please recommend me some complex or seemingly chaotic music

[tamal]

Lots of instruments, singers if possible, going in all directions but still working together to form a solid coherent piece of music a la the last two minutes of allegro from Beethoven's 9th.

I am very new to classical music but I really enjoy that part in particular.

Thanks

[Norbeone]

Kind of vague request, but try Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring. No singers, but very complex (maybe extremely well-written is a better way to put it) and can get very chaotic and chilling at times. Anyway, it's a piece everyone ought to know, so go with it for the sake of it!

Enjoy your (hopefully long and meaningful) stay in the world of classical music.   

[gomro]

Lots of instruments, singers if possible, going in all directions but still working together to form a solid coherent piece of music a la the last two minutes of allegro from Beethoven's 9th.

I am very new to classical music but I really enjoy that part in particular.

Thanks

Charles Wuorinen's Genesis would pretty much fill that bill, if you find you like Wuorinen. That piece certainly has all the elements you're looking for, but it is very much "20th century music", post Stravinsky/Schoenberg.

[mikkeljs]

My sonata  "Gårdspladsen" for piano is extremely complex, if you try to force a meaning out of it.  I have been working on that piece for 4 years now. It´s among the most complex music, I know of. But it´s not yet finish.

Else I would recommend many things by Ives. Especially his long works.

And Mozart of cause is also very complex, but it does not sound chaotic. 

I´m not sure that the serialists from the 60th and 70th were among the most complex composers, since I think you always get far more advanced things, when you write more intuitively like Ives or Mozart did.

[knight66]

This might hit the spot for you.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Brian-Symphony-No-1-Gothic/dp/B0001Z65F8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1206263810&sr=1-1

Brian Symphony No 1 The Gothic. There are samples on the sits I have linked you to plus some knowledgeable opinions from customers.

Mike

[The new erato]

One mans complexity is another mans order. Bach's Kunst der Fuge for example.

[Henk]

Wolfgang Rihm - Jagden und Formen (Ensemble Modern)

[Bonehelm]

Any Shostakovich symphony.

[The new erato]

I would think complexity and chaos are irreconcilable terms; complexity requires structure because it is exactly the structure that is complex, while chaos to me implies something without structure (with structure it wouldn't be chaotic).

So on one side you have stuff with structure (either simple or complex, easy or impossible to discern) and on the other side you have chaotic stuff. Music always have structure. White noise haven't.

So I think the question is somewhat off chart.

[Operahaven]

Varese  Ionisation

[greg]

Any Shostakovich symphony.

ummmmmm... not usually. In comparison to most other composers, his music is pretty simple.
The 4th symphony, though, would be a good one, the 14th not. Though I love them both a lot!

[mikkeljs]

ummmmmm... not usually. In comparison to most other composers, his music is pretty simple.
The 4th symphony, though, would be a good one, the 14th not. Though I love them both a lot!

Agree! The 11th symphony are more simple than anything by Mozart. 

[Grazioso]

ummmmmm... not usually. In comparison to most other composers, his music is pretty simple.
The 4th symphony, though, would be a good one, the 14th not. Though I love them both a lot!

I was thinking something along similar lines: his music tends to sound relatively clear and straightforward and spare compared to many other 20th-century composers.

[quintett op.57]

Not only XXth century compositions could be chaotic : Biber's Battalia

[Fëanor]

Lots of instruments, singers if possible, going in all directions but still working together to form a solid coherent piece of music a la the last two minutes of allegro from Beethoven's 9th.

I am very new to classical music but I really enjoy that part in particular.

Thanks

Complex or seemingly chaotic?  Humm ... that discribes quite a bit of contemporary music, at least from the point of view of a classical music newbie.  Fitting those criteria is music of one of my favorite contemporary composers, Elliott Carter.

I suggest his work, Symphonia: sum fluxae pretium spei ...
http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&token=&sql=42:355446

[quintett op.57]

I would think complexity and chaos are irreconcilable terms; complexity requires structure because it is exactly the structure that is complex, while chaos to me implies something without structure (with structure it wouldn't be chaotic).

So on one side you have stuff with structure (either simple or complex, easy or impossible to discern) and on the other side you have chaotic stuff. Music always have structure. White noise haven't.

So I think the question is somewhat off chart.

don't agree


seemingly chaotic, he's said

[techniquest]

Try the 3 'Hymns' by Nicolai Korndorf. The first one (subtitled 'Sempre Tutti') might especially hit the spot. Easier to obtain might be Ives 4th symphony and Holidays Symphony which have some great examples (imho) of complex, chaotic yet somehow organised sound.
Also well worth a listen is 'Credo' by Arvo Part (the single piece, not the movement from one of his larger works) which has a wonderfully chaotic central section.
Have fun!

[Catison]

Guys, why don't we just cut to the chase.  The man is looking for Orff's Carmina Burana and/or Verdi's Requiem.

[c#minor]

Guys, why don't we just cut to the chase.  The man is looking for Orff's Carmina Burana and/or Verdi's Requiem.

Yeah, those would be the best pieces to fit the bill for a beginning listener looking for that kind of sound. Go for those two pieces tamel. Both have lots of instruments and singers. You'll dig it fo-sho. 

[pjme]

For real chaos: you need to play them together and very loud.    ( Verdi's Requiem ...chaotic??? Orff's Carmina...complex?)

Try Xenakis : Jonchaies, Jalons, Keqrops....early Penderecki, Lutoslavski's Jeux Vénitiens, Lamonte Young.....