# Blind Spots



## David Phillips (Jun 26, 2017)

I love the music of Vaughan Williams but his Tallis Fantasia leaves me cold.
I adore all of Ravel's orchestral works with the exception of his most renowned masterpiece, Daphnis and Cloe.
I've listened to Sibelius's 4th Symphony dozens of times and I still don't get it.
Any other blind spots out there?


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## mathisdermaler (Mar 29, 2017)

David Phillips said:


> I love the music of Vaughan Williams but his Tallis Fantasia leaves me cold.
> *I adore all of Ravel's orchestral works with the exception of his most renowned masterpiece, Daphnis and Cloe.*
> I've listened to Sibelius's 4th Symphony dozens of times and I still don't get it.
> Any other blind spots out there?




I still don't love Mahler on a deep level


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## bharbeke (Mar 4, 2013)

It's okay to be unmoved by or to dislike any composition you want. Know what works for you, and enjoy that. If you change your mind in the future, the benefit is only that you have gained a new piece to enjoy. I don't see that your stance on a work or composer will gain or lose you friends.

I think Sibelius' 4th is just okay, but I do like 1 and 3 quite a bit. Maybe those are more up your alley?


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## R3PL4Y (Jan 21, 2016)

I really like Mahler a lot, but I have yet to really appreciate the 6th symphony.
Turangalila is definitely low on my list of favorite Messiaen pieces.
I do not like Bruckner 7 nearly as much as I do all of his other mature symphonies.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

David Phillips said:


> I love the music of Vaughan Williams but his Tallis Fantasia leaves me cold.
> I adore all of Ravel's orchestral works with the exception of his most renowned masterpiece, Daphnis and Cloe.
> I've listened to Sibelius's 4th Symphony dozens of times and I still don't get it.
> Any other blind spots out there?


New appreciation and insights can come with age, though not always, and then it may simply make sense to cut one's losses and move on to someone else, or come back later after one has changed or matured more as a person. It happens.

I didn't appreciate Mozart until I was in my 50s, and then he became my number one. So don't be fooled, because sometimes a composer or work simply takes time to absorb and understand. Perhaps the trick is knowing the difference between the two over a lifetime.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

mathisdermaler said:


> I still don't love Mahler on a deep level


Don't feel bad. I don't either, but I don't think it indicates a blind spot not to love something deeply. Now if you don't like Mahler at all, that might be a blind spot. I'll bet there are things in his music you like a lot.

I'm with the OP on _Daphnis and Chloe_ vs. most of the rest of Ravel. Too many harp swooshes or something; it just doesn't seem to go anywhere, except for that wonderful cinematic sunrise sequence. I don't find _La Valse_ rewarding either, although it does go somewhere. Another blind spot for me is Debussy's _La Mer._ It sounds like a masterpiece and it is one, but I just can't get interested enough to pull out the CD. Except for _L'Apres-midi_ I tend to prefer his chamber music to his orchestral pieces. And then there's Rimsky-Korsakov's _Scherazade._ Boring, though I can see why it's popular.


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## Tallisman (May 7, 2017)

Schumann's piano concerto leaves me completely cold. I'll keep trying, though :tiphat:


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## Merl (Jul 28, 2016)

David Phillips said:


> I've listened to Sibelius's 4th Symphony dozens of times and I still don't get it.
> Any other blind spots out there?


I'm with you here. Add to this Mahler 8 and Elgar 1 & 2.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

I haven't liked Bruckner for 50 years, cannot understand symbolic logic, and have started The Sound and the Fury ten times and never gotten past page 10.


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## Meyerbeer Smith (Mar 25, 2016)

Brahms (lugubrious), Bach (clever counterpoint but academic), Schubert, Sibelius, and most of Saint-Saëns. There are reasons why few of his operas are performed!

Liszt's _Faust Symphony_'s pretty boring, too.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

Addendum: And I can't for the life of me figure out how a sewing machine works.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

MarkW said:


> Addendum: And I can't for the life of me figure out how a sewing machine works.


Start a topic in the dear Abby section.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

Too much to complain about in the posts already attached to this thread. People picking on some of my favorite composers: Brahms, Bach, Schubert, Saint-Saëns, Mahler! And on pieces dear to my heart; disliking the Sibelius 4th, the _Tallis Fantasia_, _La Mer_, Schumann's Piano Concerto, the _Faust Symphony_, the Bruckner 7th! What's next? Beethoven's Fifth!

I need not post any more about my blind spot. It should be evident.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

I recently listened to nine discs of R. Strauss' orchestral works and the _Symphonia Domistica_ still leaves me cold - it's not so much the music but the idea of a whole work portraying what was the comfortable home life of a successful composer contains more than a whiff of self-congratulatory smugness to me. Unless he is parodying in a self-deprecatory way the starched, _moyenne bourgeois_ dullness of such a situation, in which case he's thrown me a curve.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Some widely acknowledged masterpieces that I don't like at all:

Beethoven - Symphony 9
Handel - Messiah
Verdi - Any opera
Bartok - String quartets


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## Meyerbeer Smith (Mar 25, 2016)

elgars ghost said:


> I recently listened to nine discs of R. Strauss' orchestral works and the _Symphonia Domistica_ still leaves me cold - it's not so much the music but the idea of a whole work portraying what was the comfortable home life of a successful composer contains more that a whiff of self-congratulatory smugness to me. Unless he is parodying the starched, _moyenne bourgeois_ dullness of such a situation, in which case he's thrown me a curve.


Well, Strauss did think himself as interesting as Napoleon!


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## chill782002 (Jan 12, 2017)

Bruckner's 6th symphony does nothing for me at all. I love the 4th, 7th, 8th and 9th and the others are generally good but the 6th is a bit of an outlier for some reason.


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## Pat Fairlea (Dec 9, 2015)

Art Rock said:


> Some widely acknowledged masterpieces that I don't like at all:
> 
> Beethoven - Symphony 9
> Handel - Messiah
> ...


Interesting. I'm with you on the first three but not the Bartok 4tets.


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## chill782002 (Jan 12, 2017)

Pat Fairlea said:


> Interesting. I'm with you on the first three but not the Bartok 4tets.


Beethoven's 9th is not my favourite of his symphonies but the first movement alone is worth the price of admission. Bartok string quartets are great, not really interested in Baroque music and not a fan of opera. Never mind, we all have our personal preferences and the world would be a much duller place without them.


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## Animal the Drummer (Nov 14, 2015)

Mahler's my overall blind spot. The one thing I've heard of his which I actually enjoy is that early piano quartet movement one sometimes finds as a filler on chamber music recordings. I've tried with the symphonies, I really have, but they leave me untouched at best. At worst I'm afraid I flat out dislike them, though I can see how much craft and graft went into them.

However, the thread seems to me to be aimed mainly at the (possibly more interesting) question whether there are particular pieces any of us can't take to among the output of composers whose music we otherwise enjoy. That gets a "yes" from me in a couple of cases, one being Beethoven's Choral Symphony as others have also said. Another is Schubert's "Great C major". I don't exactly dislike either, but both outstay their welcome as far as I'm concerned.


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

Schubert's symphonies do nothing for me although I love his piano and chamber music.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Animal the Drummer said:


> However, the thread seems to me to be aimed mainly at the (possibly more interesting) question whether there are particular pieces any of us can't take to among the output of composers whose music we otherwise enjoy.


Fair enough. The Beethoven 9 example still holds for me. There's a lot of Beethoven that I like or love (symphonies 3,5,6,7; violin concerto; piano concertos 3,4; piano sonatas; string quartets; septets etc) but I can't stand his arguably most revered composition. I'll throw in the Missa Solemnis as well - maybe the way he wrote for voices irks me. On the other hand, the first 3 movements of the 9th are also not my cup of tea.


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