FAvorite Composer

[piano1mn]

QUESTION

[kriatina]

I love Purdell for his "untouchedness", I love Bach because he makes me "meditate" and I love Haendel because he makes me feel "uplifted" wth his majestic compositions. Those are my absolute favourites...any day of the week... any time...according to my mood...

I also like most of all the other composers that ever composed, especially the Italians/Venicians of that time... and I also love Corelly, Scarlatti, Clementi and Mozart, IF they are played thoughtfully and NOT as if the Pianist is in a hurry to play very fast in order to catch the last train home...

I can say that I like certain pieces/compositions/symphonies from every composer, EXCEPT composers like Hindemith, Stravinsky, Bartok, Britten and Mahler; they make me "run a mile"...

I have tried very hard to understand them all, for example with Mahler I honestly "sat through" the whole of the "Mahler-Festival" at the Royal Albert Hall with the result that from then on I have avoided Mahler ever since. The same goes for Stravinsky, Britten, Hindemith and Bartok...

Someone "in the know" explained to me that the reason why I cannot "understand" the above mentioned is because I have never been sexually or mentally abused, because, apparently to this person "in the know", these above mentioned composers have been abused one way or another and it shows in their disharmonious upheaval... I don't know if that is true, but that is what I was told from a "person in the know"...

[worov]

My favorite composers are Bach, Scarlatti, Schumann, Beethoven, Prokofiev, Villa-Lobos as far as piano (or keyboard) music is concerned.

Someone "in the know" explained to me that the reason why I cannot "understand" the above mentioned is because I have never been sexually or mentally abused, because, apparently to this person "in the know", these above mentioned composers have been abused one way or another and it shows in their disharmonious upheaval... I don't know if that is true, but that is what I was told from a "person in the know"...

This is curious. I'm afraid I have to disagree with this person. I have never been abused mentally or sexually. However I'm very fond of Mahler symphonies and lieder and Britten's Requiem. Mahler is probably for the greatest symphonist in the 20th century (Shostakovich is a close second though). I'm not crazy about Bartok and Stravinsky though and I'm not famliar enough with Hindemith (I don't like it very much for the moment).

[kriatina]

Hello, worov, thanks for your reply.

To be honest, I also thought, that the explanation I was given was a bit strange
and then I asked more questions and was told, that Benjamin Britten never went to any war,
 but he used the “eerie (almost screaming) boys choir” in his War Requiem to express the trauma
 he went through when he was “interfered with” as a little boy at school... and his War Requiem
 is supposed to be an “Anthem for Doomed Youth”; the trauma he experienced as a boy.

Mahler is supposed to have had terrible problems with his domineering and abusive father
and one of his brothers committed suicide as a result of the abuse.
Mahler was also not particularly lucky with the choice of his wife
 and I was told that he was obsessed with the death of children and his “Kindertotenlieder”
 (Songs on the Death of Children) were composed BEFORE the death of his own child... (?) ...

I don’t know how true or untrue the information I was given is,
 and whether or not it is connected with the musical disharmony of these composers ?
But I would very much appreciate to find out from professional musicians
what they think or know about this,
 and whether they agree or disagree with what this “person in the know” has told me?

[ahinton]

I love Purdell...

I also love Corelly

Who are they?...

[piano1mn]

Baroque Composers. Henry Purcell was a British composer who lived short. He was so good that he had a very famous piece wrongly attributed to him. Correlli was an Italian composer whom Bach admired.

[thalbergmad]

I don't think my sanity can last until the end of this thread.

Thal

[j_menz]

Someone "in the know" explained to me that the reason why I cannot "understand" the above mentioned is because I have never been sexually or mentally abused, because, apparently to this person "in the know", these above mentioned composers have been abused one way or another and it shows in their disharmonious upheaval... I don't know if that is true, but that is what I was told from a "person in the know"...

That someone is a complete idiot. 

[kriatina]

I don't think my sanity can last until the end of this thread.

Thal

Hello, Thal,

You haven’t explained why you feel like that, perhaps you could elaborate?

Thanks, Kristina.