Top10 compositions that you don't like but everyone else does

[Christo]

Nearly all Richard Strauss. Didn't Tchaikovsky say that he'd never seen such lack of talent and pretentiousness linked together. I know you'll all agree. 
Most Mozart but that's not to deny his genius. Prefer Haydn.
I rarely listen to Dvorak but like the Cello Concerto and Symphony 8
Not a fan of opera so can't stand things like Puccini etc.
Anything by Verdi.
Vaughan Williams: Serenade to Music (uncharacteristically self-congratulatory) and the Wasps Overture. He remains probably my favourite composer.
Elgar: Serenade for Strings (ok to listen to if you are doing the washing up)
Wagner.

R Strauss 'Ein Heldenleben' (what a bore!  ) - I know you'll all agree.
Vaughan Williams: Serenade to Music and The Wasps Overture (and he is one of my very favourite composers)
Most music by Mozart apart from the Clarinet Concerto, PC 21 and the Requiem.
Prokofiev: Sinfonia Concertante for Cello and Orchestra
Verdi's operas
Rossini's operas
Scenes and Arias by Nicholas Maw
Walton's 'Facade'
Rodrigo's Guitar Concerto
Tchaikovsky Variations on a Rococo Theme (although I love his Pathetique Symphony)

With almost six months seperating these two posts, shall we call it consistency or repetetion? Anyhow: we seem to be sharing many prejudices too. 

[vandermolen]

With almost six months seperating these two posts, shall we call it consistency or repetetion? Anyhow: we seem to be sharing many prejudices too. 

Well spotted. Can't believe I left out Rodrigo. Maybe I am trapped in a time-warp. 

[(poco) Sforzando]

Haha.  As they say, bien étonné de se trouver ensemble. Two totally different composers heaped together in three words. 

Heaped together in their mediocrity.

[(poco) Sforzando]

How about Beethoven's late String Quartets?

Too portentous, apparently.

[amw]

Dvořák's 'American' Quartet
Wagner's Ring Cycle
Mahler Symphonies 1, 3, 5, 6, 7, & 9
Shostakovich Symphonies 5 & 10
Rachmaninov Symphonies 1-3, Piano Concertos 1-4 and most of the Preludes
Anything ever written by John Adams, Philip Glass or Michael Nyman

Don't know why I don't like the Dvořák. It's not even an overfamiliarity thing, I disliked it the first time I heard it.

[Christo]

Too portentous, apparently.

By making perfectly clear, this way, that you've literally no idea what you're talking about - you actually make a point that applies to me as well and many of us, here, in this risky thread: that dismissing composers often tells more about ourselves than about their music. Point taken. 

[Wanderer]

I'm not so sure about the "...but everyone else does" part for some of these, but here goes, mainly raiding previous lists:

Dvořák's Cello Concerto & Symphony No.9
Mahler Symphony No.5
Anything ever written by Philip Glass
Almost all Verdi
Rodrigo's guitar concerti
Tchaikovsky Variations on a Rococo Theme
Mendelssohn piano concerti
Shostakovich string quartets
Rachmaninov's output for orchestra

[Wanderer]

(I kind of wish Medtner had written a violin concerto, that would be something to hear)

That would've been something, indeed. He did intend to orchestrate the Violin Sonata No.3 for it to become a violin concerto, but never came around to it.

[AdamFromWashington]

Shostakovich Symphonies 5 & 10

I don't dislike those two, but I've never liked them as much as Shostakovich's other symphonies. The slow movement of the fifth that brought the first audience to tears doesn't do anything for me. I usually fade out while it's playing, though I do like the other three movements. The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Symphonies affect me much more powerfully. I enjoy the Tenth when I'm listening to it, but I don't remember much when it's over, and I never have any overriding desire to hear it.

[71 dB]

I'm not listing what I don't like. I rather talk about what I like. That's much more positive. Somehow people seem to think it's a good thing to dislike something as if it was a sign of intelligence. I have been like that myself too but I am trying to learn away from it. If I don't like X, maybe it is actually my fault and not X's fault? Nobody can like everything and there is no need to do so. I have found enough music I like for many lifetimes, so I don't need to like the rest. Often liking something is a matter of attitude. It is a choice. What is the point of declaring the whole world I don't like composer X and compositions Y and Z when it's me who made that choice of attitude?

Now, I'll be listening to vandermolen's washing up music. 

[(poco) Sforzando]

By making perfectly clear, this way, that you've literally no idea what you're talking about - you actually make a point that applies to me as well and many of us, here, in this risky thread: that dismissing composers often tells more about ourselves than about their music. Point taken. 

What you've made perfectly clear is that you have absolutely no sense of humor or irony. I love and revere Beethoven above almost all other composers, and like Stravinsky, I hold those late quartets as my "highest articles of musical belief."

[amw]

That would've been something, indeed. He did intend to orchestrate the Violin Sonata No.3 for it to become a violin concerto, but never came around to it.

Synchronicity! I always thought that piece would make an excellent violin concerto. Maybe I'll orchestrate it some day.

[Christo]

What you've made perfectly clear is that you have absolutely no sense of humor or irony. I love and revere Beethoven above almost all other composers, and like Stravinsky, I hold those late quartets as my "highest articles of musical belief."

A unironic, humourless 'hahaha'. Ha. ha. h.

(BTW this thread is about compositions we "don't like", not about claims of superior judgment, as some of our more frustrated Modernists apparently aspire to.)

[(poco) Sforzando]

A unironic, humourless 'hahaha'. Ha. ha. h.

(BTW this thread is about compositions we "don't like", not about claims of superior judgment, as some of our more frustrated Modernists apparently aspire to.)

Oh! mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. I've been soundly chastised and put in my place. I will now flagellate myself and wear sackcloth and ashes in response to being humiliated by a total stranger writing on the Internet.

[Christo]

Oh! mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. I've been soundly chastised and put in my place. I will now flagellate myself and wear sackcloth and ashes in response to being humiliated by a total stranger writing on the Internet.

Good to learn what humour looks like. #thnx

[(poco) Sforzando]

Good to learn what humour looks like. #thnx

Look, you're the one who's determined to be antagonistic, not I. Any claims that we're talking about "favorites" (or even "favourites") are hypocritical from the start, because of course everyone feels that the works they like are proof of their own superior judgment. Otherwise people would be admitting that they actually like crap. The difference is, there are some who actually do have superior judgment, and others who like Braga Santos.

[Christo]

The difference is, there are some who actually do have superior judgment, and others who like Braga Santos.

Papa locuta causa finita.

[(poco) Sforzando]

Papa locuta causa finita.

Not at all, and besides I'm not Catholic. Another Pope (Alexander) put it much better:

"'Tis with our judgments as our watches, none
Go just alike, yet each believes his own."

- from "An Essay on Criticism," 1709

[(poco) Sforzando]

For me, that's JS Bach.

And I would largely agree.

[ritter]

I really can't think of 10 that everybody else loves but I don't, but there definitely is one:

Much as I love Debussy (one of my favorite composers ever), much as I admire Mallarmé, much as I am fascinated by the world of the Ballets Russes, much as "the flute of the faun brought new breath to the art of music" (Pierre Boulez dixit), I really don't enjoy Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune. There's something in the pastel shades of the score, and its saccharine sound-world, that I find off-putting.