Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner I can't stand this!

i don't like Brahms's sonatas (i tried to like it through a recital with his 3rd sonata and still enjoyed nothing), Mahler's symphomies (sitting through his 5th last summer was painful and long), Shostakovich's 15th symphony (which may sound interesting here or there at the time but to me just bunch of sound clusters), and maybe more, but can't think of anymore for now.

this is awesome. How people can hate particular works considered in history as "masterpiece".

Speaking as myself:

I hate godowsky sad transcriptions of chopin etudes, specially that one who mix like 3 etudes in 1 (it's like to listen that "fur elise" techno version!!! )

-I can't stand chopin's 1º concerto
-can't stand most of the liszt etudes (except trascendentals nº10 and wildjagd (is that the spelling?))
-can't stand beethoven's 2nd sonata
-can't stand most of luciano berio works
-can't stand most of american composers! (except cage and steve reich)
-can't stand that someone can't stand mozart
-can't stand most of paganini works
-can't stand xenakis
-can't stand alkan at all. one of the worst composers i have ever known (however i highly respect him as a pianist, and his contribution to the technique development............)
-can't stand purcell
-can't stand most of barroque music (for me bach is not barroque, is a completely different story)
-can't stand the "light" cadenza of the rach 3.
-can't stand horowitz
-can't stand perahia recordings of schumann
-can't stand idil biret recordings of chopin
-can't stand martha argerich's kreisleriana
-can't stand horowitz transcriptions....
-can't stand sorajbi
-can't stand P. Glass

Well im really tired, i better go sleep :::::: ºººººººººººººººººººººººººººººººººººººººººººººº

"How many Phillip Glasses does it take to change a lightbulb?"

"How many?"

"How many Phillip Glasses does it take to change a lightbulb?"

"How many?"

"How many Phillip Glasses does it take to change a lightbulb?"

I hate minimalism, and Rachmaninov, and TV themes cooked up by blokes with guitars.

"Country music" is an oxymoron.

I dislike many of the popular classics simply because they are overplayed. For example, Vivaldi's Quattro Stagioni, Mozart's Eine Kleine NachtMusik.... Musically speaking they are quite interesting but I have just heard them too often.

I found it interesting to read comments about Mahler. Well well. I adore Mahler. I have all of the scores to his symphonies and often play along the flute/piccolo part (as practice)with a cd recording. I also love Shostakovich, Bruckner (especially his Motets and Mass in D minor) Perhaps you would think I like Wagner too. Not the case. Some of his works I like but others no. I like to discover rare works. Puccini's Requiem for example or pieces that are rarely played. I like Elgar's choral music.

Maybe Mahler and Shostakovich could be considered as 'hardcore' classical music with a limited audience? How can you not like the final movement of Mahler's 2nd Symph.? Truly enlightening for me! One can feel oneself being lifted to the heavens!

This is an interesting thread-- I didn't read it on its first go-round.

I generally agree with the "old warhorses" comments, but I just couldn't go along with the folks who dislike Handel's Messiah. It's been one of my favorites for years and years!

My hypothesis is that the folks who don't like it have little experience with the ENTIRE work, but instead are commenting on "Hallelujah Chorus" or "For Unto Us..." The full piece has some magnificent sections, and runs the gamut of emotion from elation to total despair. My second hypotheses is that the trend for Messiah has been to seriously overproduce it... double string sections, chorus of hundreds, etc.

This past Christmas the Phoenix Symphony performed the complete Messiah with the original (small) orchestration and about 30 voices. They performed around town in various venues. I saw it in a church in Scottsdale that sat perhaps 300 people. It was magnificent. Beautifully played, balanced, not at all bombastic. The soprano soloist, in particular, was wonderful. A great evening.

So don't you go dissin' Georg Fredrick, OK??

Nina

Only three pieces come to mind right now, but I hate them more for what people do to them than for the music itself. Some examples are:

1. Fur Elise

I can always count on hearing this played by EVERY SINGLE NEW PIANO STUDENT I EVER MEET!!! I never liked this piece, and the fact that I would always hear it whenever my little brothers and sisters are watching "Arthur" did not help matters. While almost everyone I meet praises this piece for its so-called beauty, I just find it annoying.

2. Flight of the Bumblebee, Moonlight Sonata 3rd movement, and any other glorified fast tune you care to name.

I hate it when you can play beautiful pieces like the second movement of Beethoven's Sonata op.13, Chopin's Prelude op.28 no.7, and Bach's Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring, and people will think you are okay, but you have to play something really fast before you can be really good.

3. Anything, when it is played by Liberace.

Do you have to ask?

Couldn't agree more! I have a piece of his and I have never liked it.

Also, I don't like Khatchaturian (what little of his piano pieces I have tried...)

Chris

It's hard to judge a composer on the basis of one piece, especially someone as variable as Hindemith. I don't like his first piano sonata at all, but the other two are nice. The Op. 11 #4 viola sonata is a beautiful piece.

Fur Elise is so overplayed, I decided to learn it with the hands switched (left hand playing top, right hand playing bottom). Give it a try, it's pretty fun, and you can show off against the novices :-P.

Anyway, having just played Bartok's Miraculous Mandarin, I'd have to say it's one of the worst pieces I've ever played. I like his Concerto for Orchestra, but the MM has no structure whatsoever, it's like he just glued a bunch of motifs together.
Next concert we're doing Beethoven's 7th (love the 2nd movement) and Bruckner's 9th (without finale). I'd have to agree that Bruckner is one of the most repetitive composers I've heard. "I'll take a 10 minute movement, and slap a repeat mark at the end. I won't even bother changing the key."

I like almost all romantic music (Bruckner doesn't count, they even had to call one of his symphonies "romantic".) I'm surprised about the hostility to Tchaikovsky and Grieg's piano concerti... ignoring the repetitive chords in the T, there's a very beautiful melody there. And I love his violin concerto.

I blame Schoenberg for the destruction of classical music. The Russians like Rachmaninoff and Prokofiev kept romantic music alive as long as possible, but now there's practically nothing except atonal "innovative" garbage. I'd rather listen to a symphonic adaptation of Nintendo theme music than anything coming out today.

Schoenberg has, if anything, kept classical music alive. Surely you've sampled a representative selection of 20th century music to reach such a conclusion.

Besides, the Miraculous Mandarin is of course episodic. It's a ballet score, after all.

I have also expanded my list a bit. I can't stand:

- Bach
- Mozart
- Rachmaninov
- Grieg
- Tchaikovsky
- Chopin
- Generally all music that sounds older than it is

What is "classical music"? When Schoenberg came along with 12-tone atonality, I think he destroyed creative thought and turned music into mathematical formulae. If you were to play some wrong notes in most 20th century music in the school of Schoenberg, you probably wouldn't even notice that you made a mistake.

I admittedly don't know much about what's being pubished today though. I would say that many film scores, like Gone With the Wind or Dr. Zhivago could be characterized as classical.

And mrenaud, you can't stand any of those composers? Who exactly do you like pre 20th century, just out of curiosity?

I've sampled, and noted audience reaction to, enough 20th Century music to believe that 12-tone music is a dead end, as is most of what was written to be "classical" music, and that what will become "classical" will be other forms. As Frungy said, film music has replaced the incidental music to plays, just as the musical has replaced opera.

12-tone is as formulaic as traditional functional harmony. Schoenberg did deviate from the row when he felt like it, he (unlike some others) did make music with it. Total serialism, on the other hand, is a dead-end (though, here too, some composers, notably Boulez and Nono, did make music with it).

There are many pre-20th century composers I do like, e.g.:

- Haydn
- Beethoven
- Scarlatti
- Liszt
- Dvorak
- Mussorgsky

And some 20th century composers who used tonality in interesting ways (e.g. Prokofiev, Mahler, Shostakovich, Stravinsky, etc.).