[Closed] Recommend me some classical music ~ 20th Century onwards

Gustav Mahler just squeezes into the 20th Century and is one of the posterboys for the Romantic period. Absolutely spellbinding symphonies and if you'll expand your criteria a bit and get his early stuff, the 6th movement of his 3rd symphony is about as moving a piece of work as I've ever heard.

Aside from that...?

Shostakovich, Khachaturian, Stravinsky, Schoenburg and of course, Rachmaninoff.

Philip Glass

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Glass

Read The Rest is Noise by Alex Ross. Amazing history of 20th Century classical music. It'll give you plenty of ideas for stuff to listen to and put the music into context.

I would add Stravinsky (start with Rite of Spring), Mahler (there's an affordable Simon Rattle box set of all his symphonies + some lieder on EMI I think). If you want to go a bit more out there (ie difficult) then try Schoenberg or Alban Berg (his opera Lulu). I love Salome by Strauss and Peter Grimes by Britten if you don't know those.

For more modern stuff, try Zbigniew Preisner, Michael Giacchino, Craig Armstrong, John Williams, Jerry Goldsmith and David Arnold.
A bit "filmy" but there's some audio gold in there.

Sibelius, Neilsen?

not strictly western classical.

Sibelius.

Have you tried Elgar's Cello concerto? simply stunning as is Rodrigo's guitar concerto. Berg-piano sonata and Lulu spring to mind. Debussy-his first book of piano preludes are amongst my favourite pieces. Stravinsky-Rite of Spring, Petrushka. Steve Reich perhaps? Oh also, some Michael Tippet-try his concerto for double string orchestra and his string quartets.

Try Henryk Gorecki's Symphony of Sorrowful Songs for a starter, and his Good Night is excellent as well, though not an easy listen.

Can I suggest some Aaron Copland as well? Appalachian Spring is excellent stuff. As is William Walton. I have a ratehr good recording of his film scores. Always a pleasure.

Some great ideas in there guys - thanks! 🙂