We report sensitive Australia Telescope Compact Array radio continuum observations toward IRAS 15596#5301 and 16272#4837, two luminous objects (L > 2 ) thought to represent massive starforming regions in early stages of evolution (due to previously undetected radio emission at the 1 # level of 2 mJy beam #1 ). Also reported are 1.2 mm continuum and a series of molecular line observations made with the Swedish ESO Submillimeter Telescope. The radio continuum observations toward IRAS 15596#5301 reveal the presence of three distinct compact sources, with angular sizes of 2>7--8>8 (FWHM), all located within a region of 30 00 in diameter. Assuming that these are regions of ionized gas, we find that they have diameters of 0.06--0.2 pc and electron densities of 8 cm #3 and that they are excited by early B-type stars. The 1.2 mm observations show that the dust emission arises from a region of 42 00 25 00 (FWHM) with a total flux of 5.8 Jy, implying a mass of 1:4 . The line observations indicate that IRAS 15596#5301 is associated with a molecular cloud with a FWHM angular size of 37 00 (#0.4 pc radius at the distance of 4.6 kpc), a molecular hydrogen density of #4 # K. We suggest that the massive dense core associated with IRAS 15596#5301 contains a cluster of B stars that are exciting compact H ii regions that are in pressure equilibrium with the dense molecular surroundings.