# How do important composers get flatlined?



## Roger Knox (Jul 19, 2017)

I have been listening to Charles Tournemire's Symphony No. 4: _Pages symphoniques_ (1912), idly wondering what has run through the minds of various conductors, orchestra administrators, broadcasters, recording executives, musicologists, and cultural bureaucrats as they repeatedly chose to overlook this major composer's music. There must be some reason, but none of the ones I imagine add up so far. Being France, the reason would rest with "headquarters," i.e. Paris, I guess. Tournemire identified with César Franck but was alienated from a number of important figures in French classical music such as Widor and Ravel, especially in his later years. But one would think that after many decades those issues would be forgotten. So I don't really get it and prefer not to speculate fancifully.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

When you ask how conductors, orchestra administrators, broadcasters, recording executives, musicologists, and cultural bureaucrats repeatedly chose to overlook this major composer's music, do you mean that they do not schedule performances, play the work on the radio, write about it in journals, etc.? Couldn't the answer simply be that they don't find the work as enjoyable, interesting, or influential as many other works? There are a huge number of wonderful works written over the past 250 years or so. It would be hard to call attention to them all.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

> I have been listening to Charles Tournemire's Symphony No. 4: Pages symphoniques (1912), idly wondering what has run through the minds of various conductors, orchestra administrators, broadcasters, recording executives, musicologists, and cultural bureaucrats as they repeatedly chose to overlook this major composer's music.


It probably is that they do not share your assessment of the value of the music. Because of your post I listened to the work and thought it was an excellent example of Romantic music. But should it displace a work that audiences already want to hear? No.


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

Roger Knox said:


> But one would think that after many decades those issues would be forgotten.


Presumably, but once so much time has passed it's hard for any composer to get revived. At least there's a recording for you to enjoy, which is probably about as much as will be achieved by most composers who aren't well known by now.

I note that Presto Classical has 69 recordings of Tournemire's music, which isn't too bad. Of course mostly it's his organ music, which I think might be what most people who've heard of him would associate him with.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

I think the question has to be put a bit differently: 
What is necessary for composers/works to stay in the repertoire or to get "revived" (at least on records)?

The general answer for this modified question is: Enough people, preferable including somewhat established musicians, need to be really passionate about the music and want to perform/record it and be sufficiently well connected to get the funding for this. This is the first step without which nothing can happen. Once the music is accessible it can find an audience and a niche or even be established as part of standard repertoire.

(I cannot comment on Tournemire, but maybe one should look who cared enough for e.g. Koechlin who probably was in a similar position as Tournemire.)

Apparently, a modest bit of money can be made (including sponsors or public radio stations who often help) as shown by independent record labels like BIS, hyperion, Chandos, cpo etc. who have a lot of niche repertoire. I am not sure what the reasons are (lack of money, interest?) but in my impression France, Spain and even Italy are not doing such a great job of promoting lesser known composers of their countries. The British and Scandinavian labels did lots for "theirs" (and even for many composers from other traditions/nations), so did already some of the former Eastern bloc labels like Melodiya, Hungaroton, Supraphon, Balkanton. And Germany/Austria/Switzerland have very well funded public radio who also did some contributions, I think.
I find this a bit puzzling in a centralized and proud nation like France who should have easily the funds and means to promote their music. They did it with some baroque music, I believe, as e.g. Rameau was an important part of the revival of Baroque opera (probably the most striking revival of largely neglected music in the last 30-40.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

I'm not sure if Charles Tournemire has "flat-lined" - all of his symphonies and most of his organ music has been recorded and is still easily available. Some of his solo piano music, sacred choral music, even his chamber music is available. The only music of his I can't find on Spotify are any of his four operas.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

mmsbls said:


> When you ask how conductors, orchestra administrators, broadcasters, recording executives, musicologists, and cultural bureaucrats repeatedly chose to overlook this major composer's music, do you mean that they do not schedule performances, play the work on the radio, write about it in journals, etc.? Couldn't the answer simply be that they don't find the work as enjoyable, interesting, or influential as many other works? .


No, that would be shallow. The administrators etc are promoting music as part of a money making business, music is a consumer commodity, their programme and artist choices aren't determined by what they enjoy, their objectives are about stimulating and managing consumer demand, not about maximising their personal pleasure, nor promoting interestingness or influential music etc. That would be the way to bankruptcy!


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## Rapide (Oct 11, 2011)

There are many composers from all eras who are forgotten today but it seems the recording industry has been digging up such composers over the last few decades. Thanks to their profit motif, several record labels/companies have dug up composers since Medieval times. Go to Youtube and type "lesser known classical music composers" and you will find many, many names. Speaking of Romantic composers, the first two that came up were Vasily Kalinnikov and Sergei Lyapunov ... old music is enjoying a second Renaissance.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

Yes, the profit motive is at least as orthogonal to the main question as "personal pleasure" because one can apparently make profit both with Beethoven and Bargiel. Although I suspect that at least in former times, work by public radio or Eastern bloc labels did not have to be as profit driven and was sometimes also seen as archival in a broad sense. Like funding a National library or museums, one could to some extent see making recordings of composers deemed historically important as a public task.
And it can also be a luxury hobby. I have known of people who ran a publisher as an aside as long as they did not lose money (and making their money elsewhere). I think the Hänssler classical label started as or still is the side business of a company that makes most of their money with contemporary christian music or literature.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Kreisler jr said:


> Yes, the profit motive is at least as orthogonal to the main question as "personal pleasure" because one can apparently make profit both with Beethoven and Bargiel. Although I suspect that at least in former times, work by public radio or Eastern bloc labels did not have to be as profit driven and was sometimes also seen as archival in a broad sense. Like funding a National library or museums, one could to some extent see making recordings of composers deemed historically important as a public task.
> And it can also be a luxury hobby. I have known of people who ran a publisher as an aside as long as they did not lose money (and making their money elsewhere). I think the Hänssler classical label started as or still is the side business of a company that makes most of their money with contemporary christian music or literature.


Wandelweiser is the interesting one for me, because they have really capitalised on the commodification not of music, but of the delivery mechanism, the CD. They sell music which is pretty well impossible to listen to, beautifully packaged, and they promote it as a status symbol, a lifestyle symbol. For example, Jurg Frey's _Weites Land._


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

Orchestras today are essentially Museums of Sound. Take any museum of art or other items: they have a huge warehouse of items not displayed. They display the most important, famous and greatest. The lesser artifacts are not seen by the public. On occasion, they have a special exhibit and trot out some of the hidden gems. And they all seem to have the obligatory display of the New. Is music any different? Orchestras repeatedly play the same undeniably great masterworks while the immense store of lower quality music lies in wait, sometimes making an appearance. And new music played from time to time. But the audiences like what they know and know what they like. Hence, every year you get symphonies of Beethoven, Mahler, Tchaikovsky. Concertos by Mozart, Grieg, Rachmaninoff. I am involved to a degree with a local orchestra whose special mission to play rare and unknown repertoire - new music, too. It's a good orchestra, fully paid, and they play in a wealthy part of the area. Yet having only 50 people in the audience is kind of the norm. Another nearby group - mostly amateurs, sounds like the devil, but puts on only the basic repertoire. And they'll have 1500 people show up. Go figure.


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## Amadea (Apr 15, 2021)

mbhaub said:


> I am involved to a degree with a local orchestra whose special mission to play rare and unknown repertoire - new music, too. It's a good orchestra, fully paid, and they play in a wealthy part of the area. Yet having only 50 people in the audience is kind of the norm. Another nearby group - mostly amateurs, sounds like the devil, but puts on only the basic repertoire. And they'll have 1500 people show up. Go figure.


You could try to juxtapose famous works and composers to unknown ones making connections. That way the public would go to listen to the famous works but also discover and learn aboug unknown authors.


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## Josquin13 (Nov 7, 2017)

In the case of a composer like Tournemire, the answer is simple: his music went out of favor with the advent of modernism. In France, in the first half of the 20th century, there was a large scale rejection of the composers and painters that were perceived to be of the French "academy", or traditional and skilled (i.e., they played by the 'old rules'), in favor of modernism. Plus, Tournemire was an organist and wrote lots of organ music for his church, and running in tandem with this rejection of academically trained composers was also a rejection of religious subject matter. That is an inherent part of modernism (though there are some rare exceptions, like Olivier Messiaen). 

This wide scale rejection can perhaps be seen more visibly in the world of painting, where there was a total rejection of many of the finest 19th century French "academic" painters, who had great skill and technique, in favor of the new impressionists and modernist painters (connected to all those "isms"), who had virtually no skill and technique and in most cases weren't academically trained (in fact, the great majority of them couldn't even begin to draw in the traditional sense). As a result, the academic painters, who were among the most revered and renowned painters of their day, such as William Adolphe Bouguereau, fell into total obscurity. & it has taken the better part of a century for these painters to come back into favor and for their work to be recognized and valued again. For instance, in the 1970s, a major Bouguereau oil painting could have been bought for as little as $30,000. That is how badly out of favor he had become, despite that at the time of his death in 1905 Bouguereau was widely considered to be the greatest painter of his time and greatly renowned. Yet, even today, the religious works by these academic painters don't sell well or for comparable prices to their non-religious works at the major auction houses. They are still considered somewhat taboo.

Today, Bouguereau's major paintings might sell in the 4 to 5 million dollar range (last I checked), so at least he's been 'rediscovered'. Yet, the painting that he considered to be his greatest masterpiece, "The Education of Bacchus", didn't even sell at auction recently, when Sotheby's put the bidding price into the $20 million range. While, in contrast, the modern American "graffiti" artist, Jean-Michel Basquiat, whose street 'art' isn't even made to last because he didn't know what he was doing, has sold for as high as (around) $80 million at auction. (EDIT: I see that this previous auction price has just been smashed, the new record for a Basquat is $119 million, as of a few days ago at Christie's.) That is the severely cockeyed & out of whack world of modernism. So, the great discrepancy is still with us. It hasn't been entirely righted, not yet, and probably won't be for another 50-100 years, when many of these modern paintings will start to fall apart and mostly turn into 'junk'. (Which has already begun to happen, though that fact isn't recognized at the auction houses--for example, Jackson Pollock's famous 'drip' paintings are made with common acrylic house paint dripped on raw, unprimed, unstretched canvas, so they won't last. Indeed, they're already falling apart and have become nightmares for restorers, who must regularly collect pieces of the paintings that fall onto museum floors and put them into jars for future restoration efforts). 

And the same is true for many of the composers that came out of the 19th century French academy, as well, who played by the old, traditional rules of composition, in contrast to the new modern composers. It has only been in recent decades that their music has been getting recorded, and often for the first time. However, there's still a ways to go. For example, Charles Koechlin's symphonies haven't even all been recorded yet. Although thanks to conductors like Leif Segerstam and Heinz Holliger, a good deal of Koechlin's other orchestral music has finally gotten recorded (though not all of it), and in some cases, there's even more than one recording to choose from.

Eventually, it will all right itself. Though that process can take centuries, in some cases. For example, today many of the great composers of the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance and Baroque eras have finally gotten rediscovered and their music heard after centuries of neglect and obscurity.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

Would that work? Who knows. Whenever I'm asked to conduct a concert be it Pops, Christmas or Classics, I always slip in something obscure and talk about it to the audience. No complaints, usually. But I still remember vividly a concert with the San Francisco Symphony, Fabio Luisi conducting which had a well-known and loved concerto on the first half: the Schumann piano concerto. The second half was Franz Schmidt's Fourth Symphony (played in a stupendous performance). The two works were well chosen since the Schumann was also on the premier performance of the Schmidt in Vienna. Anyway, the first half of the concert the hall was packed. It was obvious that maybe only 60% stayed to hear the unfamiliar "modern" Schmidt. Their loss.


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## Roger Knox (Jul 19, 2017)

Looking at the OP now it seems over the top to me. I was frustrated in encountering a symphony valuable to me but generally ignored -- Tournemire’s 4th. As for the replies, personal preference and public popularity are factors in what gets played and discussed. But there are other important issues involved as is noted in excellent posts on this thread. Incidentally (hype alert!), I have learned a lot about Tournemire and his contemporaries working on the TC thread Unheralded French composers …/Orchestral Music, where there is more information about specific compositions.


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## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

> How do important composers get flatlined?


When their music doesn't hold enough interest for enough people. This composer may be important to *you*, but not enough people agree with you. In the case of the work cited, in the following year appeared The Rite of Spring. That says a lot.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

Paraphrasing the post immediate to this I'd say if you've heard of a composer or heard his or her work and s/he has been "flatlined" it probably means there isn't much audience for that music.

We all have favorites and wonder how it is that everyone doesn't love them.


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## fbjim (Mar 8, 2021)

Enough composers have been rehabilitated over the years that I think there's elements of pure chance and circumstance in there. Vivaldi and Berlioz are the obvious examples, and to some extent CPE Bach. 

To some extent the profit motive cuts both ways- yes, people want to program or record "butts in seats" symphonies like Mahler 2, but everyone wants something "fresh" which also sounds like the type of classical music general audiences like.


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## Andrew Kenneth (Feb 17, 2018)

Kreisler jr said:


> (...) in my impression France, Spain and even Italy are not doing such a great job of promoting lesser known composers of their countries.


For lost french music there's the label BruZane which specialises in reviving forgotten french music from roughly 1780 till 1920.

Their catalogue =>
https://bru-zane.com/fr/dischi/


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

*Johann Nepomuk Hummel* is a great composer that gets flatlined. His music is nearly as good as Beethoven's and he was almost an exact contemporary and also considered by Haydn himself to be his successor.


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## Oldhoosierdude (May 29, 2016)

"How do important composers get flatlined?"

Uh...they die?


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Oldhoosierdude said:


> "How do important composers get flatlined?"
> 
> Uh...they die?


Very funny :lol:


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## pianozach (May 21, 2018)

mbhaub said:


> Orchestras today are essentially Museums of Sound. Take any museum of art or other items: they have a huge warehouse of items not displayed. They display the most important, famous and greatest. The lesser artifacts are not seen by the public. On occasion, they have a special exhibit and trot out some of the hidden gems. And they all seem to have the obligatory display of the New. Is music any different? Orchestras repeatedly play the same undeniably great masterworks while the immense store of lower quality music lies in wait, sometimes making an appearance. And new music played from time to time. But the audiences like what they know and know what they like. *Hence, every year you get symphonies of Beethoven, Mahler, Tchaikovsky. Concertos by Mozart, Grieg, Rachmaninoff*. I am involved to a degree with a local orchestra whose special mission to play rare and unknown repertoire - new music, too. It's a good orchestra, fully paid, and they play in a wealthy part of the area. Yet having only 50 people in the audience is kind of the norm. Another nearby group - mostly amateurs, sounds like the devil, but puts on only the basic repertoire. And they'll have 1500 people show up. Go figure.


Testing your theory. Of course, the 2020-2021 isn't representative due to the pandemic shut down of most orchestras, so I pulled up the 2019-2020 season for the LA Phil.

OCT 3-6 • Dudamel Conducts Gershwin & Copland 
.....*BARBER* Knoxville: Summer of 1915
.....*GERSHWIN* Concerto in F
.....*PREVIN* Can Spring be Far Behind?
..... *COPLAND* Appalachian Spring Suite 
OCT 10-13 • Dudamel Conducts Music from the Americas 
..... *CHÁVEZ* Symphony No. 2, "Sinfonía India"
..... *Esteban* BENZECRY Piano Concerto, "Universos infinitos" (world premiere, LA Phil commission)
..... *COPLAND* Fanfare for the Common Man
..... *COPLAND* Rodeo
OCT 24 • Centennial Birthday Celebration Concert & Gala
..... *WAGNER* Overture from Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
..... *RAVEL* La valse
..... *LUTOSŁAWSKI* Symphony No. 4 (LA Phil commission)
..... *STRAVINSKY* The Firebird Suite
..... *Daníel BJARNASON* From Space I saw Earth for three conductors
OCT 25 • Mehta's Mahler
..... *MAHLER* Symphony No. 2, "Resurrection"
OCT 26 • Salonen & Sibelius
..... *SIBELIUS* Luonnotar
..... *Esa-Pekka SALONEN* Gemini (world premiere)
..... *SIBELIUS* Symphony No. 5
OCT 27 • Beethoven's Ninth with Dudamel 
.....*Gabriela ORTÍZ* Yanga (world premiere)
.....*BEETHOVEN* Symphony No. 9
NOV 1-3 • Dudamel Conducts Bruckner 
..... *BRUCKNER* Symphony No. 4, "Romantic"
NOV 7-8 • Dudamel & Yuja Wang 
..... *GINASTERA* Variaciones concertantes
..... *John ADAMS* Must the Devil Have All the Good Tunes? (LA Phil commission)
..... *STRAVINSKY* The Rite of Spring
NOV 30- DEC 1 • Dudamel Conducts Rachmaninoff & Stravinsky 
..... *RACHMANINOFF* Piano Concerto No. 2
..... *STRAVINSKY* The Rite of Spring 
DEC 6-8 • The Mälkki Effect 
..... *KNUSSEN* Violin Concerto
..... *BEETHOVEN* Symphony No. 3, "Eroica"
DEC 10 • A Tribute to Oliver Knussen
..... *KNUSSEN* Two Organa
..... *Huw WATKINS* Piano Quartet
..... *KNUSSEN* Ophelia Dances Book 1
..... *Helen GRIME* A Cold Spring
..... *HARVEY* Mortuos Plango, Vivos Voco
..... *KNUSSEN* Reflection
..... *Colin MATTHEWS* Hidden Variables
JAN 1 • A Viennese New Year with Zubin
..... *MOZART* The Marriage of Figaro Overture
..... *MOZART* Violin Concerto No. 3 in G
..... *STRAUSS, JR*. Der Zigeunerbaron Overture
..... *STRAUSS, JR*. Voices of Spring
..... *STRAUSS, JR*. Annen-Polka
..... *STRAUSS, JR*. Tritsch-Tratsch-Polka
..... *STRAUSS, JR*. Csárdás from Die Fledermaus
..... *STRAUSS, JR*. Thunder and Lightning Polka
FEB 7-9 • The Weimar Republic: Germany 1918-1933
..... *HINDEMITH* Rag Time (on a theme of J.S. Bach) 
..... *WEILL* Violin Concerto 
..... *BACH* (arr. Schoenberg) Two Chorale Preludes: "Schmücke dich, o liebe Seele," BWV 654, "Komm, Gott Schöpfer, heiliger Geist," BWV 667
..... *HINDEMITH* Symphony: Mathis der Maler
FEB 13-16 • The Weimar Republic: Germany 1918-1933
..... *HINDEMITH* Murderer, the Hope of Women 
..... *WEILL/BRECHT* Das Berliner Requiem 
..... *WEILL/BRECHT* The Seven Deadly Sins
FEB 20-21 • Dudamel Explores Dvořák & Ives
..... *IVES* Symphony No. 1
..... *DVOŘÁK* Symphony No. 7
FEB 22-23 • Dudamel Explores Dvořák & Ives
..... *IVES* Symphony No. 2
..... *DVOŘÁK* Symphony No. 8
FEB 27 • Dudamel Explores Dvořák & Ives
..... *IVES* The Unanswered Question
..... *IVES* Symphony No. 3, "The Camp Meeting"
..... *DVOŘÁK* Symphony No. 9, "From the New World"
FEB 28-29 • Dudamel Explores Dvořák & Ives
..... *IVES* The Unanswered Question
..... *IVES* Symphony No. 4
..... *DVOŘÁK* Symphony No. 9, "From the New World"
MAR 3 • Intimate Dvořák & Ives
..... *IVES* String Quartet No. 1
..... *DVOŘÁK* String Quartet No. 12 in F, Op. 96, "American"
APR 24-26 • The Planets
..... *Felipe LARA* Double Concerto (U.S. premiere)
..... *HOLST* The Planets
APR 30 • Mälkki Conducts Sibelius
..... *Kaija SAARIAHO* Vista (U.S. premiere)
..... *SIBELIUS* Lemminkäinen Suite
MAY 7 • Sunday in the Park with George
..... *SONDHEIM* Sunday in the Park with George

That's the bulk of it. They have several other types of events as well. Everything was cancelled once the pandemic hit.

The LA Phil really tries to "mix it up", with plenty of premieres and "hidden gems" tucked in amongst the headliners.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

I am certainly not the arbiter of anyone's musical tastes. Even my own being up for grabs on any given day. So I have little to offer concerning the OP's query.

But, checking my recordings catalog as compiled on Discogs, I see that I have a smattering of Tournemire's organ music and seven of eight symphonies in my current collection. I do not have the Sixth Symphony, which I find rather odd (though it's possible it is on a disc in a box that has yet escaped my attention of adding it to Discogs). In any case, I find I am now curious to hear the Sixth Symphony of Tournemire.

The odd thing is, I do not recall anything about the other seven symphonies of Charles Tournemire which have been part of my collection going on years now, and I _have_ listened to them somewhere along the line. What does that mean?


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

SONNET CLV said:


> I am certainly not the arbiter of anyone's musical tastes. Even my own being up for grabs on any given day. So I have little to offer concerning the OP's query.
> 
> But, checking my recordings catalog as compiled on Discogs, I see that I have a smattering of Tournemire's organ music and seven of eight symphonies in my current collection. I do not have the Sixth Symphony, which I find rather odd (though it's possible it is on a disc in a box that has yet escaped my attention of adding it to Discogs). In any case, I find I am now curious to hear the Sixth Symphony of Tournemire.
> 
> The odd thing is, I do not recall anything about the other seven symphonies of Charles Tournemire which have been part of my collection going on years now, and I _have_ listened to them somewhere along the line. What does that mean?


Since posting the above, I've come to learn that there is not yet a recording of Charles Tournemire's Sixth Symphony listed at Discogs. No one has yet added it to the data base. I also found the only CD copy available currently at Amazon sells for $43.99, but shipping is free. But I did locate two on-line links, and am currently listening to one of them utilizing my head phones and lap top. The music is pleasant enough, but exists in that foggy late-Romantic, post-French Impressionist vein where it's hard to grasp onto any particular theme for very long. Probably my experience of hearing those other Tournemire symphonies matches what I'm hearing now. Still, pleasant enough, but not at this time worth the investment of $43.99, even with free shipping. After all, I can always go back and relisten to those other seven Tournemire symphonies for free.

The Sixth Symphony is written for large forces including a Chorus, a Tenor Soloist, Organ and Orchestra. It dates to 1917 and clocks in at nearly an hour. That's a lot of music for the average symphony orchestra to tackle in concert, considering the forces involved. I suspect that such orchestras who could take on the challenge would prefer to program the Beethoven Ninth or Mahler Second, well known crowd pleasers, rather than risk the chancey Tournemire Sixth.

A quick online search reveals that several of the popular disc sellers I frequently do business with (including ArkivMusic and Berkshire Record Outlet) do not have the Symphony 6 disc available. I did find a download version at Presto Classical. But for now I'm content to do without a complete Tournemire symphony cycle. Besides, the piece is available for streaming on-line. After all, I'm listening to it right now! (And, no, the fogginess of the thematic presentation hasn't clarified much; but the piece is still pleasant enough to warrant my time listening to it. Is the hour almost up?)


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## Roger Knox (Jul 19, 2017)

SONNET CLV said:


> A quick online search reveals that several of the popular disc sellers I frequently do business with (including ArkivMusic and Berkshire Record Outlet) do not have the Symphony 6 disc available. I did find a download version at Presto Classical. But for now I'm content to do without a complete Tournemire symphony cycle. Besides, the piece is available for streaming on-line. After all, I'm listening to it right now! (And, no, the fogginess of the thematic presentation hasn't clarified much; but the piece is still pleasant enough to warrant my time listening to it. Is the hour almost up?)


I have a different opinion of Tournemire 6. But I'm glad you gave it a try and posted your thoughts.


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

In the latest issue of _Fanfare_ there's an interview with composer Robert Carl. At one point the discussion is about his favorite composers, and the interviewer notes that several of them (including Berio and Ruggles) aren't performed much.

Carl's response as to why this is:



> Well, you can make all sorts of socio-economic and political arguments about it. All of them are composers who are visionary and individualistic; but right now we are in a time where issues of social and collective import are at the forefront. I think that that's just the pendulum swinging back and forth. We just have to accept that, accept what's good about it.
> 
> We're rather like the medieval monks copying the manuscripts. I have a certain faith that if it's got something to say, it will continue to be said and heard. But history is relentless, whether something meets a need or not. Things can not meet a need for centuries, and then all of a sudden they do. The example I always think of is Hildegard von Bingen. Who would have thought that the first great composer of the Western tradition actually wasn't Léonin, but in fact was this abbess up in the Rhineland? It's great music. And it was the combination of New Age spiritualism, second- and third-wave feminism, and creative musicology that all of a sudden brought her into the limelight-and we're all the better for it. You never know when something is going to meet a need. So you just sort of bury the treasure and see if anybody digs it up.


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

ArtMusic said:


> *Johann Nepomuk Hummel* is a great composer that gets flatlined. His music is nearly as good as Beethoven's and he was almost an exact contemporary and also considered by Haydn himself to be his successor.


Given the many recordings of Hummel's music, I'd say he hasn't been flatlined in the least. Although his works are excellent, he's a far distance from being in the company of a Beethoven.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Bulldog said:


> he's a far distance from being in the company of a Beethoven.






I agree, but at the same time I see Hummel as a bit of a composer "unique" in temperament from Beethoven (just like Beethoven is seen in many quarters seen as a "unique" composer). I would also like to hear Hummel's operas and singspiels. He was Mozart's pupil when Mozart was composing the Da Ponte operas; he saw all the processes of Mozart composing them with his own eyes.
https://gofile.io/d/qUGpJZ ("Hummel and the Romantics")


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

I don't necessarily agree with everything this article says about Bach and Vivaldi; I find it biased against Bach: https://www.critique-musicale.com/bachen.htm


> "At the end of the XVIIIth century, after his death, Vivaldi is forgotten, but while Bach reach an european notoriety post-mortem about 1820*, the discovery of Vivaldi will wait more than a century**."


But it's worth asking the question; "are all the currently better-known composers better-known just because their work is inherently "superior", and all the currently lesser-known composers lesser-known simply because their work is inherently "inferior"?"
There were composers, who, throughout their lives, were stuck in remote areas of Europe (or the church), away from the musical capitals, and didn't want their music published or printed (didn't care whether the posterity would remember them). Their work would have had less chance of being distributed widely, and, so over time, they would be at a disadvantage in terms of reputation and fame. 


> "Another aspect of CPE Bach that aligns him with much more modern figures is his overriding concern with posterity and his place with music history. His letters frequently make reference to how others will remember him, and his autobiography, written in 1773, marks a clear division between the music he wrote for purely commercial reasons and that which he wrote for himself. By his death, he had assembled a collection of over 400 portraits of artists, thinkers and musicians he admired. "A kind of personal pantheon", as Richards puts it, "in which he did not hesitate to accord himself a prominent position.""


Bach (I'm not saying he doesn't deserve the popularity he enjoys today) was a special case where there were dedicated followers willing to promote his legacy, after his death, (such as J.N. Forkel, Van Swieten, Mendelssohn, etc.).

The established "institutions" and "experts" often like to shove down our throat with all kinds of things (factual and non-factual) about the "canon composers" of today; this lecturer for example, makes various claims about Haydn, (which make me wonder if he really knows everything he's talking about):




this sort of stuff helps to form an "illusion" in our minds, that the famous composers of the canon today were the "Chosen Ones" from the beginning. (I'm not saying any of these composers are "overrated" or "over-appreciated" though)


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

There are usually a lot of factors. I did not read all of the Bach vs Vivaldi article but Vivaldi''s fame had already declined within his lifetime. 
Genre matters a lot. Tastes had changed, so in 1760 it hardly mattered that Vivaldi had been a pioneer 50 years before whereas Bach "only" adapted the style and encumbered it with German polyphony. Both were old music 50 years later. But Bach keyboard music had staying power because it combined old and new and could be used in teaching. Bach had also many students and sons somewhat beholden to his heritage. So the situation was already very different in the 1770s, long before forkel or naegeli.
NeithEr could Vivaldi have been easily revived in the early 19th century. With Bach and Handel we have to keep in mind that it was a very small fraction of their works that were performed publocky in the 19th century, mostly choral and often heavily edited, abridged etc. But who would need 10 min. Violin concerti in a 150 year old style when he could have paganini or wieniawski...


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

The abundance of quotations from the 19th and 20th century in that article also shows that while nationalist historians praise or editorial effort is important it can hardly be such a huge factor. The mid to late 19th century German's already had the most famous dead composer, Beethoven, why should they lift up JS Bach. Why Bach rather than Telemann? And why, in an age of fierce national pride, did the rest follow? Why didn't the British promote Handel or Purcell instead? Why the Catholic Austrians not Fux or Biber (ok they already had mozart)? The French renewed interest in Rameau and Couperin but hardly or rarely instead of Bach. Historians are almost always too late, they can only do so much...


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Kreisler jr said:


> There are usually a lot of factors. I did not read all of the Bach vs Vivaldi article but Vivaldi''s fame had already declined within his lifetime.
> Genre matters a lot. Tastes had changed, so in 1760 it hardly mattered that Vivaldi had been a pioneer 50 years before whereas Bach "only" adapted the style and encumbered it with German polyphony.


Due to various circumstances and factors, composer [A]'s scores were better distributed, and music was better known than other composers' of his time;
and the so-called "experts" (such as Donald Francis Tovey, and Charles Rosen, or others who only rely on secondary sources) keep telling you as if composer [A] was the only "real pioneer" in his time. 




And the same people who've been indoctrinated by the so-called "experts" about the alleged significance of composer [A] tell other people about composer [A].
So the "rumor" spreads like a "snow-ball effect". "Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth" may not be the best analogy, but it's similar in effect.
There's nothing wrong with liking a composer, but if the fandom gets people to believe in "distorted history", then that's a problem. It usually tends to give certain composers too much credit; causing certain others to get "flatlined".
I don't think we should pretend like the famous composers were some kind of the "Chosen Ones". They're simply the "best hits" widely known to people, much like hits in other genres such as rock, jazz, pop, etc. Artists of the past who have been forgotten due to various circumstances and factors (ex. lack of exposure) of their time can always be re-assessed and re-evaluated today based on the merit of their work and newly-discovered facts about their influence.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

You keep harping your conspiracy idea of dubious experts and stupid followers... and a few really smart people who don't follow them. Could you walk us through actual examples from history? 

There was virtually no musicology before the late 19th century. Single figures like Burney or Forkel certainly did not have a huge influence. The most important factors were always musicians and audiences and usually their influence is much larger during or immediately after a composers lifetime. 
If nobody had cared for Mendelssohns abridged and edited SMP it would have gone back to the archive in favor of the Creation or Spohr''s Last Judgment or Paulus etc.
If anything experts had a role in revitalising the interest in 'forgotten' composers. But again only small. No mere musicologist could have produced the Vivaldi boom since the 1950s or the baroque opera revival or Zemlinsky getting somewhat established again. In the end it is musicians and audiences, a lot of people, not a handful of experts who 'decide'. Their influence is overrated by far. 

People have seriously claimed that a short polemic by Adorno was responsible for Sibelius not being popular in Germany and Austria. But the most famous conductor in that area in the mid and late 20th century loved Sibelius and made many well distributed recordings. Who could believe that audiences would not rather follow Karajan than an obscure professor? If audiences didn't care a lot for Sibelius it had very little to do with two experts. Because they kept loving Tchaikovsky and Vivaldi and other victims of expert polemics.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

You also overestimate facile introductory simplifications. Everyone beyond high school textbooks knows that there were symphonies and quartets before Haydn and that single 'innovations' are often wrongly attributed or usually overrated. That Haydn is more famous than Sammartini or Stamitz has nothing to do with misattributed fatherhood. He was already far more famous in the 1770s we nobody cared if Haydn or Richter or Boccherini had writ ten the first string quartet.

This is a bit like people who claim that Einstein was some kind of impostor because Lorentz and Fitzgerald had had ingredients of special relativity before him.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Kreisler jr said:


> You keep harping your conspiracy idea of dubious experts and stupid followers... and a few really smart people who don't follow them. Could you walk us through actual examples from history?





Kreisler jr said:


> You also overestimate facile introductory simplifications. Everyone beyond high school textbooks knows that there were symphonies and quartets before Haydn and that single 'innovations' are often wrongly attributed or usually overrated.


I'm not suggesting any of the fore-mentioned composers are "overrated" or "overappreciated" or that people are "stupid" here. But we still got to give the lesser-known composers "credit where is due". For example, there's a valid reason why, in terms of musical linguistics, Mozart derived more from composers other than Joseph Haydn. But people today are "indoctrinated" into thinking Joseph Haydn was the most important, for him. -this somehow builds an "illusion" in the back of our minds; _"Joseph Haydn must have always written great music, because he was the "Father""._ 
To me, this is a result of "history distortion". (I'm not saying Joseph Haydn is a poor composer) I just don't think it's fair for the other composers, who've been "flatlined" in the process. I'm sure there are numerous other cases like this in the history of classical music.


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## Roger Knox (Jul 19, 2017)

Josquin13 said:


> In the case of a composer like Tournemire, the answer is simple: his music went out of favor with the advent of modernism. In France, in the first half of the 20th century, there was a large scale rejection of the composers and painters that were perceived to be of the French "academy", or traditional and skilled (i.e., they played by the 'old rules'), in favor of modernism. Plus, Tournemire was an organist and wrote lots of organ music for his church, and running in tandem with this rejection of academically trained composers was also a rejection of religious subject matter. That is an inherent part of modernism (though there are some rare exceptions, like Olivier Messiaen).
> 
> This wide scale rejection can perhaps be seen more visibly in the world of painting, where there was a total rejection of many of the finest 19th century French "academic" painters, who had great skill and technique, in favor of the new impressionists and modernist painters (connected to all those "isms"), who had virtually no skill and technique and in most cases weren't academically trained (in fact, the great majority of them couldn't even begin to draw in the traditional sense). As a result, the academic painters, who were among the most revered and renowned painters of their day, such as William Adolphe Bouguereau, fell into total obscurity. & it has taken the better part of a century for these painters to come back into favor and for their work to be recognized and valued again. ….
> 
> Eventually, it will all right itself. Though that process can take centuries, in some cases. For example, today many of the great composers of the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance and Baroque eras have finally gotten rediscovered and their music heard after centuries of neglect and obscurity.


Returning to the OP discussion, I think you have made some really good points. It's reassuring to be reminded of the long view. Here I would like to clarify one issue: Tournemire was not an old-fashioned romantic. He was progressing in a modern direction - that's easy to see by comparing his Symphony No. 1 to the intriguing No. 8. And he had some original ideas about the relation of improvisation to composition, as you pointed out in your recent post of his quite modern-sounding and neglected piano 12 Prélude-Poèmes, op. 58 on another thread. There is considerable scholarship now on his monumental cycle _L'Orgue mystique_, which has even been compared in significance to Bach's cycle of cantatas for the complete liturgical year. Tournemire and Messiaen were colleagues and the influence of Tournemire on the modernist Messiaen has been established, though more needs to be done. As for the unanswered questions about Tournemire - we should leave that to the French and to international experts rather than indulge in speculation. Over time I will be posting more on Tournemire and his vast output, but on the Unheralded French Romantic Orchestral Composers and other threads, not here.

P.S. Incidentally I remember a great controversy over one of the top public galleries in Canada purchasing a Bougereau painting a few decades ago. Don't remember the details or the result, but it would be a good investment as it turns out.


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