List of Undiscovered Beauties

[allegroamabile]

I am a huge fan of exploring obscure music. I could go on forever but here is a list of treasures that I wanted to include. Thoughts?

If you have any pieces you would like to add, you are more than welcome to contribute.

Leroy Anderson: China Doll; Horse and Buggy; Chicken Reel; The Girl in Satin; The First Day of Spring; The Golden Years; Penny-Whistle Song; Piano Concerto; Phantom Regiment; Sandpaper Ballet; Goldilocks; The Bluebells of Scotland
Mily Balakirev: Symphony No. 1; Mazurka in A-flat major
Samuel Barber: Symphony No. 2; A Hand of Bridge; Capricorn Concerto
Ludwig van Beethoven: Duet “With Two Eyeglasses Obbligato” for Viola and Cello; King Stephen Overture
Leonard Bernstein: Prelude, Fugue, and Riffs for Solo Clarinet and Jazz Ensemble
Max Bruch: String Octet in B-flat major
Aaron Copland: Saga on the Prairies
Claude Debussy: Petite Piece for Clarinet and Piano
Antonin Dvorak: Symphony Nos. 4 and 6; Te Deum; Mass in D major, Op. 84
Edward Elgar: The Spirit of England; The Black Knight; La Capricieuse for Violin and Piano
Alexander Glazunov: Symphonies Nos. 1 and 3; Triumphal March; The Kremlin; Carnaval; Marriage March; Un fete slave; March on a Russian Theme; Spring; Reverie Orientale for Clarinet and String Quartet; String Quintet in A major
Mikhail Glinka: Trio pathetique for Clarinet, Bassoon, and Piano
George Frederic Handel: Coronation Anthem No. 3, “The King shall rejoice”
Johann Nepomuk Hummel: Mass No. 2 in E-flat major; Te Deum; Clarinet Quartet
Vincent d’Indy: Clarinet Trio
Erich Wolfgang Korngold: The Tales of Strauss; Strassiana; String Quartet No. 2
Franz Krommer: Clarinet Quintet in B-flat major
Giovanni Battista Martini: Harpischord Sonata No. 5 in G minor
Felix Mendelssohn: Clarinet Sonata; String Quartet No. 1 in E-flat major; Piano Sonata in G minor
Darius Milhaud: Four Visages for Viola and Piano; Duo concertante for Clarinet and Piano; Symphonie de chambre No. 2, “Pastorale”
Johann Melchoir Molter: Clarinet Concerto No. 3
Walter Piston: Violin Concerto No. 1; Tunbridge Fair for Concert Band
Sergei Prokofiev: Overture on Hebrew Themes for Clarinet, String Quartet, and Piano; Hail to Stalin (the title is not beautiful but the music is); String Quartet No. 2; Sonata for Solo Violin; Russian Overture
Maurice Ravel: Introduction and Allegro
Anton Reicha: Clarinet Quintets
Josef Rheinberger: Piano Quintet; String Quintet
Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov: Quintet for Piano and Winds; Concertstuck for Clarinet and Military Band; Piano Concerto
Antonio Salieri: Overture to Daliso e Demita
Camille Saint-Saens: Tarentelle for Clarinet, Flute, and Orchestra
William Schuman: Chester Overture for Concert Band
Alexander Scriabin: Symphony No. 2; Le Poeme de l’extase
Dmitri Shostakovich: Ballet Suites; The Fall of Berlin
Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 3; String Quartet Nos. 1 and 2; Manfred Symphony; Festival Coronation March
Richard Wagner: Christoph Columbus
Carl Maria von Weber: Missa sancta No. 1; Overture to Abu Hassan; Piano Sonatas Nos. 1 and 2; Rondo brilliante

[steltz]

Just downloaded Labor's Quintet for clarinet, violin, viola, cello, piano and had a sight-read through the piano part. This one is definitely worth exploring! Beautiful late romantic structure and harmony.

Also, Zdenek Fibich's Quintet for violin, clarinet, horn, cello and piano is gorgeous, and can also be done with the standard piano quintet (2nd violin replaces clarinet, viola replaces horn), though the interplay of colours between string/wind are missing, but the melodies are still gorgeous.

A lot of Frank Bridge is very underplayed and extremely beautiful.

[ZacPB189]

A. Bruckner's Requiem is rather intreging...it's just never played anymore
The music of Hans Rott, who died young and was ALMOST forgotten. His symphony is amazing.
The Harp Concertos of Elias Parish Alvars, François Adrien Boieldieu, William Mathias, and Alberto Ginastera.
Johann Wilhelm Hertel's "Sinfonia in C with 8 obligato Timpani" (it's a classical concerto for timpani in disguise )

[vinteuil]

Shostakovich Symphony Nos. 15, 4, 8, 9...
Mendelssohn: Symphony No. 1
Schubert: Nähe des Geliebten
Stravinsky: Mass
Varèse: Tuning Up

[allegroamabile]

Although I wouldn't considered this piece "undiscovered," Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante for Winds is a beauty. There is this tutti section that appears in the middle and at the end of the second movement which makes life truly worth living. It's a shame that it isn't played more.

[kalliwoda]

Since there are several clarinet players among the contributors, two of my all-time favorite chambermusic pieces ...

Edouard Destenay (18501924) Trio for oboe, clarinet and piano
an amazing piece, got it 15 years ago via interlibrary loan from Sibley as a "preservation photocopy", but now its on IMSLP!

Joseph Jongen (1873-1953) Rhapsodie (1922) op. 70 for Piano and wind quintet (fl ob cl hn bn)
Not public domain for a couple of years (1. ed. 1924), but definitely worth the money (Donemus Amsterdam)
Except for the Poulenc sextet, there is no better piece for this combination!!!

And then a wonderful trio:
Louis Gianneo (1897-1968) Divertimento No. 2 for flute oboe clarinet (1942)
This is manuscript only, but got passed around among musicians from Argentina, and I got a photocopy.
Did a pretty good Finale edition for my personal use and passed it on to a few friends for performances (in Germany Gianneo's estate gets paid via GEMA for performances independent of a music publisher...)
I like the M. Arnold, but this is simly he best piece for this combination of instruments, period.
So here is the question: if someone has contact-info for Louis Gianneo's heirs, I would like to ask them for permission to post the work on IMSLP.

[tickle88]

Some recently discovered (by me)(I'm a pianist) beauties: the Fibich quintet mentioned by Steltz, and every thing else available here by this composer, especially the Moods, Impressions, and Souvenirs. If you play piano in church as well as organ, these short (as few as 8 measures) pieces are ideal for an offertory or similar usage. Moderate technical difficulty, gorgeous melodies and harmonies, interesting textures, counterpoint. His compatriot Josef Suk, Dvorak's son-in-law, is also well represented here. Try the Lullabies, Op. 33,and the Piano Pieces, Op.7, especially the first, Love Song. He was all of 17 when he wrote this. If you want an incredibly emotional experience, tackle the About Mother pieces, Op. 28. The fourth, Mother's Heart, is a graphic musical description of cardiac arhythmia. She had died two years previously from her congenital heart problems, at 27. Fairly difficult in a few parts. And then by Max Reger there are the sonatinas, the pieces called Traume am Kamin (Dreams by the Fireside OP. 133) , and the four books of Aus meinem Tagebuch (From my Diary, Op.82).The last of the Traume, and No. 9 of part two of the Diary, were clearly influenced by Chopin's Berceuse, with a repeated bass and amazing ornamentation in the right hand. All of the above are here, but the Traume are non PD. (He's been dead for over 90 years.) (??) And all should be in every pianist's repertory.

[tickle88]

For kalliwoda: The Sextet for Piano and Winds, Op. 6, by Ludwig Thuille is an incredibly fine piece of music, in four movements. I'm so familiar with it (I've performed the piano part) that I didn't consider it undiscovered. Every wind quintet should rush right out and find a good pianist and perform this beauty.

[allegroamabile]

I am going to add two more:
Barber: Capricorn Concerto
Salieri: Overture to Daliso e Demita

[steltz]

I second the Thuille!!! I'd forgotten about this one, but a lot of our piano and wind music is French, and nothing wrong with that, but the Thuille has some Dvorak-esque flavours about it, and these are rare in our repertoire. Definitely a counterweight to Poulenc, and for those who like the Slavic flavours, a definite must!!!!

And for those clarinettists who follow this, there are ever increasing numbers of recently discovered Baroque or very early classical pieces that are excellent additions to our repertoire. None are PD (considering that someone did an awful lot of work to unearth these, that's not a problem for me), but try Sciroli's Sonata, Fasch's Concerto (for Chalumeau, but who's going to get picky now?), to name two, and Telemann wrote a concerto for 2 clarinets (OK, chalumeaux).

[Melodia]

http://www.unsungcomposers.com/forum/ is a whole forum dedicated to this.

[allegroamabile]

I'm pretty much about unsong songs of known composers.

[pml]

Allegroamabile, one or two more for your list:

Hector Berlioz, Tristia
George Frederic Handel, Laudate pueri Dominum (in D, HWV 237)
Gustav Holst, Beni mora
Richard Strauss, Burleske

As for the Mozart Sinfonia Concertante for winds, if it is by W.A.Mozart, then it's an arrangement that someone else made of the original work, and threw away Mozart's manuscript...

[steltz]

re: the Mozart Sinfonia Concertante. I know a lot of people don't feel this was by Mozart at all, but Baerenreiter does print 2 editions, one an urtext, along with extensive discussion. By the way, the "original" instrumentation of flute, oboe, horn, bassoon isn't given the Urtext appellation, but oboe, clarinet, horn bassoon version is given the "Urtext" apellation. This edition has excellent notes in its preface.

The history of the piece is that Mozart wrote a letter to his father from Paris saying he'd written a Sinfonia Concertante for flute, oboe, horn, bassoon, and he managed to get the Concerts Spirituel to programme it. After sending the score off, it got lost, and Mozart accused Giovanni Cambini of conspiring to make sure the piece never was performed -- Cambini had written dozens of Sinfonia Concertantes and felt he "owned" the genre. Also, Mozart had possibly insulted Cambini at a social gathering where he started playing one of Cambini's string quartets on the piano, from memory but when he couldn't finish it, he was egged on (by the musicians who were to perform the Concertante, if I remember correctly) to improvise the rest of it. He wrote in a letter that Cambini said he liked it, but Mozart was sure he hadn't actually. In any case, the score to the Sinfonia Concertante subsequently went missing, never to be found, although a similar one was found many years later with Mozart's name on it, but in a slightly altered instrumentation.

The editor of the urtext edition gives three possible scenarios:

1) It is by Mozart, but he or someone else re-wrote it later and changed the instrumentation, probably because when it was performed later, that was the combination of musicians available,
2) Mozart never re-wrote it, and the similar Concertante was just a fraudulent attempt to cash in on a more famous composer's name,
3) Mozart never re-wrote it, but did subsequently write another Sinfonia Concertante for oboe, clarinet, horn, bassoon.

The editor himself is in the second category -- although he is edited the Urtext, he doesn't think Mozart had anything to do with it.

This may sound odd, but I'm in the third category. I do believe it's by Mozart, because it is of a higher level of writing than any other Concertante composer of the time, it does seem Mozartean to me, and also it's style seems slightly later than Mozart's other Paris works (e.g. Flute/Harp Concerto).

Being a clarinettist, I may be swayed by wanting to hear the clarinet in it, but I also feel the clarinet part doesn't sound quite right on oboe, and the oboist in my quintet isn't comfortable playing the revised part -- he feels it isn't as idiomatic to the oboe as the "flute" part.

Having said all that, I don't think it is of the same quality as the Sinfonia Concertante for violin and viola, which a slow movement that I would rank as one of the most beautiful slow movements of all time.

[allegroamabile]

I don't think it is quite plausible for someone to give Mozart credit for the ingenious Sinfonia Concertante for Winds and not himself. However, I do see how one would want to credit Beethoven for his Three Duets for Clarinet and Bassoon.

to Steltz: Were you saying the slow movement of the Sinfonia Concertante, K. 297b is beautiful or the one for violin and viola?

to all: Would you like me to create a list of all the "undiscovered beauties" on my IMSLP user page like horndude77 did with the pieces that begin with a solo instrument?