I Hate Jazz

He is okay with some kinds of jazz, what you could call happy jazz.
We both like dance music but are mostly interested in classical music. During the winter season we attend at least a couple of classical concerts each month.

I would like to ask you whether you like "Pelléas et Mélisande"?

It depends on which “Pelléas et Mélisande” you mean.
If it is Sibelius' and Gabriel Faurê's “Pelléas et Mélisande” I like like them, if it is Debussy's opera then I love it but if it is Arnold Schönberg (I think that you in English spell it: Schoenberg) I dislike it with the same intensity and passion as if it had been jazz.

Oh – I meant the version of Monsieur Debussy. I have seen an excellent staging of this by Mr Wilson (on DVD).
I didn't know Herr Schönberg wrote a Pelléas. I like his "Pierrot Lunaire" very much.
Kind Regards
Helen

“Pelléas et Mélisande” by Debussy was one of the first operas I ever saw. I must have been eight or nine at the time. The singer who played Mélisande's part had a great voice but she was a big and fat woman. When Pelléas or prince Goluad embraced her they almost disappeared between her breasts. When Golaud killed Mélisande and Pelléas my feeling was that even Pelléas was better off now he no longer had to love that horrible fat woman.
On the way home from the opera my sister and I discussed what we had seen and heard and we agreed that the moral of the opera was that it has to end bad when a man is so foolish that he marries a woman without knowing that she comes from an acceptable family background. This made our father laugh and tell us that we were terrible little snobs but we got an appreciative smile from mum.
Since then I have seen “Pelléas et Mélisande” three or four times (twice in Copenhagen,once in Hamburg and I think also once in Salzburg) and my interpretation has changed a bit.
I do not know the production you mention but on Youtube you can find several versions and among them a wonderful production from Staatsoper in Vienna and with Abbado as conductor:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQ4rkSykjn4
As for Arnold Schönberg; he is in general too "long-haired" for my taste.

@karinaal: I am intrigued by your description of Schoenberg as "long-haired". Do you apply that to Alban Berg too?

@karinaal: Thank you for your very nice reply karinaal. It's interesting that young people tend to believe that music has to "mean" something or has to point to something that's outside of music.
Regarding Herr Schönberg I would say his music HAD to happen. Romantic music tradition was stuck in a cul-de-sac, with ever-increasing orchestra size and ever-increasing chord complexities.
But I should probably keep my mouth shut since I am basically just a consumer...
Thank you again Karin

@helenS: I agree with you. Tristan, and then Mahler, surely lead inexorably to Schoenberg and the even greater Berg.

@MartinII: How did you guess it?
Before you ask; I am no fan of Danish Niels Viggo Bengtson. Composers like Jakob Gade, Carl Nielsen and H. C. Lumbye are more my style.
I have to admit that my development in music, politics and most other things slowed down from arround 1880 and stopped completely when WW I broke out 37 years before I was born. I cannot help it but must admit that I was born old-fashioned, conservative and altmodisch and therefore experience anything in a style from after the Great War as decadently newfangled.

@karinaal: My tastes go a bit further forward in time, to encompass Berg (Lulu is one of my favourite operas), Shostakovich and Britten, for example.

It's interesting that Schoenberg and co are still regarded as ultra-modern, even though they were composing long before we were born.

@helenS and @MartinII:
If Wagner had to happen I am not sure. I see him more as a unique figure and of course a genius but I agree that the modern music (Schönberg, Alban Berg and others) had to happen.
In one thing I totally disagree with you, Helen: You should under no circumstances keep your mouth shut. You know a lot about classical music and we can all learn from each other because we have different experiences with music.

@MartinII: I can hear that Britten and Shostakovich were great composers but this does not mean that I like them very much. It is a matter of taste and not of acknowledging the talent.

@karinaal: Yes, I completely agree. In a similar vein, it may shock you to learn that, with a few exceptions, I don't like Mozart all that much. But I entirely recognise him as a great composer.

@MartinII: I forgot to say that you are right; it is interesting that in our days when even being "long-haired" has long been out of fashion we still regard these composers as modern. If I remember correctly was Schönberg born around 1875 - 141 years ago.

@karinaal: Yes, and Berg died in 1935 or 6 - about 3 years after Elgar, I think.

@MartinII: It does not shock me at all. My feelings in connection with Wolgang Amadeus are ambivalent and I sometimes have wondered if it is because his music is too "well-groomed" or if it just is because I have heard too much of it.

@karinaal: I could listen to Herr Mozart's music all day long. Some weeks ago I became addicted to his string quintet No 4 K406, a variation of his C Minor Serenata K388. Incredible music. "We do not have to despair of mankind - after all, Mozart was a man!" I do not know where this comes from but it's true.

@helenS: Yes, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was a man but a unique kind of man although in a way typical for his time. The time loved romance and the overly decorated style and Mozart's music is lovely and fitted perfectly in.
I can enjoy Mozart at times but when listening to his music I often get the feeling that there is too much of something and too little of something else.
Bach, Bethoven, Brams and also for instance Franz Liszt are much more challenging and whenever I hear their music I discover something new in it.

@karinaal, @helenS: I wonder if either of you knows a 1950s recording of Bach's cantata "Ich habe genug", sung by Hans Hotter? My recommendation for the day!

@helenS: I'd guess the quotation about Mozart might be from Einstein.

@MartinII: Alfred or Albert?

@helenS: I meant Albert. I have now googled it and I seem, surprisingly enough, to have been right.

@MartinII: "Ich habe genug" is a wonderful piece of music and Hans Hotter was a great singer but I never heard him sing this cantata.
I have a DVD with Herman Prey singing it. He is one of my favourite singers but right now on your recommandation I listen to Hans Hotter and it is obvious why you recommend his version of Bach's cantata.