Awful, but magnificent!

[Alan Howe]

I was just musing about possible candidates for that category of music which one might call "Awful, but magnificent!". I have recently acquired a German radio broadcast of August Bungert's Mysterium nach Hiob of 1909. It's an 80 minutes+ monster and it's so awful (dreary declamation, barely anything memorable, etc.) that it is truly magnificent.

Any other candidates (+ reasons, please)?

[Delicious Manager]

I would have to put forward Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture. Tchaikovsky himself knew it was a bad piece. Take away the excitement of the bells and cannons at the end (which is all people go to hear, after all) and you are left with something very unmemorable and third rate. However, those bells and cannons do provide the magnificence I think might qualify.

[Alan Howe]

Surely the 1812 is memorable? But I agree, it's so awful, it's magnificent!

[Delicious Manager]

Yes, I agree. What I meant was, without the 'memorable', noisy ending, it would be pretty UNmemorable.

A pity Beethoven's Battle Symphony has no such saving graces. Whatever WAS he thinking?

Oh, look - I seem to have been elevated to TWO yellow squares and lost my 'new' status!

[Mark Thomas]

Continuing Alan's giganticism theme, I'm very tempted to nominate Draeseke's Christus for it's sheer size and tedium, but I'll hold off because not only does the only recording weigh it down with what's probably a needlessly turgid performance, I also suspect that it isn't "awful" at all.   I just don't understand it.

So, the Thomas nomination goes to Fibich's Hippodamia trilogy - three mighty melodramas each lasting over two hours. The music itself is typical in many ways of Fibich, colourful, vigorous and melodic, albeit in a rather more thoughtful and sober vein than one is used to from him. So, that's the "magnificence". The "awful" is that they are melodramas - people speak all the way through. That's the point! It's like going to the concert from hell where your neighbours chatter (no, declaim!) continually. The ear naturally focusses on the speech, even though you can't understand a word of it. I bought Supraphon's three boxed sets of the trilogy years ago on a trip to Prague and they are amongst the few CDs which I've ever given away, confident that I'd never listen to them again.

[Delicious Manager]

Another very memorable piece if you hear it, but which is pretty bad music, is one I've seen mentioned in here in recent weeks - the Third Symphony by Khachaturian. With 15 trumpets and an (hysterically busy) obbligato organ part, it threatens to out-Sinfonietta Janáček's Sinfonietta, but lacks the musical invention or cohesiveness to do so. At least it has a quasi-Onedin Line big tune in the middle.

Another magnificent but dubious work would have to be Shostakovich's Leningrad Symphony. Not alone among the several poor works he wrote, it is surely the most magnificent of them.

[Pengelli]

 In Fibich's defence,and he's dead,so I suppose there's not much point,really,these so called melodrama's are from a long bygone age,a different kind of culture,where people probably had a little more patience,and stamina,maybe,than we do;and were never intended to be listened to in this kind of way. And fair play,I don't expect poor old Fibich, himself,ever anticipated his 'melodramas' being listened to in this manner! Also,three boxed sets?!! What came over you? A rush of blood to the head? Three for the price of one? The local moonshine?! I think it might have been a good idea to 'dip the old toe in the water' with one box,first.
Incidentally,they had a rave review on Musicweb,and the last time I looked,(not recently),they were asking all kinds of ridiculous prices for them on Amazon.

[Mark Thomas]

I accept all that you say about melodrama, and I don't criticise Fibich's actual music at all. The trouble is that you can't hear it. Why did I buy all three? Because at the time you could not buy them outside the Czech Republic and it was pre-internet, so it was all or nothing. Thanks (I think) for making me look at the price on Amazon: £197? I gave my copies away - something else that's "awful" about Hippodamia!

[Pengelli]

Yes,you could buy a couple of cd's with that!
Interesting though,how Fibich's 'talent' for melodrama's put other examples of the genre into perspective. For example,'Enoch Arden' by Richard Strauss.

[chill319]

(The following comment assumes the validity of I. A. Richard's triangular model of communication.)

Are we responding to cases where the music qua notes on a page is considered awful enough to be magnificent, where the realization/performance is awful enough to be magnificent, or where the listener is ignorant/clueless?

I'm recalling a showing of Tarkovsky's "Andrei Rublev" where a sophisticated audience did not know (through no particular fault of its own) how to consume static, nondramatic (or antidramatic) stretches of ritualized visual discourse. All the more problematic in the case of an opera composer like Rimsky-Korsakov when a particular director (not to mention an audience) may not know how (or why!) to present or. especially, to consume stretches of  ritualized dramatic discourse as, say, in "Katschei" or "Kitezh."

Please forgive and ignore if I'm taking all this a little too seriously. It's something I care about.

[awfulgoodmovies]

Hi all, my first post.

I'd love to hear more from August Bungert and I'd like to hear that 'Mysterium nach Hiob' sounds interesting!

I downloaded his opus 16 piano for 4 hands piece and playing thru my midi and I really like it.

He left 360 + songs and I'd like to hear all of them transcribed for the piano.

What about this work:

Homerische Welt (Homeric World - other title: Die Odyssee - The Odyssey) opera-tetrology, op. 30, libretto by August Bungert
Part I: Circe, musical tragedy in three acts, op. 30/1, premiered 1898 in the Dresden Court Opera (Hofoper)
Part II: Nausicaa, musical tragedy in three acts, op. 30/2, premiered 1901 in the Dresden Court Opera
Part III: Odysseus' Return, musical tragedy in three acts, op. 30/3, premiered 1896 in the Dresden Court Opera
Part IV: Odysseus' Death, musical tragedy in three acts, op. 30/4, premiered 1903 in the Dresden Court Opera

I wonder who has all his works.....love to get a hold of them.

600 page book on him>   http://books.google.com/books?id=XJYYAQAAIAAJ&dq=isbn:379521131X&ei=et1hTL38A5OskATLi9iOAQ&cd=1

[eschiss1]

The only remark I had heard previously about Bungert ''had'' been rather slighting - that he'd wanted to create a Bayreuth for his own music but that he was, well, not Wagner.  But then I know better than to take away any assessment of his music from someone's bon mot - I haven't yet read the Lexicon of Musical Invective, I think, but, erm, I get the general idea.
Eric

[mbhaub]

Dare I mention the Furtwangler 2nd? It's been discussed to death, and despite Barenboim's recording, it just seems like such mess. And I wouldn't want to be without it...

And then there's the Liszt Dante Symphony...much ado about nothing.

Now in defence of Tchaikosky's "1812". Maybe because I've played it dozens of times, but I never tire of playing it (percussion parts in this case). It has an electrifying effect on players, conductors as well as audiences. Ok, it's no "Eroica" but the work is a remarkable but of composition. It's really ingenious how it's put together, how it's scored. It's no mean feat of compositional skill. As a demonstration of technical skill, it's first-rate. Inspired? Maybe not, but despite what critics and other composers think of it, you know that many of them would have sold their souls to have written it. If a composer had written nothing but 1812, he/she would be immortal. Now I'm not suggesting that popularity equals quality, but 1812 has to have something going for it to have hung on in the repertoire for so long. And it's not because of the artillery either, in fact most performances I gave done eschewed the cannons, the extra brass, a choir and the rest. Long live "1812"!

[giles.enders]

How about the Scriabin 'Mysterium'.  I forget who put it together but it is an endurance.

[Delicious Manager]

The Skryabin (yes, I prefer that perverse spelling!) was cobbled together by Alexander Nemtin (1936-99). It is not one of the more successful 'reconstructions' of the last 50 years or so, it has to be said.