[78-L] Overrated compositions

[DAVID BURNHAM]

I must be a very shallow music lover because I don't hate everything which is really popular.  Sure, I like piano concertos by Ignaz Brule, (who?!), and chamber music by Eduard Franck, (as well as César), but my favourite Beethoven Symphony is the 5th, my favourite Schubert Symphony is the "Great", (variously the 7th, 8th or 9th) and two of my favourite Piano Concertos are the Grieg and the Tchaikovsky.  These pieces earned their places in the repertoire because they are great works and they are only over-played if a listener hears them more often than he/she wants to - and that's his/her fault.  I have seen a good, but not great performance of the Tchaikovsky P.C. bring a sell-out crowd at Royal Albert Hall to its feet, (including me).  All the great Classical, Romantic and Baroque music ever written was never intended to be heard as often as we are able to today.  Benjamin Britten once said that the Gramophone is Mahler's 8th Symphony's best
 friend and worst enemy;  best friend because without it we would never hear that Symphony, (this was said over 40 years ago), but with it we can hear it too often.  He also complained that the Gramophone enabled works like St. Matthew Passion to be heard in the wrong places under the wrong conditions.  So while the Gramophone and its successors was able to give great music the familiarity which can breed contempt, I, for one, am happy to enjoy the ease with which I can enjoy the music I want when I want it.

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