Boring...

[EnemyoftheStoat]

BBC Music Magazime continues the lists theme with a "critics' most boring" list:

http://www.classicalsource.com/db_control/db_news.php?id=1781

I'm amused by Oliver Condy's comment that "even the critics are tempted to fall asleep in the concert hall from time to time". Tell me something I didn't know - it would explain the rubbish I sometimes read about concerts I was at.

[antongould]

I found the article interesting - Wagner T&I - yes in fact IMHO all of Wagner! but Bruckner 7 surely not!

[Panjandrum]

I found the article interesting - Wagner T&I - yes in fact IMHO all of Wagner! but Bruckner 7 surely not!

Not sure what the Scythian suite has done to merit such opprobrium. coming in at under 20 mins it surely doesnt qualify as prolix by anyone's standards. Brahms' Requiem stands or falls on the quality of the performance - it is a masterpiece IMO. However, wouldn't disagree on Tristan or Mahler 8.

[Suffolkcoastal]

I of course agree with Mr Hewett over Mahler 8, and I would add nos 2, 3, 5 & 7 too . I would also add Cosi Fan Tutte, Parsifal & Owen Wingrave in the Opera list, would agree with Vivaldi's Gloria which is as boring to sing as to listen to and I'd add Faure's Requiem as well. I agree with panjandrum that the Brahms Requiem does depend on the quality of the performance, but Madam Butterfly, Bruckner 7, Prokofiev Scythian Suite and Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream absolutely not!

[salymap]

I enjoyed Britten's MND when I saw it years ago, quite like the Orff and the Prokofiev mentioned, but the others are mostly long and thickly/scored and do not go with my tinnitus/reduced hearing [until I get my hearing test, I hope]. I don't feel so bad about being unable to listen to the recent Mahler 8 we were sent by the MM. As I've said before, I love Wagner's orchestral music, it's all that singing that spoils it. [Ducks for cover}

[Serial_Apologist]

I enjoyed Britten's MND when I saw it years ago, quite like the Orff and the Prokofiev mentioned, but the others are mostly long and thickly/scored and do not go with my tinnitus/reduced hearing [until I get my hearing test, I hope]. I don't feel so bad about being unable to listen to the recent Mahler 8 we were sent by the MM. As I've said before, I love Wagner's orchestral music, it's all that singing that spoils it. [Ducks for cover}

Some writer once wrote that Wagner's music dramas are essentially just vast symphonies with added vocal obbligati, so you've probably got the right idea, saly! I'll see if I can dig it out.

S-A

[Hitch]

I of course agree with Mr Hewett over Mahler 8, and I would add nos 2, 3, 5 & 7 too . I would also add Cosi Fan Tutte, Parsifal & Owen Wingrave in the Opera list, would agree with Vivaldi's Gloria which is as boring to sing as to listen to and I'd add Faure's Requiem as well. I agree with panjandrum that the Brahms Requiem does depend on the quality of the performance, but Madam Butterfly, Bruckner 7, Prokofiev Scythian Suite and Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream absolutely not!

Faure's Requiem is boring? How very dare you.

[amateur51]

Another piece of BBC Mag silliness after that table about conductors

Let's get this clear - these pieces are NOT boring although people may be well be bored by inadequate performances of them, as Panjandrum has said.

[Suffolkcoastal]

Well Hitch, when you've sung in the Faure Requiem a dozen times it starts to become even more tedious and reinforced my already low opinion of the work, the Cantique de Jean Racine and Pavane I would also put into this category.

[Ferretfancy]

I shall be in the Arena at the RAH for Havergal Brian's Gothic, but I expect I'll be bored by it. Still, we have to do cultural penance now and again.Perhaps the noise it makes will keep me awake.
My list of boring composers ? Not very many, but Gerald Finzi comes fairly high up the list, and who on earth is ever charmed by Reger? Then there's Lennox Berkele and son Michael.
The problem is that there are quite a few boring composers who have produced the odd interesting work, such as D'Indy, Chausson and Faure. Why is some of his earlier orchestral music charming, while his chamber music is so monumentally dull ?

[Serial_Apologist]

and who on earth is ever charmed by Reger?

Err... me??

True, some - but by no means all - of the organ works are a bit heavy-going, (JS Bach on steroids)... and there is rther a lot of Max Reger to trawl through... but for charm I would cite the orchestral song "Ninna-Nanna, op 76 No 50 () as worthy of early Mahler in its childhood innocence, and the String Trio in A minor, Op 77b of 1902, which looks back to Schubert and late Beethoven in its classicism. For something more substantial in the chamber music field, there's the extraordinary String Quartet No 3 in D minor, Op 74, which in many ways - its chromaticism verges on that of Schoenberg's First Quartet, composed a year later, and quite possibly in the light of it.

Then there's Lennox Berkele and son Michael.
The problem is that there are quite a few boring composers who have produced the odd interesting work, such as D'Indy, Chausson and Faure. Why is some of his earlier orchestral music charming, while his chamber music is so monumentally dull ?

Faure's music just grows and grows on me; at one time I'd have agreed with you Ferret: there's a spiritual depth I now find there, not really present in any of his French contemporaries - not even Franck. I must be getting old!

S-A

[Hitch]

Well Hitch, when you've sung in the Faure Requiem a dozen times it starts to become even more tedious and reinforced my already low opinion of the work, the Cantique de Jean Racine and Pavane I would also put into this category.

You have compounded your error. Get thee to a News International website.

[Roehre]

Err... me??

True, some - but by no means all - of the organ works are a bit heavy-going, (JS Bach on steroids)... and there is rther a lot of Max Reger to trawl through... but for charm I would cite the orchestral song "Ninna-Nanna, op 76 No 50 () as worthy of early Mahler in its childhood innocence, and the String Trio in A minor, Op 77b of 1902, which looks back to Schubert and late Beethoven in its classicism. For something more substantial in the chamber music field, there's the extraordinary String Quartet No 3 in D minor, Op 74, which in many ways - its chromaticism verges on that of Schoenberg's First Quartet, composed a year later, and quite possibly in the light of it.

Seconded, and let's not forget the orchestral Böcklin-suite, the Suite im alten Stil, his clarinet quintet op.146, or the sonatas for cello-solo or violin solo.

But boring composers?
Approximately all I know of are in that category.
Basically every composer and every work is potentially boring, as it is not only the work itself which might be tedious (certainly a possibillity), but the performance doesn't necessarily contribute to a work's excitement, it might be heard for the umptieth time (see discussion regarding Breakfast) and -last but certainly not least- one's own mood at the moment of listening (or perhaps by using a work as musical wallpaper, which IMO is a depicable act of cultural barbarism) is influencing one's opinion heavily too.

[Serial_Apologist]

And then there's Mr Gong-Gong's oftquoted quote of Cage: if something's boring after four minutes, try it for another four, etc etc. I guess the only kind of music which bores me is music which constantly raises false expectations and then fails to fulfil them, e.g. Scriabin's Poem of Ecstasy.

But I could be wrong here, ahem... constantly expecting the music of Dutilleux to break out into a full, rich melody, which it never never will. But, as another wise person once implied, which is better, to travel or to arrive?

[MrGongGong]

You surely aren't suggesting that quoting Cage is boring ?
Many would find La Monte Youngs music boring in the extreme but give me that over Brahms any day
Maybe I need to work harder on Brahms ?