If you had the power to raise the dead...

[ZauberdrachenNr.7]

With JS Bach I might be a heretic but I do not really miss anything. A third volume of the WTK? Would that really add anything to what we already have? There are probably 100 or so cantatas and  a bunch of concerti and chamber music lost (but it is very hard to tell because of recycling and re-using music how much we actually miss). Again, that's clearly a pity, but would it change our appreciation very much to have another 100 church cantatas?

Agreed; there is a sense of completeness with JS (despite the lost works) in a hefty and varied oeuvre.  Also, his laurels add to the sense of accomplishment and not of loss.  As he himself might have said did say: "Es ist genug..."

[Rinaldo]

Kaprálová.

As an eighteen-year-old, she managed this:

https://www.youtube.com/v/EbvM-D8TJBw

Died when she was 25.

[Mirror Image]

If I had the power to raise the dead, I would raise up Sibelius only to ask him one question: "What was the real meaning behind your 4th symphony?" I will not except a vague answer either as I want the truth!

[Mirror Image]

Lili Boulanger and Nielsen certainly qualify here as I believe both composers would have continued to do great things in music.

[Jo498]

I strongly miss the completion of the Fugue á 4, by some supposed to be part of the AoF.

I could agree with that but still my "Raise dead" spell would benefit many other composers far more, so I do not think JSB is an *obvious* candidate

[ZauberdrachenNr.7]

W/Schubert I'd like him to live to be about ~60 or 70 even though this will completely screw up music history by producing a greater concentration and quality of masterpieces than the entire Romantic era.... And if we can play with alternate histories, I'd pull 30-year-old Shostakovich out of Russia and set him free to do what he likes.

Schubert is drawing most of the attn. in this thread - is it because of the composer's extraordinary talents or the poignancy of his early end? Both? (his death is arguably even more compelling than Mozart's)

As for Shosty, your already considerable powers do not include geopolitical ones - you're going to have to team-up with another Musical Avenger for such feats of strength. 

[ZauberdrachenNr.7]

If I had the power to raise the dead, I would raise up Sibelius only to ask him one question: "What was the real meaning behind your 4th symphony?" I will not except a vague answer either as I want the truth!

Ha-ha!    We can combine our super-powers to so compel him, maybe even loosen him up with a drink or two.  WE'll get to the bottom of it alright!

[Mirror Image]

Ha-ha!    We can combine our super-powers to so compel him, maybe even loosen him up with a drink or two.  WE'll get to the bottom of it alright!

[mc ukrneal]

I'd rather go for composers who died young and either still had more room to grow or never really got to a level of maturity they could have attained. In this group for me would be Burgmuller, Arriaga, Bellini, Pergolesi, and Butterworth (as examples).

[North Star]

This is all I thought, too.

Ten more years for Schubert.

My first thought was thirty more years of Schubert, but ten years would be fine as well.

[Jo498]

Schubert is drawing most of the attn. in this thread - is it because of the composer's extraordinary talents or the poignancy of his early end? Both?

I'd say both. I think he composed more than enough Lieder for most mortals to even listen to in a longer lifespan. But in instrumental music he composed about a dozen absolute masterpieces (roughly two trios, three string quartets, string quintet, violin fantasy, C major symphony and a bunch of piano sonatas) in the last 2-3 years of his life. Masterpieces on a level many find only reached by very few other composers, so that even one more would be great, not to think of another dozen or two. What's more, many of these late pieces, great as they might be, still show IMO some strong debts to Beethoven (e.g. the d minor quartet) and a "fully emancipated" Schubert might have accomplished even greater things than he already did.

With Mozart, despite his short life, I feel almost like with Bach. There is so much in so many genres that I hardly miss anything although Mozart living another 20-30 years might have changed music history in a similar way a Schubert living until 1860 would have. (And again, I could also imagine a lazy, burned out Mozart "going Rossini" in 1805. And I give him credit going almost until 50, Rossini basically retired before he had turned 40!)
My exception with Mozart is choral music where he wrote to unfinished pieces which are great despite that fact and where I am sure he would have done great things had he become Domkapellmeister (or whatever the title for the St Stephan position). Basically fusing Bach/Handel with his particular melodic gift and proto-romantic sounds (as in the beginning of the Requiem).

[ZauberdrachenNr.7]

I'd rather go for composers who died young and either still had more room to grow or never really got to a level of maturity they could have attained. In this group for me would be Burgmuller, Arriaga, Bellini, Pergolesi, and Butterworth (as examples).

YES!, Pergolesi, indeed!  Peter Warlock, anyone?  (btw, Voices from a Locked Room, a biopic about him, is - while not a great film - well worth the viewing).

[xochitl]

tchaikovsky living into the soviet era

ten more years of mozart (tho i have the feeling it might interfere with beethoven and music history as a whole)

beethoven's 10th and at least one more insane fugue for any instrument(s)

[ZauberdrachenNr.7]

I'd say both. I think he composed more than enough Lieder for most mortals to even listen to in a longer lifespan. But in instrumental music he composed about a dozen absolute masterpieces (roughly two trios, three string quartets, string quintet, violin fantasy, C major symphony and a bunch of piano sonatas) in the last 2-3 years of his life. Masterpieces on a level many find only reached by very few other composers, so that even one more would be great, not to think of another dozen or two. What's more, many of these late pieces, great as they might be, still show IMO some strong debts to Beethoven (e.g. the d minor quartet) and a "fully emancipated" Schubert might have accomplished even greater things than he already did.

With Mozart, despite his short life, I feel almost like with Bach. There is so much in so many genres that I hardly miss anything although Mozart living another 20-30 years might have changed music history in a similar way a Schubert living until 1860 would have. (And again, I could also imagine a lazy, burned out Mozart "going Rossini" in 1805. And I give him credit going almost until 50, Rossini basically retired before he had turned 40!)
My exception with Mozart is choral music where he wrote to unfinished pieces which are great despite that fact and where I am sure he would have done great things had he become Domkapellmeister (or whatever the title for the St Stephan position). Basically fusing Bach/Handel with his particular melodic gift and proto-romantic sounds (as in the beginning of the Requiem).

Well-reasoned perspectives, I think..."lazy, burned-out Mozart going Rossini" made me laugh aloud.  Quite conceivable.  Harder to imagine that happening with Schubert.

[Brian]

With Mozart, despite his short life, I feel almost like with Bach. There is so much in so many genres that I hardly miss anything although Mozart living another 20-30 years might have changed music history in a similar way a Schubert living until 1860 would have. (And again, I could also imagine a lazy, burned out Mozart "going Rossini" in 1805. And I give him credit going almost until 50, Rossini basically retired before he had turned 40!)

My main curiosity with Mozart is: would a rivalry with Beethoven have forced him to a new level? How would a living Mozart change Beethoven? How would the years 1800-1816 be spent if Mozart and Beethoven were trading symphonies and dedicating quartets to each other? Would we ultimately gain or lose by that? (I see xochitl is afraid we'd lose.)

For that matter, in this scenario, I would very much like Haydn to not end his life with a prolonged illness: instead, he can compose everything he likes from 1803-1809.

[San Antone]

More Gershwin.  Porgy & Bess provides a tantalizing taste of what might have been.

[ZauberdrachenNr.7]

My main curiosity with Mozart is: would a rivalry with Beethoven have forced him to a new level? How would a living Mozart change Beethoven? How would the years 1800-1816 be spent if Mozart and Beethoven were trading symphonies and dedicating quartets to each other? Would we ultimately gain or lose by that? (I see xochitl is afraid we'd lose.)

For that matter, in this scenario, I would very much like Haydn to not end his life with a prolonged illness: instead, he can compose everything he likes from 1803-1809.

Interesting...though Mozart was already well on the way toward, as you say, "a new level," as evidenced by the late symphonies.  Competition surely would have spurred both toward greater innovation - may have even sped up the clock of musical development.  What a great topic for an alternative history.

[springrite]

Feldman: String Quartet #3 (12 hours minimum)

Mahler: An opera

Carter: He can compose anything or nothing. I just like to have one of  the greatest composers of all time being alive through my lifetime.

[xochitl]

i dont necessarily think we'd 'lose' beethoven...presumably he wouldve still gone deaf or then there'd be no need for liszt if he'd gone full virtuoso with a long career and possibly less concentrated and 'heroic' works (ha! there's a thought). but i do think having mozart around composing god-knows-what masterpieces in the vicinity woulda pushed beethoven in different directions

[Jo498]

I do not really miss any more late Haydn (except that unfinished quartet should have been finished) but him being too weak to compose in his last years must have been a depressing experience. I seem to recall that there had been plans for a third great oratorio (Last Judgement or something like that, not sure if Haydn would not have been too cheerful for that topic!)

A longer-lived Mozart would have been interesting not only for Beethoven but maybe also for Haydn who after all composed for about 12 years after Mozart's death. With Beethoven, I am uncertain. He clearly took Mozart as his "model" from his late teens onward but the eminent body of great works by that master (and also Haydn's) apparently did not impede his ambition and originality.
Might a living Mozart have been too strong an influence or too great to follow? A headstrong young person as Beethoven apparently was might have gone in a different direction, e.g. Mozart might have focussed on opera and choral music and Beethoven on virtuoso piano music (as he did to some extent in the 1790s anyway). As a piano performer Mozart very probably would have been surpassed by youngsters like Hummel and Beethoven. Mozart's nasty remarks about Clementi (=tasteless virtuoso) might show that he felt that he had not kept up with the newest virtuoso style even then. There are also critical remarks by Beethoven about Mozart's piano playing (not sure if authentic), supposedly not cantabile enough. Of course, Mozart as a composer was extremely flexible and could have adapted any new stylistic development but at this stage he might not have wanted to.