Modern Classical Music

[Ahmad]

Hi...when I listened to "rhapsody in blue " by Greshwin for the first time ..It didn't appeal to me ...I didn't feel that I'm listning to something related to classical music at all ..! Similarly I felt that Debussy piano pieces were very bizarre...!
But...gradually, I began feeling that something "new" and "attractive" was driving me to hear these first-looked bizarre music carefully ....
Now "Rhapsody in blue",is one of my favourite pieces..I'm getting closer to Debussy solo piano pieces ...I know they are so apart ..but I present them only just as examples of modern classical music composers ....I don't know a lot of academic information about modern classical music ...so please would you give a brief description of that "new" and "attractive" subject...!

[Peter]

Originally posted by Ahmad:
Hi Lysander..

I do respect your own view and your musical tendency... though I disagree with you to some extent..Maybe Jazz doesn't appeal to you so you hate Greshwin ..ButI think you've exaggerated a little offending the man...!Anyway thank you for your suggestions of the names of modern compsers ..I'll try finding recordings of their works..
However.. my inquery was not about Greshwin Itself ,but about modern classical music ..I've presented Greshein and Debussy just as examples ...my question is : What changes do modern classical music composers such as Debussy ,Rachmaninov,Richard Addinesel and Greshwin added to the 19'th century music .. Having only little academic information about the subject..I need an explanation in brief..

[This message has been edited by Ahmad (edited May 16, 2003).]

I'm not familiar with Richard Addinesel but of the composers you mention Debussy is the one to have had the profoundest effect on the 20th century by breaking from the conventional use of tonality - he simply plunges straight into different keys without modulation - using unrelated harmonies as different shadings.



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'Man know thyself'

[Sorrano]

Originally posted by Peter:
I'm not familiar with Richard Addinesel but of the composers you mention Debussy is the one to have had the profoundest effect on the 20th century by breaking from the conventional use of tonality - he simply plunges straight into different keys without modulation - using unrelated harmonies as different shadings.

Where do you suppose this harmonic variance comes from? Bruckner's harmonies, for example, come from his teacher Sechter, and often centered around "implied" progressions where a part of the progression itself was implied and not sounded. That is, chords are "skipped" in the progression.

I understand that Debussy had some influence from Mussourgsky; however Mussourgksy cannot be considered a traditional comoposer--I don't think he had much real training in music theory.

[Chaszz]

Originally posted by Sorrano:

Where do you suppose this harmonic variance comes from? Bruckner's harmonies, for example, come from his teacher Sechter, and often centered around "implied" progressions where a part of the progression itself was implied and not sounded. That is, chords are "skipped" in the progression.

I understand that Debussy had some influence from Mussourgsky; however Mussourgksy cannot be considered a traditional comoposer--I don't think he had much real training in music theory.

Well I hate to kreep bringing up Wagner's name, but i think he had a great deal to do with breaking down traditional harmony and key centers, expcially in Tristan und Isolde and also to some extent in Parsifal. Debussy considered Parsifal very great as music (not as an opera), and also I believe that Bruckner was quite indebted to Wagner as an influence.

[Peter]

Originally posted by Chaszz:

Well I hate to kreep bringing up Wagner's name, but i think he had a great deal to do with breaking down traditional harmony and key centers, expcially in Tristan und Isolde and also to some extent in Parsifal. Debussy considered Parsifal very great as music (not as an opera), and also I believe that Bruckner was quite indebted to Wagner as an influence.

Yes he did, but you find it pre-Tristan in Liszt, and of course going back to Spohr whose harmonic chromaticism Beethoven found so unsettling precisely because it destabalised classical tonality.


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'Man know thyself'

[Chaszz]

Originally posted by Ahmad:
Hi Lysander..

I do respect your own view and your musical tendency... though I disagree with you to some extent..Maybe Jazz doesn't appeal to you so you hate Greshwin ..ButI think you've exaggerated a little offending the man...!Anyway thank you for your suggestions of the names of modern compsers ..I'll try finding recordings of their works..
However.. my inquery was not about Greshwin Itself ,but about modern classical music ..I've presented Greshein and Debussy just as examples ...my question is : What changes do modern classical music composers such as Debussy ,Rachmaninov,Richard Addinesel and Greshwin added to the 19'th century music .. Having only little academic information about the subject..I need an explanation in brief..

[This message has been edited by Ahmad (edited May 16, 2003).]

Ahmed, welcome, it's interesting to have someone from Syria here. I just want to say that the composers you mention are early modern ones and the closest to traditional classical music (I'm not familiar with Addisel) . After Debussy, and perhaps roughly at the same time as Gershwin and Rachmaninov, came quite dramatic new ideas, and shocking breaks with tradition, in Stravinsky, Bartok, Schoenberg, Webern, Berg, Shostakovich, Prokefiev, Ives, Stockhausen, and others. You can read about these people on the Internet, I'm sure, if you look around. Or rather than looking for them by names, just look for a good general short article on modern classical music.
Are you familiar with how to use the search engine Google?



[This message has been edited by Chaszz (edited May 16, 2003).]

[Ahmad]

Yes,I certainly do..! thanks for your reply..By the way ,do you listen to Greshwin ..? If you do then how can you describe his music..I mean how could a jazz pianist write such "new" classcial pieces ..?

[This message has been edited by Ahmad (edited May 16, 2003).]

[Chaszz]

Originally posted by Ahmad:

Yes,I certainly do..! thanks for your reply..By the way ,do you listen to Greshwin ..? If you do then how can you describe his music..I mean how could a jazz pianist write such "new" classcial pieces ..?

[This message has been edited by Ahmad (edited May 16, 2003).]

I like jazz but am not that much into Gershwin, though I do like his music when I hear it. He was not so much a jazz pianist as a Broadway show songwriter, and evidently somehow picked up enough classical knowledge to write his extended instrumental compositions and an opera (Porgy and Bess).
I'd suggest you look him up on the Internet too.

Gershwin is also one of the basic songwriters in what's called the 'Great American Songbook'. This means the works of sophisticated Broadway and Hollywood-oriented popular songwriters like Cole Porter, Rodgers and Hart, Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, Sammy Cahn, Hoagy Carmichael, etc. These people defined American pop music for many years, before Rock and Roll came along in the 1950s. Their songs were best-performed by singers like Frank Sinatra and Peggy Lee, and are still greatly admired today by many. These songs have also been widely used to improvise on by jazz players because of their elegant melodies and chord progressions, expressive of American urban life, love, dreams, smoldering cigarettes, cocktails, broken hearts at 2:00 in the morning, etc.




[This message has been edited by Chaszz (edited May 16, 2003).]