Overlooked Pieces by Great Composers

G'day fellas,

We may associate each of the greatest composers with a condensed list of pieces that cemented their places in musical history. But now and again, we may encounter works by those same people that we feel showcase their talent, heart and soul equally or in some cases even more than many of those that made them into household names.

In short, what are some of your favourite pieces from great composers that often get overlooked in favour of their more "popular" pieces? Here are a few of mine:

String Quartet No. 3, Op. 30 & Souvenir de Florence, Op. 70 (Tchaikovsky)

Ruy Blas Overture, Op. 95 (Mendelssohn)

Tragic Overture, Op. 81 (Brahms)

Violin Sonata No. 1, Op. 8 (Grieg)

Cello Sonata, Op. 19 (Rachmaninoff)

Symphony No. 4, Op. 60 (Beethoven)

Symphony No. 3, Op. 52 (Sibelius)

Grieg - 4 Album Leaves, op. 28 ( all four are beautiful hidden gems to me )

Some other of his even more obscure Lyric Pieces.

Sibelius:

- op 24 no 9: Romance in D-flat major

- 6 Impromptus, Op.5 (No. 5 Vivace: B Minor)

- The Sapin Op.75-5

- Etude In A Minor Op. 76 No. 2

Heino Kaski Night By The Sea - Op 34, No 1

Oskar Merikanto:

- Idyll Op. 73 No. 1

- Valse A La Chopin Op. 6 No. 5, in G minor, Piece No. 14

- Merella Op. 47 No. 4

Aarre Merikanto Six Piano Pieces op. 20 ( all six )

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Still quite well-known, but ( perhaps undeservedly ) much less known than their other pieces:

Brahms Rhapsody in G minor, Op. 79, No. 2

Tchaikovsky - October of "The Seasons, Op. 3" and other months other than June.

It's fascinating to explore the lesser-known works of great composers, as they often reveal hidden gems that showcase their talent and creativity in different ways.

tchaikovsky 3rd piano concerto is imo his best.  when i heard it i was baffled by who it could be because it sounded too complex in certain respects to be a melodic composer like tchaikovsky. 

On 4/16/2024 at 8:22 PM, murphybridget said:

It's fascinating to explore the lesser-known works of great composers, as they often reveal hidden gems that showcase their talent and creativity in different ways.

I agree with you completely, @murphybridget!

On 5/19/2024 at 6:45 AM, gaspard said:

tchaikovsky 3rd piano concerto is imo his best.

It's definitely under-appreciated, given the reputation of his first!

20 hours ago, Quinn St. Mark said:

I agree with you completely, @murphybridget!

 

I'm happy to share the thought as you sir.

This topic would make a fascinating thesis for someone.  Make a list of under appreciated works, make the case for why they are great, and try to determine why each didn't make as big a splash as other pieces by the same composer...  Requires an instrument that's a little harder to find?  Premiered at the same time as some other really great pieces, so it got a little lost in the crowd?  Composer was going through a difficult patch popularity-wise at the time it premiered because of local politics, a snit with someone influential in their local music community, some known bad behavior?  Local tastemakers were promoting a particular type of sound at that moment in musical history, and this was not that?  Composer too busy with personal or family obligations to give it a good premiere and it just sat in a drawer for a long time, while their other works gained popularity and became the big pieces in their canon?  What are the conditions that make something really gain momentum, and why weren't they met in this case?

22 hours ago, pateceramics said:

This topic would make a fascinating thesis for someone.  Make a list of under appreciated works, make the case for why they are great, and try to determine why each didn't make as big a splash as other pieces by the same composer...  Requires an instrument that's a little harder to find?  Premiered at the same time as some other really great pieces, so it got a little lost in the crowd?  Composer was going through a difficult patch popularity-wise at the time it premiered because of local politics, a snit with someone influential in their local music community, some known bad behavior?  Local tastemakers were promoting a particular type of sound at that moment in musical history, and this was not that?  Composer too busy with personal or family obligations to give it a good premiere and it just sat in a drawer for a long time, while their other works gained popularity and became the big pieces in their canon?  What are the conditions that make something really gain momentum, and why weren't they met in this case?

 

That sounds like a beautiful idea. 

These are great observations, @pateceramics!

Mendelssohn's Concerto for Violin, Piano and Strings in D minor (1823).

  Composed when he was 14----but irrelevant--It's a great piece of music.   Martha  Argerich and Gideon Kramer recorded it, so....

  One reason it languished was that Mendelssohn didn't publish it, and a critical edition wasn't published until 1999.

I would say Bach's vocal music in general. Whenever I hear someone say they like Bach, it almost always actually mean they like his instrumental works. Which is a real shame: you can add up his entire instrumental oeuvre, and it would not outlast even his Leipzig cantatas.

Rachmaninoff’s first sonata is deeply underrated, the Corelli variations too, as well as his first and fourth concerti.(though not as much as the sonata and Corelli variations), Also, similar to what @muchen_ has said, Rachmaninoff, as well as Bach, wrote a lot of works for voice. Everybody knows vocalise, but other works of this kind have magnificently thoughtful textures in the piano accompaniment and vary moods from idyllic to dark and almost grotesque (op 38 no 1 is the darkest I know of, but I am not sure about the lyrics since I don’t know Russian)

From Chopin I would mention the preludes, though not very underrated, some were extremely ahead of their time (f minor, eb minor, f# minor, a minor and similar ones), even predicting music such as the op 39 etudes tableaux,  Scriabin’s atonality (which sounds a bit similar) and other works like the wind of the west prelude by Debussy.

Medtner is underrated itself, if you don’t know him, the sonatas(I reccomend to try to listen to all, but there are 14. Night wind, minacciosa and tragique are the most famous ones for a reason (finally, when dealing with underrated composers, the most famous pieces are usually their best))piano concerti and skazki are the “””famous””” pieces by him. 
If you know him, I recommend checking op 2 no 1, you are going to be confused thinking it is ravel, but it still sounds like medtner, what a pity he didn’t compose similar style pieces along his life 

Liszt: The Dante sonata is usually overshadowed by his B minor one, though it is still famous

On 8/11/2024 at 11:29 PM, muchen_ said:

I would say Bach's vocal music in general. Whenever I hear someone say they like Bach, it almost always actually mean they like his instrumental works. Which is a real shame: you can add up his entire instrumental oeuvre, and it would not outlast even his Leipzig cantatas.

 

I agree, Bach is not very known for his vocal works.