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August 28, 2006
25 Composers of 25 Great 20th-Century Classical-Music Recordings — by Washington Post music critic Tim Page
It was the front-page story in yesterday's Washington Post Arts section.
A list of the composers follows; read the article for the names of the recordings.
1. Aaron Copland
2. Gustav Mahler
3. Leos Janacek
4. Jean Sibelius
5. Richard Strauss
6. Ferruccio Busoni
7. Claude Debussy
8. Arnold Schoenberg
9. Maurice Ravel
10. Carl Orff
11. Bela Bartok
12. Igor Stravinsky
13. Alban Berg
14. Silvestre Revueltas
15. Dmitri Shostakovich
16. Stephen Sondheim
17. Allan Pettersson
18. Milton Babbitt
19. Olivier Messiaen
20. Pierre Boulez
21. Karlheinz Stockhausen
22. Steve Reich
23. Alvin Lucier
24. Benjamin Britten
25. Philip Glass
Full disclosure: I'd previously heard of 20 of the 25.
Contest! — First person to identify correctly the composer pictured up top wins one year of bookofjoe delivered absolutely free to the computer of your choice anywhere in the world.
Second prize is a free lifetime subscription.
August 28, 2006 at 12:01 PM | Permalink
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Comments
the above compose/pianist is Anton Rubinstien, brother of Nikolai Rubinstein
Posted by: Kye Sonne | Mar 8, 2010 8:46:00 PM
And here are my top 3 favorite composers:
1- Leo Brouwer
2- Villa Lobos
3- Wiliam Walton
Posted by: Nima | Nov 22, 2008 10:18:33 AM
that comment about Milton Babbitt isnt entirely fair - the original title of the article you refer to was The Composer as Specialist - an editor at High Fidelity magazine changed the title to Who Cares if you Listen (Babbitt himself didnt like this at all) - one of Babbitt's points was since the masses of people already had music they liked, there was no need for composers writing in esoteric styles like his to try to "reach" that audience with music they werent going to like anyway!
With Boulez, its true - in his younger days he (and the whole Boulez/Stockhausen avant garde school of the 50s) did have a conscending attitude toward audiences - but recently even he's admitted that was probably a mistake!
Posted by: ray | Aug 20, 2008 1:25:47 PM
In his full-page treatment of "great" composers, Page candidly drops a salient and chilling fact: that general music-loving audiences have not accepted a single orchestral composition written in the last half of the 20th Century. Page then goes on to list among his "great" composers men such as Babbitt and Boulez. Both of these composers' works are not only anathema to audiences. They have also candidly acknowledged their contempt for nonprofessional music lovers (Who cares if you listen", "Burn down the opera houses"). I submit that, however knowledgeable and no matter their writing skills, music critics who identify themselves with solipsistic elitists rather than with audiences are part of the reason for classical music's decline in influence in contemporary society. They're with "them", not "us".
Posted by: telemann | Dec 19, 2006 3:45:41 PM
All right, it's gotta be Busoni. I say Busoni, that's my final answer. This is driving me crazy. I went and showed someone the pic, told them I had guessed Einstein, and promptly had myself torn a new one for being so stupid as to guess EINSTEIN. "Einstein wasn't a composer!" Well I KNOW that, I know that. But, see, I figured you'd play it cagey, and that it would make too much sense to have it be one of the twenty-five composers. Not that you have a reputation for not making sense or anything, just that I figured it was a trick. So I thought, I'll counter your trick with this oddball guess, and then I go and tell someone and all hell breaks loose. I mean, if I want to get torn a new one, I'll just call the Braves pre-game show and ask Skip Carey to explain the infield fly rule for the ten billionth time.
Anyway, Busoni, dammit.
Posted by: Flautist | Aug 29, 2006 7:04:26 PM
And what's he/she doing with that OTHER hand?
Posted by: Gini | Aug 29, 2006 6:34:36 PM
Silly, it's Napoleon! (Or somebody with an itchy chest)--Itchy Tchaikovsky, I presume?
Posted by: Gini | Aug 29, 2006 6:33:20 PM
I know this is crazy, you can't tell male from female in those 19th century kid photos, and I'm not much familiar with him as composer (although I know he was crazy about Mozart), but I'm saying Einstein. It's something about the eyes - a WAY faraway look - and the slight cleft chin and the kind of pouty mouth. Yeah, call me nuts, but I say Einstein.
Posted by: Flautist | Aug 29, 2006 8:28:26 AM
The composer looks like she's demonstrating how to perform monthly BSE's. My guess is that it's Madonna. It's Madonna, right? Right???
Posted by: Maureen | Aug 29, 2006 3:00:08 AM
One thing. I'm not so sure the author's precise meaning of the list was that they're the top twenty-five 20th century composers. The way that I read it, it's "a list of 25 recordings that might not only appeal to more venturesome readers but also give them some sense of what the fuss was all about." These are twenty-five works, or collections of works, that represent the "radical creative exploration" of the 20th century. Just a little quibbly point.
If I was putting composers I wanted in there, I'd add Gabriel Faure, Vincent d'Indy, Puccini (on the strength of "La Fanciulla del West" -- he was a genius orchestrator), Bernard Herrmann, John Tavener, and a few others I can't think of this second.
Janacek is such a great composer -- I don't know how he was so underrated for so long. I never cared for Messiaen's "Quartet For the End of Time" -- I'd put "Turangalila Symphony" in because there was such a furor over its merit. (Pierre Boulez said it was "bordello music.") Other folks think it's the greatest masterpiece ever written in the history of music. It isn't, but it was different enough to rile up a whole bunch of people.
Anyway. Real interesting. Thanks. Time to go butter me a biscuit.
Posted by: Flautist | Aug 28, 2006 8:44:39 PM
Yeah, I wondered where John Williams had got to. Perhaps film music's too lowbrow for whoever compiles these lists. Carl Davis isn't there, either.
Posted by: Skipweasel | Aug 28, 2006 6:01:23 PM
These lists are always full of omissions. Here are two who deserve to be there:
1) Einojuhani Rautavaara - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einojuhani_Rautavaara
2) John Williams
http://www.johnwilliamscomposer.com/
Posted by: stephen bove | Aug 28, 2006 3:15:35 PM
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