# Earwear



## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

No, not apparel for the ears, but music that is so earworn that it's hard to enjoy. Music that you KNOW is great, but can't enjoy much just because you've heard it too many times for too many years.

What music would you most like to move out of this category and hear again for the first time?


----------



## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

*Dvorak's 9th*! That's the main one. I just can't sit through it today.

Works with a bit less of this effect:

*Beethoven's 3rd Symphony*. His other works, including the ubiquitous 5th symphony have not worn out their welcome.

*Handel: Music for the Royal Fireworks* no longer does it for me, though Water Music still has its charm. The Messiah still has the magic too oddly enough.

*Holst: The Planets*, especially Mars.

*D. Scarlatti*: No specific work, but his little sonatas all begin to sound alike after decades of enjoying them. It's a shame too because they are all jewels.

*Shostakovich: Cello concerto No. 1*. This one doesn't get overexposed, except by my own hand. I loved it so much I played it over and over. Then the attraction suddenly fizzled.


----------



## Andolink (Oct 29, 2012)

I tried to come up with works that meet the criteria for this thread but without exception, every piece I consider to be great music and have heard zillions of times over the decades, I still love at least some aspect of (if not everything about it) enough to have it catch my attention and perk up my interest when I hear it again.


----------



## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Beethoven's 5th is the main one for me, even though he is one of my favourite composers. Not only the work itself, but maybe also because the darkness to light type of narrative done in that symphony has been redone so many times/ways since. Having said that I remember going to a concert as a teenager listening to this piece live and its still a good memory. I guess I'll never recapture that kind of period when the work was fresh to me.



Weston said:


> ...
> 
> *Shostakovich: Cello concerto No. 1*. This one doesn't get overexposed, except by my own hand. I loved it so much I played it over and over. Then the attraction suddenly fizzled.


Overplaying is the mistake I made with Saint-Saens and I ended up hating his stuff. But in recent years I've come back to his music and now like it a lot. Also listened to works by him I didn't know before. But maybe I just needed a break from his music for a while to realise what I'd missed.

But having done that I'm conscious of the dangers of overexposure now, have been for a while. There is so much music to listen to, fixating on one piece to the level of it becoming overkill is not necessary, there are so many other things.


----------



## Perotin (May 29, 2012)

I would say Beethoven's 5th too. Would it still sound so trivial to me, if I heard it for the first time again? I guess I will never find that out.


----------



## OboeKnight (Jan 25, 2013)

I wouldn't say Im completely fed up with it's because I adore it...but sadly Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet Overture -.- I kind of burnt myself out on it...it stayed in my stereo for over a month and I listened to it probably 30 times.


----------



## deggial (Jan 20, 2013)

OboeKnight said:


> I listened to it probably 30 times.


this raises the question of when does something become overplayed. I might be more obsessive than you, but 30 times is how much I'd listen to something I really like over the course of... 2 days?


----------



## KRoad (Jun 1, 2012)

KenOC said:


> No, not apparel for the ears, but music that is so earworn that it's hard to enjoy. Music that you KNOW is great, but can't enjoy much just because you've heard it too many times for too many years.
> 
> What music would you most like to move out of this category and hear again for the first time?


BB Concertos, Einer Kleine... T. & Fuge in Dm

First time (take two) BB No. 3, please


----------



## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Schubert, 'Rose among the heather'...
When I was a little girl, I thought it was so sweet. And now - agonisingly sweet!


----------



## OboeKnight (Jan 25, 2013)

deggial said:


> this raises the question of when does something become overplayed. I might be more obsessive than you, but 30 times is how much I'd listen to something I really like over the course of... 2 days?


30 was just an estimate, but yes, when _does_ something become overplayed? I suppose it varies with each person and also with each piece.


----------



## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

OboeKnight said:


> 30 was just an estimate, but yes, when _does_ something become overplayed? I suppose it varies with each person and also with each piece.


For some pieces, for me, once is already too many.


----------



## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Some pieces that have lost their freshness can regain their power. e.g. I couldn't fail to be carried away by 'The Dying Swan' recently, at the end of a brilliant 'Swan Lake'.


----------



## techniquest (Aug 3, 2012)

Orff's 'Carmina Burana', most especially the opening (and closing) 'O Fortuna' part which has been done-to-death in recent years.
Also, Shostakovich 10 springs to mind.


----------



## Quartetfore (May 19, 2010)

Borodins 2nd String Quartet, played to often on the radio and the second movement is done to death.


----------



## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

techniquest said:


> Orff's 'Carmina Burana', most especially the opening (and closing) 'O Fortuna' part which has been done-to-death in recent years.
> Also, Shostakovich 10 springs to mind.


I heartily concur with the Orff. It seems to be both Hollywood, the NFL and the WWF's go to piece for stock music, representing everything from satanic evil, to hedonism, to just swaggering about victory. It's a highly abused piece.


----------



## TinyTim (Feb 16, 2013)

The first piece that comes to mind is Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite; the second is Barber's Adadio for Strings; the third is Copland's Appalachian Spring; fourth, Vivaldi's Four Seasons. Then there are those pieces considered great that I don't enjoy, for example, Bolero.


----------



## OboeKnight (Jan 25, 2013)

TinyTim said:


> The first piece that comes to mind is Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite; the second is Barber's Adadio for Strings; the third is Copland's Appalachian Spring; fourth, Vivaldi's Four Seasons. Then there are those pieces considered great that I don't enjoy, for example, Bolero.


Four Seasons is definitely run into the ground  I enjoy it in occasion though. And I think its mainly the Overture, Russian Dance and Sugar Plum Fairy that are overdone. Would you agree?


----------



## TinyTim (Feb 16, 2013)

OboeKnight said:


> Four Seasons is definitely run into the ground  I enjoy it in occasion though. And I think its mainly the Overture, Russian Dance and Sugar Plum Fairy that are overdone. Would you agree?


Yes, you're right about the three sections of Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker , although I've become jaded to the whole suite.


----------



## techniquest (Aug 3, 2012)

> I heartily concur with the Orff. It seems to be both Hollywood, the NFL and the WWF's go to piece for stock music, representing everything from *satanic evil*, to hedonism, to just swaggering about victory. It's a highly abused piece.


Part of the reason for this is that there are a lot of people who mistakenly believe that it is the music used for the high profile 1976 film 'The Omen'.
I'd also agree with others above about The Four Seasons (I blame Nigel Kennedy). It seems that as soon as a piece is promoted into the mainstream, it becomes 'de-classicised' and done-to-death either through advertising jingles, trailer background music (usually TV-trailers that get shown over and over), or becomes part of Classic FM's all time top 100 (arrgh!).


----------

