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Hoping Bax fans can help. We know Bax isn't recorded or performed much and his most famous ones dominate a small selection: Tintagel, Garden, Woods, Forest, Pine Trees, Hills, Legend, Symphonies. I'm keen to discover not songs or chamber but other Bax orchestral works. Works that members highly rate and can rant and rave about, especially saying specifically why they like their nomination and any recordings they enjoy (whether or not still in the catalogue).

[Hans Rott]

Surely, we should – if a little kid waves, then wave back. But think of a central European composer who is strongly influenced by a small diverse group of the greats and backlashed by musical politics, suffers from depression and feelings of unrequited love, dies young having written just one student symphony, leaves behind a small collection of works, and remains under-recognised, still to make his Proms debut. It's a profile fitting Hans Rott but it's one generation later and Polish, not Austrian. And though the wonderfully-gifted Karłowicz has been waving frantically down all the years, few have waved back.

Just as Rott's fav composers (Bruckner, Wagner, Brahms and Schumann) make guest appearances in his symphony, so do those of Karłowicz in Returning Waves (especially Tchaikovsky and Wagner). Both composers share an interest in structure which is infused with chaos. And just as the second half of Rott's symphony is beset with tell-tale signs of deteriorating mental health and life problems so too Karłowicz betrays his disturbed mindset, both in the thematic narratives he selects and in the music he writes. The Sorrowful Tale portrays suicide; My Soul is Sad – is the name of one of his songs (along with all his music: well worth hearing). Whilst love and death are certainly linked themes running through culture, in Karłowicz these tend towards overdrive. Typically, euphoria in Karłowicz follows heart-rending anguish, as in The Rebirth Symphony although there are exceptions, such as the poignant-free pretty little frolic through his Serenade for Strings.

That Returning Waves is a mood-swinger is established from the sombre melancholy opening that breaks into a sparkling and restlessly delightful melodic parade of fleeting scenes (never settling, like say in Debussy's Images) and proceeds towards the inevitable fatalistic close (Waving and Drowning?).These returning waves punctuate the episodic music which keeps coming back at you, though arguably the cyclic form is overdone to the point of being pre-film music. Returning Waves seems his most overtly bipolar work but shares with his others (especially his other tone poems) glorious orchestration of lovely tunes. Returning Waves may not be his best work (the Violin Concerto draws the most raves) but it holds the ear's attention and contains plenty of colour, turbulence and pathos. For me, it is an unsung masterwork.

Today is the 150th anniversary of the birth of the great unsung Belgian composer Guillaume Lekeu, who died of lemon sorbet poisoning in 1894 and hasn't been heard at the Proms for over a century. Here, Ophélie's hauntingly pretty, fresh-faced love theme for Hamlet struggles against ominous hints of a unrequited and tragic future. Hamlet's tragedy was losing Ophélie despite Lekeu giving her one of the best love themes in all orchestral music.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTxNtO-0wMo

Nobody knows the trouble I've seen promoting unsung composers. The fun and joy in Florence Price's well-crafted, free-flowing Mississippi River Suite celebrates its African-American spiritual roots in a melodic cruise that paints in exuberant sound the passing shoreline cultures.   

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfdvCrqzTm0

I can't find any unsung Richard Strauss orchestral music as good as his well-known works. Is there any?

Let's spare a belated thought for those neglected victims of musical crime: unsung composers whose work was nicked by famous names.

Can we identify the owners of stolen musical material?

Which unsung composers have had their work stolen time and again?

Can we blow the great composers' sleight of hand in being deceptively derivative, by identifying which of their works make use of a tune, idea, or whatever that was sourced from an unsung composer?

Are we able to finger which major composers are repeat offenders with a whole string of similar offences needing to be taken into consideration?

Can we, maybe, identify whether the thief has simply lifted the stolen material or passed it off as original by altering it?

[Just what is unsung music?]

Just what is unsung music?
Can it be as simple as this: The vast amount of music makes it inevitable that a lot of it will be unsung?

So actually there is no difference in the musical content between the two categories of sung and unsung music. But is that really true? Surely quality must be clearly higher in the sung category? That's what the distinction is about. Maybe, but a key factor in getting into the sung category is the pull of a big name composer. We feel that had an unsung work by an under-recognised composer been instead part of the output of one of these big names then it would be popular. But that does little to explain highly popular works by those one-trick pony composers who are famous for nothing else – except possibly the view that the best of unsung music matches the quality of the best of sung music. Certainly, unsung compositions have not been well-championed by musicians and won't be a big draw in the concert hall or a big sell in the CD market, but that sounds like a rather circular definition.

If I'm at a loss to put my finger on whether there is anything different or distinctive about the music, I am also struggling on the question:

What is it about unsung music that is so appealing and attractive that we make it our focus?

What is it then that is the cause of our enthusiasm and preoccupation with unsung music? Obviously, it widens the range of our listening experience. It allows us to hear real gems ignored by the world. We are supporters of unsung works as a category for the simple reason that they are unsung. Can this be a little bit selfish and elitist in that we access and enjoy the music that others either reject or, more likely, never get a fair chance to hear and decide for themselves what value these works have? But again, that won't really do, because we'd love it for these works to become popular, to be available in multiple versions on CD by the top performers and the best of musicians and for concerts to be less dominated by long or short-term fashion. This suggests there are underlying social values: a kind of musical inclusive democracy which promotes equality and abhors discrimination.  Politically or socially, unsung music seems to be a cause some of us champion, even campaign for! Or perhaps rather we feel the world is too arbitrary in consigning certain works and composers into the unsung trash can.  But then again, we feel some works deserve to be unsung ... 

This one is dedicated to the Alan Howe Test (and, who knows, he may be quick to reply and even give us additional guidance).

The rules are to cite your favourite unsung work - yes, you are allowed just the one.

Then you say what it is that makes this your favourite unsung work by describing what it is in what you hear that you so love and explaining how it affects you when you play it.

Finally, do give what you feel is the best CD of this work and again, say what it is that you especially like compared with any alternative recordings.

I got about 10 of these, bought fairly randomly/opportunistically but then stopped after No 27 (Saint-Saëns). Based on those I do have, I'm certain this continues to be a high quality series. So I was wondering, as filling the large number of gaps exceeds expectations, which one do you:

- reckon was your greatest discovery?
- think is the best of the lot?

(and knowing why would be gr8 for both nominations too).

As a little girl said: "Memory is the thing I forget with" – I can't remember seeing 'The Most Unsung Composer' as a topic in its own right here, and if so, then this is a serious omission.

Now, this new opportunity isn't for flagging up composers whose work isn't very good but those who really are worthy of being heard in the concert hall and on CD but haven't very much if at all, nor did they ever have their day, either.

We can end up with countless copies of standard rep works just to get hold of the rarer stuff and as unsung music is often recorded by lesser performers that may mean buying inferior versions we never want to hear. But how else is unsung music ever to break through or overcome the commercial risk of producing it?

[Hans Rott Lieder premiere recording]

Details of the new Hans Rott songs CD are on the new recordings board, see: Hans Rott Lieder premiere recording. This posting deals with the survival and loss of the songs; the poets Rott used; and where the songs fit into Rott's timeline. I will be following up separately on issues arising from lieder content and the broader significance.

(1) The Songs exist!
A decade after Rott's songs hit the concert hall, numerous references (even Wikipedia) still say he destroyed them all and that Mahler, who did indeed find Rott's lieder "strange and extraordinary," regretted Rott carried these in his head rather than writing them down. (This originates from Mahler books by Baucher-Lechner and de Le Grange written before rediscovery of the songs).

(2) What's missing?
Rott continued to compose after being confined from 1880 up until towards his death in 1884 but his work became confused, sketchy and poor in quality, and he destroyed much though not all of it. Accounts seem muddled about what exactly Rott (just before going mad) had sent to the copyist along with his symphony for the purpose of submission for the Beethoven competition and a state stipend. There are mentions of the String Sextet and Pastorales Vorspiel but additionally he had two songs copied anyway: Der Sänger (the most important complete song we still have) and the Pied Piper Ballad. We do have the copyist's full score of the pastoral plays but only autographs of these two songs, of which the Ballad lacks the words that obviously once existed. Rott destroyed the Sextet in the asylum but we do have Sketches for Song Melodies that he wrote there.

It seems plausible to conclude that the entire Rott collection (which of course also includes 8 now recorded orchestral works, and many choral pieces – none recorded) that Fritz Löhr deposited in the Austrian National Library was sourced both from what Rott left behind him in the asylum when he died and from material held externally. Moreover, when it comes to the songs (listed on the Hans Rott website, with original and translated lyrics), that we have fewer than Rott wrote before or after 1880, and that some we do have were once more complete than what has come down to us. This frustrates full evaluation of Rott's music, for instance, the Hans Rott website comments that the incomplete song Winterlied reveals "impressionistic tendencies years ahead of Debussy and Ravel".

(3) The residual Rott song collection
There are 19 lieder (plus some sketches) but for 11 the scores are incomplete. All the remaining 8 all have been performed since 2002 (premièred in concert 126 years after composition). Four of these are recorded on the new CD. Three of the 8 complete songs are for female voices.

(4) Rott's literary sources
Rott drew on 3 poets and the complete songs divide equally between two: Goethe and Zusner – apparently a popular but mediocre and most likely morbid poet later used by Zemlinsky in 1892 and Schreker in 1899. 

Goethe's Der Sänger is about a wandering minstrel's dignity and Schubert set exactly the same words in D149 (1815) but in a completely different musical style. Hugo Wolf was to use it in 1888 too, 8 years after Rott. Similarly, Rott used Goethe's Wander's Nacht 12 years before Wolf, but both used Abendglöcklein that same year, 1876.

Rott's favourite for his incomplete 1880 lieder was Julius Wolff, whose 1876 poem had just been made into an opera by Nessler in 1879, whilst Rott used this poem in composing 3 songs as part of an envisaged Pied Piper of Hamelin lieder set. 

(5) Fitting the songs into the timeline
Rott's surviving songs are from 1876-80 and mostly very early. (There are lost Mahler songs and a couple of his fragments from this period before the first extant Mahler song that dates from 1880.) Ten of the 19 songs are dated, a further 2 have been allocated assumed dates, and all but 1 of the 8 complete songs have dates: 5 from 1876 and 1 each from 1877 and 1880. 

(a) Early period
Five songs are from 1876 (the 3 dated are all on the CD; 2 more are assumed to be from 1876). This was Rott's 3rd year at the Vienna Conservatory (when two of the greatest song writers, Mahler and Wolf were his classmates). These songs were written after Wagner's Vienna concerts of 1875 and before the Ring cycle was stamped on all Rott's orchestral work (except his earlier Symphony for String Orchestra) following his attending its premiere at the 1st Bayreuth Festival in 1876.

Twp Songs are dated 1877 (but 1 of these is incomplete), before Rott's Symphony 1st movement was rejected by the Vienna Conservatory competition finals jury in 1878.

(b) Late period
Five songs (1 on the CD; the other 4 are incomplete) are dated 1880, from what could be called the mature period of the then 22 year old composer! These songs are sandwiched between Rott falling for Louise Löhr (sister of Fritz) and completing his symphony dedicated to her, shortly before his mental collapse. Der Sänger, which is on the CD, is the sole example we have of performable mature Rott Lieder.

[Diepenbrock]

Recording of Hans Rott's orchestral (and then chamber) music started from 1989. Now, for the first time, his recorded repertoire extends to lieder – a breakthrough without any publicity so far via reviews. This CD gives us half of a small realisable collection of Rott Lieder plus songs by Diepenbrock, Foerster, Mahler, Walter, and Zemlinsky. The 4 Rott songs included are: Wanderers Nachtlied; Das Abendglöcklein; Geistesgruß; and Der Sänger.

Das Abendglöcklein (The Little Evening Bell) is for alto, but is sung on the CD along with the other 18 by a bass-baritone! (The alto part was similarly switched in one concert at St. Florian.)
   
CD details
Mahler Freunde und Zeitgenossen/Dominik Worner and Felicitas Strack/ARS Produktion/ARS38477

Extracts from all tracks can be heard at http://www.ars-produktion.de/Gustav_MahlerFreunde_und_Zeitgenossen/topic/Suchergebnis/shop_art_id/267/tpl/shop_article_detail

I have found only two other sites offering it: Crochet and MDT.

I am keen to find out what anyone hearing Rott's lieder thinks of them and whose style you reckon they resemble (Bruckner, Mahler, Wolf ...).

As the sleeve notes (which do include German lyrics but not translations) are brief and so poor I decided to write my own! In doing so, I was fascinated by how the songs help fill out the Rott-Mahler relationship but my starting point has been looking at what Rott lieder still exists. That obviously belongs on the composers and music board, see: Hans Rott's Lieder Collection.

While listening today to the wonderfully melodic 2nd movement of Bristow's superb Symphony on Jarvi's Chandos CD, I thought "Brahms could have written this ... and with his name on the cover it would surely have sold much better."  And how they loved it when mistaking the Tarantelle Rossini was playing on the piano for his own rather than by the then unknown Saint-Saëns. This seems to be the story of unsung composers: it's not the quality that counts but the brand name.

Radio3 just played Beethoven's boogie-woogie piano sonata 32 and it set me thinking. Well, there's Bach's Brandenburg 5, the Delius blue note and loads of Gershwin but that's all I think I know. So I was wondering: what jazzy bits can be found in music composed preferably early within the period 1800-1918 and of course in the unsungs in particular?

Well now, here's your chance to rave about any. [Otherwise it will be a bit like that book that went: "Chapter 18: ELEPHANTS IN ICELAND There are no elephants in Iceland. Chapter 19." (Although there may be some called icelopholus major!)] But I would add that simply listing these composers, even adding their works and CDs, doesn't share what people think is the music that is well worth hearing. It is this that always interests me most, wherever they were born.

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?

Apparently there are two Woyrsch CDs: Symphony 1 and piano works. Have you any opinion of how good he is and who he sounds like, please?

Surely easy enough for us to organise on this site through polling nominated CDs for agreed categories. Wot u think?

While reading the new recordings discussion on Arnold Cello Concerto on Naxos being completed Ellis, I was suddenly struck by music's peculiarity. Much is played together on rather more than one instrument. It is listened to collectively by an audience. But composition comes from a single mind. Gilbert may give Sullivan the words but not so much as a hummed tune. Bruckner's friends may criticise his scores but revision is down to a sole author. Music, which is a mass social activity, is created through individual, solitary composition. There are a few co-authored Strauss waltzes but surely we would have expected joint compositions from several Bachs, many songs by Gustav and Alma Mahler, or Clara and Robert Schumann – and we are talking about genuine joint composition, not works where different bits are written by different people.

So when some piece of music can't be finished entirely or properly and has to be completed, realised, made performable by someone else, this seemingly intrudes on the individualistic integrity of its provenance.  I am just not convinced that it should.