Which of these composers do you struggle with the most and why?

[Karl Henning]

Re Britten; He writes in so many styles that I cannot imagine there not being something somewhere for most. His string quartets for example. And I love his Paul Bunyan operetta.

Aye, Paul Bunyan is cracking good fun.

[Karl Henning]

I puzzle that my fellow music-lovers struggle with Игорь Фëдорович;  but of course, if it just doesn't grab you, it just doesn't grab you.

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

[kishnevi]

Aye, Paul Bunyan is cracking good fun.

But it contains one piece which is not meant to be fun, but is some of the best music written in the 20th century, the Quartet of the Dispossessed.

[Karl Henning]

But it contains one piece which is not meant to be fun, but is some of the best music written in the 20th century, the Quartet of the Dispossessed.

Yes, time I revisited it, thanks!

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

Stravinsky.
Beyond the big three early ballets (Firebird, Rite, Petrushka) there is very little of his music that I feel any connection to,  meaning anything that makes me feel I need to hear it again.

Stravinsky is one those composers I can admit is great without feeling the need to listen to him often. I overdosed on the Big 3 ballets years ago, and rarely want to go back to them. His stuff from the 30s-40s is good, but IMHO is surpassed by other composers working in similar style (Martinu, Hindemith). The late stuff, when he was playing around with serialism, is also interesting, but not as compelling as the works produced by the original 2nd Viennese School guys.

[Jo498]

Bartok...the Quartets and Bluebeard. Why? I really don't know.

This is interesting. The quartets are certainly among the tougher pieces but I bet "Bluebeard" is listened to by many who don't listen to much else by Bartok.

[Jo498]

Mahler.  But I have not given up the ship.

Did you (and Mirror Image) try the orchestral songs?
While I liked most of the 1st, 2nd, 4th and 5th symphonies almost immediately, for quite a while my favorite Mahler pieces as a beginner were the orchestral song cycles (except for the Rückert-Lieder that contain my absolute favorite "Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen" but I don't much care for the rest), especially the "Wunderhorn"-Lieder.

[vandermolen]

R Strauss:
I think that Tchaikovsky said that he had never seen such lack of talent coupled with such pretentiousness. I know that many admire his music. I find it an inflated bore and much prefer the music of composers allegedly influenced by R.Strauss, such as Novak, for example.

[vandermolen]

I'm right there with you, Jeffrey. I seldom listen to Stravinsky these days and I can barely even bring myself to listen to the Rite or Petrouchka. Last time I listened to Petrouchka, I actually turned it off out of frustration!

I very much agree with this too and not just because I'm also named Jeffrey.

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

Rachmaninov was a composer I avoided for years (for whatever reason) and have only come to fully appreciate this year. He's one of my favorites now. I used to think his music was the syrupy, sugary sweet Romantic musings of a sentimentalist, but, now, that couldn't be any further from the truth. There's a reason why his music sounds the way it does. As my buddy Karlo (North Star) said before, "He's the most nostalgic composer I know." The feeling of longing, yearning for something lost are strong elements in his music. For me, the music is so undeniably anguished at times that I can barely listen to it as I feel all kinds of emotional pain. When I really heard the melodies that permeate the slower music in his masterful Symphony No. 2 in E minor, for example, I just melted in my chair. Such sorrow and heartfelt beauty.

As for my list, it really was random and didn't require much thinking on my part. With the exception of Mahler, these are some of my favorite composers and most of them are the greatest of the early 20th Century and since the early 20th C is my favorite period of music, why not make a list?

I have still found it more pleasurable, perhaps a bit easier, to pick out the contrapuntal melodies in Schoenberg than Rachmaninov...I'm still coming around!

[Mirror Image]

Did you (and Mirror Image) try the orchestral songs?
While I liked most of the 1st, 2nd, 4th and 5th symphonies almost immediately, for quite a while my favorite Mahler pieces as a beginner were the orchestral song cycles (except for the Rückert-Lieder that contain my absolute favorite "Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen" but I don't much care for the rest), especially the "Wunderhorn"-Lieder.

Oh yes, I do like Mahler's orchestral songs and, like I mentioned, I'm still coming around to this symphonies. I love the 4th, 5th, and 7th, but I really need to spend more time with the rest.

[Mirror Image]

R Strauss:
I think that Tchaikovsky said that he had never seen such lack of talent coupled with such pretentiousness. I know that many admire his music. I find it an inflated bore and much prefer the music of composers allegedly influenced by R.Strauss, such as Novak, for example.

I used to share this opinion as well until I was able to look past all the criticisms and find the real Strauss who often is hiding behind a huge orchestral flourish.

[Mirror Image]

I very much agree with this too and not just because I'm also named Jeffrey.

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

Oh yes, I do like Mahler's orchestral songs and, like I mentioned, I'm still coming around to this symphonies. I love the 4th, 5th, and 7th, but I really need to spend more time with the rest.

Respect!

That one is my favourite

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

3 people voted for Ives...I wonder who and why?

[The new erato]

Ives. His music is often all over the place to me and the diverse elementes don't always jell. The rest of the list is almost all plain sailing and favorites to me, including Bartok, Stravinsky etc. No problem with Mahler either, except that his symphonies are uncomfortably bigscale and long for home listening.

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

Oh thank you, new erato, sorry I missed your post before! I admit I only flipped through this thread without reading every post in full detail...

[Jo498]

R Strauss:
I think that Tchaikovsky said that he had never seen such lack of talent coupled with such pretentiousness. I know that many admire his music. I find it an inflated bore and much prefer the music of composers allegedly influenced by R.Strauss, such as Novak, for example.

I wonder if Tchaikovsky said that. As I recall it, Stravinsky said about Strauss "the talent that once was a genius".
Because while I am not a big Strauss fan, what he wrote during Tchaikovsky's lifetime shows an immensely gifted composer who could emulate "mainstream German classicist romanticism" very convincingly in his teens and wrote a brilliant piece like Don Juan in his early/mid 20s. Hardly anyone seems to doubt his "technical" abilities. The general disappointment seems to be rather with his trajectory after Elektra...

I cannot say that I "struggle" with his music. I don't do much opera (I have seen Rosenkavalier on stage and am somewhat familiar with Salome and Elektra but do not know any of them well). I love Don Juan, Till Eulenspiegel, 4 last and a few more songs,  kind of like a few others of the tone poems (also Burleske and the violin sonata) and don't care about the rest, rather disliking (in my ears overblown) stuff like "Heldenleben".

[71 dB]

I don't have much time to struggle much with composers. I concentrate on music I do like.

Barber, Britten, Copland, Ives, Mahler and Sibelius of these are in the caterory "I rather listen to Katy Perry's bubblecum pop than struggle with this)."

Sibelius of these is the one I have struggled the most because I am a Finn. The rest I can ignore much more easily.

[ptr]

I generally don't have a problem/struggle with any of the composers in this selection. This said, depending on interpretation, I sometimes find Bruckner quite going nowhere in the same way I have little patience with Glass or Pärt's music (both bores me to death).

/ptr