Composers are often overly critical of thier own works. Tchaikovsky hated his Nutcracker ballet, but does this seriously diminish my enjoyment of it?
Aren't we asked to be very (you call it overly) critical in this topic?
I don't understand the second part, plus how could I ever comment on it. Must be rhetorical but it miss the point.
I have been told countless musicians that Bolero is a masterpiece - my teachers, my professors, and the American composer Libby Larsen has even told me this.
You told them, or they told you? Don't they call every teacher on a collage a professor in the US?
And besides, who are you to judge what a "bad composition" is? Does it have to follow Romantic/Classical/Baroque conventions in order to be a "good composition"?
Maybe.
When I look at a western classical piece, because of my background in jazz and world music, the first think I look at is form and structure. The bolero doesn't have any. It wasn't supposed to have one because Ravel composed it as an exersize. Because it has no form or structure, as a classical piece, "it contains no music", so I call it a bad composition. Really, Ravel would have said: "Ha, you understood the piece.", like he did before.
It's an aberration 15 minutes long the same dragging themematic material against the same accompiment. Really, how can an 'attentive listener' bear this? Really, they don't. The Bolero might be popular, but lets view it's two primary uses. The first is in movies or cartoons. The second is to play it while having sex.
When your teachers refer to the Bolero, they must refer to it because it is a exersize in orchestration. Ravel really milks his skill. He has to repeat the same stuff over and over again. But he is very inventive in inventing new textures to play the material. A masterpiece of orchestration and a great piece to study orchestration because it contains no music because it was never meant to have music. That's why Ravel got embarressed.
Let me remind you all what the title of this thread is - worst, most poorly composed piece by a major composer. The title isn't "A piece by a major composer that I personally dislike for some reason or other".
Now you are contradicting yourself. First you claim a good composition is one that touches or moves people and that there can not be any other way to judge music. But now you contradict yourself.
I am glad that you changed your mind. Because otherwise I would have to add all Mozart and all Vivaldi to this topic. Surely I don't want to call all those pieces 'bad compositions' because they don't move me. I rather try to make an objective judgement.
Plus that reasoning would have a much bigger effect. Atonal music would be bad music no matter how it is composed. And what about music from the middle east and india. Not only do they use just temperament, they also use microtones. It sounds horribly out of tune to people only familiar to our system and way of making music. Therefore it would not touch anyone. So then it would be bad music, huh?
Really, I am interesed. How many people are moved by this music:
Click.This stuff can go on for like 40 minutes.
Their system is more subtle and complex than ours. And at least just as well thought out. It took 4000 years to evolve to what it is now while our musical tradition is not more than 400 years old. And after 4000 years still sounds like noise to most westerners. Or maybe because of those 4000 years of development.
Anyways, this brings up a musical philosophical question.
Yes, sure you can enjoy pieces that are not 'well written'. What is 'well written'? That's a hard question. I cannot nail it down. We are talking about art. I don't want to claim I know what art is.
Prometheus, what are your standards for a good composition?
[...]
But I ask of you.... doesn't this seem like the wrong path to take when enjoying music?
None of those 6 points appeal to me. But I do not thing 'enjoyment' and 'good composition' have much to do with each other. Lets take Beethoven's 9th. Its obviously way too long to be really an example of good composition. But for a piece that it too long it is very well too lenghty. Beethoven knew it was going to be 'too long'. So he made sure it was too long in a good way. He tried to justify his intended mistake.
So the 'flaw' in his 9th made it so profound. And why is it so popular? Probably because it is so profound and famous. It would be really interesting to go to a concert hall and ask the people visiting the concert what they think about Beethoven's 9th, if they like it and if they do, why.
Liszt's Bm sonata is unbalanced. This is not a sign of good composition. But that is because it is a cyclic piece and because it was meant to be unbalanced. It's hard to tell if this makes the piece more enjoyable or not. But it's one of his prime properties for sure.
Maybe you can only make those mistakes into strong points if you are a great composer. The way Liszt treats his three themes in the sonata show great composing skill.
Scriabin's sonatas are carefully thought out, and twelve-tone, though I don't like it, is an interesting and different idea, and we should give credit for that.
Scriabin's late sonata's are neither serial. They aren't even atonal at all. One might argue they are quasi-atonal. It isn't black and white but describing the works as tonal is more accurate than calling them atonal. He did touch the border of atonality but he died before he could cross it.
The development in Scriabin's music is remarkable. No other composer I know of developed and evolved as quickly as Scriabin did.
Topic: Worst, most poorly composed piece by a major composer?