The role of musical assistants for a major composer?

[relm1]

What (if any) significance do you think is warranted to the role of the music assistant of a major composer? 

I just finished reading Roy Douglas's book "Working with Vaughan Williams: The Correspondence of Ralph Vaughan Williams and Roy Douglas" which I thoroughly enjoyed.  For those of you not familiar with their collaborations, Roy was Vaughan Williams's pianist on the last four symphonies and the works after 1944 but this slowly transformed to editor, confidant, transcriber, assistant, and sounding board.  Mr. Douglas who was a composer himself goes into details of his impact on late Vaughan Williams in the book but suffice it to say there was alot of second guessing and seeking input from others in RVW's late years.  I heard Hans Werner Henze also had increasing dependency on other assistants to help fill in the gaps with his late music.  Then their are other substantial composers like Scriabin, Mahler, Shostakovich, Bax, Enescu, and Horner who all had others make "completed" performance versions of their late works without their previous knowledge.   

To me, the original voice of the composer is mostly still heard in these "completions" and I am very grateful we have these works available finding the true indent to transcend the final hands who touched it.  What are your thoughts on this topic?  Maybe in the old days, the copyist was also a confidant/editor who helped the major composers?

[Ken B]

What (if any) significance do you think is warranted to the role of the music assistant of a major composer? 

I just finished reading Roy Douglas's book "Working with Vaughan Williams: The Correspondence of Ralph Vaughan Williams and Roy Douglas" which I thoroughly enjoyed.  For those of you not familiar with their collaborations, Roy was Vaughan Williams's pianist on the last four symphonies and the works after 1944 but this slowly transformed to editor, confidant, transcriber, assistant, and sounding board.  Mr. Douglas who was a composer himself goes into details of his impact on late Vaughan Williams in the book but suffice it to say there was alot of second guessing and seeking input from others in RVW's late years.  I heard Hans Werner Henze also had increasing dependency on other assistants to help fill in the gaps with his late music.  Then their are other substantial composers like Scriabin, Mahler, Shostakovich, Bax, Enescu, and Horner who all had others make "completed" performance versions of their late works without their previous knowledge.   

To me, the original voice of the composer is mostly still heard in these "completions" and I am very grateful we have these works available finding the true indent to transcend the final hands who touched it.  What are your thoughts on this topic?  Maybe in the old days, the copyist was also a confidant/editor who helped the major composers?

I think Kraft had a pernicious influence on Stravinsky. This will doubtless cause a minor flame war.

[listener]

I think Kraft had a pernicious influence on Stravinsky. This will doubtless cause a minor flame war.

I think you meant Robert Craft, not Walter Kraft the organist nor the cheese-maker

[vandermolen]

What (if any) significance do you think is warranted to the role of the music assistant of a major composer? 

I just finished reading Roy Douglas's book "Working with Vaughan Williams: The Correspondence of Ralph Vaughan Williams and Roy Douglas" which I thoroughly enjoyed.  For those of you not familiar with their collaborations, Roy was Vaughan Williams's pianist on the last four symphonies and the works after 1944 but this slowly transformed to editor, confidant, transcriber, assistant, and sounding board.  Mr. Douglas who was a composer himself goes into details of his impact on late Vaughan Williams in the book but suffice it to say there was alot of second guessing and seeking input from others in RVW's late years.  I heard Hans Werner Henze also had increasing dependency on other assistants to help fill in the gaps with his late music.  Then their are other substantial composers like Scriabin, Mahler, Shostakovich, Bax, Enescu, and Horner who all had others make "completed" performance versions of their late works without their previous knowledge.   

To me, the original voice of the composer is mostly still heard in these "completions" and I am very grateful we have these works available finding the true indent to transcend the final hands who touched it.  What are your thoughts on this topic?  Maybe in the old days, the copyist was also a confidant/editor who helped the major composers?

Vaughan Williams used to introduce Roy Douglas by saying 'this is Mr Douglas who writes my music!' In fact the only VW which he wrote was part of 'The First Nowell' left incomplete when the composer died in 1958 as it was for some charitable organisation I think. He made it very clear in the score as to which bits he had composed. Otherwise he was very helpful to VW in later years in deciphering his handwriting, advising him as the composer became increasingly deaf, and in preparing scores. I had tea with Roy Douglas at his house years ago, as he lived locally in Tunbridge Wells, introduced by a mutual friend. He was very charming and signed my copy of his book on working with VW. He died a while back and was over 100 years old.

[some guy]

I think you meant Robert Craft, not Walter Kraft the organist nor the cheese-maker

Nor William Kraft, also a composer, who perhaps has had his own assistants.

Anyway, this whole issue derives from what I think (and I could easily be wrong about this) is a largely US educational practice of insisting on giving credit only for a person's own work,* ignoring both the collaborative realities of the world outside of schools and of the common practice of confusing education with training in US schools.

This educational idea coincides very nicely with a notion from a couple of centuries ago about the lonely artist, one man against the world, often presented as a "romantic" idea. It's not, really. Pernicious, certainly, but romantic? Naw. Sure, there was that whole individuality thing going on, but the reality of artistic endeavors is no different from the reality of any endeavors at any time, anywhere, that nobody ever does anything strictly alone. Humans are social creatures, and one thing that means is that anything any of us do is a result of many other people also doing things. Another thing that that means is that creative artists are always shoving their work under people's noses to get reactions and suggestions. It's just a thing.

The role of a "musical assistant" to a composer (major or not) is the same as the role of any assistant to anyone, anywhere, at any time.

*a very questionable concept

[Florestan]

Then their are other substantial composers like Scriabin, Mahler, Shostakovich, Bax, Enescu, and Horner who all had others make "completed" performance versions of their late works without their previous knowledge.   

In the case of Enescu, he couldn´t possibly have any knowledge about Pascal Bentoiu´s completing some of his unfinished, or just sketchy, works because he was long dead before. The two never met, actually, so the latter can hardly, if at all, qualify as the former´s musical assistant.

[Gurn Blanston]

Nor William Kraft, also a composer, who perhaps has had his own assistants.

Anyway, this whole issue derives from what I think (and I could easily be wrong about this) is a largely US educational practice of insisting on giving credit only for a person's own work,* ignoring both the collaborative realities of the world outside of schools and of the common practice of confusing education with training in US schools.

This educational idea coincides very nicely with a notion from a couple of centuries ago about the lonely artist, one man against the world, often presented as a "romantic" idea. It's not, really. Pernicious, certainly, but romantic? Naw. Sure, there was that whole individuality thing going on, but the reality of artistic endeavors is no different from the reality of any endeavors at any time, anywhere, that nobody ever does anything strictly alone. Humans are social creatures, and one thing that means is that anything any of us do is a result of many other people also doing things. Another thing that that means is that creative artists are always shoving their work under people's noses to get reactions and suggestions. It's just a thing.

The role of a "musical assistant" to a composer (major or not) is the same as the role of any assistant to anyone, anywhere, at any time.

*a very questionable concept

I think if you amended the word 'Romantic' with '19th century', you would be closer to the mark. This was a very 19th century concept. In the 18th century, it was a non-issue, as with so many other things musical.

Haydn and Mozart both had assistants. They called them 'students', and indeed they were that, but they also did a lot of copying, making fair copies to send to publishers etc. This is how Ignaz Pleyel and many others got trained by Haydn, and Hummel, among others, by Mozart. Beethoven actually did use Schindler to do some of his copying and work which you normally think of as that of an assistant.

I don't think you are wrong about the dogged insistence on individual struggle, although I don't know that it is exclusively an American thing. If it is, we didn't develop it, but we may have hung on to it longer as it fits in with our 'rugged individualist' delusion quite nicely...

[Karl Henning]

I think [Craft] had a pernicious influence on Stravinsky. This will doubtless cause a minor flame war.

Well, so long as you don't maintain that all his influence was pernicious.

Those paper-separated Kraft sandwich slices have had a pernicious influence on half the country, and probably set the stage for that absolute excrescence:  aerosol cheese.

[Ken B]

Well, so long as you don't maintain that all his influence was pernicious.

Those paper-separated Kraft sandwich slices have had a pernicious influence on half the country, and probably set the stage for that absolute excrescence:  aerosol cheese.

I am sure helping Igor pack his luggage or conduct wasn't pernicious ... 

[Brian]

I read that for the last 10-15 years Philip Glass has had assistants carry out most of the work of composing "his" music, and he only makes corrections, revisions, and major planning decisions, e.g. what and how many instruments will be used. This is viewed as heresy in the classical community - and it may be rightly blamed for the definite drop in quality among Glass's recent compositions - but it's the same practice that was used by great painters and sculptures like Rodin and Rembrandt.

[Florestan]

I read that for the last 10-15 years Philip Glass has had assistants carry out most of the work of composing "his" music, and he only makes corrections, revisions, and major planning decisions, e.g. what and how many instruments will be used. This is viewed as heresy in the classical community - and it may be rightly blamed for the definite drop in quality among Glass's recent compositions - but it's the same practice that was used by great painters and sculptures like Rodin and Rembrandt.

Not to mention Alexandre Dumas-Père...

Originality is overrated... grossly so, even. 

[Karl Henning]

. . . but it's the same practice that was used by great painters and sculptures like Rodin and Rembrandt.

Yes, though there are questions both of the degree of oversight, and the mastery of the overseer 

[Florestan]

Beethoven actually did use Schindler to do some of his copying and work which you normally think of as that of an assistant.

The Ries violin sonatas are so Beethoven-ish that one wonders whether Beethoven, besides being deaf, was also blind, or at least careless enough to leave his manuscripts unguarded all over the place... 

[Gurn Blanston]

The Ries violin sonatas are so Beethoven-ish that one wonders whether Beethoven, besides being deaf, was also blind, or at least careless enough to leave his manuscripts unguarded all over the place... 

Well, some of Pleyel's works are very Haydnish too, although ultimately, like with Ries, they have the style of the teacher, but lack the substance of the genius. You will see this when I get Haydn back to London in 1794 and you find what is remaining of the Professional Concert...

[Florestan]

they have the style of the teacher, but lack the substance of the genius.

Is it just me, or some three-quarter of the whole classical music out there falls under this category? 

[Karl Henning]

I am sure helping Igor pack his luggage or conduct wasn't pernicious ... 

Arguably, if not for Craft, we would not have Agon, Threni, the Dirge-Canons & Song in memoriam Dylan Thomas, The Owl & the Pussycat, and other genuinely wonderful late works.  I think the truly pernicious external influence was personified by Boulez, and I think that Игорь Фëдорович was both unnecessarily overawed by the youngsters, and too susceptible to a personal need to be au courant.  I don't see it as any matter of Craft glomming onto the maître, but of the composer trending thither pretty much for his own reasons, and that Craft's friendship was actually a happy chance.

[Ken B]

Arguably, if not for Craft, we would not have Agon, Threni, the Dirge-Canons & Song in memoriam Dylan Thomas, The Owl & the Pussycat, and other genuinely wonderful late works.  I think the truly pernicious external influence was personified by Boulez, and I think that Игорь Фëдорович was both unnecessarily overawed by the youngsters, and too susceptible to a personal need to be au courant.  I don't see it as any matter of Craft glomming onto the maître, but of the composer trending thither pretty much for his own reasons, and that Craft's friendship was actually a happy chance.

That may well be true. Certainly a chance to blame Boulez is always welcome. I also blame Schoenberg, for dying first. (Not that I'd have it any other way.)

[listener]

Eric Fenby as an amanuensis to Delius (occasionally a major composer in some eyes)

[some guy]

I just read a reference to Andrès Lewin-Richter that identifies him as being, among other things, an assistant to Edgard Varese.

So Chou Wen-Chung was not the only one.

[jochanaan]

I just read a reference to Andrès Lewin-Richter that identifies him as being, among other things, an assistant to Edgard Varese.

So Chou Wen-Chung was not the only one.

And yet Chou was a major resource on Riccardo Chailly's complete Varese recording, providing among other things the complete original score of Ameriques and apparently re-editing most of the other works on that recording.