The Unfamiliarity of Unsung Music

[Gauk]

I want to borrow most of this last paragraph for a FB status.  May I?

Of course!

I have had conversations along these lines with living composers, and it seems that a composer's career has two stages.

Stage one: He is not famous, therefore he is no good.
Stage two: He is famous, therefore he is good.

The problem is, how do you get from stage one to stage two? It seems to be some completely chance circumstance. And it can happen at any stage in one's career. For the lucky, it happens in youth or prime. For some, it happens in old age. For others, it happens after death (think of Bizet).

[semloh]

I have had conversations along these lines with living composers, and it seems that a composer's career has two stages.

Stage one: He is not famous, therefore he is no good.
Stage two: He is famous, therefore he is good.

[.....or she.....]

Just to maintain that rather cynical generalizaton, I might add that here in Australia, the key determinants appear to be whether the composer is alive or dead. Being Antipodean, we turn everything upside down , so - in direct contrast to Europe - our living composers are feted and much played (some might say regardless of the quality of their music), but this all stops abruptly the moment they die, when they are consigned to the ranks of the UCs.

[Gauk]

That happens to some composers here as well; death prompts a re-assessment. You don't hear so much of Michael Tippett these days, for instance.

[semloh]

That happens to some composers here as well; death prompts a re-assessment. You don't hear so much of Michael Tippett these days, for instance.

Good point. I think we have noted elsewhere on the forum that this also happened in the past, and that composers who were quite the rage in their day fell into neglect after their death and joined the ranks of the unsung.

[Gauk]

Good point. I think we have noted elsewhere on the forum that this also happened in the past, and that composers who were quite the rage in their day fell into neglect after their death and joined the ranks of the unsung.

I think Raff would be a good example; I believe he was very highly esteemed in his day. There were probably a good number of people whose music was played as long as they were promoting it, but fell away without that motive force.

[eschiss1]

We don't?

Performances of works by Michael Tippett in the next couple months fill a page. See http://www.schott-music.com/shop/persons/featured/sir-michael-tippett/performances/. Not Beethoven-level popularity, but not a, say, erm.. .I make no comparisons. (That took me 5 seconds to "Google", though...)

[petershott@btinternet.com]

Unlike Mark, I'm not the Raff expert. But I've got the impression that his music became unsung, not primarily because the poor chap died, but because others either deliberately ignored it or even quietly conspired against its performance in order to advance their own musical reputations. Doubtless Mark will appear and tell me that despite there being a wee grain of truth in the suggestion, the issue is far more complicated.

Independent of that I always feel awfully sad when I think of what happened to Raff's reputation after his death at a relatively early age. Don't know why, but somehow far more sad than I do with other composers. There is something quite wretched about an undeserved fall into near oblivion. In the case of, for example Liszt, it is almost too painful to be aware of the circumstances of his quite horrendous death. But you don't experience sadness at the fact that he died because the music lived on. Maybe even the same with Schubert? Not so with Raff, for his music almost disappeared for good. When I was younger, the name was occasionally encountered in music history books but no-one listened to his music.

[semloh]

Changes in the popularity and the level of public exposure afforded a composer's music, sometimes do coincide with their demise, one way or the other, but I would agree that Tippett's case is more complicated. He was the darling of the BBC in the 70s, but faded after the 4th symphony and some controversial opera performances, but he continued composing and did not pass away until 1998.

Of course, popularity waxes and wanes in any case. I recall there also being a sustained enthusiasm for Obrecht, Des Prez and De La Rue in the 70s. Radio 3 had the Missa Pange Lingua echoing around my bedroom for months on end (or so it seemed ). I suspect one would be hard pressed to find enthusiasm for their work on that scale now at the BBC.

I must apologise for colluding in straying from the original topic - but perhaps such observations should give us hope that some of our UCs may eventually have their day in the sun as others recede into unsungness! 

[petershott@btinternet.com]

I'm not especially keen to discuss Tippett - besides way outside the central interests of the forum. But what utterly fascinated me was the list of Tippett performances cited by Eric above.

I don't think I would ever have guessed - just counting professional performances where folk part with money to get a seat, there are Tippett performances across the world at least every 2-3 days, and sometimes 2-3 different performances in widely different places on a single day. Who would have guessed there would be 8 performances of 'Child of our Time' worldwide between March 12 - April 27? Not me!

I find such statistics quite mind-boggling. I've got no idea about how these things work out, but how do the royalties stack up? Should one gawp at the probable income to the Tippett estate? And given that Tippett's fortunes must be dipping at present, what would be the current state of, say, Britten performances in this current year? Here in Suffolk we've got the local press very excited about the prospect of performances of 'Peter Grimes' on the beach at Aldeburgh, and Britten coming out of loudspeakers in the greengrocers as you make your purchase of organic carrots. I guess worldwide there is universal Britten. Quite amazing when you think of it.

And to appease moderators: I'm not trying to smuggle in discussions of Tippett, Britten (or even Birtwistle!). It is the 'statistics' of music performances that have led me to the post.

[eschiss1]

I only mentioned it because when an evidence-ignoring dig is taken, I sometimes have this rather strong compulsion to bring up the... eh, bother, said Pooh...

[Alan Howe]

Gentlemen: let's remember the remit of this site. It certainly doesn't embrace Tippett or Britten.

[Gauk]

My mention of Tippett was, I admit, based on a subjective impression of where is critical stock stands compared to before his death. He may not be Romantic, but to look at the process of how Romantic composers fell from grace after death, one needs to make comparisons with the experience of one's own time.

[Alan Howe]

Perhaps - but only perhaps. And there are so many composers from the period which UC concentrates on, so let's deal with them, please.

[mbhaub]

Why was Raff so quickly forgotten? Easy: there was so much new music and 100+ years ago orchestras weren't musical mausoleums that they've become now. Look at the New York programs when Mahler was there. Once a year he could do a "classics" concert of maybe Haydn, Mozart, Schubert. But for the most part, the music he played was relatively new. Even the beloved Wagner concerts had music that was less than 50 years old. But he sure didn't play music 200 years old! In an era before recordings, musicians, conductors, and audiences were more interested in something new, kind of like movies today. But there were some works that rose above the chaff like the Beethoven symphonies, Brahms, some Tchaikovsky...the warhorses. They didn't to be popular for nothing. Raff held on with symphonies 3 & 5 until they finally were purged to make way for more new music.

Now how many unsung composers have ever had their day in the sun? To record collectors there are quite a few. But to my mind, in the past 100 years there has been only ONE unsung composer who vaulted to the top: Mahler. But honestly, he wasn't all that unsung thanks to the work of Walter, Klemperer, Scherchen, Mengelberg and some other lesser known conductors. 30 years ago there were some composers who I just knew were going to be the next Mahler-like discovery. Bax, Schmidt, Pfitzner, Reger, Glazunov...never happened. Despite many, many fine recordings of their music, none of them have become a real presence in the concert hall, and never will. Every now and then some adventurous conductor will take out something of a rarity, but the symphony orchestras, at least in the US, are musty museums of cob-web ridden dullness. I've been looking over schedules for the upcoming summer festivals (yeah, Festivals of Too Familiar Music) and the 2013-14 seasons and it's grim. Beethoven, Mozart, Tchaikovsky, Brahms, Schubert...all the usual suspects. A few Korngold violin concertos, a little bit of Sibelius and Elgar. So far I have not seen one single concert worth traveling to because of the novelty of something new. Thank God for CDs!

[petershott@btinternet.com]

Many thanks for that contribution. I've found it suggestive and potentially illuminating. Some of it I haven't fully appreciated before......will now go and mull.