Am I the only person who can't stand classical music?

[Alceste]

I generally don't like opera, but then

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vf42IP__ipw&feature=youtube_gdata_player

 

[YmirGF]

As much as I love Marilyn Manson, RammStein and so many others, there would be a huge hole in my heart if it were not for classical music. There are so many brilliant classical composers and musicians that it is hard to conceive not liking at least some of them. Mozart's Don Giovanni is enough to make a grown man weep it is so utterly stark, haunting and beautiful.

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S. Ramey & K. Moll "The Commendatore Scene" Mozart's Don Giovanni

Another operatic gem is from Puccini's Turandot done with all that majesty that Luciano Pavarotti could muster.
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Luciano Pavarotti - Nessun Dorma

Personally, I find it easy to hear operatic influence in this piece from RammStein. If folks can't hear it, they're tone deaf.
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Rammstein - Mutter (Official Video) - YouTube

 

[Sophie123]

This is probably a very late reply. I completely understand how you feel. I don't understand why, but I just can't stand classical music.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

Having an education in, or active interest in understanding music, helps one to appreciate the more complex and esoteric genres, such as classical and jazz. These genres, particularly these days, aren't really created or suited for most casual listeners of contemporary music.

 

[Milton Platt]

Honestly I can't stand classical. Most people I know listen to a bit of classical here and there, like Mozart for instance, but I could never sit through more than 30 seconds of it. I've tried to get into it, but for some reason it just grates on my nerves and I switch to something else. I don't know why, I just cannot stand it.

Besides it always just struck me as snooty and pretentious, and it just all sounds the same to me.

Anyone else get this impression or is it just me?

Looking at sales of cd's, I would say you are not the only one.

 

[VioletVortex]

Some classical is pretty monotonous and it tends to adhere very strictly to stereotypes. A lot of it was composed in an era where conformity was the status quo. Classical music tends to evolve in cycles of conformity and experimentation. Some of the more experimental stuff is alright. While I really appreciate and admire the amount of skill that usually goes in to composing and playing classical music, it is far from the epitome of music, and it is certainly not my cup of tea.

If you feel the need to appreciate more sophisticated or serious music, and you like heavy metal, try getting in to black metal and death metal. Also, if suggest some neofolk and dark ambient; a lot of that is more mentally stimulating than classical, albeit less dynamic.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

Honestly I can't stand classical. Most people I know listen to a bit of classical here and there, like Mozart for instance, but I could never sit through more than 30 seconds of it. I've tried to get into it, but for some reason it just grates on my nerves and I switch to something else. I don't know why, I just cannot stand it.

Besides it always just struck me as snooty and pretentious, and it just all sounds the same to me.

Anyone else get this impression or is it just me?

Probably just you. There is so incredibly much music out there, you simply wouldn't believe it.

Some people don't like poetry, or plays, or literature. Some people like some kinds of literature (crime, noire, romance) and not other kinds. Same with music. Some people like the visual arts, some don't, and the ones that do then get broken down into those that like Impressionism or Art Deco or Renaissance Masters or Dutch Masters, but can't stand "non-representational" or "modern" art.

And on and on and on...

But in truth, everything that you won't pay any attention to cuts you off from a range of human expression -- a way of understanding what it is to be human as experienced by some other human being with the skill (which most of us don't have) to share it!

I think that's too bad. I've spent a life-time learning as much as I can about all of the arts, and sometimes it feels like I'm just beginning. I can't even say that I "like" all of it. There are famous artists that I think little of, and little-known artists that I think are magnificent -- but what's that other than me expressing my own self while observing the works of others?

 

[Kapalika]

Honestly I can't stand classical. Most people I know listen to a bit of classical here and there, like Mozart for instance, but I could never sit through more than 30 seconds of it. I've tried to get into it, but for some reason it just grates on my nerves and I switch to something else. I don't know why, I just cannot stand it.

Besides it always just struck me as snooty and pretentious, and it just all sounds the same to me.

Anyone else get this impression or is it just me?

Not classical, but Try Bach (who's often called classical but technically is another genre). This may just be me but I prefer Bach over Mozart any day.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

Honestly I can't stand classical. Most people I know listen to a bit of classical here and there, like Mozart for instance, but I could never sit through more than 30 seconds of it. I've tried to get into it, but for some reason it just grates on my nerves and I switch to something else. I don't know why, I just cannot stand it.

Besides it always just struck me as snooty and pretentious, and it just all sounds the same to me.

Anyone else get this impression or is it just me?

IMHO Mozart sucks!, he was extremely prolific and technically proficient because all his pieces are pretty much just scale exercises, which I find annoying also- He was just starting to figure out how to write an actual melody with 'Requiem' before he died so young unfortunately.

There is a lot of bland stuff like this, and then at the other end of the scale, some 20th C stuff that goes out of it's way to be dissonant/ discordant.

For me the sweet spot is late 19th C and early 20th- Tchaikovsky, Dvorak, Mussorgsky, Sibelius, Holst

 

[methylatedghosts]

Jumping in here, perhaps a little late in the piece:

I went and saw the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra last night, performing Edward Elgar's Sea Pictures, and Strauss's Alpine Symphony

I've heard recordings by the London Symphony Orchestra, and the Hallé Orchestra, but neither of those came close to the experience of being *in* the music, as it were. Feeling my skin prickle during the juicy dark bits ... it was like being taken away on a journey, riding, being driven by the music.