# "Great trash"



## fbjim (Mar 8, 2021)

One of the most famous quotes by Pauline Kael, the famed film critic, was about the appreciation of "great trash". Arguably this sort of thing started with French film critics lauding genre directors like John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock and Howard Hawks - and we still see it with the critical appreciation of films as "low" as Alien, The Terminator or Halloween.

So what's "great trash" in classical music to you? I happen to love vulgarity and excess, which is why I love Berlioz and Strauss - I think Salome and Elektra are possibly the greatest trash the medium has produced. Berlioz has the Tempest fantasy, maybe the most gloopy, unapologetic trashy romantic thing he ever did, and another work I adore. Or is classical music too inherently elevated in its cultural standing to really produce "great trash"? Is "great trash" vulgarity and romantic excess, or is it populist, academically "dubious" music like the radio playing a big band orchestra rendition of Vivaldi?


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## Red Terror (Dec 10, 2018)

John Williams' output.


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## allaroundmusicenthusiast (Jun 3, 2020)

If Alfred Hitchcock is great trash then I can't even begin to imagine what great is, or what trash is for that matter. I don't think I get the concept, how can trash be great? Maybe something kitschy or camp, but none of your examples are that, neither is JW.

Now decadent, which Salome or Elektra could very well be, is an entirely different concept. Although again unrelated to Hitchcock, Ford or Alien


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## GucciManeIsTheNewWebern (Jul 29, 2020)

I get what OP is going for but it's ultimately too subjective.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

I don't think of any of the music, or movies, or books, etc., that I enjoy as trash. I don't even think of the music that I don't like as trash, in fact, there's no music I would describe as trash. There's only some that I truly like, but the rest has value and I can usually find something about any music that I find interesting and worthwhile to listen to.


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## Aurelian (Sep 9, 2011)

Shostakovich's 12th Symphony, objectively, is not great music. But I find it fun.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

allaroundmusicenthusiast said:


> ...
> 
> Now decadent, which Salome or Elektra could very well be, is an entirely different concept. Although again unrelated to Hitchcock, Ford or Alien


Indeed, "decadent" is a word that portrays the very essence of the Salome tale. And to have written something like Strauss's opera on the subject _without _a decadent strain would be ... irresponsibly inartistic!

The argument for decadence could certainly be made for the Elektra tale as well. Of all the Greek tragedies that were written -- hundreds of them, of which only some 30 remain extant -- the Elektra tale exists in versions by all three of the ancient masters (Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides) and it is the _only_ Greek tragedy to exist in three versions -- and thus proves_ decadent_ in that sense. Of course, the story of the bloody sacrifice of Agamemnon is nothing less than decadent as well.

I remain lukewarm towards Richard Strauss, but I do greatly admire the _Salome_ and the _Elektra_, both of which rank high in my personal opera disc collection, with multiple versions of both.

If I _had_ to vote for a work qualifying as "great trash" from Strauss it would be the _Sinfonia Domestica_. Then again, that piece might just be plain ol' "trash".


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## John Zito (Sep 11, 2021)

"Excess" is probably the key word here. I don't know what "great trash" is in general, but one sub-category of it would definitely be virtuoso music that requires a tremendous amount of effort that is comically out of proportion to the ultimate musical payoff. For my money that includes stuff like Liszt's _Totentanz_, virtually everything by the virtuoso violin composers (Paganini, Sarasate, Wieniawski, etc), and even Rach3. I love all that stuff, but I still think it's pretty slight.

And then, did Khachaturian write anything other than trash? Hmm...


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## Red Terror (Dec 10, 2018)

allaroundmusicenthusiast said:


> If Alfred Hitchcock is great trash then I can't even begin to imagine what great is, or what trash is for that matter. I don't think I get the concept, how can trash be great? Maybe something kitschy or camp, but none of your examples are that, neither is JW.
> 
> Now decadent, which Salome or Elektra could very well be, is an entirely different concept. Although again unrelated to Hitchcock, Ford or Alien


Tarantino's films could also be referred to as great trash.


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## fbjim (Mar 8, 2021)

SanAntone said:


> I don't think of any of the music, or movies, or books, etc., that I enjoy as trash. I don't even think of the music that I don't like as trash, in fact, there's no music I would describe as trash. There's only some that I truly like, but the rest has value and I can usually find something about any music that I find interesting and worthwhile to listen to.


Kael herself was somewhat ambiguous on what she meant (one of her examples of "great trash" was Hitchcock's 'Notorious' which nobody would consider trashy now) but I think the idea is to find value in the culturally or even artistically dubious, perhaps in the same way that Hitchcock, a "mere" director of mysteries, and potboiler suspense, is now one of our most venerated filmmakers.

To give more context, she said something about the necessity of appreciating "great trash" to truly appreciate "great art" - someone like Roger Corman being appreciated for how he put together films on zero budget and how much effect he got out of them, for instance, and how an appreciation of him might inform an appreciation of filmmakers who made more culturally elevated works.


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## fbjim (Mar 8, 2021)

Red Terror said:


> John Williams' output.


Not a bad answer, some of Korngold as well. It's kind of funny how Williams has something of a populist, "low" reputation in classical music but an elevated reputation in film - he's "the big guns" as far as film music goes. You'd rarely see him doing music for total crap in the way that Morricone did.


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## allaroundmusicenthusiast (Jun 3, 2020)

Red Terror said:


> Tarantino's films could also be referred to as great trash.


Most of his movies I'd say have a campy vein, which is what I understand to be the territory we're getting into. I don't see the connection though between Tarantino, Hitchcock, Ford and Hawks. Let alone between John Williams and Tarantino, regardless of their medium.

In that sense maybe certain subgenre of metal are "great trash". Anyway, there's a lot of "great" camp art.



> but I think the idea is to find value in the culturally or even artistically dubious, perhaps in the same way that Hitchcock, a "mere" director of mysteries, and potboiler suspense, is now one of our most venerated filmmakers.


Yes, artistically dubious is camp, but not trash. I'm not aware of anyone ever saying that Hitchcock was camp during his lifetime (did the concept even exist while he was still directing?).

"Morally" dubious or ambivalent could be another sort of "trash", in a decadent sense like the Strauss operas that've been mentioned. Wagner too for that matter.


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## fbjim (Mar 8, 2021)

The concept of great trash is itself ambiguous, and one point of interest was seeing what kind of music people would define it as. Camp and romantic excess on the one hand, but one can also draw a comparison of "great trash" to the modern poptimist movement to give artistic legitimacy to things like disco, dance and chart pop.

Hence a big band Non-HIP rendition of Pachelbel might be "great trash" in some definitions. Or, (the post which inspired this thread) Johann Strauss.


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## allaroundmusicenthusiast (Jun 3, 2020)

fbjim said:


> Hence a big band Non-HIP rendition of Pachelbel might be "great trash" in some definitions. Or, (the post which inspired this thread) Johann Strauss.


That would be, subjectivity notwithstanding, just plain ol' trash.



> The concept of great trash is itself ambiguous, and one point of interest was seeing what kind of music people would define it as. Camp and romantic excess on the one hand, but one can also draw a comparison of "great trash" to the modern poptimist movement to give artistic legitimacy to things like disco, dance and chart pop.


Yes, I get your point. But I think that first you're still putting things together that don't fit (for instance there's no relation between the Bee Gees and Hitchcock), and second what's the need for the word "trash"? (Not trying to start a fight, just a healthy discussion)


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

Americans reign supreme here: Bernstein, Copland, some Ives, Williams, Copland, Rorem (great?), Rachmaninoff, Big Mac

Salome and Elektra are not trash. Mahler fits the bill here, at least symphonies 1-5.


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## KevinJS (Sep 24, 2021)

I think I have a possible contender.

Deutsche Grammophon's Absolute Classics.

5 CDs (with another 5 available in Part 2) full of single movements and with each piece labelled according to the television advertisement in which it was (ab)used.

So a bit of Vivaldi's "Winter" was the Audi ad. Carmina Burana - O Fortuna was the "Old Spice" ad. Grrrrr!!!

And yes, I'm playing it right now. So shoot me.


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## John Zito (Sep 11, 2021)

BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist said:


> Americans reign supreme here: Bernstein, Copland, some Ives, Williams, Copland, Rorem (great?), Rachmaninoff, Big Mac


Medea's Dance of Vengeance by Barber. Great trash.

Not sure about Rorem on this list, though. I think he's seriously under-appreciated:


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

Forgot Barber. Emperor of Great Trash! And Glass and Adams and Corigliano.

Disney movies, Netflix shows, musicals. You name it, we have it. Great Trash.


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

Not all American Classical is trashy though.

Partch, Oliveros, Cage, Ornstein, other Ives, etc. Goes as deep as anything by the Masters, maybe more.

But a lot of the Good Stuff is pretty obscure.


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## Guest (Dec 3, 2021)

Red Terror said:


> Tarantino's films could also be referred to as great trash.


Without the "great".


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## Guest (Dec 3, 2021)

BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist said:


> Not all American Classical is trashy though.
> 
> Partch, Oliveros, Cage, Ornstein, other Ives, etc. Goes as deep as anything by the Masters, maybe more.


Couldn't disagree more.


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## John Zito (Sep 11, 2021)

BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist said:


> Forgot Barber. Emperor of Great Trash!


Give me a second. I'm crying. :lol:


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

Christabel said:


> Without the "great".


I've never enjoyed them or found merit in them in any way or at all, but seeing as so many others do I'll endow them with Greatness insofar as it is understood to be a qualifier for "Trash"


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## Richannes Wrahms (Jan 6, 2014)

Mahler 8 is quickly written grand repeptitive garbaggio
Gurrelieder


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## Red Terror (Dec 10, 2018)

Christabel said:


> Without the "great".


I enjoyed Pulp Fiction as a tween but my enthusiasm for it was dampened at the onset of adulthood. Much of what's considered trash (great or not) has an unmistakable streak of immaturity running through it.


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

Richannes Wrahms said:


> Mahler 8 is quickly written grand repeptitive garbaggio
> Gurrelieder


No sorry but you don't get Mahler 8. It's supposed to be funny, not serious! It's his most mysterious symphony, by far.

Mahler 1, 2, 3 and the first movement of 5 are "garbaggio"


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## Guest (Dec 3, 2021)

Great Trash? Almost everything written by Rossini, except Petite Messe Solennelle. It's pastiche, but it works! For me.


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

Is Tchaikovsky great trash? I've leant both ways on this one.

How about Grieg?

Satie? I don't think you can call him trash, but he's great something.


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## RobertJTh (Sep 19, 2021)

Glière's 3rd symphony. Gorgeously trashy.
In the same category, if we're talking late-romantic excesses, Schoenberg's Gurrelieder, Mahler's 8th and oh yeah, Havergal Brian's Gothic. maybe Schmidt's 2nd too, but I think that has piece more depth than all of the above combined.


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

Not Mahler's 8th! Anyone who says this does not understand the piece.

This will be my last time defending it in this thread. To those who have not yet explored it in depth: please don't let your opinion be tainted by the TC consensus.

Hanson's "Romantic" symphony is another obvious candidate.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

If R. Strauss fits the bill based on his contributions to the more overwrought aspects of late romanticism then Granville Bantock should be an even more appropriate name to drop. He wrote a tone poem called _Thalaba the Destroyer_, based on a gargantuan Regency-era poem which was seemingly influenced by _1001 Arabian Nights_ - what's not to like?


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

fbjim said:


> One of the most famous quotes by Pauline Kael, the famed film critic, was about the appreciation of "great trash". Arguably this sort of thing started with French film critics lauding genre directors like John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock and Howard Hawks - and we still see it with the critical appreciation of films as "low" as Alien, The Terminator or Halloween.
> 
> So what's "great trash" in classical music to you? I happen to love vulgarity and excess, which is why I love Berlioz and Strauss - I think Salome and Elektra are possibly the greatest trash the medium has produced. Berlioz has the Tempest fantasy, maybe the most gloopy, unapologetic trashy romantic thing he ever did, and another work I adore. Or is classical music too inherently elevated in its cultural standing to really produce "great trash"? Is "great trash" vulgarity and romantic excess, or is it populist, academically "dubious" music like the radio playing a big band orchestra rendition of Vivaldi?


Haendel's Messiah. Mozart's Cosi fan tutte. Beethoven's ode to joy. Schubert's Nachthelle. Liszt's B minor piano sonata. Debussy's Martyre. Carl Orf's Carmina Burana.


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## Guest (Dec 3, 2021)

elgars ghost said:


> If R. Strauss fits the bill based on his contributions to the more overwrought aspects of late romanticism


I love Strauss. What an orchestrator!! For me, Bruckner squarely fits the bill of 'overwrought' romanticism.


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## adinfinitum (Apr 5, 2021)

Rubinstein's fifth piano concerto is objectively not a very good piece, being extremely bloated and with banal themes and over-the-top passages to top it all off, and yet I enjoy it nonetheless!

Many here would surely also classify the music of Nikolai Kapustin as being 'trash', though I think it's far from being trash and is in fact very interesting and enjoyable stuff.


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## John Zito (Sep 11, 2021)

adinfinitum said:


> Many here would surely also classify the music of Nikolai Kapustin as being 'trash', though I think it's far from being trash and is in fact very interesting and enjoyable stuff.


I would hope that even if they're out of sympathy with the style, folks could appreciate that Kapustin's writing some proper stuff a lot of the time. But this?






Great trash.


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## Guest (Dec 4, 2021)

Actually, having thought more about this (why wouldn't I when the neighbour is using a whipper snipper and it's driving me mad!).. I'd rank all the Saint-Saens piano concertos in the category of "great trash". Oh yes, definitely. That and kitsch.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

I take "great trash" to mean work that's basically superficial but brilliant in conveying whatever it does convey. Respighi and Rimsky-Korsakov fit that description pretty well, along with many other purveyors of "tone poems," pieces that tempt composers to rely on effects in place of concise musical thinking. But my champion of basically trashy great composers would probably be Richard Strauss, who only occasionally goes for more than thrills and shocks and, when he's trying to express something deeper, a whipped-cream-and-sugar sentimentality. The thing is, he's so devilishly good at all of it that he can seem almost profound. The music to which Salome slinks and slithers around a bloody head on a platter, sings to it, kisses it on the mouth, and dies for it is one of the most glorious pieces of trash ever conceived. And _what_ spake Zarathustra, after all? Damned if I can remember, but whatever it was it didn't seem awfully interesting at the time. Still, he supplied a fabulous fanfare to begin a space movie (itself a highly ingenious piece of trash).

I have to mention Mahler, who is either the trashiest profound composer or the most profound trashy one. Sometimes he seems to be both at the same time.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Some probably might take offense, but I find a lot of more contemporary music great trash. Not music I would go out and buy, but stimulating nonetheless. I even warmed up to the Rebecca Saunders over time.


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

I don't like calling others people work trash, I just don't read / watch/ listen to it .


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Red Terror said:


> Tarantino's films could also be referred to as great trash.


Or tedious exploitation trash?


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

Deleted innocuous joke about Tarantino and his favorite word which could trigger brainwashed people.


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## Ariasexta (Jul 3, 2010)

Modern criticism is to be taken as reverse appreciation, whatever they applaud are either really bad or being contaminated with their critical acclaims.

I would also say that people who easily get led by the nose by those critics are a kind of great trash too.


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## Ariasexta (Jul 3, 2010)

Rogerx said:


> I don't like calling others people work trash, I just don't read / watch/ listen to it .


You can rest assured that even you do not listen to their works, they will not be alone at all for modern critics will kiss their trail all long. These critics are our redemption for ignoring their works. :lol:


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## Guest (Dec 4, 2021)

Ariasexta said:


> Modern criticism is to be taken as reverse appreciation, whatever they applaud are either really bad or being contaminated with their critical acclaims.
> 
> I would also say that people who easily get led by the nose by those critics are a kind of great trash too.


A rather gratuitous comment. Does it not occur to you that many people follow critics because of their own personal uncertainty and insecurity about judging the musical merits of a particular work? They turn to the "experts" for guidance.


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## Ariasexta (Jul 3, 2010)

Christabel said:


> A rather gratuitous comment. Does it not occur to you that many people follow critics because of their own personal uncertainty and insecurity about judging the musical merits of a particular work? They turn to the "experts" for guidance.


Most people are able to judge on their own with references to various sources, but some are being led by the nose like cattles, they see authorities as more important than their own musical/artistical experiences. We have such people today, henchmen of the authorities, they beat, slender, even extinguish people under authorization of some kind.


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> I take "great trash" to mean work that's basically superficial but brilliant in conveying whatever it does convey. Respighi and Rimsky-Korsakov fit that description pretty well, along with many other purveyors of "tone poems," pieces that tempt composers to rely on effects in place of concise musical thinking. But my champion of basically trashy great composers would probably be Richard Strauss, who only occasionally goes for more than thrills and shocks and, when he's trying to express something deeper, a whipped-cream-and-sugar sentimentality. The thing is, he's so devilishly good at all of it that he can seem almost profound. The music to which Salome slinks and slithers around a bloody head on a platter, sings to it, kisses it on the mouth, and dies for it is one of the most glorious pieces of trash ever conceived. And _what_ spake Zarathustra, after all? Damned if I can remember, but whatever it was it didn't seem awfully interesting at the time. Still, he supplied a fabulous fanfare to begin a space movie (itself a highly ingenious piece of trash).
> 
> I have to mention Mahler, who is either the trashiest profound composer or the most profound trashy one. Sometimes he seems to be both at the same time.


Blasphemer! Did you just trash-talk two of my favourite composers W? How very dare you! :lol: What about that supremely over-the-top guy Wagner? Oh, wait a minute, he's one of my favourites too. Ah well, there's a lot of gold in that there trash.


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## Ariasexta (Jul 3, 2010)

People might wonder why critics can be so wrong? it is all about the pedantic hypocrisy, when people got into the institution with peer competition which often underlines villanies of calumnity, a kind of save-face attitude will be a necessary mannerism special to these pedantic people in their works: they just can not afford to be honest, or to be honest enough for artistic criticism. But not all of them are like this, very few could be conscientious scholars that can speak some grains of truth to people. Montaigne and Joseph Addison both lambasted this type of academical mannerism:



> Pedantry in learning is like hypocrisy in religion, a form of knowledge without the power of it.


--Joseph Addison

Great knowledges should come down to perceptable and conceivable common senses, like transparency and honesty. However, we do also have some special commoners which seek to appeal to the mode of matter and people which enshrines hypocrisy over everything, humanity is a strange beast.


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## BoggyB (May 6, 2016)

These references to R Strauss reminded me of this:


Richard Strauss said:


> I may not be a first-rate composer, but I am a first-class second-rate composer.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

I am not really sure of great examples in classical music because I think some pretentiousness is necessary (therefore Strauss waltzes seem to me rather counterexamples, it's hard to get _less_ pretentious than perfectly crafted dance music, regardless of the highbrow presentation at some gala concerts). 
Some Respighi might come close but even Carmina Burana is merely a fun romp without pretension to high art, or is it?
Maybe Richard Strauss at his worst but not Salome, Elektra, not so sure about Rosenkavalier where I dislike the pseudo-Figaro vibes and there is also a lot of padding between the few great passages. 
Anything politically motivated is also in danger, e.g. "Floss der Medusa" by Henze with a "choir of the drowned" etc.

At least I have a keener sense for this category in literature, clear candidates for me would the Conan stories or Lovecraft - _The unspeakable horror always needs to be set in italics The horror, the horror!_ - it's pulp but well crafted and entertaining (and the same goes for a lot of contemporary fantasy etc. although very few can handle language as well as the pulp masters of ~100 years ago).


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## Ethereality (Apr 6, 2019)

Great trash or 'great crap' doesn't make sense; it's an oxymoron. I rate pieces of music from great to awful, buy why a piece is great or bad is dependent on what it does and doesn't follow a rule of thumb. Since it's dependent on what it does, it does not entail it can do everything, for example, an artist cannot paint 'great crap' or a 'square circle.' This is a strokingly futile exercise.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Kreisler jr said:


> I am not really sure of great examples in classical music because I think some pretentiousness is necessary (therefore Strauss waltzes seem to me rather counterexamples, it's hard to get _less_ pretentious than perfectly crafted dance music, regardless of the highbrow presentation at some gala concerts).
> Some Respighi might come close but even Carmina Burana is merely a fun romp without pretension to high art, or is it?
> Maybe Richard Strauss at his worst but not Salome, Elektra, not so sure about Rosenkavalier where I dislike the pseudo-Figaro vibes and there is also a lot of padding between the few great passages.
> Anything politically motivated is also in danger, e.g. "Floss der Medusa" by Henze with a "choir of the drowned" etc.
> ...


In Richard Strauss there's a paradigm of trash. It comes in the fourth of the four last songs, a few little flute trills, curlicues and kiss curls, in the final bars. Bad judgement on RS's part IMO to put them in.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

Aren't these the two larks rising "zwei Lerchen nur noch steigen"? It's borderline kitsch but I think Strauss can pull it off. 

I really don't get how on the one hand listeners today seem to be rather harsh on Strauss (or sometimes even Mahler) but dozens of second to third rate too late romantic or moderately modern composer are hailed as "undeservedly neglected", despite not having half the skill of Strauss and still similar pretensions.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Barbebleu said:


> Blasphemer! Did you just trash-talk two of my favourite composers W? How very dare you! :lol: What about that supremely over-the-top guy Wagner? Oh, wait a minute, he's one of my favourites too. Ah well, there's a lot of gold in that there trash.


Yeah, I sometimes feel an urge to lock Wooddy in a cell and feed him what he considers as musical whipped cream and sugar (which includes Mozart's Cosi fan tutte) endlessly, until he dies musically from musical diabetes. (No hard feelings, Mr. Woodduck, we wuv you.)



BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist said:


> Not Mahler's 8th! Anyone who says this does not understand the piece. This will be my last time defending it in this thread. To those who have not yet explored it in depth: please don't let your opinion be tainted by the TC consensus.


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

Just about anything by any French composer. And I'll see myself out the door now, thank you.


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

hammeredklavier said:


>


Thanks bro! You too.


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## Animal the Drummer (Nov 14, 2015)

vtpoet said:


> Just about anything by any French composer. And I'll see myself out the door now, thank you.


If it helps, Brahms agreed with you. He once described all French music as what the French would call "merde".


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

Kael also said, "He who steals Khachaturian steals trash."

I think the nostalgia for her opinions is indicative of how useless critical opinion was even in the golden age. Just as today, they only served people that didn't know anything about music and needed someone else to form their opinions.


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

hammeredklavier said:


> Yeah, I sometimes feel an urge to lock Wooddy in a cell and feed him what he considers as musical whipped cream and sugar (which includes Mozart's Cosi fan tutte) endlessly, until he dies musically from musical diabetes. (No hard feelings, Mr. Woodduck, we wuv you.)


Ah yes, don't we all.


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

I think the term ‘Schlagobers’ fits the bill!


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## fbjim (Mar 8, 2021)

Kreisler jr said:


> At least I have a keener sense for this category in literature, clear candidates for me would the Conan stories or Lovecraft - _The unspeakable horror always needs to be set in italics The horror, the horror!_ - it's pulp but well crafted and entertaining (and the same goes for a lot of contemporary fantasy etc. although very few can handle language as well as the pulp masters of ~100 years ago).


So one reason I was wondering if this is even a meaningful category for classical music was if it was too inherently socially elevated to really be "trashy", in a way that a horror comic book from the 50s can be "trashy".

At some point I almost want to do an overview of the species of trash, because like any word in criticism it can mean something different depending on the listener. Be it the shamelessly populist, the shamelessly vulgar, or what.

Speaking of that, time to listen to Francesca di Rimini.


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## fbjim (Mar 8, 2021)

Woodduck said:


> I take "great trash" to mean work that's basically superficial but brilliant in conveying whatever it does convey. Respighi and Rimsky-Korsakov fit that description pretty well, along with many other purveyors of "tone poems," pieces that tempt composers to rely on effects in place of concise musical thinking.


You know, when I was getting into classical beyond the basics for the first time, when I heard the term "tone poem", I assumed it'd be something that sounded like Webern or something. It has to be one of the worst terms in classical because you're using "poem" to describe something like, _more_ narrative and programmatic than other classical music. They should have called it "tone prose".


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## Pat Fairlea (Dec 9, 2015)

Aurelian said:


> Shostakovich's 12th Symphony, objectively, is not great music. But I find it fun.


Same goes for DSCH's 'Jazz Suites'. I wouldn't defend them as great music, but listen to them regularly and with a smile on my face.


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## Pat Fairlea (Dec 9, 2015)

vtpoet said:


> Just about anything by any French composer. And I'll see myself out the door now, thank you.


There's a M. Rameau here, would like a word?


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## Coach G (Apr 22, 2020)

I'm not about to argue against composers such as Richard Strauss, Mahler, Tchaikovsky, Khachaturian, or even Ravel's Bolero; whether you call it "great trash", "guilty pleasures" or whatever other terms you like. These composers and their works have survived the test of time and have earned a degree of integrity. Would a great and respected world-class cellist such as Mstislav Rostropovich or Yo-Yo Ma lend their names recording Strauss' _Don Quixote_ if it were trash? Would Benrstein, Karajan, and Mitropoulos bother themselves with Mahler's monster symphonies if they were "guilty pleasures"; or "cheap thrills"? David Oistrakh, Leonid Kogan, and Itzhak Perlman all shine in their own recordings of Khachaturian's wild and wonderful _Violin Concerto_ and the two (arguably) greatest concert flutists took it one step further by each of them going through all the trouble of transcribing it for flute and making their own recordings of it.

Despite Karajan's reputation as a great champion of Beethoven and Brahms; his recording of Ravel's _Bolero_ is intense and not to be taken lightly.

Just because a piece of music is "fun" doesn't make it any less of a masterpiece.


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## VoiceFromTheEther (Aug 6, 2021)

The unstated premise of this thread is that a lack of ascetism is sinful. Otherwise the question makes no sense and 'should be unasked'.


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## Roger Knox (Jul 19, 2017)

Regardless of what Pauline Kael said, I don't agree with using the expression "great trash" for the music discussed in this thread. Kael herself did a career about-turn, from being a connoisseur of art-house film to a critic of Hollywood movies. Maybe using the self-contradictory "great trash" was a stage along that journey; I don't know. Anyway, we'd do better to acknowledge terms in music criticism that are still useful for classical music. And keep our eyes open for good new ones.

P.S. In the same vein, some years ago I took a run at using "hot mess" for certain musical compositions or performances. It wasn't well-received on TC, and I think TC was right.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Some of the po-faced responses here are as amusing as the term "great trash" itself.


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

Woodduck said:


> Some of the po-faced responses here are as amusing as the term "great trash" itself.


Curiously, Po in German is translated as bottom, tush, bum, fanny, butt. Which has always made me wonder about this expression... Just saying...


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## Guest (Dec 4, 2021)

I'm guessing the word 'trash' has been used for the purpose of this discussion in a relative way. Because, as we know, most of us can recognize REAL trash in an instant. I prefer to use the word "kitsch", which has its own in-built quality assurance!! Or not.


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

Christabel said:


> I'm guessing the word 'trash' has been used for the purpose of this discussion in a relative way. Because, as we know, most of us can recognize REAL trash in an instant. I prefer to use the word "kitsch", which has its own in-built quality assurance!! Or not.


But there's "trash kitsch" and "great kitsch". Naturally I recognize both instantly, by the way.


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## Guest (Dec 5, 2021)

Dear Mariss Jansons. So much missed.


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## geralmar (Feb 15, 2013)

Ketelbey, "In a Persian Market".


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

geralmar said:


> Ketelbey, "In a Persian Market".


Glorious! I haven't heard this magnificently kitschy piece in decades. Thanks for the memories.


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## Tempesta (Sep 2, 2021)

Red Terror said:


> Tarantino's films could also be referred to as great trash.


QT's are Movie Geek Masturbatory Tedium for me.


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## Guest (Dec 5, 2021)

How does this rate?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Christabel said:


> How does this rate?


Trash? It's a gem, full of craft, wit and charm, simultaneously warm-hearted and tongue-in-cheek. And I love the instructions to the pianist - "very clatteringly" - pure Grainger!


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

Tempesta said:


> QT's are Movie Geek Masturbatory Tedium for me.


Pulp fiction was a great movie and very "fresh" when it came out. I am not so sure about the rest. It's also different in such that obviously trashy (pulp) elements and plots are made more artsy by irony and artful twisting whereas the typical "great trash" has lofty themes presented in such a clichéd fashion that they become a bit trashy (like Pines of Rome or Ben Hur).


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

fbjim said:


> One of the most famous quotes by Pauline Kael, the famed film critic, was about the appreciation of "great trash". Arguably this sort of thing started with French film critics lauding genre directors like John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock and Howard Hawks - and we still see it with the critical appreciation of films as "low" as Alien, The Terminator or Halloween.
> 
> So what's "great trash" in classical music to you? I happen to love vulgarity and excess, which is why I love Berlioz and Strauss - I think Salome and Elektra are possibly the greatest trash the medium has produced. Berlioz has the Tempest fantasy, maybe the most gloopy, unapologetic trashy romantic thing he ever did, and another work I adore. Or is classical music too inherently elevated in its cultural standing to really produce "great trash"? Is "great trash" vulgarity and romantic excess, or is it populist, academically "dubious" music like the radio playing a big band orchestra rendition of Vivaldi?


It could ultimately be a matter of style, for example both Strauss' _Alpine Symphony_ and Varese's _Ameriques_ are scored for gargantuan orchestras, but no prizes for guessing which one could carry the label.

In the past, what can be called great trash was the bread and butter of serious composers. Brahms' _Hungarian Dances_ is a perfect example. The composer didn't even consider them worthy of an opus number (they where arrangements of tunes played by gypsy bands), yet they where his most popular pieces during his lifetime.

Composers themselves would undervalue their ability to write music which was readily accepted by the public. Arthur Sullivan excelled in operetta, for which he is still remembered, yet he put much effort into composing serious music. Composers like Stravinsky, Ravel and Berg admired Gershwin for what they saw as his natural talent unfettered by too much academic knowledge. Perhaps its a case of the grass being greener on the other side?

I think that if the music has some sort of quality to it - like those old westerns, film noirs, thrillers and so on - then there's little need to put it into categories of high and low art. Tarantino isn't the first to pay homage to the noir genre. Think of Polanski's _Chinatown_ from the 1970's. This has been going on in music too, including classical. John Adams is an obvious example, as is Graeme Koehne with pieces like _Elevator Music_. This was the term derisively applied to popular composers like Henry Mancini, John Barry and Lalo Schifrin.

Maybe in a practical sense nothing much has changed. We're probably in a similar place to where we started. Composers always drew upon the vernacular. Notwithstanding the canon, which is a relatively recent concept, music has forever been a mix of low and highbrow elements.


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## Guest (Dec 5, 2021)

Woodduck said:


> Trash? It's a gem, full of craft, wit and charm, simultaneously warm-hearted and tongue-in-cheek. And I love the instructions to the pianist - "very clatteringly" - pure Grainger!


I just love those gorgeous chunky broken chords of the last cadence!! Very satisfying. I don't regard it as 'trash' myself but it is a Christmas bon-bon.


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## Guest (Dec 5, 2021)

Sid James, you've written really eloquently. But I don't accept those film composers you mention as akin to 'elevator music'. John Barry and Henry Mancini wrote amazing film music. This is but one example of the latter composer. Some people might regard this as 'trashy' music but for me it's inspired and creative and very evocative. Mancini's score for this picture was highly eclectic and I think it was spoiled as a consequence'. I don't care for most of the pieces. But the opening title theme music for "Hatari" (as in "Breakfast at Tiffanys") was magnificent. And from *18:06* here the score for the Rhino hunt is simply inspired! I saw the picture in 1962 when it was first released and I was still a child: this score literally blew my sox off!! Even then I was already a seasoned film nut!!






There's a backstory to this score; Howard Hawks usually employed 'Dimi' Tiomkin as his composer and he asked for a score for "Hatari" which he wanted to incorporate instruments from the country of origin (Tanzania). Tiomkin said "it can't be done" and Hawks immediately fired him.

How anyone in the world could regard film music as 'elevator', 'trashy' or somehow second rate absolutely staggers me. It's a great art form and many so-called serious composers have made contributions to the medium.


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## Guest (Dec 5, 2021)

In case anybody still has doubts about Mancini...






I'm prepared to die in a ditch over it!!


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Mancini and so on are pretty much considered classics of film music now, but they weren't viewed in the same way when they where in their prime. In the old days, music like this was looked down upon as being too closely allied to popular music. 

The catchy tunes, driving rhythms taken from rock n'roll and the fact that it served as background to the action on screen - like music accompanying the function of an elevator - where seen to count against it. The prevalent ideology acted to separate this sort of music from high culture.

Today, music for film, television and even video games are being played live by orchestras in a bid to attract younger audiences. These listeners don't have any problems with this, on the contrary they enjoy it.


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## Guest (Dec 5, 2021)

Film music doesn't have to justify itself. Not all of it is of a first rate quality, but great composers have contributed music for film since Prokofiev wrote music for Sergei Eisenstein. The history of film is also the history of quality compositions in miniature which need no justification. John Williams recently conducted the Vienna Philharmonic in an evening of his own music. Much of it doesn't interest me but there's a great demand out there for 'light' music of the type he composes and it isn't anything like Muzak! That moniker belongs to Andre Rieu.

Williams's best score by far was the title music for "Catch Me if You Can". It could stand alongside any music in short form Leonard Bernstein composed for the theatre or film - in no way inferior to "On the Waterfront". I actually think it's more original than Bernstein's overture to "Candide". Obviously influenced by Philip Glass it's no mere pastiche:


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## VoiceFromTheEther (Aug 6, 2021)

Christabel said:


> Film music doesn't have to justify itself. Not all of it is of a first rate quality, but great composers have contributed music for film since Prokofiev wrote music for Sergei Eisenstein.


Since Saint-Saens (1908), Mascagni (1917), Hindemith (1921), and Richard Strauss (1926) actually...

In fact, quite many composers known for other genres have: Shostakovich, Britten, Gershwin, Vaughan Williams, Walton, Bax, Copland, Korngold, Khachaturian, Glass, Corigliano, Penderecki, and even Stravinsky (the project was cancelled and he eventually reused the music IIRC).


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## Guest (Dec 5, 2021)

VoiceFromTheEther said:


> Since Saint-Saens (1908), Mascagni (1917), Hindemith (1921), and Richard Strauss (1926) actually...
> 
> In fact, quite many composers known for other genres have: Shostakovich, Britten, Gershwin, Vaughan Williams, Walton, Bax, Copland, Korngold, Khachaturian, Glass, Corigliano, Penderecki, and even Stravinsky (the project was cancelled and he eventually reused the music IIRC).


Quite. And Virgil Thomson as well. Not to mention jazz exponents like Kenyon Hopkins and Quincy Jones.


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## david johnson (Jun 25, 2007)

I'll determine for myself what is trash great or otherwise


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Christabel said:


> ...John Williams recently conducted the Vienna Philharmonic in an evening of his own music. Much of it doesn't interest me but there's a great demand out there for 'light' music of the type he composes and it isn't anything like Muzak! That moniker belongs to Andre Rieu...


I think the difference is more of presentation than substance. Rieu does compose - mainly in the romantic waltz style - but he mostly just plays a lot of the types of music mentioned in this thread (including film themes). He's also unearthed a lot of gems that have rarely seen light of day since the days of 78 rpm records. I see him as a kind of present day Mantovani. I like light classical of this type, it takes no less skill or passion to make, and its enjoyed by many listeners. If film music doesn't need to justify itself, neither does light classical.


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