It started, as you'd expect, with Raff. Coming from a home devoid of music, I discovered classical music at university in the early 70s. The first LP I bought was Barenboim's performance of Tchaikovsky's Fourth. Being a logical (some would say unimaginative) soul, I reckoned that if I liked that, I'd like all his symphonies, so I bought them all and loved them. So then I thought: "Hmm, he was from the mid-19th century, so I expect I'll like other symphonies from around then". Next, I think was Dvorak, all of whose symphonies (from Kertesz on Decca for preference) I soon mopped up. Within a few weeks I'd chanced upon Herrmann's classic recording of Raff's Lenore. I didn't know that Raff was a total unknown then, I just assumed that he was up there with Tchaikovsky and Dvorak and was duly utterly bowled over by it. When I went back to the shop to buy more Raff I was dumbfounded to find that there was none.
My tendency to vacuum up everything I can find by a particular composer or in a particular genre or era once I have developed a taste for it quite naturally meant that I soon discovered the Genesis and Vox labels and my interest in Raff's fellow unsungs was aroused and has never left me. I suppose it's fired by two things. In the case of Raff in particular as well as a love of his music there's the sense that he has suffered a real injustice and that posterity has denied us things of real beauty. In the case of unsungs generally, there is (still, after all these years) an insatiable curiosity for the new, the thought that the next "new" piece I hear will be a hidden masterpiece.
Of course the advent of the internet meant that I soon realised that I wasn't alone in my dedication to Raff, which lead in the late 1990s to the web site and, eventually, this Forum.
My life has been enriched hugely by it all and in particular by the many friendships, both physical and virtual, which I've been lucky enough to make as a result. And the good thing is: it goes on and on...
My tendency to vacuum up everything I can find by a particular composer or in a particular genre or era once I have developed a taste for it quite naturally meant that I soon discovered the Genesis and Vox labels and my interest in Raff's fellow unsungs was aroused and has never left me. I suppose it's fired by two things. In the case of Raff in particular as well as a love of his music there's the sense that he has suffered a real injustice and that posterity has denied us things of real beauty. In the case of unsungs generally, there is (still, after all these years) an insatiable curiosity for the new, the thought that the next "new" piece I hear will be a hidden masterpiece.
Of course the advent of the internet meant that I soon realised that I wasn't alone in my dedication to Raff, which lead in the late 1990s to the web site and, eventually, this Forum.
My life has been enriched hugely by it all and in particular by the many friendships, both physical and virtual, which I've been lucky enough to make as a result. And the good thing is: it goes on and on...