# Minor Composers



## beetzart (Dec 30, 2009)

My life is consumed with playing, researching, and listening to some very underrated composers such as:

Muzio Clementi, Johann Baptist Cramer, Ignaz Moscheles, Jan Ladislav Dussek, Johann Nepomuk Hummel, John Field, Anton Eberl, Jan Václav Hugo Voříšek, Frederick Kuhlau, Stephen Hiller.

Plus a few better known ones such as CPE Bach, and Joseph Haydn. 

I have neglected Beethoven, Mozart, and Schubert recently as I feel the chaps above have so much to offer.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

I agree. My latest CD's I played include Lennox Berkeley, Michael Berkeley, Freitas Branco, Still, d'Almeida, Kox and Klobucar.


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## PlaySalieri (Jun 3, 2012)

It is not easy to understand why anybody would neglect the established masters for music of the also rans - unless perhaps you are planning a book? That seems like a worthwhile project if you are investing a lot of time listening.


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## Crudblud (Dec 29, 2011)

I didn't get much enjoyment out of the Vorisek solo piano pieces I tried, Field is quite pleasant though.


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## Mephistopheles (Sep 3, 2012)

I have one short life and mountains of music that I can never fully climb - I think I'll spend it listening to the best of the best.


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

I listen to a lot of music by those who might be defined as "minor composers". Right now... among my stack of recent purchases yet to be heard sitting next to my computer are works by Gabriel Faure, Dietrich Buxtehude, Vernon Duke, John Danyel, a collection of English Renaissance composers, Ernest John Moeran, Arcangelo Corelli, Carl Maria von Weber, Samuel Barber, Engelbert Humperdinck, and several others. But then there are also discs of music by Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart. First of all... I would suggest that those "minor" composers often produced some truly marvelous music. At times they even created pieces which are anything but minor. Such music also helps to establish a greater sense of the context in which the major composers lived and worked. Listening to Zelenka, Biber, Buxtehude, Sylvius Weiss, Heinrich Schütz, Corelli, Schmelzer, Veracini, Leclair, Westhoff, Lully, Hasse, and Rameau helps me to appreciate where J.S. Bach is coming from... but also just how innovative he was within that context. I would also suggest that listening to a broad array of music... even breaking outside of the realm of classical music frequently... keeps me from the sort of boredom with the most well-known works: Beethoven's 5th and the "Moonlight Sonata", Vivaldi's _Four Seasons_, Ravel's _Bolero_, etc... I don't grow tired of these works because I don't hear them all the time. This summer I played Vivaldi's Four Seasons by Fabio Biondi and the Europa Galante and I was struck by just how fabulous and fresh the work truly is... why it is so popular. I listen to "minor composers" all the time. In no way does it take away or detract me from listening to Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Schubert, Wagner, or Handel. :tiphat:


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

I could not agree more. And I'm glad that someone else mentions EJ Moeran on this board. Fabulous composer.


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## PlaySalieri (Jun 3, 2012)

StlukesguildOhio said:


> I listen to a lot of music by those who might be defined as "minor composers". Right now... among my stack of recent purchases yet to be heard sitting next to my computer are works by Gabriel Faure, Dietrich Buxtehude, Vernon Duke, John Danyel, a collection of English Renaissance composers, Ernest John Moeran, Arcangelo Corelli, Carl Maria von Weber, Samuel Barber, Engelbert Humperdinck, and several others. But then there are also discs of music by Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart. First of all... I would suggest that those "minor" composers often produced some truly marvelous music. At times they even created pieces which are anything but minor. Such music also helps to establish a greater sense of the context in which the major composers lived and worked. Listening to Zelenka, Biber, Buxtehude, Sylvius Weiss, Heinrich Schütz, Corelli, Schmelzer, Veracini, Leclair, Westhoff, Lully, Hasse, and Rameau helps me to appreciate where J.S. Bach is coming from... but also just how innovative he was within that context. I would also suggest that listening to a broad array of music... even breaking outside of the realm of classical music frequently... keeps me from the sort of boredom with the most well-known works: Beethoven's 5th and the "Moonlight Sonata", Vivaldi's _Four Seasons_, Ravel's _Bolero_, etc... I don't grow tired of these works because I don't hear them all the time. This summer I played Vivaldi's Four Seasons by Fabio Biondi and the Europa Galante and I was struck by just how fabulous and fresh the work truly is... why it is so popular. I listen to "minor composers" all the time. In no way does it take away or detract me from listening to Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Schubert, Wagner, or Handel. :tiphat:


Buxtehude wrote some spellbinding organ music. He seems to have a reputation as being extremely difficult to play.


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## Ramako (Apr 28, 2012)

Of course Joseph Haydn is underrated 

But seriously I am beginning to enjoy CPE quite a lot. I haven't had time to fully digest his works, but he is more genuinely an under-rated composer, as Mozart and Haydn absolutely dominate the canonical Classical period most of the time. Even if he is third fiddle, he still deserves more than he gets.


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## beetzart (Dec 30, 2009)

Come on!


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

Farrenc! Kraus! Soler! Coste!


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## drpraetorus (Aug 9, 2012)

Some composers are rightly in the minor ranks. Others are there because they are not a famous as the biggies, but just as good. JS Bach is the poster child of the latter. Not particularly famous during his lifetime. The officials at the Thomaskirche in Leipzig were upset because the had to "settle" for Bach because they couldn't get Teleman. After death his boys were more well known. JS himself was known mostlty to the cognoscenti of the Classical period. Not by the general population of musicians. While Mozart was well aware of Handel he was fully introduced to the music of Bach only after he moved to Vienna. This introduction was from Baron Gottfried van Swieten. It wasn't until 1829 when Mendelssohn performed the Saint Matthew Passion that JS started to gain the position he now occupies. 

Moral of the story; don't turn up you musical noses at minor composers. At least give them a hearing.


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## PlaySalieri (Jun 3, 2012)

drpraetorus said:


> Some composers are rightly in the minor ranks. Others are there because they are not a famous as the biggies, but just as good. JS Bach is the poster child of the latter. Not particularly famous during his lifetime. The officials at the Thomaskirche in Leipzig were upset because the had to "settle" for Bach because they couldn't get Teleman. After death his boys were more well known. JS himself was known mostlty to the cognoscenti of the Classical period. Not by the general population of musicians. While Mozart was well aware of Handel he was fully introduced to the music of Bach only after he moved to Vienna. This introduction was from Baron Gottfried van Swieten. It wasn't until 1829 when Mendelssohn performed the Saint Matthew Passion that JS started to gain the position he now occupies.
> 
> Moral of the story; don't turn up you musical noses at minor composers. At least give them a hearing.


Yes but those have had 200 plus years to make an impact and they have failed.


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## Sonata (Aug 7, 2010)

stomanek said:


> Yes but those have had 200 plus years to make an impact and they have failed.


They may have failed to impact the MASSES, but many of them obviously have not failed to make an impact, or this very thread would not exist. Besides, all it takes is interest by the right person sometimes, ie the Bach example above. These other composers are obviously causing some people joy, so then they must be worthy of something.


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## regressivetransphobe (May 16, 2011)

stomanek said:


> Yes but those have had 200 plus years to make an impact and they have failed.


Do you really think the pantheon of "great" classical composers was determined solely by musical integrity?


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## neoshredder (Nov 7, 2011)

I'm definitely into it as well. Especially Minor 20th Century Composers influenced by Baroque. Respighi not so minor I guess but not a Major one either. Poulenc as well. Carl Stamitz is a very good Minor Composer of the early Classical Era.


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## Carolingian (Sep 24, 2012)

One of my favourite baroque composers, Jan Dismas Zelenka, would be considered as such.

A few others, too:

Antonio Lotti
Heinrich Schutz
Jean-Baptiste Lully (not major; possibly minor)
Luigi Boccherini


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## PlaySalieri (Jun 3, 2012)

regressivetransphobe said:


> Do you really think the pantheon of "great" classical composers was determined solely by musical integrity?


Many times I have been sent on a wild goose chase by people on this board urging me to listen to Clementi sonata, Salieri or whatever - the only good recommendation out of dozens was Michael Haydn's requiem The rest just wasn't worth the time spent listening. In fact when I listen to what the majority of composers in those days were like it seems an even greater miracle that we had, Bach, Mozart, Beethoven (etc). They truly are just a few rare species of flowers in a vast field of dandelions.


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## neoshredder (Nov 7, 2011)

stomanek said:


> Many times I have been sent on a wild goose chase by people on this board urging me to listen to Clementi sonata, Salieri or whatever - the only good recommendation out of dozens was Michael Haydn's requiem The rest just wasn't worth the time spent listening. In fact when I listen to what the majority of composers in those days were like it seems an even greater miracle that we had, Bach, Mozart, Beethoven (etc). They truly are just a few rare species of flowers in a vast field of dandelions.


Where is the dislike button when you need it.


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## Ramako (Apr 28, 2012)

neoshredder said:


> Where is the dislike button when you need it.


That most necessary button 

The fact is though Stomanek that if you take a step back from what you say, it is equally possible to say the same of Schubert because he isn't as great as Beethoven, Haydn isn't as great as Mozart etc etc. And yet these composers are very much worth listening to, obviously, although a casual listener of classical music may not say so. It depends on where you draw the line.


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## PlaySalieri (Jun 3, 2012)

Ramako said:


> That most necessary button
> 
> The fact is though Stomanek that if you take a step back from what you say, it is equally possible to say the same of Schubert because he isn't as great as Beethoven, Haydn isn't as great as Mozart etc etc. And yet these composers are very much worth listening to, obviously, although a casual listener of classical music may not say so. It depends on where you draw the line.


Schubert is as great as Beethoven. Look - here's how I see it. I don't yet know the quartets of Beethoven, or the best violin sonatas of Mozart, or indeed most of his church music - or the chamber music of mendelssohn, or the lieder of Schubert, or most of Schumann's major piano works - or Brahms quintets, Shostakovich quartets etc etc. Maybe you do - maybe you have been over the acknowledged masterwoks dozens of times and feel a need to "branch out" and discover the operas of Salieri, or perhaps the piano concertos of Hummel, or maybe Boccherini's best 50 quintets. I wish I had had more time to listen and I might feel it a good use of my time to plough through those works my self. Perhaps re-incrantaion is true - and it will be possible, in the 5th incarnatation to do that. Until then though - I have much listening of GREAT music ahead of me in THIS incarnation.


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## neoshredder (Nov 7, 2011)

stomanek said:


> Schubert is as great as Beethoven. Look - here's how I see it. I don't yet know the quartets of Beethoven, or the best violin sonatas of Mozart, or indeed most of his church music - or the chamber music of mendelssohn, or the lieder of Schubert, or most of Schumann's major piano works - or Brahms quintets, Shostakovich quartets etc etc. Maybe you do - maybe you have been over the acknowledged masterwoks dozens of times and feel a need to "branch out" and discover the operas of Salieri, or perhaps the piano concertos of Hummel, or maybe Boccherini's best 50 quintets. I wish I had had more time to listen and I might feel it a good use of my time to plough through those works my self. Perhaps re-incrantaion is true - and it will be possible, in the 5th incarnatation to do that. Until then though - I have much listening of GREAT music ahead of me in THIS incarnation.


So you'd rather listen to everything of a few Composers than the best works of many Composers?


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## BurningDesire (Jul 15, 2012)

neoshredder said:


> So you'd rather listen to everything of a few Composers than the best works of many Composers?


But Neo, if the classical music hive-mind says those composers are the greatest to ever live, why bother exploring or thinking for yourself?


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## Ramako (Apr 28, 2012)

stomanek said:


> Schubert is as great as Beethoven. Look - here's how I see it. I don't yet know the quartets of Beethoven, or the best violin sonatas of Mozart, or indeed most of his church music - or the chamber music of mendelssohn, or the lieder of Schubert, or most of Schumann's major piano works - or Brahms quintets, Shostakovich quartets etc etc. Maybe you do - maybe you have been over the acknowledged masterwoks dozens of times and feel a need to "branch out" and discover the operas of Salieri, or perhaps the piano concertos of Hummel, or maybe Boccherini's best 50 quintets. I wish I had had more time to listen and I might feel it a good use of my time to plough through those works my self. Perhaps re-incrantaion is true - and it will be possible, in the 5th incarnatation to do that. Until then though - I have much listening of GREAT music ahead of me in THIS incarnation.


Oh no :lol: I am only arguing from a theoretical standpoint. I would only say that I have identified that I like the Classical style, and I enjoy CPE Bach, for example, more than perhaps better composers from another age. Stamitz best symphonies are better than Mozart's worst.

However you will be hard pressed to give me an argument which says that Schubert is _as_ 'great' as Beethoven which doesn't allow Salieri to be _as_ great as Mozart. Obviously it is slightly ridiculous but that was the point.

Anyway, the other matter is by repeated listenings we can come to appreciate masterworks to a greater degree, which further encourages a 'great masters' mentality. The question is whether you ignore minor composers out of hand just because they're minor. Even among great composers there is no guarantee you will like their music - it is fine to not like Bach or Beethoven or whoever - it is a matter of taste. Given that minor ones are minor it is much less likely that you will - but you have already said that Michael Haydn's Requiem was good. Does that make all the searching time worth it or not, all the time going through less good stuff? That is up to you of course.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

I agree with both neo and bd and Ramako, but stop hassling Stomanek. He has a right to his extremely conservative, disagreeable opinions. It's his choice what he listens to, we can recommend stuff to him but it's his choice whether to listen to it or not. If he wants to miss out on amazing music so he can listen to all the other "great" and "popular" classics that there are so many recordings of, then that's his choice.


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## neoshredder (Nov 7, 2011)

They are not attacking him. Rather just correcting his errors.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

neoshredder said:


> They are not attacking him. Rather just correcting his errors.


Yes he does get a lot of facts wrong, but everyone makes mistakes. Here on TC he can learn about music as well as enjoy it, but you can't force him to do anything.


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## Ramako (Apr 28, 2012)

I'm not hassling - or not trying to 

I'm only objecting to the classification of very good but less than great composers as 'dandelions'. I could classify Berlioz as a dandelion if it wasn't inundated on me that he was a great composer. I certainly prefer CPE Bach and he was at least as innovative.


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## neoshredder (Nov 7, 2011)

You're right. We did all we can do. It's up to him to make the next step. Just let this be an intervention. Not an interference. :lol:


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## PlaySalieri (Jun 3, 2012)

Ramako said:


> I'm not hassling - or not trying to
> 
> I'm only objecting to the classification of very good but less than great composers as 'dandelions'. I could classify Berlioz as a dandelion if it wasn't inundated on me that he was a great composer. I certainly prefer CPE Bach and he was at least as innovative.


Berlioz I would not do without on the basis of quite a few works -


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## PlaySalieri (Jun 3, 2012)

I am surprised that people knock me for wanting to first acquaint myself fully with Beethoven, Bach etc etc. Yes it is good to listen around to different composers and when i had the time that is often what I did. I am 48! A lot of guys my age have heart attacks. Now excuse me while I reach for Beethoven's last piano sonatas while I still have time. Stamitz will have to wait his turn.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

stomanek said:


> I am surprised that people knock me for wanting to first acquaint myself fully with Beethoven, Bach etc etc. Yes it is good to listen around to different composers and when i had the time that is often what I did. I am 48! A lot of guys my age have heart attacks. Now excuse me while I reach for Beethoven's last piano sonatas while I still have time. Stamitz will have to wait his turn.


Which Stamitz? Johann, Anton or Carl?


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

I definitely want to know "the canon" well, and also to explore here and there outside of it according to my whims. 

But many of the people being considered minor composers here are within the canon, to me. Certainly Barber, Boccherini, Buxtehude, Corelli, Fauré, Hummel, Lully, Rameau, and Weber, and probably Biber, Clementi, Schütz, and Zelenka. 

We live in an age of an inflating canon. Maybe Biber and Zelenka weren't in it forty years ago, but they're certainly on their way in now. 

But anyway, if we fetishize obscure composers, how do we make choices? The next time I have time to acquaint myself with a new composer, should - I emphasize the "should" as a sort of moral issue - should I listen to Abe or Abel or abreu or Achron or Adam or Addinsell or Agricola or Aguado or Alain or Albrechtsberger or Alfvén or Alwyn or Antheil or Arban or Arcadelt or Arne or Arriaga or Arutiunian or Ascencio or Ashley or Attaingnant or Atterberg or Attwood or Aubert or Auric or Avison or Azzaiolo? 

(Fun with ArkivMusic.com.) 

I really don't mind however other people want to explore music, but for the past five years or so my own personal goal has been to get to know the most famous stuff well. I used to just wander around in music shops, aimlessly grabbing a thing or two that intrigued me, no idea what I was buying. And I had a bit of good luck like that. 

But then I'd be in conversation with people who knew, say, Schubert's Octet and I didn't, so I couldn't participate in those conversations. You can say it's so famous that it must suck, but I suspect it doesn't work that way. It's the punk rock attitude, applied to classical music. You can say that we ought to listen to stuff and make up our minds, maybe I personally would like Ascencio more than I like Beethoven. 

Whatever. You can criticize me every which way, but the bottom line is, my goals are mine and not yours, and I don't care how you listen to music or approach it, but I have finite time and finite funds (and I don't listen illegally) and my own personal goal remains to educate myself, not to be trendy or cool. Or rather, to me, educated is cool. 

I do not consider myself educated about classical music yet, but I'm closer than I was five years ago, and one reason is that I've tried to find out what the most famous works are. I'm going to continue doing things this way for probably at least a few more years. Then - who knows? - maybe I'll also start trying to get stuff that nobody else has ever heard of...


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

And of course there are also "minor" works of "major" composers, and "minor" works of "minor" composers. How do we make choices?


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

It's all a matter of taste, some prefer to stick to the old guns, some prefer a mixture, some prefer to explore the unexplored. All are valid approaches, because they are personal choices. 

I have spent the first 5-6 years of listening to classical music mainly exploring the well-known names. After that I branched out into the less known. That yielded a few duds (but so did listening to the core repertoire), but it also made me appreciate the likes of Bax, Moeran, Gubaidulina, Barber, Respighi, Faure, Takemitsu - to name a few that I now consider among my favourites. But I also come back to the likes of Mahler, Schubert and Brahms inbetween.


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## beetzart (Dec 30, 2009)

This is a very fine opening movement...for a minor composer. On par with Schubert's C minor sonata.


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## ScipioAfricanus (Jan 7, 2010)

Czerny, Fuchs, Rheinberger and Volkmann also comes to mind as chaps who deserve more air time.


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## beetzart (Dec 30, 2009)

Another beautiful piece by Dussek. He is surely an equal to Schubert and Beethoven in forward thinking compositions.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

Went on Wikipedia and looked at their List of Romantic-era Composers and came across Anton Reicha, innovative in terms of unusual time signatures and complex polyrhythms. I'm just about to check out his 36 fugues for piano.


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## etkearne (Sep 28, 2012)

I sometimes feel that people find Paul Hindemith to be a minor composer, although in other places he is very well known. He has so much good stuff to offer that I feel obliged to mention him so that, possibly, someone may look him up on Youtube or something. He is 20th Century, but very unique. He is very "cool" to me. That is, he doesn't explore much strongly emotional content, but is rather comfortable but still engaging.

He is a neo-classicist if one was to label him under one roof. Very clean and clear stuff full of tonal beauty and clean but sharp dissonances.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

Played his Trauermusik on viola a while ago. Beautiful work.


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## Manok (Aug 29, 2011)

Listening to minor composers is all well and good, but we shouldn't listen just because they are minor, but because we actually enjoy their music, I have no time for composers whom I do not enjoy no matter how popular they may be here or elsewhere. That being said I recently discovered a composer by the name of Wilhelm Stenhammar I enjoyed his 2nd symphony and first piano concerto. He didn't write a whole lot compared to the greats, but what is recorded seems to be pretty fun to listen to.


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## neoshredder (Nov 7, 2011)

Manok said:


> Listening to minor composers is all well and good, but we shouldn't listen just because they are minor, but because we actually enjoy their music, I have no time for composers whom I do not enjoy no matter how popular they may be here or elsewhere. That being said I recently discovered a composer by the name of Wilhelm Stenhammar I enjoyed his 2nd symphony and first piano concerto. He didn't write a whole lot compared to the greats, but what is recorded seems to be pretty fun to listen to.


I tend to look up minor Composers similar to Composers I really like. It started with Vivaldi and I've branched from there into Telemann, CPE Bach, Albinoni, Corelli, and Biber. All have some similarities to the Red Priest but just aren't as popular due to Commercial reasonings or lack of. They just don't have a work like the Four Seasons. But I feel their best works are better than Vivaldi's lesser works.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

I looked up Ornstein this afternoon because I couldn't be bothered with a reason. 
(in Matt Smith's voice) Ornstein is cool.  (fixes bow tie)


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## Hassid (Sep 29, 2012)

And Ornstein died young (1893/2002)..of hart.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

Hassid said:


> And Ornstein died young (1893/2002)..of hart.




And I thought Elliott Carter was old! Beat that!


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## PlaySalieri (Jun 3, 2012)

Manok said:


> Listening to minor composers is all well and good, but we shouldn't listen just because they are minor, but because we actually enjoy their music, I have no time for composers whom I do not enjoy no matter how popular they may be here or elsewhere. That being said I recently discovered a composer by the name of Wilhelm Stenhammar I enjoyed his 2nd symphony and first piano concerto. He didn't write a whole lot compared to the greats, but what is recorded seems to be pretty fun to listen to.


That about sums up my position. I got into Mozart, Schubert etc because I enjoyed the music. I have tried various minor composer and not enjoyed it! Simple as that. I keep trying now and again.


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