Unsung History

[JimL]

Toss Antonio Bazzini onto that list.  But we digress...

[chill319]

Morton Gould: Lincoln Legend
Ernst Bacon: Ford's Theatre - A Few Glimpses of East Week, 1865
Paul Turok: Variations on an American Song "Aspects of Lincoln and Liberty", Op. 20
Aaron Copland: Lincoln Portrait
Vincent Persichetti: A Lincoln Address, Op. 124
Roy Harris: Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight
Charles Ives: Lincoln the Great Commoner
George Frederick McKay: To a Liberator
(all on Naxos 8.559373-74)

Robert Russell Bennett: Abraham Lincoln / Sights and Sounds (Naxos 8.559004)

R Harris, Epilogue to Profiles in Courage (J.F.K.)
I Stravinsky: Elegy for J.F.K.

[eschiss1]

the Library of Congress has an "The Alfred Whital Stern Collection of Lincolniana" that may also prove interesting in this connection, with much music more contemporary with Lincoln's life and soon after it having to do with him (and very much that isn't music, of course.) Very little of it known at all though of course I suspect most of the music as usual and by definition mundane. (Still, I at least find enough pleasant surprises in these archives.) (going to subject --> music one finds 250 items listed, fwiw... some items by Joseph W Turner and Philip Wolsieffer, who I've already run into and think are interesting, among others. hrm. no, my mistake- William Wolsieffer- perhaps a relative to Philip )

[alberto]

Writers:
Franz Liszt: Le triomphe funébre de Tasso (recorded, but unsung, while Tasso, lamento e Trionfo is also fairly performed).
Great Historical Events: Liszt The Battle of the Huns (recorded, but not performed.Inspired by a painting about the Catalaunian Fields-actual France- in 451).
M.Ohki: Hiroshima Symphony (Naxos) (The Penderecky Threnody is sung- anyway this "event" is such I have difficulty in mentioning, tragic as are others mentioned).
Don Gillis The Alamo (Albany record).
Charles Ives: Putnam's Camp and Colonel Shaw and his coloured regiment-the latter a subtitle-n.2 and 1 from "Three places in New England".
R.Harris Symphony 6 Gettysburg (Naxos)
W.Piston Symphony 6 Gettysburg (Naxos; also Brilliant by Gauk, if I remember)
W.Schuman Symphony n.9 "Le Fosse Ardeatine" (Naxos)
M.Arnold Peterloo Overture (at least old Emi).
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About Bongiovanni records: generally to be avoided...and generally without alternatives.

[eschiss1]

I think I have Arnold's own recording of his Peterloo overture, at that.
Re Liszt's Hunnenschlacht (symphonic poem no.11) - some evidence that it's rarely performed might be that Leon Botstein seems to have believed there was a need to program it in 2006 (while at Bard College, during a Liszt festival admittedly.)

[eschiss1]

apologies for responding again, but a bit of surprise here- Piston's 6th symphony (recorded several times on LP etc- the Naxos is a reissue, sort of, of  a Delos CD, and it had, as 20th century works go, a good LP history; the Gauk is a reissue of a Melodiya LP with a very interesting history) has a historical subtitle/subtext/?... this is entirely news to me, and I think not so... supposedly it was composed to mark the 75th anniversary of the Boston Symphony. (There are now Wikipedia articles on all of Piston's symphonies, most of Sessions' - I had something to do with some of those - and similar. There are Dutch Wikipedia articles on 2 of Bendix' symphonies. And lots of them in the German Wikipedia, including well-filled out ones on Myaskovsky's symphonies- by the way, should I mention Myaskovsky's symphony 16 which is either about the Air Force or about an air disaster, sort of?... a favorite of mine among his anycase...
anyway. Er-hrm. a sort-of digression... but not wholly so.)

[alberto]

Unsung history:
Magnard: Hymne à la Justice op.14 (1902) , prompted by the "affaire Dreyfus" and dedicated to Captain Dreyfus.
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(Reply 13: Eschiss1 is right when he writes "gli altri" = the others (like Nicole Kidman's movie).

[eschiss1]

*really should start signing his posts ;^) * eschiss1 - Eric (e) (yes, that's so very obvious, I know. long story, sorry) + part of surname (classified...er..ok, not that hard probably.) + 1. ...
And thanks!
Also, there are of course many examples from JL Dussek's work including some from his own experience (an elegy-sonata / elegie-harmonique opus 61 written after he had laid by the deathbed of his employer, a day or two after they had played a piano duet ? 2 piano version of one of his concertos and Dussek had had one of his recently completed opus 60 string quartets (his only chamber music without piano, and fine works) performed for him also...) Not denying that that period has much to offer for this as Romantic was (in the opinion of one acquaintance of mine, but I will say that he makes sense) less about expression and common chords and tonality than it was about connections between the various arts and the Romantic movement in the arts - a distinction, like many, lost with time.

Declaration: Howard Hanson wrote a "Song of human rights" op.49 (1963). There seem to be a couple of other works related, also.

[reiger]

Also Grofe's Lincoln's Gettysburg Address... Anyone know if there's a recording of it? 

[Latvian]

Speaking of Lincoln... there's Jaromir Weinberger's "Lincoln" Symphony (1941).

[Patrick Murtha]

Paul B., you have opened a multiple topic.
Now I limit myself to scientists, admitting I have to recur to semi modern or moderrn composers.
Johannes Kepler: protagonist of the opera "Die Harmonie der Welt" by Paul Hindemith (as the opera is rather unsung, much less is the Symphony which is a by-product: I have heard in actual concert twice, there are recordings by Blomstedt, Mravinsky, Furtwangler....)
Nicolaus Copernicus: Symphony n.2 Copernicana by M.Gorecki, using Copernicus text s (Naxos recording).

The first complete recording of Die Harmonie der Welt, led by Marek Jankowski (Wergo), blew me away; I have always been a Hindemith fan, but even I wasn't prepared for the singular greatness of this opera. Highly recommended for anyone who hasn't heard it.

[alberto]

BTW there is also the opera "Kepler" by Philip Glass , premiered in 2009.

[Jimfin]

Alan Bush's operas are all, to some extent, historical, as are George Lloyd's.

[alberto]

I think we could write down an almost limitless list of historical or semi historical opera by unsung composers (or of unsung operas by -more or less prolific- some composers).
I limit myself to one title, going back to the topics at the beginning of the thread: "Annibale in Torino" by Giovanni Paisiello (1771: a teenage W.A.Mozart is reported to have attended the first performance).

[John H White]

I've just found out from another forum that J P Sousa wrote a march to mark the Transit of Venus in 1872.