Most innovative composer.

[Zaia]

Agenda:

First: watch movie
Second: Buy soundtrack

word. the movie is cool, but the soundtrack is fuckin' awesome!

[IRG CommandoJoe]

Ah...now I know why when I put in "Liszt," the Eyes Wide Shut soundtrack appeared...so now I can finally listen to this thing. And immediately report back to here to rave about how great it is.

[IRG CommandoJoe]

Mmm....it wasn't his greatest...it was ok...but nothing too great.

[IRG CommandoJoe]

I just witnessed some of the most amazing piano playing I've ever heard!!!

http://www.sgourosmp3.com/liszt-norma-sgouros.mp3

It's very long and the quality is not the greatest, but it's an amazing piano piece that must take a LOT of skill to play well, to say the least. If you just want to get to the good parts where it'll blow your mind, skip up to around 10 minutes and listen to the rest of the piece and be astounded.

[Zaia]

Mmm....it wasn't his greatest...it was ok...but nothing too great.

judging from the fact that the stuff of his that you love is the stuff i kind of shrug off, i didn't really expect you to run back here saying, 'OMG that is THE most gorgeous thing i've ever heard in my life!!! AHHHHH!!!' so it's ok--i think it'd be a good starter for you to play of his.... it's not flashy like the others, which i warned you about. i liked his other pieces, but they were hard as hell to learn... maybe if i only listened to them i'd like them too.

[IRG CommandoJoe]

Yes...when I hear things that I like and is reasonable to learn and play, I look to see if I have it in the piles of sheet music I have. lol Just so happens when I heard Brahms' Waltz in A Flat and Rachmaninoff's Prelude No. 5 in G Minor, I DID have the sheet music. So I started learning it myself. I never got very far with the Prelude, and I'm almost done with the Waltz, but I've put them on hold to finish learning the Revolutionary Etude.

[Zaia]

whose revolutionary etude?

[jenat-lai]

The greatest influence on Sci Fi Soundtracks I think are the late romantic composers, particularly the German ones such as Wagner, Brahms, Strauss and his Tone poems, possibly Respighi.

As far as the roots of all this are concerned I'd trace it back to J.S Bach for for all intents, inventing the rules of logical harmonic structure, and Ludwig Van Beethoven for inventing ways of breaking those rules LOL. Big composers, composers who changed the course of music as we know it in filmscores today I would list as following, in rough order of their lifespans:

Palestrina. The use of instruments other than voice in the Church music of the 13th or 14th century

J.S Bach.... for the development of harmonic function in fuge to it's pinnicle

Joseph Haydn, taking Sonata and Symphonic form and making them the meat of serious composition that they still are.

L.V Beethoven. For taking the Symphony to new levels of size, and emotional power by taking harmonic function to the edge and doing new things... also for being the first "freelancing" composer ever.

Richard Wagner. Trying to push the envelope of using Music to make an audience 'Experience' emotions through the music. The expantion of traditional harmonic function to encompass intervals and chords with puerly 'emotive' rather than 'functional' functions.

Richard Strauss. creation of the Tone Poem... music without words being given a fully written out 'plot'... and also for composing the opening of 2001 a space odysey... 50 or more years before the movie was made... indeed, before the idea of movies were concieved.

Schoenberg. the complete revolutionizing of tonality as we know it... the acceptation of 'ugly' sounds and chordal structure as sounds in their own right. Rejection of the idea of 'Correct' or 'incorrect' music. Music can be ugly.

Bela Bartok, for introducing ethnic musics into orchestral compisitions. "Real" folksong elements to the orchestrations of some of his works... a predecessor to some of todays "World Music" style soundtracks.

Igor Stravinsky. A composer with true Chamelion characteristics, could change his compositional character very well... a must with todays film scores (well good ones anyway)

John Cage. See Schoenberg... only more pronounced... introduction of 'sound effects' and non-normal playing techniques for instruments (such as strumming piano strings etc)

Philip Glass/Steve Reich etc... introduction of repetitive loops. Sound sampling of natural sounds or orchestral instruments or both... mixtures of live elements and pre-recorded or sound filtered elements. Use of non-classical and electronic instruments. use of very simple music (ie. Steve Reich's Clapping music) or very complicated virtuosic, yet quasi repeditive music (Philip Glass Violin Concerto)

Toru Takamitsu... see Bela Bartok. but use of Asian influences with classical orchestra, or classical orchestra with asian instruments, or asian ensemble with classical style compesition.

John Williams. Writing music which draws on most of the above influences as far back sometimes as palestrina (palpetine theme) Wagner (leitmotific compesition in StarWars) even sometimes Quasi World Music styles (Indiana Jones is a prime example, middle eastern sounding things, German sounding things) and also John Cage/Steve Reich things at times too (close encounters) and one section in close encounters which sounds like something Schoenberg would compose indeed. I'd almost call John Williams the movie composers answer to Igor Stravinsky!

[Kelly Antilles]

wow... I'm impressed. You know your composers.

[IRG CommandoJoe]

(Doesn't see Liszt on the list..no pun intended...)

lol

[IRG CommandoJoe]

whose revolutionary etude?

Chopin's "Revolutionary" Etude No. 12, Op. 12.

[haas mark]

Liszt has been on here for a while....about a whole page or so of Liszt works.

[jenat-lai]

(Doesn't see Liszt on the list..no pun intended...)

lol

I usually see Liszt as being more revolutionary to the performance of music than the composition of it. He was one of the pioneering virtuoso musicians. His music was primarily composed to show off some technical, nigh impossible feat to be defeated. As far as his actual imprint on music, his composing style although unique, hasn't truly been taken up in too many veins except the virtuosic concerto/sonata. As far as harmonic and structural musical interest, the compositions of Liszt were somewhat typical of the mid to late romantic era in europe at the time. Impressive, yes... Groundbreaking? not quite so much.

As far as movie music is concerned, I would say Richard Wagner (as much as we hate him because of his Anti Semitic ideas and later idolizing by ceartain parts of the Nazi party) is possibly one of the largest influences on the modern movie music industry... maybe with Richard Strauss and Mahler coming in not far behind. His work at trying to use music to evoke emotions in present time into his audience, use of leitmotific development (as in when something happens in the plot, something in the music tells the audience who, what and to what end) was a new thing, and is the most useful thing an audience can have...

for instance, when you hear the imperial march, you know that the Jedi arnt the ones with the upper hand. When Palpatine's theme humms away, you know that it's not the lightside powers which are of interest, and when you hear that godforsaken "Accross the stars" love theme, you know that Anikan sort of has this 'thing' for Padme <g>. in the same light, in Wagner's operas, when you hear the hero Sigfried's theme (for all intents and purposes the Jedi/Force/Luke/Twin sunset theme with a different rhythm... alot of same intervals and the odd melodic re-placement) you know that sigfried is about to either appear, become victorius, or about to whop some serious ass... When you hear the Forge theme/Nibelungen/Alberich's Slaves (in Lord of the Rings terminology, Mordor <g>) you know your about to see something greedy, corrupt, evil, powerfull and well.. bad. Along comes Wotan's theme/Valhalla and you see the 'old good (but now corrupt)' order of the Gods (who incidently at the end are destroyed by the death and redemption/transfiguration/sacrifice (but not ressurection) of Brunhilde and Sigfried together to restore order when the rhinemadens reclaim the rhinegold in the ring of power. etc etc....

Here is a small breakdown of Wagner's life and aims...


Born: Leipzig, May 22, 1813
Died: Venice, February 13, 1883
From an early age, Wagner had been interested in theater, drama, verse, and acting. While in his teens he became interested in music, and began studying and composing. His greatest inspiration came from the operatic reforms and ideas of Gluck, and from the German operas of Carl Maria von Weber. By the age of twenty-two, he had finished his first opera and had begun to make notes for his autobiography. Convinced of his greatness, he continued composing and conducting, but meeting with little success. Eventually he became involved with the Dresden revolutionary uprising of 1849, the outcome of which made him a wanted political criminal, and he fled to Switzerland.

During this time Wagner was continually composing operas and finding his mature style. He envisioned the creation of the "total art work": a conception of a music drama based on classic Greek prinicples, in which there would be a unity of music, drama, text, design, and movement. The subject matter of these works were to be the indigenous myths and legends of the German people, such as the famous Ride of the Valkyries, which depicts the daughters of the god Wotan riding their steeds through a storm, bearing the bodies of slain warriors to Valhalla. Wagner wrote both the texts and the music of his music dramas.


Wagner's reforms did away with the "number" opera -- no longer was there any clear separation between recitative and aria, and ensembles in the Italian sense of the word are almost completely avoided. The orchestra is treated symphonically, with short themes or leitmotifs combined and developed endlessly during the course of the action. Many of the well-known symphonic excerpts from Wagner's operas are made up of a combination of these motifs, as in Siegfried's Funeral March from Götterdämmerung, the final opera from Wagner's immense, seventeen-hour cycle, Der Ring des Nibelungen. Wagner's operas are uncommonly long, intended as they were by the composer to be played during the course of an afternoon and evening, with breaks for a meal and refreshment.

Wagner's musical style took chromaticism to its limits in the nineteenth-century. He expressed the unquenchable love of his protaganists in Tristan und Isolde through chromatic melodies and unresolving harmonies that prevent the music from ever feeling centered, fully expressing and realizing the late Romantic obsession with the yearning for an unattainable ideal. This expansion of tonality through the use of chromatic harmonies came to influence later schools of German music, prominent composers of which included Gustav Mahler and Arnold Schoenberg.

[jenat-lai]

wow... I'm impressed. You know your composers.

Well I am a fourth year student of Classical music

[The Dark]

Personally, I like a lot of Holsinger's music (the difficult stuff, not his middle school-type). I've performed In the Spring When Kings Go Off to War, as well as To Tame the Perilous Skies, both as percussion-only pieces for drumline competitions.

Berlioz is another I like. Symphonie Fantastique is one of my favorite pieces, particularly the March to the Scaffold.

Samuel Barber is my last selection. I've performed the Overture to the School for Scandal, Adagio for Strings, and Medea's Dance of Vengeance, again all for percussion, and his ability to write in radically different moods is incredible. I also like one of his quotes, which we used as the theme for our show:

"(When) I'm writing music for words, then I immerse myself in those words, and I let the music flow out of them. When I write an abstract piano sonata or a concert, I write what I feel, I'm not a self-conscious composer...it is said that I have no style at all, but that doesn't matter. I just go on doing, as they say, my thing. I believe that takes a certain courage."

The Samuel Barber show we performed earned the bronze medal in Scholastic A Class at the WGI Indoor Drumline World Championships in 2001.

[Spanky The Dolphin]

I still stand by my choice of Yoko Kanno.

Maybe not of all time, but at least for this century.

[Frank Hipper]

You people make me feel like a complete nincompoop! I`m familiar with Wagner, completely ignorant of Liszt. I`ve pretty much been exposed to the most basic repetoire stuff, pop classical. Oh well, guess I`ll just have to raise my standards!

[jenat-lai]

I suggest the following purchases to raise your standards.

Stravinsky ballets.. make sure you try and get a CD with Petroushka and Rite of Spring on it...


Richard Strauss Tone poem. A full one, not a compilation as that defeats the purpose of a tonepoem. I suggest Thus Spake Zarathrustra (the 2001 space oddesy one)

Messien's Turangalila Symphonie. Very wierd, but give you a shock on how far classical music can diverge from what your used to...

one or all of the 'Roman Trillogy' of Ottorino Respighi

One CD of this I suggest is the Ultima label 2CD named "respighi" produced by the London Philharmonic conducted by RIZZI

I don't know what the calling card "LC6019" has to do with anything, but this CD has the full roman trillogy on it *Pines of Rome, Fountains of Rome, Roman Festivals* It also has a piece called Trittico Botticelliano and a couple of his other 'neo-baroque' works. HIGHLY reccomended VERY GOOD music!

[IRG CommandoJoe]

Wagner did influence film music with his ring, but it was Liszt that inspired Wagner to compose it the way he did. Good thing too, because 26 years of his life might have gone down the crapper if he wasn't inspired by Liszt. Allow me to take some quotes from a Liszt site. (http://www.d-vista.com/OTHER/franzliszt.html#Intro)

"He invented the symphonic poem - a new and elastic single-movement form, which many subsequent composers, like Richard Strauss and Saint-Saëns embraced, and is at the core of most contemporary and even popular music forms today."

"His music evoked deep psychological and emotional impact far exceeding what existed previously, thus opening new doors to new dimensions in sound and the human psyche."

"He was one of the first modern conductors breathing life into a score in lieu of merely beating time, thus focusing more on fluid expression, not a cold metronomic beat."

"He developed the transformation of themes, later imitated by Wagner as a leitmotif."

"He was the first and true inventor of impressionism and atonal music, well before Debussy and Schoenberg."

"And most importantly, he altered the course of music history, more than any 19th Century composer, as the future would follow Liszt's direction, not Brahms or the traditionalists- who followed Beethoven's adopted classical structure."

Which is why I think Liszt never received the credit he deserves.

[Kelly Antilles]

Liszt deserves much credit. Being a low reed/low brass player, I find Wagner quite.... annoying much of the time. Whole note tied to another and another and so on for ten pages. Gah. And soooooooooooooooo slow.

[haas mark]

Liszt deserves much credit. Being a low reed/low brass player, I find Wagner quite.... annoying much of the time. Whole note tied to another and another and so on for ten pages. Gah. And soooooooooooooooo slow.

I could agree with you there...on many composers. Being a viola player, there is not a whole lot to do. Especially in Beethoven. Ick.

mew.

Yes, I am evil.

[Zaia]

Liszt deserves much credit. Being a low reed/low brass player, I find Wagner quite.... annoying much of the time. Whole note tied to another and another and so on for ten pages. Gah. And soooooooooooooooo slow.

I could agree with you there...on many composers. Being a viola player, there is not a whole lot to do. Especially in Beethoven. Ick.

Kelly, I know what you mean about Wagner because I've played tympani on some of his pieces and for me it's about the same--just endless rest-counting or rolls that go on for half the page.... Actually, same is true for Beethoven symphonies (until you reach the end of the fast & loud movements, where there's a big tymp solo ). Indeed, some parts are boring, but I don't think that takes away from what both Wagner and Beethoven did to change the music of their time.

And besides, even though I have the most boring part for "Elsa's Procession to the Cathedral," doesn't mean I don't absolutely love it. (I still want to march down the aisle to it with someone else playing tymps, preferably)

But while we're talking about music that's fun to play, I'd have to agree with Holsinger, and toss in Stephen Mellilo ("Stormworks"), James Barnes ("Fantasy Variations on a Theme by Paganini"), and the marimba concerto by Paul Creston... Oh, and anything by David Gillingham or David Maslanka (kickass percussion ensemble/symphonic band composers).

[haas mark]

Another greatly BORING piece: Telemann's Overture to "William Tell." I sat through that, and stings have NOTHING to do. For 3/4 of the piece. NOTHING. Damned reed solos....

And Grieg. OMG, one of the best ever. Same with Dvorak. EVERYONE had something to do in Furiant (Symphony No. 6). EVERYONE.

[The Dark]

Liszt deserves much credit. Being a low reed/low brass player, I find Wagner quite.... annoying much of the time. Whole note tied to another and another and so on for ten pages. Gah. And soooooooooooooooo slow.

True...I'm low reed/percussion, and Elsa's Procession to the Cathedral is bloody boring.

Of course, then you get Grainger's Colonial Song, with sixteenth note runs on bassoon. Evil man. Evil.

I'll stick with Holsinger and Barber. Adagio for Strings is *the* best slow song I've heard. Another good classical is Verdi, with his Requiem. Dies Irae may be the best known piece of classical music in the world (or at least the big orchestra/bass hits in measure one ).

If I hadn't sold my Music Appreciation book back to the store, I might be able to look up more composers I like.