Six undeservedly neglected composers.

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Agreed that canons should not be static, but in practice they tend to be, and it's difficult to say what makes a composer canonical if he (much more rarely she) hasn't been signed up. (In an interesting article on the history of the musical canon, Joseph Kerman cops out by writing: "There has been more about the history and ontology of the canon in these remarks than about the philosophy and politics of canon formation. They are coming to an end where many readers, I rather think, would have liked to see them begin: How are canons determined, why, and on what authority?" Which, of course, is the crux of the problem.)

Canon formation is a fascinating and extremely complex matter. The French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu has written a very interesting book about it, with reference to (French) literature, called Les règles du jeu. And then there is, for example, the study by Tia De Nora Beethoven and the Construction of Genius - Musical Politics in Vienna, 1792-1803. I am intrigued by how a reputation is made, what connections you need, how sheer luck plays a role and historic circumstances, and this wholly apart from the artist's talent, perseverance, personality.

But then again, I don't know if there is a necessarily sharp distinction between canonical composers on the one side and undeservedly neglected ones on the other. JZ brings up the point about nationalities beyond the Big Three and dates past 1850, but that may be just a reflection of the tastes of posters on this thread: for example, someone could just have well mentioned Mozart's contemporary JM Kraus, who worked in Sweden; or closer to Beethoven's time, JV Vorisek from Bohemia. And since JZ rightly says of these neglected composers that "the recording industry have dug many of them up again," the question is my mind is whether they are truly neglected at all - unless by neglect one means a paucity of live performances. But after all, live performances of lesser-known figures can be arduous for the performers, risky for the producers, expensive for the audience, and in any case at best a few thousand people in geographic proximity may be able to attend. But since a large percentage of listeners approach music primarily through recordings, which are generally easy to obtain and inexpensive, the availability of a recording may well mean that the composer reaches far more people than might be the case otherwise, and so a single CD can offset all kinds of "neglect."

One wonders whether a Kraus, working in Vienna, would have gained a higher reputation. Sometimes it's important for an artist to be at the right place. If he isn't, important contacts aren't there and his career suffers.


I agree that recordings offset neglect. But recordings don't often change critical standing. You need(ed) academia for that.

[Sergeant Rock]

Oh! Spell Check suggested me to change Ockeghem to Orgasm!

For some, I'm sure, there is equivalency 

Sarge

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

The right contacts can help further a career but over the long run it makes no difference - Salieri and Thalberg have been mostly forgotten while Mozart, Schubert, Chopin, Schumann and Listz have remained..

Exactly. In the long run, it is talent (genius) that counts. But as I said, to be at the right place matters, too, even for geniuses - Mozart and Schubert were in Vienna, Chopin and Liszt (early on) in Paris. Schumann's career was more difficult and intricate, because he played second fiddle to his brilliant pianist wife Clara and wasn't made for the conductorship he eventually got in Düsseldorf. But he also was the brilliant editor of an influential music review, and this helped his standing as a composer, too.

[mszczuj]

For some, I'm sure, there is equivalency 

Equivalency?

Ockeghem so intensive that you confuse it with orgasm would be for sure something tremendous.

But now consider orgasm so intensive that you confuse it with Ockeghem!

So there should be no doubts which of this two is better.

[Dundonnell]

Composers aren't always undeservedly neglected,anyway. Listening to Cpo's cd's of Ernst Boehe and Richard Wetz have to be some of the most dreary,turgid,wastefully uninspiring minutes I've ever spent. Maybe it's a good idea to take some of those over enthusiastic reviews of obscure composers on sites like Musicweb with the occasional pinch of salt.
Less please!

Ooohhh....I do agree with what you said on another thread about the worthy but rather dull symphonies written by Stanford(although the Irish Rhapsodies are a bit better ) but I must say I rather like Wetz, particularly his Third Symphony.

There was an invitation earlier by some guy to identify composers whose neglect was deserved. That was a tempting invitation which I really should resist
I completely understand that there are lots of people who are finding pleasure, satisfaction, delight in the music of a composer like Julius Rontgen. Clearly, these people are buying the cds in sufficient numbers to encourage CPO to continue with its intention of releasing everything the Dutchman ever composed(although I sometimes wonder if such commercial considerations mean much to that wonderful company ). Personally, I find Rontgen's music amiable but little more than that. If his neglect had continued I would not have considered that undeserved but others would strongly disagree with me.

So much has depended over the last couple of decades on very mundane and practical considerations; far removed from the high-minded considerations so eloquently expressed by others in their recent contributions to this thread.

If a country, through its record labels for example, has actively encouraged the wider dissemination of their native composers then those composers will start to receive more recognition throughout the world and through the music press.

An outstanding example of that would be Denmark. The Danish companies-Dacapo and Danacord-have done an amazing job of getting a number of neglected Danish composers the recognition they 'deserved;. The same is true of Finland with companies like Finlandia and now Ondine. BIS in Sweden has done a similar-albeit selective job-for Swedish composers. Dux in Poland is yet another outstanding example.

CPO in Germany has not only recorded a huge amount of German and Austrian music but has done superb work on behalf of composers like Milhaud, Villa-Lobos, George Antheil, Panufnik and for composers from Finland, Sweden and now the Netherlands.

One hardly needs to mention the achievement of companies like Chandos, Hyperion and Dutton in Britain.

Other countries have not assertively 'marketed' their composers. Yes, there are/were Norwegian record labels but the cds of Norwegian music were and are often difficult to obtain(even in Oslo!). The Dutch appear to have been similarly reticent. It is a plain fact that without a German company based in Osnabruck we would be unlikely at last to be discovering just what a fine composer Henk Badings actually was.  Until Timpani came along most of French 20th Century music was pretty well unknown beyond the works of the obvious great French composers like Debussy, Ravel, Messiaen.  Italian music post-Verdi for a very long time meant Respighi. Now-at last-we are getting to know composers like Casella, Malipiero, Petrassi, Dallapiccola.

Frequently it also has to be acknowledged that choice of repertoire to record can be very idiosyncratic. If Robert von Bahr liked a composer then BIS would record him, if not, not.
Thus, von Bahr took a liking for Kalevi Aho so Aho's music gets recorded. Osmo Vanska gave von Bahr some James Macmillan to listen to and von Bahr immediately declaimed that Macmillan was a genius and BIS would record everything he had written. It can all be as hit and miss as that!

Yes...there are and will be composers whose music once discovered/rediscovered disappoints some people and these people will scratch their heads and say 'what was all the fuss about' (as I tend to do about York Bowen ) but unless we get the chance to actually hear the music we will never be able to make such essentially subjective assessments.

[lescamil]

Believe me, I am VERY happy that both Kalevi Aho and James MacMillan are getting extensively recorded. Say what you want about them, but there aren't many composers out there that can write as much music as they do with such a high amount of quality. I heard Kalevi Aho's 15th symphony recently, and I thought it was excellent, as if it were written by a composer with only 2 symphonies.

[Dundonnell]

Believe me, I am VERY happy that both Kalevi Aho and James MacMillan are getting extensively recorded. Say what you want about them, but there aren't many composers out there that can write as much music as they do with such a high amount of quality. I heard Kalevi Aho's 15th symphony recently, and I thought it was excellent, as if it were written by a composer with only 2 symphonies.

Oh, regarding  Aho...I have, I assure you

http://www.good-music-guide.com/community/index.php/topic,7786.0.html

[eyeresist]

But since a large percentage of listeners approach music primarily through recordings, which are generally easy to obtain and inexpensive, the availability of a recording may well mean that the composer reaches far more people than might be the case otherwise, and so a single CD can offset all kinds of "neglect."

.. IF the performance and recording are good. Witness the recent kerfuffle over Kalinnikov's 1st in the symphonies thread. A subpar recording can do more harm than good.

Mahler wasn't appreciated before Bernstein's first cycle, and J.S. Bach was forgotten completely (well students have played his works pretty much always) after his death until Felix Mendelssohn resuscitated the B minor mass and later Casals recorded the cello suites and Gould the keyboard works.

I don't think this received wisdom is very accurate. Mahler was appreciated before Bernstein ever played him, though it might be argued he only became canonical with the first recording of the complete cycle.
Bach was remembered at least by Beethoven, Mozart and Chopin, if not by the average listeners. I suspect his church music continued to be performed after his death, but I'd need an expert opinion on that.

[North Star]

.. IF the performance and recording are good. Witness the recent kerfuffle over Kalinnikov's 1st in the symphonies thread. A subpar recording can do more harm than good.


I don't think this received wisdom is very accurate. Mahler was appreciated before Bernstein ever played him, though it might be argued he only became canonical with the first recording of the complete cycle.
Bach was remembered at least by Beethoven, Mozart and Chopin, if not by the average listeners. I suspect his church music continued to be performed after his death, but I'd need an expert opinion on that.

Well yes I only meant that the general public hadn't heard Mahler or Bach before those events.
It might be that some cantata was performed after his death & before Mendelssohn, but nonetheless, the guy was pretty much forgotten by the early 19th century - that is, by the general public. Of course those who studied old music actively knew his pieces, and his keyboard works were standard repertoire for students, and that's how the aforementioned composers got to know Bach.

[Brian]

One wonders whether a Kraus, working in Vienna, would have gained a higher reputation. Sometimes it's important for an artist to be at the right place. If he isn't, important contacts aren't there and his career suffers.

Sometimes it's very important for an artist to be at the right place. The exception that may well prove the rule is Janacek, who was so preposterously in the wrong place for his entire life that when his music was finally discovered, he had developed a voice nobody else had ever heard.

[(poco) Sforzando]

Bach was remembered at least by Beethoven, Mozart and Chopin, if not by the average listeners. I suspect his church music continued to be performed after his death, but I'd need an expert opinion on that.

Not posing as an expert, but if you read Christoph Wolff's account of The Bach Revival in the New Grove's, you'll find that the church music fell almost completely by the wayside after Bach's death, at which point he was held to have been a great organist and master of counterpoint, but as a composer inferior to Handel. Some antiquarian enthusiasts kept interest in Bach alive, but it really wasn't until Mendelssohn's 1829 performance of the St. Matthew Passion (not the B minor Mass) that the tide turned in Bach's favor. Nonetheless, it wasn't until mid-century that most of the church music was even published. The B Minor Mass itself was probably not performed in full before 1859.

[mszczuj]

Well yes I only meant that the general public hadn't heard Mahler or Bach before those events.
It might be that some cantata was performed after his death & before Mendelssohn, but nonetheless, the guy was pretty much forgotten by the early 19th century - that is, by the general public.

There was no common custom to listen to the dead composers' music in this time. There were some exceptions but these were exactly exceptions.

So there is no reason to said Bach was forgotten after his death. He was just dead after his death.

[North Star]

Not posing as an expert, but if you read Christoph Wolff's account of The Bach Revival in the New Grove's, you'll find that the church music fell almost completely by the wayside after Bach's death, at which point he was held to have been a great organist and master of counterpoint, but as a composer inferior to Handel. Some antiquarian enthusiasts kept interest in Bach alive, but it really wasn't until Mendelssohn's 1829 performance of the St. Matthew Passion (not the B minor Mass) that the tide turned in Bach's favor. Nonetheless, it wasn't until mid-century that most of the church music was even published. The B Minor Mass itself was probably not performed in full before 1859.

Ah yes, my mistake.
I'd say that Bach's music was just too difficult for the folk in the 18th century to understand - it's certainly a lot denser than Handel's music.

[North Star]

There was no common custom to listen to the dead composers' music in this time. There were some exceptions but these were exactly exceptions.

So there is no reason to said Bach was forgotten after his death. He was just dead after his death.

Well this is true compared to how much dead composers receive attention these days, but the exceptions were religious works, like the B minor mass or the Passions or the Magnificat or Handel's Messiah - which was never forgotten.

[vandermolen]

There was a "great composers who aren't you cup of tea" thread, on which virtually every famous name in musical history made it. (My own least favorite great composer, Richard Strauss, did not, so here I'll redress the balance.)

Mine too - I'd add the name York Bowen to the list of the 'deservedly neglected'.

[cilgwyn]

Me too!

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Mine too - I'd add the name York Bowen to the list of the 'deservedly neglected'.

Ha! Colin will thank you for that verdict! And cilgwyn. (I like Bowen's piano music a lot, and the Rhapsody for Cello and orchestra on Dutton is absolutely beautiful...)

[cilgwyn]

I have grim memories of being pounced on for daring to criticise him.

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

I have grim memories of being pounced on for daring to criticise him.

Really?! Bowen and bloodthirst aren't two things I would expect to be connected.

[vandermolen]

Ha! Colin will thank you for that verdict! And cilgwyn. (I like Bowen's piano music a lot, and the Rhapsody for Cello and orchestra on Dutton is absolutely beautiful...)

Actually Johan, you may have a point - I guess that is on the CD with the Brian Cello Concerto.