Most underrated composer of 20th Century?

Frogman,

Excellent comments. some of the most influential composers were certainly not the most popular (e.g.,Berg, Webern), particularly measured by current fashion.

I like the composers you mentioned, particularly Frank Martin (mainly for choral works) and Thomas Ades. I am a big fan of John Adams too (his violin concerto is one of the finest written).

There are so many that are worthy of being heard. My personal list of favorites include:

Tippett, Alwyn, Walton, Turnage, MacMillan, Lindberg, Tuur, Jongen, Olsson, Boulez, Dutilleau, Milhaud, Durufle, Varese, Boulez, Gubaildulina, Myaskovsky, Tubin, Penderecki, Zemlinksy, Enescu, Dohnanyi, Penderecki, Ligeti, Nono, Bloch, Ruggles, Babbitt, Ives, Beach, Crawford Seeger.

Some that either did very few works or specialize in just certain forms that I like are Whitacre (vocal works) and Partch (Delusions of the Furies being a personal favorite).

Just a week ago I heard symphonies by Eichberg and I liked them. I had not heard of this composer born in the 1970s. There is a lot of interesting music coming from a wide variety of sources. I even like some of what Golijov is doing, although it sounds like almost crossover to pop music.

Has anyone here listened to the early 1920s opera "Antikrist" by Langgaard? I find that music very interesting--a bit like listening to Hindemith's operas, with a touch of Schoenberg and Wagner. This is another work I happen to stumble upon and liked it a lot.

I am wondering about the interest level of listeners in this thread in composers that are "way out" at the bleeding edge of modernism. For example, do people really love the music of Luigi Nono, or just find it interesting or hate it? I find him interesting, but, I don't really love the music.

What do you folks think of Giacinto Scelsi? I have been listening to some of his works recently and I am sort of coming around on him. Many years ago I purchased an LP of vocal music that employed microtonal singing. Back then, I thought it sounded aweful (I imagined that this is what Yoko Ono sounds like in labor). But now, I find it much more palatable.

I am curious about where other listeners place the boundary of too-far-out-to-listen-to.

Just because a particular composer doesn't "speak to me" does not mean he "doesn't have much to say." It would be unfair for me to presume that I understand all that a composer is trying to express and what I got out of that particular composer amounts to "not much."