The neglected: how to get them respected

[ignaceii]

Hello,
This is not a topic about some unknown composer, of which there are hundreds.
What it is, is a call to everybody to think on how to get the message, being these prolific composers are left unplayed and neglected life in public, to the conductors and soloists of today.
Without any doubt, Howard Shelley did a titanic work to play, conduct a lot of the romantic composers.
But the narrow standard repertoire stays very narrow.
I wonder why a Scharwenka piano concerto, or even the Thalberg piano concerto or others do not add up to this endlessly repeated standard repertoire.
Of course there is marketing, selling tickets, cause concert programs must sell. But let me tell you.
If Buniatishvilly or tutu Wang would perform Scharwenka, people come anyway.
I find the best efforts are being found in the chamber music genre during festivals.
But the symphonies by Ries, Fibich, ... Deserve to be played, why not before a Beethoven or Brahms.
It is a sad thing that classical music for decades has been reduced to a handful of overly known composers and works.
My piano 2 volumes in French, containing about 1400 pages of piano music analysed is a good example of how many good works there are. Reading an article of a young pianist having recorded Liapunov, and carrying these 2 big volumes everywhere he comes is promising.
But not enough.
With nowadays social media some wizard here could set up a project to propell our unsung composers in the world, as Lititsa did. If she can, why not we ?
Spread the message friends.
Classical music is short of fresh air...

[Double-A]

A few random ideas about this topic:

I think the binary nature of your presentation simplifies things too much:  You have a very heavy mountain, the standard repertoire which you want to roll off our concert schedules in order to create space for the unsung repertoire--which is a very unwieldy object as well.

At first one ought to remember that the standard repertoire is much less than the output of the "sung" composers:  How often do you hear Beethoven's Second Symphony in concert?  Of all of his violin sonatas only 3 ("Spring", "Kreutzer" and op.30/3 in c-minor) are part of the standard repertoire, the others are only performed in the context of a complete cycle.  The same applies to the string quartets.  Etc.

Then there is the issue of quality:  Most if not all of the standard repertoire is music of truly outstanding quality.  This is not the case for the unsungs:  There are great composers among them (e.g. Raff or Onslow to my mind).  But there are also people among them who were able to write great music, but didn't always do it (Spohr, Bruch), even those with one great work in an otherwise forgettable output (Viotti and his a-minor violin concerto) and those who just weren't that great.  This means you can't make a good argument on quality against the standard repertoire, you have to make one for the alternatives--one composer or even one work at a time.

One more point of "analysis":  The works of the standard repertoire have an "undeserved" quality advantage (on top of the fact that they are all very good to begin with):  The fact that they are played often and by many people means everybody has to work hard to get competitive performances, the interpretations get better by "cooperative competition".  Interpreters who attempt to perform an unsung piece by contrast have no models, no examples of how one might do it or examples of how not to do it (Anne Sophie Mutter's cycle of the Beethoven violin sonatas), they are on their own.  Their performance is like a first draft.

What to do?  It seems to me that tackling the whole mountain is too big a task for any group of people.  So you need to move things one boulder at a time.  Some unsungs have had supporters to work on this (Raff for example and Onslow).  Web sites are dedicated to them; academic work is done on them (like a proper biography of Onslow); performances and/or recordings are organized (for economic reasons often with chamber music).  But any such effort will focus on one composer and must be sustained by passion.  It has been done in the past:  Mendelssohn was practically unsung in the first half of the 20th century and has come back.  And Mendelssohn himself was famously and crucially involved in "promoting" Bach from unsung to sung.  But I do think that success will be slow and will be even slower if too much is attempted (Scharwenka plus Ries plus etc.).

You observed that people will go listen to Scharwenka when played by a big name interpreter.  So to find ways to lobby those people to play Scharwenka might be one thing to try (it will be hard; big name people are forced to perform more than is good for their health and to save energy they are mostly not very eager to learn new repertoire, let alone repertoire that represents a risk.  Also you must get the performers to truly believe in the pieces, otherwise they'll do a mediocre job and miss the music while just playing the notes).

[MartinH]

Thanks to the media, education, providers like Pandora, the decimation of record stores, and more, we're living a dream if we think Scharwenka, Raff, or any unsung is ever going mainstream. Heck, the major, great composers are barely hanging on in the public's ear. Orchestras everywhere are doing pops concerts, movie music sing-a-longs, and anything else they can just to stay solvent. Most don't dare upset what standing they have by playing unfamiliar music. The demise of the recording industry also has them retreating into the safe and familiar. How many new sets of Sibelius symphonies have there been in the past few months? With dozens already out there, did we need anymore? Notice, there was no new boxed set with Blu Ray from Berlin of Rubinstein symphonies. I wish that more people were interested in live orchestral music of any type. I wish people demanded tickets to the local symphony the way they do to sports teams. But that's not the world we live in. Classical music is now a hobby of distinct minority - and primarily white, male. Interest in the forgotten composers must be miniscule, sorry to say. So be grateful for recordings, the conductors, orchestras, and recording companies willing to indulge us. Nothing "deserves to be played". If anything, there are lot of modern composers who cry and complain that they can't get a hearing so why play an obscure symphony by a long-dead composer that even the average orchestral player has ever heard of?

Music schools are even changing. They still teach music theory and history - but now there's a push to teach more jazz and rock theory, and more history and repertoire of those genres. It does make me ill, but the financial reality is that for a lot of wannabe musicians, they are going to have to do something other than classical to feed their families. With all the troubles in the world, I doubt that the survival of some forgotten composer is the least important matter of all.

Classical music is short of fresh air and you can make a difference. This year I put ideas into conductor's ears and it paid off twice: Kalinnikov's 2nd and Rachmaninoff's Caprice Boheme are programmed!

[Ilja]

But Martin, the 'big players' were never that interested in anything outside of the iron repertory to begin with, some exceptions aside. Personally, I think that we, as admirers of the unsung, live in exciting times. Producing and distributing music has rarely been more accessible, and music labels (cpo, Sterling, Naxos, Chandos, Hyperion) that thrive on exploring unknown works have never been more present in the music industry. Maybe that is because the 'greats' of old collapsed, but maybe they deserved to collapse after decades of negligible innovation.

[Alan Howe]

The great divide is between public performances and commercial recordings. Like Ilja I think we live in very exciting times. And you just never know - very occasionally an unsung slips his (or her) shackles and gets a public outing. Like Schmidt at the Proms. Of course, it's not enough. It never will be. But I remain ever the optimist. After all, we only know of the lovely Lassen VC because of a public performance uploaded to YouTube! So, let's not be too dispirited. Many unsungs are more respected today than they ever have been...

[eschiss1]

Before that Schmidt performance at the Proms there have of course been quite a few performances of his music in German-speaking countries, where he's been if never quite sung at least much less unsung for some time (And in the near future Das Buch is being performed in Vienna on October 20 and 21, for example (Vienna Sym./Honeck), and the piano quintet in G - original version with left-hand only - next February in Köln; Sym. 2, in Bonn in May 2016...)

[giles.enders]

This is something I care very much about. Unfortunately the people who are responsible for some of our major concert venues, have failed to build audience confidence.  I speak for London and nowhere else.  If you have a regular audience who will trust you with a series of affordable programmes it can be done.  However our concert venues are more concerned with audience diversity and new music, they seem  not to be too concerned about the quality of the performance or value for money (how they love to programme a new work sandwiched between two safe pieces.) Affordability is part of the problem.  Subsidy needs to be for excellence and not as the Covent Garden seem's to believe , for new works and educational purposes.  All of these points apply to the London Orchestras as well.

From the major music colleges there is a scandalous lack of knowledge about the lesser known composers or the varying performance styles required for different periods of music.  A while ago, I was with some 'elder statesman' in the music business listening to some singers who had a scholarship at one of them, we all agreed that they were so poor we wondered why they were accepted for their course. 

I am convinced that an audience could be built for a monthly series of violin concertos if the programming and the performances were carefully managed. 

[jerfilm]

I've wondered many times over the years why they didn't sandwich something in between that folks would actually enjoy digesting.  Despite the protestations on that other forum, there are damned few people who enjoy sitting through an atonal or twelve tone piece.   Skrowaczewski for all of his wonderful ability as a music director, almost drove me away from the MO with his weekly menu of sandwiches.  How fun it would be to leave the hall with folks saying, "Wow!  I'd sure like to hear more pieces by that Raff guy......."  And it would happen.

[MartinH]

I was in London for the last two weeks of the Proms, and I really didn't expect the Schmidt to get the reception it received. The applause went on and one. Yes, the Vienna Philharmonic played magnificently, and the conductor really seems to understand the music. But RAH was absolutely packed. London sure has a large number of music lovers.

Regarding the affordability: this is a serious problem. First, I know people who gladly dig out $100 to watch football, basketball, baseball or such. Or pay $125 or more for Broadway shows like "The Book of Mormon".  And even more for top pop performers like Bieber, George Strait, etc. But when it comes to classical concerts they feel that even a paltry $15 is too much! When I go to hear the LA Philharmonic it easily costs $75 or more for a ticket, and it does get expensive. My 8 Proms concert tickets weren't too expensive, but they added up (and I'm too old to stand in the Arena!). I play with two orchestras that offer "free" concerts - and you get what you pay for. The musicians are not paid and naturally some of them are not top notch players. A lot of elderly people who either can't afford tickets to professional orchestras, or who don't want to pay for it, do show up. But sometimes the music suffers and that's a real problem, too. Some younger people might try out the classics, but when it's played so poorly I can't blame them for thinking classical music sounds lousy and why ever go back? I don't know any way to solve the financial conundrum. How do you present world-class orchestral concerts to a wide audience at a cheap price?

[Double-A]

I think we are starting to lose focus here:  A lot of only marginally related problems and grievances are appearing that are worthy subjects of discussion, but in different threads (some of them like the value of 12 tone music even in different fora).  Here is the problem:  If you have 10000 people who want to listen to Beethoven and one person who wants to listen to Raff the fair way of programming would be one hour of Raff for every hour of Beethoven:  That way everybody gets the same time for their preferred music.  But the economically viable way it 10000 hours of Beethoven and 1 (or zero) hour of Raff.  (not my argument; I am getting this from Jürg Frauchiger's book "Was zum Teufel ist denn mit der Musik los?").
Looking at it that way you would have to convince members of the audience to prefer Raff--which you can't do because Raff is very rarely performed.  Audiences like to hear what they are familiar with; they might not resist Raff in the way they resist late Schoenberg, but they still won't risk ticket money on a Raff performance.
One partial way around this would be amateur performances:  They have a built  in audience consisting of friends and family of the performers, so they can take risks with programming without having to play to empty halls.  Obviously the quality of performances may be a problem and a 60 minute symphony would certainly be a bad idea.  But it is not necessarily the most polished performance that is also the most moving.

[Martin Eastick]

I note the oft-repeated argument put forward by concert promoters, managers etc., that they dare not risk programming anything but mainstream repertoire, but, let's face it, thereare certainly some anomalies here. For instance, being totally "politically incorrect" for just a moment; for next year's Last Night of the Proms (first half), let's do away with  the BBC commissioned work(s) for a start (mostly deserving of total oblivion - there, I've said it!) and free up the programme space for Moszkowski's Piano Concerto No2 Op59! This would obviously be preceeded by an appropriate overture, which could be either sung or (preferably) unsung.

The reason I have suggested this particular work is that it has immediate impact and surely cannot fail to please, would certainly be in accordance with the general atmosphere and ambience of such an occasion, and furthermore may provide some sort of springboard for further exploration by those present. Time and time again I hear any number of people observe "why haven't I heard this before, it ought to be played more often etc...", particularly in response to this work. I am sure that there are many here that may offer alternatives from the hundreds of other contenders for inclusion, myself included, but I think this one is a great place to start. Obviously, if this suggestion were ever to materialise, at least a FULL Albert Hall audience at one of the most prestigious musical events of the calendar would surely have something to think about, and obviously the box office would not have to worry!

This annual event therefore provides a unique opportunity to get a willing audience onside for furtherance of the cause that so many of us here feel strongly about and who knows what this might lead to - perhaps Raff's 5th the following year..........?

[Alan Howe]

Quite right, Martin. That way we could be spared Gorecki's caterwaulings...

[Delicious Manager]

As a professional manager in the music business for than 30 years and a programmer for more than 20, this is very close to my heart. I have always championed 'unsung' composers and unsung works by sung composers. My solution in the live concert context was judicious programming; I placed unknown works alongside better known ones in programmes that were balanced, interesting and had at least one 'hook' for the 'lazy listener'. This gained lesser-known music an 'accidental' audience. For example, the second half of a programme at London's South Bank in 1992 comprised Ligeti's Melodien and Haydn's Symphony No 70 in D minor. Many members of the audience confessed to having enjoyed the colours and challenges of the Ligeti which, they admitted, they would never have listened to unless 'forced' to by its inclusion in a programme with which they otherwise felt comfortable. I was always careful to avoid 'tokenism'; every work in my programmes is there because it deserves to be there and because it fits into what I want to achieve musically.

[Martin Eastick]

May I also suggest that most managers/promoters in the music business simply do not have the necessary knowledge - even basic, let alone in-depth - of the repertoire we are talking about. This also applies, speaking from previous personal experiences, to some musicians themselves, conductors and soloists alike, who have absolutely no idea of the scope and size of repertoire which could be available to them. Obviously a very poor over-simplified, biased and much-watered-down musical education has a lot to answer for but surely if one is in the "music business", there can be no excuse for such serious shortcomings.

Conversely, there are those who are the exact opposite, and the have the interest and ability, quite often above and beyond the call of duty, to promote and give unsung music a chance, even though much of the "musical establishment" seems to be actively engaged in negating or belittling such efforts whilst endlessly promoting the dubious virtues of the contemporary.

[Gareth Vaughan]

Hear, hear, Martin. Hear, hear!