Unsung versus Mainstream

[parkermusic]

Following on from Albion's quote:

"Quite often, neglected composers have simply been defeated by the sheer volume of music clamouring to be heard during their lifetime: I could weep at the labour of Parry, Stanford, Cowen and Mackenzie endlessly producing large-scale and often highly accomplished and attractive works for soloists, chorus and orchestra for the Provincial Festivals between 1880 and 1910 only to have them performed (usually badly) once or at most twice including a London performance. They lived during a period of prodigious production when novelty was the cult and, without the benefits of recording, a work performed once or twice in its existence surely has not had anything like a fair hearing."

This really is the crux of the argument for resurrecting these unsung composers. They were part of a 'system' that favoured novelty over anything else, where one or two performances were the maximum a composer would ever likely to get of their efforts. I have seen many minutes of choral societies, and orchestras for that matter, from the 19th Century, where the selection process immediately dismissed a work that had already been heard 'elsewhere', because of its lack of 'novelty'. Provincial Festivals rarely offered top-notch performances and so many of the beauties of the works were probably never appreciated, and of course, as Albion has also said, we don't have the benefit of recordings of them. It often takes me several hearings of a piece before I can say I really get to understand it. These composers and their works deserve better...

[semloh]

We have had this debate before on UC, but that's OK.

I argued rather similarly that the unsung composers are today caught between two extremes - the unquenchable thirst for novelty on one hand, and the comfort of the familiar on the other. They suffer on both counts: novelty generally means the serialists and atonal academics, and comfort means choosing Brahms and Tchaikovsky rather than Raff and Myaskovsky.

Several members have suggested, rightly I think, that socio-cultural norms tend to create a mind-set such that the "great composers" are inevitably seen as always great, and such that those who are lowly ranked will be seen as always such. In this way, the idea of Brahms (say) writing bad music, and of Raff (say) writing a work as great as one by Brahms, becomes ever more difficult to accept.

We have also gone over various ideas as to how a composer moves from one category to another, and how a composition can move from one to another. These things interest me greatly, and although I realise they aren't everyone's cup of the, I think they are important to UC because of our shared desire to get at least a little more balance between the two, and a measure of justice for some of the more deserving victims! 

[Mark Thomas]

how a composer moves from one category to another

A hugely difficult thing to achieve, and one which I suggest these days happens, when it happens at all, largely through the agency of a deus ex machina, some external event, such as music by an Unsung being used in the soundtrack of a popular movie, or maybe being promoted by a virtuoso or, as with Gorecki's Third Symphony here in the UK, a radio station.

[semloh]

Yes, maybe Gorecki, Mark, although I am guessing that his general popularity is still largely restricted to the 3rd Symphony, which is easy listening compared to his other orchestral works. I think I have noted before that his 2nd symphony is a very different kettle of fish, and (to my taste) far less palatable!