# Do you have a favorite obscure composer?



## cellogrl (Apr 4, 2014)

I discovered an awesome choral composer yesterday. Perotin is a composer from the 11th century who wrote beautiful, simple music. To me it sounds influenced by folk tunes and doesn't have quite such a religious feel. It's a gorgeous example of early polyphony


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

Mikhail Nosyrev is mine - he doesn't even have an entry on Wikipedia. His son curated a website but I don't think it's been updated for some time.

http://www.nosyrev.com/biography


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## DrKilroy (Sep 29, 2012)

My favourite obscure composer is Irving Fine, a representant of American Neoclassicism. Check out his Music for Piano and The Choral New Yorker (Part 1, Part 2).

Best regards, Dr


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

Perotin is not an obscure composer... he was the most notorious member of the Notre Dame school of polyphony and the ars antiqua style.

Check this nice BBC documentary.

Excerpt.

But yes, Perotin's _Viderunt Omnes_ is one of the most fresh pieces of music ever composed.


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## Alypius (Jan 23, 2013)

Obscure is a matter of degree and often subjective. I would number Perotin as one of the founders of Western music. 40 years ago, when I was doing my medieval studies, Hildegard of Bingen was an obscurity. To the best of my knowledge, Peter Dronke's _Women Writers of the Middle Ages_ (Cambridge University Press, 1984) was the work that first alerted the English-speaking world to Hildegard's work. Most now would be familiar with her music (as well as her writing -- in fact, she was officially named a "Doctor of the Church" by Pope Benedict in late 2012). So obscurity is really a matter of degree.

One of my favorite relatively obscure composers is Antoine Brumel (d. 1513), a contemporary of Josquin Desprez. Here's the Gloria from his Missa Et Ecce Terrae Motus (nicknamed "The Earthquake Mass".






Obscure for me until recently was the relatively contemporary composer, Vagn Holmboe (1909-1996). Danes have good reason to be offended by the paucity of my knowledge of musical history in that Holmboe was one of the finest composers of string quartets of the last century. I would count the encounter with Holmboe's string quartets as the best personal discovery of the last 6 months. I wish I could find a good example of Quartets #17 and #20, which are my favorites, but here's a posthumous masterpiece of his:


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Franz Schmidt.


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

With the usual apology that "obscure" is a relative term, I'll mention Louis Couperin. While most baroque fans will know him well, he's probably the most obscure composer who I enjoy as much as the recognized greats from any era.

Mind you, I might be biased, since he did compose a song about me:


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## ptr (Jan 22, 2013)

I have a few Swedish (being a blatant nationalist..  )...

Björn Johansson (mostly by sheet music, two vinyl track and one CD track + a dozen airchecks)

Hilding Hallnäs (a few Vinyl tracks and A CD with his piano music and one with His first String Quartet + Half a Dozen Aircheks)

Gunilla Lowenstein (Ok, she lived most of her life in the UK; Sheet music and One work on LP)

/ptr


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Alypius said:


> Obscure is a matter of degree and often subjective.


I'm tempted to say that my favorite obscure composer is the guy in your avatar, (who is one of my favorite musicians even) but I doubt that Hill is obscure (even if I still believe that he's underappreciated). Probably could say the same for Herbie Nichols. 
I've mentioned other times but I feel that Alec Wilder deserves to be much more well known.
Outside the jazz and third stream, Maurice Ohana could be a good candidate.


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

Obscure composers:

01 Heinz Holliger
02 Igor Wakhevitch
03 Michel Chion
04 Robert Ashley
05 Ben Johnston

Those are all the names that come to mind for now.


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

Perotin has his guestbook on TalkClassical so he can't be *that *obscure. We've just been working through this:










and wiki is essential. 5 CDs of Occitan and Galician troubadors and jongleurs - basically very early medieval music. It was recommended by SimonNZ on the site - so again - obscure, unknown and totally fascinating.

Funny you should mention folk, we really came in to Art Music via folk. Groups like Strawhead were playing shawms and such and from there it was but a short step into David Munrow. Plus we danced to Playford so from there, it was also a short step to Preatorius and Terpsichore.

We've moved on a bit but our local Baroque mob specialise in English Baroque which means our next concert will include works by Handell, Mudge, Eccles, Hebden and Purcell. Again, Wiki is a great help. We also get regular doses of Avison, Arne, Hayes, Locke, The Earl of Kellie.

There is just so much good early music to listen to,


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## Alypius (Jan 23, 2013)

norman bates said:


> I'm tempted to say that my favorite obscure composer is the guy in your avatar, (who is one of my favorite musicians even) but I doubt that Hill is obscure (even if I still believe that he's underappreciated). Probably could say the same for Herbie Nichols.
> I've mentioned other times but I feel that Alec Wilder deserves to be much more well known.
> Outside the jazz and third stream, Maurice Ohana could be a good candidate.


Good to find another fan of Andrew Hill. Yeah, Hill is tragically underappreciated -- and is largely unknown except to jazz aficionados (and not even to all of those). Even his record label didn't--and still doesn't ! -- appreciate him. I looked the other day and saw that two of his finest recordings, _Passing Ships_ and _Dance with Death_, are both out of print. One of the great composers in the history of jazz.

****

Back to the thread: A recommended and very obscure composer:

Joseph-Ermend Bonnal (1880-1944):










One of the best discoveries of the last year. I believe it was Quartetfore, Jurianbai or Head_case who recommended this.


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

Perotin is awesome. As said, he's not obscure - but I know what you mean. Most people would have no idea who you were talking about if you mentioned his name… Although I guess you can say that about many composers, Hah. Still, I know what you're saying.

Check out some Josquin Des Prez. One of my absolute favorites around that era:

Hilliard Ensemble singing - http://www.amazon.com/Josquin-Motets-Chansons-Desprez/dp/B000002SSH/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1396999648&sr=8-2&keywords=josquin+des+prez

Tallis Scholars singing - http://www.amazon.com/Tallis-Scholars-Sing-Josquin-Desprez/dp/B000EGCTF4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1396999792&sr=8-1&keywords=josquin+des+prez


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

Maybe the weirdest obscure composer I've heard is Emil František Burian. I have one of his quartets in my collection and it's fairly good -- although at times I've felt the excellent packaging of the CD made it seem better than it is. He also seems like quite a rebellious character based on the Wikipedia article.

Is he my favorite? I don't know. There are other obscure and semi-obscure composers I really enjoy. Some I can't remember well, but I do remember Yves Ramette. I think he is incredible. Here's an example:


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## Selby (Nov 17, 2012)

I've been championing Spain's Lorenzo Palomo a lot lately. "Obscure"? I dunno.

I would second the Holmboe and Bonnal SQs. Great pieces on both counts.


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## CBD (Nov 11, 2013)

Alexei Stanchinsky (1888-1914)

The first video is of an early piece. The second is his first (and second to last) opus, which shows him going in a more experimental direction.


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

CBD said:


> Alexei Stanchinsky (1888-1914)


He was young!

[Need more words. Okay. He was very young!]


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## Flamme (Dec 30, 2012)

Some of these maybe...




Just discovered


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## cjvinthechair (Aug 6, 2012)

Vladimir Martynov. Link to his Requiem/Stabat Mater:


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## Celloman (Sep 30, 2006)

Karl Amadeus Hartmann (1905-1963)


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

elgars ghost said:


> Mikhail Nosyrev is mine - he doesn't even have an entry on Wikipedia. His son curated a website but I don't think it's been updated for some time.
> http://www.nosyrev.com/biography


Perhaps you should write him a Wikipedia entry. 

Some years ago, on a Yahoo mailing list for classical music, I ran into a guy with the colourful name of Robert Avalon. Composed absolutely brilliant stuff, at least judged by the short extracts available on the web at the time. I tried to get hold of CDs but somehow the company marketing his work just never could get any of it to me; they were always out of stock or had some other problem.

And then rather tragically, he died relatively young of a heart attack, and has now slipped into complete obscurity.



Alypius said:


> Obscure is a matter of degree and often subjective. I would number Perotin as one of the founders of Western music.


Perotin is obscure in the sense that the avrage person is unlikely to have heard of him, but as you and other have pointed out in this thread, he is actually a pretty major figure (perhaps we need a thread for major figures that are far more obscure than they should be?)



> Obscure for me until recently was the relatively contemporary composer, Vagn Holmboe (1909-1996). Danes have good reason to be offended by the paucity of my knowledge of musical history in that Holmboe was one of the finest composers of string quartets of the last century.


I have a tremendously nice concerto for recorder by him.

And now my entry for the thread: Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco. Somewhat well known for a guitar concerto, but I have yet to hear anything by him that I don't like, or that isn't beautifully crafted.


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## Cosmos (Jun 28, 2013)

I don't know how "obscure" members of this site would consider Nicolai Medtner, but he is probably my favorite least popular composer that comes to mind right now. His piano sonatas are top notch






Also, Viktor Kosenko has written some fine piano music. So far, my favorite is his Passacaglia from his Etudes in Old Dance Styles


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