"Fat-free" œuvres

[Lethevich]

Considering that even Bizet wrote a lot of miscellaneous stuff, that Bellini stat is surprising - a great addition too, thanks.

[listener]

Bellini did write a trumpet concerto also, but that does not make the list of his works a long one.

[Superhorn]

  Bellini wrote a small number of non-operatic works. The only one I can think of  offhand is a brief oboe concerto, which has been recorded by by
former Berlin Phil. oboist Hans Jurgen Schellenberger and James Levine and the BPO on Sony.
WQXR has played this recording a few times.

[Drasko]

Interesting. Had no idea Bellini wrote those miniature concertos, upon checking there is also an organ sonata, again very short, under 5 minutes. What a strange body of works.

[Superhorn]

   Puccini wrote 12 operas; the two early ones which are almost never perfomed, Le Villi and Edgar, Manon Lescaut, La Boheme,Tosca,
Madama Butterfly, La Fanciulla del West, La Rondine,the Trittico(Il Tabarro,Suor Angelica, and Gianni Schicchi, and the unfinished Turandot.
  He wrote a number of songs, and some years ago Placido Domingo recorded them with Julius Rudel at the piano for Sony Classical, which I have heard, and a few early orchestral pieces, including one which uses
some  melodies later used in La Bohem, and the Missa di Gloria .
Some years ago, Riccardo Chailly recorded these early orchestral pieces with the Berlin Radio Symphony for Decca. The Mass has also been recorded at least once or twice, but I don't remember by whom.

[jochanaan]

I guess we can add Arcangelo Corelli to the list.

Are you sure?  I thought that a lot of Corelli's music didn't survive, so that his output was large but mostly lost...?

[Wanderer]

Abel Decaux must be the quintessential candidate for the title. Hamelin has recorded a superb rendition of his Clairs de lune (his only published work) for Hyperion.


Quoting from the Classical Composers Database:

"Decaux has possibly the smallest output of any composer, uness there are unknown, unpublished pieces - just one work, 'Clairs de Lune' for piano. Perhaps these could be regarded as four works, for there are four constituent movements, written at different times: 1 'Minuit passe' (1900), 2 'La ruelle' (1902), 3 'La cimitiere' (1907), 4 La Mer (1903). A fifth piece was planned but not written. Despite the smallness of this output, 'Clairs de Lune' is an impressive and important cycle, influenced by Symbolism, highly chromatic, yet rigorously controlled by a harmonic-motivic cell in a manner that presages Roslavets, say, or even Schönberg. Nothing like this had appeared in French music before.

Decaux studied at the Paris Conservatoire with Massenet for composition, and with Widor and Guilmant for organ. He was oganist of the Church of Sacre-Coeur de Montmartre for 25 years, and professor of organ at the Schola Cantorum under d'Indy. From 1923 to 1937 he taught (organ, presumably) at the Eastman School in Rochester, New York. He was famous as an improviser, though his 'Clairs de Lune' is anything but improvisational in character".

[Dax]

And if you're wondering what Decaux's music looks like, it's here.

http://imslp.org/wiki/Category:Decaux,_Abel

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

Carl Ruggles. His complete output fits on two LPs. (Tilson Thomas did a collected works double album that unfortunately never made it to CD.)

LOL. I already mentioned him, but I thought he fit on 2 CDs, not LPs. His output is even slimmer than I thought.

[Lethevich]

Carl Ruggles. His complete output fits on two LPs. (Tilson Thomas did a collected works double album that unfortunately never made it to CD.)

I have a rip of that somewhere, it was impressive, although some pieces were surprisingly similar to each other. Given the current "complete set" obsession with listeners and the industry, it is all the stranger that these recordings haven't made it to CD.

[Guido]

Yeah I really want to hear that complete Ruggles set - I've gathered up all that I can of his, but there's still a few minor items I haven't heard.

Barber has a rather small oeuvre of which he was immensely proud (though very modestly and quietly so).- just 48 opus numbers, and very little second rate stuff (only op.37, op.40, op.43 and op.48 I would mark out at not quite achieving the excellence of the rest of his works.)

Finzi's is also small at just 40 opus numbers and again, despite his obvious limitations, almost everything is lovely to hear.

Varese didn't compose all that much - 20 or so works.

Ruth Crawford Seeger - a wonderful composer with sadly very few works to her name.

De Falla is another.

[jhar26]

Are you sure?  I thought that a lot of Corelli's music didn't survive, so that his output was large but mostly lost...?

Not as far as I know, but I could be wrong.

[Superhorn]

 Varese destroyed his immature early works, which were written in
a late romantic style closer to Richard Strauss and his contemporaries than his known works.

[Lethevich]

Hmm, earlier in the thread I was dismissive of Lyadov. I have relistened to a CD of his orchestral music, and it's interesting, varied and worth hearing and owning. If the rest of his small output is this good, he certainly belongs in this thread. I also feel that it doesn't quite live up to the reputation some critics have bestowed on it for formal harmonic/innovation - it's rather puckish/scenic stuff, almost sounding like bleeding chunks, but also enjoyable for those reasons.