Extremely annoying pieces of classical music

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Although I love this work and totally disagree with the Tchaikovsky bashers, I admit there is a weakness here. I don't have the score to hand - not without disturbing a sleeping relative - but it's the melody with the following rhythm: dotted minim - 4 semiquavers - crotchet - minim - 5 crotchets - dotted crotchet - 5 quavers, etc. I would definitely call this "banal and sort of slithery". Otherwise, it's still a great symphony.

FORGET THAT. Double the time values. It's at letter H, bar 128 of the finale. But in spite of everything, what wonderful orchestration.

[salymap]

i know this thread is about dislikes but does anyone love the four Tchaikovsky Suites, particularly the Theme and Variations from Suite no 3? That's 'feel good music'

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Yes, the third Suite is rather wonderful. They were written during a period when the composer was considered by some to be going through a lean patch. But who cares what critics say?

[BBMmk2]

Noo...o.o...o - it's a superb piece of choral work

It's been quite interesting reading this thread~! The various likes and dislikes of different members!!

I love Tchaik's finale of his 5th Symphony and I love Elgar's Dream of Gerontius. I do get rather bored with his Enigma Variations and something totally different Gershwin's Rhap in Blue, etc!!

[Nick Armstrong]

Works that would make me run screaming from the concert hall would include:

Last movement of Tchaikovsky 5 - banal and sort of slithery

Last movement of Beethoven 9 - can't stand the shreiking sops or the wobbling soloists that seem to be compulsory

Tchaikovsky's Rococco Variations - vacuous and self-satisfied

Hummel's trumpet concerto - banal and tedious in the extreme

The Chopin piano concertos - about as much structure and sense of direction as a bucket of frogs

Elgar's Vesper Voluntaries - utterly soporific - it seems total madness to programme all twelve of them in the same recital, but I've heard it done twice - arrrgggghhhhh!

Yes, agreed about the Rococco Variations (I'd forgotten about them), and Tchaik 5 - odd piece, I like the first two movements but then the third and fourth seem to lose the plot completely.

Chopin's first piano concerto is a piece I have a soft spot for, so we part company there. And I have never even heard of Elgar's Vesper Voluntaries, let alone heard them...

[Nick Armstrong]

I do get rather bored with his Enigma Variations

BBM I think that's something different - you don't find the piece annoying per se, it's just a question of over exposure, by the sound of it. I was the same. Then I heard Oramo's performance with the CBSO (the filler on his rather less successful Gerontius) - I can't get enough of the Enigma Variations in that performance... In a thousand small ways, it brings it back to life, 'makes you hear the piece afresh' etc etc.

The pieces in my message #1 are, I would submit, incapable of being rendered acceptable, however great the performance

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

It's been quite interesting reading this thread~! The various likes and dislikes of different members!!

Most (but not all) of them are fairly predicatable. I'm lucky in that not much classical music really annoys me. HIPPos and Proms "special guests" are what I find most irritating.

[amateur51]

I heard many performances and rehearsals of Gerontius and still have some of Sargent's 1945 recording with Heddle Nash, my favourite, and LPs of his 1955 recording with Richard Lewis. A few months ago I purchased the Barbirolli with Janet Baker. Thinking of my age and the first words Gerontius sings, I have decided to wait for Spring and the better weather. With various probs at the moment,I thinkit would be toomuch to take.
And yes, it is the best of Elgar, he was right.

Chin up, salymap! Even here in EnWubbleEweDeux, bulbs are abulbing and there are signs of greenery on my beloved and currently deep dark brown clematis. The streetlights come on a minute later with each passing day - YAY!

[Ferretfancy]

Don Petter,

I remember the 10" LP rather well, my Beni Mora comes on a well filled EMI CD compilation dated 1988 0n the jewel case. It includes The Perfect Fool Ballet suite and Egdon Heath- Previn / LSO, The St Paul's Suite-RPO / Sargent, The Short Festival Te Deum - LPO LSO Chorus / Groves, Psalm 86 with Ian Partridge and the Purcell Singers / Imogen Holst, and the Brook Green Suite with the ECO / Bedford.

An excellent selection with a couple of much less well known pieces. I prefer Boult to Previn in Egdon Heath, but it's still very good. EMI reissued a number of Holst recordings on CD, including the superb Janet Baker Choral Fantasia and the Choral Symphony. I expect these are now deleted, but it must surely be time for an enterprising Holst Edition

[Chris Newman]

Hi Ferretfancy,

The glorious Janet Baker Choral Fantasia (with those wonderful tapping shoes on the organ pedals) is still available with its original pairing (the equally superb Wilfred Brown Finzi Dies Natalis). There are some bits of RVW thrown in for good measure these days:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/British-Composers-Finzi-Vaughan-Williams/dp/B000005GSD/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1294584661&sr=1-1

WB went to my old school. I heard him several times as a soloist and with the Dellar Consort.

bws
Chris.

[Don Petter]

Hi Ferretfancy,

WB went to my old school. I heard him several times as a soloist and with the Dellar Consort.

bws
Chris.

No. WB went to my old school! Were we both at Churcher's?

I remember him coming to sing as soloist in one of our end of term choir concerts.

[french frank]

Grieg: Wedding Day at Troldhaugen
Mozart: Horse of the Year (but we're not supposed to like that)

I can't stand 'jaunty' ...

[StephenO]

Anything by Gilbert and Sullivan. I once heard it described as "sewing machine music" but that seems rather kind to sewing machines. Without Gilbert, though, Sullivan could write some half decent pieces and I actually rather like his Irish Symphony.

Other annoying music - Tartini's violin sonatas and 95% of Vivaldi and Telemann.

[MrGongGong]

Anything by Gilbert and Sullivan.

[Chris Newman]

Hi Don,

No, I would not have minded going to Churcher's but I went to Collyer's (up the road) in Horsham.

WB certainly lived in Petersfield until his death and combined singing with schoolmastering to support a busy career as a foster parent of many children: he was a passionate, lovely man and a Quaker. He taught at Bedales and I believe he might have done so at Churcher's as well. He was born at Horsham and attended Collyers School there before going to university at Cambridge. Of course both Churcher's and Collyer's, ancient schools, are sixth-form colleges now.

bws
Chris.