A previous thread ask users who they considered to be the most over-rated composer. I wondered whether a more positive, and in fact more interesting and useful, question would be to ask which composers users consider to be the most under-rated. We have all read, and probably at some point even compiled, lists of the greatest composers, and I am sure that most of us can name composers we know that we ought to like but just can't, but neither of these activities seem to me to be very interesting or useful. What I find much more interesting and useful is when somebody makes the case to me for a composer I have never listened to, perhaps never even heard of, which perhaps opens up for me a whole new area of music. Or sometimes I just stumble upon a composer by happening upon a CD or a concert that I would never have sought out. Or perhaps I have at some point played in an orchestra or other ensemble and discovered a composer by being forced to play music I would never have thought to get into of my own accord.

Me

Delius.

John Ireland. So under-rated that I even forget how much I like his music myself...





I did really like the song that you & katyjay did at Egham last year, went to your website to check out your other pieces but there is not yet something for post grade 8 piano I guess I can't promise to make you millions if you write somehting like that because there is only one of me and I only need one copy, but I'll keep checking back to see anyway

OK...you've thrown down the gauntlet now

I'll buy it and *play* it, but like I said, there's only one of me and I only need one copy!

There is so much great music that is rarely listened to, as the classical concert-goers continue to listen to the same fraction of 1% of what is out there, because it has been approved by history and become part of the standard repertoire (the "canon").

There are (literally) hundreds (if not thousands) of great composers whose works are now rarely heard.

But to start with a well known one, how about Czerny? He wrote a lot more than dry technical etudes for the piano (although many of the etudes are quite beautiful too).

Charles Villiers Stanford. To church musicians he is known as Stanford in Bflat, and his canticles in various keys are bog-standard repertoire, but I recently discovered his symphonies on CD courtesy of Naxos. Very much in the German romantic style, and full of lots of gorgeous melodies. Recommended.

Jan Ladislav Dussek (1760-1812) - I heard his Piano Quintet being performed in our local music shop (my teacher was the pianist). It was a delightful piece.

There are lot of composers who are well known among Clarinettists but not so much in the outside world.

Berhard Crusell - Finnish composer of Clarinet
Franz Krommer - Viennese composer (born elsewhere)
Louis Spohr - in his time he was as popular as Mozart. Perhaps the violinists must have heard of him? He wrote lots of violin concertos..

I think I will pick Gabriel Pierne both for his chamber music and his beautiful violin sonata. But I love all the French composers anyway.

I love his Canzonetta for Clarinet and Piano!

Take no notice - in a couple of hundred years people will be frenetically searching for your long lost manuscripts and those of us who have bought them will be sitting on a little goldmine. Carry on composing SG!!

I'll probably be dead, not sitting on a goldmine

Reminded by Radio 3's Composer of the Week which I am listening to now.

Poulenc.

Glorious.

I have a soft spot for Poulenc, but somehow I just don't like most of his piano music. Anything else, though,

Radio 3 does try to play stuff by less well-known composers. Unfortunately I have not heard any that didn't make me think "I know why this person is not that well-known". The one exception has been Gwilym Simcock, but he is still living so may not count.

Adolf Jensen.

Known as a piano writer, less so as a composer of Lieder. Not many of them widely availablke now, though you might be able to ge them on the IMSLP site. I sang a group fo them in a concert over 30 years ago.

He composed settings from the Spanisches Liederbuch quite some time before Hugo Wolf got his hads on them, and the Jensen ones are very interesting and bear comparison. I also sang his setting of Waldesgesprach which I though different but not inferior to the famouse setting by Schumann.

I picked up a Recorder Sonatina by a P Glanville Hicks in a charity shop recently. I had never heard of her, and her wiki entry suggests I am probably not alone in that. It's not the greatest sonatina ever, but I've since listened to her Etruscan Concerto, which is really rather good.

J.G.Walther, whose organ chorale preludes have been totally overshadowed by Bach, despite many of them being little gems.

May I also nominate a complete genre, with all its composers: Victorian organ music, the sort of voluntaries our forefathers trotted out after Evensongs, week in, week out. Every organ student learns about Bach-esque German styles, French Classical, French Romantic, Early-English single-manual etc., but no one ever seems to learn about Victorian stuff like Battison Haynes, Edward Rimbault etc., names that have sadly slipped into oblivion with all they ever did. Scorned because it's found mouldering in boxes behind any elderly Organ, and in the 2nd hand boxes in cheap music shops. Heard objectively, some of it is worth much more than that, and it's part of our musical heritage.

I recommend Walter Leigh (1905-1942). He was one of three English pupils of Hindemith (the others were Franz Reizenstein and Arnold Cooke). He wrote some light music, including songs for Joyce Grenfell, but the three works that show his stature are a concertino for harpsichord and strings, a sonata for treble recorder and piano and (best of all) a trio for flute, oboe and piano. These demonstrate a blending of English pastoral with Hindemith's rhythmic drive and a rich chromatic harmony.

limh: I too enjoy Walther's chorale preludes, and especially the Partita on 'Jesu meine Freude'. Every bit as satisfying as Bach's more famous 'Sei gegrusset'.

kenm: Another neglected English composer is Arthur Milner who was also pretty versatile. Having heard the first performance of a suite for recorder and string quartet written by Gordon Jacob in 1958 for Arnold Dolmetch, he set to and wrote a 'Suite for treble recorder and piano' which he dedicated to Dolmetch. He followed it up in 1961 with a piece for harpsichord or piano, 'Hobgoblin', which he dedicated to Dolmetch's accompanist, Joseph Saxby.