The opinion of experts

[Richard Barrett]

Personally, I think what composers think or thought about other composers is a dodgy criterion on which to base your own listening

I find it works reasonably well.

[Serial_Apologist]

I find it works reasonably well.

Especially so. I've heard some people say that composers listen to music differently from the regular listener, presumably meaning other musics than their own. Maybe I'm just a frustrated would-be composer!

[Leinster Lass]

As a self-educated listener, and therefore (imho?) as near as dammit to being an amateur expert, having now been listening to "modern music" for the best part of 60 years, I would have to say that the various writers who early on helped form my understandings of the music were pretty well spot on in highlighting Stravinsky and Schoenberg as THE two major influences on the music of the last century - and, with alongside them, if slightly of lesser importance, composers such as Bartok, Berg, Webern, Messiaen, Boulez and Stockhausen.

This is whether or not one equates composers of ones own liking - in my case the English post-Arts & Crafts brotherhood of RVW and Holst, and their sub-acolytes including Howells, Ireland, Bridge and Warlock - with the two aforementioned prime influences or the following. That 1950s/60s generation of critical "experts" were remarkable in their insights at a time when music was advancing more rapidly than most people could follow: it took me years to get to grips with eg Webern and, more recently, Carter and Ferneyhough, and I can only say how worthwhile it proved to be in my case, now that I see that whole European tradition weakened, fragmented, and often sadly trivialised in much so-called "contemporary music".

While we may love eg Rachmaninov's or Delius's music, complexity has to be our guiding light, in reflecting the realities of modern living and understanding, and offering the background blueprint for how we cope, not just practicaly but psychologically and ideologically, in an age now dominated by reductive thinking in so many areas, from politics to religion revived.

Permission to opt out?

[jayne lee wilson]

From my own point of view, crucial, truly crucial comment ff.

For me? Deep!

Many thanks,

Mario

Deep.... then Haydn or Brahms would be ideal, from what I know of your previous interests and affections...

[jayne lee wilson]

I find it works reasonably well.

I'd love to see an anthology here....."Composers on Composers...."

[Mario]

Deep.... then Haydn or Brahms would be ideal, from what I know of your previous interests and affections...

Thanks for your confirmation Jayne, most appreciated.

Loved your precis of how to sail through FJH's symphonic oeuvre in just a few symphonies. I have all the symphonies with the Stuttgarter Kammerorchester under D R Davies, which seem a little bland. Some of the Sturm und Drang symphonies are also with the Heidelberger Sinfoniker under T Fey.

Looking forward to comparing!

Best wishes,

Mario

[Serial_Apologist]

I'd love to see an anthology here....."Composers on Composers...."

Me too!!! I think there may have been one once, maybe on the old board?

[Richard Barrett]

I'd love to see an anthology here....."Composers on Composers...."

Tchaikovsky had a few choice things to say about Brahms, which are pretty well known I think.

[Bryn]

Tchaikovsky had a few choice things to say about Brahms, which are pretty well known I think.

Don't forget Slonimsky's Lexicon of Musical Invective. Lots of such comments in there.

[Serial_Apologist]

Tchaikovsky had a few choice things to say about Brahms, which are pretty well known I think.

And Saint-Saens on Franck's D Minor symphony, describing it as "Impotence carried to the point of dogma"! There are stories about how when Debussy and Satie got together, they would say rude things about Ravel. The latter is said to have told Debussy that he (Ravel), rather than the composer, should have done the scoring to the latter's La mer, this, apocryphally, not surprisingly ending the friendship between them!

[ahinton]

Benjamin Britten, who claimed to not like most of Brahms's music, was at least one supposes a musical "competent" - maybe even an "expert". The clainet quintet was one work which he claimed was a masterpiece - or words to that effect.

So I'd say that it's OK to listen to "experts", but you don't have to agree with them. It might still be more fruitful to listen to the views of some of these people regarding classical music and which music to explore, than say Joe Bloggs you meet on a train or in a pub.

Britten also much admired Brahms' First Piano Concerto.

[french frank]

I'd love to see an anthology here....."Composers on Composers...."

I find it works reasonably well.

It may well work for other composers, but I seem to recall reading that Britten described Beethoven as 'a sack of potatoes', so Mario should avoid Beethoven (or Britten, perhaps)

[Mario]

Tchaikovsky had a few choice things to say about Brahms, which are pretty well known I think.

Not by me they're not! Exactly what did he say?

It may well work for other composers, but I seem to recall reading that Britten described Beethoven as 'a sack of potatoes', so Mario should avoid Beethoven (or Britten, perhaps)

Good! That's a composer off my list then!

And Alison's #17 makes Bernie a silly boy, doesn't it? I love Manfred!

You've all been very helpful, thanks again.

I'll sign off and start my Haydn adventure!

Best wishes,

Mario

[ahinton]

Not by me they're not! Exactly what did he say?

He described Brahms as a "giftless bastard".

[jayne lee wilson]

Thanks for your confirmation Jayne, most appreciated.

Loved your precis of how to sail through FJH's symphonic oeuvre in just a few symphonies. I have all the symphonies with the Stuttgarter Kammerorchester under D R Davies, which seem a little bland. Some of the Sturm und Drang symphonies are also with the Heidelberger Sinfoniker under T Fey.

Looking forward to comparing!

Best wishes,

Mario

Almost all Thomas Fey's Haydn recordings are among my most loved and admired, but most particularly of the Sturm und Drang. His last release, recorded shortly before his tragic accident, was of the Symphonies 6-8.... a very wonderful legacy.

One would be wise to tread carefully among Composer comments....
In a letter, the young Mahler described Brahms and Bruckner as "an odd pair of second-raters" who "just can't develop" (IIRC - I may paraphrase).
His own reductive editings of Bruckner Symphonies were almost uniformly disastrous, but at least he did promote Bruckner's cause consistently as a conductor and deserves much credit for that.