Most Hated Composer of all Time?

[North Star]

I don't know if I should.  Or is that the best practice?

It will need to be based on secondary or tertiary sources, though.

[Karl Henning]

It will need to be based on secondary or tertiary sources, though.

Exactly.

If it be an injustice, time will redress it.

[(poco) Sforzando]

I don't know if I should.  Or is that the best practice?

Can't answer that. I doubt you would be the first.

[Ten thumbs]

Stockhausen at least possesses some interest. Now Glass is an immediate turn off.

[Ken B]

Ken B's evil half brother?

You should hear Kenny J.

[mszczuj]

Beethoven, Mozart or Bach.

As classical music is generally hated the most hated composer must be the most played one.

[71 dB]

Beethoven, Mozart or Bach.

As classical music is generally hated the most hated composer must be the most played one.

Hated? I'd say ignored. Most people live their lifes as if classical music didn't exist. People don't care about it enough to hate.

[mszczuj]

Hated? I'd say ignored. Most people live their lifes as if classical music didn't exist. People don't care about it enough to hate.

Unless they hear a little bit of it by chance.

[71 dB]

Unless they hear a little bit of it by chance.

I don't think they hate it, they just say it to be socially accepted.

[Monsieur Croche]

... why the heck would people hate Puccini and/or his operas? After all, opera doesn't get much better, does it?

Any reason why some people can not find Puccini's music as repellent in equal proportion as those who find it attractive?

"I mean, who could possibly dislike Puccini? / Opera doesn't get much better, does it?" 
Is really saying,
"How can others not feel the same as I do about Puccini?"  ("Because they are not you." :-)

Puccini is as praised as he is negatively criticized.  Negative criticism has it that the composer was an obvious and 'shameless'  manipulator, his dual crafts as melodist and musical dramatist used to provoke coldly calculated emotional responses.  Some say the intent of his talents so applied was only motivated by a commercial purpose to ensure the popularity, and income, from his work.  In more current parlance, people feel he is a tacky commercial sell-out, like some film composers or pop industry composers, writing not for 'art' but only with popularity and sales in mind... i.e. there is major question on the 'sincerity' of his entire ouevre.  Despite the level of craft, some hear it as tacky, and cheaply and transparently manipulative.[/i]  Of course, that is one of those posits once launched as a question which could fill a thread of any music for for pages and pages....

    "Is it possible for a work of art to seem both completely sincere in its intentions and at the same time counterfeit and manipulative? Puccini built a major career on these contradictions. But people care about him, even admire him, because he did it both so shamelessly and so skillfully. How can you complain about a composer whose music is so relentlessly memorable, even – maybe especially – at its most saccharine?"." ~ Pulitzer Prize-winning music critic Lloyd Schwartz.

This dual aspect is exactly what can and does make for a highly polarized difference in opinion on Puccini; this divided opinion has been pretty much ongoing from his first being acclaimed to the present.

Neither pro or con really disputes the level of craft and skill of Puccini's music per se, while how he applied that craft in the context of the libretti he chose has been a pretty constant matter of aesthetic disputes that started with the composer's first wave of audience and critical recognition, and therein lies the major divisive split of opinion on Maestro Puccini.


Best regards

P.s. I feel compelled to add that once again, I think you have found and posted as near to a most perfectly negative OP as is possible, once again using in its text a negative in the lower / lowest  extremes.

[71 dB]

Puccini is as praised as he is negatively criticized.  Negative criticism has it that the composer was an obvious and 'shameless'  manipulator, his dual crafts as melodist and musical dramatist used to provoke coldly calculated emotional responses. 

If opera isn't for manipulating the emotional responses of listeners, I don't know what it is for. Typical opera librettos are nothing but emotional manipulation. It is only logical the music is too. I have always felt opera is one of the most commercial branches of classical music, numerous arias being the hit songs of the past. In my opinion Puccini is one of the greatest opera composers ever and I enjoy being manipulated by this master.

[Monsieur Croche]

If opera isn't for manipulating the emotional responses of listeners, I don't know what it is for. Typical opera librettos are nothing but emotional manipulation. It is only logical the music is too. I have always felt opera is one of the most commercial branches of classical music, numerous arias being the hit songs of the past. In my opinion Puccini is one of the greatest opera composers ever and I enjoy being manipulated by this master.

Well, I guess this puts you firmly in the pro Puccini camp of what I think is both interesting and a bit of a curiosity -- where the general public in such large numbers are so near to equally divided in holding such highly polarized opinions of a widely popular composer's works.  (Ergo, why I brought it up :-)

I think that phenomenon is fairly rare.  Other than Puccini and Wagner (duly noted -- both opera composers), I can't off the top of my head think of any other composer who is as popular and whose music elicits such a polarized split response from such large numbers of listeners.

[Jo498]

Maybe Verdi as well? I remember some interview with a professional musician (I think a former member of a 20th century quartet, maybe 2nd violin of the Kolisch quartet?) trashing Verdi in favor of Puccini but more frequently encountered the opposite stance.

[71 dB]

Well, I guess this puts you firmly in the pro Puccini camp.

Maybe Verdi as well? I remember some interview with a professional musician (I think a former member of a 20th century quartet, maybe 2nd violin of the Kolisch quartet?) trashing Verdi in favor of Puccini but more frequently encountered the opposite stance.

I have never enjoyed Verdi's music and I have tried. His over-emphasis of melody over harmony is not my cup of tea at all.

[Mirror Image]

Maybe Verdi as well? I remember some interview with a professional musician (I think a former member of a 20th century quartet, maybe 2nd violin of the Kolisch quartet?) trashing Verdi in favor of Puccini but more frequently encountered the opposite stance.

Personally, I don't either composer.

[Jo498]

Personally, I don't either composer.

I think I should like Verdi more than I do but I still prefer him to Puccini. I detest Madama Butterfly but have a soft spot for Tosca and Turandot. Overall I admit that I don't know important works of either well enough to really have an informed opinion, I am just not such a big fan of opera (and less of opera on records).

[Mirror Image]

I think I should like Verdi more than I do but I still prefer him to Puccini. I detest Madama Butterfly but have a soft spot for Tosca and Turandot. Overall I admit that I don't know important works of either well enough to really have an informed opinion, I am just not such a big fan of opera (and less of opera on records).

I certainly don't pretend to be a fan of opera, but there are a few operas that I love: Bartok's Bluebeard's Castle, Ravel's L'enfant et les sortileges, Berg's Wozzeck, Janacek's Kata Kabanova, Britten's Death in Venice, and Szymanowski's King Roger.

[Florestan]

Negative criticism has it that [Puccini] was an obvious and 'shameless'  manipulator, his dual crafts as melodist and musical dramatist used to provoke coldly calculated emotional responses. 

If this were true --- ie, if it were indeed possible to (1) coldly calculate emotional responses and, (2) to actually get those responses each and every time the music is played, to each and every audience hearing it --- it would mean that (a) music is far from being a mere combination of sounds without any significance whatsoever beyond that very combination, and (b) on the contrary, it can, and it does, express emotions which are (1) contained in the music itself, and (2) always and unequivocally recognized as such by whatever audience hears it. 

[nathanb]

I don't like Puccini because, saying this as a huge opera fan, his music sounds awful to me. However, I acknowledge that this is subjective, something Florestan and other folks need to work on.