# Composers and their style.



## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

A general discussion about the relation of the composers with their own style of composing. In my experience, I have seen three kinds of relations. 
First, the composer who has some ideals and has developed certain musical resources in order to achieve those ideals. Through all of his career, we can see how this composer constantly refines these resources, but without abandoning the essence of them, aesthetically, and even aurally, we can hear some kind of homogeneity in all of his oeuvre. Examples of this type can be Bach, Mozart, Chopin, Debussy, Reich, Takemitsu, etc. So, one style, one ideal or ideals behind that style.
In the second type, the composer has some ideals, but the musical resources which he developes in order to achieve those ideals can vary with time. Aurally, we hear great differences through many of his pieces, but no so much aesthetically, since the same ideals are behind all the different musical resources. Examples are Beethoven, Ravel, Boulez, Ligeti, Cage, etc. A variety of styles, but always with the same ideal or ideals on mind.
In the third type, the ideals of the composer change and also his style. Examples of this type can be Penderecki, Stravinsky perhaps? (I see Stravinsky as a combination of type 2 and 3).
Of course composers are much more complex than this oversimplification and I'm sure there are many who don't fit in any category. Anyway, some of them indeed seem to fit and I found this interesting.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Deleted on grounds of taste.


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## Praeludium (Oct 9, 2011)

What about Liszt ? I feel he's one of the most "changing" composer ever. From bombastic and virtuoso salon music to minimalist, atonal and avant-garde stuff...


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## perduto (Aug 28, 2012)

During his lifetime, Luigi Nono was 'attacked' for being a type 3 composer. 
Guess he's considered a type 2 composer by most people today.
As for me, he is a striking example of a type 1 composer!


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Praeludium said:


> What about Liszt ? I feel he's one of the most "changing" composer ever. From bombastic and virtuoso salon music to minimalist, atonal and avant-garde stuff...


Close to the type 3 marker in this interesting spectrum, perhaps.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

There is a curious example of 'type three', perhaps.

One notable baroque composer: Domenico Scarlatti. He lived in his dad's shadow for a long time, and wrote vocal music and orchestral music, of which can be divided pretty cleanly into religious sounding and theatrical and semi gallant sounding. Then there are the sonatas. If you didn't know it, you might not think the same man composed the works found in these different areas. I fancy the sonatas are the truest to his creative mentality, evidence certainly points to it.

There may have been a few romantics who, by virtue of their brilliant but unoriginal writing as students, that wander into three territory. Richard Strauss as a young composer developed into a very technically insightful disciple of Brahms. Then he overcame it completely with Don Juan. His Straussian style remained ingrained in his music from that point on though with diversity of an eccentric "type 2" maybe.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

It might not be so easy to say a composer is in one or the other category in this system. Tchaikovsky, Mozart, Debussy; you wouldn't miss their highly refined styles a mile away, that seemed fairly perfect from the known start(even little Mozart). I don't think it is because their emotional scope is more limited or homogenous as is the case with some other composers(even great ones), but because their style and personal imprint is just that clearly realized.

Tchaikovsky was a brilliant neoclassicist for a late romantic, as evidenced from a scene in his opera, "Queen of Spades," as well as his unique "Variations on a Rococo Theme." The Manfred Symphony is a pretty radical departure, soudning a bit more "mighty five" in some ways. Symphony 6 is a statement of such profound emotion as to set it apart from just about anything else. Great little ballet pieces with melodies like nothing else too. A highly versatile composer that might still fall into the type one area because the sound is so signature almost always.

Same might be said for Mozart, but I feel Mozart had the wildest worlds of sound in his head and could also thoroughly assimilate any style he came across. There is a piano piece of his that sounds like credible Mozartian Bach, a funny little suite, it might be incomplete, I don't remember. Then there is stuff like the Dissonance String Quartet opening.

Debussy started off as a romantic with a sound and sense of form like no other, and a sweetness and fresh mystery to much of his music. The middle period is considerably more complex and not quite as easy going. The later works are sometimes so formally and harmonically subtle that you miss things. There is some chamber harp piece I listened to once that was one of those odd late ones.


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## Xaltotun (Sep 3, 2010)

What a great topic, one of the best for some time! Type 2 composers are quite interesting, but it also depends on where we draw the line between types 1 and 2. There's going to be some changes in the style of a composer during his career, unless the composer is of a very stubborn type. Sibelius would be an excellent example of type 3. Wagner, I feel, was almost type 1, or maybe somewhere between 1 and 2.


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