Most Underrated Composers

[kyjo]

How come every thread about "underrated" or "unsung" music has to become a breeding ground for insults and arguments? I should have never resurrected this thread.

[Mirror Image]

How come every thread about "underrated" or "unsung" music has to become a breeding ground for insults and arguments? I should have never resurrected this thread.

Kyle, you know you're my buddy, but just lighten up a bit please. Not everyone likes the same things and nobody is wrong for expressing their opinion about the music. No matter how much you disagree with them.

[kyjo]

Kyle, you know you're my buddy, but just lighten up a bit please. Not everyone likes the same things and nobody is wrong for expressing their opinion about the music. No matter how much you disagree with them.

It was the pompous comment from Sforzando that ticked me off, not anyone's opinion of the music.

[Mirror Image]

It was the pompous comment from Sforzando that ticked me off, not anyone's opinion of the music.

Someone made a pompous comment on a classical music forum?!?!?!? Call the police! Man all battle stations! This is war!!!!

[Brian]

Someone made a pompous comment on a classical music forum?!?!?!? Call the police! Man all battle stations! This is war!!!!

Love your post!

P.S. Sforzando is one of our longest-standing, most knowledgeable, and most insightful GMGers, and although the present dominant discussion method of trading recording recommendations like baseball cards doesn't suit his style very well, he has (to the extent that anybody can earn the right to a little pomposity) earned the right to a little pomposity.

[kyjo]

Someone made a pompous comment on a classical music forum?!?!?!? Call the police! Man all battle stations! This is war!!!!

Yep. My reaction exactly.

[Mirror Image]

Love your post!

P.S. Sforzando is one of our longest-standing, most knowledgeable, and most insightful GMGers, and although the present dominant discussion method of trading recording recommendations like baseball cards doesn't suit his style very well, he has (to the extent that anybody can earn the right to a little pomposity) earned the right to a little pomposity.

Thanks, Brian.

I've never had any problems with Sforzando, but the few times I've interacted with him has always been pleasant and even surprising.

[Daverz]

Now that, folks, is the proper way

Get stuffed. 

[Ten thumbs]

You mean the "two thousand unknown works, generally listed without any reasons given" thread? I could have written it without reading it. Garbage is garbage, whether it's sung, unsung, or barely croaked. As Schumann once wrote, he who is afraid to attack music that's bad is only a half-hearted supporter of music that's good.

There is a lot of truth in this. However, there is a shorter list of works that are little known for reasons that have nothing to do with their quality.

[ibanezmonster]

What is wrong with it?  As soon as you let an good organ rip, it ALWAYS sounds bombastic, no matter what is being played.  Bruckners Symphonies transcribed for Organ sound dreadfully bombastic also, but the music there.  Still, mind you, I wont be exploring Jongen either.      
What I will be exploring is Gregs post of the composer Sulek.  I listened to what is above, and it appeals to me very much.
Thanks Greg, I'm off to YT to hear some more!

Good to see someone else who like this. 

I gave the symphony another listen and seems it holds up well (sounded even better the second time around). Not sure if I can say the same about his other symphonies that are on youtube (2, 4, 6). Just wish youtube would have all of them, but I don't think the others have been recorded.

Still haven't listened to other stuff besides the symphonies, though there is more. If you find that you like any of his other stuff, post it here!

[(poco) Sforzando]

Wow. I've never seen so much humility in one sentence.

Had I known the estimable Brian was going to chime in, I would have suppressed that remark. If you had accused me of being intolerant, supercilious, sarcastic, dogmatic, I would have cheerfully assented. I'll even give you pompous. But since you chose to attack me, based on your extensive "browsing," as having nothing to contribute to this forum, I felt entitled to defend myself.

Allow me, however, to offer a serious reply to your general line of thinking, since you are not the only one who has done a little browsing. Over the years, I have found a segment of music-lovers devoted to the notion that (in its most extreme form) the generally accepted classical repertoire consists of a bunch of overrated old bores like Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, Brahms, Chopin, and company, while they propose a revisionist set of composers whom they invariably speak of as the neglected, the underrated, the underplayed, the unsung, all of whom apparently deserve far more admiration than the aforementioned overplayed dinosaurs.

Exactly what this idea of being "underrated," etc., means is never quite clear, and certainly not on this thread where Joseph Haydn, certainly one of the best-known and most highly esteemed composers in history, is lumped together ("without any doubt," yet) with any number of others whose main virtue appears to be that a great many people are unlikely to have heard of them. And of course if these composers are "neglected," they're always "undeservedly neglected," the opposite possibility being apparently unthinkable.

Again in its most extreme form, proponents of this position will accuse others of being brainwashed sheep, while they themselves are courageous free-thinkers, able to perceive for instance the glories of Ditters von Differsdorf against the rest of us too unenlightened to see beyond those fuddy-duddy late Beethoven quartets. At times too there is dark talk of a "conspiracy" to keep these unsung heroes from being better known, to which I am reminded of Charles Rosen's wicked quip when being told of such a conspiracy against the music of Hans Pfitzner: "Why, what a splendid conspiracy that must be! Where can I sign up?"

But since all the composers on this thread have been performed and recorded, often by highly reputed artists, it's hard to see what all the complaining is about. The revisionists never tell us what a proper level of appreciation for their "unsung" composers would be. More live performances? But only a few thousand can be present at any concert, so the experience is useless to anyone without the means to attend. More recordings? But surely any recording is better than none, and if even if one recording exists, it provides an opportunity for the music to be heard and known. Most of us get most of our music from recordings anyway, and so if recordings exist, they can be widely duplicated and disseminated, thus ensuring that the composer's work has the opportunity for recognition that the complainants claim it deserves.

What the revisionists never admit to is a fundamental contradiction in their own position. They speak endlessly of the neglected and the underappreciated, yet they fail to acknowledge that if recordings weren't already available, they would have no basis for championing their own "unsung" favorites.

I read for example in an article on Allan Pettersson, "Throughout history, countless numbers of superior artists have been overshadowed by the so-called giants in their respective fields."* What an extraordinary statement. Does he simply mean "superior" in the sense of "excellent," or does he really mean that these "countless numbers" (none of whom of course is identified) are of greater merit than "so-called giants" like Mahler or Sibelius? And despite the writer's plaintive and obviously rhetorical title — "Allan Pettersson—A Composer Forgotten?" — he has to admit that Petterson "has faired [sic] well in the recorded medium, nearly all of his music is available now on compact disc." This is neglect? What's more the writer identifies a variety of scholars, performers, and societies devoted to Pettersson's music; and there have been performances and recordings by such well-known names as Dorati, Commissiona, Blomstedt, Ida Haendel, Segerstam, Alun Francis, and more. If this is neglect, I'd suspect there are any number of struggling composers who would kill to be so passed over.

The fact is that if Pettersson, Atterberg, Braga Santos, and others mentioned on this thread (not Haydn of course, for if Haydn is underplayed, then rabbits are an endangered species) are not as widely performed as the revisionists would like, that could be because concert promoters and record companies are afraid their music won't fill seats, and/or that performers simply aren't interested in their work. I think that people who don't play music themselves don't always recognize the extraordinary degree of care and effort it takes to prepare and often memorize a work for performance. If a violinist isn't interested in the Pettersson #2, isn't it possible that (like me), he or she simply finds it 50 minutes of unmemorable note-spinning, and which is supposedly nearly unplayable besides? (For the record, however, I am impressed by several of Pettersson's middle symphonies.)

There is one more objection to the revisionists' grievances, and that is that historically speaking, availability and dissemination of even the standard repertoire, not to mention the so-called unsung, has greatly increased over the past 50 years. There was a time when Barbirolli was discouraged from performing the Berlioz Fantastique by the powerful impresario Sol Hurok. It wasn't until 1959 when the first complete Ring opera, Solti's Rheingold, was issued on LP; today a complete new cycle seems to be released every other week. And YouTube has created yet another explosion of availability. Judging from number of posts alone here, Havergal Brian is this forum's favorite composer, and there is no dearth of recordings.

I was emailing about this revisionist phenomenon with a friend a few years ago, who wrote back: "People who want to believe they are among an 'elite' few capable of greater insights than the common man will always rebel against the received wisdom. So Bach and Beethoven are obviously overrated since we are told that they are very great composers. And people who are into Klami and Raff are very rare, so naturally such people are privy to some deeper understanding of what makes great Art. It's just another form of elitism."

--
* http://www.christopherbrakel.com/Brakel--Pettersson.pdf

[amw]

Allow me, however, to offer a serious reply to your general line of thinking, since you are not the only one who has done a little browsing.

Good post, thanks. I think that while there's certainly an element of elitism in the adherence to an alternative canon—which I think is a more neutral term than "underrated" or "deservedly forgotten"—part of it also comes from objections to certain aspects of historiography. For instance, the people who devised and adhere to the Chopin-Alkan-Liszt-Reger-Busoni-Skryabin-Szymanowski-Medtner etc alt-canon presumably never really enjoyed the music of the Bach-Mozart-Beethoven-Brahms-Wagner-Mahler etc canon and, instead of concluding that perhaps Bach, Mozart, et al. really are great composers whom they simply can't relate to at this point and will return to later, they determine that the fault lies with historians placing too much emphasis on the Germanic tradition and organicism and development and so forth and blame nationalism and construct other such socio-historical arguments to explain the existence of some kind of conspiracy devoted to the promotion of these more well-known composers.

Similarly I suspect a lot of the Atterberg-Braga Santos-Pettersson alt-canon comes from a quarrel with the common historiographical notion of the 20th century (and later) as a time of post-tonal pluralism—essentially, from that point of view, music took a "wrong turn" sometime around 1900, and this alt-canon represents the composers whose music actually ought to have survived if not for this conspiracy promoting Schoenberg and Bartók and Ligeti and Reich and all those isms that were just new for the sake of newness. Hence it's very important for proponents of this alt-canon to convert other people to their side because of a degree of siege mentality—they're fighting a "war" not only against fans of creepy atonal music but also against the neutral observers who might point out that Atterberg for instance has been increasingly represented on recording in recent years and yet has not won significantly wider acceptance or championing than, say, Brian Ferneyhough, for the attention of the much wider audience whose tastes run from Bach to Shostakovich.

I should emphasize, first, that I don't mean to denigrate proponents of alternative canons or call them wrong. Very often they have a point, particularly about the neglect of certain groups of composers based on nationality, opposition to prevailing styles or conscious experimentation rather than organic development (history tends to focus on outlining a "progress" of music, spends little time on composers not from Germany/Austria/France/Italy/Russia and fetishize compositional "trademarks"). We shouldn't make exaggerated claims for the importance of e.g. Pettersson, or Fanny Hensel or George Frederick Pinto or John White, but we also shouldn't completely forget that they exist. Second, that I don't believe everyone who prefers alt-canon composers is necessarily coming from this particular motivation. I, personally, listen to more "neglected" composers than "mainstream" ones these days. My reasons for doing so are not related to a particular argument with the historical canon, however, but simply the near overabundance of recorded music out there. I've probably heard Beethoven's Seventh a hundred times. It was, of course, enormously exciting to discover it around the age of eight, and I've heard many performances and interpretations and it's usually been a quite satisfying experience. But by this point I know it well enough that I have quite large portions of it memorised and generally know more or less what's going to come next when I happen to listen to it. Thus I started to get a little bored with it, criticise it for structural flaws, object to various aspects of the interpretation with the obligatory When I become a great conductor I'll do it this way and so forth, and eventually wound up at the Man this piece is soooo predictable, I already know how it's gonna end, screw this Beethoven guy, give me some Rheinberger point.

Of course, I still have a recording of Beethoven's Seventh (I think it's Kleiber/Vienna) and I'll spin it whenever I have any Beethovenian cravings, but most of the time I prefer to listen to new music (i.e. new to me, regardless of the era when it was written), due to the importance of what one could call the thrill of discovery. There's lots of music I already know and love, but I couldn't listen to just that music forever, hence why you don't see me on any of those "desert island"/"top three favourites" threads. Maybe it's a personality thing.

I'm sure that at least a few of the "unsung composers"/"alternative musicology" gentlefolk have their own reasons for exploring those works that are unrelated to historical revisionism. That has seemed to be the major motivation in my experience though, above and beyond any kind of elitism. The standard-repertoire-only people have their own elitists, too.

[mc ukrneal]

Apparently all the logic and sensibility drove everyone away!

It is interesting. For me, underrated/underappreciated/etc. was simply a way to draw attention to less well known composers (and had nothing to do with unseating the likes of Beethoven/Mozart/etc.). They could be composers who people simply passed by, had not heard of, or were (for whatever reason) given less attention. Like others, I do like to explore certain periods of music. I think some people are trying to recapture the wonder of composers past as well, so people may exaggerate their enthusiasm a bit.

On the other hand, there is one mainstream composer (not unsung really), where the majority of works are still unrecorded and not performed - Offenbach. He wrote close to 100 operas/operettas, and only about a third have made their way to disc. Perhaps a bit of an exception, but there you have it.

[Parsifal]

Do you ever have something helpful to contribute to discussions? Browsing through your posts, it appears not.

Sforzando is one of the most knowledegable and articulate posters the GMG has ever had.  Regrettably, he does not suffer fools gladly and his declining participation in the site (along with that of Luke) has been a great loss here.

[71 dB]

Again in its most extreme form, proponents of this position will accuse others of being brainwashed sheep, while they themselves are courageous free-thinkers, able to perceive for instance the glories of Ditters von Differsdorf against the rest of us too unenlightened to see beyond those fuddy-duddy late Beethoven quartets.

Differsdorf is one of the most underrated composers and there's nothing fuddy-duddy about (late) Beethoven quartets.

[Henk]

Ned Rorem. Just discovering his music.

[kyjo]

Top 30 most underrated composers in my view (in no particular order)

1. Atterberg
2. Braga Santos
3. Tveitt
4. Bloch
5. Leifs
6. Diamond
7. Rubbra
8. Hartmann
9. Miaskovsky
10. Koechlin
11. Holmboe
12. Casella
13. Tubin
14. Enescu
15. Broadstock (easily my favorite contemporary composer next to Aho)
16. Novak
17. Langgaard
18. Raitio
19. Orthel
20. Bortkiewicz
21. Rosenberg
22. Honegger
23. Alwyn
24. Bate
25. Bridge
26. Creston
27. Magnard
28. Melartin
29. Arnell
30. Jongen

Wishing to change the course of this conversation, what do members think of the composers who I included in my list? Do you agree or disagree with them being "unsung"? If you haven't heard a particular composers' music, would you like recommendations on what recordings to buy/listen to? I would, of course, be happy to help.

P.S. Looking back at my list, I'm still pretty satisfied with it, except that I feel Stjepan Sulek deserves a place on it. His music is of outstanding quality and originality and hardly any of it has made it onto CD, so he would definitely qualify as "unsung". I think I'd replace.....Arnell, I guess......with Sulek.

[Gurn Blanston]

Differsdorf is one of the most underrated composers and there's nothing fuddy-duddy about (late) Beethoven quartets.

I don't think there is such a thing as an 'underrated' composer. They are all pretty much held in the amount of esteem to which they have risen or sunk. Doesn't mean that one shouldn't listen to them or appreciate whatever value they add to one's listening experience (I do it all the time), but to confuse fame with quality is a grave error that directly reflects the amount of intellectual rigor one has applied to the issue. I listen to Kleinmeister regularly. And enjoy them. It doesn't make them anything more than Kleinmeister though. At some point we just all need to get a grip.

[kyjo]

Ned Rorem. Just discovering his music.

Yes, indeed! A wonderful, underrated composer for sure. What works of his have you heard so far? I own all the Naxos discs of his music and I'm mightily impressed with all of them, especially the ones containing the three symphonies, PC 2 and the VC.

[71 dB]

What do members think of the composers who I included in my list? Do you agree or disagree with them being "unsung"? If you haven't heard a particular composers' music, would you like recommendations on what recordings to buy/listen to? I would, of course, be happy to help.

I have Bloch's "Schelomo" and one Langgaard disc (Sinfonia Interna etc.) All the other composers on your list are unknown to me. I listened to Jongen's "pompous" music but didn't get exited. I have been planning to explore Enescu at some point. Currently I am into Liszt.

Oh, I have Bridge's Piano Quintet.