Most over-rated "classical" composer?

[Rabrrrrrr]

Poll question: Most over-rated "classical" composer?

I put "classical" in quotes because I'm including composers from many periods, not just the classical period, but since most everyone thinks of all orchestral and/or "serious" music as classical, I'm using the word in that sense.

For me, it's a toss up between Brahms and Schubert, though Vivaldi and handel are up there, as well as Elgar, though Elgar might be just unpopular enough to get into the realm of being over-rated. Bernstein really needs his own place as "most over-rated musician" or something far more broad than just "composer", since he stunk at so many things involving music (though also, I will admit, excelled brilliantly at times, his Jeremiah Symphony, for example). I wish we had more room so I could include some more british composers, but no room, and I'm sorry I couldn't throw Gershwin in there, but again, no room; but on the other hand, sometimes difficult to include him in the realm of "serious" composer even though he has a couple pieces which are really quite good (and no, Porgy and Bess is not one of them, though as a musical (not a serious opera), it excels beyond all but a handful of the offerings in that genre). But now I'm becoming trite and obnoxiously elitist, so I will stop. Got into a really awsome argument with a woman - a real southern woman, did the coming out party, all that crap - about how Porgy and Bess is NOT an opera, even if they do sing all the time, it's a musical. Man, she was livid. :evilgrin:

I'm not putting in an "other" category, since I'm more curious about the ones I list here, but I know you will do "other" anyway, so go ahead! Since we're all American-hating traitors who would prefer to live in Taliban-controlled Iraq, doesn't matter if we break a few rules, since we have no communal moral standards as well.

[Occulus]

1. Bach isn't on the list

I was forced to study the construction of Bach chorales as part of my music ed training. I HATED it!!

Bach has no relevance to today's music. Even modern 'classical' composers such as Bernstein and Gershwin would have made Bach's head explode.

Never mind Reed, Holsinger, Ives, Holst, etc.....

Bach is a dead fish. Why isn't he on your list? :)

edit: as for Bernstein.... well, 'West Side Story' is simply great.

[Rabrrrrrr]

3. Well, again, one only has just so much room

I wanted to put Bach on - though I don't think he's over-rated - because he is SO overplayed, so thought it only fair. I did include Mozart for that reason, though also for personal reasons, becuase I like Mozart, but don't think he was quite the ubergenius people make him out to be.

Heh heh - just remember one great moment in a music theory class. Can't remember what we were talking about, but my prof. for this class was a real Mozart fan, and while I don't mind mozart, I prefer more challenging works. Anyway, I just let it slip one day something like this: "well, yeah, Mozart's okay, but let's face it: opera wasn't much until Wagner perfected the form."

Lordy lordy, but time stopped for a few moments after that one. He was not amused, nor, you might guess, in any form of agreement with me. :-)

[JackSwift]

4. He probably didn't get the joke either

As much as I love bits of Wagner, the length and pace of a Wagner opera can be pure torture: a form that Wagner perfected and hasn't been matched since.

[Rabrrrrrr]

5. Ah, but it was no joke.

I *do* believe that Wagner perfected the operatic form. I would certainly never say that an Italian, especially Verdi and excepting Puccini, has done much justice to the potential of opera.

And of course, there is also a lot of excellent 20th century opera, but without Wagner, those good 20th century ones might very well not have been made, and we'd continue to be stuck with Italian-like opera, God forbid.

[alwynsw]

20. Moe's Art

enough said

[regnaD kciN]

18. Was it George Bernard Shaw who said...

that Wagner's music-dramas contained "moments of sheer bliss, and the hours that separate them"...?

;-)

(FWIW, I've seen the Ring cycle, live, twice, and have heard all of his other music-dramas except The Flying Dutchman. Well-done Wagner can make time stand still; poorly-done Wagner can make the clock seem to stand still.)

[0rganism]

8. not amused? I'm surprised he didn't chase you from the room!

Among professors of music, them thar be fightin' words. You brutalized the poor man... :evilgrin:

[Rabrrrrrr]

16. Heh heh - he almost did

He was an older guy, near retirement - great teacher, and I mean no disparagement by saying he was older - but he was a traditionalist, even in his dress and his mannerisms. Very old schoolish. Not real interested in anything written after, say, Beethoven.

My interest, though, IS in the stuff after Beethoven, especially much more modern stuff, including the atonal and crash/bang music (my term for stuff like Crumb's works, and music that tends to have gaps of silence, then sudden bursts of atonal bleating, maybe with percussion, hitting instruments, vocal singing that includes huge intervalic skips and sliding of tones, etc.).

So we had much disagreement. :-)

thankfully, it was all friendly and okay - no being a bastard from either of us. just living in different musical worlds.

[0rganism]

9. Analyzing Bach chorales is a standard hazing ritual

Don't blame it on ol' J.S.

I swear, it's part of the vast romantic conspiracy to distance music students from perfectly decent head trip music. And anyone who calls Bach dead or irrelevant has been thoroughly subverted!

[Rabrrrrrr]

15. I never appreciated Bach until I studied music theory

Always found him too predictable (much like Mozart). Even playing his music in orchestra was never all that exciting. But after studying theory, which of course in the early courses is very Bach-centric, I have a boatload of appreciation for the man's music. He did have tremendous skill! And he was the earliest "serious" composer who worked in the jazz medium, a couple hundred years before anyone would use it again. :-)

I still can't listen to Bach for long periods, but I *will* listen willingly quite often!

[regnaD kciN]

19. "A standard hazing ritual"...???

I wrote a complete thesis in college on the opening chorale of the St. Matthew Passion. One of the most enjoyable times I've had writing a paper!

[JackSwift]

2. Mozart. Too many notes, all his work sounds the same

Has no catchy, can't get it out of your head tune except for A Little Night Music, which is hideous.

[Rabrrrrrr]

6. Yeah, I feel that way much of the time, too

I never find Mozart annoying, in the way that Elgar or Brahms can be, but I also rarely find Mozart to be truly compelling. I often play his music in the background, becuase I'm trying to experience much more of his output lately, but I find myself tuning it out, and then realizing that "Hey - I'm 45 minutes into this CD and on the third wind quintet, and never noticed the end of the others, or the beginning of the new ones." It all blends together, and doesn't demand my attention.

Mahler - that demands attention.

[girl gone mad]

10. I have to defend Mozart (and Bach)

Mozart was a genius, no question. I absolutely love playing Mozart, even more than Chopin or Bach at times. Sure, he was a show off and sure he could be cold, but if you haven't been moved by Mozart then I think you've been listening to the wrong performers. He was brilliant, and, despite his lies to himself and his father, Mozart was an early romantic. I'm not as familiar with his operas, except having seen most, I think he had a decent sense of humor about it all.

Perhaps most importantly, without Mozart there would have been no Beethoven. Beethoven once was moved enough to say he could never hope to be as good as Mozart (!).

And I voted for Brahms - a total bore and IIRC, he's the most played composer in Ameerican orchestra.

[JackSwift]

17. I agree that without Mozart, Beethoven's music wouldn't exist

and it means the same to me that without magazine serialization, Dickens wouldn't exist. Beethoven's work is sweeping, emotional and accessible.

[0rganism]

7. Tough question, because you can look at it several ways

A composer could be quite good, yet overrated as exceptional. Or, a crappy composer could be considered average, thus overrated. There are many composers who don't even rank outside their core genre afficianados. For instance, it'd be hard for me to pick Verdi, because he's hardly rated outside of opera, AFAICT. I might find the whole genre of opera to be overrated, but that's not speaking to whether Verdi himself is overrated. And Bernstein may be similarly tempting, but he's probably better known for his conducting than his composition.

I have to pick Vivaldi. He's not intrinsically more interesting than his lesser-known contemporaries like Telemann or Scarlatti, yet it seems like on the sole basis of the violin solo from Winter he's been proclaimed some sort of canonical genius of the baroque. Not that the rest of his music is so much weaker than his "Four Seasons", but how many people are going to ever hear anything else from this "great composer"?

At least with other popular figures like Beethoven, you can bet that most people with an opinion have heard some of two symphonies and maybe some chamber music. Vivaldi, more than any of the others, skates by on one piece.

The same critique could be applied to Gershwin, given that "Rhapsody in Blue" is the only thing he's "known for". However, he hasn't reached the heights of worldwide overratedness for several centuries -- and I give extra mad props to anyone who studied with M. Ravel.

I do have to give out one bonus prize for my subjective irritation grudge award: Chopin. Yeah, he's good and all, but from my experience, piano teachers are wont to use his pieces as torture devices. Nothing brings out the inner sadism of those people quite like the damnable "prelude in g# minor"...

[girl gone mad]

11. Good points

But I think, at least in the case of Chopin, it's the piece that's overrated, not the composer. Raindrop is one of the few which most advanced students have the patience to learn, so it's overplayed and then it becomes popular because everyone has heard it and it is torture to play or listen to (fur elise). Rachmaninoff complained about being asked to play his first prelude so often he wished he had never written it.

[radfringe]

12. other: Chopin

I find his music "tedious"

My favorites are Rachmonioff, Dvorak and Copeland

[nuxvomica]

13. I ain't no connoisseur but I love Vivaldi's "Summer"

I play the "Presto" at work when I start falling asleep in the afternoon.
I voted for Handel because I dread hearing that Messiah thing endlessly as the holidays approach.
BTW, you mispelled Schumann.

[Rabrrrrrr]

14. I could recover by saying I meant William Schuman

http://www.1upinfo.com/encyclopedia/S/SchumanW.html
http://www.schirmer.com/composers/schuman_bio.html

But I'd be lying.

Yes, I meant Schumann, and I meant Robert, not Clara.

[alwynsw]

21. No dodging!

Your head's on the Chopin block. (I do love a bad pun.)

[benburch]

22. Anton Bruckner

Tedious, Tedious, Tedious.