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Do you know the Gunter Raphael Sonata? It's on YouTube.

Ladislav Kupkovic harp quintet. Although written c1980, it is written in a style which many would place between Mozart and Mendelssohn.

The Ancerl Symphonietta is a really remarkable piece - many thanks, Sydney, for posting it.
I hadn't previously realised that he composed at all. This is the only piece to which I can immediately find reference: there are presumably others?

Masks is an orchestration of Szymanowski's Masques for piano. I possess a score which suggests that it would be most interesting to hear. Well it would be anyway . . .

Henry Brant's orchestration of Ives's Concord Sonata is certainly intriguing. Two orchestrations I'd like to hear are Constant Lambert's of Liszt's Dante Sonata and Casella's version of islamey. Any views, anyone?
An orchestration which I thought missed the point entirely was Boulez's of Ravel's Frontispice.

I'm new on this board so I hope I'm not speaking out of turn. My immediate reaction on noticing the thread title was to assume that I would encounter a few opinions on CDs of underpublicised music which have impressed in the strongest way because of a) the quality of the music, b) the quality of the performance and c) the fact that such recordings/music seem not to have been heralded even in forums such as this one. The intention would be certainly not to indulge in any subjective/competitive poll (a pretty worthless exercise) but to share a committed enthusiasm or two, especially considering that the CDs I have in mind feature two composers whose work has attracted either little or no attention around here.

The first is a double CD by the Swedish pianist Anna Christensson of music by Henning Mankell (not the author and creator of Wallander, but his grandfather who lived from 1868-1930) much of whose output is for solo piano.



The other CD is of a more familiar composer, Nikos Skalkottas: his string quartets nos 3 and 4. The 4th quartet is surely one of the great quartets of the 20th century.

I feel rather out of place here by admitting that I'm a musician, 62 and resident in London.
I discovered this message board only recently having posted much at r3ok and sporadically at GMG, so it's good to see that interesting posters such as Vandermolen, Dundonnel and J.Z.Herrenberg are here also.

An examination of this index will reveal a number of examples

http://www.cisdur.de/e_index.html

There are of course many worthwhile composers from Albania, although with the odd exception such as Fan Noli (who was prime minister in 1924), there were very few composers of concert music before WW2. Much orchestral music was written since the 1950s: a number of the best efforts seem to be for violin and orchestra, often written in an impassioned, concentrated style. Names such as Tish Daia, Feim Ibrahimi, Aleksandër Peçi, Thoma Gaqi, Çesk Zadeja, Nikolla Zoraqi and more recently David Tukiqi and Thoma Simaku.

All active during the Hoxha regime.

apart from Fan Noli, as was made clear.

Probably composed in some form of 'Socialist realism' idiom.

Indeed, but stylistically surprisingly varied despite the restrictions. Mind you, the "Hoxha regime" hasn't existed for 20 years, so things have moved on a bit. Peçi, for instance, composes quite different music these days.

The article linked by eschiss is unfortunately a little misleading, for example -

There is no doubt that the most famous composer in Albania of all the time is Çesk Zadeja (1927-1997) . . . rightly called the father of Albanian classical music

. Zadeja produced the first Albanian symphony in 1956, but it's certainly an overstatement to suggest that he's the "most famous" or "the father of Albanian classical music".

Pianistically, A-flat minor and G-sharp minor are identical.  There is no variance in hand positions.

Nobody said there was.

There are of course many worthwhile composers from Albania, although with the odd exception such as Fan Noli (who was prime minister in 1924), there were very few composers of concert music before WW2. Much orchestral music was written since the 1950s: a number of the best efforts seem to be for violin and orchestra, often written in an impassioned, concentrated style. Names such as Tish Daia, Feim Ibrahimi, Aleksandër Peçi, Thoma Gaqi, Çesk Zadeja, Nikolla Zoraqi and more recently David Tukiqi and Thoma Simaku.

Ab minor is a convenient key for pianists in terms of hand positions - or so it seems to me. Alkan is one composer who possibly prefers G# minor (last movement of Grande Sonate, 1st movement of solo Concerto etc.

Christopher Hobbs (b.1950) - 24 Preludes in all the keys (1992).

There are many recordings  including the composer playing both violin (some of the caprices) and piano (some of the piano sonatas). I also possess a Concerto for solo unaccompanied violin (!), a Triple Concerto for trumpet,clarinet, bassoon + strings, a bassoon concerto and the Markantes Stück for piano and orchestra.

An excellent work by Hindemith - trio for heckelphone (or tenor sax), viola and piano.