Richard Hellinger

This week, while waiting for my shift to start at work, I waited out in the car and was listening to WXXI's classical music channel on the radio. They always have fine music, and I enjoy listening. Most of the composers I know, Mozart, Beethoven, Haydn, Tchaikovsky, and Wagner among others. Usually if I had not heard of them, they are contemporaries and new on the classical music scene. The other day they played Carl Friederich Abel's Symphony no. 3 in Eb major. It was marvelous, though I had never heard of this composer oddly enough, so I looked him up when I got home. I have listened to most of the works I could find by him and they are great, personally I think they are the quality of most of the composers names above.

I starting thinking, "Why had I never heard of this guy before?" He was obviously a talented composer, and a contemporary of Bach. Is composing and music in general mostly about luck? The only reason Abel is known as well as he is today (which I don't think is that much, but I may just be ignorant) is because that third symphony was accidentally mismarked and originally published as Mozart's.

Is music today the same way? There are plenty of great players out there, do certain ones become famous because of luck, or is there another factor to it?

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Music Giveaway

Mark O'Connor's method books -- released this week -- teach students using many styles of American music. Enter to win a set of the books this week, on Violinist.com. Photo: Deanna Rose