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Is There a Great Composer You Plain Just Don't Like

164K views 2K replies 383 participants last post by  EdwardBast 
#1 · (Edited)
I have been listening to classical music since I was a teenager, about 40 years. My specialty is in the Romantic and Classic eras, but I try to expose myself to all kinds of Classical.
I know what I am about to say is tantamount to blasphemy on these forums, but I just don't like Johann Sebastian Bach. There, I said it. Outside of the Toccata and Fugue in D minor I can honestly say there is one piece of his that doesn't either put me to sleep or make me nervous or give me a headache, or all three of the above.
I know, I know. I've studied enough to know that Bach is one of the greatest of all the gods in the Classical spectrum. I know how extremely influential he was. I know most Classical fans adore him. I have given him chance after chance. I feel that there must be something in me that is somehow deficient to not appreciate his genius.
I am not looking for anyone to contradict my views, I fear they are set in concrete. I was wondering if anyone else has a virulent dislike to one of the acknowledged geniuses of Classical composition?
I am still very new to the forums and I was wondering what you think!
 
#1,395 · (Edited)
This is what you're looking for, Conductor Maximianno Cobra. I warn others, the content may be shocking to some, as it was to me. :lol: The 9th is my favorite symphony so it was kinda hard to listen to, makes "later Klemperer" seem like a speed-demon!



I will say this, though. It is interesting, no matter how unmusical it sounds, because it sort of lays bare the orchestration and instruments, you can hear its musical skeleton, so to speak.
 
#1,406 ·
Schubert every time. I think his music is very competent but also very woolly and flowery. I find his songs really annoying, very predictable. His unfinished symphony is far too long. What is takes Schubert an hour to say; Beethoven says it a few bars.
I can't understand the fascination. However, he has huge number of devoted fans and an unshakeable place in history.
 
#1,413 ·
As long as an individual's hate for a given composer doesn't remove said composer's works from the repertoire, I'd say "live and let hate". It's no one's loss but their own.

Speaking nostalgically, I can remember the days when I "hated" things. Much like some of Brahms' later music, I've gotten really mellow in my old age. Unlike Weird Al, I'm mellow before I'm dead.
 
#1,414 ·
Now I'll be a burr under some peoples saddle - No offense meant in any way, shape, or form:

Handel - Oh how I detest, loathe and despise his oeuvre. Imo, Handel is a JSBach wannabe.

Phew!!! - Now that I got that off my chest...


Give me John Cage over GFHandel any day of the week.............
 
#1,418 ·
@TwoPhotons: Thank you. Your response was actually much more specific than I expected and more useful. I can imagine why you feel so surprised at Brahms who seems to be an outlier for you among classical composers. I wonder if there are people who could understand from a music theory standpoint why Brahms might sit in that uncanny valley; whereas, essentially no other composers do.
 
#1,421 · (Edited)
It's interesting to hear how many members dislike Handel. He's one of my favorite composers, so I can't relate at all, but today my brother (a Baroque violinist) told me that he's not a big Handel fan, either.

My brother's favorite Baroque composer is Heinrich Biber. Anyone here want to say what they think of him (I'm not familiar with Biber myself)?
 
#1,425 ·
Well, yes, I can see that, and the outcome of an internal conflict like that can be a creative solution or an inhibition of creative output. I gather that Brahms struggled with this. There does seem to be a terrific 'restraint' in that of his musical output with which I'm familiar (perhaps not very much of his total oeuvre).
 
#1,428 ·
@TwoPhotons

I can't strong-arm anyone into liking Brahms, but it does seem fairly clear to me what he's doing in that song: he's establishing the tonic key with a brief piano introduction, and then the singer starts on the tonic key, same as Mozart or Schubert would do. What you're calling a seventh in the second bar, I think is the relative major. Root movement by thirds without preparation is one of Brahms' favorite devices. I wonder if that second bar made you expect something more harmonically adventurous than you got, and that's why you're disappointed?

The harmonic interest in Brahms is about the distinctive way he juxtaposes and moves between ordinary chords. He's not going to write new unclassifiable chords or withhold the tonic until the end of his million hour long opera, but that doesn't mean it's boring.

Here's the slow movement of his horn trio:

Starting around 5:15, we go through C flat major, E flat major, C minor, F major, D minor, back to E flat. The texture is very spare and there are no dissonances or twisty chromatic lines; we just slip quietly from one key to the next. This is pure Brahms.
 
#1,430 · (Edited)
Thank you TurnaboutVox, Richannes Wrahms, ArtMusic, isorhythm and Woodduck for your posts on Brahms!

I can't strong-arm anyone into liking Brahms, but it does seem fairly clear to me what he's doing in that song: he's establishing the tonic key with a brief piano introduction, and then the singer starts on the tonic key, same as Mozart or Schubert would do. What you're calling a seventh in the second bar, I think is the relative major. Root movement by thirds without preparation is one of Brahms' favorite devices. I wonder if that second bar made you expect something more harmonically adventurous than you got, and that's why you're disappointed?
I was also unsure whether to call it D major or a seventh in that 2nd bar because it's very ambiguous. But I think it's the bass line in that introduction that sounds most problematic to me. I see what he's doing: he goes up the root minor triad, then happens to use the 5th as a crossing point to the mediant major (D major) in the right hand, and leaps up to D in the left hand both to emphasise (perhaps) the D major harmony as well as prepare for a descending figure...it all sounds good and perfectly fine on paper. But when I actually listen to how Brahms executed this, it sounds meager and unconvincing. The jump from F# to D in the left hand just sounds forced and makes me go, "Huh?!", a bit like that sudden rise of the 4th in the strings in the 1st symphony introduction. I think it's to do with the fact that the F# is not very well harmonically established in the first place, and neither is the D. Hmmmm...I might be on to something here!

[Please note, by the way, that I never do this sort of analysis in my head while listening to music, I don't judge the music this way. I don't listen to music and go: "So that was the development, we must be onto the recapitulation now". I just listen to the music and like it or not. This is just me trying to understand why I don't like it, and why others might like it. Note also that I've never studied musical analysis and am not familiar with all the musical terms out there so apologies if I'm not being as clear as I could be.]

Here's the slow movement of his horn trio:

Starting around 5:15, we go through C flat major, E flat major, C minor, F major, D minor, back to E flat. The texture is very spare and there are no dissonances or twisty chromatic lines; we just slip quietly from one key to the next. This is pure Brahms.
I listened to that excerpt and right off the bat I had a problem with 5:19. This sudden shift in texture and musical idea is almost like the piano introduction in the 2nd Piano Concerto, and leaves me lost and frustrated. Again, after analysing, I can see what he's doing: the chords go like VI-V-I (Cb, Bb, Eb), and that chord progression can be found all over the Classical and Romantic repetoire. But again, the execution sounds all wrong. The piano does a descent, then is left hanging on the Bb. Not to mention that the bass line just before, again, doesn't sound very convincing to me.

EDIT: On more listenings I see that he seems to skip the Bb chord and jumps to Eb (as you wrote in your original post). It was the Bb in the piano bass which threw me off!

I did like the part from 5:20, especially the low C in the piano at around 5:30. But from 5:30 till 5:40, I've lost it again. It sounds like the performers have lost their place in the sheet music and the pianist is improvising some sort of pretty melody to cover it up. It is certainly a spare texture but...how can I say it, it feels to me like it's always meant to be going somewhere else, maybe to an even sparser texture or thicker texture, but Brahms keeps twisting my expectations around in a very unassuming and uncalled-for way which leaves me confused and frustrated.

As you can see, I can go on like this for pages and pages.....

a sense that the music is too deliberately put together. I think his striving after a Classical ideal was occasionally at odds with his Romantic impulses
I think I can relate to this. I've heard about the 'rivalry' between Wagner and Brahms (or was it Wagnerians and Brahmsians?), that Brahms was more conservative whereas Wagner was more progressive (guess which one I prefer). Perhaps I'm just not used to listening to Romantic music which hearkens back to the Classical era; my tastes are mainly late Romantic/early 20th century. I don't actively go out to listen to Beethoven or Mozart as much but I certainly enjoy their music as well. Perhaps the reason why Brahms sits in this "uncanny valley" for me is that his music attempts at connecting the two periods somehow and I just don't understand that style. It creates a sense of "restraint" in his music.
 
#1,429 ·
To those who dislike Brahms: you may or may not come to like his music - I've been up and down with it - but I can assure you that it does not meander.

If Brahms has a fault, it lies in an occasional lack of spontaneity, a sense that the music is too deliberately put together. I think his striving after a Classical ideal was occasionally at odds with his Romantic impulses, and originated at a deep level of personality which also manifested itself in his gruffness, his "hiding" behind his bushy beard and girth, his frustrated sex life, and his strong but rarely expressed ambivalence toward the arch-Romantic Wagner.

So much for Doktor Woodduck's psychological profiling of a man who isn't here to set me straight. But I do think I'm on to something.
 
#1,439 ·
I have to agree 100% with the original post way back at the start if this thread - I cannot, under any circumstances, find any liking for J.S. Bach. I found classical music in my late teens (I'm still only 23 now), so I know that I have much to learn, but Bach is just over my head entirely. I'm not sure if it's due to failures in my comprehension, lapses in attention, or simple ignorance, but Bach always ends up making me feel mentally exhausted. There's nothing in it for me from him. It isn't the Baroque style - I love Händel - and it isn't the forms he chooses; it's just...Bach. I can't explain why.
 
#1,440 ·
I really don't enjoy Mendelssohn as much as I probably should. Why? I don't know. I like his Elijah, but his purely instrumental works leave me cold.
 
#1,442 ·
Tchaikovsky - sometimes he's lovely, sometimes he annoys me. His the first movement of his first piano concerto is a prime example of this. It should be a crime to not repeat that brilliant theme at the start again towards the end of the piece.

Brahms as well - sorry I've tried. I don't know why but he just doesn't do anything for me.
 
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