I'm open to lesser known composers!! Give me a composers name and a beutiful piece, not redicoulously hard...not harder than something like a hard chopin etude or Liszt Hungarian Rhapsody 2 or 6...as I don't have time for it rightnow because i'm already on a big liszt of music rightnow...
Hard to define what you mean by lesser-known - most of the names suggested above are all well-known composers and works
on this board (
off the board, probably not...) and they are all good suggestions!
Some define lesser-known as music that receives little or no attention, ie, no commercial recordings or at most, one or two that are out-of-print (for example, only available on LPs or 45/78 rpm). I can suggest a bunch of romantic composers that have virtually no attention from our market:
Abram Chasins. Except for the three Chinese Pieces, hardly anything else is in print. Benjamin Grovsner recently encored a Prelude, but Chasins wrote 24 in total. Jorge Bolet played the Schwanda Fantasy but I don't know if there is a recording of it. All his 2-piano transcriptions are recorded by him and his wife, Constance Keene, and are only available on LP. There is a bunch of solo music that have not been recorded (not until later this year, that is).
Guy Ropartz. French composer, from Brittany, not involved with the Debussy/Ravel/Roussel bunch. Very different but still thoroughly French. You should check out his 3 Nocturnes, the 1st of which would be right up your alley. There is only 1 commercial recording of the first two nocturnes on CD, the 3rd nocturne has been recorded twice.
Rhene-Baton. Another French, also slightly outcast. No commerical recording of his piano works on CD at all. I recent found one LP, French press, very rare. Romantic and still decidedly French.
Rachmaninoff-Vedernikov. Anatoly Vedernikov, being Richter's 2-piano partner, wrote a bunch of transcriptions, namely the Rachmaninoff songs. No recordings, I believe, but these transcriptions are not difficult to play and are definitely your channel. Other Vedernikov transcriptions include Prokofiev Symphony No. 5 (on YouTube), Bach Brandenberg concertos, etc.
Radames Gnattali. Brazilian. Some are a bit jazzy, some slightly avant-garde. Many commercial recordings (Hamelin, Alessandrini, Canaud, Cohen, Szidon, etc) but these covers less than a quarter of his actual piano output. He recorded his own works, available only on LP. Half his works are published but out-of-print, the other half unpublished and has to be obtained through his wife. These are fantastic stuff. For jazzy things, go for Alma Brasileira, Negaceando, Vaidosa; for more avant garde things try Tocata, Sonatina Coreografica.
Ricardo Vines. The single most important pianist in the first few decades of 20th century, as he was the one who premiered most of Debussy's, Ravel's, Mompou's, "new" works. Without him, you probably wouldn't know Debussy now. Died penniless. The only published piano works he wrote are 4 Hommages. Great stuff. Only 2 commercial CD recording, I believe, one on Naxos (2 of the 4) and the other on a small Spanish label.
Note: all these scores, with the exception of the rarest Chasins and Gnattali, are all circulating around or on imslp, or even still in print. Hope this helps! Also, please correct me if any of the info are inaccurate!
Topic: Any good composers similar to Chopin, Liszt, Rachmaninoff? (Read 20669 times)