Unpopular Opinions

[Phrygian]

I love all the Brahms symphonies equally and I disagree with Chaszz that the main theme in the 1st is "corny" - the one which is reputedly influenced by LvB.  Brahms is for me velvet and chocolate, cockles and mussels alive alive oh!!

However, I do think that the oeuvre of Brahms is inconsistent;  for example, I'm not so keen on the Piano Trios apart from the first.  The solo piano music is sometimes simplistic and lacking the form and vigour I'm used to with this composer;  some of the Hungarian Dances don't work for me at all and, spoiler alert, I don't like the German Requiem, thinking it muddy and ponderous.  In spite of this, Brahms remains in my Top 5 - a position he has maintained for the last 25 years.  (And I'll be in his birthplace, Hamburg, very shortly.)

[Jo498]

I think Brahms is extremely consistent, at least after a bunch of early works where one could him imagine going in a different, maybe more Lisztian direction. I am not equally fond of everything either, but the "principles" seem very consistent. And of course almost half of his oeuvre is Lieder and choral music and not very widely known (I have not heard all of it either).

[not edward]

A couple of provocative ones:

Shostakovich is most consistently successful not in symphonies or string quartets, but in his vocal works.
Beethoven's only worthwhile music for violin and orchestra is the Benedictus from the Missa solemnis.

[Wakefield]

Bach is merely respecting the form. Form was an important element in western art dating back to the middle ages as well as classical times. I don't think many people realize how much formal content there was even in something as deceptively "simple" as a Christian icon. For Bach, to be an artist meant to understand form, grasp its true essence and employ it in its proper context. In a way, there's a Platonic undertone to all this.

This is an entirely different vision of art than what we are accustomed to nowadays. To be frank though, i don't think "liberating" art from form led to better music, or better art for that matter. What makes the difference to me is the creativity of the artist, not his style.

I strongly agree with your explanation. I'd like to add just one thing: Baroque is, among all artistic styles, the one which has more faith in the formal aspects of language, in the symbol itself. For people thinking in Baroque terms, symbols have their own almost universal power, and the "doctrine of the affections" is a clear demonstration about it. Besides, that's the reason why Rhetoric is so important: you must know how the symbols need to be used to press the correct key in listener or reader.

Sorry if all of this sounds a bit confuse... 

[kishnevi]

A couple of provocative ones:

Shostakovich is most consistently successful not in symphonies or string quartets, but in his vocal works.
Beethoven's only worthwhile music for violin and orchestra is the Benedictus from the Missa solemnis.

DSCH .....I would rate the SQs as being consistently excellent,  as well as the vocal works.  Symphonies are definitely a mixed bag.
LvB...no, the VC still rules, and the romances are often underrated.

[Jo498]

I am probably not harmonically literate enough, but is Bach in those Suites fundamentally different from, say Handel, Couperin, Rameau with respect to some "standardized" harmonic progressions?

[Dancing Divertimentian]

LvB...no, the VC still rules, and the romances are often underrated.

Yes, Beethoven's VC = greatness.

[Ken B]

DSCH .....I would rate the SQs as being consistently excellent,  as well as the vocal works.  Symphonies are definitely a mixed bag.
LvB...no, the VC still rules, and the romances are often underrated.

Hmmm. These opinions are all right, but more to the point, all popular. Can you post them here? 

[(poco) Sforzando]

I think Brahms is extremely consistent, at least after a bunch of early works where one could him imagine going in a different, maybe more Lisztian direction. I am not equally fond of everything either, but the "principles" seem very consistent. And of course almost half of his oeuvre is Lieder and choral music and not very widely known (I have not heard all of it either).

Brahms was immensely self-critical, and supposedly destroyed numerous string quartets, as well as having waited many years before producing his first symphony. But by his era the climate for composers had substantially changed: they were no longer writing on order as Bach had to do each week when producing cantatas, and the sheer quantity of work from composers after Beethoven's time had significantly diminished.

[(poco) Sforzando]

Beethoven's only worthwhile music for violin and orchestra is the Benedictus from the Missa solemnis.

I have long held that the Violin Concerto is one of Beethoven's few relative failures in orchestral music. In the first movement in particular, he seemed to be trying for a vein of pure lyricism that is contrary to his normal style from the middle period, and which he achieved much more successfully in the fourth piano concerto, the third cello sonata, and similar works. All too often in the opening movement of the fiddle concerto, there are phrases where the antecedent and consequent just echo each other symmetrically and trail off weakly; if I wanted to attach some musical examples this could be easily demonstrated. I don't find the slow movement or rondo much stronger either.

And this is coming from someone who reveres Beethoven as one of the very greatest of composers. Oh wait, that's a popular opinion.

[Jo498]

I am not a great fan of the violin concerto either. But the first movement with the uncertainty of 9-bar-phrases and the obnoxious d sharp (or whatever it is) coming in is not at all blandly symmetrical, but quite sophisticated and not just a lyrical outpouring. The very sound of the beginning with timpani and woodwinds must have been strange and provocative for its contemporaries although it is probably impossible for us to enter a state of mind where we find stuff like this (or the chords at the beginning of his 1st symphony) even mildly scandalous.

[Mirror Image]

Agree about LvB's VC .. and in surveying his work myself, the first 3 piano concertos (especially the 2nd) and the triple concerto also strike me as being weaker too.

Said the man who worships Stockhausen whose music, in turn, sounds like electronic farts. You're in no place to judge LvB.

[Ken B]

Said the man who worships Stockhausen whose music, in turn, sounds like electronic farts. You're in no place to judge LvB.

This commented has been filed under "Link when Stockhausen is John's avatar."

[Mirror Image]

I could go on .. but I already have enough enemies on this forum, some just for the fact that I like Stockhausen. 

I'm just giving you a hard time about Stockhausen. But the reason you have enemies on this forum has less to do with your liking of Stockhausen and more to do with the way you treat others.

[Jo498]

I personally prefer at least Beethoven's 1st and 3rd piano concerto to the violin, probably the 2nd as well. But I think the violin concerto is a considerable "advancement" in the subtleties of the concerto form. And the ambiguous phrase lengths and stress shifts of the 5 "beats" in the violin concerto actually show that it is much less four-square than e.g. the 3rd piano concerto (always talking about the 1st movements). The importance of such a rhythmic element also balances the generally lyrical tone. It's not completely Beethoven's fault that the piece is often played too slowly, even syrupy (although the humongous cadenza often adapted from the piano version is his fault...).

[(poco) Sforzando]

I am not a great fan of the violin concerto either. But the first movement with the uncertainty of 9-bar-phrases and the obnoxious d sharp (or whatever it is) coming in is not at all blandly symmetrical, but quite sophisticated and not just a lyrical outpouring. The very sound of the beginning with timpani and woodwinds must have been strange and provocative for its contemporaries although it is probably impossible for us to enter a state of mind where we find stuff like this (or the chords at the beginning of his 1st symphony) even mildly scandalous.

That's a valid point, but once that introductory phrase is over, there's little else in the movement that shows the same degree of metric irregularity.

[Brian]

I personally prefer at least Beethoven's 1st and 3rd piano concerto to the violin, probably the 2nd as well.

I agree with you there. The first piano concerto is my favorite of the early three, especially with the gigantic final cadenza LvB wrote for it.

My dislike of the violin concerto is well-documented here, and it does stem in part from the unbearably slow performances that many violinists now favor. There's also a general trend toward as-slow-as-possible readings for the first movements of the Brahms and Sibelius concertos, from that contingent which believes "slowness = profundity" and "profundity > liveliness". But even in an acceptable performance (Zehetmair/Bruggen or Faust/Abbado), the "voice" of the first movement still bothers me. There's always been something a little stale about its lyricism. It glares, like looking into the sun. Is the violin part too incessantly high-pitched for my taste? Probably. Contrast is lacking, both emotionally and (after the first minute) in the juxtaposition of instruments.

[(poco) Sforzando]

My dislike of the violin concerto is well-documented here, and it does stem in part from the unbearably slow performances that many violinists now favor.

Yes, but Beethoven can't be blamed for that. I agree with you about performances, however. (And the same is true, for instance, of the Schubert B-flat sonata, whose first movement - Molto moderato - is now usually taken as a Molto adagio, which both stretches out the movement interminably and provides insufficient contrast with the following slow movement.) I remember a live performance of the Beethoven at the NY Phil with A-S Mutter and Kurt Masur, where the first movement - Allegro ma non troppo as marked - was dragged throughout, especially during the development section. By the end of the development, the tempo had slowed so precipitously that Masur had to jerk the orchestra into an extraordinary accelerando to get the unison fortissimo D's back to speed at the start of the recap. "Wake up, everyone!"

[Brian]

Yes, but Beethoven can't be blamed for that.

Yes - I agree with you and Jo498 about that.

(And the same is true, for instance, of the Schubert B-flat sonata, whose first movement - Molto moderato - is now usually taken as a Molto adagio, which both stretches out the movement interminably and provides insufficient contrast with the following slow movement.)

Speaking of Schubert, his Unfinished Symphony is yet another victim of this trend. Between Beethoven, Brahms, and Schubert, it seems like "Allegro ma non troppo" is being read as "Allegro ma non allegro".

[Jo498]

A problem with Schubert's b minor symphony is that the first movement is a slowish allegro in 3/4 and the 2nd a flowing andante in 3/8. Even if as customary both are played too slow they do not sound all that different. And some HIPster play the andante so fast that the contrast is not strong either. It's partly Schubert's fault although I think they both should be moving in whole bars (more or less). Schubert wrote a lot of music in 4/4 or 3/4 that becomes too slow if one thinks and counts in quarter notes. It' whole bars or half bars one should count.

With the piano sonatas, especially D 960 and D 894 I am not sure, but I think that "Molto moderato" should be read with an implicit reference to a "standard" allegro first movement. It's not very clear but it is a modifier so it has to imply a main indication. So Richter & Co are probably way too slow, though the results might be impressive. There is at least one Richter recording, probably a live D 894 where the 2nd movement, an andante, feels faster than the first. I cannot believe that Schubert intended this.