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Dundonnell
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It is frequently very tricky (see how I have avoided the word "difficult" ;D) to describe the general soundworld of a composer's music. This is particularly the case for someone like me who is not equipped to provide descriptions or analysis based on any kind of musical training or technical knowledge. Words like "romantic", "neo-romantic", are used by some to describe the music of certain composers. Others do so in relation to the composers use of tonality or "extended tonality" or the use of serial techniques. So...a British composer like Benjamin Frankel, for example, used "serial techniques" but those are not really noticeable to me when I listen to his music. Humphrey Searle (a pupil after all of Anton Webern) was a "serialist" but always himself asserted that he wrote music which was "romantic". Sometimes people relate a composer's music to that written by somebody else. So, Fricker is sometimes compared-or at least his earlier music is- to Bartok.
I am (after many, many decades of listening to music) reasonably familiar with my own tastes. Reading the posts of other members of a forum gives one some idea of where their tastes may lie (but one can be surprised ;D). If I use the word "difficult" it is usually in relation to my own perceptions of the music. That may not mean that I do not like it. It probably does mean-as has just be said in relation to Hoddinott's music-that it will require me (and others?) to listen with "concentration". But of course one should listen to all (or most?) music with concentration in order to appreciate it properly or more fully.
As a British music "fan" I set off from the initial premise that I "want to like" the music I am listening to. Sometimes however I find it "taxing" and it does not "get through" to me. Thus, for example, although I adore Searle's first two symphonies I cannot come to like his last three.
The music of Daniel Jones and Grace Williams was written by composers of an earlier generation to Hoddinott or Mathias. That in itself is largely (though not entirely) meaningless. Elizabeth Lutyens was born in 1906 but her music is quite different to theirs! Hoddinott and Mathias were born within five years of each other but I certainly find Mathias "easier on the ear".
I am only too well aware that anything I write can end up as cliche-ridden and therefore less than helpful but one has to start somewhere ;D
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