Composers you don't get

[DavidRoss]

Mahler is an interesting case. I can see his talent. His scores are condensed with creativity and imagination, but the music just doesn't communicate to me. I have had similar experiences with Beethoven too. Perhaps repeated listening is the cure.

Yes.  Keep listening to both.  Not so frequently or diligently as to make it a chore, but once a year or so. 

[Coco]

Arvo Pärt — I've tried with his music but every time I have I can't ignore what sounds overgrown with clichés, but then his advocacy among people here whose opinion I respect and usually defer to on points of theoretical knowledge (like Luke O and others) makes me doubt whether I'm hearing him correctly or not.

[Luke]

Arvo Pärt — I've tried with his music but every time I have I can't ignore what sounds overgrown with clichés, but then his advocacy among people here whose opinion I respect and usually defer to on points of theoretical knowledge (like Luke O and others) makes me doubt whether I'm hearing him correctly or not.

This isn't the thread for it, but just my take on it - I don't hear cliché in Part, because (at his best) he is completely unlike any other composer I have ever heard, in his unique technique but more importantly in his unique sound, and because (in those same 'best' pieces) his style is so simple and pure it goes beyond cliché. Of course, if the style itself doesn't appeal to you, then as it remains pretty invariant throughout those best pieces, (which is why they are so good), perhaps it will begin to sound stale!

OTOH hand, a composer who has been lucky enough to have caught some of the tar off the Arvo Part brush: Morton Lauridsen. Ugh. And I've tried and tried. I get it, mind you, I just don't like it, and, yes, Lauridsen does seem clichéd to me. But then there is nothing unique about his style, just (to my ears) a set of tired 'luminous; (yawn) choral gestures and textures. He's not alone in this, but something about his musi really irks me!

[bwv 1080]

A fair amount of virtuoso piano composers -  Alkan, Scorabi & Finnessey - do nothing for me

in the same vein, never cared much for Paganini

[DavidRoss]

Isn't there a difference between "don't get" and "don't like?"

[Ten thumbs]

Mahler is an interesting case. I can see his talent. His scores are condensed with creativity and imagination, but the music just doesn't communicate to me. I have had similar experiences with Beethoven too. Perhaps repeated listening is the cure.

Me too. I love the sound but I don't get why he takes so long to say what could be said in half the time and I'm too old to want to spent long hours listening to it all again and again.

[Luke]

A fair amount of virtuoso piano composers -  Alkan, Scorabi & Finnessey - do nothing for me

in the same vein, never cared much for Paganini

FWIW to me Paganini is a very different vein. Though there is some fun and jaw-dropping Paganini, it never, IMO, rises above the level of pyrotechnics. Whereas with Alkan, the closest comparison here in many ways (and not just of chronology) there is equal concentration on virtuosity of the most implacable sort, but never for its own sake. Alkan invents a whole new and statlingly modern approach to virtuosity - almost anicipating Ferneyhough et al in some ways - in that he appreciated the poetry of virtuosity, the beauty of danger, and is able to handle this new parameter in structures of enormous invention, complexity and subtlety. Put simply, he is a great composer, never mind the difficulty of the music; you won't find a better and more penetrating, understanding use of sonata form between Beethoven and Brahms than you do in his Concerto

As for Sorabji and Finnissy - they are a long way down the family tree from Alkan, but they belong there surel. But with both, virtuosity and display is not the prime factor. I (usually) think Finnissy is the finest piano composer of recent decades, and he's that because he's a poet (like Chopin or Berlioz - and see his Romeo and Juliet are Drowning or his Mazurkas for corroboration) more than a pyrotechnician like Liszt. And Sorabji - well, he's just plain weird: the difficulty is a by-product of the weirdness, not the goal of it.

[bwv 1080]

Finnissy is the finest piano composer of recent decades, and he's that because he's a poet

More so than Rzewski?

[DavidRoss]

Me too. I love the sound but I don't get why he takes so long to say what could be said in half the time and I'm too old to want to spent long hours listening to it all again and again.

Unlike some other long-winded composers whose work could benefit from some non-narcissistic editing (!), Mahler is really worth the effort it takes to get into his late-19th Century, late-Romantic, fin de siecle Vienna and end-of-the-old-pre-industrial-social-order mindset.  It also helps to remember that his full-time job was as an opera director and that his symphonies are infused with that operatic sensibility.

Instead of trying to force yourself to like it, just give it time to grow on you.

[Sergeant Rock]

Me too. I love the sound but I don't get why he takes so long to say what could be said in half the time and I'm too old to want to spent long hours listening to it all again and again.

I have the opposite reaction to Mahler. Like you I "love the sound"...but I don't want it to end. The end comes quickly enough. At my age, I know that only too well.

Sarge

[Luke]

@ BWV

I love Rzewski. There is a solid core of standard notation Rzewski piano works which hold up to anything else. But, yes, ona piece by piece bass, taking into account the enormous fecundity and variety of Finnissy's music, it's voraciousness, its humanity, its roots in popular dance and song, its groundedness in human experience, it's glorious awareness of the musical past (and of its relevance) and its poetic subtlety which, yes, I think is quite close to Chopin's - yes, I really do think he's the greatest writer for piano of today.

But, as I said above, there's a 'usually' attached to that statement, because when I'm listening to Rzweski at his finest, he seems the best; when I'm listening to Ronald Stevenson he does. But when I'm not in a phase of listening to any of them - as I'm not, at the moment - Finnissy seems the finest of all.

[not edward]

But, as I said above, there's a 'usually' attached to that statement, because when I'm listening to Rzweski at his finest, he seems the best; when I'm listening to Ronald Stevenson he does. But when I'm not in a phase of listening to any of them - as I'm not, at the moment - Finnissy seems the finest of all.

To add (in a very minor way) to this, I'm not anything like the Finnissy guru, but his piano music has, to me, always had a staggering range--maybe not all the works seem successful to me, but every time I listen to a Finnissy piano piece I'm always reminded that it's very different from the others (while still obviously being by the same composer).

There's also a sense to me in which Finnissy has digested the tradition rather more thoroughly than Rzewski, where often the references to the nooks and crannies of piano tradition appear on the surface; in Finnissy it's deep in the grammar and syntax of the music. (And IMO, though I largely think of Finnissy as a piano composer, Red Earth to me still stands as one of the finest late 20th-century orchestral works.)

[Luke]

There's also a sense to me in which Finnissy has digested the tradition rather more thoroughly than Rzewski, where often the references to the nooks and crannies of piano tradition appear on the surface; in Finnissy it's deep in the grammar and syntax of the music.

Agree with every word of what Edward just said, but this bit, particularly, is very well put and perceptive. I was searching for the words to say this, and it's true, and makes a big difference to the way I appreciate and understand the two composers..

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

A fair amount of virtuoso piano composers -  Alkan, Scorabi & Finnessey - do nothing for me

in the same vein, never cared much for Paganini

Virtuoso composers appealed to me when I first became interested in classical music, just because the pyrotechnics involved appealed to my immature mind. It was like watching a movie with awesome special effects. With time, I lost interest in pure virtuosity.

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

Here's a sub-theme: Pieces you don't get by composers you love

Beethoven Op. 131 for me. I can admire this as a great intellectual structure, but I can't connect with it on an emotional level.

I have a similar reaction to Bach's Musical Offering - though I get on much better with The Art of Fugue, perhaps because it's such a unified piece.

[Mirror Image]

There are a couple composers I'm having a hard time grasping as of late: Holmboe, Simpson, and Weinberg. Their music is interesting, but it doesn't contain that much for me to latch onto. I can deal with Simpson better than Holmboe or Weinberg, but I'm still waiting for that lightbulb moment with all three of these composers.

[Willoughby earl of Itacarius]

There are a couple composers I'm having a hard time grasping as of late: Holmboe, Simpson, and Weinberg. Their music is interesting, but it doesn't contain that much for me to latch onto. I can deal with Simpson better than Holmboe or Weinberg, but I'm still waiting for that lightbulb moment with all three of these composers.

Everyone has a different emotional approach to music, but still, of all three composers Simpson is the hardest to get acquainted with, for most that is, I bought these recordings the moment they came on the market, that much it grasped me, but to others his music is poison. Holmboe for me are his Symphonies, apart from them I have a hard time to connect with him. His Orchestral scores are lucid and well thought out, for me his chamber music less. Weinberg on the other hand is pivotal to me, his Symphonies a marvel, his SQ a hard piece of metal that leaves me barren in emotions, but one of the best composers I have in my collection. All three I could not do without, but I see that it influences people in a different way, and that amazes me every time I read something in this context.
Nevertheless they will grasp you all three of them!

[The new erato]

There are a couple composers I'm having a hard time grasping as of late: Holmboe, Simpson, and Weinberg. Their music is interesting, but it doesn't contain that much for me to latch onto. I can deal with Simpson better than Holmboe or Weinberg, but I'm still waiting for that lightbulb moment with all three of these composers.

Strangely enough, these are 3 composers where I have been significantly more impressed with their chamber than with their orchestral output. You can do the maths from there I think. Harry's response is interesting as it is so different from mine.

[Josquin des Prez]

Haha, mentioning Alkan is a sure fire way to make Luke post in a thread. Truth is, i tried listening to this composer the way he does, but i just don't see it. Yes his music is a lot more technical then the average romantic virtuoso of the Thalberg variety, but its kinda like listening to Brahms with lots of gratuitous virtuosity thrown in and none of the inspiration and genius behind it. Right now its not the grand works like the concerto or the symphony that i enjoy the most, but the more intimate pieces, like the Esquisses.

[Josquin des Prez]

Isn't there a difference between "don't get" and "don't like?"

Yes. You cannot say you don't like something if you don't understand it.

I'm a bit surprised at the number of major composers and composition people seem to have a problem with here. Had no idea i was going to open such a controversial topic.