Spectralmusic

He explored quite a lot throughout his career, from the early Bartok/Stravinsky influenced stuff, to the Darmstadt stuff, to Le Grand Macabre to the late polyrhythmic stuff, he's great

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Spectralmusic

This too:

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OccultHawk

HPSCHD is very cacophonous

Spectralmusic

Certain moments in this early Webern masterpiece:

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OccultHawk

I especially like the music Elliott Carter wrote in the 40's.

And Berio Sequenza.

Not as spine crushing as the stuff you're talking about but still discordant. I like that vague sense of direction.

Spectralmusic

Elliott Carter's string quartets get quite piercing at times (often like Brian Ferneyhough), also his concertos (like the Double Concerto and the Concerto for orchestra)

I love the Berio Sequenzas

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OccultHawk

What's one of your favorites by Alban Berg?

Spectralmusic

Berg's not that heavy to me.

I love his chamber concerto and Lyric Suite. Wozzeck is great on occasions (but reminds me too much of zappa for some odd reason, lol)

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Spectralmusic

Though Carter (like the serialists) often falls into the category of being too romantic, so it looses that edge.

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OccultHawk

I don't think that's a fair criticism of Carter. I assume you intentionally used a lowercase r romantic. I get that it's a bit off topic but I think you could just as easily say that the composers you're favoring use extreme dissonance as a crutch. That's certainly NOT my opinion. I'm just pointing out they Carter fills a very important place in the 20th C. Different composers brought different elements to the table. Carter's music is dissonant and lyrical and definitely very important.