Here's an unavoidably selective list of composers and / or compositions currently under-represented at the BSO. A few of them have been performed in seasons gone by, but are overdue for a return (particularly if it means our first exposure to Yuri Temirkanov's views on the score). Most of these suggestions, though, would constitute fresh experiences for audiences.
I won't pretend that it would be easy finding conductors (and, in certain cases, soloists) who know some of this music, or would be willing to learn it. That doesn't make it less desirable. And I've included important choral works; the BSO may have gotten rid of its chorus, but not its responsibility to perform the choral / orchestral repertoire.
Obviously, I'm not expecting all of this music to turn up at BSO concerts anytime soon. But even a small sampling from this list could yield engaging, perhaps provocative programming, whether presented in one big gulp of novelty or imaginatively combined with more traditional repertoire.
The ultimate goal is not spice for its own sake, but a deeper, more invigorating drink from the bottomless musical well.
American Music
John Adams -- Harmonie- lehre, Violin Concerto, Shaker Loops, El Nino, Naive and Sentimental Music.
Samuel Barber -- Piano Concerto, symphonies.
Amy Beach -- Gaelic Symphony, Piano Concerto.
Leonard Bernstein -- Suite from On the Waterfront, Diverti-mento, Serenade, Meditations from Mass.
Ernest Bloch -- Symphony in E-flat, Evocations, Poems of the Sea, Three Jewish Poems.
John Alden Carpenter -- Adventures in a Perambulator, Suite from Skyscrapers.
Elliott Carter -- Concerto for Orchestra, A Celebration of Some 100 x 150 Notes, other orchestral pieces and concertos.
George Whitefield Chadwick -- Symphony No. 2 and 3, Symphonic Sketches.
Aaron Copland -- symphonies, Dance Symphony, Statements, Connotations, Inscape.
John Corigliano -- Symphony No. 1, Red Violin Concerto, Clarinet Concerto, Oboe Concerto, Phantasmagoria.
David Diamond -- symphonies, Rounds for Strings.
Philip Glass -- Violin Concerto.
Howard Hanson -- symphonies (No. 2, the Romantic, should be a natural for Temirkanov).
Roy Harris -- symphonies (especially Nos. 3 and 7).
John Harbison -- symphonies, concertos, Partita.
Lou Harrison -- symphonies, suites, other orchestral pieces.
Charles Ives -- Symphony Nos. 2, 3 and 4; Central Park in the Dark, Three Places in New England, Holidays Symphony.
Aaron Jay Kernis -- symphonies, Lament and Prayer; Colored Field, Air, Musica Celestis.
Libby Larsen --Water Music, other orchestral pieces.
Edward MacDowell -- piano concertos, orchestral suites.
Colin McPhee -- Tabuh-Tabuhan.
John Knowles Paine -- Symphony No. 1, Mass in D.
Walter Piston -- symphonies.
Ned Rorem -- Symphony No. 3, String Symphony, Eagles, Sunday Morning, Air Music, other orchestral pieces.
Steve Reich -- The Desert Music.
Carl Ruggles -- Men and Mountains, Sun-Treader, Orga-num.
William Grant Still -- symphonies, Threnody in Memory of Jean Sibelius.
Randall Thompson -- symphonies.
Virgil Thomson -- symphonies, other orchestral works.
Joan Tower -- Sequoia, Silver Ladders, Concerto for Orches-tra.
Ellen Taaffe Zwilich -- Concerto Grosso, Flute Con- certo, Bassoon Concerto, Violin Concerto, Symphony No. 3.
Latin-American Music
Alberto Ginastera -- Pampeana No. 3, Dances from Estancia, concertos.
Osvaldo Golijov -- Last Round, St. Mark Passion.
Carlos Chavez -- Sinfonia India, Sinfonia romantica, other orchestral pieces.
Silvestre Revueltas -- La Noche los Mayas, Sensamaya.
Villa-Lobos -- Bachianas Brasileiras Nos. 2, 7 and 8; Symphony Nos. 6 and 11; Choros No. 10.
British Music
Thomas Ades -- Asyla, These Premises are Alarmed, . . . but all shall be well.
Harrison Birtwistle -- Exody, Panic, The Shadow of Night.
Benjamin Britten -- War Requiem, Sinfonia da Requiem, Four Sea Interludes, Suite on English Folk Tunes, Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra, Spring Symphony, Les Illumi-nations, Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings.
Frederick Delius -- Brigg Fair, Song Before Sunrise, Appalachia, In a Summer Garden, The Mass of Life.
Edward Elgar -- symphonies, even Anthony Payne's controversial completion of the unfinished No. 3; Enigma Variations; other orchestral pieces.
Gerald Finzi -- Eclogue, Cello Concerto, Clarinet Concerto.
Oliver Knussen -- Symphony No. 3, Flourish with Fireworks, Violin Concerto.
Nicholas Maw -- Violin Concerto, Dance Scenes, Summer Dances, Voices of Memory, The World in the Evening.
Hubert Parry -- symphonies.
Edmund Rubbra -- symphonies.
Charles Villiers Stanford -- Irish Symphony.
Arthur Sullivan -- Irish Symphony.
William Walton -- symphonies, Improvisations on a Theme of Benjamin Britten, Capriccio Burlesco.
Vaughan Williams -- symphonies (especially Nos. 2, 3, and 5), Serenade to Music, Dona nobis pacem.
European Music
Bela Bartok -- Divertimento, Music for Strings, Percussion and Celeste, concertos.
Alban Berg -- Violin Concerto; Orchestral Pieces, Op. 6; Lyric Suite; Lulu Suite.
Luciano Berio -- Sinfonia, Continuo.
Hector Berlioz -- Requiem, Te Deum, Harold in Italy, Romeo et Juliette, overtures.
Anton Bruckner -- Symphony Nos. 4, 5, 6 and 7; Te Deum.
Debussy -- Jeux, Nocturnes, The Martyrdom of St. Sebastian.
Henri Dutilleux -- Symphony No. 2; Timbres, Espace, Move-ment; Cello Concerto; Shadows of Time.
Dvorak -- Te Deum, Czech Suite, American Suite, Sym-phonic Variations; overtures, symphonic poems, early symphonies.
Paul Hindemith -- Mathis der Maler, Nobilissima Visione, Rag Time, Symphonia Serena, Symphonic Metamorphoses, Symphony in E-flat.
Arthur Honegger -- symphonies.
Leos Janacek -- Sinfonietta, Taras Bulba, Glagolitic Mass, Suite from The Cunning Little Vixen.
Erich Wolfgang Korngold -- Symphony in F-sharp, Sin-fonietta, Sursum Corda, Violin Concerto.
Gyorgy Ligeti -- Atmos-pheres, Lontano, concertos.
Liszt -- Dante Symphony, Faust Symphony, Tasso, Orpheus, Prometheus, Mazeppa.
Witold Lutoslawski -- Concerto for Orchestra, Musique Funebre, Venetian Games, Symphony Nos. 2, 3 and 4; Les Espaces du sommeil.
Mahler -- Das Lied von der Erde; Das Klagende Lied; Ruckert Lieder, Kindertoten-lieder. Symphony Nos. 4, 6, 8, 9 and one of the completed versions of 10.
Bohuslav Martinu -- Symphony Nos. 1, 4, 5 and 6; Memorial to Lidice; Double Concerto for Two String Orchestras, Piano and Timpani; other concertos.
Olivier Messiaen -- Turangalila, L'Ascension, Les Offrandes oubliees, other orchestral pieces.
Darius Milhaud -- Cello Concerto, symphonies, piano concertos.
Carl Nielsen -- five symphonies, Helios, Saga-Dream, Pan and Syrinx, Fantasy Journey, Clarinet Concerto, Flute Concerto.
Krzysztof Penderecki -- Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima, Violin Concerto, cello concertos, symphonies.
Francois Poulenc -- Les Biches, Les Animaux modeles, Sinfonietta, Concert Champetre, Piano Concerto, Concerto for Two Pianos.
Albert Roussel -- Bacchus et Ariane, Symphony Nos. 3 and 4.
Kaija Saariaho -- Verblendungen, Du cristal, A la fumee, Nymphea Reflection.
Arnold Schoenberg -- Five Orchestral Pieces, Variations for Orchestra.
Jean Sibelius -- Symphony Nos. 4, 5 and 7; The Bard, The Dryad, En Saga, Luonnotar, Night Ride and Sunrise, The Oceanides, Pelleas and Meli-sande, Rakastava, Tapiola, The Tempest.
Karol Szymanowski -- Symphony Nos. 3 and 4, Stabat Mater.
Toru Takemitsu -- From me flows what you call Time, Riverrun.
Wagner -- Wesendonck Lieder and an act from one of his operas (in concert form), especially Act 2 of Tristan und Isolde or Act 1 of Die Walkure.
Anton Webern -- Orchestral Pieces, Op. 6 and Op. 10; Symphony, Op. 21; Variations, Op. 30.
Russian / Eastern European Music
Alexander Borodin -- In the Steppes of Central Asia, symphonies.
Sofia Gubaidulina -- Offer-torium, The Seven Last Words.
Giya Kancheli -- symphonies, Abii ne viderem, Simi, Ergo (Temirkanov and the St. Petersburg Philharmonic gave an enticing portion of this score in Baltimore last season).
Arvo Part -- symphonies, Tabula Rasa.
Sergei Prokofiev -- symphonies (except the well-known Nos. 1 and 5); Cinderella, Scythian Suite, Sinfonietta, Sinfonia concertante.
Rachmaninoff' -- Isle of the Dead, The Bells, The Rock.
Rimsky-Korsakov -- Antar Symphony.
Anton Rubinstein -- Sym-phony Nos. 2 (Ocean), 5 and 6; Ivan the Terrible, Don Quixote, piano concertos.
Alfred Schnittke -- Symphony Nos. 3 and 8.
Igor Stravinsky -- Violin Concerto, Symphony in C, Symphony in Three Move-ments, Orpheus, Agon, Symphony of Psalms, Oedipus Rex, Apollo.
Tchaikovsky -- the first three symphonies, Manfred, orchestral suites, complete ballet scores, The Tempest, Hamlet, Marche Slave, Voyevoda.
Fresh Batons
Here are several noteworthy names I'd like to see as BSO guest conductors in the near future:
Herbert Blomstedt, Pierre Boulez, James Conlon, Sir Colin Davis, Christoph von Dohnanyi, Charles Dutoit, Christoph Eschenbach, Rafael Fruhbeck de Burgos, John Eliot Gardiner, Danielle Gatti, Bernard Haitink, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Neeme Jarvi, Paavo Jarvi, James Judd, Kurt Masur, Kent Nagano, John Nelson, Antonio Pappano, Andre Previn, David Robertson, Mstislav Rostropovich, Donald Runnicles, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Stanislaw Skrowaczewski, Michael Tilson Thomas, Osmo Vanska, Franz Welser-Most.
And one more -- Leonard Slatkin. The fact that he conducts Washington's National Symphony Orchestra should not preclude his taking the BSO podium again. Perhaps it could be part of a cultural exchange, with Temirkanov guesting in D.C.