Your Favorite Composer.

[milod]

In general I'm pretty much with Matt. To me a "composer" does something more than write an "art song." That's nothing against those who write good art songs, either the music or the lyric. Some of those art songs have lasted well over a century and a half as true classics, such as the American "When you and I were Young, Maggie," that's been done every way from 19th Century "straight" to some pretty heavy jazz versions.

 

I would consider folks who write for a whole movie "composers" in the sense that they're doing program music, but it's ideally following the dramatic format of the movie. In a sense, that's a "symphony."

 

I'd also disagree that the only "American" music is blues and jazz. "American" music is a stew, just as is our general society.

 

So many "blues" guitar players recognized later as greats were actually picking stuff ranging from JP Sousa to solo versions of saloon music or other stuff. Bluegrass and "country" contain more than a little blues and jazz.

 

What of American "cowboy" music? Western swing? Swing in general?

 

To me prior to radio and recordings, folks were influenced by what they heard. Sometimes that was quite a bit, sometimes not much. But the ex slaves' hollers and hillbillies' Celtic and rural Brit influences and marching bands added to "classical" stuff to influence most musicians of the day.

 

After radio... that trend exploded.

 

Back to Sousa for example, take the very first measure of the intro to Stars and Stripes Forever and twist it a bit and you've a blues measure any current rocker or blueser might play.

 

Joplin for example took what almost literally was saloon and brothel piano and added a more "classical" form.

 

Gershwin is another example of combining musical forms.

 

Anglophone nations, especially, quickly adopted and adapted each others' art and pop music because quite simply our lyrics are the same language. That added to a "stew" of music in Anglophone nations in general that already had been under way as soon as colonials left the island(s).

 

During the U.S. bicentennial I really worked at figuring "regional folk music" in my area of the country and failed miserably. There were too many types, all influencing each other. There were country bands of guitar and fiddle or fiddle and piano playing pop stuff of the day as well as polkas in some areas, lots of waltzes of various styles...

 

America has been far too dynamic to label, I think.

 

The Brit pop music scene was more insular - a word I use quite intentionally - but after WWII especially, had much more reflection from the U.S. and Canadian influences that brought us the Beatles and Brit "rock" of various sorts.

 

But all simply continued the tradition of us Anglophones in general in adapting various influences into whatever "we" did as individual musicians.

 

So... <grin> That's how I see a lotta stuff.

 

Even Schubert gets dumped into the mix with some "lines" being turned into classic "American" pop music such as "Redwing."

 

m

[ShredAstaire]

I'm all ab00t Penderecki:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edjc-e9Ak3o&feature=BFa&list=PLF0FE425CF7118B5B&index=1

 

That man wrote some scary *** ****!!!

[Notes_Norton]

How can I choose?

 

It depends on the day of the week. So for today:

 

First would be Sergei Prokofiev

 

Tied for a very close second would be:

 

Pyotr Tchaikovsky

Antonin Dvorak

Dmitri Shostakovitch

Josef Suk

Fikret Amirov

Aram Khachaturian

 

Any one of the second place people could be first for a day, but I would say Prokofiev would be first more than any of the others.

 

And there would be another dozen or so in third place.

[duane v]

If there is one composer that hit home for me from a classical genre, it would be Antonio Lucio Vivaldi

 

Vivaldi's Four Seasons is a masterpiece

[proparch]

Hard to pin it down to just one but Ralph Vaughan Williams is right up there for me. His Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis is extraordinary - IMHO the best recording was Sir Adrian Boult conducting the London Philharmonic Orchestra. All other versions just sound odd IMO.

[Duende]

Hard to pin it down to just one but Ralph Vaughan Williams is right up there for me. His Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis is extraordinary - IMHO the best recording was Sir Adrian Boult conducting the London Philharmonic Orchestra. All other versions just sound odd IMO.

 

Awesome choices!

[brad1]

If there is one composer that hit home for me from a classical genre, it would be Antonio Lucio Vivaldi

 

Vivaldi's Four Seasons is a masterpiece

That would be my pick also Duane. I didn't see anyone else mentioning Vivaldi and thought I would be the first, but was pleasantly surprised when I saw your post.

I love the violins in the Four Seasons. Truly a masterpiece indeed.

[LPguitarman]

George Gershwin.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1U40xBSz6Dc

Wow, I was going to say Gershwin too. You and I have a lot in common (RUSH fan).

[milod]

And Vivaldi was kinda an interesting guy too...

 

[Tman]

Johann Strauss

Lennon and McCartney

[Duende]

The 20th century has been an awesome time for British classical music. As a nation we laid low for a couple of hundred years (biding our time LOL) but came back in the 20th century with a punch!

 

Here is a movement from a piece i am studying by one of my favourite English composers, William Walton. Milo baby! This ones for you!!!

 

[DMichaelG]

that is an interesting comment

 

Do you feel their music is very American then as a whole, or in a specific area of their output? I agree that the rock n roll style they emulated, in their early part of their career, was a great tip of the hat to Black musicians such as Chuck Berry - but the other genres the Beatles mixed into their music, were combinations of old British folk songs and European classical influences IMHO. LOL to me it sounds very gritty and real ...i.e English!

 

Matt

 

p.s I know this may risk sounding snooty (I hope it doesn't!!) Ican see this thread having problems as the word composer is being used in a loose way and applied to anyone who has created music. I know it does mean that in one sense, but there is quite a distinction between a singer/song writer and composer! Oh no a can of worms has just been opened. Milo, Damian, you hold the fort! LMAO

 

Matthew, I should have qualified my statement. In their early years, before they quickly matured into their own, they covered American music that they loved and admired. Once their composing skills grew, covers, as we know, were a thing of the past. As The Beatles, always moving forward, started looking for influences to color and shape their music they used, Indian, Music Hall, Blues, Vaudeville, Pop, Rock, County. McCartney would sometimes use heavy influences in their songs from America, like Rocky Raccoon and from the British Music halls, When I'm Sixty-four. McCartney's, Oh Darling, is a rave up on rocking blues (One of my favorite McCartney/Beatles tunes).

 

So The Beatles reflected American music back at us early on and then used those influences to further expand their musical language.

 

AND p.s. Yeah, the definition of 'composer' has been loosely applied in this thread but I am okay with that. I figure it's anyone who can construct music and evoke emotion, whether or not they can read or write musical notation.

[Duende]

Matthew, I should have qualified my statement. In their early years, before they quickly matured into their own, they covered American music that they loved and admired. Once their composing skills grew, covers, as we know, were a thing of the past. As The Beatles, always moving forward, started looking for influences to color and shape their music they used, Indian, Music Hall, Blues, Vaudeville, Pop, Rock, County. McCartney would sometimes use heavy influences in their songs from America, like Rocky Raccoon and from the British Music halls, When I'm Sixty-four. McCartney's, Oh Darling, is a rave up on rocking blues (One of my favorite McCartney/Beatles tunes).

 

So The Beatles reflected American music back at us early on and then used those influences to further expand their musical language.

 

AND p.s. Yeah, the definition of 'composer' has been loosely applied in this thread but I am okay with that. I figure it's anyone who can construct music and evoke emotion, whether or not they can read or write musical notation.

 

cheers for this and I do miss this in modern popular music, the moving forward and also every album being a different album completely. All my favourite bands such as The Doors, Queen, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin etc all had that in common, the daring to make changes and depart from what worked on the last album. I respectfully disagree with you on the composer definition. I think anyone who evokes emotion is certainly an artist and worthy of admiration, but a composer is very different to a songwriter.

 

Matt

[mcmurray]

I'll have to go with Bach, especially when Gould is playing it.

[Versatile]

A few more names to add to the 'essential listening' list if you will....

 

Purcell

 

Holst

 

Delius

 

Handel

 

Borodin

 

Hildegard von Bingen

 

V

 

[stein]

The 20th century has been an awesome time for British classical music. As a nation we laid low for a couple of hundred years (biding our time LOL) but came back in the 20th century with a punch!

 

 

 

I just got through watching THE LATE SHOW with DAVID LETTERMAN. with...PAUL SCHAFFER and the CBS ORCHESTRA.

 

Have you seen it? I'm afraid the Brits may be a little late to the party.

[Duende]

I just got through watching THE LATE SHOW with DAVID LETTERMAN. with...PAUL SCHAFFER and the CBS ORCHESTRA.

 

Have you seen it? I'm afraid the Brits may be a little late to the party.

 

late to the party? WTF you are funny! They are a house band yes? Like Jules Holland rhythm and blues orchestra? Yes they seem very good! But 'the Brits haven't arrived late' Stein baby! - they got there many years ago LOL ;) , When I said the 20th century has been great for Britain, I wasn't talking pop/mainstream music (which has and is as always great for Britain anyway) but classical music!

 

The 20th century though has seen Walton, Britten, Holst, Elgar, Vaughan Williams, Delius and a host of others that are simply HUGE figures!!! Not to mention living composers writing music as we speak! These men and women are forging contemporary classical music forward! I can honestly say that musically we have really produced some awesome classical music this last 100 or so years.

To Proparch who mentioned Fantasy on a theme by Thomas Tallis earlier (Thomas Tallis was an English Renaissance composer who is buried in Greenwich) This is my favourite orchestral piece by a British composer, in fact perhaps by any composer! (I am sorry for all this patriotism, England are playing Switzerland at 4:45 and I get all hyped up before)

 

If anyone is reading and doesn't know it, please, please listen to it and don't skip past it!

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_jRI7rPzMI&feature=fvsr

 

 

 

Matt

[Duende]

p.s

 

Our football team are not very good LOL, I wish they would put us on the world map! Sorry off topic, but on the world stage something always goes wrong! But I will always support them (fool that I am)

 

Matt

[milod]

Matt...

 

Been busy messing with following a flood, literally, east of here a ways...

 

But RE: William Walton's piece. Oddly perhaps, I hear Gershwin in it.

 

I know too I'll be politically incorrect for this comment, and perhaps "political," but I've gotten to the point where I question strongly that nowadays we can talk about Brit, American, Canadian and Australian music as anything more than regional variants of Anglophone music. Perhaps not even regional, but more "individual."

 

Yes, I think that other language groups have a similar increasing propensity to borrow, in pop music perhaps to borrow especially from anglophones, but...

 

The Beatles do make a good example. Note that they didn't exist until the radio and television age and easier and less expensive access to recorded music. I think they could not have existed, nor the Brit "invasion" of the U.S., until there had been some significant cross-referencing of what had been "American" music in the mindset of the British Isles.

 

American music had, in fact, already significant portions of music from those British Isles as a natural factor of immigration. So modern tech sent back some of the American "mix" and did a remix from the islands over there.

 

The Aussies ditto, albeit sometimes directly from North America, sometimes directly from those misty isles, sometimes in ways in combination; and they sent to both of us their own versions.

 

It's not just music, I'll add. All three Anglophone concentrations share also broadly speaking a political foundation and culture; all three have had some internal difficulties with "nationality" that sometimes is a matter of skin color and sometimes almost strictly "culture" broadly speaking.

 

So... We share so much as language/political cultures. Technology brings you, Matt, as close to me as the guy in North Dakota. So also our music has become "one." Yeah, there are regional differences still, but I'd say more a matter of individual artists' influences that include regional differences but also family inclinations and when/where one was raised musically.

 

Bottom line is that I've a feeling that as individuals, you're no more distant from me than a buddy in Brisbane on my history/philosophy forum or a picker my age in Omaha. In fact, I've a hunch you, in London and much younger, and I in the literal center of the U.S., have more in common musically in ways than some pure contemporary young rockers in New York or London or a Los Angeles rapper...

 

m