# Composers traditionally considered great, who we talk about less here.



## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Who do you feel they are? Case by case, why do we not talk about them as much? 

All in relative proportion to the cumulative amount of critical attention and performances they have received since the times in which they were active.


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

Grieg. hardly anyone talks about Grieg here. Hundreds of recordings of his music are available, especially of the Piano Concerto and Peer Gynt. 

Why do we not talk about him? I for one find him a little run of the mill. Maybe others do too. I purchased a box set of his complete piano works but hardly ever listen to it.


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## R3PL4Y (Jan 21, 2016)

I completely agree about Grieg. He just comes across as a very average romantic composer. The piano concerto always sounds to me like he is trying too hard and just comes across as cliche.


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## Janspe (Nov 10, 2012)

I, for one, absolutely _revere_ Grieg's piano concerto - it was one of the very first pieces that I fell in love with outside the genre of solo piano music, along with Beethoven's fifth and Rachmaninoff's first piano concertos. These three pieces still have a very special place in my heart.

I must admit, though, that apart from that piece, I'm not very familiar with Grieg's music. The sonatas for piano and violin I've heard, and of course some of the very popular _Peer Gynt_ pieces, but that's about it... Maybe I should start exploring his work more thoroughly.


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

- I love _Grieg_, but selected recordings mean a lot for my appreciation. There are many fine and varied works, and in musical history he is often seen as a proto-Bartokian figure of great importance due to his pioneering work with folk music.

Among the others, _N.W. Gade _was considered great in his lifetime, but I fully understand the overall lack of attention given to him today, there are perhaps 5-10 works worth giving a listen, mostly quite Mendelssohn-sounding.

- _Delius_ isn´t much appreciated or discussed here either, for example. Or _Bax_. Or _Henze_. Or _Weber_. 
Or (etc.) ...


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

I don't think Grieg was at all an average composer. Maybe some works were not as inspired, but many of us have a good policy of, with our favorite composers, bringing more light to the best sides of them.

(I also think that melodic skills are undervalued by talkclassical. It's just about the hardest part of music for a composer to get right.)

I actually had *Dvorak* specifically at the forefront of my mind when I made this thread. There is some discussion, but I think it's much more lukewarm than the sum of his contributions(and more than a handful of individual masterpieces) merit. I also wonder about *Smetana*, who unlike Dvorak was quite an all around harmonic revolutionary, a trait generally admired here.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

R3PL4Y said:


> I completely agree about Grieg. He just comes across as a very average romantic composer. The piano concerto always sounds to me like he is trying too hard and just comes across as cliche.


I would tend to agree with you if you were referring to Bruch and the famous violin concerto. And I may ultimately change my verdict on even him.

Another and perhaps yet worthier name that deserves a mention alongside Grieg, is *Bizet*. Carmen is an all around masterpiece, no matter how it's been cheapened for you by the commercial fame of some of the melodies in the overture. I often think Chabrier had some appreciable amount of genius too, that channeled itself into similar compositional products as those of Bizet, but I don't think he has ever been amongst the most talked about composers.

*Telemann* is a composer who I think deserves to be better understood. Haydn suffers less and less from an increasingly less imposing(for Haydn) Mozartian shadow, but I do not think Telemann was a much less able composer than Franz Joseph within his timeframe. He was an incredible innovator of consistent workmanship and often surplus imagination, but he did not care much for the strictures of old fashioned counterpoint and this is his undoing for the modern listener. We've been through several eras where Bach has dominated in hindsight, and we will probably go through more. Late 20th and 21st recording, performance, and programming tendencies are helping out Telemann, just as they are CPE Bach(who gets talked about quite a lot around here, actually).


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## Orfeo (Nov 14, 2013)

joen_cph said:


> - I love _Grieg_, but selected recordings mean a lot for my appreciation. There are many fine and varied works, and in musical history he is often seen as a proto-Bartokian figure of great importance due to his pioneering work with folk music.
> 
> Among the others, _N.W. Gade _was considered great in his lifetime, but I fully understand the overall lack of attention given to him today, there are perhaps 5-10 works worth giving a listen, mostly quite Mendelssohn-sounding.
> 
> ...


I agree. I'll add:


Eduard Tubin
Heino Eller
Franz Berwald
David Diamond (Americans overall tend to be overlooked with some exceptions)
Charles Ives (is not as well discussed as many others I feel)
Carl Nielsen (one can make a case)
Sir Charles Villiers Stanford
Sir Hubert Parry
Darius Milhaud
Heitor Villa-Lobos
Glinka (he was, after all, Russia's first great composer)
Dvorak (Clavichorder, I think, nails it here)
Zdenek Fibich (that crucial link b/w Smetana/Dvorak and Suk/Foerster/Novak)
Jules Massenet

Of course, applying greatness to whomever is not so universal. Countries often times have assessments of their composers that are different from others. Exposures to these composers in question is another key factor.


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## Chronochromie (May 17, 2014)

Rameau. 

Why? Too much opera, Baroque opera, even. They tend to be quite long too, the longest about 3 hours. For whatever reason many people even on TC don't like opera, and on the subforum they don't talk about Baroque opera composers/works from what I've seen, apart from the occasional mention of Handel.

Berlioz. 

Why? I have no clue.


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## Kjetil Heggelund (Jan 4, 2016)

I think Edison Denisov is a bit overseen, a composer that was rated alongside Schnittke and Gubaidulina as the 3 great Russian composers of their generation. Maybe it's like that just because he died and there are so many composers around and that contemporary music is made by living composers...
I also think that Orlando di Lasso should be mentioned alongside Palestrina, Byrd and Victoria. He composed so much music that isn't recorded (didn't he almost set the world record in number of compositions?)  
And how about Luca Marenzio?! He was a generation before Monteverdi and Gesualdo and made wonderful madrigals.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

clavichorder said:


> I don't think Grieg was at all an average composer. Maybe some works were not as inspired, but many of us have a good policy of, with our favorite composers, bringing more light to the best sides of them.
> 
> (I also think that melodic skills are undervalued by talkclassical. It's just about the hardest part of music for a composer to get right.)
> 
> I actually had *Dvorak* specifically at the forefront of my mind when I made this thread. There is some discussion, but I think it's much more lukewarm than the sum of his contributions(and more than a handful of individual masterpieces) merit. I also wonder about *Smetana*, who unlike Dvorak was quite an all around harmonic revolutionary, a trait generally admired here.


I agree with every point you make here.

Grieg's music is generally modest in its ambitions but quite distinctive and beautifully made. His use of folk modes and rhythms is delightful, his delicate use of chromaticism enchanting, his settings of song texts fresh and poetic, and his melodic gifts exceptional. Original, distinctive and well-shaped melodies are not easy to invent (just listen, on the one hand, to most of the hackneyed drivel that passes for popular music, and, on the other hand, to the virtual disappearance of memorable melody in contemporary classical music - or, for that matter, to the Sondheimization of musical theater).

Dvorak was a bottomless well of gorgeous, poignant melody. His "problem" is that he's interesting purely for the quality of his output, rather than for his innovativeness or influence.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

You guys are right, there is a surprisingly limited amount of discussion on Charles Ives and Berlioz. I'm putting them together in this post because they may suffer from a similar "problem": both of them wrote works that were each so different from the next, in many cases without a form(or maybe just a title/concept? with which the piece is commonly referred to?) which was revisited. Ives does have 4 symphonies, but they sure are different. In a forum where comparisons are one of the most used tools for discussion, these guys might make it difficult. 

The same may actually be true of opera composers, to some degree. Each opera has it's own story and music that is made for it or to enhance it. Another ballpark, considering the categories we are fond of referring to.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Orfeo mentions David Diamond. I personally, do not know his music that well. But I know *Walter Piston*'s somewhat, who was one of the first and finest of 'American Symphonists' in the 'modern way.' William Schuman certainly felt him to be important, as I think did Copland and Bernstein for at least a time. All of this happened pretty recently in the scheme of our musical history. The future may enhance or diminish his significance, but the music will be there behaving more or less like it always has(performers with personal understandings can have a healthy say in bringing out the best), and some people will find more in it.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Surprising (to me at least) is how rarely *Carl Maria Von Weber* is mentioned. My memory is that he was relatively popular several years ago, particularly when it came to his operas, Der Freischutz, Euryanthe and Oberon. I look on Von Weber as in the same category as Schubert insofar as both had relatively short lives, dying about the same time (Weber died 1826 at 39, Schubert died 1828 at 31) and both made the transition to what would become early Romantic period music, casting off the Mozartean mantle of the Classical era which other composers of the early 1800s (Beethoven being the major exception!) couldn't seem to escape from.

Probably most unfortunate is how forgotten the piano music of Von Weber has become. The two piano concertos are at least the equal of, and perhaps even superior to, the Mendelssohn concertos. In fact, I would count the Adagio of the first piano concerto as one of the most beautiful of the 19th century:






The Adagio of the 2nd concerto is rather special:






And the Konzerstuck is no slouch either:


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## Orfeo (Nov 14, 2013)

clavichorder said:


> Orfeo mentions David Diamond. I personally, do not know his music that well. But I know *Walter Piston*'s somewhat, who was one of the first and finest of 'American Symphonists' in the 'modern way.' William Schuman certainly felt him to be important, as I think did Copland and Bernstein for at least a time. All of this happened pretty recently in the scheme of our musical history. The future may enhance or diminish his significance, but the music will be there behaving more or less like it always has(performers with personal understandings can have a healthy say in bringing out the best), and some people will find more in it.


And Roy Harris.
Philip Glass I don't think is discussed much either from what I can see.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

DaveM said:


> Surprising (to me at least) is how rarely *Carl Maria Von Weber* is mentioned. My memory is that he was relatively popular several years ago, particularly when it came to his operas, Der Freischutz, Euryanthe and Oberon. I look on Von Weber as in the same category as Schubert insofar as both had relatively short lives, dying about the same time (Weber died 1826 at 39, Schubert died 1828 at 31) and both made the transition to what would become early Romantic period music, casting off the Mozartean mantle of the Classical era which other composers of the early 1800s (Beethoven being the major exception!) couldn't seem to escape from.
> 
> Probably most unfortunate is how forgotten the piano music of Von Weber has become. The two piano concertos are at least the equal of, and perhaps even superior to, the Mendelssohn concertos. In fact, I would count the Adagio of the first piano concerto as one of the most beautiful of the 19th century:
> 
> ...


The only mentions of him I can recall have been on the opera subforum, and not very often even there. I listen to him rarely, but when I do I usually say to myself, "This is marvelous! Why don't I listen to him more?" And then I neglect him again.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

*Weber* has been mentioned and I agree. I heard one of his clarinet concerti on the radio, I think it was either in E major or E flat major. That's his more classicist and transitional side, but I thought for the longest time while hearing it, "I think this must be Hummel and he was really on his game for this one!"

There is also *Rossini*, who I feel has nearly as 'high priority' as Dvorak in this thread. He did incredible things for pumping up the orchestra and anybody who listened to Barber of Seville overture as a kid knows how packed full of incredible melodic ideas that is. For me that overture and the William Tell overture, were gateways into understanding works with more complex architecture, because they have a certain cyclic repetition about them that achieves full effect after it rotates around a bit with all that ear candy.

I would talk about *Gluck*, but apart from how I know some incidental music is great to listen to, he is just a name in a history book to me as of yet.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

To me, *Monteverdi* is the most obvious choice, the best composer of his time bar none and there's little discussion of his madrigals, his sacred works, or his pioneering operas, even on the relevant forums. My guess as to the reason for the neglect is that his music clearly has one foot left in the Renaissance, even though it uses a basso continuo and an early form of tonal harmony (with modal inflections left in).


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Most music written before 1650 is treated more as a history lesson, and it's good history, but it's sadly to detriment of appreciating great music to full effect. Palestrina, Monteverdi, and other composers of choral music have a leg up because the tradition of performance or at least circulating knowledge, seems comparatively unbroken over the centuries. Churches and universities kept it in order, etc.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Along with Monteverdi, *Verdi* merits discussion outside the opera subforum. I am always stunned by his artistry when I finally listen to him. There may actually be an Italian prejudice still subtly poisoning the way we sometimes view work of Italian composers, especially of the 18th and 19th century. I think Verdi not only proves himself adequate in ways that are more universal, but makes a case for 'the Italian way' as being 'universal' itself, like 'the German way'. There is more than 'brilliant melody,' there is incredible passion, humanity, and narrative. And a handful of operas as good as Bizet's lone operatic magnum opus.

I suppose *Wagner* could always use more specific discussion, and less general naming! Seems like we talk about Beethoven's 4th more than the main forum ventures into just about any Wagner opera.

But also, opera is opera and not for everyone. Still, for those who don't like opera on the whole, many famous Verdi fragments have been heavily recorded.


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

Jón Leifs
Allan Pettersson
Elliott Carter
Witold Lutosławski
Othmar Schoeck


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

clavichorder said:


> Most music written before 1650 is treated more as a history lesson, and it's good history, but it's sadly to detriment of appreciating great music to full effect.


True. You won't hear much about composers like Ockegehem or Obrecht around here. It seems like pre-1650 music is more for specialists.


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## TxllxT (Mar 2, 2011)

*Михаил Иванович Глинка - Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka*

The one composer who always lifts my spirits:


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## Balthazar (Aug 30, 2014)

Chopin merits more attention.


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

John Dowland, Daniel Batchelar, Robert Johnson and sundry other brilliant Elizabethan and Jacobean composers.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Balthazar said:


> Chopin merits more attention.


Definitely. There is a lot to interest, and it would be comparatively easy to highlight features in his works. If you don't spend time being obsessed with Chopin the composer, you've probably been obsessed with more than several of his pieces.


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

It seems like nearly every popular composer will be mentioned here except those that are super popular and those that causes controversy.


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## Heliogabo (Dec 29, 2014)

In the same level as Rameau, Purcell would be my choice.


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## TwoFlutesOneTrumpet (Aug 31, 2011)

I don't think there has been enough Beethoven talk recently.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Beethoven and Mozart seem to take turns, sometimes.


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## Autocrat (Nov 14, 2014)

Franz Lehar isn't discussed much. I suppose it's because horrible.


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## majlis (Jul 24, 2005)

Sergei Taneyev. Don't know his symphonic works, but IMHO he had the greatest, better and more transcendental corpus of chamber music done in Russia in the 19th.century.And his fantastic big suite for violin&orchestra is the best ever done.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

As to the Renaissance, what about Josquin Desprez (or however you prefer to spell it)? His inventiveness and expressive power are stunning; a friend of mine calls him the Beethoven of his era, and I get what he means. Josquin's contemporaries thought he was the best, but he gets little time here. I feel ashamed just thinking about it.


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> As to the Renaissance, what about Josquin Desprez (or however you prefer to spell it)? His inventiveness and expressive power are stunning; a friend of mine calls him the Beethoven of his era, and I get what he means. Josquin's contemporaries thought he was the best, but he gets little time here. I feel ashamed just thinking about it.


Desprez and Monteverdi stand head and shoulders above the rest.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Morimur said:


> Desprez and Monteverdi are head and shoulders above the rest.


Of their respective eras, yes, I agree.


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## senza sordino (Oct 20, 2013)

Some already mentioned

Grieg
Delius
Dvorak 
Villa Lobos

And not mentioned often
Corelli, highly influential- I really enjoy listening to his violin sonatas and concerti Grosso 
Holst, some pretty good stuff not titled The Planets
Chausson French but sorta German music


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

Copland is rarely mentioned, probably because he was popular and a populist. We mustn't be perceived as liking anything too popular. It's an even worse problem for Ferde Grofé.


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## Chronochromie (May 17, 2014)

Another one that is rarely talked about is Orlande de Lassus, and I know he's a Renaissance composer and most here aren't interested/don't know much about that period, but his contemporary Palestrina gets mentioned much more often (partly due to his perceived influence?). I personally think Lassus is much more interesting, joining Dufay, Josquin and Ockeghem as one of the finest Renaissance composers.


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## Clairvoyance Enough (Jul 25, 2014)

If you stick all of the "accessible" composers and pieces into a blender you come out with my answer. Mix the raw emotion and power of beethoven's symphonies, the perfectly proportioned tunes of Mozart and of Tchaikovsky's ballets, the fantasy adventure atmosphere of Holst's Planets, Dvorak's Ninth, Symphonie Fantastique, and other such romantic era warhorses, and then throw in movie scores while you're at it, and I think you'd come out with Wagner's music. 

Back when all I knew was pop music and videogame/film OSTs Wagner sounded modern and immediately appealing to me - the music itself that is. I'd say I'm surprised that newcomers to TC seeking recommendations don't always list him alongside Vivaldi, Tchaikovsky, etc as examples of stuff they already like, but we all know it's the music drama format that limits this. Subtract that ingredient (not that I would) and he'd attract threads like Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart.


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

Sloe said:


> It seems like nearly every popular composer will be mentioned here except those that are super popular and those that causes controversy.


For my money, anyone who starts to talk about "the great composers" should first be obliged to state how many of them there are. A dozen? A hundred? A thousand?


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

When was the last time someone gave Englebert Humperdinck some love?


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## dgee (Sep 26, 2013)

Not wanting to get into "greatness" but I think Henze is a bit neglected here.


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

Nereffid said:


> For my money, anyone who starts to talk about "the great composers" should first be obliged to state how many of them there are. A dozen? A hundred? A thousand?


I have nothing against if there are A thousand great composers.
What I think is that a lot of the composers mentioned here does get mentioned a lot that there are not long threads about them that goes on forever is another thing.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Sloe said:


> I have nothing against if there are A thousand great composers.
> What I think is that a lot of the composers mentioned here does get mentioned a lot that there are not long threads about them that goes on forever is another thing.


Some are going on years .


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## Hildadam Bingor (May 7, 2016)

Nereffid said:


> For my money, anyone who starts to talk about "the great composers" should first be obliged to state how many of them there are. A dozen? A hundred? A thousand?


On the premise that there are about 7 in every century and 6 centuries from which we have enough reliably attributed music to judge (starting 1400), I came up with 42, which is kind of unnerving even though I hate those books.


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## Hildadam Bingor (May 7, 2016)

DaveM said:


> When was the last time someone gave Englebert Humperdinck some love?


Right here! (He's better than Bruckner!)


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Clairvoyance Enough said:


> If you stick all of the "accessible" composers and pieces into a blender you come out with my answer. Mix the raw emotion and power of beethoven's symphonies, the perfectly proportioned tunes of Mozart and of Tchaikovsky's ballets, the fantasy adventure atmosphere of Holst's Planets, Dvorak's Ninth, Symphonie Fantastique, and other such romantic era warhorses, and then throw in movie scores while you're at it, and I think you'd come out with Wagner's music.
> 
> Back when all I knew was pop music and videogame/film OSTs Wagner sounded modern and immediately appealing to me - the music itself that is. I'd say I'm surprised that newcomers to TC seeking recommendations don't always list him alongside Vivaldi, Tchaikovsky, etc as examples of stuff they already like, but we all know it's the music drama format that limits this. Subtract that ingredient (not that I would) and he'd attract threads like Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart.


Wagner gets plenty of attention on the opera forum, as you suggest, but is mentioned elsewhere mainly in terms of historical importance and influence, particularly the influence of a single opera, an eight-minute piece that begins that opera, the first three bars of that piece, and the first chord heard in bar two. It's kind of a funny way to get attention. The truth is that he was a relentless innovator in finding new ways for music to sound, and threw his grappling hook quite a distance up the mountainside with every new work. A proper assessment of his musical influence would take us far beyond an ambiguous chord and its reputed opening of a door for the Second Viennese School. Influence aside, his works are stunningly original and potent in themselves. Had anyone ever created such a black and stormy sea as Wagner whipped up in his _Flying Dutchman_, or such a heavenly vision as the prelude to _Lohengrin_ (with such a revelation of the capabilities of divided strings), or such a sense of insidious evil as in the second act of that same opera - and these (and much more) before Tristan and Isolde's ultrachromatic passions had even been thought of? After _Tristan_, that explosion of music's conceivable boundaries that made conservative critics call him insane, he put the Beckmessers in their place with the virtuosic wedding of the old and the new which is _Die Meistersinger._ And still his imagining of new worlds of sound was far from finished: _Parsifal_ seems to recapitulate the history of harmony from Palestrina almost to Debussy, goes beyond even _Tristan_ in the freedom of its chromaticism, and creates an orchestral sound world that defies the ear to analyze it.

Harmony, melody, orchestration, form, the very sense of how musical ideas unfold and determine our sense of time: all took new, Wagnerian (which became a popular adjective) forms which not everyone liked (or likes even now), but which altered the thinking even of those who resisted his power. Interestingly, Wagner had misgivings about his own influence, and remarked that other composers would be wrong to think that all his ideas, conceived for purposes of dramatic expression, could be suitable for the purposes of absolute music. "For the symphony," he said to Cosima, "one thinks very differently." It makes one wonder about those symphonies he threatened to compose in his old age.

Wagner doesn't need defense or praise. But, re the thread topic, his music, as music, isn't much discussed here.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

majlis said:


> Sergei Taneyev. Don't know his symphonic works, but IMHO he had the greatest, better and more transcendental corpus of chamber music done in Russia in the 19th.century.And his fantastic big suite for violin&orchestra is the best ever done.


I love Taneyev's chamber music. But his name is not comparatively very well know, like Dvorak or Chopin. In making this thread, I was seeking to notice and understand better why such names as those which have historically been much attended to, haven't been as well discussed here on talkclassical(compared to Brahms, Mahler, Prokofiev, Bartok, Schubert, Haydn, Debussy, or other composers of 'ballpark stature' in many of the books, who we talk about(or have been talking about) a great deal). And I can remember times when both seemed to be mentioned and had passionate things said about them, but for a while I haven't seen much.


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## Hildadam Bingor (May 7, 2016)

Woodduck said:


> Had anyone ever created... such a heavenly vision as the prelude to _Lohengrin_ (with such a revelation of the capabilities of divided strings)


Yes, Berlioz, in the Sanctus of his Requiem, and it's basically the same vision:


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Hildadam Bingor said:


> Yes, Berlioz, in the Sanctus of his Requiem, and it's basically the same vision:


Good spotting. Just as heavenly, agreed (depending on the tenor - I'll take Simoneau), but hardly the same vision. Wagner may have got the basic idea for the divided violins in his first measures from Berlioz, but he expands upon it and turns an ethereal effect into the basis for a sustained and elaborate texture and a poignant narrative of grace bestowed and sadly withdrawn. He may have influenced Verdi in turn, who heard _Lohengrin_ before he composed _La Traviata._ But did Wagner know the Berlioz at all?


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## Reichstag aus LICHT (Oct 25, 2010)

clavichorder said:


> there is a surprisingly limited amount of discussion on Charles Ives


The unasked question?


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## Reichstag aus LICHT (Oct 25, 2010)

Hildadam Bingor said:


> Yes, Berlioz, in the Sanctus of his Requiem, and it's basically the same vision:


It hadn't struck me before, but might the sparseness of Berlioz's scoring be reflected in the _Agnus Dei_ of Verdi's Requiem?


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## Headphone Hermit (Jan 8, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> Good spotting. Just as heavenly, agreed (depending on the tenor - I'll take Simoneau), but hardly the same vision. Wagner may have got the basic idea for the divided violins in his first measures from Berlioz, but he expands upon it and turns an ethereal effect into the basis for a sustained and elaborate texture and a poignant narrative of grace bestowed and sadly withdrawn. He may have influenced Verdi in turn, who heard _Lohengrin_ before he composed _La Traviata._ But did Wagner know the Berlioz at all?


I can't recall if Wagner was in Paris when Berlioz' _Requiem_ was performed or if he was there to read the score of it, but it is reasonable to suppose that he will have seen (or heard) some of Berlioz' music by the tine he composed _Lohengrin_


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## Headphone Hermit (Jan 8, 2014)

joen_cph said:


> - I love _Grieg_, but selected recordings mean a lot for my appreciation. There are many fine and varied works, and in musical history he is often seen as a proto-Bartokian figure of great importance due to his pioneering work with folk music.


Grieg wrote a bucket full of very enjoyable songs as well as a heap of piano music - go beyond the _Piano Concerto and Peer Gynt_ and there is plenty to enjoy. The _Holberg Suite_ is another enjoyable piece


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## Headphone Hermit (Jan 8, 2014)

Chronochromie said:


> Berlioz.
> 
> Why? I have no clue.


A year or so ago, there was a lot of enthusiasm for _Les Troyens_ but two of the most enthusiastic have abandoned TC for another site and another has become much less active.

In general, you are right - apart from _Symphonie fantastique_ and the overtures, I guess many people encounter his music relatively infrequently. For those who find his large scale works a little .... erm, 'large scale' .... he wrote a number of excellent songs, including one of the best cycles of songs in the C19 in _Les Nuits d'ete_


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## Headphone Hermit (Jan 8, 2014)

DaveM said:


> Surprising (to me at least) is how rarely *Carl Maria Von Weber* is mentioned.
> 
> Probably most unfortunate is how forgotten the piano music of Von Weber has become.


I absolutely agree - the solo piano music is very good indeed (there is an easy to obtain and inexpensive series of four discs on Naxos, for example). Weber was very highly regarded by many other composers in the early C19 (including by Berlioz, for example) but he has unfortunately faded from view a lot since then


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## Headphone Hermit (Jan 8, 2014)

clavichorder said:


> *I would talk about Gluck, but apart from how I know some incidental music is great to listen to, he is just a name in a history book to me as of yet.*


*

You get a 'thumbs up' for mentioning Gluck - you'll get a whole heap of pleasure from listening to his operas as they are real gems of the time and rightly deserve their place in history for their quality and for their influence on the development of opera. Try 'Orpheo et Eurydice (in either of the versions - his works were frequently adapted for which country they were performed in) and you will discover some real gems*


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## Headphone Hermit (Jan 8, 2014)

*Franz Liszt* - rarely gets much of a mention, and when he is mentioned, one tends to read disparaging comments about his work being 'over-the-top' - which is it is in places - but I would rather express it as intense, dramatic, exuberant, committed, passionate, turbulent, wonderful. It has been fashionable for a long time (for some people) to decry Liszt's music for its excesses, but it fits entirely with the zeitgeist and milieu of his lifetime - many people accept the 'romantic' conception of art in poetry, literature and art yet not in music.

But it all depends on taste, and if you don't like it, then .... you don't like it.

And I'll add on here two of his contemporaries - *Sigismund Thalberg* and *Charles Valentin Alkan* another pair of mid 19th century piano virtuosi who composed many wonderful pieces that are seldom mentioned much nowadays


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Headphone Hermit said:


> I can't recall if Wagner was in Paris when Berlioz' _Requiem_ was performed or if he was there to read the score of it, but it is reasonable to suppose that he will have seen (or heard) some of Berlioz' music by the tine he composed _Lohengrin_


Wagner's conversations with Liszt make clear that he was a great admirer of Berlioz and acknowledged his influence. I haven't seen any references to the _Requiem_, but it does seem likely that he knew of it and may have seen the score. Berlioz was much less enthusiastic about Wagner.


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## techniquest (Aug 3, 2012)

Here are two composers that rarely get discussed: *Walton* and *Khachaturian*. Both have been up there with the greats - particularly in their home nations, but seem to be little appreciated here (just an observation, not a criticism).


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Headphone Hermit said:


> A year or so ago, there was a lot of enthusiasm for _Les Troyens_ but two of the most enthusiastic have abandoned TC for another site and another has become much less active.
> 
> In general, you are right - apart from _Symphonie fantastique_ and the overtures, I guess many people encounter his music relatively infrequently. For those who find his large scale works a little .... erm, 'large scale' .... he wrote a number of excellent songs, including one of the best cycles of songs in the C19 in _Les Nuits d'ete_


For me, Harold in Italy is no less a sensational masterpiece than Symphonie Fantastique. I've known a few people generally dismissive of Berlioz, who admit to having a soft spot for it. He's at his most lyrical.


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## Triplets (Sep 4, 2014)

R3PL4Y said:


> I completely agree about Grieg. He just comes across as a very average romantic composer. The piano concerto always sounds to me like he is trying too hard and just comes across as cliche.


If Grieg is average then you must have very high standards


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## bz3 (Oct 15, 2015)

It seems like baroque composers in general get discussed less here. When I first joined I read the archives for exposure to Biber, Buxtehude, Schmelzer, Lully, Rameau, etc. because that was (and still is) largely the new music I'm interested in these days. I don't know if it was more commonly discussed 6-10 years ago or whether it just seems that way because I sought those threads out. But it does seem like many of the users who were very much into baroque are no longer around - but again I couldn't say as I wasn't here for that period.


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## Hildadam Bingor (May 7, 2016)

Woodduck said:


> Good spotting.


No credit to me. I didn't notice that one until this reviewer pointed it out: http://diepresse.com/home/kultur/klassik/4995435/Monumentales-Requiem-im-Musikverein



Woodduck said:


> He may have influenced Verdi in turn, who heard _Lohengrin_ before he composed _La Traviata._


Maybe I'm crazy, but I hear Lohengrin in Aida. Compare Elsa's "Du trugest zu ihm meine Klagen" in her second, successful summoning of the knight in act 1 and Aida's "O cieli azzuri..." at the beginning of "O patria mia."













Woodduck said:


> But did Wagner know the Berlioz at all?


Oh yes! https://books.google.at/books?id=Ljq4sayzvAwC&pg=PA131

And even if we didn't have Wagner's written words, Berlioz is ALL OVER Wagner's early mature music. I'd even venture a guess that the influence of Berlioz is the essential difference between the composer of Rienzi and the composer of The Flying Dutchman and everything that came after. At least, Wagner began Rienzi before his first experience with Berlioz, hearing him conduct his Romeo and Juliet symphony & odds & ends in 1839, and wrote The Flying Dutchman after.

Compare -

The (almost) beginning of the March of the Pilgrims movement from Berlioz's Harold in Italy:






The beginning of Senta's theme in the Flying Dutchman overture:






And how Wagner moves out of that quiet part into the next loud part & how Berlioz does the same in the middle of the opening movement of his Grande symphonie funèbre et triomphale:











And finally, compare the descending motif in that last Berlioz example with the Dutchman's theme:






And I don't even have to tell you where the beginning of "Romeo seul" ended up, probably at least partly by way of Liszt:






French composers exist to be copied & upstaged by Germans. Except Debussy.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Hildadam Bingor said:


> No credit to me. I didn't notice that one until this reviewer pointed it out: http://diepresse.com/home/kultur/klassik/4995435/Monumentales-Requiem-im-Musikverein
> 
> Maybe I'm crazy, but I hear Lohengrin in Aida. Compare Elsa's "Du trugest zu ihm meine Klagen" in her second, successful summoning of the knight in act 1 and Aida's "O cieli azzuri..." at the beginning of "O patria mia."
> 
> ...


The resemblances between two motifs in _Tristan_ and bits of _Romeo et Juliette_ have often been noted, although Wagner Wagnerizes them pretty thoroughly (the other one originating in Berlioz's love scene and ending up at the climax of the Liebestod). I do think you're reaching with the other examples. No question about the general influence, though. Wagner was happy to acknowledge it.

The French then turned around and ingested Wagner (Franck, Massenet, D'Indy, Chausson, Magnard, Dukas, Schmitt, Lekeu...oh, and Debussy).


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> The French then turned around and ingested Wagner (*Franck, Massenet, D'Indy, Chausson, Magnard, Dukas, Schmitt, Lekeu...*oh, and Debussy).


So what about French music of the late 19th/early 20th centuries? Apart from Debussy and Ravel, who of course deserve all the attention they get, there were the absolutely unique voice of Gabriel Faure, the composer of exquisite songs Reynaldo Hahn, and a major flowering of what I'll call "German-French" music (comprising the composers listed above and others) in which Wagner's influence was huge. Debussy's aversion to Wagner's weighty Teutonic aesthetic was obviously not the sole or typical French reaction - even in his own time the French were fascinated by him - but we might be tempted to imagine that it was, given how infrequently we hear most of these composers, usually in just a few well-known works. They certainly get little attention here.


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## Hildadam Bingor (May 7, 2016)

Woodduck said:


> Apart from Debussy and Ravel, who of course deserve all the attention they get, there were the absolutely unique voice of Gabriel Faure, the composer of exquisite songs Reynaldo Hahn, and a major flowering of what I'll call "German-French" music (comprising the composers listed above and others) in which Wagner's influence was huge. Debussy's aversion to Wagner's weighty Teutonic aesthetic was obviously not the sole or typical French reaction - even in his own time the French were fascinated by him - but we might be tempted to imagine that it was, given how infrequently we hear most of these composers, usually in just a few well-known works. They certainly get little attention here.


Right, that's my point, the influence goes both ways constantly, but for whatever reason, it's usually the Germans who end up being more remembered.


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