# Photos with composers at work



## TudorMihai (Feb 20, 2013)

Here we will post photos with composers in the process of composing.

Shostakovich








Mahler








Enescu


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

Ravel:










Ligeti:


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## rrudolph (Sep 15, 2011)

John Cage:


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## rrudolph (Sep 15, 2011)

Arnold Schoenberg


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## TudorMihai (Feb 20, 2013)

Korngold








Stravinsky


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

Enescu is doing it wrong. He's supposed to look all tormented and artistic.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Weston said:


> Enescu is doing it wrong. He's supposed to look all tormented and artistic.


Ravel is having way too good of a time. But shouldn't he have a highball there on the piano?


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## Crudblud (Dec 29, 2011)

aleazk said:


> Ravel:


That jacket! I would have +50 on my composing skill with a jacket like that, no doubt.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Crudblud said:


> That jacket! I would have +50 on my composing skill with a jacket like that, no doubt.


Yes, the Jacket of Impressionistic Orchestration. Ravel loaned it to Scriabin, who never returned. Most people, like Boulez, follow Bartok in believing it to be buried in Schoenberg Sands, but Lutoslawski thought it was perhaps somewhere in the Dungeons of Disco, where he spent years on the chance he'd find it. Now Adès is searching for it, and even Golijov himself, but we cannot allow them to get it, lest techno music conquer the world.

I wonder what was in that chicken stew I had for lunch.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

I feel guilty about that last post - in my defense, I'm reading _Wicked_, which is awful - so I'll contribute to the thread meaningfully. On the right is Shchedrin:


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

science said:


> On the right is Shchedrin:


Pop quiz: Name another composer whose name begins with four consonants. :devil: BTW in researching this post, I ended up on the Cthulhu for President page. Check his positions!

http://www.cthulhu.org/


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

KenOC said:


> Pop quiz: Name another composer whose name begins with four consonants. :devil:


I've got Schnittke and Schmelzer. There must be more.

Got one more: Schreker.

Oh, and a good'n: Tschesnokoff. (Much better than Chesnokov.)


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

KenOC said:


> Pop quiz: Name another composer whose name begins with four consonants. :devil: BTW in researching this post, I ended up on the Cthulhu for President page. Check his positions!
> 
> http://www.cthulhu.org/


Does Byrd count?

How about *Krzyszt*of Penderecki?

I guess "Y" is cheating.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Weston said:


> I guess "Y" is cheating.


Clever though!


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

science said:


> Oh, and a good'n: Tschesnokoff. (Much better than Chesnokov.)


Or: Tschaikovsky!


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese (Jan 8, 2013)

Zappa at work (and smoking of course)


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## Ramako (Apr 28, 2012)

Not a photograph but oh well...










He wrote all 104 symphonies with precisely that pose you know...


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## Arsakes (Feb 20, 2012)

Conducting is an optional composer's work. Isn't it?


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Some American composers -

Gershwin:










& one of my favourite albums of Lenny, and I love the photo on the cover too:










Hovhaness:


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Some Australian composers -

Peter Sculthorpe:










The late Richard Meale - a rare photo of him in his younger years:










Peggy Glanville-Hicks, one of our significant composers in the mid to late 20th century:


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## TudorMihai (Feb 20, 2013)

These are film music composers but they are composers nonetheless

Dimitri Tiomkin








Franz Waxman








Henry Mancini








Max Steiner








Alfred Newman


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## TudorMihai (Feb 20, 2013)

Some more:

Victor Young








Miklos Rozsa








Bernard Herrmann


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

More Aussie composers at work - Brett Dean, Elena Kats-Chernin, Rosalind Page and Nigel Westlake:


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Adding to this compilation of composers posed in front of their scores looking 'thoughtful' as if they were inspired and 'just writing it down.'

[LOL, the only 'at work' bit in most of these is the posing in front of the manuscript with writing instrument in hand....]

Lukas Foss:


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## TudorMihai (Feb 20, 2013)

Holst








Prokofiev








Irving Berlin


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## TudorMihai (Feb 20, 2013)

Elgar








John Williams








John Barry








Maurice Jarre








Philip Glass


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## ptr (Jan 22, 2013)

Swede Hilding Rosenberg









/ptr


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

Such is the life and work of a Director...









Interesting photo to analyze. Two phones, tons of books, pens, other things I can't even tell, etc. What could each of those papers pinned to the walls be for...

A neat portrait here too:









1890, which means Glazunov has one of his tone pictures in front of him, likely op. 28 or 29. Crazy stuff, his "enfante terrible" period.


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese (Jan 8, 2013)

A different type Composer at work pic
Young Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky at work! as a cadet in the Preobrazhensky Regiment of the Imperial Guard.


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## Kevin Pearson (Aug 14, 2009)

I haven't seen Sibelius yet! 










Kevin


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese (Jan 8, 2013)

Kevin Pearson said:


> I haven't seen Sibelius yet!
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Was he one the the Munsters???


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## Kevin Pearson (Aug 14, 2009)

EddieRUKiddingVarese said:


> Was he one the the Munsters???


Eddie you are getting him confused with Uncle Fester on the Addams Family. Here's another of him working when he was younger.










Kevin


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese (Jan 8, 2013)

^ Oh thanks for that it is so much clear now - I see the resemblance ...............

Actually he looks a bit like Gomez Addams there???


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## Kevin Pearson (Aug 14, 2009)

EddieRUKiddingVarese said:


> ^ Oh thanks for that it is so much clear now - I see the resemblance ...............
> 
> Actually he looks a bit like Gomez Addams there???


Perhaps this will help!



















Kevin


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese (Jan 8, 2013)

^ Good god, the man could play half the Addams family............... Sibelius what a fella - after my own heart!


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## dionisio (Jul 30, 2012)

EddieRUKiddingVarese said:


> ^ Oh thanks for that it is so much clear now - I see the resemblance ...............
> 
> Actually he looks a bit like Gomez Addams there???


Fester you mean!


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese (Jan 8, 2013)

dionisio said:


> Fester you mean!


Your right in post #34 he looks like Fester but in post #32 he looks like Gomez


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## TudorMihai (Feb 20, 2013)

John Adams








Aram Khachaturian








Sergei Rachmaninoff








Bela Bartok


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## TitanisWalleri (Dec 30, 2012)

Respighi









Copland (surprised he hadn't already been posted)


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

Wagner never permitted candid photos to be taken doing something as droll as "working". Only when he was in full costume and makeup, his head angled so the full glory of his nose may be appreciated, his eyes gazing into the distance so there is no mistaking that he has only the deepest of thoughts occupying his head.


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

Well, sorry to pour cold water all over this thread, but the vast majority of these photos do not show the composers working. They show the composers after being interrupted and asked to pose as if they are working.

And consider how many composers do quite a bit of work in their own heads while supposedly doing other things. Here's a photo of Brahms, hard at work on yet another masterpiece:









And it doesn't look all that posed either!


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## Wicked_one (Aug 18, 2010)

No one posted Grieg. He may be composing, you know.


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

Wicked_one said:


> No one posted Grieg. He may be composing, you know.


Or composting, for all we know...


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

Shostakovich as a firefighter during the war. The staged photograph was used in magazines, including "Time".









Fartein Valen. A shy and timid-looking figure with a background among conservative Christian missionaries, yet not afraid to challenge established music with controversial, modern works.









Lucia Dlugoszewski. OK, somewhat staged.
(http://www.joesuniverse.org/lucybio.html).









Composer-pianist-conductor Andre Previn + "some other people" experiencing a working situation in very different ways ...


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## Garlic (May 3, 2013)

TudorMihai said:


> Bela Bartok
> View attachment 22495


Did Bartok really always compose in the nude, or is that a myth?


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

Garlic said:


> Did Bartok really always compose in the nude, or is that a myth?




Never heard that one before, but this seems to confirm at least some of the story, yet says that Kodaly was an even more hard-core naturist:

http://books.google.dk/books?id=cDC...6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=bela bartok nudity&f=false


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## chrisco97 (May 22, 2013)

*Beethoven:*










Shows how messy the man could be. :lol:


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

chrisco97 said:


> Shows how messy the man could be. :lol:


At least it doesn't show the un-emptied chamber pot that visitors apparently sometimes saw under the piano...


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## julianoq (Jan 29, 2013)

I was going to post three brazilian composers, but I decided to post three pictures of Villa-Lobos instead to avoid a style overload in this post.


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## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

Scriabin









Liszt


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

julianoq said:


> I was going to post three brazilian composers, but I decided to post three pictures of Villa-Lobos instead to avoid a style overload in this post.


Man, those cigars! Worthy of note.


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## Kevin Pearson (Aug 14, 2009)

DeepR said:


> Liszt


If you rightclick the Liszt picture and "open in new tab" you can see the details in a larger view. He appears to have a drawing of Beethoven on his wall. Those curtains are gosh awful though! yeesh! 

Kevin


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## QuietGuy (Mar 1, 2014)

Leonard Bernstein


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## OldFashionedGirl (Jul 21, 2013)

Henri Dutilleux








Stockhausen


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

julianoq said:


> I was going to post three brazilian composers, but I decided to post three pictures of Villa-Lobos instead to avoid a style overload in this post.


_Macho, macho man
I gotta be a macho man
Macho macho man
I gotta be a macho_


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