Sung composers, Unsung works

[giwro]

It is possible this has been discussed before - I'm relatively new here and haven't manged to read ALL of the posts yet <chuckle>

Often a particular composer becomes known (and even well-known) for one or two standout works...  sadly, often they have written many OTHER wonderful pieces.  Here are a few that come to mind:

Joaquin Rodrigo - probably most famous for Concierto de Aranjuez, but wrote a number of concertos for other instruments and several hours of solo piano music (which I am listening to right now, as I got the discs from the local library...  WONDERFUL!)
Charles Marie Widor - most famous for his 10 solo orgna symphonies, yet author of MANY other works for other forces
Enescu - for many years a "one -hit wonder" with the Romanian Rhapsody, in actuality a wide range of other finely-wrought scores (with far more musical depth!)
Camille Saint-Saens - Primarily known for his 3rd Symphonie and piano concertos, plenty of other fine works

I'm sure I will think of others as soon as I post...

Best to all - G

[Tirana]

Ruggero Leoncavallo (1858-1919) is almost exclusively known for his veristic opera 'Pagliacci' (1892), but many of his lesser-known works can also be found on recordings. They include 'La bohème' (1897) and 'Zazà' (1900). 'I Medici' (written before 'Pagliacci', but given its premiere later, in 1893) was the first, and the only completed part of a Wagner-influenced trilogy based on Italian history.

The most famous composition by Pietro Mascagni (1863-1945) is the veristic opera 'Cavalleria rusticana' (1890), followed by 'L'amico Fritz' (1891) and 'Iris' (1898). Other operas, like 'Silvano' (1895), are virtually unknown.

Amilcare Ponchielli (1834-1886) composed several operas besides his masterpiece, 'La Gioconda' (1876). At least 'I Lituani' (1874) has been recorded.

Jules Massenet (1842-1912), famous for operas like 'Werther' and 'Manon', was also active in other genres, composing, for example, a piano concerto.

I guess works by renaissance composers Gregorio Allegri and Alonso Lobo other than 'Miserere' and 'Versa est in luctum', respectively, are quite rarely heard.

[Alan Howe]

Welcome to the forum, Tirana!

[jimmattt]

Recently I had the pleasure of hearing Bartok's Op. 2, Scherzo with piano and orchestra, and it was great to hear the sounds the master made as a young man, which also reminded me of a few other unsung pieces by sung composers as they were starting out that I love, yet fail to listen to as often as I might: Sibelius' Symphony no. 1, Nielsen's Symphony No. 1, Rachmaninoff's Sym. No. 1, and even though Szymanowski called his first symphony a "contrapuntal-harmonic-orchestral monster" later on in his life, I like it a lot, too. I also think "juvenilia" are fascinating, as well as the sad stories of composers who died so young like Heikki Suolahti (age 16), Pierre-Jean Grassi (age 20 or 21, I think), and Lekeu and Lili Boulanger, who have been mentioned here before. Perhaps some of you can mention some other such music and composers. I would love to explore more youthful works. Thanks, Jim

[Mark Thomas]

Over the years the "unsung" operas of Mascagni, Ponchieli and Massenet in particular have given me a lot of pleasure. Massenet's Esclarmonde, for instance, is a magnifcent piece which I'd urge anybody with a taste for gorgeously melodic, sumptously orchestrated Wagnerian, yet totally French high-drama to try: just sample the Prologue with the Emperor (a bass) intoning against the backdrop of organ, orchestra and eventually chorus you'll be hooked on this heroic piece (samples here).

[eschiss1]

Hrm. While of course (?) all my favorite composers sung and unsung (I will admit my very very favorite composers, Beethoven Bach and Mozart in top three at this time, are presently fairly sung, but historical perspective makes me look at that adjective with a certain eye here), are uneven in a certain relative sense - there's that latest work discovered by Bach that I'm going to listen to one of these days (that early strophic song that goes on forever) - (yes, I am getting back to topic by bit and bit)-
ever since joining sites like this one and IMSLP I have gotten interested in this sort of thing among many others...

Beethoven's cantata Der glorreiche Augenblick (op.136, first performed 1814 November 29, published in 1837 (tangent again: and I still keep seeing "ca.1837" when someone sees that something was published in 1837 in IMSLP so they write ca.1837 for composition date- it just does _not_ follow... erm. anyway. )   Have heard this once.  As good a work as the two symphonies (nos. 7 and 8 ) in the same concert (no.8, I think, received its premiere in that same concert?)  Hardly. Fun and interesting, I thought, yes.
Lots and lots and lots of little "shavings" of Beethoven, and a few reconstructions by amateur editors of sketches (a string quintet movement, for instance), on IMSLP, btw - and on other sites, MIDI recordings and other things representing also very, very unsung music by a composer some few pieces by whom one plays so often one probably needs to listen with new ears (probably not making much sense here. though some of the lesser-known music I have heard has had the double virtue of being good in itself and improving my ability to hear what was going on in well-known pieces I thought I knew, too, like all that wonderful invertible counterpoint in the opening minutes of the first movement of Brahms' first symphony, which I really had not caught. Erm. Sorry...!
But as to Brahms- two pieces I want to hear, played well (MacDonald is not so impressed with the one recording that existed of one of these, for what that's worth...) - Rinaldo, op.50, and the Triumphlied.
Had a disc of several of the choral-orchestral works - not at the time my usual genre-home , though the drama of Gesäng der Parzen was gripping! (and the disc seems no longer to be in my collection- did I foolishly sell it? hrm. ... ah. There's Shaw's recording of some of them, just not the other recording I had) - and indeed they have grown on me (of course the Alto Rhapsody etc. and especially the German Requiem have been the opposite of unsung, indeed the latter was Brahms' first and major "hit"...)

[JimL]

Besides the piano concerto, Massenet also composed a Fantasy for Cello and Orchestra which I rather like.  It's been recorded, but I'll bet it doesn't see the concert hall much.

[Amphissa]

Rimsky-Korsakov is known for Sheherazade and assorted other orchestral works, but there are few recordings of his operas. There are good recordings of orchestral suites compiled from a few of them, like Le Coq d'Or, Snow Maiden, etc. But the operas themselves are rarely heard. Mlada, Kashchei the Immortal, The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh, The Tale of Tsar Saltan, Sadko -- I love his operas.

Wagner's Symphony in C. Pretty much the only orchestral music by Wagner one ever hears are extracts from the operas. But he did write a symphony.

Rachmaninoff Sonata No. 1. Hard to play. Even harder to play well. All the music of Rachmaninoff has been recorded a gazillion times -- except the Sonata No. 1. There are probably fewer than 20 recordings ever of this challenging work, and all but a couple of them are mediocre to bad. The original version has never been recorded. (This, incidentally, would be a great project for a premier recording -- if a label can find a pianist capable of playing it well. Yakov Kasman would be a good choice.)

Borodin's orchestral works like the symphonies and the Polovtsian Dances have been recorded many times. But to my ears, his chamber music (the two string quartets, piano quintet and cello sonata) are very fine works and sadly neglected.

Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition and Night on the Bare Mountain have been recorded and performed enough to wear anyone's patience. But one work that is just as intriguing is the prelude to Khovanstchina called "Dawn on the Moskva River." There are two completions of the work, one by Rimsky-Korsakov and another by Shostakovich. The two versions are quite different, but both are well worth hearing, because Mussorgsky's original sketches were so good.

[dafrieze]

Liszt's Christus, a three-hour, three-part oratorio, has some of his most beautiful music in it, and there are a handful of recordings of it, but for various reasons, most of them, I suspect, logistical, it's rarely performed in public.

[eschiss1]

Liszt's St. Elisabeth doesn't do much better and also has quite a lot of very lovely stuff in it (though the Koch recording I have is cut, so maybe what I have is the best parts...)  Oratorios relatively speaking- one can almost put in here, in a statement like this, "except for some of the most famous and a rotating tier of some of the not quite as famous too" (e.g. Messiah in the 1st category of course) - were much, much more popular in the 19th century and far less popular now, I think it fairly safe to say (likewise several similar - genres?... - except for melodramas - I say except for, hrm... say... melodramas not because their decline hasn't been precipitous, but because there are far far fewer still-popular exceptions and survivors- if any. Indeed one might look to some composers' melodramas for some good unsung works that are likely to remain so for now. Melodramas by sung composers- I have not heard these - include
*Schubert's Abschied von der Erde (D.829), from 1826
*Grieg's Bergliot op.42 (1871/1885)
*Liszt's Lenore (S.346) (completed 1858) and others (Der traurige Monch is singled out by Alan Walker as especially interesting)
*Tchaikovsky's The Voyevoda (not the opera or the ballad- there are three works by this name by the composer) (1886, first pub. 1962)

[JimL]

Wagner's Symphony in C. Pretty much the only orchestral music by Wagner one ever hears are extracts from the operas. But he did write a symphony.

Borodin's orchestral works like the symphonies and the Polovtsian Dances have been recorded many times. But to my ears, his chamber music (the two string quartets, piano quintet and cello sonata) are very fine works and sadly neglected.

Wagner also composed a couple of piano sonatas, and half of a symphony in E.  I believe all have been recorded.  And Borodin's 2nd String Quartet in D is a repertory work, although the 1st, in A, is rather sadly neglected.  Everybody knows the Romance from the 2nd quartet.

[eschiss1]

Nocturne, not Romance. (well, translating from the русский язык .)  Couple of other Wagner chamber works are known to have existed and are missing, too- hopefully not permanently lost (on the grounds, I say, that it would be interesting to hear them- I don't expect to hear intimations of Parsifal in them or anything like...) (And well hrmph, mine is quite gone. ) re Borodin chamber works: also string quintet, and (unfinished?) sextet and piano trio.

[JimL]

Correction gratefully received.  Told you my mind was going...

[eschiss1]

although as Belaieff originally published in Leipzig (hrm, wait, was it Belaieff?), the titles would have been in German and Russian simultaneously (as for the next couple of generations pre-Muzyka) anyhow... hrm. yes. apparently at least according to some lib. catalogs, quartet 2 first published in parts by Belaieff of Leipzig in 1888, year after the composer's death (Belaieff plate # 1064).

[chill319]

In today's world, choral music is a likely hiding place for unsung masterpieces. Consider Grieg's Four Psalms, op 74, Schubert's Mass D103, Schumann's "Das Paradies und die Peri," Holst's "Choral Hymns from the Rig Veda." The list is very long.