Unsung masterpieces by sung composers

[Mark Thomas]

Dvorak's Third Symphony and Stanford's Fifth.

[JimL]

Oh, Dvorak is full of unsung stuff.  My favorite symphony is the 2nd, Op. 4.

[Delicious Manager]

A few off the top of my head:

Bach - The four Missae breve; Violin Concerto in D minor BWV 1052 (NOT the 'double', but the reconstructed 'single' one)
Beethoven - Eroica Variations Op 35
Handel - La resurrezzione; Concerti a due chori
Mozart - Incidental music to Thamos, King of Egypt
Prokofiev - Eugene Onegin; Symphony No 3; Symphony No 6
Shostakovich - The Execution of Stepan Razin
Vaughan Williams - Job - A Masque for Dancing
Vivaldi - Nisi Dominus

[Amphissa]

 
Rachmaninoff's The Bells and his Sonata No. 1

[Gareth Vaughan]

And where are the performances of Massenet's Sapho? 

And where are the performances of Gounod's Sappho?

[Jonathan]

Hmmmm, I'd have to say a lot of very good music by Liszt never gets an airing - e.g. A la Chapelle Sixtine (in any of the 4 versions), Scherzo und Marsch, The Elegie on themes by Prince Fernand de Prusse, the 'other' Spanish Rhapsody etc, etc...

[eschiss1]

Also a little surprised to see Medtner included as a sung composer, though... but if so, his sonate-ballade is as known as anything by him, I think - not so the lovely song, "The Muse", from which it takes its melodic material (as does the piano quintet- though the quintet also, I think, takes from "The Rose" from the same group of Pushkin settings, and perhaps others.) These two are sung quite wonderfully (in my honest opinion) by the late Elizabeth Schwarzkopf and played by the composer on a  nla (and much-missed) EMI CD in their "Composers in Person" series (remasterings of recordings made in the 1950s) - hopefully available in some other form, maybe on APR.  The piano sonatas and concertos by Medtner are much better known than the quintet, violin sonatas and skazki, I think, the latter in turn better known than the other brief piano (and violin/piano) works and the songs (and the sonata- and suite-vocalise). Haven't heard all of this and can't by rights call of it masterpiece level of course but the songs I would call well worth hearing.  (Likewise those by some other composers much better known for their larger-scale works, Carl Nielsen e.g. - subjectively at least my favorite Nielsen work is his Holstein setting Sommersang - and also the quiet I Aften..., though I certainly very much enjoy the symphonies, concertos, violin sonatas and piano works.)
Eric

[chill319]

An almost random selection, in order of composition.

1830. Mendelssohn, Reformation Symphony. An astonishingly original work. How far he had come by age 21. Gardiner, Wiener PO perform it wonderfully, though I wouldn't want to part with the noble rendition by Reinhard Seifried, National SO of Ireland.

1833. Mendelssohn's 12+ minute scena ed aria Infelice for Maria Malibran, premiered in London in 1834 (wonderfully performed by Cecilia Bartoli).

1846. Schumann, Das Paradies und die Peri. Pre-Mahlerian heaven.

1853, Schumann, Fantasie, op. 131 (Mutter), Violin Concerto (Capuçon)

1868. Rimsky-Korsakov, Antar. What it lacks in Durchführung it makes up for in sweep and majesty.

1900. Scriabin, Fantasie, op. 28. The Berman performance on YouTube does it justice.

1910. Holst, Beni Mora, particularly the third movement. VW wrote in 1920, "if [Beni Mora] had been played in Paris instead of London it would have given its composer a European reputation."

1912-14. I'll second Strauss's ballet Josephslegende. The Union with God theme is one of his happier inspirations, while the music for the boxing match comes from a ferocious world not distant from Stravinsky's Danse sacrale.

1915. Bloch, Israel Symphony. With a first movement that sounds almost like Copland 25 years later.

1923. Nielsen, Prelude and Theme with Variations. One of the major 20th-c. works for solo violin -- not played nearly as often as Prokofiev or Bartok.

1945. Bax, Piano Trio. He could still push the envelope brilliantly.

[TerraEpon]

Rachmaninoff's The Bells

Probably unsung in concert, but certainly pretty sung (hah!) on recordings. And it's quite often cited as one of Rach's best (if not his best), so I'd say it doesn't quite qualify.

[Revilod]

Revilod, thanks for mentioning Jongleur.  Have you seen the 2009 (recorded live 2007) recording with Alagna on DG?  I don't think it was released in the USA; I had to order mine from Amazon's French site.  I wonderful performance of this much underappreciated work...

No. I hadn't come across it but I will get it. What works against this superb work, of course, is its all-male cast. I remember when I was a student in the late 1970s, a time when there was a certain amount of snobbery about Massenet (and Puccini) because of what was considered his commercial approach to opera composition, pointing out that a composer who could write an opera with no role for a prima donna couldn't be solely interested in making money.

[JSK]

Rimsky Korsakov's piano concerto, sadko, and opera suites, especially Christmas Eve.
Balakirev's First Symphony

[eschiss1]

Rimsky Korsakov's piano concerto, sadko, and opera suites, especially Christmas Eve.
Balakirev's First Symphony

I'm not sure if I've heard both of them- I'm not positive I've heard either of them, but I'm fairly sure I have (that's a recommendation for you...) - anyway, Balakirev's 2 piano sonatas.

Did anyone mention Tchaikovsky's 3rd string quartet?

[Amphissa]

Rachmaninoff's The Bells

Probably unsung in concert, but certainly pretty sung (hah!) on recordings. And it's quite often cited as one of Rach's best (if not his best), so I'd say it doesn't quite qualify.

Just because it has received some recordings does not mean  it has been heard by a lot of people. We all know how abysmally low classical sales are. Most people I know are unfamiliar with either The Bells or Piano Sonata No. 1.

[Amphissa]

 
Another on my list would be Sibelius Kullervo.

[Alan Howe]

Another on my list would be Sibelius Kullervo.

This certainly was unsung, but over here in the UK at least, it has been publicly performed and is probably emerging into some form of 'sungness'.