Masterpieces of contemporary (art) music. Recommended popular pieces.

English Country TunesMichael Finnissy

M Finnissy’s English Country Tunes – Green Meadows – Part 1/2 Audio + Sheet Music

8 Concert Etudes, Op. 40 No. 5: ScherzoNikolay Kapustin

Kapustin: Eight Concert Etudes, Op. 40 – No. 5 "Raillery"

Berg, Violin ConcertoAkiko Suwanai

[Concerto] Berg, Violin Concerto [Akiko Suwanai, Pierre Boulez, Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra

The violin concerto, completed just before the composer’s sudden death, was written in mourning for the daughter of a close acquaintance.

Unusually for a concerto, it is in two movements.

Its austere tone admits no easy compromise from the listener, yet it has often been included in the repertoire by popular violinists.

Pie JesuAndrew Lloyd Webber

Andrew Lloyd Webber, Sarah Brightman, Paul Miles-Kingston – Pie Jesu

If you’re a fan of musicals, you’ve probably come across the name Andrew Lloyd Webber at least once.

He is a British composer of worldwide renown who wrote the music for celebrated masterpieces like Jesus Christ Superstar and The Phantom of the Opera.

Often called a modern-day Mozart, Webber is a prodigious composer who graduated from the prestigious Royal College of Music, while also being deeply influenced by avant-garde contemporary composers.

The piece introduced here, Pie Jesu, is one movement from a pure Requiem composed by Webber in 1985, and it is a work quite different in character from his dazzling musical theater scores.

The performance by Webber’s former wife, the internationally acclaimed singer Sarah Brightman, together with boy soprano Paul Miles-Kingston, envelops us in a cleansing beauty that seems to wash over the heart just by listening.

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Requiem for StringsTakemitsu Tōru

Performance of Takemitsu’s Requiem, March 17, 2011

Toru Takemitsu’s breakthrough work, which exerted a profound influence on contemporary music in the latter half of the 20th century not only in Japan but worldwide.

The background to Stravinsky’s high praise—“Who would have thought such a small man could write music so severe and intense?”—was the fact that the piece was composed under the shadow of death, as Takemitsu, burdened with the chronic illness of tuberculosis, confronted his mortality.