Your "Never to be Sung Again" selections

[chill319]

I just happen not to enjoy Mozart.

Sviatoslav Richter, who loved Haydn, found Mozart's music unmemorable. He played a good bit of it nonetheless, perhaps out of a sense of duty.

Britten couldn't abide Brahms or Beethoven.

A conductor of my acquaintance once told me he detested the music of Sibelius. When asked why he conducted it, he replied that a bus driver doesn't get to choose his passengers.

[britishcomposer]

As the Paderewski Symphony (Polonia) has been discussed (and condemned ) in this thread I would like to know which recording(s) you have heard. I grew up with the shortened version, Wodiczko conducting I think. I liked it; at least in parts. Last year I bought the hyperion/helios release to get the full symphony but I mussed confess I was quite bored with it. I think the Wodiczko much more energetic. There is another recording, Dux labe, Czepiel conducting. Any comments on that?

[markniew]

myself I like Paderewski's symphony. yes, it is long (perhaps too long) a little bit bombastic.
It is not so energetic, youthful as piano concerto, Polish Fantasy, not so melodious as many of his solo piano pieces composed earlier.
The symphony is his lats composition,  at least last opused piece completed in 1907. ant its heroic, bombastic style was for sure the composer's true intention. The title indicates that intention - patriotic piece of large scale for the nation then under ocupation by three empires. Paderewski employs in the finale the melody of Polish national anthem.
anyhow the music is tuneful, good orchestrated. one can say that use of some uncommon instruments is a cheep trick but I don't mind.

everyone can name many pieces that are boring but despite of taht we often hear them just to know them.

[kolaboy]

Luigi Mancinelli's Musiche di scena per la tragedia Cleopatra. Pretty much fifty minutes of faceless bombast.
However, the Ouverture Romantica (on the same disc - Bongiovanni GB 5505-2) isn't bad at all.

[Arbuckle]

I would rather have my teeth drilled without anesthetic than listen to John Rutter or John Tavener, of course I haven't opened my mind up enough yet to even try them again, and, gosh, don't think I even care if I'm missing something! Thank God for individual tastes, even if wars have been started for less than music preference differences.

[chill319]

Regarding the Paderewski symphony, I have the BBC Scottish SO under Maksymiuk. My response to this recording has been strongly colored by my particular past Paderewski exposure.

Some decades ago, knowing only the famous Minuet (which Hough plays so deliciously) I first tried out the Paderewski piano sonata and was astonished at how authoritatively it mixes an original late-19th-century keyboard technique with proto-Bartokian percussiveness and Tristan-like passion. Paderewski's subsequent keyboard work, the Variations and Fugue in E-flat minor, shows even greater compositional mastery. These should not, in my estimation, be peripheral works. For years it seemed too much to hope that some day we could hear the symphony, but of course now we can.

When I listen to the Maksymiuk recording, nicely nuanced as it is albeit a bit bland, I "hear" the savage directness of Paderewski's piano writing underlying the gentler timbres of orchestral strings and winds. As for the work's length, anyone who enjoys Bruckner will not find their attention taxed. Compared to, say, Mahler 7, written about the same time, the formal organization of the Paderewski is conservative and relatively simplistic--like Bruckner--but no less enjoyable (or profound) for having an easy-to-understand architecture. In sum, I much prefer to have the work as Paderewski wrote it, but can imagine a more forceful interpretation from a pianist/conductor who champions Paderewski's last two piano scores.

[eschiss1]

... well, the CDs I have of works by van Rossum and symphonies by Landowski come pretty close here. And for all I am glad to have and rather often play recordings of Pettersson's symphonies 3, 4, 8, 9, 13, 15, I have not been storming to return to 5 and 6 which I keep finding boring and unvaried and repetitive (a reaction I once had with some of the others before noticing they were not any of those, so I suppose I still hold out  hope and may well return to them and their inclusion may be irrelevant. Might even return to the Landowski.)
Philip Glass mostly edges close to here too (not Steve Reich though. A friend of a family member was good enough to gift me a lot of his music in the last few years well-played, and I find I take to at least some of it much more than I thought. Well, again, yes, that's taste... maybe fellow ASpie (and much more insightful music critic than I'll ever be if I ever were to work as one; which I won't -no, I don't know him, but he has written about this... ) Tim Page is onto something with that one, as he favors Reich also...

[semloh]

Works I wish I had never heard - everything by Philip Glass. His tedious meanderings drive me crazy - I'd rather listen to the speaking clock. And, one specific item which many in this group may feel differently about - Walton's Facade with speaking part. Why Walton was seduced into composing for the pseudo-intellectual, toffee-nosed Bloomsbury set, who had nothing to do but lounge around and pander to their own inflated egos, and why he mistook their ludicrous nonsense for high art, is completely beyond me.
OK I feel better now - that's my two most "never to be sung again" rants over with! Well, you did ask!

[Delicious Manager]

Works I wish I had never heard - everything by Philip Glass. His tedious meanderings drive me crazy - I'd rather listen to the speaking clock.

Hear, hear! I always liken Glass's music to 'the emperor's new clothes'.

Why Walton was seduced into composing for the pseudo-intellectual, toffee-nosed Bloomsbury set, who had nothing to do but lounge around and pander to their own inflated egos, and why he mistook their ludicrous nonsense for high art, is completely beyond me.

Apart from the fact that it was a groundbreakingly innovative idea in 1922, I think a 19-year-old composer eager to find his way (and make a living) would have found it difficult to turn-down his first major commission, don't you?

[erato]

I found the disc of van Gilse on cpo some of the emptiest music I've heard for a long,long time.

[Peter1953]

Well well, erato, how tastes can differ! I think Van Gilse's Symphonies 1 & 2 are both delightful.

[markniew]

I can see that almost everybody can name composers/compositions who/that do not make great and positive impression on them! All depands also on the listeners' mood, personality, the stage of their expertice in music, their musical experience. Myself, for example, I am not very mpressed now by composers/pieces who/that I liked years ago when starting listening to music. Shy on me but nowadays many pieces by Beethoven, Mozart, to anme only two sounds emptyt. I never had interest enough to like Schubert, Bruckner. I can fully understand those fans who love their music and dislike other.
I think there are two - to make the things easier - types of listeners: interested in broeadening their knowledge of beloved composers or compositions and collecting different performances, and those who prefere listening to lesser-well know music - the lesser the better. Not so often the forgotten pieces are masterpieces but always are a sort of discovery that might be surprisingly good or - as happens quite often - not so good. But we keep looking for them     

[eschiss1]

Euroclassic Notturno sometimes played a piece or two by Gilse, I think- his string quartet and a trio among them. I think the trio was just on tonight (and perhaps archived for a week or so). (Also he wrote an opera, I noticed. ) I don't recall if I've heard his symphonies though- I liked the chamber music and will have a listen to the opera soon.
(On an irrelevant if more positive note I've found lately(? well, not so lately- ever since discovering the Donemus LPs and all that, which was some time back...) that I have a liking for quite a bit of Dutch (and Belgian, too- yes, I know that there's as much a difference as there is or isn't in such things- I am skeptical about quite the extent of national differences in ... well, that's quite another topic.) music- that whole area... hrm. ... bother all, quite irrelephant to this thread anyway )

[Ilja]

Ravel's Bolero. I guess every composer was entitled to at least one shocker...

I don't know... the Bolero is certainly effective music; not everything is suited to enjoy from your lazy chair.

To be honest, I'm slightly disturbed by this entire thread, since it shows 'our' forum from its most disdainful and arrogant side; most of all since most appear to confuse personal taste and intrinsic musical quality. I passionately dislike Nielsen - but that's MY problem, not his; the reverse is true for my liking of Garofalo's symphony.

All music needs to be sung, or it doesn't really exist. Rather than harp on the negative of what to suppress, I'd prefer to tackle the issue from a more positive angle and talk about what to lift from the clutches of obscurity.

[semloh]

Ilja, I am sorry you feel this thread is somehow unacceptable. Personally, I don't see why we can't express our opinions; they are, after all, only opinions and you can agree or disagree. I love to hear about what music people truly hate - it's fascinating! As a lifelong lover of the bagpipes, fairground organs, and the piano accordion, I have had a lot of experience of such matters! 

Seriously, I think the positive thing that comes out of it - apart from the mild sense of relief one experiences at expressing one's feelings - is that we delight to discover that others agree, or disagree, and that - most importantly - it illustrates (as Peter1953 said) the highly individual nature of musical taste.... which is a truly marvellous thing.