Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Why do some pianists play a lot of "neglected" works?

After hearing the same things on and on and on and on (you get the drift) ------- it really becomes nice to listen to something different. Good on those people that play the works that we hadn't yet heard before. It's good. Nice attitude and appreciation of music.

I think, for the most part, it's unfair to judge less commonly heard works as inferior. Some are, some aren't, but audience preference is mostly a function of familiarity rather than discerning taste. IMO.

As a listener of classical music, I really appreciate it when pianists take it upon themselves to record the complete works of a composer, giving us an easy overview of the composers complete output. I have found many marvels that way.

During WW2, Austro-German rep kept being played, not least by Myra Hess in her famous wartime concerts in the National Gallery - not least because that was the music she loved. In fact, her signature encore was her own arrangement of Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring by a famous German whose name escapes me.....

I don't think even Wagner's music was banned, though he was Hitler's favourite composer and was an anti-Semite.

What I hear on Radio 3's Music Matters was that some Russian musicians who refused to condemn the invasion publicly were being boycotted by concert halls, rather than Russian music being banned. Personally, I believe that only those who openly supported you-know-who should be banned from performing in the West (like Gergiev, Berezovsky and Netrebko - who will likely never be able to return to perform on our shores), as there are many Russians (and ex-Russians) who are afraid to speak out because they have relatives still living in Russia.

I didn't hear the Radio 3 item, but the one I referred to was definitely referencing long dead composers and others, including Rachmaninov and Tchaikovsky. It was almost certainly on BBC R4 as I mostly listen to that.