20th Century Composers

[ALago1]

Who is your favorite?

Mine is Charles Ives. I love "The Unanswered Question" and "Variation on America" for their sheer uniqueness.

I'd like to hear other opinions on great modern composers.

[NightTrain]

1. Aaron Copland (sp?)

I'm not an expert on composers, but I've always liked his "Fanfare For The Common Man."

[MrSandman]

2. A second for Aaron C.

[Zomby Woof]

3. Frank Vincent Zappa

"The Yellow Shark", "Lumpy Gravy", "The Perfect Stranger", and the orchestral selections from "Läther" are among the very finest the 20th century had to offer.

[Eureka]

4. The odds be 50/50

Nah, I'm lying, its Zappa in a no contest.

[Zomby Woof]

6. welcome to DU

We could always use one more Zappaholic around here. :-)

[Rabrrrrrr]

9. I wonder how many Zappa fans there are in freeperland?

Or would their heads simply explode?

[Zomby Woof]

10. wouldn't be all that messy

Empty heads don't tend to leave much muss and fuss. ;-)

[Rabrrrrrr]

11. Mwuhahahahaha!

"Mom, get the broom - dad's head exploded. Oh, never mind. I picked it up with the sticky backing of the post-it note he had attached to his monitor listing the three conservative rebuttals he's supposed to use at all times when speaking with liberals"

[mobuto]

5. Dmitri Shostakovich? How about Duke Ellington?

Doesn't Ellington count as a composer?

But how about Mahler? Dvorak? Grieg? Prokofiev? Stravinsky? Copland? Schoenberg? Bartok?

Are Gershwin, Richard Strauss, Massenet, and Faure far behind?

[ALago1]

7. Well this is an opinion question

A favorite implies one selection. With that said, I stand by my original choice, although the others you mention are certainly great as well.

[mobuto]

17. Arvo Part and Aram Khatchaturian too

I've been trying to avoid Rachmaninov, but I guess he deserves on as well.

[Rabrrrrrr]

18. Oh yes - add Part to my list!!

Excellent!

[Rabrrrrrr]

8. Zappa, Stockhausen, Reich, Glass, Ives, Riley, Ligeti,

Xennakis, Partch, Copeland, Monk, Mardi Hill, Meredith Monk, me, Penderecki, Eno, Laurie Anderson, Hovhannes, Tannenbaum, Schoenberg, Cage, Denninger, Andriessen, Stravinsky, Shostakovitch, Peter Schickele (both his own serious stuff and his PDQ Bach stuff), Durufle, Ravel, Messaien, . . .

There are simply too many!

[ALago1]

12. you???

do you have any samples of your work i could hear?? that would be sweet!

[Rabrrrrrr]

13. I don't have any on-line yet,

but I've just reduced some of the pieces to mp3s, and I'm hopgin I can get them up on my website in the next few days.

PM your email address, and I can send you one, if you can handle an email attachment of 5MB or so.

And thanks for noticing the little "me" I put in the midst of that grouping. :-)

[elperromagico]

14. Stravinsky. Gershwin. Prokofiev. (odd trio, eh?)

Oh yeah. I forgot - I kinda like me too. But I wasn't very great in the 20th century...

[GoddessOfGuinness]

15. Ellen Zwilich ought to be a houshold name

but even in the 21st century, when we talk about composers, we usually think of men.

I especially love her Concerto for Violin and Cello, her 1st Symphony, and her Oboe Concerto...

[burrowowl]

16. Christofer Hanfbol (sp.)

Lukas Foss, Xenaxis, Penderecki, Schultz, Berio, Messian
and oh, PDQ Bach