SCHWARTZ'S GUIDE TO UNDERRATED MASTERPIECES
(Sergei RACHMANINOFF - Carl RUGGLES)

(Orff - Purcell)     (Satie - Szymanowski)      contents
Rachmaninoff
Several others have already suggested pieces. I'll add Three Russian Songs and The Bells for chorus and orchestra, and the fourth piano concerto, unfairly denigrated. I hear a fascinating attempt to incorporate jazz and lots of pointers to the Symphonic Dances. The solo piano music, mostly unfamiliar, I have a lot of trouble with -- too many notes.

Ravel
We'll duke it out over Bolero. I have never heard a Ravel piece I didn't like enormously. The concerti are pretty popular and Daphnis gets recorded. Still, there is orchestral Ravel outside the standard rep: the exquisite fanfare to L'éventail de Jeanne, the complete, profound Ma Mère L'Oye (a wonderful 2-piano original as well), the wild Tzigane for violin and orchestra, and the masterpiece Le tombeau de Couperin. Excepting the string quartet, the chamber music waits to be taken up. Introduction et allegro for harp and chamber ensemble is to me a perfect work -- one of the few I can compare to Mozart without blushing. The second violin sonata is Ravel sings the blues. He's got a right. Like Debussy, he wrote only one piece for a cappella choir, Trois Chansons. Like Debussy's, they rank among the best ever and leave you hungry for more. The songs are terra incognita and he wrote at least one masterpiece: the song cycle Don Quichotte à Dulcinée. I love the opera L'enfant et les sortilèges to a libretto by Colette, although I'll be dead before I hear a good recording. It strikes the deepest chords within me.

Rawsthorne
An ex-dentist. Also, a fine symphonist. His music fits in the Walton wing of British music, but he's very much his own man. Besides, who could imitate Walton successfully? Rawsthorne's another who didn't know how to write mediocre. Snap up anything. I refused to rhapsodize over Lloyd Webber's Cats, since, apart from the dismal quality of the music, I had already heard Rawsthorne's fine settings of the same material.

Reizenstein
A naturalized Brit of the Hindemithian school (very rare). The piano quintet is especially powerful.

Respighi
Aside from the Big Three and the Renaissance arrangements, most of his stuff waits for discovery. I recommend the violin concerto and the piano concerto. Lauda per la Natività is a colorful work for chorus and orchestra, free from cliché.

Revueltas
The Other Mexican composer. Far more adventurous and, in my opinion, more musical than Chávez. Died young. His few pieces are strongly inspired by Stravinsky and mestizo music. Get anything. None of his pieces are long.

Rimsky-Korsakov
Sue me. I like him. He really needs to be rediscovered as an opera composer. I enjoy his operas a lot more than Tchaikovsky's Big Two. The Tsar's Bride is darkly dramatic, and the fairy-tale and folk-operas -- Christmas Eve, May Night, Snow Maiden -- beautifully crafted.

Rodrigo
His reputations rests on 2 works: Concerto Aranjuez and Fantasia para un Gentilhombre, both for guitar and orchestra. His emotional range isn't all that wide, but within it, the music tells. I like best his concerti and his songs: 4 Madrigales Amatorios, Concerto Andaluz for 4 guitars and orchestra, the two cello concerti, the exciting violin concerto, the 2-guitar concerto, the brilliant Concert-Serenade for harp and orchestra, the piano concerto, and the cycle Triptic de Mosen Cinto.

Rorem
He's best known for his songs. Individually, the songs make a good effect but in aggregate tend to smush together. My favorite work, not well known at all, is the choral piece Pilgrim Strangers.

Roy
Klaus George. Record collectors may remember his superb notes to the Szell-Cleveland Orchestra recordings. I've heard only two pieces, both wonderful: a Hindemithian trombone sonata and a profound setting of St. Francis's Canticle of the Sun, for chorus and solo viola.

Rózsa
I realize Ben-Hur is high on a lot of people's list of the Pretentious and Best Forgotten. I have never seen the picture all the way through, so it's relatively easy for me to divorce the music from the screen images. I really like the film music, and it's not all Hollywood Piety. In his own way, he is as innovative as Bernard Herrmann -- the score to Crisis, for solo guitar, the film noir scores, and the music for Resnais's Providence, all good examples. The concert and chamber music, what there is of it, is beautifully written. Heifetz recorded the magnificent violin concerto, but there's also those for piano, cello, and string orchestra. In chamber music, try the lovely string trio and the gorgeous string quartets.

Rubbra
A whole generation of British composers between Vaughan Williams and Britten have been forgotten. Some, like Tippett, managed to work themselves out from under those two shadows. Others still languish. Rubbra is a symphonist, student of Holst, and a master of making a cogent, strong symphonic argument. I doubt he'll ever be popular because he simply hasn't the capacity for the Big Tune. Nevertheless, it's a worthwhile acquaintance. Sometimes you want to hear the tongues of angels. Sometimes you just want an intelligent conversation.

Ruggles
His music had a boomlet in the '60s, what there is of it. Now he's gone back to being Ives's friend. A real shame, because he's not simply another Ives -- though, come to think of it, there's nothing simple about that. The adjective everyone uses is "rugged." Like Ives, the music is freely dissonant. Unlike Ives, Ruggles has a surer grasp of form. There's an inevitability to the course of his music. Try Sun Treader or Men and Mountains.


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