Great composers whom you like a few works of, but who usually bore you.

[The new erato]

Yes, it is amazing how things change.  When I first listened to classical music, I wanted nothing to do with Brahms, Mozart and Tchaikovsky, and I absolutely detested 'The Nutcracker'.

All of those have changed big time! 

With advancing age, the nuts usually crack.

[springrite]

With advancing age, the nuts usually crack.

Or, to put in another way, the nut gets nuttier.

[amw]

Shostakovich - I like the First Cello Concerto, Second Piano Trio, Third Quartet, Fourteenth Symphony, some of the early piano music (notably Aphorisms) and some of the light music (notably the Suites for Variety Orchestra). I find most of the rest of his music dull as dishwater and about as grey although, with repeated listening, there are a few individual movements and pieces I occasionally enjoy returning to.

Richard Strauss - I like, perhaps oddly, the Violin Sonata—a piece that's hardly ever remarked on, though it shows up on recital programmes often enough. Some of the other early chamber music is also rather pleasant. Most of his music, however (including Metamorphosen and Four Last Songs) just doesn't appeal. Hard to say exactly why. I've never really gotten on with a lot of the German/Austrian late-romantics actually (Mahler, Zemlinsky, Schreker, early Schoenberg and Berg, etc... made an effort to like Reger, but failed; I guess overwrought chromaticism and development only appeals to me in Russian)

Boulez - Ok, so I'm sure lots of anti-modernists out there question the idea of Boulez being a "great" composer in the first place. He's certainly been influential, though, and for the life of me I'm not sure why. Some of the earlier music, again, can be kind of fun when one's in the mood for total serialism (Structures, Sonata No. 2), but a great deal of his music just feels turgid and dogmatic and his tendency to make each revision less striking than the previous one also contributes to that.

Rakhmaninov - Until I was about 17 I had very little tolerance for the Late Romantics, but around that time Brahms and Dvořák broke through my self-imposed barriers and since then the net's been spread much wider. Rakhmaninov and Strauss are now practically alone in the never-listen-to category with the unholy trinity (Wagner, Bruckner, Mahler—who don't really qualify for this thread because there aren't (yet) any works of theirs I like). Lately I've been finding some of Rakhmaninov's solo piano music downright appealing, so perhaps someday soon the piano concertos and The Bells and so forth will become more interesting to me as well.

Stockhausen - Not as extreme a case as some of the above, but a lot of his early epoch-making pieces (Gesang der Jünglinge, Hymnen, Stimmen etc) do very little for me, as do most of the later bits of Klang. Of course, I also like pieces that even the pants-on-head Stockhausen fanatics aren't crazy about, like Mikrophonie I, so perhaps that's more a thing for the "Unpopular Opinions" thread.

[DavidW]

haydn - i like his piano sonatas, quartets, and concertos, but dont bother me with all those symphonies! [i have to admit ive never heard his vocal music so idk about that]

Since when are dozens of works "a few"?  I would not say that you're usually bored by Haydn if you like listening to his great works and don't care for the ones that he wrote as pure entertainment.

[DavidW]

Wagner for me.  I like Lohengrin and highlights from his other operas and that's about it for me.

[vandermolen]

Stravinsky. Like The Rite, Firebird, Symphony of Psalms.

[mahler10th]

I am sorry to say...Roussell.   

[listener]

MESSIAEN, although I can succumb to the sonic glories of Turangalila and the Trois petites liturgies... (with what seems to be repeated quotes of My Little Grey Home in the West)

[Mirror Image]

Faure is a composer that bores me to no end. I do like the Requiem, the Piano Quartets, Piano Quintets, and Piano Trio but that's about it.

[Madiel]

Liszt is the easy choice for me.

[Daverz]

Faure is a composer that bores me to no end. I do like the Requiem, the Piano Quartets, Piano Quintets, and Piano Trio but that's about it.

Well, that's pretty much the prime part of his ouvre.  But not the violin or cello sonatas?

[71 dB]

Well, that's pretty much the prime part of Fauré's ouvre.  But not the violin or cello sonatas?

Or his fine solo piano music?

Fauré is among my favorite composers. The only reason I can think his music was boring is because it's overplayed (Pavane, Op. 50).

[The new erato]

Or his fine solo piano music?

Fauré is among my favorite composers. The only reason I can think his music was boring is because it's overplayed (Pavane, Op. 50).

Mine too. And since nobody mentions his exquisite and sublime songs; I will.

[DavidW]

Faure is a composer that bores me to no end. I do like the Requiem, the Piano Quartets, Piano Quintets, and Piano Trio but that's about it.

What pieces bore you?  I ask that because you like his great chamber works, and you usually don't listen to chamber music.

[Mirror Image]

What pieces bore you?  I ask that because you like his great chamber works, and you usually don't listen to chamber music.

I should have wrote that his orchestral music is what I don't like in his oeuvre and his chamber music is where it's at for me.

[AnthonyAthletic]

Liszt is the easy choice for me.

I get bored with Liszt's piano works mostly but never bored with his orchestral music.  Love his concertos and his 13 tone poems are masterful orchestral scenes.  Power and beauty.  Liszt is Marmite.

[Sergeant Rock]

I should have wrote that his orchestral music is what I don't like in his oeuvre and his chamber music

How anyone could dislike Fauré's Pelléas et Mélisande is beyond my comprehension. But you're not the first member to shock me on this thread.

Sarge

[Mirror Image]

How anyone could dislike Fauré's Pelléas et Mélisande is beyond my comprehension. But you're not the first member to shock me on this thread.

Sarge

Can't really explain, but I just find his orchestral music so trite, predictable, and, while the surface is lovely, there's nothing beyond this that compels me.

[Parsifal]

How anyone could dislike Fauré's Pelléas et Mélisande is beyond my comprehension. But you're not the first member to shock me on this thread.

A great piece, but my favorite piece among Faure's orchestral works is the Penelope overture (Ansermet's especially).

[The new erato]

I should have wrote that his orchestral music is what I don't like in his oeuvre and his chamber music is where it's at for me.

I can follow that. His orchestral music is fourth after the chamber, songs and piano music (in that sequence). He was a master of the smaller forms, which does not make him a smaller master.

How anyone could dislike Fauré's Pelléas et Mélisande is beyond my comprehension. But you're not the first member to shock me on this thread.

Sarge

Well it's a very beautiful work difficult to dislike, but beauty doesn't quite make it a masterpiece IMO.