Uncle Dave Lewis' account of the overratii (John Williams, Boulez, Glass,
Cage, and the mysterious Graham Fitkin) was perfect.  Many thanks also to
him, and to Steve Schwartz, Thanh-Tam Le, and others, for their valuable
accounts of overlooked composers.  Permit me to add a couple of names from
a whole REGION of the world which seems mysteriously underappreciated.

Sven Einar Englund is a Finlander (a Finn of Swedish descent) of the
generation active from the 30s to the 80s.  His music is somewhat like
that of Tubin and Holmboe:  classical in form, craftsmanly, moderately
conservative harmonically, and with the somber Baltic *klang*.  Finlandia
has issued a 2-CD "Meet the Composer" compilation of Englund which is well
worth hearing.  His Swedish near-contemporaries Hilding Rosenberg and
Karl-Birger Blomdahl, who both somewhat resemble Hindemith, are also well
worth listening to.  Likewise the slightly younger Ingvar Lidholm, whose
very evocative music floats almost (but not quite) free of tonality.  One
could add other names from Denmark and Norway.

In short, plenty of marvelous modern music has been written and virtually
kept secret North of the 55th parallel.  In just the last dozen years, we
were able to "discover" Rautavaara, Tubin, Holmboe, and N0rgaard thanks
to three recording companies (Ondine, Bis, and Chandos).  Without the
recordings, they too would be under-appreciated South of 55, because modern
music from their part of the world is virtually never performed outside it.
(Except for Magnus Lindberg, who has unaccountably become hot.)

Orchestra directors do their best to program modern music but, in the
Anglo-Saxon world at least, what music do they select to perform? Why,
music by precisely the overratii listed by Uncle Dave, and a few more
like them.  So over-performing the over-rated is what crowds out the
under-performed and makes them under-rated.  Is there an ecological
principle at work here?

Cheers//

Jon Gallant