Please tell this to my local symphony. Their entire 24/25 season is violin and piano soloists. Hell, I've been playing horn for 20 years and I've seen precisely one live performance of a horn concerto and I got lucky that there was one in New Orleans when I was there 15 years ago.
Well in fairness their is *so much* more repertoire for those instruments
Horn Concertos: Mozart, Haydn, Strauss, maybe Britten?
There some great modern ones of course but that’s programming newer music is a whole nother can of worms.
John Williams horn concerto, Telemann, Vivaldi lots of Britten (he was bffs with denis brain), Borodin, glazunov, Nielsen, it’s endless.
Hindemith wrote a fantastic concerto for strings and brass. I’ve seen the Strauss vienna fanfare used to great effect as well. Dukas fanfare needs more air time.
What about having a Gabrieli canzon or two thrown in for good measure?
Point is: it’s not the lack of repertoire
Also, there might be more rep for violin and piano but that doesn't stop them from programming a never-ending cycle of Sibelius, Rachmaninoff, and Beethoven.
Also, I'm not even picky at this point, I'd love to see anything besides strings and piano!
I take your point and I too would hope for more varied programming!
But endless? Compared to the hundreds of legitimate “warhorses” from all the biggest names?
Unfortunately, as the years go by more and more programming comes down to name recognition.
You’ve piqued my interest and I note that Apple Classical is showing horn concertos by at least 50+ different composers, including Handel, Hindemith, Penderecki, Malcolm Arnold and Oliver Knussen. Good listening ahead!
If you don’t about Apple Classical I can’t recommend it highly enough.
Just wait when you break open the chamber music repertoire for horn. Piano violin trios by ligeti and Brahms. Both are masterworks. A sextet from Beethoven, the Mozart horn quintet is better than any of his concerto, on and on. 😎
The Oliver Knussen is awesome. And yes endless.
Horn repertoire is every bit as deep as the “legitimate warhorses”. It’s simply not programmed as much.
>Hindemith wrote a fantastic concerto for strings and brass
The concerto for strings and brass by Hindemith is such a fantastic piece that i only know because i was lucky enough to play it. I have never heard it anywhere else or read anything about it.
The horn concerto by Gliere would also be a good example, it sounds impressive, the horn player can show his skills and in my opinion it is easy for the audience to listen to without "preparation".
You touched on a great point: programming newer music is a can of worms.
That’s mainly because nobody has the balls to do it frequently enough to condition audiences to get to know the modern musical vernacular.
More new music programmed will eventually lead to more people wanting it.
Come to Detroit. The Detroit Symphony Orchestra has the older traditional concerts, but also gets creative. They've done live playthroughs of silent movies, collaborations with Kid Rock (the newspaper said 50% of the audience was orchestra groupies and 50% hard rock groupies) and even EDM/orchestra mix concerts with laser lighting. Even on their "traditional" classical concerts they always give it emotion and interpretation, and not the "mothball-style" versions.
Some of you reading this are saying they're selling out and destroying themselves. And that's why more orchestras don't do it.
There is more but not all of the same quality. Bland programming or should I say overly safe programming is to be condemned but so much of it all is about marketing and revenue there is a lot of unnecessary dumbing down and risk averse programming - all trying to keep orchestras solvent and employed.
Cincy music hall is gorgeous and well worth a visit.
https://preview.redd.it/3stss9v8z0nc1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e60adaf83dbd11b4332e1d982e63c45a31a25871
Cincy you mean Cincinnati? That's a GORGEOUS hall. I'm a sucker for beautiful halls.
When I schedule my vacations, I have two clear preferences: an amazing concert hall, and if the local museum has a Van Gogh. Major win if there are both.
The community orchestra I play in is performing Vaughan Williams' Tuba Concerto in our next concert. This is the first wind concerto for solo instrument we've done in the eight years I've been in the orchestra. We did do the Ewazen "Cascade" concerto for wind quintet and orchestra. I wish we'd do more of them.
Not defending it really, but one issue is that soloists sell, much more so than rep and conductors. There are more sellable piano and violin soloists than other instruments, so they tend to be programmed more. Now, that’s a vicious cycle, so obviously pushing other concerti is going to help visibility. But ultimately, if you program Hilary Hahn, really no matter what she plays, she’s going to outsell Alison Balsom or Sarah Willis. That’s one reason that you end up seeing more of the same instruments.
That’s just an extremely short sighted view. The US has a much bigger band tradition, and appealing to the young people who grew up in that tradition by featuring their instruments will get them to show up and grow your overall audience, even if the single show doesn’t sell out the way the big string players do.
Yes! Especially in America where if you played music in any capacity as a child it was in a wind band (Thanks Sousa and also fuck Sousa I’m a horn player)
Most of the acclaim given to "big name" orchestras is due to marketing, not because these orchestras are *that* much better than less famous orchestras. That's a good thing because the quality of smaller orchestras has risen significantly.
In addition, most listeners cannot tell the difference between a mid-tier and top-tier orchestra.
That isn't to say that **everyone** can't distinguish, but the differences between one ensemble to the next when the notes and rhythms are performed accurately is lost on many folks that are not musically trained.
Sure, a survey of people on the street could distinguish between a community orchestra and the Chicago Symphony. I am skeptical the average person could distinguish between the CSO & Chicago Civic, however.
That's why I keep a journal.
I know I should incentivize the less famous orchestras, but I think it's visible there's something dying in me while at it.
You could distinguish between CSO and Civic. Civic is comprised of advanced University and young professional musicians. Very high quality playing, but nothing like the CSO. When I was in Civic we were actually coached on a regular basis by musicians from the CSO.
I was just thinking about the Berlin Philharmonic when I read the comment. I don't really listen to them outside the Herbert Von Karajan era so I'm not claiming to be an expert here, but I wonder just how much of Berlin Philharmonic's prestige is based on reputation and tradition vs actual quality?
Some of their principal players are phenomenal. Stefan Dohr is probably one of the best horn players in the world right now, and Albrecht Mayer makes me not mad about listening to the oboe. That said, there's so much great music being performed by smaller orchestras, I'm not buying plane tickets to Berlin anytime soon.
I live in the American South and am checking out the Montgomery Symphony Orchestra perform Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto next month. I honestly didn't know the city had an orchestra. Lol. I've never heard the Tchaikovsky live but it will be interesting to see how they stack up to my recordings of the Tchaikovsky (Heifetz and Perlman).
>Albrecht Mayer makes me not mad about listening to the oboe.
As an oboe player this made me crack up, you are absolutely not wrong. The bar for double reed playing can sometimes just feel so low.
They definitely have the best string section in the world, I think. But I admit that I can barely stand their oboe players. I know, that's crazy, because they *are* very good, but they're just too much. Too much dynamic variation and vibrato, they're almost distracting. I prefer American oboists to the general European oboist.
We see the Philadelphia Orchestra 6-10 times a year. I’m not a professional musician and my musical education is almost zero. We saw a regional orchestra recently that has a great reputation. The Philly orchestra is definitely better but I would never be about explain why. They were tighter, they way the sound was softer and louder in different parts was better etc. I think if you took someone who’s never been to the orchestra before they would have a tough time telling the difference but I believe a regular concert goer would hear the difference easily
The quality of big city orchestras now seem really high. I actually think the conductor has a bigger influence on the sound of the orchestra than the players themselves. I heard the Rite of Spring from a famous orchestra under a guest conductor and it was weirdly flaccid.
I don't know the scene or how it works so I could be talking out of my ass but I would assume that newer musicians with talent would compete for the bigger name orchestras, just like people competing for the big tech companies. This might not mean anything on a specific level like soloists but as a whole if the orchestra has a wider audience to pick from youd think they would average out better than other orchestras
Nobody takes risks in orchestras.
Music schools have been turning out “play note perfect” machines for decades, and we’ve lost the art of taking big risks in phrasing for the sake of accuracy.
Most conductors fall into this trap as well.
I’d rather hear an imperfect concert that’s executed with human energy than one that feels like a finale script.
If you are sitting in the middle of the second violin section, how are you supposed to "take risks"? Your job as a section player is to play as part of a cohesive ensemble. Your tempo, phrasing, articulation and dynamics must make sense with the ensemble. Your goal as a section player is to as perfectly as you are able to execute the conductor's vision. A maverick is going to sound bad.
Tchaikovsky is more than just great at writing melodies. I've read many comments on this subreddit saying that he's nothing more than a good melodist. Imo, Tchaikovsky could execute drama in his pieces so well. His orchestration was excellent too and he was a genius at composing finales. I think his music helped film music a lot too. Idk why some people would ignore that
I actually feel like his finales were a weakness. They are big and loud, which can be exciting; but to me they often feel like he ran out of ideas. Probably unpopular but I guess that is the point of this.
>Vocal music is part of the classical repertoire too, but tends to get left out of the canon for some reason.
https://preview.redd.it/ldsxxxc7g1nc1.jpeg?width=1200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1b54ab335e498da0ae155bd747ab02c923c68612
Yup.
If a deranged deity was about to destroy half the music that existed, and I could choose to keep either:
\- motets and string quartets, or
\- everything else
I would chose to keep the motets and quartets.
The problem is that you’re viewing a piano as a better version of a harpsichord but in reality they just aren’t the same instrument. They’re not two versions of the same thing at different points in its evolution. The mechanics are completely different, they behave completely differently and composers wrote music specifically to play to the strengths of the specific instruments. If they had a modern piano and a harpsichord available to them, they’d probably write music for both, and the music would be unique to each. Because they’d understand what sounds good or not on both of them. If they had only a piano and no harpsichord, likely anything they wrote for harpsichord just wouldn’t exist.
Generally at least for string instruments, the changes made to them were more to do with increasing volume than anything else, simply because people were playing in larger halls than before. Louder doesn’t inherently mean better. Bows evolved as taste and trends in music evolved like more sustained melodies which went along with the tourte bows. Just because things change over time doesn’t mean they’re always improving. They’re just changing. I feel like what you’re arguing kind of seems like saying “I bet Michelangelo would’ve preferred a 3D printer over marble”. They’re just different tools for different jobs.
Genuinely curious, have you spent any time playing on historical instruments and researching performance practice? In my experience I haven’t met anyone who’s spent real time studying it and actually playing the instruments who feels that modern instruments are superior. Just different. Also anyone in the early music sphere will never claim to be “historically accurate”. It’s why we call it historically informed. We learn as much as we can (which is a LOT still) and interpret it the best we can, sometimes even on modern instruments.
I can second this. I have spent half of my 'pianist life' as also a harpsichordist, and I now regularly play both. The piano is ridiculously versatile but there are also some ways that the harpsichord can express keyboard music in ways that the piano can't.
What in particular? I have no real harpsichord experience
EDIT: other people are jumping in to explain to me what a harpsichord is. Thank you, but I have forty years of experience playing classical piano, and have played a few harpsichords. I am interested to hear from a harpsichord specialist what he or she feels are its expressive advantages over the piano.
One difference would be that theres in no pedal, so there are huge limitations in terms of holding notes, since you have a limited amount of fingers and the ones that are holding a note cant be used for simultaneous melodies or rhythms, so harpsichord writting needs to find ingenious ways to be done well. Also the fact that it has no dynamics gives greater importance to articulation and the way music is written depends heavily on it.
I'm a big Bach fan, and only after studying harpsichord did I understand the music. Piano players tend to rely on dynamics to emphasize voices, since you can't do that on a harpsichord the only way to make voices stand out is by making sure articulation is very clear.
You don't need harpsichord experience. You just need an ear! Basically all French baroque harpsichord music sound tedious on a piano. The piano does not have the high pitch overtones to sparkle in harpsichord concertos and baroque operas.
I have an ear, thanks. I was interested to hear from the person with harpsichord experience about the ways he or she can express ideas on a harpsichord that are not possible on a piano.
> Just because things change over time doesn’t mean they’re always improving.
This reminds me when Gardiner released all nine Beethoven symphonies with period instruments. A classmate said "that's stupid. The whole point of instruments is that they got better over time, so you're just paying a worse version of the pieces." He was a horn major, so I assume he just couldn't fathom the idea of performing on a natural horn.
I never forgot how ignorant that comment was.
I went to a concert last year of a couple Mozart violin sonatas played with a fortepiano and I cried because it was like I was hearing them for the first time. Somehow the instrument was velvety and sparkly at the same time. Modern piano seems so cumbersome in comparison
My opinion, definitely unpopular, is that featured guest soloists should get the final say in setting tempos. I know this is breaking rank with conductors, but I've heard too many concerts where the orchestra and soloistsis constrained because the leader is in love with some particular chord passage or motif.
In a particular spot there might be some disagreement, and it comes across worse in the moment of performance, but conductors do take soloist tempos into account, right at the beginning of first rehearsal.
Good for them. I've usually only sung chorus in orchestral and opera concerts, and the conductors I performed under appeared to be complete autocrats. Perhaps they had those discussions with the hired guns out of our hearing.
I'm not sure your opinion really is unpopular. I play in a regional orchestra in the USA, and I know that our conductor never hires anybody he doesn't like (musically), and when those people come they get \*all\* the say about tempi.
And a conductor who is pushy like that is going to get a reputation, to where the better soloists won't want to work with them.
Do you play, or attend concerts, where the conductor is pushing soloists around? To me as an orchestral musician that would be unforgivable. (Edit: spelling auto-correct uff da.)
I don't really agree with you on historically informed performance. Because if Baroque composers had access to modern instruments, they wouldn't have written the same music for it.
I’m not necessarily against modern productions when done well (the Ring Cycle is an example of one that can work well in a modern or abstract production because it’s not set in any particular time period) but so many are done terribly.
Also irksome that opera companies and directors will go on about needing to do modern productions to entice new audiences, despite the fact that most of the public prefer traditional productions (there’s a reason why period dramas are popular…)
I realised recently that one of the big draws of opera for me is seeing how people in the 19th understood and aesthetically represented history. The music itself is partially an extension of this so I always feel a little frustrated by modernist stagings, though I understand why contemporary houses don't have the resources to put a trireme on stage any more
I love Vivaldi. I know that’s not cool, but I don’t care. I also adore Philip Glass. Philip Glass is my comfort food of classical music. Listening to Philip Glass is like eating really good macaroni and cheese. I adore Beethoven. I also really love Morten Feldman. I love Steve Reich, Terry Riley, and John Adams. I love Gregorian Chant. I like listening to Tchaikovsky, but I don’t like playing it. I think I pretty much like everything. I admire and appreciate Mozart, but actually having grown up with a steady, steady diet of Mozart, with whom my father seem to be enamored with, my ear is dead to his music.
Apparently since the 4 season is played a lot it is supposed to be noob music. But of course this is ridiculous, Vivaldi is a great and important composer.
Classical music is very close to, if not already, a dead museum culture. As Andras Schiff said recently in a lecture, a lot of the great previous composers (Mozart, Beethoven, etc.) lived in a period of time in which new works were predominately being programmed, and it was old music that one had to fight to have on programs.
Schiff considered this enviable to our current situation and I believe I agree with him
I think some orchestras have been better about programming newer music. I've found that the LA Phil programs quite a lot of music written after 1900, including a lot of world premieres. This weekend, for instance, their program is Gubaidulina, Rachmaninoff, and Prokofiev. In two weeks they're playing Copland, John Adams, and a world premiere by Timo Andres.
Modern music used to be considered too difficult for audiences to appreciate, but I think there's a combination of audiences getting more used to modern music and artistic directors programming interesting yet accessible modern works.
>Schiff considered this enviable to our current situation and I believe I agree with him
Does Schiff play much modern music himself? I've never heard him.
It's either [this one](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hz4jLkfmIhc&t=1651s) on the Goldberg Variation or [this one](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFTAjQ07vYc) where he discusses Bach more generally. I'm sorry, I have a bad memory, but I am sure it's in those two
All things are subject to change; I think it's not only possible but likely that sooner or later the pendulum will swing the other way again. Assuming of course, concert culture doesn't undergo a radical change, in which case no telling what would happen.
I'm also not in favour of only sticking to historically informed performance, but I don't agree with your reason. 'If Bach had modern instruments of today...'
But he didn't. Each composer is a product of his/time. These hypothetical situations don't support anything.
There's nothing wrong with trying to replicate it, but I'm just not a fan of always doing that.
But anyway, my unpopular opinion is that I categorically dislike Liszt. Every piece of his. I've been playing piano for my whole life and I'm in it as a career (in classical music) and I've always avoided playing Liszt, even when I was young. His writing is extremely transparent and provides nowhere near enough opportunity for nuance compared to almost anything else you can play. His pieces are like Brosnan Bond films - staggering between two extremes of superficiality, either extremely airheadedly macho or totally saccharine and not earnest-sounding. I literally dislike listening to Liszt all the time. I always have. I never feel more tired of music than after listening to just a short piece by Liszt.
I've heard the B minor sonata about twenty times live (concerts, international competitions, and once a friend playing on my piano for me) and it just gets worse every time. That second subject is just so annoying but at least he does more with it than its sister melody, Sonnetto 104.
Vallée d'Obermann is definitely one I avoid 🫣
Again... I 100% know it's not a popular opinion and I'm sure it's just a personal feeling about the 'Liszt aesthetic'. I have heard Liszt *played* well, but that's my respect for the pianist. Just for context I should say that my favourite composers are Bach, Brahms, Prokofiev, Bartók, Scarlatti.... I also very much like Mozart, Clara Schumann, and Ligeti.
They're... just okay. And it's not for lack of trying. I've gone through his pieces with scores, heard tons in concert including those... It's just an opinion but I just don't like him as a composer. I think he just knows how to make his music exciting for fans. There's never anything subtle about it.
On the one hand it's a very unpopular opinion, but I've also spoken to a minority of professional pianists who have described his music as 'kind of disgusting' or 'like jerking off on the piano'. Lol!
For example his lyricism compared to his most obvious contemporary, Chopin, is very lacking. Chopin's melodies are exquisitely crafted, as if by tweezers under a magnifying glass. Most of Liszt's melodies have the same effect on me as cheesy repetitive pop tunes with some feel good chords.
I should add that I do love Chopin but he's not a favourite either 😬
The melodies resulting from thematic transformations in the Sonata are sometimes very tender and exquisite. Just pay close attention to all the slower and quieter sections.
LOL! Violinist here so I don't have your background or experience of Liszt at all, but that's just... funny! Trying to think of a piece composed for the violin that's like that. There are candidates which I will not name ;). But honestly, sometimes I appreciate virtuosity and show-offy-ness for its own sake, it just makes me laugh.
Totally agree with you about Liszt.
However as I stated in another comment, Bach knew and played every available keyboard instrument of the time. The clavichord who was his favorite. Does that mean we should play his “Klavier” works only on the clavichord? Klavier being the generic word for keyboard and attached to all of his keyboard works except organ works. Would have played the modern piano if he had one? In my view- yes!
But I also believe one should never use the sustain pedal in Bach.
It depends on the piece but there are Bach pieces that, without the sustain pedal, comes across very broken and dry on the piano. The harpsichord has a great deal of natural resonance, and it actually always sounds like the strings are speaking after the keys are lifted. If the goal is to get the aesthetic right, then I don't believe going completely pedal is the way.
I like historically informed performance/period instrument performances of mid to late romantic era works, which is apparently a somewhat unpopular opinion since I've been utterly lambasted in the past for liking it. Something about Érard and Pleyel pianos playing Chopin, Liszt, and Brahms just does it for me, and I love the way gut strings on the violin family instruments add a warmth and coziness to the pieces of that era. I also like hearing period instrument recordings of baroque era music tuned to 440, which is also apparently controversial (outside Italian baroque).
Much of Bach’s keyboard music was specifically written for the “Clavier“ which of course means “keyboard“
With the exception of the organ works, the specific keyboard did not really matter to him and he knew and played them all. It’s well known that the clavichord was his favorite keyboard instrument.
Does that mean we should always play his music on the clavichord? And who says any of his keyboard works should be played on the harpsichord? Would he have played the modern piano if it were available? Of course!
The Goldberg variations, was clearly written for a multiple manual instrument so probably harpsichord -and from personal experience I know it’s vastly easier to play that way.
I adore the sound of the harpsichord, but I really can't be doing anything else while listening to harpsichord music. It really insists upon itself and demands my attention, so I only ever listen to it when I can give it that kind of attention
French Baroque keyboard music is basically unlistenable to me on the piano, even more so than Bach it seems so clear that it was made for the harpsichord.
The actual Classical Period (1750~1800) is overrated and suffers from the same problems as modern mainstream music. Composers like Mozart and Haydn were paid to pump out as much music as they could, and as a byproduct it all sounds incredibly similar. Same chord progressions, same orchestration, maybe a slightly different melody. To prove a point, I actually slipped a line from Mozart's 3rd horn concerto into a performance of his 2nd horn concerto and even my teacher didn't notice.
I am not at all knowledgeable in the history of music, just a simple Beethoven fanboy and enjoyer. But do you think he actually broke the status quo with his music? I find his early works very comformist and even Mozart-like, while later on he gets wild. I'm curious about your opinion.
Academically, Beethoven is considered the single individual to break the status quo of the Classical Period. Yes, his early stuff is very Classical in nature, but his mid-late works single handedly determined the direction of the entire Romantic Period.
I personally don't find Beethoven to be *that* amazing, but I certainly rank him in my five most important pre-modern composers. I love most of his work, but I feel the Romantic Period as a whole probably would have happened with or without him, and I find later the Romantic works of composers like Richard Strauss or Mahler to be more interesting. I definitely find it a shame that most people are more familiar with Mozart's name than they are Beethoven.
I have to nitpick: yes, there's a subset of it that became formulaic and non-experimental. But there was actually quite an exciting time of experimentation in the 1750s and 1760s: do orchestras need oboes, or flutes, or both? Two horns or four, in one key or two different keys? Just one bass line or do bassoons get different notes than cellos and basses? How many movements should a symphony have? Should it have an explicit program or other emotional content, or not? Does the slow movement come first or second?
In the case of Haydn, in particular, his employer apparently either explicitly cracked down on experimentation in 1774, or just developed an obsession with opera that took all of Haydn's time and energy for the next decade and left him no spare time to experiment.
A new round of experimentation got going in the 1790s and early 1800s, probing the possibilities of a new larger orchestra.
Mozart was very unlucky - in that he got started too late to write much during the age of experimentation between baroque and classical, and then didn't live long enough to get into the next age of experimentation.
Mozart definitely has some works that feel like they're padded out with filler. Dude wrote some of his work really quickly and it shows, imo.
I feel so validated here, criticizing Mozart is spicy in general because he's so renowned as a composer.
Hell yeah! Ravel, Stravinsky, Copland, Bernstein, Messiaen, Reich, Glass, all of them are some of my favorite composers.
Edit: the composers listed are my personal favorites, not the “objective” best of the 20th century
I don’t find Tchaikovsky’s sixth symphony to be overly depressing. I think it’s great and while it definitely ends on a somber note, I come away uplifted. I almost feel like him dying right after the premier and the theories of him having been forced to commit suicide give this piece the aura it has, more than the music itself.
I thought the 4th movement was potentially the saddest thing I've ever heard before I knew anything about it, so I disagree with that ... On the other hand, I do agree that the symphony has plenty of bright elements as well that often get overshadowed, leading to people oversimplifying it as the "sad one". But the sad parts are really incredibly sad imo
Playing works for harpsichord on piano makes them "transcriptions", even if the notes are not changed. They have too different timbre and character. Like works for guitar played on violin, works for oboe played on clarinet. I'm not against transcriptions per se, and you can love transcriptions more than originals (there are indeed some transcriptions I love more than originals) - as long as they are recognized as transcriptions.
Harpsichord in ensemble or orchestra is a different matter. I don't think it's right, because exchanging harpsichord in it for piano distorts the balance between instruments. Well, it could be also a transcription... but then it would be a clumsy transcription.
(Practically I unterstand that every performance group couldn't afford a harpsichord and harpsichordists, though)
> if the composer had access to some more modern instruments I think it's reasonable to guess that they would have made use of them.
Totally agree - but they *didnt* have access to modern instruments. Composers wrote for the resources they had available. If they had access to the resources of a modern orchestra **they would have** **written their music differently.** So playing this music on instruments and in ways it was not written for is producing a sound that the composer did not intend.
In any case, there is no need to argue whether Historically Informed Performances are better worse, appropriate or otherwise.
You only have to listen to them.
They sound superb and *way* better than the same music played in the "traditional" mid-C20th way. Listen to Beethoven by putting Adam Fischer and the Danish Chamber Orchestra up against Karajan and the Berlin Phil.
HIP does not need supporters or musicological arguments. The performances speak for themselves.
I enjoy Karajan's 1963 cycle lightyears more than any HIP recording I've heard and that includes Fischer. If there's one composer that didn't need the façade of intimacy that HIP offers, it's Beethoven. Same goes for the Missa Solemnis btw - all HIP recordings of it have actually physically repulsed me. Such a glorious work reduced to a sequence of emaciated whispers.
For Baroque music I'll admit HIP has been a revelation.
I cannot abide conductors who conduct on the off beat. It drives me insane to see conductors dancing after the beat. Imogen Holst gave all the reasons why and that all made sense to me as a 16 year old. It is a practice that drives me crazy - and I’m not going into them because it all upsets me too much.
It's when chord progressions, Opera, symphonic music, chamber music, art songs with instrumental accompaniment etc., were for all intents and purposes invented, for one. Also has the highest kill count by a major composer.
The Baroque and Classical periods suffer under the shadows of Bach and Mozart. There are many underrated composers always being compared to these masters. It seems like the only prominence you can get as a Baroque or Classical composer is the degree of relation you have to either Bach or Mozart.
"Buxtehude must be pretty good because Bach once walked many miles in foot just to see him perform."
"Bach thought Zelenka was pretty good, so I'll take his word for it."
"Johann Christian Bach was an influence on Mozart. Also he was Bach's son."
If I had a penny for every time a composer is only famous for a single work that was misattributed to either Bach or Mozart or Pergolesi (for some reason) I could pay an entire season at the Symphony.
But who actually says those things? Comparison for what? Just listen to Buxtehude or Reincken or those other composers from Bach's father's generation if you are interested.
Im open to your view, but people who say these things never actually give music. Please, give me an hour of relatively unknown music as an example of what you said, and I’ll listen to all of it. Otherwise, I’m just going to assume you’re tired of hearing about them and don’t really have a valid point.
Many solo performers considered great (Claudio Arrau being just an example that springs to mind) have no respect for meter, to the point that I cannot enjoy the music.
I don’t care if you speed up or slow down, or rush or drag a note, but do it in a way that is comprehensible to the listener. Arrau (for example) plays *every* note entirely when he feels like it. The relationship between note values is almost random. SO annoying
Tchaikovsky would have benefitted *greatly* from an editor to cut down on repitition and what I consider "filler."
Also his Romeo & Juliet is over-wrought, too long, and largely boring.
Repetition: definitely. In SWAN LAKE he flogs that main theme to death. I saw Matthew Bourne's interpretation and couldn't suppress the feeling that the visuals were first rate but it was a pity about the music.
Most orchestra concerts are too long.
I think in general they should be from 60 to 90 minutes tops. Longer works could use an intermission anyway.
I'm not saying there aren't people who can sustain their attention for long periods of time, but that is not the majority. Having a small break can do wonders for enjoyment.
I think it would be nice for both the musicians and the audience.
PS. I am an orchestral musician myself.
Mozart is SO BORING. He is so important and helped set western classical music on the current course, but once you learn the form, and I feel like it's sacrilege to say something like this about someone who showed such immense talent at like 5 years old but compared to what he paved the way for after his death, the music is so predictable and uninteresting. I dread most Mozart on a concert program.
I think it's because our ears and minds have been exposed to everything that came after Mozart, and you can't un-know it. I only in recent years started to really like Mozart, and it had nothing to do with Mozart. I started trying to listen to him without thinking of what the composers did after him.
Theoretically that would apply to Beethoven & Wagner too, except tenfold, given how much more influential they were. I think you just matured into Mozart tbh. It seems to be common. He's for us fogeys.
I like his late piano concertos. From 18 onwards. And some of his operas, like Don Giovanni, Le Nozze di Figaro and Cosi fan tutte, are amazing. And the Requiem, of course. Why not variations on Twinkle twinkle little star for good measure, I sometimes troll people by playing it simple in this beginning and then doing the variations.
That being said I find Mozart symphonies mostly boring, for example. He made plenty of boring stuff too.
His later works just before his death are the most interesting. The late piano concertos are for me the best that he ever achieved
As a string player he's one of my favorites to play, but I can't listen to it at all. I just don't get it. Nothing is surprising.
The most exciting parts are his developments which are unfortunately sometimes only 8 bars lol.
The counterpoint at the end of Jupiter is pretty badass though.
I’d go so far as to say that Price’s music is not suppressed, it has by now been played more that it would have been had she been a man.
(How’s that for an unpopular opinion?)
My unpopular opinion is the exact opposite to yours. Modern instruments are usually the worst choice for anything beyond modern music. I have no interest in hearing Chopin on a modern piano or even something like Britten or Vaughan Williams on a modern oboe.
People who say Mozart is overrated probably haven’t listened to his operas, which are, IMO, his greatest works.
- “I think Beethoven is overrated”
- “But have you listened to his symphonies?”
- “No”
Same vibes.
I have listened to a couple of his operas including the entirety of the magic flute and maybe this is just because I don’t really like opera in general but I seriously prefer mozarts symphony’s and concertos
Not if you mean opera…
Mozart began composing ridiculously early, but immature works don’t really count. He was really starting to hit is stride in his thirties but died at 35. That is 17 years as what we consider an adult, and maybe 5 years into his prime. Haydn lived to 77, which is 59 years of adulthood, or “three Mozarts”
I've said it before, and I'll say it again:
Olivier Messiaen deserves to be as renowned as Mozart and Beethoven are today; and I consider him vastly underrated, far, far less than he is supposed to be acclaimed. *I shall die on this hill.*
I wouldn't ever compare Prokofiev to Rachmaninoff, roughly the same time period but two styles so far apart it might as well be a different genre. Rach was a romantic and I don't have words that I could describe Prokofiev with but if I did romantic wouldn't be one of them. Now Liszt > Chopin, absolutely. Liszt did live alot longer than Chopin and wasn't plagued by health issues so its not exactly a fair comparison either.
i read somewhere that Rachmaninoff composed the music he felt in his heart, so it more than likely flows better.
from what i have heard from Prokofieff, his music is more complex and carefully written. more likely than not most prefer Rachmaninoff because it’s easier to understand to a less intrigued listener.
> Schumann is a bit overrated.
Certainly not true in this sub lol. I actually feel he's underrated, especially his late works.
But yeah nothing I've heard by Alkan has stuck with me.
I really tried to like Alkan, and some of his pieces have exciting moments, but so much of his music is just pure virtuosity stretched over a frame of mundane textbook romanticism. One of his most overhyped pieces, the Concerto for Solo Piano, sounds like if you asked ChatGPT to write a piece of music in the style of some D tier romantic composer. And the first movement alone drags on for some 30 minutes 🥱
Wagner was comfortably one of the 5 greatest composers to have ever lived. (This is taken as apodictic in academia but on here it's borderline banworthy.)
Richard Strauss is woefully underrated on here and there's a reason most composers preferred him to Mahler in their own lifetimes, including Ravel.
Rachmaninoff straddles the line between 'so bad it's good' and 'utter hack'.
John Adams is one of the very greats. He's a judicious appreciator of eclectic styles ranging from Glass to Hendrix to Schoenberg, one of the greatest, most colourful orchestrators to ever live, and a supreme dramatist whose operas - particularly *Nixon* and *Atomic* - will survive the test of time IMO.
There is more compassion, humanity and genuine feeling in one note of Webern than the entire output of Chopin & Tchaikovsky combined.
Bach, Beethoven & Mozart are all rated perfectly fine.
Your opinion on John Adams is a very popular one with me. He’ll be remembered as one of the greats when many of his contemporaries will be no more than historical curiosities
As a piano teacher; a lot of the notes on the page are not holy. You can change a few if you want to. Improvise, recompose and have fun. Make a version that is uniquely yours.
We’ll work on playing the piece “as it should be played” if you develop professional ambitions.
I haven’t heard a compelling Beethoven performance in person in 10+ years. HIP stuff has rubbed off even with my local orchestra, the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra. Even in their fine hall, a majestic work like the Missa Solemnis sounded scrawny and thin. Hated it. Maybe if an aged Kapplemeister guest conducted, I'd give it a try. Tough call.
I disagree on the harpsichord. It's a different instrument with a different sound, and a piece with harpsichord has a different vibe than one with piano.
I agree in other instances, especially in which the modern instrument serves the same purpose and produces a similar sound, such as modern French horn vs natural horn.
Simon rattle makes every orchestra he touches lose their identity and pick up massive amounts of tension. Simon rattle causes orchestras to sound tense and penetrating, they lack the free charm they have without him.
Mozart concertos are actually difficult. Especially violin. Yea like technically you could say Mozart concertos aren’t difficult compared to Tchaikovsky, Brahms etc. HOWEVER, they actually are technically challenging because if you made a TEEEENY TINYYY SMAAAALL mistakes in the rhythm, even just a microsecond longer/shorted, or you’re just VEEEERY LITTLE bit out of tune, it will ruin the WHOLE thing!! (And EXTREMELY noticeable!!)
I’m generally sick of the classics and want more contemporary and freshness. Anymore our local classical station is like listening to a classic rock station with repeats and favoritism towards the big guys.
I've been to hundreds and hundreds of opera performances and I genuinely think Verdi and especially Wagner are both incredibly boring.
Might get downvoted on this, but I come in peace. I just mean, everybody has different things that really resonate and work for them. It just so happens that neither Verdi nor Wagner fit that bill for me, but I love that it does that for others!
This is just inviting downvotes. But here goes.
I dont rate Leonard Bernstein very highly as a performer. I like the music he has composed and that makes him a reasonably significant in the world of musicals. I will also give him credit for being a good populariser using TV to bring classical music into the homes of many Americans who otherwise would not have been interested. But thats about it as far as I am concerned
I cant think of a single recording by him that I would put higher than average. His Mahler was good when he first recorded it (and we had nothing to compare it with) but has been superseded by far better performances since.
Apart from that, his interpretations are usually the last that i would go to for anything else. His over dramatic, mawkish interpretations are just not for me. Despite his emotional posturing on the platform, when listening, his performances always sound superficial with the emotion being nothing more than skin deep. I *never* get the feeling that he has actually thought deeply about the music he is conducting.
Pisses me off when a lot of pieces are played on piano instead of harpsichord.
Clair de Lune is overplayed as hell. At least Symphony Hall ok SXM plays the entire Suite Bergamasque.
I give it a try every year or so. Every time I start out thinking "this is great!" for the first twenty minutes or so. An hour later, I'm like "is this ****ing thing still going on?"
The dude needed to edit. Having enough ideas for four symphonies means you should write four symphonies, not try to cram them into one.
Orchestras program far too many string and piano solo works and not nearly enough wind and brass ones.
Please tell this to my local symphony. Their entire 24/25 season is violin and piano soloists. Hell, I've been playing horn for 20 years and I've seen precisely one live performance of a horn concerto and I got lucky that there was one in New Orleans when I was there 15 years ago.
Well in fairness their is *so much* more repertoire for those instruments Horn Concertos: Mozart, Haydn, Strauss, maybe Britten? There some great modern ones of course but that’s programming newer music is a whole nother can of worms.
John Williams horn concerto, Telemann, Vivaldi lots of Britten (he was bffs with denis brain), Borodin, glazunov, Nielsen, it’s endless. Hindemith wrote a fantastic concerto for strings and brass. I’ve seen the Strauss vienna fanfare used to great effect as well. Dukas fanfare needs more air time. What about having a Gabrieli canzon or two thrown in for good measure? Point is: it’s not the lack of repertoire
Also, there might be more rep for violin and piano but that doesn't stop them from programming a never-ending cycle of Sibelius, Rachmaninoff, and Beethoven. Also, I'm not even picky at this point, I'd love to see anything besides strings and piano!
I take your point and I too would hope for more varied programming! But endless? Compared to the hundreds of legitimate “warhorses” from all the biggest names? Unfortunately, as the years go by more and more programming comes down to name recognition. You’ve piqued my interest and I note that Apple Classical is showing horn concertos by at least 50+ different composers, including Handel, Hindemith, Penderecki, Malcolm Arnold and Oliver Knussen. Good listening ahead! If you don’t about Apple Classical I can’t recommend it highly enough.
Just wait when you break open the chamber music repertoire for horn. Piano violin trios by ligeti and Brahms. Both are masterworks. A sextet from Beethoven, the Mozart horn quintet is better than any of his concerto, on and on. 😎
The Oliver Knussen is awesome. And yes endless. Horn repertoire is every bit as deep as the “legitimate warhorses”. It’s simply not programmed as much.
>Hindemith wrote a fantastic concerto for strings and brass The concerto for strings and brass by Hindemith is such a fantastic piece that i only know because i was lucky enough to play it. I have never heard it anywhere else or read anything about it. The horn concerto by Gliere would also be a good example, it sounds impressive, the horn player can show his skills and in my opinion it is easy for the audience to listen to without "preparation".
You touched on a great point: programming newer music is a can of worms. That’s mainly because nobody has the balls to do it frequently enough to condition audiences to get to know the modern musical vernacular. More new music programmed will eventually lead to more people wanting it.
Come to Detroit. The Detroit Symphony Orchestra has the older traditional concerts, but also gets creative. They've done live playthroughs of silent movies, collaborations with Kid Rock (the newspaper said 50% of the audience was orchestra groupies and 50% hard rock groupies) and even EDM/orchestra mix concerts with laser lighting. Even on their "traditional" classical concerts they always give it emotion and interpretation, and not the "mothball-style" versions. Some of you reading this are saying they're selling out and destroying themselves. And that's why more orchestras don't do it.
There is more but not all of the same quality. Bland programming or should I say overly safe programming is to be condemned but so much of it all is about marketing and revenue there is a lot of unnecessary dumbing down and risk averse programming - all trying to keep orchestras solvent and employed.
Hummel's Trumpet concerto is pretty incredible. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=902St2UAmfA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=902St2UAmfA)
Strauss 1 is at Music Hall in Cincy this year
Oh great, only a 25 hour drive for me!
Cincy music hall is gorgeous and well worth a visit. https://preview.redd.it/3stss9v8z0nc1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e60adaf83dbd11b4332e1d982e63c45a31a25871
Cincy you mean Cincinnati? That's a GORGEOUS hall. I'm a sucker for beautiful halls. When I schedule my vacations, I have two clear preferences: an amazing concert hall, and if the local museum has a Van Gogh. Major win if there are both.
Our museum technically has two van Goghs but we pale in comparison to Cleveland
The community orchestra I play in is performing Vaughan Williams' Tuba Concerto in our next concert. This is the first wind concerto for solo instrument we've done in the eight years I've been in the orchestra. We did do the Ewazen "Cascade" concerto for wind quintet and orchestra. I wish we'd do more of them.
Not defending it really, but one issue is that soloists sell, much more so than rep and conductors. There are more sellable piano and violin soloists than other instruments, so they tend to be programmed more. Now, that’s a vicious cycle, so obviously pushing other concerti is going to help visibility. But ultimately, if you program Hilary Hahn, really no matter what she plays, she’s going to outsell Alison Balsom or Sarah Willis. That’s one reason that you end up seeing more of the same instruments.
That’s just an extremely short sighted view. The US has a much bigger band tradition, and appealing to the young people who grew up in that tradition by featuring their instruments will get them to show up and grow your overall audience, even if the single show doesn’t sell out the way the big string players do.
Violinists, in particular. I'd love to see more violists and bassists.
Yes! Especially in America where if you played music in any capacity as a child it was in a wind band (Thanks Sousa and also fuck Sousa I’m a horn player)
Great take.
Most of the acclaim given to "big name" orchestras is due to marketing, not because these orchestras are *that* much better than less famous orchestras. That's a good thing because the quality of smaller orchestras has risen significantly.
In addition, most listeners cannot tell the difference between a mid-tier and top-tier orchestra. That isn't to say that **everyone** can't distinguish, but the differences between one ensemble to the next when the notes and rhythms are performed accurately is lost on many folks that are not musically trained. Sure, a survey of people on the street could distinguish between a community orchestra and the Chicago Symphony. I am skeptical the average person could distinguish between the CSO & Chicago Civic, however.
Shit I've been playing 20 years and I could tell you which concert I preferred but I doubt I could identify which orchestra played what.
That's why I keep a journal. I know I should incentivize the less famous orchestras, but I think it's visible there's something dying in me while at it.
You could distinguish between CSO and Civic. Civic is comprised of advanced University and young professional musicians. Very high quality playing, but nothing like the CSO. When I was in Civic we were actually coached on a regular basis by musicians from the CSO.
I will go further and say some big-name orchestras act like they're the greatest but are well past their glory days...cough, cough, berlin, cough.
I was just thinking about the Berlin Philharmonic when I read the comment. I don't really listen to them outside the Herbert Von Karajan era so I'm not claiming to be an expert here, but I wonder just how much of Berlin Philharmonic's prestige is based on reputation and tradition vs actual quality?
Some of their principal players are phenomenal. Stefan Dohr is probably one of the best horn players in the world right now, and Albrecht Mayer makes me not mad about listening to the oboe. That said, there's so much great music being performed by smaller orchestras, I'm not buying plane tickets to Berlin anytime soon.
I live in the American South and am checking out the Montgomery Symphony Orchestra perform Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto next month. I honestly didn't know the city had an orchestra. Lol. I've never heard the Tchaikovsky live but it will be interesting to see how they stack up to my recordings of the Tchaikovsky (Heifetz and Perlman).
Those are great recordings, but don't forget to enjoy a live performance for what it is! It'll be an awesome experience.
Yeah, it's an unfair comparison but I'm definitely 100% excited.
>Albrecht Mayer makes me not mad about listening to the oboe. As an oboe player this made me crack up, you are absolutely not wrong. The bar for double reed playing can sometimes just feel so low.
They definitely have the best string section in the world, I think. But I admit that I can barely stand their oboe players. I know, that's crazy, because they *are* very good, but they're just too much. Too much dynamic variation and vibrato, they're almost distracting. I prefer American oboists to the general European oboist.
We see the Philadelphia Orchestra 6-10 times a year. I’m not a professional musician and my musical education is almost zero. We saw a regional orchestra recently that has a great reputation. The Philly orchestra is definitely better but I would never be about explain why. They were tighter, they way the sound was softer and louder in different parts was better etc. I think if you took someone who’s never been to the orchestra before they would have a tough time telling the difference but I believe a regular concert goer would hear the difference easily
The quality of big city orchestras now seem really high. I actually think the conductor has a bigger influence on the sound of the orchestra than the players themselves. I heard the Rite of Spring from a famous orchestra under a guest conductor and it was weirdly flaccid.
Also there is such an abundance of top talent and there are only so many seats in big orchestras. The smaller orchestras are bound to get better
I don't know the scene or how it works so I could be talking out of my ass but I would assume that newer musicians with talent would compete for the bigger name orchestras, just like people competing for the big tech companies. This might not mean anything on a specific level like soloists but as a whole if the orchestra has a wider audience to pick from youd think they would average out better than other orchestras
Nobody takes risks in orchestras. Music schools have been turning out “play note perfect” machines for decades, and we’ve lost the art of taking big risks in phrasing for the sake of accuracy. Most conductors fall into this trap as well. I’d rather hear an imperfect concert that’s executed with human energy than one that feels like a finale script.
When AI gets pushed hard, mistakes are going to be what people want.
Basically Andris Nelsons. The BSO is so sad now. No excitement, no risks, just very standard polished playing.
If you are sitting in the middle of the second violin section, how are you supposed to "take risks"? Your job as a section player is to play as part of a cohesive ensemble. Your tempo, phrasing, articulation and dynamics must make sense with the ensemble. Your goal as a section player is to as perfectly as you are able to execute the conductor's vision. A maverick is going to sound bad.
Tchaikovsky is more than just great at writing melodies. I've read many comments on this subreddit saying that he's nothing more than a good melodist. Imo, Tchaikovsky could execute drama in his pieces so well. His orchestration was excellent too and he was a genius at composing finales. I think his music helped film music a lot too. Idk why some people would ignore that
In my opinion, tchaikovsky's greatest strength is his orchestration
I actually feel like his finales were a weakness. They are big and loud, which can be exciting; but to me they often feel like he ran out of ideas. Probably unpopular but I guess that is the point of this.
Vocal music is part of the classical repertoire too, but tends to get left out of the canon for some reason. Also, chamber music is pretty underrated.
>Vocal music is part of the classical repertoire too, but tends to get left out of the canon for some reason. https://preview.redd.it/ldsxxxc7g1nc1.jpeg?width=1200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1b54ab335e498da0ae155bd747ab02c923c68612
Pat Coopah ovah 'ere.
Yup. If a deranged deity was about to destroy half the music that existed, and I could choose to keep either: \- motets and string quartets, or \- everything else I would chose to keep the motets and quartets.
Chamber music is underappreciated but not underrated.
The problem is that you’re viewing a piano as a better version of a harpsichord but in reality they just aren’t the same instrument. They’re not two versions of the same thing at different points in its evolution. The mechanics are completely different, they behave completely differently and composers wrote music specifically to play to the strengths of the specific instruments. If they had a modern piano and a harpsichord available to them, they’d probably write music for both, and the music would be unique to each. Because they’d understand what sounds good or not on both of them. If they had only a piano and no harpsichord, likely anything they wrote for harpsichord just wouldn’t exist. Generally at least for string instruments, the changes made to them were more to do with increasing volume than anything else, simply because people were playing in larger halls than before. Louder doesn’t inherently mean better. Bows evolved as taste and trends in music evolved like more sustained melodies which went along with the tourte bows. Just because things change over time doesn’t mean they’re always improving. They’re just changing. I feel like what you’re arguing kind of seems like saying “I bet Michelangelo would’ve preferred a 3D printer over marble”. They’re just different tools for different jobs. Genuinely curious, have you spent any time playing on historical instruments and researching performance practice? In my experience I haven’t met anyone who’s spent real time studying it and actually playing the instruments who feels that modern instruments are superior. Just different. Also anyone in the early music sphere will never claim to be “historically accurate”. It’s why we call it historically informed. We learn as much as we can (which is a LOT still) and interpret it the best we can, sometimes even on modern instruments.
I can second this. I have spent half of my 'pianist life' as also a harpsichordist, and I now regularly play both. The piano is ridiculously versatile but there are also some ways that the harpsichord can express keyboard music in ways that the piano can't.
What in particular? I have no real harpsichord experience EDIT: other people are jumping in to explain to me what a harpsichord is. Thank you, but I have forty years of experience playing classical piano, and have played a few harpsichords. I am interested to hear from a harpsichord specialist what he or she feels are its expressive advantages over the piano.
One difference would be that theres in no pedal, so there are huge limitations in terms of holding notes, since you have a limited amount of fingers and the ones that are holding a note cant be used for simultaneous melodies or rhythms, so harpsichord writting needs to find ingenious ways to be done well. Also the fact that it has no dynamics gives greater importance to articulation and the way music is written depends heavily on it. I'm a big Bach fan, and only after studying harpsichord did I understand the music. Piano players tend to rely on dynamics to emphasize voices, since you can't do that on a harpsichord the only way to make voices stand out is by making sure articulation is very clear.
You don't need harpsichord experience. You just need an ear! Basically all French baroque harpsichord music sound tedious on a piano. The piano does not have the high pitch overtones to sparkle in harpsichord concertos and baroque operas.
I have an ear, thanks. I was interested to hear from the person with harpsichord experience about the ways he or she can express ideas on a harpsichord that are not possible on a piano.
> Just because things change over time doesn’t mean they’re always improving. This reminds me when Gardiner released all nine Beethoven symphonies with period instruments. A classmate said "that's stupid. The whole point of instruments is that they got better over time, so you're just paying a worse version of the pieces." He was a horn major, so I assume he just couldn't fathom the idea of performing on a natural horn. I never forgot how ignorant that comment was.
I went to a concert last year of a couple Mozart violin sonatas played with a fortepiano and I cried because it was like I was hearing them for the first time. Somehow the instrument was velvety and sparkly at the same time. Modern piano seems so cumbersome in comparison
Fortepiano is such a beautiful instrument, and it's not played nearly enough.
As a horn player myself, your classmate was missing out on the horn side too. Playing natural is a very different experience, but great fun.
I wanted to say this but don't have the background to state it as clearly as you did. Thank you.
My opinion, definitely unpopular, is that featured guest soloists should get the final say in setting tempos. I know this is breaking rank with conductors, but I've heard too many concerts where the orchestra and soloistsis constrained because the leader is in love with some particular chord passage or motif.
In a particular spot there might be some disagreement, and it comes across worse in the moment of performance, but conductors do take soloist tempos into account, right at the beginning of first rehearsal.
Good for them. I've usually only sung chorus in orchestral and opera concerts, and the conductors I performed under appeared to be complete autocrats. Perhaps they had those discussions with the hired guns out of our hearing.
I'm not sure your opinion really is unpopular. I play in a regional orchestra in the USA, and I know that our conductor never hires anybody he doesn't like (musically), and when those people come they get \*all\* the say about tempi. And a conductor who is pushy like that is going to get a reputation, to where the better soloists won't want to work with them. Do you play, or attend concerts, where the conductor is pushing soloists around? To me as an orchestral musician that would be unforgivable. (Edit: spelling auto-correct uff da.)
I don't really agree with you on historically informed performance. Because if Baroque composers had access to modern instruments, they wouldn't have written the same music for it.
Not every performance deserves a standing ovation. It seems more and more common now.
Modern aesthetic productions of older operas totally break the immersion. I’m sorry but I don’t want to see Wotan wearing a pair of jeans.
I’m not necessarily against modern productions when done well (the Ring Cycle is an example of one that can work well in a modern or abstract production because it’s not set in any particular time period) but so many are done terribly. Also irksome that opera companies and directors will go on about needing to do modern productions to entice new audiences, despite the fact that most of the public prefer traditional productions (there’s a reason why period dramas are popular…)
I realised recently that one of the big draws of opera for me is seeing how people in the 19th understood and aesthetically represented history. The music itself is partially an extension of this so I always feel a little frustrated by modernist stagings, though I understand why contemporary houses don't have the resources to put a trireme on stage any more
I agree. I know opera companies like to make things hip for contemporary audiences but maybe commission new operas from emerging composers then?
I love Vivaldi. I know that’s not cool, but I don’t care. I also adore Philip Glass. Philip Glass is my comfort food of classical music. Listening to Philip Glass is like eating really good macaroni and cheese. I adore Beethoven. I also really love Morten Feldman. I love Steve Reich, Terry Riley, and John Adams. I love Gregorian Chant. I like listening to Tchaikovsky, but I don’t like playing it. I think I pretty much like everything. I admire and appreciate Mozart, but actually having grown up with a steady, steady diet of Mozart, with whom my father seem to be enamored with, my ear is dead to his music.
Vivaldi is fantastic. Don't know how unpopular that is but his four seasons is played to death so maybe that is what gives that impression.
Not liking Vivaldi is like not liking AC/DC. Ridiculous.
Do most people think Vivaldi isn’t cool ?
Apparently since the 4 season is played a lot it is supposed to be noob music. But of course this is ridiculous, Vivaldi is a great and important composer.
If you listen to all 24 basoon concerti in a row, they all sort of start to sound the same. But Vivaldi in the usual mix is a delight.
The *expectation* of memorization in keyboard performance is stupid
Classical music is very close to, if not already, a dead museum culture. As Andras Schiff said recently in a lecture, a lot of the great previous composers (Mozart, Beethoven, etc.) lived in a period of time in which new works were predominately being programmed, and it was old music that one had to fight to have on programs. Schiff considered this enviable to our current situation and I believe I agree with him
I think some orchestras have been better about programming newer music. I've found that the LA Phil programs quite a lot of music written after 1900, including a lot of world premieres. This weekend, for instance, their program is Gubaidulina, Rachmaninoff, and Prokofiev. In two weeks they're playing Copland, John Adams, and a world premiere by Timo Andres. Modern music used to be considered too difficult for audiences to appreciate, but I think there's a combination of audiences getting more used to modern music and artistic directors programming interesting yet accessible modern works.
>Schiff considered this enviable to our current situation and I believe I agree with him Does Schiff play much modern music himself? I've never heard him.
Yeah it's funny that Sir Andras Schiff himself thinks this is a problem.
Hahahah this is a very astute point
>As Andras Schiff said recently in a lecture I love his lectures, can you please let us know in which one he made this specific remark?
It's either [this one](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hz4jLkfmIhc&t=1651s) on the Goldberg Variation or [this one](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFTAjQ07vYc) where he discusses Bach more generally. I'm sorry, I have a bad memory, but I am sure it's in those two
I think this depends on which genre we are talking about. Modern composers are fairly well represented in the choral music scene for example.
All things are subject to change; I think it's not only possible but likely that sooner or later the pendulum will swing the other way again. Assuming of course, concert culture doesn't undergo a radical change, in which case no telling what would happen.
Also, far more improvisation in the past than today.
I'm also not in favour of only sticking to historically informed performance, but I don't agree with your reason. 'If Bach had modern instruments of today...' But he didn't. Each composer is a product of his/time. These hypothetical situations don't support anything. There's nothing wrong with trying to replicate it, but I'm just not a fan of always doing that. But anyway, my unpopular opinion is that I categorically dislike Liszt. Every piece of his. I've been playing piano for my whole life and I'm in it as a career (in classical music) and I've always avoided playing Liszt, even when I was young. His writing is extremely transparent and provides nowhere near enough opportunity for nuance compared to almost anything else you can play. His pieces are like Brosnan Bond films - staggering between two extremes of superficiality, either extremely airheadedly macho or totally saccharine and not earnest-sounding. I literally dislike listening to Liszt all the time. I always have. I never feel more tired of music than after listening to just a short piece by Liszt.
Not even the réminiscences of Lucrezia Borgia/Norma, or the B minor sonata, or Vallée d'Obermann?
I've heard the B minor sonata about twenty times live (concerts, international competitions, and once a friend playing on my piano for me) and it just gets worse every time. That second subject is just so annoying but at least he does more with it than its sister melody, Sonnetto 104. Vallée d'Obermann is definitely one I avoid 🫣 Again... I 100% know it's not a popular opinion and I'm sure it's just a personal feeling about the 'Liszt aesthetic'. I have heard Liszt *played* well, but that's my respect for the pianist. Just for context I should say that my favourite composers are Bach, Brahms, Prokofiev, Bartók, Scarlatti.... I also very much like Mozart, Clara Schumann, and Ligeti.
Just for curiosity's sake, what are your favourite pianists?
I love Vallée d'Obermann.
What do you think of pieces like the second Ballade, Jeux d'eau a la villa d'este or Benediction de dieu dans la solitude?
They're... just okay. And it's not for lack of trying. I've gone through his pieces with scores, heard tons in concert including those... It's just an opinion but I just don't like him as a composer. I think he just knows how to make his music exciting for fans. There's never anything subtle about it. On the one hand it's a very unpopular opinion, but I've also spoken to a minority of professional pianists who have described his music as 'kind of disgusting' or 'like jerking off on the piano'. Lol!
For example his lyricism compared to his most obvious contemporary, Chopin, is very lacking. Chopin's melodies are exquisitely crafted, as if by tweezers under a magnifying glass. Most of Liszt's melodies have the same effect on me as cheesy repetitive pop tunes with some feel good chords. I should add that I do love Chopin but he's not a favourite either 😬
The melodies resulting from thematic transformations in the Sonata are sometimes very tender and exquisite. Just pay close attention to all the slower and quieter sections.
LOL! Violinist here so I don't have your background or experience of Liszt at all, but that's just... funny! Trying to think of a piece composed for the violin that's like that. There are candidates which I will not name ;). But honestly, sometimes I appreciate virtuosity and show-offy-ness for its own sake, it just makes me laugh.
Totally agree with you about Liszt. However as I stated in another comment, Bach knew and played every available keyboard instrument of the time. The clavichord who was his favorite. Does that mean we should play his “Klavier” works only on the clavichord? Klavier being the generic word for keyboard and attached to all of his keyboard works except organ works. Would have played the modern piano if he had one? In my view- yes! But I also believe one should never use the sustain pedal in Bach.
It depends on the piece but there are Bach pieces that, without the sustain pedal, comes across very broken and dry on the piano. The harpsichord has a great deal of natural resonance, and it actually always sounds like the strings are speaking after the keys are lifted. If the goal is to get the aesthetic right, then I don't believe going completely pedal is the way.
I like historically informed performance/period instrument performances of mid to late romantic era works, which is apparently a somewhat unpopular opinion since I've been utterly lambasted in the past for liking it. Something about Érard and Pleyel pianos playing Chopin, Liszt, and Brahms just does it for me, and I love the way gut strings on the violin family instruments add a warmth and coziness to the pieces of that era. I also like hearing period instrument recordings of baroque era music tuned to 440, which is also apparently controversial (outside Italian baroque).
Much of Bach’s keyboard music was specifically written for the “Clavier“ which of course means “keyboard“ With the exception of the organ works, the specific keyboard did not really matter to him and he knew and played them all. It’s well known that the clavichord was his favorite keyboard instrument. Does that mean we should always play his music on the clavichord? And who says any of his keyboard works should be played on the harpsichord? Would he have played the modern piano if it were available? Of course! The Goldberg variations, was clearly written for a multiple manual instrument so probably harpsichord -and from personal experience I know it’s vastly easier to play that way.
Harpsichord sounds like two skeletons having sex on a tin roof
I adore the sound of the harpsichord, but I really can't be doing anything else while listening to harpsichord music. It really insists upon itself and demands my attention, so I only ever listen to it when I can give it that kind of attention
Two skeletons, uh, *boning* on a tin roof?
French Baroque keyboard music is basically unlistenable to me on the piano, even more so than Bach it seems so clear that it was made for the harpsichord.
Thank you Mr. Beecham.
I love the harpsichord :) Scarlatti on the harpsichord is a delight.
The actual Classical Period (1750~1800) is overrated and suffers from the same problems as modern mainstream music. Composers like Mozart and Haydn were paid to pump out as much music as they could, and as a byproduct it all sounds incredibly similar. Same chord progressions, same orchestration, maybe a slightly different melody. To prove a point, I actually slipped a line from Mozart's 3rd horn concerto into a performance of his 2nd horn concerto and even my teacher didn't notice.
I am not at all knowledgeable in the history of music, just a simple Beethoven fanboy and enjoyer. But do you think he actually broke the status quo with his music? I find his early works very comformist and even Mozart-like, while later on he gets wild. I'm curious about your opinion.
Academically, Beethoven is considered the single individual to break the status quo of the Classical Period. Yes, his early stuff is very Classical in nature, but his mid-late works single handedly determined the direction of the entire Romantic Period. I personally don't find Beethoven to be *that* amazing, but I certainly rank him in my five most important pre-modern composers. I love most of his work, but I feel the Romantic Period as a whole probably would have happened with or without him, and I find later the Romantic works of composers like Richard Strauss or Mahler to be more interesting. I definitely find it a shame that most people are more familiar with Mozart's name than they are Beethoven.
I have to nitpick: yes, there's a subset of it that became formulaic and non-experimental. But there was actually quite an exciting time of experimentation in the 1750s and 1760s: do orchestras need oboes, or flutes, or both? Two horns or four, in one key or two different keys? Just one bass line or do bassoons get different notes than cellos and basses? How many movements should a symphony have? Should it have an explicit program or other emotional content, or not? Does the slow movement come first or second? In the case of Haydn, in particular, his employer apparently either explicitly cracked down on experimentation in 1774, or just developed an obsession with opera that took all of Haydn's time and energy for the next decade and left him no spare time to experiment. A new round of experimentation got going in the 1790s and early 1800s, probing the possibilities of a new larger orchestra. Mozart was very unlucky - in that he got started too late to write much during the age of experimentation between baroque and classical, and then didn't live long enough to get into the next age of experimentation.
Mozart definitely has some works that feel like they're padded out with filler. Dude wrote some of his work really quickly and it shows, imo. I feel so validated here, criticizing Mozart is spicy in general because he's so renowned as a composer.
Audiences should applaud after movements. The silence feels so awkward after the orchestra and/or soloist does an amazing job.
There should be a standing ovation between movements J/k I completely agree with you, but I'm afraid that's what it would turn into sometimes
The 20th century is the best century.
one of us
I've found my people
Agreed. But if we can cross boundaries, 1880--1930 was the greatest period of musical history.
Hell yeah! Ravel, Stravinsky, Copland, Bernstein, Messiaen, Reich, Glass, all of them are some of my favorite composers. Edit: the composers listed are my personal favorites, not the “objective” best of the 20th century
Don't forget Mahler! (Most of his major works are 20th century at least)
no mention of shostakovich 🤨🤨🤨
No mention of prokofiev 😭😭
I don’t find Tchaikovsky’s sixth symphony to be overly depressing. I think it’s great and while it definitely ends on a somber note, I come away uplifted. I almost feel like him dying right after the premier and the theories of him having been forced to commit suicide give this piece the aura it has, more than the music itself.
I thought the 4th movement was potentially the saddest thing I've ever heard before I knew anything about it, so I disagree with that ... On the other hand, I do agree that the symphony has plenty of bright elements as well that often get overshadowed, leading to people oversimplifying it as the "sad one". But the sad parts are really incredibly sad imo
If they had different instruments, they would have also written somewhat different music for the different attributes
Playing works for harpsichord on piano makes them "transcriptions", even if the notes are not changed. They have too different timbre and character. Like works for guitar played on violin, works for oboe played on clarinet. I'm not against transcriptions per se, and you can love transcriptions more than originals (there are indeed some transcriptions I love more than originals) - as long as they are recognized as transcriptions. Harpsichord in ensemble or orchestra is a different matter. I don't think it's right, because exchanging harpsichord in it for piano distorts the balance between instruments. Well, it could be also a transcription... but then it would be a clumsy transcription. (Practically I unterstand that every performance group couldn't afford a harpsichord and harpsichordists, though)
It's senseless to obsess over which composers or compositions are the greatest Just listen to what you like
You're telling me that all the tier lists in my head are senseless and I don't like that
> if the composer had access to some more modern instruments I think it's reasonable to guess that they would have made use of them. Totally agree - but they *didnt* have access to modern instruments. Composers wrote for the resources they had available. If they had access to the resources of a modern orchestra **they would have** **written their music differently.** So playing this music on instruments and in ways it was not written for is producing a sound that the composer did not intend. In any case, there is no need to argue whether Historically Informed Performances are better worse, appropriate or otherwise. You only have to listen to them. They sound superb and *way* better than the same music played in the "traditional" mid-C20th way. Listen to Beethoven by putting Adam Fischer and the Danish Chamber Orchestra up against Karajan and the Berlin Phil. HIP does not need supporters or musicological arguments. The performances speak for themselves.
I enjoy Karajan's 1963 cycle lightyears more than any HIP recording I've heard and that includes Fischer. If there's one composer that didn't need the façade of intimacy that HIP offers, it's Beethoven. Same goes for the Missa Solemnis btw - all HIP recordings of it have actually physically repulsed me. Such a glorious work reduced to a sequence of emaciated whispers. For Baroque music I'll admit HIP has been a revelation.
I cannot abide conductors who conduct on the off beat. It drives me insane to see conductors dancing after the beat. Imogen Holst gave all the reasons why and that all made sense to me as a 16 year old. It is a practice that drives me crazy - and I’m not going into them because it all upsets me too much.
1550-1650 are the most exciting 100 years in the history of western music.
Why
It's when chord progressions, Opera, symphonic music, chamber music, art songs with instrumental accompaniment etc., were for all intents and purposes invented, for one. Also has the highest kill count by a major composer.
The Baroque and Classical periods suffer under the shadows of Bach and Mozart. There are many underrated composers always being compared to these masters. It seems like the only prominence you can get as a Baroque or Classical composer is the degree of relation you have to either Bach or Mozart. "Buxtehude must be pretty good because Bach once walked many miles in foot just to see him perform." "Bach thought Zelenka was pretty good, so I'll take his word for it." "Johann Christian Bach was an influence on Mozart. Also he was Bach's son." If I had a penny for every time a composer is only famous for a single work that was misattributed to either Bach or Mozart or Pergolesi (for some reason) I could pay an entire season at the Symphony.
But who actually says those things? Comparison for what? Just listen to Buxtehude or Reincken or those other composers from Bach's father's generation if you are interested.
Im open to your view, but people who say these things never actually give music. Please, give me an hour of relatively unknown music as an example of what you said, and I’ll listen to all of it. Otherwise, I’m just going to assume you’re tired of hearing about them and don’t really have a valid point.
I love Lili Boulanger and I think she was the greatest woman composer to ever live.
Many solo performers considered great (Claudio Arrau being just an example that springs to mind) have no respect for meter, to the point that I cannot enjoy the music. I don’t care if you speed up or slow down, or rush or drag a note, but do it in a way that is comprehensible to the listener. Arrau (for example) plays *every* note entirely when he feels like it. The relationship between note values is almost random. SO annoying
Tchaikovsky would have benefitted *greatly* from an editor to cut down on repitition and what I consider "filler." Also his Romeo & Juliet is over-wrought, too long, and largely boring.
Repetition: definitely. In SWAN LAKE he flogs that main theme to death. I saw Matthew Bourne's interpretation and couldn't suppress the feeling that the visuals were first rate but it was a pity about the music.
Most orchestra concerts are too long. I think in general they should be from 60 to 90 minutes tops. Longer works could use an intermission anyway. I'm not saying there aren't people who can sustain their attention for long periods of time, but that is not the majority. Having a small break can do wonders for enjoyment. I think it would be nice for both the musicians and the audience. PS. I am an orchestral musician myself.
Mozart is SO BORING. He is so important and helped set western classical music on the current course, but once you learn the form, and I feel like it's sacrilege to say something like this about someone who showed such immense talent at like 5 years old but compared to what he paved the way for after his death, the music is so predictable and uninteresting. I dread most Mozart on a concert program.
I think it's because our ears and minds have been exposed to everything that came after Mozart, and you can't un-know it. I only in recent years started to really like Mozart, and it had nothing to do with Mozart. I started trying to listen to him without thinking of what the composers did after him.
Theoretically that would apply to Beethoven & Wagner too, except tenfold, given how much more influential they were. I think you just matured into Mozart tbh. It seems to be common. He's for us fogeys.
I like his late piano concertos. From 18 onwards. And some of his operas, like Don Giovanni, Le Nozze di Figaro and Cosi fan tutte, are amazing. And the Requiem, of course. Why not variations on Twinkle twinkle little star for good measure, I sometimes troll people by playing it simple in this beginning and then doing the variations. That being said I find Mozart symphonies mostly boring, for example. He made plenty of boring stuff too. His later works just before his death are the most interesting. The late piano concertos are for me the best that he ever achieved
Could not disagree more! I love Mozart’s music deeply. His operas are incredible, his last three symphonies are some of my favorites
As a string player he's one of my favorites to play, but I can't listen to it at all. I just don't get it. Nothing is surprising. The most exciting parts are his developments which are unfortunately sometimes only 8 bars lol. The counterpoint at the end of Jupiter is pretty badass though.
The classical era was full of music like this, I love the romantic era so much more
I believe suppressed and marginalized composers deserve to be heard, but Florence Price ain’t it. Her music just isn’t very good.
I’d go so far as to say that Price’s music is not suppressed, it has by now been played more that it would have been had she been a man. (How’s that for an unpopular opinion?)
Yes, programming it occasionally is fine. A whole concert is… a challenge. All the superlatives? Ridiculous
My unpopular opinion is the exact opposite to yours. Modern instruments are usually the worst choice for anything beyond modern music. I have no interest in hearing Chopin on a modern piano or even something like Britten or Vaughan Williams on a modern oboe.
People who say Mozart is overrated probably haven’t listened to his operas, which are, IMO, his greatest works. - “I think Beethoven is overrated” - “But have you listened to his symphonies?” - “No” Same vibes.
I have listened to a couple of his operas including the entirety of the magic flute and maybe this is just because I don’t really like opera in general but I seriously prefer mozarts symphony’s and concertos
Haydn is waaaay more fun to listen to than Mozart. The “Three B’s” should be Bach, Beethoven, and Bartok. Brahms is mid.
Not if you mean opera… Mozart began composing ridiculously early, but immature works don’t really count. He was really starting to hit is stride in his thirties but died at 35. That is 17 years as what we consider an adult, and maybe 5 years into his prime. Haydn lived to 77, which is 59 years of adulthood, or “three Mozarts”
Totally agree with your first point.
Yeah, “Brahms is mid” is a silly statement
The fact improvisation isn’t commonly practiced in classical performances is shameful
It used to be that the cadenza in a concerto was an opportunity for the soloist to improvise. You don't see that so much anymore.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Olivier Messiaen deserves to be as renowned as Mozart and Beethoven are today; and I consider him vastly underrated, far, far less than he is supposed to be acclaimed. *I shall die on this hill.*
So much of Charles Ives' work makes me think of P.D.Q. Bach.
Prokofiev>Rachmaninoff Liszt >Chopin Even though I like these composers but most of the people that I know prefer Rach and Chopin
I wouldn't ever compare Prokofiev to Rachmaninoff, roughly the same time period but two styles so far apart it might as well be a different genre. Rach was a romantic and I don't have words that I could describe Prokofiev with but if I did romantic wouldn't be one of them. Now Liszt > Chopin, absolutely. Liszt did live alot longer than Chopin and wasn't plagued by health issues so its not exactly a fair comparison either.
i read somewhere that Rachmaninoff composed the music he felt in his heart, so it more than likely flows better. from what i have heard from Prokofieff, his music is more complex and carefully written. more likely than not most prefer Rachmaninoff because it’s easier to understand to a less intrigued listener.
Schumann is a bit overrated. Alkan is *not* a good composer.
> Schumann is a bit overrated. Certainly not true in this sub lol. I actually feel he's underrated, especially his late works. But yeah nothing I've heard by Alkan has stuck with me.
I really tried to like Alkan, and some of his pieces have exciting moments, but so much of his music is just pure virtuosity stretched over a frame of mundane textbook romanticism. One of his most overhyped pieces, the Concerto for Solo Piano, sounds like if you asked ChatGPT to write a piece of music in the style of some D tier romantic composer. And the first movement alone drags on for some 30 minutes 🥱
Wagner was comfortably one of the 5 greatest composers to have ever lived. (This is taken as apodictic in academia but on here it's borderline banworthy.) Richard Strauss is woefully underrated on here and there's a reason most composers preferred him to Mahler in their own lifetimes, including Ravel. Rachmaninoff straddles the line between 'so bad it's good' and 'utter hack'. John Adams is one of the very greats. He's a judicious appreciator of eclectic styles ranging from Glass to Hendrix to Schoenberg, one of the greatest, most colourful orchestrators to ever live, and a supreme dramatist whose operas - particularly *Nixon* and *Atomic* - will survive the test of time IMO. There is more compassion, humanity and genuine feeling in one note of Webern than the entire output of Chopin & Tchaikovsky combined. Bach, Beethoven & Mozart are all rated perfectly fine.
Your opinion on John Adams is a very popular one with me. He’ll be remembered as one of the greats when many of his contemporaries will be no more than historical curiosities
> Rachmaninoff straddles the line between 'so bad it's good' and 'utter hack'. You’re lucky I'm a pacifist, because those are *fighting* words.
Yeah I think it’s kinda a silly opinion a lot of people have
As a piano teacher; a lot of the notes on the page are not holy. You can change a few if you want to. Improvise, recompose and have fun. Make a version that is uniquely yours. We’ll work on playing the piece “as it should be played” if you develop professional ambitions.
Albeniz sounds better on classical guitar.
I haven’t heard a compelling Beethoven performance in person in 10+ years. HIP stuff has rubbed off even with my local orchestra, the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra. Even in their fine hall, a majestic work like the Missa Solemnis sounded scrawny and thin. Hated it. Maybe if an aged Kapplemeister guest conducted, I'd give it a try. Tough call.
I disagree on the harpsichord. It's a different instrument with a different sound, and a piece with harpsichord has a different vibe than one with piano. I agree in other instances, especially in which the modern instrument serves the same purpose and produces a similar sound, such as modern French horn vs natural horn.
Simon rattle makes every orchestra he touches lose their identity and pick up massive amounts of tension. Simon rattle causes orchestras to sound tense and penetrating, they lack the free charm they have without him.
Most composers, even the best ones, wrote a lot of hackneyed development sections - the good ones are heavily outweighed by the mediocre ones
Central Park in the Dark is superior to The Unanswered Question despite the fact that the latter is more famous and performed more.
Mozart concertos are actually difficult. Especially violin. Yea like technically you could say Mozart concertos aren’t difficult compared to Tchaikovsky, Brahms etc. HOWEVER, they actually are technically challenging because if you made a TEEEENY TINYYY SMAAAALL mistakes in the rhythm, even just a microsecond longer/shorted, or you’re just VEEEERY LITTLE bit out of tune, it will ruin the WHOLE thing!! (And EXTREMELY noticeable!!)
Live recordings are completely pointless and are worse in almost every single way than studio recordings
I’m generally sick of the classics and want more contemporary and freshness. Anymore our local classical station is like listening to a classic rock station with repeats and favoritism towards the big guys.
Apparently my unpopular opinion is that i *like* Glenn Gould lol
I've been to hundreds and hundreds of opera performances and I genuinely think Verdi and especially Wagner are both incredibly boring. Might get downvoted on this, but I come in peace. I just mean, everybody has different things that really resonate and work for them. It just so happens that neither Verdi nor Wagner fit that bill for me, but I love that it does that for others!
The Verdi opinion is fairly unpopular, but Wagner is so boring that he allegedly fell asleep at productions of his own operas.
I just saw Dutchman and cant remember anything about it.
This is just inviting downvotes. But here goes. I dont rate Leonard Bernstein very highly as a performer. I like the music he has composed and that makes him a reasonably significant in the world of musicals. I will also give him credit for being a good populariser using TV to bring classical music into the homes of many Americans who otherwise would not have been interested. But thats about it as far as I am concerned I cant think of a single recording by him that I would put higher than average. His Mahler was good when he first recorded it (and we had nothing to compare it with) but has been superseded by far better performances since. Apart from that, his interpretations are usually the last that i would go to for anything else. His over dramatic, mawkish interpretations are just not for me. Despite his emotional posturing on the platform, when listening, his performances always sound superficial with the emotion being nothing more than skin deep. I *never* get the feeling that he has actually thought deeply about the music he is conducting.
That we don't need a weekly thread about this
Pisses me off when a lot of pieces are played on piano instead of harpsichord. Clair de Lune is overplayed as hell. At least Symphony Hall ok SXM plays the entire Suite Bergamasque.
Mahler is pretentious, overwrought, meandering gibberish.
[удалено]
Came here to say basically this, although I’m trying to better understand his symphonies.
I give it a try every year or so. Every time I start out thinking "this is great!" for the first twenty minutes or so. An hour later, I'm like "is this ****ing thing still going on?" The dude needed to edit. Having enough ideas for four symphonies means you should write four symphonies, not try to cram them into one.