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In Reply to: Favorite classical music composed since 1923. posted by edta on May 12, 2002 at 18:01:01:
the more pressing question is which classical piece of any kind (not written for film or musical theater, but real honest Classical music) composed since 1950 has entered the standard repertoire?That's a 50-year drought, folks. I can't think of anything.
Big B
Follow Ups:
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dh
...that some of Sir Paul McCartney's work will appear on nearly all concert programs during the next season. Valery Gergiev and the Kirov Orchestra are recording his music as we speak, for an album to be titled "Proletariat Classical". ;-)Neil
If I'm not mistaken, the late Frank Zappa composed some orchestral works...
How about Rodrigo?Though he writes mostly Guitar Concertos, they are quite excellent and the Concierto de Aranjuez is Standard Repertoire. I hear it several times a week on the classical music radio stations.
Have a great day,
Brad
The well known Concerto de Aranjuez was composed in 1939.We're still looking for standard repertoire composed since 1950.
Big B
Everthing from the 10th Symphony and 6th Quartet on. In particular, perhaps "Babi Yar" and Quartet 8. "Standard Repertoire" is a tricky concept. Are Beethoven's Late Quartets included in this, or Haydn no-name symphonies? They're not played often, and are both unknown and without readily recognized "tunes". We just did a thread on Liszt a few days ago. I'm not sure if any of HIS works fall into the "standard repertoire" category. If they do, WHOSE standard...it's a mighty narrow audience :-)
Ask the American League of Symphony Orchestras what's considered "standard repertoire." First and foremost are the "Famous Fifty Pieces" (n Virgil Thompson's memorable words), warhorses that every orchestra plays every year--Tchai 5, the Eroica, Pictures at an Exhibition et al. There are about fifty more such in the orchestral realm, and it is these pieces that make up at least two thirds or more of modern programming. As for Liszt, his warhorse is "Les Preludes". Some conductors feature a modern work on virtually every program, but usually once only. As for the most-performed work since 1950: "Till Eulenspiegel" (1898)!!In opera it's about 20 works over and over again, Traviata, Aida, Boheme and the like.
In chamber music there are more pieces but the same ones pop up over and over. Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Liszt, Chopin, Schumann, sometimes Ravel and Debussy. The 32 sonatas, 16 quartets, the Scherzi and Ballades. If you're a singer you learn Winterreise, Erlkoenig, the greatest hits of 1810-95.
By no means can any Shosty outside of Sym 5 (with honorable mentions to 1 and 9) be considered standard. I think there has been one performance of a Shosty symphony other than the Big 3 here in SF in 20 years.
Big B
(1) Orchestras cater to the m(asses) because it sells tickets. So, they perform "what da people know"(2) Serious contemporary composers write the music they choose too, rather than dumb it down. Hence, it's up to the serious fans to seek it out. Don't seek it out in live performances, they're too busy catering to the dummies. When it's recorded, buy that.
(3) Non-serious comtemporary composers write music to "crack the Top 50". But, that's not gonna happen, because not only are the masses asses, they're Old Dogs -- and they don't DO new tricks.
So, the Standard Repertoire is a dead-zone for warhorses that caters to the lowest common denominator. Why would any artist want to be there?
Symphony no. 3, published 1976, I believe.
____________________________________________________________
"Nature loves to hide."
---Heraclitus of Ephesus (trans. Wheelwright)
but it never gets performed.
I donīt.Regards
BF
Benjamin Britten's written a bunch of works since 1950 that would be considered part of standard repertoire, most notably the War Requiem, which was written in 1961, I believe. His opera Billy Budd was composed in the '50s.
Britten is frequently performed in the UK, but the only work of his I would consider "standard repertoire" is the "Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra" (1946). "Billy Budd" (1951, revised 1960) is little performed in this country since the retirement of Jon Vickers, and virtually nowhere outside of England where it is a staple. The "War Requiem", a great work, also enjoys few performances outside the UK, although I attended its German premiere in Munich back in the early sixties.
So, does that mean that Britten shouldn't be considered part of "standard repertoire" just because US orchestras don't perform much of his stuff? If that is the definition of "standard repertoire" then I guess I would have to disagree with that particular characterisation. American orchestras are probably the least adventerous of all the orchestras - as SE pointed out on another post, they do tend to cater to an established crowd, who want to hear the same pieces, same composers year in, year out. The orchestras here have stagnated to the point, where they are afraid to try new things, otherwise they won't get the individual donations from these wealthy donors. And when they do venture out, they seem to play mostly American composers, Barber, Schwantner, Adams, and the like. While, I have no real problems with that, I am not surprised that they don't play more Britten or other "non-american" composers.There may be a drought of quality new music in the last 50 years, but there is still plenty of music out there that deserves to be included as part of the standard repertoire.
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