Best music of any late-20th century composer?

tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8060605.post-58362851451412691452007-08-10T08:32:00.000+01:002007-08-10T09:41:22.716+01:002007-08-10T09:41:22.716+01:00Best music of any late-20th century composer?<a href="http://bp0.blogger.com/_FPpiWNARTt4/Rrtm4dfi7wI/AAAAAAAACXY/2RDAl1Xkn-w/s1600-h/conlon.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5096780523475496706" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://bp0.blogger.com/_FPpiWNARTt4/Rrtm4dfi7wI/AAAAAAAACXY/2RDAl1Xkn-w/s400/conlon.jpg" border="0" /></a>Conlon Nancarrow (above) died on August 10 1997. <a href="http://theovergrownpath.blogspot.com/search?q=gyorgy+ligeti">György Ligeti</a> rated him as the most important composer of the second half of the twentieth century, saying: "For me it's the best music of any living composer today". Personally I have found the new <a href="http://www.mdg.de/indexeng.htm">MDG Scene</a> releases of <a href="http://www.mdg.de/frame4e.htm">Nancarrow's Player Piano Studies</a> recorded on a <a href="http://theovergrownpath.blogspot.com/search/label/bosendorfer">Bösendorfer</a> Grand with a 1927 Ampico Player Piano Mechanism very rewarding, and my header photo from 1950 is taken from volume 1 of that excellent series. There is an <a href="http://www.nancarrow.de/ueber_den_autor.htm#English%20version">fine biography</a> of Nancarrow by Jürgen Hocker, but it is, alas, only available in German. The extraordinary jazz-like music of Conlon Nancarrow will be familiar to many of my readers. But if you don't know it there is a real discovery awaiting. Follow these two paths to Kyle Gann's Nancarrow <a href="http://home.earthlink.net/~kgann/index2.html">web resources</a> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Music-Conlon-Nancarrow-Twentieth-Century/dp/0521028078/ref=pd_bbs_sr_3/103-7019828-3359821?ie=UTF8&s=books&amp;amp;amp;amp;qid=1186689281&sr=1-3">book</a>, and then <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuHfjtbcJd0">watch a video</a> by <a href="http://theovergrownpath.blogspot.com/search?q=tal+rosner">Tal Rosner</a>. This uses Nancarrow's music arranged for two pianos by <a href="http://theovergrownpath.blogspot.com/search?q=thomas+ades">Thomas Adès</a>, who is video artist Tal Rosner's partner . Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk Pliablenoreply@blogger.com