Curious Dislikes

There's a march by Sibelius which is fairly terrible:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbd517ebm5U&feature=related

But National music per se is pretty lousy. Think of all those horrible cantatas that the likes of Shostakovich and Prokofiev wrote (or were obliged to write). If you don't know 'em - count yourself lucky.

Had I heard it unknowing, i would have required a lot of guesses to get to Sibelius. Having said that, as military marches go, it does the stuff. Soldiers could march to it.

I didn't mention Shostakovitch or Prokofiev in my earlier thread, becaue the circumstances of composition resulted in work that theymight not otherwise have written.

P

I must say that I agree with Hanslick when he described the last movement of Beethoven's 9th as an ugly head attached to a beautiful body. 

Strange. Was replying yesterday to Bazza's post and instead of seeing my post here, I got "your reply is being reviewed by a moderator". It didn't materialize after, either.

Could it be caused by my use of the word sh*tstain to describe a particular nasty piece by an otherways great composer? Rather petty censorship, if you ask me.

When I think of nationalist music, I envision a range of (mostly 19th century) works that can be either sympathetic and only mildly patriottic (Ma Vlast, for instance - or any random romantic Scandinavian piece) or downright obnoxious and indigestible for non-countryfellows like some of Reger's vocal works.

What makes politically inspired music even worse is that it's far more ambitious: it tries to shove a political ideology (and often a thoroughly despicable one too) down your throat regardless of your nationality of your sentiments about nationalism.

I sometimes wonder what would happen to Shostakovich' 2nd and 3rd symphonies if everyone wasn't obsessed with complete symphony cycles nowadays. Without their neighborship to the far greater 1st and 4th, they'd be doomed to rest in some archive, only to be dusted off by the occasional historian interested in awkward politically inspired art.

Same goes for the 12th, which doesn't even need an ugly propaganda text to be a sh*tstain (there we are) on Shostakovich's otherwise impressive oeuvre.

Agreed on the 11th, overrated and simplistic piece, not even a shadow of the masterful 8th and 10th. The 7th is pretty vulgar throughout, not only the infamous first movement, but it's redeemed somehow by its epic proportions.

Can't really see why you hate the 13nd and 14th, those are prime examples of Shostakovich' late style to me. I don't care that much for the 13th, but that haunting last movement gets me every time. The 14th can be called S.'s "Lied von der Erde", it's a discomforting masterpiece that really gets under your skin. I can't listen to it very often, since it's so immensely depressing.

Brumas, how did Dr. Hanslick explain what and why is the "beautiful body" (in Beethoven's Ninth) and respectively what and why is the "ugly head" (in this case, as a last movement, probably it should have called it...otherwise, but never mind)? And, in which context did he mention this "marvelous assertion"?

Herr Kant and 50m, I thought we had already exhausted Shostakovich's Symphonies in a separate thread dedicated to this subject. So, now you raise the issue again to prove that the man was simply an otherwise great composer. A great composer is simply great. Otherwise, he is a good, very good, interesting etc. composer. A great composer is the one who wrote these few or some monumental, magnificent, superb, profound works that define his stature in Classical Music and, through these masterworks, we try to comprehend the style, the essence, the form and the outcome of the rest of his opus.

By the way, can anyone of you name one composer who wrote only masterpieces in his entire opus? On the other end of the question: a composer who wrote just a String Quartet such as the "La fille et La Mort", the Piano Sonata in A, D.959, the "Unfinished" Symphony or the Piano Trio in E flat, op.100 (aka F. Schubert), is less than one of the greatest composers ever because he wrote a good amount of "weaker", less well written works, while with only a handful of his masterpieces created the highest achievements in each genre?

Finally, going back to Shostakovich, some of the musicians who had performed with passion his works, like the late great conductor Kreizberg, used to express their high appreciation for the 11th (a work with an immense passion and intensity, when it is performed properly; I have attended a live performance with Kreizberg with the Atlanta S.O., in the late 90s, and I can tell), the 12 and the 7th ( a towering work of incredibly strong elements and tight and very tense writing). Another Russian friend put once the simple question: do you think that Shostakovich wrote even occasionally bad music on purpose or by chance or by force? If it was at times all the above, we have a bad, incompetent, fool, weak and coward composer. Do you think this is a  fair description of him? If not, try to "read" his works again.

Parla

Yes we need to drop this romantic drivel about composers with otherworldly gifts writing masterpiece after masterpiece, their art being touched by god. Beethoven and Shostakovich worked hard in their work and sometimes got it wrong, but when they got it right! Most romantic drivel comes not from 'old housewives' but from salesmen and is repeated endlessly by lazy music critics.