It's a strange fact that many of the world’s greatest musical masterpieces took a long time to get the recognition they deserved.
Others were openly scorned and ridiculed at their premieres, owing to a mixture of critics’ personal biases, the political landscape or simply a fear of unfamiliar sounds and musical concepts. Here are 11 works that took far too many years to get their due, along with some of the reasons why they were overlooked for so long.
1. Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring (1913)
Today it might be just about the most famous piece of 20th century classical music, but the 1913 Paris premiere of Stravinsky's ballet The Rite of Spring made history for being such an unequivocal disaster. Incensed by a combination of Stravinsky’s primal music, Serge Diaghilev’s startlingly bold production and Vaslav Nijinsky’s controversial choreography, audience members shouted, booed, fought, threw objects and drowned out the orchestra.
In fact, so great was the noise from the audience that the dancers were said to be unable to hear the music and had to be directed by Nijinsky beating out the steps from the wings. But amidst the chaos were cries of ‘genius, genius’ from Ravel, while Debussy pleaded with the crowd to be quiet.
2. Beethoven’s ‘Eroica’ Symphony (1805)
While we now look on Beethoven as an undisputed titan among composers, his Third Symphony came as something of a shock to the system. One critic at the premiere wrote in the Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung that the work was 'unbearable' and that the music 'lost itself in utter confusion'.
Given the context, this was understandable: Beethoven’s use of sharp dissonances – such as the 'clashing' E-natural against a dominant chord in the first movement – would have sounded like mistakes to 1805 ears. Plus, the ‘Eroica’ was nearly twice as long as the symphonies of Mozart or Haydn, which usually clocked in at 25-30 minutes. One audience member allegedly yelled from the gallery, 'I’ll give another kreuzer [coin] if the thing will only stop!'.
In writing this symphony, however, Beethoven had successfully bridged the gap between the Classical and Romantic eras. The 'Eroica' is now rightly celebrated as the moment when the symphony became a conduit for personal and heroic expression.
3. Bizet’s Carmen (1879)
Today, Carmen is arguably the most popular opera in the world, but its first audience was scandalized. In particular, they objected to its 'promiscuous' heroine as well as its portrayal of 'low-life' characters and graphic murder, with one stinging review from Le Siècle complaining of 'females vomited from Hell'.
Subsequent performances were more successful, and by the early 1880s, Carmen had become a worldwide sensation, thanks precisely to that gritty realism (as well as its winning tunes, of course). Sadly that was too late for Bizet, who died of a heart attack three months after the opera’s premiere, believing that he had written a failure.
4. Brahms’s Piano Concerto No. 1 (1859)
To say that that Brahms’s Piano Concerto No. 1 was a failure at its first performance is an understatement; it was one of the most legendary fiascos in classical music history. While the very first performance in Hanover was merely 'cold', the second performance in Leipzig was a genuine disaster, with Brahms recalling that at the end of the performance, barely three people tried to applaud and were quickly drowned out by hissing.
Critics objected to what they referred to as 'the shrillest dissonances', as well as to the work’s length, its sombre mood and lack of traditional virtuosity, owing to Brahms’s revolutionary attempt to integrate the piano into the overall dramatic structure. But time has justified his vision; the concerto has become a hallmark of Romantic music, widely praised for its passion and strength of form.
5. Bach’s St Matthew Passion (1727)
Given that every Easter brings a tidal wave of St Matthew Passion performances, it may be surprising to discover that this piece languished in obscurity for several decades after the death of its composer Johann Sebastian Bach. Changing musical tastes – which favoured operatic and secular music over Bach's complex, formal compositions – caused many of his works, including the St Matthew Passion, to be largely forgotten.
So we owe a lot to Felix Mendelssohn who, in 1829 at the tender age of 20, meticulously prepared and conducted a critically acclaimed performance of the Passion in Berlin, igniting a widespread Bach revival that reintroduced the composer's body of work to the public. The St Matthew Passion is now considered one of the greatest sacred works ever composed.
6. Mahler’s Symphony No. 1 (1889)
It all started with the debacle of the Budapest premiere in 1889. At the time, Gustav Mahler was the Director of the Budapest Opera and widely respected as a conductor, but the audience was not prepared for him as a composer. What ensued was a volley of hissing and opposition, with Mahler later writing to a friend that acquaintances 'bashfully avoided' him after the premiere.
What they complained of specifically was the work’s 'grotesque' features, in particular Mahler’s tendency to juxtapose high art with 'cheap' café and folk music, not least in the funereal third movement. Unlike its successor, the Second or 'Resurrection' Symphony, the First failed to achieve popularity in Mahler’s life, but the composer famously said, 'My time will come,' and he was right: since the Mahler renaissance of the 1960s, led by figures like Leonard Bernstein, the work has become a beloved staple of the repertoire.
7. Rachmaninov’s Symphony No. 1 (1897)
Performed by an under-rehearsed orchestra, with a reportedly drunk Alexander Glazunov at the helm, the premiere of this piece was such a flop that it sent Rachmaninov into a deep depression and a three-year period of writer’s block – from which he only recovered through a course of hypnotherapy.
Part of the problem was that the symphony was genuinely ahead of its time, featuring aggressive dissonances that sat uncomfortably with the conservative audiences of 1897. But that very quality is exactly what today’s audiences love about it. Gritty, lean and aggressive, it reveals the imagination of a bold young composer, daring to push Russian music into the 20th century.
8. Debussy’s La Mer (1905)
While the premiere of Debussy's orchestral suite La Mer was not quite in the same league of career-threatening trauma as Rachmaninov's First Symphony, it was certainly a disappointment. Possibly biased against Debussy for having scandalously left his wife – who then attempted suicide – the critics were famously brutal.
One famously dismissed the work with the caustic 'I do not hear, I do not smell, I do not see the sea.' Another joked that it sounded like 'agitated water in a saucer'. But the tide turned in 1908, when Debussy conducted the work in Paris to a rapturous reception. It is now considered to be one of the most colourful and important masterworks of musical impressionism.
9. Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto (1881)
While the audience at the Vienna premiere of Tchaikovsky's only violin concerto gave it a mixed reception, the most powerful critic in Europe did a demolition job. Known for his conservative tastes and hatred of 'modern' Russian music, Eduard Hanslick wrote, 'The Russian composer Tchaikovsky is surely no ordinary talent, but rather an inflated one... [the music] brings us face to face with the revolting thought that music can exist which stinks to the ear.' He went on to describe the finale as being full of 'savage, vulgar faces' and 'smelling of booze'.
So it’s lucky that Tchaikovsky, who reportedly memorized this review word-for-word and could recite it years later, lived to see his work transform from a 'stinking' failure to an international hit over the next decade.
10. Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle (1939)
Unlike traditional operas with sword fights, dancing, or large choruses, Bluebeard's Castle has only two singing characters and almost no physical action. Most of the 'drama' happens inside the character’s heads, and is expressed in the orchestra as the doors are opened. So, when Hungarian composer Béla Bartók wrote this piece in 1911 for a national competition, the judges rejected it without even performing it, declaring it 'unplayable' and, yes, 'un-theatrical'. Even when it was finally performed in 1918, it was almost immediately 'erased' from history, owing to the librettist Béla Balázs’s communist ties.
It took until 1937 for the piece to return to the Budapest Opera House, where it was finally recognised as a symbolist and psychological masterpiece.
11. Bruckner’s Symphony No. 3 (1877)
You could say this symphony was cursed from the start. Even during rehearsals the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra was notoriously disrespectful to Bruckner, reportedly mocking both the music and its composer. And the premiere itself was more humiliating still, with spectators leaving in droves as the piece progressed – a fiasco that fed Bruckner’s lifelong habit of obsessively revising his works.
To an audience raised on Beethoven’s tight, logical structures, or Mendelssohn’s graceful melodies, Bruckner’s symphonies were tough to digest, owing to his preference for massive, monumental blocks of sound, abrupt stops-and-starts and extreme durations.
Interestingly, though, one of the spectators who did stay to the end was a 17-year-old Gustav Mahler, who was so moved by the work that he helped to prepare a piano arrangement of it shortly afterwards. Since then, the work has gained a firm foothold in the Romantic symphonic repertoire, loved by its admirers for its deep sense of spirituality.
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