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Your Somewhat Obscure Classical Recommendations

ka00

Patent Pending
I'm curious to hear any piece of orchestral/classical music that really moves you, which wasn’t composed by one of the top 20 most well-known composers of all time.

Basically, what’s a piece of music (or more than one) that you think is great and that most people (who didn’t study music in college) probably don’t know about.

I’ll go first:

“Song of the Soul” by Edmund Rubbra


Thanks
 
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Great thread idea.
Frank Martin - a Swiss composer. I have the score for "Petite Symphonie Concertante" and it's been a great study and influence. Interesting orchestration and takes you on a real journey. (I think from melancholy to mania - but that's just me).

 
I'm a great fan of Martin too. A few more:

Franz Berwald, a Swedish composer from the early Romantic period, e.g. his piano concerto in D.

Walter Braunfels, writer of the best opera ever, Die Vögel (bizarrely enough entirely online).

Ernest Chausson, French Late Romantic-ish, e.g. Poème de l'amour et de la mer.

Niels Gade, a Danish Romantic composer

Giullaume Lekeu, a Belgian composer who died much too young: String Quartet in G.

Bohuslav Martinů, born in Bohemia, somewhat modern, not unlike Martin, e.g. his Sinfonietta.

Some obscure Austrian classical composer, a certain Mozart. He wrote e.g. a quite decent Laudate Dominum.

Karol Szymanowski, Polish, modernish, e.g. Stabat Mater.

Michael Torke, student of Philip Glass, I believe, but more interesting: Telephone Book, but later works didn't really impress me that much.

Jan Dismas Zelenka, the Polish Baroque composer that even Bach admired, e.g. this sonata in g ZWV 181, or the Simphonia a 8, or Miserere ZWV 57.

The honor position is reserved for a composer who is perhaps more limited in his expression, and who, like so many other composers, was simply at the wrong place at the wrong time, but who has written some of the most beautiful and heart-wrenching works I've ever heard: Gerald Finzi. Listen to his https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkQbzZgwfl0 (Eclogue for piano and strings) later on the evening when everything is quiet.
 
Duruflé's Requiem is one of the most sublime pieces ever written. It incorporates Gregorian chant lines but -- it doesn't sound like that. It's just a wonder of conception, sensitivity, and reverence.

Here's one Youtube link:

 
So many... will limit it to a handful -

Gorecki Symphony No.3


Joseph Schwantner ...and the Mountains Rising Nowhere


Daneil Asia Symphony No. 3


Arvo Part Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten


Steve Reich Music for 18 Musicians
 
Duruflé's Requiem is one of the most sublime pieces ever written. It incorporates Gregorian chant lines but -- it doesn't sound like that. It's just a wonder of conception, sensitivity, and reverence.

Here's one Youtube link:



I was going to mention this one too. It's hard to say what "somewhat obscure" really means!







 
The Lamb, composed in 1982 by Sir John Tavener (1944 - 2013). The music is used in the 2013 Italian movie La Grande Bellezza (The Great Beauty), which is where I discovered it.

 
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