Works for which you're not yet ready?

[Grazioso]

As a matter of fact, this is the VERY disc that made me realize that most of 20th Century classical is awful.   "Composers" shove this garbage upon us, devoid of any sort of thought, melodic/harmonic content...a complete disregard for the listener...and a few academics lap it up as gospel. Meanwhile the real composers of old are turning in their graves as this schlock that passes for "art music" gets its

Point taken, but your generalization about 20th-century classical is way wide of the mark. There's actually huge stylistic diversity, including, all through the century, loads of tonal works in a (quasi) Romantic idiom that's readily accessible. What's garbage about Mahler, Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Rachmaninov, Nielsen, Suk, Korngold, Ravel, Sibelius, Bax, Holst, Vaughan Williams, Diamond, Copland, or Bernstein, to throw out just a few big names?

What I'm not ready for: maybe Norgard, who's revered by some here. So far, I find his third symphony pretty yet ultimately pretty dull, rather like a collection of sound effects with delusions of grandeur. The sixth is an ugly bore, butTerrains Vagues has an interesting rhythmic drive.

[Brian]

Point taken, but your generalization about 20th-century classical is way wide of the mark. There's actually huge stylistic diversity, including, all through the century, loads of tonal works in a (quasi) Romantic idiom that's readily accessible.

As for me, I haven't felt the need to dive into the sort of atonal/serial/avant-garde music you hint at, so maybe I'm not ready for that.

I couldn't agree with you more. I am quite happy with the ballets of Khachaturian and the music of Gershwin, Shostakovich and Villa Lobos.  (Odd that I should enjoy Shosty so much more than Prokofiev. Another composer I may not be ready for.)

[c#minor]

My favourite performance (Abendroth) of that scherzo has the main theme played 50% faster than most performances It's like galloping horses - a wonder to behold It has perverted me into finding every other scherzo I ever hear sound far too slow

Bruckner that fast. I honestly don't think i could handle it. His works are already so HUGE in size sound, how it's written and...... well really everything about them, it's almost intimidating. To me listening to Bruckner is like listening to a giant (if that makes any sense.)

[Dancing Divertimentian]

As a matter of fact, this is the VERY disc that made me realize that most of 20th Century classical is awful.   "Composers" shove this garbage upon us, devoid of any sort of thought, melodic/harmonic content...a complete disregard for the listener...and a few academics lap it up as gospel. Meanwhile the real composers of old are turning in their graves as this schlock that passes for "art music" gets its turn.

Is it any wonder concert halls sit empty? Is it any wonder classical CD sales sink further and further into the abyss? It's because for decades crap like this has been forced upon an unsuspecting public who desire nothing more than a decent melody.

Long live Webern.

(From a resident non-academic).

[Larry Rinkel]

It's not you, these pieces are awful.  

As a matter of fact, this is the VERY disc that made me realize that most of 20th Century classical is awful.   "Composers" shove this garbage upon us, devoid of any sort of thought, melodic/harmonic content...a complete disregard for the listener...and a few academics lap it up as gospel. Meanwhile the real composers of old are turning in their graves as this schlock that passes for "art music" gets its turn.

Is it any wonder concert halls sit empty? Is it any wonder classical CD sales sink further and further into the abyss? It's because for decades crap like this has been forced upon an unsuspecting public who desire nothing more than a decent melody.

Apologies for the threadjack...that CD really touches a nerve with me.

Maybe these are works for which you're not yet ready . . . .

[Grazioso]

Composers I still have trouble with and find really boring:

- Bax
- Sibelius
- Tchaikovsky (except the ballets)

May I suggest trying works of theirs in different genres? You can hear a different side of a composer that way. Perhaps you've heard Bax's orchestral music, so maybe try his string quartets. Or Sibelius's choral works instead of the symphonies.

And of course, just listen a lot. Other than the immediately lovable Tintagel, I had trouble with Bax at first, but the beauty and subtlety of his music can reveal themselves with time.

[hornteacher]

Okay gang, you've all convinced me.  I'm shopping for a Bruckner 9th tonight.

[Renfield]

My favourite performance (Abendroth) of that scherzo has the main theme played 50% faster than most performances It's like galloping horses - a wonder to behold It has perverted me into finding every other scherzo I ever hear sound far too slow

Have you heard a Furtwängler/BPO one currently issued (at least) as part of the DG "Anniversary Tribute" set? I haven't heard Abendroth's, but that is certainly the fastest Scherzo I've heard.

"Weirdest" thing is, it's also one of the most poignant, down to the "ticking clock" impression (for me).

[Lethevich]

Bruckner that fast. I honestly don't think i could handle it. His works are already so HUGE in size sound, how it's written and...... well really everything about them, it's almost intimidating. To me listening to Bruckner is like listening to a giant (if that makes any sense.)

I definitely get the "standing in awe" feeling with Bruckner too, but generally I find that faster performances give the works a much-needed energy or propulsion. Revelling in the sound of the orchestra can be fun with particularly slow performances, but my personal perference is reflected in that however far removed, this is music which is both structurally traditional, and inspired by Beethoven and Schubert. The speeds Beethoven expected his symphonies to be played at could obviously not be possible with Bruckner, but that definitely doesn't mean that it has to be as... "measured" as it often is when performed nowadays. While relatively fast (to use a stereotype) Bruckner conductors such as Jochum can sound a little frentic at first, he brings out the power of the pieces brilliantly, with the climaxes becoming almost concentrated attacks opposed to the tectonic-style movements with conductors at speeds on the slower end of the spectrum.

I suppose a good example would be the end of the 8th symphony - with Celibidache, it sounds absolutely titanic, with Jochum (in his two full cycles, at least) it sounds almost out of control, making the final three notes quite an amazing experience I often feel that many slow performances of the symphonies have an almost total lack of rough edges, as if Bruckner is "above" everyone else (perhaps reinforced by his strong religiousness). Some of those performances just aren't enjoyable to me as a result. I didn't explain that very well - but there is a big appeal in Bruckner for the speed freaks, as much as the slower ones More than most composers, though, Bruckner does have a very large amount of room for different intepretations.

Have you heard a Furtwängler/BPO one currently issued (at least) as part of the DG "Anniversary Tribute" set? I haven't heard Abendroth's, but that is certainly the fastest Scherzo I've heard.

Your post prompted me to relisten to it - I had forgotten just how fast the Furtwängler was. If the Abendroth is faster (it possibly is), it's not by much at all - the Furtwängler sounds more in touch with standard practice (cavernous booms from the timpani), wheras the kind of boxy/dry sound of the Abendroth gives it a strange flat sound, much less "monumental" than Furtwängler, it borders on dance-like to my ears, with that lack of grimness to the sound. The Furtwängler 9th is a brilliant performance too, I should listen to it fully later.

[Renfield]

The Furtwängler 9th is a brilliant performance too, I should listen to it fully later.

It certainly is. In fact, it's the performance that made me listen to Bruckner's 9th, if you know what I mean.

But I seem to be doing a fair amount of thread-jacking: my apologies to the OP.

Edit: Oh, the OP is Mark! I'd forgotten. (And was strangely bored to check.) Though, statistically speaking, that was quite likely to be the case.

[Bonehelm]

I don't get Brahm's 4th. I know, I know. And just like many of us here, I'm almost completely lost with Mahler's "cantata" 8th. It has a lot of grand moments, but I just can't connect the usual expo-develope-recap form together!

[Renfield]

I don't get Brahm's 4th. I know, I know. And just like many of us here, I'm almost completely lost with Mahler's "cantata" 8th. It has a lot of grand moments, but I just can't connect the usual expo-develope-recap form together!

Did you try approaching both (and most especially the latter) semantically, as well? It might do the trick.

[Brian]

I don't get Brahm's 4th. I know, I know.

Really? That's good! I wish I could go back to a time when I didn't get Brahms' 4. There was such a time. For a while I detested the piece. Actively hated it. What eventually cured me - slowly - was turning out the lights, putting Carlos Kleiber's (immortal) rendition on my sound-canceling headphones, closing my eyes, and cranking up the volume. After a few listens this way it became the most emotionally powerful experience I know of.

It is, by the way, very, very easy to mess up a performance of that symphony. As I said in my review of Marin Alsop's recording, even thirty seconds is enough to make the whole symphony dead to my ears (in Alsop's performance the unfortunate half-minute comes right before the final coda).

[12tone.]

As I said in my review of Marin Alsop's recording, even thirty seconds is enough to make the whole symphony dead to my ears (in Alsop's performance the unfortunate half-minute comes right before the final coda).

You mean Alsop's new one on Naxos?  It's that bad, eh?

Plus, explain this 'thirty seconds' thing 

EDIT: Please 

[jochanaan]

I don't get Brahm's 4th. I know, I know. And just like many of us here, I'm almost completely lost with Mahler's "cantata" 8th. It has a lot of grand moments, but I just can't connect the usual expo-develope-recap form together!

Brahms' Fourth:  Which recording do you have?  I don't like a lot of the recent ones: too slow and heavy.  But try one of these: Wolfgang Sawallisch/Vienna Symphony (60s or 70s, pretty good sound and utterly magnificent playing); Mackerras/Scottish Chamber Orchestra (lively and flexible); Carlos Kleiber/Vienna Philharmonic (big and Romantic but never ponderous).  There's a classic Fritz Reiner recording too, which I've never heard, but I love Reiner, especially in Brahms; there's also a surprisingly good recording by Leopold Stokowski.  (Reiner's Double Concerto with Milstein, Piatigorsky and the Robin Hood Dell Orch. of Philadelphia is the best performance of that work I've ever heard.)

Mahler's Eighth: The first movement is in a rather expanded sonata form, with the second theme starting at the words Imple superna gratia, the development beginning more or less at Infirma nostri corporis, and the recapitulation (of course) at the return of Veni, creator spiritus with the huge cymbal crash.  (Mahler's score says "à3" in the cymbal part there, probably calling for three PAIRS of cymbals! )  The final movement is a quasi-operatic scene that has little resemblance to any traditional form, but all its thematic material is lifted or varied from the first movement.  I particularly love how many of the main musical ideas grow directly from the first line of the choral parts.  For example, the motive on Accende lumen sensibus is a variant of the original three-note theme (Eb, Bb, Ab).  I hope this information helps!

Bonehelm: Marin Alsop must have been off her form for that Brahms 4.  I've never yet heard a performance by her that's less than interesting and fun, and I can still remember the flawless live Mahler Seventh I caught when she was in Denver leading the Colorado Symphony.

[Bonehelm]

Thanks for all your replies, Renfield, brianrein and jochanaan. I'll check out that Kleiber 4th. As for the M8, I have Chailly, Bernstein, Tennstedt, Abbado, Solti, Bertini and Kubelik. What do you guys think is a good recording for starters?

[gmstudio]

Point taken, but your generalization about 20th-century classical is way wide of the mark. There's actually huge stylistic diversity, including, all through the century, loads of tonal works in a (quasi) Romantic idiom that's readily accessible. What's garbage about Mahler, Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Rachmaninov, Nielsen, Suk, Korngold, Ravel, Sibelius, Bax, Holst, Vaughan Williams, Diamond, Copland, or Bernstein, to throw out just a few big names?

Perhaps I painted with a bit of a broad brush.     I should have clarified with a "post 1940's" or something as such...I'm talking mainly about the serial/atonal/academic pieces foisted upon us by the 50's, 60's, 70's...that's the stuff that I still maintain "killed" our audiences.  The stuff from which Mr. Maxwell Davies evolved.

I'm a huge Mahler, Sibelius, Bax, RVW, etc fan.  In my other posts you'll find me extolling the virtues of Atterberg, Rangstrom, Tubin, Melartin, Borresen, etc.

[lukeottevanger]

It's not you, these pieces are awful.   

As a matter of fact, this is the VERY disc that made me realize that most of 20th Century classical is awful.   "Composers" shove this garbage upon us, devoid of any sort of thought, melodic/harmonic content...a complete disregard for the listener...and a few academics lap it up as gospel.

If you really think these pieces lack thought or melodic/harmonic content, then I'd suggest you haven't listened carefully enough; this is music with bucketloads of all that and more, with integrity, imagination and conviction. I will readily admit that these are quite tough nuts, the PMD Naxos Quartets, and I've seen quite a few posts from contemporary music lovers in the past which have also admitted to finding them hard;I'll even admit that I wasn't that pulled in by this disc on first listen. But repeated listening proved them to be rewarding and powerful works which give more and more.

[Mark]

If you really think these pieces lack thought or melodic/harmonic content, then I'd suggest you haven't listened carefully enough; this is music with bucketloads of all that and more, with integrity, imagination and conviction. I will readily admit that these are quite tough nuts, the PMD Naxos Quartets, and I've seen quite a few posts from contemporary music lovers in the past which have also admitted to finding them hard;I'll even admit that I wasn't that pulled in by this disc on first listen. But repeated listening proved them to be rewarding and powerful works which give more and more.

Luke, would you say you preferred the Second Quartet to the First? The First's opening movement seemed to me to be particularly tough going.

[lukeottevanger]

Luke, would you say you preferred the Second Quartet to the First? The First's opening movement seemed to me to be particularly tough going.

Not really, I think I found both works equally tough - or equally easy! Truth be told, though, I actually the next one, no 3, more than either of these two. It's really quite a brave and striking piece, I think.