# Educational Value of Neglected Composer Threads?



## Roger Knox (Jul 19, 2017)

For sources on unheralded, neglected, forgotten, etc. composers: much material on the nineteenth century is accessible to the public, mainly on the internet. This material includes biographies, lists of works, scores, recordings, bibliographies, articles and reviews. With effort one can gain a good sense of the instrumental music of a large number of composers and a less good sense of composers' vocal music, especially operas. Nevertheless when trying to "join the dots," i.e. putting one composer's music in relation to others' and finding valid concepts/interpretations of groups of composers, I could find little in comparison to critical writing about the great masters. Doing the Neglected Late-Romantic German-Austrian Composers of Orchestral Music thread I have made an effort to put composers in a structure and sequence, focusing on their music -- my background is in composition-theory-performance, not musicology. There are other valid interpretations; all judgments are subjective. The contributions from TalkClassical posters have been invaluable and I've learned a lot.

A thread can have a lot of purposes -- entertainment, social, notification, discussion, informal education. In my thread I have done a lot of the latter because it seemed to be needed. What do you think?


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## Portamento (Dec 8, 2016)

Well, I can certainly attest to the sheer vastness of information available online. I've used Hofmeister's _Musikalisch-literarischer Monatsbericht_ and certain contemporary journals countless times to piece together composer worklists for IMSLP (my primary interest here is in musicology).


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## Roger Knox (Jul 19, 2017)

Portamento said:


> Well, I can certainly attest to the sheer vastness of information available online. I've used Hofmeister's _Musikalisch-literarischer Monatsbericht_ and certain contemporary journals countless times to piece together composer worklists for IMSLP (my primary interest here is in musicology).


Thank you for your information, and I'm glad to hear that you are a musicologist and doing worklists. I consult IMSLP frequently; didn't know the Hofmeister but will check it now.


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## Rosalind Ellicott (May 21, 2020)

I've joined Talk Classical today, particularly because of my interest in lesser-known composers. I seem to remember a website/forum about five years ago on the subject but now I can't find it. I could be mistaken: any ideas? 

I'd like to chat not just about specific neglected composers but about an entire neglected generation, that between Handel and Haydn. Has that been covered on Talk Classical?


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## Caryatid (Mar 28, 2020)

Rosalind Ellicott said:


> I'd like to chat not just about specific neglected composers but about an entire neglected generation, that between Handel and Haydn. Has that been covered on Talk Classical?


Talkclassical has been around for years and is pretty active, so the answer to your question is, "Probably." But I think you'd need to name a specific composer.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

I don't know how it happened, but from an early age I was exploring those forgotten and neglected composers. By age 20 I knew the Raff 5th symphony better than any of the Brahms. And my curiosity about these neglected minor composers has never waned. When I am asked to conduct a program I always manage to slip in at least one work totally unknown the orchestra and audience. Finding material about this music is difficult, especially in English. In some early writings it's fascinating to read that audiences and performers alike thought just as highly of the symphonies of Raff, Spohr, and Bruch as they did Schumann, Mendelssohn and Brahms. There is a terrific book, Great Works of Music, by Philip Goepp in three volumes, the last from 1913 that puts an invaluable light on the music when it was quite new. It doesn't ignore works that we know call masterpieces, but it doesn't automatically put down composers who have since fallen from sight. Anyone interested in the forgotten literature should try to find a copy. I picked it up in an antiques store in Cody, Wyoming years ago, of all places.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Rosalind Ellicott said:


> I've joined Talk Classical today, particularly because of my interest in lesser-known composers. I seem to remember a website/forum about five years ago on the subject but now I can't find it. I could be mistaken: any ideas?
> 
> I'd like to chat not just about specific neglected composers but about an entire neglected generation, that between Handel and Haydn. Has that been covered on Talk Classical?


The only figure I recalled being talked about between Handel and Haydn is CPE Bach.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

mbhaub said:


> I don't know how it happened, but from an early age I was exploring those forgotten and neglected composers. *By age 20 I knew the Raff 5th symphony better than any of the Brahms. *And my curiosity about these neglected minor composers has never waned. When I am asked to conduct a program I always manage to slip in at least one work totally unknown the orchestra and audience.


I must confess to finding that extraordinary and I want to know more. Were you actively avoiding the more feted masterpieces? What was the attraction of the "also-rans" to someone with limited experience of the great works? And do you think not knowing the greats hampered your ability to assess the potential value (to you) of the lesser works? Where do you stand now WRT the two (Raff and Brahms)?


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## Roger Knox (Jul 19, 2017)

Rosalind Ellicott said:


> I've joined Talk Classical today, particularly because of my interest in lesser-known composers. I seem to remember a website/forum about five years ago on the subject but now I can't find it. I could be mistaken: any ideas?
> 
> I'd like to chat not just about specific neglected composers but about an entire neglected generation, that between Handel and Haydn. Has that been covered on Talk Classical?


Thanks for your post. I don't recall anything about the neglected generation between Handel and Haydn on TalkClassical over the past three years. But I'm interested in knowing more and discussing it.


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

Rosalind Ellicott said:


> I've joined Talk Classical today, particularly because of my interest in lesser-known composers. I seem to remember a website/forum about five years ago on the subject but now I can't find it. I could be mistaken: any ideas?


I also remember that website. It likely went under given that its only theme was the lesser-known.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Phil loves classical said:


> The only figure I recalled being talked about between Handel and Haydn is CPE Bach.


I remember talking about Johann Adolph Hasse (1699~1783) quite a bit





^his final masterpiece


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## Rosalind Ellicott (May 21, 2020)

Ha ha, yes it probably didn't have mass appeal. Good to know I wasn't imagining it though.


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## Rosalind Ellicott (May 21, 2020)

Oh, super. It just doesn't make sense to me that such an innovative period that started the Classical era is virtually unknown to most. Even as a child, it was in the back of my mind that the Classical era just seemed to spring from the Baroque with no link. Thanks to the internet age, I've been gradually joining the dots (I like the way you put that) for about the last fifteen years. Lets try and restore the glory of Johann Stamitz, Leopold Mozart, Wagenseil, Galluppi and the rest. Should I start a new thread?


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Rosalind Ellicott said:


> Should I start a new thread?


Feel free.



Rosalind Ellicott said:


> Johann Stamitz, Leopold Mozart, Wagenseil, Galluppi and the rest.


Caldara was an important figure in Vienna during this period as well. Antonio Caldara and the Baroque Sinfonia
I find that my interest generally circles around these guys: the Bach Brothers (Friedmann, Emanuel, Christian, Christoph) and the Salzburg masters (Eberlin, M. Haydn, L. Mozart, Adlgasser), + some other composers under Frederick the Great, aside from Emmanuel Bach (Quantz, Benda)

Johann Joachim Quantz Flute Concertos

Johann Ernst Eberlin - Missa a Due Chori
Johann Ernst Eberlin (1702-1762) - Missa in C
Johann Ernst Eberlin - Requiem No.8 in C-major
Eberlin: Mass in A minor - ( Kyrie , Gloria , Credo , Sanctus , Benedictus , Agnus Dei )


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## Fabulin (Jun 10, 2019)

Rosalind Ellicott said:


> I've joined Talk Classical today, particularly because of my interest in lesser-known composers. I seem to remember a website/forum about five years ago on the subject but now I can't find it. I could be mistaken: any ideas?
> 
> I'd like to chat not just about specific neglected composers but about an entire neglected generation, that between Handel and Haydn. Has that been covered on Talk Classical?


The unsung composers community? Alive and well, as far as I can tell.


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

Fabulin said:


> The unsung composers community? Alive and well, as far as I can tell.


Rosalind might be interested to know that there's a member here, Joachim Raff, who has started dozens of threads in recent months dedicated to neglected composers. Just go to "Community", click on "members", click on his name, and click on "threads started".


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

Enthusiast said:


> I must confess to finding that extraordinary and I want to know more. Were you actively avoiding the more feted masterpieces? What was the attraction of the "also-rans" to someone with limited experience of the great works? And do you think not knowing the greats hampered your ability to assess the potential value (to you) of the lesser works? Where do you stand now WRT the two (Raff and Brahms)?


As a youth, I never listened to the pop music - Top 40 - that my peers were. I grew up loving horror films and those old b/w movies had soundtracks that were pretty much late Romantic, early expressionistic. That's where my ears were. In 8th grade I bought my first set of Beethoven symphonies (Leibowitz - still have them) and a wonderful neighbor who recognized my interest in the classics gave me many LPs he no longer wanted - so, by the time high school was done I had heard pretty much the entire standard repertoire. (My Mahler fixation came about by an odd set of circumstances that I still marvel about.) So sometime in the early '70s, there was an upstart company, Nonesuch, that along with Westminster and Candide had interesting titles. But that Raff 5th with Bernard Herrmann had a slightly Halloweenish cover that intrigued me. I bought and instantly loved it. So much so that I went to the Library of Congress and had a copy of the 2-piano 4-hand version made so I could bang through it with someone else. That was my entry point into the obscure and those oddball composers became a source of excitement to the exclusion of a lot of "better" music. I put off pre-Beethoven, opera, chamber and 20th for a long time. I honestly spend more time listening to obscure composers than the well-knowns. This morning I put on the symphony by Fritz Vollbach, and tonight I plan on hearing the two symponies of George Schumann. I still listen to the great composers, but I've heard them all so much, played so much in concert, and conducted a fair amount that the forgotten composers provide balm to the ears.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Rosalind Ellicott said:


> I've joined Talk Classical today, particularly because of my interest in lesser-known composers. I seem to remember a website/forum about five years ago on the subject but now I can't find it. I could be mistaken: any ideas?


it was a forum, it was something like "underrated composers" or something like that and it was very useful and full of great suggestions. I can't find it either, I seriously hope it still exist because it was an invaluable source to find hidden gems.


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## Rosalind Ellicott (May 21, 2020)

Thanks. Yes, neglected composers have been covered extensively but by proposed discussion is about the reasons for an entire era being ignored.


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## Fabulin (Jun 10, 2019)

Maybe not reasons, but causes. Compared to what came before and after, music of that era aged poorly, not unlike electronic / disco experiments of the 1980s, even if it is of much higher quality than those.


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## Acadarchist (May 22, 2020)

I discovered the Quantz Flute Concertos just recently. I enjoyed them even after just one listen.


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## Rosalind Ellicott (May 21, 2020)

Fabulin said:


> Maybe not reasons, but causes. Compared to what came before and after, music of that era aged poorly, not unlike electronic / disco experiments of the 1980s, even if it is of much higher quality than those.


Hmm, there may be something in what you say but I have a nagging doubt. If you'd like to add more, I'd like to stop hijacking this thread and start a new one but I can't work out how to. Can anyone help?


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## Portamento (Dec 8, 2016)

Bulldog said:


> I also remember that website. It likely went under given that its only theme was the lesser-known.


As Fabulin says, it's still there. Another theme is only Romantic-era composers, as if "unsung" figures don't exist in other eras.


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## Rosalind Ellicott (May 21, 2020)

Unsung composers exist in every era but the only unsung era between late baroque and early modern is the formative galant period which is a gaping hole in the timeline and I'd like to know why. Please can you post the unsung composer website details?


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Rosalind Ellicott said:


> Please can you post the unsung composer website details?


I think that is against TC rules. On the other hand, googling for unsung composers and clicking the first suggestion is not.


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## Roger Knox (Jul 19, 2017)

Rosalind Ellicott said:


> Hmm, there may be something in what you say but I have a nagging doubt. If you'd like to add more, I'd like to stop hijacking this thread and start a new one but I can't work out how to. Can anyone help?


I'd suggest contacting one of the moderators of the Forum: Music and Repertoire, especially concerning rules and conventions. It's promising that a number of people have already replied to you, showing a strong interest in the question; some have a wealth of experience to draw on. I don't have an official role with TC but might be able to help. You can find a thread I started -- Neglected German and and Austrian Orchestral Composers of the Late Romantic Era -- under the Orchestral Music sub-forum in August 2017; the most recent post is dated December 20, 2019. Mine is a content thread, which was more steered ("hijacked" if you like!), whereas your idea seems more a discussion thread. In any case, my suggestions are:

- in your opening post (OP) outline and limit the content area specifically -- do you mean all Classical composers and their music of the period between Handel and Haydn? instrumental or vocal only, etc.? and so on
- include some examples of composers and works you are strongly advocating for, to convince us
- have a clear question or questions for discussion and refer back to the OP as replies come in to maintain focus

One reason for the era being ignored -- especially for instrumental music -- is the idea that the main Classical era composers of interest are Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven and the earlier ones are inferior precursers. Charles Rosen's famous book _The Classical Style_ held this position. Yet musicologist Richard Taruskin has criticized the influence of the 19th- and early 20th-century German and Austrian historical musicologists who set up the discipline, for exaggerated nationalist claims about 18th century German music while downplaying e.g. Italy, France, Britain, the Slavic countries and Scandinavia.


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