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"The Worst Piece Of Classical Music Ever Written"

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Dundonnell
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« Reply #45 on: February 03, 2014, 02:33:59 pm »

Come, come, Kyle ;D

We know that you do not like Richard Strauss but that is surely far too far to go by denouncing "Ein Heldenleben" ???  I find the Rachmaninov Second Symphony unbearably drawn out and tediously sentimental.....But I realise that a huge number of people like and love the work, so it must have considerable merits.

It is interesting in the context of this thread to recall a discussion we had some time ago about the recent Philip Glass Symphony No.10. All of us (I think) who had listened to the work in its Proms performance-it is on YT-were in full agreement that the symphony was quite dreadful: banal, dreary, pointless, hackneyed, boring.

That is what Martin Anderson, the respected owner of Toccata Classics and a noted music critic, wrote in a recent edition of "Tempo" magazine about the same symphony:

".....it was the strongest piece on the programme. Almost half-an-hour long and cast in five movements, it opens sounding more like Roy Harris, with the same sense of the wide American outdoors, and chugs along amiably. The second movement starts with a percussion refrain decorated by woodwind and strings, the movement growing gradually in ambit and feeling; it is both lovely and emotionally cogent with echoes of Janacek. The central movement has a medieval flavour, a peremptory three-note figure imparting a military cast underlined by drums, before a climax cuts it away to a simple ostinato, below which the brass grows in strength; now the broad phrasing and noble brass-writing suggests Bruckner. The final sections are announced by a hint of Herb Alpert from castanets and trumpets and a celebratory dance slowly gets underway. The whole thing is over-scored, but with such candour that you could hardy object. Nor is there the vaguest hint of development: each dollop of material is simply extended until it runs out and is replaced by something else. A decisive whirling coda brings the work to a close after an unexpectedly enjoyable 26 minutes."

Roy Harris ??? Janacek ??? ??? Bruckner ??? ??? ??? ???

Anderson gives the game away by using the phrases "chugs along" and "each dollop of material" and by noting that there is not "the vaguest hint of development"...INDEED....but excuses this by describing the piece as "amiable", "enjoyable", "lovely and emotionally cogent".

I have a great deal of respect for Martin Anderson's critical judgment and for his ongoing contribution to expanding our knowledge of unsung composers......but this is really quite extraordinary. Are we all wrong ???  Does the symphony have any merit at all ??? No, Martin...it doesn't ::)  If one compares Glass to some other reasonably well-known composers still writing symphonies today-like, say, Kalevi Aho in Finland or David Matthews in Britain-then Glass is very much a symphonist manque.
Some of his work I quite enjoy on a rather subliminal level....but the 10th symphony sunk to the depths in exposing the limitations of Glass as a composer of symphonies (or a composer full stop ???).
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