Hands up! Whose music do you really hate? A continuation...

The article was a bit of fun; let's not get to pompous about it.

I will freely admit to not liking a great deal of music, though most significant composers have something to redeem them.  One of my great "hates" are Schubert's lieder (I keep thinking of Peter Ustinov's wonderful pastiche - The Girl and the Halibut) but I love "The Great" 9th Symphony.  Tippet can leave me cold but Sospiri's aria from Mid-Summer Marriage would be in my desert island discs. 

However I reserve a place in hell for Bruckner and Mahler, overly long and vacuous.  Mahler can be an audio version of tantric sex, banging on for hours and never reaching a climax.  People have talked to me about Mahler "being part of their journey" or suchlike, which surely can only be explained by the smoking a strange substances.

The music of Berg, Birtwhistle, Weill and Hindemith could vanish without me shedding a tear...oh, and I agree about Janacek.

I don't really have a problem with many composers I can think of offhand, maybe Johann Strauss? And although I can think of some exceedingly tedious pieces that get played far too often - Schumann's Paradise & the Peri comes to mind - there are of course the same composers' jewels (Fantasy Op17 etc) that enhance life.

No, my blind spot is more generalised: baroque and classical recitative. I love Mozart's operas but between every glowing and flowing aria we have a bit of wordifying with a harpsichord plink-plonk or two, then a cello changes the bassline harmony and the bewigged rapper is off again! Finally bliss returns with the intro music for the next number.

Does anybody else share my antipathy?

I don't know quite how else you'd link the numbers on stage without the recit, and the ones with speech (Magic Flute, Fidelio) tend to sound even worse, but for home listening I usually rip the CDs to disc and delete the recitatives.

Admittedly there are one or two through-composed recits (eg Creation) that are part of the glorious fabric of the work, but far, far too many boring ones!

As a singer, I'm probably performing against type, but whenever I have to sit through Jesus and the Evangelist exchanging endless meandering segues in a Bach Passion, I find it difficult to refrain from running off the stage!

Am I a minority of one?

Macsporran,

                You are not in a minority of one. I once copied Die Zauberflote to cassette tape taking extra care to omit the dialogue. Well, it made sense to me!

                That's another reason why I love Italian opera! None of this spoken nonsense as the Italians sing their recitatives and quite right, too.

                 If I had a pound for every prediction on the end of classical music I've heard over the years I'd have at least a tenner by now.

                 However, it occurs to me that the flood of classical recordings, both new, old broadcasts and reissues every month is because everybody wants to get their recording out there before the classical music Armageddon happens.

                Of course, there is the Proms, the biggest classical music festival in the world.

I do not think classical music is on its last legs despite efforts to shift product in the form of dubious recitals by "Classical Artists" like Katherine Jenkins.

That's what annoys me: the fact that pop/pap groups like Il Divo are sold to the public as "Classical."

I do not think that there has ever been so much classical music out there on disc or via download.

Also, isn't it one of the functions of recordings  to make available music that, for various reasons, one is unlikely to hear in the concert hall?

The article was fun...until I read Jeremy's (may I use his first name because I don't know him?) blindspot was Janacek! I don't think you have to love a composer's entire oeuvre to appreciate them. On an Overgrown Path is a small masterpiece. I didn't see Jeremy talking about playing any of these pieces. Listening is one thing but playing and listening at the same time is another. That's why I like Janacek's piano music so much.

Here's a gem from Tchaikovsky on Brahms (I think we know who his blindspot was; and he even met him several times): "What an untalented S-! It angers me that this presumptuous mediocrity is recognized as a genius!"

I'm convinced all music lovers have blind spots, and that's OK. We cannot all respond in the same way to all periods or styles. Ditto composers and compositions.

So I have no qualms about admitting that I do not respond to most music before Haydn. There is a lot of good stuff there, I know, but it is not within my emotional or intellectual range.

Equally, in the three or so centuries of music that does appeal to me, there are composers and works that do not. For example, I enjoy Liszt but find Tchaikovsky vulgar. I'm a devotee of Walton but think Britten second rate. That's just me, I don't expect anyone else to agree, nor do I think they have no judgement if they don't.

So hurrah! for Jeremy Nicholas. Now I can come out and admit that I hate Delius' music and gave up the struggle to like it ages ago. In our house, we file him under Tedious.

I have to agree with those who believe that the word `hate` is inappropriate to such a forum as this. We may not like certain music but can still resect the person who composed the music as we can of those whose tastes are different to ours.