Which lost work would you most like discovered?

[Superhorn]

   There are reports of four early symphonies by Mahler which were in manuscxript  and in  the Dresden library , which was unfortunately destroyed in the horrific and  tragic boming of that  great city in 1945 .  If those could somehow be recovered  . . . .

[mahler10th]

Complete and performable sketches from Hans Rott Symphony 2.

[Dax]

Ives - Tone roads no 2

[AdamFromWashington]

All of Geirr Tveitt's works, that sadly caught fire and burned away forever. 
We need a time machine for these situations!

[DaveF]

Everything that was slung out or lost due to changing fashions and religions in the 16th century, especially all those which are cruelly listed in the index of the Eton Choirbook but not present in the surviving half of the book - all those Magnificats by John Browne, a unique 5-part work by Dunstable...  And all Varèse's early stuff, lost, like Tveitt's I believe, in a fire.

DF

[Superhorn]

   From what I've heard, the early musi c of Varese was not lost in a fire, but destroyed by the composer because he
was not happy with it. It still would be interesting to hear, though.

[DaveF]

My ageing memory is certainly not the most reliable instrument, but Grove says:

"Varèse returned to Paris in 1913, leaving most of his manuscripts in Berlin, where they were destroyed in a warehouse fire."

[kyjo]

Sibelius 8
VW Norfolk Rhapsody no. 3
All of Tveitt's lost works
Villa-Lobos Symphony no. 5

[relm1]

A lot of the usual suspects for me:
* Brian: Prometheus Unbound and By the Waters of Babylon, vision of cleopatra.
* Shostakovich: symphony no. 16 (I have a feeling these will turn up eventually)
* Mahler: four lost Dresden Symphonies (I'm very intrigued just having learned of this!)
* Sibelius: symphony no. 8
* tishchenko: Symphony No. 9 (technically, this isn't lost.  The composer died before completing it so this is rather a wish he had lived just a few more months to complete)

[Fafner]

Der Fluch Des Engelhart - the lost Wagner opera about werewolves. 

[toledobass]

In an index of Haydn's works, there is a 2 measure theme of a bass concerto he penned.  It's the only thing surviving of it. 

[Karl Henning]

And man, but he could write!

[ibanezmonster]

* Mahler: four lost Dresden Symphonies (I'm very intrigued just having learned of this!)

Do you have a source for this?

[Brian]

Do you have a source for this?

I just found it on the Wiki list of Mahler works. Click "Dresden archive". Willem Mengelberg played through the piano scores of all four symphonies with friends, or so he claimed, but so far as we know the symphonies were destroyed in the firebombing. They were all early, youthful works.

[Cato]

* Sibelius: symphony no. 8

The composer's daughter has been quoted as saying that her father burned everything, after years of struggling with it.

One biographer theorized that alcoholism and old age had ruined the composer's abilities to concentrate properly on such a work.

[Sergeant Rock]

Do you have a source for this?

To expand on Brian's comment: according to La Grange, when Mahler was a student at the conservatory he composed a symphony for a competition. There was a second symphony in A minor. Another symphony he worked on prior to his official First was called the Nordische Symphonie. In the library of Mahler's close friend and former mistress, the Baroness von Weber, Marion Mathilde, there were manuscripts of four early symphonies. There is anecdotal evidence that Mengelberg saw them and even played them on the piano some twenty years after Mahler's death. They were probably destroyed during the bombing of Dresden in 1945. Fire consumed most of the library.

Sarge

[Karl Henning]

One biographer theorized that alcoholism and old age had ruined the composer's abilities to concentrate properly on such a work.

If true, then probably we are all glad that the work was destroyed, sorry to say.  All our wishes are predicated on the idea of the composer being at the top of his game.

[Brahmsian]

Shostakovich string quartets No. 16-24    I'm kidding in a way because I know they do not exist, but I think he had planned on writing a string quartet in every key, if I'm not mistaken?

[Karl Henning]

Aye, that was his idea, Ray. Bonjour!

[North Star]

From what I've read, it might be more likely that Sibelius quitting drinking had more to do with it. He drank to stop his hands from shaking, since he had what was probably essential tremor. Aino liked him more when he was sober, but he couldn't write (and stopped conducting earlier) with the tremor unmedicated.