Show Notes
Composer and former Battles frontman Tyondai Braxton nominates Poeme electronique by Edgard Varese, whose soundworld has been a continuing influence on his own work; while Gillian Moore tells the story of Varese's long struggle to create a futuristic music that he finally achieved in this piece, composed for an array of hundreds of loudspeakers inside the Le Corbusier-designed Philips Pavilion at the 1958 Brussels World Fair.
More from Radio 3's Fifty Modern Classics
Conductor and composer Esa-Pekka Salonen celebrates the music of Polish composer Witold Lutoslawski and his landmark work from the early 1960s, Jeux Venitiens. Writer Paul Griffiths explains how the composer used chance within the score to create rhythmic complexity; and we hear from Lutoslawski himself, in conversation with Thea Musgrave in 1973.
Composer Matthew Shlomowitz makes the case for Austrian composer Bernhard Lang’s Differenz/Wiederholung 2, a setting of texts by Gilles Deleuze, William Burroughs and Christian Loidl. Commentator Graham McKenzie highlights the jagged soundworld of this music, and the composer’s use of repetition.
Author and journalist Rob Young nominates French composer Eliane Radigue's Songs of Milarepa, which combines drone-like electronics with the voices of Lama Kunga Rinpoche and Robert Ashley singing and reading the words of the 11th-century Tibetan Buddhist poet Jetsun Milarepa. With commentary from Richard Whitelaw, Head of Programmes at Sound and Music.
Hear and Now presenter Sara Mohr-Pietsch celebrates the music of German composer Heiner Goebbels, focusing on the Suite for Sampler and Orchestra from his 1994 cycle Surrogate Cities. Commentary comes from Graham McKenzie of the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, and we also hear the voice of the composer himself.
Composer Julian Anderson singles out Partiels for orchestra, from French spectralist Gerard Grisey’s cycle of works Les Espaces Acoustiques. With commentary from writer Paul Griffiths.