List of Contemporary Classical Music by Rick

I’ve included a very short and incomplete list of modern or contemporary serious (classical) music. Many of my friends are unfamiliar with Modern Classical Music. So I decided to put a list of works together to give you a place to begin this great musical adventure and exploration into unknown and unfamiliar new music of our contemporary western culture.

Plus, for those of you Interested In a more complete list of music by living composers in MN and America you can get a catalog by ‘IN NOVA’ recordings through the American Composers Forum.

Print this list and keep it around just in case, because someday you might get a little tired of the same old commercial song and dance band music and you may then want to try something a little different, challenging and a little more mature.

Music by serious Composers of our time: both cultured & educated in Western musical craft and the Art of Music.

Robert Ashley:

Perfect lives (Private Parts) The Bar

Samuel Barber:

1) Adagio for Strings;

2) Piano Concerto.

Bela Bartok:

1) Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta;

2) Piano Concertos 1, 2, & 3;

3) The Six String Quartets.

Paul Hindemith:

Mathis Der Maler.

Benjamin Lees:

Sonata No. 4.

Luciano Berio:

1) Sinfonia;

2) Visage.

Alban Berg:

Lyric Quartet.

William Bolcom:

1) Three Ghost Rags;

2) Black Host.

Ferruccio Busoni:

The 6 Sonatinas for Piano.

Lukas Foss:

Baroque Variations.

David Diamond:

1) Concert Piece for Orchestra;

2) Rounds for Orchestra.

John Adams;

Shaker Loops.

John Cage:

1) Variations ll;

2) Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano;

3) Variations lV.

Milton Babbit:

Ensembles for Synthesizer.

Henri Pousseur:

1) Trois Visages De Liege;

2) Rimes pour differentes sources sonores.

Elliott Carter:

Elegy

George Crumb:

Makrokosmos Volume 1, 2, & 3.

Arron Copland:

1) Appalachian Spring;

2) Rodeo;

3) 3rd Symphony;

4) Organ Symphony.

Charles Ives:

1) Symphonies 2-4;

2) Three Places in New England;

3) Piano Sonata No. 2;

4) The Unanswered Question.

Gyorgy Ligetti:

Atmospheres.

Olivier Messiaen:

1) Turangalila Symphony;

2) Quartet for the End of Time;

3) Oiseaux Exotiques (40 different Bird Calls).

Vincent Persichetti:

1) The Hollow Men;

2) Sinfonia: Janiculum (Symphony 9).

Darius Milhaud:

1) Aspen - Serenade;

2) La Creation du monde;

3) PROTEE Suite Symphonique No. 2;

4) Suite francaise.

Harry Partch:

1) Barstow (songs);

2) Delusion of the Fury.

Krzysztof Penderecki:

Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima.

S. Prokofiev:

1) Symphony No. 5;

2) Alexander Nevsky;

3) Romeo & Juliet.

Steve Reich:

1) Music for 18 Musicians;

2) Octet;

3) Drumming.

Terry Riley:

1) Rainbow in Curved Air;

2) Persian Surgery Dervishes;

3) In ‘C’.

Arnold Schoenberg:

1) Pelleas et Melisande;

2) 5 Pieces for Orchestra Op.16;

3) A Survivor from Warsaw;

4) Pierrot Lunaire Op.21;

5) Chamber Symphony No.1 Op. 9

William Schuman:

Symphonies No. 3, 5, & 9.

Wallingford Riegger:

Dichotomy.

Roy Harris:

Symphony No. 3.

Roger Sessions:

1) Symphony No. 8; 2) The Black Maskers.

Dmitri Shostakovich:

1) Symphonies Nos. 4, 5, 11, & 15;

2) The New Babylon.

Karheinz Stockhausen:

1) Hymnen;

2) Song of the Youths;

3) Sonatina.

Igor Stravinsky:

1) The Firebird;

2) The Rite of Spring.

Edgard Varese:

‘The Varese Album’.

Anton Webern:

Variations for Orchestra Op.30.

Charles Dodge:

Earths Magnetic Field.

Morton Feldman:

Rothko Chapel.

Pauline Oliveros:

l of lV.

Iannis Xenakis:

‘Electro - Acoustic Music’.

Morton Subotnick:

Silver Apples of the Moon.

Ralph Vaughan Williams:

1) The Lark Ascending;

2) Fantasia on Greensleeves.