NEW MUSIC

Here are some websites with sample listening material that provide a nice introduction to - and focus on - specific composers:

Karlheinz Stockhausen - Stockhausen-Verlag, media files

György Ligeti - Tonbeispiele (music samples)

Isang Yun - Uni Mozarteum Salzburg (samples, discourse) (German)

Try buying a copy of the Gramophone Classical Good CD Guide and reading it :-) This is not just like reading the telephone book. Many of Gramophone's editors are musicologists, and the discussions under any given composer's work often describe the style as well as the recordings available. I've found a surprising amount of good music this way.

Also, I enjoy having reference books that can occasionally supply some context around styles. One such tome is Robert P. Morgan's "Twentieth Century Music" (Norton, 1991) but I'm sure there are others if you rummage through Borders or Barnes and Noble. Eggheaded, I know.

I have one original Stockhausen LP, cannot find it right now but I think it is four orchestras and youth choir.

I believe his work was influenced by Edgar Varese. I have two Varese, both conducted by Robert Craft. I bought these on Columbia LP, released in 1962. The first is "Ionisation and Poem Electronique" (MS6146). The second, Arcana / Deserts / Offrandes with Columbia Orchestra (MS6362).

This material is so abstract that I was not shocked when Jimi Hendrix released "EXP."