The Greatest piece you’ve never heard……..

I have two firm and fast rules of music:

1. There are no undiscovered masterpieces – if someone starts waxing poetic about the symphonies of Arnold Bax just nod and move on.

2. Everyone – you, me, the average Joe/Jane on the street – gets to nominate one, and only one piece, that they can claim as their own personal Undiscovered Masterpiece. Here is my choice:


In 1913 a young girl of 19 became the first female to win the prestigious Grand Prix de Rome Competition with her composition Faust et Helene. With her natural musical aptitude she was poised to become one of the greatest composers of the 20th Century. Five years later at the age of 24 she was dead from Crohn’s disease. Lili Boulanger was the younger sister of the great Nadia Boulanger. But everyone, including Nadia, considered Lili to be the greater talent. I agree, and this tremendous piece stands tall as witness to her incredible genius.

But don’t take my word for it. Here is a performance courtesy of the CBC of Faust et Helene which the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra gave in October of this year. Jason Howard as Mefistofeles, my good friend Bonnaventura Bottone as Faust, and Susanna Tudor-Thomas as Helene. Yours truly conducting.

It is glorious……………… and this is my Undiscovered Masterpiece.

6 thoughts on “The Greatest piece you’ve never heard……..”

  1. I’ll put in the Gustav Holst Fugal Overture. Maybe not a masterpiece, but it is bright, excitingly rhythmic and never performed. It’s about six minutes long.

  2. Bill
    I have to go with Barber’s Essay No. 2. With such a non-descript title what can you expect? I got to conduct it on a short notice engagement some years back, what a work and the ending for me is devastating, I had a truly visceral reaction the first time I heard it, a moment I will never forget. I want to program it for next season in Springfield. The other Essays are also terrific pieces, but No.2 stands out in my mind.

  3. Einojuhani Rautavaara – “Die erste Elegie.” OK, it’s a choral piece, not orchestral – but still ranks as one of my top 10 seldom performed works. Besides, I’m a choral conductor – so I should be able to nominate from my own breed, no?

  4. There is alot of wonderful music that
    is unjustly neglected.I have cds of music
    by the likes of Hugo Alfven,Bax(yes,I like
    his music),Brian,Bliss,Chavez,the lesser-
    known music of Dvorak,Enescu,Zdenek Fibich,Glazunov,Gliere,Kallinnikov,Myaskovsky,
    Nielsen,Pfitzner,Roussel,Stenhammar,
    Szymanowski,Taneyev,Zemlinsky,and others.
    There is no reason for the neglect of this music,and more people ought to seeks out
    recordings of these works.

  5. Saying there are no undiscovered masterpieces is like saying there are no great musicians working away in near or total obscurity that you’ve never heard of, or great works of literature that are unknown to you. Your claim is absurd on its face, and it is such attitudes that have led to the criminally ignorant state of programming that exists today in American concert halls. One more reason I rarely go to concerts. Apparently I have a lot of company in this respect.

    The tidal wave of new classical record releases attest to the existence of a schism in American musical life, namely that far more people listen to recordings than go to concerts. These recordings are mostly of repertoire other than “the canon”. I can personally testify to the presence of masterworks among that number.

    I suppose we should both add IMHO, yes?

  6. I think stating something like “…such attitudes that have led to the criminally ignorant state of programming that exists today in American concert halls” such as Mr. Williams did is a bit extreme given that I can’t remember the last time I’ve run across an orchestra which programmed Faust et Helene.

    In fact, it would be interesting to find out exactly how many times that particular piece has been programmed by a professional orchestra in North America over the past decade compared to other works by living composers. However, that’s not to say that programming in too many orchestras rely on stale repertoire simply because it is cheap to produce and currently in their music library.

    I would also point out that comparing CD sales to ticket sales based primarily on the issue of programming isn’t a terribly strong argument either for or against programming. There are simply far too many other factors involved such as ticket price, concert environment, where a buyer is located, the ease of obtaining recordings, etc. that have far more influence on those issues than programming alone. In fact, this sort of wholesale condemnation in Mr. Williams’ comment does far more to tear classical music apart – at all levels – by herding current patrons into factions than it does to build it up.

    Instead, I found Mr. Berger’s comment a better op-ed perspective by providing an opinion which encourages against dismissing what he classified as neglected music.

    As for nominating my own personal undiscovered masterpiece, I would toss Dougherty’s Metropolis Symphony into the ring. Like Rob Gold, I don’t know if it necessarily crosses the threshold into “masterpiece” but it’s something I would go out of my way to hear live if programmed by a worthwhile ensemble.

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