Some works we just don't like and don't know why. Why?

[Lance]

Seeing a CMG post on Elgar's Cello Concerto made me wonder what there was about that concerto that does not appeal to me or draw me in any way, regardless of how many recordings I have of it. I, otherwise, have a high regard for Elgar. Those recordings I have, acquired over many years, are with:

Beatrice Harrison/Elgar conducting
Jacqueline duPre/Barbirolli
André Navarra
Steven Isserlis
Pablo Casals
Pierre Fournier
Zara Nelsova
Msitislav Rostropovich (3 various conductors)
Paul Tortelier
Jacqueline duPre/Sargent (live)
Maria Kliegel
Klengel/Elgar conducting
W. H. Squire/Harty conducting
Gregor Piatigorsky/Baribirolli

So, what am I missing. Those are respected, admired cellists above. I have the same problem with Elgar's Violin Concerto as well. It's either Elgar or it's ME! Probably the latter. In both of these works, I am look for something that will impress me musically.

[Belle]

You're not the only person who isn't enamoured with the Elgar Cello Concerto. I think it's the instrument itself, not being suited to solo performances IMO. Its dark and velvety texture doesn't ever reach those exquisite heights and dizzying virtuosic iterations which are central to the concerto. Attainable on violin and piano.

And Elgar's orchestral writing is already dense so it doesn't lend itself to further density in a solo instrument. I feel the one should complement the other.

I don't like any of the symphonies of Mahler or Bruckner (refer to John McWhorter's comments elsewhere) or Shostakovich. And I absolutely dislike the piano concertos of Saint-Saëns.

[Ricordanza]

Well, now that you mention it, I have a few unfavorites. With each of these composers, there are a few pieces that I tolerate, but these exceptions do not outweigh my overall impression.

So let's start with Telemann--similar in style to Bach, but without Bach's inspiration. Delius--Debussy without Debussy. Poulenc--he's that witty fellow sitting at the cafe, making witty observations about those he sees, but without emotional commitment.

But mostly, it's a matter of taste, which can't be explained in words. What do I like? Well, for starters, there are the Mahler Symphonies, the Saint-Saens piano concertos, the cello and violin concertos by Elgar....you get the picture.

[barney]

I do not like thee, Doctor Fell,
The reason why – I cannot tell;
But this I know, and know full well,
I do not like thee, Doctor Fell.

[diegobueno]

The trick to writing a cello concerto is the composer has to clear out the mid-range of the orchestra. Write the accompaniment in different registers from the solo line. Score solo sections very lightly. Dvorak did a magnificent job of this.

In general I think that all of the major classical composers are in the canon because they have some virtue that makes them worthy. We're not always receptive to those virtues, and it's pretty much up to the listener to look for them or dismiss them. No one can tell you why you should love the Elgar Cello Concerto. As Louis Armstrong said ""If you have to ask what jazz is, you'll never know". Same with Elgar.

[Belle]

The trick to writing a cello concerto is the composer has to clear out the mid-range of the orchestra. Write the accompaniment in different registers from the solo line. Score solo sections very lightly. Dvorak did a magnificent job of this.

In general I think that all of the major classical composers are in the canon because they have some virtue that makes them worthy. We're not always receptive to those virtues, and it's pretty much up to the listener to look for them or dismiss them. No one can tell you why you should love the Elgar Cello Concerto. As Louis Armstrong said ""If you have to ask what jazz is, you'll never know". Same with Elgar.

I didn't know I was compelled to love the Elgar Cello Concerto or any other piece of music. That'll be the day.

For me, the cello doesn't work as a solo instrument. And Elgar's symphonic works were often steeped in bathos. His "Enigma Variations", String Serenade and "Sea Pictures" are matchless works, but why do I hear British bombast in some of his works when I don't hear this in Ralph Vaughan-Williams!? Elgar becomes tiring after a while.

I think you're wrong about Telemann; he was a great composer and a largely under-rated one. He was a contemporary of Rameau and they both sounded similar in many respects.

[maestrob]

Twelve-tone and I just don't get along: Schoenberg, Webern, etc., with a few exceptions. Berg's Violin Concerto suits me fine, as does Schoenberg's Piano Concerto in the Ozawa/Peter Serkin recording, but by and large, I'll let history decide to do what it will with most music in what I call the "noise" category.

[Belle]

Yes, that too. But there are some works of Berg and Webern that I like. 'Arnie' not so much in his twelve tone iterations.

For example, I find this work by Webern an example of excellent orchestration!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUCp4QvZxE8

Re Shostakovich: I like very much his 2nd Piano Concerto but his symphonies are 'iron foundry music', as once so described!! They lack warmth. Some of his solo piano works are, for the most, very good.

Telemann could sound like Bach, Handel and Rameau: or they could sound like him!! He was a prolific composer and very easy on the ear.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0NN3S00TFc

I'm extremely partial to baroque music but some of it I never listen to these days, eg. Vivaldi. Going further back to the late Medieval period you just can't beat this for sublime music: listen to it and you'll hear Middle Eastern flavours right there!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gEV42RKf6E

[diegobueno]

I didn't know I was compelled to love the Elgar Cello Concerto or any other piece of music.

You're not. But Lance was looking for someone to explain to him "what am I missing?" He was looking for someone to impart some piece of information that would make the piece make sense.

And the fact is, there's nothing I or anyone can say. You either get it or you don't.

[diegobueno]

My personal number one example of "Music in the standard repertory that a lot of people love but I can't stand" is -- Richard Strauss, Ein Heldenleben. Ugh! what long-winded, self-indulgent overblown trash! Ein Alpo-sinfonie is music for the dogs, and comes in a close second.

And yet he wrote other music that I find just wonderful.

[stickles]

Same here with the Elgar. My problem with the piece is entirely me. Each of the 4 movements registers with me differently as if they don't belong together in a same piece of work. The open solo introduction reminds me of Bach's chaconne, 2nd movement is similar to an ancient Chinese tune General's Mandate, the 3rd movement theme shares the same beginning as Bernstein's Somewhere from Westside Story, and by the the time the 4th movement come long, I am ready to chalk this one up as a Brahmsian finale with the typical Hungarian twist. The piece overall is very pessimistic. Just when the sun is about to break through the orchestra in the final movement, the cello intercedes and drags it back to the opening gloom. Just heard Kanneh-Mason live in this piece, and still it did not convince.
Another hugely popular concerto that I don't like is the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto 1, where the epic beginning leads to nothing but trifle.

[Rach3]

Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 1. All hat, no cattle.

[Belle]

I didn't know I was compelled to love the Elgar Cello Concerto or any other piece of music.

You're not. But Lance was looking for someone to explain to him "what am I missing?" He was looking for someone to impart some piece of information that would make the piece make sense.

And the fact is, there's nothing I or anyone can say. You either get it or you don't.

I guess I'd answered that question about the Elgar Cello Concerto.

[Belle]

Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 1. All hat, no cattle.

Have to agree!! Pyrotechnics for the sake.

[Belle]

My personal number one example of "Music in the standard repertory that a lot of people love but I can't stand" is -- Richard Strauss, Ein Heldenleben. Ugh! what long-winded, self-indulgent overblown trash! Ein Alpo-sinfonie is music for the dogs, and comes in a close second.

And yet he wrote other music that I find just wonderful.

In find myself in agreement with this. Richard Strauss with the 'dense, grandiloquent crawl' (thanks to John McWhorter for this splendid epithet).

[Lance]

Getting some good responses here. Thank you! As for Strauss, I'm in complete agreement about Ein Heldenleben or the Alpine Symphony. Just can't take it though I try, and I have so-called great recordings of both these works. I think Strauss does his best in his lieder and opera. He had some exceptional ideas where vocalism is concerned.

I guess you have to be a pianophile to appreciate Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1. There is a lot to enjoy in the work, the virtuosity for the pianist being one aspect - and how to keep it all together. So many recordings of this work by so many fabulous pianists (and not so fabulous). Even Rubinstein played/recorded the work at least a couple of times, as did the great Horowitz. If I had to select a Tchaikovsky piano concerto that has become a favorite, it would be his Second Piano Concerto, which rarely gets played in concert and does better on records.

I do like Elgar to some degree, his symphonies, but, perhaps, they can get "tiring" after awhile. But his concerto work fails to reach many listeners with whom I talk with about both, the violin and cello concertos, especially the latter. As Diegobueno noted, you either get it or you don't. In the Elgar case, I don't, but continue to seek. I am not a jazz aficionado either, but I can "get" some of it and will listen to enjoy, not frequently, but sometimes.

Telemann? Well, I have lots of his music at my fingertips, and one work stands out as being quite amazing, his Watermusic [Hamburger Ebb' und Fluth], also called the Overture in C, which I thought to be remarkable. There are fine trumpet and oboe concertos, but there isn't, in MHO, the "volume" of quality Telemann that we find in JS Bach or Vivaldi, the latter of which I am also enamored regardless of how much he composed, and there is plenty.

[Seán]

I do not like Metamorphosen by Richard Strauss, it’s too long and dreary.

[Lance]

Seán, agreed! Glad to see you here ... hope to see you more.

I do not like Metamorphosen by Richard Strauss, it’s too long and dreary.

[barney]

My personal number one example of "Music in the standard repertory that a lot of people love but I can't stand" is -- Richard Strauss, Ein Heldenleben. Ugh! what long-winded, self-indulgent overblown trash! Ein Alpo-sinfonie is music for the dogs, and comes in a close second.

And yet he wrote other music that I find just wonderful.

Oooh, you're a heretic! But I'll have to join you at the stake because that is precisely my opinion. Whereas the Four Last Songs are sublime, Till Eulenspiegel is huge fun and I love the operas.

[barney]

Well I DO like the Elgar cello concerto, very much.

I think people can be helped to like it, but I don't really see the point.

[maestrob]

Well I DO like the Elgar cello concerto, very much.

I think people can be helped to like it, but I don't really see the point.

So do I, for whatever that's worth. Also Elgar's symphonies and violin concerto. Sea Pictures is a masterpiece, as are the Enigma Variations, but Dream of Gerontius leaves me cold for some reason.

His early opera, Caractacus OTOH can be quite appealing.

[Febnyc]

And, for what it's worth, I cannot agree with those who put down Richard Strauss and, particularly, An Alpine Symphony. (Also, Ein Heldenleben - but that's a different reply.)

Perhaps I'm a Philistine, but I very much enjoy tone poems and Strauss was a master at musical picture-painting. In my opinion, nowhere does he do it better than in Eine Alpensinfonie.

Not only is the piece brilliantly orchestrated, but its very shape is descriptive of its subject. The climax of the work occurs in the middle - when the climbers reach the summit and the majestic horn section announces the success. Thus the symphony looks like the mountain as we scale up, reach the peak and then descend, eventually into silence - from whence we came almost an hour before. Awesome.

I enjoy all of Strauss' music - I mean, who doesn't sit up and marvel at the opening, striding bars of Heldenleben? Or the broad, romantic theme in Don Juan? The overwhelming sunrise at the open of Thus Sprach Zarathustra? The somber setting and passage of life in Tod und Verklärung?

I'm happy to hear Strauss any time.

[diegobueno]

I enjoy all of Strauss' music - I mean, who doesn't sit up and marvel at the opening, striding bars of Heldenleben?

I don't.

[Febnyc]

I don't cotton to the Elgar Cello Concerto either. It's consoling to see that I am not alone - always thought I was missing something.

But I do enjoy most of Elgar's music. I like the pomp and British-ness of his symphonies (I also enjoy Parry and Rubbra, for much the same reasons - and Holst, as well): the stately tread opening the First and the lyrical finale of the Second, for instance; the ingenuity of the Enigma Variations; many of the smaller works, overtures and chamber works.

The things I don't like - regardless of the composer - are few but I sure do know why! viz: serialism, marked atonalism, und so weiter.

And, PS - I think the Saint-Saëns Piano Concertos are brilliant works - like fireworks shooting from the piano - when done properly.

[Belle]

It seems there are quite a few fans of the Saint-Saëns Piano Concertos: I find them frothy, and his "Organ" symphony just kitsch. The composer's contemptuous, dismissive treatment of Cesar Franck was appalling. In my opinion he had no reason for such an attitude as he was only a second tier composer himself anyway.

How gratifying it was to have composers like Ravel to steer the piano concerto back into serious territory, along with Prokofiev, Bartok, Shostakovich and so on.

Speaking of the latter, he composed many string quartets and, to my embarrassment, I know next to nothing about these works.

[Rach3]

Speaking of the latter, he wrote many string quartets and, to my embarrassment, these works I know nothing about.

The DSCH string quartets are a tough nut for me, but I enjoy several. Fww,suggest you start with No.8.

[Belle]

Speaking of the latter, he wrote many string quartets and, to my embarrassment, these works I know nothing about.

The DSCH string quartets are a tough nut for me, but I enjoy several. Fww,suggest you start with No.8.

Thank you for that. I've give it a 'red hot go', as we say in Australia.

[Rach3]

But I do enjoy most of Elgar's music. ...
And, PS - I think the Saint-Saëns Piano Concertos are brilliant works - like fireworks shooting from the piano - when done properly.

Same here with Elgar except I do enjoy the Cello Concerto greatly, but do not connect with the Violin Concerto.His Piano Quintet is also great.

Also agree on the S-S PC's. Nos.1,3,4 are under-played I think, and the final movement of the 4th (4th might be my fav of the 5 ) could almost be a French national anthem. My recordings of the 4th I can highly recommend are Cortot/Munch, 1935, and Casadesus/Bernstein in the '60's.

Cortot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNKTZ1ilLmY

[maestrob]

Speaking of the latter, he wrote many string quartets and, to my embarrassment, these works I know nothing about.

The DSCH string quartets are a tough nut for me, but I enjoy several. Fww,suggest you start with No.8.

Second the motion.

#8 was arranged for string orchestra by Rudolph Barshai, which might be a good place to start.

[Febnyc]

Same here with Elgar except I do enjoy the Cello Concerto greatly, but do not connect with the Violin Concerto.His Piano Quintet is also great.

Also agree on the S-S PC's. Nos.1,3,4 are under-played I think, and the final movement of the 4th (4th might be my fav of the 5 ) could almost be a French national anthem. My recordings of the 4th I can highly recommend are Cortot/Munch, 1935, and Casadesus/Bernstein in the '60's.

Ditto on the Elgar Piano Quintet - the recording of which I own, coincidentally, is paired with the Saint-Saëns Piano Quintet.

Cortot and Casadesus are definitely interpreters to have for the Concertos. I have all five (and other piano & orchestra works) on a VoxBox disc - Gabriel Tacchino with the famous Orchestra of Radio Luxembourg! Very well done, for sure.

PS - the mention of Robert Casadesus reminds me that I need once again to listen to my CD of three of his seven symphonies. They're nothing to write home about but have a caché about them due, I guess, to the source - a pianist writing a symphony. The Seventh (not a particularly well-done work I have to say) was inspired by the 1967 Six-Day War and is subtitled Israël - sort of relevant to our times in a way.

[Febnyc]

Second the motion.
#8 was arranged for string orchestra by Rudolph Barshai, which might be a good place to start.

For sure, that Barshai orchestration, in my opinion, gives heft and body to that great quartet.

Barshai also orchestrated Nos. 3 and 4 - equally as interesting.

[Febnyc]

Returning to the topic of this thread, while musing about the Shostakovich Quartets, I could chalk up on my "don't like" list the Bartók six. I never can get through to the core - where I believe the Hungarian "folk element" is supposed to lie. I know about all the praise heaped upon them, and the fact that they encompass his entire career - but I just don't get them.

[Lance]

I was surprised to read about your dislike of Saint-Saëns' piano concertos! I wonder why, outside of the fact we all have our personal preferences. For me, these concertos are gems, and while Nos. 2, 4 and 5 (Egyptian) are the most celebrated, they are all full of passion and pianistic surprises and musical pleasures. But I'm always willing to listen — because I am just a curious one!

[Portion removed to focus on the below]
I don't like any of the symphonies of Mahler or Bruckner (refer to John McWhorter's comments elsewhere) or Shostakovich. And I absolutely dislike the piano concertos of Saint-Saëns.

[diegobueno]

The Bartók quartets: now that's MY kind of music. Yeah! Especially 3, 4 and 5.

The Shostakovich quartets have grown in stature quite a bit since the composer's death. The 8th will always be the popular one.There was a while where it was fashionable to find anti-Soviet messages in all of his scores, but this work is hard to imagine in any other way other than "My name is Dmitri Shostakovich and I am miserable". It has the DSCH motive and references to his earlier compositions such as the 1st symphony. It has the DSCH motive dancing like a puppet, it has the tense nights of him waiting for the "knock knock knock" on the door of the KGB agents he was sure would take him away. The later quartets don't get any sunnier. They are all dour pills of a deeply embittered man. They're very hard to listen to.

[Rach3]

Fww ( not much ), while I enjoy Strauss' vocal works, his tone poems and "Alpine" Symphony I dont , largely for the reasons others here have given.His youthful Violin Sonata and "Burlesque" for Piano and Orchestra I do listen to with some frequency and enjoy.

Other "dont likes " would be:

Most of Tchaikovsky except his "Little Russian" Symphony and "Rococo" Variations, the rest just too,too.

Sibelius Symphonies Nos.4,6, which , to use Lance's words on another work, dont "fly" for me. I am a big fan of his other symphonies and VC, but again not the tone poems.

[diegobueno]

I had a real Road-to-Damascus experience with Sibelius when I was in college. I had always thought Sibelius was kind of a dull boy and couldn't understand why people got excited about his music. I thought he was just another old fart romanticist who couldn't make the transition to modernism (that's how I thought back then). Then there was Finlandia, which sounded like it should have been a much longer work but was somehow truncated to highlight the famous hymn.

I decided that I was going to explore the Sibelius symphonies. I was going to go each day to the music library, find a recording and a score of a symphony and listen to it with the score. This was my daily activity back then, and I think I learned more about music that way than I did in any class. But I decided I would take a week, a month, or however long it took to get to know the Sibelius symphonies. I figured at the end of that time I would either come to love them or know why I didn't like them. I decided to start with no. 7 and work my way back, figuring that most composers write their best works at the end of their careers. If I couldn't get on with Sibelius at his best, how could I expect to fare with Sibelius at his less-than-best.

So I listened to Sibelius' 7th, score in hand, every day for a week. I got familiar with the themes, the structure, the way the themes are transformed as the piece goes on, came to appreciate the seamless transitions from one episode to the next, and finally how it culminates in an overwhelming climax. By the end of the week I was bowled over. I realized that Sibelius had done something here that no other composer had done. He was innovative in his own way.

I went through the same procedure with no. 6, no. 5, no. 4, no. 3, no. 2....

His 6th struck me as a sister to the 7th. Some of the same thematic elements are present. Maybe the 7th had originally been intended as the finale to the 6th, but it grew into something of its own. As he wrote it, no. 6 is very subtle, and understated. I imagine it all taking place on a beach somewhere in the north. Crabs play in the sand, gulls chase after them. A tanker ship can be heard in the distance blowing its horn as a dense fog rolls in. You can hear the dense fog at the end of the first movement. Anyway, it's my 2nd favorite Sibelius symphony, after the 7th

[Belle]

This is very impressive. With quite a lot of art music I've found it's education and familiarity that finally seal the deal in our understanding and you knew that very early in your journey. I love listening to music with the score, even music I think I know very well.

I was intrigued by your comment that starting your listening at the last is useful because a composer has often mastered his art, demonstrating maturity in composition later rather than sooner. Then there are those, like Bach, who were extraordinary right from the beginning!! In the case of Sibelius he was a life-threatening alcoholic and it would be interesting to speculate what, if any, impact this had on his composing.

[diegobueno]

I was intrigued by your comment that starting your listening at the last is useful because a composer has often mastered his art, demonstrating maturity in composition later rather than sooner. Then there are those, like Bach, who were extraordinary right from the beginning!! In the case of Sibelius he was a life-threatening alcoholic and it would be interesting to speculate what, if any, impact this had on his composing.

Sadly, his alcohol consumption probably did have a big effect on his composing. Think of it, from 1924 to his death in 1957 he wrote nothing of consequence. He wrote -- and burned -- an 8th symphony, he made a final revision of Lemminkainen and the Maidens of Saari, and finally allowed all of his Lemminkainen cycle to be published. But he could have written a 9th, a 10th, and 11th.....

He developed a tremor in his hands that made it difficult to write. And he plain lost his nerve. In England and the U.S., he was so revered that he began to feel the pressure. He was being compared, sometimes favorably, to Beethoven, so he felt that his next symphony really really needed to live up to the hype. In 1931 he sent the first movement of the 8th to a copyist, with a note saying there would be three more installments of a similar size. But the years went by and he wouldn't release the new symphony. If only that copyist had made another copy for himself we might at least have a first movement. But it was not to be. His wife Aino reported that one day in 1945, Sibelius built a big fire in the fireplace, came up with a big laundry basket full of manuscript pages, and threw them all in the fire, bundle by bundle. His 8th symphony was performed in the same manner as Rudolfo's "dramma" in the first act of La Boheme. After that, Aino reports, Sibelius was much more at ease. There would be no 8th symphony.

[Belle]

This was very sad indeed. Doubtless the hand tremor was but one manifestation of the alcoholism, the others likely being paranoia, depression, inability to fulfill commitments, complete preoccupation with getting and consuming alcohol, delirium tremens and probably liver disease. These are worst case scenarios because, as we know, there is such a thing as a 'functioning' alcoholic; Jean Sibelius was not one of these. His illness was severe and disabling. During Sibelius' early lifetime Finland was part of Russia and that nation has had spiralling, ongoing alcohol problems for over a century. (I happened to look at a graph only this week which identified Russia as still having the highest incidence of Cirhossis in the world.)

Your analogy with the opening scene of "La Boheme" is apposite; throwing the manuscript into the fire to generate some warmth - symbolic of failure - and about as powerful a statement about the tenuous existence of the artist as you can get.

Sibelius was obviously well aware of the detrimental affects of alcohol and spared his reputation in perpetuity by disposing of manuscripts he knew to be problematic. Composers always know best about these things.

[diegobueno]

I started to post this in the other thread, but I realize it belongs here.

Rossini -- superficial music that relies on the same tricks over and over. His comedies work pretty well, but he doesn't have enough gravitas to pull tragedies off. His instrumental music is not even worth mentioning. At least half of any given aria consists of cadences that go I - IV - I 6/4 -- V repeatedly and then double time. You only know he's going to put you out of your misery when there's a long fermata on the V chord and a really really high note in the voice.

His idea of variety is to make the cadence I - ii6 -- I 6/4 -- V.

Addendum: Actually I got it bass-ackward. The cadence with ii6 is the norm, the other is a variation.

Somehow I feel more like arguing music today than politics.

[Lance]

Love it Mark! You mean to tell me you don't get enjoyment from the String Sonatas, or Sins of My [His] Old Age, the Stabat Mater, his Introduction, Theme & Variations [clarinet!], his Cantatas?

I started to post this in the other thread, but I realize it belongs here.

Rossini -- superficial music that relies on the same tricks over and over. His comedies work pretty well, but he doesn't have enough gravitas to pull tragedies off. His instrumental music is not even worth mentioning. At least half of any given aria consists of cadences that go I - IV - I 6/4 -- V repeatedly and then double time. You only know he's going to put you out of your misery when there's a long fermata on the V chord and a really really high note in the voice.

His idea of variety is to make the cadence I - ii6 -- I 6/4 -- V.

Addendum: Actually I got it bass-ackward. The cadence with ii6 is the norm, the other is a variation.

Somehow I feel more like arguing music today than politics.

[diegobueno]

Lance,

I'm afraid not

[Lance]

Understand - accept!

Lance,

I'm afraid not

[Belle]

I started to post this in the other thread, but I realize it belongs here.

Rossini -- superficial music that relies on the same tricks over and over. His comedies work pretty well, but he doesn't have enough gravitas to pull tragedies off. His instrumental music is not even worth mentioning. At least half of any given aria consists of cadences that go I - IV - I 6/4 -- V repeatedly and then double time. You only know he's going to put you out of your misery when there's a long fermata on the V chord and a really really high note in the voice.

His idea of variety is to make the cadence I - ii6 -- I 6/4 -- V.

Addendum: Actually I got it bass-ackward. The cadence with ii6 is the norm, the other is a variation.

Somehow I feel more like arguing music today than politics.

Completely agree (that's the kiss of death, isn't it!! ). Rossini's music is mostly frivolous for me and I did read that Beethoven was disgusted with it because of the Viennese preference for the Italian when the great man was still alive and kicking! He made some derogatory remark about Viennese 'taste' at the time!!

You're saying that the 1-1V-1 6/4 (tonic second inversion)- V is his preferred cadence; it's not a resolution cadence but the old 'imperfect' one I learned about at university decades ago.

This is the only Rossini piece that I like: this was recorded sans audience during Covid. I love the accompaniment on keyboard with its gorgeous ostinatos. And the a capella polyphony for the mass Ordinary:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqrzmdevQSI

[Holden Fourth]

I remember in my earlier listening days, where I was acquiring new to me but well known works, trying to come to grips with the Dvorak 9th. I listened to many recordings and to me it was nice music, not overly inspiring and a bit meh in places. Then I heard Fricsay and my whole opinion changed! So there is a principle here - it sometiomes takes the right interpretation to set you off and I have applied it in a number of cases with these surprsing exemptions.

Top of the list is the Missa Solemnis. It's not that I don't liked sacred choral works having enjoyed great ones from Faure, Mozart, Rossini, Cherubini Brahms and my all time favourite - Verdi. The Missa does nothing for me at all and I've listened to so many recommendations that I've just given up and considering that LvB tops my composer list this is surely heresy.

Shostakovich 7 - even the Lennie recording doesn'ty grab me yet I love 5, 8 and 11.

Prokofiev Symphonies - they just don't cut it for me whereas so menay of his other works including the piano sonatas do.

Now don't get me started on opera.......

[Lance]

Beethoven's Missa Solemnis is probably my least favorite work of his, though I have some of what are considered the finest recordings, and I've heard it live a few times. It's one of those "do-nothing" pieces for me. I also know the work has its followers and admirers (as it should).
Outside of Prokofiev's Symphony #1 ("Classical"), I am not a fan of these either but very much admire his piano concertos and other orchestral works. I am not a fan of the piano sonatas, either, but certainly listen to them.

[Truncated quote for focus]
Top of the list is the Missa Solemnis. It's not that I don't liked sacred choral works having enjoyed great ones from Faure, Mozart, Rossini, Cherubini Brahms and my all time favourite - Verdi. The Missa does nothing for me at all and I've listened to so many recommendations that I've just given up and considering that LvB tops my composer list this is surely heresy.
*****
Prokofiev Symphonies - they just don't cut it for me whereas so menay of his other works including the piano sonatas do.
Now don't get me started on opera.......

[diegobueno]

You know, Beethoven's Missa Solemnis is so full of sublimely beautiful music, and I worship it, well, quite a bit of it, but there's something about sitting through many long minutes of sopranos screaming out high A's that grates on your nerves after a while. My nickname for the piece is "Missa screamis".

My favorite part is the Benedictus, which deserves all the superlatives you can throw at it. The Agnus Dei makes for a strong closing, with the military trumpets and drums accompanying the "Donna nobis pacem".

[Holden Fourth]

You know, Beethoven's Missa Solemnis is so full of sublimely beautiful music, and I worship it, well, quite a bit of it, but there's something about sitting through many long minutes of sopranos screaming out high A's that grates on your nerves after a while. My nickname for the piece is "Missa screamis".

My favorite part is the Benedictus, which deserves all the superlatives you can throw at it. The Agnus Dei makes for a strong closing, with the military trumpets and drums accompanying the "Donna nobis pacem".

Maybe I should listen to it this way.

[Belle]

Missa Solemnis by Beethoven isn't a work I ever listen too; once again, it's probably me. I generally dislike large orchestras and choirs and in the case of LvB the work is somewhat muddy.

There; I've said it.