Dan Schmidt writes, basically in reply to Stirling Newberry:

>>A while back, Stirling Newberry suggested that if you wanted to see
>>a list of truly obscure composers, just check the Pulitzer winners
>>of the last couple of decades.

He goes on to list by decades how many Pulitzer-Prize-winning composers he
recognized.

>The conclusions I reach are
>
>- The obscurity level of Pulitzer winners seems to be fairly constant.
>
>- At least some selections are rather obscure.  I consider myself to
>be fairly well versed in contemporary music; I was surprised to
>recognize only 72% of the winners.

I make my own list:

Decade  Awards  Composers     Whose Works   Prize Works
                Recognized    I've Heard    I've Heard
1940s    7       7              7            5
1950s    9       9              9            7
1960s    8       8              8            6
1970s   10      10             10            4
1980s    9       8              8            4
1990s   10       8              8            4

TOTALS  53      50             50           30
%s              94.3           94.3         56.6

I like contemporary music (or at least don't dismiss it out of hand) and
listen to a lot of it.  The composers don't seem obscure (Barber? Menotti?
Copland? Hanson? Ives? Piston? Schuman? Gould?), but some of the prize
works I've not heard.  Those I have heard often appeared on very small
and even private labels, and there seems to be a decline in recorded
availability of such works.  Since I don't live in or even near New
York, recording is about the only way I can hear these things.

Besides, what does obscurity really tell us of the quality of the music?
There seems to be among some the assumption that obscurity is deserved - a
rap that would have applied to Bach, Brahms, Mahler, and Herman Melville at
various times.  And, of course, in the general population, just about any
composer other than Mozart and Beethoven is obscure.  I've actually heard
expressed the following: "*I* haven't heard of him.  How can he be any
good?" This, by the way, applies to art and literature as well as to music.
Obscurity really says more about ourselves and our opportunities: do we
have opportunities and do we take them?

At least one list member has assembled an incredible collection of
20th-century American music.  In it, you'll find a recording of Randall
Thompson's "Trip to Nahant" and works of even less fame.  *That's* grabbing
an opportunity.

Steve Schwartz