Here is a very short list of music liked by

Hans du Buf - 1/6/2026

Introduction: Mahler and Bruckner

I have difficulty in switching music off in my head, a problem by most people known as “earworms” or “stuck song syndrome.” This phenomenon is officially known as phonological loops. For the rest I am completely normal, although Pjotr is not convinced. But after seeing, for example, Sergio Leone's film Once upon a time in America, Ennio Morricone's music, and especially the song Amapola, keep playing two to three weeks in my head. Not always, but it keeps coming back. So I have to be careful, since I have no idea how to switch the earworms off. Listening to other music does not help.

When I was still in the Netherlands, I had already a collection of vinyl records (I have more than 200). I am a Mahlerian, I like Mahler and Bruckner. But I do not like Wagner. I do not particularly hate or abominate him, but my problem is his bombastic music with always returning themes, like the Siegfried theme. Maybe except Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde. You can find the video of the last time Karajan conducted it, with soprano Jessye Norman. I cite a typical Wagner text:

Mild und leise
Wie er laechelt

Yep, Tristan was just killed... If you don't like Wagner's texts, listen to Brünnhildes Schlussgesang in die Götterdämmerung, but only the last 4 minutes! Everybody recognises the bombastic (bam bam, BAM BAM) Siegfried's Death and Funeral March, for example by the famous Wagner maestro Klaus Tennstedt. Funny: what do you get if an American hears the name Brünnhilde and is asked to write it? Broomhilda. Broomhilda “Hildi” von Shaft is the wife of Django Freeman in Quentin Tarantino's 2012 film Django Unchained.

But I like the late works of Liszt. Most people thought that Liszt had become crazy. But at that time, just before the first world war, music underwent a complete revolution: tonality, harmony, rhythm, composition and orchestration. Then the second Viennese school, with Arnold Schoenberg, Alban Berg and Anton Webern, who was accidentally killed by a soldier. Stravinski's Rite of spring. Debussy's Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune, which must start with a flute.

I had to stop listening to Mahler and Bruckner, because I had the complete scores in my head. Now, 40 years later, I can listen to M and B again. I really like M's second, Auferstehung or Resurrection, but only the first 5 minutes (the angry, growling basses), and the last 30 minutes, the Finale, with soprano, alto, choir, full orchestra, AND the organ. The latter not only conducted by Lennie Bernstein (see this Excerpt from the Finale in Carnegie Hall) but also, for example, by Bradley Cooper's short interpretation of the 2nd's Finale in the film Maestro. The second symphony is religious humbug, but the music is among Mahler's best. Interested in conducting? See this small analysis of maestro Bernstein vs. actor Cooper.

Recently I saw Simon Rattle and the Munich Symphony Orchestra with Mahler's second in the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, so I forewarned my neighbours that from 22h50 to 23h20, during the Finale, my stereo was going to be a little bit louder. If you cannot understand the text, try to read the German Auferstehn, ja, auferstehn wirst du. If you want to know why eternal life in some heaven is humbug, a consciously created or constructed fantasy, read all about the Wizards of the new Jahwism.

Mahler's second Resurrection and the film Maestro are related through the composer and conductor Bernstein and actor and film maker Bradley Cooper. A surprizing relation exists with the film Youth, original title La Giovinezza, by Paolo Sorrentino. I like the music by composer David Lang, especially Simple Song #3, with soprano Sumi Jo and violin player Viktoria Mullova. Simple Song #3 reminds me of Maestro in which Lennie Bernstein (Cooper) and a choir rehearse Candide's Make our garden grow. To me it is the same sense of melancholy, but “Make” also resembles, melodically, a lot the grand Finale of Mahler's second. I do not know whether Bernstein was using motives from the second's Finale, consciously or not, in composing “Make,” but he surely knew the Finale by heart! You can see some scenes from Youth when you search for Simple Song (colonna sonora finale) Leonidas. Here is one link.

Of course I also like Mahler's fifth with it's wellknown Adagietto, prominently used in Visconti's 1971 film Death in Venice with Dirk Bogarde as Gustav von Aschenbach, but think Mahler, and, according to Visconti, the world's most beautiful boy, Björn Andrésen as Tadzio. And, to jump over the atlantic ocean, Samuel Barber's Adagio for strings. Doesn't ring a bell? See the trailer of Oliver Stone's 1986 anti-war film Platoon. The adagio reminds me of Charles Ives' The unanswered question, in which the strings slowly play a tonal melody, a trumpet repeats the question, and the flutes answer in an increasingly erratic and dissonant way. In summary, I like music and especially all music after roughly 1900, also experimental music. As Ives famously said (to his son?), I don't write music for sissy ears, and stand up and take your dissonance like a man.

If you like Barber's Adagio, and you don't get acute weeping eczema from Gregorian chant, try Barber's not medieval and polyphonic Agnus Dei by the group vocal8. His “Lamb of God” from 1967 is based on his Adagio from 1936. Anyhow, the polyphonic “Lamb” reminds me of Hildegard von Bingen. Hildegard, or Hildegardis Bingensis, aka Sibyl of the Rhine, c. 1098 - 1179, was a German Benedictine abbess and polymath (writer, composer, philosopher, mystic and visionary).

Oops, concerning The unanswered question, you can see the six remastered Norton Lectures of Leonard Bernstein at Harvard.

Some small (incomplete) lists

In classic music, I also like:

Violin concertos by Max Bruch.

Paganini's violin concertos and his 24 capricios. Not classic: Curtis Stewart's 24 American Caprices were released in June 26. See the Playlist on YouTube. However, all are based on classic but also contemporary songs and music of Bob Dylan, David Bowie, Taylor Swift, Oscar Peterson, etc. Recommended!

Kathleen Ferrier a contralto similar to a mezzo-soprano, sing Ombra mai fu, (never was a shade ... of my beloved plane tree), also known as the Largo from Haendel's opera Xerxes (Serse). She lived from 1912 to 1953, and died too young of cancer.

OK, now one happy story: Il lamento di Frederico, original title “È la solita storia del pastore,” is from Francesco Cilea's L'arlesiana. I like most José Carreras from the Three Tenors at the Terme di Caracalla in Rome on July 7, 1990, the eve of the football World Cup. Carreras was diagnosed with lymphocytic leukemia in 1987, and he survived!

Arvo Pärt, who famously said that the essence of music is silence: Arbos, Passio and Tabula Rasa.

Ottorino Respighi's Fontane di Roma but Pini di Roma is better.

Franz Liszt, The final years by Reinbert de Leeuw.

Erik Satie, Early piano works by Reinbert de Leeuw, who played the Gnossiennes very slowly.

From jazz music, I like:

Art Blakey and the jazz messengers, and the Chris Hinze Combination (CH on German flute), and too much to even start writing...

From minimal music, I like:

John Cage, e.g., Cheap imitation, Music of changes and Works for prepared piano.

Steve Reich, e.g., Piano phase and Music for 18 musicians.

Philip Glass: Glass dances 1-5, Satyagraha, Akhnaten, and the music of the Qatsi Trilogy by filmmaker Godfrey Reggio: (1) Koyaanisqatsi, (2) Powaqqatsi and (3) Naqoyqatsi.

Michael Nyman: Violin concerto, the opera The man who mistook his wife for a hat, and of course the many scores of Peter Greenaway films like Drowning by numbers, Zoo, A Zed with two noughts and The cook, the thief, his wife and her lover.

Finally, Hans Zimmer, who wrote the scores of lots of famous movies, but I like most the films Interstellar and No time to die, the last Bond film with Daniel Craig.

Blues and pop:

Cuby and the Blizzards, a Dutch blues band, Jan Akkerman and Kaz Lux (the Eli album), Golden Earring, Pink Floyd, Patti Smith and Nick Cave and his Bad Seeds, for example in Wenders' film Der Himmel über Berlin - Wings of Desire. Bo Diddley and his famous Bo Diddley Beat. His beat was used in many songs by The Who, The Stones, U2 and Tom Petty. One of the Stones' first hits was an adaptation of Buddy Holly's classic Not fade away, but with Bo's Beat: see the STONES DATA.

On YouTube you can find a recent concert of the Byrds (with David Crosby) playing Turn Turn Turn and, with Bob Dylon, also Mr tambourine man (see also below). Further videos: Gary Moore with Still got the blues and Midnight blues, also interpreted by Joe Bonamassa (in the Royal Albert?). Eric Johnson with his ultrafast pentatonic scales in Cliffs of Dover, and Joe Bonamassa with for example Drive and, with Jimmy Barnes from Deep Purple (my 60s band!) playing Lazy.

I often watch German television (free on Astra satellite), so I have seen quite a lot of German bands. For example the hip-hop band Fettes Brot (fat bread but slang for excellent hash) with hits like Emanuela and Bettina, zieh dir bitte etwas an! about a young woman who showed her boobs, so the alternative title is Bettina, pack deine Brüste ein! Also punk-rock band Die Toten Hosen around Campino. Lead singer Campino played the lead role in Wim Wenders' 2008 film Palermo Shooting. Wellknown songs are Hier kommt Alex and Tage wie diese. Die Prinzen with Alles nur geklaut (all only stolen), the tune of which “Jack Gelee” borrowed for his sexist Sie ist oben gut gebaut. You don't need German to understand this nonsense.

However, for me the best German band is Rammstein (with two m's; a long time ago when wheels of horse-carts were not very stable, Rammsteins were placed on the two sides of the entry to a farm's inner court so that the wheels could not damage the walls' edges). I like most songs performed at the Madison Square Garden, like Du hast, Was ich liebe and Frühling in Paris. More recently, Rammstein is known for their excellent artistic videos. From 2019 Deutschland and Ausländer. From 2022 Zeit (bitte bleib stehen!), Zick Zack and Dikke Titten (big boobs). If boobs are not sexy enough for you, see the 2009 video with the band members but also body-doubles in close ups of some body parts: Pussy.

I forgot so many from jazz and blues, but not Bob Dylan: All along the watchtower, Mr tambourine man, also by The Byrds with the iconic 12-string Rickenbacker, and one very good reason for his Nobel prize: Love minus zero/No limit:

In the dime stores and bus stations
People talk of situations
Read books, repeat quotations
Draw conclusions on the wall

Some speak of the future
My love, she speaks softly
She knows there's no success like failure
And that failure's no success at all

Not to forget: Dylan's It's all over now, Baby Blue, with the visual “crying like a fire in the sun,” also one of my preferred covers by the Belfast band Them with Van Morrison. Sigh. Lyrics by Dylan:

You must leave now, take what you need, you think will last
But whatever you wish to keep, you better grab it fast
Yonder stands your orphan with his gun
Crying like a fire in the sun
Look out the saints are comin’ through
And it‘s all over now, Baby Blue

Another Van Morrison-Them vale of tears, with a lovely guitar intro, and the false Farfiso organ, the electronic little brother of the Hammond, is My lonely sad eyes:

Fill me my cup
And I'll drink your sparkling wine
Pretendin’ everything is fine
‘Till I see your sad eyes
....
Oh, what a story

In order not to end this page in a (musical) minor mood, how about the biggest supergroup of all time: the Traveling Wilburys with (alphabetically) Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Jeff Lynne, Roy Orbinson and Tom Petty. Their best known song was Handle with care.

I want to end this page with the very, very, first music that I can consciously remember. In my hometown Venlo, in the swimming pool “De Onderste Molen,” sun bathing in the warm sand, the ticket booth was playing over the PA system the 1961 instrumental Stranger on the Shore of clarinetist Mr Acker Bilk. That was 65 years ago, I was 10 years old, and when I hear the music I still feel the warm sand and see the sun reflected in the waterwaves. Time flies...

Further reading

Griffiths, P. (1978) A concise history of modern music. From Debussy to Boulez. Thames and Hudson.

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