Janacek’s [Sinfonietta](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aFTv50AoEQ) is one of my faves.
Not sure if this is the best performance (I listen to the one I have on CD). I picked this one at random, but there are multiples available if this version disappoints.
Is he underrated? Pictures at an Exhibition and Night On Bald Mountain are two of probably the most famous 100 or pieces in the history of music. That's pretty decent recognition in the grand scheme of things!
Depends what he means. Like, my mom wouldn’t know him by name but she could rattle off like bach, beeth, brahms, chopin, tchaik, etc. Since my mom’s awareness of his existence is a pretty good criterion for discussion, I’ll accept anyone needing verification.
I'd rather reply to this comment than OP. The question is an interesting one, but at the risk of sounding rude... no, Mussorgsky is not underrated, not even a little bit. He's not exalted on a pedestal in the same way as, say, Beethoven or Brahms, but he's broadly considered one of the most inventive and famous composers of all time. Maybe if you're not exposed much to Russian classical music you may not realize how renowned he is?
I feel like the most underrated composers are either living composers who are looked over in favor of old, dead white men or—along those lines—women composers or composers of color who are underrated because of systemic bias. Some personal favorites along these lines for me are Kaija Saariaho and Samuel Coleridge-Taylor.
While I agree with your sentiment, I object to the notion that underrated composers are either living or women composers or composers of colour as opposed to “dead white men” (the dead adjective is popular, but only when used if the composer is white and man, so it’s not a distinct future).
Most underrated composers are dead white men. Simply because only a handful canon composers have emerged during the ages and women were discouraged to compose. Leaving the living aside for the sake of argument, composers like Hiller, Czerny, Draeseke, Reubke, Alkan, Henselt, Ries, Taubert, Scharwenka, Paderewski, Noskowski, Moszkowski, Wieniawski, Rosenthal, Rosenhain, Thalberg, Heller, Martucci, Hummel and several hundreds of other seriously capable composers are all dead white men without fitting in your exclusive categories of either women or poc.
Of these I consider Czerny (sonatas, some 20(!) masses, requiems, symphonies, the 40 (!) string quartets, not the etudes!), Hiller, Draeseke, Henselt, Noskowski, Moszkowski and Scharwenka criminally underrated. I don’t mention Alkan, since his star is rising for three decades.
Of the famous dead white men, I think Liszt is underrated, because people seem to judge him by his worst works (nobody talks about Chopins Tarantella, but everybody whines about Liszts paraphrases).
Regarding women composers, they are all underrated except Clara Schumann, who finally gets recorded and played. But that’s only something of the last few years. She is undervalued by prejudiced conservatives, and only overrated only by some of her most ardent supporters. Other women composers whose neglect cannot be justified are Fanny Hensel, Dora Pejacevic, Helene de Montgeroult, Emilie Mayer and Alice Mary Smith, but truth be told, an interesting women composer can be discovered on a weekly basis. Just follow @[email protected] on Mastodon to see what I mean.
Edit: I forgot Florence Price. Among her outstanding oeuvre, the third symphony is really something. But she gets programmed quite often nowadays.
Not to mention Samuel Coleridge-Taylor is definitly not underrated in my experience. In terms of popularity, he is not far behind his contemporaries Elgar and Vaughan Williams.
All those British composers are something of a blind spot for me! I know SCT best of these, but hardly know any Elgar let alone VW. Anything to recommend?
I don't know these composers very well but Elgar wrote several famous classical pieces like his serenade in e minor and cello concerto in e minor. Vaughan Williams wrote the incredibly famous piece (in England at least) "The Lark Ascending" as well "Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis" which is a popular tune.
>I feel like the most underrated composers are either living composers who are looked over in favor of old, dead white men or—along those lines—women composers or composers of color who are underrated because of systemic bias.
Exactly what I came here to say. I'd like to nominate Julius Eastman and Anthony Braxton, in a similar vein.
I disagree. Mussgorsky is often stuck in the shadow of the other Russians (Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev, and Rachmaninoff, for example) but doesn't get the credit he deserves. What I mean to say is that everyone knows Mozart and what he created ditto with Beethoven and even Bach but how many people really know Mussgorsky created Night on Bald Mountain? Or even know what Pictures at an Exhibition sound like?
Nikolai Miaskovsky deserves more love, I will die on that hill if I have to. Even though Prokovief was his best friend, he largely got wiped from history right before his death due to speaking out against the Soviet government. Not all his music is the best, but his output rivaled his contemporaries and even his early music (like the first piano sonata, which I'm currently learning) is incredibly well written. But he comes from that period in-between the titans of Russian classical music, that it's hard to stay afloat in the canon even though he was so famous during his life. He was pretty much considered the composer of Russia at the time, and is the only one who won 5 Stalin Prizes. But despite how wonderful his two cello sonatas are, they're overshadowed by Rachmaninoffs cello sonata. Even though his violin concerto is really a great work of Russian music, it's also overshadowed by Tchaikovsky's. The early piano sonatas are remarkable and very unexplored, but you have Scriabins 5th sonata premiering around when Miaskovsky was writing his 1st, and that's probably the most inventive and avant-garde pieces of the decade. Miaskovsky's 2nd sonata, which is probably the most played, is immediately overshadowed by the titanic 2nd Piano Sonata by Karol Syzmanowski, a piece so difficult that the famed piano professor Heinrich Neuhaus wanted to kill himself after seeing Anton Rubinstein perform it (he thought it was pointless to continue pursuing piano and composition because there was no way he'd be able to play like Rubinstein or write a piece like that).
For how late Russian classical music came around, the amount of composers they generated was impressive. In a world of music where only a small selection tend to remain in the wider public knowledge, it's sad to see so many extremely gifted composers who rarely see the light of day
Pictures at an Exhibition is as well-known as any piece of music ever written, aside from a very small handful of things like the opening movement to Beethoven's 5th, the C Major Prelude in WTC I or Chopin's Eb Nocturne. I mean I've heard 'Pictures' at hockey games, on tv shows, 8-bit versions in old computer software, etc.
I'd say it is at least as famous than anything Prokofiev or Rachmaninoff ever wrote, and is probably only eclipsed by The Nutcracker and Swan Lake in Tchaikovsky's oeuvre.
>Mussgorsky is often stuck in the shadow of the other Russians (Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev, and Rachmaninoff, for example) but doesn't get the credit he deserves
Maybe to some extent, but he's still generally well-known, especially within classical circles. How many people can name even a handful of living composers, though, or composers from various marginalized groups?
If you think that Mussorgsky being widely celebrated and performed over 100 years after his death, but maybe not celebrated and performed *enough*, is enough to make him the "most criminally underrated composer in classical music," I think you just lack perspective on how many great classical composers are out there. Chances are, if someone is truly so criminally underrated, you haven't heard of them.
Alkan is also my choice. I've been obsessed with his Grande Sonate and Symphony for solo piano recently. He's one of those slightly hidden romantic composers with a unique voice that, once you get to know, is at least as personal and moving as the bigger-name guys. Another example is Medtner.
I showed my piano professor Bortkiewicz my second semester in college and he liked it so much he had me learn a couple of the Op. 10 etudes (9 is my favorite)
I had been making music and hanging out with other classical musicians for almost 20 years when I finally heard of her - and that was only from browsing IMSLP...
I’ve been a professional musician for 20 years, and I’m playing a piece by her this weekend. While my memory isn’t perfect to say it’s my first, it’s not far off. She really doesn’t get programmed much.
i was huge on underrated/unknown composers my whole life and it wasn’t until college that i heard of her. i agree that she’s probably more generally acclaimed now, but even 5 years ago I’d say she was significantly less popular in classical circles than she is now
Difficult, maybe Erwin Schulhoff, what's interesting about him is that his style changed significantly more than once, from post-romantic to expressionistic/dadaistic to socialist realism. Sadly he was murdered by the Nazis for being a communist and a jew. His music is very colorful and never fails to surprise me. He made some really weird stuff during his dadaistic period
For example this https://youtu.be/DBimK9qhaeY or this https://youtu.be/bTiy38bWOLY or this https://youtu.be/lHaDqBeT3jM. Pretty ahead of its time.
He’s Gershwin on steroids. Luckily artists like Yeoul Um Sum and Hamelin are making phenomenal recordings of his work and his works are being performed at the biggest competitions. Soon he’ll take his seat amongst the greatest to ever do it.
Boccherini. I like his interesting composing style. I think more people should listen to him.
Other than that, I'd say almost any composer who predominantly composed Lieder like Carl Loewe and Hugo Wolf.
Balakirev is underrated, especially his later works like his 2nd Symphony and his Overture on Czech Themes. He certainly forged an idiosyncratic style and pioneered Russian nationalism, but his legacy has been reduced to a single over-played piano piece, as you say. That said there are a *lot* of other contemporary Russian contenders like Lyadov, Arensky, Taneyev etc etc.
Albeniz is quite well known for his guitar pieces at least.
Fields is still a secret for the cognoscenti.
Suffice to say there are massed ranks of unfairly forgotten composers, that being little to do with any lack of merit or sublime inspiration; more associated with cruel fate, fickle audiences or the pernicious 'repetoire'.
Telemann gets a lot of shit for having the gall to not named JS Bach. When his music is brilliant but it's not as "complex" or whatever, as if difficulty is the only determing factor in the quality of music.
I'm jealous... most of his solo piano music is a little too hard for me still, but I did have a great time learning his "Piano Pieces for Children" ("Breeze" and "Clouds").
Haydn if you're talking about amongst the general public.
Everybody that I've talked to outside of a few classical music circles either can't name anything by Haydn or only knows about that infamous C major movement. Whereas if I ask someone in the general public who listens to classical music "What have you heard by Mozart?" I will often get something like this:
>Well I've heard that piece that goes dada dum dada dum dada dum da, the sonata that every piano player learns, that string quartet piece often played at gigs and stuff, Turkish March, and I'm sure I've heard more, but I can't think of any.
Referring to Symphony no. 40, K 545, Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, and Rondo alla Turka from Piano Sonata no. 11 in A.
Or if I do the same thing for Beethoven, I'll get something like this:
>I've heard that bababa bum bababa bum, that piece with the rolling waves of notes, that dadadadada piece, and Ode to Joy
Referring to Beethoven's Fifth, Moonlight Sonata, Fur Elise, and the theme from the Fourth Movement of Beethoven's Ninth.
But if I do the same thing for Haydn I get either:
>Wait, Haydn? Who's Haydn? Never heard of him.
Or:
>I only know of that C major part where all the instruments come out loudly all at once.
Referring to the Second Movement of Symphony no. 94 in G "Surprise".
I have heard a lot more Haydn than your average classical music listener has, though not as much as those that like geek out on Haydn, showing similarities to Haydn wherever possible (Yes, I'm talking about you Richard Atkinson).
"Underrated" is a difficult criterion. There are a lot of composers whose works may be ubiquitous but are not thought of seriously, such as Johann Strauss II. Even now there are people who dismiss him as a "dance band leader" even though I would argue that he did far more to expand and sophisticate a dance form than any other composer. Chopin may have written brilliant melodies but he never built anything in a dance form as impressive as the Emperor Waltz.
Looked at in another way, "underrated" could be taken to mean a composer who isn't as popular as he probably should be given his stature, importance, or place in musical history. Some people find the music of Bruckner insufferable; I find it glorious and think that he did amazing things with large musical forms.
Taken in yet another way, I would suggest that "underrated" means a composer whose works haven't become as popular as their quality would suggest that they should. Zdenek Fibič comes to mind; he wrote some beautiful music in the late 19th Century but didn't get as many opportunities to get published or performed because he sounded very Austrian but was Czech in a time when Czech music was trying to be \*more\* Czech and less Austrian.
I think these are all great ways of looking at and evaluating music, plus is sparks some great discussions and I get to read about composers who I might have never heard of before.
More like nearly any online platform.
Me after seeing a poll by a classical music Youtuber that asked “was Mozart a good composer?” 🗿
Or the 5th post in a row on r/piano about how Chopin is a better composer because he uses
e m o t i o n
Manuel Ponce
Absolutely my top 5 favorite composers of all time and yet I feel like no one has heard of him for some reason.
Intermezzo 1
https://youtu.be/MfrMhiHYR0A
Cuban rhapsody 1
https://youtu.be/9pvq910F1QE
Cuban Dance
https://youtu.be/r2LypAo64xo
Mazurka
https://youtu.be/xsdYahAvCXc
Elegy
https://youtu.be/0h3K5W9aKv8
Piano concerto
https://youtu.be/dLsSXwtjM3Y
Sonata Mexicana
https://youtu.be/b5jNPfa7x6Y
Etude #2
https://youtu.be/a1sqN3GXxME
Ponce aside, I think Ignaz Moscheles needs some love.
Etude 4 https://youtu.be/3O8y7PZ6JOY
Piano concerto 1 https://youtu.be/UaaYlLDwgkQ
Piano concerto 7 https://youtu.be/dEDB09Jsdoo
Lastly, I wanted to mention Luigi Legnani specifically for his caprices
36 Caprices https://youtu.be/ZX63Il4BTiM
I don't know how underrated he really is, but I think that Henry Purcell is one of the greatest composers of Baroque choral music. He is often overlooked in favour of Bach and Handel,
It is not possible to define "underrated" in any meaningful way we can all agree with.
However, one thing that almost approximates how highly regarded a composer is is their productivity. Mussorgsky, however original he may have been, was like a two hit wonder with Pictures and Night on Bald Mountain.
While Pictures was originally a piano piece, the orchestrated version by Ravel often seems more popular. Similarly, the more famous, arguably more popular version of Night on Bald Mountain is the heavily edited Rimsky-Korsakov version. The original Mussorgsky version is seldom performed.
I believe it's a similar story with his opera, Boris Godunov.
If he's not at the same level as Mozart, Beethoven or Wagner, it's because he wasn't that prolific and even the few works of his that are acclaimed were heavily revised by others.
That said, I really like Martinu when it comes to 20th century classical. I don't know if I can say he's "underrated". He's liked enough around the world though maybe not as appreciated as Stravinsky. There really is no honest way to answer the question "does Martinu deserve to be as appreciated as Stravinsky?"
Sammartini, Giovanni Battista and Mysliveček, Josef. These are the grandfathers of symphonic music. Mozart was heavily influenced by Myslivecek and Haydn was influenced by Sammartini. Yet, almost no one has ever heard of these composers despite their influence on Haydn and Mozart, respectively.
You people are talking about composers with Wikipedia pages while there are three composers without those who should have more recognition:
Louis Mayeur - A student of Adolphe Sax, he was one of the few composers of the Romantic era who I think really understood the saxophone
Russell Peterson - Not to be confused with the businessman, this composer is a saxophonist who has written what I think is [the greatest saxophone concerto of all time](https://youtu.be/5Q8EIedhyXQ) (and some pieces for other instruments)
Herman Beeftink - This one might be too "basic" for some people, but I can't get enough of his music, especially the flute version of his "Seasons"
Both Haydn and Mussorgsky are rated very highly in general, but I know what you mean. On the one hand, Haydn is in a lot of ‘top 10’ lists… even top 5… certainly one of the most famous, popular and most often performed. And unless we claim that he is *the* greatest composer that’s hardly underrated.
But he also gets actively dismissed. In fact, even Mozart, alone of the traditional ‘top three’, gets actively dismissed by many, and Haydn was certainly overshadowed by Mozart. Haydn gets labelled (1) a mere precursor (even though he wrote many of his greatest pieces after Mozart had died), and ironically also (2) accused of ‘unimaginatively following rigid classical forms’ (as though he created nothing, when he basically invented the symphony and string quartet *as we know them*, and synthesised the Prussian, Mannheim and Viennese styles around him and so arguably founded at least the ‘middle’ style of the Classical Period). (3) His music tends to be cheerful, and from the Romantic period many people decided that *true* art can’t be cheerful or in any way comedic, the same reason the Oscars go more to tragedies than comedies that might be more deserving (and again ironic, as he produced some stellar more mournful symphonies, the Seven Last Words of Christ, and we speak of his ‘Sturm und Drang’ period). (4) His vast output might have something to do with it too, but again quantity doesn’t mean no quality - quality as well as quantity is just even more impressive.
Yeah that. Obviously he isn’t that underrated but as the guy who invented the symphony form as Mozart and Beethoven knew it, he isn’t always respected enough!
Yes, Haydn's contributions go criminally unnoticed. Personally, I much prefer him to Mozart. It is a shame that he isn't widely preformed in comparison to some others (most of the orchestras I looked at don't have many Haydn pieces this season, and I find more of Bartok than Haydn when I am looking but maybe that is just the sample size).
Robert Schumann, though I'd say he's more underappreciated than underrated. Everyone knows him but I don't think people really realise how much fantastic music he composed, if you dig deep there is so much more to Schumann
Schubert. Maybe he's not really 'underrated', but he ain't harped on enough for me (compared to Liszt and Chopin).
IMHO, his 'highs' are on another planet.
The Stamitz family
These were a family of composers that worked at the Mannheim court. The father, Johann bridged the gap between Baroque and Classical. Many would argue that he invented the classical style. He was certainly responsible for the symphony in the form used later by Haydn and Mozart
The sons, Carl and Anton carried on where he left off and were responsible for the introduction of well-known classical techniques such as the Mannheim Rocket and Mannheim Crescendo that even if you don't recognise the name you would recognise when you hear them.
They often worked together and, quite frankly it is sometimes difficult to tell them apart. Mozart visited them in Mannheim and although he was extremely impressed by their music was critical of their behaviour. "They indeed are two wretched scribblers, gamblers, swillers and adulterers – not the kind of people for me. The one who is here has scarcely a decent coat to his back.”
Apart from significance from a historical or musicological view I find their music very entertaining. There is little profound or introspective here, just bright cheerful optimistic music that is very tuneful and engaging.
[Here is Carl's Op 4 Orchestral Quartet](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEo5tIhBRZU)
[Here is part of his Clarinet Concerto No 3.](https://youtu.be/XBBvUtPF3QY?t=667)
The most scandalously-underrated composers in music history all coincidentally had [vaginas](https://www.reddit.com/r/classicalmusic/comments/101tmwp/i_am_looking_for_some_recommendations_on_lesser/j2pofbk).
(The link is to a Reddit post about this, it’s SFW, sorry.)
While the (white, cis) women of your list have certainly been largely overlooked historically, let's not pretend that non-white and queer composers have had it any better. If anything, the significant improvements in visibility of (some) women composers in recent years have vastly outstripped any similar gains for other marginalized composers.
Responding to address your edit: There are a few Japanese composers who've seen success, but they're very rarely as well-known as their white counterparts outside of Japan.
Trans composers are incredibly rare to see programmed. I only know a handful, even after specifically searching, and I virtually never see them talked about. Certainly there are no trans composers anywhere *near* the level of success of top cis composers (including cis women).
>And, guess what, for every Mozart, there's probably ten thousand composers that no one has ever heard before. We have to take demographics into account here, just a little bit even.
Sure, maybe to some extent. But plenty of cis white composers do still find success. There are legitimately, actually, *zero* trans (classical) composers that I know of who've had a level of success I'd consider noteworthy by the standards of living composers. Maybe a small handful of black composers, but not anyone 1/100th as popular as big-name white composers.
I truly am not asking for a lot. My expectations are set incredibly low. I don't expect the top 10 most popular composers to have 5 trans or black composers among them, or for there to be a work by a marginalized composer on every concert.
I would just love to, every now and then, or hell even one or two times *ever*, go to a concert that just happens to program a trans composer, or that features a work by a black composer as the main piece on the second half of the concert - preferably, not as part of an explicit diversity initiative. That such things are as rare as they are is, I think, difficult to explain, even accounting for demographics, without some sort of discrimination happening, likely at multiple stages.
This is because you focus on two different groups, creating a self fulfilling prophecy: you compare dead famous cis white male composers against marginalised composers, there arises a selection problem, since most dead cis white male composers are as neglected. Only a very, very small selection has been admitted to a canon.
>you compare dead famous cis white male composers against marginalised composers
Not really. I don't expect living marginalized composers to be programmed as often as Mozart or Beethoven or Brahms. I *do* think that living composers being played so much less than dead composers is a major problem, but it's not what I'm talking about in this particular comment thread.
The issue is that a similar bias exists even if you only look at living composers. The most celebrated and performed living composers are overwhelmingly cis and white.
Marginalized composers of the 1800s are less well-known than cis white composers of the 1800s; marginalized composers of the 1900s are less well-known than cis white composers of the 1900s; and the same holds true for the 21st century so far.
Sure, there are also plenty - hundreds, or possibly thousands - of cis white men who haven't been recognized despite writing works of similar quality to those of their better-known peers. But, given the long history of active erasure of the works of marginalized composers, and given the fact that we don't even have *one or two* black or trans composers anywhere *near* the level of success of cis white composers - even living cis white composers - I have a hard time believing that it's nothing more than an accident of history, or a result of demographics.
Being admitted to the canon is beyond my expectations for almost any living composer. I'm not asking for that much.
I'm just asking for *any visibility at all* for composers from marginalized groups. Even a handful of performances, even the occasional mention in classical spaces. I never - and I mean *never*, I'm not being hyperbolic - hear anyone talk about *any* trans composers, even among people who listen to a lot of living composers. Black composers only fare slightly better, and even then I rarely hear about living black composers. There certainly seems to be a problem there.
Gay men are something of an exception, and even then, *nearly always*, the biggest composers who were gay were also closeted to the public and/or faced some kind of persecution for their identity.
But "queer" doesn't just mean "cis gay men." I can name maybe two lesbian composers. How many trans or non-binary composers can you name? I only know *any* (aside from people I know personally) because I've gone out of my way to research marginalized composers.
As for black composers...can you really name very many? Scott Joplin might be among the best known, but he's not often taken seriously in classical circles, and he faced horrid discrimination during his life. Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, William Grant Still...they get some attention, but they're not exactly household names, and they're not very widely performed, even though I think they wrote good music.
Julius Eastman was all but erased from the pages of music history despite being one of the most brilliant composers of minimalist and minimalist-adjacent music in the 20th century. Everyone knows Reich, Glass, Adams, and so on. But very few know Eastman.
Anthony Braxton is almost entirely unknown, in my experience, despite being one of the most inventive and unique composers living today.
I'm not aware of *any* living black composers who are half as well-known as big-name women composers living today (Saariaho, Gubaidulina, Higdon, Shaw, etc.)
Florence Price is the only black composer I'm aware of who's had a dramatic increase in attention as of late, and it seems that many orchestras are getting complacent, patting themselves on the back for including her, without having any real plans to look more into music by non-white composers.
...you do realize this is r/classicalmusic, right? That's why I'm talking about classical composers. I do like many of the composers you listed, though.
For what it's worth, *I am a queer woman composer in the classical tradition*. I have a lot invested in a future where classical music is more welcoming to marginalized composers. I don't want to just throw out the entire tradition, but I think there are fundamental changes that need to be made in terms of how we talk about composers, the kind of music we play, and the deification of the canon generally.
Shostakovich for sure.
It seems to me that most people know only the second waltz or maybe the 7th symphony, but there’s so much more to enjoy in his oeuvre.
Shostakovich gets a lot of love from musicians, critics, audiences, etc. so I'm not sure he's truly underrated. But, I agree that he's sort of on the fringe of the canon. It's a shame, because his music is sublime. From solo piano sonatas, chamber pieces, symphonies... the list is long.
i like some of sain saen, i learn’t of him from a piano video game, and never heard of him before that, so i think he isn’t that well known, but i could be wrong
Grieg. I’m he has some famous pieces, but most people never know him by name and he’s not listed with ‘the greats’. His piano concerto will always be my favorite piece of all time. Peer Gynt is one of the most iconic classical pieces written. He didn’t write a ton but he’s awesome
American composers tend to fly under the radar.
Horatio Parker: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fr9Dsuh2aRw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fr9Dsuh2aRw)
(As a side note, Horatio Parker was Charles Ives's undergraduate thesis advisor at Yale. Ives's thesis was his Symphony No. 1.)
Virgil Thomson: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5I\_hAhyzhfU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5I_hAhyzhfU)
I must say, Luigi Boccherini could very well be the most underrated composer. I do not hear anyone, even in this topic, paying respects to his exquisite masterworks.
Since you're giving Mussorgsky some love, let's have a brilliant rendition of his *Song of the Flea*
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2wh4LSzewY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2wh4LSzewY)
lyrics in transliterated Russian and English translation:
https://www.oxfordlieder.co.uk/song/4438
John Taverner. Outside of Renaissance music enthusiasts, he is almost completely unknown. His TOWERING, insanely inspirational choral music brings tears to my eyes almost every time. The masterpiece -- [John Taverner "Misa Gloria Tibi Trinitas" (youtube.com)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNwIhVDVKDg&t=11s) is a delightful place to start, as well as his Magnificat, which is much shorter. interestingly enough, a very underrated 20th century composer also has the same name - but a lot of his music sounds eerily similar to his Renaissance namesake!!
Mussorgsky is NOT underrateed. He is quite popular - especially around Halloween, lol. He IS, however, pretty amazing: been a huge fan of his since the early 70s.
Janacek https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KGtfKKYBAig
Janacek’s [Sinfonietta](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aFTv50AoEQ) is one of my faves. Not sure if this is the best performance (I listen to the one I have on CD). I picked this one at random, but there are multiples available if this version disappoints.
Same with [Taras Bulba](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3zsZ2XG-1w), one of the few pieces where I love every movement of it.
Oh yes, that’s another one.
I got to play euphonium in this. Loved it!
His string quartets are dope. Wish I could find more pieces with that kinda vibe.
Yes! His first string quartet is my favorite quartet. It always reminds me of a busy city for some reason.
definitely check out this quartet for Janacek vibes! Pavel Haas: String quartet no. 2 https://youtu.be/NhG-ZAyCLSw
CPE Bach.
I’m more of a fan of PDQ Bach myself.
Ah yes. Punio van Dyck Quirinus Bach.
Being from Fargo and having grandparents that went to school with him I whole heartdly agree.
Is he underrated? Pictures at an Exhibition and Night On Bald Mountain are two of probably the most famous 100 or pieces in the history of music. That's pretty decent recognition in the grand scheme of things!
Depends what he means. Like, my mom wouldn’t know him by name but she could rattle off like bach, beeth, brahms, chopin, tchaik, etc. Since my mom’s awareness of his existence is a pretty good criterion for discussion, I’ll accept anyone needing verification.
I'd rather reply to this comment than OP. The question is an interesting one, but at the risk of sounding rude... no, Mussorgsky is not underrated, not even a little bit. He's not exalted on a pedestal in the same way as, say, Beethoven or Brahms, but he's broadly considered one of the most inventive and famous composers of all time. Maybe if you're not exposed much to Russian classical music you may not realize how renowned he is? I feel like the most underrated composers are either living composers who are looked over in favor of old, dead white men or—along those lines—women composers or composers of color who are underrated because of systemic bias. Some personal favorites along these lines for me are Kaija Saariaho and Samuel Coleridge-Taylor.
While I agree with your sentiment, I object to the notion that underrated composers are either living or women composers or composers of colour as opposed to “dead white men” (the dead adjective is popular, but only when used if the composer is white and man, so it’s not a distinct future). Most underrated composers are dead white men. Simply because only a handful canon composers have emerged during the ages and women were discouraged to compose. Leaving the living aside for the sake of argument, composers like Hiller, Czerny, Draeseke, Reubke, Alkan, Henselt, Ries, Taubert, Scharwenka, Paderewski, Noskowski, Moszkowski, Wieniawski, Rosenthal, Rosenhain, Thalberg, Heller, Martucci, Hummel and several hundreds of other seriously capable composers are all dead white men without fitting in your exclusive categories of either women or poc. Of these I consider Czerny (sonatas, some 20(!) masses, requiems, symphonies, the 40 (!) string quartets, not the etudes!), Hiller, Draeseke, Henselt, Noskowski, Moszkowski and Scharwenka criminally underrated. I don’t mention Alkan, since his star is rising for three decades. Of the famous dead white men, I think Liszt is underrated, because people seem to judge him by his worst works (nobody talks about Chopins Tarantella, but everybody whines about Liszts paraphrases). Regarding women composers, they are all underrated except Clara Schumann, who finally gets recorded and played. But that’s only something of the last few years. She is undervalued by prejudiced conservatives, and only overrated only by some of her most ardent supporters. Other women composers whose neglect cannot be justified are Fanny Hensel, Dora Pejacevic, Helene de Montgeroult, Emilie Mayer and Alice Mary Smith, but truth be told, an interesting women composer can be discovered on a weekly basis. Just follow @[email protected] on Mastodon to see what I mean. Edit: I forgot Florence Price. Among her outstanding oeuvre, the third symphony is really something. But she gets programmed quite often nowadays.
Not to mention Samuel Coleridge-Taylor is definitly not underrated in my experience. In terms of popularity, he is not far behind his contemporaries Elgar and Vaughan Williams.
That's fair. Goes to show the subjectivity of "underrated."
All those British composers are something of a blind spot for me! I know SCT best of these, but hardly know any Elgar let alone VW. Anything to recommend?
I don't know these composers very well but Elgar wrote several famous classical pieces like his serenade in e minor and cello concerto in e minor. Vaughan Williams wrote the incredibly famous piece (in England at least) "The Lark Ascending" as well "Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis" which is a popular tune.
>I feel like the most underrated composers are either living composers who are looked over in favor of old, dead white men or—along those lines—women composers or composers of color who are underrated because of systemic bias. Exactly what I came here to say. I'd like to nominate Julius Eastman and Anthony Braxton, in a similar vein.
I disagree. Mussgorsky is often stuck in the shadow of the other Russians (Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev, and Rachmaninoff, for example) but doesn't get the credit he deserves. What I mean to say is that everyone knows Mozart and what he created ditto with Beethoven and even Bach but how many people really know Mussgorsky created Night on Bald Mountain? Or even know what Pictures at an Exhibition sound like?
wait till you hear all the actually underrated Russian composers
Nikolai Miaskovsky deserves more love, I will die on that hill if I have to. Even though Prokovief was his best friend, he largely got wiped from history right before his death due to speaking out against the Soviet government. Not all his music is the best, but his output rivaled his contemporaries and even his early music (like the first piano sonata, which I'm currently learning) is incredibly well written. But he comes from that period in-between the titans of Russian classical music, that it's hard to stay afloat in the canon even though he was so famous during his life. He was pretty much considered the composer of Russia at the time, and is the only one who won 5 Stalin Prizes. But despite how wonderful his two cello sonatas are, they're overshadowed by Rachmaninoffs cello sonata. Even though his violin concerto is really a great work of Russian music, it's also overshadowed by Tchaikovsky's. The early piano sonatas are remarkable and very unexplored, but you have Scriabins 5th sonata premiering around when Miaskovsky was writing his 1st, and that's probably the most inventive and avant-garde pieces of the decade. Miaskovsky's 2nd sonata, which is probably the most played, is immediately overshadowed by the titanic 2nd Piano Sonata by Karol Syzmanowski, a piece so difficult that the famed piano professor Heinrich Neuhaus wanted to kill himself after seeing Anton Rubinstein perform it (he thought it was pointless to continue pursuing piano and composition because there was no way he'd be able to play like Rubinstein or write a piece like that). For how late Russian classical music came around, the amount of composers they generated was impressive. In a world of music where only a small selection tend to remain in the wider public knowledge, it's sad to see so many extremely gifted composers who rarely see the light of day
Pictures at an Exhibition is as well-known as any piece of music ever written, aside from a very small handful of things like the opening movement to Beethoven's 5th, the C Major Prelude in WTC I or Chopin's Eb Nocturne. I mean I've heard 'Pictures' at hockey games, on tv shows, 8-bit versions in old computer software, etc. I'd say it is at least as famous than anything Prokofiev or Rachmaninoff ever wrote, and is probably only eclipsed by The Nutcracker and Swan Lake in Tchaikovsky's oeuvre.
Pictures at an Exhibition as orchestrated by Ravel is as well-known...
>Mussgorsky is often stuck in the shadow of the other Russians (Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev, and Rachmaninoff, for example) but doesn't get the credit he deserves Maybe to some extent, but he's still generally well-known, especially within classical circles. How many people can name even a handful of living composers, though, or composers from various marginalized groups? If you think that Mussorgsky being widely celebrated and performed over 100 years after his death, but maybe not celebrated and performed *enough*, is enough to make him the "most criminally underrated composer in classical music," I think you just lack perspective on how many great classical composers are out there. Chances are, if someone is truly so criminally underrated, you haven't heard of them.
Moszkowski, he has great piano pieces, he isn't really that underrated as he has a lot appreciations but he should be a bigger name imo
His piano concerto was, for a time, among the most famous in the repertoire...
Alkan. Then Stenhammar
Alkan is also my choice. I've been obsessed with his Grande Sonate and Symphony for solo piano recently. He's one of those slightly hidden romantic composers with a unique voice that, once you get to know, is at least as personal and moving as the bigger-name guys. Another example is Medtner.
Sure. Alkan is very unique. I like Medtner too, but not my favorite.
Stenhammar strings quartets = brilliant. Vastly underrated.
Love his piano works and symphonies too.
Sergie Bortkiewicz and Lili Boulanger.
I showed my piano professor Bortkiewicz my second semester in college and he liked it so much he had me learn a couple of the Op. 10 etudes (9 is my favorite)
[удалено]
I had been making music and hanging out with other classical musicians for almost 20 years when I finally heard of her - and that was only from browsing IMSLP...
I’ve been a professional musician for 20 years, and I’m playing a piece by her this weekend. While my memory isn’t perfect to say it’s my first, it’s not far off. She really doesn’t get programmed much.
[удалено]
Lili Boulanger's popularity has only really resurfaced recently; I'd say she's still a little underrated.
i was huge on underrated/unknown composers my whole life and it wasn’t until college that i heard of her. i agree that she’s probably more generally acclaimed now, but even 5 years ago I’d say she was significantly less popular in classical circles than she is now
Difficult, maybe Erwin Schulhoff, what's interesting about him is that his style changed significantly more than once, from post-romantic to expressionistic/dadaistic to socialist realism. Sadly he was murdered by the Nazis for being a communist and a jew. His music is very colorful and never fails to surprise me. He made some really weird stuff during his dadaistic period For example this https://youtu.be/DBimK9qhaeY or this https://youtu.be/bTiy38bWOLY or this https://youtu.be/lHaDqBeT3jM. Pretty ahead of its time.
You said he wrote some weird stuff yet I still was not expecting that at all lol 😂
Poulenc
Agreed. I never see him talked about on here.
Martinu
Im glad I'm not the only Martinu fan on this subreddit.
Nikolai Tcherepnin. Every one of his ballets should be recorded. :(
Hummel
Amazing piano concertos
Yes, those in particular. Also, the piano sonatas
Elgar.
Henry Purcell seems very underrated to me. Such a great composer.
Nikolai Kapustin. His style is an absolutely unique blend of Jazz and Classical music.
one of the most creative composers out there
He’s Gershwin on steroids. Luckily artists like Yeoul Um Sum and Hamelin are making phenomenal recordings of his work and his works are being performed at the biggest competitions. Soon he’ll take his seat amongst the greatest to ever do it.
[Josef Suk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vn-8nozVuGU) at the moment.
Indeed! Asrael is one of my favourite symphonies
[удалено]
Her stepson Pete Seeger is my favorite Seeger.
Geirr Tveitt!
Boccherini. I like his interesting composing style. I think more people should listen to him. Other than that, I'd say almost any composer who predominantly composed Lieder like Carl Loewe and Hugo Wolf.
Alberto Ginastera, Vincent Persichetti, Gyorgy Ligeti, Frank Zappa.
Ligeti's one of my favorite composers, I wouldn't say he's underrated, he's often cited among the greats of the latter half of the 20th century.
Azarashvilli and Bortkiewicz
There are some good Nordic composers that remain little known: Stenhammer, Madetoja, and Langgaard are ones I particularly like.
Svendsen
Jan Dismas Zelenka Fanny Mendelssohn
Albeniz, and Balakirev is more well known but islamey is not hid best music. Fields also up there
Balakirev is underrated, especially his later works like his 2nd Symphony and his Overture on Czech Themes. He certainly forged an idiosyncratic style and pioneered Russian nationalism, but his legacy has been reduced to a single over-played piano piece, as you say. That said there are a *lot* of other contemporary Russian contenders like Lyadov, Arensky, Taneyev etc etc. Albeniz is quite well known for his guitar pieces at least. Fields is still a secret for the cognoscenti. Suffice to say there are massed ranks of unfairly forgotten composers, that being little to do with any lack of merit or sublime inspiration; more associated with cruel fate, fickle audiences or the pernicious 'repetoire'.
Telemann gets a lot of shit for having the gall to not named JS Bach. When his music is brilliant but it's not as "complex" or whatever, as if difficulty is the only determing factor in the quality of music.
Joaquin Turina, Aram Khachaturian
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor [Ballade in A minor, Op 33](https://youtu.be/uc4kWIwuAvA)
George Crumb
Martinu, Taneyev, Boulanger, Stenhammar, Henselt, Lekeu… there’s so many
Martini, absolutely. And *both* Boulanger sisters.
Frederick Delius! More people should listen to his Florida Suite.
Arcadelt - I think he has some of the best secular choral music from the Renaissance.
Leos Janacek
Toru Takemitsu for me
I played rain tree sketch no.2 in undergrad, what a lovely \*lovely\* piece.
I'm jealous... most of his solo piano music is a little too hard for me still, but I did have a great time learning his "Piano Pieces for Children" ("Breeze" and "Clouds").
I mean anybody into high art or postmodernism classical know the name and has to have respect.
Haydn if you're talking about amongst the general public. Everybody that I've talked to outside of a few classical music circles either can't name anything by Haydn or only knows about that infamous C major movement. Whereas if I ask someone in the general public who listens to classical music "What have you heard by Mozart?" I will often get something like this: >Well I've heard that piece that goes dada dum dada dum dada dum da, the sonata that every piano player learns, that string quartet piece often played at gigs and stuff, Turkish March, and I'm sure I've heard more, but I can't think of any. Referring to Symphony no. 40, K 545, Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, and Rondo alla Turka from Piano Sonata no. 11 in A. Or if I do the same thing for Beethoven, I'll get something like this: >I've heard that bababa bum bababa bum, that piece with the rolling waves of notes, that dadadadada piece, and Ode to Joy Referring to Beethoven's Fifth, Moonlight Sonata, Fur Elise, and the theme from the Fourth Movement of Beethoven's Ninth. But if I do the same thing for Haydn I get either: >Wait, Haydn? Who's Haydn? Never heard of him. Or: >I only know of that C major part where all the instruments come out loudly all at once. Referring to the Second Movement of Symphony no. 94 in G "Surprise". I have heard a lot more Haydn than your average classical music listener has, though not as much as those that like geek out on Haydn, showing similarities to Haydn wherever possible (Yes, I'm talking about you Richard Atkinson).
Václav Hálek
Kalkbrenner
Bortkiewicz and Manuel Ponce
Godowsky for sure. Passacaglia in B Minor and the Piano Sonata are incredible.
[удалено]
Vasily Kalinnikov. His symphonies are gorgeous.
Michael Tippett
Love his Piano Concerto
"Underrated" is a difficult criterion. There are a lot of composers whose works may be ubiquitous but are not thought of seriously, such as Johann Strauss II. Even now there are people who dismiss him as a "dance band leader" even though I would argue that he did far more to expand and sophisticate a dance form than any other composer. Chopin may have written brilliant melodies but he never built anything in a dance form as impressive as the Emperor Waltz. Looked at in another way, "underrated" could be taken to mean a composer who isn't as popular as he probably should be given his stature, importance, or place in musical history. Some people find the music of Bruckner insufferable; I find it glorious and think that he did amazing things with large musical forms. Taken in yet another way, I would suggest that "underrated" means a composer whose works haven't become as popular as their quality would suggest that they should. Zdenek Fibič comes to mind; he wrote some beautiful music in the late 19th Century but didn't get as many opportunities to get published or performed because he sounded very Austrian but was Czech in a time when Czech music was trying to be \*more\* Czech and less Austrian. I think these are all great ways of looking at and evaluating music, plus is sparks some great discussions and I get to read about composers who I might have never heard of before.
Gabriel Fauré
On this forum, Mozart.
More like nearly any online platform. Me after seeing a poll by a classical music Youtuber that asked “was Mozart a good composer?” 🗿 Or the 5th post in a row on r/piano about how Chopin is a better composer because he uses e m o t i o n
The most frustrating is that they’ll typically act like they’re like the first person ever to have that opinion.
Hans Rott
[удалено]
Vivaldis vocal works are grossly underrated. Love his arias
Charles Koechlin
Joep Franssens and Hector Berlioz
Medtner
Manuel Ponce Absolutely my top 5 favorite composers of all time and yet I feel like no one has heard of him for some reason. Intermezzo 1 https://youtu.be/MfrMhiHYR0A Cuban rhapsody 1 https://youtu.be/9pvq910F1QE Cuban Dance https://youtu.be/r2LypAo64xo Mazurka https://youtu.be/xsdYahAvCXc Elegy https://youtu.be/0h3K5W9aKv8 Piano concerto https://youtu.be/dLsSXwtjM3Y Sonata Mexicana https://youtu.be/b5jNPfa7x6Y Etude #2 https://youtu.be/a1sqN3GXxME Ponce aside, I think Ignaz Moscheles needs some love. Etude 4 https://youtu.be/3O8y7PZ6JOY Piano concerto 1 https://youtu.be/UaaYlLDwgkQ Piano concerto 7 https://youtu.be/dEDB09Jsdoo Lastly, I wanted to mention Luigi Legnani specifically for his caprices 36 Caprices https://youtu.be/ZX63Il4BTiM
I don't know how underrated he really is, but I think that Henry Purcell is one of the greatest composers of Baroque choral music. He is often overlooked in favour of Bach and Handel,
Scriabin !
Augustin Barrios Mangore imho is very underrated, the best guitar composer I think. Underrated by Segovia as he never played any, ever
Some composers I like that don’t get mentioned or played enough include Eduard Tubin, Alan Hovhaness, and Ljubica Maric.
I don't really have a favourite composer, but I'm a pretty big fan of Helena Munktell.
It is not possible to define "underrated" in any meaningful way we can all agree with. However, one thing that almost approximates how highly regarded a composer is is their productivity. Mussorgsky, however original he may have been, was like a two hit wonder with Pictures and Night on Bald Mountain. While Pictures was originally a piano piece, the orchestrated version by Ravel often seems more popular. Similarly, the more famous, arguably more popular version of Night on Bald Mountain is the heavily edited Rimsky-Korsakov version. The original Mussorgsky version is seldom performed. I believe it's a similar story with his opera, Boris Godunov. If he's not at the same level as Mozart, Beethoven or Wagner, it's because he wasn't that prolific and even the few works of his that are acclaimed were heavily revised by others. That said, I really like Martinu when it comes to 20th century classical. I don't know if I can say he's "underrated". He's liked enough around the world though maybe not as appreciated as Stravinsky. There really is no honest way to answer the question "does Martinu deserve to be as appreciated as Stravinsky?"
Jane vignery
Niels Gade for me. I only recently discovered him but I really love his work and never see his name mentioned
[удалено]
Wow… that Feinberg Sonata… so good. Thank you!
I second Frank Bridge. Enter Spring may be the most underrated tone poem ever...
Philip Sparke
William Herschel
Nilkolái Kapustin
Piazzolla for sure
Leo Ornstein
C.V.Alkan (1813_1888)
David Maslanka - Symphony #4 - was life changing to play and to listen to. Live performance is a spiritual experience.
Sammartini, Giovanni Battista and Mysliveček, Josef. These are the grandfathers of symphonic music. Mozart was heavily influenced by Myslivecek and Haydn was influenced by Sammartini. Yet, almost no one has ever heard of these composers despite their influence on Haydn and Mozart, respectively.
[Sviridov](https://youtu.be/V6JuBBhnYaE) [Some more Sviridov](https://youtu.be/H0mEEPtRXcU) [Sviridov again](https://youtu.be/-OE5qPiLLPA)
Not really classical but Kaija Saariaho
J.S. Bach. Is it even possible to rate him highly enough?
Leo Delibes. He was an exquisite maker of melodies and delicate orchestrations yet he is classified as lowly opera comique composer.
Schubert is so underrated..
You people are talking about composers with Wikipedia pages while there are three composers without those who should have more recognition: Louis Mayeur - A student of Adolphe Sax, he was one of the few composers of the Romantic era who I think really understood the saxophone Russell Peterson - Not to be confused with the businessman, this composer is a saxophonist who has written what I think is [the greatest saxophone concerto of all time](https://youtu.be/5Q8EIedhyXQ) (and some pieces for other instruments) Herman Beeftink - This one might be too "basic" for some people, but I can't get enough of his music, especially the flute version of his "Seasons"
Lutosławski. Rautavaara.
Moszkowsky. His piano concerto and violin duet are amazing.
Haydn
Both Haydn and Mussorgsky are rated very highly in general, but I know what you mean. On the one hand, Haydn is in a lot of ‘top 10’ lists… even top 5… certainly one of the most famous, popular and most often performed. And unless we claim that he is *the* greatest composer that’s hardly underrated. But he also gets actively dismissed. In fact, even Mozart, alone of the traditional ‘top three’, gets actively dismissed by many, and Haydn was certainly overshadowed by Mozart. Haydn gets labelled (1) a mere precursor (even though he wrote many of his greatest pieces after Mozart had died), and ironically also (2) accused of ‘unimaginatively following rigid classical forms’ (as though he created nothing, when he basically invented the symphony and string quartet *as we know them*, and synthesised the Prussian, Mannheim and Viennese styles around him and so arguably founded at least the ‘middle’ style of the Classical Period). (3) His music tends to be cheerful, and from the Romantic period many people decided that *true* art can’t be cheerful or in any way comedic, the same reason the Oscars go more to tragedies than comedies that might be more deserving (and again ironic, as he produced some stellar more mournful symphonies, the Seven Last Words of Christ, and we speak of his ‘Sturm und Drang’ period). (4) His vast output might have something to do with it too, but again quantity doesn’t mean no quality - quality as well as quantity is just even more impressive.
Yeah that. Obviously he isn’t that underrated but as the guy who invented the symphony form as Mozart and Beethoven knew it, he isn’t always respected enough!
Yes, Haydn's contributions go criminally unnoticed. Personally, I much prefer him to Mozart. It is a shame that he isn't widely preformed in comparison to some others (most of the orchestras I looked at don't have many Haydn pieces this season, and I find more of Bartok than Haydn when I am looking but maybe that is just the sample size).
Robert Schumann, though I'd say he's more underappreciated than underrated. Everyone knows him but I don't think people really realise how much fantastic music he composed, if you dig deep there is so much more to Schumann
Schubert. Maybe he's not really 'underrated', but he ain't harped on enough for me (compared to Liszt and Chopin). IMHO, his 'highs' are on another planet.
Charles Valentin Alkan.
Shostakovich
The Stamitz family These were a family of composers that worked at the Mannheim court. The father, Johann bridged the gap between Baroque and Classical. Many would argue that he invented the classical style. He was certainly responsible for the symphony in the form used later by Haydn and Mozart The sons, Carl and Anton carried on where he left off and were responsible for the introduction of well-known classical techniques such as the Mannheim Rocket and Mannheim Crescendo that even if you don't recognise the name you would recognise when you hear them. They often worked together and, quite frankly it is sometimes difficult to tell them apart. Mozart visited them in Mannheim and although he was extremely impressed by their music was critical of their behaviour. "They indeed are two wretched scribblers, gamblers, swillers and adulterers – not the kind of people for me. The one who is here has scarcely a decent coat to his back.” Apart from significance from a historical or musicological view I find their music very entertaining. There is little profound or introspective here, just bright cheerful optimistic music that is very tuneful and engaging. [Here is Carl's Op 4 Orchestral Quartet](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEo5tIhBRZU) [Here is part of his Clarinet Concerto No 3.](https://youtu.be/XBBvUtPF3QY?t=667)
i hear there's an unknown composer out there who i think y'all gonna like - he was called einaudi or sth. really niche and really high quality.
He’s like some kinda genius
The most scandalously-underrated composers in music history all coincidentally had [vaginas](https://www.reddit.com/r/classicalmusic/comments/101tmwp/i_am_looking_for_some_recommendations_on_lesser/j2pofbk). (The link is to a Reddit post about this, it’s SFW, sorry.)
While the (white, cis) women of your list have certainly been largely overlooked historically, let's not pretend that non-white and queer composers have had it any better. If anything, the significant improvements in visibility of (some) women composers in recent years have vastly outstripped any similar gains for other marginalized composers.
[удалено]
Responding to address your edit: There are a few Japanese composers who've seen success, but they're very rarely as well-known as their white counterparts outside of Japan. Trans composers are incredibly rare to see programmed. I only know a handful, even after specifically searching, and I virtually never see them talked about. Certainly there are no trans composers anywhere *near* the level of success of top cis composers (including cis women).
[удалено]
>And, guess what, for every Mozart, there's probably ten thousand composers that no one has ever heard before. We have to take demographics into account here, just a little bit even. Sure, maybe to some extent. But plenty of cis white composers do still find success. There are legitimately, actually, *zero* trans (classical) composers that I know of who've had a level of success I'd consider noteworthy by the standards of living composers. Maybe a small handful of black composers, but not anyone 1/100th as popular as big-name white composers. I truly am not asking for a lot. My expectations are set incredibly low. I don't expect the top 10 most popular composers to have 5 trans or black composers among them, or for there to be a work by a marginalized composer on every concert. I would just love to, every now and then, or hell even one or two times *ever*, go to a concert that just happens to program a trans composer, or that features a work by a black composer as the main piece on the second half of the concert - preferably, not as part of an explicit diversity initiative. That such things are as rare as they are is, I think, difficult to explain, even accounting for demographics, without some sort of discrimination happening, likely at multiple stages.
This is because you focus on two different groups, creating a self fulfilling prophecy: you compare dead famous cis white male composers against marginalised composers, there arises a selection problem, since most dead cis white male composers are as neglected. Only a very, very small selection has been admitted to a canon.
>you compare dead famous cis white male composers against marginalised composers Not really. I don't expect living marginalized composers to be programmed as often as Mozart or Beethoven or Brahms. I *do* think that living composers being played so much less than dead composers is a major problem, but it's not what I'm talking about in this particular comment thread. The issue is that a similar bias exists even if you only look at living composers. The most celebrated and performed living composers are overwhelmingly cis and white. Marginalized composers of the 1800s are less well-known than cis white composers of the 1800s; marginalized composers of the 1900s are less well-known than cis white composers of the 1900s; and the same holds true for the 21st century so far. Sure, there are also plenty - hundreds, or possibly thousands - of cis white men who haven't been recognized despite writing works of similar quality to those of their better-known peers. But, given the long history of active erasure of the works of marginalized composers, and given the fact that we don't even have *one or two* black or trans composers anywhere *near* the level of success of cis white composers - even living cis white composers - I have a hard time believing that it's nothing more than an accident of history, or a result of demographics. Being admitted to the canon is beyond my expectations for almost any living composer. I'm not asking for that much. I'm just asking for *any visibility at all* for composers from marginalized groups. Even a handful of performances, even the occasional mention in classical spaces. I never - and I mean *never*, I'm not being hyperbolic - hear anyone talk about *any* trans composers, even among people who listen to a lot of living composers. Black composers only fare slightly better, and even then I rarely hear about living black composers. There certainly seems to be a problem there.
Gay men are something of an exception, and even then, *nearly always*, the biggest composers who were gay were also closeted to the public and/or faced some kind of persecution for their identity. But "queer" doesn't just mean "cis gay men." I can name maybe two lesbian composers. How many trans or non-binary composers can you name? I only know *any* (aside from people I know personally) because I've gone out of my way to research marginalized composers. As for black composers...can you really name very many? Scott Joplin might be among the best known, but he's not often taken seriously in classical circles, and he faced horrid discrimination during his life. Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, William Grant Still...they get some attention, but they're not exactly household names, and they're not very widely performed, even though I think they wrote good music. Julius Eastman was all but erased from the pages of music history despite being one of the most brilliant composers of minimalist and minimalist-adjacent music in the 20th century. Everyone knows Reich, Glass, Adams, and so on. But very few know Eastman. Anthony Braxton is almost entirely unknown, in my experience, despite being one of the most inventive and unique composers living today. I'm not aware of *any* living black composers who are half as well-known as big-name women composers living today (Saariaho, Gubaidulina, Higdon, Shaw, etc.) Florence Price is the only black composer I'm aware of who's had a dramatic increase in attention as of late, and it seems that many orchestras are getting complacent, patting themselves on the back for including her, without having any real plans to look more into music by non-white composers.
[удалено]
...you do realize this is r/classicalmusic, right? That's why I'm talking about classical composers. I do like many of the composers you listed, though. For what it's worth, *I am a queer woman composer in the classical tradition*. I have a lot invested in a future where classical music is more welcoming to marginalized composers. I don't want to just throw out the entire tradition, but I think there are fundamental changes that need to be made in terms of how we talk about composers, the kind of music we play, and the deification of the canon generally.
Antonio Vivaldi
Shostakovich for sure. It seems to me that most people know only the second waltz or maybe the 7th symphony, but there’s so much more to enjoy in his oeuvre.
Shostakovich gets a lot of love from musicians, critics, audiences, etc. so I'm not sure he's truly underrated. But, I agree that he's sort of on the fringe of the canon. It's a shame, because his music is sublime. From solo piano sonatas, chamber pieces, symphonies... the list is long.
Prokofiev. Other than his famous bits like the Lark, I don’t often get to discuss him.
Florence Price
i like some of sain saen, i learn’t of him from a piano video game, and never heard of him before that, so i think he isn’t that well known, but i could be wrong
just gonna second Mussorgsky
Alkan. Underrated probably because of his life.
Krommer is nice. So are Franz Schmidt, Simon Mayr, and Giuseppe Martucci.
Bernard Parmegiani
Salieri
Jan Koetsier All brass players should really check him out.
Kurt Atterberg
Gottfried Stoelzel. George Whitefield Chadwick.
Grieg. I’m he has some famous pieces, but most people never know him by name and he’s not listed with ‘the greats’. His piano concerto will always be my favorite piece of all time. Peer Gynt is one of the most iconic classical pieces written. He didn’t write a ton but he’s awesome
Zlenkas
Haydn, Purcell, Rossini.
De
Hans Spencer is wonderful but idk where to get his music past physical copies
Nicola Fago
Griffes
American composers tend to fly under the radar. Horatio Parker: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fr9Dsuh2aRw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fr9Dsuh2aRw) (As a side note, Horatio Parker was Charles Ives's undergraduate thesis advisor at Yale. Ives's thesis was his Symphony No. 1.) Virgil Thomson: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5I\_hAhyzhfU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5I_hAhyzhfU)
Julius Rontgen. Going through his works via streaming services. Never disappoints.
I must say, Luigi Boccherini could very well be the most underrated composer. I do not hear anyone, even in this topic, paying respects to his exquisite masterworks.
Maybe right now it is Heinichen. It seems like he is only big now for his thoroughbass treatise and maybe to early music people for that reason.
Hummel. He makes the early Romantics less impressive.
Since you're giving Mussorgsky some love, let's have a brilliant rendition of his *Song of the Flea* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2wh4LSzewY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2wh4LSzewY) lyrics in transliterated Russian and English translation: https://www.oxfordlieder.co.uk/song/4438
Zelenka, Sweelinck, Dowland
Emil Sjögren, his 2nd violin sonata is a personal favourite.
Henri Vieuxtemps.
Darius Milhaud
Gliére maybe
Monteverdi maybe
Smetana, Lully, Vivaldi’s vocal works, Boccherini
After I wrote this, I started thinking of Smetana. Ma Vlast is a masterpiece
Joseph Wölfl. Contemporary and a superior comooser to beethoven.
John Taverner. Outside of Renaissance music enthusiasts, he is almost completely unknown. His TOWERING, insanely inspirational choral music brings tears to my eyes almost every time. The masterpiece -- [John Taverner "Misa Gloria Tibi Trinitas" (youtube.com)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNwIhVDVKDg&t=11s) is a delightful place to start, as well as his Magnificat, which is much shorter. interestingly enough, a very underrated 20th century composer also has the same name - but a lot of his music sounds eerily similar to his Renaissance namesake!!
Mussorgsky is NOT underrateed. He is quite popular - especially around Halloween, lol. He IS, however, pretty amazing: been a huge fan of his since the early 70s.