The obscure and the REALLY obscure

[Gauk]

I always find it remarkable that so many of the composers discussed on this site, no matter how obscure they might be, usually have some sort of presence on the Internet, usually as, at the minimum, a page on Wikipedia, howsoever short. However, digging around in the archive today I came across a symphony by Louis Thirion, who maybe deserves a prize for extreme least fame/most talent ratio.

I can find virtually nothing about Thirion beyond his dates (1879-1966) and that he was a pupil of Guy-Ropartz, and that his son (Louis-Claude) seems also to have pusued a musical career. The symphony is a wonderful piece of French late romanticism, recalling the composer's teacher to some degree. Well worth digging out of the archive for those who have not heard it.

Any other candidates for most interesting composer with least biographical info?

[kolaboy]

François Joseph Dizi.  Very neglected in the realm of recordings. I'm a bit surprised that the 48 etudes (at the very least) have not turned up on cd...

[TerraEpon]

I recently came across a couple composers that I couldn't even find a first name, just a first initial. The only info is tried to the CD they are on (a Claves disc of Russian Balakaika orchestra music....they may be on two separate ones as there's four in the series). I don't even have the CD, just Mp3s gotten from eMusic some years ago, but WorldCat isn't a help, or whatever else....a review of the disc mentions the issue too.

[eschiss1]

There's a few things by Thirion on IMSLP.
Ah. Wikipedia on Louis Thirion is about the younger, born 1923: see Wikipedia (French). Need a translator program, peut-être... does it mention anything about music... will have to see.

Brief bio of the elder Thirion-

here.

Born in Baccarat in 1879, student of Ropartz.

I confused Louis Thirion with Louis-Claude Thirion when I was trying to research the former, but am not sure the latter was a musician. Maybe?

[Gauk]

What does not help is that there is another Louis Thirion who is a science fiction author ... much better known.

[eschiss1]

That's the one at Wikipedia- could they be related btw?... (Closely, I mean. I take for granted that everyone's distantly-enough related, a few hundred or more thousand years back etc. etc., probably. )

[eschiss1]

As to really obscure, one keeps running into them at IMSLP, it seems- though some were well-enough known once so maybe I'm stretching. Among American composers - these were popular-enough but it's not so easy I think to find much information about their lives as against their music... Charles Grobe (have found a bit more info lately) ; Charles Dupee Blake ; (... much of the contingent of IMSLP's "Composer Stubs" category I suppose...)

[Jimfin]

How about John St. Anthony Johnson, who won the British part of the 1928 Columbia Prize for his piece "Pax Vobiscum"? That part is pretty well known, but I am utterly at a loss to find much more about him. His date of birth is given as 1874, but he appears to have vanished into obscurity and have not found a death date.

Of course, one could simply get into people whom one has met, who have had no success getting performed: I knew two people at university who composed, and one of them remains completely unknown, to the best of my knowledge.

[Ser Amantio di Nicolao]

William Clifford Heilman.  Trained at Harvard, taught there for some years, apparently.  He's in John Tasker Howard's Our American Music, published in 1938, and I have a lovely piano trio of his on a disc put out by the Rawlins Trio.  (See http://www.amazon.com/Three-American-William-Clifford-Heilman/dp/B0000049ND/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1366644207&sr=8-1&keywords=William+Clifford+Heilman - I agree with the five-star reviewer more than the three-star, although both are right that the Parker is the best thing on the disc.  I hear no esoteric modernism in the Heilman, frankly.)  Between Howard and the liner notes to the disc, I found out everything I know about him...which is not much at all. 

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Clifford_Heilman.  (Funny story: I listened to the trio, and found out that I quite enjoyed it.  So naturally I Googled the composer to scant result.  I did find the Wikipedia article.  I read it, and was intrigued by the fact that it cited Howard, which I own...upon checking the article history, it seems I wrote the Wiki article myself a year prior to purchasing the disc, and had completely forgotten about it...)

[Gauk]

Of course, one could simply get into people whom one has met, who have had no success getting performed: I knew two people at university who composed, and one of them remains completely unknown, to the best of my knowledge.

And were they any good? Easy to name someone totally obscure; the issue here is someone who is totally obscure despite being highly talented, as evident from one or two works that have survived.

[Alan Howe]

Well, there are the known knowns (the sung), the known unknowns (the unsung), and the unknown unknowns (the really obscure).
Sounds like musicology à la Donald Rumsfeld  .

[X. Trapnel]

One of my favorite musical reference works is the gloriously mistitled Portraits of the World's Best-Known Musicians. Yes, Beethoven et al. are in it but also pictures of Charleses Grobe and Dupee Blake, some evidence they were carbon-based life forms. No such evidence there for Thirion, Johnson, or Heilman unfortunately.

[eschiss1]

Hrm. Actually, from IMSLP, there's some bio for Blake, at that (and now I remember putting some brief bio in for Grobe.) The image we have for Grobe comes from library.duke.edu (might be the same image though.) And NYPL has this digital gallery of images - scores but also portraits/photos - likewise on both counts BNF (France)... (and "brustbild" or something like that will come up in Worldcat and other searches, etc. , sometimes, downloadable images from... anyway. Yes. Sometimes, resources from various places. *mind wanders off, pondering, must follow as usual *g**)

Thanks!

[semloh]

Well, there are the known knowns (the sung), the known unknowns (the unsung), and the unknown unknowns (the really obscure).
Sounds like musicology à la Donald Rumsfeld  .

Indeed, and although we know that there are unknown unknowns, we cannot know them! At UC we deal mostly with the unknowns that we do know, and only very rarely does a piece of music get played which is by an unknown unknown, i.e. the composer is both unknown and can not be named. Some unknowns are actually quite well known as unknowns, i.e. they are famous for being unknown (like the composer of the tune for 'Amazing grace'), whilst other unknown unknowns are totally unknown like the composer of the obscure hymn 'He is my everything' - who is a truly unknown, unknown, unknown. 
OK - I know, enough already!

[eschiss1]

hrm- well, the ones we cannot know are the ineffable, I mean unknowable, unknowns

(quantum musicology? ... isn't that a music label out of France?)