Familiarity breeds contempt?

What works which used to be favorites of yours were so overplayed by you at one time that you simply can't stand to listen to them any more? They may be wonderful pieces but as soon as you hear those opening notes your heart sinks as you think: 'Not again!' For me that happens with several standard warhorses like the Tchaikovsky PC1 & The Grieg PC. I'm sure there are others that I can't think of because I never play them. If you stay away from them for a while

You named the two works that I can't rescue by 'staying away'. That remedy works for the Beethoven symphonies, Sibelius VC and 2nd symphony, Dvorak 8 and 9; all of those were part of a small and overplayed collection in my 'salad days'.

Beethoven 6th symphony

Paul Goldstein

At the top of the list: Franck Symphony in D minor, the orchestrated Liszt Hungarian Rhapsodies and his Les Presludes, and the Grieg concerto mentioned in your post. Not that the Liszt and Grieg works are 'bad,' it's just that I absorbed everything they have to offer when I was 15, and they tend to give me indigestion when I encounter them. At the same age I also developed an aversion to the Franck symphony, which I had formerly adored. In this case, however, I no longer think it's a very good piece of music. As for the Tchaikoveky Piano Concerto No. 1, this is a piece that I never quite 'got,' so it hasn't been overplayed to the point of contempt. As with you, some pieces snap back into focus if I set them aside for awhile.

Not really. I'll go out on a limb and say that many of the extremely popular warhorses are popular with a very good reason. There IS something particularly clear, concise, memorable, well-expressed in them. The only contempt is fed by sloppy, indifferent, routine performances of familiar works.

Few exceptions to that

Rite of Spring.

This raises another interesting question. There are pieces I never listen to any more and happily avoid. In the case of certain other pieces, it saddens me that I will never come to them fresh again: Il Trovatore, Norma, the C# minor String Quartet, Symphonie fantastique, Pli selon pli.

It's too late for Beethoven, Berlioz, and Verdi, but, in the case of Boulez, I've learned my lesson. I love ...explosante/fixe... and Notation VII with a passion, and my natural inclination would be to, well, play them to death. But I try to avoid listening to them so that the process of playing them to death is prolonged. For the same reason, I try to avoid listening to La mer, which has somehow escaped over exposure. (It's too late for the Nocturnes and Images.) But will somebody tell me why these damned French composers wrote/write so little music? Beethoven wrote more music than Berlioz, Debussy, and Boulez combined.

-david gable

Frank Stella was painting somewhere in the south of France, staying in the home of absent friends. There was a cassette of Vivaldi's Four Seasons but nothing else. Stella just let the thing play over and over again on a continuous loop. Whether this experience had a palpable effect on what he was painting, I'm not sure.

-david gable

My experience is the same. Years ago I thought I had heard Beethoven's Seventh Symphony often enough to last a lifetime

war horse good in war time.

most classical music worse than chansonette.

especially fugue.

beethoven fidelio. beenthoven grosse fuge. beethoven missa solemnis. beethoven violin concerto. beethoven triple concerto. beethoven 1,2,3,4,5 cello sonata. beethoven 1,2,3,4,5 piano concerto. beethoven 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9th symphony. beethoven 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10 violin sonata. beethoven 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16 quartet. beethoven 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19, 20,21, 22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29, 30,32,32 piano sonata.

Personally, I couldn't stand the Grieg PC on my -first- hearing. I'd say pretty much anything else is fair game, though, including the Tchaik 1. For the most part, if I liked it once, I'm capable of liking it again given the right performers.