ralph lichtensteiger ordered list :: primary, significant, insignificant composers

Cover of Samuel Barber

Ralph Lichtensteiger offers his well-considered list of composers. The inclusion of classic jazz artists adds to its credibility. I'll take the liberty of filtering that list for purposes of this blog. See the full list here.

Primary

• Samuel Barber — subtle elegance, italophile beauty and depth
• John Cage — the biotopes of sound and silence, celestial music of mushrooms, universal vibration
• Elliott Carter — simultaneousness and dialogue
• John Coltrane — energy ad infinitum
• Aaron Copland — perfect simplicity, the father of the 'american style'
• Duke Ellington — absolute coolness
• Charles Ives — parallel worlds, made audible
• Charles Mingus — organized improvisation
• Thelonious Monk — different, inimitable, sphere (circle)
• Steve Reich — urbanity, clarity, pulse, the dummy head microphone
• Arnold Schönberg — think outside the box, NOT to please everybody
• Igor Stravinsky — elegance and perfection, the universal brain of style
• Edgard Varèse — organized noise, big city rhythm, sound science, sound stream

significant

• John Adams — Gustav Mahler of minimal
• Georges Antheil — scandal, scandal! happening artist
• Milton Babbitt — mathematics for ears, synthesized rhythmic precision
• Earle Brown — experiment, the laboratory
• Paul Bowles — cosmopolitan
• Ornette Coleman — harmolodic etudes
• Alvin Curran — freak sound layouts
• Miles Davis — electric airiness, super cool
• Morton Feldman — pssst! (pppppp)
• Kenneth Gaburo — compositional linguistics and lemon drops
• Lou Harrison — american gamelan
• Andrew Hill — free mental activity
• Keith Jarrett — invented momentarily, master of ceremonies
• Scott Joplin — joy
• Conlon Nancarrow — the manic mechanic, yesterday's machinery
• Harry Partch — extended instruments, the composer as a tramp
• Terry Riley — sound vagabond, to be intoxicated
• David Tudor — amplified sensual orgy
• La Monte Young — time as a sound carpet, meditation exercise
• Frank Zappa — enlightenment as experimental rock, perfectionist, workaholic, missionary

insignificant

• Philip Glass — mass production, melancholy and pomp
• Mikis Theodorakis — agitation

I also liked his summaries for Satie and Strauss.

I would quibble with his slotting of Philip Glass, I might add Albert Ayler and Eric Dolphy (and Busoni on the full list), I'd delete Paul Bowles and I'd like to substitute Alvin Lucier for Alvin Curran. Finally, I'm unfamiliar with the music of Kenneth Gaburo. But all in all, the list is fun and illuminating, unlike say, something by the NY Times...

Comments

[Brad Fallon]

I have a collection of Trane's (John Coltrane) music. He was great in his sax. He had played with Miles Davies and I love them when they played together..