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What are you currently listening to?

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Author Topic: What are you currently listening to?  (Read 97275 times)
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Jolly Roger
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« Reply #90 on: October 01, 2013, 02:14:56 am »

I've been working my way through the piano sonatas of Samuil Feinberg, who I find a fascinating figure for reasons I can't quite put my finger on. Well, maybe it is that early Soviet period in general that seems so strange and wonderful.

Yes, the Feinberg sonatas are great works that remind me of Scriabin on LSD! ;D

His 3 piano concerti (unrecorded?) are here and the themes are quite captivating.
http://classical-music-online.net/en/composer/Feinberg/2147
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Gauk
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« Reply #91 on: October 01, 2013, 07:43:50 am »

Curious kyjo, which composers do you not like?
... R. Strauss (I actually like J. Strauss better, believe it or not!) ...

As the saying goes, "If Richard, then Wagner; if Strauss, then Johann".
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« Reply #92 on: October 02, 2013, 12:52:06 am »

If anyone is interested and-more importantly-to distinguish my musical taste from that of Kyle (since we were characterised recently as having very similar tastes :))-

I dislike most Mozart, Delius, Rachmaninov, Scriabin, York Bowen, plus, of course, the same modernists as Kyle ;D

(I should add however that my "dislike" of the these named composers is not so great that I would not sit through a performance of any of their works and I have a large collection of their music on cd. It is more that they would be very much at the lower end of my listening spectrum.)

Unlike Kyle however I DO like Richard Strauss, Tavener, Part and the other minimalists.

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Christo
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« Reply #93 on: October 02, 2013, 07:41:25 am »

You will not be surprised to hear that I see some similarities.

Among my dislikes are not only the self-proclaimed avant-gardists, but also Mozart, Richard Strauss, and Scriabin. I also have a blind spot for most of Brahms, Schumann, Delius and Sibelius. (In general, Germany is not a country I look to when I think about music, while at the same time I admire German culture in general and I feel more at home in the language than I do in English.)

However I love Pärt, far more than Tavener, who is a completely different category IMHO and I also like most of the minimalists, again a completely different category, but NOT Philip Glass's 'symphonies'. :)

Again, much more important are the 'likes', first and for all those composers who wrote symphonies, especially those during the last century.  :)

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… music is not only an `entertainment’, nor a mere luxury, but a necessity of the spiritual if not of the physical life, an opening of those magic casements through which we can catch a glimpse of that country where ultimate reality will be found.  RVW, 1948
dyn
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« Reply #94 on: October 02, 2013, 10:30:06 am »

i suppose i'm really the odd one out, since I love both Mozart and lots of "avant-garde" music, whereas the composers whose music I find least appealing are probably Wagner, Bruckner, Mahler, Shostakovich and John Adams! ;) :P (Coolidge, that is—i'm finding i like John Luther Adams more each time i listen, he's pretty "accessible" ;) as well) However, i will also second the "dislikes" for Richard Strauss, Scriabin, Delius, Rossini and Tavener, and add most Schoenberg, most Berg, Boulez, Babbitt, actually most of the American "serial" school (Shapey/Wuorinen/Perle/early Rochberg etc etc) Glass, Nyman, Rutter, Whitacre, Karl Jenkins and perhaps others.

Do agree that it's the "likes" that are the really important thing—no one's forcing anyone to listen to music they dislike, after all. That said, I am personally never satisfied simply "disliking" a piece of music unless i can explain in some detail why it offends my sensibilities to the degree that i will actively avoid a concert where it is programmed. Often pieces I initially disliked I ultimately wound up enjoying a great deal as I re-listened to them trying to figure out why I didn't like them. Those that remain i possibly won't ever like... and possibly, as seems to happen to almost everyone, i'll turn 50 and suddenly Bruckner will turn out to actually be great music :P
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« Reply #95 on: October 05, 2013, 07:05:02 am »

i suppose i'm really the odd one out, since I love both Mozart and lots of "avant-garde" music, whereas the composers whose music I find least appealing are probably Wagner, Bruckner, Mahler, Shostakovich and John Adams! ;) :P (Coolidge, that is—i'm finding i like John Luther Adams more each time i listen, he's pretty "accessible" ;) as well) However, i will also second the "dislikes" for Richard Strauss, Scriabin, Delius, Rossini and Tavener, and add most Schoenberg, most Berg, Boulez, Babbitt, actually most of the American "serial" school (Shapey/Wuorinen/Perle/early Rochberg etc etc) Glass, Nyman, Rutter, Whitacre, Karl Jenkins and perhaps others.

Do agree that it's the "likes" that are the really important thing—no one's forcing anyone to listen to music they dislike, after all. That said, I am personally never satisfied simply "disliking" a piece of music unless i can explain in some detail why it offends my sensibilities to the degree that i will actively avoid a concert where it is programmed. Often pieces I initially disliked I ultimately wound up enjoying a great deal as I re-listened to them trying to figure out why I didn't like them. Those that remain i possibly won't ever like... and possibly, as seems to happen to almost everyone, i'll turn 50 and suddenly Bruckner will turn out to actually be great music :P
Re Wagner. Perhaps you have not heard the "right Wagner, as his orchestral music drew me to classical music in my youth. I cannot bear his "Fat lady Operas", but slap on his orchestral music like Orchestral Prelude to Good Friday Spell from Parsifal, Tannhauser and Venusberg Music, Magic Fire Music..or Tristan und Isolde..and try to get beyond the Flying Dutchman..unless it is just a "German" thing. BTW:I too, have little use for Schoenberg.
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dyn
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« Reply #96 on: October 05, 2013, 11:43:11 am »

Re Wagner. Perhaps you have not heard the "right Wagner, as his orchestral music drew me to classical music in my youth. I cannot bear his "Fat lady Operas", but slap on his orchestral music like Orchestral Prelude to Good Friday Spell from Parsifal, Tannhauser and Venusberg Music, Magic Fire Music..or Tristan und Isolde..and try to get beyond the Flying Dutchman..unless it is just a "German" thing. BTW:I too, have little use for Schoenberg.

It's possible... I'm not sure, i used to object strongly to music with singing in it, but there's now an increasing amount of vocal music I enjoy and a reasonably large number of singers I can tolerate, so it's not the fact that most of Wagner's music is opera (although, admittedly, the vocal style required is not really to my taste, either). Sadly it's a lot of the same elements that seem to attract people to the music—a high-minded seriousness i find holier-than-thou, orchestral grandiosity that for me tips over into bombastic tub-thumping, endless chromatic lines full of longing and desire and etc that quickly become tiresome, this whole overriding sense of the man's massive ego and "mission from god" to deliver music to the world. (I suppose one has to have a pretty big ego to succeed as a composer, to be able to put pieces of yourself out in the world and not turn suicidal when critics call them derivative, repetitive and boring, explains why a lot of composers are not people you'd want to have coffee with) There's also some of that in Beethoven and Brahms, but at least they also have humour and poetry and other things that compensante somewhat. All the Wagner I've heard has been very, very serious, usually with its high point being a beautiful melody that then gets repeated and "developed" at such length that i never want to hear it again. I managed to slog through Tristan, which was a chore; have never completed any of the Ring operas and have given up trying. Bruckner, Mahler and Shostakovich i do occasionally revisit, though without much luck so far (there are a few Shostakovich works i like, but many more i've never warmed to)

I suppose in complete fairness i should also mention that i have played through Wagner's Album-Sonata in A-flat major which was actually quite charming and showed off some of his strengths (melodies, development & orchestration, if it can be called orchestration when there's only one instrument concerned) to good advantage. Everything else that i've heard i'm happy to pass my listening duties off to others.

(incidentally my objections to Wagner are pretty similar to my objections to Schoenberg and Boulez, two other self-proclaimed "God's Gift to Music"s—perhaps it's as much an ideological as an aesthetic thing)
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« Reply #97 on: October 05, 2013, 12:32:55 pm »

I like some Strauss -Salome is one of my favourite operas, but the later operas I avoid like the plague. Much of his later music I just find smug. I could say something similar about Stravinsky. I can appreciate the greatness of his music without actually liking it; with exceptions, like the Rite.

Mozart is fine by me, but I prefer Haydn. I have always said that for me, listening to Mozart is like overhearing a brilliant conversation, whereas in Haydn's case, the talk may be less brilliant, but he is talking to me and not someone else in the room.
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« Reply #98 on: October 05, 2013, 02:10:51 pm »

I am surprised that the name of Richard Strauss should have popped up so often amongst the composers members dislike. I am not an opera buff-with the marked exception of "The Ring" cycle :)-but Strauss's orchestral works do hold huge appeal for me. Of those my favourites are actually the marvellously atmospheric "Tod und Verklarung" and the glorious Alpine Symphony. But it is later Strauss (or indeed, last Strauss) that produces the most powerful emotional response. At the very end of his life, with his native country in ruins, to compose "masterpieces" like Metamorphosen and the Four Last Songs was quite remarkable. The Four Last Songs I cannot listen to and remain dry-eyed. To me they represent the aged composer's farewell to everything he held dear and indeed to life itself, in music of such incandescent beauty that I rate these songs as a pinnacle of 20th century music. Amongst all the ugly horrors of the world at that time and the way music was developing Strauss could write music which is almost a requiem in miniature for Romanticism.
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Gauk
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« Reply #99 on: October 05, 2013, 03:01:54 pm »

Maybe, but Ariadne auf Naxos I find unlistenable.
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kyjo
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« Reply #100 on: October 05, 2013, 03:09:40 pm »

Strauss is a very superficial composer IMHO. There's an egotistical quality to his music that I find quite appalling. I don't find one ounce of genuine emotion in his music.
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Dundonnell
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« Reply #101 on: October 05, 2013, 05:45:23 pm »

Well-as can very sadly happen amongst those who love music-we shall just have to beg to differ :(

There is nothing more I can add.
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Neil McGowan
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« Reply #102 on: October 05, 2013, 05:49:58 pm »

However, i will also second the "dislikes" for Richard Strauss

And so will I.  Thank gawd his operas are almost never staged here in Russia :)
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Dundonnell
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« Reply #103 on: October 05, 2013, 06:15:31 pm »

Having said earlier that there was "no more I can add" I shall almost immediately change my mind ::)

I think that it is-to say the very least-unfortunate that this thread has morphed from a thread concerned with what members were listening to(and, therefore, probably, liked) to a thread in which some members voiced their dislike of the music of certain composers. That introduces a tone of negativity which I regret. AND I speak as someone who has participated in this by listing composers whose music I thought that I disliked.

However...I had no sooner listed these composers than I reconsidered. On calm reflection I decided that I did not REALLY dislike ANY music which I can understand and appreciate. (This excludes avant-garde music which I can neither understand nor appreciate.)

I have also tried to be at pains to repeat several times that my failure to FULLY appreciate the music of a composer like Delius, for example, is my loss. I understand and respect the deep love others have for the music. I would not wish to suggest that my personal aesthetic tastes should in any way diminish or detract from that love.

I can accept that others, apparently, have no time for the music of Richard Strauss. That is a given. I find it much harder to accept that it is necessary to write in the extremely strong language used about music which not only gives pleasure but is so deeply and personally meaningful to so many, including myself :( :(
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ahinton
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« Reply #104 on: October 05, 2013, 07:39:49 pm »

Strauss is a very superficial composer IMHO. There's an egotistical quality to his music that I find quite appalling. I don't find one ounce of genuine emotion in his music.
I don't either. I find tonnes.
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