Destroyed music

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Earlier today, in Afternoon on 3, we were given a performance of Janacek's Piano Sonata, which he had destroyed by throwing it into the river Vltava. Fortunately, another copy survived. Listening this remarkable work, it seems inconceivable that the composer should have had such a low opinion of it. How many other fine works were lost in this way? Some composers were very destructive - Villa Lobos and Hovhaness being prime examples. Elgar wanted the sketches for his 3rd Symphony destroyed. These must be the tip of the iceberg.
Which other works have we lost?

[Chris Newman]

Sibelius Eighth Symphony

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Ah, yes. Is there no trace of this at all?

[Vile Consort]

A considerable amount of music was lost at the Marienkirche in Lubeck when a bonfire was made of the music library by a pastor announcing "there's nothing so old as old music". It is thought that many works by Buxtehude and Tunder were lost.

[StephenO]

Alma Mahler's lieder. The 17 songs which survive show what a wonderful composer she might have been.

[Roehre]

A lot has gone lost over time, not only because of the composers' own criticism (Sibelius' 8, Hovhaness, Villa Lobos haven been mentioned already, but we safely can add Ruggles, Dukas, Hahn as well), but because of philistinism by others or simply bad luck.

To start with the latter category: Havergal Brian's violin concerto is such a case. What we know now as his VC, is actually a 2nd concerto, composed immediately after Brian forgot a parcel with the score of the original one on his way home in the train. It has never been recovered (A similar fate almost happened to Martinu's 1st violin concerto, but that one was retrieved early in the 1960s)
Beethoven's oboe concerto (with a wind octet and some other chamber music works) went astray on their way between Bonn and Vienna, after they had been sent from Vienna to please the authorities in Bonn that he was making some progress with his teacher Haydn (paid for by the Elector). And the early violin concerto in C most likely was a completed and complete work, once.

A couple of [early] Mozart symphonies are either gatering dust or have simply been destroyed, a fate which they share with Mahler works he composed before Das Klagende Lied.

Mengelberg was shown in Dresden the score of three symphonies which he didn't know (and this was in the 1930s, more than a decade after the Amsterdam 1920 Mahler festival where all -then available- works were performed). Two of these have been identified as a 3 mvt symphony in a-minor, the other as the "Nordic" symphony. At least one of these (possibly the "Nordic" was scheduled for a concert by the orcehstra of the Vienna conservatoire, but was withdrawn as there were too many mistakes in the parts. These score were destroyed during the militarily completely unneccessary "Bomber Harris" attack on Dresden in March 1945 - an allied war crime which didn't serve any aim other than to please the Red Army. During that bombardment other Mahlerian scores, like a violin sonata and the music for "Der Trompeter von Säkkingen" were destroyed as well (from the latter only "Blumine" has survived as it was incorporated by Mahler in the "Titan"-score).
All the manuscripts of Magnard's were destroyed as his house was burnt down after he opened fire to the invading German troops in 1914 and he was caught and summarily executed. Among these works one opera and two movements of a fifth symphony.

A fire at the Esterhazy palace destroyed many (earlier) works by Haydn, among others nearly his complete operatic output to date as well as symphonies and of course chamber music.
Fire destroyed the original of Sullivan's cello concerto - the present version is a reconstruction by Charles Mackarras.
Have the original scores of the 2nd and 3rd Norfolk Rhapsodies by Vaughan Williams shared this fate, or are the missing pages gone astray another way (as the 2nd was reconstructable)?

Rott destroyed the score of his 2nd symphony by using it as toilet paper - it wasn't worth more than that, he claimed, especially after some harsh comments by Brahms regarding his Symphony in E.
Brahms himself was that critical, that we don't have hardly any sketches of his, nor other works than the ones his himself published, or was unable to destroy (an example of the latter: Piano trio in A, the original version of the 3rd mvt of his 1st symphony, the Missa canonica). He is known to have destroyed some 20 string quartets, the original score of the symphony in d (eventually became the 1st piano concerto), a string quintet in c-sharp-minor, ditto in f-minor, score sketches for a 5th symphony (part of which found its way into he quintet op.111)

Philistinism is even a more grave danger, as it happens to the present day.
Some years ago a manuscript of one of Beethoven's songs was set alight in the Beethovenhaus. It completely turned into ashes. Schubert's score of the 2nd and 3rd acts of either Lazarus or one of his operas was destroyed as his housekeeper used its pages to lit the fire one morning. Some of Mendelssohn's autographs were destroyed by the Nazi-organized bonfire of Jewish literature and music in Berlin, 1933.
Many of the socres by Jewish composers or by those who for other reasons were sent to Concentration camps, or left the Third Reich (or later the occupied territories) were irretrievably lost, e.g. Marek's symphony, works by Haas, the string quartet by Leo Smit.

But according to the necrologies JSBach composed 5 complete years of Church cantatas, meaning he composed at least some 250 of them, but more likely more than 300. Some 199 have survived, meaning between 50 and 100 of this part of his ecclesiastical output has disappeared. A similar fate is shared by some 50 other cantatas, approximately 30 concertos, and a lot of lesser stuff.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

A recent reconstruction was of Elgar's "The Crown of India". The full score and most of the parts were destroyed in the 1970s, leaving only the vocal score and a few orchestral bit, including the well-known suite. It was Anthony Payne to the rescue again (just orchestrating this time), hence the recent Chandos recording with Sir Andrew Davis. The destruction on this occasion hade more to do with thoughtlessness than anything else. The warehouse containing the archives of Enoch & Sons was demolished, evidently without removing the contents. You'd expect that sort of think to happen in wartime, but this was sheer vandalism.

[Chris Newman]

And Berlioz's Messe Solonelle found in a box in a Belgian Organ loft after he thought he had destroyed it.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

And Berlioz's Messe Solonelle found in a box in a Belgian Organ loft after he thought he had destroyed it.

I like that sort of story.
Elgar's (am I getting boring here? ) Sanguine Fan ballet only survived because someone had kept the orchestral parts.

[Roehre]

Elgar's (am I getting boring here? ) Sanguine Fan ballet only survived because someone had kept the orchestral parts.

As is Rachmanoinov's 1st symphony and some of the overtures of Tchaikovsky's.

[Freddie Campbell]

...Well much of Durufle's Church Music was committed to his memory & never written down-
That was a great loss to posterity!

[Martin]

I believe that either Henry Eccles or John Eccles (can't remember which one) threw lots of his compositions off London Bridge because he was dissatisfied with them.

[Roehre]

...Well much of Durufle's Church Music was committed to his memory & never written down-
That was a great loss to posterity!

As was Enescu's 2nd sonata (IIRC)

[Serial_Apologist]

How one would love to hear that scores by Varese have turned up from before "Ameriques" - <sigh> - the short song from 1906 played on the recent broadcasts of his music, presumably the only work known to have survived, offered a tantalising window on his pre 1918 music.

S-A

[Suffolkcoastal]

Roehre

Vaughan Williams' 2nd Norfolk Rhapsody has been recorded by Chandos as few years ago, only one page needed to be reconstructed.

The Haydn Double Bass Concerto, the early symphonies of Hovhaness (he destroyed them), Moeran's 2nd Symphony, a 2nd String Quartet by Barber (I think only a small portion survives and I'm not sure whether he finished it and destroyed most of the sketches or just abandoned the work).