fifty years hence of fifty years ago
Nov. 19th, 2009 11:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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irontongue has written an interesting post based on Norman Lebrecht's poll asking the question, "Which composers of today [do you think] will be played fifty years from now?" irontongue with admirable logic turns this around by asking about a control case: Which composers current fifty years ago are, and which are not, being played today?
I happen to possess a few statistics relevant to this question, and presented them briefly in the comments section. I'll present them in more detail here where there's more room. There is an interesting statistical survey of the historical orchestral repertoire, under the unprepossessing title of Twenty-Seven Major American Symphony Orchestras: A History and Analysis of Their Repertoires, Seasons 1842-43 Through 1969-70 by Kate Hevner Mueller (Indiana University Studies, 1973). For the most part it is simply a list, in alphabetical order, of every work played by these selected major orchestras in their regular seasons from the founding of the New York Philharmonic in 1842 on, with the years they were played in. Some years ago I went through this book and made an Excel file totaling up, by decade (my "1950s" includes the 1950-51 through 1959-60 seasons), the complete number of performances of every symphony in the repertoire. Just symphonies - I didn't do this for other works.
For more recent material, there's the Orchestra Repertoire Reports of the League of American Orchestras, which cover all orchestras belonging to the League, a much larger selection than Mueller's. These are available online for the 2000-01 through 2007-08 seasons; let's call that the 2000s for simplicity's sake. I've made the same compilation out of these, adjusting for the fact that the League in different years seems to have used different standards for listing multiple performances of the same concert.
So here's a list of the most-performed - I'm taking roughly the top 20 - symphonies in the 1950s written by composers still living in 1959, followed by their year of composition and the number of performances in the 1950s and in the 2000s.
Remember that the numbers in one column are not directly comparable to the other column, but they do indicate relative standing within the columns. From this we can see that Shostakovich has gone up, as has Copland's Third, and a few other American symphonies - Barber's First, Hanson's Second (the "Romantic") - have held ground, but Paul Hindemith, at the time a reasonable candidate for greatest living composer, has rather faded, while a number of once-standard American composers have lost it further. Roy Harris is not the man he used to be, and the name of Paul Creston is almost forgotten. (Being named Paul does not seem to be a good omen for a classical composer. Paul Dukas is too early for this list, but even The Sorcerer's Apprentice is rather dusty these days, and the rest of his works are little heard. This does not bode well for Paul Moravec.)
We can see the rise of Shostakovich and Copland even more clearly by flipping the list around and, using the same selection criteria - symphonies written by 1959 by composers who were alive in 1959 - but picking the ones most played in the 2000s.
It's part of the sorting process of history, by which those who rise to prominence get the lion's share of the future's attention, that six of the top eight places are occupied by Shostakovich. Note also the rise of Messiaen, Benjamin Britten, and one American composer who was certainly not taken seriously as a symphonist in the 1950s, one L. Bernstein.
One technically qualifying symphony I left off the list: Shostakovich's Fourth was written in 1936 but was withdrawn until the 1960s, so it couldn't have been played in the '50s. If you're wondering how symphonies written since 1959 would stack up, only three would make the cut for this list, and two of them are by Shostakovich: his 15th (17 performances) and 13th (13 performances), plus Corigliano's First (11 performances).
Now that we have that, let's look at this decade: symphonies played in the 2000s by composers still living today. This is less typical of what's being played by orchestras, since the symphony as a genre has less cachet today than it did fifty years ago, let alone a century, but these are living composers being played today.
So which of these composers do you think will be played fifty years from now? Will John Corigliano? Will Michael Daugherty? I'm putting my money on John Adams, Thomas Ades, and Peteris Vasks.
For my next trick, I'm going back a century, and not just fifty years.
irontongue has written an interesting post based on Norman Lebrecht's poll asking the question, "Which composers of today [do you think] will be played fifty years from now?" irontongue with admirable logic turns this around by asking about a control case: Which composers current fifty years ago are, and which are not, being played today?I happen to possess a few statistics relevant to this question, and presented them briefly in the comments section. I'll present them in more detail here where there's more room. There is an interesting statistical survey of the historical orchestral repertoire, under the unprepossessing title of Twenty-Seven Major American Symphony Orchestras: A History and Analysis of Their Repertoires, Seasons 1842-43 Through 1969-70 by Kate Hevner Mueller (Indiana University Studies, 1973). For the most part it is simply a list, in alphabetical order, of every work played by these selected major orchestras in their regular seasons from the founding of the New York Philharmonic in 1842 on, with the years they were played in. Some years ago I went through this book and made an Excel file totaling up, by decade (my "1950s" includes the 1950-51 through 1959-60 seasons), the complete number of performances of every symphony in the repertoire. Just symphonies - I didn't do this for other works.
For more recent material, there's the Orchestra Repertoire Reports of the League of American Orchestras, which cover all orchestras belonging to the League, a much larger selection than Mueller's. These are available online for the 2000-01 through 2007-08 seasons; let's call that the 2000s for simplicity's sake. I've made the same compilation out of these, adjusting for the fact that the League in different years seems to have used different standards for listing multiple performances of the same concert.
So here's a list of the most-performed - I'm taking roughly the top 20 - symphonies in the 1950s written by composers still living in 1959, followed by their year of composition and the number of performances in the 1950s and in the 2000s.
Rating, decade of the 1950s written 1950s 2000s
1. Hindemith “Mathis der Maler” 1934 44 34
2. Shostakovich No. 5 1937 40 144
3. Shostakovich No. 1 1925 30 49
4. Creston No. 2 1944 23 2
5. Harris No. 3 1938 15 8
6. Hovhaness No. 2 1955 12 18
7. Creston No. 3 1950 9 -
Hanson No. 2 1930 9 21
Hindemith “Harmonie der Welt”1951 9 -
Shostakovich No. 10 1953 9 67
11. Barber No. 1 1936 8 28
Cowell No. 11 1953 8 -
13. Hindemith “Serena” 1946 7 2
Piston No. 4 1950 7 -
Stravinsky “Sym of Psalms” 1930 7 25
Swanson No. 2 1948 7 -
17. Chavez “India” 1936 6 15
Copland No. 3 1946 6 54
Hanson No. 5 1954 6 1
Mennin No. 5 1950 6 -
Schuman No. 5 1943 6 3
Remember that the numbers in one column are not directly comparable to the other column, but they do indicate relative standing within the columns. From this we can see that Shostakovich has gone up, as has Copland's Third, and a few other American symphonies - Barber's First, Hanson's Second (the "Romantic") - have held ground, but Paul Hindemith, at the time a reasonable candidate for greatest living composer, has rather faded, while a number of once-standard American composers have lost it further. Roy Harris is not the man he used to be, and the name of Paul Creston is almost forgotten. (Being named Paul does not seem to be a good omen for a classical composer. Paul Dukas is too early for this list, but even The Sorcerer's Apprentice is rather dusty these days, and the rest of his works are little heard. This does not bode well for Paul Moravec.)
We can see the rise of Shostakovich and Copland even more clearly by flipping the list around and, using the same selection criteria - symphonies written by 1959 by composers who were alive in 1959 - but picking the ones most played in the 2000s.
Rating, decade of the 2000s written 1950s 2000s
1. Shostakovich No. 5 1937 40 144
2. Shostakovich No. 10 1953 9 67
3. Copland No. 3 1946 6 54
4. Shostakovich No. 9 1945 2 53
5. Shostakovich No. 1 1925 30 49
6. Shostakovich No. 6 1939 5 36
7. Hindemith “Mathis der Maler” 1934 44 34
8. Shostakovich No. 11 1957 2 33
9. Stravinsky “3 Movements” 1945 5 29
10. Barber No. 1 1936 8 28
11. Shostakovich No. 7 1941 - 25
Stravinsky “Sym of Psalms” 1930 7 25
13. Shostakovich No. 8 1943 - 24
14. Hanson No. 2 1930 9 21
15. Britten “Requiem” 1940 1 20
16. Bernstein “Age of Anxiety” 1949 2 18
Hovhaness No. 2 1955 12 18
18. Bernstein “Jeremiah” 1942 - 17
19. Chavez “India” 1935 6 15
20. Messiaen “Turangalila” 1948 - 11
Walton No. 1 1935 3 11
It's part of the sorting process of history, by which those who rise to prominence get the lion's share of the future's attention, that six of the top eight places are occupied by Shostakovich. Note also the rise of Messiaen, Benjamin Britten, and one American composer who was certainly not taken seriously as a symphonist in the 1950s, one L. Bernstein.
One technically qualifying symphony I left off the list: Shostakovich's Fourth was written in 1936 but was withdrawn until the 1960s, so it couldn't have been played in the '50s. If you're wondering how symphonies written since 1959 would stack up, only three would make the cut for this list, and two of them are by Shostakovich: his 15th (17 performances) and 13th (13 performances), plus Corigliano's First (11 performances).
Now that we have that, let's look at this decade: symphonies played in the 2000s by composers still living today. This is less typical of what's being played by orchestras, since the symphony as a genre has less cachet today than it did fifty years ago, let alone a century, but these are living composers being played today.
Rating, decade of the 2000s written 2000s
1. Corigliano No. 1 1989 11
2. Adams Chamber Sym 1992 8
Daugherty “Metropolis” 1993 8
4. Hailstork No. 1 1988 7
5. Rouse No. 2 1994 6
6. Ades Chamber Sym 1990 5
Puts No. 3 2003 5
8. Adams “Dr. Atomic” 2007 4
Corigliano No. 2 2000 4
Dutilleux No. 2 1959 4
O’Connor No. 1 2007 4
12. Gorecki No. 3 1976 3
Henze No. 5 1962 3
Jones No. 3 1992 3
Kernis No. 2 1991 3
Puts No. 2 1999 3
Schickele No. 2 2001 3
Schickele (P.D.Q. Bach) “Unbegun” 1966 3
Vasks No. 1 1991 3
So which of these composers do you think will be played fifty years from now? Will John Corigliano? Will Michael Daugherty? I'm putting my money on John Adams, Thomas Ades, and Peteris Vasks.
For my next trick, I'm going back a century, and not just fifty years.
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no subject
Date: 2009-11-19 08:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-11-19 08:21 pm (UTC)It is true that when I first began listening to light classics, I recognized a few pieces from having heard them as incidental music to cartoons: Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsodies, Mendelssohn's Spring Song, and Rossini's William Tell Overture (not just the "Lone Ranger" galop either, but the pastoral melody for English horn).
no subject
Date: 2009-11-20 12:33 am (UTC)I am charmed by the presence of Schickele, btw.
no subject
Date: 2009-11-20 03:39 pm (UTC)would have voted him one of my "likely to last" composers. Has the popularity of that piece fallen off so far?
I went back several links reading up on this discussion, and I was vastly amused to read one comment that went "But who on earth listens to [Stravinsky's] Threni?" Answer: I do. Just last week, as a matter of fact. Not only was I happy to pick up Craft's recent new recording, I was equally happy to get the original Columbia recording in that ridiculously cheap 22-cd =Works of Stravinsky= set from amazon.co.uk. In fact, along with =Symphony of Psalms= and =Les Noces=, it's one of my favorite Stravinsky pieces.
Back on topic: maybe it's just a function of the fact that I like more of the pieces on the 2000s list than on the 1950s list, but it seems to me that the 2000s list is somewhat less conservative, stylistically, than the 1950s list. Which is not what I would have expected.
Don Keller
no subject
Date: 2009-11-20 04:11 pm (UTC)The relative lack of conservativism of the 2000s list may well be just a function of the fact that fewer people are writing symphonies today, so it's necessary to scrape the barrel further. Had I needed to go down to 3 performances on the 1950s list, it would have included, for instance, Riegger's Third, and that's had zip performances in the last decade.
On the other other hand, many notable living conservatives of today are not getting performed either. Zwilich is a complete zero for the last decade; Larsen has had two performances of one symphony each. Or where are any other women for that matter? Symphony-writing is not such a purely male pursuit today as the 2000s list would imply.
no subject
Date: 2009-11-20 05:28 pm (UTC)What about Gloria Coates? She's written 14(!) symphonies, a number of them recorded; but she lives in Germany and is most often performed there, I suspect.
Don Keller
no subject
Date: 2009-11-20 05:52 pm (UTC)It may be relevant, in reverse, that I've never heard a recording of Adams orchestral music that matches the experience of hearing it in the concert hall. Adams's orchestration lives on the overtones.
What about Gloria Coates? Well, what about her? She's one of many women symphonists but not, I think, a particularly conservative one, which is the context in which I mentioned Zwilich and Larsen. Not a peep about her on the League list.