# Small Doses...



## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Do you have classical music that you like - but only in small doses?

Conversely, are there types of music that you can 'never get enough of'?

I love music for solo harpsichord, viol and lute - but my concentration goes after about half an hour.

On the other hand, I can listen to violin solos for weeks on end.

It's personal taste - although I do feel that there's more variation in the tone of a violin than in the other instruments I've named. Lutes & harpsichords are too ping-y - they lack depth; viols have so much depth that they plunge me into melancholia.

Plainchant depends for me on the performance - we once had a cassette of plainchant from Solesmes and it was so beautiful that I floated in a mystic haze with no sign of impatience while I was listening to it. But quite often, I do get bored with plainchant...

With Masses, I like the baroque compositions, but sometimes find them a bit worthy. Eastern Orthodox Masses, though, really *send* me. As I've posted before, we once bought a tape of The Mass of St John Chrysostom from The Icon Shop at Walsingham which we played on the way home, with me driving. Rapt as I was, I took the wrong fork in some roadworks, saw a car coming head on towards me, and didn't care a jot. Luckily, he stopped.

How about you? Do you rave about Big Fat Symphonies but wriggle during Eons of Elegant Chamber Music - or vice versa?

Can you pinpoint why some types of music grab your attention, and others leave you cold?

Thanks in advance for any replies. 
And if not - live long & prosper! :tiphat:


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## Guest (Jan 12, 2019)

I like 19th Century orchestral music (outside of Bruckner, whose music I like in large doses) but usually in small doses. Chamber and choral music and opera is where I preferrably spend my time.


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## Kjetil Heggelund (Jan 4, 2016)

I think the only music I can only take in small doses is electronic music. When I have time to have music on constantly, it will be chamber music from the classical/early romantic period or baroque.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Ingelou, I'm like you with plainchant. Nice in small doses but too monochromatic. I really like orchestral music. I love being washed over in all those colors. 
Instruments, I can't take viols. Too thin and scratchy. But saxophones, I can listen to them all day. Probably because I play the saxophone.
Trio sonatas, small doses. They start sounding the same. But for some reason piano trios hold my attention, especially from the Beaux Arts Trio. 
Opera, small doses. For most of them, I can't relate to the stories enough to think it's worth my time to bury my head in a libretto for over an hour trying to decipher the words through all that vibrato. Sacred oratorios and masses, I can't seem to get enough of those. They're talking about God, Christ, the Bible, and that's what gets my attention.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

More than any other name composer, Richard Wagner. To sit through an entire Wagner opera is impossible for me. I couldn't even do it on TV when PBS ran the Ring over a week.

However, I can become bewitched by some of his music for 20 minutes at a time. I have a deep affection for an old LP, never reintroduced digitally, that features Gottlob Frick in scene 3 from Tannhauser, "Dich treff ich hier." I can occasionally listen to all of Act 2 of "Die Walkure" and some selections from the Ring and Meistersinger. But an entire opera? Nyet.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

Baroque opera is a nonstarter for me. Even Handel. My son is a set designer, and he worked on an Acis and Galatea that I dutifully went to, but was bored to tears by after 15 minutes.  There are particular composition styles that go in one ear and out the other -- 19th century French violoin concertos for one, that mostly sound like aimless noodling.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Ingélou said:


> Do you have classical music that you like - but only in small doses?
> 
> Conversely, are there types of music that you can 'never get enough of'?


Yes, to the first question. No, to the second. I never binge on any one type of music or composer.


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

Small doses - Strauss waltzes spring to mind. The melodies are delicious but the relentless _RAT-tat-tat_ is an annoyance which prevents me from listening to more than a few at a time. It must be a blind spot as I don't have a problem with music based on certain other dance forms - I can easily listen to an album's worth of polkas or mazurkas without breaking out in a rash.


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

Ingélou said:


> Do you have classical music that you like - but only in small doses?


interesting topic - yes, There are some categories that fit the bill for me...
first off - one particular work - Shostakovich Sym #14 - wonderful work, but so dark, heavy, gloomy, unrelenting, I find it difficult to listen to all the way thru....I'll usually select a couple of movements at a time...

Plucked instruments - guitar, harp, harpsichord, lute, etc - ok in small doses - but a full program leaves me out,...I think it's timbral "monotony" -

full string 4tet programs can be a challenge for me, unless there is plenty of variety on the program - a mix of styles and periods...otherwise, my brain starts to wander...of course, there is a huge range of repertoire in this genre, which is good - same with solo piano - tremendous variety of great repertoire.


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

elgars ghost said:


> Small doses - Strauss waltzes spring to mind. The melodies are delicious but the relentless _RAT-tat-tat_ is an annoyance which prevents me from listening to more than a few at a time.


I'm with you here...a little goes a long way with J. Strauss - charming, delightful tunes, but enough is enough.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

"Variety is the spice of life." You can quote me; I just thought that up now. I can't/don't/won't listen to any one genre for more than a couple of hours, but then I (can) easily switch into other things entirely different--from classical to cante flamenco to rock to world music to something else.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Vivaldi, up to the point where he goes off on the circle of fifths. I guess that's about thirty seconds in.


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## senza sordino (Oct 20, 2013)

I can only listen to opera, choral music and songs in small doses. I always want to listen to more singing, but I find myself coming back to violin concerti, violin sonatas and symphonies. 

And I can only listen to piano music in small doses. I generally like piano music but I wouldn't listen to it all day.


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## fliege (Nov 7, 2017)

I too definitely find whole operas to be too much. There's a selection of arias I'm very fond of but I like them in small doses.


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## Johnnie Burgess (Aug 30, 2015)

Mahler his symphonies are so long it is hard to listen to more than one.


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

Johnnie Burgess said:


> Mahler his symphonies are so long it is hard to listen to more than one.


Do like I do - just listen to one or two movements art a time...
I listen to opera that way....a scene, or an act at a time....nothing says you have to listen to an entire work at one time....


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## Johnnie Burgess (Aug 30, 2015)

Heck148 said:


> Do like I do - just listen to one or two movements art a time...
> I listen to opera that way....a scene, or an act at a time....nothing says you have to listen to an entire work at one time....


With his symphonies I treat them like I would in watching a movie. Or a tv show.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Johnnie Burgess said:


> With his symphonies I treat them like I would in watching a movie. Or a tv show.


What? You eat popcorn, and go to the bathroom during commercials?

Hmmm. Maybe that would get me through #8. Thanks.


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

^
^

With you on that one - the 8th is the only work by Mahler in which I wouldn't get irritated by a phone call or a knock on the front door when listening to it.


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## fliege (Nov 7, 2017)

Ironically, the other thing I want in only small doses are my very favorite works. Those I ration and only listen when I'm specifically in the mood and not distracted.


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## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

I love the Chopin Préludes but I can only take so much at a time. It's hard for me to listen to the whole set, unless I feel like crying like a baby. They're extremely intense to me. Really a lot of his music is that way. 

Likewise I can only take so much choral music, but I think that's more a matter of coming around to the textures that you don't really get in any other genre. I'm new to classical music and don't expect to "get" everything right away. But at this point I do appreciate Bach's B Minor Mass in small doses.


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