Dedication to Polls and Voters: Notated Music Since 1890 - Voting and Discussion Thread

You can vote here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1Kcee5uO2-B8_SWZ9o3VLYFbOzA5IguVtlaCm60nbb70/viewform?c=0&w=1
There is a link to the nominations list from that page.
Thanks to seandalai for setting this up!

Nominations Thread: Integrate Your Series and Fill a Cloud-Chamber POLL: Ballot Poll for Notated Music Since 1890 NOMINATIONS THREAD

Voting deadline: Sept 18, 2016, 11:59 pm Eastern Time

Bumping this for Sund4r. As I said in noms, I feel a bit overwhelmed by the amount of stuff I ought to know but don't, so am not voting myself, but I'd like too see a good turnout & follow along the results.

I was going to use this as an opportunity to investigate strands of 20th century music I never got into but shit has happened and I'm feeling emotionally shot down so I've got nothing blank zilch.

However I will upload the three or so tracks are nominated and are nowhere.

I'll see how I feel and what I can do later in the spring/summer - this is such a good opportunity - but ugh my life

Thanks, emil.y! (And I'm sorry things are hard, xyzzzz__.)

I'm enjoying Abrahamsen. Why did I not know about him before?

Just over two months left. Anyone have any discoveries?

I'm still working out how I feel about John Adams. On the whole, not really my thing, I think, although Nixon in China is p cool. I'm remembering how much I enjoy Higdon's Zaka. So much energy, variety, and movement.

i haven't really had the opportunity to listen to much; unfortunately it's just too big for me to approach, though i have run across some stuff not on the list (am enjoying allan pettersson's symphony #9 lately). such a broad field. so much great work.

The list is pretty daunting, yeah. Has this been an obstacle for people, generally?

Just under two months!

I was making good progress for awhile with the Spotify list and then I got majorly overwhelmed. I wonder if I could enlist a Spotify virtuoso (hi forks) to put together the rest of it for me but let me have mod powers so I can then go in and tweak it to choose alternate recordings of certain works?

is it open to public collation? can you relink (along with a relink to the nominations) here?

I think its public for listening? I didn't make it secret, anyway. So I just now went in and clicked 'make collaborative' on it. Which seems to be a global setting, as in there's no way to give mod privileges to you only. But here is the link to the WIP playlist:

https://open.spotify.com/user/1213493496/playlist/0vARvyYvbAAV6cPr2RpHXG

Sund4r could you repost the link to the excel sheet?

lol, it's already 233 hours long!
Jon have you checked off on the excel sheet what you've added?

Yeah it's gonna be v long because we are playlisting the whole pieces and not just excerpted movements

I know I started out not going in alphabetical order for a little bit and then went back and started in strict alphabetical order. You can probably tell where I started over in strict alpha order of sund4r's sheet. I think in the first non-alpha phase I was trying to just make a playlist showcasing personal faves and then I was like no this needs to have all the noms so I started over from A. But I avoided duplicating things I had already added in the non alphabetical stint.

I can tell you more exactly when I'm in wifi again and can look at Spotify. I think I got up to G.

Pastebin link: http://pastebin.com/bapmkdm0
Google Sheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/159pi7X3auJv4xPfuNSx-427tclquh5MHBkc40F4GIHI/edit#gid=0

Thanks a lot, guys!

Ok I see what I did
I started out by adding things in the order in which people were posting them in the nominations thread. I did that for quite awhile. The last thing in the playlist that added during that phase was Ives - Three Places in New England. Then I started over using the spreadsheet, alphabetically by composer last name, but trying to not re add things which id already put in. And I got up through Goldsmith, Jerry before getting overwhelmed by life.

One thing that's weird is the number of major Glass works not on spotify. Music in Twelve Parts for example. Sad!

i agree that it's crazy how little glass is in there.
jesus fuck this is a lot of work. maybe at some point. not right now.

Haha

Hearing Schnittke's Concerto for Choir for the first time, really nice. May end up booting Carmina Burana off my ballot ;) Was this a DJP nom?

i think concerto for choir was one of mine! still haven't been able to wrap my head around the enormity of great work here. (don't have spotify either which complicates things.) may end up not balloting. :( (or may just end up re-arranging my noms as a ballot, but that doesn't seem to be quite fair!)

damn this is soon, gonna have to drop out of all other life if i want to put a list together

might just wait for the unveiling thread and loudly boo every appearance of arvo part

I've been really bad at getting round to listening to most of this too... I will put together a ballot after I've done my metal/hard-rock one but the majority is going to be stuff I knew already and wait for the rollout to educate me.

I don't think there's anything wrong with doing it that way. At least you're voting for things that you know have stuck with you.

call me crazy, but De Staat is avant-prog, a la Art Zoyd (or Thinking Plague in places)

Finding connections between avant-prog and 70s compositional music is one of the least crazy things I can think of.

I've knocked together a ballot but it looks kind of thin so I'm belatedly listening to some things with names that I find intriguing. Might mean that I miss out on something amazing with a plain title like 'Symphony No. 2' but I've left it too late to methodically go down the list really.

if that's Per Norgard's #2, you should check it out if mystical minimalism is your thing

I'll give that a listen once I've finished making quizzical faces to Cornelius Cardew

I wasn't referring to anything in particular in my first post though

Tbh, I doubt that anyone could have methodically gone down the whole list unless they treated it as at least a part-time job starting in April. (Or unless they already knew most of the pieces well, which I have no trouble admitting is not the case for me, although I've probably heard 50% of the pieces at least once.)

Oh i missed the discussion of Schnittke's Concerto for Choir a few weeks back! My choir sang that last april, or, y'know, tried to. Boy that is difficult, but really beautiful! I'll definitely vote for that if I make a ballot, but most of my ballot would consist of stuff I've sung, i guess.

if that's Per Norgard's #2, you should check it out if mystical minimalism is your thing

Just listened to this. It's nice, you're right. Listening to the Schnittke Choir Concerto now.

If you listen to one guitar piece, it should probably be the Ginastera sonata. If you listen to a second, make it Villa-Lobos's Douze etudes, esp Etude no. 11 (my favourite thing to play). If you're going for a third, listen to Reginald Smith Brindle's El Polifemo de Oro.

that ginastera sonata is mad wicked

I'm on a ginastera kick lately tbh

We're in the home stretch now!

Ooh, I've totally forgotten about this, got to get my ballot together!

Oh yeah, I'll try not to forget to vote today. I didn't do as much listening as I intended but my ballot's a decent size I think. I enjoyed the Per Norgard symphonies Dominique, thanks.

I voted.

Me too.

With a week left, I think I'm set on my #1.

This is not in my wheelhouse so I am looking forward to see what you guys come up with.

I somehow managed to get through life without listening to Scriabin's Prometheus until this poll.

Only a couple of days left! I'm planning to put together my ballot tomorrow.

ugh i am having such a bad week. i gotta do this!!!

I will do this! Have the ballot already, just need to submit.

Anyone who hasn't voted and doesn't know the piece, please listen to Claude Vivier's "Lonely Child". Easily one of my all-time favourites. Remembering when listening to it right now.

Is Ginastera's violin concerto actually nominated or is that an accidental copy and paste from dutilleux's? Because since this poll started I heard Ginastera's violin concerto and it fucking rules and I will vote it if it's not a typo

Whoa, good find. Looking at the noms thread, the Ginastera violin concerto was not nominated, Ginastera's Cello Concert no. 2 WAS nominated but is not on the list, and 'L'arbre des songes' is actually Dutilleux's violin concerto. I will accept votes for all three pieces.

Is it possible to sort of tier my ballot so that group 1 (super faves) all get X points, group 2 (faves) all get Y points, group 3 (fonds) all get Z points?

I'm not gonna finish if I have to rank 1 to 100 and I don't want to do total unranked...

You can do a mixed ballot so that some are ranked and some are unranked. Select "mixed" and leave a black space between the ranked and unranked portions.

do i have to number the ranked ones or is the order taken as given

It is taken as given, as far as I know. Will double-check but assume yes.

And I just listened to Ginastera's second cello concerto for the first time: wow!

yeah he is a powerhouse

check out his Bomarzo opera and the vln cto and harp cto

Threw together an unranked ballot & voted, 1 vote per composer with a few notable exceptions, did v. little listening beforehand, sorry.

Also listening to Ginastera cello concerto now, and yeah this is awesome! Almost spectral

Basically he started out folk-modernist and got more avant-gardist as he got older

besides the ones I mentioned also do not miss Cantata Para America Magica (why didn't I nominate that???)

Sund4r -- I voted! My first 50 are ranked, second 50 are unranked. I had to kind of go into a frenzy to make these decisions...

You can do a mixed ballot so that some are ranked and some are unranked. Select "mixed" and leave a black space between the ranked and unranked portions.

― Hi! I'm twice-coloured! (Sund4r), Friday, 16 September 2016 14:24 (three hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Black space = blank space, I assumed

D.C. al Voted

After the first cut, I have 194 pieces left.

Also, how did we forget the first two Penderecki string quartets??

And I finally cast my own ballot.

Did we really nominate that many Sibelius pieces and not "Finlandia"? I might not have voted for it anyway but it is a striking omission. I had a request to write that one in, which is totally fine. (Will accept any write-in votes, as long as seandalai is OK with it.)

Finlandia is not terrible but it would be like my 8th favorite Sibelius tone poem

yeah, that's the kind of Sibelius that made me think I didn't like Sibelius for a long time

Ha, I don't actually like the piece, to be clear.:P I still wouldn't call myself a fan but, for sure, e.g. Tapiola did lead me to re-evaluate him.

sund4r pls listen to the pcs nominated in this poll! Plus pohjola's daughter which was a glaring oversight

Forgot about this for months and didn't do any new listening, but I just put together a ballot of favorites.

I was the write-in for Finlandia

I decided in the last 12 hours to throw together a slapdash ballot for this. I'm going to be up for a few more hours sampling stuff I've heard before to make a 60 piece ballot. So far I've rediscovered stuff I've owned for years and realized how much I love it (Adams' Fast Ride, Messaien's Quartet pour la fin du temps), so this poll is working out for me even without the rollout.

xpost to Sund4r from July, Adams is pretty great, Nixon In China is way way better than Shaker Loops which honestly doesn't impress me that much anymore. Did you listen to Short Ride in a Fast Machine? It's fantastic. It's like taking amphetamines and seeing an opera.

I'm learning I have a hard time with 20th century vocal music. El Cimmaron, Berio's Sinfonia, etc

I had a ton of Reich on my shortlist but then most of it didn't stand up to the competition. I actually cut like four pieces of his, and that was one of the composers I held really highly before auditioning my picks.

Voted, off to bed, wake me when the rollout starts

Sent an unranked ballot, mostly filled with choral works I've performed. Can't wait for the countdown to check out everything on it!

Iirc, I listened to all of the Adams pieces on the list. I'd definitely listened to some before. I think "Short Ride" was one of the ones I liked better but none of them made my ballot. I should have probably put Nixon on there.

James Redd: there is a decent amount of big band and American songbook stuff on the noms list, if you're up for taking a look. I nominated at least one bossa nova tune.

I'm intrigued to see how this turns out. My sense is that (except for me, ha) some of the posters who might have gone for the really pointy-headed stuff are sitting this one out. Predictions for #1? Stravinsky?

James Redd: there is a decent amount of big band and American songbook stuff on the noms list, if you're up for taking a look. I nominated at least one bossa nova tune.

Admittedly, it would have been more helpful if I told you this a week ago, when you commented.

4'33"
xp

Re Adams, I like Naive and Sentimental Music a lot

I might have voted for Phrygian Gates actually. Listening to it right now. Just listened again to "Short Ride"; didn't click with it. I did vote for both John Luther Adams pieces.

Oh, fuck, I nominated from the wrong list... Do you want me to redo it Sund4r?

On Adams, I voted for Nixon. I'm not sure he has that perfect piece, but this album is a great collection. The Chairman Dances going into Christian Zeal and Activity.

What list did you C&P from? I'm a little confused. I think it would be easiest for seandalai to tabulate the results if everyone is working from the same list, if it's not too much trouble.

From the link in the nominations page. An excel sheet. So there's no '-'s, but it should be the same text.

How many ballots do you have?

Frederik, I think that's probably fine. I'm double-checking. CS: dunno yet.

apologies for not voting in the end - i've had a very trying 3 months and i can't cobble together anything that would feel fair for this, haven't explored enough of the stuff i don't know.

will enjoy watching tho.

From the link in the nominations page. An excel sheet. So there's no '-'s, but it should be the same text.

Confirmed that this is not a problem.

Yay, thanks!

For some reason I assumed Gorecki's 3rd would make top 10. That's a popular one, right?

I don't really think you're going to see much consensus tbh.

Oh, that's an interesting one: Gorecki's 3rd is super-popular with the general public but I don't think it is really a piece that is held in extremely high esteem by specialists/scholars. I don't think it's considered a bad piece, just not an essential piece of the canon. (It made the bottom half of my ballot.) Not something that I ever see e.g. included in 20th century music history courses, except maybe as a side note concerning its runaway commercial success.

I agree that consensus is unlikely!

(Looking forward to Jon or someone proving me wrong about Gorecki! What does Alex Ross think of it? Seems like something he might like.)

sund4r I hope you will be providing a spotify playlist with results.

Uh, I can still vote, right?

After I examine the nominations, ofc

Yes! There are still 5h12m but I'm willing to extend the deadline if there are people who still want to vote.

There are some real classical heads on this board. Would love to see ballots from you.

I think the Third Symphony might do quite well. It's one of those perfect classical records, where the production, the sound, the interpretation, just hits the spot. Like with Tabula Rasa or The Sinking of the Titanic. But those two have the misfortune to be several unrelated pieces put together. The Third Symphony is just the Third Symphony, it's much easier to vote for.

Ross on the Third: There is no doubt of the symphony’s nobility and weight, yet it has always left me a little cold. The arcs of emotion feel too precisely calibrated: each listener seems primed to experience the same epiphanies at the same moments.

From here: http://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/cult-fame-discontents

I know the Elektra recording of Górecki's Third was super popular for some reason, this is what Wikipedia says:

A 1991 recording with the London Sinfonietta, conducted by David Zinman and featuring the soloist Dawn Upshaw, was released in 1992 by the Elektra imprint Nonesuch Records. Within two years, the recording had sold more than 700,000 copies worldwide; the recording climbed to number 6 on the mainstream UK album charts, and while it did not appear on the US Billboard 200, it stayed at the top of the US classical charts for 38 weeks and stayed on for 138 weeks. The Zinman/Upshaw recording has sold over a million copies. It probably counts as the best selling contemporary classical record of all time.

The writer Michael Steinberg described the symphony's success as essentially a phenomenon of the compact disc, and while live performances are still given, they do not always sell out. Some critics, wondering at the sudden success of the piece nearly two decades after its composition, suggest that it resonated with a particular mood in the popular culture at the time. Stephen Johnson, writing in A guide to the symphony, wondered whether the commercial success of the work was "a flash in the pan" or would turn out to have lasting significance. In 1998, the critic Michael Steinberg asked, "[are people] really listening to this symphony? How many CD buyers discover that fifty-four minutes of very slow music with a little singing in a language they don't understand is more than they want? Is it being played as background music to Chardonnay and brie?" Steinberg compared the success of Górecki's symphony to the Doctor Zhivago phenomenon of 1958: "Everybody rushed to buy the book; few managed actually to read it. The appearance of the movie in 1965 rescued us all from the necessity."Górecki was as surprised as anyone else at the recording's success, and later speculated that "perhaps people find something they need in this piece of music…. Somehow I hit the right note, something they were missing. Something, somewhere had been lost to them. I feel that I instinctively knew what they needed."

I have that record and it's pretty good, and like sund4r I did put the piece in the lower half of my ballot, but I wonder why this piece in particular has become the most popular piece of contemporary classical (not counting movie scores)? Obviously it's nice to the ears and not "difficult" in the way a lot of contemporary compositions are, but Górecki is hardly the only example of that.

For example, you'd think Max Richter would've become super popular based on those same qualities (nice to the ears, traditionalist compositions that are still stark and modern enough not to sound corny to dilettantes), but I don't think he has?

I think the back-story probably helps Gorecki's signifiance there

I don't have the link for the ballots yet so feel free to keep voting.

Yeah, the back-story definitely helps.

This is completely coincidental, but we're talking Polish composers, and I went to a pressscreening for a rerelease of Kieslowski's Blue today, which is sort of a Polish film about composers that was a big succes the same years Gorecki sold millions. But the music in Blue is so weird, so kitchily romantic, completely without the sorrow of Gorecki or the horror of Penderecki, not to say the willful avantgardeness of what actually were the 'biggest' composers in France at that time - Boulez and other Darmstadt composers. It's such a weird idea of contemporary 'mitteleuropa' music.

Unaccountably missed this up until now so I'm pleased voting is still open, but I don't understand the google form. What is the difference between weighted, unweighted and mixed ballots, and how will that affect the way the ballots are counted? If I have say 20 pieces that I want to vote for in an order of preference, should I paste them in descending order and mark it "weighted"?

yeah the music in Blue sounds like watered down Beethoven -- I think Kieslowski was going for the idea of some hugely important figure whose music was held up as part of the national identity ala LVB. The music in Red is kind of the same idea, but watered down Ravel -- I actually like it as film music, but probably wouldn't to listen to it much outside of that

If I have say 20 pieces that I want to vote for in an order of preference, should I paste them in descending order and mark it "weighted"?

Yes

Thanks!

You can have until 11:59 pm Eastern time on Friday night to submit late ballots. Results so far are fascinating!

I don't really think you're going to see much consensus tbh.

This seems accurate so far.

@Dominique: Yeah, the whole thing is very weird. Kieslowski and his composer Zbigniew Preisner also invented a Dutch 19th century composer named Van Den Budenmayer, who's music is incorporated in the Song for the Unification of Europe from Blue. Which, with Brexit and all that, is also a pretty weird name for a piece of music.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lJeQAFyJgQ
The text is 1 Corinthians 13. The chapter on love.

Sorry, this is probably for a different thread. The disconnect between what is presented as important late 20th century music, and what actually was important late 20th century music, just interests me. I'll stop now.

i really loved that van den budenmayer song when i heard it in the film. it has got a metaphysical, spiritual quality to it. the female voices are extremely high. i had totally forgotten that it was called the "song for the unification of europe" which sounds prophetic these days.

Some of Morricone's best stuff didn't get nominated, but I wasn't around for that so I can't complain. His score for Mussolini ultimo addo ("The Last Days of Mussolini") is amazing!

I forgot, Bruno Nicolai wrote the main theme though.

Didn't I nominate The Thing, come to think of it? Or maybe for a few dollars more was my only ennio nom

I think Lonely Child does for me what Gorecki's 3rd does for the world.

Two more days!

Yikes. Forced myself to vote, even if the nom list is so formidable -- which is obv actually AWESOME in a cornucopia sense -- that my knowledge and ballot feel somewhat inadequate. :-)

oh man Kurt Atterberg was not nommed. There goes three symphonies I would have listed

Huh, I didn't know of that composer at all. It's good to see more votes coming in. Last day to vote, everyone!

Also not nominated but good to check out after the rollout: Simeon ten Holt's Canto Ostinato for four pianos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDCsOL2vBJc

Yeah, I really liked that one. Long but really enjoyable.

Would anyone be up for helping out with a Spotify playlist for the final list? I think it would be widely appreciated.

I could, if I happen to be around at the same time that the rollout is happening. The 15 year poll all rolled out while I was out of the house.

I can definitely do it. I just got overwhelmed by the sheer enormity of the nominations list. Countdown list will be super easy by comparison.

Frankly I trust Jon not Jon to pick the best recordings over my own random selections. :)

Awesome. Thanks, Jon!

Zero consensus on the #1 notated piece since 1890.

yeah the nominations list is impossible to build.

Did any piece get more than one #1?

Nope. Two composers got two #1 votes each, but for different pieces in both cases.

And they share a first name!

Claude or Gustav?

Btw sund4r for communicating about playlist building & rollout, remove the Qs:

jqonqcroaq✧✧✧@gmq✧✧✧.c✧✧✧

Ugh it redacted that. Just send me an ilxmail it goes to the same address. And incl your email in it

I have the final results and we should be able to start tomorrow. I'm thinking of going through 10 pieces per day out of the top 100. To warm you up, here are Pierre Boulez's top 10 pieces of the 20th century: http://www.wnyc.org/story/10-great-works-20th-century-pierre-boulezs-90th-birthday/

so you plan doing the rollout the next 10 days?

This Boulez quote stuck out at me:

I don’t want to criticize my century, but the process of absorbing what is composed during this century is a very slow process, much too slow for me.

good list from Boulez, bit safe but yes feeling it

The rollout has started (and it's awesome!)

And I just listened to Ginastera's second cello concerto for the first time: wow!