Which unsungs are on their way to becoming 'sung' - and vice versa?

[Ilja]

We had this discussion a couple of years ago, but I found it interesting to provoke an update. The question is: which composers do you think are ascending or descending from one category (sung) into the other (unsung) in the concert hall and on CD/MP3?

The thing that made me raise the question is that I noticed certain composers that I heard a lot of music from in my student days (about 15 years ago) are becoming gradually less performed in (Dutch) concert halls: Ravel, Stravinsky and Bartók, to name just three. The reverse is the case with Dutch composers: some pieces by Wagenaar, Van Gilse and Van Anrooy are now heard quite often (well, more often than before). Usually as openers however - still, it's a start.

What trends have you noticed in your country / region?

[Jimfin]

I think that concerts are very different from recordings: in recordings, Stanford and Bax seem to have become a lot more sung, but in concerts Stanford remains unsung and Bax has gone from slightly sung to largely unsung. Havergal Brian seems to be getting increasingly sung too, especially in the recording studio.

[Alan Howe]

The problem is that a composer can be largely unsung in the concert hall, and yet may actually have received a fair number of recordings. Raff, I suggest, falls into this category. Take the symphonies, for example: they have all been recorded at least twice, some of them more than that, and yet concert performances are still a rare event. I'd say that Raff was on the way to becoming 'sung' (again, as he was in the 1870s when he was as famous as Brahms, Liszt or Wagner), but that there's still a long road ahead.
By contrast, a composer such as Szymanowski has now surely acquired an international reputation. When I 'discovered' him for myself in the 70s, the recordings were pretty well exclusively Polish; now you know he's become sung because the likes of Rattle and Boulez have recorded him - and performed him live.
Other composers have enjoyed the advocacy of societies dedicated to their cause which have made recordings and promoted performances (e.g. Draeseke) or have been the subject of support from the state (Rufinatscha from the government of the Tyrol) - but (sadly), if that advocacy or support were withdrawn, they might once more disappear into the mists of time. (Of course, at least Draeseke was a 'name' during his lifetime and attracted the attention of major performers; Rufinatscha's reputation, on the other hand, flowered briefly in the 1840/50s and then seems to have taken a complete nose-dive).
As for composers who have travelled in the opposite direction, I'll have to come back to the topic later...

[Richard Moss]

To my uninformed self, there seems to be a trend to let 'unsung' pieces by 'sung' composers get a bit more attention (for example, Prof Newbold's completions/realisations of Schubert symphonies).  I have treasured for some time the Hyperion edition of these works and had the chance, a few years ago, to hear Sir Simon Rattle perform Schubert's Symphony No. 10 live at the Festival Hall. Whilst delighted to hear a live performance, it was unfortunately nowhere near as enjoyable to listen to as the CD and sounded very flat and under-rehearsed.

Other unknown works, or completions/performing versions of them, seem to be popping up all over, so I would suggest that such unknowns are on the march towards ceasing to be 'unknowns' any longer.  Even if the purists do not approve/agree with such completions, personally to hear such a work, even if not all the notes are by the composer, is still better than not hearing it at all!

Since my listening is now 100% via CD, I'm only aware of unknowns on the march (e.g. Brull, Jadsssohn - thank you so much Cameo Classics!) and cannot judge anyone who is on the wane.

Just a thought or two.

Richard

[Alan Howe]

...for the most part, though, the general trend has been away from adding composers to the sung pantheon, in my view - at least as far as the wider, concert-going public is concerned and the critics and magazines that report on them.
What is without doubt true is that a number of composers have attracted a lot of recording activity and have thus become well-known to folk such as us. However, I can't think of many composers who have become sung (in the sense of becoming known to the wider public through concert performances) in the past, say, decade.
There are, of course, certain individual pieces by unsung composers which have entered the mainstream repertoire. One of these, surely, is Suk's Asrael Symphony which seems to be receiving recordings from all manner of labels and public performances everywhere, but without bringing the remainder of the composer's output along with it.
On the other hand, public performances of a work such as Brian's Gothic Symphony have arguably been merely spectacular (and exciting) one-offs, with no discernible positive enhancement of the composer's reputation and certainly no increase in the frequency of public performances of his other works. In Brian's case, it is difficult to get past the 'one-offness' (for want of a better phrase) of his most famous work and proceed to his others.

[Alan Howe]

...as for composers who have travelled in the other direction and begun to lose their sung status, I can't really think of any. And that may be a symptom of the wider problem, which is precisely how unsung composers' music is to make its way into the sung repertoire if that repertoire is, in general terms, so ossified that there is no means of bringing this about. Until the power of promoters, the ignorance of even big-name performers and the 'Classic FM' mentality of the public are challenged and broken down in the manner of such tradition-snubbing refuseniks as Leon Botstein or JoAnn Faletta (or by milder versions of the same), nothing will change.
There: that's my toothache talking!

[Alan Howe]

...mind you, with Waghalter's VC being performed in London in November (as well as already having been recorded by Naxos), there is the odd sign of hope that some concert organisers and performers might have the courage to buck the general trend.

[Ilja]

Burkhardt Schmilgun of cpo once told me that following their release of the Atterberg symphony cycle there had been some increase in demand for his works by orchestras. The trend I've seen recently in the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany is a further reduction of the 'big' repertory, compensated somewhat by the inclusion of minor 'experiments'. In the overture-concert-symphony scheme for concerts, that means that the overture will most often be the 'unfamiliar' piece, whereas the chance that the symphony is an unsung piece is becoming ever smaller. But again, I haven't researched this thoroughly. I might, though.

[Alan Howe]

If that's true, Ilja, it's a start, but nothing more than that. Unfortunately!

[ewk]

I think Erich Wolfgang Korngold is becoming more and more sung here in Germany – he hasn't been absolutely unsung (nearly all of his works are recorded, most of them have multiple recordings), but in concert halls, his music was relatively absent. Nowadays, his Violin Concerto is performed quite often (I think only in Germany at least 20 times per year) and his big late-romantic opera "Die Tote Stadt" is getting performed quite often as well – I think you  can watch it at least at three different opera houses in Germany alone every year (there are 80 opera houses in Germany, so this is still not very often, but it's a beginning). The same thing happens with Franz Schreker, whose operas are more and more often performed.
My last example ist Mieczyslaw Weinberg, a polish-jewish composer who fled to Russia after the Nazis attacked Poland. He was a close friend of Shostakovich, their music is very similar, they learned from each other. After his music was center of the important Salzburg music festival some years ago, his music is at least recorded quite often, chandos has started a series of his symphonies and concertos. But maybe his music is not romantic enough for the "unsung composers"-board. Both other composers definitively are.

ewk

Moderator's note: I have allowed this post to stand because it contains important information about composers relevant to this site. However, we would be grateful if posters would refrain from bringing up music beyond the revised remit of Unsung Composers.
Alan Howe

[thalbergmad]

Perhaps Alkan might be a candidate who has crossed the barrier from unsung to sung. 10 years ago, he did not seem to get much of a mention on piano forums, but now he appears almost every week and there are no shortage of CD's available.

As for concerts, I would not know as I never keep an eye out for those. It would be a brave man that would attempt some of his larger works live, but with his bicentenary coming up next year, I wager there will be more than usual.

Thal

[eschiss1]

Re Alkan: I've heard the solo symphony live (March 2005, Hamelin, in Ithaca NY) and I see that Kenneth Hamilton is playing another part of op.39, Le festin d'Ésope, next March in Cardiff (the concert also includes Liszt's B minor sonata and other works.) (Neither was/is on the anniversary of Alkan's death, no. All three being in March does seem a bit of a coincidence.)

[TerraEpon]

As far as sung to unsung goes -- perhaps not composers as a whole, but individual pieces seem to fall out of favor. I believe the last recording of Gaite Parisienne was Naxos's in 1996, for instance. A lot of overtures seem to fall by the say side too -- Suppe used to be a staple yet he seems to have fallen off the map.

[Mark Thomas]

I'd nominate César Franck as a composer whose concert hall star has waned. Time was, in the 70s especially, when the Symphony seemed inescapable and both Le Chausseur Maudit and the Symphonic Variations enjoyed a brief vogue in the first half of concerts. My impression is that he isn't heard live that much any more. Similarly Mendelssohn's warhorses the Italian and Scottish Symphonies and the Violin and Piano Concertos were always being programmed but they don't appear anything like so often now. The same is true of Schumann's Piano Concerto but not his symphonies, which in the UK at least are enjoying a resurgence for some reason.

[Alan Howe]

Yes, I agree about Franck: his star has definitely waned.