Going back to the start.

[NJ Joe]

I struggled with Bartok back when I was in college.  I had a recording of Concerto for Orchestra performed by Boulez.  I thought it was dull, flat, boring.  I didn't discover how awesome Bartok is until I heard his string quartets performed by the Takacs Quartet.

I became a Bartok fan in college when I saw Dorati conduct the Detroit SO in a performance of Concerto for Orchestra. I also had the privilege of seeing the Tackacs perform the entire SQ cycle this past October. Awesome indeed.

[Pat B]

I've observed about Mahler that people either love his music at once or always struggle with it. No long slow process of getting acquainted, no mild likes; either total love at first hearing or constant warfare.

Many years passed between my initial aversion and eventual love, but those years were spent listening to things other than Mahler. When I came back to it, it was total love at first-in-a-long-time hearing. Well, of the 4th. The 2rd, 3rd, 5th, and 6th took a bit longer, but by the time I got to them, I already loved the 1st and the 4th, so I expected the effort to pay off, and it did.

The jury is still out on the 7th, 8th, DLVDE, and 9th.

[Philo]

I love such stories!

A great summation of my feeling toward this thread. Thanks for all the great contributions.

[Octave]

Movement in the opposite direction might be even more interesting, as these stories are edifying but end up being about the famous masters always, eventually, being right.  More treacherous is the path to disenchantment.  I think we've run across the end results of this path (humorously, pugnaciously) in the "Unpopular opinions" thread, but I am curious about the arc running to those end results, especially if it involves a failure of love.

Has anyone had a strong connection to a certain music, which fails over time (the connection, that is), or even turns into distaste for said music?  Has the first position (the love) and the subsequent position (contempt or distaste) seemed remarkably free of external pressures (i.e. critical momentum, scholarship, consensus, institution)?  I mean, have you ever found yourself ~180 degrees removed from your attachment to a music, and the change has seemed spontaneous to you, not primarily a function of concession to or reaction against a consensus' pressure to conform?  (Classical music culture is full of "demurral = ignorance" rhetoric; one can see why the poor performers are the ones to to take the brunt of the hazing, because detesting Dead Giants is largely off the table.) 

Has it seemed like the more "excellent" performances of a piece/composer you hear, the more unacceptable the music seems for whatever reason?

EDIT: slight corrections to last line of 1st paragraph.

[Philo]

Movement in the opposite direction might be even more interesting...

I'd prefer to keep that sort of negativity in that thread, but I don't know how interesting those stories would be, and I would definitely question the soundness of their reasoning for the dislike.

[Octave]

[...]I would definitely question the soundness of their reasoning for the dislike.

Why would you 'definitely' question the soundness when you haven't even heard the particular reasoning yet?  Because that case is closed?
The 'soundness' of submission to momentum of consensus is questioned so much less.  It's pleasant to acquire a new pleasure and have one's world enriched; but a potentially ugly side to this is that it's pleasant to join a group, even a mob.

I've had too much exposure to "communities" [e.g. religious fundamentalist] where only "victory stories" are acceptable, or at any rate those stories are allowed to pass without much remark.  There's the mandate: one must arrive at the proper conclusions.  A nice line of reasoning is praiseworthy as long it arrives at the "proper" destination.  Questioning is window-dressing for the inevitable.

Of course, composers (famous people) are allowed to hate on great figures, sometimes without "sound" reasoning at all.  I've still not run across anything from Britten's (or for that matter, Gavin Bryars') mouth or hand that makes sense of him saying how awful Brahms was.  One side of me is irritated that they aren't "questioned" about this.  Another side of me wonders if they have a point, and if I am missing something.  My love for Brahms is strong enough to take a hit, but if I am the puppet of consensus, I'd like to get an inside report from a composer.  But maybe most composers are only experts on themselves?

I'm just taking the title of your thread at face value.

[Philo]

If you desire to muckrake, there's already a thread for that.

[amw]

Has anyone had a strong connection to a certain music, which fails over time (the connection, that is), or even turns into distaste for said music?  Has the first position (the love) and the subsequent position (contempt or distaste) seemed remarkably free of external pressures (i.e. critical momentum, scholarship, consensus, institution)?  I mean, have you ever found yourself ~180 degrees removed from your attachment to a music, and the change has seemed spontaneous to you, not primarily a function of concession to or reaction against a consensus' pressure to conform?

I think our relationship to any particular music follows a similar trajectory to our relationships with romantic partners. Sometimes, a particular composer or composition is discovered and becomes a lifelong obsession immediately with no letup, but more often there is one of two archetypical patterns: (1) a long and gradual process of discovery in which the music gradually rises in one's esteem—sometimes starting from a point of dislike combined with curiosity, sometimes from a noncommittal attachment—or (2) love at first hearing, with an initial period of excitement and obsession followed by a cooling of one's affections as the music becomes a comfortable part of our world, with the old flame periodically rekindled (all the "phases" listeners claim they go through). Sometimes in the second case one's affections may cool significantly enough that one no longer understands what one previously heard in the music, usually because one has meanwhile fallen in love with some other music—thus the occasional backlashes. (think of composers who were excited by serialism in their twenties and then denounced it later when their attentions had been captured by minimalism, or composers who started out as minimalists and subsequently proclaimed minimalism too limited and neoromanticism the way forward, or Stravinsky's entire life history.)

I don't think this has a lot to do with the Unpopular Opinions thread which is mostly people boasting about how rugged their individualism is.

[Octave]

If you desire to muckrake, there's already a thread for that.

[deleted.....appendix two posts below*]

[Octave]

I think our relationship to any particular music follows a similar trajectory to our relationships with romantic partners.
[....]
I don't think this has a lot to do with the Unpopular Opinions thread which is mostly people boasting about how rugged their individualism is.

Thanks for this thoughtful response; since hate/love are anything but mutually exclusive, I think coming to terms with some kind of affective refusal/resistance is maybe a good way to make sense of what works for us, or for that matter to productively trouble the water with things that we've already bought into.  I don't prefer to focus on this latter point, because it brings with it an "outside-text" vibe that I cannot abide; but anything that wakes me up is probably useful.
As for the Unpop thread, I might have glossed over the chest-beating...its funny I would remember it as all a bunch of good fun.      I do remember your cheeky Mozart/Gould ref (and Sarge seconding) being one of several that got me interested in his playing of that music, so even chest-beating has its merits.  In my little bit of research I ran across a lot of hate for it (Gould/Mozart), which piqued my interest further, damned perversity.  This being an e.g. of the positive uses of 'negativity'.

[Octave]

* The whole point of my post a little ways up was not to slag off any devotion as delusion, or sociologize my disappointment, or posit some kind of baseline overratedness (a concept that is overinvoked).  I much prefer discovery and difference/flourishing, and the enriching of my sense world, over any impoverishment, withering, vivisection, etc.  Even over "analysis", to my detriment.
But it can be a seduction, right?.  So for example, I can totally relate to someone's, anyone's, boredom with Haydn or Mozart, even with my current state being a vivid mania for those musics; and even though my boredom/incomprehension is no longer vivid to me now, I wonder about the kernal of truth in that initial shrug, in that disappointment.  Based on how I feel now, I don't think it has much to do with Haydn or Mozart or the changing performance tradition over time.  I think it has to do with the institutions that all of these things have become.  A kind of momentum.

I am all for people having a specific recording of a work trigger the fireworks for them; I can completely relate to that.  I wonder if there is something to be said for integrating those kinds of recognitions with something less fun, with loss.  I think they could generate a kind of counterpoint with each other.

[71 dB]

Three composers I have pretty much ignored but now appreciate more or less are Liszt, Grieg and Tchaikovsky. Actually I liked the latter 2 when I got into classical music but I pushed them aside fast. Until last years or so I have ignored Liszt, but now I have realised he was actually a really good/important composer. Hearing his Piano Sonata in B minor was an revelation.

I keep struggling with Mahler. I think I'll never get into his music. Most of the composers I don't even try. No time/interest so I don't even know if there is a struggle...

[NJ Joe]

They aren't. Szell, Cleveland, Mozart...they are the pinnacle. As a critic said of that combination in the 60s, they were the best Mozart/Haydn/Beethoven band in the world.

Sarge

Reading your posts on the George Szell appreciation thread was what initially drew me to Mozart/Szell/Cleveland, and to exploring Szell in earnest.  Thank you Sarge!

[DavidW]

To address Octave's question: Beethoven's orchestral music.  Loved it, but after years of listening became tired of them and by extension Beethoven.  Then came the day where I finally gave into Gurn's nagging and tried the chamber music and piano sonatas.  I believe it was the Beaux Arts Trio, the Juilliard Quartet and Kempff.  And... nothing.  It wasn't an immediate revelation, the realm of chamber and solo piano music was so different that I had to adjust to the sound world.  But fast forward a few weeks... and wow! I discovered a whole new world that I had been missing.

Similarly I became bored of Bach, there are only so many times you can listen to the concertos and suites.  Finally I tried his vocal works and found a whole new appreciation for Bach.

So ultimately this is in line with Philo's question, but in the middle is in line with Octave's question.  I think many listeners get caught up in a small library of great works, become bored and search for breadth.  But I also think that ultimately you come back to those works re-invigorated.  Not hearing them so frequently they sound fresh.  Hearing them after hearing the composer's voice in other forms brings a clarity to those other works not heard before.  There are intimate similarities and contrasts between a Bach cantata, an organ work, keyboard and concerti.