Unknown Pleasures

February 14, 2022 10:27 AM

Lists of overlooked and underrated composers.
posted by Iridic (24 comments total)

Amazing!

As a supplement to this, plenty of treasures at Unknown and Forgotten Composers.

Some favourites that don't get mentioned often enough
Ana-Maria Avram
Jani Christou
Iancu Dumitrescu
Ljubica Maric
Luigi Nono
Horatiu Radulescu
Jakob Ullmann
posted by remembrancer at 11:06 AM on February 14, 2022 [4 favorites]

I love seeing that bare, no-CSS H1 text at the top of the page. It's like a tilde in a URL, you know it's gonna be the good shit.
posted by mhoye at 11:08 AM on February 14, 2022 [14 favorites]

wish there were also a category for choral music too ... (or did I miss it?)
thanks for this, it's helpful + a reminder of how so very many people who invested so much effort + time into their work remain pretty much invisible to all but a very small niche audience (+ even then, when lucky enough to have even that amount of interest)
posted by clandestiny's child at 11:17 AM on February 14, 2022

The excellent website A Closer Listen reviews a lot of modern composition which might otherwise be missed.
posted by fallingbadgers at 11:37 AM on February 14, 2022

The Chamber Music Guides (PDF articles) by Raymond Silvertrust are another great source of information, specifically about more or less obscure - mostly 19th century - music for trios, quartets, quintets, etc.
posted by misteraitch at 12:24 PM on February 14, 2022

I'm going through Schwartz's list and... am I right that there isn't a single female composer in the entire list?
posted by saladin at 12:28 PM on February 14, 2022 [2 favorites]

So, these will be Lizstless lists then, I take it?
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 12:29 PM on February 14, 2022 [1 favorite]

I don't have anything brilliant to say - I just want to thank you for posting this.
posted by wittgenstein at 1:01 PM on February 14, 2022

So, these will be Lizstless lists then, I take it?

Liszt is listed linking Leighton and Lloyd
posted by chrisulonic at 1:18 PM on February 14, 2022

The Lizst is an absolute good
posted by thelonius at 3:09 PM on February 14, 2022 [1 favorite]

So much wonderful music I/we will never hear. And rhen I turn on the classical radio station and hear the same classical top 40 over and effing over.
posted by charlesminus at 4:01 PM on February 14, 2022 [1 favorite]

Seconding that I’d like to see this but just the women. Just finished The Rest Is Noise and the author acknowledges in an early chapter that woman composers got a particularly raw deal in the 20th century, and then goes on to never mention another women composer for the rest of the book.

I’ll start: Èliane Radigue was a composer and electronic musician who made major contributions in minimalist composition in musique concrete and was a direct influence on the done and ambient genres.

Trilogie De La Mort is a good start if you want a listen. <
posted by q*ben at 4:42 PM on February 14, 2022 [3 favorites]

Can't wait to make a dent in some of these lists! Thank you for sharing.
posted by eponym at 5:15 PM on February 14, 2022

I have already tumbled down the rabbit hole into an album called Swedish Orchestral Favorites, Vol. 1.
posted by eponym at 5:16 PM on February 14, 2022

there isn't a single female composer in the entire list?

The miscellaneous short recommendations page namechecks Augusta Holmès and Clara Schumann. (For a bit more on Schumann, see Fran Hoepfner's "I Read A Book About Brahms And All I Got Was This Obsession With Clara Schumann.")

I see the Related Posts section has pulled up an FPP on Ruth Crawford Seeger. Seeing as it's Jublilee month, I'll also link my old post on the Ospedali Grandi, the Venetian orphanage-conservatories that trained scads of celebrated maestre, including Anna Bon and Maddalena Sirmen.
posted by Iridic at 8:13 PM on February 14, 2022 [1 favorite]

I'm going through Schwartz's list and... am I right that there isn't a single female composer in the entire list?

There aren't enough, but no, there aren't zero. The third composer on that list is the wonderful Grażyna Bacewicz (from whom: Concerto for String Orchestra • String Quartet No. 4 • String Quartet No. 7 • Music for Trumpets, Strings, and Percussion • Viola Concerto).
posted by aws17576 at 10:57 PM on February 14, 2022 [1 favorite]

Some (hopefully) well known women composers:
Pauline Oliveros
Sofia Gubaidulina
Kaija Saariaho
Wendy Carlos
Hildur Gudnadottir
Julia Wolfe
posted by nikoniko at 1:36 AM on February 15, 2022 [1 favorite]

I'm enjoying the list of underrated masterpieces. Lots of other stuff to check out as well, thanks!
posted by nikoniko at 1:38 AM on February 15, 2022

I appreciate people remembering to include women composers!

Here's three face-melting string quartets by women:
Lucia Dlugoszewski - Disparate Stairway Radical Other
Du Yun - Tattooed In Snow
Kaija Saariaho - Nymphea
posted by daisystomper at 6:36 AM on February 15, 2022 [1 favorite]

I expect everyone here is familiar with Caroline Shaw, but if not, here is the Partita for 8 Voices for which she won the Pulitzer Prize.

Also, I'm not a female composer, but I am definitely unknown (and only occasionally a composer). :) Here is a set of pieces based on Walt Whitman poems that I wrote a number of years ago.
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 7:48 AM on February 15, 2022 [2 favorites]

Love this thread.

I will add to the women composer suggestions with two of my favorite modern pieces:

Jennifer Higdon's Concerto for Orchestra

Caroline Shaw's Partita for 8 Voices
posted by Lutoslawski at 7:49 AM on February 15, 2022 [2 favorites]

Lutoslawski, GMTA!
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 7:53 AM on February 15, 2022 [1 favorite]

I didn't see Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji, so here's a snippet of his 4-hour masterwork, Opus Clavicembalisticum.
posted by Saxon Kane at 11:15 AM on February 15, 2022

I've explored IMSLP a lot and the two overlooked composers who have stuck with me the most are Agathe Backer Grøndahl (Ballade, Sketch op.19/2, Sommervise, Springdans) and Oskar Merikanto (2 Impromptus, Tunnelma, Itku).

(Disclaimer: I know the performer of Tunnelma; he would recommend Fanny Hensel and Florence Price)
posted by polytope subirb enby-of-piano-dice at 4:57 AM on February 16, 2022 [1 favorite]