Schoenberg via Wikipedia
Jerry Bowles makes the case for the "new synthestists" movement:
The New Synthetists are all searching for the same Holy Grail: a blend of classical, rock, electronics, pop and world music that is both serious and fun and will build an audience for the future. They are mostly young, conservatory-trained musicians and composers, and they frequently work in collectives designed to bring players and composers–quite often they are both–together. What they write and play is mainly a new form of chamber music that is often amplified, played on “hybrid” instruments, and has a contagious melody, or hook, and a backbeat you can’t lose.
I like classical, rock, electronics, pop and world music and I certainly advocate for both the serious and the fun. But to my somewhat old ears, what I've heard of this music sounds too light and lacks rigor, compared to the heavyweight precision of Steve Reich or the mesmerizing, world-savvy sounds of Philip Glass or Terry Riley. And of course, the minimalists are tame compared to the modernists who came before them e.g. Arnold Schoenberg or Elliott Carter.
I've started reading The Future of Modern Music by James L. McHard. Writing about the 20th century composer Gian Francesco Malipiero, he describes the first two phases of the Italian modernist's career:
Melodically and harmonically, Malipiero's mature work (post 1915) is generally divisible into three overall stylistic periods. The first lasted from about 1915 through the late 1920s, and it was characterized by dissonant sequences of short melodic statement that were then in govue (Bartok, Stravinsky, et al). The second lasted through the 1930s and 1940s, and was charactertized by softer, more relaxed melodic and harmonic treatment...
Similarly in the Thirties, Aaron Copland the modernist turned into Aaron Copland the populist.
Maybe this same softening is occuring now with this latest generation of composers, and maybe it will bring classical music back to a wider audience.
Here's the Q2 stream of Todd Reynold's Transamerica, with Bowles' description:
Click on the first cut on CD1–Transamerica–and you immediately find yourself dancing down trip-hop lane as Reynolds lays some magic riffs over a groove from beatboxer Kid Beyond.
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