Beyond the first-and all-important-criterion of listenability, I wanted my selections to represent certain important currents, such as primitivism, mysticism and a nostalgia for the East, that run throughout the century.
But as inclusion did not depend on the currents more than the music itself, I also listed works by figures who stand apart, making their way as they go, without apparent influence or dogma.
My bias was toward living composers, and about half the choices are people now at work in the ever-evolving language of our time. This music is not easy. It was not meant to be. Still, I stopped short of any pieces administering aural punishment. The pleasure component remains high.
1. Luciano Berio: Sinfonia, for 8 Voices and Orch. (1968-9)/Eindrucke
(1973-4). Swingle Singers, Boulez, French Nat`l Radio Orch. Erato ECD-88151. Borrowing ironically from the works of forebears is now popular in visual art, but Berio did it more entertainingly 20 years ago in his brilliant, rambunctious ”Sinfonia.”
2. Harrison Birtwistle: Carmen Arcadiae Mechanicae Perpetuum (1976-7)/
Silbury Air (1978)/Secret Theatre (1984). Howarth, London Sinfonietta. Etcetera ETC-1052. Endlessly inventive music exploring the duality of pulse and melody by the most distinguished of the British composers who came to maturity in the mid-1950s.
3. Benjamin Britten: Sonata for Cello and Piano (1961)/Suites 1 & 2 for Solo Cello (1964, 1967). Rostropovich, Britten. London 452859-2LM. Though the style remains conservative, these later works written for Rostropovich have a prickly austerity that accords well with the strength of their argument.
4. Ferruccio Busoni: Doktor Faust (1911-24). Fischer-Dieskau, Cochran, Kohn, Leitner, Bavarian Radio Sym. Orch and Cho. DG 427413-2GC3. Busoni was one of the most compelling solitaries of the century; this is the CD reissue of the first, and only, commercial recording of his visionary opera, a work of the lyric theater unlike any other.
5. John Cage: Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano (1946-8)/Conlon Nancarrow: Studies for Player Piano/Henry Cowell. Miller. New World LP 203. An anthology of short pieces using alterations and techniques that dramatically added to the sound possibilities of the piano.
6. Aaron Copland: Piano Sonata (1941)/Danzon Cubano (1942)/Four Piano Blues/Piano Variations (1930). Bernstein, Smit, Copland. New World LP 277. The tersely expressive Sonata achieves a perfect blend of the ”relaxed” and
”severe” styles otherwise represented on the disc and generally accepted as different sides of Copland.
7. Claude Debussy: Jeux (1912)/La Mer/Prelude a l`apres-midi d`un faune. Boulez, New Philharmonia. CBS MYK 37261. A cool, jadelike landmark of the early modern period, ”Jeux” was written for Serge Diaghilev`s Ballets Russes and provocatively choreographed as a menage a trois in tennis.
8. Franco Donatoni: Spiri (1977)/Eco (1985-6)/Ombra (1983)/Diario (1976)/ Lame (1982). Meunier, Angster, Pfaff, Ensemble Alternance. Harmonic Records H/CD 8616. Cracklingly bright chamber music of repetition, transformation and obsession by a 62-year-old Italian whose personal, meticulously crafted scores are little known in America.
9. Georges Enesco: Sonata No. 3 for Violin and Piano (1926)/Lekeu: Violin and Piano Sonata. Yehudi and Hephzibah Menuhin. EMI References LP 2908621. The Enesco is a miracle of creation, capturing the essence of Roumanian folk music in a classical pattern; the recording is a 1936 milestone by Enesco`s most gifted pupil.
10. Morton Feldman: Spring of Chosroes (1977). Zukofsky, Oppens. CP2 LP 8. A composer with many connections to the visual arts, Feldman here translates the designs of a fantastically elaborate carpet into short, quiet utterances that slowly circle each other like parts of an Alexander Calder mobile.
11. Charles Ives: Piano Sonata No. 2, ”Concord, Mass., 1840-1860”
(1909-15). Pappastavrou. CRI LP SD-150. A phantasmagorical riot of sound in a performance that includes only one of two optional passages for other instruments but nonetheless has remained in the catalogue for almost 30 years. 12. Olivier Messiaen: Trois petites liturgies de la Presence Divine
(1945). Y. Loriod, J. Loriod, Couraud, ORTF Orch. and Chorus. Erato LP STU-70200. The sweetness of Roman Catholic devotion here is conveyed through one of the composer`s earliest large-scale works to make use of Hindu rhythms. 13. Arvo Part: Tabula Rasa (1977)/Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten
(1977)/Fratres (1977). Kremer, Schnittke, Sondeckis, Lithuanian Chamber Orch.; Davies, Stuttgart Radio Sym.; Jarrett, Berlin Philharmonic Cellists. ECM CD 817764-2. Minimalist repetition produces maximalist results in works of a medievalist sensibility.
14. Sergei Prokofiev: Piano Concerto No. 2 (1913). Frager, Leibowitz, Paris Conservatory Orch. Victrola cassette ALK1-4478. A classic account of the most substantial of Prokofiev`s five concerted works for piano, by turns fierce and champagne-elegant.
15. Terry Riley: Songs for the Ten Voices of the Two Prophets (1982). Riley vocals & synthesizers. Kuckuck LP 067. A haunting in-concert performance by a pioneer of minimalism and student of Pandit Pran Nath, master of the East Indian raga.
16. Poul Ruders: Corpus cum figuris (1984)/Thus saw St. John (1984)/
Manhattan Abstraction (1982). Eotvos, Ensemble InterContemporain; Knussen, Schonwandt, Danish Sym. Orch. Point PCD 5084. The 41-year-old Dane calls his scores ”multi-dimensional musical paintings,” and here the pictorial quality ranges from the dark sobriety of Goya and Durer to the energy of Mondrian`s
”Broadway Boogie Woogie.”
17. Giacinto Scelsi: Aion (1961)/Pfhat (1974)/Konx-om-pax (1988-9). Wyttenbach, Polish Radio and Television Orch. Accord 200402. Massive, slow-moving, Eastern-influenced soundscapes by one of the century`s most fascinating (unknown) originals.
18. William Schuman: Symphony No. 3 (1941)/Symphony for Strings (1943). Bernstein, New York Phil. CBS LP MS 7442. The lithe, muscular Third is a leading candidate for Great American Symphony; this first of Bernstein`s two recordings conveys it with the highest voltage.
19. Dimitri Shostakovich: Symphony No. 8 (1943). Solti, Chicago Symphony. London 425 6752. A wartime symphony of immense tragic power delivered in an in-concert performance that surpasses even those recorded by the score`s dedicatee, legendary Soviet conductor Yevgeny Mravinsky.
20. Karlheinz Stockhausen: Gesang der Junglinge (1955-6)/Kontakte (1960). Realization of the Electronic Studios of the West German Radio, Cologne. DG LP 138811. One of only a handful of classics in electronic music, ”Gesang” uses children`s voices referring to the Book of Daniel as a basis for textural and spatial improvisation.
21. Igor Stravinsky: Agon (1957)/Alban Berg: Three Pieces for Orch.
(1913-4)/Anton Webern: Six Pieces for Orch. (1913). Rosbaud, S.W. German Radio Orch. Ades 14.066-2. Spirited, abstract and extremely elegant, ”Agon” is Stravinsky`s ”Jeux”: a late masterpiece in a highly distilled style, at once rich and full of rigor.
22. Karol Szymanowski: Violin Concerto No. 1 (1917)/Bela Bartok: Violin Concerto No. 1 (1907)/Paul Hindemith: Violin Concerto (1940). Oistrakh, Sanderling, Rozdestvensky, U.S.S.R. State Sym. Urania URA 5157. Incomparable performances of three highly contrasting essays, the Szymanowski equally ecstatic and melancholy.
23. John Tavener: Ikon of Light (1984)/Funeral Ikos (1981)/Carol: The Lamb (1982). Tallis Scholars, members of the Chilingirian String Quartet. Gimell CD GIM 005. Achingly beautiful choral works by a 45-year-old Briton whose conversion to the Orthodox Church gave his music wonderful spareness, luminosity and depth.
24. Edgar Varese: Integrales (1924-5)/Octandre (1923-4)/Ecuatorial
(1933-4)/Offrandes (1921). DeGaetani, Paul, Weisberg, Contemporary Chamber Ensemble. Nonesuch 971269-2. A recently deleted Boulez LP gave better value, but this first CD representation of Varese`s percussion pieces and setting of a Mayan prayer states the case for his primitivism most persuasively.
25. Iannis Xenakis: Metastasis (1953-54)/Pithoprakta (1955-56)/Eonta for piano two trumpets and three trombones (1963-64). Le Roux, Orch. National of ORTF; Takahashi, Simonovic, Instrumental Ensemble of Contemporary Music. Chant du Monde LDC 278 368. Using computer, slide rule, and chance, Xenakis produced some of the most explosive music of the century, its innovations influencing a generation of avant-garde composers.
