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[tastes]

The study does indeed nothing to account for preferences in musical taste.  It applies to the "avant garde boys" as much as to Beethoven (and to Chinese opera as well!).

I essentially agree with your point. Maybe I kind of confused the discussion by comparing the two musical currents. But, thing is, look at the headline of the article:

"Why we like the music we do
New study suggests that musical tastes are cultural in origin, not hardwired in the brain."

Sure, musical tastes have a largely learnt component, doubly so for complex pieces. But to conclude from research which essentially looked if there's a preferred interval or chord as listened in isolation that musical tastes are cultural, is at least IMO, a non sequitur. It is almost like giving blind sample tastes of basil and wasabi to find out if there's an "innate" preference for a cuisine. Sure, we learn to love/hate food in accordance to what we've been exposed but you wouldn't arrive to that conclusion by comparing the response of blindfolded subjects to pepper and cardamom.

I am pretty much convinced that much of what we had come to love in music has indeed come for external influences, culture, even the memories of the times when we've first heard it. But again, I wouldn't come to that conclusion from observing that people with no previous musical background at all found more or less all chords equivalent. Music is not that, it is what you later do with those chords/intervals.

I believe the researchers got answers for the wrong question. This kind of test might be useful if we were discussing issues of tempering but overall (IMO) irrelevant for what I'd call music.

Explicitly, depending on how sober I am I might prefer the sound of an F13 chord over G major but that's so beyond the point. It is the combination of harmony, melody, rhythm and tempo what makes or breaks a piece, independently if it is a Western or Chinese one.

Put the same population comparing extracts of the Rach 2 or Beethoven 6th vs the avant garde boys. We can talk after that 

Hmm. Since no preference for a style or period is given I'll go for three pieces that are almost certain to please although their composers aren't that unsung. Lets say the are amongst the rather sung part of the unsung:

- Bortkewiecz Sonata No. 2. This sounds like Rachaminov, the composer of concertos, had written a sonata. I know this sounds weird but I've found that his sonatas and concertos despite sharing some very obvious elements are texturally different and tend to flow different. Just look at Rachmaninov sonata 1, the last movement is as dense and contrapunctially complex as parts of the Hammerklavier sonata. On the other side, this sonata has the same passion for big chords and tunes that is so evident in the Rach PC 2. For recordings, Nadedja Vlaeva has a recording with several russian piano pieces named "A Treasury of Russian Romantic Piano".

- Paderewski Piano Sonata. If Wagner had decided to compose a piano sonata, it should had sounded similar to this. I am only aware of Plowright recording for Hyperion. Actually I vaguely remember that Melodya also had a recording which will likely be almost impossible to get by now.

- Dukas PC: This is a monster of sonata, in the same league as the Hammerklavier. Go for Hamelin's record.

And as a bonus, a small piece that makes a lovely encore: Ponce's intermezzo. As you can see, all of these pieces are on the rather well known side of the unsungs but are very enjoyable even on a first listening.

Since I just mentioned the Bronsart PC in a different thread in which I was about to add "the Bronsart PC, which is clearly the best by a Liszt student" I recalled that I haven't really heard them all. My favorite, amongst the ones I've heard is clearly the Bronsart but the very germanic d'Albert (who sounds like a weird but interesting crossover of Brahms and Liszt) and the very muscular Sauer PC are also of significant interest.

Anyway, which is your favorite Piano Concerto composed by a student of Liszt? Please to refrain to just one.

Well, that leads us to the old question of why haven't some of the very very very obvious candidates been recorded. I am thinking of Bortikiewicz 2,3, Rubinstein 3,5, Raff, Bronsart and Ponce. At least for the Ponce they have a good reason, if I recall correctly it was part of that stupid copyright issue with the family of certain brazilian composer.

But then, back to the original post, my issue with the "Granados" is that it wasn't really even "completed", it was downright recomposed since there was not enough material to do what we could honestly call a completion. The cover clearly states that it was recomposed by Melani Mestre, but then, if it was composed by him why should we call it a work by Granados?

Apparently, it was "The Desert" that influenced several french composers into "exotic" music like Bizet/Spain or Saint-Saens/Egypt. It was of course mostly a french reintrepretation of eastern music but quite interesting by its own self. And yes, some of his chamber music is amongst the most enjoyable by any composer, sung or unsung.

Maybe somebody else has mentioned this in a previous thread, but it bears mentioning just in case someone hasn't heard about it: ASV's catalog is about to be reprinted by Presto Classical: http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2015/Nov/ASV_Russian.htm

Haha, I more or less agree with you all. The other piece in that cd isn't good even as a sleep pill substitute, yet, I somehow believe that the VC, if played by an orchestra that at least pretends to care, can be a decent piece. Since I haven't heard a performance with a half awake orchestra, well, I remain in doubt of its merits 

I have recently listened to Naxos' re-release of Carlo Giorgio Garofalo's Violin Concerto and I can't avoid concluding it is definitely a fine piece. Not a masterpiece of the concertante literature, of course, but it is very tuneful and has plenty of oportunity for ambitious violinists to show their skills. Besides, it has it's very own style, one wouldn't confuse it with a work by, say, Brahms or Reinecke.

Anyways, the reason for this post is to ask if anyone knows of a different recording from the one by Naxos. Sergei Stadler is actually a quite good violinist (he even won the Tchaikovsky competition in the 80's) but the orchestra sounds very perfunctory. It is actually one of the best orchestras in the good olde Marco Polo label, and one can't find any harsh section but it sounds so perfunctory, no real excitement or emotion, almost like if they were recording for a badly paid tv add. The exception are the oboe and horn players who actually deliver some beautiful passages, the rest sounds like a professional orchestra of undisputable quality but without much (or any) involvment with the pieces in this recording.

@Aramiarz: Hard to tell. In general Abdiel is more of "poet"; I believe his main job is as a vocal coach at Manhattan School of Music and it notes, he can really make the piano sing. On the other hand, Rodolfo is more of a virtuoso. It gives a radically different experience for this concerto. Which is why I insist on a Ponce/Castro pairing that gives us a different angle from the one that we already have from the Sterling releases. By the way, are there are any plans for Castro's symphony?

@Gareth Vaughan: The ASV recording you mention includes the violin concerto played by Szeryng and the guitar concerto with Alfonso Moreno? If so, then the pianist is Jorge Federico Osorio, one of the greatest "unsung" pianists around. Well, unsung is a relative term since he is a legend in Mexico and actually has been recorded several times, yet he is little known outside Mexico and the Chicago area where he resides. Word of voice is that he made his fame when he was hand picked by Prokofiev's widow for a memorial recital. In any case, check his discography at: http://jorgefedericoosorio.com/discography/. Most of it is very sung repertory but in a few cases it features music that is little known outside Mexico, you might find something of interest.

Oh, I wasn't aware that the Ponce PC  was part of the Tavares concerti debacle. Who was the pianist/orchestra?

Yet, the Ponce/Castro is now an obvious coupling and there is a very very obvious pianist for the project, too: Abdiel Vázquez. The Ponce PC is a staple of all mexican orchestras and the Castro PC was a bit of a "hot piece" for the last 18 months in the mexican concert halls so it shouldn't be difficult to find a conductor for it (Iván López Reynoso is again a rather obvious choice since he has toured with the Castro and some Ponce pieces). I could even mention an obvious orchestra for the project: The Orquesta Filarmonica de Jalisco played both concerti in the past 12 months and did so superbly, unfortunately it has had some serious turmoil since this summer.

Anyway, this Sterling release with Ritter will keep me busy for a while when it comes to mexican concertant pieces.

Actually, a Castro/Ponce 1 is one of the most obvious pairings missing in the RPC series. For some reason they have decided to overlook some of the "obvious" choices like Rubinstein (except the PC4), Raff or Ponce.

Maybe there is some copyright issue involved but I find more likely someone there just don't find them attractive enough for release which is a shame, since they are way better than some of what they have actually released. The other possibility is that they haven't found anyone who knows/want to learn such repertory. At least in the case of Ponce/Castro I find that hard to believe since the Ponce is a must for mexican pianists and Castro has been featured in several big concert halls in the country recently.

Don't get me wrong. Moog's Rach 3 is definitely better than some of the rather late releases by big companies. It is way better (for example) than Yuja Wang's or Lang Lang's version, but then, nobody is surprised by that. The problem is that the Rach 3 is an extremely competitive field. It is probably the piece that every aspiring virtuoso wants to record, it is recorded over and over and over again and it is really hard to bring something new to the table. For a version recorded in modern sound the release by Thibaudet/Ashkenazy or the Glemser/Wit are simply on a different league.

Anyway, since this kind of "off-topic" discussions always make any administrator mad I will just say that Moog's in the middle of the pack (trust me, I have almost 40 recordings of the Rach 3, I was obsessed by it some time ago). You can do definitely worse than it, but what's the point with promoting a record for a very average version of a piece that's easily available elsewhere when it actually includes one of the very best recordings of a rather unsung piece? Moog is actually one of the best young pianists around, way better than most of what the big labels are promoting around, there's no need to inflate his work as it speaks by itself, it just doesn't really includes that Rach 3 as a standout.

On the Argerich topic all I'd say is that the album with the Rach 3/Tchaikovsky 1 is one of the most overrated albums in history. She doesn't sinks her fingers all the way down when pressing the keys and as a result the melodic lines wobble in a unpredictable way. It is a very exciting and totally unmusical record. It was my first exposure to both works and as a result I ended disliking them for a while until I found other versions. By the way one of the very few (if not the only) concertante piece in which Argerich in "crazy mode" works well is Strauss' Burlesque. I way prefer her when she is not trying to break speed records. Her Bach partitas or the manifold releases of chamber music both at Lugano and with Gidon Kremer are examples of that. That being told, most of her famous records are either of pieces of percussive nature (Prokofiev 3 or the Burlesque) or grossly distorted pieces in an attempt to break the Guinness records (the live Tchaikovsky 1, Rach 3 or the Chopin scherzo 3).

Anyway, I have just heard the new Moszkowski samples. It is actually closer to Ponti than Lane. That's so welcome. When I first heard the album of the Moszkowski/Paderewski I was indignant with Piers Lane slow and almost chopin-ian approach to that music. I have in the mean time grown to appreciate his style but I have still wanted a more bravura approach for both pieces. For the Paderewski we have the Fialkowska/Wit on Naxos, but the Moszkowski from Naxos was a bit percussive for my taste. I will refrain from further comments until I hear the complete album but it looks like we finally got a punchy version of the Moszkowski.

Well, in the past he released the Rubinstein 4 along with the Rach 3. The Rach 3 was so-so but the Rubinstein 4 is probably the best version I've heard (along with Banowetz). He also recorded Scharwenka's sonata 2 and it was easily comparable to Tanyel.
It seems to me that Moog wants to record some more UC-friendly repertory while the record company wants to keep it safe, resulting in those funny pairings. In any case,  I would keep an eye on it.

Sorry for replying on an old threat, but, do the plans extend to Castro's symphony? I recently listened to it in youtube and it is quite a nice piece, although the orchestra sounds like a student orchestra. It would definitely benefit from a pro ensemble.