chopinsomeone should bore a hole in him and let all the sap run out
Take Chopin out of the history of music, and you have a true "hole" in there: No Liszt No RachmaninoffNo ScriabinNo FaureNo Debussy Thus, no Ravel... And dozens of composers, they, in turn, influenced. I think the above ones were pretty good. What do you think?
Along with Chopin, I'd have to nominate Rachmaninoff. His works are massively appealing to pianists due to their technical difficulty, but his compositional limitations make his music boring as hell to my ears. Later Romantic music generally holds no appeal to me, coming across as top-heavy, over-dramatic, and conservative to a fault.
Random garbage that a cat could play if chained to a keyboard with a firework inserted into it's ass.
If you fill up your mouth with notes and throw up over a blank sheet, you have created a Sorabji work that nobody could distinguish from an original composition.
Sorry, but i cannot take these threads seriously any more.
Thal
They say you can get an idea about someone's personality by way of what they fantasise about. I'd say you're making things pretty clear that way..The fact that you are apparently deaf to his music (no problem in itself) doesn't mean everybody else is too, you know. That you haven't got the highest musical IQ has become pretty clear by now, no need to show it off THAT much. You sound very much like your average critic, who like to write along the lines of "If I don't like it, or am unable to understand it first go, than it must be crap, no matter how many people disagree". And the average critic has been compared with the average eunuch, who knows how it's done, sees it being done every day but is utterly and forever unable to do it himself. Which explains the 10,000+ messages, I guess...You remind me a lot of those people who write streams of letters-to-all-editors about just about everything, exposing there near-lethal narrow-mindedness for everybody who couldn't care less.You could almost change that to NeanderThal, if it weren't for the fact that the Neanderthal actually had a bigger brain than present day Man.
students who think it impresses girls to carry Sorabji scores around campus.
As i said, i cannot take these threads seriousy. There have been dozens of them and they achieve nothing.
The only reason i posted what i did, is so i can laugh at the responses from acne ridden little dweebs, intellectual snobs and students who think it impresses girls to carry Sorabji scores around campus.
I have no idea which category you fit into and i care even less.
"gep" dpoes
Well just because you don't like his music does not mean it is over-ratedanyway, I think Mozart is the most over-rated since his music is so well known among the general public.
I found this article from the Times pretty entertaining.
What a silly article, a total waste of time. Alas, this is such a perfect example of the inanity of the US media.
I think it's certainly fair to say that his works are recorded way too frequently, especially the beloved piano concertos. Similarly, his symphonies are over-recorded. There's something like thirty recordings available of the first Rach symphony, a piece which attracts most of its popularity based on the work's importance in Rachmaninov's biography (nervous breakdown, etc...) rather than it's worth as a musical work.
One could compare this same sort of rationale to that of ice cream fans. Because thousands of people enjoy ice cream, do we consider it overrated? I don't think so. Most of us like it because it simply tastes good. But then, there are the few that just don't care for the stuff, just as there are some who don't care for Rachmaninov. It all comes down to a matter of personal preference. Oh, and I don't mean to compare Rachmaninov to ice cream... more like something from the fine cuisine line would be a bit more fitting. Anyway, my schpeel for the day. May Rachmaninov (and Chopin) live on in the hearts of many!Berniano
Interesting that Mahler is mentioned several times as being overrated. I couldn't agree more, but I've learned to keep quiet about that, it upsets too many people. No other composer inspires such Messianic devotion, and to respond to Mahler with anything but rapture is to invite the meanest critical assault one could imagine.
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The way I see things, the ice cream metaphor should play out a different way. If composers could be ice cream flavors, then Rachmaninov is the extra-super-creamy chocolate triple scoop with chocolate sprinkles and hot fudge. Surely it's an awesome dish, but it's also somewhat of a go-to to ice cream fans who are more interested in the other 30 flavors that never get as much attention as good old chocolate.
It's surely just as well that they can't be ice cream flavours, then, since the descriptor that you would under such circumstances ascribe to Rakhmaninov would seem a mightily strange one for the composer of the first symphony, the Isle of the Dead, The Bells, the Francesca da Rimini music...I suppose my own would have to be malt whisky and raspberry flavoured, since these two wondrous foodstuffs are major exports from my country...Best,Alistair
I know for a fact they export some good music too!
I watched a program last night on TV about the french pianist Aimard and I thought the program idea for his concert was really great. He wanted to highlight polyphony in the western music culture and played pieces from Bachs Kunst der fuge and Beethovens opus 110 and some piece by Carter, all very different music but still with shared traits thus giving the audience some of the old classics and introducing more modern music. You don't have to chose either or...
Scotland exports some good music??Please enlighten me.Thal
Most, if not all, modern composers, including ones like Babbitt and Carter (whose music is incredibly difficult to understand) display the sincerest devotion to the classics and earlier music. It's often the audience members (not to mention students who have no clue how to approach music history with any maturity) that feel the need to divide the periods up intellectually.Regarding mindlessly devoted fans, worse even than Mahler's or Rachmaninov's supporters are artsy-fartsy poseurs who unbiasedly defend composers like John Cage, Christian Wolff, or even Philip Glass, all of whom seem more like merit badges for the post-modern intellectual music lover (though loving the actual music often doesn't play a part). With them, the importance of ideas and notions beyond the realm of the actual music seems to lend a morbid amount of credibility and nobility to work that often brings little to the ears and looks like a cop-out on the printed page. Beyond that, I think the idea of breaking down every facet of discipline and tradition in music is a vastly overrated practice.
My reason for picking Rachmaninoff is grounded in the idea (of which I'm not the only believer) that his composing did next to nothing to push classical music forward, backwards, or in any direction beyond where it already was. Beyond my personal distaste in his work (certainly a conflicted distaste, since I've spent plenty of time listening to the dozen or more Rachmaninov discs in my collection), it's pretty obvious that he's overrated in a more objective state. I think it's certainly fair to say that his works are recorded way too frequently, especially the beloved piano concertos. Similarly, his symphonies are over-recorded. There's something like thirty recordings available of the first Rach symphony, a piece which attracts most of its popularity based on the work's importance in Rachmaninov's biography (nervous breakdown, etc...) rather than it's worth as a musical work. Instead of remaining a curiosity, this work receives more than double the aggregated attention granted to far better works by far better composers like Sibelius or Szymanowski (whose 3rd symphony is downright phenomenal).
There's something like thirty recordings available of the first Rach symphony, a piece which attracts most of its popularity based on the work's importance in Rachmaninov's biography (nervous breakdown, etc...) rather than it's worth as a musical work. Instead of remaining a curiosity, this work receives more than double the aggregated attention granted to far better works by far better composers like Sibelius or Szymanowski (whose 3rd symphony is downright phenomenal).
Strange that you should mention that name as i have recently found his piano concerto in a 2nd hand shop. It had a wierd name that i cannot remember.I will give it a look when it arrives.TaThal
I see where you are getting at with that [Rachmaninoff's] music is not progressive (But I do not necessarily agree with that). But some of his music seems pretty progressive to me (E.G. Isle of the Dead). I think some of his piano music is over recorded and some of it under-recorded (his Chopin variations and 1st piano sonata are very under-recorded).
If it's his 1st Piano Concerto, that's called "The Berserking".Judging from the title, you should like it..
Am I mis-understanding you or are you saying Sibelius and Szymanowski are better than Rachmaninoff?
Therefore Rachmaninoff MUST be musically superior to those.
The darwinistic theory of musical excellence. Any composers who remains ("survives") in the limelight for 100 years or more IS by definition a very important figure in the history of music. Alas, Spohr, Hummel, Albrechtsberger, Wagenseil, Tomasek, etc.. did not make it. Rachmaninoff will make it, but the chances that Szymanowski or Sibelius will are not sensational. Therefore Rachmaninoff MUST be musically superior to those.
If you're able to name these composers, how then have any of them not 'made it'? We can only hope that this is a joke, since at best it sounds no better than the myriad of other asinine reasons people on this forum have used to justify placing themselves on the safe side of what's essentially a popularity contest.
I certainly prefer the Szymanowski and Sibelius symphonies (all of them are in my collection, not to mention numerous recordings of the Elgar symphonies, IMO greater than R and equal to S & S) to any of those by Rachmaninov, but I would challenge your statement that R's 1st symphony is only a 'curiosity'. Modern critical thought no longer makes a big issue of that (liner notes to the CDs notwithstanding), and indeed some feel that R's 1st is the best of the lot. Perhaps I wouldn't go that far, but it is my favourite of the three. As for the 2nd and 3rd concertos, there is certainly no argument that they are excessively recorded - I'm currently rather tired of the 3rd- but they do make money for the recording companies. With Richter, Kissin and Katchen in the 2nd, and Argerich and Horowitz in the 3rd, I see no need to collect any other recordings. Yet a recent video of Andsnes playing the 3rd was enjoyable to watch. He is one of the greatest pianists of his generation. Another member mentioned R's vocal works. I have several recordings of the Vespers and a complete CD set of the songs. Really terrific stuff, and if the Vespers don't lack for recordings (even King's College have had a go), I find the songs strangely absent from vocal recitals. Some of R's best music will be found in the songs, particularly the later opus numbers.
I remember Angela Hewitt criticising Rachmaninov's piano works by saying "They all go 'dum-diddle-dum' at the end". That's not true, of course. There's at least one or two that don't go 'dum-diddle-dum' at the end.
If millions of people across decades, if not centuries, immortalize Haydn or Rachmaninoff, then they are great by definition. Your personal opinion does not count. No does it matter whether I like Haydn or Rach (I actually don't care particularly about both's music).
Topic: Most Over-rated Composers 