Things they somehow managed to avoid......

[cloughie]

David Matthews has done that for him, though...

How about Rakhmaninov's violin concerto?

This thread momentarily brings to mind the famous clerihew

Massenet
Never wrote a Mass in A;
It wouldn't have been so bad
If he had.

Symphonies by Verdi, Puccini and Rossini.

Perhaps some C20th French composer could have written a piece inspired by the art of Matisse and the music of Mahler.

[Suffolkcoastal]

Wasn't Wagner considering turning back to the symphonic form in the months before his death? A full mature Wagner symphony would have been a very different experience from his early attempts. Would it have been Bruckner like in length or possible anticipate the vocal/choral Mahler symphonies, or would Wagner have surprised us with a compact work along the lines of Schoenberg's First Chamber Symphony.

As a young composer many thought that Puccini would turn to symphonic music rather than opera and it really is a great pity that he didn't compose a symphony later on in his career. The concluding sections of the first acts of both Tosca and Turandot show real large scale structual planning that could have been transposed into symphonic writing, and that coupled with his superb orchestration would I am sure have produced a symphony of some distinction.

Apart from a couple of short one act operas why didn't Sibelius write a full scale opera? His dramatic works for voice show full command of vocal writing and that combined with the vivid descriptive power of his orchestral music would surely have produced something rather special. Though admittedly his two one act attempts are not Sibelius at his very finest, so perhaps he lacked the confidence.

[Ferretfancy]

I have pondered starting this thread for a while. I was interested in thoughts, observations, opinions on forms that particular composers avoided, never got round to, or otherwise failed to use, or at least not much.
You know the sort of thing.

Schubert Concertos, Ravel symphonies, Debussy piano concerto, and so on.
There might be some omissions that are surprising, or some light shed on the reasons why certain composers avoided particular forms.

Or perhaps not !!

Maybe things you wish existed might be interesting, in a parlour game kind of a way.

I inadvertently invented the thought of Charlie Mingus Symphony a while back, which had Ferney drooling, IIRC !!

I suppose some of them did have a go. Debussy's Fantaisie for Piano and Orchestra is a concerto in all but name, and a very attractive piece, as are Schubert's Konzertstuck i D major D345 and his A major rondo D438, both for violin and orchestra.

[teamsaint]

Wasn't Wagner considering turning back to the symphonic form in the months before his death? A full mature Wagner symphony would have been a very different experience from his early attempts. Would it have been Bruckner like in length or possible anticipate the vocal/choral Mahler symphonies, or would Wagner have surprised us with a compact work along the lines of Schoenberg's First Chamber Symphony.

As a young composer many thought that Puccini would turn to symphonic music rather than opera and it really is a great pity that he didn't compose a symphony later on in his career. The concluding sections of the first acts of both Tosca and Turandot show real large scale structual planning that could have been transposed into symphonic writing, and that coupled with his superb orchestration would I am sure have produced a symphony of some distinction.

Apart from a couple of short one act operas why didn't Sibelius write a full scale opera? His dramatic works for voice show full command of vocal writing and that combined with the vivid descriptive power of his orchestral music would surely have produced something rather special. Though admittedly his two one act attempts are not Sibelius at his very finest, so perhaps he lacked the confidence.

This was one that jumped out at me when I was thinking about the thread , SC.

Its not hard to imagine it being very dramatic and special.

On a more contemporary note, I don't think Colin Matthews has written a symphony? Perhaps its on the way.

[remdataram]

Symphonies by Verdi, Puccini and Rossini.

Oh yes! Perhaps we can add Donizetti to your trio?

[Roehre]

Mahler, a great opera conductor, but never wrote opera!!?

He did more than once even (Goetz von Berlichingen; also Der Trompeter von Säckingen of which a reworking as incidental music even reached the stage. Blumine is a surviving part of this opera/stage music ) but destroyed them.
Plus his completion and orchestration of Weber's Die drei Pintos

Apart from the surviving complete 1st mvt and incomplete scherzo for a piano quartet, there has been a violin sonata too, as that one was premiered at the same concert iirc as the piano quartet.
(Most of his juvenile works, including 3 (or 4?) symphonies were eradicated by that Allied war crime against Dresden)

[Roehre]

Brahms operas (a couple being contemplated, not realised, his Rinaldo op.50 is the nearest we can get),
a Bruckner opera (ditto, Abendzauber WAB 57 from 1878 the nearest thing),
a Chopin symphony

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

He did write a Piano Quartet movement, so in a sense, made a start in both directions.

Indeed. Just wish he'd lived long enough to finish the journeys - and to give us Symphonies 11 - 17.

[cloughie]

Indeed. Just wish he'd lived long enough to finish the journeys - and to give us Symphonies 11 - 17.

...and his real 10th!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Wasn't that Symphonic Variations? - or was there an actual symphony as well?

I think S_A may be referring to the Symphonie Concertante for Piano & Orchestra that Boulez wrote (and completed, he says) immediately after finishing the Second Piano Sonata, but wehich (he also claims) was gathered up by a hotel cleaner with "all the other rubbish" and lost forever. I may be being cynical - this story sounds so apocryphal that it may actually be true! - but this just sounds like a good story. Boulez' complete lack of distress at the loss of the work (and his astonishingly clear memory about the work's weaknesses) and his recycling of its material in later works has always seemed very dubious to my mean-spirited mind. I mean: a neat copy of a full score piled neatly on a table? Who is going to mistake that for waste paper?


Hmm. Whatever happened to fellow Forumista Simon?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

...and his real 10th!

... and his "final" thoughts on Das Lied and the Ninth. And the letter to Mengelberg saying "stop being a twit and play the Scherzo before the Andante".

[cloughie]

... and his "final" thoughts on Das Lied and the Ninth. And the letter to Mengelberg saying "stop being a twit and play the Scherzo before the Andante".

All in all it was pretty inconsiderate of him to quit when he did!

[Nick Armstrong]

Enjoying this thread! Especially:

Debussy's Sonata for Harpsichord, Oboe and Horn.

the letter to Mengelberg saying "stop being a twit and play the Scherzo before the Andante".

Massenet
Never wrote a Mass in A;
It wouldn't have been so bad
If he had.

[Ferretfancy]

[QUOTE=ferneyhoughgeliebte;375733]... and his "final" thoughts on Das Lied and the Ninth. And the letter to Mengelberg saying "stop being a twit and play the Scherzo before the Andante".[/QUOTE

Just imagine if he had written several operas, once today's producers got their hands on them we would have devastated audiences pouring into St Martin's Lane looking for a convenient place to commit suicide!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Just imagine if he had written several operas, once today's producers got their hands on them we would have devastated audiences pouring into St Martin's Lane looking for a convenient place to commit suicide!

- a setting of Werther, perhaps? (Although Mahler would possibly re-write much of Goethe's plot. A "Werther Original", perhaps?) Hearing the Seventh Symphony, I reckon Gus would've made a damn fine opera of A Midsummer Night's Dream.


(Incidentally, your scenario would make a change from the devastated audiences pouring into St Martin's Lane looking for a convenient place to commit murder after many a modern producer's take on Mozart!