Thus my Musical Blind Spots:
Schoenberg: music from the wrong place.
Milhaud: flippy floppy stuff.
Mendelssohn: busy, busy, busy. Where's your soul, man?
Elgar's Dream of Gerontius: God spare me these kinds of dreams: I wish Gerontius permanent insomnia.
Philip Glass:Much of his music reminds me of the Stuck Record syndrome associated with faulty LP's, the same syndrome when CDS get stuck.
Rossini: Momma mia, a kind of perpetual inevitabity about much of his music, I do like some of his piano music, and the Petite Mass.
Liszt: much of his music is pyrotechnical and musically vapid. There are magnificent exceptions, but most of his music leaves me cold and shivering.
Messiaen: Perfect 'nothing' music for me.
Mahler: Symphony 8. Full of sound and fury.
Shostakovich: Symphony 7. Significant that the conductor I despise most - Toscanini conducted the Premiere. This music is the definition of kitsch.
Musicians who I don't understand, or 'get':
The conductors Toscanini, Solti, Mravinsky for reasons to do with bull at the gate, rhino in a china shop approach.
Rattle: I just shake my head every time I hear anything conducted by this charming man. Though I do like something about his Bruckner 9.
Pollini, Heifetz: digital perfection, where's the soul? My Pollini antidote is Arrau. My Heifetz antidote is Szigeti.
Karajan: the original Mantovani. ( Though every now and then, something I hear knocks my socks off. Which is not a pretty sight, most have holes.)
I've probably bored the pants off one and all by now, so I'll leave it at that.
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