Music that doesn't move you

[Serial_Apologist]

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

Failure to discover any symptoms along the way would presumably be classified under Mornington Crescent Syndrome.

[teamsaint]

He is a composer who seems to appeal to intellectuals and I'm not an intellectual.

.

surely part of his genius is that his music works on all the available levels?

except not for you, obviously.


The world doesn't ( except perhaps in a professional way) divide neatly that way in any case.

[cloughie]

The Missouri State University Chorale did not move me.

[cloughie]

The recently deceased George Michael.

Talented man but I never cared for his stuff. He had a good voice, but (imo) over-sang (a besetting sin of pop singers in the 80s).

I agree mostly with you and was not impressed by most of his output BUT I revisited his Songs from the Last Century album on which he sings really well, not oversinging, some good songs, proper songs as the late Benny Green would have called them - Where or When, You've changed good examples and his interpretation of Roxanne is fine.

[teamsaint]

I agree mostly with you and was not impressed by most of his output BUT I revisited his Songs from the Last Century album on which he sings really well, not oversinging, some good songs, proper songs as the late Benny Green would have called them - Where or When, You've changed good examples and his interpretation of Roxanne is fine.

well since you recommend that, I'll give it a go, as, like you, I haven't found much to enjoy in his output.

Thing is, I usually find with any musician with a substantial body of work , that I can find something to enjoy. There are a few I could name where I haven't( yet) but what's the point, other than to get others to help point the way to enlightenment?

[pastoralguy]

The Missouri State University Chorale did not move me.

No. I was unimpressed. Bargain basement.

[Suffolkcoastal]

The composers/works which utterly fail to do anything for me haven't changed that much in the last few years:

Most Mahler
George Lloyd
A fair proportion of Poulenc's output
Bellini & Donizetti
Monteverdi - L'incoronazione di Poppea, sadly I've never been so utterly disappointed & bored by a work I thought I should admire & and be moved by
Berlioz: Requiem, just leaves me cold
W A Mozart: String Quartets, I don't why, perhaps I expect too much.
Scriabin: steadily going down in my estimation recently
Brett Dean, Turnage & George Benjamin

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

The Missouri State University Chorale did not move me.

If they performed anywhere near where I could hear them, I'd move.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

That rules out a helluva lot of jazz - jazz musicians (especially saxophonists) have a particular liking for playing anything in the key(s) of B flat; maybe it's the equivalent of C major for pianists!

Saxophonists like to play in C major, which, depending upon the size of the instrument being played, sounds in B flat or E flat.

[Serial_Apologist]

Saxophonists like to play in C major, which, depending upon the size of the instrument being played, sounds in B flat or E flat.

Aha! - thanks for that explanation, EA.

[ahinton]

Aha! - thanks for that explanation, EA.

Schönberg - perhaps the "Serial Apologist" par excellence - wrote his latter orchestral scores "in C" (sorry, Mr Riley), a habit, good, bad or otherwise, that I long since adopted as and when necessary...

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

... is that at A = 440? - do the works sound better at their appropriate historical pitches, say with A = 392, 415, 409, 422.5, 423.2, 435, 451?

As you suggest, pitch is a relative concept. Perhaps my aversion to the key of B flat is "floating".

[Richard Barrett]

As you suggest, pitch is a relative concept. Perhaps my aversion to the key of B flat is "floating".

So Bach's Mass in B minor at baroque pitch is still OK? (apart from those horrible old instruments!)

[Tetrachord]

The composers/works which utterly fail to do anything for me haven't changed that much in the last few years:

Most Mahler
George Lloyd
A fair proportion of Poulenc's output
Bellini & Donizetti
Monteverdi - L'incoronazione di Poppea, sadly I've never been so utterly disappointed & bored by a work I thought I should admire & and be moved by
Berlioz: Requiem, just leaves me cold
W A Mozart: String Quartets, I don't why, perhaps I expect too much.
Scriabin: steadily going down in my estimation recently
Brett Dean, Turnage & George Benjamin

What's really interesting as how taste changes; what we liked a few years ago leaves us cold now. I liked Mozart when I was in my 30's - now I find it just doesn't do anything for me at all. Scriabin is interesting; he's like a cross between Liszt and Chopin and I never could get into most of his work. I adore the Monteverdi but I can see why it wouldn't appeal to everybody, certainly. Agree about Bellini and Donizetti. I'm not that fussed on 19th century Italian opera, but can listen to Puccini once in a while and comment on how mellifluous it all is! But one can become sated on this very quickly. For more modern operas I prefer Richard Strauss nowadays.

[Richard Barrett]

Changing tastes tend in my case to go in the other direction, that is I go for years thinking the music of a particular composer, or of a particular genre (eg. Lieder), is not for me by any stretch, and then at a certain point there's a "click" and I plunge headlong into whatever it is. In other cases it's a slow process. In many cases it happens through a nudge in the right direction from someone else, who might not even now s/he is doing it. (That's one reason I hang around here!) As a result I've come to think that if there's something I don't like it may well be principally the result of lack of imagination on my part. It's perhaps a question somehow of finding a reflection of oneself in the music (or sonic art whatever the difference is), or finding a reflection of the music in oneself. So if I say I don't appreciate Sibelius or Tchaikovsky or wind quintets that may well mean they're waiting in the wings to become important to me at some future point. On the other hand if I say I don't appreciate Rachmaninov or romantic Italian opera or pretty much all British music between Purcell and Cardew with the exception of Tippett and some RVW, that future point may well be situated some way beyond whatever my lifespan ends up being!