Last week I had the pleasure of interviewing Philip Glass on the eve of the world premiere of his new opera The Trial,
based on Kafka’s masterpiece. Researching for the discussion I was
struck by the number of critics who describe Glass as one of the most
influential composers of the 20th Century. It got me thinking about who
my top 10 composers of the era would be. From modernism to minimalism,
the previous century yielded musical riches beyond our wildest
imaginings. War, race, sex and politics shaped the soundtrack – and much
of the music of 1900-2000 is as fascinating as the historical and
cultural context from which it emerged.
Any such list must be an
exercise in subjectivity, of course: my omissions will no doubt outrage
some. What about Elgar and Sibelius, Bartók and Janáček? Vaughan
Williams? Or John Williams? Ravel? Xenakis? How could I leave out the
post-modern giants Peter Maxwell Davies and Harrison Birtwistle? To say
nothing of Olivier Messiaen, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Ligeti, Berio,
Lutosławski, Steve Reich? And how about John Adams, Elliot Carter? Well,
sure. All of the above composers, and so many others, have bequeathed
us masterpieces that have moved us, astonished us, baffled us, made us
think, made us cry, made our hearts soar. After much soul-searching,
these are simply the 10 geniuses who, for me, have done so the most.
Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951)
(The Art Archive/Alamy)
“It would be inconceivable,” said Schoenberg, “to
attack the heroes who make daring flights over the ocean or to the
North Pole, for their achievement is obvious to everyone. But although
experience has shown that many a pioneer trod his path [with] absolute
certainty at a time when he was still held to be wandering
half-demented, most people invariably turn against those who strike out
into unknown regions of the spirit… New music is never beautiful on
first acquaintance.” Often forced onto the defensive like this,
Schoenberg plunged fearlessly – and often beautifully – into the
unknown, shattering the seemingly unbreakable rules of Western tonality
that had prevailed for centuries. In reimagining harmony in so-called
‘tone rows’ he altered the course of classical music forever.
Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)
(Erich Auerbach/Getty Images)
His breakthrough work was The Firebird, produced
in 1900 by Diaghilev’s Les Ballets Russes; thirteen years later, a
full-scale riot legendarily broke out at the premiere of The Rite of
Spring, his ballet of pagan sacrifice (which historian Barbara Tuchman
aptly describes as "the 20th Century incarnate"). The New Yorker’s music
critic Alex Ross masterfully captures the work’s ominous energy, it
raw, spooky power and explains how this is achieved both harmonically
and rhythmically. "You have these two chords slammed together," Ross
explains. "These are two adjacent chords. They're dissonant. They're
being jammed together. And that's a harsh sound, and he keeps insisting
on it. That chord repeats and repeats and repeats, pounding away."
Rhythmically, Ross says, "It seems as though at first he's just going to
have this regular pulse. But then these accents start landing in
unexpected places, and you can't quite get the pattern of it…It's as if
you're in a boxing ring, and this sort of brilliant fighter is coming at
you from all directions with these jabs."
Stravinsky’s brilliance
had a seismic impact on the rest of the century – not only on classical
music, but on jazz, rock, modernist literature, painting, and even
movies. Without Stravinsky, as Ross points out, where would the
dinosaurs of Walt Disney’s Fantasia be? Thank goodness we need never
find out.
George Gershwin (1898-1937)
(enato Toppo/Getty Images)
Gerschwin was jazz-age prophet whose Rhapsody in
Blue (1924) destabilised aesthetic categories and gave listeners a taste
of things to come, and whose controversial 1935 opera Porgy & Bess
came to define an epoch. But Gershwin was caught in the cross-fire
between “those who see mass culture as the most valid expression of our
time, and those who see it as the end of Western civilization”, as
Gershwin scholar David Schiff puts it. Many of his fellow composers,
including the likes of Aaron Copland, were scathing of Gershwin’s
populism. But an enthusiastic public, deaf to such finicky debate, has
lovingly listened on, through booms and busts, wars and peace; to say
nothing of countless shifts in taste and fashion.
Duke Ellington (1899-1974)
(Keystone/Getty Images)
Ellington was the most prolific composer of the
century. A spectacular innovator, he wrote music for all kinds of
settings, from the ballroom to the nightclub; the comedy stage to the
movie house; the concert hall to the cathedral. The essence of his
genius lay in his uncanny knack of synthesizing apparently disparate
elements of music, including ragtime, minstrel songs, the blues, and the
sounds of everything from Tin Pan Alley to the European music
tradition. Always directly expressive and deceptively simple, his blues
writing exploded received notions of form, harmony, and melody; he broke
our hearts with the ultimate romantic ballads; he provided vehicle
after vehicle for the greatest jazz singers of the age; and, of course,
he made us all swing.
Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975)
(Erich Auerbach/Getty Images)
Persecuted by Stalin and declared an ‘enemy of
the people’ in 1936, having previously been the golden boy of the Soviet
music scene, Shostakovich is a figure who has gripped the public
imagination as much for political as musical reasons. Forced to keep the
authorities happy with his symphonic writing – at least until Stalin’s
death – it was in his smaller works, such as the fifteen astonishing
string quartets, that he could really push the limits of his musical
voice and conjure a complete emotional world. Alex Ross, once again, is
en exemplary field guide when it comes to exploring the psychological
limits” of his music. “Shostakovich is a master manipulator of mood,” he
writes. “He can show panicky happiness slipping into inchoate rage, and
then crumbling into lethargic despair.”
John Cage (1912-1992)
(Erich Auerbach/Getty Images)
Cage, according to his fellow avant-garde
composer Morton Feldman, was the first composer in the history of music
“who raised the question by implication that maybe music could be an art
form rather than a music form.” Recalling the premiere of his legendary
work of ‘silence’, 4’33”, Cage said: “There’s no such thing as silence.
You could hear the wind stirring outside during the first movement.
During the second, raindrops began pattering the roof, and during the
third people themselves made all kinds of interesting sounds as they
talked or walked out.” Cage had an inspiring and insatiable appetite for
cultural adventure: he implored us to wake up to the life we are
living. “Art is a sort of experimental station,” he said, “in which one
tries out living.”
Benjamin Britten (1913-1976)
(Erich Auerbach/Getty Images)
Musically speaking, Britten was more conservative
than many of the other titans of the century, but his influence and
vision is inestimable, particularly in the field of opera. The landmark
Peter Grimes (1945) radically placed an unlovable anti-hero at its
centre, and is a musically breathtaking voyage to the darkest nooks of
both individual and group psychology. Britten’s conviction that opera
needed to reach parts of the country beyond fancy metropolitan theatres
led to the emergence of chamber or ‘pocket’ opera, which continues to
transform an often lumbering art form into something nimble, dynamic and
thrilling to this day. His compositional philosophy, says leading tenor
Ian Bostridge, was “resolutely workaday and practical, concerned with
usefulness to the community”. We owe him much.
Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990)
(Evening Standard/Getty Images)
Bernstein was a populist: he unapologetically and
urgently wanted to share the music he loved. And as a composer,
conductor, broadcaster, writer and educator, he sought to make it
accessible to as wide a public as possible. He grew up hearing
everything, making no distinction between ‘high’ and ‘low’ art, and an
utter lack of pretension is evident in his music, among which works such
as West Side Story, Candide and the Chichester Psalms must rank as
among the finest in the entire century. One of Bernstein’s proteges, the
American conductor Michael Tilson Thomas, says many of his “perfect and
iconic” songs “stake out a territory that we recognize as important to
our inner lives.” Speaking to the Washington Post
he described Bernstein’s as “music that haunts all of us. Talk about
building large structures – it’s woven into the structure of your entire
life.” Lenny also created the model, says Tilson Thomas, “for the
socially responsible, inclusive, generous maestro, as opposed to the
remote, preoccupied, professorial... He wasn’t the kind of high-priest
conductor, or professor conductor, or inspector-general conductor, or
reign of terror conductor. He was like, ‘Hey, we’re all in this
together; let’s explore together.’”
Pierre Boulez (born 1925)
(Erich Auerbach/Getty Images)
The French firebrand composer defines the idea of
what music today is, how it should sound, and how it could yet be. He
is in his mid-80s, still unerringly gracious and dignified in person,
and shows no sign of slowing down. He can still be seen regularly
conducting from the podium, he is ferocious in his commitment to
educating younger artists– and he still continually pushes boundaries in
his own music. A living legend.
Philip Glass (born 1937)
(Moviestore collection Ltd/Alamy)
The most imitated composer in the world is also
one of the smartest and most ominovorously curious. A supposedly
‘minimalist’ composer, his decidedly maximalist output has seen him
compose something like 30 operas; 10 symphonies; chamber music;
concertos for violin, piano, timpani and saxophones; and many
award-winning film soundtracks including The Hours, The Thin Blue Line
and The Truman Show. Glass has collaborated with everyone from Paul
Simon to Yo-Yo Ma, Woody Allen to David Bowie and his music appeals to
listeners of all generations and backgrounds; genuinely bridging a gap
between musical worlds which can often seem disconnected.
