Compositions you initially misjudged?

[relm1]

He said "both are favourites now"

True, just can't imagine ever hating those, they are just so priceless.  I once hated Mahler 2.  Too noisy and dissonant for me and nothing like the picture on the cover.


This image made me as a twelve year old think it would be like Star Wars or spacey music.  About two years later I gave it another try and after sitting through it was moved by the great ending, then I became obsessed with it as if a veil had been removed from my eyes and its been a deep love of mine ever since.  It was actually the first work I heard live performed by a professional orchestra when I was 16, a life changing experience.

[Karl Henning]

Goofy cover art, really.

[vandermolen]

True, just can't imagine ever hating those, they are just so priceless.  I once hated Mahler 2.  Too noisy and dissonant for me and nothing like the picture on the cover.


This image made me as a twelve year old think it would be like Star Wars or spacey music.  About two years later I gave it another try and after sitting through it was moved by the great ending, then I became obsessed with it as if a veil had been removed from my eyes and its been a deep love of mine ever since.  It was actually the first work I heard live performed by a professional orchestra when I was 16, a life changing experience.

I don't think that I ever said that I 'hated' either of them - just didn't appreciate them as I do now.

[DaveF]

Viz. Howells, I was lucky – my first experience was in an Evensong at the Cathedral, I forget just which set of Canticles we sang (how many sets did he compose, in all?)

Depending on how you count (some Morning and Evening services for the same establishments were written separately, for example), 30 or 40 (so says his entry in Grove), including one for Hereford, which is only 20 miles from me.  Must investigate.

[André]

True, just can't imagine ever hating those, they are just so priceless.  I once hated Mahler 2.  Too noisy and dissonant for me and nothing like the picture on the cover.


This image made me as a twelve year old think it would be like Star Wars or spacey music.  About two years later I gave it another try and after sitting through it was moved by the great ending, then I became obsessed with it as if a veil had been removed from my eyes and its been a deep love of mine ever since.  It was actually the first work I heard live performed by a professional orchestra when I was 16, a life changing experience.

In my late teens a friend lent me that set of the Walter Resurrection. A year later ( ) I was still unable to listen to more than 10 minutes of it. I gave it back to him (he was patient). It took me a few years to appreciate the symphony - and yet, I loved nos 3-5, 7 that I had discovered around the same time.

[Monsieur Croche]

I used to enjoy some minimalist 'process music' but now there are quite a few pieces where the pure process is interesting enough but barely anything more is done in the music to keep my interest beyond one or two listens.

I've had exactly the same experience with almost all minimalist rep I've heard.  Doesn't hold me, or hold up, after more than a few listens.  John Adams has avoided that by being less and less 'purely' minimalist; Steve Reich hasn't.  I have yet to be able to make it through to the end of any Philip Glass work I've listened to.

[Ken B]

Well, on the got better side the best example for me is a composer, Purcell. I avoided Purcell for thirty years, put off by a weak recording of Dido & Aeneas. Then 10 years ago I discovered him. He is a great composer.

As for one piece — The Saint Matthew Passion. I had the execrable Klemperer travesty, and while it has some fine moments it has dreadful quarter hours, to recycle Hanslick's quip. It was years before I rediscovered it.

I was also put off Messiah for decades, by the bloated, loose Huddersfield Choral Society, high vibrato soloist kind of performance, and excerpts in shopping malls at Christmas.

[Karl Henning]

Well, on the got better side the best example for me is a composer, Purcell. I avoided Purcell for thirty years, put off by a weak recording of Dido & Aeneas. Then 10 years ago I discovered him. He is a great composer.

As for one piece — The Saint Matthew Passion. I had the execrable Klemperer travesty, and while it has some fine moments it has dreadful quarter hours, to recycle Hanslick's quip. It was years before I rediscovered it.

I was also put off Messiah for decades, by the bloated, loose Huddersfield Choral Society, high vibrato soloist kind of performance, and excerpts in shopping malls at Christmas.

For a moment there, I thought you might post:  Mennin's Eighth . . . .

[kyjo]

For starters, many works by Brahms and R. Strauss. My first exposure to Brahms' chamber music was through a 6-disc DG set centered around the Amadeus Quartet joined by various other artists. I found much of the music quite boring and stolid. It wasn't until I attended a summer chamber music festival and heard my colleagues play various Brahms chamber works that I realized the greatness of them. Hearing the slow movement of the Piano Quartet no. 3 was the real turning point for me. Now, I have a deep love and appreciation for most of Brahms' chamber music. As for R. Strauss, I used to find a good deal of his music turgid and shallow. Although I still think his music has a hint of egotistical bombast at times, I've grown to appreciate works that once did very little for me, such as Ein Heldeleben and Don Quixote, especially through performing (NOT the solo part!) the latter. Also, two works which I used to think little of but grew to love through learning and performing them recently - Beethoven's Cello Sonata no. 4 and Shostakovich's Cello Sonata.

[Alek Hidell]

For starters, many works by Brahms and R. Strauss. My first exposure to Brahms' chamber music was through a 6-disc DG set centered around the Amadeus Quartet joined by various other artists. I found much of the music quite boring and stolid. It wasn't until I attended a summer chamber music festival and heard my colleagues play various Brahms chamber works that I realized the greatness of them. Hearing the slow movement of the Piano Quartet no. 3 was the real turning point for me. Now, I have a deep love and appreciation for most of Brahms' chamber music. As for R. Strauss, I used to find a good deal of his music turgid and shallow. Although I still think his music has a hint of egotistical bombast at times, I've grown to appreciate works that once did very little for me, such as Ein Heldeleben and Don Quixote, especially through performing (NOT the solo part!) the latter. Also, two works which I used to think little of but grew to love through learning and performing them recently - Beethoven's Cello Sonata no. 4 and Shostakovich's Cello Sonata.

Brahms surprised me by being less accessible than I was expecting. I mean initially, of course; his works are growing on me more and more and I even suspect he may end up being one of my faves. I just thought that, as one of "the three B's," one of the most famous names, etc., he'd be easy to get into (I've had no trouble with the other two B's). For me, at least, he wasn't. Early on in my classical music exploration (which was really only about five or six years ago) I read somewhere that Brahms' music is "brainy," which might have been a tipoff ... but, anyway, I'm glad to be coming round to an appreciation of ol' Johannes.

As for Herr Strauss - well, he's yet to grow on me. I'll keep trying.

[kyjo]

Brahms surprised me by being less accessible than I was expecting. I mean initially, of course; his works are growing on me more and more and I even suspect he may end up being one of my faves. I just thought that, as one of "the three B's," one of the most famous names, etc., he'd be easy to get into (I've had no trouble with the other two B's). For me, at least, he wasn't. Early on in my classical music exploration (which was really only about five or six years ago) I read somewhere that Brahms' music is "brainy," which might have been a tipoff ... but, anyway, I'm glad to be coming round to an appreciation of ol' Johannes.

As for Herr Strauss - well, he's yet to grow on me. I'll keep trying.

Often times, it comes down to the performance. Some (but not many) choose to interpret Brahms as too much of a "brainy" composer - a misjudgment in my view. Fortunately, there is no lack of conductors and performers out there who choose to bring out the humane, passionate side of Brahms' music that is so compelling, especially when their performance is informed with at least some knowledge of the "brainy" stuff going on behind the scenes in the music.

[Ken B]

Richard Strauss is one of the prime examples of a composer who has ungrown on me. I used to love Strauss, even that awful Alpensinfonie. Now most of his orchestral music seems bloated, histrionic, and boring.
I still do love his later stuff, and his songs.

I recall not liking Brahms third when I first heard it, the first Brahms I heard, but when I heard PC 2 I was hooked on Brahms right away.

[amw]

I go back and forth on my personal interest in Brahms. At the moment it's basically just the two string sextets for me, and possibly the Schumann Variations (Op.9 not 23), but at other times I love basically everything he wrote except for maybe the Piano Quintet.

I disliked Richard Strauss on first exposure, then at some point went through his symphonic poems systematically, and still dislike Richard Strauss. I'll come back to him probably in another few years & see if my opinion has changed. (The Violin Sonata is, however, a masterpiece.)

[San Antone]

Morton Feldman - everything. 

At one time I thought of him as one of my favorite composers.  But somewhere in my brain a switch clicked off and now I never listen.

OTOH, Brahms is possibly my #1 favorite.  The chamber works; love 'em.

[Karl Henning]

Morton Feldman - everything. 

At one time I thought of him as one of my favorite composers.  But somewhere in my brain a switch clicked off and now I never listen.

Interesting!

[Mahlerian]

On the topic of positive reassessments, I remember finding Ravel's Daphnis et Chloe overbearingly sweet at first, but now I find its indulgent sensuality quite fine indeed, and naturally better in the full version than either of the suites.

[Ken B]

On the topic of positive reassessments, I remember finding Ravel's Daphnis et Chloe overbearingly sweet at first, but now I find its indulgent sensuality quite fine indeed, and naturally better in the full version than either of the suites.

For me in general: showy orchestral extravaganzas. I like most of them much less than I used to. Examples: Strauss tone poems, Pictures at an Exhibition, Planets. There are exceptions, I still love Scheherazade.

[Mahlerian]

For me in general: showy orchestral extravaganzas. I like most of them much less than I used to. Examples: Strauss tone poems, Pictures at an Exhibition, Planets. There are exceptions, I still love Scheherazade.

That's fine and all, but it's really not a response to what I just wrote, because you're discussing the exact opposite.  Personally, I was hoping to turn the discussion away from negativity.

[kyjo]

A very random example: the Delius Piano Concerto. First time around, it put me to sleep. Second time around, I was wondering WTH I was thinking before. It's gorgeous!

[André]

I suspect Delius is a composer whose works are routinely misjudged at first hearing. That was my case anyway, but I persisted !