"Inessential" Classics

[EdgeleyRob]

Robert Simpson. Eleven symphonies and fifteen string quartets for starters. There was an excellent Composer of the Week some while ago which took the form of a civilised and educational conversation between Donald Macleod and Stephen Johnson, but not much since.

Good shout,yet another neglected British composer.
May I nominate George Lloyd and John Field two compsers whose music I adore but rarely hear on diet radio 3.

[BBMmk2]

Robert Simpson. Eleven symphonies and fifteen string quartets for starters. There was an excellent Composer of the Week some while ago which took the form of a civilised and educational conversation between Donald Macleod and Stephen Johnson, but not much since.

Not forgetting the excellant music he composed for brass, eg Energy and that magnificent symphony, 'The Four Temperements'.

[Serial_Apologist]

Up until yesterday I would have put Nicholas Maw firmly in the camp of unplayed worthies - and I still do. Sunday afternoon's Maw festival was a revelation and one wonders just why he has been ignored for so long.

Timing would be my guess, BoD.

Maw stopped writing 12-tone music in the early 60s, when serialism was still very much regarded academically and promotionwise as the prescribed way to the future, stealing the thunder on Goehr and Rodney Bennett by some 12 and 22 years respectively; yet while advocating a neo-romantic idiom he continued composing broadly-speaking atonal music, and thus fell out of kilter with the Minimalists and the post-Minimalists whose influence has imv grown out of all proportion to their intrinsic musical importance (if we still believe in a future for a classical music lineage), and the "new complexity" composers, eg Ferneyhough, who continue to plow their own furrows, and brilliant self-publicists such as Maxwell Davies and Birtwistle.

S-A

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

eg Ferneyhough, who continue to plow their own furrows

... and what a furrow! And what a crop come Harvest time!

I like Maw; not so much Odyssey but Scenes and Arias and Life Studies are glorious pieces. John McCabe, too: the Chagall Windows, Notturni ed Alba. So often contemporary Music described as "accessible" by promoters is mindless: not these works, genuinely "inspired" accessible masterpieces.

Best Wishes.

[Serial_Apologist]

... and what a furrow! And what a crop come Harvest time!

I like Maw; not so much Odyssey but Scenes and Arias and Life Studies are glorious pieces. John McCabe, too: the Chagall Windows, Notturni ed Alba. So often contemporary Music described as "accessible" by promoters is mindless: not these works, genuinely "inspired" accessible masterpieces.

Best Wishes.

So do I Ferney - he was a first-rate composer by any standards, as is McCabe. I heard "Scenes and Arias" when it was first broadcast in the mid-60s, but I haven't heard the enormous "Odyssey". By coincidence I was listening to British orchestral works from 1989/90 yesterday - one was McCabe's "Fire at Duriglai" (sp?), the other Maw's "The World in the Evening".

[Barbirollians]

Grace Williams : Ballad for Orchestra and a real inessential classic i should like never to hear again - yep its Orff and carmina Burana

[Suffolkcoastal]

Yes I should have added Sessions to the list, he music is very identifiable. But I'm afraid that all of the composers I listed are to me instantly recognisable and I find that that they all have very distinct styles. I do think sometimes we think that just because a composer isn't well known or famous he doesn't have a style and voice that is recognisably his own. I've always listened with very open ears to everything no matter if the composer is well known or not, which is probably why I have such a very wide taste in classical music. Another composer to throw into the mix is Theodore Gouvy, I was very surprised when I came across some of his symphonies recently and one very surprisingly neglected composer on R3, Honegger, believe it or not none his symphonies have been played this year, I expect R3 will rectify this omission in the next few weeks though.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Theodore Gouvy is a name new to me Suffy.
Do you know Leon Kirschner? Just a name to me but in the current edition of Tempo he is described by David Matthews (anyone want to nominate him, by the way?) as"with Leonard Bernstein the outstanding American composer of his generation." (There's also a book review of Walter Simmons' Voices of Stone and Steel, a study of Schuman, Mennin and Persichetti, which you might be interested in.)

[Suffolkcoastal]

Yes I do have some Kirchner in my collection and need to get to know more. He music takes some effort to get to know, but certainly holds one's attention. I've had a flick through the Walter Simmons book, but it's currently out of my price range. Persichetti I find can be uneven but his writing for Band is expertly done and among the best American composers in this field. The Piano Concerto is rather approachable too.

Gouvy (1819-1898) was French but inclined more to the German School of the period than to the French one, being more interested in orchestral and chamber music. The symphonies I've heard are very well written and certainly don't sound particularly like any other composer of the time. There is also a recording of his Requiem, which I've yet to invest in and which is supposed to be amongst his finest works.

[amcluesent]

Samuel Zyman is often overlooked, due to being right at the end of the CD shelf. And more Georg Schimmelpfennig, if only to hear the presenters try to pronounce his name.

Has anyone suggested Percy Turnbull?

[John Skelton]

On the basis of the recordings conducted by Heinz Holliger (Hänssler Classic) I'd like to hear a lot more of Charles Louis Eugène Koechlin's music.

[vinteuil]

Lully operas.

Rossini piano music.

[aeolium]

I would like to hear more of Nicola Porpora's music, Porpora having been in the early part of his career teacher to some of the great castrati, and towards the end a teacher of Haydn, with spells in most of the major capitals of music, Naples, Venice, London, Dresden and Vienna.

[vinteuil]

As a potential alternative to "Essential Classics" I would like MBers to suggest the names of composers, from any century including this one, whose music is rarely broadcast or even performed and whose music they would like to hear broadcast - perhaps in the new successor programme to "Essential Classics".

Perhaps Sydney Grew might be encouraged to offer a florilegium of suggestions from his 'Birthdays of the [sic] Great' thread - few of his names seem to have featured on recent broad-casts...

[MrGongGong]

Please NO more of mr G-rew's "neglected genius's" (Apostrophe error ??)