# Composer you've returned to with enthusiasm? One you've left behind?



## SearsPoncho (Sep 23, 2020)

Mozart was one of the composers who really got me interested in classical music. I listened to him frequently in my college days. As the years went by, I guess I just took him for granted. I didn't have tons of Mozart in my cd collection other than some of the usual suspects (handful of late symphonies, piano concertos 20-27, the Da Ponte operas, some chamber works and piano sonatas, etc.). Now, well into my middle age years, I've find myself coming back to him. Frequently. Daily. It's as if I'm truly addicted to his music and can never get enough. How did I ignore so much of his oeuvre for so long? I'm not sure there's another composer I would rather hear when I wake up on the right side of the bed in good spirits.

Mahler is a different story. I came to classical music in the late 80's, when the Mahler boom was in full swing. I spent a great deal of time listening to his symphonies and song cycles when I was in my 20s and 30s, and I made sure to catch his symphonies in concert frequently, which I considered the highlight of any programme. I rarely listen to him these days. I would say I listen to Mahler's 4th once or twice a year, his 9th once every year or two, and his 1st, 2nd, 5th and 6th once every 2-5 years. These are works are used to listen to weekly. Why? I'm not really sure. 

Anyhow, I would be interested to know of composers you've returned to with renewed enthusiasm, as well as composers who, to quote B.B. King, you've had a "the thrill is gone" moment.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

Interesting and timely. I too have put some of my old favorites on the back burner...Mahler among them. But I have recently been spending a lot of time with those mid-19th c Germans: Schubert, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Raff and company. A nice antidote for all the lunacy going on in the world. Completely turned off Beethoven. Even Prokofiev is off the menu, which is rare.


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## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

Beethoven and Grieg are probably my two left-behinds from teen-hood; Britten's the one I've maintained steadfastly since teen-hood; and Handel is probably the major one I drifted away from when all I knew in my teens was the Water and Firework musics plus Messiah, but to whom I have now returned for his numerous non-Messianic oratorios (Saul, being a particular favourite), amongst other things.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff were big favourites for the first few years that I listened to classical music (mid 1980s), but as time progressed, my interest in them dwindled, save for a number of works. I rarely play their CD's anymore. Other early favourite like Mahler and Bach have maintained that position. I can't think of any composers that have gone down and then up again in my appreciation.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

I have to admit, I spent about a year as a Mahler freak, then I burned out. And like that old Barry Manilow song, "I've been up, down, trying to get the feeling again." I'm still trying.

As far as new excitement, it comes from rediscovering composers that I dismissed a long time ago because influencial people around me had dismissed them, like Grieg, Boccherini, and Rachmaninov.


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## Coach G (Apr 22, 2020)

Tchaikovsky was an early favorite, then I got kind of kind of sick of Tchaikovsky, found it syrupy and melodramatic; and despite constant melody, I thought the symphonies were disjointed as if Tchaikovsky was having a hard time getting from point A to point B; but now I've come back to Tchaikovsky, and especially the symphonies. To me, the Tchaikovsky symphonies have the same depth and breadth as Sibelius and Nielsen, the same sad Russian soulfulness as Shostakovich, and are no more flabby than Mahler's.


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## Oscar South (Aug 6, 2020)

I keep revisiting Beethoven, absolutely loving a few select pieces at a time (I've visited most of them by now..) and then moving on relatively quickly. I find his work to be absolutely hypnotic at first but it quickly becomes nauseatingly heavy to my ears -- like eating too much of a rich desert.

Stravinsky recently 'clicked' for me and I've been listening to a lot of his music from various periods of his life. The more I listen, the deeper it hits me.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

*Mozart*. Initially the Classical period was a favorite, Haydn, Mozart and their contemporaries. But for years now, I've not listened to them much. But because of the "Mozart is boring" thread, I went back and began listening to the operas. Then the sacred music, and on to chamber works. Today I actually put on the Böhm recording of the late symphonies.


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

Sibelius is the one that I've returned with most enthusiasm. When I first listened to his music I didn't connect with it, yet nowadays I became a fan. Mozart and Schubert in the other hand I loved at first but have been avoiding in the last months.


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## ThaNotoriousNIC (Jun 29, 2020)

One composer in which I used to give a lot of listening time to was Stravinsky. When I was first introducing myself to the genre, I listened a lot to the three Russian ballets (Petrushka, Firebird, and Rite of Spring)and the Symphony of Psalms. As my tastes have gradually shifted towards Baroque and Romantic era composers, Stravinsky has now become a composer that I only listen to once in a blue moon.

I feel that I tend to return to composers every week or sometimes month or so. This week I have been vibing to some old favorites by Prokofiev (Alexander Nevsky); in contrast, last week I was listening heavily to Bellini operas. Sometimes composers return to the scene but then go back into the background like Tchaikovsky, who I listened to a lot of in Fall 2019.


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## Ulfilas (Mar 5, 2020)

The ones I've kind of left behind are Brahms and Tchaikovsky, whose music I was in love with when I was younger. I didn't get Mahler or Bruckner then, but now it's their music that I find compels me more. 

I have never stopped loving the Classical guys (Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert), but I don't listen to Mendelssohn or Schumann as much.

I guess there's a trend there, that the more classically-oriented romantics are less interesting to me. I love Wagner!


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## caracalla (Feb 19, 2020)

As a kid, I started with the mid-Romantics (Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Dvorak), but Beethoven was the first composer I took to wholeheartedly. Faithlessly, I then threw him over when I discovered Haydn and Mozart, and hung out with these new loves awhile before completing what had actually been a one-way voyage back to the Baroque and beyond. 

Of the three, I'd have to say that Beethoven is the only one who has managed to reignite any real enthusiasm in later life. At any rate, I spend far more time with him than any other Classical or Romantic composer, and it's probably Brahms who comes second now. Periodic attempts to rekindle the embers with H&M haven't worked. However, my appreciation of the post-Baroque Galante composers has been growing of late, so maybe I'll eventually claw my way back to them that way.


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