Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Clunkers by the great composers

BLASPHEMY!!! How dare you sully Chopin!!! J/K you can say what ever you want, just not about Chopin.

What about the Barenboim don't you like? Just curious.

I have enormous respect for Barenboim but I often feel slightly unsatisfied by his Beethoven sonatas. This is probably more to do with me rather than Barenboim.

Anything by Prokofiev

I just have this profound distaste for Prokofiev. I remember trying to listen to Prokofiev's works after listening to countless works by Rachmaninoff (and hoping to hear similar styles since they are from the same era), but to me, Prokofiev's music is just garbled notes. Many dissonant sounds with no purpose. Very few melodic lines that I enjoy. Just utter...'garbage'. It's something which I personally don't consider music, almost like how I don't consider Karl Stockhausen's experiments with synthesizers to be 'music', just random notes with atrocious harmonies.

What never fails to amaze me is how someone can say they hate composer X on the basis of knowing a fairly small part of the whole range of the composer's music.

... and the other side of the coin : "Oh, I just love Liszt! I've heard his Liebesträume No. 3."

Regards,

Bach's Well Tempered Whatever: boring contrapuntal exercises. Except the Ave Maria prelude -- so pretty!

Handel's Messiah: any educated soul knows it's nothing compared to Israel in Egypt!

Beethoven's Appassionata: someone got out of the wrong side of the bed! Need a beer?

Beethoven's Ninth, all the late quartets and late piano sonatas: pretentious nonsense.

Schubert's Winterreise: can't handle a breakup, eh?

Schubert's Lieder: they lied to me!

Chopin's First Ballade: pianistic noise.

Schumann's Piano Concerto: sissy music.

Mendelssohn's Italian Symphony: where is the pasta, the gondolas, the bad tenor singing?!?

Dvorak's Ninth Symphony: coz the last movement copies the Jaws theme, man!

Liszt's Sonata in B minor: silly piano bashing.

Brahms's chamber music: better than the lulluby for going to sleep.

Wagner's Ring Cycle: better than Brahms's chamber music for going to sleep.

Tchaikovsky's Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Symphonies: closet too tight for you?

Mahler's Symphonies: John Williams does it better.

Rachmaninov's Concertos 2-3 and Pag. Rhapsody: if you needed therapy to compose such filth, I don't want to know what pre-therapy music sounds like!

All operas: coz classical vocals suck! Except Puccini's Nessum Dorma, coz long high notes are kewl during a football (i.e. soccer) game!

Scriabin's Op. 8 #12 Etude: childish temper tantrum.

Everything by Richard Strauss -- except "Sunrise" from Also Sprach Zarathustra. Duh!

Everything by Haydn and Mozart: too many notes, laughs, and not profound enough. Except the works in minor keys.

All ancient, medieval, and renaissance music: coz there's, like, no emotion whatsoever, man.

All modern music: too dissonant -- I luv triads! Oh, except Barber's Adagio for Strings -- that song is nice.

@xtraheat
I stated my opinions as to why I dislike Prokofiev's works, which I think is a legit reason. Each composer has their own style of composing, and each audience has their preference. Glenn Gould loved Bach, Beethoven and Brahms, but did not enjoy Chopin, Schumann or Mozart. Heck, he even said "Mozart was a bad composer who died late rather than early". Mozart's style (consistent with his era) is easy to distinguish and I can understand why he would not like it. Do I disagree with Gould's assessment of the romantic era composers as well? Of course! Do I think that his reasoning is ignorant? No, it's logical and it was his opinion.

@JohnB
It would be difficult for the audience to attempt to listen to each work by a composer and then make judgments on them only after listening to them all. But as you mentioned, it is unfair to judge a composer by a select few works. That being said, I've been exposed and forced to listen to many Prokofiev pieces, and none of them made me want to listen to them again. It's not the performance that is at fault, it's just the rampant dissonant themes and mass unpredictability in his music which do not enlighten me.

Have you ever heard Prok's 3rd Piano Concerto?

Rachmaninov's Concertos 2-3 and Pag. Rhapsody: if you needed therapy to compose such filth, I don't want to know what pre-therapy music sounds like!

Everything by Haydn and Mozart: too many notes, laughs, and not profound enough. Except the works in minor keys.