Hi I'm newish to classical music. I particularly like piano music from the romantic and impressionist period. Can anyone recommend any good composers and recordings for me to check out?? Any help would be appreciated.
Oh, boy. That's like opening the door of a sweetshop and asking for suggestions as to what to try first.
Remembering that here at UC we're concerned with unsung composers/music, I'd certainly try Draeseke's great Piano Sonata:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dpopular&field-keywords=draeseke+piano+sonata (https://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dpopular&field-keywords=draeseke+piano+sonata)
Almost anything by Raff. That's just for starters.
@Gazrob
The best would be to look at the theme titles of this higly specified and interesting site. As soon as you see a subject mentioning a composer you don't know, just consult it :-)
Good idea: spend some time combing through the many topics discussed here.
Thanks for the advice I'll certainly do that. I've started to discover some more over the past couple of days.
For starters, I would recommend the Hyperion re-releases of Seta Tanyel's multi-volume surveys of Xaver Scharwenka and Moritz Moszkowski. In the case of Scharwenka, if your interest extends to chamber music WITH piano, there are also her recordings of the complete chamber music (with piano). Also well worth exploring would be the two volumes released so far by the German label Ars Produktion, of Sergei Lyapunov piano works, superbly performed by Florian Noack! But one could easily go on and on...........!!!
And try the earlier piano sonatas of Alexander Scriabin.
You may like to consult the appropriate section at Wikipedia, here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_piano_composers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_piano_composers)
I am curious what you mean by "newish". This is a forum dedicated to unsung composers; however, most of the sung composers are in the top tier for a reason. For instance, for "piano music from the romantic and impressionist period", the first name that would come to mind for me (personally) would be the works of Sergei Rachmaninoff. The piano concertos as well as Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini are well known romantic-style workhorses for good reason. Same with the piano music of Claude Debussy, which I would put at the top of so-called "impressionism". If you are *completely* unfamiliar with classical music, I'd start there, to be honest.
If you know "the hits" already though, the good news is that there is plenty of other music that isn't quite as known, but still is of quality, which is more what this forum is about. Where to begin is an interesting question though. :)
I guess from my perspective one of the better places to sample the unsung side also is at Hyperion -- they have a "Romantic Piano Concerto" (https://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/s.asp?s=S_1) series that is now up to 77 volumes. If you like piano concertos, this series will allows you to survey quite a wide variety of romantic-era composers.
Iam familiar with a lot of classical music but my main interest is piano music and I want to explore this more. I'm very familiar with all of Debussy's piano works and I love it very much. I'm also fairly familiar with Ravel too but I don't know where else to look. I will have a listen to all of the recommendations and give you my thoughts in a couple of days after I've had a chance to listen to them.
May I suggest that you simply enter 'piano' into our search facility, making sure that you choose 'Entire Forum' in addition?
On the Ravel / Debussy angle, I will throw out a few composers of solo piano works that might be of interest that I can think of right now. (It's easier to think of impressionism influenced composers than the wide array of Romantic composers out there!)
First, I'll mention Isaac Albéniz -- "Iberia" is not an unsung piece at all, of course, but if you are new to the world of classical music you may not have heard of it.
Two composers who died young but wrote quite impressionistic works in their short life are Charles Tomlinson Griffes ("3 Tone Pictures") and Lili Boulanger ("Trois morceaux pour piano").
I think Florent Schmitt's piano works (like "Crépuscules" and "Ombres") are quite impressionistic overall, although there's some modernism particularly in the later works.
Cyril Scott's "Piano Concerto 1" and early John Ireland ("Decorations") are quite impressionistic, but a fair warning: both composers move quite away from this style in their later years.
Vítězslav Novák's "Pan" is not 100% impressionism, but in my opinion there's enough hints of such in the piece for me to recommend this for those seeking out pieces in the Ravel / Debussy style.
Hi folks just an update on all your suggestions. I've spent most of today listening to Lili Boulanger and I think it's great stuff. Do any of you have any suggestions of any recommended recordings of just her piano works or her entire works? I really love the short solo piano pieces that I've heard so far.
Yes I know the forum is dedicated to more less recognised composers. I've never heard of Lili Boulanger till yesterday. I'm very interested in listening to some less recognised composers that's why I'm here I just didn't know where to start.
Please try the search facility as suggested above. You may have to do some sifting yourself...
No problem Alan I wil do thanks.
Many lesser known composers, in addition, have relatively few discs out there if they are relatively "unsung".
Lili fares better than some composers (she's not a *complete* unknown), but the number of CDs with Lili Boulanger is relatively small. With the selection slim, this isn't a situation like where you are picking your favorite Holst Planets out of the 83 commercial recordings made.
Sure, a few pieces are available in multiple recordings -- for example, for "Psalm 130", you can chose between the Nadia Boulanger conducted version (paired with Faure's requiem) or the Yan Pascal Tortelier conducted Chandos disc, or a disc by Mark Stringer of choral works. But if you are looking for, say, Faust and Helene, I think presently that's *only* available on the Chandos CD as far as I know.
It is my feeling that with the lesser known composers, you often have to more judge by the piece, because the CD it is on might be the only recording available after all. This means searching for the discs, listening to the audio samples, and see if this is what you are looking for.
The only caveat here is composer consistency, of course. For some composers it's definitely "buyer beware". Personally I think Lili Boulanger is a composer where, if you like her style, I think it's difficult to go wrong -- the quality of her works in her brief life is very high and her style is very consistent.
I often search for audio samples - jpc.de is a very good place to find them:
https://www.jpc.de/jpcng/classic/home (https://www.jpc.de/jpcng/classic/home)
In German, I know, but searching isn't much of a problem.
If you're willing to spend the money, this forthcoming super-bargain 22-CD box would certainly open your ears:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Virtuoso-Piano-Etudes-Various-Artist/dp/B07KZ4H88D/ref=sr_1_89?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1548331962&sr=1-89&refinements=p_12%3A21x-1y%2Cp_n_date%3A182239031
(https://www.amazon.co.uk/Virtuoso-Piano-Etudes-Various-Artist/dp/B07KZ4H88D/ref=sr_1_89?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1548331962&sr=1-89&refinements=p_12%3A21x-1y%2Cp_n_date%3A182239031)
...and you can sample the set here:
https://www.jpc.de/jpcng/classic/detail/-/art/virtuoso-piano-etudes/hnum/8893998 (https://www.jpc.de/jpcng/classic/detail/-/art/virtuoso-piano-etudes/hnum/8893998)