# What classical composer was most vilified in his day?



## regenmusic (Oct 23, 2014)

I am curious which composer was not ignore, but actually actively disliked by the majority in his day. It seems like there is usually some degree of respect, or being completely ignored.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Wagner seems like a good candidate. He was reviled by many, though naturally he also inspired intense admiration and devotion. I don't think you'll be able to find anyone who encountered entirely one or the other reaction.


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## Xenakiboy (May 8, 2016)

Mahlerian said:


> Wagner seems like a good candidate. He was reviled by many, though naturally he also inspired intense admiration and devotion. I don't think you'll be able to find anyone who encountered entirely one or the other reaction.


I've always believed that if he wasn't as "controversial" or notorious as he's become, he would be either as much or even more worshiped than Beethoven. Somehow, like Boulez people aren't willing to take the music for what it is, it seems to get devalued for said reason!


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Vilified by whom? The majority of people never even heard the music of most classical composers. Should we judge by the number of failed premieres? The number of negative critical notices? The number of orchestral works that Liszt didn't arrange for pianists to play at home?

Many composers have suffered the insults of critics with their own axes to grind. But vilification by a substantial majority of the concert-going public has been fairly rare, I think. Even the scandal of _Le Sacre du Printemps_ wasn't entirely spontaneous, wasn't entirely because of the music, and was soon followed by success. Wagner was frequently vilified in the press, but that had partly to do with his controversial life and ideas; his operas soon squashed the opposition decisively. I guess that leaves Schoenberg as the well-known composer who's suffered the most hostile rejection by listeners, despite much critical esteem.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Xenakiboy said:


> I've always believed that if he wasn't as "controversial" or notorious as he's become, he would be either as much or even more worshiped than Beethoven. Somehow, like Boulez people aren't willing to take the music for what it is, it seems to get devalued for said reason!


Wagner's problem was, and still is, that he was much more than a composer of music. Music was for him a means of expression wedded so intimately to his poetic and dramatic conceptions that comparisons with "straight" musicians like Bach, Mozart or Beethoven are not entirely meaningful or possible. His music really is different in the way it unfolds its ideas in time - things happen at a more deliberate pace, in a way having nothing to do with tempo - and even some musicians dislike him or just don't "get" him for that reason, even now.


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## micro (Jun 18, 2016)

I don't know much about Wagner's life nor fully like or understand his music techniques (I like his overtures though like most people), but even from his strict facial expressions in the photos we have, I can guess that he looked more like an arrogant statesman/businessman than a romantic artist :'D

That's a face of a man I would prefer to avoid talking to!


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

micro said:


> I don't know much about Wagner's life nor fully like or understand his music techniques (I like his overtures though like most people), but even from his strict facial expressions in the photos we have, I can guess that he looked more like an arrogant statesman/businessman than a romantic artist :'D
> 
> That's a face of a man I would prefer to avoid talking to!


Never judge a person by his / her looks :devil:


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

micro said:


> I don't know much about Wagner's life nor fully like or understand his music techniques (I like his overtures though like most people), but even from his strict facial expressions in the photos we have, I can guess that he looked more like an arrogant statesman/businessman than a romantic artist :'D
> 
> That's a face of a man I would prefer to avoid talking to!


Wagner's portraits are very formal and show only his serious side, like most portraits during that era. In fact he was a brilliant conversationalist, very emotionally expressive, with a sharp wit and an occasionally wacky unpredictability. Sort of a wild and crazy guy. If you wanted to talk to him, and not just be streamrolled, you had to have something to say. He did like to be the center of attention.

I always enjoyed our conversations greatly


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## geralmar (Feb 15, 2013)

I have always been under the impression that Bruckner was considered something of a "country bumpkin."


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## regenmusic (Oct 23, 2014)

Maybe vilified was too strong. I wonder what composer was most negatively assessed by his contemporaries, rather than just ignored. The answer is probably very obscure.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Is this an appropriate place to debate the merits of Verdi and Wagner? No? Too bad.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Well, the proverb says that Harold Rome was not vilified in a day. 

So perhaps we can eliminate him from consideration.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

science said:


> Well, the proverb says that Harold Rome was not vilified in a day.
> 
> So perhaps we can eliminate him from consideration.


Is that by Berlioz? 

Speaking of _Harold in Italy_ (well, we are now), Paganini commissioned it but refused to play it because it didn't show off his virtuosity. He attended the premiere though, and when it was over he was so impressed that he dragged Berlioz onto the stage, knelt down and kissed his hand as the audience cheered. He later sent Berlioz a handsome check.

I know that's the opposite of vilification, but it's a nice story for those occasions when people try to defend modern music by telling you how innovative music is always misunderstood and rejected in its own time.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

regenmusic said:


> I am curious which composer was not ignore, but actually actively disliked by the majority in his day. It seems like there is usually some degree of respect, or being completely ignored.


J S Bach

Mx mc m scmsccm cdm


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## Chronochromie (May 17, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> I know that's the opposite of vilification, but it's a nice story for those occasions when people try to defend modern music by telling you how innovative music is always misunderstood and rejected in its own time.


Yes. That's as false as saying that "great music" is always acclaimed since its premiere.


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## premont (May 7, 2015)

Mandryka said:


> J S Bach
> 
> Mx mc m scmsccm cdm


Johann Sebastian Bach


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## Abraham Lincoln (Oct 3, 2015)

Mahler got a lot of flak for his compositions too.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

premont said:


> Johann Sebastian Bach


Who vilified Bach?

What about Lully or Gesualdo, or maybe Arne? Stradella was known for living a wild life and being an adulterer and had all kinds of scrapes with authority and was eventually murdered as a direct result of his sleeping with a noblewoman. I think in one of the courts Bach worked at (the one which had 2 Dukes who were brothers if I recall correctly) had some of the musicians hung for one reason or another previous to Bach's employment.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Abraham Lincoln said:


> Mahler got a lot of flak for his compositions too.


He was kicked out of the Vienna Philharmonic for having the gall to make them play his Sixth, which outraged critics and baffled audiences. As much hostility as he encountered for his compositions, however, it was matched by the acclaim for his conducting.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

tdc said:


> Who vilified Bach?


I guess there was that jail sentence...


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## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Roslavets


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Rachmaninoff's reputation as a composer generated a variety of opinions before his music gained steady recognition across the world. The 1954 edition of the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians notoriously dismissed Rachmaninoff's music as "monotonous in texture ... consist[ing] mainly of artificial and gushing tunes" and predicted that his popular success was "not likely to last". To this, Harold C. Schonberg, in his Lives of the Great Composers, responded: "It is one of the most outrageously snobbish and even stupid statements ever to be found in a work that is supposed to be an objective reference."


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## acitak 7 (Jun 26, 2016)

I think Dmitri Shostakovich was ridiculed by some of his peers, although that may have had something to do with the political climate at the time. And he had a tough time with authority, his music being described as muddled and a din. I love some of his music especially the 2nd waltz, and Romance from the Gadfly.


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## sloth (Jul 12, 2013)

If you happened to write degenerate music during the third reich you would probably end in being vilified (or gased)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degenerate_music


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## majlis (Jul 24, 2005)

I believe that nearly all despise Cage and Grofé.


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## manyene (Feb 7, 2015)

There is the famous French cartoon of the public throwing things at Berlioz the man but genuflecting at
his statue


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