# Do you ever get stuck on one piece of music?



## Dave Whitmore (Oct 3, 2014)

Do you ever get stuck on one piece of music that you just have to listen to over and over? I'm like that right now on Beethoven's 9th Symphony. I'm currently listening to it for the 4th night in a row. I just love it. The whole symphony is fantastic, but the 4th movement is just out of this world.

Does this happen to you? And when the obsession has run its course could you still listen to it again soon after or do you end up getting so sick of hearing it that you can't listen to it again for a long while?


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## DiesIraeCX (Jul 21, 2014)

Yes, I went through a time where I was stuck on the same symphony that you're stuck on right now (it's still my favorite symphony). Nowadays, I seldom give it a listen with the intention of keeping it fresh. When I come back to it in a couple months or so, it'll be with fresher ears. Absence makes the heart grow fonder.  

I also went through similar situations for quite a few different works, some Mahler symphonies, some Beethoven symphonies, Brahms' 4th, Schubert's 9th, Mozart's 38th and Requiem, etc. etc.


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## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

Of course, it also happens to me  However, the approach to listening I take limits it somewhat.

When I get a new album, I listen to it pretty much once (or even twice) daily for two to four days, depending on how long it takes me to feel pretty familiar with it. Even albums I've owned for years get at least two plays. I feel there is always just a bit more to wring out of the music and I revel in the pleasure of hearing favourites that I have gotten to know fairly well. Then, I set it back on the shelf and put a different album into the player (I have a 5-disc player, so there are always 5 CDs going around and some get switched out sooner than others). I have a pretty good sized collection, plus, I tend to splurge a bit when buying, so there is a continual pressure to hear other things. Also, there is the web and free music, oftentimes spurred on by the listening of others here on TC.

I've gotten somewhat mathematical about how I choose what to hear next, in that I use a non-repeating random algorithm to make the determination  I don't strictly follow the choice the computer makes, but will choose from the top dozen or so in the list, depending on what I want to hear, but nothing ever gets put off indefinitely (unless it is a candidate for culling).


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

I definitely find pieces to latch onto for a time. And then I find new ones, and then I come back to the ones that I found, and if the timing is right, I like them even more than I did before. Its like DiesIrae said, about the absence. 

This summer I was really deep into Berlioz's Harold in Italy. I came back to it last weekend and that was really nice. 

And then there are those baroque, renaissance, and classical pieces that I tend to gravitate towards at first amidst the number of works I'm currently going through. Then the draw to listen to them repeatedly grows weaker and I attempt to find new interest in other pieces from the initial selection of pieces(usuallyl related in some way) I was taking on. This process has been happening with the Muffat concerti grossi recently, since I first latched onto the 1st and 2nd, but am now finding interest in the 12th, 7th, and 3rd, and then find some more interest in the 1st and 2nd when I come back to them. Probably this process has been done most extensively on the Haydn symphonies.


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## Haydn man (Jan 25, 2014)

Yes, I used to be like this with favourites but now try to actively avoid this.
Having spent several years not listening to classical music but over the past 10 months starting again, I have tried to make myself listen to a range of works old and new.
So, Beethoven 9 has not yet had an airing but I think this will soon be rectified. 
New and old stuff still gets stuck in my head I just try not to let it dominate the listening as much as it did before. I find my problem is the vast amount of music out there I am ignorant of and knowing where to start, but I am not complaining.
TC doesn't help with the Saturday Symphony and the Current Listening threads but they have lead to several purchases


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

At one time I had about 17 Beethoven Ninths on my MP3 player and kept playing through them over and over, probably for a couple of weeks. I am on my 4th trip in a row through Bellini's La Sonnambula opera right now. I have done this with Beethoven's symphonies, Handel's Messiah, Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition. The 32 Beethoven piano sonatas, Mendelssohn's symphonies, Beethoven's Fidelio, Rossini's La Cenerentola, Donizetti's La Fille du Regiment. I am sure there are more. My son listened to Brahms German Requiem about 80 times in a row from when he first discovered it and was very well prepared then for the live performance we attended. Yeah, I get stuck on a work and don't want to leave it for a while.


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## Guest (Nov 7, 2014)

Rossini's overtures certainly have that effect on me. La Cenerentola! It's a formula, but a good one...


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## MoonlightSonata (Mar 29, 2014)

Yes, I find this happens very frequently, on pieces like these:
Saint-Saens - Danse Macabre and Carnival of the Animals
Mozart - 40th symphony
Beethoven - Pathetique sonata, several symphonies
Bach - Lots!
Vaughan Williams - Sea Symphony, fantasias
Elgar - Cello Concerto
Holst - Planets


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

DoReFaMi said:


> Rossini's overtures certainly have that effect on me. La Cenerentola! It's a formula, but a good one...


Not just the overtures, but I was listening to the entire operas over and over--all three of them.


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## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

I got stuck on this one for awhile.
Just loved the sound of it.


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## shangoyal (Sep 22, 2013)

The adagio of the Pathetique sonata used to be my go to bed music a few years ago. I still listen to it every so often.


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

I get stuck on pretty much any piece of music that is new for me and that I enjoy, and on the old ones too. Sometimes I would listen to nothing but Shubert's lieder for a month, or a certain compilation of organ music for two weeks, or have reruns of Tristan und Isolde every couple of days. That is the reason I post in the "Current Listening" thread quite rarely.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

I've always been able to find my way through to the end, and out... but thank you.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

I get stuck on one or two composers, not one or two particular pieces of music. Then I get bored and move on to different composers.

Right now it's two-Mahler and J.S. Bach.


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## realdealblues (Mar 3, 2010)

Not only particular works but also particular recordings of works.

Every single night for at least 5 years I listened to 1 of these 2 recordings. I always kept the partial thought in mind that if I died during my sleep I wanted the last thing I heard to be one of these two works.

Mahler: Das Lied Von Der Erde
View attachment 55353

Leonard Bernstein/Vienna Philharmonic
Soloists: James King, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau

Mozart: Requiem
View attachment 55354

Neville Marriner/Academy And Chorus Of St. Martin In The Fields
Soloists: Sylvia McNair, Carolyn Watkinson, Francisco Araiza, Robert Lloyd


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