Admitting the Unsung to the Pantheon...

[Alan Howe]

No: Raff may be eligible to us, but he isn't yet in the minds of the wider public...

[Crescendo]

I would suggest Atterberg.

[petershott@btinternet.com]

OK, Alan, I was only teasing about Raff.

But how about the admittance of Paul Juon to the pantheon? I don't think I'd heard a note of Juon 10 years ago - and might not even have known the name. Since then we've seen the emergence of much chamber music of high quality (in my view). Although - to echo a recent post of mine - very little of the orchestral music.

I suppose Dohnanyi wouldn't be a candidate since a small number of his works have always been well known and well regarded? But I mention him since in recent years a number of recordings have provided us with a far more rounded and comprehensive view of his compositions. For example the Martin Roscoe recordings of the piano music. I didn't really appreciate how good the piano works are before I heard Roscoe.

[Amphissa]

If we are proposing unsung composers we would like to hear played more and recorded more, I think we can all put together a personal list.

If the idea is to suggest who among the unsung composers is most worthy of inclusion among the pantheon of the sungs, well, my list would be quite different from many here, I suspect.

Realistically, if a composer does not have at least one piece that gets performed in concert and recorded multiple times by notable musicians, or if a composer does not have a champion in the concert hall who can perform him regularly, the chance of actually achieving that level of acceptance is just about zero.

[Alan Howe]

Dave, you still misunderstand the essence of this thread. It's not about who we'd like to see recorded/played more, it's simply about those composers about whom we now know far more than we did even a few years ago. It's not even about those whom we might consider worthy ourselves: instead it's about those whose overall worth has emerged through the release of a representative number of recordings. It's not even about who might actually get performed regularly by virtue of having composed one star piece. As I said, this is an attempt to discern which composers - objectively speaking - are now known to us sufficiently well in terms of overall achievement for them possibly to be admitted to the notional pantheon of established composers - regardless of all other considerations.

[Mark Thomas]

Seems to me a pretty straightforward and valid, if theoretical, question. The orchestral concert repertoire is unfortunately so constrained by economics and performer and audience conservatism as to be almost irrelevant as a yardstick of musical worth. Luckily the chamber and instrumental music field and, curiously, the operatic stage are a little more adventurous.

All that said, despite spending fifteen years or so with colleagues in Germany, Switzerland and the USA beating the Raff drum as loudly as we can, we have still only achieved a little of the recognition I think he deserves, and that only amongst the modern generation of musicologists and, to some degree, amongst the recording-buying public. There are an increasing number of concerts, but mostly at (they'll forgive me for saying this) second-tier venues with non-star name performers. Whilst I do regard this as success, judged by where we have come from, the musical world is just so conservative that it's a huge uphill struggle. I'm biased I know, but I suspect that Raff is the most likely of our unsung heroes to make a breakthrough and yet I very much doubt that I'll live to see even a couple of his symphonies or some of his best chamber music return as staple concert repertoire.

None of which invalidates the idea that we should attempt to draw up our own list of worthwhile candidates for stardom.

[Alan Howe]

You're right, Mark, the question is theoretical - at least at this stage. But then, a generation ago it was with regard to, say, Szymanowski, and before that, Berlioz. It may take time, but one can hope that what today is theoretical may one day become a living reality.

[alberto]

I would add Reger, Magnard and d'Indy ( at the borders of "unsungness"), but their overall oeuvre was more or less known already ten-fifteen years ago (if less than today). That seems a little less true for the candidates Pfitzner, Martucci, Sgambati, Pizzetti.
A little digression, merely personal, maybe off-topic. Between the (many) unsung the forum prompted me to appreciate: Rufinatscha, Pejacevic, d'Erlanger, Bowen, Klughardt (I would say, maybe mistaking, completely unsung ten years ago). 

[Amphissa]

Yes, I am a moron. Either that, or I'm an academic -- which could be construed as the same thing.

"... which composers - objectively speaking - are now known to us sufficiently well in terms of overall achievement for them possibly to be admitted to the notional pantheon of established composers ...."

My question remains, admitted to the pantheon by whom? If it is simply a consensus among ourselves that we admit them to the pantheon of greats, fine. We could compile the list of names and vote up or down on each name. That's kind of like taking a vote and electing X as a new Romantic great.

If we are, instead, looking for names of composers whom we now think have achieved some threshold of recognition that actually gives them a chance at joining the pantheon through public acclaim (i.e., people beyond our Unsung circle who share our opinion), that is something else altogether.

I'll stick by my criteria. If a composer cannot get played in concert halls and doesn't get recorded by noted musicians, the chance of being admitted to the pantheon by people outside UC is pretty close to zero.

I still think of the unsungs Myaskovsky and Glazunov are the only two with a realistic chance of actually entering the pantheon.

Now, obviously, I'm just not "getting it" with your question and I don't really want to be argumentative. So I'm going to just bow out of this thread now. My apology for being so dense.

[Alan Howe]

No need to apologise, I'm sure. I'm sorry that the thread hasn't struck much of a chord.

[mbhaub]

Let's look at this way: who was the latest unsung admitted to the pantheon? Mahler? And he had the advocacy of Walter, Mitropoulos, Bernstein, Kubelik, Solti and others. And it didn't take long; he went from unsung to over-sung in a scant 20 years. Is there any current unsung composer who is remotely Mahler's equal? I don't think so. There's plenty of unsung music that I dearly love and enjoy, but as Amphissa points out, it's really up to a large number of performing artists to see the light and that's just not likely. I always hoped Franz Schmidt would break into the mainstream, but with the death of Yakov Kreizberg, Schmidt's greatest living advocate is gone. As more orchestras around the world contract in size, go out of business there will be less opportunity for the unsungs. And young conductors are going to want to have their say on the standard classics -- they want their shot at Beethoven and Brahms, too! And Mahler.
Sorry, but I don't think you will ever see any more composers added to the pantheon who wrote the standard repertoire. Sadly, there will be some demoted and left by the wayside: Franck, Liszt, Saint-Saens, Glazunov are already pretty marginalized. In the US there are plenty of "sung" composers who qualify as unsung. Hearing an Elgar or Bruckner symphony here is a real rarity. Thank god for recorded music!

[Alan Howe]

I'm not really interested in who may or may not actually 'make it'. It was a purely hypothetical exercise based on what we know now in comparison with what we knew in the past.

As for Mahler, well, he's certainly not the latest unsung to have made it. In any case, there was always a performing tradition with regard to his music. Szymanowski, on the other hand, was certainly well outside the mainstream at one time; but, thanks largely to Rattle and (lately) Gergiev, he is now equally certainly in the pantheon, so I don't believe that change is impossible. Unlikely, maybe, but not impossible. But then I'm a glass half-full man: I actually thought that Chandos might take up my suggestion to record Rufinatscha. And they did!

Of course, if we merely sit back and complain, nothing will ever happen - even on the margins. So who knows what some high-profile musician might decide to take on...?

[Gauk]

If you take "pantheon of established composers" to mean "those who deserve a regular place on the concert platform because their works would appeal to a wide audience", then the list could be quite long, and in addition to names already mentioned, one could throw in Stanford and Fibich - to name but two.

If it means "composers of the first rank", then I'm afraid I think the answer is none. Those named are good composers of the second rank, but not of the stature of, say, Mahler.

[Alan Howe]

one could throw in Stanford and Fibich - to name but two.

I'd already thrown in Stanford.

If it means "composers of the first rank", then I'm afraid I think the answer is none. Those named are good composers of the second rank, but not of the stature of, say, Mahler.

I don't agree. I believe there are composers of the first rank among the unsung. And for all his marvellous music, Mahler - like Bruckner - is essentially a one-genre composer. He is much more limited in terms of all-round compositional achievement than, say, Dvorak or Brahms among established names. In another generation today's Mahler hype may have blown itself out and we may be able to assess him more objectively.

On a personal note, when I first started investigating forgotten music, I corresponded with the late Dr Alan Krueck whose knowledge of the unsung repertoire was - and probably remains - unmatched. Interestingly, he had come to the conclusion that there are greats among the unsung.

[Mark Thomas]

In any event, the phrase "composers of the first rank" is not very meaningful, because it is such a subjective one unless one chooses to have it defined as those whose pieces are in the concert repertoire. In which case, as Martin rightly points out, the number will shrink rather than grow.