# Best and worst of the most popular



## violadude (May 2, 2011)

If you consider yourself an "advanced" Classical Music listener and are a little bit inclined toward music snobbery of some sort, as I am, you often find yourself scoffing at the "overly-popular" pieces of Classical Music. Of course, the general public just doesn't know what they're missing when they choose to have Pachabel's Canon played at their wedding instead of say, the third movement of Schumann's 1st string quartet.

But let's be honest, as much as we like to scoff at popular pieces, some are actually very good and some are even among the very best.

Now, I'm not one who says that popular pieces of Classical music tend to be "bad" per se. I think almost every piece of classical music is popular for a good enough reason, even if it is just a catchy tune. But as a serious/semi-serious listener of classical music, what uber popular pieces do you still think hold up as great pieces of music even as an advanced listener? Which pieces do you think are popular only because they have that kind of "catchy tune" mass appeal quality and aren't necessarily "great" pieces of music.

Here are some of mine

Still hold up as great pieces of music

Tchaikovsky ballets (yes, the tunes are catchy, but they're also brilliant)

Brandenburg 3 and Air from Orch. Suite 3 (Can't really go wrong with Bach)

Chopin e minor prelude (No, not even The Notebook could ruin this one)

Beethoven's 5th and 9th Symphonies, Mozart's 40th symphony and Mozart's 21st piano concerto second movement (because of course)

Popular mostly because of mass appeal

Oh Fortuna (Once you get past the WOW EPIC CHORAL MUSIC effect, it all seems pretty empty)

Finlandia (Er, I actually think the Finlandia theme itself is really great but I expected a lot more from this piece when I first heard it and it was kind of disappointing. I usually love Sibelius)

Fur Elise (This one is a bit debatable I think, but I've never found much to like about this piece, honestly. Sounds sort of like Beethoven wrote it in his sleep. And of course everyone seems to think it's the most profound thing ever written for piano)

1812 Overture (seems kinda boring and aimless most of the time to me).


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

violadude said:


> If you consider yourself an "advanced" Classical Music listener and are a little bit inclined toward music snobbery of some sort, as I am, you often find yourself scoffing at the "overly-popular" pieces of Classical Music. Of course, the general public just doesn't know what they're missing when they choose to have Pachabel's Canon played at their wedding instead of say, the third movement of Schumann's 1st string quartet.
> 
> But let's be honest, as much as we like to scoff at popular pieces, some are actually very good and some are even among the very best.
> 
> ...


I second these (except for B9). Some additions:

Ravel - Bolero
Rimsky-Korsakov - Sheherezade
Shostakovich - Waltz 2
Barber - Adagio for strings (even though I prefer the original, as part of the SQ)
Mendelssohn - Violin concerto
Beethoven - Violin concerto
Bruch - Violin concerto 1
Chopin - Nocturnes
Vivaldi - Four seasons

All good, several excellent.


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## Clairvoyance Enough (Jul 25, 2014)

Verdi's La donna è mobile never struck me as an interesting melody. Ditto for the Dance of the Knights by Prokofiev, but to be fair I've never heard either all the way through in context.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

violadude said:


> Which pieces do you think are popular only because they have that kind of "catchy tune" mass appeal quality and aren't necessarily "great" pieces of music.


Most of Handel and Haydn. (ducks)

I definitely agree with all the pieces on your great pieces of music list, and from the other not very great list I agree with the 1812 overture being there.

I think of Johann Strauss when I think of popular classical music I can't stand. But I think it was genius *pop* music of its time. When I hear it I think of over dressed pompous ballroom dancers stuffing their faces while oblivious to the world's problems.

All this said I realize the subjectivity of this, and respect others views.

I think Handel generally sounds cliché and contrived, and didn't have the balls for any real harmonic daring (ditto Haydn) but many people whose tastes I very much respect have pointed out the many worthy qualities of their music. On the other hand I love Vivaldi, though many music enthusiasts seem to feel he was mostly sequences and cheap gestures without sufficient development. Lully is another composer I love, but some feel his music wasn't complex enough. Its based a lot on personal taste and what one is looking for in their music.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Great pieces are what they are - they are great for a good reason over the centuries. For that reason, I continue to uphold this tradition with pieces such as Bach's Brandenburg Concertos, Haydn's late symphonies and oratorios, Beethoven symphonies, and countless Mozart examples in particular the symphonies and concertos.

Popular by mass appeal would be something like Pachebel's Canon.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

tdc said:


> Most of Handel and Haydn. (ducks)
> 
> I definitely agree with all the pieces on your great pieces of music list, and from the other not very great list I agree with the 1812 overture being there.
> 
> ...


Handel and Haydn are both weak areas for me, from what little I've heard of their music I have liked it. I can see where you are coming from with Handel in a way...but Haydn has always struck me as quite an adventurous composer whenever I've listened to him. Don't know enough of his oeuvre off the top of my head to defend him more vigorously but I think it is a little strange to say he is not daring.

Agree what you say about Johann Strauss for the most part. His music is kind of a pain in the butt to play too if you are anything but a 1st violin.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

violadude said:


> ...but Haydn has always struck me as quite an adventurous composer whenever I've listened to him. Don't know enough of his oeuvre off the top of my head to defend him more vigorously but I think it is a little strange to say he is not daring.


In ways, yes he could be adventurous and there are things I do like to listen to by him - Brendel or Richter playing one of the piano sonatas - I'll take it. But I remember you feel Haydn is 'edgy' in his use of humor in his music. I don't get that. I don't find his humor edgy at all and his lack of dissonance makes every piece he composed feel like its rated G. There is nothing wrong with that, but to me it gets kind of boring.


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## Johnhanks (Feb 21, 2016)

tdc said:


> I think of Johann Strauss when I think of popular classical music I can't stand.


With you all the way there.



tdc said:


> ... When I hear it I think of over dressed pompous ballroom dancers stuffing their faces while oblivious to the world's problems.


For me, it's a middle-aged bank manager with no sense of humour who is convinced (and is desperately trying to convince me) that he is the life and soul of the party.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

violadude said:


> Finlandia (Er, I actually think the Finlandia theme itself is really great but I expected a lot more from this piece when I first heard it and it was kind of disappointing. I usually love Sibelius)


Yeah, I wish Sibelius had revisited that tune and made more of it. Though I guess we can just sing it and call it a song and forget about the rest of the symphonic poem.



violadude said:


> Fur Elise (This one is a bit debatable I think, but I've never found much to like about this piece, honestly. Sounds sort of like Beethoven wrote it in his sleep. And of course everyone seems to think it's the most profound thing ever written for piano)


I love it, but it is of course exactly what Beethoven said it was: a bagatelle. Can't blame him if people don't read the warning label.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

Overplayed as it is, I actually think Tchaikovsky's String Serenade is as close to a perfect piece of music as he ever wrote.


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

I think very highly of the 1812 Overture - great melodies/rousing music especially well-suited for July 4th in the U.S.


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## Cosmos (Jun 28, 2013)

A lot of pieces have already been mentioned which I would say are the "worst" of the popular ones [Fur Elise, 1812 Overture, Johann Strauss II waltzes], so I'm checking out the "Top 100" list from "Kick *** Classical", which has a subjective survey of the most often used pieces in popular culture, and here is a small summary of my opinions:

*Best*:
- Beethoven Symphony 5 - This site only lists the first movement, but even with just the first movement, it's a wonderfully structured work that does so much with such a small idea. Love it.
- Handel Hallelujah from The Messiah - Ok, sure it's cliche and used for comedic effect in different film or TV scenes, but it's a fantastic section of a fantastic choral work.
- Grieg In the Hall of the Mountain King - A lot of fun, no surprise so many rock covers exist. And it's part of my favorite work by this composer, the Peer Gynt Suite
- Gershwin Rhapsody in Blue - I'm not big on Gershwin, but this piece is irresistible. Takes me back to a time I've only lived through in films.
- Beethoven 'Moonlight' Sonata - It's not the best Beethoven sonata, but it's dramatic and innovative, drastically different from other piano music published at the time. Even if I cringe a little when I hear it played as background music in a restaurant, I still can't say no to it.

*Worst*:
- Pachelbel Canon in D - first off, I have a genuine question; is this a canon? Because when listening to it at every wedding I've attended, it sounds more like a Passacaglia. Anyway, overplayed and I blame it for tricking people into thinking classical music is relaxing/schmalzy/boring.
- Offenbach Infernal Galop - otherwise known as the "Can Can"...I am...disgusted by this work
- Elgar Pomp and Circumstance March - Something only well known thanks to the concept of Graduation Ceremonies. Elgar wrote so much more, and yet most people will only ever hear this. The music isn't even that bad, but pairing it with sitting through a 3+ hour event where hundreds of names of people I have never met getting their degrees while waiting impatiently for my sister to stand up for her few seconds of pride has Pavlovian conditioned me to yawn when hearing this march.
- Liszt Hungarian Rhapsody - I like Liszt, but he's written so much more captivating and interesting music. Not only that, but of the Hungarian Rhapsodies, no.2 is probably the most formulaic and unapologetically flashy of them all. 
- Fucik Enter the Gladiators - What kind of ridiculousness...?


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

With regard to fairly recent music:

Best: Steve Reich, _Music for 18 Musicians_

Contra Kyle Gann, I think the post-minimalists (or, to use his new term, "grid-pulse post-minimalists") and "totalists" are all still basically trying to wake up from this piece and/or from Philip Glass' _Einstein on the Beach_ - and of course so are Reich and Glass themselves. And this doesn't get boring, as _Einstein on the Beach_ does. You can of course say a lot against this piece - it's parasitic on popular music while thinking it's too good for pop; it's not even as good as the best contemporaneous pop music; but considering the alternative...

Worst: Arvo Pärt, _Tabula Rasa_ or whatever else; Henryk Górecki, symphony 3

I do get it. It's consonant, and it sounds kind of like the Renaissance, which now seems to collectively rival Bach as our notion of the Platonic ideal of music. (At the same time, it also sounds hilariously like the beginning of Leopold Stokowski's arrangement of Vivaldi's concerto grosso in D minor: 



) But it also sounds like Ennio Morricone's modestly more complicated, much more boring religious brother. And somehow this is supposed to be more respectable than non-holy minimalism?

Of course, Pärt and Górecki are way better than John Coolidge Adams or Osvaldo Golijov, but they're only popular by classical music standards, which is to say, not popular at all. John Tavener is a borderline case. (I mean borderline in terms of popularity. His music sucks.)


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## Avey (Mar 5, 2013)

I am usually highly critical of the standard performance repertoire, but I think quartets should be playing *Dvorak's No. 12* on like every weekend.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

Cosmos said:


> - Handel Hallelujah from The Messiah - Ok, sure it's cliche and used for comedic effect in different film or TV scenes, but it's a fantastic section of a fantastic choral work.


Somebody wrote a paper (or book?) about how Handel is here celebrating the triumph of Christians over Jews, which is of course stupid, but he was onto something. To save this chorus from pop trivialization, I suggest we put the identity politickers on the case, and let them condemn it for what it is: a coronation anthem for an aristocracy and haute bourgeoisie who specialized in killing Irish Catholics (and enclosing public land, but nobody cares about class crimes any more). _That_ should make it exciting again. (Though come to think of it, Irish Catholics don't seem to be on the list of people whom orthodox identity politics cares about. Well, find somebody who does care. Maybe the Boston-area Hibernians can be persuaded to start picketing the Handel and Haydn Society every December.)

(The anime series _Evangelion_ already had roughly the right idea 20 years ago, making it the theme music of a quasi-divine monster.)



Cosmos said:


> - Offenbach Infernal Galop - otherwise known as the "Can Can"...I am...disgusted by this work


I heartily agree with you about everything else, but heartily disagree about this. Though I do wish it weren't severed in the public consciousness from the wonderful operetta that produced it.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Harold in Columbia said:


> Worst: Arvo Pärt, _Tabula Rasa_ or whatever else
> 
> I do get it. It's consonant, and it sounds kind of like the Renaissance, which now seems to collectively rival Bach as our notion of the Platonic ideal of music . . . And somehow this is supposed to be more respectable than non-holy minimalism?


I may be mistaken, but I think Arvo Part has more going on than just the surface, at least in his early pieces (I haven't studied his recent pieces). For example, in Fratres, and he's doing interesting clockwise-counterclockwise things with the pitch series, which involves motivic variation. He combines this with permutation as he repeats this eight times starting at different points in his pitch series. He seems to know what he's doing.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

Sure, he knows what he's doing. That and some rich relatives will make you Hubert Parry. (Though Pärt is a more original composer than Parry. On the other hand, he'll never write a tune as good as "Jerusalem.")


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

tdc said:


> I think of Johann Strauss when I think of popular classical music I can't stand. But I think it was genius *pop* music of its time. When I hear it I think of over dressed pompous ballroom dancers stuffing their faces while oblivious to the world's problems.


This seems self-contradictory. If he was pop music, then he wasn't just for "over dressed pompous ballroom dancers."

In any case, it's incorrect. Strauss' waltzes were popular in cheap beer gardens as well as ballrooms - and written with that intention - and in 1848 he was seen as the revolutionaries' mascot composer, as opposed to his father, who was the establishment's.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Harold in Columbia said:


> This seems self-contradictory. If he was pop music, then he wasn't just for "over dressed pompous ballroom dancers."
> 
> In any case, it's incorrect. Strauss' waltzes were popular in cheap beer gardens as well as ballrooms - and written with that intention - and in 1848 he was seen as the revolutionaries' mascot composer, as opposed to his father, who was the establishment's.


And I suspect that the people in the cheap beer gardens were just as "oblivious to the world's problems" as those rich people in their fancy ballrooms. When was it ever different?


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

Well, presumably they were sentient to their own problems.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Harold in Columbia said:


> Well, presumably they were sentient to their own problems.


Of that, we may be quite sure!


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

As to Arvo Part, I'll just have to disagree with you on this one.


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## Cosmos (Jun 28, 2013)

Harold in Columbia said:


> Somebody wrote a paper (or book?) about how Handel is here celebrating the triumph of Christians over Jews, which is of course stupid, but he was onto something. To save this chorus from pop trivialization, I suggest we put the identity politickers on the case, and let them condemn it for what it is: a coronation anthem for an aristocracy and haute bourgeoisie who specialized in killing Irish Catholics (and enclosing public land, but nobody cares about class crimes any more). _That_ should make it exciting again. (Though come to think of it, Irish Catholics don't seem to be on the list of people whom orthodox identity politics cares about. Well, find somebody who does care. Maybe the Boston-area Hibernians can be persuaded to start picketing the Handel and Haydn Society every December.)
> 
> (The anime series _Evangelion_ already had roughly the right idea 20 years ago, making it the theme music of a quasi-divine monster.)


Damn! I didn't even realize that fact, but it does make the piece even more historically interesting


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## Guest (Feb 24, 2016)

The best part of Tabula Rasa is easily the repeated arpeggio on the prepared piano. I consider Arvo Part to be a fine composer, and I would not be quick to criticize his best works. However, he tended to mine the same gold over and over, and some of his stuff is redundant as a result.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

Harold in Columbia said:


> This seems self-contradictory. If he was pop music, then he wasn't just for "over dressed pompous ballroom dancers."
> 
> In any case, it's incorrect. Strauss' waltzes were popular in cheap beer gardens as well as ballrooms - and written with that intention - and in 1848 he was seen as the revolutionaries' mascot composer, as opposed to his father, who was the establishment's.


Well I never said anything about the music only being written for a specific group, and I don't think it is correct to suggest that the upper class (then or now) would never listen to pop music.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

violadude said:


> 1812 Overture (seems kinda boring and aimless most of the time to me).


Yeah, I kind of agree with you except that you'll be very surprised at how wonderful the 1812 really is, if you listen to this recording:


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

As far as Fur Elise I can agree with the OP to an extent - its incorrect to treat the piece as though it is the most profound thing Beethoven composed, but I think it is great for what it is. It has a simple beauty, no need to complicate it.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Harold in Columbia said:


> Sure, he knows what he's doing. That and some rich relatives will make you Hubert Parry. (Though Pärt is a more original composer than Parry. On the other hand, he'll never write a tune as good as "Jerusalem.")


It's the words not the tune of Jerusalem that are the problem.

"And did those feet in ancient times, Walk upon England's mountain's green."

Whether you are a believer or unbeliever the answer is "No they didn't!"


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

DavidA said:


> It's the words not the tune of Jerusalem that are the problem.
> 
> "And did those feet in ancient times, Walk upon England's mountain's green."
> 
> Whether you are a believer or unbeliever the answer is "No they didn't!"


Well, Blake never says they did; he merely poses the question . My favorite version of Jerusalem is Paul Robeson, on a Vanguard LP entitled--wait for it--Robeson. He is accompanied only by piano. Great album! _Deep River, Water Boy, John Brown's Body_, many more songs, well recorded, and his basso profundo still quite intact.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

I would like to mention Carmen by Bizet, which I believe to be one of the greatest as well as most popular operas of all time.

I agree with a lot of these. But I wonder sometimes if those who don't like Johann Strauss II waltz's and overtures didn't learn to love classical till they were teens or older. I still really enjoy Die Fledermaus overture and Gypsy Baron in particular. I still sometimes enjoy the music from Offenbach's Gaite Parisienne as well, and Orpheus in thr Underworld.

I am glad at violadude's mention of Tchaikovsky ballets. Golden music.

Definitely agree about O Fortuna...never found it interesting. I kind of like Fur Elise but have always been too self conscious to learn it myself. I also enjoy Maple Leaf Rag, though I am bored with the Entertainer. And Dvorak's Humoreske still gets me.


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

Best: Smetana's "The Moldau" (the rest of _Ma Vlast_ isn't even that popular).


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