Unpopular Opinions

[cilgwyn]

Charles Stanfords music is crap!
York Bowen's music is crap!
Elisabeth Schwarzkopf was an overrated battle axe!
Cello concerto's are dreary and mawkish sounding.
The Dream of Gerontius is dreary,dated,gloomy and mawkish.
Kathleen Ferrier sounds like a trombone with a cold.
Ravel is dreary,depressing and glutinous.
Debussy is depressing and gloomy.
Wagner is pompous and boring.
Bernstein was an overrated,big headed show off.
Emi.Decca & all the other major recording labels are outdated,pointless and crap!
Downloading,Mp3's & burning are tedious and boring. Bring back cassette recording & just pressing play & record!

And I really won't get banned for this,or have GMG members hunting me down with a baseball bat?
I'm only joking,of course!!!!

[Josquin des Prez]

Yes, BUT, the reason D. Scarlatti was ahead of his time is that a substantial number of his output of keyboard sonatas are classical in style!

Almost, but not quite. Scarlatti's genius rested in his infinite wealth of invention in regards to harmony and modulation. This at times pushed his sonatas towards unorthodox directions. His late sonatas are proof that you can write harmonically daring compositions without relying on chromaticism. Sometimes context alone can suffice.

BTW, Scarlatti's father is way, way below his son in terms of genius. Just wanted to say that.

[Josquin des Prez]

I don't care for Bach, Johann Sebastian. Freakin' boring.   If it's Baroque it's Vivaldi or Biber. Just sayin'...

You are boring. And Biber is freaking irritating. That, or performers really like to take the whole scordatura thing out of proportions.

[max]

Beethoven is long-winded. Still one of my favorites, but it's pretty tough to slog through a lot of those slow movements. I mean, we get it already. Move on. And then the repeats!

...I couldn't agree more, especially on the repeats since I probably got 5 versions of most of what he wrote! But one thing's for sure...at least for me...that Beethoven like Bruckner was one of the supreme masters of the the slow movement and it's mostly these that call my attention to ATTENTION especially in the quartets!

[Josquin des Prez]

1. The Goldberg Variations are the only boring thing that Bach ever wrote.

No.

Bach wrong a few boring things, all of them in his early years. We are excluding from the equation those works which he wrote with no particular ambition in mind, which don't count anyway.

[Josquin des Prez]

I've heard people say that Bach is the only Baroque composer worth noting.

Bach, Handel, Scarlatti, Rameau and Zelenka. Just with those the Baroque has the classical period beaten to a pulp. 

[Bulldog]

Vivaldi sucks.

I don't hate many transcriptions, but I really hate the motivation behind them.

[71 dB]

Bach, Handel, Scarlatti, Rameau and Zelenka. Just with those the Baroque has the classical period beaten to a pulp.

Yes, and we haven't even mentioned such earlier masters as Buxtehude and M.-A. Charpentier!

[starrynight]

Yes, and we haven't even mentioned such earlier masters as Buxtehude and M.-A. Charpentier!

I don't think it's a competition between styles.  But really people look at the baroque as lasting 150 years and normally look at the classical period as being far shorter so it isn't a good comparison.  The influence of music from the classical period reached far into the romantic period and beyond though with forms like the symphony, quartet and the piano sonata.

[madaboutmahler]

This will be a great thread to be part of...

By the way, anyone to insult Mahler shall be hammered! 

I find quite a lot of Haydn and Mozart incredibly boring.... the same for much later composers such as Stravinsky (apart from a few works which I love dearly)...

Andris Nelsons is a wonderful, great conductor! - who cares about the appalling technique?!

I promise to be back soon with more! 

Shostakovich is grossly overrated, imitative, constricted, vulgar and even cheap.

No.

[max]

Bach, Handel, Scarlatti, Rameau and Zelenka. Just with those the Baroque has the classical period beaten to a pulp.

...so that would exclude from "their" hierarchy anyone who followed? As long as humans exist there are "Masters" who don't create for just one age or one style. What they do have in common is that their works remain contemporary regardless of any "period" they were written in. Those who follow are not in any way inferior to those who preceded and especially so in this case. Preferences are personal but assertions like these are idiotic.
 

[Brian]

Shostakovich is the most complete composer since Beethoven.
Brahms' First Symphony is blustery, overambitious, and underdistinguished.
Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra is frigid and boring.
Op 95 may be Beethoven's most perfect achievement.
Most of today's "neo-romantics" are not neo-romantic in the slightest.

[Lethevich]

No.

Get thee popular opinions out of here!

[ibanezmonster]

Ubloobideega's op.2342 I Eat My Eyeball Poopoo is the best work ever.

[Lethevich]

Most of today's "neo-romantics" are not neo-romantic in the slightest.

I too have problems with this designation, and other ones well. The neo-Romantic description is thrown at anything that is not avant-garde and it doesn't feel particularly helpful. It covers anything from populist, pretentious, light music, heavy music - just, what? -_-

Another issue I have is how musical history has made it impossible to describe the composers between Wagner and the post WW2-serialists, who wrote tonally not as a "reaction" but as a continuation of their tradition; a composer of Romantic-sounding tonal music, post WW2 would largely be a reactionary figure, composing music he prefers and swimming against the tide. But all the way up to WW2 there were composers writing like this because this remained the tradition in which they worked, and yet "Late Romanticism" had already supposedly been torn to the seams and surpassed by 1915.

But inter-war composers such as EJ Moeran or Arnold Bax didn't see themselves as railing against the current trends - they were writing in a personal language which came naturally to them and they felt was relevent, and yet there is no designation for these other than a kind of sneering "belated-tonal", as they fall beyond the musico-historical cut-off point for (already Late) Romanticism. They don't really fit into that period either, as their music - while indebted to Wagner and others (as were some progressives) - sounds considerably different to what had come before, as by now the influence of composers such as Debussy and Bartók had been absorbed.

There seems to be an entire period of music running from 1915-1945, parallel to the avant-garde, which is as difficult to describe as "Neo-Romantic" composers from later years are. Only an OCD person such as myself could have quite such a problem with this, mind

[Cato]

Prokofiev composed SIX (6) symphonies, and no more than SIX (6).   

Any claims to the contrary are just wrong!   0:)

There, I have stated my unpopular opinion!  And I'm glad, I tell you!  Glad!!!   

[DavidRoss]

inter-war composers such as EJ Moeran or Arnold Bax didn't see themselves as railing against the current trends - they were writing in a personal language which came naturally to them and they felt was relevent, and yet there is no designation for these other than a kind of sneering "belated-tonal", as they fall beyond the musico-historical cut-off point for (already Late) Romanticism. They don't really fit into that period either, as their music - while indebted to Wagner and others (as were some progressives) - sounds considerably different to what had come before, as by now the influence of composers such as Debussy and Bartók had been absorbed.

QFT

Schumann wrote a couple of good pieces but he's probably the most overrated composer in all of music history.
Schubert wrote a few more good ones, but he's nearly as overrated as Schumann.

[The Six]

There seems to be an entire period of music running from 1915-1945, parallel to the avant-garde, which is as difficult to describe as "Neo-Romantic" composers from later years are. Only an OCD person such as myself could have quite such a problem with this, mind

Basically we've run out of nice labels to describe music. Ironic because there are tons of superfluous genres and sub-genres now, with the post-this and neo-that and polystylism, and none of it sounds good. After the Romantic Era is the 20th Century, and there's no good word to describe it.

"Serious music" and "art music" are terrible alternatives to the collective "classical music."

[BobsterLobster]

Mahler bores me stupid, I'm not particularly keen on most Mozart, and I don't really like Classical symphonic music all that much. 

[mszczuj]

"Serious music" and "art music" are terrible alternatives to the collective "classical music."

Academic.

Sorry.