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

[teamsaint]

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 !!

[Beef Oven!]

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 !!

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

Britten's Sinfonia Da Requiem and Bartok's Four Orchestral Pieces kinda count as symphonies in my mind, but I doubt many would agree.

Lloyd Webber, on telly and the radio a lot, but never wrote any music!


Great thread' teamsaint

[MrGongGong]

Lloyd Webber, on telly and the radio a lot, but never wrote any music!

His Dad did though

Xenakis opera ?

[visualnickmos]

Didn't Sibelius once have the idea of writing a cello concerto? That really would have been something.....

[Serial_Apologist]

Xenakis opera ?

Old hat, I should imagine.

Many serial composers wouldn't compose symphonies, following Schoenberg's example, on grounds that symphonic logic depended on key relations, (his two chamber ones were started before the abandonment of tonality). Boulez did, of course, but left its score on a train - for subconscious reasons, I'm sure!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

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

Neither difficult nor infrequent these days - although a Mingus Symphony remains an idea worthy of anyone's saliva.

Mahler's String Quartets and Piano Sonatas. Brahms' opera(s). Debussy's Sonata for Harpsichord, Oboe and Horn.

[EdgeleyRob]

Symphonies by John Ireland and Gerald Finzi.
I wonder what Alkan orchestral music would have sounded like ?
If only RVW had finished that Cello Concerto,and then composed a Cello Sonata.

[kea]

Alkan actually wrote a symphony, it's just been lost.

For never-existed works I'd like to hear a Medtner violin concerto, wind quintets by Brahms, a serial symphony or string quartet by Stravinsky, Mussorgsky symphonies, and some Berlioz stuff for large chamber ensemble (8-20 players or so).
For works that could have existed: the set of Beethoven string quartets that would have started with Op. 135, Mozart's cello concerto, Varèse's early works, the lost(?) Enescu piano sonata, and anything else by Voříšek, Vivier or Romitelli.

[Thropplenoggin]

Queldryk's Nunc dimittis.

[doversoul1]

Bach (JS) and opera. If he had, would he have written something as un-Italian as his Cantatas?

[ahinton]

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

Good point!

Britten's Sinfonia Da Requiem and Bartok's Four Orchestral Pieces kinda count as symphonies in my mind, but I doubt many would agree.

I'd agree about the Britten but not about the Bartók.

Lloyd Webber, on telly and the radio a lot, but never wrote any music!

...except other people's...

[ahinton]

Old hat, I should imagine.

Many serial composers wouldn't compose symphonies, following Schoenberg's example, on grounds that symphonic logic depended on key relations, (his two chamber ones were started before the abandonment of tonality). Boulez did, of course, but left its score on a train - for subconscious reasons, I'm sure!

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

[ahinton]

If only RVW had finished that Cello Concerto

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.

[Don Petter]

Mahler's String Quartets and Piano Sonatas.

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

[verismissimo]

A Requiem from Paul McCartney?








Oh, sorry. He has done that.