Problem Works By Composers You Love

[Suffolkcoastal]

I mentioned some these before on here: RVW is my favourite composer of all but I just do not like 'The Poisoned Kiss' it comes across as a series of attractive enough ideas badly put together and with an awful libretto.

Brahms: Hungarian Dances can no longer stand the wretched pieces, probably R3s fault from obsessive over-exposure.

Britten: most things he composed between 1964 and 1970.

Chopin: Piano Concerto No 2, I love the first but the 2nd is among the most tediously dull things I've ever heard, I much prefer Ries, Hummel and Field any day.

Dvorak: Slavonic Dances as with the Brahms largely R3s fault, I just don't want to hear them again for many years, used to really like them.

Elgar: The Dream of Gerontius, try as I might this piece leaves me cold and uncomfortable, much prefer The Apostles and The Kingdom

Harris: Symphony No 13, a noble basis, but poor Harris was by then losing it, it seems. Should have stopped after his 12th.

Stravinsky: Abraham and Isaac, for me one of the dullest pieces of serialism I have heard, actually sounds like it was manufactured rather than composed.

Tchaikovsky: The Enchantress, good 1st Act after that oh dear, I find totally lacking in anything remotely memorable.

[Barbirollians]

Elgar Coronation Ode

R Strauss- the Domestica

More controversially perhaps - the string quartets of Brahms .

[Barbirollians]

I mentioned some these before on here: RVW is my favourite composer of all but I just do not like 'The Poisoned Kiss' it comes across as a series of attractive enough ideas badly put together and with an awful libretto.

Brahms: Hungarian Dances can no longer stand the wretched pieces, probably R3s fault from obsessive over-exposure.

Britten: most things he composed between 1964 and 1970.

Chopin: Piano Concerto No 2, I love the first but the 2nd is among the most tediously dull things I've ever heard, I much prefer Ries, Hummel and Field any day.

Dvorak: Slavonic Dances as with the Brahms largely R3s fault, I just don't want to hear them again for many years, used to really like them.

Elgar: The Dream of Gerontius, try as I might this piece leaves me cold and uncomfortable, much prefer The Apostles and The Kingdom

Harris: Symphony No 13, a noble basis, but poor Harris was by then losing it, it seems. Should have stopped after his 12th.

Stravinsky: Abraham and Isaac, for me one of the dullest pieces of serialism I have heard, actually sounds like it was manufactured rather than composed.

Tchaikovsky: The Enchantress, good 1st Act after that oh dear, I find totally lacking in anything remotely memorable.

I suggest Argerich to anyone struggling with the Chopin No 2 !

[visualnickmos]

Picture at an Exhibition comes to mind. I have several recordings of the familiar Ravel orchestration, and others by Stokowski and Tishmalov, and of course the original piano version. The piece turns up at the Proms practically every year, and I still hear it from time to time on one way and another, but even though I like it I wouldn't be unhappy never to encounter it again.

I hear where you are coming from; but have you heard Ashkenazy's orchestrated version? I came across it, and I was not expecting a great deal, 5although I am a great admirer of VA; eg his Mozart PCs are wonderful) but I was bowled over by it. So, I suppose the rule of "Don't knock it 'til you've tried it" kicks in.....

[Bryn]

Just about everything Philip Glass composed after Dances 1 to 5, whereas just about everything from Two Pages to Dances 1 to 5 that I have heard, has been a delight to my ears.

[visualnickmos]

I find it odd, but it has happened that from time to time a particular performance unlocks a piece that has been difficult to appreciate. That performance need not necessarily be one of the great recommended versions, but something in it opens the ears and mind. I've always enjoyed the Schumann symphonies,listening to performances by the likes of Sawallisch or Kubelik,but the 2nd symphony always escaped me until by chance I heard Ansermet's version with the Susse Romande. I doubt if a critic would have made it a first choice, but on hearing it I realised what I had been missing. Very odd.

This happens.

[Bryn]

Pictures from and Exhibition, please.

[MrGongGong]

Stockhausen's Lucifers Dance is terrible

[Beef Oven!]

Stockhausen's Lucifers Dance is terrible

Pluck your eye-brows!

[Nick Armstrong]

Vaughan Williams Romance for Harmonica,makes me cringe.

I'd nominate Shostakovich's 13th...

[Serial_Apologist]

Stockhausen's Lucifers Dance is terrible

And I must be the only Stockhausen fan who dislikes "Stimmung".

[MrGongGong]

And I must be the only Stockhausen fan who dislikes "Stimmung".

No you aren't
I used to love it and have heard it on several occasions
but now to me it sounds naive and superficial, like the Totnes community choir pretending to be Tuvan overtone singers

[Beef Oven!]

No you aren't
I used to love it and have heard it on several occasions
but now to me it sounds naive and superficial, like the Totnes community choir pretending to be Tuvan overtone singers

When Stimmung was composed it was anything but naive and superficial. Overtone singing wasn't widely known in Europe/US at the time. Stimmung may be 'lightweight' compared to what can be listened to now, but to imply that it has changed is wrong (you were still keen on it last November IIRC).

[Bryn]

No you aren't
I used to love it and have heard it on several occasions
but now to me it sounds naive and superficial, like the Totnes community choir pretending to be Tuvan overtone singers

What you need is a dose of John White's Jew's Harp Machine.

[cloughie]

Shostakovich Syms 2 3 13 14
Dvorak 1 and 2
Most of Tchaikovsky's operas, Britten's Operas

Alison Tchaik PC2 - 2nd movement is sheer beauty.