Results tagged “crumb” from Slipped disc

Of 3,200 people who read or engaged with the debate here, on twitter and on facebook, as well as an uncounted readership on radio and newspaper sites, just over 100 eligible ballots were received. Some ticked one composer for posterity, others voted for the full ten options.

The results of the poll are not in any way scientific or universal. There is a bias towards US and UK composers - understandable since the debate is conducted in English - as well as a slight tendency towards certain composers who have current or recent performances.

Nevertheless, there are conclusions to be drawn and I shall attempt to lay them out for discussion below. First, though, the results of the popular vote.

Last Composer Standing

1 John Adams

2 Arvo Pärt

3 Steve Reich

4 Philip Glass

5 Pierre Boulez

5= George Crumb 

5= Henri Dutilleux

8 Osvaldo Golijov

9 Thomas Ades

10 Henry Mikolai Gorecki

Since the next three are bunched pretty close behind, I shall add them to the bench as first-change substitutes:

11 Einojuhani Rautavaara

11= Stephen Sondheim

13 Harrison Birtwistle

This poll started with a claim of mine that Gavin Bryars would last the test of time. A three-way discussion ensued with experienced colleagues - Tim Page in California and Andrew Patner in Chicago - yielding a short list of five whom we thought we certs for the future. So what have we discovered?

- Minimalism is here to stay. It will still be heard in 2059.

- Few who voted for Glass also chose Reich, and vice-versa. There is a minimalist schism.

- John Adams has as many strong detractors as he has passionate fans. He provokes contention, always a good sign in a composer.

- Meredith Monk and Kaija Saariaho were the highest ranked women composers.

- While Dutilleux has benefitted from prolonged exposure in Boston, similar promotion in LA and London has not worked for Magnus Lindberg. Will New York do the trick?

- Is the music of Boulez appreciated more widely as a result of his popularity as a conductor?

This debate is all about the qualities we perceive in living composers and whether they will pass the test of time. Some correspondents regard the criterion of durability as irrelevant to art, and they may well have a point. But how we in 2009 judge the value of living composers is not an insignificant factor and I shall make a mental note to take another straw poll a year from now to see if our opinions have changed.

In the meantime, discuss, dispute, gnash teeth and celebrate in the comment space below. Thank you all for taking part, and thank you also to many bloggers and tweeters who helped to spread the word.

Congratulations to John Adams, the Last Composer Standing.

Our dear friend Betty died yesterday in Los Angeles. I'm a bit too choked up to write much about her now, but I don't think anyone did more to develop musical creativity in the past generation. I once called her the Midwife to Post-Modernism. I think she liked that.

She had a musical ear and a certainty of taste the like of which I have rarely found in the most celebrated conductors. She also had the capacity to stand apart from her work, and everyone else's, which is the hallmark of true art.

I attach below a short tribute that my wife's company has sent out. Betty did a power of good in music and art. She took us into a new era. 

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Betty Freeman, who died at her home in Los Angeles on January 4, 2009 at the
age of 87, was the leading patron of new music in the late 20th and early
21st century.

She was the force behind such modern classics as John Adam's
opera Nixon in China, Steve Reich's electronic string quartet Different
Trains and Harrison Birtwistle's Antiphonies, and the dedicatee of works by
Cage, Feldman, Berio and dozens more. She found Harry Partch living on the
strets of Los Angeles and gave him shelter in her garage. In all, more than
80 composers were beneficiaries of her support, in over 400 works.

Betty was also a close friend of the artists David Hockney and R B Kitaj and
a gifted photographer in her own right. Her portraits of modern composers,
taken with the privilege of close and prolonged collaboration, are
exclusively represented by Lebrecht Music and Arts Photo Library.

An accomplished pianist, Betty established a musical salon in Los Angeles in
the 1980s. She had no nostalgia for 19th century romantics and supported
without prejudice both streams of post-modernism - both the minimalist and
atonal tendencies. Few people could claim to be a close friend of both
Philip Glass and Pierre Boulez.

Among other composers she commissioned are George Benjamin, Markus Stenz,
Thomas Ades, Hanspeter Kyburz, Harry Partch, Anders Hillborg, Philippe
Boesmans, Conlon Nancarrow, Lou Harrison, Helmut Lachenmann, George Crumb,
Jorg Widmann, Matthias Pintscher, Friedrich Cerha, Olga Neuwirth, Luciano
Berio, Morton Feldman, Gyorgy Kurtag and LaMonte Young.

Her friendship with Lebrecht Music and Arts dates almost from its foundation
in the early 1990s. The knowledge that her work was professionally and
internationally represented encouraged Betty to continue making photographs
right up to her final illness. She was a kind and extraordinarily
considerate friend who put the interests of art above personal comfort and
convenience. She was also a funny, witty, strong-minded woman who will be
terribly missed by all who knew her the world over.

For more links see:

www.lebrecht.co.uk (search 'Betty Freeman')
www.meetthecomposer.org/indguide/freeman.html
www.newmusicbox.org/article.nmbx?id=799
<http://www.newmusicbox.org/article.nmbx?id=799> -
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And Alan Rich has written beautifully here:

http://www.soiveheard.com/blogs_Betty%20Freeman.aspx