Underrated composers

[Peter]

A nice selection of the neglected, many we've trumpeted ourselves!

http://www.classicfm.com/discover/mu...ted-composers/

[Sorrano]

Jan Dismas Zelenka was the only one on that list I did not recognize. There are others, too, that need more consideration. Carl Maria von Weber comes immediately to mind, but there are others of his generation that have much to offer; Friedrich Kuhlau is another one.

[Chris]

It's particularly a shame about Salieri. His excellent work is not only neglected, but he is seen as a villain due to the movie Amadeus.

[AeolianHarp]

Yay re Fanny Mendelssohn! I'd add Clara Schumann too. And John Field.

[Peter]

How about Chopin's prodigy pupil Carl Filtsch who died tragically young at 15:

[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEeovheaHcE[/YOUTUBE]

[Michael]

It's particularly a shame about Salieri. His excellent work is not only neglected, but he is seen as a villain due to the movie Amadeus.

That legend was around long before the play or movie. Rimsky-Korsakov even wrote an opera on the subject, based on a play by Pushkin.

There is an interesting article on the Salieri rumour here:

http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4213

Beethoven, who would hardly acknowledge Haydn as his teacher, once left a note for Salieri: "The pupil Beethoven was here".




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[Chris]

That legend was around long before the play or movie. Rimsky-Korsakov even wrote an opera on the subject, based on a play by Pushkin.

There is an interesting article on the Salieri rumour here:

http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4213

Beethoven, who would hardly acknowledge Haydn as his teacher, once left a note for Salieri: "The pupil Beethoven was here".

True, but most people today know it from the movie, and I would guess that people who know it from the play or the opera or from some other source are more likely to have read up on the matter and be aware of what the facts are. I know many who have seen the movie who think it is simple history.

[Michael]

Yes, the movie really did make a meal of the story by actually putting Salieri at Mozart's deathbed, taking dictation. It's pure hokum but great cinema and it was ripped off in "Copying Beethoven".
But I'm going off topic .........
Back to underrated composers!

[hal9000]

It's pure hokum but great cinema

Aye. Although the film is certainly a love letter to Mozart and his music, and Salieri bears the brunt of helping to illustrate Mozart's genius, the film, strangely enough to say, was never really about Mozart or Salieri. Mozart is just the quintessential idealised genius with a not so deific character, that a story about a man's blind bitterness to his own mediocrity could weave itself around. The film is more about the human condition than anything else really. In any case, I owe this film a lot because it got me into classical music.

[Hollywood]

Even though Salieri was portrayed as the bad guy in the film Amadeus his music probably would have remained lost forever to us. This film brought his music back from the abyss for people like myself who have become huge fans of this man and his compositions.

I also found one of my favorite film composers on that list, Erich Korngold. He composed the music to one of my all time favorite films, The Adventures of Robin Hood. Korngold actually won the Oscar for the music he composed for this film. He was the first individual composer to win an Oscar for their film music since in the past if a film was awarded an Oscar for its music, the award was given to the head of the studio's music department. Bravo Maestro!

[Michael]

One of my favourite Beethoven pieces is this set of variations on a theme by Salieri:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-wvMRXtcDA

[gprengel]

... Carl Maria von Weber comes immediately to mind, but there are others of his generation that have much to offer; Friedrich Kuhlau is another one.

Unfortuneately they missed, as I think, the best "underrated" composer: Beethoven's pupil and friend Ferdinand Ries. He wrote a number of wonderful piano concertos, this is my favourite (from 1826):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7bxlysSxV4

It was good that they refered to Korngold, but his best piece to me is this glorious opera duett: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuAvgTZVlRk