Final Compositions of Your Favorite Composers

[Bogey]

I would like to hear from you folks about some of your favorite composers and what you thought of their last handful of works.  In short, how did they "finish up" in your opinion?  Did they end at the "pinnacle" of their career, did their work "suffer" somewhat toward the end, or was it "good stuff", but just not their best work in your view.  This can obviously include "unfinished pieces" as well.

[PSmith08]

I would like to hear from you folks about some of your favorite composers and what you thought of their last handful of works.  In short, how did they "finish up" in your opinion?  Did they end at the "pinnacle" of their career, did their work "suffer" somewhat toward the end, or was it "good stuff", but just not their best work in your view.  This can obviously include "unfinished pieces" as well.

I'll go with Richard Wagner and Gustav Mahler. I think that Parsifal was probably Wagner's most perfect (if not his most crowd-pleasing) work. It represents, to me, the pinnacle of his musical and dramatic ideas. It also has a concision, relative to Der Ring des Nibelungen (which has a bit of a mistake, but a fortuitous one), that puts it over the top. Not only, that is, was he at the height of his powers, but he was also incredibly careful and precise.

Gustav Mahler is more enigmatic. His symphonic sequence 5-6-7-8-DLvDE-9 clearly shows a composer operating at an ever-increasing level. What we have of the 10th is a bit of a problem. We have about half of it, orchestrated by Mahler, and the remainder in four-stave (as I'm sure everyone knows); it seems to be an extension of the 9th. I must ask, then, what next? Had Mahler finally reached his peak, or was he flirting with that last precipice? I don't know, so I tend to base my judgment (with an eye toward the ambiguity) on the completed final works. In that case, he was approaching his peak, if he wasn't yet there.

[The new erato]

The late chamber works of Shostakovich (quartets, violin + viola sonata) + 3 last symphonies are the composer at top of his form.

[mahlertitan]

I for one, only believe that composers tend to get better and better at their craft.

[Topaz]

And I'll go with Schubert. The general quality of Schubert's works was still on the ascendant in his last couple of years.  In the 20 months between the death of Beethoven in March 1827 up to the time of his own death in November 1828 (age 31) he wrote some of his best work:

Piano solo: Impromptus D 935; Klavierstucke D 946; Piano Sonatas D 958-960

Piano duet:  Fantasia D 940; 'Lebensstürme' D 947

Sacred works:  Deutsche Messe D 872; Mass no 6, E flat D 950

Symphony:  Completion of Symphony "The Great" D 944

Chamber:  String Quartet No 15 D 887; Piano Trio No 1 D 897; Piano Trio No 2 in E Flat D 929; Fantaisie for Violin and Piano D 934; String Quintet D 956

Song: Winterreise D 911; Schwanengesang D 957

In my opinion, no finer collection of "swansong" works exists, with the possible exception of Mozart and Beethoven depending on one's tastes. 

[Bonehelm]

The last great works of LvB were his 9th symphony, Missa Solemnis, the couple late piano sonatas and the final string quartets. I love op.131 and 132....and the 9th is my favourite piece of music of all time.

[knight66]

Verdi's final operas showed him to be at the peak of his mastery and in Otello he is experimenting with a more through-written style where the divisions between the set pieces and the recit have been almost done away with. Falstaff is again innovative in that it simply is unlike any other piece he wrote. Sunny and teeming with ideas, a great sign-off.

Mike

[BachQ]

I would like to hear from you folks about some of your favorite composers and what you thought of their last handful of works.  In short, how did they "finish up" in your opinion? 

My favorite composers are Brahms and Beethoven.

As to Brahms, he was consistently top-tier from beginning to end, such that, no matter how or where you slice the time continuum, his music was/is equally great.  Few artists (in whatever discipline) have displayed such consistent greatness.  Brahms basically retired from composition in 1893, but was inspired by Richard Mühlfeld to compose two final clarinet sonatas in 1894 (op. 120 nos. 1 and 2).  His final orchestral work, the Op. 102 Double Concerto for Violin and Cello in A minor (1887), is perhaps not Brahms's greatest orchestral achievement, but it remains one of the greatest concertos for multiple instruments, perhaps exceeded only by Mozart's K. 364, the glorious Sinfonia Concertante for Violin, Viola and Orchestra.  In 1892 and 1893 Brahms composed a number of short piano pieces which remain highly acclaimed and widely recorded/performed, including Op. 116, Seven Fantasias for piano (1892); Op. 117, Three Intermezzi for piano (1892); Op. 118, Six Pieces for Piano (1893); and Op. 119, Four Pieces for piano (1893).

As to Beethoven, generally, his music became progressively more inspired and cumulatively more profound as he aged (let's forget about his sketch for the 10th Symphony, which is total crap).  His latest works include Op. 123 (Missa Solemnis); Op. 125 (Symphony no. 9 in D Minor); and Ops. 127-135 (the late SQ's, including the Große Fuge), which he composed a year or two before his death.  I consider these final works to be his greatest achievements, and among the most immortal works of art ever penned by man.  I truly feel sympathy for the Anti-Beethovenians who cannot appreciate the profound greatness of these final compositions ..... compositions which remove any doubt that LvB resides amongst the most transcendently immortal artists of all time ......  0:)

[Tancata]

Among JS Bach's final works are the Musical Offering, The Art of Fugue and the B Minor Mass - so I think it's safe to say he went out on top form. Even if the bulk of his vocal music was written by the end of the 1720s, and the B Minor Mass is largely an arrangement of earlier material...but what an arrangement! But even discounting that, the Musical Offering and the Art of Fugue are indisputably two of his greatest works.

[lukeottevanger]

This is a very interesting question, not only because of the issue of greater or lesser quality in final works, but also because of the trend towards concision, clarification or summation which is shown by many composers in their later works. Here are some first thoughts on a few composers who interest me in this respect:

Janacek - in a sense his whole oeuvre is moving towards his final works (yeah, yeah, I know.... ). The concision and stripping away of inessentials (a process of which Janacek had a quasi-scientific consciousness, and in which he believed as an essential aesthetic tenet, because of what he saw as its humanity, honesty and truthfulness) is therefore seen most fully in his last works - the Intimate Letters String Quartet and the opera From the House of the Dead. It's also seen, therefore, in the violin concerto he nearly completed, which is associated with House of the Dead and which has been reconstructed - ironically, therefore, despite being partly the work of later scholars it is IMO Janacek's most representative orchestral work. Who knows if Janacek would have gone even further than this; I can't quite see how he could have done. Whatever, these last works are IMO certainly his very greatest.

Ravel - his very last works certainly show a tailing off, but then when he wrote them he wasn't in the finest health; IMO anything from 1925 or after qualifies as late in Ravel's case. Some of his very last works shows him at his very finest, though - the Piano Concerto for the Left Hand above all, I think.  Again, like Janacek, Ravel's later works show a stripping down - the later chamber works (Duo Sonata, Violin Sonata, Chansons Madecasses) IMO show this clearly, and though this isn't the Ravel of popular imagination, it is the essence of him. Even Bolero, (I'm a Ravel fanatic but I really don't have much time for it) is nothing if not stripped down: one melody (two limbs); one ostinato rhythm; two chords; one crescendo. The later chamber pieces (+ the Piano Trio), along with the concerti and some of the songs, are in any case my favourite Ravel.

Debussy - the returning classicism in Debussy's late works, the Etudes and the three chamber Sonatas above all (like Ravel, there is an early String Quartet, and then a late flowering of stripped-down chamber music), is so often ignored in favour of the popular image of Debussy the Ericiste - Faun, La Mer, Preludes etc. Yet to me, once again, these late works show such maturity and humility, they are direct, fundamentally simple despite their surface complexities. Essentially they feel to my ears 'healthy' well-balanced music where some of the earlier works can be somewhat enervated, for all their sensuous (and aristocratic) beauty. They are my favourite Debussy, too.

Satie - an interesting case, Satie's music is so clearly divided into different periods and different styles that whether or not you see the last works as his finest is more than usually a matter of taste. What is true, however, is that by most people's standards, he approached a very refined 'late style' -cool, objective expressive because of/despite their restraint - in the beautiful piano Nocturnes and in Socrate, only, typically, to pull the rug  from under our feet with his last piece of all, the theatre work Relache which is to say the least peculiar and not in the convincing way Parade was peculiar.

Time permitting, there are lots of other composers worth discussing on this issue, I think: Britten, Cage, Faure, Poulenc, Feldman.....

[lukeottevanger]

...Liszt, of course....

[Kullervo]

Debussy - the returning classicism in Debussy's late works, the Etudes and the three chamber Sonatas above all (like Ravel, there is an early String Quartet, and then a late flowering of stripped-down chamber music), is so often ignored in favour of the popular image of Debussy the Ericiste - Faun, La Mer, Preludes etc. Yet to me, once again, these late works show such maturity and humility, they are direct, fundamentally simple despite their surface complexities. Essentially they feel to my ears 'healthy' well-balanced music where some of the earlier works can be somewhat enervated, for all their sensuous (and aristocratic) beauty. They are my favourite Debussy, too.

Totally agree with you there. I can't help imagining what could have been after Jeux and En Blanc et Noir.

[lukeottevanger]

...then of course there are composers like Mendelssohn and Berlioz, who in their different ways started out with some of their most striking, strongest music (Midsummer Night's Dream; Symphonie Fantastique, for example) and finished up with music that was even more consummate and subtle, perhaps, but not necessarily any better for it.

The case of Havergal Brian is interesting not just because, as everyone knows, he lived into extreme old age and kept on composing vigorously until his final months, but because the very fact that he created music as a very old man meant that he was creating right at the limits, where few people go (Ornstein is an even more extreme case, though less interesting in the impact on the music itself, I think). Put bluntly - most composers live their time; Brian reached his and kept on living, and his music goes through stages over and beyond those most composers reach. For instance, the 'stripping down' I was talking about with relation to the later works of Janacek, Debussy etc., starts with Brian around his 8th symphony, and can be seen reaching what for most composers would be an end point when, an old man already, he composed his 'classical' symphonies 18-20. But then comes a rapprochement with larger, more expansive forms, and finally an even more refined amalgamation in the final symphonies. He is truly in the 'unknown region' in these late late late works (most of Brian's symphonies qualify as merely 'late'!); some of them falter, understandably, not just because of the physical difficulties of writing at that age, but because, one sense, the world is starting to 'thin out' for him (I can't find other words - Malcolm Macdonald describes it wonderfully, of course). The marvels to be found in his last symphonies are truly miraculous, I think, in the light of this.

[marvinbrown]

  I see Wagner has already been accounted for, I turn my attention to Verdi who finishes on a high note (no pun intended) The following is a list of the operas from Verdi's "middle period" operetic output to the end of his life "late works".  One can clearly see that Verdi's operetic output gets better with age- remarkably better.  In the middle period we have hits like Rigoletto, Il Trovatore and La Traviata- all masterpeices written within a period of 3 years- but look at what happens afterwards:  the operas get darker, more grand, the orchestration becomes more complex and we get another two great operas La Forza del Destino and Un Ballo in Maschera and just when you think it can not get any better, my God- look at the output at the end of Verdi's life...Don Carlo, Otello, Aida and Flastaff (his only successful comedy in a style far removed from anything he had composed in a long time).  These last 4 operas are arguably the greatest Italian operas of the Romantic era.  We opera fans are very lucky that Verdi lived a very long life 80+ and wrote his greatest operas in the last 15 to 20 years of his life.


Rigoletto - Teatro La Fenice, Venice,1851
Il trovatore - Teatro Apollo, Rome, 1853
La traviata - Teatro la Fenice, 1853
Les vêpres siciliennes - Théâtre de l'Académie Impérial de Musique, Paris, 1855
Le trouvère - Théâtre Impérial de l´Opéra, Paris, 1857 (revised version of Il trovatore with a ballet added)
Simon Boccanegra - Teatro La Fenice, Venice, 1857
Aroldo - Teatro Nuovo, Rimini, 1857 (revised version of Stiffelio)
Un ballo in maschera - Teatro Apollo, Rome, 1859
La forza del destino - Imperial Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre, Saint Petersburg, 1862
Don Carlos - Théâtre Impérial de l´Opéra Paris, 1867
Aida - Khedivial Opera House Cairo, 1871
Don Carlo - Teatro San Carlo, Naples, 1872 - (first revision of Don Carlos)
Simon Boccanegra - Teatro alla Scala, 1881 (revised 1857 version)
Don Carlo - Teatro alla Scala, Milan, 1884 (second revision, 4 Act version)
Don Carlo - Teatro Municipale, Modena, 1886 (third revision, 5 Act version)
Otello - Teatro alla Scala, 1887
Falstaff - Teatro alla

  marvin

[jurajjak]

Unfortunately, my favorite composer, Prokofiev, ended on a more or less horrible note--first, because of his ailing health, and secondly, because the political circumstances of Stalinism and socialist realism inhibited and rendered moot whatever musical apotheosis he might have achieved in old age.  The "Symphony-Concerto" is something of a masterpiece, there is an element of satire in "The Meeting of the Volga and the Don," and, to be sure, the final bars of the 7th Symphony, with their "dying," ticking percussion, evince a quiet, dignified tragedy.  But the rest is either second-rate, in the manner of "The Stone Flower" (which isn't to say second-rate Prokofiev isn't still very good), or embarrassing ("On Guard for Peace").  There are some cellists (like Ivashkin) who find the Concertino, op. 132 very moving, but I've always found it one of his dullest piece; even the first 2 movements, which he did finish before his death, sound inauthentic.

I've actually struggled with this tragic decline for a number of years, making justifications and excuses, but I still find myself listening to very late Prokofiev often--more often than music that, objectively, is much stronger.  There is an overwhelming wistfulness about the last works, which tends to result in a very bittersweet experience.  Only the 1-minute fragment of the 10th sonata gives any indication that he might've gone in a different direction at the end.  I've always found it fascinating, though, that he planned to revise his Second Symphony during this time--even if he removed the dissonance, I don't see how Zhdanov, etc. would have ever approved of it.


andrew 

[karlhenning]

I've always found it fascinating, though, that he planned to revise his Second Symphony during this time

While I only wish that he might have lived many years longer, Andrew, I am so relieved that he never actually tinkered with the Second Symphony!  I wouldn't hear of a single note being altered!

[jurajjak]

Karl,

I wouldn't want to hear a note of it altered, either.  While Prokofiev had often projected a revision of The Second Symphony (cast in 3 movements), the amount of work it would take to transform its modernism into something acceptable to the Stalinists would have been huge--he might as well have spent that potential energy on an Eighth Symphony.  At least the Cello Concerto, op. 58 had enough purely melodic material to serve as the basis for the Symphony-Concerto; but, for the life of me, I can't figure out how any revision of the Second would have been acceptable in the USSR of 1953. 


andrew

[JoshLilly]

Was Die Taubenpost Schubert's last piece? I've seen yes and no.

[Joe Barron]

This topic is problematic for me, since my favorite composer hasn't written his last work yet. 

[Maciek]

How do you know? 0:)

I have a similar problem actually: many of my favorite composers are still alive. And may it long stay that way!