A picture is worth a thousand words... you'll find some Dreyschock scores over at IMSLP. But don't say I didn't warn you... :p

Funnily, considering Dreyschock's technique -which certainly was considered stupendous- he was reportedly a terrible sight reader.

Ciurlionis was a painter and a musician. Little of his music is easy to come by, but he was quite original and is still regarded as VERY important in Lithuania.

Glad to see someone else thinks it is remarkable. I couldn't believe what I was hearing when I listened to it. I don't normally hear music of such intensity and inspiration, and Rian de Waal's quality of performance is equally uncommon.

As the Henselt piano concerto has been mentioned twice, I just want to chime in and say that I love it, too.

Slow movements are usually not my favorites, but the Larghetto here is an exception. I find it hauntingly beautiful; the dramatic central episode that builds from piano e legato possibile to a shattering fff is amazing.

Steven

And its appearance on the printed page bears a very striking resemblance to... well, by all means. Same key too.

Indeed it is. I also like that part in the 1st movement where the music stops for a little bit...then the piano comes in with a quick downward scale -- and then the main theme starts up again while the piano is doing rolling arpeggi up the keyboard.

What Tausig piece are you talking about? I can't find a reference to it earlier in the thread.

For historical purposes, here's another Tausig piece that I found:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEP8aT0Jts8&feature=related

It's a Hungarian dance of sorts. Can't find the score anywhere though.

Once it gets to the friska there's some interesting technical stuff in there exceeding some of Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsodies.

Ah, thank-you. I don't have a recording, but I did just peruse the score at the computer. Much of the contours and appearance of the piano writing bear an uncomfortable resemblance to the 1st Mephisto Waltz.

I seem to have destroyed my original post somehow by trying to make another one and editing the old one instead. Here's a recording:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmoJrORwPwE&feature=email

Now that I'm listening to it again, I can see the resemblance somewhat.

these are some amazing composers, i espically like the Op. 100 - "Poem" for solo piano, by Solomon Rosowsky what else would you suggest

Joseph Achron wrote a very interesting "Symphonic Variations and Sonata on a Jewish theme", which I haven't put on that website yet, but will try to soon. Very big, interesting piece -- the development of the sonata is a 6-part fugue. Jascha Nemtsov made a good recording of this. Jascha Nemtsov has recorded a lot of this piano music, songs (this recording includes Krein's Op. 50 dances for solo piano), and chamber music, which I'd definitely recommend, and also some violin and cello music which I haven't heard yet.

There are a lot of smaller piano pieces that I like -- on that website, the 5 Pieces Op. 19 by Joel Engel, or the 5 Folk Songs Op. 11 by Jacob Weinberg, or Gnessin's 4-hand "Ora". Although not on that website, Saminsky's "Hebrew Fairy tale" (dedicated to Rubinstein, though I don't know the details) and "Sabbath Ritual Dance" and "Etude", Weprik's "Three Folk Dances", Krein's 10 Dances Op. 50, and the Children's Suite by Achron have all been recorded by Nemtsov.

Some of the violin music is very good -- I'm only familiar with Achron's violin pieces, the "Dance Improvisation", "Hebrew Dance" (not sure why this performance has so many cuts; should be twice as long), "Hebrew Melody" (there's a wonderful version of that last one for voice, piano, and oboe).

It's called Ungarische Zigeunerwiesen, though it's quite heavily cut (it starts midway through the third page!). I don't see the score on IMSLP, but I do have it if anyone would like to see it.

You can hear a couple minutes of Rosowsky's Piano Trio, "Fantastischer Tanz", here:

http://www.promusicahebraica.org/ab_4.html

And here's the score:

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~samzerin/jewish-music/SFJM%20Scores/47-Rosowsky-FantastischerTanz.pdf

There are numerous 'unknown' composers who lived in Germany during its darkest period, viz. 1933 - 1945 and are virtually unknown today. One is tempted to say 'with good reason;, But this is being unfair due to the work many produced. A good example is Joesph Marx (Austrian actually). On the web page that details his life and sicography, I feel a pretty convincing case is made that he was not a Nazi. Likewise Fred Prieberg's writing seems to discount such obnoxious political views being held by him as well.

There are also quite literally heaps of composers in the same category where, to paraphrase an unfortunate description, they were often in the wrong place at the wrong time due to an accdient of birth. One includes here those Jewish composers who were murdered in the Concentration Camps and unlike Schulhoff et al, are not well known.

In all the above there have been some very fine compositions for piano. If anyone wishes to follow this up I will post more on the subject.

Kind regard,

ILH

This a very interesting subject to me, too. Fields of forgotten music are vast and sometimes I simply wonder why so many composers are unjustly neglected today. I may be due to the fact that many didn't write large works such as piano concerti or sonatas but does everything has to be like Rachmaninoff's 3rd PC? I think that we should learn to enjoy smaller works since they are full of beauty and very enjoyable to listen.
Shocking news! youtube channel ! yes I think that everybody should check it since that man has over 500 videos of short works by quite unknown composers:
http://www.youtube.com/user/PSearPianist

what would you guys suggest from blumenfeld, i have heard recording of his etude for the left hand (op.36) which is absolutly amazing, and also sur mer etude (Op.14) which i also love, but am unsure where to start with his other works, any suggestions would be great

Zac

Thanks Juishi for your 'YouTube' info on the works by 'unknown conposers'. Does anyone know of a book/Journal Article on, or related to the subject? I know that I as well as others are using the expression 'unknown' composers. Perhaps we should really use the terms 'forgotten' or 'neglected' or similar ...?

ILH

Felix Blumenfeld's music is astonishingly beautiful.

Start with his 24 Preludes In All The Keys, Op.17, especially, Nos. 4, 5, 7, 11, 15 (my favorite), 19 (Liebestod), 21, and 22.

Another great favorite of mine is the glorious Impromptu in G flat, Op.13 No.2.

Everyone who loves piano should have Philip Thomson's CD of Blumenfeld's Complete Preludes and Impromptus:

Blumenfeld Complete Preludes and Impromptus Thomson


Mel

I went to library today and borrowed some CD's which have some piano concertos by neglected composers. My main interests were on CD that has Scharwenka's 4th concerto and Sauer's E minor. I think they have been already mentioned several times so I don't find it necessary to post anything else about them except that those concertos are simply FABULOUS!

However I picked CD of Selim palmgren's piano concertos (2,3&5) just for curiuosity since I'm a Finn and thought it might be revealing to actually know something about finnish composers other than Sibelius.
Palmgren was probably the most important finnish composers for piano. Besides writing five piano concertos, he composed some 300 pieces for piano (some of which are quite well-known and traditional in Finland). Palmgren has a succesful career as a pianist and his teachers included, in addition to many others, none else than Busoni. The describtion on the CD describes that it is really remarkable just how "Finnish" Palmgren's Idiom remained despite the dephts and variety of international influences: His musical was broadened by long spells in Germany, Italy and America.

His best-known piano concerto is the second one which is usually nicknamed as "Virta" (a Finnish noun meaning "the river"). It became internationally known when Ignaz Friedman took it into his repertoire and made a piano arrangement of the orchestra part. In the early years of Century was very much taken with the idea of a piece of music that would describe his childhood and subsequent vacations on the Kokemäenjoki River. The work was completed in 1913.

The third piano concerto was written around 1912-1916. Carrying the name "Metamorphoses", it is based around a folk song theme from the Revivalists in the north-west of the country, given to Palmgren by conductor and composer by Heikki Clemetti.

Palmgren's fifth piano concerto emerged in 1941. At the outbreak of the "Winter War" between Finland and Soviet Union the planning of the work got under way. Palmgrens writes of the event: Wandering for hours in the woods around Lake Katumajärvi, often in temperatures down to -30 degrees of Celsius, with the Russian planes wheeling daily over Hämeenlinaa on their way to north, I shaped out in my mind the thematic material and the structure for the fifth piano concerto.

I found these works very satisfying even though I didn't expect much because of their wide neglect nowadays. I think his style is neither fully romantic nor impressionistic but something between them. Of course without forgetting his "Finnish idioms"
The piano solo is also rather difficult, requiring virtuoso technique so I find it quite bewildering that hardly anyone plays these works today.
I don't really know much of Palmgren's literature but his style and somewhat unique harmonies have always been interesting to me. As I said he wrote a large amount of shorter pieces which are certainly accessible for many pianists without great technique. There are also some pieces on the youtube link I posted earlier.

Hey Juishi, thanks for the information about Palmgren. I'm reading the booklet to a recording of his piano concertos, sonata, and some of the shorter piano works.

The writer comments on Palmgren's use of impressionistic elements, and then says: "Curiously, Palmgren was not especially interested in the music of, say, Debussy; he arrived at his own brand of impressionism by instinct. For him, it was at once a continuation of the subtle harmonic conceptions of late Romanticism and a means of transcribing delicate impressions of nature into music."

I'm curious, do you attribute any of this "impressionism" to Finnish folk music? Some of the Jewish nationalists, for example, used quartal harmonies and pentatonics which guys like Debussy and Scriabin had already done, but these Jewish composers did it because it was part of Jewish traditional music - not because it was "impressionist" or "modernist" - so one could easily get the influences mix up.

Franz Schmidt[/b]

Most folks probably only know the 'Intermezzo' from his opera Notre-Dame, a very heavily scored work for strings, the kind of stuff Karajan and his Berliners could really dig into.

Otherwise, there are some real treasures. Of the four symphonies, the 1st could have have been written by Schubert, and the 2nd isn't much of an advance, though it contains some cool stuff.

With the 3rd symphony Schmidt comes 'online' symphonically, and he created a work which I feel deserves to take its place in the international repertoire. Conservative of course, but what glorious music! I dare anyone not to be thrilled by the scherzo, sort of a Bruckner-lite, though he makes his musical points as well as Bruckner.

The 4th symphony from 1933 is probably his masterpiece. But be warned: it is an intense threnody written in response to the death of his daughter. It is emotionally shattering, and I do not recommend it for the weak of heart.

He wrote two piano concertos which I have not heard, two works (which I have heard) for the left-handed pianist Paul Wittengenstein, a Quintet in G and Variations on a theme of Beethoven (from the violin sonata in F). Also there's a glorious full tilt oratorio reaching into the heights of the Revelation of St. John, The Book with Seven Seals. Great stuff, I wish the Three Choirs Festival in England would mount it.

Lastly, Schmidt wrote some substantial -and difficult- organ music, but I've been unable (or unwilling to spend the money) to get my hands on the available recording. My fellow organist, whippen boy, knows these works and speaks highly of them.

I agree that there are unjustly neglected composers, a surprising number, in fact, and I love digging around to see what's there. But I also think there's a lot of obscure stuff out there that may sound pretty good on the first couple of hearings or is maybe fun to sightread or may be interesting simply out of the novelty factor or for historical reasons, but it doesn't really hold up as being top-notch music. Sometimes, with some composers, it seems like when you have familiarity with three or four pieces, you've discovered their entire range, even though they may have written a huge quantity of stuff - somehow it all sounds like a reworking of a few ideas they have. The really first-rate composers somehow know how avoid giving that impression, I think, even if there is a sometimes certain uniformity in their output.

This seems to imply that the top standard for what is "first-rate" or worthy of being preserved, is historical or progressive in nature. In other words, that aesthetics are subordinate to the composer's historical importance / relationship to other composers and styles. I'm not sure that I necessarily agree with that -- great music, first of all, should sound good aesthetically. Then there are other reasons that music can be great, and some of those reasons are theoretical/historical, but I don't believe that they are the sole reasons or even the most important.

Bless you for looking into Scharwenka! If you like the concerto look into the first sonata and the many Polish dances. They're really very beguiling.

People are probably pretty sick of me because of my raving about Scharwenka so I'll try to contain my excitement...

Oh, don't worry about it. Speaking for myself -and I hope others here- I really enjoy this kind of enthusiasm. There's nothing quite like being excited about a classical composer.

I've certainly honked my horn often enough about a certain British composer (he wrote little for piano, so he's seldom mentioned on the forum), and sooner or later I'm expecting a bellowing shaddup![/b] But perhaps people just appreciate what 'turns me on' if I'll be excused the cliché.

A tough question. First of all I must admit that my knowdeledge on theory and such are very small and can't really analyze things like " quartal harmonies and pentatonics"

I couldn't really associate Palmgren's music with Debussy or other composers whose music are generally considered "pure" impressionism. I don't think that the traces of impressionism in his music are very strong. My conception of traditional finnish music is quite much based on what Sibelius, Palmgren and other composers like Melartin, Kaski or Merikanto wrote. Palmgren's music, from the first measure, sounds traditional finnish to my ears and uses similar scale (I need of a better word) that is usually bound in folk music and pieces in dance-form. Imho his music also resembles Sibelius quite much.
I think that the Karelian Dance from his op.31 may describe those harmonies more well than my writing :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O84nZv1vRgk&feature=related
and this as well:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVhsFN2mlDU&feature=related

I'm not sure if I answered to your question but I tried my best :p