Works I USED to hate....facing the music....

The infamous Pachelbel...

Yesterday I offered up a post, courtesy of Norman Lebrecht and Slipped Disc, discussing those musical works that many people would be better off never hearing again.  A majority of them are ubiquitous, having become hackneyed through use as wedding music (the "Taco-Bell" Canon), advertisements (Eine Kleine Nachtmusik) and many, many others.  Some respondents skewered the entire canon of given composers (Mozart? Mahler?  Really?) or cherry-picked as did Lebrecht himself, dissing all of Tchaikovsky, with the exception of the last three symphonies and the violin concerto.

These "Seasons" I really dig....

It's hard for me to come up with a list of those works that I truly could do without, although Vivaldi's Four Seasons, the aforementioned "Taco-Bell", and Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring would probably appears.  Those pop up immediately because of many years as a church organist and, at weddings, it seems that these appear all too often.  As an aside, my favorite wedding music (unfortunately I was not part of the musical retinue) took place at a ceremony held on the Fourth of July.  At recessional time, the brass quintet broke into a rousing version of Stars and Stripes Forever.  I have to imagine that the Catholic priest was shuddering in disgust, but for me, the moment was priceless.

What I am caught up in are those pieces that I actually used to despise, either through overplay, or due to the fact that my opinions are often based on the last bad performance I heard of a given work.  Some of it, too, is better based on age and maturity.  For example:

• The works of Brahms.  I truly didn't appreciate the guy until my 30s.  It obviously takes a level of maturity or life experience to really dig into them.  For what it's worth, every note written by old Johannes is perfect.  As for the German Requiem, my first live experience was a plodding performance; the music went nowhere and I hated it (and hence the piece itself).  Then I studied it--at length.  And I mean returning to original sources, including the composer's own personal conducting score, which is full of metronome marks that he expunged from the published version (even though he used this particular score for 25 years!).  In case anyone needs a conductor, Brian and his score are ready.

• Beethoven 6:  again a ponderous live performance.  To successfully lead this work, my contention is that one must go for several walks in nature.  Therein is the key to the Pastorale.

• Schumann 3:  a performance that had no clear musical ideas and little sense of balance.  Mnay, MANY people score the composer's sense (or the lack thereof) of orchestration and it's extremely difficult music to pull off without alteration.  BUT, again through a lot of preparation (and thanks to a then newly issued critical edition) I think my musicians and I pulled it off.

Took me awhile to figure this one out..
Maybe that's the point.

• Elgar:  Enigma Variations:  a performance offered by a conducting candidate who obviously didn't want to be there: totally uninspired and downright sloppy.  And then I experienced it in the hands of one of my mentors, who brought out all of the amazing details.  Need I say more?

This is a very short list and I'm sure that there are more; it's just a matter of what I've come up with over a single cup of morning coffee.

Oh yes, and one more for the "hate" list:  the so-called "Wedding Song," which I often refer to as "Johnny One Note."  Most uninspired melody of all time (yes, worse than Taco-Bell).