# Who is your Least Favourite Composer?



## Kurkikohtaus

I am starting this thread as a reaction to the endlessly pointless discussion of the "Who is the Worst Composer" thread. In 9 pages of posts, no-one was able to define criteria by which to judge good and bad composers. The topic was an opinion-fest from the start, with the added complication that people were constantly confusing and blending the concepts of "Worst" and "Least Favourite".

I hope that this new discussion will be a little more to the point.

Simply state composers and pieces that you don't like and give us a few reasons why you don't like them.

Bash away!


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## Manuel

From the universe of composers I happen to know I think the only one I can not stand is Henri Collet. I am pretty sure he is leading my list of _least favs_ (I don't think I have one anyway).
However, I manage to listen to his works every now and then hoping that, as happened me with Bruckner, at any random time it starts working its magic with me.
Perhaps the lack of a consistent structure in Collet's works are what make me list him here. Works like the Concierto Flamenco (for violin and orchestra) are nothing more than a sequence of phrases, usually consisting in scales and chords, wihtout real musical ideas workings as a substance beneath the whole piece. Please avoid the idea that I only like works with large tunes you can whistle _all _ Tchaikovsky; that's not the case. From a musical point of view, I find Collet just inconsistent. However, as stated before, one in a while I go back to him just to check.

Btw, I only have a cd with his Concierto Flamenco and the piano concerto. Do you know if there is more music by Collet out in the shelves?


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## ChamberNut

I don't enjoy listening to Joplin, Sousa or G. Gershwin.

The Jazzy, showtunish, marching band sounds are just not my cup of tea.


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## opus67

ChamberNut said:


> I don't enjoy listening to Joplin, Sousa or G. Gershwin.
> 
> The Jazzy, showtunish, marching band sounds are just not my cup of tea.


I think this thread restricts itself to _classical_ composers.  

Don't call me if it's anything very late-romantic(!) or later. I don't know what exactly constitutes that period. I love Dvorak's music, but I think he was from the late-romantic period, or was he? 

-----The following are some naive opinions of someone who has been listening to this stuff for just over a year----
Don't take me wrong, but I've always felt that modern music (just around the beginning of the 20th century and later) is, well, sort of, "random." It's as though the composer says, "Okay, now (all of a sudden) I want a bunch of trumpets.Stop.Okay, now some cellos---scary.Stop.Violins---flute." It doesn't make "sense" (if that makes any sense!), and doesn't seem to have a "direction."
-----------------------Naive opinions end here----------------------

Phew, I'm glad that's off my chest.

But of course, this doesn't mean they are bad composers. It can never be objectively decided who is bad and who is good, IMHO.


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## Manuel

> I don't enjoy listening to Joplin, Sousa or G. Gershwin.


I think you won't like Gruenberg either... 

Try Gershwin in his songs, they are more delicate than let's say... Rhapsody in Blue. (I've always thought the Rhapsody is the american response to Liszt Hungarian Fantasy).



> Don't take me wrong, but I've always felt that modern music (just around the beginning of the 20th century and later) is, well, sort of, "random." It's as though the composer says, "Okay, now (all of a sudden) I want a bunch of trumpets.Stop.Okay, now some cellos---scary.Stop.Violins---flute." It doesn't make "sense" (if that makes any sense!), and doesn't seem to have a "direction."


But 20th century music do not fin in one category. Composers like Wolf-Ferrari and Menotti could be marked as really late romantics... (sort of); there's nothing experimental (radical) in their music.

*****
Frank Martin is sort of ambivalent... some works from him I find interesting (the violin concerto and the ballad for piano and orchestra) and some rather boring (the piano concertos). I have his cello concertos also, but must confess I've never played them, ever.
Any suggestions of his orchestral music?


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## opus67

Manuel said:


> But 20th century music do not fin in one category.


That's true. I don't find Respighi's music, for example, as bad as my description of 20C music.


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## Keemun

Two of my least favorite composers are John Philip Sousa and Terry Riley.


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## Kurkikohtaus

opus67 said:


> It's as though the composer says, "Okay, now (all of a sudden) I want a bunch of trumpets.Stop.Okay, now some cellos---scary.Stop.Violins---flute."


The technique you are describing is called *KLANGFARBENMEODIE*. Anton Webern was the first to introduce it as an actual purposeful technique, although he claimed that the idea came from Beethoven's symphonic scherzos. The point of this technique is that the changes from one instrument's tone-colour to that of another is the all-important leading idea of the piece, pushing melody to the side.

Hardcore serialists then went one step further and organized the changing of instrumental colours into patterns that were then used as a building block of the composition.

I don't like this either, and I don't like *Webern*.


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## opus67

Kurkikohtaus said:


> The technique you are describing is called *KLANGFARBENMEODIE*. Anton Webern was the first to introduce it as an actual purposeful technique, although he claimed that the idea came from Beethoven's symphonic scherzos. The point of this technique is that the changes from one instrument's tone-colour to that of another is the all-important leading idea of the piece, pushing melody to the side.
> 
> Hardcore serialists then went one step further and organized the changing of instrumental colours into patterns that were then used as a building block of the composition.


I'm not really sure if I was referring to that. Seems too specific. What I said was a very jaundiced eye view of modern (classical) music.


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## Manuel

> That's true. I don't find Respighi's music, for example, as bad as my description of 20C music.


His cantatas, for example.



> I'm not really sure if I was referring to that. Seems too specific. What I said was a very jaundiced eye view of modern (classical) music.


I think Kurkikohtaus means that there's actually a substantial pattern or philosophy in what you describe as haphazard composing.


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## opus67

Manuel said:


> His cantatas, for example.


I'll have to give them a listen. I've heard only his more popular works(Pines of Rome, Ancient Airs..., etc.)


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## Manuel

> I'll have to give them a listen. I've heard only his more popular works(Pines of Rome, Ancient Airs..., etc.)


I must confess I only know the 3rd cantata, "La sensitiva". I've been looking for the others (and vocal works in general) but they don't seem to be delivered to this part of the world.


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## jam*tart

> opus67 said:
> 
> 
> 
> Don't take me wrong, but I've always felt that modern music (just around the beginning of the 20th century and later) is, well, sort of, "random." It's as though the composer says, "Okay, now (all of a sudden) I want a bunch of trumpets.Stop.Okay, now some cellos---scary.Stop.Violins---flute." It doesn't make "sense" (if that makes any sense!), and doesn't seem to have a "direction."
> 
> 
> 
> Kind of off topic, but do you really consider music from the beginning of the 20th century to be 'modern'? That's about 100 years ago.
Click to expand...


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## opus67

jam*tart said:


> Kind of off topic, but do you really consider music from the beginning of the 20th century to be 'modern'? That's about 100 years ago.


Okay, it's not.  I guess it's a hangover from the physics courses in college. When we study 'Modern Physics', we start with special relativity, which was published in 1905.


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## cato

This one's easy!  

John Cage.

Which "works" do I dislike? 

All of them!  

Why?

Because John Cage is not a composer, and his "works" are not works in the traditional way of understanding. He is a fraud, not a composer. Calling a few minutes of slience or "dead air" a compostion, is nonsence.


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## Manuel

> Because John Cage is not a composer


Come on... he writes music, then he *is *a composer.



cato said:


> his "works" are not works in the traditional way of understanding.


What is then what we traditionaly understand as works? Care to elaborate?


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## Giovannimusica

I will agree with Cato - from a musicological perspective although. Yannis Xenakis is also a bugbear. When composing music means plunging into the murky, turgid waters of Serial Atonality then all pretense to *street cred* is gone. Apart from some *junkies* who need their fix, the informed music-consuming public will stay away in droves.

Regards!

Giovanni


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## Keemun

cato said:


> Because John Cage is not a composer, and his "works" are not works in the traditional way of understanding. He is a fraud, not a composer. Calling a few minutes of slience or "dead air" a compostion, is nonsence.


I have to agree with Manuel that John Cage is a composer, at least to the extent that we are talking about the music he composed and not 4'33", which I assume is what you are referring to. If you want to read my opinion of how 4'33" isn't really music, go here: http://www.talkclassical.com/844-towards-definition-music-2.html (post #25)

Granted, John Cage is near the top of my list of least favorite composers because I don't like his music, but that doesn't mean he wasn't a composer. I don't like Sousa's music, but I still believe that he was a composer.


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## cato

Manuel's responce to my post, and all those who share his view, points out all that is wrong with Western Culture/Civ, and why we are dying; both spirtualy, and socialy.

We have lost the ablity to tell the difference between what is good, and what is bad, between what is really music, and what is nonsence. Everything in our lives has become just a matter of taste or opinion.

We can not even tell the difference between good and evil anymore, because if you say a person, or their behavor is "evil", then you are "judging" and showing "bias".

If an "artist" squats on a canvas and defecates, smearing his stool on it.... is that art?

If you say no, it is a perverse, sick stunt, passing itself off as "art" and the vandal who "painted" it, is not an artist, then you will hear screams of "right-wing extremist", for daring to show "judgement" and "bias" toward what is obviously a "progressive", "modern" work of "art".

I am sorry, but I am from the "old-school" of Western Thought/Culture. Yes, I have an open mind, and I do enjoy "modern" composers. (Gorecki is one of my favorite.)

However, not all "music" is really music, and not all "art" is really art, and it is not just a matter of opinion. We have lost, or are losing our ablity to judge these matters.

By the way, if you would like to read a new book just published on this subject, then please read, _How The West Was Lost_, by Alexander Boot. He spends a lot of time in the book talking about classical music and opera, and how we in the West have lost the ablity to tell good/real music from bad.


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## Manuel

> If an "artist" squats on a canvas and defecates, smearing his stool on it.... is that art?


No. That's just crap.

But the idea behind 4:33 comes from an artistic conception. As well as his Freeman etudes, and many of his other works (let's say all of them).



> By the way, if you would like to read a new book just published on this subject, then please read, How The West Was Lost, by Alexander Boot. He spends a lot of time in the book talking about classical music and opera, and how we in the West have lost the ablity to tell good/real music from bad.


The fact that an _enlightened _man presents himself as the one that realises everything surrounding him is declining, and proves the ability to compose an essay on how it has turn this way it's a bit... creepy. Because they speak in term of absolute values (of course, *their *absolute values).



> I am sorry, but I am from the "old-school" of Western Thought/Culture. Yes, I have an open mind, and I do enjoy "modern" composers. (Gorecki is one of my favorite.)


Then use your open mind to understand that not liking something does not give you power to discredit it. John Cage WAS a composer, wether you enjoy his works or not.


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## Lisztfreak

Schönberg, Berg & Co. I can't help it, my ears don't seam compatible to atonal or twelve-tone-scale, whatever, music.


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## Manuel

> Schönberg, *Berg *& Co. I can't help it, my ears don't seam compatible to atonal or twelve-tone-scale, whatever, music.


I love Berg's Sonata Op. 1. It was one of the first big works I tried to learn on my own a few years ago... Of course I successfuly failed.


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## Kurkikohtaus

*Cato* opens up an interesting string of thought by speculating about the West's growing inability to distinguish between what is good and what is not, and that "everything in our lives has become a matter of taste and opinion."

Perhaps what we have lost is not the _*ability*_ to distinguish, but a common set of universally accepted *criteria* that allows us to confidently make that distinction. Through the 20th century, there was a fragmentation of esthetic values in all the arts, with originality as opposed to tradition taking on a major role. Artists, composers and literary folk engaged on a course of "one-upmanship", trying to out-originalize each other. The "necessary" reaction to this was glorification of main-stream commercial values, which unfortunately must as a rule cator to the lowest common denominator in order to survive.

So the 20th century failed to produce a commonly intelligible language in any and all mediums, thereby allowing commercial supply and demand to assume a leading role in the dictating the values of society.

All of this said, I second *Lisztfreak*'s motion to ban Schoenberg not only from the concert hall but from the history of music.


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## cato

Thank you so much Kurkikohtaus!  

You stated and afirmed my point so much better then I could!  

The point you made about everything in this "new world order" being subservant to the common tastes of the common man, is really hammered home by the book I mentioned in my last post. (How The West Was Lost, by Alexander Boot.)

In the book he gives a stunning example of how the current mindset is a part of both Soviet communism, and 21st century captialism. He gives the example of a 1922 Soviet official, having a drink with a 2007 American CEO. He argues that BOTH men, agree that the "masses", or the common man, should decide everything from international relations, to what kind of music should be supreme. The American CEO is driven by greed, so what the people want, the people get. If they want "gansta rap" instead of Bach, then so be it, because that is where the money is. The Soviet commizar or the other hand, is driven by an idea that say's all men are equal, and the masses/working-class should rule the world, and if the masses want vlugar, common music (like Russian drinking songs), instead of Bach or Shostakovich, then Bach and Shostakovich will have to go to the dust bin of history. (Or be threatened with going to a labor camp, in order to make them compose music that the working-class will enjoy.)

This is why Shostakovich was threatened with death, or going to a labor camp by Stalin and his Communist Party. He was not seen as composing music for the "masses", and was accused of being a "formalist", which was a euphiusm for "eliteist". Stalin and his vlugar thugs, wanted Shostakovich and the other composers to compose music that the masses could "understand" and relate to, in other words, "popular".

This is one reason the 8th symphony was a flop, and the party hated it. The symphony came at the end of the war, at a time of victory, and people wanted to forget about the war, and be "happy". But Shostakovich did not feel happy, and wanted to convay the intence feelings of sorrow that he, and the "elite" felt about the war. They,(composers, artists, writers, etc.) not the "common people", or the "masses" knew that there was no victroy: The Russians had lost far more then they ever gained in the war.

No, the masses can never be the judge of anything, least of all music. :angry: 

Again, thanks for making my point better then I did.


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## Keemun

Why do we need to have a criteria by which to distinguish whether something is music or not? What purpose will it serve? I agree with the analysis of Cato and Kurkikohtaus as to the current state of values in the arts, but I am not convinced that a common standard is needed. 

First, I don't believe it is possible to develop "a common set of universally accepted criteria." With the exception of very basic scientific principles (i.e. gravity), I cannot think of anything that is universally accepted in western society. If there is to be an accepted criteria, who must accept it in order for it to be valid?

Second, even if there is a common standard by which to judge the arts and Cage's work was declared not to be music, what possible implication could this have? I doubt his fans would care one bit. Do you propose to ban recordings of his work? Would it be against the law to "perform" his work in public venues?

This thread was started in response to our inability to define a criteria in the "Who is the Worst Composer" thread. It seems to me we are back where we started, except we are debating what is or is not music rather than what is good or bad music.


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## Kurkikohtaus

a BIG aside...
Please humour me with this one, because *Keemun* has inadvertantly stumbled on one of my very few hobbies outside of music, and that is Quantum Mechanics and the like... I mean all of this in good fun, I don't mean to start a debate.

The very problem with *Gravity* is that it is _not_ universally accepted, at least not in terms of how it fits in with the other 3 basic forces of nature (the elctromagnetic, strong and weak forces). *General Relativity* perfectly describes the behaviour of gravity with massive objects over large distances. *Quantum Mechanics* perfectly describes the behaviour of the other 3 forces over microscopic distances. But when *GR* and *QM* are merged to try to form a theory of *Quantum Gravity*, it all breaks down. Physicists have been working on this for over 80 years. There have been various promising paths but no solution as of yet.

So I bring this topic full circle back to music by making the 2 following points:

The future of defining general musical criteria is in GRAVE danger... haha
The most promising theory that would combine all the forces into a unified framework is called "String Theory"... another haha.


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## Keemun

Kurkikohtaus,

I won't even pretend to know anything about Quantum Mechanics. In fact, this comic sums up my knowledge of gravity:


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## Morigan

Strauss & co. (Not Richard)

My roommate is a Strauss-family and Austrian-Empire maniac. He only ever listens to Strauss. Waltzes, Mazurkas, Polkas and quadrilles. It's making me crazy. This music does have some kind of appeal, but it has nothing, absolutely nothing deep or moving. To me, it's probably the most superficial thing in the entire orchestral repertoire.

For God's sake, it's like the "candy pop" of classical music!


P.S. I have to say I kind of enjoy Die Fledermaus, even though it's shallow. Strauss' music entertainment first of all, and it kind of succeeds at that.


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## Manuel

> My roommate is a Strauss-family and Austrian-Empire maniac. He only ever listens to Strauss. Waltzes, Mazurkas, Polkas and quadrilles.


*LOL*. Force your roommate to sign your own _Saint-Germain-en-Laye_.


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## Kurkikohtaus

My orchestra is in a spa-town (Marienbad CZ), so we play 30 promenade concerts through the summer chalk full of Strauss Waltzes and Polkas. Yes, the music is shallow, but that said, it is _very well written_, allowing for multiple multiple multiple performances with only mild signs of schizophrenic paranoia developing in the players.

But careful with Tritsch-Tratsch polka... if you play it too many weeks in a row, the lizards begin to set in.


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## Mark Harwood

Darn lizards. I thought only I could see 'em.


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## Saturnus

This descussion of Strauss reminds of a time when my orchestra (youth) played Strauss very very slowly and without all staccado (in order to clean the chords), and it sounded like a requiem! So a great tragedy, hidden with staccado and speed, seems to lurk beneath the surface in this music


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## Azathoth

I'm not very fond of experimentalist kind of stuff. I guess I'm closed-minded, but if it sounds like the musicians are all seizuring throughout the whole piece, I wouldn't really call it music. There's something else that I can't really describe, a certain logic and order in music. I'm defining it pretty loosely here; Schnittke counts as music to me and a lot of his stuff is pretty schizophrenic. My first Shostakovich was the second movement of the String Quartet #8.

However, when it just seems to be, "Okay, you should sort of play a scale right there and then stop for no reason, and then the pianist hits the highest G# really fast, and then the cellists should just start sawing on the strings and play whatever the hell they want," I can't qualify that as music. It can be meaningful to whoever wrote it, and it can serve a purpose as being fun and all that. I'm also not saying nobody should try anything new.

WARNING: SLIGHTLY OFF-TOPIC BELOW

Distinguishing between Different and Bad is hard. Sometimes, you just don't get it, and you won't get it, but the same can be said for what you like. For example, I don't like rap. Rather, I thought I didn't like rap until my cousin introduced me to the masters, and I listened to what he played for me a few million times, and then it sort of clicked. Holy ****, how can they do that with just words and a beat? The 'Eureka' moment, if you will. Rap still isn't my cup of tea, I haven't actually gone out and purchased any rap, and I don't think I will. This isn't the best exampe because the guys who really started it off, really used it as an artform in the '80s are now saying that the industry is a joke and should be scrapped.

I also like stuff I wouldn't necessarily qualify as good. Modest Mouse's _Bukowski_ and _Float On_ certainly aren't on par with Beethoven's Ninth, but they're fun music.

It could also be that the music is intended to hit a certain nerve or make you feel a certain way that you just aren't receptive to. Yesterday, when there was a regular old nor'easter here, I got my -ultimately useless- poncho on, and cranked up my Standing-Next-To-The-East-River-And-Courting-Pneumonia playlist: Nirvana, Shostakovich, Beethoven, Metallica, and Bach -moody bits from the four Great Toccatas and Fugues-. Kurt Cobain was a master of grunge guitar, Bach kicked some *** on a Baroque organ. Metallica amped up the darkness, blending surprisingly well with Beethoven. It was all intense, it was all awesome, and it's all music.


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## Kurkikohtaus

Azathoth said:


> However, when it just seems to be, "Okay, you should sort of play a scale right there and then stop for no reason, and then the pianist hits the highest G# really fast, and then the cellists should just start sawing on the strings and play whatever the hell they want," I can't qualify that as music.


Very often, the point in pieces like this is not the actual sounds produced, but the way the whole performance is taken in by the audience, the emotional experience shared by the audience and the performers. It is what has come to be known as *Performance Art*, where seemingly non-sensical improvisation delivers an emotional charge. That said, "music" like this should not be recorded, analyzed, and perhaps as *Azathoth* says, thought of as "Music" at all... it's meaning is created on the spot and dissipates immediately after the performance.


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## Manuel

> That said, "music" like this should *not be recorded*, analyzed, and perhaps as Azathoth says, *thought of as "Music" at all*... it's meaning is _created on the spot _and *dissipates immediately after the performance*.


I think this applies to many other genres (*pop *comes to my mind).


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## jam*tart

^^ With regards to 'dissipating after the performance'-doesn't all music do this? This raises some interesting questions about what actually constitutes 'existence', in the case of a piece of music. Sure, most classical music is recorded on paper, so theoretically has an existence outside of performance-as notes on a page, and as 'potential' sound. However, some would argue that this isn't really musical 'existence',or, at least, is only half of the story-that the primary form of 'existence' of a piece of music is 'music as performed', which is, by its very nature, fairly short-lived. And then, it exists as musical memory in the minds of the audiences.

I guess that purely improvised music is a little more elusive, as it only exists at the moment of performance, theoretically. Pop music is a little different, I think, in that it usually has a fairly concrete existence in the minds of audiences and performers-therefore, a pop song will be recreated fairly accurately by a band when performed, more or less. Perhaps there will be some slight differences, but the essence is there. I'd argue that, with regards to pop music, it's this 'essence' which constitutes the song-as long as the primary rhythmic, melodic and harmonic elements are there, you've got yourself the song.

If an audience member only ever hears a piece of classical music in performance, I'd argue that it exists in the same state, for that audience member, as a piece of pop music-that is, as a 'dissipating' aural phenomenon, then a musical memory. 

Off topic, sorry. i'm not even sure if the above makes sense. Carry on.


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## Handel

Maybe the question should rather be: who is the most overrated/underrated composer...


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## zlya

I hate Aaron Copland. He takes some gorgeous old American folk songs and plonks an open fifth beneath them (oo--rusticism) turning a beautiful traditional melody into cheesy Americana. Can't stand it.

Also, I don't think whether a composer is overrated or underrated should have any bearing whatsoever on your musical tastes. There is a common trend for "musical intellectuals" to shy away from the more famous classical and modern musicians for fear of losing their special-ness. If I like Mozart, I must be a sheep following the masses. It's a very old idea, that to be intelligent we must be separate, we must like things that noone else likes, or better yet, that noone has ever heard of. It's almost a fashion among classical music lovers to shun the "common" composers in favor of more glamorous unknowns, preferably with unpronounceable names. This is as bad if not worse as those who only like what everyone else likes. Try new things, but please make up your own mind. Don't dislike a composer simply because he's "overrated", and don't like one simply because he's "underrated".


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## Manuel

> I hate Aaron Copland. He takes some gorgeous old American folk songs and plonks an open fifth beneath them (oo--rusticism) turning a beautiful traditional melody into cheesy Americana. Can't stand it.


Any examples?


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## zlya

Well, I think the most famous example is the Simple Gifts section of Appalachian Spring. I'd listen to it to check, but I don't actually have any Copland mp3s or scores (as I said, I don't like the guy).


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## Kurkikohtaus

Apalachian spring is the ultimate in "Open-5th-Americana", as you put it, but in my opinion, it is neither cheap nor cheezy.

*Zlya*, you say that he takes a beautiful tune and makes it cheezy... in my opinion, I think he takes a _simple_ tune and turns it into an interesting essay in symphonic theme-and-variations. But this is just a matter of opinion...


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## Manuel

> Zlya, you say that he takes a beautiful tune and makes it cheezy... in my opinion, I think he takes a simple tune and turns it into an interesting essay in symphonic theme-and-variations. But this is just a matter of opinion...


Copland was there to prove false the idea that _the only thing you can do with folk tunes is play them again... and louder_.


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## zlya

I don't think the repetitive nature of folk tunes generally detracts from their aesthetic. I think it's a different KIND of aesthetic, one that doesn't necessarily need to be changed. 

Which is not to say that I dislike composers who use folk-tunes--I think Bartok was an absolute master of taking a folk melody and creating true art from it. I just don't like the WAY Copland does it. It seems so stereotypical. He turns true folk music, with its special aesthetic, into a sort of art-music parody of "folkiness".


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## Manuel

> I think Bartok was an absolute master of taking a folk melody and creating true art from it.


As well as Dvorak before him. Take a look at his 6th symphony.



> I just don't like the WAY Copland does it. It seems so stereotypical. He turns true folk music, with its special aesthetic, into a sort of art-music parody of "folkiness".


But even if what you say was true, it's not the case for his entire compositional output. Ever heard his nonet for strings?


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## Handel

Strangely, it is Purcell. It's weird. I Know he is a master of english baroque music but each time I listen to his music, I feel bored (there a few exceptions however). Maybe it will change over time...


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## Luximus

Has anybody heard of P. Nardini? I believe he was from the Rennaissance period, and my strings class played his four quartets (and mind you, i'm in grade 10) and they were excruciatingly boring. The rhythm was a bit awkward, and there was no significant melodies to the piece at all. Our teacher explored only this piece for our study of the Rennaissance period, and it gave me quite a bad impression of that period of music.


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## zlya

Well, Handel, do you LIKE English Baroque Music? Seems that if you find Purcell boring, you might find the rest tedious as well. Unlike most other English Baroque composers, however, Purcell manages a few gems. I love Dido and Aeneas, for example, and a some of his choral anthems are absolutely heartbreaking (Hear My Prayer, for example).


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## Handel

zlya said:


> Well, Handel, do you LIKE English Baroque Music? Seems that if you find Purcell boring, you might find the rest tedious as well. Unlike most other English Baroque composers, however, Purcell manages a few gems. I love Dido and Aeneas, for example, and a some of his choral anthems are absolutely heartbreaking (Hear My Prayer, for example).


I like music from early english composers (William Byrd, Christopher Simpson, Orlando Gibbons) and some late baroque/early classical one (Charles Avison, Thomas Linley), but it is true that I am not high on english baroque music (except the previous one and, of course, Handel).


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## avrile

Hmm.. let me comment about John Cage... and by the way, he's one of my favorite composers!  I consider him a composer because he revolutionized the meaning and potential of music. For ages, the meaning of music has always leaned towards the western classical way - performance on stage and learning scores. Music certainly cannot be limited to these practices alone. Music after all exists in all cultures, and even among the indigenous peoples as well. Music of the latter is considered to be a part of life, if not, life itself. A ritual is then connected to a particular type of music , for example. There is no traditional idea of performing on stage. Music for them is not an entity separated from life. This is were John Cage got his inspiration from - that music is essentially life itself. He rivaled the idea that music is separated from life - as in a stage against an audience. So if we encounter Cage's works, let us keep his philosophy in mind. It's just his way of globalizing the whole concept of music so as to reach various language cultures, not only western classical music.


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## Frasier

Ok, this was a thread about least liked composers but I have to agree about Cage. I've only heard a few instances of his aleatoric pieces but I'm familiar with his work in modern dance. His lecture(s) "Indeterminacy" are also a mind-opener to me and go some way to orienting others to his philosophy. Yes, you need to know what Cage was aiming for philosophically with music to come to terms with his work. 

Those approaching a Cage piece expecting pretty melodies like Mozart with neat cadences closing each phrase... uh, don't bother. 

But...in view of the title of the thread... my least favourite composer is Wagner.


----------



## avrile

Wagner? How come? Don't you like his idea of "Marriage of all the Arts?" Please.. I'd like to know why he is your least favorite composer..


----------



## Morigan

I agree with Frasier about Wagner. As Rossini once said : "Wagner has wonderful moments, and dreadful quarters of an hour". Tchaikovsky and Debussy thought exactly the same, and so do I.


----------



## zlya

If Tchaikovsky and Debussy jumped off a bridge . . . 
There's a definite Catch 22 with Wagner. It's HARD to listen to his longer operas because . . . well, they're LONG. Yet he wrote in such a holistic way, leitmotifs etc., that you miss a lot unless you do listen to the whole thing. So you can't fully appreciate it unless you listen to the entirety, but if you listen to the entirety you can't fully appreciate it because you get bored. It takes a lot of time and a bit of patience to love Wagner. Is it worth it? I think so.


----------



## Kurkikohtaus

I boldly _dare_ to bump this thread up, as I am sad to see the "other" thread getting too much undue traffic and further confusing the issue between preference and criteria...

Admins, please forgive my trangression, it is meant to give new members an intelligeable and focused thread in which to discuss their likes and dislikes.


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## Ephemerid

Kurkikohtaus, good point...

Personally, I have a strong preference for 20th century music-- some "modern" composers I may not like as much as others, but there are a few that I truly fail to appreciate (I'm no fan of Schoenberg et al but that is not even who I am talking about-- I'm always willing to give that music a go becuase sometimes I do gain something positive from the experience). We always have to pick on 20th century composers though, even me! LOL

My least favourite composers (or the ones I seem to be unable to really appreciate in any real sense) would be:

Milton Babbitt (who took serialism to an absurd degree and who literally wanted to reduce music to pure mathematics)

Almost everything Philip Glass has done since about 1980 (his earlier work is far more interesting, whereas all his stuff since Satyagraha has been, well... repititious-- the same old rehashed ideas, the same arpeggiated patterns, all similar chord structures. One recent exception to this is his 5th string quartet). It all seems so vacuous... 

For the most part, I tend to be least interested in 19th century romantic/post-romantic music (there are certainly some great exceptions), which is not to say it is bad music-- it just doesn't speak to me as much as baroque, classical period and 20th century music. In general, Schubert, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Lizst, Wagner, et al aren't composers that are high on my list, though I don't dislike them either... Its just something about the romantic aesthetic that just doesn't speak to me.

All in all, Milton Babbitt and Philip Glass are high in my list of composers I simply dislike.

~ josh


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## Enformedepoire

Of course we get the predictable bashing on the Second Viennese School and anything even vaguely "weird" or not conventionally "pretty." We may as well fault European merchants for bringing back spices from Asia. 

But anyway...

I dislike Rachmaninov, Delius, Respighi, Paganini, William Schuman, Douglas Moore, Ferd Grofé, Jake Heggie, Eric Whittacre, Tobias Picker, Marc-Anthony Turnage, Rufus Wainwright. As a kid I liked Vivaldi a lot, but whenever I give him a try nowadays he just pales beside Bach and company. I want to still like him, but I really don't. Last movement of the Summer concerto is still pretty good.


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## Enformedepoire

By the way, my bit about bashing Schoenberg and company was not directed at the last comment by Ephemerid - if you're willing to give them a try then good enough for me. I was merely reacting to what I saw as the general tenor of the thread as a whole. Of course, this thread is six plus years old, so probably no one will read this.


----------



## millionrainbows

cato said:


> This one's easy!
> 
> John Cage.
> 
> Which "works" do I dislike?
> 
> All of them!
> 
> Why?
> 
> Because John Cage is not a composer, and his "works" are not works in the traditional way of understanding. He is a fraud, not a composer. Calling a few minutes of slience or "dead air" a compostion, is nonsence.


But 4'33" was not 'silent' music.


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## millionrainbows

This one's easy! 
Mantovani!

Which "works" do I dislike?

All of them!

Why?

Because Mantovani is not a composer, and his "muzak" is not real music in the traditional way of understanding 'art' music. He is a hack, not a composer. Calling his numerous recordings 'serious art' is nonsense. It's rubbish, to quote Paul McCartney.

















During his lifetime, Mantovani did not always get respect from his fellow musicians. When George Martin first suggested overdubbing Paul McCartney's recording of Yesterday with strings, McCartney's initial reaction, according to Martin, was that he didn't want it sounding like Mantovani.[13] Martin therefore used a more classical sound, employing a string quartet.

A much more worthy composer was *Ronald Binge,* who was hired as an arranger for Mantovani, and was the one who actually invented the 'cascading strings' effect that Mantovani is given credit for.
Binge was interested in the technicalities of composition and was most famous as the inventor of the "cascading strings" effect that is the signature sound of the Mantovani orchestra, much used in their arrangements of popular music. It was originally created to capture the essence of the echo properties of a building such as a cathedral, although it later became particularly associated with easy-listening music.

Binge's best-known composition is probably Elizabethan Serenade (1951), which was used by the British Broadcasting Corporation as the theme for the popular 1950s series, "Music Tapestry," and as the play-out for the British Forces Network radio station, and for which he won an Ivor Novello Award. It was later turned into a vocal version called Where the Gentle Avon Flows, with lyrics by the poet Christopher Hassall. A reggae version of the tune, "Elizabethan Reggae", was performed by Boris Gardiner in 1970. Binge is also known for Sailing By (1963), which introduces the late-night Shipping Forecast on BBC Radio 4. When it was stopped in 1993 there were protests for two years.[3] Other well-known pieces include Miss Melanie, Like Old Times, The Watermill (1958) for oboe and strings, and his Concerto for Alto Saxophone in E-flat major (1956). His largest, longest, and most ambitious work is the four-movement Symphony in C ("Saturday Symphony") which was written during his retirement c. 1970 and performed in Britain and Germany.










BTW, this 2-CD set is going for $62 on Amazon, so I'm glad I got mine when it was first released.


----------



## PetrB

Luximus said:


> Has anybody heard of P. Nardini? I believe he was from the Rennaissance period, and my strings class played his four quartets (and mind you, i'm in grade 10) and they were excruciatingly boring. The rhythm was a bit awkward, and there was no significant melodies to the piece at all. Our teacher explored only this piece for our study of the Rennaissance period, and it gave me quite a bad impression of that period of music.


This is a quasi moribund thread, but...

It is worth mentioning that much renaissance music was set in a notation where a lot of the rhythmic elements in practice during the era were not exactly notated, i.e. the simpler and more basic duration values were used in notation, the players knowing those weren't played exactly.

The convention of using those more basic durations in notating music, with the fact it was not played exactly as written, held through until the later renaissance period, and a bit into the baroque period as well.

The pieces you played could have been notated pre 1960's when musicology became more to the fore, and influenced understanding of period performance practice in relation to how those period scores were notated.

If they were engraved directly from older scores with no revisions to more literally have the rhythm now thought to be the practice of the era and they were played straight as written off the page, the rhythmic element could have sounded less than lively or imaginative.


----------



## Dustin

Morigan said:


> I agree with Frasier about Wagner. As Rossini once said : "Wagner has wonderful moments, and dreadful quarters of an hour". Tchaikovsky and Debussy thought exactly the same, and so do I.


I definitely respect that you don't like him but I've never put much stock into these kinds of degrading quotes because you seem to find quite a few of them throughout history(Bruckner, Liszt, Rossini, Brahms, Mendelssohn, Wagner...etc) and yet these composers being bad-mouthed are still universally accepted mega-geniuses by lots of very smart and talented people. I may be wrong but I think sometimes these composers badmouthing other composers is a sort of compositional competitiveness they held against each other. All of these blanket statement quotes you see thrown around are very short-sighted in my opinion. And this is coming from a guy who has struggled to accept Wagner up to this point! But I'm sure my lack of appreciation of him has more to do with my growing musical tastes and understanding than it just being a case of him writing a lot of boring music.


----------



## Ethereality

Out of the mainstream composers, easily Satie. His music sounds overly horrid and nonsensical to me. Not saying it's bad music, but certainly for mainstream.

I love the other Frenchies to death though. Debussy <3 Ravel.


----------



## Phil loves classical

The guy responsible for this:


----------



## paulbest

zlya said:


> If Tchaikovsky and Debussy jumped off a bridge . . .
> There's a definite Catch 22 with Wagner. It's HARD to listen to his longer operas because . . . well, they're LONG. Yet he wrote in such a holistic way, leitmotifs etc., that you miss a lot unless you do listen to the whole thing. So you can't fully appreciate it unless you listen to the entirety, but if you listen to the entirety you can't fully appreciate it because you get bored. It takes a lot of time and a bit of patience to love Wagner. Is it worth it? I think so.


Exactly, With Wagner, it is a wholeistic, organic Adventure. 
Yet I must say, I prefer Wagner as championed through the Golden Years.
Keilberth, Knappertsbusch and that entire 1950's Bayreuth legendary casting. I am a historic buff and so these legends in singing conducting, orchestras, keep my interest involved.

Any/too many weak link in Wagner makes for a dreadfully long opera.


----------



## paulbest

Kurkikohtaus said:


> I am starting this thread as a reaction to the endlessly pointless discussion of the "Who is the Worst Composer" thread. In 9 pages of posts, no-one was able to define criteria by which to judge good and bad composers. The topic was an opinion-fest from the start, with the added complication that people were constantly confusing and blending the concepts of "Worst" and "Least Favourite".
> 
> I hope that this new discussion will be a little more to the point.
> 
> Simply state composers and pieces that you don't like and give us a few reasons why you don't like them.
> 
> Bash away!


I like the kind gentle way you put the Q. 
*least favorite*
whereas had you said, *most hated of all your hatreds*,,,thats too vitriolic and could lead to flaming, fights, and all sorts of disruptive behaviors.

My pick of least favorite, separate from post modern mind you, as that list could be extensive,,,so in the medieval, baroque,classical, romantic, modern eras...I'd say my 
least favorite.
Everyone who knows me knows the answer already,,so I take my July 4th Constitutional 5th rights.
*would you give us at least the initials/*. 
No, can;'t, I am in enough trouble, am on, probation here at TC,,and so can't name the composer. 
As he is too respected and has a huge group following.

= I could get reported.


----------



## Strange Magic

Karl-Heinz Weißmüller Von Katzenjammer und Böring


----------



## Guest

paulbest said:


> I like the kind gentle way you put the Q.
> *least favorite*
> whereas had you said, *most hated of all your hatreds*,,,thats too vitriolic and could lead to flaming, fights, and all sorts of disruptive behaviors.
> 
> My pick of least favorite, separate from post modern mind you, as that list could be extensive,,,so in the medieval, baroque,classical, romantic, modern eras...I'd say my
> least favorite.
> Everyone who knows me knows the answer already,,so I take my July 4th Constitutional 5th rights.
> *would you give us at least the initials/*.
> No, can;'t, I am in enough trouble, am on, probation here at TC,,*and so can't name the composer.*
> As he is too respected and has a huge group following.
> 
> = I could get reported.


I'm just going to make a wild guess here, as I'm pretty sure you've said nothing previously that might have given the game away.

Let me think. Was it "T". No, no he wasn't bad enough, just wrote a load soppy Xmas music.

Was it "B..h". No no, can't be him either; he just wrote 1199 too many works that all sound the same.

Wait a minute, just wait a mo ... it's nearly there... bingo ... I think I've got it. It was a certain composer whose surname was .....


----------



## Guest

Kurkikohtaus said:


> I am starting this thread as a reaction to the endlessly pointless discussion of the "Who is the Worst Composer" thread. In 9 pages of posts, no-one was able to define criteria by which to judge good and bad composers. The topic was an opinion-fest from the start, with the added complication that people were constantly confusing and blending the concepts of "Worst" and "Least Favourite".
> 
> I hope that this new discussion will be a little more to the point.
> 
> Simply state composers and pieces that you don't like and give us a few reasons why you don't like them.
> 
> Bash away!


Kurki, you were a star. I wish you'd come back. This place needs people like you.


----------



## Kjetil Heggelund

I also like to say Satie. Just because...


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## Larkenfield

My least favorite composer for curing insomnia, making an organic salad, or setting the mood for a good night kiss with my seventh wife:


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## flamencosketches

Quite surprising to see so many Satie haters! I think he is kind of like a composer for non-classical fans, like Gorécki, Philip Glass, etc. 

Personally, I love his music and have for many years. Can't get enough of it.


----------



## paulbest

Partita said:


> I'm just going to make a wild guess here, as I'm pretty sure you've said nothing previously that might have given the game away.
> 
> Let me think. Was it "T". No, no he wasn't bad enough, just wrote a load soppy Xmas music.
> 
> Was it "B..h". No no, can't be him either; he just wrote 1199 too many works that all sound the same.
> 
> Wait a minute, just wait a mo ... it's nearly there... bingo ... I think I've got it. It was a certain composer whose surname was .....


ahh, please don't give any more hints,,,too late, how many composers have a *sur-name*?.

btw I really do not dislike T nor Bh,,,at least not on the level as I do the *mystery* composer.
Only 1 composers qualifies as my least liked.

with the exception of most the post modern group.
Now there its , *which of the post moderns do you like, name 1 or 2,,,if you can?*.


----------



## flamencosketches

My vote would have to be John Cage. Perhaps some day I will learn to love his music, but as of now, he does nothing for me.


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## vtpoet

Aaron Copland. There's just something about his music i really, really, really, don't like. It's irrational.


----------



## Guest

I'm not that keen on Mahler. I used to be but got fed up with the long-windedness of much of it. I found that I preferred early rather than late romantic music. Things improved several decades after Mahler with the emergence oi composers like Vaughan Williams and E J Moeran.


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## StrE3ss

One name : Schoenberg
but i nevers listen Cage...


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## paulbest

vtpoet said:


> Aaron Copland. There's just something about his music i really, really, really, don't like. It's irrational.


No I have no issues with his music in ine sense,,its OK, read the top comment in the YT upload, No other composers depicts American land , Copland is ameriac's composer. 
He is describing a mountain range that does not exist, in some places. 
Its over developed, polluted, commercialized, deforested, mined.
Sure you may find a few pristine places, but not much in old growth forests. 
Houses everywhere.
It is his ideology of America that gets me, 
Thus I reject everything he wrote.

Now Ives seems as you say, *irrational*. 
You have 3 *really* for Copland, I have 4 for Ives. 
and to think at one time I had 4 or 5 cds of his music. 
I never bought into Copland.


----------



## paulbest

StrE3ss said:


> One name : Schoenberg
> but i nevers listen Cage...


Yeah but is Cage Modern Music, or Post?
Some have dragged his name into classical music,,,its spurious in this Art.


----------



## Bulldog

Among famous composers, my least favorite is Vivaldi.

For the less famous, I'll go with Hanson and Milhaud.


----------



## paulbest

flamencosketches said:


> Quite surprising to see so many Satie haters! I think he is kind of like a composer for non-classical fans, like Gorécki, Philip Glass, etc.
> 
> Personally, I love his music and have for many years. Can't get enough of it.


Yes, Gorecki, Satie, Part, Ligeti, ,,,Glass, that list could go on and on,.,,,But is not this post classical composers?
I thought the OP was strictly classical composers.?


----------



## Bulldog

paulbest said:


> Yes, Gorecki, Satie, Part, Ligeti, ,,,Glass, that list could go on and on,.,,,But is not this post classical composers?
> I thought the OP was strictly classical composers.?


The composers listed above are all composers of classical music.


----------



## vtpoet

paulbest said:


> Now Ives seems as you say, *irrational*.


i wasn't clear, but by irrational I was referring to my own opinion. 

But if you really want to know what I think: Copland just sounds so cloying and formulaic to me. If he'd lived in the 18th century he would have been a fatuous and second rate JC Bach.*

*Don't ask me to defend my opinion.


----------



## Bulldog

vtpoet said:


> But if you really want to know what I think: Copland just sounds so cloying and formulaic to me. If he'd lived in the 18th century he would have been a fatuous and second rate JC Bach.


I'll take JC over Copland by a small margin.


----------



## paulbest

vtpoet said:


> i wasn't clear, but by irrational I was referring to my own opinion.
> 
> But if you really want to know what I think: Copland just sounds so cloying and formulaic to me. If he'd lived in the 18th century he would have been a fatuous and second rate JC Bach.*
> 
> *Don't ask me to defend my opinion.


Copland is lauded with lots of accolades and highest praises among the musical elite in the USA. 
His ideology and mine clash hard
His Appalachian Spring should be rather
Appalachian Destruction
Deforestation, pollution, hunting/trapping abuses, coal mines. 
I really loathe his stuff


----------



## Pat Fairlea

Strange Magic said:


> Karl-Heinz Weißmüller Von Katzenjammer und Böring


Hell, yes! And Bruno-Heinz Jaja.


----------



## Dimace

I hate Liszt! 



...because, with his greatness, made me eternally his slave!


----------



## CnC Bartok

Strange Magic said:


> Karl-Heinz Weißmüller Von Katzenjammer und Böring


Now hang on a minute! Both of these made very valuable contributions to the world of chamber music; Katzenjammer (he dropped the "von" bit while living in Uganda) wrote a fabulous piano sextet (in E# minor, Op.547) which really does deserve to be heard. And Boring's contributions are the interestingly quattourdecaphonic violin sonatas, which he composed after his untimely death from congenital halitosis.

You must not simply dismiss these people as composers of poor music. Open your ears! :angel:

Interestingly, though, if you Google these chaps, the first image you get is of George W Bush. I kid you not!

Me? I loathe Britten.


----------



## Strange Magic

CnC Bartok said:


> Now hang on a minute! Both of these made very valuable contributions to the world of chamber music; Katzenjammer (he dropped the "von" bit while living in Uganda) wrote a fabulous piano sextet (in E# minor, Op.547) which really does deserve to be heard. And Boring's contributions are the interestingly quattourdecaphonic violin sonatas, which he composed after his untimely death from congenital halitosis.
> 
> You must not simply dismiss these people as composers of poor music. Open your ears! :angel:
> 
> Interestingly, though, if you Google these chaps, the first image you get is of George W Bush. I kid you not!
> 
> Me? I loathe Britten.


I attempted to hear Katzenjammer's piano sextet that you reference above and can state with irrefutable assertion that the first three notes sounded on the piano broke several bones in my face. (BTW, his name was Von Katzenjammer und Böring, but he did suffer from multiple personality disorder and often separately introduced himself as either Katzenjammer or Böring),

I see you dislike Britten. Benjamin Britten often composed under the pseudonym John Ireland--another multiple personality example. But do you like Britten's music when written as Ireland's? It's an entirely different kettle of fish!


----------



## Guest

Strange Magic said:


> I see you dislike Britten. Benjamin Britten often composed under the pseudonym John Ireland--another multiple personality example. But do you like Britten's music when written as Ireland's? It's an entirely different kettle of fish!


That's a new one on me. Can you provide any evidence?


----------



## Becca

Partita said:


> That's a new one on me. Can you *provide any evidence*?


Be serious! This is TC, evidence is for other less informed sites.


----------



## Pat Fairlea

Becca said:


> Be serious! This is TC, evidence is for other less informed sites.


Quite right, too! Subjectivity R'Us.

On a more relevant note, I have yet to hear a piece by Max Reger that hasn't made me irritated.


----------



## KenOC

Pat Fairlea said:


> ...On a more relevant note, I have yet to hear a piece by Max Reger that hasn't made me irritated.


 Brings Stravinsky to mind: "Why is it that whenever I hear a piece of music I don't like, it's always by Villa-Lobos?"


----------



## elgar's ghost

Sullivan. If I had to make a choice between spending the rest of my life with no music at all or spending it solely with G & S comic operas I don't know which option would derange me the most.


----------



## Strange Magic

KenOC said:


> Brings Stravinsky to mind: "Why is it that whenever I hear a piece of music I don't like, it's always by Villa-Lobos?"


Villa-Lobos said exactly the same thing about both Stravinsky's music and his own.


----------



## 1996D

I think Mendelssohn is overrated. His contemporaries Schumann, Liszt, and Chopin outclass him yet he's very often mentioned like he's important. His violin concerto is his only great work.


----------



## Guest

1996D said:


> I think Mendelssohn is overrated. His contemporaries Schumann, Liszt, and Chopin outclass him yet he's very often mentioned like he's important. His violin concerto is his only great work.


In that case I won't be inviting you to my forthcoming mid-summer outdoor _soirée _where I have arranged a top line up of artists to perform a selection of early romantic chamber works including some by Felix Mendelssohn.... (I wish).


----------



## Opera For Life

elgars ghost said:


> Sullivan. If I had to make a choice between spending the rest of my life with no music at all or spending it solely with G & S comic operas I don't know which option would derange me the most.


YOU SHOCK ME 

I can see why you would say that, but for me, in small doses, the silly ensembles, duets and earwormy melodies can be a lovely changeup after some heavier fare like Shostakovich, Mahler or Beethoven.

Not to mention that on the rare moments they do get serious for a bit, it can be quite moving, like here:


----------



## Opera For Life

Let's see if I can revive this thread with scandal, I don't like Benjamin Britten, I'm not saying I think he's a bad composer, who am I to judge, but I just.. can't stand what I've heard of his music, it sounds so self-indulgent, forcedly "original" and pretentious to me.

I am open to a change of mind, since I have not extensively researched his output for anything palatable, I gave up after a few pieces, but any time I hear something by him in a recital or concert, I despair.. xD

I do however have the disc of him and Rostropovich playing the Arpeggione and his musicianship is wonderful there, so nothing personal against the man or his qualities as a performing musician..

There, now you can bite my head off


----------



## Allegro Con Brio

Most of the time when I think I dislike a composer, I give him another shot (or two, or ten) and he finally clicks for me. Schumann is still not my favorite, but I used to dislike his music a lot more than I do now. Ditto for several British composers like Elgar and RVW. I can't say I have a single "least favorite," but I will agree with Opera for Life that Britten is not my cup 'o tea (with the pretty big exception of the War Requiem, which I love). Also Scriabin. I know he has lots of fans around here, but I'm sorry to say that I hear his music (especially his later stuff) as obnoxious, pretentious, self-obsessed, grating, and chaotic.


----------



## flamencosketches

flamencosketches said:


> My vote would have to be John Cage. Perhaps some day I will learn to love his music, but as of now, he does nothing for me.


:lol:

Here we are not even a year later, and I LOVE a lot of Cage's music now. Funny how that works.


----------



## flamencosketches

Least favorite, least favorite... I don't know, maybe Czerny.


----------



## caracalla

Opera For Life said:


> I don't like Benjamin Britten, I'm not saying I think he's a bad composer, who am I to judge, but I just.. can't stand what I've heard of his music, it sounds so self-indulgent, forcedly "original" and pretentious to me.


You'd better be well dug in before dizwell gets here.

In the meantime, if you're still in the market for something palatable, you could do worse than his 'Hymn to the Virgin'. Choral setting of a Middle-English text, written when Britten was still at school and revised a few years later. It's not the The Messiah, but I don't think it could reasonably be damned as unduly self-indulgent, original or pretentious. Anyway, it only last 3 minutes, so the pain will be short if you hate it.


----------



## Opera For Life

Allegro Con Brio said:


> Most of the time when I think I dislike a composer, I give him another shot (or two, or ten) and he finally clicks for me. Schumann is still not my favorite, but I used to dislike his music a lot more than I do now. Ditto for several British composers like Elgar and RVW. I can't say I have a single "least favorite," but I will agree with Opera for Life that Britten is not my cup 'o tea (with the pretty big exception of the War Requiem, which I love). Also Scriabin. I know he has lots of fans around here, but I'm sorry to say that I hear his music (especially his later stuff) as obnoxious, pretentious, self-obsessed, grating, and chaotic.


I do that too, but with Britten I gave up xD
Schumann is a good example of a composer who you can really dislike on first encounter, but who gets better every time you revisit him, I think, he also needs the best performers for his music to thrill, he's no Mozart or Beethoven, who even sound good in mediocre hands..
Scriabin.. yeah, I have to be in a certain mood for him, but he is usually at least interesting


----------



## Opera For Life

flamencosketches said:


> Least favorite, least favorite... I don't know, maybe Czerny.


haha, too easy, it's like shooting fish in a Barrel, though I have to admit to liking some of his etude melodies, probably because I drilled on them so long when I was younger that some sort of stockholm syndrome must have set in


----------



## Opera For Life

caracalla said:


> You'd better be well dug in before dizwell gets here.
> 
> In the meantime, if you're still in the market for something palatable, you could do worse than his 'Hymn to the Virgin'. Choral setting of a Middle-English text, written when Britten was still at school and revised a few years later. It's not the The Messiah, but I don't think it could reasonably be damned as unduly self-indulgent, original or pretentious. Anyway, it only last 3 minutes, so the pain will be short if you hate it.


Is Dizwell some ardent Britten admirer? if so, I will steel myself 

I like the hymn, thanks!  But I think that has a lot to do with how traditional it is, even though the harmonies are of course much more evolved.. Is it very representative of a style which he used in later works?


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## Ethereality

My least favorite composer is most definitely Franklin Flabbergasted Fart. I don't care what people say about Fart's wind quintets, being "clearly the peak of the genre." I think they stink. I don't see how anyone familiar with Gass's experimental works, Sonatas & Interludes for Broken Winds, could prefer the old Farts.


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## consuono

Tricky question. I don't like much from the past 50 years or so. It's usually pretentious and written by uni faculty for uni faculty and critics. Of the notable composers, I'd say Elgar. Just never was for me, although the first 30 seconds of his cello concerto is pretty good.


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## caracalla

Opera For Life said:


> Is it very representative of a style which he used in later works?


In general I think not, but there are affinities with some of Britten's later church music. There's a complete 2-CD set of this ('The Sacred Choral Music') put out a few years ago by Edward Higginbottom and New College, Oxford, which can be explored on Spotify. If you liked HttV, I'd be very surprised if there aren't several other numbers there which also appeal, and may lead you on to other things. A particular favourite of mine is the Agnus Dei from his Missa Brevis, which is a lot later (1959).

I'm no Britten fan, but I do rate his church music quite highly - most modern stuff is either boring, intolerably naff, or else way too 'advanced' for realistic use. I think he is (not always but can be) far more successful than most in wedding tradition to modernity in this field.

But look, by no stretch of the imagination am I any kind of go-to for Britten's music - he's miles away from my usual stamping grounds. If you want help in trying to get to grips with him, I suspect dizwell is your man (I see you've thrown down your gauntlet on his thread, so you should find him soon enough). You needn't worry, he doesn't seem the type to take it personally when other people don't like what he likes.


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## StDior

About Schumann: His secret is in his chamber works. At chamber works, I feel he is much stronger, than at orchestral works. At piano trios, he is leading composer of the genre together with Beethoven IMHO. Just an excerpt to try to prove his greatness:


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## Guest002

caracalla said:


> If you want help in trying to get to grips with him, I suspect dizwell is your man (I see you've thrown down your gauntlet on his thread, so you should find him soon enough). You needn't worry, he doesn't seem the type to take it personally when other people don't like what he likes.


Aw, thanks for that last comment! And you're right. If someone doesn't like Britten, and says so quite as vehemently as OfL, there's nothing I can say or do to break down that degree of dislike of the man or his music, so let's not get stuck into it!

However, anyone that can listen to the last fugue of _The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra_ without being excited as hell deserves to eat Marmite for a month. 

I will repeat what I've said here before, though: I absolutely *hated* Death in Venice for the longest time. And then it clicked. And that pattern applied (for me) to nearly all his works. There are very few that I can think of as being a 'wow!' from the get-go (A Midsummer Night's Dream being the big exception, IIRC). They need time and repeated hearings to get under your skin, I think. Once they do, they never leave you. If you're not lucky enough to get to that point, well... move on, life's too short!

Oddly enough, I would be a bit suspicious if any of his music really wowed you on first hearing. That happened for thousands with his War Requiem, of course: one of the biggest-selling classical LPs of all time, if memory serves. Britten never reconciled himself to overnight success like that. He thought he'd maybe done something wrong, been a bit too obvious, a bit too populist. It's [one of the reasons] why he went off and started writing austere Church Parables and Cello music thereafter, for over a decade. I like the War Requiem quite a lot, but it's definitely not his finest moment.

To your Hymn to the Virgin recommendation (which is an excellent one), and the Missa brevis (ditto), I would perhaps add the _Quatre Chansons Françaises_. Debussian with a touch of Mahler, I think. They date from 1928 when he was 15. I don't know how you could listen to that and not find it touching. His _Festival Te Deum_ (Op. 32) is another good piece of his Church music, too: simple in effect, and intended for the skills of an ordinary parish choir, but the writing is disconcertingly complex.


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## Guest002

To the question of the thread, I think I will say: Charles Ives. There's not a thing of his I have that I don't dislike viscerally.


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## Opera For Life

caracalla said:


> In general I think not, but there are affinities with some of Britten's later church music. There's a complete 2-CD set of this ('The Sacred Choral Music') put out a few years ago by Edward Higginbottom and New College, Oxford, which can be explored on Spotify. If you liked HttV, I'd be very surprised if there aren't several other numbers there which also appeal, and may lead you on to other things. A particular favourite of mine is the Agnus Dei from his Missa Brevis, which is a lot later (1959).
> 
> I'm no Britten fan, but I do rate his church music quite highly - most modern stuff is either boring, intolerably naff, or else way too 'advanced' for realistic use. I think he is (not always but can be) far more successful than most in wedding tradition to modernity in this field.
> 
> But look, by no stretch of the imagination am I any kind of go-to for Britten's music - he's miles away from my usual stamping grounds. If you want help in trying to get to grips with him, I suspect dizwell is your man (I see you've thrown down your gauntlet on his thread, so you should find him soon enough). You needn't worry, he doesn't seem the type to take it personally when other people don't like what he likes.


I will check out some of his church music, thanks! 
I feel uncomfortable about not liking him, I know it's usually a failing or ignorance in myself when I don't appreciate a composer, I used to have great trouble with Wagner and Debussy as well, sometimes still do, but I've learned to at least appreciate their works and recognise their genius, even though I will probably never love them as much as most other composers.. a bit like you and Britten maybe


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## Opera For Life

StDior said:


> About Schumann: His secret is in his chamber works. At chamber works, I feel he is much stronger, than at orchestral works. At piano trios, he is leading composer of the genre together with Beethoven IMHO. Just an excerpt to try to prove his greatness:


Haha, I don't think you have to prove anything on that point, though I would have to say that Schubert is surely up there in chamber works no? I mean, the quartets and quintet never fail to floor me..


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## Opera For Life

dizwell said:


> Aw, thanks for that last comment! And you're right. If someone doesn't like Britten, and says so quite as vehemently as OfL, there's nothing I can say or do to break down that degree of dislike of the man or his music, so let's not get stuck into it!
> 
> However, anyone that can listen to the last fugue of _The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra_ without being excited as hell deserves to eat Marmite for a month.
> 
> I will repeat what I've said here before, though: I absolutely *hated* Death in Venice for the longest time. And then it clicked. And that pattern applied (for me) to nearly all his works. There are very few that I can think of as being a 'wow!' from the get-go (A Midsummer Night's Dream being the big exception, IIRC). They need time and repeated hearings to get under your skin, I think. Once they do, they never leave you. If you're not lucky enough to get to that point, well... move on, life's too short!
> 
> Oddly enough, I would be a bit suspicious if any of his music really wowed you on first hearing. That happened for thousands with his War Requiem, of course: one of the biggest-selling classical LPs of all time, if memory serves. Britten never reconciled himself to overnight success like that. He thought he'd maybe done something wrong, been a bit too obvious, a bit too populist. It's [one of the reasons] why he went off and started writing austere Church Parables and Cello music thereafter, for over a decade. I like the War Requiem quite a lot, but it's definitely not his finest moment.
> 
> To your Hymn to the Virgin recommendation (which is an excellent one), and the Missa brevis (ditto), I would perhaps add the _Quatre Chansons Françaises_. Debussian with a touch of Mahler, I think. They date from 1928 when he was 15. I don't know how you could listen to that and not find it touching. His _Festival Te Deum_ (Op. 32) is another good piece of his Church music, too: simple in effect, and intended for the skills of an ordinary parish choir, but the writing is disconcertingly complex.


Haha, I really don't dislike him, why should I, by all accounts he was very nice and loyal, it's really just his music, but I will try the Young Persons's guid to the orchestra and The quatre chansons, I will forcibly keep butting my head against the wall and see if any positive effect sets in.. I really don't like disliking someone's music so much when so many people love it, it feels like I'm missing out on something..

I do have to say that some things about his character totally elude me, why would you dislike being successful because of a monumental piece you wrote with a message that got through to people? If he thought it was below par I could understand, but it smacks a bit of elitism no? Or am I not getting the right picture?


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## Opera For Life

dizwell said:


> To the question of the thread, I think I will say: Charles Ives. There's not a thing of his I have that I don't dislike viscerally.


Can't say I know much about his music, that probably says enough, don't know much about Villa-Lobos either, maybe when all the relatively unsung/underrated wonderful composers like Porpora, Locke, Tailleferre, Zelenka, Korngold or Norbert Burgmuller (NOT the other one) become overfamiliar to me I will be interested in them..


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## Allegro Con Brio

dizwell said:


> To the question of the thread, I think I will say: Charles Ives. There's not a thing of his I have that I don't dislike viscerally.


Ives is weird, and I like weird. Thus, I enjoy a good deal of his highly innovative work even though I would not call any of it among my absolute favorite music.


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## consuono

Allegro Con Brio said:


> Ives is weird, and I like weird. Thus, I enjoy a good deal of his highly innovative work even though I would not call any of it among my absolute favorite music.


I think The Unanswered Question, Central Park in the Dark and parts of the Third and Fourth symphonies are interesting. Even so something about Ives' work seems somehow like a one-trick pony.


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## adriesba

Ethereality said:


> My least favorite composer is most definitely Franklin Flabbergasted Fart. I don't care what people say about Fart's wind quintets, being "clearly the peak of the genre." I think they stink. I don't see how anyone familiar with Gass's experimental works, Sonatas & Interludes for Broken Winds, could prefer the old Farts.


Oh my word, I can't stop laughing at this! Best response! :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:


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## Guest002

Opera For Life said:


> Haha, I really don't dislike him, why should I, by all accounts he was very nice and loyal, it's really just his music, but I will try the Young Persons's guid to the orchestra and The quatre chansons, I will forcibly keep butting my head against the wall and see if any positive effect sets in.. I really don't like disliking someone's music so much when so many people love it, it feels like I'm missing out on something..
> 
> I do have to say that some things about his character totally elude me, why would you dislike being successful because of a monumental piece you wrote with a message that got through to people? If he thought it was below par I could understand, but it smacks a bit of elitism no? Or am I not getting the right picture?


I think you are missing what a profound sense of insecurity can do to a person.

Additionally, when he was conducting or playing piano for someone, he would routinely vomit and would have to have a small glass of brandy to sort himself out before taking the stage. Someone, pre-performance, once tried to pull away a stray piece of fluff or fabric that was on his suit: he turned around and snapped at them, "Leave it! I _like_ it!" This was a man who was deeply nervous, despite being a consummate professional composer, conductor and pianist for years and years.

There is also the slight problem of his being homosexual at the same time as the guy who practically won us the war (Alan Turing) was chemically castrated for being so, too. He and Pears were, during the 1950s at least, forever convinced the police would be knocking on their door next.

If you live your life convinced you're about to stuff up a performance, or that you're not really terribly worthy of anything, or that "they" are out to get you... then suddenly being told your latest work has sold 200,000 copies does strange things to a man! He _wanted_ to be well-regarded. When he was, he wasn't quite sure if it was sincere... or deserved.


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## Guest002

Allegro Con Brio said:


> Ives is weird, and I like weird. Thus, I enjoy a good deal of his highly innovative work even though I would not call any of it among my absolute favorite music.


See, this is why I say he's my least favourite, but not my worst, composer. Despite not enjoying a thing of his that he wrote, I won't get rid of it, nor stop myself from acquiring more of it, because I rather suspect there's something profound about him that I just need to discover. At the moment, the 'weirdness' you describe is an obstacle to me doing that: it's the only darn'd thing I hear! But one day, the layers will peel away and I'll be glad I kept him. Or so I keep telling myself!

Ketelbey, on the other hand, is superficially quite attractive and (terribly!) easy listening, but I'd happily call time on it all, because (I suspect) underneath the superficial attractiveness is... absolutely nothing.


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## Opera For Life

dizwell said:


> I think you are missing what a profound sense of insecurity can do to a person.
> 
> Additionally, when he was conducting or playing piano for someone, he would routinely vomit and would have to have a small glass of brandy to sort himself out before taking the stage. Someone, pre-performance, once tried to pull away a stray piece of fluff or fabric that was on his suit: he turned around and snapped at them, "Leave it! I _like_ it!" This was a man who was deeply nervous, despite being a consummate professional composer, conductor and pianist for years and years.
> 
> There is also the slight problem of his being homosexual at the same time as the guy who practically won us the war (Alan Turing) was chemically castrated for being so, too. He and Pears were, during the 1950s at least, forever convinced the police would be knocking on their door next.
> 
> If you live your life convinced you're about to stuff up a performance, or that you're not really terribly worthy of anything, or that "they" are out to get you... then suddenly being told your latest work has sold 200,000 copies does strange things to a man! He _wanted_ to be well-regarded. When he was, he wasn't quite sure if it was sincere... or deserved.


Thanks, I do understand it better now, it doesn't sound like his head was a nice place to be for him..
Yeah, me technically being a millennial doesn't mean I don't appreciate the amount of positive change that has happened in western society since the 50's and 60's..

Knowing he was that nervous and unsure of himself does sadden me, having talent, the will to perform, and yet no confidence might be a very unkind curse indeed.


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## Guest002

Opera For Life said:


> Thanks, I do understand it better now, it doesn't sound like his head was a nice place to be for him..
> Yeah, me technically being a millennial doesn't mean I don't appreciate the amount of positive change that has happened in western society since the 50's and 60's..
> 
> Knowing he was that nervous and unsure of himself does sadden me, having talent, the will to perform, and yet no confidence might be a very unkind curse indeed.


It is definitely strange. I mean, this is a man who built a festival of arts and music from nothing but a 'lark' for some friends who fancied a visit to the seaside into a cornerstone of the nation's festival calendar. He caused to be built a glorious concert hall from a dilapidated maltings building -twice, as it happens, since the first one burnt down. He could write pages and pages of full score and send them off for engraving without having second thoughts. He didn't suffer fools gladly, either. Be less than professional in your approach to singing or playing, and he'd drop you like a ton of bricks. So it isn't that he had no confidence at all: in large measure, he had more confidence in his ability to do music 'right' than perhaps I've suggested.

But this was a man about whom everything screamed 'incredible talent, drive, forcefulness and professionalism' -and his physical and cultural achievements prove that he _was_ all of those things. And yet he got sick before a performance, because of nerves. It's a curious mixture, for sure.

If you want to get to know something about his life and times, in parallel with tasting his music, you could do a lot worse than get hold of a copy of Michael Kennedy's biography of him for The Master Musicians series. A cheap second-hand paperback version could be yours for around 49p! It's not the greatest biography and it is in some ways rather outdated now, since a lot more documentation has been unearthed since it was written, but it's a really good overview of him all the same -and Michael Kennedy was an outstanding understander of music and musicians (he was good buddies with Ralph Vaughan Williams at one time, too!)


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## Opera For Life

dizwell said:


> It is definitely strange. I mean, this is a man who built a festival of arts and music from nothing but a 'lark' for some friends who fancied a visit to the seaside into a cornerstone of the nation's festival calendar. He caused to be built a glorious concert hall from a dilapidated maltings building -twice, as it happens, since the first one burnt down. He could write pages and pages of full score and send them off for engraving without having second thoughts. He didn't suffer fools gladly, either. Be less than professional in your approach to singing or playing, and he'd drop you like a ton of bricks. So it isn't that he had no confidence at all: in large measure, he had more confidence in his ability to do music 'right' than perhaps I've suggested.
> 
> But this was a man about whom everything screamed 'incredible talent, drive, forcefulness and professionalism' -and his physical and cultural achievements prove that he _was_ all of those things. And yet he got sick before a performance, because of nerves. It's a curious mixture, for sure.
> 
> If you want to get to know something about his life and times, in parallel with tasting his music, you could do a lot worse than get hold of a copy of Michael Kennedy's biography of him for The Master Musicians series. A cheap second-hand paperback version could be yours for around 49p! It's not the greatest biography and it is in some ways rather outdated now, since a lot more documentation has been unearthed since it was written, but it's a really good overview of him all the same -and Michael Kennedy was an outstanding understander of music and musicians (he was good buddies with Ralph Vaughan Williams at one time, too!)


He must have had a facility for bringing people together and stirring them into action, it's a rare talent.
Oh, so his nerves were mainly limited to performance anxiety then? Many people have it, I've never understood it myself, I've only ever had anxiety when I knew I haven't put the work in or it was above my level.. 
Maybe it was just a great need to please everyone? Or mainly the people whose opinion he respected..

Thanks for the biography tip, I will look into it, but to get it delivered to where I live it will be considerably more than 49p I fear , more like 6 euros delivery and whatever the 49p converts to xD

I listened to the young person's guide to the orchestra, and kinda liked it, I'm very conscious of it being written in a very accessible style, but still, variations on a theme are usually very telling of a composers thought process.

I also dusted off my neglected album of his Cello sonata performed by himself and Rostropovich.
And I think I know why I don't like his music better now, I don't get the message it's trying to convey, the musicality gets lost in the weird harmonies and melodies. THis is not just due to my lack of very complex harmonic knowledge because I can usually get past that, but it's.. It's like, and don't take this the wrong way, but, as if an alien had listened to a big chunk of classical music, up to the 20th century, and then tried to write his take on it. I feel like I need a "Britten dictionary" to get the musical language, is my point.

THis is why I called it "forced originality", because it feels like willfully choosing the path less travelled just because it's more interesting to him.
But to me it goes against many of my musical instincts..

Does that make any sense?

It's not necessarily bad news, it means that once I understand his thinking, it will presumably open his music up to me and sound unlike anything else..

I wil keep trying out some pieces and see if anything changes


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## Guest002

Opera For Life said:


> Thanks for the biography tip, I will look into it, but to get it delivered to where I live it will be considerably more than 49p I fear , more like 6 euros delivery and whatever the 49p converts to xD


I think 49p translates into something like 30 Euro cents! The postage will be worth it!



Opera For Life said:


> I listened to the young person's guide to the orchestra, and kinda liked it, I'm very conscious of it being written in a very accessible style, but still, variations on a theme are usually very telling of a composers thought process.


Well, you might get to like Britten then, because he seldom could refrain from writing in variation form for long. He loved it. Also things like fugues and passacalias. He loved the technical precision required to write in that sort of 'old' style, I think.



Opera For Life said:


> I also dusted off my neglected album of his Cello sonata performed by himself and Rostropovich.
> And I think I know why I don't like his music better now, I don't get the message it's trying to convey, the musicality gets lost in the weird harmonies and melodies. THis is not just due to my lack of very complex harmonic knowledge because I can usually get past that, but it's.. It's like, and don't take this the wrong way, but, as if an alien had listened to a big chunk of classical music, up to the 20th century, and then tried to write his take on it. I feel like I need a "Britten dictionary" to get the musical language, is my point.
> 
> THis is why I called it "forced originality", because it feels like willfully choosing the path less travelled just because it's more interesting to him.
> But to me it goes against many of my musical instincts..
> 
> Does that make any sense?


Speaking entirely personally, but you are really diving in the deep end by listening to his cello stuff before you get his 'musical language' under your skin. The cello works all date from 1961 onwards. That means they are from his 'late' period, meaning he's astringent and [relatively quite] difficult. From his post-War Requiem phase, if you prefer to think of it that way.

If I were you, I'd start with some of his works from the 1930s. It's technically complex and is in distinctive idiom, but I think it's much more approachable. Something like the Frank Bridge Variations (told you he liked variation form!), Sinfonia da Requiem, Diversions (variations for piano left-hand). Given your user name, I assume you wouldn't be averse to a little vocal music and opera, so I'd suggest starting with Les Illuminations, Paul Bunyan, Peter Grimes, Billy Budd, Gloriana, A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Once you've got his early and middle period stuff under your belt, I think the late period stuff comes much more naturally.

But no, I don't really get what you're driving at. He wrote the cello works for Rostropovich with whom he had recently struck up a great friendship. They were written for Rostropovich's personality as much as anything else (one of Britten's sayings was, 'People are my tone rows': in other words, he rarely wrote a note without thinking deeply about who he was writing for, be it a singer or a cellist). Any 'forced originality' you find in his works is going to be, I think, genuine originality, because he was trying to write works in a distinctive language that would suit the performer he had in mind for them (usually Peter Pears, of course, but Rostopovich, Janet Baker, John Shirley-Quirke and so on at others).

Just remember, too, what was said (by some) about his Prince of the Pagodas and, indeed, the War Requiem: that the Prince of the Pagodas (his only full-length ballet) sounded awfully like borrowed Tchaikovsky; and that the War Requiem sounded rather like borrowed Verdi. And his answer to both criticisms was along the lines of 'well, if you're going to write a ballet or a requiem, you'd be mad not to borrow from the masters'. Now, I'm going to argue that both works are stunningly original in conception and execution -but there's no doubt that Britten knew himself to be part of a long musical tradition that he felt free to borrow from as needs arose.

I guess what I'm saying is that he has been accused in the past, by some, of being somewhat less than original, no 'forced' about it!

But I think if you work up to his later works by getting comfortable with the earlier ones first, you'll find his harmonic language much easier to assimilate and you'll discover it original and inventive (but I'm biased on the subject, I realise!)



Opera For Life said:


> It's not necessarily bad news, it means that once I understand his thinking, it will presumably open his music up to me and sound unlike anything else..
> 
> I wil keep trying out some pieces and see if anything changes


Good luck. I think he's worth it. He won't get you bragging rights (in the sense of saying you enjoy Stockhausen and Boulez gets you entrée into very exclusive clubs of people who would otherwise be quite dangerous to know!), but he's a very worthwhile musical investment, it seems to me.

And, I will just mention that although I am posting from my 'AbsolutelyBaching' account, this is still actually Dizwell typing: I had technical issues with the Dizwell account which seem to require me to create a second, new account to post from to get sorted. Best of luck, anyway.


----------



## adriesba

dizwell said:


> See, this is why I say he's my least favourite, but not my worst, composer. Despite not enjoying a thing of his that he wrote, I won't get rid of it, nor stop myself from acquiring more of it, because I rather suspect there's something profound about him that I just need to discover. At the moment, the 'weirdness' you describe is an obstacle to me doing that: it's the only darn'd thing I hear! But one day, the layers will peel away and I'll be glad I kept him. Or so I keep telling myself!
> 
> Ketelbey, on the other hand, is superficially quite attractive and (terribly!) easy listening, but I'd happily call time on it all, because (I suspect) underneath the superficial attractiveness is... absolutely nothing.


I've heard that piece about bells on the meadow or whatever (I think you mentioned it on another thread), and I must say it was quite schmaltzy. It reminded me of corny soundtrack for a cheesy movie. The bell sounds were overdone, and the piece sounds as if the composer is trying way too hard to make the listener feel sentimental. It's somewhat irritating to listen to.


----------



## Guest002

adriesba said:


> I've heard that piece about bells on the meadow or whatever (I think you mentioned it on another thread), and I must say it was quite schmaltzy. It reminded me of corny soundtrack for a cheesy movie. The bell sounds were overdone, and the piece sounds as if the composer is trying way too hard to make the listener feel sentimental. It's somewhat irritating to listen to.


That's the one! *Bells across the meadows*. If music has something equivalent to Victorian England's _Penny Dreadfuls_, that would be one of them, I think.

I don't personally find it irritating: it's charming in its way, I think. But at the end of it (well, about a third of the way through, to be honest), I always think, "This is bad Eric Coates". And when you think it's Eric Coates done badly, you know the bells are actually the sound of the bottom of a barrel being scraped. 

(Posting as AbsolutelyBaching now, but that's actually the same guy as the Dizwell account you were replying to, for technical reasons!)


----------



## Opera For Life

AbsolutelyBaching said:


> I think 49p translates into something like 30 Euro cents! The postage will be worth it!
> 
> Well, you might get to like Britten then, because he seldom could refrain from writing in variation form for long. He loved it. Also things like fugues and passacalias. He loved the technical precision required to write in that sort of 'old' style, I think.
> 
> Speaking entirely personally, but you are really diving in the deep end by listening to his cello stuff before you get his 'musical language' under your skin. The cello works all date from 1961 onwards. That means they are from his 'late' period, meaning he's astringent and [relatively quite] difficult. From his post-War Requiem phase, if you prefer to think of it that way.
> 
> If I were you, I'd start with some of his works from the 1930s. It's technically complex and is in distinctive idiom, but I think it's much more approachable. Something like the Frank Bridge Variations (told you he liked variation form!), Sinfonia da Requiem, Diversions (variations for piano left-hand). Given your user name, I assume you wouldn't be averse to a little vocal music and opera, so I'd suggest starting with Les Illuminations, Paul Bunyan, Peter Grimes, Billy Budd, Gloriana, A Midsummer Night's Dream.
> 
> Once you've got his early and middle period stuff under your belt, I think the late period stuff comes much more naturally.
> 
> But no, I don't really get what you're driving at. He wrote the cello works for Rostropovich with whom he had recently struck up a great friendship. They were written for Rostropovich's personality as much as anything else (one of Britten's sayings was, 'People are my tone rows': in other words, he rarely wrote a note without thinking deeply about who he was writing for, be it a singer or a cellist). Any 'forced originality' you find in his works is going to be, I think, genuine originality, because he was trying to write works in a distinctive language that would suit the performer he had in mind for them (usually Peter Pears, of course, but Rostopovich, Janet Baker, John Shirley-Quirke and so on at others).
> 
> Just remember, too, what was said (by some) about his Prince of the Pagodas and, indeed, the War Requiem: that the Prince of the Pagodas (his only full-length ballet) sounded awfully like borrowed Tchaikovsky; and that the War Requiem sounded rather like borrowed Verdi. And his answer to both criticisms was along the lines of 'well, if you're going to write a ballet or a requiem, you'd be mad not to borrow from the masters'. Now, I'm going to argue that both works are stunningly original in conception and execution -but there's no doubt that Britten knew himself to be part of a long musical tradition that he felt free to borrow from as needs arose.
> 
> I guess what I'm saying is that he has been accused in the past, by some, of being somewhat less than original, no 'forced' about it!
> 
> But I think if you work up to his later works by getting comfortable with the earlier ones first, you'll find his harmonic language much easier to assimilate and you'll discover it original and inventive (but I'm biased on the subject, I realise!)
> 
> Good luck. I think he's worth it. He won't get you bragging rights (in the sense of saying you enjoy Stockhausen and Boulez gets you entrée into very exclusive clubs of people who would otherwise be quite dangerous to know!), but he's a very worthwhile musical investment, it seems to me.
> 
> And, I will just mention that although I am posting from my 'AbsolutelyBaching' account, this is still actually Dizwell typing: I had technical issues with the Dizwell account which seem to require me to create a second, new account to post from to get sorted. Best of luck, anyway.


Oooh, if there is anything I like more than variations, it's fugues 

Ah, it was you then that counselled me to start at the beginning, I will do that, but I did just listen to the Requiem, I was curious, and I like a challenge, big more than small 
Plus, since you said it was one of his most popular works, I reasoned that it might be accessible in it's form (I love Requiems), and subject matter (WWII).

And It kinda turned out that way, when you listen to something, willing yourself to see the good sides, sometimes that's what happens.
I kinda liked the Sanctus and Benedictus, and the whole Libera Me movement, and more than kinda liked the second part of the Dies Irae Movement, from the Confutatis onward.. 

I had some trouble overall with the baritone and tenor solos, though Fischer-Dieskau's voice helped.
So now I will go back to some of his earlier works, which you suggested.

It's interesting, so you might say that what I had trouble with might be more the musical character of Rostropovich as expressed through the composition than Britten's style.. Though I realise that might be veering a bit too far one way..

Haha, I've never felt any bragging rights about my classical tastes..None of my irl friends like classical music much, or wouldn't even know the difference between Stockhausen or Boulez, let alone Britten, I even wonder if they could tell the difference between Baroque or Beethoven :lol:

Thanks for your diligence!


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