Great underrated pieces.

[hornteacher]

The world is chock full of clarinetists, and they are constantly badgering their violist and pianist friends to play it with them.

You'd think violists would jump at the chance because the writing is so good for all three parts.

[greg]

um, the percussion concerto i posted on the "Listen to this" thread that no one is listening to.

[greg]

after that, Mahler 10 and Prokofiev 2. I would include others but I think they're just more overlooked than underrated....

[DetUudslukkelige]

I'd like to speak in favor of Tchaikovsky's early works, particularly Symphony No. 1 in G minor - undeservedly neglected in favor of his later symphonies. It was, in fact, one of the works by Tchaikovsky that he didn't regret writing later in write and didn't grow to hate. The tranquility of the first movement's opening hooked me the first time I heard it. Also, Nielsen's Saul og David I find good, yet Maskarade is often favored. I love the plot and the use of the chorus. Berlioz's Harold in Italy is also, I think, undeservedly neglected while Symphonie Fantastique is placed in the spotlight. I love the use of the Viola to bring back ideas from earlier movements and such. Plus, there are some very 'catchy' melodies in there.

That's not to say that I think that any of those works that have the spotlight don't deserve to be there, of course. In fact, I'd say that all classical music is underrated, and in a sense the pieces that everyone recognizes as great are just as underrated - they are great works that need even more recognition than they have.

[quintett op.57]

I'll go for Strauss's Sinfonia domestica.

You've got my support

Danzi         Wind quintets

It's not the only underrated string quintet

D'Indy         String quartet No.2

really? I'm goin to give it a listen again.

Gesualdo                   Sixth Book of madrigals

Everything before the Vivaldi/Bach/Handel generation, I would say.

Gluck         Alceste

Most of non-Mozart 1750-1800 composition.

Schnittke                   Piano quintet

i'm surprised you chose that one. I think it's very appreciated, by the GMGers at least. I'm sad we don't hear a lot of comments about his magnificent Cello Sonata.

[Guido]

Sean you must hear that Ives Quartet immediately! I will contact you in about a week or two about it - I am going on holiday now.

[Larry Rinkel]

I'll go for Strauss's Sinfonia domestica.

I won't. An incoherent mess. Last time I heard it, I thought it deserved every bit of the inattention it has traditionally been given.

[Larry Rinkel]

OK, then - how about Satie's Socrate? Everyone who writes about it knows it is a unique and very important masterpiece of twentieth century music; everyone who listens to it immediately knows the same. But given its quality and importance, a disproportionately small number of people know it and talk about it is rare.

What's a good recording, Luke?

[Don]

I won't. An incoherent mess. Last time I heard it, I thought it deserved every bit of the inattention it has traditionally been given.

But it's been generously served on recordings - there are about 3 dozen of them.

[AnthonyAthletic]

Novak : Pan, Symphonic Suite & Serenades

Hans Rott : Symphony

[Larry Rinkel]

But it's been generously served on recordings - there are about 3 dozen of them.

None of them in my house.

It's still an incoherent mess. 

[lukeottevanger]

What's a good recording, Luke?

I couldn't advise you in all conscience as I only have [heard] the one. But it's pretty idiomatic, I think: of the four vocal parts (all female) the main one (i.e. the singer of the third, longest, most infamous and most beautiful part) is taken by Mady Mesple; the orchestra is the Orchestre de Paris, cond. Pierre Dervaux. The perofmance pushes all the right buttons for me.

However, I can't recommend it wholeheartedly because the EMI double it is included on (called Les Inspirations Insolites D'Erik Satie) includes all sorts of intruiging oddities, but to be honest (apart from a couple of fine but small pieces) none you'd really want except Socrate. Not only that but the set as whole is poorly put together - the two Gymnopedies in Debussy's (ill-advised and I think rather missing-the-point) arrangement are put on the wrong way round (and I've never heard as risible a performance of no 3). Worst of all, Socrate is messed up - the first 1:10 of its first track must for all sorts of reasons be the end of the previous piece (as I've heard no other recording I can't say 100%); and for that reason the end of this track spills over 1:10 into the second track. I had to rip the CD and re-edit it to have it make sense.(Funnily enough, my other EMI Saite set also has a cock-up - the disc printed as number 5 is actually disc 1 again  )

The most striking thing about Socrate - unless you know your Satie, especially the long sequences of chords that make up the early Sarabandes,or some of the Rosicrucian music, or the 'Furniture Music' (world's first Muzak) or particularly the other subtle masterpiece of Satie's later years, the five Nocturnes for piano - is the cool, uninflected and distanced tone. Quite deliberately, Satie doesn't impose himself on the text, and explicitly treats his singing parts as quasi-spoken. The extremely rare and very gentle moments at which Satie allows his music to refer to the text (perhaps two or three times in the whole 35 minutes or so) are the more affecting for that. The accompaniment wends its way along quietly and impassively, and the voices (one in each of parts 1 and 3, two in the central part) simply spin out long syllabic lines above it. There hadn't been anything like this before...

I've taken about a minute of the beginnings of each of the first and third parts to give you a flavour of the thing. I've had to reduce quality to fit them here as an attachment, but you will get the drift.

[Mark G. Simon]

You'd think violists would jump at the chance because the writing is so good for all three parts.

They often do jump at the chance, judging by the great number of performances I've heard of it.

[Don]

None of them in my house.

Nor mine, but I haven't yet caught the Strauss bug.

[Larry Rinkel]

Nor mine, but I haven't yet caught the Strauss bug.

Neither have I, though I've been exposed often enough. With the exception of perhaps 4-5 tone poems*, no more than 2 complete operas** (though I enjoy portions of several others***), one early piano-orchestra work (the Burleske), and a few of the very late works****, I have little liking or use for Richard Strauss, that bloated beached whale of early 20th-century music.

*Don Juan, Don Quixote, Till Eulenspiegel, Tod und Verklärung, Also sprach Zarathustra
**Salome, Elektra
***Rosenkavalier, Ariadne, Frau ohne Schatten
****Metamorphoses, Four Last Songs

I'm not kidding when I say the very thought of Richard Strauss creates in me an almost physical feeling of revulsion, which is matched only perhaps by - Messiaen.

[Bonehelm]

1. 1812 overture - Tchaikovsky (in case your precious sarcasm sensor failed to work, I'll even provide you with one here)
2. Rage over a lost penny - LvB
3. any song for piano and voice - Bruckner

[hornteacher]

They often do jump at the chance, judging by the great number of performances I've heard of it.

That's nice.  I wish I could find a great outlet for chamber music here.  We have a great symphony orchestra in Charlotte but not as many outlets for smaller works.

[jurajjak]

Art should not be "rated" in the first place, and, as a consequence, art should not be susceptible to being either overrated or underrated ........

Ideally, yes, art should not be "rated," but it will always be susceptible to valuations.  If people could overcome their personal tastes and transcend all value judgments, this world would be an infinitely more enlightened (and peaceful) place...though it might make discussions of music dull.

As for underappreciated pieces of music, I would suggest Prokofiev's The Gambler, perhaps the most thematically and motivically inventive opera I know.  Its deliberate talkiness is usually perceived as a flaw, but I've never heard prosaic dialog handled so deftly...it's an astounding work.

[mahlertitan]

Schoenberg's "tonal" works, amazing stuff! like this one:
http://www.classicstoday.com/review.asp?ReviewNum=9607

[Ten thumbs]

Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel's lieder because although amongst the finest ever composed they are still not performed often enough.