Composers you don't get

[Fagotterdämmerung]

Fagotterdämmerung, meet Mr Gurrelieder. Mr Gurrelieder, Fagotterdämmerung.

Gurrelieder is kind of a guilty pleasure, like Strauss's Symphonia Domestica. It's not really Schoenberg at his best, but it's popcorn music. Thankfully, Schoenberg went on a twelve-tone step diet program and lost a lot of orchestral weight. ( Generally, I prefer more restrained works, like Opus Calvicembalisticum and the Gothic symphony...  0:) )

Actually, where Max Reger annoys me is in his contrapuntal work; it's always so stodgy to my ears. Bach always sounds good, but listen to something like Variations and Fugue in A Major and then listen to, well, any Bach fugue and one really hears the difference clarity makes in this type of composition.

[Ken B]

Gurrelieder is kind of a guilty pleasure, like Strauss's Symphonia Domestica. It's not really Schoenberg at his best, but it's popcorn music. Thankfully, Schoenberg went on a twelve-tone step diet program and lost a lot of orchestral weight. ( Generally, I prefer more restrained works, like Opus Calvicembalisticum and the Gothic symphony...  0:) )

Actually, where Max Reger annoys me is in his contrapuntal work; it's always so stodgy to my ears. Bach always sounds good, but listen to something like Variations and Fugue in A Major and then listen to, well, any Bach fugue and one really hears the difference clarity makes in this type of composition.

The "book" on Reger is that he "over-eggs the pudding". This is often true, but there are enough exceptions to make him worthwhile. The Mozart variations for orchestra for example, or the Boecklin pieces, quartets and clarinet quintet, even some of the piano music.

[Jo498]

IIRC Brahms was on friendly terms both with the Bach editor Philip Spitta and with Friedrich Chrysander who almost single-handedly handled the first major Handel edition. He might actually have made some contributions to both of those editions, e.g. providing written out figured bass.

[Mirror Image]

I'd still put Messiaen in the 'composers I don't get' category. I have found that his music works best in small dosages but even then I'm left twiddling my thumbs a bit waiting for something to stick out and grab me, but, so far, only L'Ascension has really grabbed ahold of me.

[Philo]

I'd still put Messiaen in the 'composers I don't get' category. I have found that his music works best in small dosages but even then I'm left twiddling my thumbs a bit waiting for something to stick out and grab me, but, so far, only L'Ascension has really grabbed ahold of me.

This is probably my favorite Messiaen (after his Apparition):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qWhpSCHCxg

[EigenUser]

I'd still put Messiaen in the 'composers I don't get' category. I have found that his music works best in small dosages but even then I'm left twiddling my thumbs a bit waiting for something to stick out and grab me, but, so far, only L'Ascension has really grabbed ahold of me.

Pssst... Trois Petites Liturgies. Especially for a Debussy fan. While many parts have the "Messiaen" sound, many other parts also are very close to the Sirenes and Nuages.

[Johnll]

I'd still put Messiaen in the 'composers I don't get' category. I have found that his music works best in small dosages but even then I'm left twiddling my thumbs a bit waiting for something to stick out and grab me, but, so far, only L'Ascension has really grabbed ahold of me.

I believe it is perfectly OK not to like any composer (Messiaen) or performer. I detest Delius. There are a few exceptions that it may be difficult for the majority to understand and Bach leads that pack IMHO.  But even there the majority does over shadow a considered personal reaction.

[RJR]

Maybe, or maybe not.  It is not uncommon, when we think of the composers who died terribly early, to project future careers of unceasing experiment and progress.  It is an attractive arc of speculation!  But (just for argument) it is possible, too, that they would reach a point beyond which they do not feel motivated to press with further experimentation.

And in that line of speculation, there are at least two possibilities, too:

1.  At that point, the composer "realizes his gains," expanding his artistry laterally rather than vertically (not that it does either composer full justice, but think Bach and Brahms)

2.  At that point, the composer feels no further motivation to create (think Rossini and Sibelius)

We just do not know.

Personally, I do not feel these pangs of "oh, the music which we might have had from Mozart and Schubert!"  There is a wealth of great music to listen to, without the need to bemoan the imaginary masterpieces which might have been.

I disagree. I think that Schubert would have left Wagner, Brahms, Bruckner and Mahler in the dust for memorable, unforgettable spiritual music if he had lived longer. No doubt about it. Schubert was, above all, a poet. Listen to the Ninth with a different perspective. It's about youthful aspirations striving for spiritual nirvana. Especially the final movement. The soul, finally liberated from its earthly bondage, taking flight.

[Fagotterdämmerung]

  I definitely think Mozart would have continued writing good music. Innovative music? Maybe yes, maybe no, but would anyone be that sorry to have it around?

  Though it's outside the scope of this thread, I think we accept mortality because we have to. The majority of composers, from what I can tell, would have kept on composing if given the chance of added life, health, and youth.

[Ken B]

  I definitely think Mozart would have continued writing good music. Innovative music? Maybe yes, maybe no, but would anyone be that sorry to have it around?

  Though it's outside the scope of this thread, I think we accept mortality because we have to. The majority of composers, from what I can tell, would have kept on composing if given the chance of added life, health, and youth.

Especially the amiable ones, like Haydn.

*runs for cover*

[amw]

I disagree. I think that Schubert would have left Wagner, Brahms, Bruckner and Mahler in the dust for memorable, unforgettable spiritual music if he had lived longer.

  I definitely think Mozart would have continued writing good music. Innovative music? Maybe yes, maybe no, but would anyone be that sorry to have it around?

That reminds me—because I think we had this thread before (switching around composers' lifespans). Some alternate history projections I find especially appealing:

Mozart 1756-1813
Beethoven 1770-1805

22 more years of productivity for Mozart are obviously tantalising in themselves. Then consider: Beethoven studies with Mozart, then sets out on his own path, only to be cut down in his prime shortly after the premiere of the Eroica. Two more symphonies and a piano concerto remain unfinished in manuscript, but the works that survived would certainly be enough to ensure Beethoven's name lives on. How would Mozart's music develop after coming in contact with Beethoven—would he be influenced by works such as the Eroica, Waldstein & Appassionata? Would we see Mozart completing Beethoven's unfinished Fourth and Fifth?

Schubert 1797-1873
Rossini 1792-1823

Rossini's place in history would not be very different; by 1823 he was already the most famous composer in Europe. In fact he might even get more respect than he currently does, due to the mystique that tends to be attached to composers who die young. Schubert, meanwhile, might find himself hopelessly outdated and unfashionable by the 1840s and 50s, surrounded by the likes of Berlioz, Schumann, Liszt and Wagner. Or perhaps he'd enthusiastically embrace the New German School and the symphonic poem and music-drama, and so forth... there's no way of knowing obviously. It does seem likely though that whatever he did, it'd be more interesting than staying home for ten years and then becoming a gourmand famous for his gluttony.

The one that got the most play on the thread was Mahler/Strauss, though I don't recall the dates. Anyone know what I'm talking about?

[Karl Henning]

I disagree. I think that Schubert would have left Wagner, Brahms, Bruckner and Mahler in the dust for memorable, unforgettable spiritual music if he had lived longer. No doubt about it.

You are fully entitled to disagree in our speculation.  And because it is speculation, yes, the matter is full of doubt.  Is in fact little more than doubt.

[Jo498]

But what if we combine long-lived Schubert with Beethoven dying 1805? Would Schubert somehow have "replaced" middle/late Beethoven? What about long-lived Mozart + short-lived Beethoven + long-lived Schubert?
Would long-lived super-geniuses Mozart and Schubert have stomped everything in a more thorough fashion than Beethoven did? What should one compose after Mozart's Faust Opera, the late violin concerti or the dozen of full scale Masses for St. Stephan or after Schubert's 20th symphony or 15th string quintet?

Or would they have "pulled a Rossini"? I do not think the latter, but I could imagine it more easily with Mozart or Schubert than with Beethoven. When Mozart was on, he was on, but he was also somewhat of a bonvivant. And Schubert might have been composing like a maniac, not only with regard to speed, but also to intensity, because he knew he would not live to get old.