Justified or unjustified unsung, that is the question.

[Peter1953]

Why is a composer or (some if not all of) his work neglected after so many years? What is the reason? Didn’t had the composer influential friends in his days? Well, people like Brüll and Fuchs were on very friendly terms with Brahms, but they didn’t make it. No broadcasting? Hardly any attention in concert halls and if so, why? Nearly any recordings? Is it a matter of money? Or is it something very simple as the lack of any memorability of the themes of (certain) compositions? Don’t they go round in the listener’s mind after hearing the piece? By the way, what are the criteria to be called unsung?

This topic finds its origin after listening a few times to the D’Avalos 4 CD box of Martucci’s complete orchestral works. A recent acquisition, and I’m not unpleased with it. But after hearing these works, nothing remains in my head. What was it I just listened to? Both symphonies are fine works, but with a lot of noise in the outer movements. By no means “Brahmsian” as the booklet notes says. The two piano concerto’s (I prefer #1) remind me of Sgambati, but no theme goes around in my mind. Rubinstein attended the concert and acclaimed Martucci as “the glory of Italy”. Very friendly to say, but his own compositions for piano and orchestra overshadow Martucci’s PC’s by far. Real beautiful and lyrical are the Andante for cello and orchestra in B flat, op. 69, which is in the style of Wagner’s Siegfried Idyll, and the Colore Orientale, op. 44 no. 3, which gives me the impression that Martucci knew Raff’s work quite well.

Martucci is just an example for the question I raise. IMHO nearly all Raff’s compositions have themes which are very striking and will be singing around the listener’s head, not only immediately after hearing the piece. I think Raff is very unjustified neglected. But Martucci, like many others, wrote pleasant music, but… Well, I think I have made my point. And I realize that it's truely a matter of personal taste.

My question to you is, what do you think makes a composer really unsung and do you have examples where you think it’s very unjustified (or not)?

[Alan Howe]

I don't have the time to go into much of an answer - except to say that opinions about music need to have time to develop and settle. I, for example, find Martucci's symphonies intensely memorable - I can hear the first movement of the second symphony in my mind's ear, so to speak, even as I write this. But then, I've known probably known the symphonies for at least five years.

It's certainly not fair on Martucci to make a comparison with Raff who was one of the great tunesmiths of the nineteenth century - any more than it is fair on, say, Brahms to compare him with Tchaikovsky in the memorability department. Some composers simply exert a much more immediate appeal than others.

With the unsung we have to make an effort to listen to them because in the normal course of events we would not encounter them, e.g. on the radio or in the concert hall. This means that there is a special need to give them time to 'sink in', as it were.

Let me give you a personal example; I was originally led to the symphonies of Franz Lachner by our good friend, John White. Unfortunately, I just didn't spend long enough on them when I first heard them to understand the sort of epic symphony which he was attempting to write, I believe, in the wake of the 9th Symphony of his close friend, Schubert. It was in fact the prolonged process of coming to grips with the hour-long Rufinatscha 6 (firstly through the recording of the version for piano 4-hands) which prompted me to give Lachner the sort of attention which I hadn't given him first time round. I now find Lachner's symphonies fitting into a symphonic strand which had once seemed to me to be rather difficult to discern (i.e. Schubert 8/9>Lachner5/8>Rufinatscha 4/5/6>Bruckner).

'Unsung' for me just means 'neglected' - and where this is coupled with an apparent injustice (there is plenty of justly unsung music too!), then you have something worth pursuing.

[mbhaub]

You both bring up good points, especially about the sticking in the ear. That has a lot to do with popularity to be sure. For many of us of my vintage, one of the ways we were introduced to orchestral music was in the Warner Bros. cartoons which made free use of a lot of 19th c music. Using Hungarian Rhapsody no 2 was no mistake: the tunes just stick in the head.

As for Raff, to my ear it's easy to see why symphonies 3 & 5 are the most popular: those tunes! The rest of the cycle, despite their numerous qualities, just don't have the same likeability. Sibelius is no different. There's no wonder why symphonies 2, 5, & 1 are the most popular. Despite the critics wailing about how superior #4 is, the tunes are not in the same league and the listeners know it.

Another thing often overlooked is how the music appears to the performers. I've been playing in orchestras forover 30 years and have played my share of masterworks, some really great music, some so-so stuff and plenty of junk. When you play a great masterwork you just know it. It's nearly impossible to explain to someone who hasn't been there. The first time I played in the Brahms' 4th, at the conclusion I realized that "gee, this really is great, great music", a feeling I never got when I was just a listener. On the other hand, I've enjoyed Grofe's Grand Canyon Suite for many years, but the first time I actually played it I was struck how tacky it really is (except for Sunrise). Having played Puccini's Tosca, I have gained an insight into that opera that listening to it 1000 times could never have given me. Now I know what makes it so popular.

Here's the point: I don't know how many of Raff's symphonies, or the works of many of our favorite unknowns could hold up to the scrutiny of performers. I have played the march from Lenore (triangle), and as much fun as it was for me, I'm certain my enthusiasm wasn't shared by many (most?) of the other players.

I also know that amateur players don't want to play easy music or lesser known works to avoid comparison to professionals. They, too, want to play the standard repertoire. I am fortunate that two orchestras I work with regularly schedule obscure, lesser-known music. Some of it is well worth the time, but often, in the end, I know that history's judgment was correct.

There's no doubt that many composers got short shrift and were never given the opportunity for exposure they deserved. Due to politcal upheavals in the early 20th c I think many composers fell between the cracks, especially those in eastern Europe and Russia.

[JimL]

Marty, I'd put the Im Sommer Symphony up there with 3 & 5.  Those tunes are the equal of anything in Walde or Lenore.

[Syrelius]

I don't have the time to go into much of an answer - except to say that opinions about music need to have time to develop and settle. I, for example, find Martucci's symphonies intensely memorable - I can hear the first movement of the second symphony in my mind's ear, so to speak, even as I write this. But then, I've known probably known the symphonies for at least five years.

I'm with you on that one, Alan. I too find the Martucci symphonies easy to remember, especially the 2nd. On the other hand, what is memorable or not is probably very much a personal thing. I remember someone on the old Raff Forums stating that there are no memorable themes in the music of Hugo Alfvén. I am not a big fan of Alfvéns music and still I remember more themes by him than by many other composers.

[mbhaub]

As soon as I read this I immediately thought of an Alfven symphony which has a slow movement that reminds me of the old tune, "Home, Sweet Home". I can't even tell you off hand which of the 5 it is, and I'm sure I haven't listened to it in a decade or more. Yet that one, simple, beautiful tune has stuck in my brain. I know what I'm doing tomorrow: Alfven symphony festival!

[John H White]

Peter, I couldn't agree with you more. After just one hearing of the Lenore Symphony, I was humming and whistling the tunes from the march and sloww movement for around 40 years before I managed to pick up a recording of it. I'm afraid I could not say the same o the symphonies of Martucci, Fuchs and Ludolf Neilsen, Magnard etc,etc., even though I find nothing unpleasant about them.

[Mark Thomas]

It's always difficult coming to a debate like this when so many of the points which I thought of initially when I read Peter's post have already been addressed so well. Alan's point about the memorability of material (how tuneful is it?) is very well made and certainly I think is very relevant amongst the listening public. Martin's about the satisfaction to performers of playing a particular work had never occurred to me but I can quite see now that it has an important role to play in deciding a composer's eventual fate. As a choral singer in a modest combo, I can certainly empathise with it. There are works which audiences love and we dislike signing. The conductor soon gets the message and drops them from our repertory.

My contribution to this discussion is going to be rather woolly, I'm afraid. Let's forget about the also rans who were always going to be also rans (no, no nominees from me ) and also the towering geniuses who were always in the end going to be recognised, no matter how long it took (Schubert might be a case in point). Consider the composers on the margin, those highly competent craftsmen who, from time to time, managed to produce a work, or a whole series of works which rose above the technically skilled and exhibited a touch of genius. Maybe Saint-Saëns and Raff might be a good pair to look at. Personally, I'd rank them pretty much on a par, maybe Raff on a slightly higher plane, but I'm not going to argue about it.

So why is Saint-Saëns still played quite frequently and his Organ Symphony is a concert staple, when Raff even now has to struggle for a hearing and his two greatest symphonies are still largely unknown?

I'd contend that it's mostly luck. Saint-Saëns had the luck to be born in France and so became the only really significant orchestral and chamber music composer in that then opera-obsessed country. France needed Saint-Saëns. Raff had to compete with Brahms, Wagner and a host of other similarly excellent composers in the German-speaking world which, in consequence, culturally didn't need him. Saint-Saëns had the luck to lived a very long life (he died in 1920 or so) and, although his reputation had declined around the same time as Raff's, the fact that he was still around meant that his music carried on being performed. Raff was dead at sixty, just as his reputation went into cyclical decline and suddenly there was no reason to perform him any more. Saint-Saëns outlived the rise of nationalism in music and lived long enough to see a return to his brand of classicism. Raff, just a smuch a classicist, died just as nationalism in the shapes of Tchaikovsky, Dvorak and Grieg arrived on the scene to make his music look very staid. Saint-Saëns had the luck to have successors whose compositions were not much of an advance on his own, whereas Raff's symphonies were eclipsed by Brahms' and his stylistic ethos was overtaken by the New-German chromaticism of Liszt and Wagner. Raff had the ill fortune to be caught in the political no man's land between the Liszt-Wagner camp and the traditionalist camp, whereas in France Saint-Saëns could stay out of the debate more easily. It was Raff's misfortune to be born poor and stay poor for most of his life, so he had to write many pot-boiler piano and duo works to keep the wolf from the door. This damaged the standing of his more "serious" music. Saint-Saëns  was born into a prosperous middle class family and money doesn't seem to have been too much of a problem, so his oeuvre is untainted by the whiff of the salon. And so on...

I don't want to labour the point and no doubt holes could be picked in my argument, but in essence I'm saying: tough luck. Posterity's verdict is undeserved in some cases and we do our level best to put things right, but in the cases of many fine unsung composers we shouldn't look for anything more complicated than bad luck.

Peter asked how an unsung composer was defined and Alan answered. I can say where the phrase came from. My son Edward, who is a very bight fellow, coined it when I asked him to describe the sort of composers I'm interested in, eager as I was to avoid pejorative words or clumsy phrases like "unjustly neglected" or "forgotten". I liked it's terseness, aptness and the pun...

[Syrelius]

As soon as I read this I immediately thought of an Alfven symphony which has a slow movement that reminds me of the old tune, "Home, Sweet Home". I can't even tell you off hand which of the 5 it is, and I'm sure I haven't listened to it in a decade or more. Yet that one, simple, beautiful tune has stuck in my brain. I know what I'm doing tomorrow: Alfven symphony festival!

I think you are referring to his first symphony.

[JimL]

Peter, I couldn't agree with you more. After just one hearing of the Lenore Symphony, I was humming and whistling the tunes from the march and sloww movement for around 40 years before I managed to pick up a recording of it. I'm afraid I could not say the same o the symphonies of Martucci, Fuchs and Ludolf Neilsen, Magnard etc,etc., even though I find nothing unpleasant about them.

That seems to sum it up for me, too.  The fewer hearings it takes for me to assimilate the material, the better I like the piece (or at least, the easier it is for me to evaluate it on other subjective criteria).  For the life of me, I can't recall anything from Martucci's 2nd PC, whereas I immediately picked up all the thematic material of the Raff.  Same with the Hummel A Minor and B Minor concertos, the Lenore Symphony and all my favorites.  I liken the sensation to my composing the themes myself as I hear them, or perhaps it's more like when I hear them for the first time it seems like I've always known them...

[TerraEpon]

So Gliere's 2nd must be a masterpiece, using this criteria

[JimL]

Not necessarily.  I haven't heard it, but if the material is that easy to assimilate, it makes it easier to decide based, as I said, on other subjective criteria.  You aren't going to bait me into evaluating a work I haven't heard.  What Gliere does with his material is another matter entirely.

[Alan Howe]

The problem I have is often entirely the opposite: something which I find immediately attractive may - for me at any rate - not actually have much staying power; something which is also attractive, but which gives up its secrets more slowly may actually do more for me. I really enjoy going back to a piece and finding more in it each time...

[Ilja]

If I were to decide on a determinant for a composer's fate, it'd probably be geography (which is part of the 'luck' Mark talks about). A composer in France or Germany was simply more likely to be heard (and heard again) than one in Holland, Italy or Spain. Sweden is an interesting exception: a small country in terms of population, but with a very strong musical tradition.

Allow me to compare the Netherlands to Germany. Sure, a German composer would face far more competition, but also more opportunities to get his work performed because of the country's well-developed musical infrastructure. Also, his reputation might survive on account on a greater network of colleagues. Around 1880, the Netherlands totalled around 20 or so accomplished composers in the field of 'art music'. The Rhineland alone would have had about five times as much. Likewise, every German town had a theater (and most still do) also suitable for musical performance. In many other countries there wasn't that strong mutual enforcement of theater and music traditions: in 1880, the Netherlands did not really possess a single concert hall suitable for symphonic performances - which is why the Concertgebouw was opened in 1888. You could say the same of Belgium (one concert hall, in Brussels) or Switzerland (none). Even France performs rather poorly once you leave the confines of Paris.

[John H White]

It seems to me that, whereas some symphonies, like Raff's Lenore, can make an immediate lasting impression, others can be equally enjoyable, but the listener has to learn them first by repeated hearings.  E.g. Ive just played through my CD of Fuchs's 1st symphony for the 2nd time this week and thoroughly enjoyed it, even if I cannot recall all the themes in it. There are also some pieces that I cannot remember how they go but I know I enjoy them when I hear them; e.g. the fiendishly clever scherzos of Raff's 2nd symphony and Walton's 1st symphony. Before the age of recordings, it would be impossible for the ordinary listener to get to know many works well enough to really enjoy them.