# Finishing the unfinished



## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

As those who have read many of my posts will realize, I have strong feelings about the validity of completing and performing *some *otherwise unfinished works. I think that the cases for both the Mahler 10th and Bruckner 9th are quite clear. Others, such as the incomplete Schubert symphonies probably need to be left alone. Having said that, I thought it interesting to post some comments made by the English composer, George Lloyd, in a 1988 interview. When asked about the first version of his 2nd symphony and what if some conductor in the future finds it and decides to perform it...

_"I've been pretty cunning over that, I might tell you. I discovered a few years back that this was a very dangerous thing, and that you couldn't leave anything around if you didn't want to acknowledge it. This idea of digging out everything that the poor composer has thrown away... take Puccini's Madame Butterfly. He cut out something like forty-five minutes of music from the original production. He, poor innocent, left it in publishers' cellars, and a few years ago that was just dug out and played again. Now I think that's really awful, because the man decided it was wrong, so it should be left wrong. They'll perform the original version of a Verdi opera which he revised, quite disregarding the fact that Verdi was a great stage craftsman, great musician, and he decided that he could improve it. But no, you have to give the original version. I think that's a load of nonsense. So, five or six years ago I went through everything and destroyed scores left, right, and center. I hope I got rid of most of the old rubbish that I wouldn't acknowledge!"_

He went on to say...

_"You've given me a great idea! Now if I just did a few sketches on one page and put "Symphony Number Thirteen"at the top, write about four or five bars and then go to another page and say, "This is the second movement," and write two chords, then in sixty or seventy years somebody will come along and they'd reconstruct an entire work out of my three pages! I'd have to see that they found it within fifty years of my death, and then my heirs would be able to claim some royalties on it!"_

I am not familiar with his example from Puccini but I do know that I think that we would be much poorer if we ignored the first section of Mahler's _Das Klagende Lied_ which he did attempt to suppress.


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## David Phillips (Jun 26, 2017)

I liked what Anthony Payne did with the sketches of Elgar's Third Symphony. I have three or four different versions on CD and play them often. It's true that Elgar on his deathbed forbade anyone trying to complete the sketches, but then why didn't he have them destroyed?


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

I have mixed feelings on this topic. I'm glad to have a completed version (or two) of Mahler's 10th symphony. He himself felt he had completed it "in the sketch". Of course, much of it lacks his superb orchestration, which would be hard enough to approximate successfully, never mind the chorus of angry criticisms any such attempt would doubtless provoke. (Putting in so many notes not composed by Mahler, etc.) 
Mozart certainly wanted his Requiem completed even when he was to too ill to do it himself, as he very much needed the substantial fee his widow ultimately was able to collect, iirc, thanks to the completion by his student and secretary Sussmayr. But there I'm not entirely happy with the result.
A famous similar example in literature: Marcel Proust worked desperately hard to complete his massive, complex masterpiece Remembrance of Things Past before he died. Fortunately for him, he was wealthy and could afford a full time secretary to assist him. He didn't quite succeed, though, and some rough spots remained at his death. But he was wise enough to fully complete his ending and everything else that was truly central. The few rough edges and undeveloped ideas that remain don't detract significantly from the result. 
Puccini couldn't bring himself to finish Turandot, so I suppose someone else had to do it, even if the result was competent but unremarkable.
But if a composer voluntarily chooses to abandon a work, I agree that choice should generally be respected.


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## CypressWillow (Apr 2, 2013)

fluteman said:


> I have mixed feelings on this topic. I'm glad to have a completed version (or two) of Mahler's 10th symphony. He himself felt he had completed it "in the sketch". Of course, much of it lacks his superb orchestration, which would be hard enough to approximate successfully, never mind the chorus of angry criticisms any such attempt would doubtless provoke. (Putting in so many notes not composed by Mahler, etc.)
> Mozart certainly wanted his Requiem completed even when he was to too ill to do it himself, as he very much needed the substantial fee his widow ultimately was able to collect, iirc, thanks to the completion by his student and secretary Sussmayr. But there I'm not entirely happy with the result.
> A famous similar example in literature: Marcel Proust worked desperately hard to complete his massive, complex masterpiece Remembrance of Things Past before he died. Fortunately for him, he was wealthy and could afford a full time secretary to assist him. He didn't quite succeed, though, and some rough spots remained at his death. But he was wise enough to fully complete his ending and everything else that was truly central. The few rough edges and undeveloped ideas that remain don't detract significantly from the result.
> Puccini couldn't bring himself to finish Turandot, so I suppose someone else had to do it, even if the result was competent but unremarkable.
> But if a composer voluntarily chooses to abandon a work, I agree that choice should generally be respected.


I agree that the composer's wishes should be respected. As in other arts, for example: Fred Astaire had a fascinating life and I, for one, would enjoy a well-done "biopic" film. But Fred stipulated that no one should ever portray him. And so far that wish has been respected (as far as I know.) I think a great artist, who gives pleasure to so many, is entitled to that.


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## Triplets (Sep 4, 2014)

It's fascinating to compare the 'original ' version of Vaughn Williams London Symphony, which he had performed publicly, with the official final version, and ditto for the two versions of Sibelius 5. In both cases the Composers had second thoughts after hearing their works in Concert. Rachmaninov also did similar things.
I wonder, if Mahler had been granted another decade of Composing, and had a chance to not only complete the 10th, but to hear the 9th and Das Lied performed, what changes he would have made to those scores. He made the right call in dropping 'Blumine' from the First, lovely though that piece is


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

I don't see why a composer would even care whether we try to complete a work after his death, so long as we don't try to pass off our part of the work as authentic. We know very well that the final scene of Turandot isn't Puccini's, so even if we don't think it's up to his standard it's no blot on his reputation. If we want to stop the performance with Liu's suicide we can do that, as Toscanini did at the first performance, out of "respect," but what sense does that make for anyone wanting to see an opera? In most cases it's only composers' last works that lie unfinished, so it isn't as if we're screwing around with the body of their achievement. Personally, I don't need to hear a fourth movement for Bruckner's 9th, or any additions to Schubert's 8th, but if you do, well, have at it. Like many others, I enjoy the Symphony #3 by Elgar/Payne, and that's how the work is quite properly identified.

Completions, properly identified, seem to me no more intrinsically offensive or improper than transcriptions or orchestrations by people other than the composer. The works continue to exist in their original form.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Woodduck said:


> I don't see why a composer would even care whether we try to complete a work after his death...


I think it's safe to say that the composer won't care even one tiny bit.


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## Totenfeier (Mar 11, 2016)

As to Mahler's Tenth, I'm wondering if his dictum to Klemperer might apply: "If, after my death, something doesn't sound right, then change it. You have not only the right but the duty to do so." Is it absolutely necessary for an _admitted_ completion of the Tenth to sound exactly like Mahler, or is it appropriate if it simply sounds "right?"


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

Doubtless some completions are done as a tribute or upon the composer's wishes from detailed sketches. Some, however, are a product of just wanting more or - even worse - of having a piece of news to broadcast to the world, like whenever some little scrap of Mozart's is discovered and 'premièred'. No-one really cares whether or not it's authentic. As if adding this would somehow have an effect above the body of work already left behind. I'm generally happy to have the work a composer left as his/her legacy. 

I can't imagine this being tolerated quite as much in many other artistic areas. Would a Leonardo canvas sketch turned into a finished painting be as warmly welcomed? Or fragments of a lost Hitchcock film with invented dialogue and re-shot scenes? I realise these are not pure analogues, but are you really getting the work of the artist in all these cases?


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> I don't see why a composer would even care whether we try to complete a work after his death, so long as we don't try to pass off our part of the work as authentic. We know very well that the final scene of Turandot isn't Puccini's, so even if we don't think it's up to his standard it's no blot on his reputation. If we want to stop the performance with Liu's suicide we can do that, as Toscanini did at the first performance, out of "respect," but what sense does that make for anyone wanting to see an opera? In most cases it's only composers' last works that lie unfinished, so it isn't as if we're screwing around with the body of their achievement. Personally, I don't need to hear a fourth movement for Bruckner's 9th, or any additions to Schubert's 8th, but if you do, well, have at it. Like many others, I enjoy the Symphony #3 by Elgar/Payne, and that's how the work is quite properly identified.
> 
> Completions, properly identified, seem to me no more intrinsically offensive or improper than transcriptions or orchestrations by people other than the composer. The works continue to exist in their original form.


Well said as usual, Woodduck. However, and alas, out there in the real world, not many are as well-informed and sensitive to such nuances as you. The fact that the ending of Turandot, or much of Mozart's Requiem, were written by someone else, doesn't mean much to most listeners. The piece as customarily performed becomes associated with the original composer. So if a composer feels strongly about abandoning a work, I say honor those feelings. Look at major composers, like Brahms, who felt they had to burn some early completed works, even if they had already been performed in public, much less uncompleted works. I'd like to have the uncompleted works, and wouldn't want the composers to feel they have to be destroyed to prevent some poseur from completing them and having the completed version the one forever remembered.


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