I am listening to some Nystroem. He is a very good composer, but probably a bit better at another art form, namely, painting. All of the BIS CDs of his music has his own painting as cover, which is very neat indeed.
There are many multi-talented composers in history, and I don't want to exhaust the topic by naming too many. What are some of the others you'd like to share. Also, do you think the composer's talent in the other field(s) helped or showed in the music? In the case of Gosta Nystroem, it clearly did. You can almost see and hear that he is a painter first and foremost and a composer second.
Borodin jumps to mind, who had a great career as a respected chemist.
I don't know about Jan Swafford's skill as a composer, but his biography of Brahms is magnificently written. The man has a gift for prose.
Berstein (composer) was a decent conductor....especially live at the Hollywood Bowl, Paul. ;)
(http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/ciu/3d/0e/638a793509a07707bf861110.L.jpg)
Quote from: Brian on November 07, 2011, 04:45:28 PM
(http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/ciu/3d/0e/638a793509a07707bf861110.L.jpg)
As a composer,
Nietzsche was an interesting philosopher. 0:)
Quote from: Brian on November 07, 2011, 04:45:28 PM
(http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/ciu/3d/0e/638a793509a07707bf861110.L.jpg)
One of the ugliest damn covers I've ever seen.
Quote from: toucan on November 07, 2011, 05:54:08 PM
Guillaume de Machaut was as admired for his poetry as for his music compositions;
The only one that qualifies so far. Machaut thought of himself as a poet
first, but as history would have it, it is as a musician that he made his legacy.
William Herschel springs to mind - the astromer. He discovered Uranus, contributed in many ways to our understanding of astromomy, and discovered infared radiation. Oh, and he composed 24 symphonies and a number of other works! Interesting life - he started with music, which led him to math and science. He built a number of telescopes. Seems to have done well with languages too.
Enescu: accomplished violinist and conductor.
Quote from: Florestan on November 08, 2011, 12:45:51 AM
Enescu: accomplished violinist and conductor.
I was under the impression the OP meant other arts as in, other besides music making. Too many great composers who were also great at playing a given instrument or conducting music, eh.
Xenakis was an architect who worked under Le Corbusier and designed some significant structures, such as the Philips pavilion for the 1958 World Fair.
In Lithuania, Mikolajus Ciurlionis is about equally famous as both a composer and a painter.
Paderewski?
Borodin did some composing, too.
From Wikipedia:
In his profession Borodin gained great respect, being particularly noted for his work on aldehydes. Between 1859 and 1862 Borodin held a postdoctorate in Heidelberg. He worked in the laboratory of Emil Erlenmeyer working on benzene derivatives. He also spent time in Pisa, working on organic halogens. One experiment published in 1862 described the first nucleophilic displacement of chlorine by fluorine in benzoyl chloride. He published papers in 1864 and 1869, and in this field he found himself competing with August Kekulé.
Borodin is co-credited with the discovery of the Aldol reaction, with Charles-Adolphe Wurtz. In 1872 he announced to the Russian Chemical Society the discovery of a new by-product in aldehyde reactions with alcohol-like properties, and he noted similarities with compounds already discussed in publications by Wurtz from the same year.
He published his last full article in 1875 on reactions of amides and his last publication concerned a method for the identification of urea in animal urine.
I'm not really a fan, but Wagner's librettos are surely worthy of the music he composed. And he wrote other stuff, too.
Mendelssohn made some paintings and drawings http://www.themendelssohnproject.org/about_tmp/activities/artworks_2.htm
Composer-instrumentalists (or conductors) are surely too common to list (Biber, Vivaldi, Bach, Handel, Boccherini, Mozart, Beethoven, Paganini, Mendelssohn, Chopin, Liszt, Alkan, Clara Schumann, Saint-Saëns, Brahms, Joseph Joachim, Sarasate, Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev, Ysaÿe, Mahler etc)
Schoenberg was also a painter. Check out his works here:
http://www.usc.edu/libraries/archives/schoenberg/painting/painting.htm
Alf Hurum and Arne Dørumsgaard were both highly competent Norwegian composers with perhaps an even more highly regarded ouput in other areas, Hurum in painting and Dørumsgaard in poetry.
Henry VIII enjoyed signal success as a marriage counselor.
Karl Henning: an accomplished master of ironic one-liners.
Quote from: The new erato on November 08, 2011, 12:57:10 AM
Paderewski?
Surely the highest ranking politician among composers!
(I am not counting royalty, of course)
Why is there no mention of Wagner here?
Don't you recognize extortion, swindling, seduction and revolution as legitimate trades?
Quote from: The new erato on November 08, 2011, 04:37:53 AM
Why is there no mention of Wagner here?
Don't you recognize extortion, swindling, seduction and revolution as legitimate trades?
I'm actually finalising the list of similarly great men. ;D
ETA Hoffmann. Famous in his own time as a composer and pioneer of Romanticism in music; nowadays known almost entirely for his literary achievements.
Robert Simpson. BBC Producer. Read more about his life here (http://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/c.asp?c=C554&vw=dc).
Quote from: The new erato on November 08, 2011, 04:37:53 AM
Why is there no mention of Wagner here?
Don't you recognize extortion, swindling, seduction and revolution as legitimate trades?
Occupy Bayreuth!
Dane Rudhyar - an underrated and most interesting composer. He was also a leading astrologer. A painter also, although I don't know anything about the quality of his artwork. Well, I'm not into astrology, but I do know that Rudhyar is considered quite a force in that field.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dane_Rudhyar
Fan Noli - a most interesting Albanian who composed some orchestral works but was better known as a poet, translator (including some bits of Shakespeare Bacon), an orthodox bishop and prime minister of Albania for some months in 1924. His work Scanderbeu is not a symphony (as Wiki claims) but a symphonic poem.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan_S._Noli
Richard Wagner: besides being a composer, he was also a conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer.
Quote from: Dax on November 08, 2011, 09:40:17 AM
Dane Rudhyar - an underrated and most interesting composer. He was also a leading astrologer. A painter also, although I don't know anything about the quality of his artwork. Well, I'm not into astrology, but I do know that Rudhyar is considered quite a force in that field.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dane_Rudhyar
I had no idea he also composed, I read many of his astrology books. Is he any good?
The author Anthony Burgess (whose most famous work is A Clockwork Orange, but whose many, many other books have often thirlled me far more) thought of himself as a composer first, but one who happened to be better at writing. References to music abound in his books, right down to the novel he constructed following the model of the Eroica
Quote from: Luke on November 08, 2011, 09:58:51 AM
. . . References to music abound in his books, right down to the novel he constructed following the model of the Eroica
I don't like to say how long I've been meaning to read that one . . . .
Quote from: BobsterLobster on November 08, 2011, 09:54:54 AM
I had no idea he also composed, I read many of his astrology books. Is he any good?
He certainly is. There are several recordings of his piano pieces by Michael Sellers whose playing is defective IMO. William Masselos, on the other hand, very much had the right idea as his recordings of
Granites (my particular favourite),
Stars and
Paeans testify.
Here's Stars (Masselos) - http://www.nme.com/nme-video/youtube/id/LEuP78AJQJk
Granites - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twqnM2SEKas
which has the advantage of showing the dots as well. The pianist is not identified but the performance is nowhere near as well thought out as that of Masselos.
He's one of those composers who form part of the anti-European "ultra-modernist" American movement championed by Cowell in the 1920s and therefore is linked with the likes of Ives, Ruggles, Varese, Crawford . . .
Quote from: karlhenning on November 08, 2011, 03:49:09 AM
Henry VIII enjoyed signal success as a marriage counselor.
More-so even as a liberalizer of divorce laws, cutting the red tape (not just) which allowed for perfectly natural divorces, rather than being protracted year-long procedures, to take place in a matter of seconds. Given a well-trained executor. Changed marriage in one (or more) fell swoop(s).
Quote from: jlaurson on November 08, 2011, 11:03:41 AM
More-so even as a liberalizer of divorce laws, cutting the red tape (not just) which allowed for perfectly natural divorces, rather than being protracted year-long procedures, to take place in a matter of seconds. Given a well-trained executor. Changed marriage in one (or more) fell swoop(s).
That post is truly a cut above...so sorry... :P
Quote from: Dax on November 08, 2011, 10:38:54 AM
He certainly is. There are several recordings of his piano pieces by Michael Sellers whose playing is defective IMO. William Masselos, on the other hand, very much had the right idea as his recordings of Granites (my particular favourite), Stars and Paeans testify.
Here's Stars (Masselos) - http://www.nme.com/nme-video/youtube/id/LEuP78AJQJk
Granites - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twqnM2SEKas
which has the advantage of showing the dots as well. The pianist is not identified but the performance is nowhere near as well thought out as that of Masselos.
He's one of those composers who form part of the anti-European "ultra-modernist" American movement championed by Cowell in the 1920s and therefore is linked with the likes of Ives, Ruggles, Varese, Crawford . . .
Wow, great stuff, particularly like the 1st youtube link. I'll check some more out, thanks!
Some composers did music criticism. Schumann and Berlioz come to mind
Sally Daley, QM, composes, plays the organ, piano, and flute, directs choirs and so on. We once went over Bach Cantata No. 82 with her piano, and the second time we did it, she brought out the upper and lower parts and the oboe solos. She used to do remarkable paintings, too.
http://www.apimusic.org/composersb.cfm?ln=D
Some interesting posts & undiscovered material here, thanks.
Mendelssohn´s water colours, made when almost everyone of elite upbringing was taught how to draw and paint water-colours, can be charming and very much belong to the Biedermeier style:
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/diglib/ihas/loc.natlib.ihas.200156435/default.html
sometimes they have a more rugged expression:
http://www.google.dk/imgres?q=mendelssohn+water+colour&um=1&hl=da&biw=1467&bih=725&tbm=isch&tbnid=G9_FlZiNthfx0M:&imgrefurl=http://classicalmusicmayhem.freeforums.org/mendelssohn-s-paintings-and-sketches-t1657.html&docid=Vg3J_tzUZEsmbM&imgurl=http://www.bbc.co.uk/composers/mendelssohn/pictures/images/mendelssohn_15.jpg&w=860&h=480&ei=Wce7Tp32G6eQ4gTK1IxT&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=599&vpy=162&dur=1802&hovh=168&hovw=301&tx=249&ty=109&sig=109207640279368497012&page=1&tbnh=144&tbnw=258&start=0&ndsp=18&ved=1t:429,r:14,s:0
A few more painter-composers could be mentioned:
Lord Berners did a lot of painting, cf.
http://www.google.dk/imgres?q=lord+berners+paintings&um=1&hl=da&sa=N&biw=1467&bih=725&tbm=isch&tbnid=pAxFSMJnBvIk0M:&imgrefurl=http://tweedlandthegentlemansclub.blogspot.com/2011/07/lord-berners-last-ecentric.html&docid=9EGqjTFjbH4C0M&imgurl=http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1sZUw94dVsw/ThVg467WNxI/AAAAAAAAKCU/ZX6q_pkxEe4/s400/lord%25252Bberners%25252Bpainting%25252Bhis%25252Bhorse.jpg&w=400&h=302&ei=MMO7TqezIOLN4QTRtPWkCA&zoom=1&iact=rc&dur=2&sig=109207640279368497012&page=1&tbnh=180&tbnw=241&start=0&ndsp=20&ved=1t:429,r:0,s:0&tx=144&ty=83
&
http://www.artfact.com/artist/berners-gerald-hugh-tyrwhitt-wilson-rxc1y2w1ig
Satie & his playful drawings / manuscripts could fill a book, cf.
http://www.google.dk/imgres?q=satie+dessin&um=1&hl=da&biw=1467&bih=725&tbm=isch&tbnid=DMTCX6D5MLxf3M:&imgrefurl=http://www.myspace.com/507356614/photos/albums/album/843176&docid=PNwbRpCagTU3NM&itg=1&imgurl=http://a3.l3-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/145/b15fd1874d7f4285859bb7308e1b77be/m.png&w=170&h=239&ei=3sS7TtjAGKLc4QTNmYmXCA&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=318&vpy=251&dur=2216&hovh=191&hovw=136&tx=108&ty=80&sig=109207640279368497012&page=3&tbnh=165&tbnw=117&start=42&ndsp=23&ved=1t:429,r:16,s:42
&
http://www.google.dk/imgres?q=satie+drawing&um=1&hl=da&biw=1467&bih=725&tbm=isch&tbnid=hsCyv4AzUuznoM:&imgrefurl=http://otphiegriotos.blogspot.com/2010_07_01_archive.html&docid=Tx-WJ9WAhlmL4M&imgurl=http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_s8JyxbYrSG0/TFNpAf4suII/AAAAAAAABd4/PlXXHwyhhK8/s1600/satie%252B%2525C3%2525A0%252Bmorhange003.jpg&w=1052&h=1600&ei=jcS7Ts7YFIHT4QT7xL20CA&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=1086&vpy=164&dur=4478&hovh=277&hovw=182&tx=76&ty=124&sig=109207640279368497012&page=10&tbnh=173&tbnw=117&start=201&ndsp=22&ved=1t:429,r:6,s:201
and Carl Ruggles did painting as well:
http://musicmavericks.publicradio.org/features/slideshows/slideshow_ruggles3.htm
F.A.D. Philidor composed a lot, some of his music has been recorded, but he is mainly known as a master of chess:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0I7Mjmzr9kI
Quote from: DieNacht on November 10, 2011, 03:55:10 AM
Some interesting posts & undiscovered material here, thanks.
Mendelssohn´s water colours, made when almost everyone of elite upbringing was taught how to draw and paint water-colours, can be charming and very much belong to the Biedermeier style:
http://www.themendelssohnproject.org/about_tmp/activities/artworks_2.htm
Quote from: North Star on November 08, 2011, 01:21:21 AM
Mendelssohn made some paintings and drawings http://www.themendelssohnproject.org/about_tmp/activities/artworks_2.htm
Sorry for the repeated reference, have deleted it.
Quote from: DieNacht on November 10, 2011, 08:15:42 AM
Sorry for the repeated reference, have deleted it.
Tough crowd! :o
Quote from: DieNacht on November 10, 2011, 08:15:42 AM
Sorry for the repeated reference, have deleted it.
No reason to feel bad about it, I merely meant that I had mentioned Mendelssohn's talents in visual arts, too. I guess my response might seem less than polite, though.
Quote from: North Star on November 08, 2011, 01:21:21 AM
...I'm not really a fan, but Wagner's librettos are surely worthy of the music he composed. And he wrote other stuff, too.
I am a fan, so maybe I have slightly more standing in the matter. I think Wagner's librettos are so far below his music as to be barely tolerable, mostly in respect of the fact that they inspired his music. A good example is Gotterdammerung, one of his greatest operas and one of the most ridiculous and absurd plots ever conceived. There are exceptions, of course, such as Die Walkure. I think someone who does not really revere the music, as North Star admits, can't properly compare the libretto and the music.
Quote from: jlaurson on November 08, 2011, 11:03:41 AM
More-so even as a liberalizer of divorce laws, cutting the red tape (not just) which allowed for perfectly natural divorces, rather than being protracted year-long procedures, to take place in a matter of seconds. Given a well-trained executor. Changed marriage in one (or more) fell swoop(s).
Henry VIII was also good at torture and promoted many new clever torture implements. At a museum called the London Dungeon one may see many of the devices he commissioned. The variety of different kinds of thumbscrews alone is very impressive. Henry also modified the burning of heretics at the stake to take place not all at once but gradually, burning different areas on the body of his victims over many hours to prolong the agony, until they cried out to have done with it already. A most cruel monarch.
Sorry to a bit of a party pooper, but if you do a top five or even a top ten in either music or art you will not find more than one jack of more than one trade - only Michelangelo. Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven not only did no visual art but none are even on record (to my knowledge, anyway) as ever admiring any visual art. The only reference I have seen by a first rank composer to art was some enthusiasm Wagner showed over several Holbein paintings he once saw. Likewise I do not know of any genius of the plastic arts who composed music, though Titian did play viola da gamba in small groups and is shown doing so in a painting by Veronese. Likewise great writers rarely crossed over except for Blake who was also a painter and engraver. Probably the best known example of more than one art among first rank geniuses is Michelangelo who was a poet as well as a sculptor, painter and architect. But it seems that as an artist reaches the real heights, he does not usually divide his talents between two arts. Perhaps Schoenberg is another exception. I am not able to say whether he should be considered a genius or not.
Musicians who are more or less indifferent to plastic art, and artists who sometimes are indifferent to music, as was Picasso, seem to find a common denominator in all loving literature. Literature inspires great artists and composers alike, even if they do not write literature themselves. (An exception is Van Gogh, whose letters to his brother are considered great literature.)
As for other (non-arts) professions, first rank geniuses seem to prefer starvation to dividing their time with any profession other than their art.
http://em.oxfordjournals.org/content/37/4/533.extract
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Frideric_Handel's_art_collection
Your knowledge is faulty. I reckon the problem of appreciating painting and other arts was a matter of difficulty in exposure, not lack of interest. Handel, who traveled much, and was at one point wealthy enough to collect paintings for himself, is an anomaly.
Ruggles. Very talented painter.
Ives. Incredibly successful insurance salesman - multimillionaire by his retirement in 1929 (though he effectively retired from composing in 1925, due to artistic exhaustion, and not that he ever made any money from it)
Big admirer of Schoenberg's paintings too, though of course he was a much greater composer.
Quote from: toucan on November 09, 2011, 04:03:14 PM
Sally Daley is a tough act to follow, but Alfonso X of Castille, King of the Romans and of the Germans, cousin of Frederick II Hohenstaufen (1221-1284 - Alfonso that is, not Frederick) - nick named "el Sabio" - just might pull it off. Alfonso was an author and a composer as well as a monarch & the restorator of civilisation in Spain (with the collaboration of jewish, muslim & christian scholars), an astronomer, a great law-giver, who imposed the vernacular Castillian as literary language of his kingdom (in lieu of Latin), so as to make learning available to all.
(http://i335.photobucket.com/albums/m465/Phil1_05/AlfonsoXelSabio.jpg)
Sally is a fine and versatile musician, as are many church musicians. She does a lot of composition, as does Michael Capon, another excellent church musician of my acquaintance.
http://www.michaelcapon.webs.com/
Somehow I had forgotten about the Swedish composer, Franz Berwald (1796-1868). Aside from being a composer he was an orchestral musician (violinist), started an orthopaedic clinic (also invented some orthopaedic devices), and later managed a glass factory and a sawmill.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Berwald
Quote from: Josquin des Prez on November 10, 2011, 11:04:26 PM
http://em.oxfordjournals.org/content/37/4/533.extract
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Frideric_Handel's_art_collection
Your knowledge is faulty. I reckon the problem of appreciating painting and other arts was a matter of difficulty in exposure, not lack of interest. Handel, who traveled much, and was at one point wealthy enough to collect paintings for himself, is an anomaly.
I stand corrected regarding Handel. As for the other first-rate composers, working often in the courts of princes and kings, art must have been on view continually. as these aristocrats would have been exhibiting most of what they had collected out of pride, not hiding it away. Also composers conducted music in resplendent churches which contained much great sculpture, painting and architecture. We do not lack for quotes from these composers on many subjects, so I still maintain the paucity of quotes on art is indicative, as opposed to the many references they made both in their quotes and in their works to literature. Still, I may be wrong.
Education and acceptance in the visual art world were also very much controlled by the Guild and Academy systems, a system that only loosened up in the late 19th century ...
I guess Ciurlionis is the only artist-composer who is really revered for all the facets of his talent, especially in his own country. Whereas Schoenberg also occasionally turns up in art historical context as a figure in visual expressionism (cf. his self portraits especially, of course).
The quality of Ciurlinionis´ works can often be debated, but his tragic destiny, originality and involvement in the national cause (celebrating the Lithuanian landscape and folk culture) made him especially relevant for his fellow countrymen, whereas his involvement in Symbolism did produce some unique results.