Sung Conductors–Unsung Composers

[Paul Barasi]

I was just wondering about assembling list of these: the conductors would need to be been reasonably star names but not so for their music and yet the music is "good" and even recorded. Who fits the bill, with what works?

[Dundonnell]

I posted this on another forum four years ago   It maybe approaches your question.

"There is an obvious 'A' List of conductors who were/are equally famous as composers-

Leonard Bernstein and Pierre Boulez are modern examples.

In their time one would have to consider the cases of Gustav Mahler and Richard Strauss-two famous composers but recognised as very considerable conductors. Mahler's work at the Vienna State Opera(1897-1907) and in New York(1908) is fairly well recognised. Strauss, however, was one of the leading conductors of his day. He succeeded von Bulow at the Berlin Philharmonic in 1894 at the age of 30, he directed the Berlin Opera(1898-1918), the Vienna State Opera(1919-24) and the Leipzig Gewandhaus(1933).

There are another couple of conductors who might just qualify-

Felix Weingartner, one of the greatest conductors of the period from 1885-1940, who composed seven symphonies and ten operas and who certainly considered his work as a composer as equal to his achievements as a conductor.

Howard Hanson was the founder and longtime conductor of the Eastman Rochester Symphony Orchestra in New York State.

The 'B' list would include conductors who regarded their compositions as more important than their conducting but found that few people necessarily agreed with them(Furtwangler is the obvious example)-

Bruno Walter(two early symphonies)
Otto Klemperer(two acknowledged symphonies but apparently six in total, a Mass and two operas)
Wilhelm Furtwangler(three symphonies and a Te Deum)
Paul Paray(two symphonies and a Mass)
Victor de Sabata(two operas and a number of tone poems)
Sir Eugene Goossens(two symphonies)
Dmitri Mitropoulos(an early opera)
Paul Kletzki(three symphonies; stopped composing in 1942)
Antal Dorati(two symphonies, concertos, an opera, a cantata and a wide range of other music)
Jean Martinon(four symphonies and several concertos)
Gunther Wand(ballet music and a cantata)
Igor Markevitch(a remarkable number of compositions produced between the ages of 16 and 30 but then switched over completely to   
    conducting)
Rafael Kubelik(three symphonies, three Requiems, operas)
Stanislaw Skrowaczewski(who continues to compose, including a recent Concerto for Orchestra)
Evgeny Svetlanov(a symphony, a piano concerto, a cantata and several tone poems)
Andre Previn(concertos and film music)
Lorin Maazel(an opera and concertante works)
Jose Serebrier(a wide range of music including three symphonies)
Leif Segerstam(189 symphonies, 11 violin concertos, 8 cello concertos, 4 piano concertos, and 30 string quartets; presumably he
     occasionally sleeps?)
Giuseppe Sinopoli(an opera and serial and electronic music)
Esa-Pekka Salonen(a growing body of compositions including a recent Piano Concerto)

There may be others!

A reasonable quantity of the works of these conductor/composers is available on disc-
the symphonies of Klemperer, Furtwangler, Goossens, Dorati for example.
I would like to hear the Martinon and Kubelik symphonies.

The question of how derivative the compositions of composers who were principally engaged in conducting the music of other composers is one which others might care to make comment."

[Jimfin]

Beecham composed, but I don't know how much: one piece by Normal del Mar made it onto Dutton (Allegro Concertante for Horn and Strings): I am not yet sure whether Ronald Corp deserves to be considered more a conductor or composer, but I'm guessing the former. Not sure he's really a 'sung conductor', though.

[Mark Thomas]

Hand von Bülow composed. A couple of his symphonic poems and some piano music is available commercially and his Four Character Pieces for orchestra is available for download here.

[Buster]

George Szell and Robert Heger composed as well. There was a Leon Botstein-conducted CD of music by Szell, Heger, Hans von Bülow and Felix Weingartner.

[minacciosa]

Goossens was an original and possibly near-great composer whose music isn't better known due to his own shortcomings. That "pornography" scandal derailed everything for him. I have yet to hear a work of his, large or small that wasn't uniformly excellent.

Weingartner was also an excellent if reactionary composer. The CPO series has been highly illuminating, and I've returned to his music often.

[alberto]

Once was rather frequent the figure of the composer-conductor-pianist.
I think of (just for one country):
- Ferruccio Busoni (very higly rated mostly as pianist, when living)
  Alfredo Casella (a sung composer, when living; very active internationally as a conductor)
  Giuseppe Martucci ( internationally acclaimed as pianist; sung composer and active in Italy in his days).

[eschiss1]

I don't know how well-known Martucci was as a conductor, but he seems to have been the only conductor to have performed certain English works in Europe (or at least in Italy) in a certain period (it's claimed by some sources; I think I may have found other evidence somewhere - I am not quite sure - but his concert(s) were rare I don't doubt.

[alberto]

My post was just a sample to remind the case of the pianist-conductor-composer.
Coming to the rather niche case of Martucci as conductor, he was active mostly -but not exclusively- in Italy (while his pianist career was/had been international).
Certainly he conducted the Italian premiere of Tristan und Isolde (in Bologna)......and of Parry Symphonic Variations (conducted at least at La Scala and in Bologna).Surely he conducted the Italian premieres of works by Stanford and Mackenzie. 

[Delicious Manager]

A conductor who, although his music falls outside the remit of this forum, is a very fine composer indeed and is becoming more recognised for it, is the Hungarian Peter Eötvös.

[ahinton]

Turning this thread momentarily on its head (if I may be allowed such a temporary indulgence), a number of probably reliable accounts suggest that Schönberg was one of the last century's unsung conductors; Sorabji (who certainly wasn't one!) heard him on several occasions, the first (I think) of which was the UK première of Gurrelieder and he told me many years later that, had Schönberg chosen to concentrate principally on conducting, he would have been spoken of in the same breath as Toscanini.

[ahinton]

I don't know how well-known Martucci was as a conductor, but he seems to have been the only conductor to have performed certain English works in Europe (or at least in Italy) in a certain period (it's claimed by some sources; I think I may have found other evidence somewhere - I am not quite sure - but his concert(s) were rare I don't doubt.

No. Busoni certainly did; I don't have all the details to hand but can confirm that he gave one of the early performances (in Berlin, I seem to recall) of Delius's Paris and he conducted Elgar's Enigma Variations on more than one occasion.

[alberto]

Still about the admittedly niche case of Martucci as conductor.
Certainly Martucci conducted several times Stanford Irish Symphony and is reported to have become a personal friend of the latter (who conducted Martucci First in London twice, even before Martucci himself conducted it in London- 1898).
Martucci is reported to have conducted Stanford Irish Symphony once in London.

[Hovite]

There may be others!

Two not yet mentioned:

Willem Mengelberg
Sir Henry Wood

[Lionel Harrsion]

Malcolm Sargent is another: his Impression on a Windy Day (first given at the Proms in 1921) and Hawaiian Lullaby have made it onto CD.