Customer Reviews

Discover Music of the 20th Century

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4 star:		(2)
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This 2 cd set consists of, as the title indicates, various 20c pieces or movements from the Naxos catalog. Sound quality is uniformly high, although for some such as Stockhausen's it's not clear if that's good or bad. What is excellent is the variety of the collection--some familiar (Debussy), others not, some pretty, others intentionally weird. Few will find every piece to his or her taste, but many listeners who do not spend much time on 20c music will find something to like. Overall, a great introduction to a period of much off-putting, yes, but also much compelling music.

excellent overview of contemporaneous classic music.

Should be continued, plenty more 20th-century composers to be discovered.

i purchased the compilation because i adore the work of Bela Bartok and there were a few other names whose work i was familiar with. when it arrived, imagine my surprise to find this double disc treat chock full of wonderful stuff ... and a fantastically informative booklet with a timeline!


i highly recommend this. great stuff, great price, great musical gems.

This collection contains all the big names in Western art music of the 20th century. Schoenberg, Debussy, Stravinsky, and Ives are all represented with works that are arguably definitive, at least in the context of "modern" music. The total absence of any of the numerous composers who wrote in a Romantic idiom from the 30s to the 70s is predictable given the (regrettable) lack of appreciation for their work in their lifetimes, though some listeners might be surprised to find that even Barber's Adagio for Strings has been ignored. The somewhat Romantic John Williams is present on this collection, however, and considerable room was left for postmodernists like Henryk Gorecki and Steve Reich. The discs delve into Boulez and Messiaen as well, so the listener can really, perhaps fearlessly, take the century head-on...

While it is not a comprehensive collection of all 20th century composers, I believe it captures the essence of the century in art music and accurately reflects its major compositional trends and developments, at least those from the ivory tower. I would have liked to see at least one Romantic here, as that style is as much a part of the evolution of music as the most bizarre atonal "experiments" for which the century is most famous. I suppose, however, that many people want challenging and confrontational music out of a collection from this period, and it is not wholly atonal anyways (Ravel, Ralph Vaughan Williams, etc, also appear). Perhaps posterity will not look so favorably on our contemporary rejection of the "conventional" composers of the past 100 years, but their legacy has yet to be fully vindicated, and it would be perhaps premature to just pretend the crisis in tonality never happened, even if it amounted to nothing more than a big waste of time in the end.

An added bonus for those who buy the discs is a brief but informative essay on the development of this very challenging (and occasionally hideous) music, which at points attempts to explain some of the more brazenly inaccessible pieces included in the collection. I am tremendously pleased.

For me, DISCOVER MUSIC OF THE 20TH CENTURY is an interesting collection, with several pieces and composers I had not heard before, even though I have several hundred CDs of "classical" music. Also, the included booklet is a terrific description running over 150 pages both of composers included in the collection as well as others, and includes a timeline, recommendations for further listening, a glossary, and more. In addition, the performances on the discs are all at least competent, and often better than that.

On the other hand, there is much prominent music missing on these discs. Of course, an entire century cannot be covered on 2 CDs, so I don't expect that. But no Jean Sibelius? No Aaron Copland? No Gustav Holst? Also, some major composers like Prokofiev and Shostakovich who ARE included are each represented by one selection that runs about 4 to 5 minutes, while obscure composers such as Tavener, Varese, and Stockhausen get as much or more time, some over twice as much time, on these discs. At first I was taken aback by all this, but I came to realize that the producers of this set clearly chose to emphasize unusual and sometimes even bizarre music, and favored those composers of the 20th century who were avant garde and experimental, while composers who wrote music that was more traditional, usually meaning the Romantic style, are under-represented here. (Actually, Aaron Copland wrote a good deal of avant garde music in addition to his famous Americana pieces, yet he's still not included.)

The result is that this collection would probably be interesting and different to people who have heard a considerable amount of "classical" music, but have not heard a lot of 20th century avant garde. However, this collection is NOT a very good overview for those who mainly want to be introduced to the highlights of 20th century "classical" music, as there are just too many major pieces missing here. Of course, the "Further Listening" list in the booklet would fill in the gaps, IF everyone were motivated enough to explore that far.