I need some catching up! (avant-garde classical music)

Where to start with Boulez (IMHO): Le Marteau sans maître, Piano Sonata, Eclat, Eclat-Multiples, Rituel, Répons.

I wouldn't necessarily describe Luciano Berio as avant-garde, but I like him a lot, so check him out too.

Stockhausen and Boulez are like old rivals, each apparently suffering writers' block since at least the mid '70s, and they follow logically on from Schoenburg, Webern et. al. anyway, so they're more a mid 20th century thing, at their respective peaks, and maybe politics have meant Iancu Dumitrescu and Ana-Maria Avram too are somewhat repressed.

However the field's wide open _right_now_ -- more stuff is being recorded now than ever of a lot of mid century guys who are conveniently dead eg Morton Feldman, John Cage, Stefan Wolpe, but it's still mid-century. Charles Wuorinen is comfy and academic and being re-packaged a la 'greatest hits' -- a lot of it '60s and '70s, a bit more accessible.

Well all this stuff mentioned is good, but it's the same old names -- will Penderecki be remembered for anything except his Hiroshama piece (don't forget) etc..

My point is, there are lots of minor or just less-known composers for orchestras, electronics, there're all sorts of modern/post.. classical tradition composers out there. The big current roll-out of Xenakis coincided with his death last year -- well at least he got to finally hear some of his orchestral works for the first time.

The big name guys influenecd lots of less well known people who may have recordings or events you can participate in _now_, not 50 years later -- live classical concerts really do go off when you're almost sitting in the orchestra. These are the moments in classical tradition music you can participate in fully, and they deserve your support.

Check out the modern-classical newsgroup archives at Google or post your enquiry to it -- these people know what you might like -- once we start treating composers like Stockhausen as the Wagner or Elvis of their scenes we're doing everyone else an injustice.

Try telling that to Jonathan Harvey, whose expansion of the orchestra into the realms of electronics makes music that is definitively contemporary and immeasurably timeless, or to Thomas Adès, whose writing creates visions of musical possibility that are new for today, or for any time.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/apr/26/five-myths-contemporary-classical-music

such a crappy piece of writing, but in a good cause

there is so much bad writing about avant-garde classical music ... soooo much!

I saw a fantastic performance of Morton Feldman's Why patterns? last night.

awesome crüt!

i think feldman's reputation is pretty secure cuz he is still regularly performed/discussed in a way some of the darmstadt crowd probably aren't

Balderdash.

is there a classic piece making the case for the avant garde, or experimental music/listening more widely?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Cares_if_You_Listen

feldman is, seems to be sui generis in a way many of the less heralded europeans like maderna or barraqué or pousseur aren't, but there's a lot of interesting stuff there

B-)
i'm looking for an appeal to the uninitiated, contra babbit

you mean like a tom service but not like tom service? idk i cant think of anything offhand

theres an amusing piece with daniel barenboim in yesterdays guardian making the case for boulez as a worthy companion to beethoven, conductors and performers are usually better advocates for the unfortunately term 'new music' than writers (thinking of ppl like ricardo chailly or ian pace)....else you could all the way back to adorno &c

My best friend from elementary school is a big deal avant garde classical composer. In fact, he just was awarded a guggenheim fellowship.

http://youtu.be/JrBJdIvRwz8

this is nice

love the sentiment of "Who Cares If You Listen?"

it wld render the noxious pseudo demography of audience ish that's so common kind of redundant

it's like a counter to "the plain reader be damned"

I didn't like the Grauniad piece because it only really seeks to paint a picture of contemporary classical as a sort of hip sidecar adjunct to pop; it's full of "b-b-but the ideas of composer X can be heard radiating through to the work of Guardian-reader-friendly-rock act Y"-type getout clauses.

yeah, that aspect of it reads like marketing rather than criticism.

I think Service's piece is great and only briefly does it touch upon pop culture