I don't have the time to go into much of an answer - except to say that opinions about music need to have time to develop and settle. I, for example, find Martucci's symphonies intensely memorable - I can hear the first movement of the second symphony in my mind's ear, so to speak, even as I write this. But then, I've known probably known the symphonies for at least five years.
It's certainly not fair on Martucci to make a comparison with Raff who was one of the great tunesmiths of the nineteenth century - any more than it is fair on, say, Brahms to compare him with Tchaikovsky in the memorability department. Some composers simply exert a much more immediate appeal than others.
With the unsung we have to make an effort to listen to them because in the normal course of events we would not encounter them, e.g. on the radio or in the concert hall. This means that there is a special need to give them time to 'sink in', as it were.
Let me give you a personal example; I was originally led to the symphonies of Franz Lachner by our good friend, John White. Unfortunately, I just didn't spend long enough on them when I first heard them to understand the sort of epic symphony which he was attempting to write, I believe, in the wake of the 9th Symphony of his close friend, Schubert. It was in fact the prolonged process of coming to grips with the hour-long Rufinatscha 6 (firstly through the recording of the version for piano 4-hands) which prompted me to give Lachner the sort of attention which I hadn't given him first time round. I now find Lachner's symphonies fitting into a symphonic strand which had once seemed to me to be rather difficult to discern (i.e. Schubert 8/9>Lachner5/8>Rufinatscha 4/5/6>Bruckner).
'Unsung' for me just means 'neglected' - and where this is coupled with an apparent injustice (there is plenty of justly unsung music too!), then you have something worth pursuing.
It's certainly not fair on Martucci to make a comparison with Raff who was one of the great tunesmiths of the nineteenth century - any more than it is fair on, say, Brahms to compare him with Tchaikovsky in the memorability department. Some composers simply exert a much more immediate appeal than others.
With the unsung we have to make an effort to listen to them because in the normal course of events we would not encounter them, e.g. on the radio or in the concert hall. This means that there is a special need to give them time to 'sink in', as it were.
Let me give you a personal example; I was originally led to the symphonies of Franz Lachner by our good friend, John White. Unfortunately, I just didn't spend long enough on them when I first heard them to understand the sort of epic symphony which he was attempting to write, I believe, in the wake of the 9th Symphony of his close friend, Schubert. It was in fact the prolonged process of coming to grips with the hour-long Rufinatscha 6 (firstly through the recording of the version for piano 4-hands) which prompted me to give Lachner the sort of attention which I hadn't given him first time round. I now find Lachner's symphonies fitting into a symphonic strand which had once seemed to me to be rather difficult to discern (i.e. Schubert 8/9>Lachner5/8>Rufinatscha 4/5/6>Bruckner).
'Unsung' for me just means 'neglected' - and where this is coupled with an apparent injustice (there is plenty of justly unsung music too!), then you have something worth pursuing.