# Which composers do you adore to the point of being (perhaps overly) particular on how their music is performed?



## Orfeo (Nov 14, 2013)

Hello:
The title says it all. Which composers do you adore to the point of being (perhaps overly) particular on how their music is performed (even to the point of rejecting that performance outright)?
My pick is:

Glazunov
Tchaikovsky
Rachmaninoff
Myaskovsky
Bruckner
Wagner
Schumann (especially his piano music)
Bax
Nielsen
Massenet


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

First on my list would be Scriabin. Too many pianists play his music in a dainty manner that makes the climaxes seem ridiculous. Then there are some who think he's the reincarnation of Chopin.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Ravel: Left Hand Concerto (Francois/Cluytens)
Prokofiev: Piano Concertos #2 and #3 (Krainev/Kitaenko and Van Cliburn/Hendl)
Rachmaninoff: Piano Concertos #2 and #3 (Janis/Dorati)

Otherwise not a picky listener. If I like the piece and the conductor and band are at least "adequate" (and the overwhelming majority are), I am a happy auditor. It's the composed music that is No. 1 for me.


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## Tarneem (Jan 3, 2022)

Mahler

Yes he was ahead of his time... very few conductors understand that it's ok to make him sound "modern"


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## EvaBaron (Jan 3, 2022)

I would say Mozart. I feel like the elegance always have to shine through and I find especially earlier recordings including admired Mozart conductors like Walter, Szell and Klemperer make the music too heavy that cost precision and refined details. Sir Neville Marriner is IMO the best Mozart conductor and his recordings are beautifully played by St. Martin in the Fields. The tempi are judged perfectly and it’s feels very polished, and it makes for perfect sounding interpretations which fits because a lot of Mozart’s music seems perfect and inevitable in some way. Like you know you are in good hands and there is no other way the music should go


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

The only composer I'm picky about is Satie. He is the composer who got me back into classical music after a 20-year hiatus, so I read every book I could find and acquired every recording I could find. I know how I want his music to sound, and I don't spend much time on those who try to take it in a different direction. And I've noticed that some performers get one period right and miss the others. 

I'm pretty tolerant about other composers.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

I chose one, Tchaikovsky, for a simple reason: no other composer in history has had his music so messed up, cut, reorchestrated, and otherwise mangled by so many supposedly great artists. No other great composer has been so routinely ignored, bad mouthed and slandered. 

The 2nd piano concerto was until recently always played in the Siloti revision - cuts and all.
The Rococo Variations for Cello and orchestra are always played in the Fitzenhagen arrangement.
The poor violin concerto was and still is played in the Auer edition with its dozens of cuts.
Even the famous 1st piano concerto isn't played the way Tchaikovsky wanted it.
The Sixth Symphony is usually marred with the addition of a bass clarinet.
Swan Lake for years was known mostly with various changes and cuts.

That's just a start.


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## Caroline (Oct 27, 2018)

Beethoven. He what is extraordinarily particular in how his music should be performed including but not limited to what he called the “body of the work“ and tempo. It is well documented in his own words how his works should be played, based on his writings and legacy of sketchbooks. He complained about how others performed his works when it didn’t meet his expectations and commended those who got it “right.” One of his few students, Czerny, whose students I believe included Liszt, created a book on the correct performance of his piano sonatas.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

The composers I adore are composers who I am always happy to consider a new interpretation of. Composers who I insist on only one way are those who are less important to me.


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## Knorf (Jan 16, 2020)

I'm going to push back against the OP. (What? Me? Push back?)

I'm in agreement with Enthusiast.

The more I understand a body of musical work...

Let's be clear. Love requires understanding. Love without understanding is merely infatuation.

The more I love and understand a body of musical work, the more I accept that there are always, and I do mean _always_, many more than one valid way to do it.


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

Manxfeeder said:


> The only composer I'm picky about is Satie. He is the composer who got me back into classical music after a 20-year hiatus, so I read every book I could find and acquired every recording I could find. I know how I want his music to sound, and I don't spend much time on those who try to take it in a different direction. And I've noticed that some performers get one period right and miss the others.
> 
> I'm pretty tolerant about other composers.


So who are your favoured interpreters of, say, Gnossiennes and Gymnopedies?


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Forster said:


> So who are your favoured interpreters of, say, Gnossiennes and Gymnopedies?


There are so many who have recorded these pieces, and it's difficult to make them sound bad, so let me say generically, these pieces are dances, so I don't like performers who use rubato and try to make them artsy. The art of these pieces is in their simplicity. One that I will single out as bothering me is Reinbert De Leeuw. Though his recording of the Rosicrucian works is remarkable, the Gymnopedies and Gnoissiennes are undanceable. That's just my preference, though.


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

Oddly enough I have the De Leeuw, given to me as a present, and his deliberate slow pace in the Gs and Gs is excruciating. I also have McCabe and Rogé.


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## justekaia (Jan 2, 2022)

mahler is in my top three of favourite composers and his music can become kitschy, schmalzy or bland in the wrong hands; tempo is of the essence, but the matching voice in the vocal parts can be important as well as the individual performances of the musicians


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## BBSVK (10 mo ago)

Bellini's operas. I am just an amateur and don't see mistakes in singing that real expert catch, so I am actually _less_ critical than many. However, speeding slow passages can really infuriate me. Also singing without emotional investment.


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## RobertJTh (Sep 19, 2021)

Bruckner, no doubt.
I'm VERY picky when it comes to recordings of his symphonies. Somehow I've got a clearly defined imagine in my head of how his music must be performed. Which can be quite frustrating, when some of the recommended "big names" in Bruckner give me the polar opposite of what I grew to expect (I remember getting my hands on Sinopoli's 5th because everyone told me how great it was - and being appalled to the point of nausea.)


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

Enthusiast said:


> The composers I adore are composers who I am always happy to consider a new interpretation of.


I generally agree with that but for me it depends not only on the composer but even on the piece in question. Some of my favorite composers I consider pretty "robust" over sometimes wildly differing interpretations (e.g. Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Brahms), others can be "spoiled", sometimes easily or it depends on the particular piece, e.g. Handel, Haydn, Schubert, Schumann, Bruckner.


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

Sorry to answer the question in the negative, but the work of the composers I "adore" can survive different interpretations.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

dissident said:


> Sorry to answer the question in the negative, but the work of the composers I "adore" can survive different interpretations.


Maximianno Cobra: "Challenge accepted."


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

Manxfeeder said:


> Maximianno Cobra: "Challenge accepted."


As long as I don't have to listen to it. I don't have all day.


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## hoodjem (Feb 23, 2019)

I am picky about interpretations or performances of 
Beethoven
Bach
Bruckner
Schubert
Schumann
Shostakovich
Sibelius
Chopin
Debussy
Mahler
Brahms
Prokofiev
Vaughan Williams.

So, I guess I adore these composers to that extent.


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