Five Favorite Composers You Hadn't Heard About In the Beggining

[foxandpeng]

Almost all of these composers

*waves arms around in all directions*

My formative years were broadly spent in levels of ignorance concerning classical music that would probably not surprise people. I was 23 before I ever voluntarily played any classical music, and that was as a last ditch nighttime effort to soothe my constantly colicky first born.

[Daverz]

After more than 40 years of listening, there a lot of composers I hadn't heard then, and it's difficult to remember what I knew when.  So I'll stick to recent years:

Hendrik Andriessen
Herman Koppel
Knudage Riisager
Pehr Henrik Nordgren
Boris Papandopulo

[kyjo]

After more than 40 years of listening, there a lot of composers I hadn't heard then, and it's difficult to remember what I knew when.  So I'll stick to recent years:

Hendrik Andriessen
Herman Koppel
Knudage Riisager
Pehr Henrik Nordgren
Boris Papandopulo

Now that's an unhackneyed list!

[Mirror Image]

Interesting thread idea, Andrei. This could be a bit tricky as I think many of us haven't heard a lot of the names we're familiar with now outside of the more well-known names.

Let's see...(in no particular order):

Martinů
Falla
Enescu
Roussel
Villa-Lobos

Honorable mentions: Zemlinsky, Koechlin, Ginastera, Revueltas, Chávez, Britten, K. A. Hartmann

I'll add Szymanowski to this distinguished list as well. Such an incredible composer.

[Rosalba]

So easy, when a dozen years ago I knew zilch.

Hildegarde Von Bingen
Biber
Boccherini
Diego Ortiz
Gabrieli

[steve ridgway]

All the composers I like at all e.g. Ligeti, Scelsi, Schnittke, Varese, Takemitsu.

[joachim]

I, as for the majority of this forum, my first composers were Beethoven, Mozart, Schubert, Liszt, Tchaikovsky and many others known to all.

There are many other classical composers that I discovered later, like Vanhal, Dittersdorf, Kraus, Elsner for example, or even Ries, Raff, Giuliani, Witt or Reinecke among the romantics

Just recently I found some "unknowns" that I had never heard of before, here are five as requested:

Johann Ignaz Klausek
Halfdan Kjerulf
Alexander Ritter
Jan Wanski
Ignaz Malzat

[Florestan]

Halfdan Kjerulf

Pounds the table! Very nice salon piano music (I'm a sucker for the genre).

[Mirror Image]

All the composers I like at all e.g. Ligeti, Scelsi, Schnittke, Varese, Takemitsu.

I heartily endorse this list! All were wonderful discoveries for me.

[DavidW]

It took me a few years to discover Mahler, Bruckner, Sibelius, even Prokofiev and Brahms!  But I don't think that was the intent of the OP's question, so I'll take the Daverz approach and talk about the composers that I discovered significantly later that are a bit off the beaten path that I now love...

Penderecki
Lully
Simpson
Part
Gorecki

Give me another year or so and two of those will be most likely replaced with Villa Lobos and Martinu, composers that funny enough I used to struggle with.

[Lisztianwagner]

I will confess my ancient ignorance  :

Franz Liszt
Gustav Mahler
Sergei Rachmaninov
Gustav Holst
Carl Nielsen

As a matter of fact, I should thank this forum for having made me improve my knowledge of Mahler's music and discover Nielsen's compositions.

[Karl Henning]

I will confess my ancient ignorance  :

Franz Liszt
Gustav Mahler
Sergei Rachmaninov
Gustav Holst
Carl Nielsen

As a matter of fact, I should thank this forum for having made me improve my knowledge of Mahler's music and discover Nielsen's compositions.

Nice!