Sung composers that you just "don't get"

[Alan Howe]

Well, I find Bartok's VC one of the supreme pieces of 20th Century music - so, as has been previously said, taste is obviously central in this discussion. Having said which, I have deliberately given myself time to come to grips with Bartok, buying some of his music and coming back to it later with (I hope) an open mind...

[Christopher]

Alan - would you suggest his VC as a "starter" piece for Bartok?  He is definitely one of the ones I have not been able to get to grips with.

[Alan Howe]

I'd start with the Concerto for Orchestra, I think; but VC2 has plenty of memorable, lyrical music - as well as plenty of typically Bartokian rhythmic material.

[Lionel Harrsion]

I became obsessed with classical music in part and most proximately because of my exposure to Borodin's music in Wright and Forrest's Kismet; if that sort of thing was their purpose they succeeded.)

Call me a cynic but I suspect their purpose was actually to trouser large quantities of cash!

[Ilja]

I'd start with the Concerto for Orchestra, I think; but VC2 has plenty of memorable, lyrical music - as well as plenty of typically Bartokian rhythmic material.

And for those that aren't quite up for Bartók's rhythmic side, there's always Kossuth, of course - the piece that drew me into 'serious' music to begin with...

[Alan Howe]

...and, if you like opera, Bluebeard's Castle.

[eschiss1]

Wright & Forrest? Well, secondary purpose. I mean porpoise. I mean dolphin. I mean divergence from topic. Apologies.

[reineckeforever]

about bartok, why not the quartets?
rich of marvelous timbric effects, they allow to follow stylistic evolution, structural coherence...think to music of the night effects!
Andrea

[kolaboy]

Perhaps Bartok requires a bit of easing into. There are flowers to be found among the "thorns", to be sure.
I remember the first time I heard Bartok's string quartet no.1. Actually, I remember the date: August 9 1981. It was televised on the now non-existent TV channel ARTS (currently known as A&E). Powerful work; especially in the first movement when the cello rumbles like a foghorn, lost in the mists...
Following the Bartok, there was a performance of Liszt's Christus, and it's also a piece that I've loved ever since.

Two masterpieces in one night. Good luck finding programming like that on broadcast TV nowadays.

[chill319]

I respond weakly at best to the Handel I've heard. Not enough shadow for my taste, unlike late Beethoven, who so loved Handel. It's me, not Handel, but I still don't get him.

Shostakovich has always struck me as a lightweight, despite the dollops of gloom in later works.

Some Liszt has grown on me considerably over the years, but I don't think I will ever "get" PC2 with its banal and merrily martial melodic transformations.

Regarding the Bartok quartets, in my experience they are quite approachable as played (authentically!) by the Hungarian Quartet on DG.

[eschiss1]

Small comfort for such as don't like Schoenberg (and he spent quite a lot of time arranging a work of Handel himself) but as to not getting Handel, Schoenberg, in an article I seem to recall, mocked people who placed Handel on the same level as Bach...

[fuhred]

On Alan's hearty recommendation above, I decided to bite the bullet and download from Classics Online the Bartok Violin Concertos (with Georgy Pauk on the Naxos label). I actually quite enjoyed the 1st Concerto, but after a couple of listens, the rambling 2nd still eludes me. Strangely enough, it reminded me of a noisy class at school, with the teacher as violinist (some of the soaring solo passages were quite impressive, I have to admit), and the orchestra as a bunch of naughty students making rude noises at the back of the classroom. Yes, as you said, it's all a matter of taste (or more properly, aesthetics).

Well, I'll leave the subject with an amusing observation from Australian composer Alfred Hill:
Sydney, 1948, at a meeting of the Society for Recorded Music, where Hill's String Quartet No.1 "Maori" and Bartok's String Quartet No.5 were played. Hill said: "My string quartet is like a young damsel, tripping along six inches above the ground in the woods, so ethereal is she. While the Bartok music is like today's painted tarts that one sees up at the 'Cross." (i.e. Kings Cross, Sydney's red-light district). 

[eschiss1]

Hill was of course entitled to his opinion and to not getting or not appreciating the literally offkey joke toward the end of the Bartók besides (admittedly, unsubtle.) Have only seen his first quartet in parts so far.

[Amphissa]

Rejoining this conversation, I'll add a few more notes.

I did not list Bach. I find almost all Bach dreadfully boring. However, to me the solo cello suites is one of the great masterpieces of all time. I own dozens of recordings and always seek out opportunities to hear them performed live by outstanding cellists.

Each year during December, the chamber music society in NY plays the complete Brandenburgs each night for multiple nights at Alice Tully Hall. It is a tradition and I've enjoyed it as an event. But I've never been able to warm up to recordings. I tend to avoid Bach in concerts. Like Mozart, Haydn, Vivaldi, Handel, et al, I just become bored.

Mozart was on my list, but I do enjoy The Magic Flute quite a lot, more for the fantastical story than anything else.

As for Mahler, I was deeply into Mahler for a decade. I own several hundred recordings, I read books, I hung out on Mahler discussion boards. But then something just snapped. I thought if I ever heard a Mahler march ever again that I'd begin throwing stereo equipment out the windows. So much of his music now seems a calculated effort to be over-the-top in every way. And even a rather innocuous symphony like the 5th suddenly just seems now to be a hodge-podge of musical snippets threaded together. I once believed that I got Mahler, I now believe I get him, but in a different way, but whether I get him or not, I just no longer like listening to Mahler.

I forgot about Bartok. I've actually heard quite a lot of Bartok in concert the past two seasons. He seems to have suddenly entered the standard repertoire of U.S. orchestras. I admit, I've been rather unimpressed by his orchestral music, including the Viola Concerto and piano concertos.

That said, I like Bartok's string quartets. They are more astringent than most music that I listen to, yet I find them interesting and sometimes compelling.

I don't mind atonality (uncertain key). So I do not automatically eschew modern music. However, I intensely dislike abrasive dissonance, especially when combined with relentless loud brass and percussive onslaughts. And I really do not like attempts to be humorous. Perhaps this is why I dislike Shostakovich so much.

[Alan Howe]

The place to start with Shostakovich would be the 5th Symphony. Try Haitink's magnificent recording.