# Works/pieces that where hard for you go "get/enjoy" (or still are)



## 444mil (May 27, 2018)

Title. From standard repertoire. 

I didn't get rachmaninov concerto 3, having listened to it like 10 times. Now is one of my favourite works.

Other: Liszt piano sonata, Prokofiev piano concerto 3 (still don't get it, as high as it is praised). Beethoven symphony no. 9 (i love all beethoven symphonies anyway)


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## Allegro Con Brio (Jan 3, 2020)

There have been a great deal of works that I did not understand at first, but took repeated listens in order to love - in fact I could probably think of more works that I came to like that way instead of works I loved at first hearing. The most popular/beloved works of the repertoire that I still simply do not like (for some reason most of these are concerti):

Mussorgsky Pictures
Most Mozart Piano Concerti
Schumann Piano Concerto and most of his solo piano music
Beethoven 7 (this one I started out loving, but got real annoyed by it after a couple listens)
Brahms Double Concerto
Tchaikovsky, Bruch, Mendelssohn - Violin Concerti
Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1
RVW Symphony No. 3
Berg Violin Concerto (need to revisit this one)


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## 444mil (May 27, 2018)

I don't get the mussorgsky neither, except for the final.
Love mozart piano concerto 27, and like many others: 23,20,24
Like the schumann's PC and tchaikovskky's.


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## 20centrfuge (Apr 13, 2007)

One that has always bothered me is that I can’t seem to find the key to enjoying Sibelius VC even though Sibelius is one of my favorite composers and other people seem to really like the piece.


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## 444mil (May 27, 2018)

20centrfuge said:


> One that has always bothered me is that I can't seem to find the key to enjoying Sibelius VC even though Sibelius is one of my favorite composers and other people seem to really like the piece.


i like the sibelius VC, and i don't know much music from him.


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## Allegro Con Brio (Jan 3, 2020)

20centrfuge said:


> One that has always bothered me is that I can't seem to find the key to enjoying Sibelius VC even though Sibelius is one of my favorite composers and other people seem to really like the piece.


Think of the first movement as a barren winter wind whipping across an ancient valley sculpted by time, and the finale as the greatest piece of classical disco ever.


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## chu42 (Aug 14, 2018)

Schumann's music always takes me a long time to get. Even when I had established him as my favorite composer, first listenings of new works were always incomprehensible. Despite loving the Fantasie, Symphonic Etudes, and Carnaval, it took me two months to understand Kreisleriana, of which for the longest time I believed to be a boring and ugly work. 

Afterwards, it would be another month each for the Fantaisiestucke, 8 Novelletten, Humoreske, and then Faschingsschwank aus Wien. I don't regret a single moment of it and I never tire of hearing these works after I have understood them. Perhaps it is this chore of repeated listening that turns so many away from Schumann.

I am currently working on understanding the Davidsbundlertanze. I'm sure that I won't be disappointed.


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## 444mil (May 27, 2018)

I have work to do then with Schumann. I just like his PC, not even fantasie. I don't understand kleisleriana either.


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## Clairvoyance Enough (Jul 25, 2014)

There are obvious ones I could pick like Schoenberg, Beethoven's late quartets, Messiaen, and etc, stuff that you would expect to be difficult.

But the ones that annoy me are things I like but wish I loved. Debussy, Ravel, Bruckner, Mahler, Stravinsky, and so many others are all composers I have mostly a detached appreciation for, despite the fact that they seemed appealing even on my first listens several years ago. I have learned to love Ligeti's 2nd quartet before La Mer, which is not what I would have expected 5 years ago.


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## Caryatid (Mar 28, 2020)

The topic of the thread is a bit unclear, but I take it the OP is asking for works that I found tough _but enjoy now_. In that case, my prime example is Brahms's Double Concerto. It utterly baffled me at first, but today I hold it in the highest regard. In fact, I say it's his best work, surprising though that may sound. It's offputting because it is deliberately written in a spicy dissonant style - recalling Schumann's 5 Stucke im Volkston, but going further. The opening cadenzas alone are extraordinary and unlike anything else I have heard. I'd encourage any doubters to persist in trying to appreciate the piece, at least if they usually like Brahms.


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## Allegro Con Brio (Jan 3, 2020)

chu42 said:


> Schumann's music always takes me a long time to get. Even when I had established him as my favorite composer, first listenings of new works were always incomprehensible. Despite loving the Fantasie, Symphonic Etudes, and Carnaval, it took me two months to understand Kreisleriana, of which for the longest time I believed to be a boring and ugly work.
> 
> Afterwards, it would be another month each for the Fantaisiestucke, 8 Novelletten, Humoreske, and then Faschingsschwank aus Wien. I don't regret a single moment of it and I never tire of hearing these works after I have understood them. Perhaps it is this chore of repeated listening that turns so many away from Schumann.
> 
> I am currently working on understanding the Davidsbundlertanze. I'm sure that I won't be disappointed.


I like more of his music now than I did before, but I still have a really tough time with a good deal of the solo piano stuff and the symphonies. I've come to enjoy the Symphonic Etudes, the Ghost Variations, the Fantasie...but I can't get into his "Florestan-Eusebius" sets of miniatures. Florestan always sounds like directionless banging, and Eusebius is just the same not-particularly-interesting tune repeated over and over again without variation. Maybe I just need to explore different pianists in this repertoire and keep trying at it, but I can't get past the impression that his music strikes me very often as bland (not to mention that whenever I try to play one of his miniatures, my hands feel like I've been digging up raw earth for 3 hours when I'm done). I do love the song cycles, the Piano Quintet, and the Cello Concerto.


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## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

Britten's _Death in Venice.

_I really did not enjoy that work for a l o n g time. I don't know whether it was because the recording was done by an appreciably old-voice Peter Pears, or what. The (what I took to be) slightly hammy intellectualism of the split between Apollo-Intellect and Dionysus-Pleasure. Whatever it was, it just clicked one day and I now regard it as one of his great operas.

In fact, I could list quite a few of Britten's works which I really struggled with.

My very first exposure to his music was at school where our choir master decided that _Rejoice in the Lamb_ would be the project for the term. I couldn't stand it. Tortuous harmonies. Complex rhythms I couldn't sing. Yuk. But you sing it for 6 weeks and it gets 'under your skin' somehow. The choir master had determined the solos would be sung by the choir as a whole, but I was at that point determined to land the tenor solo for myself, so "happened" to be singing it with the accompanist during a rehearsal break when I knew he'd be walking by. I got the gig, the choir master had to round up a bunch of other soloists in a hurry. Job done!

General principle, therefore, with Britten: expect to have to really work at something before it 'clicks'. But when it does click, as it usually will, you will adore the music and all its complexities will begin to bring pleasure. Even if the rhythms still trip you up in performance!

The exception was _Rape of Lucretia_, which I saw in a live performance in a half-lit church and was immediately grabbed by, forcefully, by the lapels. Don't know why that one 'worked' when few others did, but hey ho.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

I would agree *Rachmininoff* -- but in my case the *Symphony No. 3*. I have owned and repeatedly absorbed recording by two great conductors of the music, Stokowski and Ormandy, and it has never lit a candle with me emotionally, intellectually or any other way.

I know many believe him an outstanding composer but I do not get the music of* Elliott Carter*. His music, its construction, meaning and point, is lost on me. It sounds to me like random noise.

I wouldn't say same for *Benjamin Britten* but I would say only 2 or 3 of his compositions -- Peter Grimes, Simple Symphony, Sinfonia de Requiem -- strike me in any way. And even the ones I get I hardly ever listen to. I understand the hullabaloo about his War Requiem but I have never thought it musically the match of any other name requiem.


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## chu42 (Aug 14, 2018)

> Maybe I just need to explore different pianists in this repertoire and keep trying at it, but I can't get past the impression that his music strikes me very often as bland (not to mention that whenever I try to play one of his miniatures, my hands feel like I've been digging up raw earth for 3 hours when I'm done).


Don't give up. Carnaval for me also struck me as bland and incoherent. I had to listen to it for hours at a time to get any sense of understanding out of it; now I consider it to be one of the greatest piano works ever made. I suppose the best thing to do is to imagine it how it was originally conceived-as a big masquerade ball and each miniature depicting a masked character. It would do some good to research what each character is supposed to represebt and what feelings they illicited out of Schumann. This, for me, made the work particularly touching.

I would also recommend listening to more of his Fantasiestücke Op.12. It is significantly easier to unpack than Carnaval because each miniature is not a brief sketch but more of an entire tone painting. It will still require some repeated listenings, though.

And as for playing Schumann-his music does not sound as virtuosic as somebody like Liszt or Chopin but I often find that Schumann is even more difficult because of how awkward and tightly written his pieces often are. Schumann never cared much for displaying technique or creating innovative textures; he wrote in order to vent his emotions from his tortured life, and thus his music is very personal and self-actualizing more than anything else. Even his Symphonic Etudes seem more like a display of moods rather than a display of technique.

Also, there are more musical challenges in playing Schumann because his works are often not melody driven and thus require more exertion on the part of the performer to convey to the audience exactly what was intended.

Overall, a very tough nut to crack and I can completely understand why so many are not too enthusiastic about him.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

For a long, long time the two Elgar symphonies just wouldn't register. Thick Victorian sludge with nothing memorable about them. Then one summer night I was in the pool and turned the radio on and heard something that was utterly astonishing. Beautiful, powerful but didn't know what is was until the end - the Elgar 2nd. My ears were opened and those two symphonies are among my favorite scores in the whole orchestral literature.

I suppose it happens with most listeners one time or another and with a lot of music. When people find out you're a classical fan they just assume you like the entire standard repertoire. Well I don't. I still don't get the Mozart mystique. I'll never understand the Beethoven Triple Concerto. I have no love for any Verdi opera. And outside of three early ballets, there's nothing in Stravinsky's output that I "get" or even like. And he was supposed to be the greatest 20th of them all! Aaron Copland - same story. Rodeo and Billy the Kid and that's all. The 3rd symphony is great? Not in my mind.


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## 444mil (May 27, 2018)

Caryatid said:


> The topic of the thread is a bit unclear, but I take it the OP is asking for works that I found tough _but enjoy now_. In that case, my prime example is Brahms's Double Concerto. It utterly baffled me at first, but today I hold it in the highest regard. In fact, I say it's his best work, surprising though that may sound. It's offputting because it is deliberately written in a spicy dissonant style - recalling Schumann's 5 Stucke im Volkston, but going further. The opening cadenzas alone are extraordinary and unlike anything else I have heard. I'd encourage any doubters to persist in trying to appreciate the piece, at least if they usually like Brahms.


I meant works that took me a while to understand/enjoy, and others than i just don't enjoy as much as they are praised even after many listens.


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## 444mil (May 27, 2018)

I add some more works i don't really enjoy and are much loved:

Stravinsky rite of the spring
Brahms cello sonata no. 1
Schubert Trout Quintet
Brahms symphony no. 4
Mahler's 2nd.
Most of debussy music.

Works i ended up loving: 
Grieg's PC (had to listen to it like 20 times, even though it's not a hard piece)
Beethoven Violin Concerto.
Scriabin piano sonata no. 2
Rachmaninov piano sonata no. 2


First listen loves: 
Ravel's PC, 
Shostakovich 2nd PC, 
Wagner's music, mostly overtures and work's excerpts.


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## Olias (Nov 18, 2010)

I think the music I had to work at the hardest to "get" (but eventually did) are the late Beethoven String Quartets. After many listenings, (with a well-marked score in hand and some analytical textbooks), I was able to figure out what LvB was trying to say musically and it made much more sense.


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

Sibelius - Sym #6...does nothing for me..just doesn't go anywhere...I love Sibelius, both to perform, and to hear, but this one, for me, is a misfire...


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## 444mil (May 27, 2018)

Olias said:


> I think the music I had to work at the hardest to "get" (but eventually did) are the late Beethoven String Quartets. After many listenings, (with a well-marked score in hand and some analytical textbooks), I was able to figure out what LvB was trying to say musically and it made much more sense.


I started with no. 14. Had to listen to it like 6 times. Then i fell in love with the rest, maybe the fugue is the hardest to get.


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## MatthewWeflen (Jan 24, 2019)

Mahler. Especially the symphonies that seem to be hours long. They just haven't clicked for me.

Prior to that, Haydn hadn't clicked. The symphonies all seemed somewhat similar and repetitive. But they did eventually gel in my brain and now I love them.


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## caracalla (Feb 19, 2020)

Machaut's Messe de Nostre Dame.

Couldn't bear it on first listening. Took many more before it stopped sounding outlandishly ugly, let alone started to click.


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