Great underrated pieces.

[Teresa]

In my opinion the most the most underrated is Keith Emerson's Piano Concerto No. 1. 

Jeffrey Biegel will be performing it April 13, the first time it's been performed in 31 years.  Mr. Biegel has been the leading exponent of this work, having recorded it with Leonard Slatkin conducting the BBC Concert Orchestra for the Naxos label.

On Youtube - Version of the third movement arranged for Piano and Percussion.

On Youtube - Same movement from the Piano and Orchestra version, try to listen around the poor sound.

Other compositions that do not get the credit they deserve include:

• Lennox Berkeley: Mont Juic
• Duke Ellington: Harlem for Orchestra
• Jack End: Blues For A Killed Cat for Wind Ensemble
• Michael Gandolfi: The Garden of Cosmic Speculation
• Morton Gould: Latin American Symphonette
• Holst:Beni Mora and Japanese Suite
• Johan de Meij: Symphony No. 1 "The Lord Of The Rings" and Symphony No. 3 "Planet Earth"
• Gian Carlo Menotti: Violin Concerto
• Carl Nielsen: Aladdin Suite
• Respighi: Belkis, Queen of Sheba
• William Russo: The Carousel Suite, Street Music: A Blues Concerto for Harmonica, Piano and Orchestra, and Three Pieces for Blues Band and Orchestra
• Harald Sæverud: Peer Gynt Suite No. 1 (totally different than Greig's version)
• Richard Strauss: Josephs Legende
• Eric Satie: Parade
• Tchaikovsky: Fatum - Symphonic Poem
• Arthur Wills: Fenlands: The Vikings for Brass Band and Organ

[Bulldog]

One to comes to mind is Enescu's three suites for piano which can be had on a gorgeous Avie disc played by Luiza Borac.

[Superhorn]

 I've always loved the Alpine Symphony, and I think it's probably the most underrated work, although I'm not alone in loving it. I also love the Symphonie Domestica, but comparing the two is comparing apples and oranges.
   A great performance,live or recorded of the Alpine symphony is a truly moving and uplifting experience. Every bar of the work is sublime.
  Strauss was an atheist or at least an agnostic, but listening to the Alpine symphony
is a religious experience for me,at least.

Other underrate dworks are the lesser-known operas of Strauss, such as Die Schweigsame Frau, which is an amost Rossinian opera buffa and absolutely delightful. If you can find the Janowski/Dresden/EMI recording, grab it!

  The Nielsen violin concerto is one of the most unjustly neglected of violin concertos,and more violinists ought to take it up. And I can't understand the neglect of the Myaskovsky cello concerto. Where are you Yo Yo Ma? Please do this and record it!
  I also like the thre symphonies of Max Bruch very much,which  I got to know from the excellent set with James Conlon and the Cologne Gurzenich orchestra on EMI.
They would make a welcome change at concerts from the same old Brahms symphonies, wonderful as they are.  Don't miss this recording if you can find it. 

[offbeat]

One persons underrated is another persons mediocre work - its all subjective
My choice would be
Liszt Dante Symphony - in particular the Paradise movement has some the most mesmerizing music ever ,,,,imo
Scriabin Symphony 2 - has some great moments too
Not sure Bax is so much underrated nowadays but listening to his 3rd symphony convinced me what a wonderfully passionate work this is but as far as i know never seen in concert hall
must be plenty more if i could only think 

[Josquin des Prez]

One to comes to mind is Enescu's three suites for piano which can be had on a gorgeous Avie disc played by Luiza Borac.

Not among Enescu's greatest works, and i don't like Borac's playing too boot (not like there's a whole lot of alternatives).

At any rate, i think Enescu's entire career pretty much fits into the premise of this thread. Probably the most underrated composer that i know of.

[Josquin des Prez]

One persons underrated is another persons mediocre work - its all subjective

No its not. One of those two persons is obviously wrong.

[Teresa]

No its not. One of those two persons is obviously wrong.

No they are both correct as worthiness of a musical composition is personal opinion and personal opinion can NEVER be wrong, it is just different from person to person.  Thus Offbeat is totally correct  when he said "One persons underrated is another persons mediocre work - its all subjective."

[Lethevich]

No they are both correct as worthiness of a musical composition is personal opinion and personal opinion can NEVER be wrong, it is just different from person to person.  Thus Offbeat is totally correct  when he said "One persons underrated is another persons mediocre work - its all subjective."

Don't get him started

[Scarpia]

No they are both correct as worthiness of a musical composition is personal opinion and personal opinion can NEVER be wrong, it is just different from person to person.  Thus Offbeat is totally correct  when he said "One persons underrated is another persons mediocre work - its all subjective."

As usual, the only way to be wrong in these issues is to be unequivocal.  To say there are no objective criteria that a great work must meet is absurd (otherwise you are compelled to admit that a Motorola cell phone ring tone might be as great a work as a Beethoven symphony).  On the other hand, there is no objective criteria which will tell you if a Brahms symphony is superior to a Beethoven String Quartet.    These arguments go nowhere.

[abidoful]

Pfitzner violin sonata. i wanted once to play it by my partner did not want ; (  maybe people think that Pfitzner was just an old nazi or something...  ::)a beautiful piece

[Josquin des Prez]

On the other hand, there is no objective criteria which will tell you if a Brahms symphony is superior to a Beethoven String Quartet.    These arguments go nowhere.

Au contraire. Demonstration. Beethoven's Opus131 is greater then Brahms's Opus98. Y/N?

[Bulldog]

Not among Enescu's greatest works, and i don't like Borac's playing too boot (not like there's a whole lot of alternatives).

What problems do you have with her performances?

[Josquin des Prez]

What problems do you have with her performances?

There's no nuisance in her play. All the notes are there but their meaning is somehow missing.

For instance, compare the Bourree from the Second Suite, first as performed by Borac:

http://rapidshare.com/files/363355586/IV._Bourree__Vivement.mp3.html

And then as performed by Cristian Petrescu:

http://rapidshare.com/files/363358173/04_-_Bourree.mp3.html

Petrescu has his own problems of course (a bit too heavy handed in parts), but his playing just makes more sense to me. Borac just wades through the music like a train freight.

[Bulldog]

There's no nuisance in her play. All the notes are there but their meaning is somehow missing.

For instance, compare the Bourree from the Second Suite, first as performed by Borac:

http://rapidshare.com/files/363355586/IV._Bourree__Vivement.mp3.html

And then as performed by Cristian Petrescu:

http://rapidshare.com/files/363358173/04_-_Bourree.mp3.html

Petrescu has his own problems of course (a bit too heavy handed in parts), but his playing just makes more sense to me. Borac just wades through the music like a train freight.

Since I don't feel that "nuance" counts for much in this Bourree, I prefer the quicker and more exciting performance from Borac.  However, I wasn't trying to say that Borac plays the suites better or worse than others, simply that I find her performances more than satisfying.

[Josquin des Prez]

Since I don't feel that "nuance" counts for much in this Bourree, I prefer the quicker and more exciting performance from Borac.

Nuance is everything. Every note is supposed to have a meaning, every rhythmic phrase a context, particularly so with Enescu, even though this piece is rather tame by the composer's standard. What's the point in playing a sheet of music if you don't even make an effort to interpret it correctly?

[Bulldog]

Nuance is everything.

Not so.

[abidoful]

I think there are many , both compositions and composers that are underrated.
In my country i think Ilmari Hannikainen is little underrated, at least he was (Leevi Madetoja privately expressed some dismisseve views of him).

He is sometimes called a "poor guys rachmaninov" etc...,  but in fact his  works for solo piano are quite exceptional and wonderfully written for the instrument. He is also a true  melodist as well as a harmonist- and very good in extended forms. I prefer his piano works (and him overall as an composer) rather than those of Selim Palmgren, who is usually regarded as the most important piano- composer of that period. Hannikainen wrote practically the only finnish romantic style  piano sonata in grand scale, at about 25minutes in length and in four movements.

And then the Chopin TRIO is another work that is little underrated, it is one of his major works perhaps it has suffered from comparison with the chamber works of Schumann and Mendelssohn from which it is quite different but very good in its own right, an early work composed at proximitely at the same time with the trios of Schubert


Few more;
the Bruckner sixth symphony,  is very good and melodic. I never understood why the fourth is so famous and this is hardly heard at all, i always liked it alot!!
The operas of Rachmaninov, real gems

[Bulldog]

Nobody has mentioned "Sad Movies Make Me Cry" sung by Sue Thompson in the early 1960's.  A true tear-jerker that demands a revival.

[Lethevich]

the Bruckner sixth symphony,  is very good and melodic.

This one screams for attention. Superb, tightly-controlled drama in the opening movement and throughout - extremely classical, one of his most radiant codas to end the first movement, one of his finest adagios, quite an interesting scherzo which is by no means lesser to the 5th or 7th, and a finale more satisfying than the one in, say, his 7th. It is a mystery to me why something as utterly esoteric and formally advanced as the 5th could have so much more popular appeal

Just venting

[knight66]

Well, I am glad you have got that out of your system.

It was the 5th that got me into Bruckner when I was a late teen. A customer in an LP shop had asked that a movement from the Jochum be played. I had never heard anything like it. Glad to say the customer left the shop while the movement was playing, I left with the discs under my arm.

But I now love all the Bruckner from No 4 on. So, I am with you about the sixth. In fact I think it is time now to give it a spin.

Mike