SCHWARTZ'S GUIDE TO UNDERRATED MASTERPIECES
(John CAGE - Edward ELGAR)

(Arnold - Byrd)

 (Falla - Gurney)

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Cage

String Quartet. A very early piece and "music" music. No tossing bones according to the I Ching. No prepared instruments of any kind. No tape recorders. This is a sweet, pared-down, kind of home-made string quartet. The closest you get to it is "the quartet Satie never wrote."

Carter

Currently the critics' darling, you can't really call Carter popular. Everything is obscure and everything is extremely well made. I'm particularly fond of the early choral music, obviously influenced by Stravinsky. The middle period (when he became the Carter we now know or don't know) has gone into a slight eclipse. Carter fans may not know the piano or the cello sonatas. At this point, his writing for both instruments is virtuosic and heroic. Not the easiest listening, but it certainly grabs me.

Chanler

A name not well known, except to art-song groupies. To my mind, a great song writer. His work splits in half: great songs to great texts and great songs to cruddy texts, the latter by one Father Feeney. Why this doggerel attracted Chanler again and again, I don't know. See if you can find "9 Epitaphs" and "Rhymes from Peacock Pie." A truly distinguished melodist.

Citkowitz

An American dilettante, who, so far as I know, published only one piece, the song cycle "5 Songs from Chamber Music" to poems by Joyce. In many ways, these prefigure Copland's vocal writing of the '40s and '50s.

Copland

I'm sticking to the obscure. The orchestral work, with the exception of "Connotations" and "Inscapes" is available over and over. I want to plug the chamber music. "In the Beginning" may very well be the greatest extended American work for a cappella chorus -- this, from a composer who didn't particularly care for the sound of an unaccompanied choir. You'd never know it. He sets the opening verses of Genesis which detail the first seven days of creation. The passage on the creation of light almost makes you see the dance of photons. The "Sextet" was an arrangement of my favorite Copland symphony, the "Short Symphony." He thought it too difficult for orchestras (it's duck soup now), so to save the music, he scaled it down. There's not one superfluous note in this piece. Everything tells.

Cowell

Here's a composer who has gone into eclipse and is one of the most original of all. To start, try Hymn and Fuguing Tune No. 3, Symphony No. 4, and the cantata "... if He please" to words by Jonathan Edwards. Sometimes dissonant, sometimes modal. Melodically influenced by both Asian and Celtic music.

Creston

I can't call him a great composer, but I enjoy him. Try the Partita for flute, violin, and strings, as well as the Symphony No. 2. Very big on creating catchy cross-rhythms.

Czerny

Beethoven's pupil. I don't know much of his music, but what I've heard makes me think that he's probably gotten a bum rap. Horowitz recorded the Variations on La Ricordanza which take off from Beethoven and, to my ear, point to Schumann and Chopin.

Dahl

A friend of Stravinsky's. A wonderful craftsman. At least two chamber masterpieces: Music for Brass Instruments and Concerto a tre for clarinet, violin, and cello. The Concerto is a miracle of part writing. He manages to convince you that there are more than three instruments playing. Rhythmically and melodically (in a neo-classical way) incredibly distinguished.

Dallapiccola

Canti di prigionia for chorus and chamber ensemble. Serial music for those who hate serial music. He's no fanatic: he simply finds a way to make the tone rows sound like bel canto arias. Very powerful.

David

Johann Nepomuk David is a 20th-century German choral composer. If you know Hugo Distler's work, you have a fair idea of the general sound. David, however, is far more adventurous. Try the Deutsche Messe.

Debussy

Trois Chansons, to texts by Ronsard, for a cappella chorus. Debussy's only work in this genre. Unbelievably beautiful. You want more. Le Martyre de St-Sebastien -- incidental music for a overblown pageant by D'Annunzio. The music is uneven, but at its best is ecstatic.

Diamond

A major symphonist (Schoenberg called him the "new Bruckner," although I can't imagine anyone less like Bruckner), one of the great American song writers, a superb chamber composer, in short, a master and almost unknown, despite the efforts of Schwarz and Bernstein. American '30s neo-classical idiom, but a lot grittier than what that term would lead you to suspect. Pick up anything.

Distler

A 20th-century German choral composer. A friend of mine calls him "Hindemith with tunes." Although I disagree with the implication about Hindemith, Distler does seem more approachable. Try imagining Schütz with Hindemithian harmony. My favorites include the Moerike-Chorliederbuch, the Weihnachtsgeschichte (based on "Lo, how a rose e'er blooming" -- "Es ist ein Ros entsprungen"), and the motet "Singet frisch und wohlgemut" (a set of variations on "Joseph lieber, Joseph mein"). I listen to this stuff, and it transports me in a similar way to Vaughan Williams's Tallis Fantasia -- it's a handshake across centuries.

Duruflé

If you know Duruflé at all, you most likely know the Requiem. I want to plug the exquisite Four Motets. Like the Requiem, based on chant melodies, beautiful in the working out, but on an intimate scale.

Elgar

The orchestral music and the big choral pieces have mostly come into their own. The chamber pieces are unique, however, and still mostly unheard. Try the powerful Piano Quintet, the suave and ingratiating String Quartet, and the heroic Concert Allegro for piano solo.

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