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What do you think is one of the main contributing factors as to why the music found in the youtube channel (below) is not more well known amongst pianists?

http://www.youtube.com/user/Hexameron


It's frustrating to see it all get buried.

Apropos of a thread I started about composers I'm finding it hard to like, this sounds like an exercise to me. Sorry, that's my honest opinion.

Not making any "exercise". I've had this on my mind for quite awhile actually.

I'm pretty they mean the PIECE sounds like an exercise.

Conformity, for one thing. Lack of curiosity, for another. A lazy assumption that everything of value is already known. Plus, the more central repertoire is already so enormous that it is easy to devote a whole lifetime to it alone without running out of music.

But then there's the issue of the quality of the music itself. Once you get off the beaten track, the quality starts to vary wildly, and unless you are really young, exploring it can begin to seem like a waste of very precious time. Although I think some of the things on that channel are good, I also think a good deal of it isn't really all that interesting except for value as a historical curiosity. Trying to sift through the vast amount of relatively unknown stuff for music that seems worthwhile takes a lot of time and energy. And I am saying that as person who actually does value a lot of music that is not part of the standard rep.

In answer to the OP's question, one reason why the Hexameron pieces haven't "caught on" is they all seem to be very advanced and not too accessible to the average pianist to play or read through...no "Fuer Elise" pieces found there!

I don't know that it gets buried. Part of the problem with the music in Hexameron's channel is that it's mostly Soviet-era avant-garde, which was largely unavailable in the West until the end of the cold war. Even now, economic troubles prevent scores and recordings from being easily available here. It's usually available at online retailers, but you can't really browse or try any of it out like you could in a music store.

It's not just Soviet avant-garde, either. I've had trouble finding Tansman, Schwartz, Th. Kirchner and Reinhold, too - and they were on this side of the iron curtain (and Tansman and Schwartz even lived in the US!)

Availability of scores will likely continue to be a problem. As people turn more and more to illegally downloaded scores, there's less and less of an incentive and means for publishers to provide quality editions and wide distribution of these composers' works.

Also, music that challenges the ears often needs a champion. Sorabji would be unknown if not for Habermann and Ogdon. The Godowski etudes wallowed in relative obscurity until Hamelin's landmark recording.

And then there's the fact that there will always be composers who aren't widely played. There's a ton of music by American composers that goes largely unnoticed - Sessions, Adler, L. Kirchner, Ornstein, Rorem, La Montaine, etc... And even when composers DO write music that gets published, it goes largely unnoticed: the music of John Adams, William Bolcom and Lowell Liebermann is current, accessible, and very, very good, but all everybody seems to know is the Graceful Ghost Rag and Gargoyles.

I'd like to just mention Geoffry Madge: he was the first ever to perform the Op.Clav., record the Godowski/Chopin, Reubke, and some Xenakis, by the way, nowadays, with the Hamelins popping up like mushrooms everywhere, people might think, gosh, how original, but even those thoughts aren't, well, original, who revived Roslavets?

Just today I listened to about 10 lesser known, mostly Russian, composers I had never heard of. Wow, there's so much out there...
Really like some Henselt etudes (probably because it's very much like CHopin).

I heard the Madge Godowsky/Chopin. Sorry -and with due respect- I found it utterly unlistenable and a total artistic failure. Tempos were pulled about like taffy and at times Madge seemed completely overwhelmed by the demands of the music. If I hadn't heard the Hamelin recording first (though Madge predated Hamelin by some years), I probably would have dumped the Godowsky studies then and there.

it was about date, not quality, and by the way, about the nerve to do it at all, he had/has the guts to do it, and i'm sure his endeavour might just have pulled the trigger for new kids on the block to outdo him, witch they, or should I say HE? did,nevertheless...

dolce, there are some older recordings of the Chopin/Godowsky etudes by David Saperton, although I think he only did a few. However, those few recordings could be even more impressive than Hamelin's.

Berezovsky's recordings, while less technically solid and not complete, show quite a lot of passion ad fire...

I've heard the Saperton recordings. Was it my imagination or did he seem more comfortable playing the Godowsky dress-ups than the Chopin originals? Nah, can't be...

But possibly it might have been Saperton's example which got Hamelin interested in the first place.

It is lazy indeed , and fortunately this assumption is totally wrong. Take Ernesto Nazareth for instance, and I swear I'm not saying this because of nationality matters.




OK, but there are some banal/boring/etc pieces people play only because they were written by a great/famous composer. I mean, the composer wrote great pieces and this fact makes people play the other not so great stuff. Specially if the composer were very prolific.

cheers

all of this said, I must mention this, as an afterthought: I'm an adventurous one, as a person, as a pianist, so I like the not-so-commercial repertoire of some elder people, I'd like to think that, before the whole Marc André H. thing took off, there were people doing his (well, not so his) stuff, and are now completely overblabla-ed (my lack of anglolingo, sorry...), and their endeavours should be honoured, Smith,
Lewenthal, Madge, fill in the rest of those seekers, aren't we of the same kind?

In my eyes, Beethoven was the most consistent composer when it came to good music. Same with Ravel, but he didn't have a large output. Hence they are my two favorites.

But then again, maybe it's the inverse... since they're my two favorites, I find them to be the most consistent. Who know?

You all know that I may like Alkan and all, but even I don't think he's consistent... You really have to acquire a taste to enjoy Le Preux, Scherzo Focoso, or the Grande Sonate. However, I think the Symphony for Solo Piano, Op. 35 Etudes, Concerto da Camara Op. 10 No. 1, and Chant Op. 38a. No. 1 (and some other Chants) are a few of Alkan's works that stand well alongside many standard rep pieces.

Bolet had also recorded a group of them. If I remember them correctly, they were played with Bolet's typical high-gloss finish and ease, and it made them sound no more difficult than something like Sinding's Rustles of Spring.

There is this very obscure composer Paul de Schlözer, who wrote only 2 études, the one in A-flat has been recorded 3 times I think, I remember Jorge Bolet, Eileen Joyce and Stephen Hough, and Geoffrey Tozer played it, but the other étude has never been performed/recorded/played? by anyone, fine piece, difficult double notes, style Moszkovski, more difficult one would say, if it weren't for the rumour he composed them himself and lost them to Schlözer in a card game, haha.

Oh, and forgot to menton Carl Maria von Weber, his 2nd sonata in A-flat is a gem, a 35 minutes long gem...Gilels made a definite recording of it, Brendel played it, Richter did, of course, but nowadays it seems to have lost it's popularity, needs to be revived!