Why do so few composers' names begin with the letter...................

[scottycelt]

You folks are all wasting your talents! ...

I suspect rather late to tell all them folks that ...

[Nick Armstrong]

I suspect rather late to tell all them folks that ...

Never too late for a spot of agreeable alphabetical associating

[scottycelt]

But your name scotty only begins with an "S".

Can I thank people for contributing. I really didn't expect so many replies.

(All comments about Dutch composers, whether Zappa is classical, Duke Ellington and the reasons for the absence of E and J at the start of non-English surnames would still be very welcome in private messages...............after all, Google has its limitations)

Why 'private messages'..?

This is a public forum, after all ... and rather cliquish 'private messages' are much more obviously limiting than Google, surely?

[Lateralthinking1]

Why 'private messages'..?

This is a public forum, after all ... and rather cliquish 'private messages' are much more obviously limiting than Google, surely?

I was being diplomatic rather than covert scotty.

There were at least two motivations for the thread. One, to have suggestions about composers beginning with a J to further my education. Two, I could see that it was a squash ball of a question that could end up anywhere on the court. I thought it would be an interesting springboard for inventive discussion.

In other words, I wanted to see whether it would go off into differences in other languages, go on to other letters, lead to questions about who is a classical composer etc - and to some extent it has done.

Now that I have killed it stone dead by explaining it in full - - I should add that I became aware that it might inadvertently be a spoiler for the AA thread. I didn't want that to happen. I don't think it will be as this one will sink very quickly and the link with the AA thread is tenuous anyway. I am more than happy for it to continue in the way it has done if that is what you prefer.

[Alain Maréchal]

A 'J' for those who like the sound of organ with orchestra: Joseph Jongen's Sinfonia Concertante - by turns thuderous, rousing, bombastic and luscious as coffee cream chocolates (JJ was Liegois!) . I recommend Virgil Fox playing the monster organ built for the Trocadero (at the time of recording it was in the Palais de Chaillot, currently residing in Lyon, assuming it survived the fire in the concert hall - I must check). Plus the french orchestral sound that i grew up with and which has long gone. I think I'll go and play it right now.

[Lateralthinking1]

A 'J' for those who like the sound of organ with orchestra: Joseph Jongen's Sinfonia Concertante - by turns thuderous, rousing, bombastic and luscious as coffee cream chocolates (JJ was Liegois!) . I recommend Virgil Fox playing the monster organ built for the Trocadero (at the time of recording it was in the Palais de Chaillot, currently residing in Lyon, assuming it survived the fire in the concert hall - I must check). Plus the french orchestral sound that i grew up with and which has long gone. I think I'll go and play it right now.

Without wishing to sound patronising, that is such an evocative description you have encouraged me to listen to it now too.
That is, if it is on Spotify. Many thanks Alain.

[Flosshilde]

Yes, it sounds wonderful - is there a CD? (sorry - I'm being terribly lazy, & could look on Amazon myself )

[jean]

Josquin, the greatest of them all.

[Lateralthinking1]

Josquin, the greatest of them all.

Thank you Jean. That is helpful too. I was reading recently about Palestrina.

Any advance on Yradier (one track on EMI Record of Singing).

Also spelt with an "I" so you might find a little more in that way.

[LeMartinPecheur]

Another aspect of alphabetical order is the alleged benefit to educational and later achievement of being near the start of the alphabet. (Cf the rush of some types of business to names like 'AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA1' Plumbers or whatever so as to be first in Yellow Pages listings.) If true (I believe it is well-evidenced) then it ought i) to be true in all countries using the Roman alphabet and ii) to have affected composers like everyone else.

Were the '3 B's' picked out only because they couldn't find 3 As?? Certainly my 'B section' for LPs and CDs seems ridiculously disproportionate. But S doesn't do so badly either, or M (but how would it look without WAM?). Is there any chance that we buy disproportionally more B-composers' works on CDs simply because review listings and CD catalogues/online listings are generally alphabetical, and that many of us will start at letter A in shops' CD racks?

Are we violating the human rights of Xenakis, Ysaye, Zemlinsky et al? Caliban: we may need your professional assistance!

[Nick Armstrong]

Are we violating the human rights of Xenakis, Ysaye, Zemlinsky et al? Caliban: we may need your professional assistance!

My opinion is that you can sleep easy, LMP - I don't think any of the gentlemen you mention will be giving you any trouble over your CD browsing and buying habits...

[LeMartinPecheur]

My opinion is that you can sleep easy, LMP - I don't think any of the gentlemen you mention will be giving you any trouble over your CD browsing and buying habits...

I am of course grateful for the reassurance, but I was attempting to make a serious point, that we may all be steered inadvertantly to weight our purchases to the front-end of the alphabet!

A factor that really bugs me about my own alphabetical filing of CDs is that when I build new storage, because of my house layout it's always at the Z-end of my collection. So I shift Zemlinsky and co to the far end of it and progress backwards through my collection till I use up the new space, but the A/B end always stays hopelssly congested and double-banked The only slight upside is that does make the finding and extraction of a Zemlinsky disc generally easier than a JSB, and thus there's a small rebalancing of any disadvantage suffered by the far end of the alphabet!

[Sydney Grew]

I am half-way through constructing a catalogue of composers - familiar and not so familiar - from every musical land. I have not yet done any French, Germans, Poles or Russians, so there remains a long way to be gone. I do already have ample "J"s:

Janeček, Karel
Jaroch, Jiří
Jeřábek, Pavel
Jeremiáš, Otakar
Jira, Milan
Jirák, Karel Boleslav
Jirásek, Ivo
Jirko, Ivan
Johansson, Bengt
Johnova, Miroslava
Johns, Louis Edgar
Johnson, Hunter
Jones, Charles
Jones, J. Randolph
Jong, Marinus de
Jongen, Joseph
Jongen, Léon
Josipović, Ivo
Jurovsky, Simon

and perhaps more remarkably I already have forty-six "K"s, principally because of a preponderance of Czechs among real composers who use sensible titles and write proper music:

Kabeláč, Miloslav
Kalabis, Viktor
Kálik, Václav
Kalliwoda, Johann Wenzel
Kamenický, Miloš
Kapp, Artur
Kapr, Jan
Kaprál, Václav
Karel, Rudolf
Kaski, Heino
Kašlík, Václav
Kay, Ulysses
Keller, Homer
Kelley, Edgar Stillman
Kelly, Robert
Kersters, Willem
Kittl, Jan Bedřich
Klami, Uuno
Klein, Lothar
Klusák, Jan
Koetsier, Jan
Koha, Jaan
Kohoutek, Ctirad
Kokkonen, Joonas
Koppel, Herman
Kord, Mira
Korndorf, Nikolay
Korngold, Erich Wolfgang
Košťál, Arnošc
Koutzen, Boris
Kovaříček, František
Kovařovic, Karel
Kox, Hans
Kraft, William
Krása, Hans
Krček, Jaroslav
Kreek, Cyrillus
Krejčí, Iša
Kubička, Miroslav
Kubin, Rudolf
Kučera, Václav
Kuiler, Kor
Kuljerić, Igor
Kuula, Toivo
Kvapil, Jaroslav
Kvěch, Otomar

[scottycelt]

I was being diplomatic rather than covert scotty.

[Alain Maréchal]

Yes, it sounds wonderful - is there a CD? (sorry - I'm being terribly lazy, & could look on Amazon myself )

Sorry for the delay, but yes, there are several CDs. I still think the Virgil Fox (on EMI Matrix) is the one to go for - probably not the best performance or recording, but absolutely stunning (in more ways than one) organ sound. Play it when you know the neighbours are out.