Unsung Composers

The Music => Composers & Music => Topic started by: Mark Thomas on Sunday 11 February 2018, 19:16

Title: A continuum, not a cliff edge...
Post by: Mark Thomas on Sunday 11 February 2018, 19:16
Martin Anderson, in a recent Facebook post, sums up my own attitude to the question of "unsung composers" better than I could ever hope to:
QuoteAlex Ross makes some excellent points in this New Yorker article (https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/02/05/the-rediscovery-of-florence-price?mc_cid=f57beebbd2&mc_eid=9d71772906), which go to the very basis of what Toccata Classics is trying to do. It's not as if there is great music and then everything else. Instead, there is a continuum of quality: next to the Brahms and the Beethovens and the Bruckners, there is excellent music which richly deserves a hearing, and next to that good music which deserves to be known (etc.) -- and even music which shows only moderate attainment provides a context in which the achievement of the great composers can be better understood. The more we know of the entire spectrum, the richer our musical lives.
The New Yorker article about Florence Price which prompted his post is also an interesting read, and I'd certainly recommend listening to Price's enjoyable, if rather naïve, Symphony No.1, available on YouTube (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9s4yY_A2A2k).
Title: Re: A continuum, not a cliff edge...
Post by: sdtom on Monday 12 February 2018, 16:00
It was well said and I will have a listen to the symphony. Thanks Mark
Title: Re: A continuum, not a cliff edge...
Post by: Alan Howe on Monday 12 February 2018, 16:17
Yes, agreed, Mark. It's the raison d'être of UC.
Title: Re: A continuum, not a cliff edge...
Post by: Gareth Vaughan on Monday 12 February 2018, 18:26
Couldn't agree more.
Title: Re: A continuum, not a cliff edge...
Post by: der79sebas on Tuesday 13 February 2018, 08:28
As nearly everything coming from Alex Ross, this statement is rather commonplace and unnecessary (and true, after all). No need to discuss such trivial rubbish here!
Title: Re: A continuum, not a cliff edge...
Post by: Alan Howe on Tuesday 13 February 2018, 12:05
I hardly think that what Ross is saying is trivial or unnecessary. In fact it needs saying time and time again that what is known as the 'standard repertoire' is rigid and stale. It excludes some major masterpieces, a huge amount of very fine music and an even larger body of entertaining stuff that would have a Proms audience tapping their feet and whistling the tunes on their way home. I mean, consider the current over-production of sets of complete Schumann symphonies - most of them in contentious HIP performances that bear no comparison with the great sets of the past, even of the recent past (e.g. the magnificent Gardiner). Who exactly wants all this stuff? No: Ross is spot-on. Florence Price may not be the greatest unsung, but faced with the choice of yet another recording of, say, the Mendelssohn VC & Bruch's VC1 and Price's two VCs, I know which I'd choose. Unfortunately, most of the public will not even encounter the name 'Florence Price'. And, if they do, they'll probably think, 'who's she?' And that will be the fault of all those who think that nothing needs to be said and that nothing needs to change. Shame on them!
Title: Re: A continuum, not a cliff edge...
Post by: MartinH on Tuesday 13 February 2018, 14:30
Rigid and stale to say the least. It's become boring. I've spent some time recently looking at the program offerings for summer festivals in the US: dull, dull, dull. In the regular season these orchestras play mainly the overdone European classics - and then they just recycle them in the summer. I'm not going to Vail, Aspen, Grand Tetons, Hollywood Bowl or elsewhere to hear Brahms, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Mendelssohn...it's just depressing! But the management must know that if they play Bax, Raff, Draeseke, Alfven, or even Vaughan Williams that they'll drive the average listeners away. The upcoming 2018/19 seasons are no more encouraging. Quite sad. There is just so much fine music that people would enjoy if performers and audiences would give it a chance. But then, we all know this already. I recently conducted a couple of Christmas Concerts and one work I chose was the Delius Sleigh Ride. Not one player in the 70-piece orchestra had ever played it. Only a couple had ever heard it! They all loved it, the audience loved it. After the concerts, one trumpet player thanked me for bringing out this beautiful work and she was astonished that it had never crossed her path, then asked that I should program more Delius. And Delius is one of the more familiar unknown composers! Wait 'til I bring them some Raff!
Title: Re: A continuum, not a cliff edge...
Post by: sdtom on Tuesday 13 February 2018, 15:52
One of my favorite works is the seventh symphony of Vaughan Williams. I can't believe people wouldn't like this superb work. Oh well. I'm doing a review of the music for the silent film "Metropolis."
Title: Re: A continuum, not a cliff edge...
Post by: Ilja on Tuesday 13 February 2018, 16:34
The crucial line here is
Quote"It's not as if there is great music and then everything else.".

Because that is often the suggestion: that everything that isn't a masterwork is unworthy of being performed at all. Few would ever tolerate the same approach to literature or painting (or theater, if we want to stick to the performance arts). One is reminded of an anecdote from Shostakovich's (or more probably Volkov's, but that's another discussion) Testimony, where Stalin only wants masterpieces produced and therefore forbids the composition of any music except those seven or eight yearly masterpieces.

It's the stupidity of the thing.
Title: Re: A continuum, not a cliff edge...
Post by: Gareth Vaughan on Tuesday 13 February 2018, 18:43
Quite. Nobody suggests that only the best plays should be performed or the best pictures exhibited.
Title: Re: A continuum, not a cliff edge...
Post by: matesic on Tuesday 13 February 2018, 19:08
A deplorable situation, I agree. On another forum I visited today one of the main sources of dissatisfaction is the paucity of opportunities for young instrumentalists hoping to enter the classical music profession. On yet another site violin makers grouse about the difficulty they have selling their products in a saturated market. The common cause of all these complaints isn't an evil dictator who should be deposed, but market forces. You might as well rail against the dying of the light, or the weather in Wales. Instead we should promote and support innovative ventures (except new music) and be thankful for the CD catalogue.
Title: Re: A continuum, not a cliff edge...
Post by: Gareth Vaughan on Tuesday 13 February 2018, 20:05
I agree. Except about new music. There is a lot of new music I like.
Title: Re: A continuum, not a cliff edge...
Post by: eschiss1 on Tuesday 13 February 2018, 21:01
Even the innovative kind. It makes one sound like Hanslick, it does (though I do not regard innovation as a value or demerit merely on its own.)
Title: Re: A continuum, not a cliff edge...
Post by: Alan Howe on Tuesday 13 February 2018, 21:11
I like some new music too. But not much.
Title: Re: A continuum, not a cliff edge...
Post by: eschiss1 on Tuesday 13 February 2018, 21:19
Fair enough -- I was replying to the philosophical attitude, not the tastes (certainly a fair amount of the -newest- stuff I've caught in the occasional concerts has failed to grab me, but there are more, not fewer, "threads" , ways of thinking about music each century than the one before it, it seems... ... and I hold out hope that there are always composers under the radar who I won't hear about until quite awhile later. (And 20th-century composers who wrote in less modern styles are not being ignored. The Seattle Philharmonic is giving the US premiere of a symphony* by Ruth Gipps sometime this year (March 31 2018), for example. (Just mentioning in passing.) Good on them.)

*#2; it's been recorded, but still!
Title: Re: A continuum, not a cliff edge...
Post by: Gareth Vaughan on Tuesday 13 February 2018, 21:28
No. 2 is a good work - and programming it is pretty adventurous, I must say (well done, whoever is responsible) - but I am lucky enough to have a photocopy of the MS of No. 4 - and that is terrific (IMHO). I wish someone would record it. I was trying to get Chandos interested - back in the days when they recorded lots of British symphonic music (not anymore, alas - sighs!).
Title: Re: A continuum, not a cliff edge...
Post by: eschiss1 on Tuesday 13 February 2018, 21:55
I found out on their Instagram account (of all places) and sent my applause-in-advance there (or I hope I did, I should check.) Agreed of course, always encourage the behavior one wants to, well, encourage :)
Title: Re: A continuum, not a cliff edge...
Post by: matesic on Wednesday 14 February 2018, 09:01
My comment on new music was tongue in cheek (although I am inclined to think..). I'm sure there exists another forum where they campaign for many more performances of it and less romantic slush.

To celebrate Ruth Gipp's 60th birthday back in 1981 her friends and supporters arranged for her to conduct a concert entirely of her own works in the Queen Elizabeth Hall. I can't remember the whole programme but it did include a symphony and her Leviathan for contra-bassoon and orchestra. I suspect she financed it herself but judging from the number of empty seats whoever it was must have made a thumping loss.
Title: Re: A continuum, not a cliff edge...
Post by: Gareth Vaughan on Wednesday 14 February 2018, 09:34
That's a very sad story. I expect part of the problem was that she was alive and a woman!
Title: Re: A continuum, not a cliff edge...
Post by: eschiss1 on Wednesday 14 February 2018, 14:43
I hope one realizes that there are a few of us who don't characterize Romantic music as slush (can such things be at their worst or perhaps even at their humdrum average? Sturgeon's law, etc.) but I have heard Leviathan too (which I think has only been recorded in a piano-accompanied arrangement, so far, commercially anyway) and it's a pity that wasn't one of the two times I was in London. (Maybe the tape I have (had?) of Leviathan -is- from that concert. I don't know.)

Meanwhile the prospects for the lesser-known Romantic works are hopefully not too Grimm- I hope- though to realize greater exposure will take focus and work, as always...
And I of course must agree with the thesis of the article, as presented here :)
Title: Re: A continuum, not a cliff edge...
Post by: sdtom on Wednesday 14 February 2018, 15:31
I agree with you eschiss
Title: Re: A continuum, not a cliff edge...
Post by: matesic on Wednesday 14 February 2018, 16:38
Come on Eric - it was another joke!
Title: Re: A continuum, not a cliff edge...
Post by: eschiss1 on Wednesday 14 February 2018, 16:46
The weather out here's been frightful, slush doesn't produce thoughts very delightful... oh wait, how does that song go...? :) Sorry, sorry sorry...!
Title: Re: A continuum, not a cliff edge...
Post by: eschiss1 on Wednesday 14 February 2018, 23:36
Myaskovsky sym 16 seems maybe a good example (to me and predictable given my interests) of a half off the not-a-cliff symphony: catchy, enjoyable opening but almost certainly never going to leave niche programming.
Title: Re: A continuum, not a cliff edge...
Post by: MartinH on Thursday 15 February 2018, 01:05
Since eschiss1 mentioned the Grimm...does anyone know if orchestral parts are available and if so, where are they and is it possible to get copied? IMSLP has the score, and I have access to an orchestra for a 2.5 hour reading session this summer - that could be a real treat, but the idea of making my own set of parts from the score with Finale is intimidating.
Title: Re: A continuum, not a cliff edge...
Post by: sdtom on Thursday 15 February 2018, 14:46
you can do it Martin  ;D
Title: Re: A continuum, not a cliff edge...
Post by: MartinH on Thursday 15 February 2018, 15:24
Ugh! :o
Currently working on an overture by Emilie Mayer - it's taking up a lot of time. At least the Grimm symphony isn't hand-written.
Title: Re: A continuum, not a cliff edge...
Post by: Gareth Vaughan on Thursday 15 February 2018, 15:33
Unfortunately, I cannot locate an extant set of parts for the Grimm. It was published by Rieter-Biedermann and an awful lot of their stuff we talked missing in the second World War and its aftermath. They could be in a cellar in Russia!!!
If you do undertake the Herculean task of creating a set of parts you will be doing the musical world a favour, and perhaps you could lodge a set with Fleisher. The availability of parts may help to encourage a performance.
Title: Re: A continuum, not a cliff edge...
Post by: eschiss1 on Thursday 15 February 2018, 15:53
I have a piano quartet in queue (... though it's been so long I fear they've probably understandably turned to someone else, sorry :( :( ) but I can try to continue with the qt and get started with the symphony
Title: Re: A continuum, not a cliff edge...
Post by: Alan Howe on Thursday 15 February 2018, 16:45
The Grimm Symphony was published by Konsid Musikverlag in a new edition back in 2007, so I imagine they'd be the ones to contact about sets of parts: verlag@konsid-musik-de

Title: Re: A continuum, not a cliff edge...
Post by: Gareth Vaughan on Thursday 15 February 2018, 19:15
Thanks a lot, Alan. Spot on. Here they are: http://www.konsid-musik.de/Notensatzstudio.html (http://www.konsid-musik.de/Notensatzstudio.html)  Partitur und Stimmen.
And here is more detail: http://www.konsid-musik.de/index1.html (http://www.konsid-musik.de/index1.html)

Parts are available for hire - price on application.
Title: Re: A continuum, not a cliff edge...
Post by: MartinH on Thursday 15 February 2018, 22:05
Thanks for finding that. I'll contact them and see if I can afford it! Nice that they provided mp3 files, as funky as they sound, they're better than my realization at the piano which made it sound like Webern or Stockhausen had a go at it!
Title: Re: A continuum, not a cliff edge...
Post by: Gareth Vaughan on Thursday 15 February 2018, 22:17
I see they publish some other orchestral music by Grimm:
Suite in Kanonform op. 10 für Streichorchester
Suite Nr. 3 in G moll op. 25 für Streichorchester
though parts for both of those are also available from Fleisher.
Title: Re: A continuum, not a cliff edge...
Post by: chill319 on Monday 26 February 2018, 05:19
QuoteI'd certainly recommend listening to Price's enjoyable, if rather naïve, Symphony No.1

Price's Symphony 3 (1940) shows that she got better with more practice. It's available on Koch 3-7518-2 HI.
Title: Re: A continuum, not a cliff edge...
Post by: semloh on Tuesday 27 February 2018, 09:53
I hope I haven't misunderstood the intention of this thread, but we seem to have meandered away from the topic.

I suspect that the people on UC generally wouldn't think that there is any "cliff edge", but it's perhaps a common view among the wider listening public. Categorical thinking is totally out of place in the world of music. There is rather a continuum, and it's a different continuum for each individual, based on their musical tastes. What one person regards as 'good' or 'great' music might be dismissed as rubbish by someone else. My neighbour was astounded when I said I didn't like 'country music'. Indeed, I had to repeat my response three times before she would believe me, and then I was accused of having no soul, and no appreciation of 'good' music. Pigeonholing music can be useful, but surely nobody on UC would argue that the boundaries are necessarily distinct and impermeable, especially when it comes to the greatness or otherwise of particular composers, compositions or performers.
Title: Re: A continuum, not a cliff edge...
Post by: MartinH on Wednesday 28 February 2018, 00:15
Sounds like you live next to my sister-in-law. Several years ago I was in Salzburg at the summer festival. After an exciting concert, I went to the Country Saloon for drinks, drinks, and dancing. Sent her a selfie - now she knows I like good music!
Title: Re: A continuum, not a cliff edge...
Post by: Double-A on Thursday 01 March 2018, 20:15
Quote from: semloh on Tuesday 27 February 2018, 09:53
There is rather a continuum, and it's a different continuum for each individual, based on their musical tastes. What one person regards as 'good' or 'great' music might be dismissed as rubbish by someone else.

This "theory of absolute relativity of taste" comes up occasionally on this forum and it always makes me uncomfortable.  I think it can get a bit too easy to just retreat behind the platitude of "de gustibus non est disputandum".  It is not that I have a "rating system" ready to go but it seems to me we--those of us who have some familiarity with 19th center classical music in the case of "Unsung Composers"--agree on many things even if we differ on some. 

Maybe we should avoid expressing dislike of things we are only marginally acquainted with such as country music and just accept that life is to short to develop expertise on everything.

Our German teacher had this definition of great art:  It appeals to people regardless of their social standing or level of education.  It manages in other words to include features that have broad appeal while avoiding to dumb down the whole thing.  His examples:  Chaplin's "Modern Times" and the Magic Flute.
Title: Re: A continuum, not a cliff edge...
Post by: Alan Howe on Thursday 01 March 2018, 22:57
I have never believed in an 'absolute relativity of taste'; it seems to me blindingly obvious that Beethoven 9 is greater music than, say, Gernsheim 4 and that there are certain objective criteria by which we can make judgments. Not that we shouldn't argue about what those criteria are and whether they are fufilled or not - we definitely should. A forum that merely exchanged subjective likes and dislikes would be a pointless exercise in talking past one another.
Title: Re: A continuum, not a cliff edge...
Post by: Mark Thomas on Friday 02 March 2018, 07:50
And I'm not at all sure that we want to get back into that debate do we? I can't immediately locate the thread or threads where we chewed over the issue a few years ago, but the discussion (and arguments) went around and around getting absolutely nowhere, eventually degenerating to tedious restatements of unmoveable positions.
Title: Re: A continuum, not a cliff edge...
Post by: Alan Howe on Friday 02 March 2018, 11:52
Probably not.
Title: Re: A continuum, not a cliff edge...
Post by: sdtom on Friday 02 March 2018, 16:04
Like Alan I believe the majority of unsung works are in second place to Beethoven's 9th if we are using this work as a template.
Title: Re: A continuum, not a cliff edge...
Post by: Ilja on Friday 02 March 2018, 16:13

*stifles urge to exclaim something unconstructive*

I'm with Mark on this one. Past instances have demonstrated that these debates, on this forum at least, tend to go nowhere.
Title: Re: A continuum, not a cliff edge...
Post by: Alan Howe on Friday 02 March 2018, 18:09
Yeah. I should have kept stumm.