Which musical works remain unrecorded?

[JohnGavin]

In this age when classical recordings are more than plentiful, can you think of any works by composers that remain unrecorded?

For example, I am certain that there are compositions by the German composer Ernst Pepping that remain unrecorded. He composed a Kleine Orgelbuch and a Grosse Orgelbuch. The first exists on a very obscure label and the second, as far as I know has never been recorded. No matter what the consensus is on this music (I think the Small Organ Book contains many gems), they definitely deserve good recordings (Klaus from Naxos, are you there)?

Anything else?

[MELMOTH]

JohnGavin avait soumis l'idée :

> (Klaus from Naxos, are you there)?

I can never thank *Klaus Heymann* enough for making me discover so many
composers, so many unique and exciting works!...

[Ricardo Jimenez]

I have tried, but come up empty, to find a recorded performance of
Mendelssohn's Festgesang zum Gutenbergfest.
"During ceremonies dedicating a new statue of Johannes Gutenberg, in
the city of Leipzig's quadicentennial celebration of the invention of
printing, Felix Mendelssohn's Festgesang -- a cantata for male chorus,
brass, and tympani to honor Gutenberg-- was first performed in the
town square by a chorus of 200 men, 16 trumpets, and 20 trombones. The
melody bears a strong relationship to the song "Hark the Herald,
Angels Sing."

[Todd Michel McComb]

Most of them.

[Néstor Castiglione]

There has yet to be comprehensive recordings of the orchestral and chamber music of the phenomenally talented Gavriil Popov. His First Symphony has been the most often recorded, perhaps due to its influence upon Shostakovich's Fourth Symphony. But most of his music, and he composed quite a bit of it, remains unrecorded. Ditto the works of Japanese composers Moroi Saburō and Kishi Kōichi. The former's Third Symphony was probably the finest classical work to come from an Axis country during the Second World War;the latter was regarded as being something of Japan's great white hope in the 1930s. Kishi was a gifted composer and, according to reports, conductor. I believe he was the first Asian to conduct the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. Unfortunately, he died at the age of 28 from a heart attack that resulted from peritonitis.

Over in Latin America there are tons of worthy composers whose work has been neglected on records, despite their importance in the development of classical music in their home countries and the region at large. One of these is the Chilean composer Domingo Santa Cruz Wilson, whose work was admired by Copland, earned a couple of mentions in Eric Salzman's Music in the Twentieth Century: An Introduction. Nevertheless, his music has not been recorded much at all. Even in Chile, where his work is considered important in the curriculum of the music schools there.

One more unjustly neglected composer on records: the Bulgarian Lyubomir Pipkov. The first time I ever heard of the name was way back in high school, during the initial stages of my Shostakovich obsession. I came across (maybe in the Boris Schwartz book on Soviet Music) a quote from an American interview Shostakovich gave in 1973, wherein he held up the work of Pipkov, along with Prokofiev and Britten, as being among the most interesting of recent years. Aside from a couple of vocal works and his Clarinet Concerto, nothing of Pipkov's has appeared on CD. If one digs around in LPs, there are a few more things available, but not much: his First Symphony, final two string quartets, and his anti-war Oratorio for Our Times. The latter work ranks very favorably with, say, Britten's War Requiem or Tippett's A Child of Our Time; in fact, I may prefer the Pipkov work over those ones.

Would be great if Naxos, CPO, or a similar label could ever get around to filling these recorded repertoire gaps.

[raymond....@gmail.com]

Naxos has given us (or at least me) a small taste of the Baltic composers, Ivanovs, and the native Swedish speaking Finn Einar Englund. Would that someone, or Naxos or Bis, issue a greater representation, because each wrote a bunch of symphonies and concertos that surely, if of the standard of those already issued, need being recorded.

I've heard a lot about Popov also, but consider Miaskovsky as one of the greatest Soviet composers, and thanks are owed to Svetlanov for his cycle. The great Shosty has had his share, deservedly, but there were others too.

Naxos has also done Villa-Lobos proud too, especially with his symphonies (12 of them minus a lost 5th). In these, Villa-Lobos has shaken off his obsession with Bach (which to me makes his Bachianas works stilted and uninteresting), and produced works which are much more in keeping with his own heritage and background. Karabtchevsky and the Sao Paulo orchestra have done these works very well. Kudos to CPO for their earlier cycle too.

Ray Hall, Taree

[Arno Schuh]

There is a lot of sheet music. You only need to look at the catalogues of
the music publishers.
With regard to the organ, take a look at what the Butz-Verlag has to offer.
https://butz-verlag.de/engl/katalog_orgel.htm
or Edition Chanvrelin
http://chanvrelin.free.fr/frmset_a.htm
Just two examples.
Of some composers, only a handful of works are known, and only the same
pieces ever appear on the recordings again and again. On the other hand,
there is a lot more available as sheet music. Why does no one record this?
Unexplainable to me why the sheet music is available, but recordings of the
available music is not.

> (Klaus from Naxos, are you there)?
>
> Anything else?

Brilliant Classics is closer to publish such stuff.

Arno