Composers you don't like

[eyeresist]

Brahms was an a------ but it doesn't keep me from enjoying his music of course. I didn't like his attitude at all. Mahler seemed like he would have been one as well.

Not sure what about him you would dislike. From what I've read, he was gruff but avuncular. Shy, like many composers, but jolly pub company. Of course, he was probably frequently hungover.

The only borderline composer (he arranged editions and maybe other stuff) I can think of as applicable here is Thomas Beecham, whose personality is anathema to me - he seems very much the oily, razzle-dazzle, abusive type.

Oh, but you can get away with murder if you make 'em laugh. How many other composers or conductors have had books assembled of their witticisms, eh, m'dear gel?

(That's my attempt at an impersonation of Beecham.)

[starrynight]

Just to present an opposite view I've always considered Robert Schumann a very nice man in a world of conceited men with inflated ego's.

That's it, people will think what they want.  Music is a more sure thing that can be assessed.

[Coco]

Karlheinz Stockhausen
John Cage
Pierre Boulez



Aside from the fact I highly dislike their music and their "artistic approach", they all strike me as terrible people, particularly Stockhausen and Boulez.

How was Cage a terrible person? From what I can tell, he was very sweet and kind.

[Uncle Connie]

Wait - is this supposed to be about composers you don't like AS PEOPLE or don't like AS COMPOSERS?  If the former, I have absolutely no idea, I've never met a composer of any consequence - well, except Stravinsky and Toch, but only incidentally, and only years later did I even know who they were. 

If the latter, how much time do we have?

[Coco]

Someone who probably actually was a bad person: Tikhon Khrennikov — don't feel any need to hear his music.

[Lethevich]

Chopin and Debussy are others who comes to mind for me, although perhaps not strongly enough to formally declare them for inclusion under this thread's criterion - they come across as rather uptight people, unwilling to treat most of the people they met with much warmth.

Someone who probably actually was a bad person: Tikhon Khrennikov — don't feel any need to hear his music.

Ooh I forgot about that fellow. I also couldn't listen to his music.

[eyeresist]

Someone who probably actually was a bad person: Tikhon Khrennikov — don't feel any need to hear his music.

Relevant to me, as I've been reading Elizabeth Wilson's Shost book. Sad to read that Kabalevsky was involved in such proceedings, but I think he was more a nitwit than a genuine bad egg. There's a funny anecdote about Kabalevsky's mother pleading with Shost for his secret on how he got so many more performances than her son.

[Scion7]

Wagner.  Whatever his innovations in orchestration, his raging anti-Semitism and conceit made him a quite unpleasant little chap.

Britton was a pederast - ugh.

And it might be hard to determine without more information just why Bach's sons treated Johann Sebastian's 2nd wife so coldly after JS's death.  It is seemingly inexcusable, from the outside looking in.

[Szykneij]

Might it be safe to assume that any individual who achieves the artistic greatness of the composers being mentioned here probably has some personality traits uncommon to us mortals, and a number of these traits are likely to be viewed as objectionable to a greater or lesser degree?

[Cato]

Wait - is this supposed to be about composers you don't like AS PEOPLE or don't like AS COMPOSERS?  If the former, I have absolutely no idea, I've never met a composer of any consequence - well, except Stravinsky and Toch, but only incidentally, and only years later did I even know who they were. 

If the latter, how much time do we have?

As people!

And tell us more about meeting Stravinsky AND Toch!!!   

[Uncle Connie]

Okay, here's all about how I once met Ernst Toch and Igor Stravinsky in passing, and prepare to be bored, it's not very exciting....

It was somewhere between 1953 and '57 which is when I lived in Los Angeles (and so did they), most likely '55 or '56.  At the time I had never even heard of Toch, and knew Stravinsky only as the guy who wrote the dinosaur music in "Fantasia."  But I had a schoolmate whose father was of some importance in the Hollywood music industry as player/arranger/accompanist/whatever.  Surname Reisman, I don't know his first name.  (The dad's, that is.) 

So on two occasions when I was visiting my friend's home after school, I happened to meet those composers.  They came to do some work with Dad and his house full of pianos.  Out of courtesy I was introduced.  They said hello.  I said hello.  Toch seemed quite pleasant and smiled; Stravinsky was a monosyllabic grouch, perhaps because - even at age 12 - I was taller than he.  (I eventually made it to 6'8" - 2 m. - but he, of course, didn't....) 

And that was it.  Some while later I learned who Toch was, and of course learned far more about ol' grump Igor, but of course by then it was far too late to ask for autographs. 

I told you it wasn't going to be exciting.     But thanks for asking, Cato.  I like your taste in quotations.   

[Karl Henning]

Actually, I didn't find that at all boring. Which is but a backward way to say, thank you.

[Josquin des Prez]

And it might be hard to determine without more information just why Bach's sons treated Johann Sebastian's 2nd wife so coldly after JS's death.  It is seemingly inexcusable, from the outside looking in.

The fact she's responsible for the loss of a huge chunk of her husband's music is enough for me to detest her. I dare not to think how many masterpieces were included in the estate left to her by Bach, now lost forever. I think Johann Christian (or was it Johann Christoph?) was an accomplice in this, so he collects my ire as well. If memory serves right, according to what Gutman says in his biography at least one fourth of Bach's entire musical output was lost because of their careless squandering of the inheritance he left to his family.

[Josquin des Prez]

Might it be safe to assume that any individual who achieves the artistic greatness of the composers being mentioned here probably has some personality traits uncommon to us mortals, and a number of these traits are likely to be viewed as objectionable to a greater or lesser degree?

The defining personal quality of a genius is supreme totality and wholeness of their individuality, which invariably means they tend to be misanthropic towards the grand majority of people who have less defined individualities and tend to live and act as if they were part of some sort of social herd.

Of course, the realization you have nothing in common with the rest of humanity doesn't mean you have to be an ass about it, but i suppose it takes a rather firm temperament not to be annoyed by the mediocrity of nearly every single human being you meet.

Some artist of course turned this around and decided to look at the average person with compassion rather then scorn. Fellini comes to mind.

[raduneo]

For me it would have to be Paganini... and Johann Strauss (just because his waltzes is almost all they play on Montreal's Radio Classique)

Also because he caused Mahler a lot of pain, I will also include Richard Strauss.

[Josquin des Prez]

What did Strauss do to Mahler?

[Coco]

The indifference of real geniuses towards things they deemed unimportant doesn't bother me — in fact, I think it can be admirable. Artists truly worthy of scorn are those who actually were mediocrities but set out to degrade other, superior artists in order to feel better about themselves. Although, when you're deep into a craft, you tend to develop strong feelings about it.

[Cato]

What did Strauss do to Mahler?

They kept up quite a correspondence, all the way down to 1911 when Mahler died.

One reads that Strauss caused unintended slights and was mystified when Mahler went silent.  (Similar things happened between Mahler and Schoenberg.)

See:

http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=E2AXthU7mk8C&oi=fnd&pg=PA11&dq=strauss+and+mahler&ots=oRPahM9bj7&sig=cbb8XNnlYQQy1BIzPY0C5oRzoSU#v=onepage&q=strauss%20and%20mahler&f=false

[cilgwyn]

Someone who probably actually was a bad person: Tikhon Khrennikov — don't feel any need to hear his music.

Have to say,I quite like some of his music. The third & second symphonies,particularly. I just think it's un pc to say anything positive about his music in the West,because of who he was & what he did!
And yes,I know some people just think he's crap!!!!

[eyeresist]

Britton was a pederast - ugh.

My understanding (admittedly vague in this case) is that he fancied adolescent boys but didn't do anything with them, which doesn't seem reprehensible to me.

Unless you believe that a thought is no different to an action, in which case we are ALL going to hell.