Thank you all for this great list. I have and have heard most of it, but some of the new stuff is interesting
As for Smetana being "obscure", I meant that the average person might no recognize it. Then again, if you are Jewish and or Czech
, Smetana is not so "obscure."
As for what I know, Sibelius was Finn who was treated like crap by Americans. Worse for Sibelius, Brahms responded with a resounding " I want nothing to do with him" to Sibelius' request to study under .
Prokofiev too was not all lucky, although every orchestra eventually played his music in support of the US's Russian Ally during the WWII. Prokofiev had studied under Korsakov, and his diploma from the St. Petersburg Conservatory read ,"Talented but Completely Immature."
He had come to the US to show off. Worst, he thought returning to Mother Russia was better than staying in the US. There is a section on him where he was in Central park, terribly burdened by the lack of "civility" in the US. In Russia, he wrote and people came to listen by the thousands. Here he was brushed aside. The problem was that although in Russia he was treated like a king, wining two Stalin awards, all his music had to play to favor... Prokofiev truly loved his country, and was a nationalist.
Stravinsky writes this about why Prokofiev went home; and yes he actually wrote THIS in his memoirs:
" It was a sacrifice to the bitch goddess and nothing else. He had no success in the United States and Europe for several reasons, while his visit to Russia had been a triumph. When I saw him for the last time in 1937, he was despondent about his material and his artistic fate in France. HE was politically naive, however. ...He returned to Russia, and when he finally understood his position there, it was too late"
Shostakovich seemed to mentor them all.
I am 20 by the way...21 in May.
I must say, it has been quite irritating when people blurt out that "Bach and such and such are the best" but have nothing to back it up. After reading a bit, I have come to a premature conclusion that perhaps "Bach. Mozart....Beethoven" are the "best" but the "best" is not always what I want to hear.
Just picture what "Bach" sounds like, and then contrast that with the Patriotic yet also somber Comrade-base of Prokofiev's Stalingrad [sic] Symphony or Sibelius's play off of Finnish folk songs. The fact remains that Shostakovich, Prokofiev, and others were forced to Play to the communist party, and yet...and yet, they produced some of the most pleasing sounds played. At the time people had the audacity to stand up and BOO Prokofiev when he had recitals in NYC, which added more to the "depth" of the music.
What's funny, is that I was reading a book about composers, and there was this one nasty comment about Sibelius' "Valse Triste? in the New York Herald Tribune by one Virgil Thomson, stating that the piece was "vulgar, self-indulgent, and provincial beyond description."
The author (Phil G. Goulding) then states:
"be that as it may, one does note that Mr. Sibelius' symphony has lasted very well indeed into the later years of the century-which cannot be said of Mr. Thomson's Newspaper....."
"...in the 1940s, the American radio audience, responding to a CBS radio poll, voted Sibelius its favorite classical composer. Whether these were the same people who later gave
Dallas its high television ratings is unknown...."
EDIT: Typos..LOTS of 'em
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