5 Worst Composers Ever!!

[petrarch]

who Gould actually was

Who cares who Gould was in the context of this discussion? That's the point. Do you measure your blood pressure 10 times a day just because he did?

[snyprrr]

Did I mention Richard Nanes?


I'm really not all that fond of many of the 'Late Phase' Modernist Composers.ugh, nevermind, I'm not up for it

I was gonna say I wasn't all that happy with the direction George Crumb has taken in the last decade-plus. All these endeless Song Cycles with kind of empty instrumentation, all in his general style, eh,...

Then thar's Brokeback to look forward to. Thar she blows, haha!!

Rigm?, Lachenmann?, Sciarrino?,... I'm still preferring the late '80s-'90s of most ALL of the Masters of High Modernism to what is or is not happening today.

ALL Composers are on The List as of 2013!!

Composers getting $$$Tax$$$Dollars$$$ should probably be on The List.

[froghawk]

I'll concede that Metamorphosen, Salome, and Elektra are actually pretty great, but I can't get into anything else Strauss has written.... Capriccio is one of the worst operas I have EVER heard.  I can't stand anything about it - text or music.  And his early tone poems and Der Rosenkavalier are pure schmaltz.  Perhaps hearing bad film scores ripping off Strauss and Wagner for my entire life has ruined the source material for me, but that kind of harmonic language just strikes me as... icky and insincere.

[Florestan]

And his early tone poems and Der Rosenkavalier are pure schmaltz. 

To compose pure schmaltz of the same quality is neither easy, nor small achievement. 

[Brian]

My GMG review of Sigismund Ritter von Neukomm's chamber music:

I swear, if I wasn't such a conscientious reviewer, I'd have turned this stupid thing off. There's one more track of this harmlessly cheery, utterly soulless, three-decades-behind-its-time drivel, and the thought of subjecting myself to it makes me want to put on freaking Pettersson because misery's a whole hell of a lot more fun than this 1820s call-center Muzak garbage.

[Cato]

Has the name of Wunderjunge Jay Greenberg been mentioned under this topic?  Should it be mentioned?

A recent CD with a Greenberg work:

[asin]B007QMMORW[/asin]

From Amazon:

JAY GREENBERG'S SONATA. The cello was the first instrument in which I displayed any particular interest. I began taking lessons at four on a cello taller than myself. Through those lessons I learned to read music, and through reading I taught myself to write and eventually to have the written notes reflect what I actually wanted to say. For that reason, I always intended my first work involving a cello soloist to be a particularly remarkable one, and discarded several unfruitful attempts over the years before finally being satisfied with the Sonata. The Sonata is in four movements. As one of the first of my pieces to go beyond the style of Mozart and Beethoven in content, the work reveals a large number of influences, not all of which are fully integrated.

[Mirror Image]

Wasn't Jay Greenberg supposed to be like the next greatest thing in classical music? What the hell happened to this kid?

[Cato]

Wasn't Jay Greenberg supposed to be like the next greatest thing in classical music? What the hell happened to this kid?

Maybe he grew up?

I have not seen updates in some years, but a distressing amount of research on Wunderkinder in any field showed that they very rarely lived up to the promise they seemed to have.  In short, Mozart was the exception rather than the rule about child prodigies/geniuses.

[Mirror Image]

Maybe he grew up?

Well my comments were more rhetorical than anything else. Sometimes life has a way of grinding away at you.

[Karl Henning]

The cello is still the taller of the two.

[Johnll]

The cello is still the taller of the two.

Length and girth have their place, but I am sure you agree that black stick has the ability to be right expressive.

[Brian]

Length and girth have their place, but I am sure you agree that black stick has the ability to be right expressive.

This is the most bizarrely suggestive post I've ever read on GMG.

[Cato]

From Amazon, quoted earlier:

JAY GREENBERG'S SONATA. The cello was the first instrument in which I displayed any particular interest. I began taking lessons at four on a cello taller than myself.

The cello is still the taller of the two.

Length and girth have their place, but I am sure you agree that black stick has the ability to be right expressive.

This is the most bizarrely suggestive post I've ever read on GMG.

Well, I thought of a conductor's baton, but an illusionist's magic wand also seems to be suggested!  0:)




Look at all those happy magic stars at the tip!   

[Johnll]

This is the most bizarrely suggestive post I've ever read on GMG.

I take your point but it did not occur to me in the post. The black stick is a clarinet and the other that have length and girth are strings things. In the future I will try avoid exciting your imagination and post in a manner that will not be confused for suggestive.

[RebLem]

And stop posting and reposting the "let me explain what an opinion is" nobody is confused about opinions vs facts as we are not three years old, and nobody thinks that you are asserting facts.   It's not a shield, it's not a valid point, it's not a relevant point.  I'm asking you to defend your position, not hide behind "I can think what I want!" that's not the point of a discussion.

If you are going to assert your opinion, then defend it.

I couldn't agree more, David.  People do have a right to think what they want, though I am loathe to categorize an opinion that Mozart is a bad composer as "thought."  It seems to me the antithesis of thought.  What people who say that are really suggesting is not only that they can think any damn fool thing they want, but that they are entitled to have their opinion respected even by people who know what they are talking about.  And when you say outlandish things like Mozart is not a good composer, you lose that right.  They don't understand that, and it needs to be pounded into them until they learn some humility.

[Karl Henning]

Dude, that post is getting on for four years of age : )

[RebLem]

I'd like to know if there are other people who believe that, without an appreciation for Mozart or Schönberg, one lacks breadth in classical music. Is this really true?

I'm confused about your last bit. I'm not sure why I have to listen to other composers, some of them obscure, to validate my distate for Mozart?

Not liking Mozart is a sign of incredible, monumental shallowness which cannot be respected by any knowledgeable person.  Schoenberg, not so much.   0:)

[Karl Henning]

Not liking Mozart is a sign of incredible, monumental shallowness which cannot be respected by any knowledgeable person.

There's nothing wrong with not liking Mozart (I don't understand it, but there's nothing wrong with it).

The problem is in conflating "I don't like N.'s music" with "N. is a bad composer."  Now, that conflation happens to some degree or another quite frequently on GMG, sometimes quite innocently.  But I am apt to agree that anyone calling Mozart a bad composer is shallow.

[Karl Henning]

The shallowness resides in the astoundingly comic hubris of "How can he be a great artist? I don't care for his work."

[knight66]

Not liking Mozart is a sign of incredible, monumental shallowness which cannot be respected by any knowledgeable person.  Schoenberg, not so much.   0:)

I can assure you that quite a number of professional orchestra players detest Mozart. So I don't buy into your opinion. I also endorse Karl's post in reply to you.

Mike