Music that doesn't move you

[pastoralguy]

I think context matters too. For instance, I rarely listen to Mahler or Bruckner at home on the hi-Fi but really love hearing it in a live concert where the music's impact is at its most impressive. (Coupled with the fact that the loud bits are really too loud for a domestic setting, neighbours and all that!)

Oddly, I loath Massenet's 'Mediation' from ' Thais' and will turn it off if it comes on the radio but I enjoy playing it since it's always effective.

[richardfinegold]

Bax and Glazunov are two composers that don't click with me. Lately I've been more drawn to Webern andBerg, but Schoenberg has never afforded me any pleasure, as opposed to respect.
Opera is a major blind spot with me. I like Baroque and Mozart, some bel canto, but for Verissimo and Wagner, I just want the greatest hits or the Bleeding Chunks. I'd rather have a colonoscopy than sit through another 6 hour Gotterdammerung

[jean]

Verdi - heavy, verbose, impenetrable, indigestible. So un-Italian!

And I never 'got' Verdi at all until I lived in Italy!

That's when I also grew to love Rossini, Bellini and Donizetti. Especially Bellini.

But I still draw the line at Puccini, who is utterly unmoving to me in any positive way.

[french frank]

The title of the thread refers to "music that doesn't move you", the OP to music that "fails to click with you". I'd suggest these can be two quite different things - I'm sure I engage with music in all sorts of positive ways which don't necessarily involve being "moved".

I am not alone! (I thought I was ). So I can't answer the OP as it's expressed. For me, music either holds my attention and wants me to go on listening, or it doesn't. And - as pg says - context is important (and mood). So there are works that I'm not in the mood for, and have to switch off (if possible); and works that I might normally avoid, but I will tackle and give my full attention if in the right frame of mind (particularly contemporary works).

At the moment I'm finding it particularly difficult to listen to MOST music composed between, say 1830 and 1890 - between Beethoven's late quartets and the beginning of French 'impressionism'.

[ahinton]

The difficulty is that as soon as one says what music leaves one cold, someone will pour scorn on one's taste or lack of it, but here goes:

I dislike most Stravinsky.

You won't catch me, for one, pouring scorn on that (although there are a few works of Stravinsky that I would really not want to have to live without).

[ahinton]

Pardon my rudeness, but you don't seem to have responded to the OP - instead preferring personal attack.

I'm sorry? What "personal attack"? Where? I am unaware of one and certainly did not intend one. Please explain in case I've misunderstood something. I read your first post in this thread and was astonished by the extent of what doesn't move you, or irks you, or whatever else negative that you feel about various music. I don't see what's inherently "rude" about such a response, whoever makes it.

[Richard Tarleton]

I am not alone! (I thought I was ). So I can't answer the OP as it's expressed.

I was hoping Tetrachord - anybody - would engage with my #19.

I share Richard's bafflement with #26. Some definition of terms would be helpful.

Like pastoralguy, there are pieces I don't mind inflicting on others (in my case on the guitar) but would be quite happy never again to hear played by anyone else....

[visualnickmos]

Bax and Glazunov are two composers that don't click with me. Lately I've been more drawn to Webern andBerg, but Schoenberg has never afforded me any pleasure, as opposed to respect.
Opera is a major blind spot with me. I like Baroque and Mozart, some bel canto, but for Verissimo and Wagner, I just want the greatest hits or the Bleeding Chunks. I'd rather have a colonoscopy than sit through another 6 hour Gotterdammerung

An obvious advantage being that a colonoscopy doesn't take anywhere near as long as a Wagner opera!

[french frank]

I share Richard's bafflement with #26. Some definition of terms would be helpful.

I took Richard's 'bafflement' to be in the apparent contradiction in the two quotes he gave in #24. The response, in #26, was a (very) veiled way of repeating that sonic art is hardly music - if I may say so without appearing to pour scorn on anyone or anything

[Richard Barrett]

Just for clarity: "You obviously have no affinity with sonic art, regarding it as insubstantial. You're allowed to do that. It's reasonable not to confuse it with music, however, except if you're on the defensive and on the look-out for criticism."
I don't understand:
- where this assertion about my opinion of sonic art comes from
- what, if it's so reasonable, the difference between "sonic art" and "music" is supposed to be
- in what sense I'm supposed to be on the defensive
... in other words I really have no idea what Tetrachord was talking about.

[Richard Tarleton]

Thank you for that

[Ferretfancy]

Bax and Glazunov are two composers that don't click with me. Lately I've been more drawn to Webern andBerg, but Schoenberg has never afforded me any pleasure, as opposed to respect.
Opera is a major blind spot with me. I like Baroque and Mozart, some bel canto, but for Verissimo and Wagner, I just want the greatest hits or the Bleeding Chunks. I'd rather have a colonoscopy than sit through another 6 hour Gotterdammerung

I've had two colonoscopies, and you know, they're rather fun, or at least fascinating. Seen on the screen, it's really like being the driver of a tube train travelling down the tunnel from Tottenham Court Road to Goodge Street

Six hours of Gotterdammerung can also be fascinating with never a dull moment for me!

[Richard Barrett]

I've had two colonoscopies, and you know, they're rather fun, or at least fascinating.

You make it seem like a highly attractive prospect, I can hardly wait! I think I'll end up preferring Wagner though.

[Conchis]

Bach delights not me.

[ahinton]

Bach delights not me.

Then I do not pour scorn upon you; I feel very sorry for you.