# Most impressive unfinished composition?



## Lukecash12 (Sep 21, 2009)

Schubert's 8th comes to mind first for me, not only because of the ongoing poll but because I really rate it that highly. And of course there is Mozart's Requiem. What else are we enamored with that we wish was finished?


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

I am very fond of what exists of Bruckner's 9th.


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

Mahler's 10th. Berg's _Lulu_. Though I think Deryck Cooke and Friedrich Cerha, respectively, have done pretty good jobs of finishing up.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Mahler's 10th

Bartok's viola concerto


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## Chronochromie (May 17, 2014)

Mozart's Great Mass in C minor, Schoenberg's Moses und Aron, Messiaen's Concert à quatre.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

Haydn, string quartet No. 68 in D minor, Op. 103

Boulez, _Éclat/Multiples_

And in the "no duh" category, _The Art of Fugue_.

Mozart's requiem is the most overrated unfinished composition.


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## geralmar (Feb 15, 2013)

Puccini's Turandot.

Eine kleine Nachtmusik may be missing a movement.


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## drnlaw (Jan 27, 2016)

Turandot comes first, then the Mahler 10th.


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## drnlaw (Jan 27, 2016)

clavichorder said:


> I am very fond of what exists of Bruckner's 9th.


I'm either going to have to start following you around like a puppy, or quit you altogether. First I find out that Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto was diddled with, and now I find out that Bruckner's 9th is not really all his. 

Sigh.


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

Schoenberg's _Moses und Aron_, but I suppose everyone's conditioned to the absence of a third act anyway. Schubert's oratorio _Lazarus_ could have been a belter. Another great unfinished opera was Zemlinsky's _Der König Kandaules_ - it was in short score when the composer fled to the U.S.A. but he didn't have the motivation to orchestrate it as there was no guarantee of a premiere. Antony Beaumont was commissioned to orchestrate it and thankfully the opera is now deservedly regarded as one of Zemlinsky's finest works instead of being lost to the world as it was previously.

Also Schubert's piano sonata D840 (posthumously referred to as the _'Reliquie'_), plus can you imagine how fine a string quartet there could have been if there were three more movements to go with the _'Quartetsatz'_ D703?


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## Abraham Lincoln (Oct 3, 2015)

Bach's Art of Fugue was not completed as well.


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## Orfeo (Nov 14, 2013)

*Bruckner's* Ninth Symphony for sure.
*Glazunov's* Ninth also (a telling sign of the state of the composer and his surroundings in turbulent Russia).
*Tchaikovsky's* Third Piano Concerto (what Taneyev done was to show us of what was to become of this gorgeous piece).


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## Kieran (Aug 24, 2010)

geralmar said:


> Eine kleine Nachtmusik may be missing a movement.


I think that movement was written, but is now lost.

The Mozart Requiem and Schubert's 8th are certainly the most iconic and renowned. Beethoven began a tenth symph, I believe, so that too whets the appetite...


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

Schubert's symphony takes the top spot for me.

_Lulu_ was, I understand, virtually finished - I don't even think of it as an unfinished work. But maybe I'm wrong about that.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

An obscurity: Beethoven's _Rage over a Lost Penny _was an early work, left incomplete. It was published after Beethoven's death by Diabelli with an ending possibly written by Diabelli.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

isorhythm said:


> _Lulu_ was, I understand, virtually finished - I don't even think of it as an unfinished work. But maybe I'm wrong about that.


Like Mahler's Tenth, it was completely finished in draft short score, so the structure is entirely the composer's. How many people think of Bartok's Third Piano Concerto, for example, as an unfinished work?

Ignoring Mahler 10 for the reason above...

Mozart's Requiem
Schoenberg's Moses und Aron and Modern Psalm op. 50c
Schubert's B minor Symphony


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

I would agree with Schumann's 8th and Mozart's Requiem and Mass in C minor.


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## Chronochromie (May 17, 2014)

elgars ghost said:


> Schoenberg's _Moses und Aron_, but I suppose everyone's conditioned to the absence of a third act anyway. Schubert's oratorio _Lazarus_ could have been a belter. Another great unfinished opera was Zemlinsky's _Der König Kandaules_ - it was in short score when the composer fled to the U.S.A. but he didn't have the motivation to orchestrate it as there was no guarantee of a premiere. Antony Beaumont was commissioned to orchestrate it and thankfully the opera is now deservedly regarded as one of Zemlinsky's finest works instead of being lost to the world as it was previously.
> 
> Also Schubert's piano sonata D840 (posthumously referred to as the _'Reliquie'_), plus can you imagine how fine a string quartet there could have been if there were three more movements to go with the _'Quartetsatz'_ D703?


Yes, Schubert has quite a few unfinished works, including 6 unfinished symphonies. Few of those went unfinished directly due to his early death, he just appears to have left them like that. An exception is the Symphony in D major, D 936A, that has been orchestrated by Brian Newbould, and it may or may not be missing a fourth movement.


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## geralmar (Feb 15, 2013)

Redundant post; sorry.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Bruckner's 9th.


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## GreenMamba (Oct 14, 2012)

Mozart's Requiem, Schubert's 8th, Art of Fugue, Bruckner's 9th.

One not mentioned yet: Ives' Universe Symphony


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## GreenMamba (Oct 14, 2012)

mmsbls said:


> I would agree with Schumann's 8th and Mozart's Requiem and Mass in C minor.


Schumann's 8th what?


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

drnlaw said:


> I'm either going to have to start following you around like a puppy, or quit you altogether. First I find out that Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto was diddled with, and now I find out that Bruckner's 9th is not really all his.
> 
> Sigh.


I sympathize. It hurts to find these things out sometimes. However the truth about the 9th would have come out in this thread, I just beat others to it. The Tchaikovsky fact really did surprise me, and I think I learned it in the last year. You also know that the version of Schumann's 4th we typically hear is more or less the revised 1850s version, but that Brahms advocated for the early 1840s version to be published as well despite Clara's protesting(Brahms And clara almost ceased to be friends over this). I can't decide which version I prefer. The earlier version is crisper, but the enhanced wind orchestration of the revised makes the persistent theme slightly less monotonous in spots while detracting from drama in others. Also chronologically the Rhenish was written after number 4 version one.

Sorry, couldn't resist.

P.S., you can seldom trust the order of Haydn Symphony numbers to correspond with the actual chronology. I think 16 and 40 were written around the same time, for example. It's approximately correct though.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

I second "Art of the Fugue." 

And maybe the world is fortunate or possibly, unfortunate, that The Mysterium was never completed and fully realized the way Scriabin intended...


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## Lukecash12 (Sep 21, 2009)

clavichorder said:


> I sympathize. It hurts to find these things out sometimes. However the truth about the 9th would have come out in this thread, I just beat others to it. The Tchaikovsky fact really did surprise me, and I think I learned it in the last year. You also know that the version of Schumann's 4th we typically hear is more or less the revised 1850s version, but that Brahms advocated for the early 1840s version to be published as well despite Clara's protesting(Brahms And clara almost ceased to be friends over this). I can't decide which version I prefer. The earlier version is crisper, but the enhanced wind orchestration of the revised makes the persistent theme slightly less monotonous in spots while detracting from drama in others. Also chronologically the Rhenish was written after number 4 version one.
> 
> Sorry, couldn't resist.
> 
> P.S., you can seldom trust the order of Haydn Symphony numbers to correspond with the actual chronology. I think 16 and 40 were written around the same time, for example. It's approximately correct though.


Any good chronological lists of the Haydn symphonies you would recommend? I also have to wonder now if Haydn left any symphonic gems unfinished...


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Lukecash12 said:


> Any good chronological lists of the Haydn symphonies you would recommend? I also have to wonder now if Haydn left any symphonic gems unfinished...


Hmm, unfortunately all my Internet activity right now is on this infernal smart phone and I can't find a website I knew in the past. But Christopher Hobgood has them listed in his boxset, arranged chronologically from disc to disc as well.

He likely has unfinished attempts he never published. But Haydn was very industrious...


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

The Mozart c minor Mass. My favorite Mozart choral work. He had plenty of time to finish it.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Mozart's Requiem, Bach Art of Fugue, Puccini Turandot


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

Mahler _Tenth_?

What can I say? There are several of them. A truly sick, mentally unbalanced OCPD would have ALL OF THEM! :devil:


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

I am surprised that no one has mentioned Elgar's _Third_.


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

Mention was made of Tchaikovsky's 3rd piano concerto (Allegro Brillante) which was actually the first movement of an unfinished symphony which he worked on between the 5th & 6th but then put aside. Semyon Bogatyrev 'reconstructed' the piece in the early 1950's using some of the sketches that had been left. The 2nd & 4th movements come from the Andante & Finale (Op 79posth.) which Taneyev had put together.


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## 20centrfuge (Apr 13, 2007)

Sibelius had elements of an Eight Symphony that he decided to burn before his death. I'm left wondering what kind of work we might have had.


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## Avey (Mar 5, 2013)

The Mahler, the Bartok -- I agree, but I don't know if they fit the "unfinished" label.

I'll nominate *Dvorak's* quartet fragment, *F Major B 120*. I have a hard time relating so personally and intimately to any other composer re the string quartet form, and so hearing this fragment, I wonder what #10.5 quartet could have been like, and how that would have also brought joy to my life. In some other multi-verse, I suppose!


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## drpraetorus (Aug 9, 2012)

probably doesn't count, but all the orchestral works Wagner wrote.


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## R3PL4Y (Jan 21, 2016)

Bruckner 9
Schubert 8
Sibelius 8, if that counts
Mahler 10
Beethoven 10?


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

There is also the Bartok Piano Concerto No. 3. A terrific work, which could have been even better, but Bartok ran out of time. 

At least Bartok had mortality as an excuse. What was Mozart's in not completing his wonderful c minor Mass? He had the time.


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

20centrfuge said:


> Sibelius had elements of an Eight Symphony that he decided to burn before his death. I'm left wondering what kind of work we might have had.


I'd say that Sibelius' 8th is the most impressively unfinished composition I know of--you can't get more unfinished than thrown in the fire.


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

In 1927 George Antheil was in Italy writing what sounded a promising sonata for solo violin before he abandoned it during the second movement. 

It was written for violinist Olga Rudge to play (her and pianist Antheil had often performed as a duo) and he actually gave her the manuscript for what he had written so far. Rudge, however, was at the time beginning to withdraw from performance - not least because of her volatile relationship with Ezra Pound, by whom she had given birth to a daughter - and the manuscript was never returned (it ended up among Rudge's papers in the Yale archives). Antheil then moved back to the USA to begin the next phase of his career, so, as far as the sonata went, that was that. 

I suppose its unfinished state is somehow appropriate as it mirrors the drifting apart of Antheil from one of his old circle of friends from his time in Paris some years earlier - the end of an era, really.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Blancrocher said:


> I'd say that Sibelius' 8th is the most impressively unfinished composition I know of--you can't get more unfinished than thrown in the fire.


I recall Paul Dukas destroyed many of his compositions, and that is a shame because he had some real gems. The shame is more that perfectionism ran so deep in him and limited what he might have done.


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## Scififan (Jun 28, 2015)

Bruckner's Ninth would be my favourite and I think that it is well worth listening to it with the reconstructed Finale though that must necessarily remain a work-in-progress. 

The Elgar Third has been reconstructed quite effectively as well.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

A lot of folks consider the Bruckner Ninth to be unfinished and there is evidence that Bruckner was working on a finale, but listening to the peaceful, resigned ending of the third movement adagio, it sounds just perfect as is with three movements.


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

Bruckner suggested that his Te Deum could serve as a final movement for the 9th--though like hpowders I prefer it the way it is.


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

clavichorder said:


> I recall Paul Dukas destroyed many of his compositions, and that is a shame because he had some real gems. The shame is more that perfectionism ran so deep in him and limited what he might have done.


"The best is the enemy of the good" - Voltaire


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

Blancrocher said:


> Bruckner suggested that his Te Deum could serve as a final movement for the 9th--though like hpowders I prefer it the way it is.


I've read this but I don't think the Te Deum would do - isn't the key it's in incompatible with the torso of the 9th?


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

elgars ghost said:


> I've read this but I don't think the Te Deum would do - isn't the key it's in incompatible with the torso of the 9th?


Yes. It's in C major, and the symphony is in D minor. Of course, if you end with the adagio, it finishes in E major, so...


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

elgars ghost said:


> I've read this but I don't think the Te Deum would do - isn't the key it's in incompatible with the torso of the 9th?


Which is probably part of the reason that he only suggested it. It is quite clear that he was doing his best to finish the work rather than leave it unfinished and, given the amount of material he had, he came close. Personally I think that the Samale/Mazzuca/Phillips/Cohr completion of 2011 makes a very effective result.


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## manyene (Feb 7, 2015)

Chronochromie said:


> Yes, Schubert has quite a few unfinished works, including 6 unfinished symphonies. Few of those went unfinished directly due to his early death, he just appears to have left them like that. An exception is the Symphony in D major, D 936A, that has been orchestrated by Brian Newbould, and it may or may not be missing a fourth movement.


The second subject in the Andante movement must count as one of Schubert's most beautiful ideas


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## Überstürzter Neumann (Jan 1, 2014)

hpowders said:


> A lot of folks consider the Bruckner Ninth to be unfinished and there is evidence that Bruckner was working on a finale, but listening to the peaceful, resigned ending of the third movement adagio, it sounds just perfect as is with three movements.


Good point. It is indeed a satisfactory work in itself. 
However, having heard Harnoncourt's lecture on the subject, one would indeed wish for that the Finale had been finished.


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## Delicious Manager (Jul 16, 2008)

Lukecash12 said:


> Any good chronological lists of the Haydn symphonies you would recommend? I also have to wonder now if Haydn left any symphonic gems unfinished...


This one is pretty good:http://www.fjhaydn.com/my-blog/chronology-of-the-symphonies-part-1-the-morzin-symphonies.html

My favoured unfinished works:

Berg - Lulu
Borodin - Symphony No 3
Bruckner - Symphony No 9
Elgar - Symphony No 3
Mahler - Symphony No 10
Mozart - Mass in C minor
Schubert - Symphony in B minor


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## Nevum (Nov 28, 2013)

Bruckner 9 hands down


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Schubert's 8th:tiphat:

Turandot. :tiphat:


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Schubert 8th symphony.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

hpowders said:


> A lot of folks consider the Bruckner Ninth to be unfinished and there is evidence that Bruckner was working on a finale, but listening to the peaceful, resigned ending of the third movement adagio, it sounds just perfect as is with three movements.


There has been a completion of the symphony from Bruckner's sketches









Rattle recorded it. Not the greatest Bruckner interpreter though imo


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## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

R3PL4Y said:


> Bruckner 9
> Schubert 8
> Sibelius 8, if that counts
> Mahler 10
> Beethoven 10?


Dude, count me in!


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