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

Anton Webern – Seis Peças para Orquestra, Op. 6Zubin Mehta

Webern: 6 Pieces for orchestra, Op. 6b / Mehta · Berliner Philharmoniker

It is more often cited as a representative work by Webern than his later Symphony.

Except for the fourth piece, which is the pinnacle, each presents only the bare minimum of sonic elements—like a haiku—to create an entire world.

A work to revisit and savor repeatedly.

Porz GoretYann Tiersen

Yann Tiersen – Porz Goret (Official Video)

Yann Tiersen, the composer who became widely known for scoring the film Amélie—released in 2001 and a smash hit not only in his native France but also in Japan—has a talent that defies any single category, spanning everything from contemporary and minimal music to the avant-garde.

This time, I’d like to introduce Porz Goret, included on his 2016 solo piano album EUSA.

While grounded in a classical sound, it carries a nostalgic, pastoral melody that opens up vivid, cinematic imagery for the listener.

The music video, featuring Tiersen playing piano on Ouessant Island—the namesake of the album—has easily surpassed 10 million views on YouTube.

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Shostakovich: Symphony No. 5Bernstein · New York Philharmonic Orchestra

Shostakovich: Symphony No. 5 / Bernstein · New York Philharmonic Orchestra

A representative work by D.

Shostakovich, a leading figure of Soviet Russia.

He had been writing highly modernist pieces, keenly attuned to trends in the West, but was severely attacked during the Stalin era; this work was created as his answer to that.

It was highly acclaimed not only in the Soviet and Eastern Bloc but also in the West.

Eight Pieces for PianoKurtág György

Kurtag Eight Piano Pieces Op. 3

This piece, which starts with a sudden same-note trill that seems to split a microscopic atom, was composed by the Hungarian composer György Kurtág.

He is often introduced as a post-Webern figure, but his music—unconstrained by fixed methods or techniques and freely plucking fragments from the cosmos—holds infinite possibilities.

Honegger – Pacific 231Marc Andreae

Rediscovery of interesting orchestral music by the forgotten Swiss composer Volkmar Andreae

A work that depicts, through sound, the steam locomotive, which at the time was the latest state-of-the-art high-speed railway.

Incidentally, the second piece that followed this one was “Rugby.” As one of the signature works of the Swiss composer Arthur Honegger, it has long appeared—along with his name—on elementary school lists of composers.