Obscure composer faves? AKA "If you like Liszt try Alkan"

[dmallind]

There's a reason Beethoven, Brahms and Schumann are household names, and Raff, Herzogenberg and Rheinberger aren't. I say this as a person who enjoys all 3 of the latter, and to be honest if I stop thinking about the music theory and just listen for fun, I rarely enjoy them any less than the former group, while recognizing of course that the second tier is, well, secondary.

I'm not trying to "out-obscure" anyone as nobody here is so unknown as to be a real rarity (not much point - as how would the average listener be able to find their music?), and frankly I would appreciate any tips on new composers to try, but I think it would be fun to list our favorite alternatives to the great masters. Anyway here's a few (other than the Liszt/Alkan title option) to get us started. Two columns - one for the household name - one for the roughly comparable alternative not so well known. I'm keyboard-heavy in taste, but will try to vary it up.

Chopin John Field
Brahms Joachim Raff
Rachmaninov Nikolai Medtner
Shostakovich Dmitri Kabalevsky
Bruckner Alberic Magnard

Some have to be genre specific of course

Schumann's Piano Concerto Henry Litolff
Beethoven's String Quartets Ludwig Spohr

So who else is out there? I'm a fan of Dvorak's symphonies - particularly the 4th. Which obscurer composer's efforts should I try?

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

1. I like the piano compositions of Cecile Chaminade for their melodic charm

Last edited Wed Jun 6, 2012, 05:52 PM - Edit history (1)

Born in 1857 and died in 1944. Rarely have women gained the recognition they deserve in the area of musical composition. I'm adding four compositions from this relatively ignored artist. I don't know who I could compare her to. Bizet affectionately called her the "little Mozart" although she falls more into the romantic or impressionistic vein. And I love Alkan, but his compositions sound pretty daunting for even advanced pianists.

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And another piece by Chaminade I'm adding:

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[dmallind]

2. Not familiar with this one - try Farrenc and Bonis though

both piano-centric female composers of similar/slightly earlier period.

Will definitely see what Chaminade I can find.

[FredStembottom]

15. Wow! I am now a Chaminade fan!

Perfect melodic flow. Wonderful.

[laconicsax]

3. I'm a fan of Arthur Levering, but he's not that obscure.

[dmallind]

4. I confess he's new to me

After a quick google, he has to be honest a couple of strikes against him in my "bias list" given that few American or post-1950 composers thrill me much, but there are exceptions to both (MacDowell and Marc-Andre Hamelin spring to mind) and I'll see what I can find to check him out, thanks. Any comparisons spring to mind?

[laconicsax]

5. His Cloches II is pretty good.

Found it on YouTube:

From a performer's standpoint, it achieves a good balance of difficulty and pay-off. It's difficult enough to be fun but not so difficult that it's a chore to play and while it's not the best work of the last 30 years by a long shot, but it's definitely enjoyable.

[stockholmer]

14. enjoyable indeed

[NRaleighLiberal]

6. Rubbra and Bantock - if you like Vaughn Williams or Elgar, try one or both of those!

Bantock's Hebridean Symphony is a favorite piece of mine....and Rubbra just inhabits a symphonic world all his own - really wonderful music - you can't go wrong with anything by either of them.

Teaser clips

Rubbra's 4th

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[dmallind]

7. Good ones - Bantock I know well, Rubbra not at all

I like Bantock's smaller pieces even more than his symphonic works, which I admire greatly - Celtic and Hebridean etc. His cello/piano pieces are amazingly well constructed. He's definitely one who I am surprised is not too well known.

[NRaleighLiberal]

8. listen to the Rubbra clip I posted - it is utterly "English"! Delightful!

[dmallind]

9. Could only find 2nd/6th symphony recordings, but I agree

A slightly more modern Elgar.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

18. Here's an OK performance of Rubbra's Magnificat

performed by a cathedral choir than the one I sing in. They got a bit muddled in the middle, though.

If the recording were better engineered, you could really hear how the choir and the organ are each doing their own thing but somehow blending.

[Fortinbras Armstrong]

10. Amy Beach

I particularly like her Gaelic Symphony, which is a solid piece of late 19th century romanticism. The first movement is at

Her vocal music is also well worth listening to.

[stockholmer]

11. Ernst von Dohnányi - Symphony No. 2 in E Major Op. 40

http://www.soundfountain.org/rem/remdohn.html

Ernst von Dohnányi (1877-1960)

In 1894 Ernst von Dohnányi went to Budapest to study with Hans Kössler (composition), with István Tomán (piano), and for a short time with famous Belgian composer Eugen d'Albert. Both Koessler and d'Albert were admirers of Johannes Brahms and on top of that d'Albert had been a pupil of Franz Liszt. Each certainly played a role in the education of young Ernö, either by influencing the development of the talent of the young pianist and composer, or most likely by reaffirming Dohnányi's affinity with the classical form which made him a great interpreter of Beethoven in his time.

Ernst von Dohnányi (Ernö Dohnányi) was born on July 27, 1877 in Pozsony (=Bratislava), then a Hungarian city close to the border with Austria. His father was not only an amateur cellist but also a physics professor who certainly loved the classics and had a feeling for form and structure more than he was interested in free music making and new ways of expression. This is not without significance because his father gave him the first lessons before he became a pupil of Karl Förstner, the organist of the Pozsony Cathedral.

After his graduation in 1897 (his Symphony in F was rewarded the King's Prize), Dohnányi made his debut in Berlin. Two years later his First Piano Concerto received the Bösendorfer Flügel Preis (Bösendorfer Prize), the grand piano which was given by the famous Viennese piano manufacturer to the best student. Dohnanyi dedicated the concerto to his teacher Eugen d'Albert.

Dohnányi toured Europe and the United States until 1908. After being a piano teacher in Berlin at the "Hochschule für Musik" until 1915, he returned to Budapest and at the age of 42 was appointed associate director of the National Hungarian Royal Liszt Ferenc Academy (Franz Liszt Academy).
Between 1921 and 1927 he again toured Europe and the USA where he was appointed chief conductor of the New York State Symphony Orchestra (and that is where, in 1921, young Edward Kilenyi was presented to him). He performed in London and was a guest conductor of the (Royal) Concertgebouw Orchestra, Amsterdam. At the same time he continued teaching piano. Pianist Edward Kilenyi and conductor Laszlo Halasz (who started off as a pianist) were amongst his pupils in the nineteen twenties, and both are representatives of the Hungarian school. Another pupil was Ernö Szegedi. Even Béla Bartók studied with Dohnanyi for a short time.

To the outside world this all seemed to be a glamorous career. But in fact Dohnányi's life knew turbulence and animosity. His biography tells us that his career was hampered because he refused to work under the dictatorial regime of Miklos Horthy (1921-1939). Although he had criticized Horty's links with fascism, he himself was accused of collaborating with the German occupants during World War II from 1944 until April 4th 1945. A severe blow was that his son Hans (father of conductor Christophe von Dohnányi) was executed because he was involved in the coup against Hitler in 1944, plotted by Claus von Stauffenberg and his group.

[stockholmer]

12. Eyvind Alnæs - Symphony No. 1 in C Minor Op. 7

Eyvind Alnæs, the arranger of “Anne Knutsdatter,” was born in Fredrikstad, Norway in 1872. He first studied music at the Music Conservatory in Oslo, and then studied in Leipzig. For several years, he was the organist at Vår Frelsers (Our Savior's) church in Oslo. He also conducted a men's chorus in Oslo. Alnæs composed music for organ, piano, and voice.

Eyvind Alnæs followed in the footsteps of Halfdan Kjerulf, Edvard Grieg, and Agathe Backer Grøndahl in writing Romanser, that is, Norwegian art songs. This type of song is for voice and piano, and both are equally important in setting the mood and conveying the story of the song. He wrote approximately 185 songs, and was the last of the great Norwegian composers of this art form. His music has beautiful melodies and rich harmonies. He died in 1932.


http://imslp.org/wiki/List_of_compositions_by_Eyvind_Aln%C3%A6s

Op.1 - 4 Songs
Op.2 - 5 Poems (V.Krag)
Op.3 - Suite for Violin and Piano
Op.4 - 4 Piano Pieces
Op.5 - Variations sur un thème original
Op.6 - 5 Songs (P.Heine)
Op 7 - Symphony No.1 in C Minor
Op.8 - Variations symphoniques sur un theme original
Op.9 - 3 Piano Pieces
Op.10 - Piano Pieces (3: Skizze, Idylle, Melodie. Hansen, 1902.)
Op.11 - 3 Songs (E.v.d.Recke)
Op.12 - 4 Songs (O.Vinje, I.Aasen)
Op.13 - 4 Piano Pieces
Op.14 - 4 Songs (N.C.Vogt, Th.Caspari)
Op.15 - (The Sun and other Songs) (Sol och andre Sånger)
Op.16 - Marche Symphonique pour 2 pianos
Op.17 - 3 Songs
Op.18 - 4 Mens Choir Songs (Per Sivle)
Op.19 - Songs for a low Voice
Op.20 - Caprice pour Piano
Op.21 - New Choir Songs for Mens Choir
Op.22 - 6 Songs (Anders Hovden, A.O.Vinje)
Op.23 - 3 Songs (N.C.Vogt)
Op.24 - 3 Swedish Poems
Op.25 - 3 Norwegian Folk Songs (Mens Choir)
Op.26 - 3 Songs (Viggo Stuckenberg)
Op.27 - Concerto for Piano and Orchestra
Op.28 - 4 Songs (N.C.Vogt, H.Wildenvey)
Op.29 - 3 Poems (N.C.Vogt)
Op.30 - 4 Poems (H.Wildenvey)
Op.31 - 3 Poems (Olaf Bull)
Op.32 - Trois Morceaux pour piano
Op.33 - 60 easy melodious Preludes for Organ (lette melodiøse Præludier for orgel)
Op.34 - Poems (4)
Op.35 - 4 Songs (G.Fröding, N.M.Folcke)
Op.36 - Suite for 2 Violines and Piano
Op.37 - Suite for Violin and Piano
Op.38 - 4 Songs (4 Värmeländska låter)
Op.39 - 10 Piano Pieces over norwegian Folk Songs
Op.40 - 3 Norwegian Folk Songs (Mens Choir)
Op.41 - 4 Songs (Oscar Stjerne, N.M.Folcke)
Op.42 - 4 Songs
Op.43 - Symphony No.2 in D Major
Op.44 - Deux Etudes melodiques pour piano
Op.45 - 3 Songs

[stockholmer]

13. Hans Rott - Symphony in E major

http://www.hans-rott.de/indexe.htm

It is completely impossible to estimate what music has lost in him: His genius soars to such heights even in this first symphony, written at the age of twenty. It makes him - without exaggeration - the founder of the new symphony as I understand it."

Gustav Mahler on Hans Rott


Hans Rott was born on August 1, 1858 in Braunhirschengrund, a suburban parish of Vienna (today Vienna XV) as illegitimate son of the actor Carl Mathias Rott (real name Roth) and the singer and actress Maria Rosalia Lutz. After his parents had married his father legitimized him in 1863. From 1874 to 1878 he studied at the Conservatoire for Music and Performing Arts of the Society of the Friends of Music in Vienna: piano with Leopold Landskron, organ with Anton Bruckner, harmony with Hermann Grädener and composition with Franz Krenn (together with Gustav Mahler and others).

1876 Rott, a member of the Viennese Academic Wagner Society, attended the first Bayreuth Festival. From 1876 to 1878 he was employed as organist at the Piaristen Church (Maria Treu) in Vienna with lodgings in the Piaristen Monastery. His rooms became the meeting point for numerous fellow students and friends, among them the musicians Rudolf Krzyzanowski, Gustav Mahler, Hugo Wolf, the philologist and archaeologist Friedrich Löwy (as from 1887 Löhr) as well as the scholar of German philology Joseph Seemüller.

Still during his musical studies Rott became an orphan in 1876. Anton Bruckner tried in vain to find a post as organist in St Florian resp. Klosterneuburg for his "favourite student". From 1878 on Rott made a living by giving private music lessons and he received financial support from his friends. When in September 1880 he presented his First Symphony to Johannes Brahms, a member of the jury deciding on the grant of a state scholarship Rott had applied for, he met with a harsh rebuff by Bruckner's antipode. And yet another of his hopes was doomed: Court Opera Conductor Hans Richter, although showing an interest in a performance of the symphony with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, was reluctant to commit himself.

In October 1880 chain of unfortunate accidents exerting a heavy psychic strain on Rott caused an already lurking insanity to break out. During a train ride to Mulhouse in the Alsace where he had accepted a position as music director and choir master he pointed a pistol at a fellow traveller to prevent him from lighting a cigar. The reason for his conduct he gave was that Brahms had had the carriage filled with dynamite. In February 1881 Rott was transferred from the Psychiatric Hospital of the General Hospital in Vienna to the Provincial Lunatic Asylum of Lower Austria. The diagnosis was: insanity, hallucinatory persecution mania. He continued composing at the asylum, later on, however, he gradually developed a deep depression and destroyed some of his compositions. Following several attempts of suicide he finally died of tuberculosis on June 25, 1884 not yet 26 years old.

[FredStembottom]

16. Hooray for this thread!

The Classical music world is just as susceptible to Rock-star-itis as any other music. Maybe more so because so few Classical CD's will ever sell. Each one is almost a loss before it is released so a tiny cadre of composers and pieces become over exposed in hopes of sales- and music every bit as Great washes away virtually unheard.

Let's continue to talk up the lesser knowns.

Gotta go right now but will have a few to post later.

[FredStembottom]

17. Like Debussy? Try these tiny pieces by Mompou!

http://m.