Bargains

[edashtav]

[...]

Where Janacek is an excellent exemplar for sudden blinding inspiration striking in old age, Dvorak is perhaps more one for the careful, self-critical development and refining of an initially prolix minor talent into genius.

[The area to the rear of the sofa suddenly beckons...]

A perceptive comment, LMP, ... is there room for me, too, behind your sofa?

[teamsaint]

The (further) blossoming of many great composers with age , RVW would be another, is one of the great inspirations in classical music, for me.

So many creative popular musicians, perhaps particularly because of various industry demands, seem to lose their way. The cult of youth , ( also rather evident in the soloists on view in London concert halls)is a mixed blessing at best.

[Flosshilde]

Where Janacek is an excellent exemplar for sudden blinding inspiration striking in old age, Dvorak is perhaps more one for the careful, self-critical development and refining of an initially prolix minor talent into genius.

I wonder how Mozart would have developed if he'd lived longer? Would he have calmed down, 'grown up' & stopped cramming everything he could into his music just to show that he could do it?

(any room left behind that sofa?)

[vinteuil]

The (further) blossoming of many great composers with age ...

... I was always encouraged by the fact that Rameau didn't compose his first opera until he was in his fifties - and Stradivari didn't produce his best instruments until he was well into his fifties. Always a chance, I thought. That was when I was in my thirties and forties. Now that I'm in my sixties...

[Dave2002]

I've posted similar comments here about the string 4tet No 3 in D of 1869/70, a mere 63'43" (sic) of tedium Yet some boarders cherish it, so you should probably give these things a try...particularly if you're into self-inflicted pain

I think I must have heard that quartet, as I have most of them, and once made a plan of listening to all of them. It eventually became obvious why the American, and a couple of the other late ones are memorable and enjoyable, and why the others are hardly ever heard or performed.

[LeMartinPecheur]

I wonder how Mozart would have developed if he'd lived longer? Would he have calmed down, 'grown up' & stopped cramming everything he could into his music just to show that he could do it?

(any room left behind that sofa?)

Floss, staying firmly behind the sofa I have to say that if I'd been in Vienna just before Wolfie took sick, I might have expressed some concern about his later works and where he was going next. To me there seems something a bit marmoreal, over-polished, un-fantastical, dammit too classic/classical, about his very last works, eg the last piano concerto, the clarinet concerto and a few others (the Prussian quartets?). Some of them anyway. Not so the last symphonies or the Magic Flute. Maybe it starts in the very late K500s say, but what do I know?

[mikealdren]

It's off topic I know but surely Schubert was the real great loss among those who died young, if Mozart had died at 31 we would rate him so highly without the last 3 symphonies, Cosi, Figaro, Giovanni, Zauberflote, the clarinet concerto and quintet, the requiem, the Prussian quartets, the last piano concerto etc.

Schubert in his last 3 years wrote so many of his great works, what would he have written with another 3 years.

Had Beethoven died at 31 we'd scarcely remember him!

Mike

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Had Beethoven died at 31 we'd scarcely remember him!

Had Beethoven died at 31, we wouldn't remember Schubert at all.

[LeMartinPecheur]

Had Beethoven died at 31, we wouldn't remember Schubert at all.

That's certainly an arguable point. I've just been suggesting to Mrs LMP that had Schubert not caught syphilis, the immediate cause of his early death and more importantly perhaps the reason he knew he wasn't going to make old bones, the late great works wouldn't have been late in the same way and maybe not have been great at all.

Had he died of old age c.1867 might he not perhaps have been merely a pleasant, superannuated tinkly Biedermeyer composer? To put it another way, wasn't it the syphilis and the shadow of death that made him a great composer?

[Flosshilde]

wasn't it the syphilis and the shadow of death that made him a great composer?

Not sure that's a career path I'd recommend

[LeMartinPecheur]

Not sure that's a career path I'd recommend

Indeed, but for Schubert from where we stand now it's pretty much a 'brute surd' is it not?

[gurnemanz]

To put it another way, wasn't it the syphilis and the shadow of death that made him a great composer?

He was great quite early on, writing Gretchen am Spinnrade aged 17

[LeMartinPecheur]

He was great quite early on, writing Gretchen am Spinnrade aged 17

Um yes, up to a point, but I don't think the instrumental masterpieces, or indeed the greatest of his songs that really ground his reputation, come from before his 'diagnosis'. Before than he would certainly have been a promising talent, but nowhere near the genius he is now (for most of us anyway). IMHO anyway...

[Madame Suggia]

Can we get back to Bargains here please.

Thanks.

[Flosshilde]

OK - have you found any recently?