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In your opinion who was the last person to write great classical music ? Perhaps he's still alive, perhaps you think he's not born yet. When did atonalism and noise go too far for you, or has it yet ?

My own opinion is Stravinsky was the last great serious composer. He used dissonence to great effect without leaving music behind.

Steve

Stravinsky died in 1971, a long time ago. The best composer, for me, is Gyorgy Ligeti. He is about 80 now, but I think he is probably the best within the last few decades.

No good composer that I know of ever composed "noise", so what do you mean by that? Unless an undeveloped musical ear thinks that things like Schoenberg is noise, then I don't know.

Crash:

From all your posts it is obvious that you are a fan of atonal music and music composed in the last 40 years. But I think it is true that only a very small minority of people who listen to classical music like this newer music. This, of course, does not mean it is bad music.

I don't think it is fair to describe these people as having an undeveloped musical ear. I don't like most of this newer music (yes,the Boulez 2nd Sonata definitely sounds like noise to me)and I would certainly admit to be lacking in knowledge about this kind of music. Yet, I don't think I have an undeveloped musical ear. In terms of with music written before around 1940 I would bet that my knowlege and experience is equal to or even surpasses yours. Remember I have almost 40 more years of listening/playing experience.

I should of chosen my words more carefully there, I certainly did not mean to imply that everyone who does not like atonal music do not have developed ears or are knowledgeable.

It is more of an acquired taste I think, one to which your ear becomes accustomed to the patterns in this type of music. Some people just choose not to acquire this taste, and listen to music prior to any drastic changes occurred.

I do not think it should be this way though, and I agree we are in the minority. There is a wealth of musical experiences that are far different and pleasurable at the same time, if one takes the time to look in modern music. It just should not be ignored. Modern music is not all like the Boulez sonatas, those are more extreme examples. Many works of modern day composers can be quite pleasing to even the most "classical" minds, such as those by Ligeti, Corigliano, etc.

I think that was the point of the question. Of course no GOOD composer ever composed noise, he may use discord for effect, but there must be more than just clash, in piece after piece. When in your opinion does "evolution" cease to be music and become noise. I have heard Schoenberg that I've wanted to like, that I almost liked, I just couldn't. The purpose of this post was not a "who has good taste and who doesn't" it was just looking for other peoples opinions, hence my suggestion that perhaps you don't think the last great composer is born yet, or that you think everything thusfar written is still music no matter how atonal.


Steve

I think there are still many great composers to be born in the future, and some just starting out now. Just because it is atonal does not mean it is not music, on the contrary, I cannot find one piece of Schoenberg, Berg, Webern, or Boulez that would fall into the category of "noise" or "not music". For me anyway, but I am sure some people would put everything they wrote into one garbage bin.

Well, I find it dubious that we will have another composer as great as the earlier classical ones.

Steve,

The last of the great Classical composers was, of course, Mozart.

I’m in the mood for music.

This, from someone who uses Beethoven’s visage as a logo….

Then we have this:

Well this happens to be a not so stupid question; who exactly at this moment in time was the last great “classical” composer?

Academicians say that the “classical” period was roughly equivalent to the period now called the “first Vienna school,” in which case arguably Franz Schubert was the last “classical” composer. But this is not what we have in mind.

“Classical” music isn’t exactly in the same league with other musics. For one thing it’s not intended to be “sexy.”

Let’s be perfectly clear about something; popular music is almost about 90% of the time about sex. Classical music isn’t. In fact it does something very culturally incorrect; it turns sexiness on its head. The mere act of playing or listening to ANY well known classical masterpiece is almost a replacement for a sexual or religious experience with something else; “classical” it can’t help but be good and it is above and beyond anything from any other sphere of human activity.

I have had the fugue from Maurice Ravel’s “Le Tombeau de Couperin” running in my head for the past eight hours driving me almost mad with craving frustration because I’m not home with the music in front of me so that I can play it. No, I have not yet committed it to memory. It wants to be in my mind and for me to play it. It is as deeply sexual and as religious at the same time as it is possible to be for a pianist.

So who was the LAST classical composer?

How about Bela Bartok with his third piano concerto?

Or perhaps Erich Korngold who wrote one of the most heartachingly beautiful violin concertos ever written, who said;

"Music is music whether it is for the stage, rostrum or cinema. Form may change, the manner of writing may vary, but the composer needs to make no concessions whatever to what he conceives to be his own musical ideology" Erich Wolfgang Korngold (interviewed in 1946)

“His own musical ideology” indeed!

Make no concessions, even if one would say, “I write what I write in tribute to the masters of the first Vienna school” and if you don’t like it, so what?

Are there hearts to hear something by Ravel? By Bartok? By Korngold? By Stravinsky? Have any of you ever heard Stravinsky’s setting of “The Owl and the Pussycat?” Now that’s sexy!

Definition? Olivier Messiaen, Aaron Copland (died 1992, 1990 respectively) are later than Stravinsky. They're not classical? Or they're not great?

For me, Herbert Howells (1892-1983). I could live without his first piano concerto, but he wrote some exceptional chamber and choral works.

David

My two current favorites are probably Corigliano and Whitacre. Both have been uniquely able to write extremely well-crafted music in an historically informed manner that appeals to a broad audience.

That, I think, is what makes all the greats great. Beethoven, Bach, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, Debussy, and even Prokofiev all appeal to musicians and non-musicians alike for a wide variety of reasons.

Because of my beliefs on this, I don't consider Schoenberg, Stravinsky, or maybe even Schumann "great" composers. They were incredibly important and influential, but let's face it, I'd be willing to bet that in this forum of piano enthusiasts, only about 10% of you could actually hum more than one tune from Stravinsky's entire piano output.

I think Henri Gorecki and Arvo Part are doing some pretty compelling things. Will they go down as great? I dunno.

schumann not one of the greats? for piano music??? that has got to be about the wierdest thing i have ever heard.

i'm currently working my way through "kinderscenen" and this music is pure magic. i can't get it out of my heart, brain, bloodstream.

crashtest, i admire the style with which you replied to pianoloverus's rebuke. he may have more than 40 years' worth of listening on you, but you have the equivalent or better in tact, taste, maturity, and grace.

i consider the classical period to have pretty much ended with schubert and early beethoven.

when i was at mannes i was mostly friendly with the composition majors and they took me to many contemporary music concerts. i have no idea what i was listening to, but much of it was as good, even as electrifying, as any of the better known composers from the 19th and early 20th centuries.

there are certain basic principles that rule what is and isn't art, and no matter what era one lives in, those rules are universal. they have to do with composition, color, form, etc. and they apply to all art forms, not just music.

a trained ear (or eye) is one that can discern the fulfillment of these artistic requirements or their lack. i've heard tons of contemporary music that meets the requirements, in my estimation. and also plenty that doesn't. i don't doubt that it was the same situation in beethoven's day.

Could you explain more why you think Schumann is not great?

Of course, Abduction from the Seraglio and Marriage of Figaro have nothing of all to do with sex!

The great composers of the classical era were popular composers of their time.

I said "maybe" Schumann. For pianists and vocalists, he's fantastic, but where string, wind, and orchestral music is concerned, he's just not as entrenched.

How many of you:

Know his violin sonatas?
Can hum a tune from the 2nd or 4th symphonies?
Know his overtures?
Have even heard the violin concerto?
Have heard any of the string quartets?
Or the piano trios, for that matter?
Or the mass or requiem?
His opera?

By contrast, Beethoven contributed to all these areas. As did Mozart, and even Barber.

You don't have to convince me of Schumann's greatness - just look at my handle, he's easily in my top 5 composers. But he doesn't really have the stature of Mozart or Beethoven in my mind. (Even though Mozart does not make my top 5 favorite composers list.)

How could you...ah heck, forget it.

His Leider: 150 songs, not one tune. Steve Allen accomplished somehing similar in this century.

Its apparent that you may not have listened to much Scriabin. But your point is taken. :p

I guess the last great classical composer would have had to have been Haydn as he outlived Mozart by a few years.

But I have my personal bias- it was Shostakovich although I think there were many others of the 20th Century who were also great. Several have been mentioned already.