Music Banter - The best of past century

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The best of past century

For me, is the orchestra director and composer Leonard Bernstein.

Mahler, Schoenberg, or Rachmaninoff.

Rachmaninoff for composition. No one else in the 20th century came close to him in composition, in my opinion.

There were many great performers. Vladimir Horowitz is known is one of the greatest pianists of all time. I also think Glenn Gould plays Bach better than anyone besides Bach himself. Sviatoslov Richter, Artur Rubinstein and Georges Cziffra are worth mentioning as well.

There were also many genius conductors as well: Bernstein, Herbert von Karajan, Vladimir Ashkenazy and Wilhelm Furtwangler.

I'd like to throw in a mention of George Gerschwin in here. "Rhapsody In Blue" is a masterpiece. I never get tired of listening to it.

I'd love to see a list of the top candidates and a little background from each...

Arvo Part and Steve Reich deserve nods. But yeah, Gerschwin probably takes the prize.

Quote:

Originally Posted by lucifer_sam (Post 574299)

Arvo Part and Steve Reich deserve nods. But yeah, Gerschwin probably takes the prize.

Really? Better than Bartok???

It's hard to compare the two; they were involved in two entirely different aspects of classical music. But in terms of how industrious they were, yes, George Gerschwin most definitely wins.

I am a big fan of Steve Reich's work and consider him very influential. He is one of my favourite composers from the last century. I am convinced that he has played a massive part in taking artists as diverse as Eno and Sonic Youth in the directions that they headed. Eno has admitted as much.

What I like about Reich's works is the diversity of styles and his lack of fear to be different. It's Gonna Rain and Come Out are not necessarily everyone idea of "Classical" music but when placed into the context of his diverse output so what? Music For 18 Musicians, Different Trains through to works like The Cave just show me that he is a profoundly interesting composer who can mix the experimental with the classical and make it .

Come Out I first heard in the late 70's on a tape. It took me along time to find out who had put out this weird and wonderful piece but once I discovered who there was no turning back on discovering the works of Reich. To quote wiki about Come Out

Quote:

The 13-minute Come Out (1966) uses similarly manipulated recordings of a single spoken line given by an injured survivor of a race riot. The survivor, who had been beaten, punctured a bruise on his own body to convince police about his beating. The spoken line includes the phrase "to let the bruise blood come out to show them." Reich rerecorded the fragment "come out to show them" on two channels, which are initially played in unison. They quickly slip out of sync; gradually the discrepancy widens and becomes a reverberation. The two voices then split into four, looped continuously, then eight, and continues splitting until the actual words are unintelligible, leaving the listener with only the speech's rhythmic and tonal patterns.

This is a clip of Come Out.

The clip contains this quote about the dance. "This is a piece choreographed by Farrell early in his career. The title itself, "Yin Yang," indicates that FD is beginning to explore his emotional roots--paternal influences and maternal influences. Genius-level choreography!" I know little about dance so will let others decide as to that.

Although they are very different, for me It would have to be Alexander Glazunov; A Russian composer and his work - "From The Middle Ages". Also George Gershwin - "Rhapsody In Blue".When I was a small child,my dad used to play this on the piano. It has been with me ever since.