# Which currently unrecorded/unperformed work would you most like to hear?



## bachfan7 (Aug 23, 2020)

Richard Hicox's recordings of Hummels Masses are some of my favourite discs, and a must listen for fans of Haydn's late masses. 

Hummel wrote numerous cantatas, some for the celebration of birthdays of various royal family members and a few for Goethe. 

These have never been recorded, and it is seemingly impossible to find scores or records of performances online (beyond on in the UK in 2016). Only one of his operas has been recorded (Mathilde von Guise), and there are at least 4 or 5 which have not been lost. 

In an era where we get approximately 14 new Figaros a year, which unrecorded works exist that you would like to hear for the first time?


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Hummel also wrote 22 operas have not been recorded yet






I'm curious to hear the rest of M. Haydn, J.E. Eberlin, A.C. Adlgasser, and L. Mozart's numerous "contrapuntal and church pieces", just to gain insight into the history and stuff.

https://etd.ohiolink.edu/!etd.send_file?accession=ucin1335462994
"Leopold Mozart was a talented musician who well understood his craft as a composer....many of his church pieces, of which we find masses, litanies, offertories and many others in considerable number are among the best that he wrote."
-Ernst Fritz Schmid
"his liturgical works are of greater worth than his chamber pieces."
-German musicologist Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart
"As a church composer, Leopold stands at the height of his time."
-Wolfgang Plath
"Of the manuscript compositions by Herr Mozart which have become known, numerous contrapuntal and other church pieces are especially noteworthy."
http://conquest.imslp.info/files/im...MLP169311-Litaniæ_de_Venerabili_C.pdf#page=42


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## Animal the Drummer (Nov 14, 2015)

Gounod's "Te Deum". Many moons ago when I was a treble in the church choir we used to enjoy singing the "Tu Rex Gloriae Christe" section as a free-standing anthem, and I'd love to hear it again.


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## Ravn (Jan 6, 2020)

Lera Auerbach’s «Arctica». Heard it performed live earlier this year, and loved it. It did, however, have lot of visual «gimmicks», so I look forward to a recording so I can properly listen to the piece without distractions.


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## ORigel (May 7, 2020)

Ned Rorem's symphony cycle


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## Plague (Apr 4, 2020)

Most of Wang Xilin's symphonies were never recorded or performed outside China.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

Carl Goldmark's opera "The Cricket on the Hearth". Beautiful music.


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## Coach G (Apr 22, 2020)

ORigel said:


> Ned Rorem's symphony cycle


Lots of interesting symphonies by 20th century composers such as William Grant Still, Roy Harris, Walter Piston, William Schuman, Paul Creston, Alan Hovhaness, and many others including the three symphonies by Ned Rorem,have been recorded on the NAXOS American Classics series. I saw an interview with William Schuman on YouTube where he lamented how difficult it was, at the time of the interview (1980s?) for contemporary American composers to get their works programmed and recorded in America, let alone Europe. I suspect Schuman would have been pleased to see the outstanding job that NAXOS, Gerard Schwarz and the Seattle Symphony have done to record Schuman's entire symphonic cycle, #3-9, sans #1 & 2 that were withdrawn by the composer.


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

ORigel said:


> Ned Rorem's symphony cycle


These have been available for a long time, I got a copy when they were first released...


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

It seems that Cesare Pugni wrote an immense amount of ballet music, virtually none of which is on CD. (A couple of things seem to be on DVD.) Perhaps there is a reason for this absence.


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## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

I would think that in this day and age just about everything had been recorded, if for no other reason than to be original by promoting the obscure. Not that there's anything wrong with that, as Seinfeld would say.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

consuono said:


> I would think that in this day and age just about everything had been recorded...


Not even close. Maybe everything _worth_ recording has been, but more than one record label has been known to scrape the bottom of the barrel to find something different. Just browse through the Fleisher Library in Philadelphia and it's breathtaking how much music there is that you never even knew existed. Musicologist Carl Dahlhaus has estimated there were some 20,000 symphonies written in Europe during the 19th c alone. Of those, fewer than 50 are in the active repertoire and have been recorded to death. There are maybe another 100-200 that have been recorded, fortunately for us, but there are an awful lot of them still awaiting their day in the sun. I've been hoping that the Otto Grimm symphony would show up; Brahms spoke highly of it, as did others. It would seem perfect fare for CPO, but so far it hasn't been done. I wonder how many of those 20,000 will ever be heard again.


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

some operas by Fibich and Novák. For example Novák composed 4 operas - Zvíkovský rarášek, Karlštejn, Lucerna and Dědův odkaz. None of them exists as recording, afaik.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Alan Hovhaness' sublime Violin Concerto No.2, Opus 89a, was, to my knowledge, only ever recorded once. Decades ago, in the 1950s, MGM pushed Hovhaness as their particular "find", recording a lot of his early "Armenian period" works with Carlos Surinach and the MGM house orchestra. For me the highlight was the classic, definitive vinyl recording of the Piano Concerto No. 1, _Lousadzak_ with Maro Ajemian, who introduced the piece and worked closely with Hovhaness. This was paired on the LP with the Violin Concerto No. 2, with sister Anahid Ajemian as violin soloist.

While _Lousadzak_ remains available in CD with Keith Jarrett, and YouTube carries the Ajemian performance, there currently is no readily available version of the violin concerto (except, I think, on Spotify). This is very sad, in that the violin concerto is a hauntingly beautiful work, and one would hope that someone somewhere would perform it and record it. You can still acquire a vinyl of the two pieces on the used market, so it doesn't qualify as an unrecorded piece, but, for a newcomer to CM and to Hovhaness, it might as well be Musica Incognita. Back when YouTube still carried the violin concerto, I posted links to it here on TC, but the danger is that this remarkable piece will disappear over the horizon and be lost forever. What a shame!


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## Roger Knox (Jul 19, 2017)

JAS said:


> It seems that Cesare Pugni wrote an immense amount of ballet music, virtually none of which is on CD. (A couple of things seem to be on DVD.) Perhaps there is a reason for this absence.


Perhaps the music isn't isn't very interesting when no one's dancing to it. Sort of like Ludwig Minkus.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

I was finally able to hear the Sibelius Third Symphony from my local orchestra a few years ago. The performance was middling but they played it at least. Others I'd like hear:

Offenbach's "Militaire" Cello Concerto

Mendelssohn's Second and Fifth Symphonies ... and not the "Italian"

Dvorak's Sixth Symphony ... not the New World

St. Saens Third Violin Concerto


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

Schnittke's concerto for viola and small orchestra, written the year before he died. At least I don't _think_ it has been recorded.


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## Roger Knox (Jul 19, 2017)

Franz Schmidt's opera _Fredegondis_


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## Roger Knox (Jul 19, 2017)

larold said:


> I was finally able to hear the Sibelius Third Symphony from my local orchestra a few years ago. The performance was middling but they played it at least. Others I'd like hear:
> 
> Offenbach's "Militaire" Cello Concerto
> 
> ...


Yes they are recorded, but I would like to hear these works live too, and there's no reason why they shouldn't be programmed. Except for the Offenbach, which is fiendishly difficult as well as oddball, both qualities that can be appealing but limit performance opportunities. The Saint-Saens B- Concerto is especially beautiful and I hope it will be heard in concert more when concert life resumes.


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## David Phillips (Jun 26, 2017)

I'd like to hear, if only once, Franz Schmidt's final work, the unfinished Nazi cantata, 'German Resurrection'. It was completed after the composer's death by Robert Wagner (not, presumably, the Hollywood actor). Has there ever been a recording? Has anyone seen a score?


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## Caryatid (Mar 28, 2020)

I've been interested to hear more Cherubini. Also, Robert Schumann's very obscure Rheinweinlied Overture Op. 123, which has been performed but as far as I know, never recorded.


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## sstucky (Apr 4, 2020)

William Schuman’s First Symphony, “Choreographic.” There is a very bad radio recording of his Second, from 1938.)


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## RICK RIEKERT (Oct 9, 2017)

Caryatid said:


> I've been interested to hear more Cherubini. Also, Robert Schumann's very obscure Rheinweinlied Overture Op. 123, which has been performed but as far as I know, never recorded.


The overture has been recorded as part of conductor Florian Merz' CD box set of Schumann's orchestral works on the EBS label.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Jacck said:


> Novák composed 4 operas - Zvíkovský rarášek, Karlštejn, Lucerna and Dědův odkaz. None of them exists as recording, afaik.


I have Lucerna on a Supraphon double CD.


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## 8j1010 (Aug 29, 2020)

I've been playing pieces from https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/mmb-ps/ (a digital library of 19th - early 20th century piano music), and searching the word galop I find pieces titled "Grand Galop de Concert". It works for a lot of genres, I assume at least (I haven't tried yet). Its kind of interesting to hear something like "[usually a type of dance] de Concert" because my small understanding of these type of pieces from that time period is that they are short and kind of easy to play. However these concert pieces tend to be later intermediate pieces that are performable and recordable.


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## BenG (Aug 28, 2018)

Joe Townley: Piano concerto no. 2.
It's not at all a stylistically original piece - in fact quite the opposite, it is *heavily* influenced by Rachmaninoff- but it is a very, very uplifting and moving piece of music. I recommend just listening to the last 5 minutes. (it is played by a computer here).


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## Sequentia (Nov 23, 2011)

Sorabji must be the "king" of unrecorded and unperformed works of a substantial nature, whose length, complexity and other characteristics make one wonder when they shall be premiered/recorded. A few that stand out to me:

Piano Symphonies Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4 and 6
Organ Symphonies Nos. 2 and 3
Symphony No. 2
_Messa grande sinfonica_ (this one calls for some 1,000 singers and an orchestra of 200 players, while lasting five or more hours; any volunteers?)
_Opus clavisymphonicum_ (for piano and orchestra)
Piano Quintet No. 2
_Symphonic Variations for Piano_

I could spend hours ranting about Sorabji's unperformed works, but I'll spare you.


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

Art Rock said:


> I have Lucerna on a Supraphon double CD.


you are right, they even sell it as digital download
https://www.supraphonline.cz/album/541-novak-lucerna-opera-o-4-dejstvich
the CDs are long out of print. A rarity that our friend Dimance might find interesting to hunt down. 
How is it? I like Nováks tone poems


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Good, not great, an opera I'm glad to have in the collection, but not one that I would miss terribly if it would be gone from it. YMMV obviously.


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

Roger Knox said:


> Perhaps the music isn't isn't very interesting when no one's dancing to it. Sort of like Ludwig Minkus.


I found a copy of the DVD for The Pharoh's Daughter and will find out, perhaps as early as this evening (assuming that I don't lose power due to the storms)


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

And now that I have watched the DVD, the performance is good, with fine production values and very good dancers. (The male lead gets a real workout, and the female has to endure a surprising short skirt for some scenes, which really limits her movements.) The plot is mostly impossible to follow, but that often seems to be the case with ballets. The music is indeed not very memorable. It serves as a background for the dancing, but most of it could be to almost any ballet. One bit sounded somewhat like Spanish music, and another would work fine as a Russian peasant dance. It really makes me appreciate what Tchaikovsky was able to achieve.


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## Fabulin (Jun 10, 2019)

Speaking of Tchaikovsky, I am curious of his arrangement of Haydn's "Gott erhalte".

I suppose it's only a matter of time until one of Germany's smaller orchestras records Emilie Mayer's "military" symphony, as it is (I think) the last surviving symphony of hers that has not yet been revived... The same goes for some of Franz Lachner's symphonies.


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