# "Juice" and music



## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Ever notice that Mendelssohn wrote possibly his finest work, the Octet, at 16? Just the age when the hormones start screaming REALLY loud. And does anybody really not find later Bach more cerebral and detached than the younger Bach? Or (dare I ask it) Beethoven's late works perhaps a bit less juicy than his works before 1813?

Things stop coming so easily after 30 or so. Mozart started to work with extensive sketches. Rossini, being somewhat lazy to start with, effectively quit the field. Janáček, in old age, had a renascence via glandural rejuventation from Gabriela Horváthová and Kamila Stösslová. I could go on...Stravinsky...

Anyway, is there a connection here I'm imagining? What do you think?


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## drpraetorus (Aug 9, 2012)

Yes, I think there is something to it. Younger composersare still looking for thier voice and are willing to experiment. When the voice is found, then the composer works to perfect it and will become more apt to use the voice to gain greater depth and philosophic profundity. And then, some just write themselves out and having found the voice, have nothing more to say. And yes, I think there is something sexual involved. Maybe Bach was so musically productive because he was, obviously, sexaully productive. Mozart liked to write porographic letters to Constanza. Tristan and Walkurie were written at a very sexually active time in Wagners life.


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

Britten's early Holiday Diary and Simple Symphony has all the zest of a young man who was probably harder than a quadratic equation more than he was - perhaps understandably if taking into account the values of the day - willing to admit to.


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