Which composer are you tired of listening to?

Now, for this, you don't need to necessarily dislike a specific composer. From time to time there are certain pieces, or just certain composers, that you can feel is overplayed. For example, a certain piece by Bach or a specific symphony by Beethoven.

So, have at it. Which composer do you just not want to listen to for a good, long while? ;)

Vivaldi. Though I admit that I actively dislike his carbon-paper-rubber-stamp music.

Anyone I drive with knows to watch their hands when Vivaldi or Kenny G comes on; that radio's gonna be switched in seconds.

Several composers whom I listen to infrequently or not at all as they receive tons of exposure on the radio or I listened to alot when I first cottoned to classical music:

Not at all or once in a blue moon -

Vivaldi

Rarely listen to

Mozart

Infrequently -

Beethoven (though this is about to change when I saw our public TV station rebroadcast Bernstein conducting Beethoven's 9th. Bernstein's conducting was a bit eccentric but admirable - I rarley see a conducter showing such a rollicking good time with the music as Bernstein did)

I echo what Corbin said about Public Radio, although I think one day out of teh week they play modern works....can't remember though.

As for a composer that I'm tired of hearing, it would have to be teh works of Vince Meyer.

Sibelius.

I went to a piano recital by a friend of mine last week. He played piano cycles by Schumann and Sibelius and it wasn't very difficult to hear the difference in musical substance and quality between the two composers (at least when it comes to their writing for solo piano). The Sibelius pieces all sounded like uninteresting, fourth-rate salon pieces, they were not just bad, they were shockingly bad - especially compared to Schumann's brilliant Papillons and Carnaval cycles. So Sibelius is a composer I don't need to hear for a long, long while....

I echo what Corbin said about Public Radio, although I think one day out of teh week they play modern works....can't remember though.

Yes they do occasionally play modern music, but it's always audience-friendly stuff like John Adams or Gavin Bryars.

The USC classical station KUSC plays a pretty good range of music, and they stream over the internet as well. You guys might want to check them out.

A Specific composer:

Mozart.

A specific piece:

Eine Kliene Nachmusik

Another specific composer:

Beethoven

Another specific piece:

Symphony No. 5, Mov. 1 (ironically, most people don't know there's more to it)

And so on:

Vivaldi: Four Seasons, Spring (!!!!!!!!!)

Bach: Anything

Handel: Messiah, Hallelujah Chorus. (Only when it's done really good is it really worth listening to.)

Mozart: Symphony No. 40, Mov. 1

Mozart: Requiem (Will it ever die?! ;))

Beethoven: Symphony No. 9, Mov. 4.3 (the Ode part)

Beethoven: Fur Elise (Elise is turning in her grave)

Schubert: Ave Maria (Mary is turning in her grave)

Brahms: Symphony No. 1, Mov. 4

Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 4, Mov. 1 (AHHH!!! 9/8 infects the brain!)

Mahler: Symphony No. 5, Mov. 4 (stupid Adagietto that isn't even good compared to other stuff he's written)

Stravinsky: Rite of Spring, Part II (the adolescent girls' dance. There's only so many times one can hear an F-flat and F chord superimposed on top of each other before one goes bonkers.)

Holst: The Planets, Jupiter (yay! 4ths AGAIN!)

Cage: 4'33" (yeah, too much silence)

Williams: Anything, but esp. Star Wars and Stupid Hedwig's theme.

Cage: 4'33" (yeah, too much silence)

I sight-read that piece the other day. From MEMORY. I sneezed halfway through, so I had to start again. :blush:

... would sneezing count as a screw-up? I mean, you didn't do it intentionally. As soon as the performance begins, all sounds for the duration of the performance count as the performance itself. I don't reckon one would need to start over. ;)

Anyways... things I don't want to hear anymore:

Mozart. Almost any concerti, chamber works, ect. I find them all to sound exceedingly similar. I like playing some of his music, but listening to it... I grow tired easily. Also, not a fan of his sonatas.

Beethoven. Moonlight sonata, 3rd movement. I love playing it. I hate listening to it. 1st movement... incredibly boring (so much that I don't care how beautiful it is). FUER FRIGGIN' ELSE. It's sooooo bloody simple. And people continue to love it. I've had enough of it. Symphony No.5... that movement. Yes. That one. I didn't mind playing it in orchestra that one time... but hearing it... tired of it.

Debussy. Clair de Lune. I'd like to hear the whole suite played for once instead of just that one movement, which I've grown weary of. It doesn't help that much that not very many people can play Debussy well enough.

Chopin. Any bloody thing you can think of. I don't listen to him much anymore. Or play him.

Vivaldi. Anything. Like Mozart, it all sounds very similar to me. I don't even like playing it that much, 'tis quite dry, I find.

Liszt. 3rd ruddy Liebestraume. I don't even like it... and people can't stop raving over it.

Pachelbel. Yes. The canon. Why the canon? Why couldn't find find a more sophisticated work to adore? "The Canon" is so simple that whenever I hear that progression used anywhere, even within a work not intended to borrow it, I want to strangle myself.

Dvorak. Largo from 9th symphony. WAY overplayed. I never want to hear that again in my life. I am crazy about the rest of the symphony, though.

Tchaikovsky. The Nutcracker. We need to find new Christmas music. :dry:

Opera. In general. :innocent:

I sight-read that piece the other day. From MEMORY. I sneezed halfway through, so I had to start again. :blush:

Just to ruin your joke, your sneeze would be actually totally OK as part of the piece. :>

Oh, also, I don't get tired listening to music. Any music.

Well, there's lots of music I dislike, but obviously I don't tend to listen to this music over and over again, so I hardly get "tired" listening to it. And I rarely listen to the radio, so I can generally choose what music I listen to.

But of course there is some music of which I get tired even while hearing it for the first time.

The fact that Vivaldi is named so often in this thread makes baby Jesus and myself cry, but it's not entirely unexpected. Of course he was a mass producer of music (he even wrote one opera in five days!!) but within many similar ideas there lies much originality that surpasses most of his contemporaries, IMO. Everyone keeps saying that Vivaldi is harmonically so boring, yet he made some truly exceptional harmonic experiments which you find rarely in his time. Even sadder is the fact that the piece probably most people are tired of are the four seasons (justly, to some extent, as they really are played so often in such terrible arrangements etc. that it can get quite unbearable). But I find the four seasons some fantastic concertos and very unique baroque pieces that truly stand out. Just take this passage in "La primavera" where the solo violin and tutti violins all stay harmonically on an E major chord for several pages, playing with different figurations and ornaments (some birdsong imitation stuff), creating rhythmical patterns and giving around little ornaments from one to the other to create a room effect. It's extremely rich and lively in colour while being harmonically totally static (and that in 1723). Just to name one example.

Although I love playing his pieces, I think most Mozart is far too overplayed - its on loads of adverts on tv, completely out of context, and it completely ruins the music in my opinion. Although there are some more obscure pieces of Mozart I love that aren't overplayed :)

I could never get tired of Chopin though :D

Although there are some more obscure pieces of Mozart I love that aren't overplayed

Otherwise, yeah, Mozart is overplayed these days.

Are any classical composers really overplayed? If you ask me, there's a lot of non-classical stuff that is overplayed - way overplayed.

If you ever listen to a non-classical station, they have been known to play the same piece/song twice in the span of an hour! When does that ever happen with Mozart, even?

It depends on which classical stations and which non-classical stations you listen to.

Yes, that it true. A good station wouldn't do that, regardless of genre.

Chopin. Any bloody thing you can think of. I don't listen to him much anymore. Or play him.

Opera. In general. :innocent:

Rot in Hell. :angry:

Rot in Hell. :angry:

There is rot in Hell.

:whistling:

I could never get tired of Chopin though :D

You I like :D

I could never get tired of Chopin though :D

I love listening to Chopin, but I've always had trouble playing him. Same with Mozart. Strangely enough, I play Liszt a little bit easier (excluding the obvious Liebestraum and Hungarian Rhapsody of course).

Another specific piece:

Symphony No. 5, Mov. 1 (ironically, most people don't know there's more to it)

Just to be an donkey, that is not irony in the least. In fact, it's actually quite expected. Some people also don't realize that Beethoven, himself, the biggest egomaniac in the world, thought that Fur Elise was not even good enough to be published. It speaks volumes that arguably one of the most popular classical music pieces in the entire world is one that the initial creator even considered crap.

Anyway, composers I'm tired of hearing...

Debussy: Clair de Lune. I have to be in a VERY specific mood to want to listen to it.

Ravel: Bolero. I really don't think I should have to quote more than the composer himself for this one "I've written only one masterpiece and that is Bolero. Sadly though, it contains no music."

Beethoven: Moonlight Sonata, first movement. Ugh, really... what *do* people see in that piece? The third movement is the only one I enjoy.

Mozart: Just Mozart. There is very little of his work that doesn't automatically activate my gag relfex from the sheer syrupy sweetness.

There are probably other composers and pieces but I can't think of any at this curent moment. I'll balance this thread out by including some pieces I never tire of despite numerous listens:

Bartok's Piano Sonata. Quite possibly one of my favorite pieces of music ever.

Ravel's Piano Concerto in G Major. It breaks my heart to think that this is one of the last pieces Ravel completed before his brain condition took over and he was no longer to write music.

Debussy's Prelude to an Afternoon Faun. Once again, I'm going to quote Ravel on this one. When asked hypothetically what music he would like played for his own funeral, he replied "Prelude to an Afternoon Faun". When asked why, he responded "It is the only score that is truly perfect."

Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, 1st movement

Sooooooo damn overrated. What's so special about it? Scales with a melody lying above it. Go to a cinema and most film music you hear are like this.

Any pop stuff, played on the piano

Let's face it, when pop comes to the piano, it's arpeggios in the left hand and melody in the right. No countermelodies, syncopation, accents, nothing!

Film music with long, sustaining strings

Ugh... do I need to say more? Makes me feel cheated when I buy a CD like this.

Oh, I forgot you were asking about composers. Hmm... I'm tired of Vivaldi. Everything of his sounds the same.

What's with the Moonlight Sonata 1st mov. bashing? Geez, so what if it's just scales with a melody lying above it. I think in all its simplicity, it achieves tremendous effect.

Also, I must politely disagree with Ravel when it comes to his opinion about Bolero :P

A Specific composer:

Bach: Anything

Ah! I'm crushed! :sadtears:

*shakes head sadly*