#Classical compositions unusual scales full#

This isn’t to say, of course, that the whole business of writing and recording music is a fruitless exercise, it is simply that each element of the process that requires the music to be ‘translated’ into another medium moves the music further from the composer’s initial conception – sometimes for better, sometimes for worse.Īdvances in the affordability and accessibility of recording technology over the last few decades have made it possible to write and record entire albums’ worth of music from home, practically alone, on nothing more than a laptop. Notation, no matter how meticulously realised, can never fully represent the work as conjured in the composer’s imagination and no performance or recording can ever fully recreate every intention of a score – so it becomes a compromise upon a compromise.

#Classical compositions unusual scales full#

Read the full article: 'Contemporary composer – Anna Clyne'Įvery aspect of a traditional ‘classical’ composer’s craft requires a degree of compromise. Clyne had begun composing around the age of 10, and although the first acknowledged works date from her early twenties, an essentially youthful delight in the discovering as well as realising of unusual combinations of sound is a constant across all her music that emerged at this time. Half a century ago the wholly different talents of Lutyens, Maconchy and Thea Musgrave need not have feared comparison with their male contemporaries – a situation mirrored now with the emergence of a new generation on the new music scene, from among whom Anna Clyne is striking for the rapidity with which her output has evolved into a mature idiom always lucid in its compositional craft and immediate in its emotional impact.īorn in London, Clyne studied music at the University of Edinburgh then at the Manhattan School of Music where her tutors included Julia Wolfe – a founder member of the influential ensemble Bang on a Can, which commissioned and performed several of her earlier pieces. Read the full article: 'Contemporary Composer: Caroline Shaw'Ĭultural considerations are not the only things that have recently brought a host of female composers to prominence. It was inspired by artist Sol LeWitt’s Wall Drawing 305 – ‘born’, as Shaw says, ‘of a love of surface and structure, of the human voice, of dancing and tired ligaments, of music, and of our basic desire to draw a line from one point to another’.

The work as a whole is inventive and pulls out all the stops when it comes to what a mouth and a pair of lungs can do: speech, whispers, sighs, wordless melodies and sundry other vocal techniques. It continues with tides of song gathering and then drifting apart flooding in and falling back. To the side and around’ – followed by a wall of harmonised euphoria. It begins with spoken word: ‘To the side. All this for good reason – the piece is a vocal joyride. And in 2019, The Guardian ranked it as the 20th greatest work of classical music since 2000. Partita for eight voices made Shaw the youngest ever recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for music. It didn’t receive its full premiere until November the following year, when it was performed by the group at (Le) Poisson Rouge in New York. Composed for the vocal group Roomful of Teeth, of which she was (and still is) a member, the work was released on their Grammy-winning self-titled debut album in October 2012. The year was 2013, and the accolade was for her a cappella piece Partita (2009-11) for eight voices.

What were you doing when you were 30 years old? Caroline Shaw is unlikely to forget, for this was her age when she received the Pulitzer Prize for music.