Post by A. BrainHere's my list, including mostly classical or pseudo-classical
composers whose music I just don't like, for the most part,
but who are also well-respected in some circles, with a couple
1. Richard Strauss (some extra-musical considerations here)
2. Sergei Rachmaninoff (though I love his choral liturgical works)
3. Aaron Copland (cowboy music)
4. Phillip Glass (mannered and dull)
5. John Adams (even more mannered and dull)
6. Carl Orff (one hit wonder)
7. Stephen Sondheim (an opera composer according to some)
8. Andrew Lloyd-Webber (well, he did write a Requiem)
9. Van Cliburn (underachiever)
10. Carlos Kleiber (underachiever)
Richard Wagner of course heads the 19th century list...
--
A. Brain
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I suppose it doesn't matter if I mix composers, conductors, and musicians,
both classical and popular, but here goes:
1. Igor Stravinsky (I like S, but I also think there are dozens of 20th c.
composers who were better.)
2. Bob Dylan (with the E*Trade Financial commercials portraying him as the
posterboy "extraordinary" musician, he needs to be on this list!)
3. The Beatles (I'm not going to say they're crap, but there are so many
people regard them as musical geniuses, which they are not.)
4. Pablo Casals (his recordings of the Bach suites are astonishingly bad for
such a celebrated performance. [runner up cellist: Gregor Piatigorsky.])
5. Dame Janet Baker (it seems every recording she made got a rosette in the
Penguin guide. She is good, but not *that* good)
6. Glenn Gould (I don't think there is any question of his technical
skills--it's his interpretations that suck, despite so many people claiming
he had the last word on Bach.)
7. Miles Davis (So much pretentious nonsense! Bitches Brew may have been the
all time best selling jazz album, but I find it unlistenable).
8. S. Kuijken. His (first?) recording of the Bach Sonatas and Partitas got
rave reviews, but he certainly wasn't up to the task of performing them
9.Neville Marriner. (the musical equivalent of milk toast, but his
recordings--Mozart in particular--sure seem to be popular)
10. Charlotte Church . ('nuff said, but could it be that she's had her day
in the sun?)
There are several that A. Brian mentioned I think would be good
choices--notably the minimalists, to which I would add Steve Reich, but it
seems they are all justly reviled by most serious musicians. I suppose Orff
could be added, though I once sang in Carmina Burana, which was lots of fun,
and think that work is *unjustly* reviled. Aaron Copeland, though if he
composed more works like his piano variations, he would be one of the top 10
*underrated* musicians. Conductors: HvK and Toscanini deserve honorable
mention.
Lorin Maazel and Zubin Mehta have been both mentioned in at least one other
list, but I don't know they're highly regarded to begin with. Maazel's
Symphonie Fantastique on Telarc has to be about the most deathly dull
recording I ever heard!