The Italian magazine Classic Voice conducted a recent survey of over one hundred music professionals, including art directors, conductors, critics and musicologists, all highly committed to and involved in today’s contemporary music scene in Europe. They asked them to list what they felt were the best compositions and composers of the 21st century thus far. Georg Friedrich Haas was ranked first. A number of pieces by the composers published by Ricordi, Durand-Salabert-Eschig and Editio Musica Budapest were among those selected.

Among the top rankings of the survey were:

Enno Poppe: Speicher for ensemble
Fausto Romitelli: An Index of Metal, video opera
Bernhard Lang: Differenz/Wiederholung Series
Salvatore Sciarrino: Quaderno di strada for ensemble
Bernhard Lang: Theater der Wiederholungen, music theatre work

Georg Friedrich Haas compositions were named by almost every other expert. He “is probably the composer that succeeded best in combining the heritage of the avant-garde of the 20th century with an extremely personal, visionary and future-oriented sound”, says Classic Voice.

“Alongside consolidated masterpieces like Romitelli’s An Index of Metal, Murail’s Winter Fragments, Lachenmann’s Schreiben and Concertini, Sciarrino’s Quaderno di Strada , this work is another musical monument of the early 21st century: Enno Poppe’s ensemble work Speicher 80 minutes of music that are a perfect example for the sonic language of this composer; a work of rhythmic determination and grand gesture, with micro-tonal and almost sharp parts, feverish and virtuoso.” (Classic Voice)

In addition,Bernhard Lang ’s music was popular in the survey, especially his Differenz/Wiederholung and his music theatre work Theater der Wiederholungen, a “hallucinatory drama that is based on Deleuze philosophy of repetitions and which uses a remix technique that we also find in other works by the same composer.” (Classic Voice)


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