# Undisciplined geniuses



## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Suggested by another thread: Which composers were creative geniuses but fell short in the technical department?


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Satie probably had the least technical ability of any composer with his level of renown. Most other composers lacked in one area or another but made up for it some other way. He seemed to have a hard time doing much of anything to perfection, but he did have imagination.


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## Guest (Dec 20, 2015)

Mahlerian said:


> Satie probably had the least technical ability of any composer with his level of renown. Most other composers lacked in one area or another but made up for it some other way. He seemed to have a hard time doing much of anything to perfection, but he did have imagination.


Out of curiosity, what do you think of Galina Ustvolskaya? Part of me wants to believe that the primitive nature of her music is there strictly to serve its brutal aesthetic, but part of me suspects she may have simply been inadequate in the "technical department" as well.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

For reference, Ravel called Berlioz "the worst musician among the musical geniuses." Interpret that as you will.


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## dgee (Sep 26, 2013)

Mussorgsky seems the obvious one. I also wonder about Ives - there's imagination but not necessarily execution from my point of view. Possibly Schumann (idiosyncratic/bad orchestration and textures) and Bruckner (poor finishing) could also be mentioned


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

nathanb said:


> Out of curiosity, what do you think of Galina Ustvolskaya? Part of me wants to believe that the primitive nature of her music is there strictly to serve its brutal aesthetic, but part of me suspects she may have simply been inadequate in the "technical department" as well.


I've only ever heard maybe two or three pieces out of her very small oeuvre. She's consistent enough that it's hard to tell whether her idiosyncrasies are a result of choice, necessity, or both. We would probably have to look at her early exercises to see how well she could do from a technical perspective.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

dgee said:


> Mussorgsky seems the obvious one.


Tchaikovsky might agree with you. He compared Mussorgsky with his peers, saying that he liked "what is coarse, unpolished, and ugly... [but] his gifts are perhaps the most remarkable of all."


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

KenOC said:


> For reference, Ravel called Berlioz "the worst musician among the musical geniuses." Interpret that as you will.


I've always liked that statement somehow.


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## scratchgolf (Nov 15, 2013)

clavichorder said:


> I've always liked that statement somehow.


Agreed. There's nothing wrong with being the hardest working person in your profession, and that's exactly how I interpret that. When the words "worst" and "genius" appear in a sentence, I'm usually in. Sign me up. I'd be the worst genius at anything, as long as the genius is inclusive. Plus, Berlioz strikes me as the kinda guy who'd punch you anywhere to win a fight, man or woman. In a strange way, sign me up for that too.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

KenOC said:


> Suggested by another thread: Which composers were creative geniuses but fell short in the technical department?


John Cage and Philip Glass certainly; Adrian Willaert, Antonio de Cabezón, Cornelius Cardew, Arvo Pärt, Toru Takemitsu and Anton Bruckner possibly.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Maybe Borodin. Full-time job and full-time interest as a chemistry professor, then genial but chaotic home life in a house crawling with relatives, no time to sit down and seriously compose. I do enjoy the the tales of his friendship with Rimsky-Korsakov and how they would borrow instruments from the local orchestra and try to see how they were worked, how they sounded, and what could be expected from them.


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

Another factor which undermined Mussorgsky was a tendency to work on two operas side by side, the lack of priority given to one work resulting in neither being completed.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Mandryka said:


> John Cage and Philip Glass certainly; Adrian Willaert, Antonio de Cabezón, Cornelius Cardew, Arvo Pärt, Toru Takemitsu and Anton Bruckner possibly.


Bruckner probably did have certain deficiencies resulting from his idiosyncratic personality, but he wasn't inept at any one aspect of music, really.

Takemitsu even more so qualifies as a composer whose narrow range is mostly a matter of choice rather than inability. His film scores show that he was able to do all kinds of things that he chose not to for his concert music, rather than the style of his concert music being the only thing he could do.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

It seems that Carl Ruggles had a very poor knowledge of theory (something that probably explains also why he was so slow composing), and still I really like his music.


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## Gaspard de la Nuit (Oct 20, 2014)

It's probably easier to find examples of this than the reverse. Someone who has a supreme sensitivity or ability to evaluate aesthetic potency can command attention even in spite of technical deficiency, but someone who only has technical ability and not enough sensitivity will usually just bore people before too long.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Mahlerian said:


> I've only ever heard maybe two or three pieces out of her very small oeuvre. She's consistent enough that it's hard to tell whether her idiosyncrasies are a result of choice, necessity, or both. We would probably have to look at her early exercises to see how well she could do from a technical perspective.


I think Ustvolskaya's early work answers any questions about technique, the Concerto (1946), for example, where she takes the language of Shostakovich in directions Schnittke later explored. In my limited and cursory exposure to her work it never occurred to me that she might be undisciplined - which is not to say I claim to understand what she was about in her later music. More research and listening is needed …


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