john_of_portland
New member
I would love to hear what would happen if a modern composer were to write orchestral music I could relate to. But all of recent music seems busy experimenting with extreme dissonance, or halting rhythms, uneasy or aimless moods, or tiresome repetition. People talk of these pieces as emotional, but I am unmoved. And then there are the commercial successes, whose prettily sentimental works are little more than pop songs with airs of culture (Karl Jenkins).
Is there no middle ground? I'm looking for music that carries on the tradition of Copland, with deep and timeless insight, and traditional forms embraced and lovingly developed. I don't want slavish attempts to recapture history. Morton Lauridsen's choral piece for example, "O Magnum Mysterium," could never be written before the 20th century, yet it expresses eternal emotion like nothing I've heard. Who else has done such things? That's what I'm looking for, with no apologies to Schoenberg or any of the rest. What do you suggest?
Is there no middle ground? I'm looking for music that carries on the tradition of Copland, with deep and timeless insight, and traditional forms embraced and lovingly developed. I don't want slavish attempts to recapture history. Morton Lauridsen's choral piece for example, "O Magnum Mysterium," could never be written before the 20th century, yet it expresses eternal emotion like nothing I've heard. Who else has done such things? That's what I'm looking for, with no apologies to Schoenberg or any of the rest. What do you suggest?