Pieces you love/enjoy by composers you hate/don't care for

[commissiona]

Opposite post to "Pieces you hate/don't like by composers you love."

I have a hard time declaring a composer I hate, but I think the closest fit for me is John Cage.  I love his solo piano work "In a Landscape." It's not at all what you would expect from him though, battleship grey, lonely, but very beautiful.

[outin]

Never cared for Beethoven, but I kind of like his sonata in E minor, op 90. Maybe there are others, I just don't have the stamina to listen through his compostitions, they tend to bore me to death.

[49410enrique]

i can appreciate schumann's (bobby) talent and contribution to the lit and music history as a whole, but i have yet to find a work that jazzes me up enough to want to sit down and learn it/play it.

be that as it may the only score of his i have botherd to purchase is an used henle of this piece, me thinks if ever/when i decide to give him a crack it will probably be the arabesque in c maj op 18

[redbaron]

Eintritt from Waldszenen and the first movement of the Piano Concerto, both by Schumann. I adore both of these pieces but I find Schumann's music desperately boring, eclipsed only by Alkan in terms of sheer coma-inducing turgidness. I've tried to like Schumann's music, I have really, really tried but I just don't get what all the fuss is about.

I don't want to dislike it, he wrote a huge amount of piano music and to dismiss it all as not being worthwhile seems rather churlish. But try as I might, I just can't see this wonderful composer that so many people speak highly of.

[thorn]

I wonder if this will become another "let's attack Schumann" thread... I don't think I've ever contributed to one, but I don't like him either. Well to correct myself, I don't like what I've heard- I'm not going to condemn all of his piano music just because everything I have heard has been awful.

I do like a lot of pieces in Carnaval though. I think it's because they're so short they had little chance to become as cramped as his longer works tend to feel to me.

[drkilroy]

I think that the key to Schumann's music is the program. Schumann's music is mainly program music; the pieces have got descriptive titles. When I listen to them, I try to imagine what the piece "describes" with the title as a suggestion. Then the music is not boring at all; but this is just my impression.

Best regards, Dr

[pianoplayjl]

Bach-his WTC preludes and some select fugues.
Strauss- his danube waltz
Brahms-Paganini Variations and Ballade op 10 no 1


JL

[j_menz]

Probably not quite what you meant, but I like most of Wagner's music. Don't care for Wagner himself, though. 

[drkilroy]

I am not very fond of Brahms, but I really like his Variations on a Theme by Haydn. By the way, I do not like Haydn much, too...

Best regards, Dr