The Classical Listeners' Guide Volume 3, Number 4 A Publication of the WTUL Classical Department December 1989 The Twentieth-Centurv Classical Show... The Greatest Living Composer! (A Survey of Opinion) On Sunday, December 12, from 7 to 11 p.m., the Here are the results of the survey thus far: WTUL Classical Department will present a special Twen- As English speakers, many respondents suggested tieth-Century Classical Show attempting to answer the American or British composers. Aaron Copland (b. question, "Who is the greatest living composer?" The 1900) is the grand old man of American composition. Few show will result from a casual survey of opinion among classical music lovers haven't heard his ballets Billy the WTUL dj's, students, musicians, teachers, and librarians Kid, Rodeo, or Appalachian Spring, but he hasn't written in the Tulane University community-and, we hope, lis- anything major since lnscape in 1967. His most famous teners to WTUL! Although there have been as many protege Leonard Bernstein (b. 1918) has written such different classical composers named as persons inter- popular ballets as Fancy Free and Facsimile, three viewed, with no two respondents agreeing, everyone splashy symphonies, and the great musical shows Can­ polled thus far asked the same question: "Can any dide and West Side Story. Elliott Carter (b. 1908) is chief composer living today be called 'great'?" among American composers as first choice of academics, Is it too soon to judge? but his music is so over- Should we wait until the What is your opinion? Who is the greatest, whelmingly complex, with passage of time makes it leading, or simply favorite living composer for many independent me­ easier to sift the truly great you? Send your choice to the WTUL Classical lodic lines and conflicting from those who were Department, Tulane University Center, New Or- rhythms, that it is often merely talented? Certainly, leans, Louisiana, 70118_ impossible to follow, ex- the reputations of such L...-_ ___;________________ ____, cept with a score in hand. world renowned composers as Paul Hindemith, who died Two younger Americans, Steve Reich (b. 1936) and in the 1960's, have declined immediately after their Philip Glass (b. 1937) have become genuinely popular deaths. It has taken until the late 1980's for Hindemith's by writing easy-to-follow, so-called minimalist, music. star to begin to rise again in critical opinion. Or is itjustthat Glass's "greatest hits," including the operatic trilogy Ein­ we are living in an era of declining artistic accomplish- stein on the Beach, Satyragaha, and Akhnaten and his ment? Is there anyone living now who composes on a par Glassworks album, with their loud, driving, circular malo­ with such deceased greats as Benjamin Britten or Dmitri dies and rhythms have more in common with rock than Shostakovich, bothofwhomdied in the 1970's? In the last classical music. Reich's Tehillim for chorus and large three years alone, for example, such relatively prominent instrumental ensemble is mesmerizing and genuinely composers have died as Henk Badings (Netherlands), beautiful. Many listeners, however, regard the droning Morton Feldman (U. S. A.), Wolfgang Fortner (West repetitions of trendy minimalism to be a compositional Germany), Dmitri Kabalevsky (U. S. S. R.), Lars-Erik dead end. Larsson (Sweden), Vincent Persichetti (U. S. A.), and Perhaps the most prominent British composer is Henri Sauguet (France). But can any one of them be Michael Tippett (b. 1905). The New Groves Dictionary called great? (continued, p. 5) TUESDA Y through SATURDAY: 6 to 8 A.M. SUNDAY: 6 to 7:30 A.M. The Twentieth Century Show, Sunday 7 to 11 P.M. The Baroque Show, Monday 6 to 8 A.M. D • E • c • E Sunday The Sunday Evening The Monday Morning Morning Twentieth-Century Show Baroque Show with Saskia with Lester and Jennifer with John and Armand Made possible in part by a grant from '-------Evans & Co. KiJimiJn Kurt Weill Orlando Gibbons "Potpourri," fromthe The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagony Three pieces: "The Woods So Wild," "Mask: The opera Die North German Radio Chorus featuring Lotte Lenya Fairest Nymph," and "The Lord of Salisbury his Csardasfurstln Max Thurn, dir. Pavin and Galiardo" Salonorchester Colin Trevor Pinnock, harpsichord and virginal Balakrishnan The Grea~esi living Composer! Pietro Nardini String Quartet: Bala­ (a survey of opinion) Violin Concerto in E Flat major padem nom;nees ;ncludjnq Henri Dutilleux Capella Academica, Vienna Symphony no. 1 Eduard Melkus, violin Orchestra Nationale de Lilla August Wenzinger, director Jean-Claude Casadesus, cond .. Various IN!ew !Re lease on CID Johann Gottlieb Naumann Selected Marches Terry Riley Quartet for Glass Harmonica, Flute, Viola, and Cello Customs and Finance Salome Dances for Peace Bruno Hoffman, glass harmonica Guards Band The Krenos Quartet Charles Mouton. The Chrisimas Spacial Various Composers Lute Pieces inC minor Arthur Honegger French Christmas Music of the 13-16~ Centuries Konrad Junghanel, lute A Christmas Caotata The Boston Camerata Choruses and 'Czech Philharmonic Orchestra Joel Cohen, dir. Vaclav Zitek, baritone. F • E • A • T • U • R • E • S (The Greatest Living Composer!, from p. 1) tronic means, world music, great spans of space and time, of Music and Musicians devotes ten double-column and grandiose aesthetic and philosophical notions. A pages to him alone, as compared, for example, to half of good example is Licht (Light), which is so gigantic that it a column each for Glass and Reich. In four symphonies, will take a week to perform in its entirety and is being the secular oratorio A Child of Our Time, and The Midsum- released every few years in day-long installments. mer Marriage, among his five big operas (for which he The Italian Luciano Berio (b. 1925) shares with writes his own librettos), he has revealed himself to be an Stockhausen the deployment of giant means, incorporat­ artist with a strong humanitarian bent. His newest opera ing collage and largely unintelligible lyrics. His Sinfonia, New Year premiered in Houston this October. In the late originally in four movements and using the Swingle Sing- 1960's, Peter Maxwell Davies (b. 1934) almost achieved ers and a big orchestra, came out in its definitive five­ infamy with such dramatically expressionist and gratingly movement form in a recording last year. Many of his dissonant scores as Eight Songs for a Mad King, about works were written for the wide-ranging voice of his the insanity of King George Ill, who lost the American American wife the late Cathy Berberian. The Pole Witold colonies during the Revolutionary War. His recent, mel- Lutoslawski (b. 1913) has produced a fairly small num­ low Violin Concerto is balm to the ears by comparison. ber of mostly very colorful works but, from the earliest, has Olivier Messiaen (b. 1908) is the doyen of French displayed an outstanding command of form and an acute composers. A deeply religious person ever sensitive to sense of proportion. His latest symphony, the two­ God's natural creations, he r;::::======================================:::;-1 movement No. 3, has al­ has introduced the use of In the last three years alone, for example, ready been recorded twice such exotic musical such relatively prominent composers have died commercially. The sources as notated bird as Henk Badings, Morton Feldman, Wolfgang Hungarian GyOrgy Ligeti song. His new opera, (b. 1923) is best known for appropriately about St. Fortner, Dmitri Kabalevsky, Lars-Erik Larsson, piecesusedinthescorefor Francis of Assisi, who was Vincent Persichett, and Henri Saugue. But can the movie 2oo 1 by Stanley said to have been able to any one of them be called great? Kubrick, who the composer converse with birds and successfully sued for dis- other animals, made quite a splash last season. The torting his music electronically. In fact, most of Ligeti's younger Pierre Boulez (b. 1925) is betterknowntodayfor works employ no electronics, but a lot of them, especially succeeding Bernstein as conductor of the New York Phil- the shimmering choral works, sound like electronic com­ harmonic and for running the vast electronic music facili- positions. ties in the Pompidou Center in Paris than for composing. These are the favorites mentioned by those inter­ His works such as Le marteau sans maitre marked a high viewed. To them the writer would add a personal choice, point in the serial technique, in which not only the twelve Vagn Holmboe (b. 1909), the leading Scandinavian tones of the chromatic scale but also rhythm, timbre, and symphonist since Carl Nielsen. Like Nielsen, Holmboe is every other aspect of a composition were all subjected to basically a neoclassicist making conscious use of the the rigorous structuring of predetermined series. This sort principles of thematic and tonal metamorphosis. Uncom­ of music displays tremendous order on the page that is promising in his integrity, Holmboe has resisted the virtually undetectable to the ear. Henri Dutilleux (b. atonal ism and serialism ofthe 1950's and '60's, producing 1916) is opposed to dogmatism and intensive systemati- music that The New Groves declares to be of "rare zation. An isolated and independent composer, he has continuity and quality of thought." come to greater international attention only with such What is your opinion? Who is the greatest, or major, recent works as his Symphony No. 3. or just plain favorite living composer for you? WTUL German contemporaries are Hans Werner Henze (b. promises to play selections by as many of them as four 1926) and Karlheinz Stockhausen (b. 1928). Henze's hours will allow. At least five days before the broadcast, prodigality of invention is relatively unusual for a com- send your choice to the WTUL Classical Department, poser since World War II.