Ricardo Castillo (and other truly 'obscure' composers)

[cjvinthechair]

A chance for Unsung Composers buffs to shine !
Picked up yesterday in the marvellous Gramex shop in Waterloo a Marco Polo disc of Guatemalan composer Ricardo Castillo(1894-1966); a ballet score Paal Kaba, incidental music from another Quiche Achi, plus a Rhapsody for Orchestra, Symphonic Poem & several other pieces. Much based on Mayan legend & Amerindian musical sources, according to the blurb, and very listenable too, thank you !
Internet research thus far has failed to throw up anything about him,  so over to you !

And while we're at it, any more real 'one-offs' out there that people have come across ? Come on, Ladies & Gentlemen, how about a real 'Obscurities Corner' on USC ! If they're as pleasant as this, which I'm listening to now, it'll be a delight to discover them - this of course is where you tell me 'Oh, we've had a page devoted to him/this topic for years' !

[Alan Howe]

How about Hugo Staehle (1826-1848) who wrote a wonderful Symphony in C minor available on Sterling?

[febnyc]

Gosh!  So many to name.

Since the Sterling label was named, I'll nominate Josef Otto af Sillén, represented thereon by his Violin Concerto and Third Symphony.

[cjvinthechair]

Gosh!  So many to name.

Since the Sterling label was named, I'll nominate Josef Otto af Sillén, represented thereon by his Violin Concerto and Third Symphony.

Lovely - that exists on You Tube, so can 'discover' him at leisure, thanks !

[Gareth Vaughan]

Bet you won't discover a recording of anything by Joseph Speaight or Otto Nietzel; nor Oskar Raif, come to that.

[Alan Howe]

...nor of - according to Toskey - one of the best unsung Romantic-era VCs, namely No.1 in A minor (1876) by Reinhold Becker.

[eschiss1]

Re Oskar Raif, there is an edited edition of a piano work of his at LoC (and now IMSLP), though, so there's at least something (and given an interested pianist or sequencer, a brief recording, so again, something. Likewise a few lieder by Becker.
To a list of really obscure composers I'd add Salvatore Pappalardo (1817-84; though he was once better-known - well, so were several of these others), composer of Italian chamber and choral works and I think one opera; at least 6 string quartets, the last of them fairly ambitious, and 3 string quintets; only some of these published); perhaps Eugène Cools (1877-1936) (student of Gédalge, Fauré and Widor; published 100-odd works including a well-regarded symphony (1907)); Olga von Radecki (1853-1933) (Riga-born pianist and composer, resident in Boston much of her life; dates mentioned in exactly one place - a 1933 issue of Baltische Monatshefte (viewed in Google Preview as a Snippet - can't tell which issue, and not as sure of the dates as I'd like to be, given the possible failures of OCR))...