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Most Overrated and Underrated Symphonies

45K views 222 replies 80 participants last post by  arpeggio 
#1 ·
As a sequel to the most over and underrated composers, I would like to ask what are the most over and underrated symphonies.

Overrated: Mozart 41
Underrated: Vaughan Williams 1
 
#130 ·
I think it was in response to a post from you (about my dipping a toe into Parry and Stanford) that I also started to listen to Bantock.

What I have been surprised by with all of these is how their symphonies are not heavy, turgid (Victorian) offerings, but are (to my ears) often frothy and delicately orchestrated. So thank you.

And, they are all underrated.
 
#5 ·
I think Mozart 41 is correctly rated high, and RVW 1 is also rated about right - not one of his best in my book.

Here's two symphonies that I think are frequently thought to be the weakest symphonies from their respective composers:
Brahms 2
Beethoven 8.
Both these are particular favourites of mine.

As to overrated symphonies I'll be controversial and go with Dvorak 7. Dvorak trying to be Brahms? I prefer his eighth.
 
#17 ·
I agree about Schubert's proto-minimalist 9th. None of Schubert's orchestral works really "stands out" for that matter.
As for his masses, they're like weaker versions of Haydn's late 6.

4th symphony - weaker version of Beethoven's 5th and Haydn's Schopfung
5th symphony - weaker version of Mozart's 40th
6th symphony - Haydn's 100th
7th symphony - left in sketches
8th symphony - incomplete

He's the only "great composer" who doesn't get criticized for writing mind-numbing 600+ pieces in one genre.
I mean fking 600+... Please don't tell me they're all unique and distinctive.
I mean look how Bach gets criticized for his cantatas and Vivaldi for his concertos..

Underrated compared to Schubert:
CPE Bach
Hummel
Haydn
Handel
J. A. Hasse
etc
(always ranked lower than Schubert at TC even though far more skilled as composers)

Let's face it. His music is full of vamps, padding, student-like figurations, I think he would have written 2~3 hour-long symphonies with them if he lived longer.
Interestingly Philip Glass has the same birthday as Schubert and admires him so much :lol:

I think there's a good reason why Rossini completely disregarded Schubert when he said this: "The Germans have always been at every time the greatest harmonists and the Italians the greatest melodists. But from the moment that the North produced a Mozart, we of the South were beaten on our own ground, because this man rises above both nations, uniting in himself all the charms of Italian melody and all the profundity of German harmony"

underrated compared to Schubert's orchestral works:



btw, I still remember Jacck's desperate defense of Schubert (which the mods deleted along with eugeneonagain's) in one of the old threads about Schubert's D960. :lol:
"Proto-minimalist"? Schubert...? Have you ever actually heard any minimalist music, or any Schubert for that matter?

Also... Bach gets criticized for his cantatas? Anyone who knows anything about music knows that Bach wrote hundreds of cantatas and all of them are "unique and distinctive", and brilliant. Vivaldi IS considered one of the great composers on the strength of his many concertos as well as his vocal works.
 
#12 ·
Over-rated:
Rachmaninoff sym #2 - the standard cuts are nowhere near extensive enough.
Tchaikovsky #s 4 & 5

Under-rated:
Schuman #3
Hanson #3
Shostakovich #1

Schubert's #9, in the right hands, is a very fine symphony....Try Toscanini or Reiner....magnificent....too slow, logy, plodding = awful
 
#41 ·
The first recording I heard of Schubert's 9th was Toscanini/Philadelphia. Wow! The Solti/VPO recording was one of the first three classical CDs I bought (admittedly at a time when choices were limited). By my count I have nine recordings in my library. I also treasure a live performance I saw with Gerard Schwarz conducting the New York Chamber Symphony. I never tire of the first two movements. The last two are OK as well.

p.s. I am writing this while sipping morning coffee and enjoying the Shaham/Sollscher album - "Schubert for Two."
 
#13 · (Edited)
I sure do love Schubert, but I gotta say - the 8th and 9th Symphonies get a heck of a lot of unwarranted praise IMO. Great music but they would hardly make my top 30 symphonies. Orchestral music was definitely not his strong suit.

From a cursory glance at the TC Top 100 Most Recommended Symphonies, a few others that stand out to me:

Overrated (defined as symphonies that I would place much lower than the list does):

Mozart 40 and 41
Berlioz Fantastique
Mendelssohn 4
Beethoven 7 (the one symphony of his that I'm sick of hearing)
Prokofiev 5 (like it, but not among the cream of the crop IMO)
Tchaikovsky 4, 5

Underrated (defined as symphonies that I would place much higher than the list does):

Franck
Elgar 1
Vaughan Williams 5
Brahms 3
Sibelius 7
Dvorak 5, 7
Glazunov, Berwald, Martinu, Schmidt, Ives, Myaskovsky, etc. and all the other "neglected from the concert hall" symphonists

Overall, I think Schubert and Mozart are the most egregiously overrated, but there are a lot more underrated symphonies that I am an ardent advocate for.
 
#15 ·
I have never thought Schubert to be "overrated" as but rather easy to propagate to the public. I have always thought he had the most potential if he had lived (like those in the previous posts) and continue to compose until age 60 or so. My understanding is Schubert is "self taught" and did not get any training or schooling in music, as, say Beethoven did with Haydn/Salieri. By all means correct me on this point. So I definitely think he is too long winded in his music but I do not think he would have wrote longer symphonies had he been afforded the opportunities to study with other teachers and read over scores of composers. Schubert is much too gifted to waste time if given the "know how" in constructing his works. I like his fantasia 4 hands, yet the work goes on for almost 20 minutes. One can sense that it is because he has not learned how to think on the problem but simply puts down what he has already composed or thought of without benefit of learning how to write in the sonata style that suits him. His sonata 960....first movement is 20 minutes...I get lost every time.

This article is revealing but I am concerned about the "hostile" nature the author portrays Schubert. I am not up on Schubert's biography but it does seem extreme in how he see Schubert. Kind of like when scientists do not like a theory, attack the person who came up with the theory.

So if Schubert had lived and wrote 20 more symphonies, his 8th and 9th would be his just starting to get his bearings and all that talk about "unfinished" is just that, not some perfect symphony as 2 movements.
 
#16 ·
AS far as over/underrated composers: I have never felt one way or another except in one respect. Name recognition on the streets by common people. If you go out and pick out strangers in the USA to ask them if they have heard these classical names, such as Beethoven, Mozart, Tchaikovsky, Bach, most will say they know the name even without knowing any of their music. The "name" is a meme that is passed around on TV, radio, and so forth. But Haydn is a giant in the classical world and I doubt most have heard his name. Schubert? Doubtful. Tchaikovsky? He seems to be name popular and therefore might be overrated in that sense where Haydn is underrated. Again, I do not really believe in over/underrated as it is being used in this context as we all have bias/preferences.
 
#18 ·
I spent a little time researching C F Wright. Apparently he has a track record of insulting composers and the like. For what it is worth I would completely disregard this article by Wright and do your own research on any composers if you feel the need to know more. From what I read so far my hunch was correct and the issue is not Schubert but the author himself. Very strange how this can be circulated like this but respect for Schubert remains high in many circles, this is obviously a fact.
 
#20 ·
Don't bother. Many times, folks have tried to challenge or at least call into question Mr. Hammered Klavier's deep devotion to his great master and ideological role model, David C.F. Wright, but he proves time and time again a faithful servant, unwavering in his devotion and unstoppable in his proselytization. It's true that Wright's essays (and HK's many posts parroting them) have nothing to do with Schubert, just an armchair musicologist and his agenda.
 
#24 ·
It's a little surprising to me that so many here find Schubert's 9th to be overrated. I've always felt exactly the same way about it. But if enough people think a work is overrated, then it isn't really overrated, is it?

I disliked the piece on first hearing, but gradually came to terms with it. Actually, it's a strking, original symphony deserving of performance by major orchestras. But it would be silly to take all the repeats, which would make it about an hour long. The work's main fault is that the "perpetuum mobile" of the fourth movement isn't expressively weighty enough to justify the prolonged repetition of its rhythm and its trivial tune. Omit the repeats, and I can get through it with my sanity intact.
 
#27 ·
It's a little surprising to me that so many here find Schubert's 9th to be overrated. I've always felt exactly the same way about it. But if enough people think a work is overrated, then it isn't really overrated, is it?

... The work's main fault is that the "perpetuum mobile" of the fourth movement isn't expressively weighty enough to justify the prolonged repetition of its rhythm and its trivial tune. ....
^Exactly how I feel. The finale is a really weak effort that I've never been able to sit through without losing patience. ...
Are you two suggesting that perhaps Schubert "unfinished" the wrong symphony?

I have long fantasized about how Schubert may have ended that sublime Eighth Symphony. Though I love the work as it is. Still, I would likely prefer two additional movements to the Eighth and one or two fewer to the Ninth. Alas ….
 
#25 · (Edited)
^Exactly how I feel. The finale is a really weak effort that I've never been able to sit through without losing patience. It is a symphony that I like, but only under a really good baton - Szell, Marriner, Furtwangler, Davis do it right. As for the 8th, I think it gives us a valuable glimpse into Schubert's gradually maturing compositional voice that never got a chance to fully flower. I like it better than the 9th but still wouldn't consider it a top-tier symphony. And it is my opinion that one should never take repeats in Schubert.
 
#70 · (Edited)
I think that Beethoven's 8th is underrated. It's form is perfect in my opinion (each movement has a different formal plan, but the work doesn't have those many repeats of the 7th symphony) and I love all it's movements, including the finale with those sudden and daring harmonic shifts that to me resemble neoclassical music before neoclassical music had been invented.

"Martin Geck has commented on the authenticity of the Eighth, noting that it contains 'all the relevant hallmarks, including motivic and thematic writing notable for its advanced planning, defiant counterpoint, furious cross-rhythms, sudden shifts from piano to forte, and idyllic and even hymnlike episodes.'" - Source.

^Exactly how I feel. The finale is a really weak effort that I've never been able to sit through without losing patience. It is a symphony that I like, but only under a really good baton - Szell, Marriner, Furtwangler, Davis do it right. As for the 8th, I think it gives us a valuable glimpse into Schubert's gradually maturing compositional voice that never got a chance to fully flower. I like it better than the 9th but still wouldn't consider it a top-tier symphony. And it is my opinion that one should never take repeats in Schubert.
Although I usually remove some repeats from some pieces, especially from those of the Classical period, I think that some of them are essential to the music. For instance, if the development section of a sonata form movement has a sense of culmination, like in the first movement of Beethoven's 5th or of Mahler's 6th, I think that it's exposition's repeat must be played. It's the case for example with the first movement of Schubert's 8th, and so I disagree with you.
 
#26 ·
Most Overrated and Underrated Symphonies

I was rather taken aback upon opening this thread by how many apparently find the Schubert "Great" 9th to be "overrated." That same symphony was my own first thought upon reading the title to this thread. But with a caveat.

The Schubert 9th remains a symphony I have never been able to cuddle up to. In other words, it ranks as not a favorite of mine. (Whereas I greatly admire the Fifth and the "Unfinished".) And over the years I have read so many articles and seen references to in reviews and critical papers about how great the Schubert 9th is. I re-listen to it always hoping it will finally "pop" for me, but so far it hasn't. (I'll have to schedule another visit, soon.)

But I'm still hesitant to call it overrated. The fault may possibly lie with me and my tastes. Just because I don't hold dear a certain work of art has nothing at all to do with its inherent quality. I like some "garbage" art … just because … well, because I like it!

So I leave the jury out on Schubert's Ninth. Still, I was startled by the response to this work.

I haven't yet pondered the second part of the item -- underrated symphonies. (But my initial thought went to Ned Rorem's Third. But is that one really underrated? True, I don't read much about it or see it mentioned in any reviews or critical articles I peruse. It seems to have slipped by the wayside. But I find it fascinating and rank it high on my personal list of "favorite symphonies".)
 
#29 ·
To state slightly differently:

1) Symphonies that I seem to like less than many many other people.
Mozart 40
Beethoven 5
Brahms 3
Mahler 2, 3, 7
Bruckner 00 - 8
Franck
Bizet
Schubert 5

2) Symphonies that I seem to like a lot more than many many other people:

Tippett 2

Most others we seem to agree about within a standard deviation.
 
#31 · (Edited)
I'm not that great a fan of Beethoven 9th symphony 4th movement, - I still remember the first time I heard it, at the time I thought it was very choppy with abrupt starts and stops. Aside from the awkward vocal writing, certain parts came off as ridiculous. I was like "oh, you got to be kidding me, Herr Beethoven.. lol". But at least I can recognize the "sense of direction and purpose" of the composition and the "cultural significance". (ie. impact on the later symphonists) Also I personally don't think having voices in a symphony a very good idea either. It feels like "mint chocolate" to me. The two forces (symphony and voices) feel like water and oil in concept in my view. But I can at least understand when people today talk of the work's significance and importance. - See how I distinguish "I don't like it" vs "it's overrated".

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Schubert by comparison just doesn't "get anywhere". To be honest, he's not even "professional" in classical music composition to begin with. The melodies are great (such as the A minor Arpeggione Sonata). But that's about it. I think this is why musicologists don't make analysis or lecture videos on Schubert's large scale works. Because if they do, they'll inevitably talk of how much vamps and padding there are in his music with no real sense of development. They would probably go like "Finally, after 20 bars of vamps and padding..." "Eventually, after 30 bars of broken chords on the main theme..." I miss Eugeneonagain. He talked so much truth regarding this topic on this forum.





 
#33 · (Edited)
I'm not that great a fan of Beethoven 9th symphony 4th movement, - I still remember the first time I heard the movement, I thought it was very choppy with abrupt starts and endings. Aside from the awkward vocal writing, certain parts came off as ridiculous. I was like "oh, you got to be kidding me, Herr Beethoven..". But at least I can recognize the "sense of direction and purpose" of the composition and the "significance". (ie. impact on the later symphonists) Also I personally don't think having voices in a symphony a very good idea either. It feels like "mint chocolate" to me. The two forces (symphony and voices) feel like water and oil in concept in my view. But I can at least understand when people today talk of the work's significance and importance. - See how I distinguish "I don't like it" vs "it's overrated".

Schubert by comparison just doesn't "get anywhere". To be honest, he's not even "professional" in classical music composition to begin with. The melodies are great (such as the A minor Arpeggione Sonata). But that's about it. I think this is why musicologists don't make analysis or lecture videos on Schubert's large scale works. Because if you do, you'll inevitably talk of how much vamps and padding there are in his music with no real sense of development. You would go like "Finally.. After 20 bars of vamps and padding..." "Eventually.. After 30 bars of broken chords on the main theme..." I miss Eugeneonagain. He talked so much truth regarding this topic on this forum.
You seem to have a rather limited sense of what constitutes a "good" composition. The logic of Beethoven's 9th does escape some people, I know, but is there anything inherently wrong with a series of variations - which is what the work's finale is - that contrast dramatically with each other and span an immense expressive range? Beethoven seems to have wanted to do what Mahler said a symphony should do: embrace the world. I think he sets up each variation arrestingly and perfectly. "Choppy," "abrupt," "awkward," "ridiculous" - none of these descriptions has ever occurred to me in fifty years of knowing the work. I've always found the finale insanely inspired - truly a divine madness.

You don't "get" Schubert either, but we know that. Man, do we ever know that! You can't understand how a composer would choose not to engage in the sort of "professional" practices you value, why he wouldn't employ the kinds of counterpoint and development you consider the marks of "proper" composition. So Beethoven gives us one type of bad composition, and Schubert gives us another! Meanwhile, millions of people who are not ignorant or insensitive, including some of the greatest musicians in the world from composers like Schumann and Wagner to performers like Schnabel and Brendel, revere and love these works.

You say you're distinguishing "I don't like it" from "it's overrated," but what you're really doing - and so transparently - is looking for an excuse to pan music you don't get on with, and particularly to knock Schubert down again before he's even had time to struggle to his feet.
 
#37 · (Edited)
All this dislike of Schubert's 9th is almost enough to make me think I've joined the wrong forum! How can so many just not get how miraculously great it is? It is clearly a major statement and its uniqueness alone should suggest that it is an important work. And, of course, Schubert's late period included a large number of peerless masterpieces (of which the 9th is one). And Mozart's Jupiter? And then the lukewarm works - many of them attractive enough and with some merit - that are recommended to replace these. What madness!
 
#40 ·
Couldn't agree more, though I confess to being among those who did not "get" Schubert's 9th on first listen, or on fifth. It's one of those works that took an "epiphany" for me to appreciate, but when that moment came, man, it all began to make perfect sense. I think I gained a lot of insight into the music of Bruckner, who appears to be driving at something similar in his symphonies, at that same time.

As for Schubert's 8th, the Unfinished, that is a work I loved on first listen, well before I ever got into classical music at large, and still one of my favorite symphonies. I would never call it overrated, nor underrated; I think it is well-deserving of its permanent status in the major repertoire.

I think that Camille Saint-Saëns' Symphony No.3 in C minor, the "Organ" symphony, is perhaps underrated. It's a phenomenal work, and one which I think any lover of classical music would find something to appreciate in. That slow movement alone is just magical. This is the kind of music that should be played for children (and open-minded young adults) to get them hooked on classical music. In this sense I put it in the same category as Schubert's Unfinished and warhorses like Beethoven's 5th.
 
#38 ·
Interesting discussion about Mozarts last 2 symphonies. I would like to nuance this as to the interpretation. I absolutely prefer Harnoncourts interpretations with the RCO. Yes, these recordings are from Harnoncourts extreme period. And I must admit that I don't listen to any others since, I am just not that into Mozart. These works became music for the millions, so you hear plenty of it in elevators and other public places. This causes some indifference too.

When sticking to one composer, I would argue that Bruckner 8 seems overrated and Bruckner 5 seems underrated. Also the ride of the Valkyries is overrated (and abused for commercial reasons) as compared to the third act. And the 'Adagietto' is grossly overrated as to the rest of the fifth. Composer names seem superfluous in the last two examples.
 
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