Joe Hagedorn wrote:

>So what are we doing here? Someone suggests a composer is bad and then a
>whole bunch of people write back in the composers defense?

No, actually we're playing pinochle...

>...most of Beethoven's music isn't very good.  The stuff he wrote later
>in his life is good, but the stuff from his heroic phase isn't good.  Most
>of his symphonies are pretty random and repetitive and don't make any sense.
>His music is usually extremely extroverted and impersonal.  There are a few
>gems here and there, but he's a very overrated composer.

I think it's safe to say you're in the minority here...  I might
suggest for openers (assuming you were serious when you wrote the above)
that you examine the phrase "random and repetitive." Seems to me that's a
contradiction in terms.  When you say his symphonies "don't make any sense"
I have to ask, what were you looking for them to do? What would they have
to do to make sense to you? I don't see the point of making an assertion
like that (unless you're deliberately trying to provoke a response--which
I guess you got) without taking the trouble to give us a little more
background.

>While I'm thinking about it.  It's been said Spohr's clarinet music isn't
>any good and the clarinet is a hard instrument to listen to.  I've always
>liked the way clarinets sound, but who wrote good clarinet music?

Brahms, Mozart, Crusell, Martino, Copland, Messiaen (!), Weber, anyone
who understands the instrument and its capabilities.  You gotta define
the sense in which you mean "good." Are you talking about Good Music for
Clarinet, or music that is Well Written for Clarinet? The latter is more
objectively provable.

Chris Bonds