A few months back, a bunch of people on social media did a “ten album covers in ten days” thing. As I thought about it, I realized I couldn’t narrow it down to just one list. There is a list for me as a guitarist, one for me as a composer, one for me as an audio engineer, one for me as a producer…
Anyways, here is
My List of 10 Albums That Shaped Me As A Composer:
I’m just going to write mine out as the album covers don’t seem as relevant in a blog.
2001: A Space Odyssey Soundtrack
This film and album were my introduction to Ligeti, and this album is one of the things I recall most directly contributing to me wanting to compose. Somewhere around seventh grade, I found a vinyl copy in my father’s collection. The Ligeti pieces were min blowing for my junior high mind. At the time, I was mostly listening to heavy metal and learning to play the guitar. This album made me realize I wanted to do something different than just play in a band and write songs. I wasn’t sure how this magical music came to be, but I knew I wanted to do that. The album had a portion of the Requiem, Lux Aeterna, and Atmosphères, all of which are still in my list of favorite pieces.
I was also quite fond of the Khachaturian piece.
Great Performances – Bernstein Conducts Copland
Copland was my father’s favorite composer. This is the recording of Appalachian Spring that I remember hearing the most growing up, and as I began to listen to more symphonic music, this was one of my go-tos. Copland was out of style when I was an undergraduate, but he was always one of my heroes. I think he masterfully balanced the musical demands of the genres in which he worked. I love that his ballets are very accessible and they are generally meant for a large audience. His symphonic works are more thorny, but still accessible to an audience. His chamber works are usually his most demanding works for the listener, and they are presented to the smallest audience.
Bram Stoker’s Dracula: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
The Wojciech Kilar score for this film was great. Aside from being incredibly effective as a score, the music held up on its own. I had the soundtrack late in high school, and listened to it a lot through my first year or two in college.
Ravel: Bolero/Ma Mere L’oye (Berlin/Boulez)
This was one of the first orchestral CDs I bought in high school. Of course, I immediately fell in love with Ravel’s orchestrations. So many colors on his palette, but they are never garish or harsh. As I recall, by this point I’d started to notice that I loved some composers because of their use and exploration of timbre while I loved other composers who seemed more concerned with what we used to call “the music itself” – pitch, rhythm, counterpoint, and for whom timbre was merely functional or even an afterthought. Ravel was the first composer that I immediately recognized as a master of both.
I listened to this album several times a week for most of high school, though I usually skipped Bolero.
Bob Ostertag – Sooner or Later
This was one of those albums that I bought without knowing anything about it. It turned out to be one of the most haunting works. It isn’t an easy work, but the experience of listening to the album from start to finish is really powerful.
Gorecki: String Quartet No. 1, Already It Is Dusk; String Quartet No. 2, Quasi una Fantasia (Kronos Quartet)
This album had a huge impact on me as an undergraduate student, and it may have led several of my classmates to become composition majors. This was one of the first albums I started listening to when I began to think more about writing chamber music.
The Gorecki pieces were powerful, stark, at times ugly, at others hauntingly beautiful.
John Zorn – Elegy
This was one of the first Zorn pieces I heard. It is still one of my favorite of his works.
Penderecki Matrix 5
Sound mass. Penderecki was the next sound mass composer I started studying.
Geinoh Yamashirogumi – Akira Original Soundtrack
This score just rocked my world. While some of it hasn’t aged well (or maybe it has – everything has 80s synth scores these days), but the parts that work still floor me. The Requiem is just fantastic.
This album directly influenced the Ground piece, The Virtue of Subtlety.
Juilliard Quartet – Bartók: The Six String Quartets
This was the first recording of these piece I owned. I think I got it from the mail order Columbia House club. Emerson gets all the love, and rightly so, but this recording will always have a special place in my heart.
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