Your "Never to be Sung Again" selections

[Mark Thomas]

No need to defend mine. I too find Perosi mind numbingly dull. I wouldn't mind him being sickly, but I don't even get that. My nomination for the critical drop? Any of the three Furtwängler symphonies. Others disagree I know, and I'm not going to defend my dislike. Just share it for the record!

[mbhaub]

Just to name a few:

Emil Tabakov Symphony no. 3. Utterly worthless.
Leif Segerstam. He's a fine conductor, but nothing of his I've heard was worth the paper it was written on.
Artur Schnabel Symphony no. 2. How could the pianist who gave us a monumental Beethoven cycle write something this dreadful?

Yes, the time listening to those (and the money spend acquiring them) was badly spent.

[Hovite]

Any of the three Furtwängler symphonies.

Well, I personally regard the 2nd as a great work. I used to enjoy the 1st, but I listened to again recently and thought that it was a waste of time. I seem to remember that his piano concerto is equally pointless.

On the subject of piano concertos, some of the works released by Hyperion in their Romantic Piano Concerto series have been duds. The two discs of Herz concertos spring to mind.

Opinions are always likely to be divided. Busoni's monumental piano concerto is a case in point. Many regard that as a failure. I happen to like it, but I wish Busoni had not used a choral finale.

[Alan Howe]

I have a very high regard for Furtwängler 2, especially in the wonderful Barenboim/CSO recording. Nothing else of his that I've heard comes anywhere near.

[Mark Thomas]

It's obviously just me and my low boredom threshold then but I'm afraid that, even with the Barenboim performance, not matter how hard I start concentrating I'm soon picking up a book, magazine, breakfast cereal packet, anything to occupy my mind as that great flat featureless plain of Fürtwanglerisms traipses past me.

[Alan Howe]

No, I understand entirely, Mark. I certainly don't venture forth into F2 very often!

[eschiss1]

No, I understand entirely, Mark. I certainly don't venture forth into F2 very often!

Which suggests maybe another thread for another reason entirely, since I don't venture forth into Prokofiev's Fiery Angel often at all - but because it's a painfully (subjectively speaking...) emotional experience, not because of any lack of quality there. Erm, anyway

[Ilja]

No need to defend mine. I too find Perosi mind numbingly dull. I wouldn't mind him being sickly, but I don't even get that. My nomination for the critical drop? Any of the three Furtwängler symphonies. Others disagree I know, and I'm not going to defend my dislike. Just share it for the record!

I'm clearly more enamoured of the Furt 2 (and even 3) than you are, but you'll have to admit that if we consign Furtwängler's symphonies to Room 101, Bruno Walter's and Otto Klemperer's deserve the same fate.

[petershott@btinternet.com]

Apologies to all for being obviously a sour faced puss lacking in a sense of humour. But is this really a worthwhile thread?

Someone proposes a symphony by Piotr Zak as deserving never to be sung again, and goes on to say some often astonishingly rude things (based on, in just about every case, their own subjective experience of listening to the music rather than objective qualities of the music itself).

Then another comes along and says, 'Well, actually I rather admire the piece' (and again usually fails to provide reasons to disarm a critic). And so it goes on.

There is a world of difference between music that you don't particularly want to listen to and that which really deserves the fate of never to be heard again. Maybe I'm just timid but I'd hesitate a hell of a lot before assigning something to the latter category (apart from Mr Tavener, Cliff Richard, Dusty Springfield and a few others).

To make a deeply embarrassing personal confession, and thus to horrify others and never to be taken seriously again, I just happen not to enjoy Mozart. If he were mentioned in this present thread I might well throw up my hands and mutter 'dapper little bugger' (and note that says a lot about me and absolutely nothing about Mozart and hence is of no interest to anyone else apart from my psychiatrist). But heck, I would never, ever, claim Mozart is someone who deserves never to be sung again. I know not getting along with Mozart is my fault, and I would never contemplate erecting from my own personal disinclination to listen to Mozart a supposedly objective claim recommending to others that he deserves never to be sung again.

Peter

PS
And Piotr Zak? Well, some old dogs like me may have been around in 1961.

[Alan Howe]

I don't think there's a problem with the thread - as long as opinions are backed up with facts and the debate is conducted with civility - and with a willingness to re-listen and admit that one might perhaps have been wrong.

I do actually think that F2 is a better piece of music than the Walter Symphony, which surely sounds like a poor imitation of Mahler. So, room 101 for the Walter? Maybe - but I'm not giving away my copy. I might change my mind...

[oldman]

An another lifetime far far away I had as part of one of my post graduate assignments the duty of transcribing to score from photocopies of the parts of an 18th century symphony.  I have mercifully forgotten the name of the composer but I vividly remember a score that was chock full of (in terms of the 18th century) formulaic music ineptly handled and uninteresting scored - truly a justly neglected non-masterpiece!.

I think back (not very fondly BTW) to that symphony as I read this thread, and after having listened to excerpts where available of some of the proposed "bad" scores, I would respectfully submit that as bad as some of you may think that your anointed choices for bad music are, there exists a vast trove of truly unworthy music moldering in the libraries of the world in MS that you have been spared from because the programmers of the new have better taste than you think.

SO be thankful and lets find something else to discuss!

[Alan Howe]

I don't think we should avoid being critical; the crucial thing, as I said before, is to support whatever we might say with facts rather than bare assertions and to conduct the conversation with civility and respect - and a little humility.

[eschiss1]

I'm reminded by what oldman wrote - and picking up from a more modern end ... - PhD students generally have to, I gather, submit a piece of at least medium size- a symphony, say - along with an analytical work for their dissertation requirements.  There have been, in the history of music, some excellent graduation pieces - Prokofiev's first piano concerto and Myaskovsky's first symphony do come to mind. It's fair to say, I'm told, that the typical graduation work falls rather short... of practically(?) anything in this thread in fact...

[oldman]

"I don't think we should avoid being critical; the crucial thing, as I said before, is to support whatever we might say with facts rather than bare assertions and to conduct the conversation with civility and respect - and a little humility. "

The intelligent criticism that takes place on this site is actually part of what I value.  It just seems to me that there is no point to a thread  that seems to exist solely to denigrate.   The reality is that given the cost to bring any music performance to publication, were the music truly dreadful, you most likely wouldnt even be hearing it.

[Alan Howe]

"The intelligent criticism that takes place on this site is actually part of what I value.  It just seems to me that there is no point to a thread  that seems to exist solely to denigrate.   The reality is that given the cost to bring any music performance to publication, were the music truly dreadful, you most likely wouldnt even be hearing it.

Don't worry: mere, i.e. mindless, denigration has no place here...