one, yeah, I could have included it.

I'm not nearly as much of a Harrison connoisseur as you are, so you'll have to forgive the omission. As for David Axelrod, he's too pop/rock-adjacent to count, somewhat like Blue 'Gene' Tyranny. That subrealm would also make for an interesting poll in its own right.

obviously I know what you mean but at the same time - it's notated! he has rad strings and high concept choral works! I obv love these polls and the lists have an intuitive coherency, I just have a purely academic interest in the inconsistencies in the rules and taxonomies here so I'm just curious about what the real underlying criteria are that the rules attempt to recreate as a post hoc fudge. the edge cases are often v interesting (soundtracks another big area of edge cases), I thought it was cool that gershwin featured, and it's fun to just make notation the criteria, and also to look at the influence of the classical tradition on these ppl who don't quite fit even when they tick all the boxes (didn't quincy jones study w/ messiaen? the influence on big band jazz is better documented)

It's a fascinating question, to be sure, and I don't think a thoroughly satisfying answer could ever be found. The ghost of effective and potential canonicity is what presides over the overwhelming majority of these picks, which begs the question, of course, but my retrospective sense as an amateur listener of recorded classical music (rather than a performer or a musicologist or even an avid concert-goer) is that record labels (heh) have silently acted as a guiding principle throughout these polls. DG, Decca, Naïve, Kairos, NEOS, Ondine, Outhere, BIS, etc., have all had a say as to what falls under the umbrella of 'classical music', for better or for worse, whereas, Songs of Innocence, say, came out with Capitol Studios, which lacks a classical branch as far as I can tell.

Oh and, to a lesser extent, the surveys of folks like Paul Griffiths and Tim Rutherford-Johnson as well.

scott joplin never gets his dues!

thanks for the tip, pom

xps

Notated jazz, soundtracks, and related were totally included when we did the ballot poll some years ago. (Joplin made it into the final list.) I like the heady, rigorous Euro focus of these, esp as a counterweight to what gets the most exposure. (I think of it approximately as "things I heard about in my PhD" as opposed to "things I would talk to undergrads about".)

I listened to the entire NMC recording of DARK MATTER yesterday. It's something, really absorbingly dense, sonically, at times. I always knew of transmission as a long work for solo electric guitar with electronics, though, so it's a bit surprising to hear it broken up, with vocals a lot of the time. I should look more at how the score for that works.

agree w you re: focus

"things I heard about in my PhD" as opposed to "things I would talk to undergrads about"

haha, the truth has emerged!

One vote to Unsuk Chin

esp as a counterweight to what gets the most exposure

This was very much a guiding principle as well.

xp and yeah, everybody needs to hear Unsuk Chin's work, starting with the Violin Concerto imo.

Or rather: 'what gets the most exposure' in English-speaking circles, which tend towards aesthetic populism to a far greater extent than others in my experience.

I'm not even sure what truth I have revealed, ha.

lol

Or rather: 'what gets the most exposure' in English-speaking circles, which tend towards aesthetic populism to a far greater extent than others in my experience.

Yep, that was 100% what I meant.

Listened to a few and voted for Lachenmann.

chin's double concerto

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

ended up voting for Lachenmann too

Stockhausen's Licht is amazing, think maybe I should have voted for that

I think I'm gonna give this one to Romitelli's Professor Bad Trip because psychedelic spectralism is a grand idea that makes perfect sense. I wish he were still around.

was going to say I hope 2005-2009 would include some Michael Pisaro, but realize most of the works I really love from him are even after that

are you going to continue this poll beyond 2009?

I think tackling the last decade would be a bit premature. I'm aiming for 2023-2024, assuming ILX hasn't self-destructed by that point and I'm still around.

:)

I think the interface between improvised and composed music was important in 2000-2004, eg Keith Rowe/John Tilbury - Duos for Doris which I would have voted for

I love that one but I thought it was all improvised?

EAI is another branch that deserves its own poll. There's definitely some overlap with Richard Barrett in particular.

Or just a general jazz LP poll series, one half-decade at a time. I'd love to see that.

xp listening to it it's hard not to believe they mapped it all out. would love an electroacoustic improvisation poll

maybe not enough interest for it here though

think there would be interest for a jazz poll series

I think so too. We need someone to volunteer as a guide, though (I wouldn't even dream of daring).

That would be awesome if we got a jazz LP series going.

Someone should mention it in the rolling jazz thread...

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Nice. It may have been a little unfair of me to bundle the entirety of Licht into a single poll option but what an option it is.

Dang I missed this. Would have voted for the Gubaidulina. She’s right: God is SCARY.

too busy listening to dark matter to engage with the new poll

I don't blame you in the least.

When you're finished with DARK MATTER, check this out:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyGcuuQO3Uk

With a bit of luck we'll get a studio recording of it some day.

Richard Barrett - Dark Matter vs Moses Boyd - Dark Matter? I thought about starting that poll. Both great!

Hah, I must admit I found the Boyd quite disappointing at first pass. I'll give it another shot – my mid to late teens were devoted to trip-hop, acid jazz and downtempo (mostly Ninja Tune), so it should have been right up my alley. His drumming is unsurprisingly a draw, though.