Guilty secrets - the bits you miss out

[mathias broucek]

Given the debate about the finale of Beethoven 9, which other movements do people either miss out or only half listen to.

I'll start - 3rd and 4th movements of Bruckner 7 and finales of both Brahms piano concertos.

PS the middle 3 hours of Tristan don't count!

[Tony Halstead]

finales of both Brahms piano concertos

[johnb]

The 40 minutes or so between leaving the bar and returning to it ?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Isn't this what they do on Breakfast anyway?

[Serial_Apologist]

The movements in Messiaen's Turangalila Symphony, in which that awful "theme of love" is highlighted. Which, of course, has to include the last movement!

I also cannot stand the motto theme of the "Vingt Regards", which to me is more banal than even the most banal of Liszt or Mendelssohn; yet the more energetic of the movements of that suite are among the most thrilling passages in all his music. With Messiaen - as with certain other composers who at their best produced music of sheer brilliance - Berlioz, Franck, Milhaud, Koechlin, (funny how I seem here to be going for French composers) - one has to take the rough with the smooth.

Messiaen's music was such an odd mixture of the inspired and the banal in the 1940s - I've often asked myself if those stylistic switchbacks, the frequent over-the-topness, represented some kind of inner shield, or way of coping with what must have been awful experiences in the POW camp previous to them by banishing them from his mind through such means.

[Flay]

The 3rd & 4th movements of Tchaik 1

[Pianorak]

Book Four of Iberia (Albeniz)

[Mary Chambers]

So recordings really have taken over music? You don't have any choice at a concert.

[Serial_Apologist]

So recordings really have taken over music? You don't have any choice at a concert.

Good rhetorical question, Mary, but I wouldn't necessarily have thought so. I for one woudn't expect to be going to a concert at which a work was being played, of which I only wanted to listen to parts.

[mathias broucek]

So recordings really have taken over music? You don't have any choice at a concert.

A fair challenge but if one is at home one is already in an artificial and controlled environment so one may as well make the most of it.

[cloughie]

An interesting thread as I am probably a double agent - on the one i hand being the instigator of the 9 4 conrtroversy I have also being a chastiser of the 'bleeding chunk' breakfast. Apart from most of what Britten wrote with voices, I'm not keen on add-ons like Bruckner 9 4, Mahler 10 completion, Elgar Payne, but then I quite like orchestrations of Debussy's piano music and Tomita's electronic treatments. I love long slow movements and I own up to occasionally listening to them detached from the whole work -eg Rach Sym 2, Mahler 4, Tchaik PC2, Elgar 1 Movts 2/3, Beethoven Sym 2. Beethoven 9 3 is such a beautiful movement played slowly and sensitively that the choral finale is an intrusion - then I am a mere listener, what do I know - I didn't write it and I don't play it in an orchestra - would I think of it differently if I sang in the chorus - probably - however given a chorus place I would prefer to have a go at the wordless Daphnis!

[cloughie]

So recordings really have taken over music? You don't have any choice at a concert.

Here in the far South-west you don't have the choice of many concerts!

[Mary Chambers]

Good rhetorical question, Mary, but I wouldn't necessarily have thought so. I for one woudn't expect to be going to a concert at which a work was being played, of which I only wanted to listen to parts.

Sometimes there is one piece you really want to hear and one you don't....

I do realise that not everyone can get to concerts - I don't go to all that many myself compared to some people - but I still think of the concert situation if I'm listening to a recording. It would honestly never have occurred to me to miss bits out. I'd feel very guilty!

[Petrushka]

...which other movements do people either miss out or only half listen to.

This is complete anathema to me and I can't imagine ever wanting to do such a thing.

[Mary Chambers]

Beethoven 9 3 is such a beautiful movement played slowly and sensitively that the choral finale is an intrusion - then I am a mere listener, what do I know - I didn't write it and I don't play it in an orchestra - would I think of it differently if I sang in the chorus - probably - however given a chorus place I would prefer to have a go at the wordless Daphnis!

I've sung in both of those. I have to admit, in spite of what I said earlier, that sometimes in Beethoven 9 I have rather wished that some of the earlier movements would hurry up or disappear. It's a long time to sit perfectly still without doing anything