"Fat-free" œuvres

[Lethevich]

How about dedicating a thread to those strange composers who tried to write as little as possible, condensing their output into a very small amount of pieces with no filler. Any suggestions?

Good examples are Dukas, Dutilleux, Webern and Varèse. Ravel might fit in here, but I'm not sure how many songs he wrote.

I did not nominate Bach or Brahms because despite the overall great consistency of their music, they just wrote too damn much to be invited into this club. Chopin has some filler in his decent-but-not-great songs and chamber music.

[Scarpia]

How about dedicating a thread to those strange composers who tried to write as little as possible, condensing their output into a very small amount of pieces with no filler. Any suggestions?

Good examples are Dukas, Dutilleux, Webern and Varèse. Ravel might fit in here, but I'm not sure how many songs he wrote.

I did not nominate Bach or Brahms because despite the overall great consistency of their music, they just wrote too damn much to be invited into this club. Chopin has some filler in his decent-but-not-great songs and chamber music.

As far as I'm concerned, Webern is all filler.

[UB]

I would add Jean Barraqué to the list - each of his 7 or 8 completed works is a gem with his piano sonata and 'Le Temps Restitué' being my personal favorites.

[Taxes-]

not all that familiar with his music, but I'd guess that Borodin would fit here?

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

not all that familiar with his music, but I'd guess that Borodin would fit here?

Probably. He should have laid off the chemistry and composed more.

I think the champion of non-production has to be Carl Ruggles. His total surviving oeuvre consists of a handful of orchestral pieces, which would fit on a couple of CDs. And he lived to be almost 100, which might make him the lowest-productivity composer anyone has actually heard of.

[offbeat]

It might be my ignorance but although im a great fan of Alban Berg i cant find much of his apart from his two operas Violin concerto and some orchestra bits - any proof that i am wrong in my assumption would be welcome 

[Lethevich]

Can't believe I forgot about Berg. I think he composed less than Ravel, piece-per piece, but of course Wozzeck and Lulu are lengthy works.

[Chaszz]

Wagner would not seem at first to fill this bill, with his sprawling output. But after I became a Wagner fan in 2000 it took me only two years to listen to his whole ouvre. Whereas I am still working my way through Bach and Brahms after many more years of devotion. Wagner's problem was that he wrote too much polemical nonsense -- his antisemitism is only one aspect of his shelf-long output of forgettable books and articles on many subjects -- and not enough music. Part of my problem is that I cannot go into raptures over a new interpretation of an old work, like many Wagnerites. A work exhausted by repeated listening remains pretty much exhausted forever, for me. Would I had been around in 1860 to somehow slap him around --perhaps as a mysterious stranger from the future merging from the closet with a ray gun and a list of demands -- and get his nose back to the musical grindstone where it belonged

[Lethevich]

Hehe, in the context of this thread, Wagner's biggest problem was his mediocre piano music

[Superhorn]

  Dukas was so self-critical that he allowed only a handful of the works he wrote to escape being destroyed, and Borodin was so busy as a
professor of chemistry (he was a distinguished scientist) that he had very little time to compose.
   Wagner wrote works like an early symphony written when he was only 19 (not bad) , the Centennial march written for the centennial of the USA in 1876 (a piece of hackwork), the Homage march, the "Feast of Love" canata, the Siegfried Idyll, the interesting Christopher Columbus overture ,
the Wesendonck lieder, and a number of other non-operatic works, and
was believe it or not considering writing more symphonies before his death in Venice in 1883.
  Mahler wrote nine completed symphonies, the unfinished 10th, the song cycles and individual songs, the early Das Klagende Lied , Das Lied  Von Der Erde, and a handful of juvenile works, some of which have been lost .
There are stories of four early symphonies in manuscript which were in a Dresden library but destroyed during the tragic bombing of that great city.

[Renfield]

As far as I'm concerned, Webern is all filler.

[CD]

I'm not too familiar with his music but I would imagine Lyadov would fit here.

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

Walton might count too. He was such a slow worker that his 1st Symphony had to be premiered without its finale.

[Lethevich]

I'm not too familiar with his music but I would imagine Lyadov would fit here.

He does, although the forms he restricted himself to pretty much precluded him from greatness. It's very good salon, but still that.

I can't believe I forgot Mahler

[listener]

Possible contenders, although maybe just not worth recording their minor works which may be many:
Giordano   -  apart from Andrea Chenier and Fedora not much
Hahn     -   songs, but not a lot
Duparc  -  same as Hahn
Henri Rabaud -   there is not much recorded, could there be a lot more?  (I've got the Divertissement on Russian Themes on LP and the opera Marouf

Bruckner didn't really have a lot of opus-numberable works, and the list gets smaller if you condolidate the various versions of the symphony symphonies.

[jhar26]

I guess we can add Arcangelo Corelli to the list.

[Maciek]

Szabelski? Very small catalog, but impossible to judge because even out of that only a very small part has been recorded (all of it great).

[CD]

He does, although the forms he restricted himself to pretty much precluded him from greatness. It's very good salon, but still that.

I thought he did mostly orchestral works?

[Lethevich]

I thought he did mostly orchestral works?

Indeedie, I used the wrong word - I found the music to be rather disposable, almost intentional trifles. There were a few (relatively) longer tone poems that were quite nice, though (From Apocalypse, Enchanted Lake).

[Drasko]

Bellini wrote only ten operas and nothing else, I believe.