Pieces that you generally like that have specific things you hate

[Mirror Image]

3 or 4 years ago or so, I heard an incredible performance on the radio, a re-broadcast of a Chicago Symphony concert with Boulez conducting the Seventh.  I came upon it in the middle of the second movement and thought for a few long seconds I was hearing a lost early work by Anton Webern!    Boulez found things in the score that some conductors have not delineated in their performances.

I do like Boulez's performance a lot as well. If I were to pick three favorite 7th performances they would be Rattle, Abbado (live, Berliners), and Boulez (Cleveland Orchestra).

[bhodges]

Well, the Mahler Eighth issue is one, in my humble opinion, of "imbalance": the heavy-handed Veni Creator first movement, with the chorus singing relentlessly at full blast, and then the lighter, much more developed Faust section (that I admit evolves, towards the end, into something close to the sublime!)... The image that comes to mind for me with the Eighth is something like this (but with the scales  not set in such a way that balance is maintained  ):

Yes, I can well see the imbalance! I guess it doesn't matter; I like the juxtaposition of the two disparate parts. (Each one could almost be performed separately.)

Interesting what you say about the ending of the middle movement of Zemlinsky's Mermaid (a work I haven't listened to in many years  . ) I get a similar feeling, but to the opposite effect, with the endings of several works by a composer I greatly admire and enjoy, George Enescu; it's as if he didn't know when to stop, and suddenly the material takes on a wayward nature, which is rather unsettling. This is the impression I get with the (otherwise extraordinary) Piano Quintet op. 29 (the finale più tranquillo), as well as with the (quite beautiful) Piano sonata op. 24, Nr. 3 (the closing andante molto espressivo).... You feel like screaming: "Stop it! Please don't go on! You've nothing more to say in this movement!" 

*chuckling* I will have to find those two Enescu works - don't know them at all.

--Bruce

[Jay F]

In Claudio Abbado's hands, the 7th came alive. His live account with the Berliners on DG was simply out-of-this-world.

I liked his first version with the CSO. It's my favorite non-Bernstein M7. I also like Michael Tilson-Thomas and Daniel Barenboim's M7s. I haven't listened to the Boulez very often. I think I long-term-loaned it to a friend, actually. I do that a lot with other-than-favorite versions of classical CDs, as I tend to play my favorites 90% of the time.

[Mirror Image]

I liked his first version with the CSO. It's my favorite non-Bernstein M7. I also like Michael Tilson-Thomas and Daniel Barenboim's M7. I haven't listened to the Boulez very often. I think I long-term-loaned it to a friend, actually. I do that a lot with other-than-favorite versions of classical CDs, as I tend to play my favorites 90% of the time.

Ah, yes. That's a fine performance, too. You really can't go wrong with Abbado in the 7th. My Dad owns all the Mahler recordings, so I'll have to see if I can make copies of the MTT and Barenboim.

[(poco) Sforzando]

On topic: Mendelssohn's Midsummer Night's Dream Overture has bothered me in the part where the music has this wonderful build-up, and one expects a great climax, but then the music suddenly gets truncated (to my ears) and just sort of wanders around into the "hee-haw."

I can't say I "hate" that part, but it simply seems that Mendelssohn lost his ear for about 4 to 8 bars or so. 

Yes, but that part is probably intended to represent Bottom's transformation into an ass.

[(poco) Sforzando]

• Editions of Bruckner's Seventh which use the cymbal crash and drum roll in the adagio go on this list, for the cymbal crash and the drumroll.

It is even funnier to see performed live, when two guys in formal wear sit around for 45 minutes, do their thing for 30 seconds, and sit down again for another 20 minutes.

[ibanezmonster]

I think the 9th is really the Mahler symphony as it's almost a perfect encapsulation of everything that he had already done with the symphonic form.

Exactly.

[zmic]

It is even funnier to see performed live, when two guys in formal wear sit around for 45 minutes, do their thing for 30 seconds, and sit down again for another 20 minutes.

Thanks for the laugh 

[Jo498]

How about the Hallelujah Chorus ("And He shall reign for ever and ever") in Mendelssohn's Octet? I wouldn't say I hate it. "Distracts" is a good word for what it does.

I never realized this similarity; could you point me to where this passage occurs in the Mendelssohn?
Speaking of "Messiah" "The trumpet shall sound" is too long and easily gets tedious (especially if one is waiting for the wonderful final chorus). There is also a rather drab Bass aria in the second part of Bach's St. John, I'd rather skip... 

"hate" is surely too strong, but there are pieces where I strongly prefer some movements or rather dislike others. E.g. I think the finale is by far the weakest movement of Schumann's second, the slow movement the strongest (actually one of the best orchestral movements he wrote). Similarly in the "Rhenish", I find movements 1,2,4 much better than 3 and 5, although 3 through 5 are probably intended to work somehow together.
As someone already said, in Tchaikovsky's 1st the finale is rather weak; I am not too fond of the noisy finale of his fourth either, and of his 5th my favorite movement is the first and I do not care that much for the rest of the piece.

[EigenUser]

I never realized this similarity; could you point me to where this passage occurs in the Mendelssohn?
Speaking of "Messiah" "The trumpet shall sound" is too long and easily gets tedious (especially if one is waiting for the wonderful final chorus). There is also a rather drab Bass aria in the second part of Bach's St. John, I'd rather skip... 

"hate" is surely too strong, but there are pieces where I strongly prefer some movements or rather dislike others. E.g. I think the finale is by far the weakest movement of Schumann's second, the slow movement the strongest (actually one of the best orchestral movements he wrote). Similarly in the "Rhenish", I find movements 1,2,4 much better than 3 and 5, although 3 through 5 are probably intended to work somehow together.
As someone already said, in Tchaikovsky's 1st the finale is rather weak; I am not too fond of the noisy finale of his fourth either, and of his 5th my favorite movement is the first and I do not care that much for the rest of the piece.

Skip to 23:00 in this video (the main theme of the finale)...
http://www.youtube.com/v/GX2vUR7_-g4

...and compare with 1:30 in this video
http://www.youtube.com/v/7YaGwI7GjlA