Unsung Composers

Hello,
This is not a topic about some unknown composer, of which there are hundreds.
What it is, is a call to everybody to think on how to get the message, being these prolific composers are left unplayed and neglected life in public, to the conductors and soloists of today.
Without any doubt, Howard Shelley did a titanic work to play, conduct a lot of the romantic composers.
But the narrow standard repertoire stays very narrow.
I wonder why a Scharwenka piano concerto, or even the Thalberg piano concerto or others do not add up to this endlessly repeated standard repertoire.
Of course there is marketing, selling tickets, cause concert programs must sell. But let me tell you.
If Buniatishvilly or tutu Wang would perform Scharwenka, people come anyway.
I find the best efforts are being found in the chamber music genre during festivals.
But the symphonies by Ries, Fibich, ... Deserve to be played, why not before a Beethoven or Brahms.
It is a sad thing that classical music for decades has been reduced to a handful of overly known composers and works.
My piano 2 volumes in French, containing about 1400 pages of piano music analysed is a good example of how many good works there are. Reading an article of a young pianist having recorded Liapunov, and carrying these 2 big volumes everywhere he comes is promising.
But not enough.
With nowadays social media some wizard here could set up a project to propell our unsung composers in the world, as Lititsa did. If she can, why not we ?
Spread the message friends.
Classical music is short of fresh air...

A few random ideas about this topic:

I think the binary nature of your presentation simplifies things too much:  You have a very heavy mountain, the standard repertoire which you want to roll off our concert schedules in order to create space for the unsung repertoire--which is a very unwieldy object as well.

At first one ought to remember that the standard repertoire is much less than the output of the "sung" composers:  How often do you hear Beethoven's Second Symphony in concert?  Of all of his violin sonatas only 3 ("Spring", "Kreutzer" and op.30/3 in c-minor) are part of the standard repertoire, the others are only performed in the context of a complete cycle.  The same applies to the string quartets.  Etc.

Then there is the issue of quality:  Most if not all of the standard repertoire is music of truly outstanding quality.  This is not the case for the unsungs:  There are great composers among them (e.g. Raff or Onslow to my mind).  But there are also people among them who were able to write great music, but didn't always do it (Spohr, Bruch), even those with one great work in an otherwise forgettable output (Viotti and his a-minor violin concerto) and those who just weren't that great.  This means you can't make a good argument on quality against the standard repertoire, you have to make one for the alternatives--one composer or even one work at a time.

One more point of "analysis":  The works of the standard repertoire have an "undeserved" quality advantage (on top of the fact that they are all very good to begin with):  The fact that they are played often and by many people means everybody has to work hard to get competitive performances, the interpretations get better by "cooperative competition".  Interpreters who attempt to perform an unsung piece by contrast have no models, no examples of how one might do it or examples of how not to do it (Anne Sophie Mutter's cycle of the Beethoven violin sonatas), they are on their own.  Their performance is like a first draft.

What to do?  It seems to me that tackling the whole mountain is too big a task for any group of people.  So you need to move things one boulder at a time.  Some unsungs have had supporters to work on this (Raff for example and Onslow).  Web sites are dedicated to them; academic work is done on them (like a proper biography of Onslow); performances and/or recordings are organized (for economic reasons often with chamber music).  But any such effort will focus on one composer and must be sustained by passion.  It has been done in the past:  Mendelssohn was practically unsung in the first half of the 20th century and has come back.  And Mendelssohn himself was famously and crucially involved in "promoting" Bach from unsung to sung.  But I do think that success will be slow and will be even slower if too much is attempted (Scharwenka plus Ries plus etc.).

You observed that people will go listen to Scharwenka when played by a big name interpreter.  So to find ways to lobby those people to play Scharwenka might be one thing to try (it will be hard; big name people are forced to perform more than is good for their health and to save energy they are mostly not very eager to learn new repertoire, let alone repertoire that represents a risk.  Also you must get the performers to truly believe in the pieces, otherwise they'll do a mediocre job and miss the music while just playing the notes).

Thanks to the media, education, providers like Pandora, the decimation of record stores, and more, we're living a dream if we think Scharwenka, Raff, or any unsung is ever going mainstream. Heck, the major, great composers are barely hanging on in the public's ear. Orchestras everywhere are doing pops concerts, movie music sing-a-longs, and anything else they can just to stay solvent. Most don't dare upset what standing they have by playing unfamiliar music. The demise of the recording industry also has them retreating into the safe and familiar. How many new sets of Sibelius symphonies have there been in the past few months? With dozens already out there, did we need anymore? Notice, there was no new boxed set with Blu Ray from Berlin of Rubinstein symphonies. I wish that more people were interested in live orchestral music of any type. I wish people demanded tickets to the local symphony the way they do to sports teams. But that's not the world we live in. Classical music is now a hobby of distinct minority - and primarily white, male. Interest in the forgotten composers must be miniscule, sorry to say. So be grateful for recordings, the conductors, orchestras, and recording companies willing to indulge us. Nothing "deserves to be played". If anything, there are lot of modern composers who cry and complain that they can't get a hearing so why play an obscure symphony by a long-dead composer that even the average orchestral player has ever heard of?

Music schools are even changing. They still teach music theory and history - but now there's a push to teach more jazz and rock theory, and more history and repertoire of those genres. It does make me ill, but the financial reality is that for a lot of wannabe musicians, they are going to have to do something other than classical to feed their families. With all the troubles in the world, I doubt that the survival of some forgotten composer is the least important matter of all.

Classical music is short of fresh air and you can make a difference. This year I put ideas into conductor's ears and it paid off twice: Kalinnikov's 2nd and Rachmaninoff's Caprice Boheme are programmed!

But Martin, the 'big players' were never that interested in anything outside of the iron repertory to begin with, some exceptions aside. Personally, I think that we, as admirers of the unsung, live in exciting times. Producing and distributing music has rarely been more accessible, and music labels (cpo, Sterling, Naxos, Chandos, Hyperion) that thrive on exploring unknown works have never been more present in the music industry. Maybe that is because the 'greats' of old collapsed, but maybe they deserved to collapse after decades of negligible innovation.

The great divide is between public performances and commercial recordings. Like Ilja I think we live in very exciting times. And you just never know - very occasionally an unsung slips his (or her) shackles and gets a public outing. Like Schmidt at the Proms. Of course, it's not enough. It never will be. But I remain ever the optimist. After all, we only know of the lovely Lassen VC because of a public performance uploaded to YouTube! So, let's not be too dispirited. Many unsungs are more respected today than they ever have been...

Before that Schmidt performance at the Proms there have of course been quite a few performances of his music in German-speaking countries, where he's been if never quite sung at least much less unsung for some time :) (And in the near future Das Buch is being performed in Vienna on October 20 and 21, for example (Vienna Sym./Honeck), and the piano quintet in G - original version with left-hand only - next February in Köln; Sym. 2, in Bonn in May 2016...)

This is something I care very much about. Unfortunately the people who are responsible for some of our major concert venues, have failed to build audience confidence.  I speak for London and nowhere else.  If you have a regular audience who will trust you with a series of affordable programmes it can be done.  However our concert venues are more concerned with audience diversity and new music, they seem  not to be too concerned about the quality of the performance or value for money (how they love to programme a new work sandwiched between two safe pieces.) Affordability is part of the problem.  Subsidy needs to be for excellence and not as the Covent Garden seem's to believe , for new works and educational purposes.  All of these points apply to the London Orchestras as well.

From the major music colleges there is a scandalous lack of knowledge about the lesser known composers or the varying performance styles required for different periods of music.  A while ago, I was with some 'elder statesman' in the music business listening to some singers who had a scholarship at one of them, we all agreed that they were so poor we wondered why they were accepted for their course. 

I am convinced that an audience could be built for a monthly series of violin concertos if the programming and the performances were carefully managed. 

I've wondered many times over the years why they didn't sandwich something in between that folks would actually enjoy digesting.  Despite the protestations on that other forum, there are damned few people who enjoy sitting through an atonal or twelve tone piece.   Skrowaczewski for all of his wonderful ability as a music director, almost drove me away from the MO with his weekly menu of sandwiches.  How fun it would be to leave the hall with folks saying, "Wow!  I'd sure like to hear more pieces by that Raff guy......."  And it would happen.

I was in London for the last two weeks of the Proms, and I really didn't expect the Schmidt to get the reception it received. The applause went on and one. Yes, the Vienna Philharmonic played magnificently, and the conductor really seems to understand the music. But RAH was absolutely packed. London sure has a large number of music lovers.

Regarding the affordability: this is a serious problem. First, I know people who gladly dig out $100 to watch football, basketball, baseball or such. Or pay $125 or more for Broadway shows like "The Book of Mormon".  And even more for top pop performers like Bieber, George Strait, etc. But when it comes to classical concerts they feel that even a paltry $15 is too much! When I go to hear the LA Philharmonic it easily costs $75 or more for a ticket, and it does get expensive. My 8 Proms concert tickets weren't too expensive, but they added up (and I'm too old to stand in the Arena!). I play with two orchestras that offer "free" concerts - and you get what you pay for. The musicians are not paid and naturally some of them are not top notch players. A lot of elderly people who either can't afford tickets to professional orchestras, or who don't want to pay for it, do show up. But sometimes the music suffers and that's a real problem, too. Some younger people might try out the classics, but when it's played so poorly I can't blame them for thinking classical music sounds lousy and why ever go back? I don't know any way to solve the financial conundrum. How do you present world-class orchestral concerts to a wide audience at a cheap price?

I think we are starting to lose focus here:  A lot of only marginally related problems and grievances are appearing that are worthy subjects of discussion, but in different threads (some of them like the value of 12 tone music even in different fora).  Here is the problem:  If you have 10000 people who want to listen to Beethoven and one person who wants to listen to Raff the fair way of programming would be one hour of Raff for every hour of Beethoven:  That way everybody gets the same time for their preferred music.  But the economically viable way it 10000 hours of Beethoven and 1 (or zero) hour of Raff.  (not my argument; I am getting this from Jürg Frauchiger's book "Was zum Teufel ist denn mit der Musik los?").
Looking at it that way you would have to convince members of the audience to prefer Raff--which you can't do because Raff is very rarely performed.  Audiences like to hear what they are familiar with; they might not resist Raff in the way they resist late Schoenberg, but they still won't risk ticket money on a Raff performance.
One partial way around this would be amateur performances:  They have a built  in audience consisting of friends and family of the performers, so they can take risks with programming without having to play to empty halls.  Obviously the quality of performances may be a problem and a 60 minute symphony would certainly be a bad idea.  But it is not necessarily the most polished performance that is also the most moving.

I note the oft-repeated argument put forward by concert promoters, managers etc., that they dare not risk programming anything but mainstream repertoire, but, let's face it, thereare certainly some anomalies here. For instance, being totally "politically incorrect" for just a moment; for next year's Last Night of the Proms (first half), let's do away with  the BBC commissioned work(s) for a start (mostly deserving of total oblivion - there, I've said it!) and free up the programme space for Moszkowski's Piano Concerto No2 Op59! This would obviously be preceeded by an appropriate overture, which could be either sung or (preferably) unsung.

The reason I have suggested this particular work is that it has immediate impact and surely cannot fail to please, would certainly be in accordance with the general atmosphere and ambience of such an occasion, and furthermore may provide some sort of springboard for further exploration by those present. Time and time again I hear any number of people observe "why haven't I heard this before, it ought to be played more often etc...", particularly in response to this work. I am sure that there are many here that may offer alternatives from the hundreds of other contenders for inclusion, myself included, but I think this one is a great place to start. Obviously, if this suggestion were ever to materialise, at least a FULL Albert Hall audience at one of the most prestigious musical events of the calendar would surely have something to think about, and obviously the box office would not have to worry!

This annual event therefore provides a unique opportunity to get a willing audience onside for furtherance of the cause that so many of us here feel strongly about and who knows what this might lead to - perhaps Raff's 5th the following year..........?

Quite right, Martin. That way we could be spared Gorecki's caterwaulings...

As a professional manager in the music business for than 30 years and a programmer for more than 20, this is very close to my heart. I have always championed 'unsung' composers and unsung works by sung composers. My solution in the live concert context was judicious programming; I placed unknown works alongside better known ones in programmes that were balanced, interesting and had at least one 'hook' for the 'lazy listener'. This gained lesser-known music an 'accidental' audience. For example, the second half of a programme at London's South Bank in 1992 comprised Ligeti's Melodien and Haydn's Symphony No 70 in D minor. Many members of the audience confessed to having enjoyed the colours and challenges of the Ligeti which, they admitted, they would never have listened to unless 'forced' to by its inclusion in a programme with which they otherwise felt comfortable. I was always careful to avoid 'tokenism'; every work in my programmes is there because it deserves to be there and because it fits into what I want to achieve musically.

May I also suggest that most managers/promoters in the music business simply do not have the necessary knowledge - even basic, let alone in-depth - of the repertoire we are talking about. This also applies, speaking from previous personal experiences, to some musicians themselves, conductors and soloists alike, who have absolutely no idea of the scope and size of repertoire which could be available to them. Obviously a very poor over-simplified, biased and much-watered-down musical education has a lot to answer for but surely if one is in the "music business", there can be no excuse for such serious shortcomings.

Conversely, there are those who are the exact opposite, and the have the interest and ability, quite often above and beyond the call of duty, to promote and give unsung music a chance, even though much of the "musical establishment" seems to be actively engaged in negating or belittling such efforts whilst endlessly promoting the dubious virtues of the contemporary.

Hear, hear, Martin. Hear, hear!

I couldn't agree more Martin!

I believe, Mr. Delicious Manager, you mean Haydn's Symphony No. 80 in D minor.  No. 70 is in D Major.

Quotemuch of the "musical establishment" seems to be actively engaged in negating or belittling such efforts whilst endlessly promoting the dubious virtues of the contemporary

Absolutely, Martin. I am always surprised by how incurious so many professional musicians are. Not only that, when confronted with a piece outside their own repertoire, by a non-contemporary composer of whom they know nothing, the knee-jerk reaction is often quite hostile and is usually a  variation of "it can't be any good otherwise it would be in the repertoire". There are many honourable exceptions to this, I know, but there are all too many musicians who conform to the stereotype.

I keep finding references to the lack of value of contemporary composers.  Am I the only one who suspects that there will be a forum in 100 or 150 years in which people discuss how to revive the unsung composers of the early twenty-first century?

 No, I'm sure that you are correct. I have no problem with people appreciating contemporary music, I'm just not one of them, and in 100 years I shall be way past caring. Still it would be interesting to know who would would be regarded then as the great composers of our time, and who, amongst the current luminaries, will be relegated to the ranks of the unsung. But that's a subject for another topic in a different forum...

QuoteI believe, Mr. Delicious Manager, you mean Haydn's Symphony No. 80 in D minor.  No. 70 is in D Major.

Thanks, JimL, I meant No 70 in D MAJOR, yes - the one with the finale with lots of false endings (it was a LONG time ago and we did symphonies 60, 70 and 80). Thanks for putting my addled old brain straight.

Quote"much of the "musical establishment" seems to be actively engaged in negating or belittling such efforts whilst endlessly promoting the dubious virtues of the contemporary"

Absolutely, Martin. I am always surprised by how incurious so many professional musicians are. Not only that, when confronted with a piece outside their own repertoire, by a non-contemporary composer of whom they know nothing, the knee-jerk reaction is often quite hostile and is usually a  variation of "it can't be any good otherwise it would be in the repertoire". There are many honourable exceptions to this, I know, but there are all too many musicians who conform to the stereotype.

Interestingly, my experience has been quite the reverse. In the orchestras I have managed, the 'new' music (from whatever period) was greeted with much enthusiasm (partly because they knew I wouldn't foist anything 2nd rate on them); they were so glad to get their teeth into good music they hadn't encountered before rather than the nth performance of Beethoven's 5th Symphony or Rakhmaninov's 2nd Piano Concerto. I found most soloists similarly keen; on engaging them I always asked "is there a piece you've been burning to do that other orchestras won't allow you to do?". I usually received some very positive responses. It was me who gave a young Tasmin Little her first chance to perform the Britten Violin Concerto - a piece very seldom played even now and one Tasmin has made her own.

Quotethe Britten Violin Concerto - a piece very seldom played even now

It is, of course, one of the most difficult in the entire repertoire. There are a good few recordings, though.

QuoteIt is, of course, one of the most difficult in the entire repertoire. There are a good few recordings, though.

Indeed - including Tasmin's relatively recent one on Chandos with Edward Gardner.

I feel that I ought to clarify and perhaps expand on my comments in my previous post! In referring to the musical establishment's negative attitude towards unsung repertoire, I am of course referring to non-contemporary music - i.e. music from the romantic period as we know and discuss on this forum! Furthermore, where I refer to "contemporary" music I should of course wish to include the majority of 20th century mainstream repertoire - in other words that are beyond the remit of this forum!

Obviously it would be wrong to discuss here the would-be merits or not of "modern" music but if, say, for example, one were to substitute the Britten violin concerto with that, say, of Eduard Lassen, in a sort of "innocent ear" experiment, with a random audience, I could guarantee where the majority vote would go.......

But, seriously, what's wrong with including such works as concertos by Herz or even Kalkbrenner, in concerts from time to time, accepting that they are not necessarily "great" music, but for what they are - vehicles for entertainment and sheer fun!. After all, we are not only trying to gain respect - and regular performances - for neglected repertoire, but also to generate a lasting interest for a whole new generation of prospective concert goers, who not surprisingly may be writing so-called "classical music" off as dull, boring and the exclusive preserve of the privileged few!

Though I admit to amusement that music that is now over 100, even 120, years old is still regularly, reflexively, called modern (with some equally reflexive exceptions)

QuoteBut, seriously, what's wrong with including such works as concertos by Herz or even Kalkbrenner, in concerts from time to time, accepting that they are not necessarily "great" music

For me, a large part of the problem lies in the unfortunate habit of quite a few musicians and critics to divide our musical heritage in "great" and "not great", with the implication that the latter is unworthy of any attention. Contrast this with the attitude applied to painting or even theatre, where the art's diversity (in many aspects including quality) is celebrated as an important and necessary aspect.

QuoteBut, seriously, what's wrong with including such works as concertos by Herz or even Kalkbrenner, in concerts from time to time, accepting that they are not necessarily "great" music?

This question answers itself. In the advocacy of including unsung music in concert programmes one has to VERY careful not to feed the ignorance of those who would say "the music is not well known for a reason". Of course, these people don't realise the many and various circumstances that can lead to fine music falling by the wayside, but when there is so much first-class unsung music to choose from, why would one decide to programme a work which is "not necessarily 'great' music"? This would only serve to feed the notion that only 'famous' music is any good; careful, judicious and discerning programming is essential.

... which was, much-paraphrased, the response I overheard from people in the audience near me when Hamelin programmed Alkan's piano symphony (in concert - touring with it, I imagine- but specifically, at the university I live near) : that it hadn't been worth resurrecting, that he'd programmed it out of a personal enthusiasm. (They'd got the enthusiasm part right, though- it was an enthusiastic, head-on, passionate performance of the work, at variance with his reputation.)

Quote from: Delicious Manager on Friday 16 October 2015, 14:04
But, seriously, what's wrong with including such works as concertos by Herz or even Kalkbrenner, in concerts from time to time, accepting that they are not necessarily "great" music?

Obviously nothing, but with a caveat:  I once heard a chamber music evening which started with Brahms' G-major string sextet and followed that up with "Souvenir de Florence" (not even an unsung work, rather over-sung).  The effect was that the Tschaikowsky appeared shallow and sentimental by contrast.  I bet this would also happen if you programmed one of Beethoven's piano concerto followed by Moszkowky's (never mind that this is unlikely as the convention has been one solo work per evening).

What is important though is to keep in mind that there is such a thing as great music:  Including among the unsung stuff--for example IMHO the piano trio by Fanny Hensel.  And on the other hand not that great music among the sungs--see above.  After all J.S. Bach himself was unsung for 100 years.

Much to my amazement, we had  5 minutes of Raff on Radio 3 this morning, albeit dwarfed by the usual Brahms, Beethoven and Mozart offerings.

Thal

Was it the Cavatina, or something else?

It was the scherzo from the Third Symphony, in the d'Avalos recording.

Positive: the BBC broadcast some Raff.
Negative: they only played one movement of the symphony. This is the influence of Classic FM writ large, I'm afraid.

I absolutely agree, Alan. Yet another example of dumbing down. Heigh ho!

As you both say.

By the way, there is an almost daily diet of Raff, and very many other unsungs on the Radio Swiss Classic station: www.radioswissclassic.ch/en (http://www.radioswissclassic.ch/en). Still mostly single movements from larger works, but a satisfyingly eclectic mix of composers, both the sung and the unsung in a pretty even mix most days, and of musical eras (although mostly the 18th and 19th centuries). It's a good example of a level, unprejudiced playing field and, at the very least, it's excellent background music which provides the odd welcome discovery.

Thank you for that info - I have bookmarked it at once. Thank God for internet radio...

It was nice to get a bit of Raff on Radio 3, but they then followed it by an in depth review of Rebecca Clarke's Sonata for Viola and Piano which seemed to go on for about 8 hours. The neglected do get exposure, but it appears not the ones that interest us lot.

Thal

Well, Clarke's Viola Sonata is a fine piece. Still....

Mark, if you want a better representation than Radio Swiss Classic's, then (as I have also mentioned before), try the station once known as Radio Stephansdom (https://radioklassik.at/) (Austria) (e.g. ...). Music from 17th-20th century or so (anyone looking for a widely broadcasting station that plays only late 19th-century unsung composers for 24 hours a day, and nothing else, does not have much sympathy from me), some segments full pieces, others movements, but a wide variety (especially their night program, which occasionally will start with e.g. a run of 2nd or 3rd or 4th symphonies by a range of composers) ...

Eric

Quoteanyone looking for a widely broadcasting station that plays only late 19th-century unsung composers for 24 hours a day, and nothing else, does not have much sympathy from me

Nor from me. But one broadcasting a range of unsung music from all eras in their wider context would be a very enticing prospect...

Thanks, Eric, I'll give Radio Stephansdom a try.

Tried it this morning and was slightly startled to hear Leroy Anderson coming out... but playlist seems nicely varied, with a fair mix of unsung as well as well sung.

Well, they're broadcasting Botstein's recording of Chausson's "Le roi Arthus" in a half-hour from now (2pm EDT)...

There's also Concertzender Netherlands which plays mostly but not entirely commercial recordings (there is a weekly "Concertzender Live" thing, I think, which is sometimes jazz, sometimes classical- and sometimes live world premieres...) and which seems to have archived almost all of their broadcasts since- 2008 or so, I think. (Not always accurately, as I found out when trying to access a Sorabji world premiere they'd broadcast/rebroadcast in their overnight slot but the link supposedly to which was to something else entirely... ah, well. Still, that's a lot of archiving, since many stations only archive the last week or month's worth of programs- or nothing; most often: nothing. More details on this sort of thing (internet radio &c &c) can be found, and I guess conversation about it should probably? ? ? ? be continued (sorry...!) in some posts in the "other" blogline - e.g. this one (http://www.unsungcomposers.com/forum/index.php/topic,239.0.html) and this (http://www.unsungcomposers.com/forum/index.php/topic,182.0.html).)

What I (playing mainly chamber music) try to do every time I put together a program, is to combine the sung with the unsung. (Nearly) No one is interested in a program with music which is totally unknown, but in the combining the sung with the unsung lie many possibilities: one can show influences, similarities, or just the opposite! We did a program with Schubert's first trio, and combined it with exactly the opposite: the piano trio of Catoire, a first-class masterpiece: early vs late romantic, well balanced vs turbulent, instruments in perfect harmony vs very soloistic in nature (each instrument fighting for its place), and so on. Another program included Debussy's violin sonata with the first violin sonata by the Dutch composer Willem Pijper, written 2 years after Debussy's, and clearly very influenced by it. Next month we combine Brahms' first sonata for cello and piano with the cello sonata by Gretchaninoff for a very particular reason (apart from the fact that it is a first rate work)(see my entry on this topic, reactions are welcome, since it is my first post on the website, I need some encouragement ;)
When the public is well informed (and the programming director) they will swallow a lot :-) but they need just a bit of extra information and encouragement. I often speak to the public explaining them why I value some pieces and perform them. And the reason may be very prosaic; in our Debut program of a piano trio that I founded in my student days, we put up a program with the letter "D" from "D"ebut: violin sonata by Debussy, Dumky trio by Dvorak, along the Cantilene by Belgian composer August De Boeck (cello and piano) and the exquisite piano trio nr2 by Vincent D'Indy...
Orchestral music is a different matter, I agree, but all bits help. I try to promote good and unknown music as much as possible, albeit in small concerts with a small audience (my career is very limited :-)
cheers to all

Well, I am glad my post got your attention.
I am from Belgium. Great composers like the very young died Guillaume Lekeu and Jongen are rarely heard.
As to radio stations, I know Radio. stephansdom and they do a very good piece of work.
Even more obscure is audiophile greece.
My country fellow composer Benoits pianoconcerto I heard on audiophile is great.
And yes, there is hope.
The young man recording Liapounov.
Trifonov playing Glazounovs 2nd pianoconcerto with Gergiev at the proms.

People. If they believe in it, they can. The young german pianist Moog is one of them.
Hamelin plays everything.
So I do not agree with the first comment on my thread.
Dusseks pianosonates have been played in total at Wifmore hall with huge success.

People will wonder, who was that.
Remember that Dusseks scores and Ries scores even went further than Beethoven. In some pieces of course.
Schubert was only discovered by Schnabel in the beginning of the 20 th century.

Our ears are overloaded with copies and copies of those hallmark works.
Refresh them. Make the people aware that Mozart call CPE BAch our father. Not papa Haydn.

Lots lf things have damaged the chronology of the history of western music.
Lots of composers gave their hands to the "great" and were buried afterwards.

When, like me, chronically ill listen the whole day to that standard repertoire or even just the big names, I tell you, at times you feel like leaving classics and go for jazz or whatever.
It is too unilateral.
Conductors have a great responsibility here. But none of the great went on a discovery tour, they nicely conducted their Brahms, Mahler, Beethoven... Still today.

Ah. It will never change.
When you like Dvorak, well tou will like Fibich. But nobody knows or wants to know.
And where are the musicologists, the academics ? Nowhere...

RIP.

And by the way. The same goes for unsung soloists. Bozhanov, winning I do not know how many competitions, having to reset the chopin competition rules as the jury was so devided over him.
An old lady, having heard lots of the great chopin interpreters, said she had never heard Chopin by Bozhanov since Michelangeli.
But he is left dead by the industry. Rather a Lang, or Wang, with few golden medals, or even none at all, what ever the metal.
Politics play encore. Chinese... Not the real hard working Europeans. Of course there are, I just set an example. Bozhanov should go like Glenn Gould. Record... If they do not want him.
Tsjaikovsky competition. What a joke this year. Completely influenced by Gergiev, even Putin...
Glad our frenchman took the critics prize...
Lang, ambassador of the Leeds competition. He never attended it. Just marketing.
So here too. We loose little jewels in favor of big gun fire from the East.

Take it or leave it.

"Schubert was only discovered by Schnabel in..."

Clarify, please. As written, this is not true. (Certainly there was enough interest in his music for an edition containing first publications of his unpublished symphonies - nos.1-6 - to come out in the 1870s - and many new editions, partial and a few almost-complete, of his piano sonatas, sprinkle the 19th century publication lists. As to performance history, that's harder to determine quickly, without doubt, but I doubt Schnabel "discovered" him; efforts by Schumann, Sullivan and others, iirc, led to performances of his later symphonies, iirc in 1829 and 1865 (C major and B minor resp.) ; the Vienna Philharmonic historic archive website lists 19 performances of Schubert works between 1849 and 1870, and at least 74 -more- or so between 1870 and 1899, many hosted by a "Schubertbund". (The B minor symphony wasn't given its San Francisco premiere until 1912, but there was still US interest before then- look at the Library of Congress website for editions of Schubert works "re-edited" and republished in the USA by American publishers, which would only do so if they knew that such things would sell... one of them, e.g., a new "edition" (under weak US copyright laws of the time, just a re-fingering, often! but sometimes a simplification for beginning performers, too...) of the scherzo of the Op.78 piano sonata - the one that was usually called Fantasy, at the time.)

ah yes, I mirrored that last one at IMSLP. here's the link :) (http://imslp.org/wiki/Piano_Sonata_No.18,_D.894_(Schubert,_Franz)#For_Simplified_Piano_.28Ritter.29) One also sees a late-19th century cello and piano arrangement of the same Menuet (from the Schubert sonata), and Tarrega arranged it for guitar...

(Dussek gets mentioned- there's someone who deserves the attention he gets and more still. I did not know he wrote  3 (late-ish) string quartets (or any at all, I mean) until I saw the CD of them at my local library, for instance.)

Anyway, after pages of reflections, for which I am thankful, my basic question, rests unresolved.
HOW to get them respected. HOW managed pianist Lititsa just by showing her capabilities on youtube to get a contract with DG, and lots of concerts.
The question remains.
And if you tick in Wiener Philharmoniker or Berliner in Spotify or Qobuz you see the shameless narrowness of their repertoire.
I would not like to be member of these giant orchestras.
It is sad after all that and conductors and managers know so little about the western music and their many Gods, big or smaller.
And if I see Gergiev conducting his own Tsjaikovsky with score, I know enough.
Barenboim, Abbado, Eschenbach, Zacharias do not need the score for whatever piece. By coincidence, these conductors are also mostly great solo pianists.
But that aside.
A Fibich on the program, it won't happen.
For me, no problem, I have not the health to attend concerts, so yes, the mentioned internet radios are very good.
Add audiophile greece. Look at their site. The classical part, audiophile classical mostly plays unknown composers, Weinberg, Atterberg,... Take note.

You are right that this discussion can not resolve the problem.  I want to take issue though with one detail in your sad summary:

Quote from: ignaceii on Friday 06 November 2015, 10:25
And if I see Gergiev conducting his own Tsjaikovsky with score, I know enough.
Barenboim, Abbado, Eschenbach, Zacharias do not need the score for whatever piece. By coincidence, these conductors are also mostly great solo pianists.

The habit of performing from memory always reminds me of circus animals:  It has nothing to do with the musical merit of the performance, yet it is all but mandatory for soloists and more and more for conductors too.  I know that Busoni among others has written that if you don't know a piece by heart you don't know it well enough to perform.  This may very well be true for Busoni, but it was arrogant of him to assume the same for everyone else.

Moving on:  If you make performing from memory mandatory you will end up damaging the very unsung repertoire you care so deeply about.  People will have to waste time memorizing scores which will narrow their repertoire.

as I recall, at least one (20th-century) composer (initials KSS) very much insisted his (and I presume preferred that others') scores _not_ be performed from memory, regarding this as more a demonstration of a parlor trick than anything relevant to musical values. He wanted to see the score in front of the (usually pianist) performer (on the increasingly hypothetical occasion he attended a concert himself.)

Sad ?
A summary cannot be sad.
The contents it reveals can.
I hope you meant the last.

Well, ignaceii, it would help if instead of aiming for poetic conciseness, you said who, what, when, where, why (and without quoting entire blocks of posts one can still do that without leaving the rest of us feeling a bit at sea... it seems you're referring to something in Double-A's last post, but given that fact I'm ... still confused.)

QuoteA summary cannot be sad.

Of course it can. A summary is no more and no less than its contents. If its contents are sad, the summary overall is sad...

Maybe I should clarify what I meant by "sad summary".  It meant "summary conceived in sadness".

Cannot help I am dutch.
Yes the summary is somehow tuned, not really conceived, in sadness.
After all, the more replies the less we get ideas on getting our unsung composers out of their jails to say it with a semaphore.
Let it be.

The initial thrust of this thread was, if I am not mistaken, how can something be done to 'popularize' or at least bring attention to deserving unsung composers.

In my estimation, the problem is different for orchestral music vs chamber music. In the first place, the audiences are, for the most part, different. I served on the executive board of a large chamber music series for 20 years in the Chicago area, and I can testify to the fact that well over 75 percent of the audience at the concerts were chamber music players, i.e. amateur players. Obviously, one cannot make a similar statement about orchestral concerts. The audience there consists of general music lovers, some of whom may be players. Also, the executive and programing boards of chamber music series tend to be players themselves and, this too, is important. since, generally speaking, making a profit (versus actually losing money) often, though not always, is not something that is uppermost in such boards minds allowing them the flexibility to program unsungs if they so choose.

It has often been said of many famous composers such as Beethoven that they saved the music which was most important to them for their chamber music compositions. Whether or not that is so, one thing can be said, and that is that the chance for reviving the music of some unsungs is far greater in the area of chamber music than of the larger public offerings such as orchestral music and opera.

That being the case, the problem is to get the music into the hands of players, primarily amateurs but also those professionals (and they are not in the majority) who are interested in exploring the wider literature of chamber music. Unfortunately, in the U.S. few among the better known professional groups are willing to record or program the music of the unsungs, even from American composers such as Foote, Chadwick, Cadman, Hadley, Huss, Beach to name but a few. It is, for the most part, European ensembles which are recording the music of unsungs. And, by doing so, they are performing an important service because few if any amateur players are willing to take a chance of obtaining music by an unsung without hearing it. I know this to be a fact, as we at Edition Silvertrust offer over 2000 chamber works of unsungs for which, except in the case of less than 10, we have illustrative soundbites. And I can tell you, that the works for which we have no soundbites are quite good, for example, quartets by Friedrich Gernsheim (the 2nd was recorded a few years ago, the others not)  or Karel Bendl. And yet, none of these works that have no soundbites sell. No one will take a chance.

So back to how do we get the music into the hands of players. First there is IMSLP, as important to musicians as Wikipedia is to knowlege seekers. But, as great as IMSLP is, there are many short comings. Time, for most musicians, as it is for all of us, is limited and there are not that many players who wish to spend their time piecing together the piano part to piano trios, quartets, sonatas or even putting together the parts to a standard string quartet. I shall not mention such problems as copious fingering, bowings, crooked or missing pages etc. And, IMSLP, as voluminous as its collection is, lacks many important unsung works. These can only be found in the libraries of private collectors and universities.

So much of the job of getting the music into players hands must fall to the music publishers. But it must be done at prices which the average musician can afford.

I wish I had an answer for how we might get the more public music of unsungs revived but I must say, it seems an almost insuperable problem. As late as 1980, there were six radio stations, among them even an AM station, that played classical music in Chicago. And one of these stations devoted itself almost exclusively to the unsungs being supported by loyal group of small time donors. Today, there is one station, a megastation, which plays nothing but the major knowns. One could argue we are lucky to have that. And, as one previous writer to this thread pointed out, orchestras all over the world are struggling.

Apologies for chiming in without having read the entire thread, but something occurred to me. One reason unsung composers aren't respected is because many who condemn them probably have rarely if ever heard their music.

I'd love to listen to a weekly or monthly podcast that discusses and plays the music of unsung composers. Does such a podcast already exist? If not, disseminate the music in a free and convenient way--a podcast--and I imagine good things will happen.

"...many who condemn them probably have rarely if ever heard their music."

Guilty. We've all done this, too. Looking back over 50 years of collecting and listening to music there is a LOT of it that I neglected and dismissed just knowing that I wouldn't like it for stupid reasons: the title, pictures on LP jackets, the composer's era, and their reputation. So it was quite some time before I tried the Elgar symphonies, any Sibelius symphony that wasn't 2 or 5, Pictures at an Exhibition, to name a few. I was taken in by Mahler, Schmidt, Raff, and others. When I finally got around to some of my neglected it was an ear-opening love affair. Now I can't get enough of Elgar or Sibelius.

What I'm suggesting is that musical blindness and ignorance can happen to anyone, exposed to the music or not. And there are still composers I just don't get - I've tried and tried, been to concerts, bought cds, but Mozart (other than the late symphonies) and Verdi (all of it) just leave me indifferent.

QuoteWhat I'm suggesting is that musical blindness and ignorance can happen to anyone, exposed to the music or not

Quite so. The problem, of course, is that it afflicts those who write on music too - who should know better, work harder to combat their prejudices and, above all, take time to explore those areas about which they are ignorant. Blind critics cannot help with others' blind spots, after all; in fact they're more likely to induce blindness in them...

Quote from: Alan Howe on Tuesday 24 November 2015, 22:06
The problem, of course, is that it afflicts those who write on music too - who should know better, work harder to combat their prejudices and, above all, take time to explore those areas about which they are ignorant. Blind critics cannot help with others' blind spots, after all; in fact they're more likely to induce blindness in them...

I don't have much faith in this possibility:  People who write about music write about it because they have strong opinions on it.  And strong opinions are harder to change than regular strength opinions.  What is more they are on record with these opinions, unlike us regular folks.  People don't like contradicting their record; it requires explanation (if only in their own minds).  Much easier to find reasons to keep thinking of Raff as "second rate".

Maybe we ought to look at the bright side for a second:  Imagine a world with no undeservedly unsung composers!  Where would be the pleasure of discovering and "excavating" hidden treasures?  This pleasure, I feel, is what drives many members of this forum.

Quote from: Double-A on Wednesday 25 November 2015, 00:26

Quote from: Alan Howe on Tuesday 24 November 2015, 22:06
The problem, of course, is that it afflicts those who write on music too - who should know better, work harder to combat their prejudices and, above all, take time to explore those areas about which they are ignorant. Blind critics cannot help with others' blind spots, after all; in fact they're more likely to induce blindness in them...

I don't have much faith in this possibility:  People who write about music write about it because they have strong opinions on it.  And strong opinions are harder to change than regular strength opinions.  What is more they are on record with these opinions, unlike us regular folks.  People don't like contradicting their record; it requires explanation (if only in their own minds).  Much easier to find reasons to keep thinking of Raff as "second rate".

Maybe we ought to look at the bright side for a second:  Imagine a world with no undeservedly unsung composers!  Where would be the pleasure of discovering and "excavating" hidden treasures?  This pleasure, I feel, is what drives many members of this forum.

In a sense it is a self-perpetuating cycle. People who do new and open-minded research--musicologists--can't get literary agents to buy into their work (because it isn't on Beethoven, or whatever). People who have built-in public platforms--critics--can write something that is 1/10 new on Beethoven and will make a killing. So everyone follows the money without really considering other potential opportunities or markets.

It's sad, though, isn't it? One would like to think that writers on music/critics/musicologists would be interested in the pursuit of something a little more noble than money. Surely the job of any self-respecting academic is to question received opinions - or at least to examine them in the light of new research and knowledge to find out whether they still stand up...

There is a fantastic radio, also on internet, the dutch canal concerzender.nl
This radio has a lot of attention for the unknown. An example, they had a series of episodes on Hummel. They called the programs, each 1 hour, A second chance for Huummel. The presentator for the first episode cynically dismayed the standard repertoire, and welcomed all those tired of a terrain, repertoire turned into a swamp.
It is a radio with presentators.
All symphonies from Myaskovsky are also covered.
And so on...
A tip maybe for the fans. I know, dutch which I am too, can be a hurdle, but the whole world needs to speak english, and understand, which isn't fair either.

I can't see much in the way of any significant money in the way book sales especially in the field of classical music Beethoven or not. These books I feel for the most part are all about ego or getting their doctorate. Or am I wrong?
Tom

You are indeed wrong, Tom. Read Christopher Fifield''s excellent recent book for example.

Even some of the dissertation-books are well worth reading, in my opinion (especially if they can be downloaded for free; though sometimes you have to know or at least be able to skim the language, or at least that part which has most to do with music.)
There are now more books to do with certain late-Romantic and mid-20th Russian Romantic composers than it seems there have been in some time (a fine recent German book on Robert Fuchs, several books on Myaskovsky including the first ever written in English I believe (as opposed to Ikonnikov's 70-year-old translated-into), Beaumont's imho excellent Zemlinsky biography, &c...)

I believe sdtom intended mainly to argue that there is not sufficient money in books about (sung) composers to motivate lots of people to write them, i.e. those that are written are written out of non pecuniary motives.  This in response to hints in earlier posts that books on e.g. Beethoven create big profits for their authors while books on Raff or Onslow would not.

All about books. Nobody responding on my last post as initiator.
Seems to me this is a club where everybody knows everybody, but not the stranger coming with food to talk about. The way you all address each other. My my.
I will not put much energy in it anymore.
And the main question, how to get them respected, no one. Bla, bla, bla... As little creativity as our current musicians.
Well, 64 replies, not bad. But what have we got. A lions club chat.
I write to Lars Vogt about it, great german pianist, head of a new festival in the summer.
I will do it myself...
Go on...

70 replies.
Bye...

I don't know what you expected, or what you have to complain about either. Still, it's your choice.

QuoteAnd the main question, how to get them respected, no one. Bla, bla, bla... As little creativity as our current musicians.

On the contrary, there's been plenty of food for thought on offer here. And after all, if it were an easy problem to solve, there would be no need for a forum such as this.
Best wishes,
Alan Howe

Quote from: Double-A on Saturday 28 November 2015, 00:13
I believe sdtom intended mainly to argue that there is not sufficient money in books about (sung) composers to motivate lots of people to write them, i.e. those that are written are written out of non pecuniary motives.  This in response to hints in earlier posts that books on e.g. Beethoven create big profits for their authors while books on Raff or Onslow would not.

Yes, and I didn't mean to suggest that a book on Beethoven generates "big profits," only that Beethoven is one of the few topics that will entice a trade publisher to move ahead with a potentially interesting classical music title. See, for example, Matthew Guerrieri's The First Four Notes: Beethoven's Fifth and the Human Imagination. This book is more or less only about the famous four-note motive in Beethoven's Fifth. Try writing a book on the "Satan's Horn Call" melody in Templeton Strong's Sintram Symphony, and I don't think it would get very far!

Then also consider a title like Christopher Fifield's book on German symphonies between Beethoven and Brahms. It is thorough and easy to read, but the price puts it out of reach of many "average" book buyers. If it is going to win hearts and minds among the music-loving public, there would have to be a concerted campaign led by conductors, scholars, other performing musicians, etc. It is becoming easier to create those coalitions, but it's not *easy*. (See, for example, the new recording of George Frederick Bristow's Symphony No. 2, which was a collaboration between a scholar and a conductor--the conductor, incidentally, is related to another musicologist.)

The bottom line, I think, is that there are many institutional barriers to advocating for unsung composers in print or in concert halls with the hopes of reaching a wide public. That's not to say that things will always be this way, but it's my impression at present. The original poster in this thread seems to think that there is a magic bullet out there. I'm highly skeptical.

Mark,as far as Fifield's book I just can't afford it as much as I would like to read it. If it were $50 I might be able to swing it. I tried to get the Minneapolis library system to order  but they didn't. I'm stuck and really have nowhere to turn.
Tom :)

Yes, I must admit that Christopher's book is expensive. Could Minneapolis arrange an inter-library loan with a British library which stocks it, perhaps?

I've certainly ordered in a book from the US in the past. Mind you, I had to read it in my local library.

I know that our local (county) library system won't do out-of-country interlibrary loans, but probably depends on specifics :)

There are fees associated with interlibrary loan that university libraries will absorb for university-affiliated people. Public libraries, on the other hand, will often refuse a loan over a certain dollar amount rather than passing the fee to a patron. It stinks, but sometimes the fees are shockingly high.

Well, there are quite a few rules on what loans our system will and won't try to fulfill (and what it is more likely to succeed in... etc.) though I'm guessing the fees are related to replacement costs (and high original costs in many cases) and - anyway.

To get works respected is difficult; withholding poorer performances would help (I just listened to Botstein's superior, well characterized, performance of Robert Fuchs' 3rd symphony this past weekend; I enjoy the Mussbauer-conducted performance on Thorofon, always have, but now I understand all the gripes/complaints/what-have-you that I've read about the performance- and often enough the work itself (for who distinguishes the work from its representation?) - in several places) -to get them -performed- is somewhat easier, relatively. More and more there are conductors looking for things to play, and libraries (FLP is one example I keep mentioning and which is increasingly, thankfully, known) which are devoted to having not just piano reductions but full scores/parts available, in playable condition as often as possible (... I hope.) These -don't- ILL, not to your usual individual... (the Fleisher collection doesn't, though their main Music library does to some extent even to my county public library; I've borrowed some good things from Free Library of Philadelphia's music department library, including the full score of Karl Ignaz Weigl's first (E major, Breitkopf-pub.) symphony...) but to orchestras, I think, something like.

This is quite an old thread and I've skim-read through it. I wanted to mention the role of amateur orchestras, of which there are many in the UK, in performing works by little-known composers. These orchestras are often of good quality and are only briefly mentioned in the posts above. I've experienced works by unsung composers played by several orchestras, either as a performer (timpani) or audience member.

Before I moved south I spent 17 years in a very good amateur orchestra in West Yorkshire. Early on in my stay there, we played Charles Ives 2nd symphony and much more recently symphonies by Amy Beach and Kalinnikov (no. 1) were featured. The programmes also included well-known works and there was no obvious fall-off in audience numbers. I was treasurer and member of the programme committee for most of this time so had some influence on programme planning. I remember that, in a few cases, difficulty in getting hold of parts, or the hire cost, was a factor in our decision making.

Other orchestras with which I was familiar played Berwald and Bruch symphonies (no. 3 in each case), the Dukas symphony, Bruch's concerto for clarinet and viola and Reger's Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Mozart. (These examples are all from the last 20 years).

Of course amateur orchestras have lower costs than their professional counterparts (although many supplement their regular members with paid "extras") and, as has been mentioned above, friends and family of the players often add to the audience numbers and may be willing to sell tickets - so they  can afford to be less risk-averse with their programming.

Most of the concerts by the above orchestras featured works by more familiar, if not well-known, composers and there were the usual concerts of film music, Christmas and "family" concerts, as well as small groups of players fund-raising in a supermarket or garden centre!

I sometimes listen to Classic FM on the car radio and some years ago tuned in to an intriguing but unfamiliar piece which turned out to be a movement from the Dukas symphony. I believe they do requests from listeners so perhaps there is an opportunity here (although I'm not a fan of the Classic FM format). Regular listeners might get to hear something by chance which would not be their preferred choice.

I've recently started to write about unsung composers, as well as link to their YouTube music, on reddit's r/composers subreddit. My latest entry was about Friedrich Theodor Fröhlich (1803-1836) who'd committed suicide.

It's nice to have people write back and say thanks for enlightening them. It's also gratifying to see that unsungs are not being neglected as their music is released on labels such as cpo and other small ones.

Yeah. It's a good time to be alive.