What's your favorite "unknown" composer?

[liszt-and-the-galops]

Which lesser-known composer(s) do you like most?
Comment if I missed any!

(Note: I put Balakirev on there because basically no one has listened to anything he's wrote other than Islamey. I suppose this would put him closer to the "one-hit wonder" category, but I digress.)

[transitional]

The one composer I really love that I would consider "unknown" is Leonid Desyatnikov. All of your options seem somewhat known, just not as hyped.

[beebebleuga]

Balakirev has some really nice stuff!
I really love his toccata, sonata no. 2, scherzos, and reminiscences from a life for the tsar.

There's also Zemlinsky (he only has a few piano works i think) but his landliche tanz and 4 ballades are really really nice!

[thorn]

I'd only really count Mereaux as 'unknown' of that list.

I'm going with Mel Bonis because of all the lesser known composers I've encountered over the last few years, she is the one I play the most. She was a student of Franck and a classmate of Debussy.

i=CK0KN261LhZ1zUpl

[bryfarr]

Carl Vine, a living composer, is probably unknown to the majority of users on this forum, though he is getting to be known by those looking for new works to play.  You see his sonatas in competitions now...

[sonata_5]

There was a classical era composer named Myslivecek,friend of Mozart. Also Bortkiewicz

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Carl Vine, a living composer, is probably unknown to the majority of users on this forum, though he is getting to be known by those looking for new works to play.  You see his sonatas in competitions now...

I love Vine! His 4th sonata is my favorite piano sonata of the 21st century.

There was a classical era composer named Myslivecek,friend of Mozart.

Interesting! I don't actually know too much about the classical era outside the household names.

[bryfarr]

Interesting! I don't actually know too much about the classical era outside the household names.

There's a good reason for that - - if there was an age of formulaic writing, it was the classical era.  Note that I am no music historian ... just based on what I've heard.  A radio station in my town is hell bent on playing every symphonic work by every classical composer 1770 - 1820.

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There's a good reason for that - - if there was an age of formulaic writing, it was the classical era.  Note that I am no music historian ... just based on what I've heard.  A radio station in my town is hell bent on playing every symphonic work by every classical composer 1770 - 1820.

Maybe ... I find Mozart and Haydn very creative with their use of the "formula" and many other symphonies from the same period feel dry and uninspired.

[advertis45]

I've recently been listening to Percy Grainger's music right now. I really like his music, and also the arrangements he does, especially the one for Rachmaninoff's 2nd Concerto, 3rd movement. Apparently, Grainger was also good friends with Rachmaninoff, which I guess might have contributed in making this fine arrangement.  I'll post links to two of his pieces in the bottom.

&t=181s

[bryfarr]

I love Vine! His 4th sonata is my favorite piano sonata of the 21st century.

Great to see that someone else knows and appreciates Carl Vine's sonatas.

[bryfarr]

Just discovered Charles Koechlin - had never heard of him.  This collection of shorter pieces has a Debussy-inspired baseline but the composer has new ideas and an eloquent musical voice.

[apmapmapm]

Really happy to read that there's an interest in Carl Vine's piano music. I remember how great an impression the first 2 sonatas made on me as a teen, and I was also eagerly awaiting the premiere of his 3rd sonata ages ago when his popularity was still growing. I remember the 3rd sonata having a different ending then than the one that was to be published shortly after.

Maybe not totally unknown but have enjoyed the sonatas by Stephen Hough, and more recently have started reconnecting with the nocturnes by Lowell Liebermann.
I think the piano etudes by Unsuk Chin also deserve a ton of attention, as well as those by Nikolai Kapustin (jazzy and brilliant!).

[lelle]

I think Kapustin and to a lesser extend Unsuk Chin are starting to fall into the "known" category, at least Kapustin. Chin is pretty well known in the contemporary music crowd.

[transitional]

There's Alain Louvier, who I've enjoyed everything of so far but there are no recordings for most of his works.

[cuberdrift]

Alright so here's my thoughts, I think nearly all 3rd or 4th generation 20th c. composers who aren't Philip Glass, Stockhausen, etc. are going to be "unknown" because nobody mainstream listens to art music from that period anyway.

Kapustin's popular with piano geeks and Japanese because it sounds anime and jazz fusion. Vine, Koechlin, etc. are more striking because they're romantic composers and when we think of piano music, we think of romantic music, so obviously someone from the romantic period who isn't known is SOMEONE.

Moszkowski is too well-known already from either the typical etudes Op. 72 teachers keep assigning to students or the Concerto which is again, like Kapustin, known to piano geeks.

So, my vote goes to Theodor Dohler:

This guy's etudes deserve to get an album recording imo.

[thalbergmad]

I play a lot of Joseph Woelfl who in his day, sold more sheet music than Mozart and dies a vert rich man.
Thal

[iannis shapurji ferneyhough]

Definitely Samuil Feinberg, ever since I heard his third piano sonata.

[dizzyfingers]

...
So, my vote goes to Theodor Dohler:
This guy's etudes deserve to get an album recording imo.

I gave your Dohler post a listen - basically a blend of Chopin and Mendelssohn, with a hefty dose of Sir Schmaltz.  There's no mention of his etudes on Wikipedia but I found them on YT - so they've been recorded... 

[kosulin]

All 5 composers mentioned by OP are far from "unknown" IMO.
I would vote for Sweelinck or John Bull.