# Notable works by two or more composers



## apricissimus (May 15, 2013)

It seems like the vast majority of classical music pieces that we all know and love are the work of a single individual composer. Collaboration in writing popular music is fairly common however. (Some simple pop songs can have four or five or six different composer credits!)

Are there any notable classical music compositions that are the result of collaboration of two or more composers? By this I mean works started and finished with planned collaboration.

For this question, I want to exclude:

Works started by one composer, and finished by another (usually after the death of the first, e.g., Mahler's 10th Symphony)
Works written by one composer, but with a famous or canonical arrangement by another (such as Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, or Ravel's orchestration of Picture at an Exhibition)
Operas with one person composing the music, and another writing the libretto.
Other vocal works where the lyrics were written by someone other than the composer of the music.

I just find it interesting that collaboration seems to be so rare in classical music. (Or maybe I'm wrong about that?)


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## annaw (May 4, 2019)

Found a whole Wkipedia page about that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_music_written_in_collaboration .

Many quite interesting works and projects by well-known composers as well, especially the pianists and opera composers it seems.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

These are more noteworthy than notable, I suppose, but interesting examples nonetheless.


Jacques Ibert and Arthur Honegger collaborated on a couple of stage works. Ibert remarked: 'The division of labour was quite fair - he wrote the sharps and I wrote the flats'.

Then there was the 'F.A.E. sonata' for violin and piano from 1853 in which Brahms provided a scherzo, Schumann provided an intermezzo and final movement and a pupil called Albert Dietrich provided the opening movement.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

"World famous in China", but actually getting more known elsewhere as well: The Butterfly Lovers' Violin Concerto, written in 1959 by two Chinese composers, He Zhanhao and Chen Gang.


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## jegreenwood (Dec 25, 2015)

A number of composers took themes from older composers and created new works. Vaughan Williams' Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis and Tippett's Fantasia Concertante on a Theme of Corelli come to mind. One might include Brahms' Haydn Variations, even if the original was not by Haydn. However Brahms used this technique in several other instances.

Can we count the original concept of the Diabelli Variations?

As for vocal music, it seems to me the norm is for there to be separate composers and lyricists. There are of course exceptions, Wagner and Sondheim , being the most notable. And of course so much lieder is setting existing poems to music.


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## apricissimus (May 15, 2013)

annaw said:


> Found a whole Wkipedia page about that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_music_written_in_collaboration .
> 
> Many quite interesting works and projects by well-known composers as well, especially the pianists and opera composers it seems.


Well, I guess there's my answer! Thanks.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

"Les Danaïdes is an opera by Antonio Salieri, in five acts: more specifically, it is a tragédie lyrique. The opera was set to a libretto by François-Louis Gand Le Bland Du Roullet and Louis-Théodore de Tschudi, who in turn adapted the work of Ranieri de' Calzabigi (without permission). Calzabigi originally wrote the libretto of Les Danaïdes for Christoph Willibald Gluck, but the aged composer, who had just experienced a stroke, was unable to meet the Opéra's schedule and so asked Salieri to take it over. The plot of the opera is based on Greek tragedy and revolves around the deeds of the mythological characters Danaus and Hypermnestra.
Emperor Joseph II assured that Salieri wrote the music "almost under the dictée of Gluck," in a letter (dated 31 March 1783) to Count Mercy-Argenteau, the Austrian ambassador in Paris. Then Mercy told the directors of the Opéra that Gluck had composed the first two acts, and Salieri supplied the third act's music (Mercy did not realize the opera was in five acts). Even when the libretto was published, Gluck and Salieri shared billing as the composers.
Though flattered, Gluck was not foolish enough to risk too close an association with young Salieri's work and diplomatically informed the press: "The music of Danaïdes is completely by Salieri, my only part in it having been to make suggestions which he willingly accepted." Gluck, who had been devastated by the failure of his last Paris opera, Echo et Narcisse, was concerned that Les Danaïdes would suffer a similar fate. He wrote to Roullet the same day that the opera premiered, crediting Salieri with the entire work, and the press noted this confession. Salieri made a positive twist on Gluck's statement, claiming that he was "led by [Gluck's] wisdom and enlightened by his genius"."


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## Orfeo (Nov 14, 2013)

annaw said:


> Found a whole Wkipedia page about that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_music_written_in_collaboration .
> 
> Many quite interesting works and projects by well-known composers as well, especially the pianists and opera composers it seems.


My, was Glazunov ever so busy. Anyhow, I'll add:

Yevgeny Svetlanov: Siberian Fantasy (composed with Igor Yakushenko, 1954)


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## RICK RIEKERT (Oct 9, 2017)

Salieri and Mozart wrote a solo cantata for soprano and fortepiano entitled "Per la ricuperata salute di Ofelia" (For the recovered health of Ophelia). The reason for this musical partnership was the return to the stage of Nancy Storace, an operatic soprano who had befriended Mozart, Haydn and Salieri. Lorenzo Da Ponte penned the libretto, and 3 different composers supplied the music. Salieri composed the pastoral first part, while Mozart wrote the march-like second. The concluding portion was written in pastoral style by "Cornetti," which may refer to the vocal teacher and composer Alessandro Cornetti active in Vienna at that time. However, it might also be a pseudonym for Stephen Storace, Nancy's composer brother, who probably instigated this collaborative effort in honor of his famous sister in the first place.


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