Well-known music you've somehow overlooked (or never got round to hearing)

[North Star]

(FWIW I probably do not care enough about the "original trilogy" either to ever watch it again.)

We share that (potentially unpopular) opinion 

Huzzah for us!

[Karl Henning]

I do occasionally find it bizarre and amusing that everyone always says "well, I know the Requiem"... and I own about 80% of Faure's output but not the Requiem.

But you have heard it, yes?

When I first arrived at the College of Wooster for Freshman Orientation, one of the events was a performance of the Fauré Requiem by the Wooster Chorus.  It was on many levels a richly magical occasion:  I felt more excitement than uncertainty about being in this new and unusual environment of a liberal arts college;  I was already a bit of an outsider, as I was three years older than the great majority of my fellow freshmen;  the Woo Cho have always been a fine musical outfit, and that performance ranked very high among the best choral performances I had as yet experienced in person;  and the work itself is (of course) exquisite.  So if I have special emotional attachment to the Requiem, I refuse to consider that anything of an embarrassment.

[Jo498]

No god would be so cruel as to deny you this knowledge.

I do occasionally find it bizarre and amusing that everyone always says "well, I know the Requiem"... and I own about 80% of Faure's output but not the Requiem.

I also heard the Requiem much later than all of his chamber music (and some other stuff) and don't much care for the piece. But the piano quartets and quintets are among the best pieces for that combination. Anyone who likes chamber music by Brahms, Franck, Ravel, Debussy should try them.

Also overlooked except for a handful of pieces (3rd violin concerto, Organ symphony, 2nd piano concerto etc.) is Saint-Saens who is usually deemed a slick classicist. To some extent he is but there is very worthwhile chamber music by him as well.

[Florestan]

But you have heard it, yes?

When I first arrived at the College of Wooster for Freshman Orientation, one of the events was a performance of the Fauré Requiem by the Wooster Chorus.  It was on many levels a richly magical occasion:  I felt more excitement than uncertainty about being in this new and unusual environment of a liberal arts college;  I was already a bit of an outsider, as I was three years older than the great majority of my fellow freshmen;  the Woo Cho have always been a fine musical outfit, and that performance ranked very high among the best choral performances I had as yet experienced in person;  and the work itself is (of course) exquisite.  So if I have special emotional attachment to the Requiem, I refuse to consider that anything of an embarrassment.

Wait a minute, are you telling us that extramusical associations made you enjoy it all the more and are the reason for a special emotional attachment to it? 

Except for In Paradisum, I have never heard it in ist entirety. Go figure... 

[North Star]

Fauré's chamber works, solo piano works and songs all contain exquisite music, and the Requiem is a beauty as well, despite of its popularity...

Saint-Saëns lived long enough to become old-fashioned, but e.g. the Bacchanale from Samson et Dalila is hardly that.

[Karl Henning]

Wait a minute, are you telling us that extramusical associations made you enjoy it all the more and are the reason for a special emotional attachment to it? 

The extramusical associations do vie with the apparent intent of the composer:  it does not at all feel like a Requiem to me.  Of course, there is an aspect of Fauré's writing it as "an anti-Requiem";  but my associations make it a concert piece, rather than any religious consolation.

[Florestan]

The extramusical associations do vie with the apparent intent of the composer:  it does not at all feel like a Requiem to me. 

i have the same feeling about Victoria´s Officium Defunctorum. It is so serene, so delicate and so ecstatic as to openly defy the mere idea of death. Or maybe that was exactly what Victoria meant? And is it a mere coincidence that both Victoria and Faure omit Dies Irae?

[Karl Henning]

Perhaps a coincidence.  In the case of de Victoria, he may not have composed a choral setting, on the understanding that the plainchant of the Dies irae sequence would be sung.

[Florestan]

Perhaps a coincidence.  In the case of de Victoria, he may not have composed a choral setting, on the understanding that the plainchant of the Dies irae sequence would be sung.

Perhaps. But if I hadn´t known it was a Requiem, and if I hadn´t understood Latin, I would have hardly guessed it was indeed a Requiem. Actually, exactly because I was expecting a Requiem I was surprised big time --- and pleasantly, for that matter.

[Karl Henning]

Perhaps. But if I hadn´t known it was a Requiem, and if I hadn´t understood Latin, I would have hardly guessed it was indeed a Requiem. Actually, exactly because I was expecting a Requiem I was surprised big time --- and pleasantly, for that matter.

Indeed. Exquisite!

[North Star]

i have the same feeling about Victoria´s Officium Defunctorum. It is so serene, so delicate and so ecstatic as to openly defy the mere idea of death. Or maybe that was exactly what Victoria meant? And is it a mere coincidence that both Victoria and Faure omit Dies Irae?

The Dies irae wasn't traditionally included in the requiem masses back in Victoria's time. Juvenis (1490) and Brumel (1516) were the first settings including it, and it became gradually more common, so Victoria's omitting it is not at all remarkable.

Perhaps. But if I hadn´t known it was a Requiem, and if I hadn´t understood Latin, I would have hardly guessed it was indeed a Requiem. Actually, exactly because I was expecting a Requiem I was surprised big time --- and pleasantly, for that matter.

Yes, the Fauré is certainly very different from e.g. the Verdi andMozart Requiems, an altogether more jovial account.

[DaveF]

Fauré wrote some of the best chamber music of the time; actually any lover of chamber music should try it. I do not know the piano music well enough and found what I heard of the orchestral music comparably minor, but the piano quartets/quintets, violin + cello sonatas and the late string quartet are all remarkable pieces.

Yes, yes, so everyone says, which was why I ordered the Fauré edition box - in August.  Every few months Amazon e-mail me inviting me to cancel my order (I think they want me to go away and stop bothering them, especially as I got it for £14), but I'm hangin' on in there.  Visiting a friend recently, I mentioned this situation, and he said, "Oh, I've got that box, you can have it, it's mostly discs of Gérard Souzay singing flat" - but it had mysteriously vanished from his shelves.  Who says no conspiracy?

[71 dB]

I declared The Phantom Menace to be crap just yesterday. This is not exactly a minority opinion.

You not enjoying movies I do is not away from me. If anything, it's away from you.

There's tons of movies I consider crap. Why bother mentioning them? I gain nothing doing so.

[Florestan]

The Dies irae wasn't traditionally included in the requiem masses back in Victoria's time. Juvenis (1490) and Brumel (1516) were the first settings including it, and it became gradually more common, so Victoria's omitting it is not at all remarkable.

AFAIK, the Requiem was standardized by the Council of Trent (ended 1563), 40 years before Victoria´s composing his own. It´s obvious though that Dies Irae was not mandatory even after that date, as Victoria composed the Requiem for a very official funeral and the Spanish court´s strict ceremonial rules would not have had anything irregular for that.

[Karl Henning]

The Dies irae wasn't traditionally included in the requiem masses back in Victoria's time. Juvenis (1490) and Brumel (1516) were the first settings including it, and it became gradually more common, so Victoria's omitting it is not at all remarkable.

Thank you.

[(poco) Sforzando]

To clarify, the topic of this thread was not about music you heard and didn't like, or music you intentionally ignored because you didn't like the composer/style/whatever, or about whether "masterpieces" are a thing and whether one "should" listen to anything; it is specifically about famous pieces of music (or whatever) that you did not listen to, or even perhaps hear of, for a long time relative to the amount of time you have spent listening to classical music. So not "I never listened to Scheherazade because I can't stand Rimsky-Korsakov" (or even "I listened to the first 10 minutes of Scheherazade but got distracted/bored/whatever") more "I never listened to Scheherazade because I overlooked it, thought I'd heard it already, lost the CD, didn't know the piece existed until five minutes ago, or just never got around to it for whatever other reason".

Then you should have titled the thread "Music you've somehow missed." Avoidance is a conscious act.

[Florestan]

Avoidance is a conscious act.

I thought about that myself when it  was started but I am not a native speaker of English so I concluded I might have missed some nuance.

[71 dB]

I thought about that myself when it  was started but I am not a native speaker of English so I concluded I might have missed some nuance.

Nuances you've somehow managed to avoid. 

[Karl Henning]

I thought about that myself when it  was started but I am not a native speaker of English so I concluded I might have missed some nuance.

"Somehow managed to avoid" does shade the deliberation. It is perhaps a bit of a colloquial oxymoron.

[Madiel]

But you have heard it, yes?

I can't swear to having heard more than a snippet.