Five important pre-1980 composers that you easily could live without

Started by Symphonic Addict, January 08, 2022, 04:37:45 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Symphonic Addict

Ladies and gentlemen, let me tell you that your answers have given me enormous pleasure for reading them. I feel your answers sincere, and a bit "implacable" as well!  ;D :o
Part of the tragedy of the Palestinians is that they have essentially no international support for a good reason: they've no wealth, they've no power, so they've no rights.

Noam Chomsky

Crudblud

Quote from: k a rl h e nn i ng on January 09, 2022, 12:58:41 PM
(* chortle *)

I've got to include Handel in my list, because his name didn't even arise in my mind until reading your list:

With the understanding that we might in some cases drop the adverb easily, my five are:

Handel
Schubert
Mendelssohn
Wagner
Wolf

Oh, Schubert might be the one! The fifth one, that is. I guess it's telling that, much like your Handelian revelation, Schubert hadn't even occurred to me until you mentioned him.

Daverz

Quote from: k a rl h e nn i ng on January 09, 2022, 12:58:41 PM

Schubert


You're dead to me, Henning.   8)

See why threads like this are a bad idea

My list would be composers for whom I've never really engaged seriously with the bulk of their output, even if I have much of it sitting there on my music server and even if I enjoy a few of their works:

Handel: all those oratorios and operas.  I like his instrumental music well enough, but that's only a tiny bit of his output.
Verdi (I like the Requiem...)
Similarly any primarily opera composer (except for Janacek, who I adore)
Elliot Carter
Delius





Karl Henning

Quote from: Daverz on January 09, 2022, 02:40:44 PM
You're dead to me, Henning.   8)

Mind you, Schubert is one of the cases where easily is not at all a good adverb. As with you, the Handel keyboard suites mean much more to me than the oratorios; the operas are nowhere for me. Delius would be an easy drop for me, but I cannot believe he is important, either  8)
Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

Daverz

Quote from: ritter on January 09, 2022, 01:03:03 AM
Well, here goes:

Shostakovich
Chopin
Vaughan Williams
Sibelius
Dvořák


And a long list of honourable mentions: Mendelssohn, Smetana, SauguetMyaskovsky, Delius, Tchaikovsky, Grieg, etc., etc.)...

I had thought of including Havergal Brian, but one cannot really call him "important", so he doesn't qualify....  >:D

That looks more like an excellent list of favorites.  And what did poor, unassuming Sauguet do?

Symphonic Addict

Quote from: Daverz on January 09, 2022, 03:44:01 PM
That looks more like an excellent list of favorites.  And what did poor, unassuming Sauguet do?

+1 And I do support the Sauguet. Not indispensable at all, actually. His Symphony No. 1 on Naxos has qualities and failures, though!
Part of the tragedy of the Palestinians is that they have essentially no international support for a good reason: they've no wealth, they've no power, so they've no rights.

Noam Chomsky

(poco) Sforzando

Ah, Delius. Forgot about him. I always quip that he's so dull, orchestras fall asleep playing him.

Handel is an interesting case. Oftentimes he is deadly dull, but when he catches fire look out! Try the chorus "The People Shall Hear" from "Israel in Egypt" if you don't believe me. Or almost all of the opera "Orlando."
"I don't know what sforzando means, though it clearly means something."

Daverz

Quote from: (poco) Sforzando on January 09, 2022, 08:49:48 AM
I listened to some of the "big piece for piano and orchestra" based on the recommendation from a certain interesting but not always reliable critic, and I could get through only a third of it. I have only two CDs of Bax's music, and I greatly prefer my Bach in the singular rather then Bax in the plural.

It has to be the Ashley Wass recording. 



He's brilliant with in this music.  Also the Symphonic Variations.

I had the Chandos recording of Winter Legends for decades, and could never make it through that one.

amw

I have the Chandos recording. I've apparently listened to it twice, but since the last time was at 4 AM that's presumably because it was part of a playlist of music to help me get to sleep and I'm unlikely to have been awake for the experience.

(This is not necessarily a reflection on the quality of the music; that playlist also has a lot of Bach, Mozart, Brahms, Debussy et al.)

Daverz


Symphonic Addict

No one is loser here nor in other places. I intented to create this thread without offenses or dismissing composers. I've seen many composers named that have shocked me, and not for that I consider the ones I picked losers or mediocre. Just that I don't have any particular in their music, independently of greatness or not.
Part of the tragedy of the Palestinians is that they have essentially no international support for a good reason: they've no wealth, they've no power, so they've no rights.

Noam Chomsky

Daverz

Quote from: vandermolen on January 09, 2022, 11:20:36 AM
Personally I couldn't live without Bax's music  ;D

I love Bax, but would consider him a "stinky cheese" composer. 

Of the "important" British composers who supposedly ushered in the British musical renaissance, I could never muster any enthusiasm for the music of Parry or Stanford.

JBS

Schubert
Schumann
Brahms
Bruckner
Weber

So much for Austro-German music of the 19th century.

Hollywood Beach Broadwalk

JBS

Quote from: Daverz on January 09, 2022, 05:24:49 PM

Of the "important" British composers who supposedly ushered in the British musical renaissance, I could never muster any enthusiasm for the music of Parry or Stanford.

Same here, but the only British composer of the pre-Elgar era I would call important is Sullivan.

Hollywood Beach Broadwalk

Symphonic Addict

Part of the tragedy of the Palestinians is that they have essentially no international support for a good reason: they've no wealth, they've no power, so they've no rights.

Noam Chomsky

staxomega

Quote from: (: premont :) on January 09, 2022, 02:22:16 AM
Where to begin. I think most of us - depending upon our individual taste - could mention hundreds of composers who would fit your description.

The most sensible answer. I could go for days listing composers I'd never listen to.

More interesting I think is the demographics of a particular listening group, friends or discussion board and where the discourse goes. In real life too with my cohort we all sort of gravitate towards similar music; maybe some of it born out a cordial atmosphere but I like to think we know each other well enough that isn't always the case, the conversation has certainly turned to the passionate on several occasions. It generally does sway towards some kind of "melding of minds" though.

One thing I find interesting is seeing the number of pages composer threads have. With no disrespect to Stockhausen (I like reading about his music but I could do without having to hear more than 90% of it) it blows my mind that there is 72 pages on him, I would have thought that kind of activity would be reserved for far avant-garde music boards. Or that the Holmboe thread is always at the top of page, I bought the Holmboe Kontra Qt String Quartet box shortly after it was boxed up but I don't think I've ever said "I can't wait to play Holmboe's String Quartet No. 6!" Even the Schoenberg Wind Quintet which I was under working knowledge that I only had a single performance (unusual for me if I like a piece) I've quite often felt in the mood to actively seek out.

So the message board as a whole is quite tilted towards British music. If someone were to break into my house and steal all my British music, I wouldn't bat an eyelash as long as they left the RVW (264 pages on him though, more than doubling Beethoven!). But if they were to nab my 20+ years of carefully collected Chopin Nocturnes I'd be pretty depressed.

vers la flamme

Quote from: (poco) Sforzando on January 09, 2022, 08:05:56 AM
While some of the names I see here sadden me (honestly, Chopin - Wagner - Schoenberg - Berg - Webern - Bruckner, every one of whom I love unreservedly?), I could easily live without Havergal Brian and Arnold Bax. Problem is, neither of these losers is in any way important, especially Arnold Bax who is easily the worst of the two. When I wrote to a friend saying, "Is Arnold Bax the worst composer ever to have lived? I loathe every measure of his I've ever heard," my friend wrote back, "I have tried, given up on, tried again, and given up for good, anything by Bax. It is, at best, mediocre film music." Which I think does a disservice to good film music. But I lie, Nikolai Kapustin is almost as bad, but again, not in the least important.

My problem is that if the composer is important, I can't live without them. Well, maybe Richard Strauss, a little of whom goes a long way. There are any number of Strauss works I could cheerfully live without, such as almost all of Capriccio except the opening string sextet and final aria. And both Stockhausen and Boulez are extremely uneven, neither having maintained in their older years the brilliant achievements of their youth.

Ouch. That one hurt  :(

kyjo

Quote from: ritter on January 09, 2022, 01:03:03 AM

Vaughan Williams
Sibelius
Dvořák


Ouch!!! :D

At the moment, I don't really feel compelled to make a list. It's more fun (and sometimes slightly infuriating ;)) to read other members'!
"Music is enough for a lifetime, but a lifetime is not enough for music" - Sergei Rachmaninoff

kyjo

Quote from: (poco) Sforzando on January 09, 2022, 08:05:56 AM
I could easily live without Havergal Brian and Arnold Bax. Problem is, neither of these losers is in any way important, especially Arnold Bax who is easily the worst of the two. When I wrote to a friend saying, "Is Arnold Bax the worst composer ever to have lived? I loathe every measure of his I've ever heard," my friend wrote back, "I have tried, given up on, tried again, and given up for good, anything by Bax. It is, at best, mediocre film music." Which I think does a disservice to good film music.

Sheesh, man, what did Bax ever do to you?
"Music is enough for a lifetime, but a lifetime is not enough for music" - Sergei Rachmaninoff

Madiel

Ha. Some of the claimed 'important' composers... not so much.

I'll fairly confidently go with

Stockhausen
Glass
Liszt

Beyond that... there's probably a couple of opera-centred composers that I wouldn't really miss. Wagner? I dunno. I don't feel that I necessarily know Wagner well enough to be certain that he does nothing for me. I seem to have got through life with not much Tchaikovsky for such a high-profile composer, and yet I do kind of want to try out a lot more Tchaikovsky beyond the ballets, and the ballets have some darn catchy tunes.

I don't have much time for Satie, so he might be a better one to thrown on the bonfire. Or John Cage just so that we don't have to ever hear about 4'33'' again.
I am now working on a discography of the works of Vagn Holmboe. Please visit and also contribute!