Another was Anthony Hopkins who showed he thought very highly of the composer. He played a record of the Totentanz and noted "The sheer violence of the music"....well you wouldn't expect a dance of death to be cast in the form of a minuet, would you?
The third was Dr. Stephen Wilkinson who, perhaps, arrived at a sensible, balanced opinion: "Some of it, and note I said "Some of it", is very beautiful music" he said.
Personal tastes don't always (or,even, often) equate with informed opinion.
After being assured , in a radio broadcast by Hans Keller, that the Schoenberg Violin Concerto was one of the greatest examples of the form, I listened to it a number of times but found that I still preferred the "Symphonie Espagnole."
And when I was a lot younger, with a few exceptions, I didn't care much for the music of Bach or Schubert; I can't believe it now. As the words of the old popular song say, "We all make mistakes and we're sorry."
Quite right, Jeffrey; not all of it is bombast - quite a lot else is what a good music-loving friend of mine always called "meandering slop"! ;-) (Honestly; I have tried...)
"Chacun à son goût." When the 1967 film "Bedazzled" was released it was panned by most critics, but I happen to think it is a very funny film with a message beyond the underlying humour. The music for the film, by Dudley Moore, I also rate as splendid, and that's nothing to do with the fact that both Dud and myself were born in Dagenham.
As for "The awful bombast" by Liszt I can only think that you've never heard "Orpheus" "Benediction de dieu dans la Solitude" "Feux Follets" or, indeed, a hundred other pieces including the famous Consolations and Liebestraume or that your understanding of bombast differs radically from mine !
I should like to commend David Barker's latest article as it has a special significance for me.
I am a great fan of Dudley Moore's parody of Peter Pears, as of course Pears is a direct forerunner of the ghastly Bostridge/Padmore/Tear school of English/British tenor singing - and to me he got both the constricted voice and the precious mannerisms absolutely spot-on.
As an ignorant 18-year-old, I attended my very first concert in Oxford just a few weeks after arriving there as an undergraduate in 1973: there was a concert just down the road from my college in the University Church of St Mary the Virgin. All I knew was that it featured a celebrated English tenor in music by Britten.
I could not believe my ears when he opened his mouth and began wailing. Thus began my lifelong antipathy to both that vocal style and the music itself, which was "Les illuminations". I am well aware for some both are touchstones of excellence but can only shake my head and refer you to similar tastes and aversions which have recently been discussed on this forum, such as Mikeh's - what is to me inexplicable - loathing of Bruckner or the delight some take in what I hear as the awful bombast written by Liszt.
As we never tire of intoning here at MWI: "we are a broad church."
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