Well, I'm willing to wager your ears are even bigger than mine, so I'll throw in a few things that aren't necessarily my cup of tea, but you might find interesting. Shostakovich: Complete String Quartets - Emerson String Quartet Starts out as tonal as Shostakovich ever gets (with Number 1), and end up going to some pretty crazy and dark places. Nothing like Stalinist Russia to bring out the sarcasm in someone. No. 8 is the most Famous - here's the second movement. Honorable mention goes to Sonata for Contrabass Solo by Mieczyslaw Weinberg, Op. 108 . A student and colleague of Shostakovich. I'm playing this piece for my master's recital, and there's a great recording on Spotify by Joel Quarrington (also probably available on itunes). Charles Ives - Piano Sonata no.2 "Concord, Mass. 1840-60" I have no idea why I like Ives' music. It is WAY out of my wheelhouse in a lot of respects. However, his chamber music is amazing, and the Concord Sonata is no exception. Honorable mention goes to His Violin Sonatas, which Hilary Hahn recorded a while back. Fantastic recording, available on itunes etc. Gyorgi Ligeti - Artikulation One of many electronic pieces by this composer. Tried to find an album, but this stuff in't often sold in stores: Honorable mention: Schoenberg: Five Pieces for Orchestra - London Symphony Orchestra with Fred Sherry Most of the music you're listening to on this list probably wouldn't have been made until much later if not for this guy. He solidified Serial atonal music from a theoretical standpoint, and was one of the first people to use it as a technique to write music. Honorable mention: Webern - Six orchestral pieces Student of Schoenberg, well respected in his own right. His opera, Wozzek, is probably one of the most commonly performed modern operas. Pierre Boulez: Le Marteau Sans Maître I hate this man. He is, however, well known for his advancement of multiple serialism, in which not just he notes, but rhythms, dynamics, etc. are all set up in serial patterns, derivatives of which are used to compose. Honorable Mention: Stravinsky: Rite of Spring (with the ballet if you can for the first listen) I'm gonna be straight with you, while i love this piece, I legit can't listen to it after dark - it scares the shit out of me. This ballet's production (which is using the original choreography, i think)... doesn't help me with that. Karlheinz Stockhausen: Elektronische Musik 1952-1960 My friend, you are going to dig the shit out of this. Honorable mention: Well, hopefully that will give you some stuff you like, and some composers to look more into.
Well, I've spent the entire morning listening to other people's music choices and I gotta say - Thanks. For the record: Shostakovich, Stravinsky, all things Russian: My mother is a classical violist. I grew up with wall-to-wall Russian composers. I love me some Mussorgsky (much better when it isn't Emerson, Lake and Palmer), love me some Stravinsky (Firebird is a fave), love me nearly everything Russian. I oughtta pick up some Shostakovich 'cuz I don't own any; my wife isn't fond of the Russians 'cuz they're a little too "mathy" but I think they're great. Charles Ives: Pleasant enough, but not particularly memorable. I shall marinate in it further. iTunes is great for this. Ligeti: Pioneer or no, he's got that "I'm just fucking around with synthesizers" vibe which was pretty cool back when nobody had ever seen a synth before but I kinda feel those guys were assed out the minute Walter Carlos got on the scene. Hell, the Barrons kinda shut the Ligeti school down as far as I'm concerned: The Ligeti school is also well-represented amongst Kyma users. It's just too easy to do things that aren't musical when your stuff doesn't lend itself to music. Shoenberg: Awesome. Have heard before, will hear again. Boulez: Everything I hate about Philip Glass, I hate about Boulez. Stockhausen: The rivetheads have been worshipping Stockhausen for 30 years. I've never gotten into it, but I probably should. Ensturzende Neubauten owes a lot to the guy; I have a hard time listening to a lot of Neubauten, though. Wanna see something awesome? Know why it's awesome? 'cuz it's 4 solid minutes of '70s era Laurie Spiegel in a tween summer blockbuster.
This might or might not be up your alley, but I totally forgot to include some Musique Concrète: Pierre Schaeffer: And speaking of schaeffers, there's also R. Murray Schaeffer, who sometimes writes not just for instrumentalists, but also the environment - allowing nature to interact with the musicians, or placing the musicians around a lake to take advantage of the natural reverb and echoes Steve Reich is another composer you might dig, if you've never heard. I wasn't sure if you were looking for earlier stuff, so I kept to the last 100 years-ish.
The Musique Concrete guys are a little amusical for my tastes, but I appreciate what they do. So I typed "steve Reich" into my iTunes to see what comes up - I have a bunch of ambient weirdness from backintheday that I bought in bulk and I don't always know what it is. One song came up: By damn.The song also uses a harmonica sample from Ennio Morricone's The Man With The Harmonica (from the film Once Upon a Time in the West) and parts of Electric Counterpoint, a piece for multitracked guitars composed by Steve Reich and recorded by Pat Metheny. Reich was "genuinely flattered"[8] by The Orb's use of his work and instructed his record company not to sue.