mgrafe@indiana.edu

Regardless of how much we learn from Debussy's legacy, Messiaen was one of the greatest compositional pedagogues of the last half of the 20th century. The fact that we choose to glean so much compositional knowledge from Debussy's music isn't indicative of his skill as a teacher but as a composer.

The thing about Hindemith is that no matter how chromatic or far out his melodies get, they always manage to get stuck in your head. See the Symphony in Bb for Concert Band. Weird, tonally warped melodies that are uncannily infectious.

What is the slightest bit wrong with having a marimba in a symphony?

Heartily agreed. With everything. Not a Stockhausen fan in any sense, but this is a really well-done work.

Var

Oh my god, Newman uses extended tertian chords which are a part of his tonal language anyway, it MUST be ripped off ENTIRELY from Hello Dolly. Ugh. I defy you to actually listen to the score CD and then say that to my face. "Foreign Contaminant" would be a good point of departure, but either of the main robots' themes would also be fine. I've said this before, but once again, it would be wonderful if you'd offer up some actual backup to your sweeping generalizations.

Incidentally, I think Michael Gandolfi should have won best classical composition but that's just because he was my teacher last semester :)

I sure am. WALL-E and Milk have frankly two of the most colorful and unique scores I've heard in years and the fact that they can be beaten out by Slumdog's score for the sole reason that it sounds "exotic" makes me pretty bitter. After sampling all the nominated scores, I can safely say that in my opinion, Slumdog was probably the least of the nominees (though certainly not bad in an objective sense). I didn't really care whether it was Elfman or Newman who took home the score, but I really feel like they both got hugely ripped off tonight. Thoughts? Max

The original intent is "PIECES everybody else likes but you," not "let's all make sweeping generalizations about composers whose work we probably don't really know that well." For example, if you were to say you didn't like Erwartung or Lulu and explain why, that would be within original intent. Unfounded attacks on a composer's entire body of work just make you sound ignorant.

"Why tonality as we know it should be thrown out altogether, I can't see. Why it should always be present, I can't see." --Charles Ives The end.

Yes. Simply yes. I'm glad somebody else shares my views on him.

I used to think similar things about Salonen's music but I gave it another listen recently and found it very engaging and full of really nice colors. Yeah, the orchestration is often pretty heavy, but nobody's perfect.

^ | | Much-needed ownage.

WOO Composer/Bassoonists FTW!

Sorry, I was feeling cranky and presumptive :)