[bakufu]

over the last 20 years, labels like marco polo and cpo and outfits like records international have kept us well-supplied with recordings of music by composers who barely rate mention in groves. 

a secondary question i suppose is this:  do you have a wish-list of "legendary" unrecorded works?

[FullRangeMan]

Ligeti, Blondahl, Abel, Hovhaness, Ginastera, Gomes, Minkus etc...

[EDS_]

Cesar Cui.  I guess in a way he is famous, The Five and all.  However, little of his work is available.

[S Clark]

Willaim Baines- lived a very short life, managed to survive WWI, got the flu, never fully recovered and died in his early twenties.  He wrote beautiful piano pieces of which very little is recorded.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mnsi6l3gpw&feature=related

[Photon46]

There are so many who might qualify. One of my latest discoveries that has left me lamenting the "what might have been" is the composer Gideon Klein. What a stupendous young talent the Nazis extinguished in Furstengrube.

[bakufu]

jongen.

his symphony concertante has long been a favorite, but i've only recently discovered his chamber music.

this:



is quite wonderful, in the same league as the ravel trio, the chausson concert, works by boellman &c.

[koyaan]

Alan Hovhaness , Kerry Turner, Heinrich Schutz andJohann Rudolf Ahle if these qualify as "unfamous".

[bakufu]

interesting that two people have mentioned hovhaness.  as a kid -- and this goes back 50 years -- i was enthralled by his Khaldis Concerto for piano and trumpets, with william masselos as i recall.  i still find it one of hovhaness's most attractive pieces.

at around the same time, or perhaps a bit later, i discovered helmuth rilling's nonesuch recordings of schutz's Symphoniae Sacrae, selections from books 1 and 2.  despite being a compulsive collector of these works, i return repeatedly to rilling.  they are more energetic and expressive than many of the more recent performances, and i count that as essential in schutz.  as far as i know, these performances have never appeared on cd in america or europe, although i did manage to acquire the japanese disks on a visit to wave in tokyo in the 90s.  schutz is definitely one of my favorites as well. 

[Tyson]

Dennis Brain - reminds me of what music might have developed into after Mahler, if the modernists hadn't come along.  Speaking of modernists, I'd say Ligeti is my 2nd favorite "unfamous" composer.

[bakufu]

by the way, i picked up the habit of referring to "unfamous composers" after seeing it used in an email by the science fiction writer alan dean foster, with whom i maintained a short correspondence and cd swap a few years ago.  alan has some interesting reviews of havergal brian's music, among others, at amazon.  e.g.,

http://www.amazon.com/Havergal-Brian-Symphony-No-Gothic/dp/B0001Z65F8/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1332965239&sr=1-1

[TONEPUB]

Danny Elfman....

[FullRangeMan]

interesting that two people have mentioned hovhaness.  as a kid -- and this goes back 50 years -- i was enthralled by his Khaldis Concerto for piano and trumpets, with william masselos as i recall.  i still find it one of hovhaness's most attractive pieces.

at around the same time, or perhaps a bit later, i discovered helmuth rilling's nonesuch recordings of schutz's Symphoniae Sacrae, selections from books 1 and 2.  despite being a compulsive collector of these works, i return repeatedly to rilling.  they are more energetic and expressive than many of the more recent performances, and i count that as essential in schutz.  as far as i know, these performances have never appeared on cd in america or europe, although i did manage to acquire the japanese disks on a visit to wave in tokyo in the 90s.  schutz is definitely one of my favorites as well.

The trip to india changed Hovhaness way to see the music, he aware his music were poor, and burn all his music scores so far, about 130 compositions, a pity.

[jimtranr]

New Zealand's Douglas Lilburn, who died in 2001. His early works reflect the influence of Sibelius to some degree, but his output is clearly original, not derivative.     

[Randy]

Willaim Baines- lived a very short life, managed to survive WWI, got the flu, never fully recovered and died in his early twenties.  He wrote beautiful piano pieces of which very little is recorded.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mnsi6l3gpw&feature=related

Baines wrote a "Symphony in C minor," a "Poem" for piano and orchestra, some other short orchestral works, and sonatas for piano, all never published. All these works are described as being of extraordinarily high quality. "In the piano pieces limpid cascades of notes achieve a small formal perfection, but in the Symphony this structural sense becomes a massive architectural grandeur, while the power that is detectable in the climax of some of his piano pieces, notably in "Tides," is expressed in the Symphony in rugged tutti suggestive of Sibelius, as is his formidable writing for brass. The "Poem", a single movement piano concerto, is similarly of rugged strength and originality."  "On the day Baines died a publisher sent him payment for a set of piano pieces; six penny-halfpenny stamps. His mother stuck them in the appropriate page of his diary."  Quotes from Pirie, "The English Musical Renaissance."


Many years ago I wrote a letter to Chandos Records asking that they consider recording some of these works. I got a reply that my request had been sent to Richard Hickox who would "take the matter into consideration," but never heard any more.

[Rob Babcock]

Howard Hanson is one of my favorite lesser known/less highly regarded composers.

[Ericus Rex]

How about known composers who should be way more famous?  Would that be allowed in this thread?

[Elizabeth]

Carl orff for his 'other than Carmina Burana" stuff.
My favorite is Die Kluge.