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What is currently your favorite piece of music?

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"Jamm on Toast!"

Reminds me of a jazz band in 8th grade!

Current favorite work, (other than Mahler 2)...

Mahler 9, last movement. So tragic, melacholic, joyful, crying, aching, wishing, longing, accepting.

Yes. I'm emotional.

Mahler's 9th last movement is AMAZING:w00t:!!!

Mahler's 9th last movement is AMAZING:w00t:!!!

I agree. The most amazing thing I find about it is that people are actually able to sit through it... much less enjoy it. :hmmm:

Stravinsky- Rite Of Spring...Scriabin- Promethieus...Rihm- Symphony 1, and 4th quartet... Kurtag- Stele... Bartok- 5th&6th quartets.............the list goes on...these are really wonderful though.

Janacek Sinfonietta Mvmt. 5

It's a very cool piece, and I greatly admire the form. The entire sinfonietta is tightly constructed and has a cyclic-ish form. I'm also interested in Janacek's use of almost-minimalistic "cells" within the context of a Czech (folk song)-influenced late-Romantic/post-Romantic piece. It sends chills down my spine every time I hear it.

The Synch

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My own Quartet for Violin, Viola, Cello, and Clarinet.

You're a modest one, aren't you?

You're a modest one, aren't you?

Just because your favorite work is something that you've written yourself doesn't mean you aren't modest.

Not everyone can be self-hating.

I agree. The most amazing thing I find about it is that people are actually able to sit through it... much less enjoy it. :hmmm:

Just because you are a simpleton and cannot comprehend four-part counterpoint in complex modulations and key relationships does not mean the rest of the world is.

That is pretty harsh. I agree with Nirvana. Many people don't like sitting through long pieces. I know this isn't my conversation to join in, but I think he is right. Now with that being said, Tokke does also have a point. Therre are just as many people who have the patience to sit through a long piece as there are who don't.

What was the point of this piece? To mock Mahler?
Just because you are a simpleton and cannot comprehend four-part counterpoint in complex modulations and key relationships does not mean the rest of the world is.

Oh, the irony! JT, did you ever think that, even though you don't like Berio, others might? :O Shocking, I know!

Oh, the irony! JT, did you ever think that, even though you don't like Berio, others might? :O Shocking, I know!

That's fine and dandy. Y'all can like Berio, and I can like Mahler. No disputing that.

What I'm more interested in is the purpose of using Mahler 2 and not any other piece. Why not use Bethoven 9's scherzo instead? I'm just curious, that's all. No harsh criticism intended and appologies if it came off that way.

It's looking at- amongst many other things, Mahler through a prism of post- modern thought, contextually reorganizing it against the backdrop of the concert orchestra. It's not mocking, it's very sincere.

There's more than Mahler in there- Beethoven, ravel, schoenberg... Literally dozens of famous "masterworks". It's a 1960s "mash-up." it's awesome.

No offense, JT, but it's easy to mock Mahler, even though no one denies he was a good composer. Even I mock his early symphonies sometimes.

Just because you are a simpleton and cannot comprehend four-part counterpoint in complex modulations and key relationships does not mean the rest of the world is.

Last I checked, I listened to more harmonically and contraputually complex music than you.

EDIT: By the way, I liked that Berio piece. The quotations from La Mer were especially amusing.

Last I checked, I listened to more harmonically and contraputually complex music than you.

Like what?

Like what?

Well, Robin warned me against continuing a fight with you but I don't see the harm in answering your question...

Scriabin, Berg, some Schoenberg (more so his free atonal stuff), Berio (Sinfonia and a lot of his sequenzas), Debussy (some of his really late work is rather harmonically complex with hints of bi-tonality), Ravel, Stravinsky, Bartok, a little bit of Hindemith.

Anyway, I don't intend on dragging this out any longer. This'll be my last post in response. If you want to baselessly label me as a "simpleton" then go ahead. Doesn't particularly bother me.

Well, Robin warned me against continuing a fight with you but I don't see the harm in answering your question...

Scriabin, Berg, some Schoenberg (more so his free atonal stuff), Berio (Sinfonia and a lot of his sequenzas), Debussy (some of his really late work is rather harmonically complex with hints of bi-tonality), Ravel, Stravinsky, Bartok, a little bit of Hindemith.

I don't intend for a fight. I think you're baselessly calling Mahler "simple" music because you indeed don't like it. And since you listen to more "complex" music, the Mahler must be very simple. That's not fair to Mahler's music since it's not simple at all. In fact, I'd say he was one of the most complex composers prior to the whole modernist movment of "write as hard as possible" (a la Berio and the Sequenzas). And I believe that that is complexity for complexity's sake, not for the sake of the music.

On a side note, much of the composers you cited were either atonal or bi-tonal etc. How is that more harmonically complex, esp. atonal? Is it complex simply because it is not part of the traditional tonal vocabulary?

I don't intend for a fight. I think you're baselessly calling Mahler "simple" music because you indeed don't like it. And since you listen to more "complex" music, the Mahler must be very simple. That's not fair to Mahler's music since it's not simple at all. In fact, I'd say he was one of the most complex composers prior to the whole modernist movment of "write as hard as possible" (a la Berio and the Sequenzas). And I believe that that is complexity for complexity's sake, not for the sake of the music.

On a side note, much of the composers you cited were either atonal or bi-tonal etc. How is that more harmonically complex, esp. atonal? Is it complex simply because it is not part of the traditional tonal vocabulary?

Oh, I'm not saying Mahler is "simple" by any stretch of the imagination. He wrote some of the most harmonically complex music in the common-practice period and wrote in huge expansive forms. I just simply don't care for his music (though I really don't mind the 2nd or the 4th symphony too much). I don't look down on anyone who likes Mahler if that's what you think. He's just an incredibly easy target to make fun as Q said. ;)

And I suppose "complexity" is sort of subjective but I'd say having multiple tonal centers, using octatonic scales that don't imply strong tonality instead of diatonic major and minor scales, basing pieces off of more "dissonant" intervals like the 2nd and 4th rather than the 3rd, and not conforming to tonal hierarchies makes for more complex music. But again, it is sort of subjective.

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