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In Reply to: RE: Are there any 20th century composers who are not "second rate"... posted by genungo on January 22, 2016 at 08:20:46
One thing that should be clarified here - when Boulez calls Shostakovitch both excellent and second rate, he is being very serious. Shostakovich is an excellent composer, and I like him very much. But he IS in the second rank when we compare him to the other truly great composers. He is not in the ranks with Bartok, Stravinsky, Mozart, Wagner, Beethoven, etc.(and that's not a ranking order, LOL!) This does not mean that he was not an excellent composer - he was. I would place him above most of Chris' list below, for instance, though not Prokofiev, who I would also consider in the second rank. But we already had that discussion.....my point is you can indeed be both second rate and excellent - second rate NOT being a derogatory term in this case.
Follow Ups:
"I sent out a slew of emails to cronies of mine asking their opinions on the matter and they pretty much confirmed my suspicions.
My colleague over at the Village Voice, Kyle Gann, said "Appointing Pierre Boulez at Carnegie Hall seems like an incredible anachronism, a self-defeating attempt to cling to the 20th century.
Everyone knows what his musical priorities are, and everyone knows that the musical idiom Boulez feels is the only possible one - 12-tone music - has now been abandoned as one of history's great mistakes by all but a few diehard composers.
If he had truly spent a lifetime creating great musical works - instead of a mere handful, and most of those incomplete - he might be a heartwarming figure to have around." The American Music Center's Frank Oteri seems less interested: "I have been a new music junkie all life and have worked to push a new music agenda in the classical music community for over a decade, yet I have felt no aesthetic urge or even a professional obligation to attend any of the Boulez events at Carnegie Hall this past season."
And downtown composer Phil Kline, who does wonderful things with racks of boomboxes, simply couldn't be bothered: "I haven't thought about his music for years."
***
Back in the 70s when Boulez was in town conducting the NY Philharmonic, he went out of his way to be as un-Lenny Bernstein-ish as possible; with his icy temperament and chilly conducting style, he alienated just about everyone."
"Boulez's music is a development out of Debussy, Webern, and Messiaen with a bit of Varese and Schoenberg thrown in. It's considered great because it has both surface beauty and underlying deeper structure, just like the great music of the past.
I think this captures Boulez and his music perfectly without saying his inevitable place in history will be the opposite of Mahler: pretty good conductor, forgettable composer.
What you say here about Boulez is what they said this about Ries in his day, that he was Beethoven with a touch of Schubert and Haydn thrown in. When I hear Boulez I hear all the composers you cite.
There's a word for that kind of music: derivative. Such composers may be perceived as masters in their time, but that time fades.
Today, Ries is a minor footnote in music while his sound-alikes maintain their positions of greatness. A half-century after Boulez is dead, it will be the same with him ....."
The 2nd Piano Trio. The 4th, 5th, 8th and 10th Symphonies. The Preludes and Fugues. After the passing of Mahler, Strauss, Berg and Schoenberg, who was a greater 20th Century composer? And remember that Boulez called Gorecki's 3rd Symphony "merde". I can't imagine any reasonable listener sharing that opinion.
Uh, Bartok, Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Hindemith, to name just four off the top of my head.
n
Yes, definitely add Britten for sure!!
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