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I'm currently listening to a Sinfonia Concertante for Oboe, Clarinet, Horn, Bassoon and Orchestra apparently incorrectly attributed to Mozart. It is very nice. Not perhaps a great work nor particularly memorable, but quite jolly. This gives rise to two questions: Who did write it? And what else did he write?

In all probability the piece only got recorded because of the false association with Mozart, and there are other cases of works recorded as a result of mistaken attribution to Haydn or Mozart, or even Beethoven. There are probably other symphonies that don't get recorded because they have no name attached to them.

I suppose almost everyone would name Aaron Copeland, Leonard Bernstein and Ferde Grofé, but how many would name George Chadwick, Howard Hanson, David Diamond?

I prefer Chadwick, Hanson, and Diamond to Copeland, Bernstein, or Grofé.

And I would add Samuel Barber, Marion Bauer, George Gershwin, Philip Glass, Harold Shapero, Michael Torke.

I was aware of the Reinecke (cpo) and Sinding (Naxos) CDs, and I think it was Kennedy who did the Mlynarski 2 (I forget the label).  But the only recording of the Conus I can recall is the old LP by Heifetz (RCA).  Is there a more recent CD recording, or is the Conus a re-release of the old Heifetz?

The Conus can be found on CHAN 9622, but the composer's name is given as Yuly Konyus. The violinist on that disc is Csüry. The Heifetz recording has also been released on CD, as part of a 65 disc set, called The Heifetz Collection. It is located in volume 20.

But it is a fine work, and I would not object to Hyperion recording it again!

I'm not sure whether this strictly fits here, but today I attended a concert that included two of Mozart's piano concerti (Nos. 12 & 13) arranged by him for piano quintet.

I would love to hear about member's favorite obscure(more or less) 19th century chamber music including piano. I am very fond of the piano quartets of Franz Berwald, the Hummel Septet, and the Smetana Piano Trio, which is a glorious piece. Any ideas for some more CD shopping on my part?

I prefer orchestral music, but, if my memory is correct, the following are worth checking out:

Borodin: Piano Quintet
Dohnányi: Piano Quintet
Fauré: Piano Quartet No. 2
Furtwängler: Piano Quintet
Granados: Piano Quintet
Herzogenberg: Piano Quartet
Noskowski: Piano Quartet
Respighi: Piano Quintet
Wolf-Ferrari: Piano Quintet
Zarebski: Piano Quintet

But I must stress they I have not heard most of these for several years, and so my memory may be faulty!

A few months ago I acquired a double disk with Czerny's piano sonatas 5, 6, 8 and 9 played by Martin Jones on Nimbus Records.

I am not familiar with those works. I have a disc of Czerny's 3 sonatas for piano 4 hands, which I find disappointingly dull, and therefore I have not been encouraged to explore him further.

This brings me to the question, which surprising unsung piano sonatas are your favourites?

It is probably unobtainable now, but Olympia issued a complete set of the published sonatas of Myaskovsky on three CDs. They consist of Sonatas Nos. 1 to 9, plus Sonatina, Prelude, Rondo-Sonata, Reminiscences, a transcription of the scherzo from his String Quartet No. 5, and Yellowed Leaves: "The Yellowed Leaves, Op. 31, were composed in 1928, but differ completely from another Op. 31 written the same year — Schoenberg's Variations for Orchestra; Myaskovsky's is far removed as one could imagine from the possessed dodecaphonic music Schoenberg wrote. We find instead a series of character pieces in the spirit of the late nineteenth century" (OCD 704 ABC).

Does he sound like anyone else?  Brahms?  Grieg?  Wagner?  Thanks.

"He works in the tradition of classical romanticism, and like his two great models, Grieg and Svendsen, he was influenced by Norwegian folk music" (NKFCD 50014-2).

His Symphony No. 2 "Fate" is a good place to start.

With great interest I read the pros and cons of both works in the discussion. But both works have something in common, and that is World War Two. Messiaen composed his work in the Nazi camp, and Górecki was influenced by the moving words of the 18-year-old girl scratched on a wall in a Gestapo prison. I strongly believe that these facts are the reason why these particular works of Messiaen and Górecki sound so monotonous. But poignant. They reflect an agony.

Messiaen is not to my taste, but I am not familiar with the specific work.

Górecki's 3rd Symphony is not great, but it is much better than his 2nd.

A work of similar origin is the 4th Symphony of Lees, "with a soprano setting of poems by one of the survivors ... stark realism ... Fear, revulsion, anger ..." (Naxos 8.559002).

Today I have listened after so many years to the Concerto for Piano, Violin and String Orchestra in F sharp minor, coupled on a LP (label Turnabout of course) with Moscheles' Grande Sonate Symphonique for four-hand piano arrangement. The Pixis' concerto is a real gem and the 2nd movement, an adagio sostenuto, features, as the violist Kees Kooper says, "one of the most beautiful melodies one can ever hope to hear". I fully agree. It is a very intense, heavenly theme. Has any member ever heard this marvellous concerto?

Yes, I have heard it, but I discarded all my LPs a decade or so ago, during a house move.

Music of Pixis on a CD seems to be very rare.

The only Pixis that I have on CD is the collaborative Hexaméron, by Liszt, Thalberg, Pixis, Herz, Czerny, and Chopin, which is a set of variations on a theme by Bellini. The piano version is on Liszt: The Complete Music for Solo Piano volume 10, CDA66433, and there is also a concertante arrangement, partly reconstructed by the pianist Leslie Howard, on Liszt: Music for Piano Orchestra volume 1, CDA67401/2.

the great Busoni Piano Concerto. The opening pages of this vast work are so serious and sublime.

I like this concerto, and I have several recordings of it, and once I even travelled 50 miles to hear a live performance, but for me the finale doesn't work. It fails to bring the concerto to a fitting conclusion. It is like sitting through a long winded shaggy dog story with an inadequate punchline. The work ought to end with a grand contest between piano and orchestra, but the piano ceases to be of any significance, and is ineffectively replaced with a chorus. At the risk of sounding a discordant note, I feel that it is always a mistake to introduce words into orchestral music. The international language of music undermined by the inclusion of a purely local dialect. Furthermore, in this particular case, following the 7 July 2005 bombings, I now regard the choice of words as offensive: "feel near to Allah, observe his work!"