What is it?

[Paul Barasi]

Just what is unsung music?
Can it be as simple as this: The vast amount of music makes it inevitable that a lot of it will be unsung?

So actually there is no difference in the musical content between the two categories of sung and unsung music. But is that really true? Surely quality must be clearly higher in the sung category? That's what the distinction is about. Maybe, but a key factor in getting into the sung category is the pull of a big name composer. We feel that had an unsung work by an under-recognised composer been instead part of the output of one of these big names then it would be popular. But that does little to explain highly popular works by those one-trick pony composers who are famous for nothing else – except possibly the view that the best of unsung music matches the quality of the best of sung music. Certainly, unsung compositions have not been well-championed by musicians and won't be a big draw in the concert hall or a big sell in the CD market, but that sounds like a rather circular definition.

If I'm at a loss to put my finger on whether there is anything different or distinctive about the music, I am also struggling on the question:

What is it about unsung music that is so appealing and attractive that we make it our focus?

What is it then that is the cause of our enthusiasm and preoccupation with unsung music? Obviously, it widens the range of our listening experience. It allows us to hear real gems ignored by the world. We are supporters of unsung works as a category for the simple reason that they are unsung. Can this be a little bit selfish and elitist in that we access and enjoy the music that others either reject or, more likely, never get a fair chance to hear and decide for themselves what value these works have? But again, that won't really do, because we'd love it for these works to become popular, to be available in multiple versions on CD by the top performers and the best of musicians and for concerts to be less dominated by long or short-term fashion. This suggests there are underlying social values: a kind of musical inclusive democracy which promotes equality and abhors discrimination.  Politically or socially, unsung music seems to be a cause some of us champion, even campaign for! Or perhaps rather we feel the world is too arbitrary in consigning certain works and composers into the unsung trash can.  But then again, we feel some works deserve to be unsung ... 

[Alan Howe]

For me it's all very simple. The vast majority of music of all eras is little-known. Therefore there is an enormous amount of music which is rarely (or never) played today, and the fun lies in discovering what's out there. Sometimes the standard repertoire has left behind true masterpieces, but far more often the sheer amount of fine music written (of the next level down, as it were) has meant that some has remained in the repertoire and the remainder hasn't. There is, of course, a lot of mediocre music out there too - which doesn't mean to say that it isn't worth listening to.

From a personal point of view, although new masterpieces are hard to come by, music from the next level down continues to emerge at a dizzying rate. The Graener symphony recently released by cpo is a case in point.

[thalbergmad]

and the fun lies in discovering what's out there.

Exactly how I feel. It is the thrill of the hunt.

Thal

[Alan Howe]

...although the idea that unsung masterpieces might exist is also a major motivating factor.

[Gareth Vaughan]

I would like to add that not all of the standard repertoire is top-notch. I have never been a great admirer of Mendelssohn's "Scottish" Symphony, for example - I enjoy it, but I can think of two or three Raff symphonies that I consider superior, and these are not in the standard repertore. Similarly, while I would not claim that Litolff's Concerto Symphonique No. 4 was in the same bracket as the Brahms or Beethoven PCs, I do consider it equal in melodic inventiveness, drama and panache to the Grieg and Schumann concerti, which are certainly regularly performed.

[semloh]

Who can legitimately be called an "Unsung Composer" depends upon where and when we make the judgement. Composers unsung in one culture/country may not be unsung in another, and someone who qualifies now may not have done so in the past and vice-versa. I think the same applies to "Unsung Compositions". In addition, an unsung composition may be the work of a well sung composer, and many composers are only unsung in the sense that they are known only for a single/few familiar works.

Which all just reminds us to be aware that the subject matter for this forum, provided it is in the romantic idiom, doesn't have fixed or universal boundaries. Well, duh! 

[BerlinExpat]

What is it then that is the cause of our enthusiasm and preoccupation with unsung music?

For me it's very often music that was once "sung" and now slumbers archives. Fashions come and go and perhaps a "new generation" delights in rediscovering what two or more generations ago was once popular. Korngold's Die tote Stadt disappeared from the stage for a very long time and is now standard repertoire once more. The
My quest for "unsungs" stems from wanting to discover further works of so-called "one-off" composers. For example, Reznicek's Donna Dianna overture is a standard request piece on radio programmes but until a decade ago hardly anyone alive had seen the opera. I made the effort to see this wonderful stage work and thankfully the piece has been saved for prosperity by CPO. I'm immensely grateful for them for tackling the symphonies and other orchestral works by a composer who was once as popular, in Germany at least, as Richard Strauss. Other fine works such as the Goldpirol overture and violin concerto are still languishing somewhere awaiting rediscovery.
I'm immensely grateful there are companies such as CPO, Dutton, Timpani and to a certain extent, Naxos, who shower us with "unsungs" instead of releasing the umpteenth recording of standard repertoire pieces that IMHO are often superfluous.

[eschiss1]

I'll stick up for Naxos as having more better-known music in their catalog but, it seems to me, very much more (and more commitment to) unsung music than "to a certain extent" might imply...
Also a few smaller but appreciated labels that it gets difficult to track them (though I agree in advance that your list was not meant to be comprehensive. Though I see your Dutton and raise you Hyperion, BIS (despite admitted similar issues that come with scale, I suppose) and Ondine, e.g. )

I remember being at first very dismissive of unsung music in general on the basis of a classical-period oboe quartet (not Mozart's) that I heard on the radio back around my college days (I think I'd probably like it now. By one of the Stamitz family, I believe it was) and after being very turned-off by my first encounter with a Sinding symphony on the radio (his 2nd, probably, though I misheard the announcer.) First of all, later encounters with some composers I'd never heard of - like Mahler and Nielsen (former-unsungs, and new to me) - and Berwald (very new to me, and a name I was told to keep my ear out for by someone I knew, before I did hear a note of his music) - together with the nearby quality of Floor C (the scores/parts section of the university library- spent -way- too much time there looking at this, that, this, the other, the other other, ..., ..., ........, and me a math major, not music) and of the sound recordings section of the music department too - plus ability to catch WFLN-AM (I think it was- Philadelphia's then-fine classical station, which is now a rock station but then played a good wide range of classical, even Myaskovsky more than a few times, ...) told me that exploring music was worth the misses and the hits.  Apologies for the long-long-long-windedness which may not quite answer the question now I think on it... hrm.

And I found myself (still do) receptive early on to arguments about the social nature of fame and falling through the cracks as presented above (even while Bach, Mozart and Beethoven remain my three favorite composers for all that- actually, the fortunes of Bach and Mozart and all their- well, no matter, never mind.) If a Myaskovsky fell through there (well, here; I gather he has had some name recognition in Russia, unless my interlocutor thought I was speaking of Vladimir Mayakovsky...), I would find myself thinking, why not an Ivanovs or maybe a Golubev or a ... &c &c and for example only...

[jerfilm]

I've never been convinced that composers, especially from the 19th century, who have become "unsung" are that way because they have nothing to say or their music is not worth hearing.  If you closely examine the musical climate of the last half of the 19th century, you quickly see that the classical music scene was dominated by a few, fairly powerful, conductors/music directors.  They had their close friends, such as Brahms, and they played and promoted what THEY liked.  (and I'm not saying here that Brahms wasn't a "giant" among composers of his time).  But the choices these men made, I think, have influenced what we've heard for the last 150 years.   Only in recent times with the proliforation of orchestras, conductors, recordings and such have we begun to discover that Brahms wasn't the only masterful composer of his time.  No recordings back then to pass along Reinecke or Ries or anyone else.  You heard what you were given in the concert hall and you better like it.  Because von Bulow - or whoever - did.......

So, who you knew, what circle of composer friends you might hang around with, who liked you and who didn't like you I think were all influences on what we're still listening to today. 

Jerry

[Paul Barasi]

Read through the discussion so far and I think you'll already see some valuable insights and some core points but I'd like to encourage more members to contribute so that we do pool and capture all the rest of the deep knowledge and understanding that we hold individually.

The last comprehensive sharing we did was the site review, and it was also productive in resulting in the statement on How does Unsung Composers define "romantic music"? But in a sense that's inevitably the negative side: the necessary limiting of what we do here. Ideally what I'd like to end up with is something sitting alongside at the top of this site which also makes the case for unsung music – which can never be in the majority but perhaps we can help reduce its marginalisation by extending the influence of our thinking to those who deliver and consume music.

I sometimes feel that members aren't only concerned with securing just for themselves the means of hearing unsung music by the CDs we buy and the concerts we go to but are making a social/political intervention in the market by seeking to demonstrate support for unsung music as a viable product in the hope of generating more supply and boosting its popular appeal.  I think progress is being made by certain labels and musicians. (I am far less certain that's equally true of radio.)

So, it would be gr8 to hear from more of us and then maybe to see whether it could be an idea to use the material to write something up as a case for unsung music.

[Alan Howe]

Conductor Sir Mark Elder took part in BBC Radio 4's Start the Week discussion this morning, citing the case of Offenbach's neglected opéra comique Fantasio (1872) which he is conducting at the Royal Festival Hall, London this coming Sunday (15th). He was dismissive of the notion that the criterion by which music should be judged is whether it has survived, or not. With regard to Fantasio he argued that the work was in fact an important stepping-stone on the way to The Tales of Hoffmann. Sounds like a recruit for the cause....

BTW, it seems that Opera Rara will be bringing out a recording of Fantasio...

[kolaboy]

It's a life-long thing for me.
When I was a child I had many allergies/illnesses that kept me indoors the majority of the time. My days were spent either drawing, or reading. Being naturally drawn to music I gravitated towards biographies of composers. So, reading about Handel one comes across the names of Arne, and Bononcini; reading Liszt's life you run headlong into Cornelius, Hiller, and, of course, Raff. Each of these unknown (to me) names and their corresponding music(s) were like an unknown planet to be explored... and I've pretty much kept that feeling to this day. I've been gratified many times (Gade,Sterndale Bennett, Fesca), and disappointed a few (fill in the blanks), but for me the exploration is almost as rewarding as the reward.

[John H White]

In theory, it could be purely instrumental music, not employing human voices. Since most vocal music of any worth is written in foreign languages to me, I tend to prefer instrumental music.

[eschiss1]

Of vocal music I tend to prefer that in foreign languages, which I can hear as instrumental music with vocalise; opera in English usually, almost always, has such nonsense texts (opera in any language does, but if I understand the language- usually otherwise only true for me somewhat, I suppose, of French and to a much lesser degree of German) that the clash with the sometime dignity of the music seems... erm... erm.

(Schoenberg wrote something (in an essay quoted in Style and Idea) about how, according to the apparent musical philosophy of some of his contemporaries, Mark could have sung "Tristan - This, to me?" (trans.) to a light cabaret song equally as well as to the music that he does sing it to.  Well, this - I gather... - for centuries... though less so for the best opera composers, later Mozart e.g., I am led to believe. Anyhow, given the wonder of the music alone in many (other) cases (though as you can see I am no opera/vocal expert - the operas and songs with which I'm more familiar tend to be more Nielsen, Prokofiev, Bridge, rather than Verdi, Puccini), I often don't want to find that the words aren't up to them

[chill319]

Mark could have sung "Tristan - This, to me?" (trans.) to a light cabaret song equally as well as to the music that he does sing it to.

Shades of "Golliwog's Cakewalk."