Most Underrated Composers

[Parsifal]

Jeffrey, I couldn't have said it better. Scarpia has no idea what he is talking about.

I can't say I know what that means.  I simply remarked to vandermolian that I didn't think anyone would find anything to object to in his advocacy for little-know composers.

[kyjo]

I can't say I know what that means.  I simply remarked to vandermolian that I didn't think anyone would find anything to object to in his advocacy for little-know composers.

I'm sorry Scarpia, I misunderstood you.

[modUltralaser]

Whoever said you have to be thoroughly grounded in Bach, Beethoven, Mozart et al before you can listen to other music-let me just say that is complete and utter bullshit. There's no "one way" into classical music. Classical music can be approached from a variety of angles. It's not "wrong" to start with 19th or 20th century music if you are new to classical music. I mean, what if everyone recommends a newbie to Bach, and the newbie in question doesn't like his music. With everyone demanding him/her to start with Bach, the newbie might give up, thinking he/she will have nothing to enjoy in the world of classical music. People need to do the research themselves to find out what composers they connect most closely with. So, those of you who say that if you don't particularly care for the Baroque and Classical "greats", you aren't a "true" classical music fan-let me tell you that you are WRONG.

Do you have reading comprehension issues?

[mc ukrneal]

I think the problem here is we are not meaning the same things when we are using terminology. We are not using objective measures, but personal ones. What is a second or third tier composer? How does one decide boundries between tiers? What does underrated mean? What are the measures for someone being underrated or overrated for that matter? Etc... Until we try to tackle that, this discussion will just continue in circles except for the most general of comments. Of course, I highly doubt that we could agree on those measures, but it would at least help structure the discussion (and lead to understanding). 

[North Star]

Kyjo:
Nobody is saying that you can't listen to other music before listening to the three B's and co. - what people are saying, though, is that your recommending of other music is going to be thought of as more reliable if you know the 'standards' - in the case of 20th century music, knowledge of Strauss, Stravinsky, Schönberg, Sibelius, Scriabin, Shostakovich, and some other composers (name beginning with S or not) is of course necessary before one can have any basis to tell that a certain composer ought to be more famous.

[kyjo]

Do you have reading comprehension issues?

Do you have immaturity issues?

[modUltralaser]

Do you have immaturity issues?

So yes. I'll leave you to your windmills.

[kyjo]

Kyjo:
Nobody is saying that you can't listen to other music before listening to the three B's and co. - what people are saying, though, is that your recommending of other music is going to be thought of as more reliable if you know the 'standards' - in the case of 20th century music, knowledge of Strauss, Stravinsky, Schönberg, Sibelius, Scriabin, Shostakovich, and some other composers (name beginning with S or not) is of course necessary before one can have any basis to tell that a certain composer ought to be more famous.

Karlo, I agree that the masters of the 20th century should be explored prior to the "unsungs", but there's no harm in mixing it up a bit. For example, one doesn't have to listen to Shostakovich's entire output before trying out an "unsung".

[modUltralaser]

An interesting sidenote:

" The Haydn/Bach comparison is one I think about a lot. Of course, Bach stands alone in musical history, but what Bach was to counterpoint, Haydn was to rhetoric...."

[71 dB]

I explored many "obscure" composer in the beginning and only now I am exploring many well known composers. I listened to Bruhns' cantatas 10 years before Beethoven's piano sonatas. 

I don't know why we should stick to Beethoven, Mozart, Brahms or Haydn if we find our listening pleasures elsewhere.

[North Star]

Karlo, I agree that the masters of the 20th century should be explored prior to the "unsungs", but there's no harm in mixing it up a bit. For example, one doesn't have to listen to Shostakovich's entire output before trying out an "unsung".

And some knowledge of the earlier masters, too. You can't appreciate Berg's VC as much without knowing Bach, for example.

[Brian]

Whoever said you have to be thoroughly grounded in Bach, Beethoven, Mozart et al before you can listen to other music-let me just say that is complete and utter bullshit. There's no "one way" into classical music. Classical music can be approached from a variety of angles. It's not "wrong" to start with 19th or 20th century music if you are new to classical music.

Karlo, I agree that the masters of the 20th century should be explored prior to the "unsungs", but there's no harm in mixing it up a bit. For example, one doesn't have to listen to Shostakovich's entire output before trying out an "unsung".

There's a contradiction here.

Post #1: it's okay to start listening to classical music with any composer! No need to start with the basics.
Post #2: Start with the some of the big hits before exploring the unsungs.

[mc ukrneal]

Actually, now I am getting ticked off. There are dozens and dozens of underrated/unsung/half-baked/whatever composers that I would take over composers generally considered to be part of the main canon. Some examples include Stravinsky and Ligeti, two composers, who if you struck from the history books, would not cause a dent in my opinion. Why do I have to agree with someone that he is a great composer? Did Stravinsky have a great impact on the history of music - yes he did (so if great means historically important, I guess I am contradicting myself). Is he a composer that uses melodies and sound in a way that remotely interests me? No. he isn't. Is his music good in my opinion? No, it isn't particuarly (with some exceptions). But who cares?!?   Why is there a need that we all agree on this?

Of course, without some agreed basis for discussion, this is all meaningless. So let me give you mine (seriously, but also sarcastically): melody, melody, melody. I recently asked San Antonio why he liked a Feldmen piece and the answer had to do with texture and combination of sounds. Well, I can't say these are of much interest to me, at least right now (just as he may not be as interested in melody). But at least I have a reference for the music. He is right - the piece had exactly those qualities, so no wonder I didn't like it. The same with Rite of Spring. Texture, rhythm, etc. - all important for that piece. But where is the melody? Not a song you can exactly sing, is it?  Maybe this is why I like operetta and light music so much. On the other hand, it doesn't damage my listening to Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Wagner, Edward German, or a host of other composers.

Rant over.

[North Star]

Actually, now I am getting ticked off. There are dozens and dozens of underrated/unsung/half-baked/whatever composers that I would take over composers generally considered to be part of the main canon. Some examples include Stravinsky and Ligeti, two composers, who if you struck from the history books, would not cause a dent in my opinion. Why do I have to agree with someone that he is a great composer? Did Stravinsky have a great impact on the history of music - yes he did (so if great means historically important, I guess I am contradicting myself). Is he a composer that uses melodies and sound in a way that remotely interests me? No. he isn't. Is his music good in my opinion? No, it isn't particuarly (with some exceptions). But who cares?!?   Why is there a need that we all agree on this?

Of course, without some agreed basis for discussion, this is all meaningless. So let me give you mine (seriously, but also sarcastically): melody, melody, melody. I recently asked San Antonio why he liked a Feldmen piece and the answer had to do with texture and combination of sounds. Well, I can't say these are of much interest to me, at least right now (just as he may not be as interested in melody). But at least I have a reference for the music. He is right - the piece had exactly those qualities, so no wonder I didn't like it. The same with Rite of Spring. Texture, rhythm, etc. - all important for that piece. But where is the melody? Not a song you can exactly sing, is it?  Maybe this is why I like operetta and light music so much. On the other hand, it doesn't damage my listening to Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Wagner, Edward German, or a host of other composers.

Rant over.

There is a lot of melody in Le sacre du printemps...

Bartók mentioned it in a lecture or some such, too, on folk music, and how many of the melodies are based on Lithuanian (IIRC) folk music.
There is no need to agree on this, of course. But it's helpful that we know how you feel about Stravinsky if we read your writings on other composers. We have context.

[Parsifal]

Bartók mentioned it in a lecture or some such, too, on folk music, and how many of the melodies are based on Lithuanian (IIRC) folk music.
There is no need to agree on this, of course. But it's helpful that we know how you feel about Stravinsky if we read your writings on other composers. We have context.

It also has something to do with the way it is performed.  It seems to be trendy to make the Rite as brutal as possible.  Recently I listened to Karajan's often derided 1960's recording and it was fascinated.  Under fluffy's hand the piece sounded a lot like Petrushka, and melody was more evident (not as much emphasis on slashing and banging).

[The new erato]

Kyjo:
Nobody is saying that you can't listen to other music before listening to the three B's and co. - what people are saying, though, is that your recommending of other music is going to be thought of as more reliable if you know the 'standards'

Exactly. It's called perspective.

[Sergeant Rock]

The same with Rite of Spring. Texture, rhythm, etc. - all important for that piece. But where is the melody? Not a song you can exactly sing, is it?

I can sing (badly) huge hunks of it from memory. Melody is there. It even starts with a memorable tune: the bassoon solo. It's actually easier than singing most of the Ring 

Sarge

[(poco) Sforzando]

Actually, now I am getting ticked off. There are dozens and dozens of underrated/unsung/half-baked/whatever composers that I would take over composers generally considered to be part of the main canon. Some examples include Stravinsky and Ligeti, two composers, who if you struck from the history books, would not cause a dent in my opinion. Why do I have to agree with someone that he is a great composer? Did Stravinsky have a great impact on the history of music - yes he did (so if great means historically important, I guess I am contradicting myself). Is he a composer that uses melodies and sound in a way that remotely interests me? No. he isn't. Is his music good in my opinion? No, it isn't particuarly (with some exceptions). But who cares?!?   Why is there a need that we all agree on this?

If "melody" is your criterion, do you know the Symphony of Psalms? The Rake's Progress?

[Parsifal]

Kyjo:
Nobody is saying that you can't listen to other music before listening to the three B's and co. - what people are saying, though, is that your recommending of other music is going to be thought of as more reliable if you know the 'standards' - in the case of 20th century music, knowledge of Strauss, Stravinsky, Schönberg, Sibelius, Scriabin, Shostakovich, and some other composers (name beginning with S or not) is of course necessary before one can have any basis to tell that a certain composer ought to be more famous.

Well said.  Classical music is a historically aware art form.  The great composers of the 20th century and the not-so-great (unsung, underrated, whatever you want to call them) were very aware of the 'great' music that was written before them and reacted to it.  How can can a person who doesn't bother with Bach appreciate Shostakovich's 24 preludes and fugues, which both pay tribute to and brashly violate Bach's idiom.   How can a person who doesn't bother with Mozart understand why late Stravinsky is described as "neoclassical."  How can a person who doesn't bother with Bach recognize the way Martinu created a "concerto grosso" based on modern techniques?  How can a person who does not bother with Haydn appreciate that Shostakovich's symphony No 9 is a deranged version of Haydn's technique, or that Debussy's non-functional harmony is a conscious repudiation of the technique of the 19th century German school, as descended from Beethoven?  How can someone who is unaware of Couperin understand the source of Ravel's inspiration? 

Maybe you're incapable of suffering the three B's and the other members of the classical canon, and maybe you enjoy 20th century music without them.  But if you aren't aware of the canon you are missing a lot, and your opinions will be a lot less interesting than those of a person with more knowledge.   

[(poco) Sforzando]

Whoever said you have to be thoroughly grounded in Bach, Beethoven, Mozart et al before you can listen to other music-let me just say that is complete and utter bullshit. There's no "one way" into classical music. Classical music can be approached from a variety of angles. It's not "wrong" to start with 19th or 20th century music if you are new to classical music. I mean, what if everyone recommends a newbie to Bach, and the newbie in question doesn't like his music. With everyone demanding him/her to start with Bach, the newbie might give up, thinking he/she will have nothing to enjoy in the world of classical music. People need to do the research themselves to find out what composers they connect most closely with. So, those of you who say that if you don't particularly care for the Baroque and Classical "greats", you aren't a "true" classical music fan-let me tell you that you are WRONG.

Since I infer that in Kyle's mind I am one of the primary villains here, let me say first that this is an excellent example of a straw man argument – that is, an attack on your opponent for a position he or she never held. North Star above got it right: "Nobody is saying that you can't listen to other music before listening to the three B's and co. - what people are saying, though, is that your recommending of other music is going to be thought of as more reliable if you know the 'standards.'" That's a very different point.

But there is no syllabus or sequence one must go through before one finds the music that interests one; learning music is often as not a random and messy process: you hear about a piece, or you find it in a store, or hear about it on the radio, or you go to a concert, etc. I remember when I was a kid of 16 (which was about 1964!) going into an LP store (yes, that was we had back then) and seeing Robert Craft's 4-disc set of the complete Webern, and thinking I had to buy that because it would be fun to acquire the complete music of some composer. I didn't know Webern from Adam, but the purchase sparked an interest. Most people do in fact start with the 19th century, which remains the most popular period, and if I were teaching music history I would do the same – starting from the more immediately enjoyable work of Beethoven, Dvorak, Brahms, and Tchaikovsky, and then expanding both backwards in time to the Renaissance and Baroque, and forward to the contemporary (instead of the usual chronological sequence as taught in conservatories). Neither history nor repertoire needs to be learned in any fixed order.

I'm sure no one here doubts your devotion to the music you most love either. It doesn't matter to me one iota if you never hear a Bach cantata or Mozart opera. Lots of people never do. Some years back here we had a particularly nasty, sociopathic old coot, now deceased, who posted variously as Word Maestro and Iago, real name Mel Merkel, and whose claim to fame was his contempt for the music of Mozart, especially the operas. (I was told in confidence however that he once confessed he had never actually heard any of them. Didn't matter, of course, he still didn't like them.) You didn't tussle with Iago because he was, as I say, a particularly nasty sort, but I was mightily amused when he once admitted despite himself that he caught an unknown piece on the radio he very much liked, and found it was by Mozart. Sure, like what you like, dislike what you dislike, but I hope you keep yourself open, because someday you might find that what you don't like now eventually speaks to you.

You were the one, after all, who testily attacked "Annie" by telling her "You need to step out of your little comfort zone of Bach, Beethoven and Mozart and see what riches and variety the classical music world has to offer." And yet your own list of favorite composers includes no one before about 1870, by your own admission you have no interest in opera, you seem to have little experience with chamber music, and most of the music you care for seems to be neo-Romantic orchestral work from the 20th century. So maybe it's you who could stand to step out of your comfort zone and discover the riches and variety of Italian Renaissance madrigals, Beethoven quartets, and the operas of Wagner and Berg. With the understanding that if you prefer to stay in your own little comfort zone, that's of course your prerogative.