Who is the best composer of all time? Look inside please!

Carla Bley



Now, I know none of you have heard of her, or are going to try and check her out, so I'll do it for you...

I'd love to let you listen to the entire Birds of Paradise, but it's massive (20 minutes long), and illegal. I'll give you a taste though...and perhaps some other stuff.

To me, she's by far the most creative and original composer of modern jazz music. Working often with a large Jazz Orchestra she also works with smaller ensembles, even trios and duos. She writes exceptionally well for the player - many of whom have been in her band for decades (Steve Swallow, Gary Valente, Lew Soloff), and has composed some of the darkest, ugliest and most disturbing music of all time; ALSO she has composed some of the prettiest, simplest and most beautiful music of all time. Always is it original, powerful and with her distinct sense of humour...

I've own several of her scores, many of her leadsheets are available free on her website, and I'll finally get the chance to see her perform this summer at the Guelph Jazz Festival with the Charlie Haden Liberation Music Orchestra.

She's absolutely unbelievable, and it's impossible for me to explain it to you...So, please check it out... I warn you, she's not for all ears, and many of you will not like it. I don't care...

Dig:

• Official Website - scores for sale, leadsheets for download, and some neat insight into a unique mind.
• With Haden & the LMO, interview/concert footage [video]
• Escalator Over The Hill [video] - rare footage of the second staging of Carla's frightening Rock/Free/Jazz Opera. The original record's Overture is the most powerfully terrifying pieces of music ever composed...
• Albums worth buying: Very Big Band // Fancy Chamber Music // Big Band Theory // Musique Mecanique // Live! // Songs With Legs // Ballad of the Fallen + any/everything else.

Clips to listen to:

• Birds Of Paradise - from the 1993 album Big Band Theory. I've excerpted some highlights from the piece (it's hard to distill a 20-minute masterpiece into 3 minutes). On a whole, the piece demonstrates Carla's mastery of the long-form. Amazing, possibly one of the greatest compositions of the 20th-Century.
• I Hate To Sing - from I Hate To Sing (1984), smaller ensemble, good demonstration of Carla's striking sense of humour
• Wolfgang Tango - from Fancy Chamber Music (1998), Carla wrote music for non-improvising classical musicians; a fascinating experiment with great results. You folks with the classical blinders on would do well to give at least this one a chance...
• Real Life Hits - from the 1982 record Live!.

Um...well, there you go. Carla Bley has had a huge impact on me and my music, she's a devastating composer and it's a shame more people aren't aware of her - she's relatively unknown in the jazz community as well. If you seriously want to check more out, let me know

...

Why is the Birds of Paradise illegal?

Originally Posted by Alex

Why is the Birds of Paradise illegal?

It'd be slightly illegal and morally objectionable for me to put the entire thing online, that's all.

Stravinsky

He had a way of re-inventing his music thorough the years and the various environments that he lived in. Very much like a chameleon. Unlike many other composers of his time and before, his music varies enormously from his different periods at a point that it is somehow impossible to recognize his music. Listen the Card Game and The Rite of Spring one after the the other one and prove me wrong.

EDIT: I don't think that he is the best composer, to name such a composer would be so difficult. But Stravinsky is my top composer.

Samuel Barber.

His music is just the most interesting thing to listen to. I get lost in it and it really captures emotion. Also, I am huge on patriotism, and even though he didn't really pledge allegiance like Copland did, when I think of American music, I think of Barber.

Johannes Brahms.

No composer - not even Beethoven - could write quite as compactly as Brahms. Hardly a spare note anywhere; the entire background develops the main motives in his work. This is especially true of his chamber music.

Peter Ilych Tchaikovsky

Better than "The Five" (Balakriev, Cui, Mussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Borodin) put together. One of the leading Russian composers of all time and easily my favourite composer in my favourite musical era - the Romantic period.

There's so much variety in Tchaikovsky's music, and so much to learn. Take "Dance Of The Sugar Plum Fairy" from The Nutcracker and compare it to "Marche Slave (The Slavonic March)". One is a light, delicate, short dance routine, the other a longer, louder, aggressive piece, the two of which do not sound like they're made by the same man. Thus demonstrating the versatility with the orchestra Tchaikovsky had, and his ability to make it work.

Tchaikovsky is often derided for his very humable melodies and mass appeal. On the technical end, many posit that his pieces lack organization and proper development. I, however, would say that humable melodies and mass appeal are not so easy to achieve and are arguably more of an accomplishment than some of the obscure garbage other "great" composers have churned out. While I concede his organization is imperfect, I think he more than makes up for it with the beauty of his music. His themes are as memorable as Beethoven's, but much more emotional. Anyone who respects old-fashioned tonal, romantic music has to respect what Tchaikovsky did for the romantic movement.

The man with the most developed dramatic sense in History. His operas had passion, gorgeous melodies, inventive orchestration and very powerful characterization. He never fell into long descriptive arias that do nothing to advance the plot - although his own arias are the most gorgeous in italian opera. When you hear a well interpreted Puccini opera, you can actually believe the people on stage are real.

There is no way I could ever name one single favourite composer, let alone the "best". However, just to contribute, I'll say Béla Bartók, because he had such fluid, original technique. His work, while consistently well crafted, is so diverse. From the Concerto for Orchestra, or 2nd Piano Concerto, to such intimate and compressed gems as the 3rd String Quartet. And he appreciated folk music very much, which is important for me as a part-time folk musician.