This list is from a talk by Alex Ross, music critic at The New Yorker.
Twentieth century music playlist
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Well, I am not a regular classical listener, though I recognized most of the names and have heard many of the pieces. The token stabs at jazz and rock were pretty pathetic. The interface between art music and art/prog/noise rock is basic and profound, and though there may be one degree of complexity and seriousness between Steve Reich and Eno or Steve Roach, I am not sure there is two. I would like to play “Tago Mago” or some Popol Vuh or “Loveless” for a Ross just to get a reaction.
“One would not get a sense of the achievements in rock or jazz listening to these limited selections.”
Don’t you think that’s a pretty tall order for a 90 minute lecture? (And why do you think that sketching the achievements of 20th century popular music was the purpose of the non-classical selections?)
And he’s got the wrong Gershwin, surely? Porgy and Bess for me. Mind you, without Gershwin, the other leading Broadway tunesmiths and the early Jazz men, 20th Century music looks bloody thin.
I thought it was a pretty good list. Hate to say it, jazz and rock fans, but their respresentation in that list is pretty much in proportion to the genuinely lasting statements made, and he picked more or less the right tracks. My quibbles would be (and they are just quibbles)
1. Three Philip Glass and only one Elliott Carter seems a bit much. I’d see the ratio reversed (and even heretically suggest that if you have Reich, do you need Glass at all?) I would also have “Salome Dances for Peace” by Terry Riley, as “In C” really doesn’t do him justice.
2. No Gorecki at all? Arguable, but IMO questionable.
3. No Arnold Bax?
Well, I don’t agree with the above — a list of great non-classical music from the 20th century would be equally long, if not longer. “Loveless” would be on there. The idea here was not to create a definitive list of masterworks but to illlustrate with sound samples a diversity of 20th-century styles. I must say no to Arnold Bax.
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