Great Ugly Pieces

[The new erato]

I like him and have a lot less; you "so don't connect" and have hordes of it.

Please remember that this is a thread about great ugly pieces, so it naturally focuses on orchestral works. The set contains a lot of piano music which I find a lot less problematic, lacking the stasis, seemingly umotivated transitional sections, and cloyingly sweet harmonics of much of the orchestral music.

[False_Dmitry]

Probably guilty as charged, like most people here. Who needs more than 3 Handel operas anyway? 

Me-me-me-me!!  Unless they're conducted by Jean-Claude Malgloire, that is

ARIPPINA - biting social satire about the nature of power, ending with a superbly-engineered "shhh, my lover's hiding in the wardrobe!" scene with three different lovers in three different wardrobes

RINALDO - the most stirring of his bravura pieces (and available on Naxos in a stonking performance by K Mallon)

ACIS & GALATEA - an elegant and witty pastorale masque that's stacked with beautiful music

RADAMISTO - a clever collation (with a Haym libretto - always the Seal Of Excellence in a Handel opera!) of love against the background of warfare - with music to match

GIULIO CESARE - another Haym libretto, putting two of history's most iconic figures, Caesar & Cleopatra, on stage together.  This big-budget spectacular (it ran for 47 unbroken nights in Hamburg) inspired some of Handel's most outstanding music, with a lavish and exotic scoring for the "Egyptian court" scenes (flutes, harps, lyra-viole, viola da gamba, lutes, mandolins)

TAMERLANO - a rare "anti-hero" opera, with a baritonish "tenor" hero who kills himself rather than submit, and the famous minor-key wedding-music at the end... the closest the censors would allow Handel to a tragic end.

RODELINDA - Haym once more, with the horrors of civil war and a love story that wins through regardless

ORLANDO - a strange and touching journey into madness,  with some pagan worship thrown in for good measure

ARIODANTE - perhaps the most sombre of them all?  A bitter story of jealousy, with Scherza Infida as the crowning glory in an irridescent score.  Plus the unusual element of an opera-ballet that actually carries the plot forwards.

ALCINA - it's just hit number after hit number!  Even the potty story doesn't manage to foul things up

FARAMONDO - It's like IL TROVATORE

SERSE - an urbane, witty social comedy, whose perfect libretto - two rival brothers, two quarrelling sisters, and a jilted princess who continues to love against all reasonable evidence - makes this one of the best of all.

I make that twelve Handel operas I wouldn't want to be without

[techniquest]

Jon Leifs: Hekla. Not sure it's necessarily 'ugly' but it certainly ain't pretty! Someone ought to write a new contemporary piece 'Eyjafjallajokull'  There could be the 'bang-crash-wallop' movement which would be the Icelandic perspective and a movement similar to 'The Lark Ascending' which would be the UK Airport runway perspective. Ugliness and beauty in one piece - hang on, isn't that Gorecki's 2nd symphony?

[marvinbrown]

  Hello! Richard Strauss' ELEKTRA, a piece so violently ugly and utterly delicious it will have you begging for more.....if you can tolerate it that is  !!

  lmarvin

[Superhorn]

  Prokofiev's nightmarish occult opera "The Fiery Angel" contains some of the most fiercely dissonant music ever written,and his 3rd symphony is based on the opera.
   This opera is so weird and terrifying it could make you wet your pants!
  It's creepier than any Stephen King novel or movie.  This bone-chilling story of
madness,obsession,the blackest of black magic,demonology and demonic possession is not for the faint-heated.
  Renata is a weird young woman in 16th century Germany who is obsessed with finding her imaginary friend from childhood, an angel of fire who appeared to her,and she is certain that she will find him in human form.
  She meets Ruprecht,a wandering knight by chance,and he falls hopelessly in love with  her even though she does not love him.
Together they get involved in black magic,sorvery and demonolgy,and consult occult mad scientists and philosophers.The story gets weirder and weirder as it progresses,and finally,Renata retires to a nunnery.But the nuns are becoming possessed by evil spirits,and in the terrifying final scewne,an exorcism is performed on her,and she is sentenced to be tortured and burned at the stake for sorcery!
This opera will leave you shaking.The DG and Philips recordings may be hard to find,but be warned....

[False_Dmitry]

  Prokofiev's nightmarish occult opera "The Fiery Angel" contains some of the most fiercely dissonant music ever written,

Do you really find it that dissonant?  I agree it's an exciting score, but I don't find it particularly dissonant   An extraordinary opera, and very much a period-piece.    I'm afraid I hate the Kirov production (available on DVD) - unsympthetically sung, and the production misses the point.  Richard Jones really "nailed it" in his production for La Monnaie (Brussels) three years ago, in which Renata was sung by the amazing Svetlana Sozdateleva [edit, whose picture mysteriously refuses to appear below, no doubt due to demoniacal forces!  So there's another production pic instead]



The Bolshoi Theatre (most unusually, since they've been going through a terrible period of late) have a great Zambella production of FIERY ANGEL too - although it very rarely comes out of mothballs.  The final scene is the most astonishing piece of technical wizardry I've seen in a long time.  Sadly it's unavailable on either dvd or cd.

[Opus106]

The Bolshoi Theatre (most unusually, since they've been going through a terrible period of late) have a great Zambella production of FIERY ANGEL too - although it very rarely comes out of mothballs.  The final scene is the most astonishing piece of technical wizardry I've seen in a long time.  Sadly it's unavailable on either dvd or cd.

I think YouTube has samples -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABOSSkDUq-k. Not of the best video quality, unfortunately.

[I am not going to sample the music right now as it would disrupt the late-night session of consort music, but I'll remember to check it out tomorrow.]

[False_Dmitry]

I think YouTube has samples -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABOSSkDUq-k. Not of the best video quality, unfortunately.

Oh yes, that's "the ending"! - a pity that the video ends before the final moment (when the entire set collapses and the lift ascends to heaven at a 30-degree angle).

And also on YouTube is what seems to be the complete performance of the Monnaie production     This excerpt shows that the opera has a lyrical side which is not all as fiercely atonal and "difficult" as perhaps thought?   Sozdateleva makes music out of it

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjRETXwaJlM&feature=related