The Unsung Wastebasket: what deserves to go in?

[4candles]

In my haste, I hadn't realised that this new list didn't have genre constraints, so that makes it a little easier, especially if one is talking about piano music. I'll give it some thought.

While I'm here, I feel I should say a word about the following:

2.- Max Jentsch - Konzertetüde Op.28 No.4
A really hard-to-process piece... only hear it. It's not really pleasing at all, altough it makes a really clever use of chromaticism, it's too repetitive and EXAGERATEDLY LONG. I really think that those chromatic semi cadenzas are really obnoxious because they cut short the flow of the music and are not really suitable for a "concert etude" because it's not really for practice but for recitals and concerts. However, I think that my opinion could change if some human interpretation makes this piece shine, not like a MIDI that is not making justice to the piece.

Currently I am probably Max Jentsch's biggest advocate in the world, so I was quite surprised to see him listed here (or at all, anywhere!). A few thoughts:

• I had presumed we were talking about commercially available recordings or works. In this case only one of Jentsch's pieces has ever been recorded - one of his lieder - so without reference to a real performance of this piece by a real virtuoso musician (as has been admitted), we can't truly feel the piece as it was perhaps intended. That said, in the midi versions we do have available, it seems to me that the work is a bit aimless - yes, it reaches the heights of extreme virtuosity but there's not a whole lot of substance to it. As a top tier technical exercise, however, I think it is valuable to those brave enough to seek it out. Four of the other five studies in the set are certainly worth investigating by a virtuoso.
• I don't think Jentsch's Op.28 Concert Etudes is a good place to start with the composer's piano music. Perhaps his Mazurkas or Drei Romanzen would be a good introduction, followed by some of his more serious, ambitious works. Some of his miniatures are very lovely pieces and, from what I've been able to play, his shorter works for piano and violin are very worthwhile. I also believe his lieder will reveal a mini treasure trove of forgotten but beautiful pieces.

Yes, if one discounts piano studies, this wastebasket category is a bit of a headscratcher!

[SV340450843]

Yeah, I'm not really objective because I do not hate many pieces and most of them I forgot just because I don't like them...
But, there's an exception that I don't want to talk openly... avant-garde and experimental music.

[eschiss1]

Then please don't talk about it, especially because anyone who might want to speak positively in -defense- of a work attacked that's outside of this group's orbit has the disadvantage of needing to shut up.

[Mark Thomas]

Eric, that's a bit unfair. This forum has a specific focus, and that's why we're all here. One of the moderators' jobs is to maintain that focus, and that's been the same for the 17 years that UC has been online. There are plenty of other groups out there where more modern music can be discussed. But to return to the topic....

[eschiss1]

I didn't disagree and I think you miss my point -- but agreed.

[Ilja]

One of Ilja's eminently justifiable choices is Bogatyryev's "completion" of Tchaikovsky's E flat major Symphony, and I just want to make a plea for the first movement, at least. Having listened to it again, it seems to me to be quite a strong piece of work, certainly as worthwhile as anything in the first three symphonies. Of course, that's damning with faint praise for a work written at the end of his career, but I do think it has merit within his overall output. I wouldn't say the same about the Symphony's other three movements, which get progressively worse.

The first movement is 100% Tchaikovsky as far as I know; it was the only part he fully orchestrated, and Bogatyryev hardly reworked it (again, to my knowledge). Still, I feel, while competently composed it's not Tchaikovsky at his most inspired. Late Tchaikovsky is not very consistent, anyhow. On the one hand we have the Pathétique and Pikovaya Dama (My favorite opera of them all); on the other The Nutcracker (for all its popularity the weakest of the three ballets), The Enchantress and the Mozartiana Suite, none of which show him at his best.