Seven works that composers regretted writing

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky in 1893

Composers can be their own harshest critics. Here are seven works that were thorns in their creators' sides.

7. Wagner: Rienzi

Richard Wagner's early opera Rienzi is more conventional than his later music dramas. At the end of his life, Wagner considered it "very repugnant," while noting (in his characteristically humble fashion) that one should at least be "astonished" that a mere music director wrote it.

6. Tchaikovsky: "1812" Overture

It's hard to believe that a composer could feel stone cold while penning one of the masterworks of classical music, but Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky claimed that the "1812" Overture "was written without any feeling of love and would therefore probably have little artistic merit." It remains one of the most recognisable works of classical music today.

5. Ravel: Boléro

Sick of the Boléro? Maurice Ravel, the composer, has your back. Boléro was an instant hit with audiences (if not with critics). The composer himself, however, had a different opinion:

A woman in the audience at the premiere shouted "Rubbish!" Ravel remarked: "That old lady got the message!"

4. Grainger: Country Gardens

The Australian composer Percy Grainger's wide-ranging compositions are eclipsed by the fame of his folk-song arrangement Country Gardens. While Grainger didn't mind the renown and money that such arrangements brought him, he looked on his popular tunes with regret when he discovered the uncompromisingly radical work of the Viennese composer Arnold Schoenberg. He wrote to friends and relatives that "[Schoenberg] opens great and rich freedoms for all of us composers" and that "The 'deeper voices' had been silent too long."

3. Elgar: "Pomp and Circumstance" March No. 1

Elgar wrote his rousing Pomp and Circumstance Marches expressly to please crowds at the Proms, saying that the tune we know and love (or hate) today would "knock 'em flat!" It did. The audience demanded an encore and King Edward VII suggested the words of the British patriotic song "Land of Hope and Glory" be set to the tune. Elgar is widely believed to have come to despise the song's jingoistic associations, but there is little evidence for this. He at least realised that others were becoming jaded with nationalistic themes, writing to his publisher about a proposed second nationalist song: "I think the pronounced praise of England is not quite so popular as it was; the loyalty remains, but the people seem to be more shy as to singing about it."

2. Rachmaninov: Prelude in C-sharp minor

Rachmaninov was only 19 when he soared to fame with his Prelude in C-sharp minor. He came to regret that the work eclipsed his more substantial compositions.

Some say Rachmaninov regretted his First Symphony, though it would be more accurate to say he regretted the conductor Alexander Glazunov's drunken state at the premiere. Glazunov, himself a composer, was known for swigging from a bottle during his lectures at the St Petersburg Conservatory. He was entirely apathetic about the new symphony and conducted it "like a zombie." The premiere was a train-wreck. Rachmaninov hid on a spiral staircase during the performance and fled into the street to escape the jeers and catcalls of the audience.

1. Bonis: Suite in C major

Sometimes a composer's own estimation of their work can be downright wrong. Arcangelo Corelli asked for all of his works to be burnt and we only know most of his music through published and copied scores. The late-nineteenth century composer Mélanie Bonis wrote on the manuscript of her unpublished Suite in C major "Poor, not for publishing." Fortunately, the performers and publishers reviving her work today think otherwise.

First published at ABC Classic website, March 26, 2019