Unfamiliar Composers To Me

[schweitzeralan]

Who out there with their knowledge knows of these composers whose names I came across while perusing various sources.  Just curious; thought I knew at least most 20Th century maestros.
Richard flury
Alan Payette
Ernesto Lecuna
Cecil Chaminade
Jopseph Holbrooke ( I did order a symphony.  A forum post recommeded hs work.)   
Szel Gowski
Lidia Kozubelk
Nikolai Kapustin
Milton Babbitt (name does ring a bell.)
Tischenko
Howard Ferguson
Oswald Stoyanov
These are a mere few of composers whose works I don't know.  I'm certain there are those who do know.

[Lethevich]

I find Tischenko's orchestral music somewhat vulgar. More serious-minded than Shchedrin, his conservative slightly polystylistic style is somewhat influenced by Schnittke, but has that tubby and somewhat drab late Penderecki feel to it.

Holbrooke is good fun - somewhat like William Wallace (probably an unhelpful comparison given his obscurity) in that uber-Romantic Liszt-influenced style, also similarities to Bantock, but his music is overall less subtle and strongly-considered. What I have heard is very good, however.

I had a mediocre reaction to Howard Ferguson from hearing a Chandos disc - it was all fine, but somewhat light fare. It seems that he wrote more substantial concert works also recorded, though, so I reserve judgement.

I think that Nikolai Kapustin is the one that Josquin on this forum raves about the piano music of - apparently quite virtuosic and "notey".

Edit: I just noticed this, what the heck.

[vandermolen]

I find Tischenko's orchestral music somewhat vulgar. More serious-minded than Shchedrin, his conservative slightly polystylistic style is somewhat influenced by Schnittke, but has that tubby and somewhat drab late Penderecki feel to it.

Holbrooke is good fun - somewhat like William Wallace (probably an unhelpful comparison given his obscurity) in that uber-Romantic Liszt-influenced style, also similarities to Bantock, but his music is overall less subtle and strongly-considered. What I have heard is very good, however.

I had a mediocre reaction to Howard Ferguson from hearing a Chandos disc - it was all fine, but somewhat light fare. It seems that he wrote more substantial concert works also recorded, though, so I reserve judgement.

I think that Nikolai Kapustin is the one that Josquin on this forum raves about the piano music of - apparently quite virtuosic and "notey".

Don't know Kapustin but second Lethe's views on the other three. I prefer Holbrooke's chamber music to his orchestral ones, although they do have a kind of lugubrious fin-de-siecle appeal.

[Brian]

I love Nikolai Kapustin. Kapustin basically writes extremely carefully notated piano music which in all respects sounds exactly like jazz. You'll get people saying, oh, that's just vintage piano jazz, but there is no improv involved - it's music written with classical exactitude (and he does use classical forms, often!) to sound like it is being improvised! Here are two clips of Kapustin playing his own music.

http://www.youtube.com/v/Yn9fTO7zp5Q

And maybe even cooler:

http://www.youtube.com/v/vDWeGp4UE6M

Marc-Andre Hamelin's CD is pretty foursquare and unspirited, but Steven Osborne's is good - although, for sheer virtuoso flair and breathtaking syncopations, "Kapustin Plays Kapustin" remains top of the heap!

http://www.youtube.com/v/Kv1Rx-Vwbmo

[Szykneij]

I'm a big fan of Ernesto Lecuona and  I have a number of his recordings. While his "Malaguena" is probably his best known work, "Andalucia" is my personal favorite. Although Desi Arnaz (who left Cuba years before Lecuona) became far more popularly known in the United States, much of the music he introduced to America was Lecuona's.

[Mirror Image]

I love Nikolai Kapustin. Kapustin basically writes extremely carefully notated piano music which in all respects sounds exactly like jazz. You'll get people saying, oh, that's just vintage piano jazz, but there is no improv involved - it's music written with classical exactitude (and he does use classical forms, often!) to sound like it is being improvised! Here are two clips of Kapustin playing his own music.

http://www.youtube.com/v/Yn9fTO7zp5Q

And maybe even cooler:

http://www.youtube.com/v/vDWeGp4UE6M

Marc-Andre Hamelin's CD is pretty foursquare and unspirited, but Steven Osborne's is good - although, for sheer virtuoso flair and breathtaking syncopations, "Kapustin Plays Kapustin" remains top of the heap!

http://www.youtube.com/v/Kv1Rx-Vwbmo

I'm not sure what to make of a composer who writes music and makes it sound like piano jazz. I mean you have many composers who blurred the lines between classical and jazz like Gershwin, but this Kapustin guy just doesn't grab me like Gershwin or hell even Bernstein who used elements of jazz in many of his compositions.

[Lethevich]

From the POV of someone who doesn't really enjoy or understand jazz, I found those pieces refreshing - they take that pleasant jazz tonality but fuse it with something I find more paletable: an intriguing find...

[Mirror Image]

From the POV of someone who doesn't really enjoy or understand jazz, I found those pieces refreshing - they take that pleasant jazz tonality but fuse it with something I find more paletable: an intriguing find...

I'm looking at what this composer does coming the point-of-view of somebody who loves and plays jazz and for me the whole art of jazz is in the improvisation. Jazz uses melodic themes and so forth to build a piece out of, but these melodies and harmonies act as a launching pad for the soloist. To me, this guy sounds like he can't make his mind up of what he wants to be. I wonder if he's done any orchestral works? Anybody know?

[schweitzeralan]

I want to thank those who replied to my query on the short list of composers whose works I have never heard.  There are indeed others, but I didn't list all my "unknowns." The information proffered was quite useful.

[Josquin des Prez]

I love Nikolai Kapustin. Kapustin basically writes extremely carefully notated piano music which in all respects sounds exactly like jazz.

Except for the part it is densely contrapuntal, unlike Jazz. His music also densely formal, again, unlike Jazz. He has more in common with Bach that he does with any of the great Jazz pianists. That is why his music isn't wholly improvised, because it can't.

[Josquin des Prez]

I'm not sure what to make of a composer who writes music and makes it sound like piano jazz. I mean you have many composers who blurred the lines between classical and jazz like Gershwin, but this Kapustin guy just doesn't grab me like Gershwin or hell even Bernstein who used elements of jazz in many of his compositions.

Kapusin is greater then either. You seem to have somewhat of a problem understanding the true import of polyphony.

[mc ukrneal]

Cecil Chaminade is a French female composer, mostly known for her salon pieces. Hyperion have done a nice 3 volumes of her piano music that I enjoy very much. While Chaminade wrote for the 'salon' or 'amateur' of her day, her music is generally interesting. She clearly has a voice of her own, and a very elegant one at that. If you listen to the clips at Hyperion, you'll get a good idea of her music.

[listener]

Ernesto LECUONA 1896 - 1964   was possibly Cuba's most famous composer.  The 6-movement 'Andalucia' Suite provides a couple of his Greatest Hits, the Malagueña and Andalucia (known for its pop adaptation as "The Breeze and I".  (Nice recording on Élan 2206 by Santiago Rodrigo).

[Brian]

I'm looking at what this composer does coming the point-of-view of somebody who loves and plays jazz and for me the whole art of jazz is in the improvisation. Jazz uses melodic themes and so forth to build a piece out of, but these melodies and harmonies act as a launching pad for the soloist. To me, this guy sounds like he can't make his mind up of what he wants to be. I wonder if he's done any orchestral works? Anybody know?

Actually, he has a very clear idea of who he is:

[wiki] Kapustin views himself as a composer rather than a jazz musician. He has said, "I was never a jazz musician. I never tried to be a real jazz pianist, but I had to do it because of the composing. I'm not interested in improvisation – and what is a jazz musician without improvisation? All my improvisation is written, of course, and they became much better; it improved them." [/wiki]

Essentially, he is like a composer who writes out the cadenzas for his concertos.

I've heard two orchestral works of his - works for piano and jazz big band, of course! Here's the toccata, which to my knowledge does indeed satisfy the technical requirements of a "toccata."

[71 dB]

Except for the part it is densely contrapuntal, unlike Jazz. His music also densely formal, again, unlike Jazz. He has more in common with Bach that he does with any of the great Jazz pianists. That is why his music isn't wholly improvised, because it can't.

Reading this makes me interested of Kapustin, a composer I know nothing about.

[schweitzeralan]

Reading this makes me interested of Kapustin, a composer I know nothing about.

In light of post responses I "YouTubed" some piano works of Kapustin.  Quite jazzy to say the least, judging from the inclusions available on You Tube.  Interesting.  Now at least I know someting of his work and prevailing style, form and rhythm.

[Josquin des Prez]

I've heard two orchestral works of his - works for piano and jazz big band, of course! Here's the toccata, which to my knowledge does indeed satisfy the technical requirements of a "toccata."

Indeed it does. All of his music is equally formally consonant. An etude is an etude, a fugue is a fugue, a sonata is a sonata and so forth. He speaks in a Jazz language but his music isn't really Jazz, its classical through and through.

Here's his complete opus list:

http://home.wanadoo.nl/ovar/kapustin.htm

The grand majority of his works have a piano component to them, and he didn't write much orchestral music. However, he did write several interesting chamber pieces, including a string quartet in Jazz style. It took me a while, but i now own every single recording of his ever made. I hope eventually i'll be able to own his entire opus list. He needs to record more though, i can't stand his music played by other people and there's quite a few several major piano works that exist only at the hands of other performers.

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

I hope eventually i'll be able to own his entire opus list. He needs to record more though, i can't stand his music played by other people and there's quite a few several major piano works that exist only at the hands of other performers.

I see that he has written at least 15 full-scale piano sonatas (I know this due to the Naxos recording of #15). However, I've never seen recordings of any of the others. Have they all been recorded?

[Josquin des Prez]

Kapustin can be light fun i guess ... but it's nothing that serious and it's pretty inconsequential. He's nothing like Bach and he definitely lacks his own voice, a Russian imitating & coping what he hears in American jazz ... it's all like pastiche.

Classic response from a superficial listener who probably only has an approximate understanding of Bach in the first place.

[listener]

RIP   Boris TISHCHENKO
The composer Boris Tishchenko died in St Petersburg on December 9, aged 71. Close to Dmitri Shostakovich, he wrote a high-risk Requiem set to Anna Akhmatova's lament for her husband, murdered by the Communist state. His fifth symphony is a maginificent eulogy for DSCH.

Although he was forced to issue a public denunciation of the Shostakovich memoirs that Solomon Volkov published under the title Testimony, Tischchenko played a vital role in their transmission. It was he who persuaded Shostakovich to persist with his secret conversations with Volkov and he also played a role in smuggling the manuscript out to the West, where it became a massive best-seller, exposing the homicidal inner workings of Soviet culture.

Tishchenko's own works, hardly heard outside Russia, include two rich cello concertos for Mstislav Rostropovich and an austere second violin concerto of 1982 that may be his finest masterpiece. In all, he wrote more than 130 works.
from Norman Lebrecht'Ms blog http://www.artsjournal.com/slippeddisc/2010/12/death_of_an_ambivalent_resista.html