Unpopular Opinions

[Ken B]

Well, I'm going to delve deeper into unpopularity by listing them:

Symphonies of wind instruments
Les noces
Symphony of Psalms
Symphony in 3 movements
Scènes de ballet
Mass
Cantata
Oedipus Rex
Agon
Canticum sacrum
Threni
Requiem Canticles

Yep, about half those aren't on my list, and half of mine aren't there. 
With Stravinsky there's an embarrassment of riches.

[TheGSMoeller]

Inspired by the atonal thread, it is my firm opinion is that there are at 12 Stravinsky pieces at minimum that are are better than the Rite of Spring 

It's much simpler than that, it goes...

1. Dumbarton Oaks
2. Everything else (Rite of Spring is somewhere in there)

[Ken B]

It's much simpler than that, it goes...

1. Dumbarton Oaks
2. Everything else (Rite of Spring is somewhere in there)

That's my top pick too.

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

Dumbarton Oaks is a great work but everyone knows the two best things he wrote were Agon and Movements for piano and orchestra.

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

Agon
Requiem Canticles
Song of the nightingale (or alternatively, the whole opera)
Petrushka (this is seriously like a post-modern work, it's got all the irony there combined with some vicious orchestra attacks)
Symphony for Three Orchestras
Soldiers Tale
Oedipus Rex
Variations for Huxley
Symphony of Psalms
Movements for piano and orchestra
Symphonies of wind instruments
Abraham and Issac
Renard

Orchestra attacks conductor with music stands and instruments! Conductor in critical condition with bruises, fractured and broken bones throughout their body.

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

Yes..umm....it's a umm.....violent work......

Well, yes, the story is driven by violence, that's true. Curiously, do you know Birtwistle's opera 'Punch and Judy'?

[Ken B]

Agon
Requiem Canticles
Song of the nightingale (or alternatively, the whole opera)
Petrushka (this is seriously like a post-modern work, it's got all the irony there combined with some vicious orchestra attacks)
Symphony for Three Orchestras
Soldiers Tale
Oedipus Rex
Variations for Huxley
Symphony of Psalms
Movements for piano and orchestra
Symphonies of wind instruments
Abraham and Issac
Renard

Now there's a unpopular opinion! Elliot Carter, plagiarist!

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

Now there's a unpopular opinion! Elliot Carter, plagiarist!

Haha! I wonder how that got in there.....surely he meant 'three movements'

[Uhor]

"Making itself intelligible is suicide for music."

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

I don't think that's the case.

The more someone explores something, the more they realize that initial conceptions can be far from reality.

I've read in many places about people claiming that something is "too heavy", "too extreme", "too aggressive", "Too noisy", "too structure-less" et al, but the more you try to understand why it is perceived like that, the more you look at the way these sounds are dispersed (I'm not particularly talking about music I like or dislike here) and structured (however pre-meditated or not), the heaviness or extremities disappear.

More or less, to give you an example. Chaos (the crowning king or god of this kind of example) at it's most extreme, becomes inevitably order and structure. Aka, the more notes there are doing different things, the more it will feel like one thing going on and will be perceived as less going on than what actually is.

Tempo? constant face paced music (no matter how fast a tempo) will gradually feel slow.

Also, desensitization to something like screaming (I mean actually screaming your guts off, not the singing-screaming vocal style found in hardcore punk and some metal) will feel less aggressive over time (as does softly sung vocals feel less and less peaceful over time).


So maybe what I'm actually saying, is that I find it hard to find anything that shocks or surprises me anymore in that way because patterns of that sort are blatantly obvious and auditory. I'm not saying my passion or enjoyment has gone at all, though I had a rough week when I posted that original comment. 

Isn't this basically what Monsieur Croche was saying anyway?

[Pat B]

I'm prepared to say the first 2 minutes aren't that bad. But as I should be heading for bed, I think the rest will have to go unlistened.

It gets better!

Thanks, Brian.

[aleazk]

The violin tends to sound like a male cat expelling a kidney stone.

[arpeggio]

Please forgive me if someone else has covered this in the above posts.

I am all the time seeing what are your favorite threads.  I would rather read such threads instead of contributing to them.  One of my motives in participating in forums like this is to learn about music and composers that I am unfamiliar with.

For example from reading threads about how bad a composer Cage is I have actually discovered works by Cage that I like.

I do not see how telling everyone that my favorite composer is Mahler expands my knowledge of classical music.

[aleazk]

Please forgive me if someone else has covered this in the above posts.

I am all the time seeing what are your favorite threads.  I would rather read such threads instead of contributing to them.  One of my motives in participating in forums like this is to learn about music and composers that I am unfamiliar with.

For example from reading threads about how bad a composer Cage is I have actually discovered works by Cage that I like.

I do not see how telling everyone that my favorite composer is Mahler expands my knowledge of classical music.

+1! 

[Crudblud]

If no one contributes, no one learns anything. Besides, making a statement of preference is also granting others the opportunity to challenge it, which may well prove educational for all parties, assuming sincerity and willingness to learn constitute the MO of all involved.

[Uhor]

Pizzicato is the main piano technique, the keys are only for regulating timbre, this is why it is best as a four or more hands instrument.

[Madiel]

I do not see how telling everyone that my favorite composer is Mahler expands my knowledge of classical music.

It doesn't. It expands other people's knowledge of classical music.

[nodogen]

Please forgive me if someone else has covered this in the above posts.

I am all the time seeing what are your favorite threads.  I would rather read such threads instead of contributing to them.  One of my motives in participating in forums like this is to learn about music and composers that I am unfamiliar with.

For example from reading threads about how bad a composer Cage is I have actually discovered works by Cage that I like.

I do not see how telling everyone that my favorite composer is Mahler expands my knowledge of classical music.

Hi arpeggio.

Look at it like this: if we all had that attitude there would be more or less nothing to read. 😜

[Florestan]

Music was much more fun, engaging and interesting before the advent of the concert hall and especially of the recording industry. Passively listening to music in a stiff and still environment has deprived music of its essentially social and interactive nature and has transformed the educated amateur of yore into a mere consumer of music.

[Madiel]

Music was much more fun, engaging and interesting before the advent of the concert hall and especially of the recording industry. Passively listening to music in a stiff and still environment has deprived music of its essentially social and interactive nature and has transformed the educated amateur of yore into a mere consumer of music.

You know, that is one of the most interesting and thought-provoking unpopular opinions I've seen in a while.