Hi, Dave Lewis coming back to the thread I started some time ago.

I am surprised that my initial posting moved so quickly from Nicholas
Maw and on to minor Austro-German composers, Strauss excepted.  Whilst I
already have music by Raff, Rott, Schmidt and Zemlinsky etc on CD, and have
heard some performed live, there are many other areas of music which appear
to be ignored in performance, at least in the UK where I live.

For instance Scandinavian music.  I have recently been listening to
Sallinen, Merikanto, Holmboe, Rautavaara and Alfven.  There is some great
music within this group of composers but I cannot remember a UK performance
of music by any of them.  It would also be possible to extend this list
to include scores of worthwhile Scandinavian composers who have been lost
without trace except in their home countries.  Looking further, how about
US composers other than Copland, Bernstein and Barber, Czech composers
other than Janacek, any composer at all from an African country etc etc.

I have come to the conclusion that the main problem here is not the
accessibility or quality of the music but the narrow tastes of "music
lovers" and concert goers which still all too predicatably revolves around
the core repetoire.  Comments?

Oh and I still think Nicholas Maw is a very underated composer and unlike
the composers in previoous postings is still alive!

David Lewis