Was that REALLY worth ... ?

[teamsaint]

A few years ago I was at Verbier
and Joshua Bell was due to play the Sibelius concerto
so we all trouped into the big tent
and la and behold he had decided to play the Tchaikovsky instead
So trapped between the well heeled upperclass classical music aficionados of Europe I had to listen to this whole pile of empty gestured posturing
complete with his performance which, although he played all the right notes, seemed to me to be more a display of physical discomfort than anything else
while everyone else is an rapture not for the first time did I feel like a vicar in a brothel (a tutu would have been fine )

you should have walked out ...as an(other) empty gesture !I would have asked for a refund. Pay for Sibelius, get Sibelius is the way I see it.
As for the vicar bit...you seem to know more about it than me...in a good way, obviously. (not sure what the archbishop has to do with it though).

[MrGongGong]

you should have walked out ...as an(other) empty gesture !I would have asked for a refund. Pay for Sibelius, get Sibelius is the way I see it.
As for the vicar bit...you seem to know more about it than me...in a good way, obviously. (not sure what the archbishop has to do with it though).

Can you get a refund on comps ?
that might have bought an awful lot of melted cheese so probably best for my long term (as opposed to short term) health that I stuck it out......... though if it fails in that context then I guess it confirms my opinion.

right , must pack my bags for Nashville before I dismiss C&W

(I did hear DOG with Charles Groves and the RLPO so do feel I gave it the best possible shot !....... and my teacher was playing in the orchestra)

[teamsaint]

Can you get a refund on comps ?
that might have bought an awful lot of melted cheese so probably best for my long term (as opposed to short term) health that I stuck it out......... though if it fails in that context then I guess it confirms my opinion.

right , must pack my bags for Nashville before I dismiss C&W

(I did hear DOG with Charles Groves and the RLPO so do feel I gave it the best possible shot !....... and my teacher was playing in the orchestra)

nashville....I KNEW there was something missing on this forum. Must ask Beefy to start a "What C and W/crossover/country rock album are you listening to now" thread. which reminds me, must replace my old tape of Patsy Cline's greatest hits.

[Hornspieler]

Do messages #75 to 78 have ANY relevence at all to the subject of this thread?

Let's just stick to the topic and keep the comedy for another thread?

HS

[MrGongGong]

What interest is there in a list of things one doesn't like ?

[Northender]

I have never been a member of the Elgar society
it was a JOKE against myself as I have frequently in the past been castigated for my opinions on the dreadful DOG
which is MY view ....................... and i'm sure if you are bothered you could find them in the archive fairly easily
it's best forgotten but if you like it that's fine by me ............. I was only answering the question !

Sea Pictures is also shite but the first symphony is a work of genius , how come ?

The Tchaikovsky fiddle concerto is another work that I would happily never hear again ............ empty gestures aplenty

So, it could be argued, are some people's opinions - or at least the ways in which they are expressed. But I'm FAR too polite to point that out. I prefer more reasoned argument.

[teamsaint]

well the stuff about the Tchaikovsky/Elgar had some relevance.

Its Sunday morning. Its not that important.

[JohnSkelton]

The Tchaikovsky fiddle concerto is another work that I would happily never hear again ............ empty gestures aplenty

I suppose, again, that depends how you listen to it (like my reaction to Dvořák's Piano Quintet 2). One person's empty gestures are virtuosity, one person's sentimentality is sentiment. As it happens I like the Tchaikovsky violin concerto but not Tchaikovsky's 1st piano concerto (I don't know the other two). Mainly because the virtuosity in the violin concerto sounds to me fresh and interesting and there's a greater lightness to the piece (almost Stravinskian). Whereas the piano concerto sounds intrinsically hackneyed to me (almost like a spoof).

So returning to Hornspieler's topic, it's perhaps worth stepping back and wondering if it's because music is poor or banal or derivative that you wish it hadn't been published (does the composer some disservice) or whether it sounds that way (particularly, sounds that way now). Tchaikovsky's Capriccio Italien isn't, I think, very good - and I find the big tune intensely irritating. Differently I wish Brian Ferneyhough's Shadowtime was, at least, a very different work and didn't have Charles Bernstein's infantile text. But I wouldn't say it was a musical 'failure', necessarily.

[amateur51]

What interest is there in a list of things one doesn't like ?

quite!

[Northender]

... publishing?

I'm sure that every composer, if alive today, would express a wish for one or more of his/her works to be expunged from the records.

Here are some of my favourites for consignment to the waste paper basket:

Beethoven: Wellington's Victory ("Battle Symphony) and Ov. King Stephen.

Mozart: "A Musical Joke" k522

Berlioz: Hymne à la France ("La Marseillaise")

Tchaikowsky: 1812 overture and Suite Nº 4 (Mozartiana)

Ravel: Bolero

Verdi: Opera: " The Battle of Legnano"


What are your "bête noires"?

HS

Perhaps a request for a (brief) explanation for respondents' choices might have resulted in rather more light, and rather less heat, being produced.
Here's a suggestion for a specimen answer:

I think Tchaikowksy's Manfred symphony meets your criteria, Hornspieler. It doesn't represent an advance on the composer's previous work, and the whole is less than the sum of the parts

[Hornspieler]

What interest is there in a list of things one doesn't like ?

So don't bother to post on this thread. There are many other threads on Platform 3 of no relevance at all to classical music to choose to grace with your humour(?)

The fact that this topic has generated more than eighty replies in less than 24 hours would seem to indicate that this discussion is of interest to many. Please drop your clangers elsewhere, Mr GongGong.

HS

[Pabmusic]

Aha - thanks, ahinton.

I did read somewhere that Mahler conducted Sea Pictures - a work I happen to detest, but would I be correct in thinking Mahler would have determined what works he conducted, and, that being the case, would have at least held the work in some respect to pass under his baton?

(I can imagine Mahler perusing Elgar's score, and thinking to himself, "Hmmm - looks rather like watered-down me!"!! You wonder what he would have made of Debussy's La Mer, don't you.)

Mahler never conducted Sea Pictures; he did the Enigma in New York in 1910 or 1911.

It's easy to forget that, for many composers, writing music was not atways a subjective aesthetic act, designed to reveal the composer's innermost feelings or philosophy.

Sea Pictures is a reasonable work (three of the movements are more than that) but it shows very clear signs of haste. It was a festival commission from Norwich, commissioned when Elgar was a reasonably well regarded provincial choral composer, but delivered after the Enigma had catapulted him to national (and indeed international) fame. Elgar had never written a work for a solo singer before (nor a large-scale work for any soloist) and it was given by the 6' 2" Clara Butt, who was dressed as a mermaid. However, its composition was rushed because Elgar was diverted by the Enigma (a personal project that he undertook very unexpectedly), which occupied the period November 1898 - February 1899; and later by the need to extend the Enigma finale following its first performance in June. The Norwich Festival was in November(?) 1899, by which time Elgar had started on the commission for Birmingham that was to become Gerontius.

[salymap]

I used to love singing along [in private] to my LP of Gladys Ripley and the LSO conducted by George Weldon.

Although a mezzo I found the songs suited my voice, such as it was and found them great fun to attempt.

Sea Pictures are of their time and sound dated now, I suppose.

[ahinton]

I used to love singing along [in private] to my LP of Gladys Ripley and the LSO conducted by George Weldon.

Although a mezzo I found the songs suited my voice, such as it was and found them great fun to attempt.

Sea Pictures are of their time and sound dated now, I suppose.

They do rather - yet the Enigma doesn't and none of the symphonies do!

[amateur51]

I used to love singing along [in private] to my LP of Gladys Ripley and the LSO conducted by George Weldon.

Although a mezzo I found the songs suited my voice, such as it was and found them great fun to attempt.

Sea Pictures are of their time and sound dated now, I suppose.

I enjoy singing along to the Janet Baker/Barbirolli recording salymap