He grew up hearing everything, making no distinction between ‘high’ and ‘low’ art, and an utter lack of pretension is evident in his music, among which works such as West Side Story, Candide and the Chichester Psalms must rank as among the finest in the entire century. And as a composer, conductor, broadcaster, writer and educator, he sought to make it accessible to as wide a public as possible. Without Stravinsky, as Ross points out, where would the dinosaurs of Walt Disney’s Fantasia be? Thank goodness we need never find out.īernstein was a populist: he unapologetically and urgently wanted to share the music he loved. Stravinsky’s brilliance had a seismic impact on the rest of the century – not only on classical music, but on jazz, rock, modernist literature, painting, and even movies. But then these accents start landing in unexpected places, and you can't quite get the pattern of it…It's as if you're in a boxing ring, and this sort of brilliant fighter is coming at you from all directions with these jabs." That chord repeats and repeats and repeats, pounding away." Rhythmically, Ross says, "It seems as though at first he's just going to have this regular pulse. And that's a harsh sound, and he keeps insisting on it. "You have these two chords slammed together," Ross explains. The New Yorker’s music critic Alex Ross masterfully captures the work’s ominous energy, it raw, spooky power and explains how this is achieved both harmonically and rhythmically. His breakthrough work was The Firebird, produced in 1900 by Diaghilev’s Les Ballets Russes thirteen years later, a full-scale riot legendarily broke out at the premiere of The Rite of Spring, his ballet of pagan sacrifice (which historian Barbara Tuchman aptly describes as "the 20th Century incarnate"). After much soul-searching, these are simply the 10 geniuses who, for me, have done so the most. All of the above composers, and so many others, have bequeathed us masterpieces that have moved us, astonished us, baffled us, made us think, made us cry, made our hearts soar. What about Elgar and Sibelius, Bartók and Janáček? Vaughan Williams? Or John Williams? Ravel? Xenakis? How could I leave out the post-modern giants Peter Maxwell Davies and Harrison Birtwistle? To say nothing of Olivier Messiaen, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Ligeti, Berio, Lutosławski, Steve Reich? And how about John Adams, Elliot Carter? Well, sure. War, race, sex and politics shaped the soundtrack – and much of the music of 1900-2000 is as fascinating as the historical and cultural context from which it emerged.Īny such list must be an exercise in subjectivity, of course: my omissions will no doubt outrage some. From modernism to minimalism, the previous century yielded musical riches beyond our wildest imaginings. It got me thinking about who my top 10 composers of the era would be. Researching for the discussion I was struck by the number of critics who describe Glass as one of the most influential composers of the 20th Century. Last week I had the pleasure of interviewing Philip Glass on the eve of the world premiere of his new opera The Trial, based on Kafka’s masterpiece.
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