# Worst Composer in your collection?



## Guest002

Just wondering what the worst composer in your collections might be.

My vote: *Albert Ketèlbey*.

I can't entirely rid myself of a sneaking liking for 'Bells Across the Meadows', though it's syrup at best. But he's undoubtedly the one person I look at in my library and think... I really ought to hit the delete button at some point. But for some reason, never do.

I suppose this is related to other threads about 'favourite pieces by least favourite composers'. But here, I mean composers who (in your view) just aren't very good, not whether you like their work or not. That might be because you think them technically inept. Or that they just couldn't throw a decent tune together. Or for some other reason entirely.

The requirement is only that you own their music, and kind of feel you should probably donate it to a charity shop, but haven't quite got round to doing so yet!

Nominations...


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## Bulldog

dizwell said:


> The requirement is only that you own their music, and kind of feel you should probably donate it to a charity shop, but haven't quite got round to doing so yet!


Although I've discarded most of Vivaldi's discs that I own, I still have a few roaming around the house. I don't have anything against the man, and he certainly is technically sufficient. However, he and I have no connection at all.


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## Manxfeeder

I probably shouldn't say this out loud, but I'd say Michael Daugherty based on the box set that Naxos put out. At least from that assemblage, it seems like his music is meant more for pleasing a crowd than occupying a recording.


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## Sad Al

Bulldog said:


> Although I've discarded most of Vivaldi's discs that I own, I still have a few roaming around the house. I don't have anything against the man, and he certainly is technically sufficient. However, he and I have no connection at all.


Try his Four seasons, it's very popular


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## Art Rock

I have 13 Handel CD's. If I ever prune my ridiculously large CD collection, they'll be the first to go. I'm sure it is highly accomplished music, but I get zero satisfaction playing them.


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## Barelytenor

Some guy named Sorabji. A CD that even has an incredibly long title. I made it through about 30 seconds of the music. "It is enough, O Lord now take away my life ...."

Kind regards, :tiphat:

George


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## flamencosketches

I don't know, maybe Offenbach?


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## Bulldog

Sad Al said:


> Try his Four seasons, it's very popular


That's rather amusing - I've been familiar with Vivaldi's Four Seasons for over 50 years.


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## Becca

There are a few which have been put into a box somewhere in the garage...

Johann Pachelbel is an easy #1

Others that I have no wish to listen to again...
Ned Rorem
William Wallace
Howard Hanson


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## mbhaub

Although known for being one of the great pianists and Beethoven interpreters, how he could compose something this awful is hard to understand. Next to him, Albert Ketelbey IS Beethoven!








I've kept it around for no reason other than to show other people how bad some modern music can be. (And I have a whole bunch of Ketelbey.)


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## Duncan

Leonard Bernstein... but not "West Side Story" Leonard Bernstein or even "Candide" Leonard Bernstein but "Everything That Is Not In Fact "West Side Story" or "Candide"" Leonard Bernstein... I do like him as a conductor however... although quite a bit less than I do as a composer...


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## flamencosketches

Duncan said:


> Leonard Bernstein... but not "West Side Story" Leonard Bernstein or even "Candide" Leonard Bernstein but "Everything That I Not In Fact "West Side Story" or "Candide"" Leonard Bernstein... I do like him as a conductor however... although quite a bit less than I do as a composer...


That's too bad! I've been exploring his works lately and I find him to be a wonderful composer. Symphonies 1 & 2, Chichester Psalms, Mass... Funnily enough, I do not care for Candide or West Side Story. I'm not much of a musical theater guy-Mass, which is essentially a hybrid broadway-musical-slash-quasi-religious-work, being the odd exception.


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## DavidA

What is the point of a thread like this?


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## D Smith

DavidA said:


> What is the point of a thread like this?


Ditto that. ------------


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## Woodduck

DavidA said:


> What is the point of a thread like this?


Probably to keep our minds off of the fact that we are imprisoned in our homes, unable to see friends, unable to make plans, and unsure whether we, the people we care about, or the countries we live in will exist a month from now.


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## Woodduck

My worst composer is a curious fellow named Dennis Busch (born 1947), whose music sounds like Haydn watered down for preschoolers. I've kept the CD just because I can't believe anyone would want to write music like this. Sadly, none of his pale Classical pastiche is on YouTube.

I don't think I have any Richard Nanes, but he'd have been a contender. A former friend of mine has quite a bit of Nanes and enjoys it. All I'll say is that Nanes isn't the reason for the friend being "former," but it may only have been a matter of time.


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## Joachim Raff

Stock, Aiken and Waterman


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## Lilijana

i had a ned rorem CD i bought once. 

Recently I got rid of almost all my CDs except for a few, and ripped all the ones I liked listening to to a hard drive. Ned Rorem didn't make it!


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## Simplicissimus

I feel guilty as I snicker through this thread. But it’s actually pretty useful to think about. Or maybe just fun.

I’d gladly get rid of Virgil Thomson. The only works of his I have are Symphony on a Hymn Tune and The Feast of Love. They’re on a CD I just got which also contains Colin McPhee’s Tabuh-Tabuhan and Roger Sessions’ The Black Maskers (Howard Hanson conducting the Eastman-Rochester Orchestra, 1956, Mercury Living Presence). I bought the disc because I have been curious about McPhee and Sessions. I listened to the whole thing once, and have listened to it a couple more times without the Thomson.


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## flamencosketches

Maybe John Harbison would be another one. I never got much out of his music.


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## elgar's ghost

Long ago I bought a disc featuring a Russian conductor/composer called Mikhail Kollontai. The works, _Six Sacred Symphonies_ for string nonet, came across as little more than sub-Gorecki/Shostakovich's 15th string quartet droning/wailing with only occasional changes of pace and pitch. I appreciate that these works were inspired by Kollontai's deeply-held Orthodox faith but they near enough bored me to tears. Then again, some folk may love them.


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## Highwayman

My fellow compatriot Fazil Say definitely gets the top prize!


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## Guest002

DavidA said:


> What is the point of a thread like this?


Excuse me?

There are about 5,381 threads on this forum about who is the best composer, the best conductor, the best recording of X, Y and Z.... and somehow a lighthearted enquiry as to your worst composers doesn't meet your particular threshold test?

The point of a thread like this is to ask the opinions of the forum members.

If you don't have an opinion to share on this particular matter, fine. I will happily accept that your music collection is perfect and no-one below the rank of Archangel is permitted to be a member of it. For the rest of us mere humans, however, the question (given the highly informative responses to date) would seem to be of some relevance and interest.

You can climb back on your high horse now.


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## Triplets

Arnold Bax, barely nosing out Alexander Glazunov


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## Bigbang

Bulldog said:


> Although I've discarded most of Vivaldi's discs that I own, I still have a few roaming around the house. I don't have anything against the man, and he certainly is technically sufficient. However, he and I have no connection at all.


Ok I own Vivaldi cds of course, such as Op 3, 4, 8, and the variety cds. I never wake up and think I must hear Vivaldi but I wonder if you are stating something about Vivaldi that is the same for other people but they like him and there is no connection either. You have a very strong association to Bach so the need to give time to Bach crowds out Vivaldi? I like Bach too but I do not have that deep need to listen to Bach as much as some people might so Vivaldi will get a listen or two when I see a cd in my collection. That said, I still feel the Four Seasons is something special that not many other concertos match. Another thing is certain Vivaldi works/recordings only work a certain way for me....I do not like most of the 4 seasons out there but I cannot say that about Bach recordings.


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## MusicSybarite

seitzpf said:


> I feel guilty as I snicker through this thread. But it's actually pretty useful to think about. Or maybe just fun.
> 
> I'd gladly get rid of Virgil Thomson. The only works of his I have are Symphony on a Hymn Tune and The Feast of Love. They're on a CD I just got which also contains Colin McPhee's Tabuh-Tabuhan and Roger Sessions' The Black Maskers (Howard Hanson conducting the Eastman-Rochester Orchestra, 1956, Mercury Living Presence). I bought the disc because I have been curious about McPhee and Sessions. I listened to the whole thing once, and have listened to it a couple more times without the Thomson.


He wrote some interesting music such as the string quartets and _Three Pictures_ for orchestra. That would be a reason to not include him here if I were to mention him.


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## MusicSybarite

Triplets said:


> Arnold Bax, barely nosing out Alexander Glazunov


I feel sad reading this.


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## MusicSybarite

Highwayman said:


> My fellow compatriot Fazil Say definitely gets the top prize!


His Symphony No. 1 _Istanbul_ is impressive. Granted, it sounds like film music, but it's thoroughly exciting.


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## Dimace

I will dismiss no one! The worst of them, knows better music than me and to throw him away should be an act of musical ignorance. Of course, I don't like many composers. But this is another thing and has nothing to do with their value or my respect.


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## Oldhoosierdude

Triplets said:


> Arnold Bax, barely nosing out Alexander Glazunov


Really? I have a Naxos cd of his tone poems that I think a lot of. But that's the only thing I know of his.

My choice is Telemann. I get little out of his music.


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## Phil loves classical

I gave away my Ketelbey. Looking through my collection, I think Gorecki is the weakest link now.


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## caracalla

Oldhoosierdude said:


> My choice is Telemann. I get little out of his music.


I know what you mean. Telemann is the kind of composer who makes me grateful for MP3s - I can download the occasional hotspot without committing myself to a discload of dross. Goodness knows, the hit to miss ratio is not encouraging.

A mystery to me why his contemporary reputation was so high. Aristos just wanting some background muzak for their dinner parties I can understand, but Bach rated him too. CPE got the P in his honour.

My own candidate would be Frederick the Great, now discarded. I was seduced by Menzel's gorgeous 'Flute Concert at Sanssouci' on the cover, and having quite a lot of time for Fred in general, was just plain curious. It would be fair to say that composing wasn't his forte.


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## Bulldog

caracalla said:


> I know what you mean. Telemann is the kind of composer who makes me grateful for MP3s - I can download the occasional hotspot without committing myself to a discload of dross. Goodness knows, the hit to miss ratio is not encouraging.


Telemann was so prolific that there remain plenty of works in the 'hit" category, especially concerning his sacred choral works.


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## Guest002

Bulldog said:


> Telemann was so prolific that there remain plenty of works in the 'hit" category, especially concerning his sacred choral works.


Hmm. In similar vein, one of the problems with all these Brilliant Classics collections is the large amount of 'misses' they bring along with other undoubted hits.

After eyeing my Ketèlbey again, I was looking at my (whisper it!) Johann Sebastian Bach. I adore everything from BWV 1 to 249 without question. But it all goes a bit pear-shaped when we get to BWV 250 - 438. A long, long, long list of Chorales I can't be doing much with. I think I'm fine from about BWV 525 onwards, as I love all the organ, keyboard and orchestral stuff. But I keep looking at that chunk of Chorales in the middle with squinted eyes and a longing to hit 'Delete'.

My Beethoven is similar: love large parts of his output, but I think I could lose all the Irish Songs and other such vocal works without loss of sleep...


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## Bulldog

dizwell said:


> Hmm. In similar vein, one of the problems with all these Brilliant Classics collections is the large amount of 'misses' they bring along with other undoubted hits.


That's why I don't have the "complete works" of any composer.


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## Guest002

I think they are quite a good _start_ for someone really new to a composer. But I've come to the conclusion that a carefully curated selection of the best recordings of some a composer's work is better than a meh, so-so average collection of everything he wrote for anyone with a more than passing familiarity with the composer in question.

My Vivaldi collection got a huge boost when I ditched the Brilliant and invested a lot of money and time in the Naïve collection. 
And my appreciation of Bach improved a lot once I ditched the Leusink cantatas (Brilliant, again) and bought up big on the Suzuki BIS ones.
It's currently happening to my Beethoven: a proper collection of symphony cycles, not just the one you get in the Brilliant box etc. Not quite in Merl's league and am unlikely to even attempt getting there. But it's paying dividends anyway.


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## Bigbang

dizwell said:


> I think they are quite a good _start_ for someone really new to a composer. But I've come to the conclusion that a carefully curated selection of the best recordings of some a composer's work is better than a meh, so-so average collection of everything he wrote for anyone with a more than passing familiarity with the composer in question.
> 
> My Vivaldi collection got a huge boost when I ditched the Brilliant and invested a lot of money and time in the Naïve collection.
> And my appreciation of Bach improved a lot once I ditched the Leusink cantatas (Brilliant, again) and bought up big on the Suzuki BIS ones.
> It's currently happening to my Beethoven: a proper collection of symphony cycles, not just the one you get in the Brilliant box etc. Not quite in Merl's league and am unlikely to even attempt getting there. But it's paying dividends anyway.


Things are much different today than 30 years ago when I started collecting cds. I bought too many cheap labels for sure. If I were to start over I would resist buying too many cds and savor one cd per whatever time frame you allow. I feel the temptation to acquire is competitive and not in my best interest. I still do not own complete collections in many areas as I refused to go that route. Fortunately I live in a big city and as the cd's started to lose their value I started to spot a trend, and I have bought close to a thousand cds over the last 10 years in donation shops (I am in denial as I keep thinking I own only a thousand now but it is more like 2000 and not including jazz and rock).


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## Bigbang

Naxos used to be a value buy for some music and I have nothing against the label but what value do they offer in the newbie category? Who would buy main repertoire when so many labels have excellent music so cheap?


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## Bulldog

Bigbang said:


> Naxos used to be a value buy for some music and I have nothing against the label but what value do they offer in the newbie category? Who would buy main repertoire when so many labels have excellent music so cheap?


I don't agree. Naxos has many recordings of the main repertoire that are competitive with any other label.


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## elgar's ghost

dizwell said:


> Hmm. In similar vein, one of the problems with all these Brilliant Classics collections is the large amount of 'misses' they bring along with other undoubted hits.
> 
> After eyeing my Ketèlbey again, I was looking at my (whisper it!) Johann Sebastian Bach. I adore everything from BWV 1 to 249 without question. But it all goes a bit pear-shaped when we get to BWV 250 - 438. A long, long, long list of Chorales I can't be doing much with. I think I'm fine from about BWV 525 onwards, as I love all the organ, keyboard and orchestral stuff. But I keep looking at that chunk of Chorales in the middle with squinted eyes and a longing to hit 'Delete'.
> 
> My Beethoven is similar: love large parts of his output, but I think I could lose all the Irish Songs and other such vocal works without loss of sleep...


Re the chorales - are they all _a cappella_?


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## Orfeo

Probably *Ture Rangstrom* and *Petersson-Berger*. 
-->Overall fairly good music by both of them, but there are too many pages that are overblown and wanting in greater imaginative flair and ingenuity. Their music is also too repetitive here and there.


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## SONNET CLV

DavidA said:


> What is the point of a thread like this?


 Well, it's one way to find out who among us is "nuts".

At least no one mentioned Beethoven … yet.

I find in my rather large collection that a composer I might consider (on any given day) to be the "worst" is generally one who is represented in the collection by maybe a single to three or four discs. I hope I haven't continued adding discs of a composer I really don't like. That's likely a second measure of being a "nut".

I count myself no fan of Philip Glass, many of you already know. Yet, I can appreciate why certain folks enjoy his music. I know people who also enjoy recordings by Lawrence Welk.

Nor do I enjoy much Richard Strauss (to name one among the "big" stars of classical music), but I wouldn't consider him incompetent or a "worst" composer by any means. He was quite talented. Possessed, in fact, a certain genius for writing music that I just don't take to well.

Several of the composers listed in above posts seem rather out of place in any "worst" category, at least to my ears. And some of those mentioned have a work or two that I consider among my favorites of all time.

So I've reserved to ponder this question further, admitting that to choose a "worst" from among at minimum a _thousand_ or so composers currently in my collection remains no small task.

In the meantime, I won't be listening to any of the few Philip Glass discs I own. Or to very much Richard Strauss.


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## pianozach

*Lou Reed*

Bleah.

Pseudo-Classical composer? *Paul McCartney*'s Classical repertoire is weak. Not annoying or awful, mind you, just derivative and often bland. Love him otherwise.

Real Classical composer?

Until recently I would have named *Delius* based on just a handful of works I'd heard. Now I've heard more, and I have a higher opinion. However, I don't actually have any in my digital collection.

Um . . . *John Cage*? Oh, wait, I don't have any Cage in my collection, digital or otherwise.

OK, then... *Telemann* it is.


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## consuono

Tchaikovsky (sorry).


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## DaddyGeorge

Bigbang said:


> Things are much different today than 30 years ago when I started collecting cds. I bought too many cheap labels for sure. If I were to start over I would resist buying too many cds and savor one cd per whatever time frame you allow. I feel the temptation to acquire is competitive and not in my best interest. I still do not own complete collections in many areas as I refused to go that route. Fortunately I live in a big city and as the cd's started to lose their value I started to spot a trend, and I have bought close to a thousand cds over the last 10 years in donation shops (I am in denial as I keep thinking I own only a thousand now but it is more like 2000 and not including jazz and rock).


I agree, the beginnings were difficult. I started collecting CDs during my University studies. When I started working (I am a teacher in the Czech Republic), I earned about € 150 a month and one good CD cost € 29. I bought a maximum of one disc a month and I had to compromise. The situation has gradually improved, but in my country there has never been and is not a good shop with classical CDs. Now I have good collection (about 3,000 CDs), I order a new CDs from Germany (my income is much better now), but I still have to travel (several times a year) to Vienna to expand my collection with used cheap CDs (internet is out of the question because used CDs do not deliver to my country or postage is ten times higher than the price of discs). I love Vienna, so it's not an issue


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## Bigbang

Bulldog said:


> I don't agree. Naxos has many recordings of the main repertoire that are competitive with any other label.


My post is about buying popular classical music from a newbie standpoint. I have Naxos cds of Mozart and the lesser known composers. If I ask myself what I would buy price/cd of various works also available on budget labels, not much comes up except some Haydn string quartets by Kodaly. Of course you could throw out some suggestions and I might counter with another label. But at the time Naxos was new they well selling for half price of other labels, now some are out of print and others are selling for $8 on up to $13 or so for single cds.


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## Sad Al

Mozart is the worst. I just listened to his clarinet concerto. Awful. Telemann is so much better, e.g in his orchestral suites that Pratum Integrum has recorded.


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## CnC Bartok

^^^ yeah, price-wise, Naxos ain't what they used to be....but repertoire-wise, they remain as ripe as ever for exploration.

I have two composers in my collection that I grudgingly recognise as being "good" or "important", but who do nothing for me, apart from maybe wind me up, and they are Britten and Xenakis. Sorry, dizwell, I know you admire the former; I don't. But do they count?

I have no John Cage in my collection, and I am perfectly happy with the status quo on that.

I feel very uncomfortable thinking a composer to be not very good as his/her trade, but there are three I have, sometimes enjoy, but I do reckon they're pretty indifferent composers, even if all three have their own niche following, so I will tentatively nominate these, convinced they lacked that bit of self-discipline or self-criticism that would have improved their music no end:

Charles Ives
Rued Langgaard
Havergal Brian.

I now await the flood of anger, especially as I have nominated one who is often called their country's greatest. :tiphat:


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## consuono

CnC Bartok said:


> Charles Ives
> Rued Langgaard
> Havergal Brian.
> 
> I now await the flood of anger, especially as I have nominated one who is often called their country's greatest. :tiphat:


No anger here. Ives can be interesting on occasion, but overall I think it's cacophony.


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## flamencosketches

CnC Bartok said:


> ^^^ yeah, price-wise, Naxos ain't what they used to be....but repertoire-wise, they remain as ripe as ever for exploration.
> 
> I have two composers in my collection that I grudgingly recognise as being "good" or "important", but who do nothing for me, apart from maybe wind me up, and they are Britten and Xenakis. Sorry, dizwell, I know you admire the former; I don't. But do they count?
> 
> I have no John Cage in my collection, and I am perfectly happy with the status quo on that.
> 
> I feel very uncomfortable thinking a composer to be not very good as his/her trade, but there are three I have, sometimes enjoy, but I do reckon they're pretty indifferent composers, even if all three have their own niche following, so I will tentatively nominate these, convinced they lacked that bit of self-discipline or self-criticism that would have improved their music no end:
> 
> Charles Ives
> Rued Langgaard
> Havergal Brian.
> 
> I now await the flood of anger, especially as I have nominated one who is often called their country's greatest. :tiphat:


Dang, Langgaard? I was thinking of buying some of his music as part of the big Dacapo 60% off sale. What's so bad about him?

Brian, I would agree, is awful, from what little I've heard, but he has some serious fans-the Havergal Brian thread on another board I'm a part of has 397 pages  Ives is one I'm beginning to really like! But I hated his music at first and can see why you might include him on a list like this.


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## MusicSybarite

CnC Bartok said:


> ^^^ yeah, price-wise, Naxos ain't what they used to be....but repertoire-wise, they remain as ripe as ever for exploration.
> 
> I have two composers in my collection that I grudgingly recognise as being "good" or "important", but who do nothing for me, apart from maybe wind me up, and they are Britten and Xenakis. Sorry, dizwell, I know you admire the former; I don't. But do they count?
> 
> I have no John Cage in my collection, and I am perfectly happy with the status quo on that.
> 
> I feel very uncomfortable thinking a composer to be not very good as his/her trade, but there are three I have, sometimes enjoy, but I do reckon they're pretty indifferent composers, even if all three have their own niche following, so I will tentatively nominate these, convinced they lacked that bit of self-discipline or self-criticism that would have improved their music no end:
> 
> Charles Ives
> Rued Langgaard
> Havergal Brian.
> 
> I now await the flood of anger, especially as I have nominated one who is often called their country's greatest. :tiphat:


Ives and Brian, maybe, though I do enjoy several of their works, but definitely Langgaard NOT!


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## pianozach

Sad Al said:


> Mozart is the worst. I just listened to his clarinet concerto. Awful. Telemann is so much better, e.g in his orchestral suites that Pratum Integrum has recorded.


Really? I think Mozart's *Clarinet Concerto in A major* is one of his *Top Twenty* works. It's widely regarded as by many as being the *greatest* clarinet concerto.


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## Simplicissimus

CnC Bartok said:


> ^^^ yeah, price-wise, Naxos ain't what they used to be....but repertoire-wise, they remain as ripe as ever for exploration.
> 
> I have two composers in my collection that I grudgingly recognise as being "good" or "important", but who do nothing for me, apart from maybe wind me up, and they are Britten and Xenakis. Sorry, dizwell, I know you admire the former; I don't. But do they count?
> 
> I have no John Cage in my collection, and I am perfectly happy with the status quo on that.
> 
> I feel very uncomfortable thinking a composer to be not very good as his/her trade, but there are three I have, sometimes enjoy, but I do reckon they're pretty indifferent composers, even if all three have their own niche following, so I will tentatively nominate these, convinced they lacked that bit of self-discipline or self-criticism that would have improved their music no end:
> 
> Charles Ives
> Rued Langgaard
> Havergal Brian.
> 
> I now await the flood of anger, especially as I have nominated one who is often called their country's greatest. :tiphat:


Haha, that was intentionally ambiguous, wasn't it? Here come the Danes, Englishmen, and Yankees. And I say "Yankees" advisedly, as Ives was a New Englander, so I am not as stimulated to champion him as I would be if he were a Midwesterner. Nevertheless... Ives has superior standing among American composers. I would say that it is not required that Americans like his music, but I insist that musically informed Americans simply must know Ives' music. I personally like his music very much and have a collection of Ives CDs that I think most would consider disproportionate to his actual importance or interest, but I have always been a patriot if nothing better.

Franz


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## Bigbang

pianozach said:


> Really? I think Mozart's *Clarinet Concerto in A major* is one of his *Top Twenty* works. It's widely regarded as by many as being the *greatest* clarinet concerto.


I will admit I like the sinfonia concertante K364 over the clarinet concerto. I might agree with a few opinions that Mozart was not exactly over inspired when writing it. But who am I to judge (200 plus years later) Mozart who could hardly have thought people would be so fickle to pick on his creations. So what will it be? Guess I will dig up my cds (Szell/Marcellus, Stoltzman, Schwarz, and others) and give some time to this work. I might end of begging Mozart for forgiveness in not really appreciating it for what it is, a masterpiece with hardly a sweat from his brow. Such a mystery--how did this genius become so entrenched when so many other geniuses from past to present disappear?


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## Euler

Don't own anything truly dire although these I find uninspired:

Franciscus Bossinensis -- run-of-the-mill Renaissance lute music
Bernhard Klein -- odd 19th century chap with a Palestrina fetish
Osvaldas Balakauskas -- modern music, but not really


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## pianozach

Bigbang said:


> I will admit I like the sinfonia concertante K364 over the clarinet concerto. I might agree with a few opinions that Mozart was not exactly over inspired when writing it. But who am I to judge (200 plus years later) Mozart who could hardly have thought people would be so fickle to pick on his creations. So what will it be? Guess I will dig up my cds (Szell/Marcellus, Stoltzman, Schwarz, and others) and give some time to this work. I might end of begging Mozart for forgiveness in not really appreciating it for what it is, a masterpiece with hardly a sweat from his brow. Such a mystery--how did this genius become so entrenched when so many other geniuses from past to present disappear?


Read a few reviews of it first, so you'll know why other people regard it so highly. I do that. In spite of being raised on Classical works as a pianist, I feel that there is a great deal of Classical repertoire that I'm woefully uninformed on, or perhaps have never even heard.

I find I get more enjoyment from a piece with a little knowledge aforehand, whether it's the context, or harmonic analysis, or some good old dirt.

Here's some tidbits to illustrate . . .

From *Wikipedia*: "Mozart originally intended the piece to be written for basset horn . . . " https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarinet_Concerto_(Mozart)

From *ClassicFM*: "The inventor of the basset clarinet, and its leading virtuoso, was Mozart's friend and fellow Mason, Anton Stadler, for whom Mozart had written the Clarinet Quintet in A, in 1789. 
https://www.classicfm.com/composers/mozart/music/mozarts-clarinet-concerto-revealed/

*UDiscoverMusic*: "Some of Mozart's Clarinet Concerto was featured in the score to the 2010 film The King's Speech, although bizarrely only the orchestral sections. And the 'Adagio' second movement featured prominently in Out Of Africa (in a recording by Jack Brymer)." https://www.udiscovermusic.com/classical-features/mozart-clarinet-concerto/

*RedlandsSymphony*: "After completing the first movement, Mozart changed his mind and decided in favor of Stadler's "basset clarinet", a standard clarinet with an extension to allow it to play four half-steps lower than normal." https://www.udiscovermusic.com/classical-features/mozart-clarinet-concerto/

*BaltimoreSymphonyOrchestra* (BSOMusic): "A mood of gracious lyricism prevails in the first movement. Mozart chose a softer-toned orchestral ensemble - gentle flutes instead of the more penetrating oboes, no brass except for two horns - to set his soloist in high relief. Graceful, flowing melodies abound, exploiting the clarinet's rich singing tone. But soon after its entrance, the clarinet flies free of the orchestra's theme to show off its coloratura abilities and the exciting contrasts between its lowest and highest notes. There is also melancholy in this outwardly serene music, and after its initial gymnastics, the clarinet expresses this in a slightly mournful melody in the minor mode.

"The clarinet's most haunting tones are displayed in the Adagio second movement, one of Mozart's most sublime slow movements. Here the clarinet becomes a great operatic diva, its drooping phrases singing of loneliness and loss. Mozart experienced considerable depression in his last year and had often remarked that he did not expect a long life. His music frequently expresses a profound sense of life's transitory nature and the sadness that hides behind beauty - and never more poignantly than here.

"Such thoughts of mortality are mostly pushed aside in the merry rondo finale. The clarinet leads off with a chirpy rondo refrain exploiting the instrument's comic side. But high comedy also includes room for more serious emotions, as Mozart had demonstrated over and over in his great comic operas. And thus, between returns of this refrain, he develops other melodies in surprisingly moving ways, and his adventurous harmonies wander into darker minor-key territory. However, Mozart never forgets who is the star and gives the clarinetist plentiful opportunities to show off his fleet virtuosity." https://www.bsomusic.org/calendar/events/2013-2014-events/all-mozart/mozart-clarinet-concerto/

*EncyclopediaBritannica*: ". . . he completed the work just two months before his death in 1791." https://www.britannica.com/topic/Clarinet-Concerto-in-A-K-622


----------



## starthrower

Gounod. The opera I have doesn't do much for me.

Same for the one CD I have by Esa-Pekka Salonen.

But "worst" is not the appropriate adjective.


----------



## clavichorder

I sadly rarely rely on my disorganized personal collection for listening anymore. The majority is done through youtube.


----------



## Xisten267

The worst composer in my collection has to be myself heh. ,

...Well, if we are talking about renowned composers in the classical tradition that I dislike the most at this moment, then perhaps Górecki, Cage or Ferneyhough.


----------



## Bigbang

pianozach said:


> Read a few reviews of it first, so you'll know why other people regard it so highly. I do that. In spite of being raised on Classical works as a pianist, I feel that there is a great deal of Classical repertoire that I'm woefully uninformed on, or perhaps have never even heard.
> 
> I find I get more enjoyment from a piece with a little knowledge aforehand, whether it's the context, or harmonic analysis, or some good old dirt.
> 
> Here's some tidbits to illustrate . . .
> 
> From *Wikipedia*: "Mozart originally intended the piece to be written for basset horn . . . " https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarinet_Concerto_(Mozart)
> 
> From *ClassicFM*: "The inventor of the basset clarinet, and its leading virtuoso, was Mozart's friend and fellow Mason, Anton Stadler, for whom Mozart had written the Clarinet Quintet in A, in 1789.
> https://www.classicfm.com/composers/mozart/music/mozarts-clarinet-concerto-revealed/
> 
> *UDiscoverMusic*: "Some of Mozart's Clarinet Concerto was featured in the score to the 2010 film The King's Speech, although bizarrely only the orchestral sections. And the 'Adagio' second movement featured prominently in Out Of Africa (in a recording by Jack Brymer)." https://www.udiscovermusic.com/classical-features/mozart-clarinet-concerto/
> 
> *RedlandsSymphony*: "After completing the first movement, Mozart changed his mind and decided in favor of Stadler's "basset clarinet", a standard clarinet with an extension to allow it to play four half-steps lower than normal." https://www.udiscovermusic.com/classical-features/mozart-clarinet-concerto/
> 
> *BaltimoreSymphonyOrchestra* (BSOMusic): "A mood of gracious lyricism prevails in the first movement. Mozart chose a softer-toned orchestral ensemble - gentle flutes instead of the more penetrating oboes, no brass except for two horns - to set his soloist in high relief. Graceful, flowing melodies abound, exploiting the clarinet's rich singing tone. But soon after its entrance, the clarinet flies free of the orchestra's theme to show off its coloratura abilities and the exciting contrasts between its lowest and highest notes. There is also melancholy in this outwardly serene music, and after its initial gymnastics, the clarinet expresses this in a slightly mournful melody in the minor mode.
> 
> "The clarinet's most haunting tones are displayed in the Adagio second movement, one of Mozart's most sublime slow movements. Here the clarinet becomes a great operatic diva, its drooping phrases singing of loneliness and loss. Mozart experienced considerable depression in his last year and had often remarked that he did not expect a long life. His music frequently expresses a profound sense of life's transitory nature and the sadness that hides behind beauty - and never more poignantly than here.
> 
> "Such thoughts of mortality are mostly pushed aside in the merry rondo finale. The clarinet leads off with a chirpy rondo refrain exploiting the instrument's comic side. But high comedy also includes room for more serious emotions, as Mozart had demonstrated over and over in his great comic operas. And thus, between returns of this refrain, he develops other melodies in surprisingly moving ways, and his adventurous harmonies wander into darker minor-key territory. However, Mozart never forgets who is the star and gives the clarinetist plentiful opportunities to show off his fleet virtuosity." https://www.bsomusic.org/calendar/events/2013-2014-events/all-mozart/mozart-clarinet-concerto/
> 
> *EncyclopediaBritannica*: ". . . he completed the work just two months before his death in 1791." https://www.britannica.com/topic/Clarinet-Concerto-in-A-K-622


I am aware of the historical context of the concerto. It is the clarinet itself I have not warmed to as much as other wind works of Mozart. I have a few cds of clarinet works including Brahms sextet but I need to listen more. This will give me more a reason to do so, in fact I listened to Szell conducting Mozart Clarinet concerto after posting my response.


----------



## Guest002

CnC Bartok said:


> ^^^ yeah, price-wise, Naxos ain't what they used to be....but repertoire-wise, they remain as ripe as ever for exploration.
> 
> I have two composers in my collection that I grudgingly recognise as being "good" or "important", but who do nothing for me, apart from maybe wind me up, and they are Britten and Xenakis. Sorry, dizwell, I know you admire the former; I don't. But do they count?
> 
> I have no John Cage in my collection, and I am perfectly happy with the status quo on that.
> 
> I feel very uncomfortable thinking a composer to be not very good as his/her trade, but there are three I have, sometimes enjoy, but I do reckon they're pretty indifferent composers, even if all three have their own niche following, so I will tentatively nominate these, convinced they lacked that bit of self-discipline or self-criticism that would have improved their music no end:
> 
> Charles Ives
> Rued Langgaard
> Havergal Brian.
> 
> I now await the flood of anger, especially as I have nominated one who is often called their country's greatest. :tiphat:


No objection to anyone not liking or 'getting anything' from Britten at all. It takes all sorts, etc.

But this is drifting into 'composers I'm not keen on' territory, rather than 'composers who are not very good'. There's a difference, I think.

I hate to use words like 'objectively', but I can't help thinking that Ketelbey is objectively bad. Everything he wrote is syrup and not terribly competent syrup at that. Sprinkle a coating of racist/imperial snottiness on it, to boot.

That you don't like Britten is fine. But you can't (I think) seriously say he was a bad composer: his early critics were all saying 'brilliant technically, but to what end?', so even they acknowledged his technical accomplishments.

[Edited to add: I just re-read your post and indeed you do say that he's a good composer that just doesn't do anything for you. So that bit is somewhat moot by way of reply!]

Not that I particularly want to try to control discussion one way or another, though. I think the thread is interesting however people want to respond to it. But it was more about 'composers whose work I own that I think are bad composers' more than 'composers whose music doesn't do much for me'.

Meanwhile, I've come across another candidate for the Delete button: Richard Addinsell's Warsaw Concerto. Bad Rachmaninov done worsely, I think!


----------



## NLAdriaan

After some careful consideration, and with my apologies to the late composer, I come up with *Conlon Nancarrow*. The master of the player piano, born in Texas in 1912, fought in the Spanish civil war and then emigrated to Mexico and died in Mexico City in 1997.

Ligeti was a big fan. In my search for obscure music, I bought three CD's with his complete studies for player piano 1-41c (in total 50 pieces). According to the booklet this is 'regarded by many as the Well Tempered Clavier of the 20th century', which title I thought was claimed already by Shostakovich.

This is music that can only be played on a player piano and the instrument may better be in perfect condition. This is the most complex (if not hysterical) piano playing you will ever hear, only possible to play through a mechanical player piano. Listening to this music is a nerve-wrecking experience, a piano never came so close to a dentist drill.

The bullet proof restoration of the Bosendorfer/Ampico grand piano and the diligent German boutique CD production is a true labour of love. The first volume has an Gramophone editor's choice sticker on it, the second and third nothing.

If you are curious and had to cancel your dentist visit in these difficult times, you can listen to other Nancarrow recordings on Spotify.


----------



## Merl

Peter Maxwell Davies. I have a few CDs that I picked up years ago in the Woolworths closing down sale (string quartets, etc). They were selling them off for 25p a hit but I think I got duped. Lol. Apologies to those people who like his music but I really don't at all. Just not my bag. Different strokes and all that.


----------



## Guest002

Merl said:


> Peter Maxwell Davies. I have a few CDs that I picked up years ago in the Woolworths closing down sale (string quartets, etc). They were selling them off for 25p a hit but I think I got duped. Lol. Apologies to those people who like his music but I really don't at all. Just not my bag. Different strokes and all that.


Again, no problem with you not liking him. I can't say I'm a fan, either.

But this is more a "I like the music (or, at least, it's attractive music), sufficient to have bought it in the past, but now know it's fundamentally a bit rubbish" thing. If that makes sense (which, possibly, it doesn't!)

I mean, if you can say that PM-D is genuinely a bit rubbish, fair enough. I somehow feel he can't quite be dismissed in that way, no matter that he sounds like chalk on a blackboard sometimes, though!


----------



## Guest002

NLAdriaan said:


> After some careful consideration, and with my apologies to the late composer, I come up with *Conlon Nancarrow*. The master of the player piano, born in Texas in 1912, fought in the Spanish civil war and then emigrated to Mexico and died in Mexico City in 1997.
> 
> Ligeti was a big fan. In my search for obscure music, I bought three CD's with his complete studies for player piano 1-41c (in total 50 pieces). According to the booklet this is 'regarded by many as the Well Tempered Clavier of the 20th century', which title I thought was claimed already by Shostakovich.
> 
> This is music that can only be played on a player piano and the instrument may better be in perfect condition. This is the most complex (if not hysterical) piano playing you will ever hear, only possible to play through a mechanical player piano. Listening to this music is a nerve-wrecking experience, a piano never came so close to a dentist drill.
> 
> The bullet proof restoration of the Bosendorfer/Ampico grand piano and the diligent German boutique CD production is a true labour of love. The first volume has an Gramophone editor's choice sticker on it, the second and third nothing.
> 
> If you are curious and had to cancel your dentist visit in these difficult times, you can listen to other Nancarrow recordings on Spotify.


Well, thanks for that! Out of curiosity, I went to listen.

I wish I hadn't.

:lol:


----------



## Duncan

Sad Al said:


> Mozart is the worst. I just listened to his clarinet concerto. Awful. Telemann is so much better, e.g in his orchestral suites that Pratum Integrum has recorded.





pianozach said:


> Really? I think Mozart's *Clarinet Concerto in A major* is one of his *Top Twenty* works. It's widely regarded as by many as being the *greatest* clarinet concerto.


Sad Al is using "antiphrasis" as a literary device - a figurative speech in which a phrase or word is employed in a way that is opposite to its literal meaning, in order to create an ironic or comic effect. In simple words, it is the use of phrases or words in their opposite sense from the real meaning...

At least I hope he is...


----------



## CnC Bartok

MusicSybarite said:


> Ives and Brian, maybe, though I do enjoy several of their works, but definitely Langgaard NOT!


I did say I do sometimes enjoy these chaps' music! My problem with Langgaard is not huge, but I do think he lacked the ability to look at his own work and scrub out the tedious. Some of his shorter Symphonies are pretty bland, and seem to go on for much longer than their 8 minutes or so! His regular annoyance with Nielsen's status is also an annoyance for me.

That said, Music of the Spheres is superb!


----------



## CnC Bartok

dizwell said:


> No objection to anyone not liking or 'getting anything' from Britten at all. It takes all sorts, etc.
> 
> But this is drifting into 'composers I'm not keen on' territory, rather than 'composers who are not very good'. There's a difference, I think.
> 
> I hate to use words like 'objectively', but I can't help thinking that Ketelbey is objectively bad. Everything he wrote is syrup and not terribly competent syrup at that. Sprinkle a coating of racist/imperial snottiness on it, to boot.
> 
> That you don't like Britten is fine. But you can't (I think) seriously say he was a bad composer: his early critics were all saying 'brilliant technically, but to what end?', so even they acknowledged his technical accomplishments.
> 
> [Edited to add: I just re-read your post and indeed you do say that he's a good composer that just doesn't do anything for you. So that bit is somewhat moot by way of reply!]
> 
> Not that I particularly want to try to control discussion one way or another, though. I think the thread is interesting however people want to respond to it. But it was more about 'composers whose work I own that I think are bad composers' more than 'composers whose music doesn't do much for me'.
> 
> Meanwhile, I've come across another candidate for the Delete button: Richard Addinsell's Warsaw Concerto. Bad Rachmaninov done worsely, I think!


I think what you're saying is exactly what I was trying to do. I dislike Britten because I really do dislike the way he makes the English language so ugly (personal opinion!) - although I do hold the Serenade in very high regard (!) - whilst recognising him as a significant composer. Ditto Xenakis, whose music just sounds awful to me.

The Ketelbey I have heard is remarkably unmemorable, saccharine,, ok background music. I have none in my collection (that I'm aware of!) I'd struggle to weigh up his technical competence without better knowledge, and will take you at your word there. 

By the way, if you want some "good Rachmaninov, done betterly (sic)", do you know Medtner's 2nd Piano Concerto? Rachmaninov with balls! Love it, love Rachmaninov too, but I prefer his purely orchestral music to his Concerti...

The other chaps mentioned at the end, I do appreciate to a great extent, but "I don't think they are good". The interminable nature of Brian (even in his smaller orchestral works), the aimlessness of a lot of Langgaard, and Ives? Could he compose? Could he orchestrate? Is playing folk tunes out of synch and out of tune brilliantly inventive - and perhaps more pertinent, innovative - or a tiresome trick? Icon? Sure! Important? Obviously others believe so. Technically accomplished? I seriously have my doubts.


----------



## NLAdriaan

dizwell said:


> Well, thanks for that! Out of curiosity, I went to listen.
> 
> I wish I hadn't.
> 
> :lol:


You can't say I didn't warn you


----------



## elgar's ghost

CnC Bartok said:


> I did say I do sometimes enjoy these chaps' music! My problem with Langgaard is not huge, but I do think he lacked the ability to look at his own work and scrub out the tedious. Some of his shorter Symphonies are pretty bland, and seem to go on for much longer than their 8 minutes or so! His regular annoyance with Nielsen's status is also an annoyance for me.
> 
> That said, Music of the Spheres is superb!


I have to agree with you about Langgaard - when he was good he was great but his output is maddeningly uneven. Same with Holst, really.


----------



## Merl

dizwell said:


> Again, no problem with you not liking him. I can't say I'm a fan, either.
> 
> But this is more a "I like the music (or, at least, it's attractive music), sufficient to have bought it in the past, but now know it's fundamentally a bit rubbish" thing. If that makes sense (which, possibly, it doesn't!)
> 
> I mean, if you can say that PM-D is genuinely a bit rubbish, fair enough. I somehow feel he can't quite be dismissed in that way, no matter that he sounds like chalk on a blackboard sometimes, though!


Tbf, most of what I've heard of PMD is early stuff and I find it noisy, tuneless, irritating dross (jeez those string quartets!). Others have tried to sway me to listen to the less adventurous or avant-garde later works but I did give them a go and I found them mind-numbingly dull so, for me, he is one of the worst composers but I can't say he's the worst as there are others I've not sampled. As 'worst' is a personal concept I stand by my original post. Amongst some of his dreadful compositions, I once heard a piece of his on the BBC, that consisted of a woman dressed as a nun screaming and shouting through a megaphone (correct me if I'm wrong). It wasn't big or clever, just bloody awful. Some of his later Scottish-themed music sounds like very bad film music for public information films on Scotland (however I do like one piece, 'Farewell to Stromness' when played on solo guitar, even though it is highly derivative).


----------



## Guest002

CnC Bartok said:


> The Ketelbey I have heard is remarkably unmemorable, saccharine,, ok background music. I have none in my collection (that I'm aware of!) I'd struggle to weigh up his technical competence without better knowledge, and will take you at your word there.
> 
> By the way, if you want some "good Rachmaninov, done betterly (sic)", do you know Medtner's 2nd Piano Concerto? Rachmaninov with balls! Love it, love Rachmaninov too, but I prefer his purely orchestral music to his Concerti...
> 
> The other chaps mentioned at the end, I do appreciate to a great extent, but "I don't think they are good". The interminable nature of Brian (even in his smaller orchestral works), the aimlessness of a lot of Langgaard, and Ives? Could he compose? Could he orchestrate? Is playing folk tunes out of synch and out of tune brilliantly inventive - and perhaps more pertinent, innovative - or a tiresome trick? Icon? Sure! Important? Obviously others believe so. Technically accomplished? I seriously have my doubts.


I think you've nailed the point of my original question (though obviously you will be descending to the 17th circle of Hell regarding your comments on Britten word-setting!!!!!! :devil

I have quite a bit of Medtner, but not his Piano Concerti. Fancy recommending a good recording of the 2nd? Would love to try out some betterer Rach!


----------



## Guest002

Merl said:


> Tbf, most of what I've heard of PMD is early stuff and I find it noisy, tuneless, irritating dross (jeez those string quartets!). Others have tried to sway me to listen to the less adventurous or avant-garde later works but I did give them a go and I found them mind-numbingly dull so, for me, he is one of the worst composers but I can't say he's the worst as there are others I've not sampled. As 'worst' is a personal concept I stand by my original post. Amongst some of his dreadful compositions, I once heard a piece of his on the BBC, that consisted of a woman dressed as a nun screaming and shouting through a megaphone (correct me if I'm wrong). It wasn't big or clever, just bloody awful. Some of his later Scottish-themed music sounds like very bad film music for public information films on Scotland (however I do like one piece, 'Farewell to Stromness' when played on solo guitar, even though it is highly derivative).


Oh no, that sounds like you've made a judgment exactly in line with that this thread was asking about! 

A screaming nun sounds very funny! (I don't think the megaphone should be held against him: Walton's Façade, etc).

I was at the London premier of his The Lighthouse back in 1981 or so, persuaded to attend by a "friend". I think I nodded off at one point and then wished I could do so again. However, I have a recording of it now and occasionally play it and almost like some of it.


----------



## mark6144

CPE Bach. I really want to like his music, given his parentage, influence and the respect he held with his contemporaries. However, I worked through most of his hundreds of keyboard sonatas and was dismayed to find no more than a handful I would ever want to hear again.

I mostly listen to keyboard/piano so can't comment on his other works; perhaps his reputation was down to those.


----------



## Sad Al

I liked CPE Bach's two cantatas "Mache dich auf, werde Licht" H 821h (1777) and "Danket dem Herrn" H824e (1785), recorded for the first time in 2002 by the Wiener Kammerchor. They are better than any Moz...


----------



## CnC Bartok

dizwell said:


> I think you've nailed the point of my original question (though obviously you will be descending to the 17th circle of Hell regarding your comments on Britten word-setting!!!!!! :devil
> 
> I have quite a bit of Medtner, but not his Piano Concerti. Fancy recommending a good recording of the 2nd? Would love to try out some betterer Rach!


On your first point, when I do, I'll be sure to get you an autograph from Benjamin when I get to meet him. :devil:

The Medtner recording I first heard was Demidenko on Hyperion. Unbelievable virtuosity!! However, my favourite recording of No.2 has to be Yevgeny Sudbin, recorded on BIS, coupled with the Rach 4. You might also like his Medtner 3, that one comes with the Scriabin Concerto, which is probably my favourite Russian Piano Concerto of the all!


----------



## premont

Worst composer in my collection?

There is none, because I do not collect works of "worst" composers.


----------



## premont

Bulldog said:


> That's rather amusing - I've been familiar with Vivaldi's Four Seasons for over 50 years.


Maybe you have never heard a well seasoned recording?


----------



## Guest002

premont said:


> Worst composer in my collection?
> 
> There is none, because I do not collect works of "worst" composers.


If your collection is perfect, and you've never purchased a doozy of a CD in your entire life, then this thread is simply not designed for you. Feel free to ignore it further.

Or, you know, you might enjoy discussing previous faux pas in your collection acquisition that you have now, apparently, corrected. Or perhaps you might enjoy sharing anecdotes of composers who have let you down at times, as plenty of others have here.

Either way would be better, I feel, than to participate with what comes across very much as a holier-than-thou attitude, intentional or not.


----------



## Guest002

CnC Bartok said:


> On your first point, when I do, I'll be sure to get you an autograph from Benjamin when I get to meet him. :devil:
> 
> The Medtner recording I first heard was Demidenko on Hyperion. Unbelievable virtuosity!! However, my favourite recording of No.2 has to be Yevgeny Sudbin, recorded on BIS, coupled with the Rach 4. You might also like his Medtner 3, that one comes with the Scriabin Concerto, which is probably my favourite Russian Piano Concerto of the all!
> 
> View attachment 132887


1) I already have his signature, so no need to put yourself to any trouble 

2) That's the one I just bought in the meantime, so I'm relieved to have chosen wisely. I have listened lightly as I've been doing computery stuff. It's definitely attractive. It's not grabbed me by any particular parts of my anatomy as yet, however. (Rachmaninov can make me swoon. Call me an old romantic. That's not happening with Medtner yet, either!). I shall give it a chance, at least, and thanks in the meantime.


----------



## chu42

Charles Valentin Alkan is probably the worst composer that I listen to on a semi-regular basis. He has scant works for anything other than solo piano, and even out of his large body of piano works, many are trite and heavy-handed compositions.

However, around 5 of his piano works are some of the greatest pieces ever written for the instrument. If we were to judge him on his typical work he is akin to Czerny, judge him on his best work and he is on equal standing with Liszt and Rachmaninov.


----------



## Guest002

chu42 said:


> Charles Valentin Alkan is probably the worst composer that I listen to on a semi-regular basis. He has scant works for anything other than solo piano, and even out of his large body of piano works, many are trite and heavy-handed compositions.
> 
> However, around 5 of his piano works are some of the greatest pieces ever written for the instrument. If we were to judge him on his typical work he is akin to Czerny, judge him on his best work and he is on equal standing with Liszt and Rachmaninov.


I only have three small chamber pieces by him. What's his greatest piano work?


----------



## Allegro Con Brio

chu42 said:


> Charles Valentin Alkan is probably the worst composer that I listen to on a semi-regular basis. He has scant works for anything other than solo piano, and even out of his large body of piano works, many are trite and heavy-handed compositions.
> 
> However, around 5 of his piano works are some of the greatest pieces ever written for the instrument. If we were to judge him on his typical work he is akin to Czerny, judge him on his best work and he is on equal standing with Liszt and Rachmaninov.


I agree with your assessment of Alkan - lots of people seem to see him as some sort of criminally underrated Liszt or Chopin, but I find the Symphony and Concerto for solo piano unbearably bombastic. That said, I haven't really explored anything further from him...


----------



## Phil loves classical

I think my single worst composition I have in my collection is Addinsell's Warsaw Concerto. I got it when I was going through a Romantic phase. But there is some good stuff in the CD along with it.

https://www.target.com/p/addinsell-...nini-shostakovich-piano-concerto/-/A-11589407


----------



## Guest002

Phil loves classical said:


> I think my single worst composition I have in my collection is Addinsell's Warsaw Concerto. I got it when I was going through a Romantic phase. But there is some good stuff in the CD along with it.
> 
> https://www.target.com/p/addinsell-...nini-shostakovich-piano-concerto/-/A-11589407


The Shostakovich is certainly a redeemer!


----------



## pianozach

mark6144 said:


> *CPE Bach*. I really want to like his music, given his parentage, influence and the respect he held with his contemporaries. However, I worked through most of his hundreds of keyboard sonatas and was dismayed to find no more than a handful I would ever want to hear again.
> 
> I mostly listen to keyboard/piano so can't comment on his other works; perhaps his reputation was down to those.


The *CPE Bach* stuff I've played on the piano is neat fun. I can't say I've actually listened to any recordings of his works, unless they randomly popped up on *KUSC* while I'm driving.


----------



## chu42

Allegro Con Brio said:


> I agree with your assessment of Alkan - lots of people seem to see him as some sort of criminally underrated Liszt or Chopin, but I find the Symphony and Concerto for solo piano unbearably bombastic. That said, I haven't really explored anything further from him...


I urge you to listen to his 20 Ans and Trois Grandes Etudes if you are not a fan of his overly dense works.


----------



## Fabulin

consuono said:


> Tchaikovsky (sorry).


You mean to say he is the only composer whose music you own?


----------



## larold

_What is the point of a thread like this?_

So people can list music they don't like. if I have something I don't like it doesn't stay in my collection; I give it away or throw it out.


----------



## mark6144

Allegro Con Brio said:


> I agree with your assessment of Alkan - lots of people seem to see him as some sort of criminally underrated Liszt or Chopin, but I find the Symphony and Concerto for solo piano unbearably bombastic. That said, I haven't really explored anything further from him...


I personally prefer his sets of miniatures, the Esquisses and Receuils de Chants. There are some interesting and inventive gems in there. Certainly I understand why some people don't like him on the basis of his more blandly bombastic works. I would put Sonata les Quatres Ages in that category too.


----------



## Becca

Has anyone mentioned Ferde Grofé? If not, why not?


----------



## hammeredklavier

Sad Al said:


> Mozart is the worst. I just listened to his clarinet concerto. Awful. Telemann is so much better, e.g in his orchestral suites that Pratum Integrum has recorded.





Sad Al said:


> I liked CPE Bach's two cantatas "Mache dich auf, werde Licht" H 821h (1777) and "Danket dem Herrn" H824e (1785), recorded for the first time in 2002 by the Wiener Kammerchor. They are better than any Moz...


Yes, those are good, but you don't need to make random comparisons between other composers vs Mozart with every single post you make. (Even I don't do that with Schubert.) It just makes you look like a troll. We don't need to hear 'what you dislike' (which most of us here probably don't give a damn anyway) in all your posts that consist of one or two lines with no real substance, not stimulating any meaningful discussion.



Taggart said:


> Repeated negative posts about any sort of music can be considered as trolling.
> A number of posts have been withdrawn for moderator consideration.


----------



## hammeredklavier

mark6144 said:


> CPE Bach. I really want to like his music, given his parentage, influence and the respect he held with his contemporaries. However, I worked through most of his hundreds of keyboard sonatas and was dismayed to find no more than a handful I would ever want to hear again.
> I mostly listen to keyboard/piano so can't comment on his other works; perhaps his reputation was down to those.


Try these:
CARL PHILIPP EMANUEL BACH - Organ Concerto in G Major, Wq 34
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Flute Concerto in D minor Wq. 22
Bach C.P.E.: Concerto in D minor, 1. Allegro, H. 427
C.P.E. Bach / Symphony in E minor, Wq. 178
CPE Bach Keyboard Concerto in G-major Wq 4 2nd mvt
C.P.E. Bach: Symphonies for Hamburg
C.P.E. Bach - Solfeggietto in C minor (H 220, Wq. 117: 2)
Carl Philipp Emaunel Bach Fantasy in F-sharp minor H. 300
C.P.E. Bach - Symphony For Strings in B Minor Wq. 182/5
C.P.E. Bach Concerto for Harpsichord and Fortepiano in E flat major, H 479, Wq 47
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Fantasie in C minor
Symphony in G major (Wq 173 / H 648) - C.P.E. Bach
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. Cello Concerto No. 1 in A minor, Wq. 170
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. Cello Concerto No. 2 in B flat major, Wq. 171
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. Cello Concerto No. 3 in A major, Wq. 172
Keyboard Concerto in G Minor, Wq. 6, H. 409: III. Allegro
Bach C.P.E.: Concerto in D minor, 3. Allegro assai, H. 427
C.P.E. Bach - Concerto for 2 Harpsichords in F major, H. 408 (1740)
Keyboard Concerto in E Minor, Wq. 15, H. 418: III. Vivace


----------



## Allegro Con Brio

Becca said:


> Has anyone mentioned Ferde Grofé? If not, why not?


I actually love the Grand Canyon Suite...I don't know why such "lighter" classical works like Tchaikovsky's ballets, Four Seasons, even Ketelbey, are so frequently sneered upon. Sometimes music doesn't have to be profound to be fun, doesn't it? Admittedly I don't care too much for any of those works, but if people like them and it helps them get a peek into the immeasurable riches of classical music, I have no complaints. In all fairness, I haven't heard anything else by Grofe, though.


----------



## larold

_Has anyone mentioned Ferde Grofé? If not, why not? I actually love the Grand Canyon Suite._

I concur. I like the Mississippi Suite too; it's about the river.


----------



## chu42

dizwell said:


> I only have three small chamber pieces by him. What's his greatest piano work?


I would point to his Trois Grandes Etudes Op.76 as his best work. They are some of the first large-scale pieces meant to be played with single hands and they display creativity and ingenuity at every turn.

Ravel greatly admired them despite Alkan's obscurity during the time-he used the first one in particular (Fantasy for Left Hand) as inspiration for the piano writing in his Left Hand concerto.


----------



## Art Rock

I have 3 Grofe CD's. I like them. Lightweight but fun.


----------



## Sad Al

hammeredklavier, I plead guilty, and will now switch to lurking.


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## mark6144

@hammeredklavier, thanks - that will keep me busy for a while.


----------



## Guest002

chu42 said:


> I would point to his Trois Grandes Etudes Op.76 as his best work. They are some of the first large-scale pieces meant to be played with single hands and they display creativity and ingenuity at every turn.
> 
> Ravel greatly admired them despite Alkan's obscurity during the time-he used the first one in particular (Fantasy for Left Hand) as inspiration for the piano writing in his Left Hand concerto.


Blimey. I'm just gowning/gloving/masking up for a necessary walk into town, so I haven't got round to tracks 6, 7 and 8 yet (which are indeed the Trois grandes études), but I just stopped listening to track 1, the Prestissimo of the Trois études de bravoure (op. 12) and will confess to being slightly gob-smacked.









I think I'm going to enjoy the rest. Thank you for the suggestion!


----------



## mark6144

@dizwell - Laurent Martin is great in Alkan's Esquisses as well.


----------



## Guest002

mark6144 said:


> @dizwell - Laurent Martin is great in Alkan's Esquisses as well.


OK. Added to the basket. Thanks for the tip.

What are Alkan's worst pieces, then?!


----------



## chu42

dizwell said:


> OK. Added to the basket. Thanks for the tip.
> 
> What are Alkan's worst pieces, then?!


Some people say that the Op.35 etudes are far inferior to his legendary Op.39-I would agree, with a caveat that the Op.35 etudes are clearly designed to be purely technical studies and for what they are, they are quite competent.

Op.27 "March Triomphale" and Op.17 "Le Preux" are quite overboard. Op.17 is often cited as the hardest Romantic-era etude, even surpassing those of Liszt and Godowsky, due to its ridiculous leaps and endurance challenges. I have actually recorded some excerpts from Op.17 if you are interested in seeing what the pianist has to deal with.






The musicality in Op.27 and Op.17 is purely superficial.

I am personally also not the biggest fans of Op.16, Op.40, or Op.41. I am sure that the more I explore his music, there will be even more works that seem dry or uninspired.

Although his Op.10 Student Concerti are worth checking out.


----------



## Guest002

chu42 said:


> Some people say that the Op.35 etudes are far inferior to his legendary Op.39-I would agree, with a caveat that the Op.35 etudes are clearly designed to be purely technical studies and for what they are, they are quite competent.
> 
> Op.27 "March Triomphale" and Op.17 "Le Preux" are quite overboard. Op.17 is often cited as the hardest Romantic-era etude, even surpassing those of Liszt and Godowsky, due to its ridiculous leaps and endurance challenges. I have actually recorded some excerpts from Op.17 if you are interested in seeing what the pianist has to deal with.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The musicality in Op.27 and Op.17 is purely superficial.
> 
> I am personally also not the biggest fans of Op.16, Op.40, or Op.41. I am sure that the more I explore his music, there will be even more works that seem dry or uninspired.
> 
> Although his Op.10 Student Concerti are worth checking out.


Wow. I had no idea. I assume he felt that as he'd paid for a keyboard, he was going make damn sure to use all of it!


----------



## hammeredklavier

I find this one by Alkan memorable. Allegro barbaro






I first encountered it by this interesting incident about 10 years ago:


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## mark6144

dizwell said:


> OK. Added to the basket. Thanks for the tip.
> 
> What are Alkan's worst pieces, then?!


Personally I wouldn't use the label "worst" as it's down to personal taste, but my preference is for his later works. Alkan started out as a virtuoso concert pianist on the Paris circuit and much of his early composition was routine bombastics presumably to showcase his mad skills. Around the late 1840s after his fame peaked, he was also affected by other career disappointments and by the death of Chopin, and became reclusive. His composition abandoned virtuosity for the sake of it and shifted to a more intimate style. Works from these later years include the Esquisses, five sets of Chants, and the Etudes en Tons Mineurs Op. 39, although I think some of the Op. 39 pieces originated much earlier. For me his "worst" works are pretty much everything before 1848.


----------



## mbhaub

Becca said:


> Has anyone mentioned Ferde Grofé? If not, why not?


Because whatever one thinks of his music, he was a thorough master of orchestral writing. He knew what audiences liked and wrote good tunes for them. His ear for color and harmony was fantastic. He knew he wasn't Beethoven and didn't try to be. I met him in 1972 when he attended a Flagstaff Summer Music Festival concert where they played Grand Canyon Suite and a few other things. He was an "industrial" composer - writing for the occasion. He wrote a LOT of travelogue music, most of it utterly forgettable. The Valley of the Sun Suite is one such. He was a very pleasant man, full of humor and great stories and loved camping out near Holbrook, AZ and the Painted Desert. There wasn't a bit of pretense, snobbery or superiority about him. But he was a one-hit-wonder. If it weren't for Grand Canyon Suite he'd be mostly forgotten except for doing that orchestration of Rhapsody in Blue.


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## Duncan

mbhaub said:


> Because whatever one thinks of his music, he was a thorough master of orchestral writing. He knew what audiences liked and wrote good tunes for them. His ear for color and harmony was fantastic. He knew he wasn't Beethoven and didn't try to be. I met him in 1972 when he attended a Flagstaff Summer Music Festival concert where they played Grand Canyon Suite and a few other things. He was an "industrial" composer - writing for the occasion. He wrote a LOT of travelogue music, most of it utterly forgettable. The Valley of the Sun Suite is one such. He was a very pleasant man, full of humor and great stories and loved camping out near Holbrook, AZ and the Painted Desert. There wasn't a bit of pretense, snobbery or superiority about him. But he was a one-hit-wonder. If it weren't for Grand Canyon Suite he'd be mostly forgotten except for *doing that orchestration of Rhapsody in Blue*.











*Gershwin By Grofé

Symphonic Jazz*

*Link to complete album -*

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_kweaTBk3i3DTdC3ssr_vw74u_3a3yEwkE

*Works*

Gershwin: Fascinatin' Rhythm
Gershwin: I'll Build a Stairway to Paradise
Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue
Gershwin: Somebody Loves Me
Gershwin: Summertime (from Porgy and Bess)
Gershwin: Sweet and Low-Down
Gershwin: That Certain Feeling
Gershwin: The Man I Love
Gershwin: Variations on I Got Rhythm
Gershwin: Yankee Doodle Blues


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## chu42

dizwell said:


> Well, thanks for that! Out of curiosity, I went to listen.
> 
> I wish I hadn't.
> 
> :lol:


Nancarrow is an excellent composer. It is the Britten situation again-when an excellent composer tries to be different, he will be invariably be met with confusion or derision. I suggest that you try some of Nancarrow's less jarring pieces before stumbling into player piano territory.


----------



## Jacobi Calthorpe

Woodduck said:


> Probably to keep our minds off of the fact that we are imprisoned in our homes, unable to see friends, unable to make plans, and unsure whether we, the people we care about, or the countries we live in will exist a month from now.


So true. Signed up here today for all aforementioned.


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## Sequentia

Barelytenor said:


> Some guy named Sorabji. A CD that even has an incredibly long title. I made it through about 30 seconds of the music. "It is enough, O Lord now take away my life ...."
> 
> Kind regards, :tiphat:
> 
> George


That would be _Opus clavicembalisticum_, correct? Perhaps you will find the following more palatable:






As for my collection, Philip Glass comes to mind immediately, though Orff's also a contender.


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## chu42

Sequentia said:


> That would be _Opus clavicembalisticum_, correct? Perhaps you will find the following more palatable:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> As for my collection, Philip Glass comes to mind immediately, though Orff's also a contender.


Sorabji was an excellent composer for the piano. Lots of lovely post-romantic pieces from him. Then he just started doing whatever he wanted and it's completely overboard-he is too much of an rigid intellectual for the rest of us.

I still remain a fan of his smaller works such as 3 Pastiches on Bizet and In the Hothouse for Piano. Good sonatas as well.


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## Phil loves classical

I forgot the Yellow River piano concerto. That is a low point in my collection, but it's more for the tunes. I think it has structural problems.


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## DaddyGeorge

I think the worst composer in my collection is (despite a positive rating on Amazon) Vasily Kalinnikov. I'm not an expert on his work (I heard two symphonies and a suite) but I find his compositions somewhat naive, predictable and tedious. Work with themes seems to be too schematic and the orchestration is almost ridiculous...


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## Orfeo

DaddyGeorge said:


> I think the worst composer in my collection is (despite a positive rating on Amazon) Vasily Kalinnikov. I'm not an expert on his work (I heard two symphonies and a suite) but I find his compositions somewhat naive, predictable and tedious. Work with themes seems to be too schematic and the orchestration is almost ridiculous...


And yet his music is attractive and appealing enough for even people like Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff to advocate on Kalinnikov's behalf. His music lacks their ultimate stamps of profundity or originality, or Glazunov's urbanity and fluency, but they show his innate craftsmanship, a gift for melody, and above-average competency in orchestration. His works are, in another word, enjoyable.

I must respectfully disagree here.


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## sstucky

Wilhelm Furtwangler’s Second Symphony is up there.


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## geralmar

Franz Liszt, orchestral works: they make the back of my neck itch. The exception is the recording of Les Preludes conducted by Bernard Herrmann, who seems to be struggling along with work.

What little I've heard of his solo piano works, however, I find quite satisfying.


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## jim prideaux

DaddyGeorge said:


> I think the worst composer in my collection is (despite a positive rating on Amazon) Vasily Kalinnikov. I'm not an expert on his work (I heard two symphonies and a suite) but I find his compositions somewhat naive, predictable and tedious. Work with themes seems to be too schematic and the orchestration is almost ridiculous...


As with Orfeo I must also respectfully disagree. I find it difficult to understand the need to use such dismissive language which is almost vitriolic (naïve, predictable and tedious......ridiculous)…...But then maybe that is a reflection of my naivety (as is my frequent listening to his two symphonies!)


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## DaddyGeorge

jim prideaux said:


> As with Orfeo I must also respectfully disagree. I find it difficult to understand the need to use such dismissive language which is almost vitriolic (naïve, predictable and tedious......ridiculous)…...But then maybe that is a reflection of my naivety (as is my frequent listening to his two symphonies!)


Don't take it personally. The whole thread provokes controversy and is meant, I think, sensationalistically and rather negatively - _the worst composer_, so I can't talk in superlatives. I fully respect (not only) your musical taste and in no way did I mean to offend someone. It's not easy for me to describe music in English because it isn't my mother tongue (as you can see), so if some words are too negative, I apologize for that.


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## MusicSybarite

I wouldn't call any composer the worst, but the least interesting.


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## Oldhoosierdude

I'm sorry but it's Shostakovich. There I said it. I like a scant few pieces of his. I can't listen to a complete symphony and some of the other works have me wondering when they will end. I still listen to something from time to time hoping I will think differently.


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## Guest002

DaddyGeorge said:


> Don't take it personally. The whole thread provokes controversy and is meant, I think, sensationalistically and rather negatively - _the worst composer_, so I can't talk in superlatives. I fully respect (not only) your musical taste and in no way did I mean to offend someone. It's not easy for me to describe music in English because it isn't my mother tongue (as you can see), so if some words are too negative, I apologize for that.


The thread asked about the worst composer _in your collection_. It's a question about bad purchasing decisions. It's was not and is not designed to provoke controversy or sensationalism, but merely a recitation of purchasing facts and your subsequent reaction to them.

No matter who one is or how perfect one thinks their past purchasing decisions, *everyone*, without exception, has a 'worst composer in their collection', since we're talking a spectrum (of like/dislike; skill/amateurism; good/bad) and someone, inevitably, must be on the 'worst' end of it. The only real requirement to get a mention in this thread is not whether you like or dislike a composer, but whether your regard a composer's works in your collection so badly that they become a candidate, potentially, for de-acquisition.

I accept that if English isn't your first language, you might miss the subtlety here. I think quite a few contributors for whom English _is_ their first language have missed it too! I think a number of them have merely listed a composer they don't personally like much, though they surely can't seriously mean he was a bad composer or that they wouldn't keep the recordings they have in the hope they'd be able to find some merit in them in the future. They've gone for the 'I don't respond to it' approach, rather than ones they think so poorly of that they would rid themselves of their CDs if they were of a mind to do so.

But that's fine, too, actually: I think if you read much of the thread, you would find large parts of it interesting and productive, not a mere sensational appeal to the controversial. My interest in Alkan has gone *up* since someone nominated him as their worst purchasing decision, for example. Perhaps that's because I'm not clever or good enough to appreciate the distinction between pianistic wizardry from true artistry, but whatever.


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## Guest002

Oldhoosierdude said:


> I'm sorry but it's Shostakovich. There I said it. I like a scant few pieces of his. I can't listen to a complete symphony and some of the other works have me wondering when they will end. I still listen to something from time to time hoping I will think differently.


That's a shame. He's one composer I definitely would hate to delete anything of, even if not all of it is immediately appealing.

Not trying to take you in directions you don't want to go, of course; but have you perhaps listened to his Jazz Suites? Short and sweet and with a nod to the popular tune (there seem to be few British TV programs that don't use Waltz No. 2 from the Jazz Suite No. 2 for background music for one occasion or another, for example!)

Or have you tried the swoon-y romanticism of the Andante of Piano Concerto No. 2?


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## Guest002

MusicSybarite said:


> I wouldn't call any composer the worst, but the least interesting.


Again, no-one was asking you to come to judgements about composers that you might hope would have general applicability to every other classical music listener on the planet. It merely asked you to look at your _personal_ CD or digital music collection and think about which composers would you consider de-acquisitioning if you needed the shelf- or disk-space back.

No matter who you are, if you sort your CDs into a stack ordered by 'degree to which I like them', someone will be at the top of that stack... and someone will be at the bottom. Since classical music fans are generally prone to waxing _extremely_ lyrical about their favourites, I thought it would be potentially more revealing to consider those at the other end of the spectrum.

It's not a call to make critical judgments in general, but specific critiques of your past purchasing/collecting habits, that's all.


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## CnC Bartok

I love the story of Shostakovich when he was with Glazunov in his office (as told in Testimony) the latter cataloguing his sheet music, and a lot of it being filed under "I" for "Insignificant".

"Make sure you don't end up in there" he advises the young Dmitri....


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## Guest002

CnC Bartok said:


> I love the story of Shostakovich when he was with Glazunov in his office (as told in Testimony) the latter cataloguing his sheet music, and a lot of it being filed under "I" for "Insignificant".
> 
> "Make sure you don't end up in there" he advises the young Dmitri....


I like that story too, which I hadn't heard before (we're not supposed to trust Testimony much, are we?!)


----------



## Oldhoosierdude

dizwell said:


> That's a shame. He's one composer I definitely would hate to delete anything of, even if not all of it is immediately appealing.
> 
> Not trying to take you in directions you don't want to go, of course; but have you perhaps listened to his Jazz Suites? Short and sweet and with a nod to the popular tune (there seem to be few British TV programs that don't use Waltz No. 2 from the Jazz Suite No. 2 for background music for one occasion or another, for example!)
> 
> Or have you tried the swoon-y romanticism of the Andante of Piano Concerto No. 2?


I don't like the title of the thread. It implies that the composer is a bad composer. I know that is not the case with Shostakovich.

I like the violin concerto OK.


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## Guest002

Oldhoosierdude said:


> I don't like the title of the thread. It implies that the composer is a bad composer.


It doesn't actually. That's you _inferring_ it's saying that, but the title is fairly explicit it just wants to know what the worst composer *in your collection* is. Those three words at the end of the title actually make all the difference, since they mean that anyone who has collected the music of three or more composers *must* have someone who would warrant the title "worst composer in my collection". Even if that composer turns out to be Bach or Britten or Shostakovich.

Now, it might be the case that the composer in that position for your collection really is a bad composer, technically. My nomination went to Ketèlbey, for example, and I think there are reasonable grounds for saying that he really was, technically, quite a bad composer.

But the thread title really doesn't say he or she has to be _bad_ in some objectivised way like that. It just wants to know who you'd delete/bin/take to the charity shop before the music of anyone else, if shelf- or disk-space ever became limited.

It is, in fact, exactly the same question as "who is your least-favourite composer", only it says it in fewer words.


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## mark6144

dizwell said:


> But the thread title really doesn't say he or she has to be _bad_ in some objectivised way like that. It just wants to know who you'd delete/bin/take to the charity shop before the music of anyone else, if shelf- or disk-space ever became limited.


Actually the OP says this:-



dizwell said:


> But here, I mean composers who (in your view) just aren't very good, not whether you like their work or not. That might be because you think them technically inept. Or that they just couldn't throw a decent tune together. Or for some other reason entirely.


I have reservations about answering this question too. I'm perfectly comfortable saying that I don't like e.g. Schoenberg and his CD is destined for the charity shop, but I certainly wouldn't claim he is "not very good" as the OP requires.


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## Guest002

mark6144 said:


> Actually the OP says this:-
> 
> 
> 
> 
> But here, I mean composers who (in your view) just aren't very good, not whether you like their work or not. That might be because you think them technically inept. Or that they just couldn't throw a decent tune together. Or for some other reason entirely.
> 
> 
> 
> I have reservations about answering this question too. I'm perfectly comfortable saying that I don't like e.g. Schoenberg and his CD is destined for the charity shop, but I certainly wouldn't claim he is "not very good" as the OP requires.
Click to expand...

Well, my first reaction to your post was to ask why on Earth someone who has reservations about answering the question then goes on to answer it?!

My second reaction was to wonder if you'd missed the "Or for some other reason entirely" line? That very explicitly and very deliberately gives you free reign to declare someone as 'not very good' (which is merely shorthand for 'candidate for de-acquisitioning' as the entire OP makes clear, I think) for whatever reason you fancy. He sounds ugly; he sounds amateurish; he sounds sickly sweet; he puts pianistic flamboyance over true musicality; his CDs all come in a dreadful shade of puce. Whatever.

We could have had an interesting discussion about_ why_ you would potentially de-acquisition Schönberg. Someone else might have chipped in with a link to a video or something that might have swung you round to liking him (or not). Witness the exchange about Alkan earlier, for example. That's surely the point of any thread on the forum: to promote debate and participation and information exchange. Getting tied up about the precise meaning of 'not very good' (or indeed 'worst') seems to me to be missing the point of it all by a country mile.


----------



## Flamme

Oldhoosierdude said:


> I'm sorry but it's Shostakovich. There I said it. I like a scant few pieces of his. I can't listen to a complete symphony and some of the other works have me wondering when they will end. I still listen to something from time to time hoping I will think differently.


I really like shosty, more and more as I get older...I had a similar opinion like you but now in his symphonies I find Fire, Fury, Passion, Grief, Nature, Life without fake or elitist undertones... It may be ''classical music 4 masses'' but stiill...


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## Guest002

Flamme said:


> I really like shosty, more and more as I get older...I had a similar opinion like you but now in his symphonies I find Fire, Fury, Passion, Grief, Nature, Life without fake or elitist undertones... It may be ''classical music 4 masses'' but stiill...


Ditto. My first symphony of his was the 14th (probably because it was dedicated to Britten). I didn't think it 'music for the masses' though: I thought it very complex and aimed squarely at the musical elites. But over time, I've come to regard it (and most of his other work) very highly as indeed capable of being 'popular', yet also being profound.


----------



## Flamme

It is kinda reassuring, in a ''faith in humanity restored'' kinda way the fact that soviet regime who came from people on margins of society and its bottom found a place for such great musicians and composers like Shostakovich, Khachaturian etc and even promoted them ''en masse''...


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## caracalla

dizwell said:


> The thread asked about the worst composer _in your collection_. It's a question about bad purchasing decisions.


I've certainly made my fair share of bad purchasing decisions, and my own worst composer was the result of one such. But let's not forget uncongenial music acquired as bycatch - via disc make-weights, compilation albums, etc. Holders of the worst composer title in many collections may well have sneaked in unobserved.

Back in the days of vinyl, record companies seemed strangely compelled to use Weber's Konzertstück as a filler. I have never in my life set out to acquire Weber's Konzertstück, and barring a radical shift in taste never will. Yet at one point, my collection could boast three different versions of the thing, none of which could be expunged due to their couplings.


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## Guest002

caracalla said:


> I've certainly made my fair share of bad purchasing decisions, and my own worst composer was the result of one such. But let's not forget uncongenial music acquired as bycatch - via disc make-weights, compilation albums, etc. Holders of the worst composer title in many collections may well have sneaked in unobserved.


True that. Those Brilliant Classics boxed sets can bring in a lot of dross! I think I've already mentioned... Bach's _Chorales_. Included in my Brilliant 'Bach Edition'. Not something I'd ever choose to buy on their own, I think... I have 6TB more disk space to go before I'm pushed, but I am tempted to hover over the delete button any time I'm doing hard disk housekeeping


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## caracalla

dizwell said:


> I am tempted to hover over the delete button any time I'm doing hard disk housekeeping


I'd say go for it. When I ripped my own CDs to hard disk, I took the opportunity to annihilate unwanted accretions. Sometimes with a twinge of guilt, sometimes with savage joy.

In the event, I found this a most rewarding exercise. Obviously there were a lot of borderline cases, and these had to be given a couple of good hard listenings before sentence of death was confirmed. I found myself appreciating quite a few things I never had before, so the process was gain as well as loss.


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## christomacin

I'd say Orff, Leoncavallo, Humperdinck, von Suppé, and Sullivan. On the basis of me thinking "these composer only just barely deserve to be here" when I look on my self.


----------



## Eusebius12

Orff is worse than the others imo


----------



## Eusebius12

Mine would be Schoenberg, probably


----------



## Eclectic Al

Hovhaness? Surely someone will agree.


----------



## Rogerx

Eclectic Al said:


> Hovhaness? Surely someone will agree.


Why, there's always some fan who like him.


----------



## Eclectic Al

Hmm. Perhaps in hindsight, he does indeed have his place. Insomniacs, perhaps, might find a use for him as an alternative to taking another sleeping pill. Or the director of a long film where where nothing much happens might be looking for a soundtrack. I plucked a piece from my library just now (and yes, I have a few of his works), and it felt like the start of The Jungle Book, but Mowgli, Baloo and the gang never appeared. I suppose his music seems to me like the sort of stuff that could be readily generated by a computer program: I don't sense a person behind it, trying to communicate something beyond note-spinning. There's atmosphere, but nothing more.


----------



## Eclectic Al

Sorry. Accidental duplicate.


----------



## erki

Händel has left my music collection many years ago. However I get some of his work in times when I buy bulk(a box of 100 LPs) but off they go pretty soon. But to be fair I give them a try nevertheless.
Oh! and R. Strauss. I can't stand the New Years Vienna concert. But don't tell anybody I have opera "Salome" on the shelve somewhere.


----------



## elgar's ghost

erki said:


> Händel has left my music collection many years ago. However I get some of his work in times when I buy bulk(a box of 100 LPs) but off they go pretty soon. But to be fair I give them a try nevertheless.
> Oh! and R. Strauss. _I cant stand the New Years Vienna concert_. But don't tell anybody I have opera "Salome" on the shelve somewhere.


Sorry, but you can't blame _Richard_ Strauss for that as well...


----------



## Radames

mbhaub said:


> Although known for being one of the great pianists and Beethoven interpreters, how he could compose something this awful is hard to understand. Next to him, Albert Ketelbey IS Beethoven!
> View attachment 132767
> 
> 
> I've kept it around for no reason other than to show other people how bad some modern music can be. (And I have a whole bunch of Ketelbey.)


This one. Schnabel. I saw a cheap used copy and was curious. BARF!! I had some symphonies of Humphrey Searle but I sold them to a used shop.


----------



## flamencosketches

elgars ghost said:


> Sorry, but you can't blame _Richard_ Strauss for that as well...


:lol: Reminds me of how my mind was blown when I learned that Also sprach Zarathustra and the Blue Danube Waltz were not written by the same person. Totally changed the way I think about 2001: A Space Odyssey.


----------



## caracalla

erki said:


> Händel has left my music collection many years ago. However I get some of his work in times when I buy bulk(a box of 100 LPs) but off they go pretty soon.


That's an odd one. I've known several people who don't rate Handel, but you're the first who hates him so much that he has to be banished wholesale. Anyway, you have my sympathy if not my agreement. If you buy a lot of compilations, he must attempt come-backs with annoying frequency.


----------



## erki

caracalla said:


> the first who hates him so much


Well I have to admit I have his Messiah LP box that I listen when I am not watching
But Fireworks go out with the same bang they come in.


----------



## Bulldog

I forgot about the absolute worst composer, Marjan Mozetich. He's even worse than Howard Hanson.


----------



## MusicSybarite

My worst composer. In these times, it sounds very encoraging, but you don't know the real depth of this issue. It's all about positivism.


----------



## Ariasexta

I do not know if it is about positivism. So, I was right when I said modern "classical" is the same with pop music in quality at best. Such cases of bumping into bad musicians only happened to me when I listened to pop and rock. 

Of my collection of early music discs, amounting to more than 30.000 USD currently, there is no such thing as the worst composers, I do not feel that way about baroque and Renaissance composers, it is also why I never ever ventured into the periods of musical movement when I found one bad composers, namely modern period, then I simply gave up the whole epoch for music. I hate such encounters, I can not bear it, I am particularily sick to hear bad music played on classical instruments. I hate them, it is not just a dislike, but hatred with a passion.

For the Romantic era, Beenthoven, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov, Brahms succeeded in not sickening me even once, but piano is out of the question for me now, their string ensembles can be listenable for my radical ears. They are great composers if I must say. For the composers I hate, forget them.


----------



## Ariasexta

I read someone said Johann Pachelbel is bad, but I beg to disagree, his influence on JS Bach is comparatively less direct than Buxtehudes does not mean he is bad. His organ music is quite radical in melodic innovations, though less complex than that of Buxtehudes. I use his titles for publications as nicknames extensively on the internet. We can see the problem of Pachelbels circulations in manuscripts is the reason for his indirect influence on JS Bach, he also taught Johann Christoph Bach(1642-1703) who was then JS Bachs teacher( His organ music was mostly stored in local libraries near his employers churches and parishes), while his vocal music gained wide popularity some of them even reached England.

The Handel problem, his music for keyboard is too dramatic(simply put too girly) in character is why some serious performers feel underwhelmed. Players want some structural thrill, contemplative pieces. You probably should listen to his vocal music before to turn to his keyboard music. Handels vocal music is no less innovative than JS Bachs, I have his latin sacred cantatas(BIS, London Baroque with Emma Kirkby). A lot of fun with those cantatas.


----------



## Dimace

consuono said:


> Tchaikovsky (sorry).


For me the Beethoven. (sorry)

(are we serious, or what???)


----------



## Opera For Life

flamencosketches said:


> :lol: Reminds me of how my mind was blown when I learned that Also sprach Zarathustra and the Blue Danube Waltz were not written by the same person. Totally changed the way I think about 2001: A Space Odyssey.


Haha, same here!
I find myself explaining the difference to people sometimes, usually when I'm trying to get them to listen to Richie's late works


----------



## Opera For Life

Also this, I posted this in the "least favourite composer" thread, since I think "worst" is asking for trouble, but here I might get a reply, since this nags at me, so many people love him..

I don't like Benjamin Britten, I'm not saying I think he's a bad composer, who am I to judge, but I just.. can't stand what I've heard of his music, it sounds so self-indulgent, forcedly "original" and pretentious to me.

I am open to a change of mind, since I have not extensively researched his output for anything palatable, I gave up after a few pieces, but any time I hear something by him in a recital or concert, I despair.. xD

I do however have the disc of him and Rostropovich playing the Arpeggione and his musicianship is wonderful there, so nothing personal against the man or his qualities as a performing musician..

There, now you can bite my head off


----------



## Flamme

I like britten but was on the same page as u b4 I got into him, it takes time and effort...


----------



## Opera For Life

Flamme said:


> I like britten but was on the same page as u b4 I got into him, it takes time and effort...


Yeah, that's what I've been hearing from people, I'm putting the effort in, so far with mixed succes


----------



## Flamme

This piece really broke the ice in my case. Give it a try...


----------



## Opera For Life

Flamme said:


> This piece really broke the ice in my case. Give it a try...


I've tried it before, but couldnt get trought it, but not with Britten himself conducting, I will give it a go, thx


----------



## Guest002

Opera For Life said:


> I've tried it before, but couldnt get trought it, but not with Britten himself conducting, I will give it a go, thx


War Requiem is another piece of his from the 1960s, so it's late Britten and accordingly a bit of a tall order for someone new to him, I think. I would really recommend tackling him more chronologically: work _up_ to that, Curlew River, Burning Fiery Furnace, Death in Venice and Phaedra (all of which are, IMO, masterpieces). But tackle his work from the 1930s, 1940s and the 1950s first. Just my suggestion, anyway.

Imagine if you were a complete newbie to classical music and someone said to you that you should start with Ewartung, Pierot Lunaire and Stimmung. I mean, it will certainly be interesting music that is worth a listen... but I would have thought a touch of Bach, Mozart and Beethoven would be a better way of starting out!


----------



## Opera For Life

AbsolutelyBaching said:


> War Requiem is another piece of his from the 1960s, so it's late Britten and accordingly a bit of a tall order for someone new to him, I think. I would really recommend tackling him more chronologically: work _up_ to that, Curlew River, Burning Fiery Furnace, Death in Venice and Phaedra (all of which are, IMO, masterpieces). But tackle his work from the 1930s, 1940s and the 1950s first. Just my suggestion, anyway.
> 
> Imagine if you were a complete newbie to classical music and someone said to you that you should start with Ewartung, Pierot Lunaire and Stimmung. I mean, it will certainly be interesting music that is worth a listen... but I would have thought a touch of Bach, Mozart and Beethoven would be a better way of starting out!


I see your point, maybe I should look at it like that, like the time I started this whole classical music thing I have going on now, I started with Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, Händel, Rachmaninov,... NOT with Messiaen


----------



## consuono

Dimace said:


> For me the Beethoven. (sorry)
> 
> (are we serious, or what???)


Yes, I'm serious. The question is about the worst composer in one's collection. To be honest though, come to think of it I got rid of my Tchaikovsky recordings a while back. There were some works of his that I liked at one time, but as time goes on I'm not a fan at all. Except *maybe* the Serenade in C.


----------



## Guest002

consuono said:


> Yes, I'm serious. The question is about the worst composer in one's collection. To be honest though, come to think of it I got rid of my Tchaikovsky recordings a while back. There were some works of his that I liked at one time, but as time goes on I'm not a fan at all. Except *maybe* the Serenade in C.


Yup. I cannot be doing with much Tchaikovsky at all, either. I have a complete set of his works (thank you, Brilliant Classics), but rarely trouble to play any of it. Don't know why... just another of my 19th Century gaps, I expect.


----------



## Flamme

Opera For Life said:


> I've tried it before, but couldnt get trought it, but not with Britten himself conducting, I will give it a go, thx


I was ''bought'' by the sheer power and maginficence of the work...I would often take a post lunch nap in a darkened room while this was playing on my speakers...Had some weird and uplifting dreams...


----------



## Opera For Life

Flamme said:


> I was ''bought'' by the sheer power and maginficence of the work...I would often take a post lunch nap in a darkened room while this was playing on my speakers...Had some weird and uplifting dreams...


You took naps with this in the background!? wow, I bet those dreams were weird 

I'm trying it now, I know AbsolutelyBaching makes a good point, but still, I'm curious to see if I can't jump in at the deep end, what's life without a little risk huh


----------



## Guest002

Opera For Life said:


> You took naps with this in the background!? wow, I bet those dreams were weird
> 
> I'm trying it now, I know AbsolutelyBaching makes a good point, but still, I'm curious to see if I can't jump in at the deep end, what's life without a little risk huh


No, you go for it. We all have different ways of getting into this stuff. I wish you all the best.

Just bear in mind that War Requiem is a bit of a mixed bag. The bits which involve soloists and chamber orchestra are very, very original Britten (and brilliantly done). The bits which involve a large choir are, to some extent, somewhat borrowed Verdi (and deliberately so: he himself said that he would have been a fool to have written a Requiem without that exemplar open, in score, in front of him). The choral work is still capable of being very original (witness the opening to the Sanctus, for example, with the chorus 'chatter'), but they are not as characteristically individual as the soloist bits, I think.

The overall level of invention in the work is extremely high -down to imagining it as a three-layer world where choir, tenor+bass and soprano never all meet, until the very last bars. It is a great work. It's just not his greatest, in my view! But I hope you get to grips with it. It is one of the defining works of the 20th Century, after all...


----------



## mark6144

Another one I'll throw out there - Satie. While some of his music is enjoyable, it's only a few minutes' worth and overplayed anyway. Having recently listened through his complete works several times in search of other gems, I found there to be disappointingly little to my taste. Much of it seems to me to be just... dull.


----------



## Flamme

Yeah. Didnt resonate quite well with me...I think hes overrated...


----------



## Opera For Life

AbsolutelyBaching said:


> No, you go for it. We all have different ways of getting into this stuff. I wish you all the best.
> 
> Just bear in mind that War Requiem is a bit of a mixed bag. The bits which involve soloists and chamber orchestra are very, very original Britten (and brilliantly done). The bits which involve a large choir are, to some extent, somewhat borrowed Verdi (and deliberately so: he himself said that he would have been a fool to have written a Requiem without that exemplar open, in score, in front of him). The choral work is still capable of being very original (witness the opening to the Sanctus, for example, with the chorus 'chatter'), but they are not as characteristically individual as the soloist bits, I think.
> 
> The overall level of invention in the work is extremely high -down to imagining it as a three-layer world where choir, tenor+bass and soprano never all meet, until the very last bars. It is a great work. It's just not his greatest, in my view! But I hope you get to grips with it. It is one of the defining works of the 20th Century, after all...


Haha, wish I had seen this reply before I listened to it or replied on the other thread, that is interesting, the temporary segregation of singing parts, very.. delayed gratification-y 

Maybe it was the spirit of Verdi that helped me like it then, I mean, my nickname is no coincidence


----------



## Opera For Life

mark6144 said:


> Another one I'll throw out there - Satie. While some of his music is enjoyable, it's only a few minutes' worth and overplayed anyway. Having recently listened through his complete works several times in search of other gems, I found there to be disappointingly little to my taste. Much of it seems to me to be just... dull.


I see your point, but I think he's one of those composers who need very good and imaginative performances, in Satie's case I might even go so far as to say you need to hear him played live.. The music can cast a spell, and what feels like dullness can become meditative but never oppressive.
Having played him on stage (the morceax en forme du poire), I can say that performing him only got more fun with time.


----------



## Guest002

Opera For Life said:


> Haha, wish I had seen this reply before I listened to it or replied on the other thread, that is interesting, the temporary segregation of singing parts, very.. delayed gratification-y
> 
> Maybe it was the spirit of Verdi that helped me like it then, I mean, my nickname is no coincidence


You know the whole thing is based around the tritone, right? The three tones. The three levels of soloists/choir/soprano. It's all very clever! You can puzzle away at his stuff longer than it takes to do the Times' crossword.

Given your user name: try listening to his _Albert Herring_ and see if you can hear when Lucretia (from his earlier _Rape of Lucretia_) makes a brief appearance: he had leitmotifs sorted!


----------



## mark6144

Opera For Life said:


> I see your point, but I think he's one of those composers who need very good and imaginative performances, in Satie's case I might even go so far as to say you need to hear him played live.. The music can cast a spell, and what feels like dullness can become meditative but never oppressive.
> Having played him on stage (the morceax en forme du poire), I can say that performing him only got more fun with time.


Meditative, I can see that; it's not unpleasant or irritating, just dull. I'm thinking of his Sarabandes, Ogives, and pretty much everything from his Rosicrucian period. There just aren't enough notes in the music to sustain my interest . Of course I rate the Gymnopedies & Gnossiennes, and his humoristic works from 1912-15 have also got a little more going on.


----------



## Flamme

I didnt hear everything from Mr Staie, but from what I heard I can conclujde he is indeed a bit ''dul'' and ''reptetitive''...He sells as a bg music 2 parisian and french ''charm'' and school of artistic impressionism thats how I see it...


----------



## flamencosketches

mark6144 said:


> Another one I'll throw out there - Satie. While some of his music is enjoyable, it's only a few minutes' worth and overplayed anyway. Having recently listened through his complete works several times in search of other gems, I found there to be disappointingly little to my taste. Much of it seems to me to be just... dull.


Funny, Satie is a composer I rate as one of the best in my collection.


----------



## Blancrocher

Gesualdo, maybe--he was such a jackass at times.


----------



## mark6144

flamencosketches said:


> Funny, Satie is a composer I rate as one of the best in my collection.


There's no accounting for taste!  Care to say why you rate him?


----------



## Flamme

I dont like piano based musick in general, 2 melancholic 4 me...I can enjoy strings and brass...


----------



## flamencosketches

mark6144 said:


> There's no accounting for taste!  Care to say why you rate him?


Satie was able to do so much more with so much less compared to virtually any other composer. Who else could fit a lifetime worth of pain, joy, and experience into a three minute, repetitious piano piece? Maybe Chopin (obviously, in a completely different way). In Satie we have the core ideas of many of the greatest composers of the 20th century-Debussy, Poulenc, Cage, Feldman, etc-distilled into an essence. But I suppose you're right, no accounting for taste. The pieces you named as boring-the Ogives & the Sarabandes-are earth shattering in my estimation.


----------



## sstucky

He is not in my collection, but this thread reminded me of going to a recital of Stockhausen at the New England Conservatory when I was in law school (early 1970s.) The audience, maybe 75-100 people, were seated in front of a pile of speakers about 4 by 6 feet in size. They began to emit a series of squeaks, whines, pops, growls, and other similar sounds. It was about 15 minutes before people began to leave. About 30-40 minutes in, they were leaving in droves. I stuck it out for about an hour (there were no movements or intermissions) and left myself. Even for someone whose collection is probably 2/3 20th century, it was too much to take.


----------



## mark6144

flamencosketches said:


> Satie was able to do so much more with so much less compared to virtually any other composer. Who else could fit a lifetime worth of pain, joy, and experience into a three minute, repetitious piano piece? Maybe Chopin (obviously, in a completely different way). In Satie we have the core ideas of many of the greatest composers of the 20th century-Debussy, Poulenc, Cage, Feldman, etc-distilled into an essence. But I suppose you're right, no accounting for taste. The pieces you named as boring-the Ogives & the Sarabandes-are earth shattering in my estimation.


I don't mean that dismissively - I respect his significance and influence, and want to be able to appreciate these pieces. Every few weeks I go back and try again with them, but am always left wanting. The lifetime of pain and joy etc. doesn't convince me - he was only ~20 when he wrote them, for a start. I understand that Satie wanted to find an alternative to traditional musical development and these works represent a new concept of larger form with shared musical elements connecting across the three meandering pieces within each work. Maybe the simplicity (or at least sparsity) of the music serves that end somehow, but I just don't get it and am left feeling that musicality has taken second place to some academic purpose that I'm sadly not smart enough to appreciate .


----------



## flamencosketches

mark6144 said:


> I don't mean that dismissively - I respect his significance and influence, and want to be able to appreciate these pieces. Every few weeks I go back and try again with them, but am always left wanting. The lifetime of pain and joy etc. doesn't convince me - he was only ~20 when he wrote them, for a start. I understand that Satie wanted to find an alternative to traditional musical development and these works represent a new concept of larger form with shared musical elements connecting across the three meandering pieces within each work. Maybe the simplicity (or at least sparsity) of the music serves that end somehow, but I just don't get it and am left feeling that musicality has taken second place to some academic purpose that I'm sadly not smart enough to appreciate .


Re: "he was only ~20 when he wrote them"-first of all, I didn't tell you what pieces I was talking about when I said that; secondly, is 20 years not a lifetime? Did you not experience immense joy and crushing pain by that time? Well, some people have. I don't know how you feel about Schubert, but he wrote a great many masterworks that run the gamut of human experience while he was in his 20s.

Anyway, I'm not trying to convince you-I'm just telling you what his music is for me. Finally, I don't believe you if you claim to think Satie takes an "academic" approach that one has to be "smart enough" to appreciate. I think you said it best the first time, you can't account for taste. I think with Satie, it's musicality itself that is right at the forefront, at the expense of the kinds of complexity, development, etc. that we saw so much of in earlier music.


----------



## Bulldog

mark6144 said:


> I understand that Satie wanted to find an alternative to traditional musical development and these works represent a new concept of larger form with shared musical elements connecting across the three meandering pieces within each work. Maybe the simplicity (or at least sparsity) of the music serves that end somehow, but I just don't get it and am left feeling that musicality has taken second place to some academic purpose that I'm sadly not smart enough to appreciate .


Satie academic? I've never noticed anything like that in his music. For me, the best way to appreciate Satie is to go in with patience and recognize that the man was eccentric.


----------



## mark6144

flamencosketches said:


> Finally, I don't believe you if you claim to think Satie takes an "academic" approach that one has to be "smart enough" to appreciate. I think you said it best the first time, you can't account for taste. I think with Satie, it's musicality itself that is right at the forefront, at the expense of the kinds of complexity, development, etc. that we saw so much of in earlier music.





Bulldog said:


> Satie academic? I've never noticed anything like that in his music. For me, the best way to appreciate Satie is to go in with patience and recognize that the man was eccentric.


That's a little saddening really - I had suspected (hoped) there was something ingenious going on in the music that would maybe one day reveal itself to me. I was thinking of the Sarabandes and Ogives, by the way. Ravel said in 1911 that Satie "a quarter century ago was already speaking the audacious musical idiom of tomorrow". I like to think there's something more to those pieces than what I can hear today.

Anyway, my nominating Satie on this thread isn't entirely fair because he's interesting enough to not be going to the charity shop. I do quite enjoy occasionally going back to him and trying to fathom him out.


----------



## flamencosketches

mark6144 said:


> That's a little saddening really - I had suspected (hoped) there was something ingenious going on in the music that would maybe one day reveal itself to me. I was thinking of the Sarabandes and Ogives, by the way. Ravel said in 1911 that Satie "a quarter century ago was already speaking the audacious musical idiom of tomorrow". I like to think there's something more to those pieces than what I can hear today.
> 
> Anyway, my nominating Satie on this thread isn't entirely fair because he's interesting enough to not be going to the charity shop. I do quite enjoy occasionally going back to him and trying to fathom him out.


Try these, see if something doesn't reveal itself to you that you hadn't noticed before:











There _is_ something ingenious going on in the music, and maybe it will some day reveal itself to you, as it did to Ravel and to Cage and to so many others.


----------



## mark6144

Thanks for those, I hadn't heard them before. Always good to try different performers & performances.


----------



## flamencosketches

mark6144 said:


> Thanks for those, I hadn't heard them before. Always good to try different performers & performances.


No problem! I think they're something special. Reinbert de Leeuw (died a few months ago, RIP) shows a different side to these works than what we hear in some other performances. But in the end, even if Satie never does do anything for you, I applaud you for making the effort to try and try again with his music.


----------



## mark6144

flamencosketches said:


> No problem! I think they're something special. Reinbert de Leeuw (died a few months ago, RIP) shows a different side to these works than what we hear in some other performances. But in the end, even if Satie never does do anything for you, I applaud you for making the effort to try and try again with his music.


I just found an album of de Leeuw playing Satie's early piano works (Decca 1980) on Spotify. It has Sarabandes, Ogives and Rosicrucian period works like Danses Gothiques - basically all the works I've struggled to appreciate. I'll give this album a listen over the weekend.


----------



## flamencosketches

mark6144 said:


> I just found an album of de Leeuw playing Satie's early piano works (Decca 1980) on Spotify. It has Sarabandes, Ogives and Rosicrucian period works like Danses Gothiques - basically all the works I've struggled to appreciate. I'll give this album a listen over the weekend.


Nice, I have it on CD. Let me know what you think.


----------



## Kjetil Heggelund

I don't buy bad music by bad composers by the way...


----------



## Pat Fairlea

Bulldog said:


> Although I've discarded most of Vivaldi's discs that I own, I still have a few roaming around the house. I don't have anything against the man, and he certainly is technically sufficient. However, he and I have no connection at all.


Yup. Me too. Exactly that.


----------



## Allegro Con Brio

mark6144 said:


> Another one I'll throw out there - Satie. While some of his music is enjoyable, it's only a few minutes' worth and overplayed anyway. Having recently listened through his complete works several times in search of other gems, I found there to be disappointingly little to my taste. Much of it seems to me to be just... dull.


I see little to differentiate Satie from minimalist music like Glass. Pleasant little tune with perfectly consonant harmonic progressions, repeated over...and over...and over...and over. I always thought he was just in it for the parody and humor anyway. But I know there is a side to his music that other people hear and I don't, so I won't give up.


----------



## Opera For Life

AbsolutelyBaching said:


> You know the whole thing is based around the tritone, right? The three tones. The three levels of soloists/choir/soprano. It's all very clever! You can puzzle away at his stuff longer than it takes to do the Times' crossword.
> 
> Given your user name: try listening to his _Albert Herring_ and see if you can hear when Lucretia (from his earlier _Rape of Lucretia_) makes a brief appearance: he had leitmotifs sorted!


I did, because I looked up the work on wiki beforehand 
I will listen to those two operas, would you recommend Albert Herring before or after Lucretia?
Alos, I listened to a good interview of Jon Vickers, and there is a fragment of him Sinign Peter Grimes in there, I liked that very much, so I might be coming around already


----------



## Guest002

Opera For Life said:


> I did, because I looked up the work on wiki beforehand
> I will listen to those two operas, would you recommend Albert Herring before or after Lucretia?
> Alos, I listened to a good interview of Jon Vickers, and there is a fragment of him Sinign Peter Grimes in there, I liked that very much, so I might be coming around already


It took me a long time to get to like Albert Herring: there is an _awful_ lot of shrieking from Lady Billows (presumably intentional: she's a nasty piece of work!). The Britten recording is with Sylvia Fisher in the title role, and she could be, er... quite shrill. It eventually clicked as a set of caricatures of Edwardian village life, and some sly digs from Britten along the way ("Me father shot the brute in '56!" etc)

My Rape of Lucretia experience consisted of first watching a live performance in a darkened church, with Tarquinius practically naked, stalking down the main aisle, through the audience, "Panther agile and panther virile...The pity is that sin has so much grace, it moves like virtue". It's not something you tend to forget! After that, it was record acquisition time, and Janet Baker as Lucretia is glorious and not at all shrill.

See where I'm going with this?! I'd take a Lucretia over a Herring any day, and I would recommend doing Lucretia first every time.

I'm also about to commit heresy: I would skip Turn of the Screw and go for Billy Budd after Lucretia. Back to 'big' opera after the chamber ones. Turn of the Screw is often considered his greatest opera (and it's another 'clever' piece, where every scene starts on each of the notes of an upwardly ascending 12-note scale, getting higher and higher, turning the pitch screw, as it were). It _is_ a good opera, but it unfotunately has a very, very demanding role for a boy treble. And you don't tend to get too many of those to the dozen that can pull that part off. Britten's own recording is also in mono, which doesn't help. So, I'd wait to get the others under your belt before tackling that one -and when you do, maybe go for a more modern version, with better recording and a slightly less arch treble than David Hemmings was.

Short version, for me: Grimes -> Lucretia -> Budd -> Albert Herring -> Gloriana --> Midsummer Night's Dream --> Paul Bunyan -> Death in Venice -> Turn of the Screw. The Church Parables are a separate exercise and are definitely best in Curlew -> Furnace -> Prodigal order. And Owen Wingrave... well, I love the overture. And I love the 'peace is positive, passionate...' aria. But there's not a lot else there I can really warm to, so you are allowed to leave that one alone for a rainy day


----------



## ORigel

Philip Glass. What rubbish!


----------



## Oldhoosierdude

Oldhoosierdude said:


> I'm sorry but it's Shostakovich. There I said it. I like a scant few pieces of his. I can't listen to a complete symphony and some of the other works have me wondering when they will end. I still listen to something from time to time hoping I will think differently.


Ok. I have reconsidered. I now like symphony 10. The VC, and the quartets. Thinking I will look into solo piano music. But please, don't believe I will ever tolerate more listening to symphony 7, 15, cello concerto.

Now I think Liszt could be the composer I get the least from.


----------



## apricissimus

Oldhoosierdude said:


> Ok. I have reconsidered. I now like symphony 10. The VC, and the quartets. Thinking I will look into solo piano music. But please, don't believe I will ever tolerate more listening to symphony 7, 15, *cello concerto*.
> 
> Now I think Liszt could be the composer I get the least from.


Damn. DSCH's first cello concerto (I assume you mean his first) is probably in my top 5 favorite pieces of music of all time, of any period, genre, style, etc.


----------



## Oldhoosierdude

apricissimus said:


> Damn. DSCH's first cello concerto (I assume you mean his first) is probably in my top 5 favorite pieces of music of all time, of any period, genre, style, etc.


Yes that one. I was probably unconscious after hearing it and didn't realize there were more.


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## Roger Knox

mark6144 said:


> Another one I'll throw out there - Satie. Much of it seems to me to be just... dull.


If anyone bought a disc with Satie's _Vexations_ on it, the title should have been enough warning. And Cage's 4'33" is better on DVD ...


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## Oldhoosierdude

Roger Knox said:


> If anyone bought a disc with Satie's _Vexations_ on it, the title should have been enough warning. And Cage's 4'33" is better on DVD ...


There are a number of Satie pieces I like tremendously. But I attempted to listen to one of those complete piano collections of his and didn't care for a lot of it.


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## Woodduck

Oldhoosierdude said:


> There are a number of Satie pieces I like tremendously. But I attempted to listen to one of those complete piano collections of his and didn't care for a lot of it.


When it comes to Satie I am quickly satie-ated. Isn't one piece in the shape of a pear sufficient?


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## Oldhoosierdude

Woodduck said:


> When it comes to Satie I am quickly satie-ated. Isn't one piece in the shape of a pear sufficient?


I found this recently and it covers Satie for me. Even then I always skip the rag time track.


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## Brahmsian Colors

I wouldn't keep a worst composer in my collection.


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## caracalla

Losing one just creates another. These worst composers have it all worked out.


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## Brahmsian Colors

caracalla said:


> Losing one just creates another. These worst composers have it all worked out.


I assume you're speaking for yourself.


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## flamencosketches

Brahmsian Colors said:


> I assume you're speaking for yourself.


It seems what they're trying to say is that there's always going to be a "worst" composer in any collection. If you get rid of whichever one you deem the worst, the next in line becomes the worst in your remaining collection. If your collection only includes Bach and Brahms, one of the two is going to be the best and the other the worst. (If you believe in looking at music that way-I don't.)


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## Brahmsian Colors

flamencosketches said:


> It seems what they're trying to say is that there's always going to be a "worst" composer in any collection. If you get rid of whichever one you deem the worst, the next in line becomes the worst in your remaining collection. If your collection only includes Bach and Brahms, one of the two is going to be the best and the other the worst. (If you believe in looking at music that way-I don't.)


Ditto. For me, it might be an oversimplification.


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## VitellioScarpia

Oldhoosierdude said:


> Ok. I have reconsidered. I now like symphony 10. The VC, and the quartets. Thinking I will look into solo piano music. But please, don't believe I will ever tolerate more listening to symphony 7, 15, cello concerto.
> 
> Now I think Liszt could be the composer I get the least from.


Since we seem to be in confessional mode, I have to confess that Bruckner is beyond me. I have really tried for years but I can't take him in: I find him both pompous and boring, which is a lethal combo for me. I rather listen to Satie's pears, apricots and strawberries before one of Bruckner's symphonies... :lol:


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## Neo Romanza

I don't believe there's a _bad_ composer in any of our collections. The reason I believe this is because they wouldn't be in our collections if that were true.


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## alvaro

Neo Romanza said:


> I don't believe there's a _bad_ composer in any of our collections. The reason I believe this is because they wouldn't be in our collections if that were true.


Fully agree. I have composers in my collection that I don't like, but that's because they come with some conductors and orchestras box sets. It doesn't mean they're bad, it just means that I don't like them. For instance, I can't make a connection (and it's clear I won't) with great ones like Wagner and Shostakovich, or anything near atonal/serial stuff. But both composers appear stubbornly in some collections, lol. Even some Ligeti managed to sneak in that way! What a world, what a world! Satie too, I'm not able to enjoy the vast majority of his work. But disregarding that, I'm very, very happy with my musical collection, and I don't have any composer that I don't like in it. Except for those "intruders", but well, that's life.


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## Rogerx

Brahmsian Colors said:


> I wouldn't keep a worst composer in my collection.


Me neither, just like unknown artists.


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## Kreisler jr

I have some rather dubious stuff on Heifetz anthologies (violin bonbons) and elsewhere but it's usually mixed with stuff I want to keep. 
I am not sure I have any Rodrigo, not knowingly :devil: There is some Giuliani on the only guitar recital I have.

I also got that Brilliant Romantic piano concerto box with recordings from VOX and others; I never got through the box but there is quite a bit of chaff in there. Somehow I think that I owe it to the music to listen at least once and overall the box will probably have a bunch of worthwhile stuff, so I'll keep it (but it is certainly among the purchases that were rather disappointing). But there must be some candidates for "worst" in that box. Or maybe someone in some baroque or mid-18th century early classical anthology. I usually find this stuff pleasant enough whereas 2nd to 3rd rate 19th century is more likely to annoy me.

Two composers whose discs I got rid of were Gavin Bryars (recommended by some book or blog, maybe Alex Ross) and Nyman (Musique a grande vitesse) They were not offensively bad but quite uninteresting to me.


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## 59540

I only buy recordings of music that I love, so none.


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## RobertJTh

I've got a ton of Rodrigo. Some stuff I got gifted (thanks...), some was by-catch from charity shop raids ("shop closes in 5 minutes, it's 10 cd's for 2,50 euro, and I only got nine... OMG what to get? Ooh, another Concierto de Aranjuez!")

The last thing I want is offending guitar people, and I know, it can be a beautiful instrument in the right hands, and there's lot of good pieces written for it... but it just doesn't stick with me. Let's keep it at that.

But let's face it, Rodrigo was just a bad composer. His compositions are uniformly bland and dreary, with just enough ethnic flavor to camouflage the complete emptiness behind the notes. Not to mention his complete lack of composition technique.

Combine that with my allergy to the plonk box, and I've got a dozen of cd's that I'm sure will await me at the Turntables of Hell. Can't get rid of them, of course. It's classical music, it's got to stay.


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## Pat Fairlea

I'm not sure whether 'worst' applies, but I really can't manage to appreciate Max Reger's turgid output. None the less, there he is, still on the shelves.


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## pianozach

pianozach said:


> *Lou Reed*
> 
> Bleah.
> 
> Pseudo-Classical composer? *Paul McCartney*'s Classical repertoire is weak. Not annoying or awful, mind you, just derivative and often bland. Love him otherwise.
> 
> Real Classical composer?
> 
> Until recently I would have named *Delius* based on just a handful of works I'd heard. Now I've heard more, and I have a higher opinion. However, I don't actually have any in my digital collection.
> 
> Um . . . *John Cage*? Oh, wait, I don't have any Cage in my collection, digital or otherwise.
> 
> OK, then... *Telemann* it is.


Actually, I was just kidding about *Telemann*. I enjoy his mindless baroqueism.


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## hammeredklavier

pianozach said:


> Actually, I was just kidding about *Telemann*. I enjoy his mindless baroqueism.


No, you were just being just as mindless as *Telemann* is in his Baroque-ism.


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## Tristan

No examples for me. I have bad recordings that I should probably get rid of, but no composers I dislike in my collection.


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## elgar's ghost

Pat Fairlea said:


> I'm not sure whether 'worst' applies, but I really can't manage to appreciate Max Reger's turgid output. None the less, there he is, still on the shelves.


I felt the same towards Reger for years then had a rare (not to mentioned unexpected) lightbulb moment. Obviously this phenomenon can't manifest itself for everyone but I am still happy that it happened to me.


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## Red Terror

Pat Fairlea said:


> I'm not sure whether 'worst' applies, but I really can't manage to appreciate Max Reger's turgid output. None the less, there he is, still on the shelves.


Reger was a genius as evidenced in his oeuvre. It's too bad you haven't found a way into his work.


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## HenryPenfold

I’m going to buy a John Williams CD so I can join in this thread - watch this space.


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## JTS

HenryPenfold said:


> I'm going to buy a John Williams CD so I can join in this thread - watch this space.


Wish I could write music as badly as John Williams!


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## Bulldog

HenryPenfold said:


> I'm going to buy a John Williams CD so I can join in this thread - watch this space.


That's too bad. I will keep my "no John Williams" streak alive and well.


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## haziz

Schoenberg ..............


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## Bulldog

Pat Fairlea said:


> I'm not sure whether 'worst' applies, but I really can't manage to appreciate Max Reger's turgid output. None the less, there he is, still on the shelves.


Check out his clarinet sonatas and clarinet quintet - nothing turgid going on.


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## 59540

I always kinda liked Reger's cello suites. Of course the Bach influence is hovering over them but they're highly chromatic and Double Stop City. I also love his transcription of BWV 622:





Beyond that I don't know much Reger.


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## Ethereality

caracalla said:


> Losing one just creates another. These worst composers have it all worked out.


It's a conspiracy! These worst composers want to rot the minds of our youth, and worse. I wonder can we get rid of them all? by decapitating the leader of the worst composers?


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## Simon Moon

dissident said:


> I only buy recordings of music that I love, so none.


But it seems to me, that you can't love every composer in your collection equally. At least one of them, no matter how great you think they are, has to be somewhat lesser than all the others.

So, no matter how great they are, they would still be the worst in your collection, no?


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## Simon Moon

Ethereality said:


> It's a conspiracy! These worst composers want to rot the minds of our youth, and worse. I wonder can we get rid of them all? by decapitating the leader of the worst composers?


Still doesn't work.

The next worse composer would then just move up (or is it down?) to replace the former, recently decapitated leader.


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## 59540

Simon Moon said:


> But it seems to me, that you can't love every composer in your collection equally. At least one of them, no matter how great you think they are, has to be somewhat lesser than all the others.
> 
> So, no matter how great they are, they would still be the worst in your collection, no?


Not really. If I have gold in one hand and diamonds in the other I wouldn't call either "the worst". There are works that I find more irreplaceable than others, but none that I'd label "the worst". Heck I even have loads of pop CDs and I wouldn't label any of them in that way either. If you have The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Cream, Led Zeppelin, Bruce Springsteen, Jimi Hendrix, the Rolling Stones, Curtis Mayfield, and Bob Dylan, can any one of those really be called "the worst"? I don't think so. Or at least I wouldn't say so. It's the same with Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Brahms, Bruckner, Mahler...
It's like "which one of your late parents was the worst?" Neither. I love them both.


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## Ariasexta

I mostly blame myself for not being able to enjoy some composers, only very very few musicians really disappoint me, all of them are from later than 1850 untill our time, I could name all of them here in a few lines. It is a tragedy like car crash to discredit an artist, so I do not keep their discs near my collection at all.


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## JTS

Ariasexta said:


> I mostly blame myself for not being able to enjoy some composers, only very very few musicians really disappoint me, all of them are from later than 1850 untill our time, I could name all of them here in a few lines. It is a tragedy like car crash to discredit an artist, so I do not keep their discs near my collection at all.


I don't blame myself for not being able to enjoy some composers. Musicians are there for our enjoyment and if I don't enjoy their music I simply go to the ones I do. If they don't write music which I can enjoy it maybe no blame to anyone but I'm certainly not gonna blame myself as I am the consumer


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## Ariasexta

JTS said:


> I don't blame myself for not being able to enjoy some composers. Musicians are there for our enjoyment and if I don't enjoy their music I simply go to the ones I do. If they don't write music which I can enjoy it maybe no blame to anyone but I'm certainly not gonna blame myself as I am the consumer


Maybe as a very traditional minded chinese I do not have much modern individualist feelings, education is everything for our young people in social status. But in case of arts I do success in ending up enjoying a lot of things for my limited budget, I feel more and more tended to see things in a looking-up-to kind of way. But I would be acrimonious toward young-gen interpretators anyway.


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## SanAntone

JTS said:


> I don't blame myself for not being able to enjoy some composers. Musicians are there for our enjoyment and if I don't enjoy their music I simply go to the ones I do. If they don't write music which I can enjoy it maybe no blame to anyone but I'm certainly not gonna blame myself as I am the consumer


Have you ever come to enjoy works/composers that you previous had not?

For me, it is not about blaming myself, and certainly not the composer, but retaining a curious and open mind. IMO, all composers have something to offer which can be valuable, if I am prepared to receive it. Sometimes it is a matter of time and repeated exposure, for others the jury is still out.

I never give up on a composer. My general premise is something like, "I haven't enjoyed the music of Composer X .... yet."


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## AaronSF

consuono said:


> Tchaikovsky (sorry).


Tchaikovsky (not sorry).


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