Most Overrated and Underrated composers

[Todd]

Overrated, I’d have to say Shostakovich mainly for his “public” works. Underrated, well, there are a lot. Szymanowski comes immediately to mind.

Well, if light was really thrown on the real life and career of W.A. Mozart we would marvel that he has reached and been given iconic status as the (alleged) composer of hundreds of musical masterpieces when, in actual fact, his career and status were stage-managed at every stage from childhood in Salzburg right up until his untimely death in late 1791. Mozart was simply not 'a musical genius'. In fact, Mozart hardly went to school, studied music in detail at no time in his entire life, and wrote hardly even one of the great works today attributed to him. He, with Haydn were products of blatant falsehood whose story has hardly been told. A project of late Holy Roman Empire propaganda. Involving elites, unaccountable and evil men. This fakery continued long after Mozart's death as the product of conservatism. And rising to the level of the modern iconic status of Mozart, 'genius composer'. 'All you have heard is true' says the trailer to the film, 'Amadeus'. All you have heard is, in fact, false.

Can you please provide reputable documentary evidence of this?

[Robert Newman]

Yes, see other thread.

[Pista Gyerek]

I don't think there's any way to overrate the talent, vision, and influence of Bach or Beethoven. However, I find the music of Brahms overrated. While technically impressive, it lacks the excitement of the music of those other B's.

As far as underrated, I have no question that the word best describes the music of Roger Sessions. This significant composer and theorist was at the epicenter of mainstream American modernism, and yet he barely rates a footnote in most histories nowadays. I highly recommend his nine symphonies to anyone who wants to appreciate the power and optimism of modern music.

[Robert Newman]

Hi there Pista Gyerek,

Can you recommend a few specific works of Roger Sessions for us ? I have only his Concertino for Chamber Orchestra. Perhaps we can make a thread on his life and music ?

Thanks a lot

Robert

The fact that a whole world can exist which is daily judged by the relative values of philosophers, by ever shifting opinions and by highly subjective values, these imposed on us and often learned under the influence of others is itself proof positive of the existence of an absolute, which we, though only in part, are able with grace to be aware of. So also in this sphere of music.