# Pieces you like that the composer hated.



## ebullient (Sep 21, 2013)

*Schumann: "I did not like the first Sonata for Violin and Piano; so I wrote a second one, which I hope has turned out better"*

This is all Robert Schumann had to say of his first violin sonata, a piece I adore. I felt as though I understood the composer's state of mind when writing this piece; I felt such a strong affinity to it. To know now that the composer held it in such low regard disappoints me. I almost feel almost as though I ought not to like it so much.

Has anyone else felt this way about a piece of music?


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## Jobis (Jun 13, 2013)

Bolero I suppose.

Also the nutcracker.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Beethoven disliked his 32 Variations in C minor and never even gave them an opus number (thus WoO 80). He was walking in the street with a friend when he heard them being played from a home nearby. He said "Beethoven, did you write those? What an idiot!"

Posterity disagrees. Me too. BTW this is his only chaconne.


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## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)

All of Chopin works that he disliked so much that he didn't want them to be published after his death. Perhaps some of his most loved works would never be heard if Julian Fontana wouldn't publish them against Chopin's wish. Now, do you know what awful pieces could be so bad that he thought should remain hidden? TA-DAAM! Fantaisie Impromptu in C# minor was among the "duds":


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

I have to agree with most things Tchaikovsky hated about himself. :lol: If he didn't like Marche Slav, the 1812 Overture, or the Nutcracker, that's fine with me, I commiserate with him since they have moments that rather hinder his true character. HOWEVER, the fact he hated the waltz from Eugene Onegin I'm more sad about, because it is truly charming despite the fact it was over-popularized in his lifetime.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Another vote for Bolero. Who writes a theme and variations with tone color? (Besides Shostakovich, but that was later). And two - count 'em, two - sax solos! Okay, that's a big deal for me.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

"There is a limit to how long a composer can write in a single dance rhythm. Ravel reaches this limit near the end of La Valse and near the beginning of Bolero." --Constant Lambert


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## Feathers (Feb 18, 2013)

I've always like Mendelssohn's Symphony No. 5. He seemed to like it at first but started to dislike it later in his life, even saying that it was the one piec he would destroy.


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## randomnese (Nov 30, 2013)

Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony, for sure. Filled with passion and I think it's one of his best-orchestrated pieces. Second to Manfred, of course.


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## techniquest (Aug 3, 2012)

Rachmaninov 1st Symphony; always a favourite of mine, despised by the composer (mostly due to the unfortunately first performance).


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## Roland (Mar 13, 2013)

Rachmaninov's Prelude in c sharp minor. I think he disliked it because people always wanted him to play it at every recital. I can't blame them.


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## ahammel (Oct 10, 2012)

I fully commiserate with Ravel's dislike of _Bolero_.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Ravel is one of my favourite composers, and the Bolero is one of my favourites in his repertoire.


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## ahammel (Oct 10, 2012)

Art Rock said:


> Ravel is one of my favourite composers, and the Bolero is one of my favourites in his repertoire.


Ravel is also one of my favourites. _Bolero_, less so.


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## Kieran (Aug 24, 2010)

Wolfie hated those mechanical device thingies that he composed K608 for - and he hated composing K608 too! But arranged for two pianos by Busoni, it's one of those dark works that foreshadows Schubert and shows that the expressive range in Mozart can be extensive, even in music composed ostensibly for a gimmick...


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## spradlig (Jul 25, 2012)

I like _Bolero_ too. I like the melody so much, I don't mind listening to it over and over again. And the tone colors are beautiful. Everyone here probably knows Ravel's famous description of the piece: "twelve minutes of orchestral tissue without music" or something to that effect. Does anyone know if he was speaking tongue-in-cheek or if he actually like the piece?



Manxfeeder said:


> Another vote for Bolero. Who writes a theme and variations with tone color? (Besides Shostakovich, but that was later). And two - count 'em, two - sax solos! Okay, that's a big deal for me.


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## waldvogel (Jul 10, 2011)

Vienna music critic c. 1810: "Ludwig, you'd be so much more popular if you wrote more pieces like your lovely Septet, op. 20".

Beethoven: "Why don't you just &%*%&#*#*@$!!!"


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

waldvogel said:


> Vienna music critic c. 1810: "Ludwig, you'd be so much more popular if you wrote more pieces like your lovely Septet, op. 20".
> 
> Beethoven: "Why don't you just &%*%&#*#*@$!!!"


But not that politely, of course! :lol:


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

Engelbert Humperdinck strove to compose a great grandiose "serious" opera ala his hero and mentor, Richard Wagner... but he has gone down in history for _Hänsel und Gretel_... the fairy tale opera which was composed at the request of his sister for a children's Christmas entertainment. However... I find the work absolutely charming.


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

Mahler seemingly wasn't too thrilled with his early cantata Das Klagende Lied and various revisions of the work led to the excision of the first part completely, thus reducing the work by nearly half an hour in length. This may have eventually resulted in a more concise two-part work but, whatever its faults, I prefer listening to a complete version especially as the first part is needed as a scene-setting prologue, even if it does drag its feet a little compared the shorter parts that follow.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Ives wasn't fully satisfied by his Browning Overture. I think it's a great piece.


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## maestro267 (Jul 25, 2009)

I'm under the impression that Tchaikovsky nearly destroyed his Manfred Symphony. I for one am so so glad it still survives. It's an epic work.


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## LindnerianSea (Jun 5, 2013)

Apparently Sibelius despised his Finlandia..


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## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)

StlukesguildOhio said:


> Engelbert Humperdinck strove to compose a great grandiose "serious" opera


And here is the effect:






He also attempted to create in Italian operatic tradition, hence this work written for La Fenice:


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## MJongo (Aug 6, 2011)

Shostakovich said his 2nd Piano Concerto had "no redeeming artistic merits". I disagree.


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## ahammel (Oct 10, 2012)

MJongo said:


> Shostakovich said his 2nd Piano Concerto had "no redeeming artistic merits". I disagree.


Doesn't mean he meant it. The 2nd PC is the kind of thing that the Soviet authorities really didn't like ("formalism" and "elitism" and all that), so it wouldn't surprise me to hear that he was anticipating some hot water over that one.

I remember reading somewhere that Shosty said it was meant to be sarcastic and a parody of romanticism, but what kind of a jerk writes a sarcastic Chopin parody for his son's 19th birthday?


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## GGluek (Dec 11, 2011)

Mendelssohn was very displeased with the "Italian" Symphony for most if it's existence. It's not my favorite, but I like it.


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

ahammel said:


> Doesn't mean he meant it. The 2nd PC is the kind of thing that the Soviet authorities really didn't like ("formalism" and "elitism" and all that), so it wouldn't surprise me to hear that he was anticipating some hot water over that one.


I could never work out what "formalism" even meant in the first place. I think it came down to "whatever Comrade Stalin doesn't like," which made it difficult for composer to know beforehand whether a piece is formalist or not. But it is difficult to see how anyone could not like the second piano concerto, or consider it elitist or "difficult" in any way. It remains popular because, well, it has much popular appeal. 

And then there was Brahms, who never gave us even a chance to make up our own minds about pieces he didn't like: he burned them all. One has to wonder what treasures went up in his fire place chimney.


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## ahammel (Oct 10, 2012)

brianvds said:


> I could never work out what "formalism" even meant in the first place.


I believe it means something like music that is only about music, as opposed to, say, music about the glorious people's revolution.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Roland said:


> Rachmaninov's Prelude in c sharp minor. I think he disliked it because people always wanted him to play it at every recital. I can't blame them.


And the fact that he sold the rights to it for like twenty rubles and never made another cent out of all the sheet music sales and public performances. That's gotta burn a bit.

My favorite example is Brahms's Piano Quartet in C minor, Op. 60. In communications with Simrock, Brahms more than once said it was of little value but that perhaps Simrock might wish to publish it anyway. In explanation of his low opinion, he said that on the cover of the score there should be a picture of a man in a yellow waist coat with a revolver to his head. He was alluding to Goethe's _The Sorrows of Young Werther_ in which a man so dressed and disconsolate over his hopeless love of a married woman, blew his brains out with a revolver. What Brahms was intimating was that his Opus 60 embodied his similar feelings for a married and unavailable woman, Clara Schumann. He apparently thought it was too passionate and haphazardly constructed. I think that letting go in that way was exactly what Brahms needed to do more often, and it is probably my favorite of his chamber works for this reason.


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## Avey (Mar 5, 2013)

randomnese said:


> Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony, for sure. Filled with passion and I think it's one of his best-orchestrated pieces. Second to Manfred, of course.


Did P.T. not like his Fifth? Never heard that.


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## Avey (Mar 5, 2013)

Oh, and I like all the symphonies, concerti, and piano works Brahms threw out or burned. Such a shame, really.


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## Tristan (Jan 5, 2013)

_The Nutcracker_ is the main one for me. I think it's absolutely brilliant.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Aramis said:


> All of Chopin works that he disliked so much that he didn't want them to be published after his death. Perhaps some of his most loved works would never be heard if Julian Fontana wouldn't publish them against Chopin's wish. Now, do you know what awful pieces could be so bad that he thought should remain hidden? TA-DAAM! Fantaisie Impromptu in C# minor was among the "duds":


I agree with the composer about that one


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

brianvds said:


> I could never work out what "formalism" even meant in the first place.


From Wiki: "formalism is the concept that a composition's meaning is entirely determined by its form."
Good enough. The socialist / communist, yeah, even western democratic populist view is that music should be more directly of or for the people, and that usually goes hand in hand with a deathly leaden literal notion that a symphony should narrate, say, something direct about the glorious tractors made by your nation, and illustrate and extol the virtues of the handsome and beautiful strong men and women who work the land, plant their crops, and harvest their _CORN_ or make their _CHEESE._

Prokofiev got away with it, in spades. I forgot which symphony, but the one which could most generally be perceived as sounding like you are grinding iron filings with your teeth -- is purely 'formalist,' but he slapped one of those literal programs on it, knowing the bureaucrats would have to sit in the audience, take it, hate it, but approve because the program, literally, met with the bureaucratic agenda.

The form is the meaning is a roundabout way of saying "absolute music," which is the majority of most classical era and later music, with only a sprinkling of programmatic music taking center stage in the mid to later romantic era.

Write a formalist piece, but use folk tunes - good: all of a sudden that absolute music becomes 'for and about the people,' or 'nationalistic' or whatever those who listen to music for something in it other than, uh, 'music,' find necessary to qualify it as not formalist, ergo not 'decadent.' They might not even notice the piece is in Symphonic form, or if they do, it is excused 

I suppose there is a broader allowance for suites using old or current dance forms, since they're 'folksy' as well.

Formalist music is music first conceived of and cast into a form, i.e. "formal."

Go figure.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

For the most part, I tend to agree with a composer knowing not only which of what they've made has merit, but wholly approve their destroying or withholding works with which they are not satisfied. They are the author, and often the best qualified editor of that material.

Sure, once in a while we can completely understand a composer later reviling a fine work because the work became so popular it occluded performances or awareness of the rest of their oeuvre. There are too, those occasional glitches of personal pathology or a true disorder which have a composer like Duparc destroying practically everything they wrote, and there is more than one occasion of an artist doing this... there I do think 'we have all lost something better left to live.'


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## BurningDesire (Jul 15, 2012)

I really like the one old Varese score that has survived. Don't get me wrong, I love all of his music, but I know Varese felt his old works did not match his new vision, and I really wish we could hear more of those old works, because that one surviving song is really beautiful in a pretty unique way, and it would be interesting to hear more of his older style of writing.


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## Stargazer (Nov 9, 2011)

I don't think he hated it per say, but Beethoven was annoyed by the popularity of his Moonlight Sonata. If I'm remembering correctly, he once remarked "Surely I have written something better than this!", in regards to its popularity.


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## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

Don't know if he disliked it, but it seems Scriabin had actually forgotten his Fantasie Op. 28, a piece that I like very much:

"The work is popular with Russian pianists but its existence was forgotten by the composer. When Leonid Sabaneyev started to play one of its themes on the piano in Scriabin's Moscow flat (now a museum), Scriabin called out from the next room "Who wrote that? It sounds familiar". "Your Fantaisie", was the reply. Scriabin said, "What Fantaisie?"


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