The most boring music you've heard

[Jaakko Keskinen]

Bach, or Mozart.

I see where you're coming from. While there are definitely some works by Bach or Mozart that I enjoy, still, the fact remains that the only composer from the widely considered top 3 composers of all time (Bach, Mozart, Beethoven) whose music I like unconditionally, is Beethoven.

[Karl Henning]

Boring?

http://www.youtube.com/v/hXBmygI-N3M

[Karl Henning]

Boring?

http://www.youtube.com/v/GzTwO0zWrqU

[Karl Henning]

Boring?

http://www.youtube.com/v/hxTrcGvzkII

[Karl Henning]

Boring?

http://www.youtube.com/v/k3CNS2iK790

[The new erato]

Bach boring? I'm seldom speechless, but...

For me: the single discs of van Gilse and Holbrooke I have purchased. I may put this up to purchasing the wrong discs, but have never summoned up the courage to try another one.

[Karl Henning]

Bach boring? I'm seldom speechless, but...

I have not the least idea of how to listen to this music, and yet find it boring.

[prémont]

Boring? Well, anything by Wagner,

Karl, feel free to find examples of Wagner, which are not boring.

[San Antone]

Boring? Well, anything by Wagner,

Karl, feel free to find examples of Wagner, which are not boring.

"M. Wagner a de beaux moments, mais de mauvais quart d'heures"

[amw]

I've generally found it a struggle to sit through an entire opera but I guess some of the orchestral excerpts from the operas would qualify as not boring. There is a decent CD from Norrington and the London Classical Players that removes a lot of the pretentiousness of more typical performances (and Wagner's own proclamations about his music, which as with most composers are self-serving propaganda), plus period instruments which are always good. I also like the Album-Sonate in A flat, & the Wesendonck Lieder and probably some other stuff.

[amw]

That said I think Act II of Tristan und Isolde may be the most boring music I have ever heard. Wagner is clearly trying to sustain tension throughout the entire act, supposedly in imitation of a lengthy sexual encounter or something, and therefore it's supposed to be excruciating and give us a truly insatiable desire for the resolution, but for me it crossed the line into tiresome and manipulative very quickly. Still had to hear the whole thing because I had to write a paper about it. :')

[Marc]

Hm.

Metal Machine Music by Lou Reed?

That was boring, and awful.
(But it might have been intentional.)

I.c. Bach: I think I find 99,9% of his music not boring at all, and I'm still searching for the other 0,1%.
I.c. Wagner: I rarely listen to anything by him, but I most certainly like the intro music of Die Walküre and Parsifal.

[Biffo]

Hyperion released a series, ca 2003, of music by Bach's contemporaries. I bought discs of sacred music by Kuhnau, Schelle and Zelenka. None of them gripped me but Zelenka was easily the dullest. A couple of years ago I turned the radio on part way through a very nice orchestral work; it turned out to be by Zelenka. A couple of days later I heard another delightful concerto (?) by Zelenka.  One of the radio programs suggested that his Officium defunctorum was his masterpiece. This lead me to suspect I may have misjudged him but it was not enough to make me buy any more of his stuff especially as the Hyperion disc contained lengthy sections from the latter work.

Before posting I listened again to some of the Officium and found it every bit as boring as I remembered but not as dull as Biber's Requiem which holds the prize of Most Boring for me.

[vandermolen]

I admire the creative genius of Bach but found BBC Radio 3's decision to play nothing but Bach for a week an absolute bore (and told them so).

Otherwise, 'Ein Heidenleben' by Richard Strauss and Gottschalk's 'Night in the Tropics'.

[Karl Henning]

I admire the creative genius of Bach but found BBC Radio 3's decision to play nothing but Bach for a week an absolute bore (and told them so).

Well, there must be balance.

[vandermolen]

Well, there must be balance.

Definitely!

[Marc]

[...] but not as dull as Biber's Requiem which holds the prize of Most Boring for me.

Which Biber?
Which Requiem?

[Daverz]

Hyperion released a series, ca 2003, of music by Bach's contemporaries. I bought discs of sacred music by Kuhnau, Schelle and Zelenka. None of them gripped me but Zelenka was easily the dullest.

Zelenka wrote a ton of sacred music, so I imagine some of it is not up to his best.  I have not explored his sacred music very much, but decades ago I was entranced by his Missa dei Filii.  This recording my have been surpassed since then:

[asin] B008FIED1G[/asin]

[Baron Scarpia]

My favorite Zelenka

[asin]B000025VV2[/asin]

[Daverz]

Bach boring? I'm seldom speechless, but...

I think because of all those complete this and complete that recordings filling up boxes of 80 minute CDs, people may be forcing Bach on themselves in a way Bach never intended.