# Bad works



## Andreas (Apr 27, 2012)

It was only a couple of years ago when I first got on Youtube and watched some amateur orchestras (youth orchestras, college orchestras, etc.) that I was truly able to appreciate the quality of professional orchestras. Some of the top orchestras may have a disctinct sound, alright, but for the most part they all sound equally good: tight, well-rehearsed and technically top-notch. As one would expect from professionals, of course.

So it is only in comparision to something of lower quality that something of high quality will stand out.

In a similar vein, I'd be interested in some acknowledged "bad works". Badly composed, badly structured, badly orchestrated, etc.

There are probably not a lot of bad works from well-known composers. And even then, it might rather be a matter or taste. As I read on Wikipedia, Toscanini considered the Manfred Symphony to be Tchaikovsky's best work, while Bernstein called it trash. Obviously, it must be a polarizing work, though not necessarily a bad one.

Any suggestions?


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## Kieran (Aug 24, 2010)

Good idea! I nominate Beethoven's Wellington's Victory, satirised brilliantly here by Mahlerian. Was it deliberately bad? Or is it just misunderstood?


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## DrKilroy (Sep 29, 2012)

Mozart's Musical Joke. 

Best regards, Dr


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## moody (Nov 5, 2011)

Kieran said:


> Good idea! I nominate Beethoven's Wellington's Victory, satirised brilliantly here by Mahlerian. Was it deliberately bad? Or is it just misunderstood?


Beethoven wrote it for his friend Maelzol who had invented a machine called the Panharmonica. This effort could play many of the military band instruments then available.
As it turned out what he wrote was too big for the Panharmonica so he altered it for orchestra, it was to commemorate the Battle of Vitoria.
I think it's great fun and superior to 1812,the version to get is Dorati's from the Mercury catalogue that is an amazing blast altogether.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Andreas said:


> In a similar vein, I'd be interested in some acknowledged "bad works". Badly composed, badly structured, badly orchestrated, etc.
> 
> There are probably not a lot of bad works from well-known composers. And even then, it might rather be a matter or taste. As I read on Wikipedia, Toscanini considered the Manfred Symphony to be Tchaikovsky's best work, while Bernstein called it trash. Obviously, it must be a polarizing work, though not necessarily a bad one.
> 
> Any suggestions?


More often, we find works with obvious problems than works that are so poor in construction/orchestration/invention that composers should never have expended any paper on them. So, we can talk about the formal problems with Berlioz, the orchestration problems with Schumann or Bruckner, or Reger's distinct lack of facility in invention, but even these things are up for debate, and many people disagree even with received consensus.

I nominate two pieces for the worst music put forth by a major composer:
Richard Wagner's Festival March for the American Centennial
and
Richard Strauss's Japanese Festival Music, also an anniversary commission.


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## Crudblud (Dec 29, 2011)

I'm starting to get the sense that "anniversary commissions" tend to be a bit rubbish, but on the other hand there's Britten's _Sinfonia da Requiem_ which was originally written for the same event as Strauss' _Japanische Festmusik_.

The worst works I can think of are my own experiments in aleatory, made when I had neither the experience or the working philosophy to work with the technique in any meaningful way. If we're talking "major composers" then I don't really know, I can think of plenty of works I don't like, but I don't doubt the sincerity of Mahler's 5th or Debussy's piano preludes, they just aren't my cup of tea.


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

My vote goes to Tan Dun's _Symphony 1997, Heaven, Earth, Mankind _, second only to Wellington's Victory as the most disappointing lackluster work I've heard in my lifetime from an otherwise widely extolled composer. My apologies to him if he is reading this forum, but I simply get nothing out of that particular piece.


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