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In the Forum: Musical Discussions
In the Thread: Prokofiev
Post Subject: Me too...Posted by Romy the Cat on: 1/15/2022
 steverino wrote:
People are not required to like or dislike anything. I guess the question you raise would require some additional info to answer. Some people have Austro German music as their reference and therefore don't really like styles which are at variance, for example Russian or French. Some people like 19th C music but not 20th C music. I think if you like Tchaikovsky then there might be some Prokofiev one could like such as his ballets, Cinderella, Romeo and Juliet, the Stone Flower or the Symphonies 6 and 7. But Prokofiev also had a 20th C spikiness so one would have to like 20th C music to like the Violin Concertos or some of the earlier symphonies, his opera Love For 3 Oranges etc. Do you also dislike Shostakovich?
Yes, I very much don't like Shostakovich too. It is all about self-deprecated vulgarity and even though I completely understand where he was coming from I am not a huge fan of this expressionism. Of course there are work in both of them which pretty much free from that, like Shostakovich piano music for instance. But with the rest of it I have the same feeling of "expectation of vulgarity". It's really oppresses me. It's like to listen good orchestra with horrible let's say horn section. When you listen and each second wait is that horns going to slide got nowhere, pretty much what BSO was on the end 0f 200s. It was so predictable and soft on time that I was actually laughing when I did it. Each freaking concert. Shostakovich is the same. Unquestionable super talented person but like an alarm clock here and there he never forget to squirt some demonstrable ugliness. Perhaps I am overly sensitive to it because it's very much remind me my ugliness and me. One way or another I tend to not like it...

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