# So bad that it is funny - Classical music that is enjoyable for all the wrong reasons



## Weird Heather (Aug 24, 2016)

The concept of "so bad that it is funny" has always appealed to me. I love an impressive failure - something that goes so terribly wrong that I just cannot look away. Upon giving this some thought, I realized that I haven't encountered much of this in classical music, while I can rattle off numerous examples in popular music, film, television, and other art forms. Have I been missing something? Or does this concept just not gain much traction in the classical music world?

I can think of only two items off the top of my head, and I can't come up with anything else. Maybe there are others here who can come up with some real gems that I have somehow missed.

Florence Foster Jenkins - Her story is fairly well known. She was a wealthy socialite who loved opera and loved to sing, but unfortunately she sang terribly. With the money to stage performances and a small group of fans who clearly appreciated the concept of "so bad that it is funny," she performed many private concerts and a sold-out event at Carnegie Hall, and she even made a few recordings, which are fortunately available so that those of us who weren't around to experience the train wreck in person can now get some idea of why she had such a devoted cult following. I've heard that a documentary of her life has even been made, but I haven't had a chance to see it yet.

The Portsmouth Sinfonia - This orchestra was briefly active in the 1970s, and years ago, I encountered one of their records. The orchestra was a sort of experiment; it consisted of non-musicians and musicians who purposely played instruments on which they were not skilled. Of course, the results are quite dreadful and often funny, but there were serious aspects to the experiment. Only the post-modern era could have produced something like this with serious intent behind it; in any other era, the intent could only have been humorous.

What else is out there? Are there some unintentionally bad performances or recordings of familiar works that are so impressive as to be worth a listen? Are there some horrendous compositions that have gained a cult following precisely because they are dreadful? Is there an opera or ballet production that bombed so badly as to cause the audience to laugh at inappropriate times? (Some Regietheater haters might put all Regietheater/"Eurotrash" into this category, so this should perhaps be limited to productions that even Regietheater fans will agree are impressive failures.) I know there are a few things out there that are intentionally bad and funny - perhaps some of the work of P.D.Q. Bach and other classical humorists can be placed in this category. Surely there must be more musical disasters awaiting me, if I could only find them.


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## TurnaboutVox (Sep 22, 2013)

You could certainly listen to Brazilian maestro Maximianno Cobra conducting... anything, at all really. I have not yet managed to finish listening to any of his recordings - you will see why if you look him up on You Tube. Having said that, some people do apparently like his work.


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## Antiquarian (Apr 29, 2014)

There is the Really Terrible Orchestra, out of Edinburgh that has some impressively bad performances. The last I heard Alexander McCall Smith was still a member. You could see if there is anything on Youtube about this. However, there are a few people who rave about the performances. I think they're brilliant.


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## Varick (Apr 30, 2014)

Zubin Mehta, Seiji Ozawa, Daniel Barenboim.

Did I win?

V


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Varick said:


> Zubin Mehta, Seiji Ozawa, Daniel Barenboim.
> 
> Did I win?
> 
> V


Yes you do, foot trip to Rome.


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

Varick said:


> Zubin Mehta, Seiji Ozawa, Daniel Barenboim.
> 
> Did I win?
> 
> V


2 out of 3.......


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## Moesart (May 27, 2016)

Classical fails compilations are funny


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## Funny (Nov 30, 2013)

Mozart's A Musical Joke has passages where the players sound like they're hitting wrong notes, and others where the composer himself seems to have screwed up, and in Haydn Symphony 60 the orchestra stops playing because the strings supposedly realize they're out of tune, so they tune up in the middle of the movement. 

These are pretty well known. Less so is Paul Hindemith's 1925 piece 'Overture to The Flying Dutchman as played at sight by a second-rate Concert Orchestra at the Village Well at 7 o'clock in the morning," which is kind of a Portsmouth-Sinfonia reading/mangling of the piece (though this work does have other elements as well). 

And speaking of Wagner, Gabriel Faure and Andre Messager saw Wagner's Ring and though they loved it they went ahead and created a jaunty, almost ragtimey piano parody that's pretty much the antithesis of what Wagner was going for, called Souvenirs de Bayreuth. There are other examples out there, but these are enough for starters.


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