# Biggest "what if's"



## Durendal (Oct 24, 2018)

What are some examples of baffling omissions in the output of specific composer's overall body of work that you would have loved to see or hear? What missing pieces would you hypothetically find fascinating?

Some of my picks:

1) Bach - opera: as one of the most influential, prolific and popular composers of all time, it's very strange that he never wrote an opera, since his main contemporaries such as Handel, Vivaldi and Telemann wrote dozens of them. What would a Bach opera have sounded like?

2) Strauss II - symphony: I wish that at some point Johann Strauss II would have stepped out of his "light music" comfort zone to try his hand at writing some "serious" music, which is why he often seems to be overlooked here on the board in terms of his compositional prowess. I feel he had the talent to pull something of this nature off. Are there any examples in his vast output that indicate such a potential ability lurking underneath?

Other honourable mentions: Brahms/Bruckner/ Mahler - opera; Rossini/Verdi/Wagner - symphony.

Thoughts?


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Durendal said:


> What would a Bach opera have sounded like?









Durendal said:


> Wagner - symphony.


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## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

How about a 'pure', absolute symphony from Ravel? Or a rap song from Henze...(sorry). The language Mahler might have used for his 13th symphony would have been interesting. I also regret the fact that Britten didn't write more symphonies. The lazy bugger could only produce about 12 pages of full score a day according to Imogen Holst, he really should've pulled his finger out....


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Bach's passions - and especially the St John Passion - are dramatic and perhaps as close as he came to producing opera. The secular cantatas exhibit another side to his vocal music and might provide hints about how we might have approached lighter operatic material. But just because composers like Vivaldi and Handel produced operas doesn't mean that much. They are just so different in their approach to music.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Brahms - Clarinet concerto.


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

I have long harboured the fantasy that Mahler composed at least nine string quartets as a kind of 'shadow cycle' for the symphonies and had the unpublished scores locked away in the most redoubtable of Swiss bank vaults while leaving only a handful of as yet unsolved clues in his private papers as to their actual whereabouts. I banish any thoughts that Alma got hold of the scores after Mahler's death and had them secretly burnt without having copies made.

I also regret that Bruckner, an accomplished organist, didn't actually compose any noteworthy compositions for that instrument.


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## chill782002 (Jan 12, 2017)

A Sibelius piano concerto would have been great although, being a violinist, the piano was not an instrument that he showed a great deal of interest in. He did compose a number of solo piano works however, so a piano concerto would not have been a huge leap.


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## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

chill782002 said:


> A Sibelius piano concerto would have been great although, being a violinist, the piano was not an instrument that he showed a great deal of interest in. He did compose a number of solo piano works however, so a piano concerto would not have been a huge leap.


Actually a second vln concerto would have been good too.


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## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

elgars ghost said:


> I have long harboured the fantasy that Mahler composed at least nine string quartets as a kind of 'shadow cycle' for the symphonies and had the unpublished scores locked away in the most redoubtable of Swiss bank vaults while leaving only a handful of as yet unsolved clues in his private papers as to their actual whereabouts. I banish any thoughts that Alma got hold of the scores after Mahler's death and had them secretly burnt without having copies made.
> 
> I also regret that Bruckner, an accomplished organist, didn't actually compose any noteworthy compositions for that instrument.


I also lament the lack of Bruckner organ music.


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## DaddyGeorge (Mar 16, 2020)

I think that Schubert or Smetana piano concertos would have been interesting. I'm also sorry that Mozart didn't write any symphony since 1788...


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

What if Johnny Cage designed his own Mortal Kombat video game? The fighters would stare each other down for 4'33" and a random winner would be selected.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

I do not miss Richard Strauss' lack of 'symphonies' since the tone poems take their place, are shorter, and a more modern form.


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## Allegro Con Brio (Jan 3, 2020)

A true classical-format symphony from Debussy or Ravel would be fascinating. So would a cello concerto from Brahms (he had one in the works, but was discouraged since he thought the Dvorak was so perfect...instead all we got was one of my most disliked works, the Double Concerto). Any sort of concerto from Schubert. An opera by Mahler. Mature piano music from Sibelius.


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## Fabulin (Jun 10, 2019)

Placido Domingo (among others) wanted Williams to compose an opera, but all librettos suggested to him so far have been rejected, and this will likely never happen.

I would also be greatly interested in Mahler's ventures into genres he didn't touch, and in symphonies by Puccini and Reger.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

I will second a concerto from Schubert. Mozart composed some of the most wonderful concertos for a wide variety of instruments, but he never wrote one for cello.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

For Mahler, I would love to have had him compose a Requiem.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

I wish we had a symphony from Puccini, a violin concerto from Grieg, and a bassoon concerto from Kalinnikov (that was his instrument).


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## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

I sometimes wish Britten hadn't met Peter Pears. He'd potentially never have started writing operas. Which would be a loss, I think. But we would have had multiple piano and violin concertos, plus several symphonies. Maybe... he really liked writing for people and specific performers, so maybe not. Anyway, I'd vote for a xylophone concerto from him.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Art Rock said:


> For Mahler, I would love to have had him compose a Requiem.


_Kindertotenlieder_ isn't depressing enough for you?


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## senza sordino (Oct 20, 2013)

Some of these have been mentioned before:

A piano concerto from Sibelius.
A violin concerto from Grieg.
A cello concerto from Brahms.
A cello concerto from Beethoven.
A violin concerto from Ravel.
A mature symphony from Wagner.
More chamber music from Sibelius.
Chamber music from Mahler.


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## Music Snob (Nov 14, 2018)

The biggest “what if” IMO is easy... What if Mozart lives past 35 years old and dies at, lets say 60 years old.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

dizwell said:


> I sometimes wish Britten hadn't met Peter Pears. He'd potentially never have started writing operas. Which would be a loss, I think. But we would have had multiple piano and violin concertos, plus several symphonies. Maybe... he really liked writing for people and specific performers, so maybe not. Anyway, I'd vote for a xylophone concerto from him.


I'm glad things worked out the way they did. I enjoy Britten's operas. But maybe he could have gotten things right with a second piano concerto. His first and only strikes me as rather light weight.


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## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

Music Snob said:


> The biggest "what if" IMO is easy... What if Mozart lives past 35 years old and dies at, lets say 60 years old.


Well thank the stars he didn't, I dread to think what it might have cost for that complete Phillips Mozart edition I bought if he had lived longer.


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## Durendal (Oct 24, 2018)

Music Snob said:


> The biggest "what if" IMO is easy... What if Mozart lives past 35 years old and dies at, lets say 60 years old.


This scenario has always fascinated me as well. It's heartbreaking to think of the countless masterpieces that humanity lost due to his premature death. You can hear how his music kept evolving right until the end. I wonder if he would have even ushered in the romantic movement himself earlier than it took place - there were certainly signs in his late works that he was moving in that direction. I wonder if that would have relegated Beethoven to having a smaller impact as a result...


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## Flutter (Mar 26, 2019)

Not realistic but "What if Beethoven composed a piece inspired by Cov-19?"


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

mbhaub said:


> I wish we had a symphony from Puccini, a violin concerto from Grieg, and a bassoon concerto from Kalinnikov (that was his instrument).


A bassoon concerto from Shostakovich...could have been cosmic!!


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## pianozach (May 21, 2018)

Music Snob said:


> The biggest "what if" IMO is easy... What if Mozart lives past 35 years old and dies at, lets say 60 years old.


Quite.

He'd have lived to possibly hear music created between 1791 and 1816. And Salieri would STILL have outlived him.

Joseph Haydn - Symphonies 93-98, "Apponyi", "Erdödy" & "Lobkowitz" String Quartets 
Muzio Clementi - Keyboard Sonata in F
Beethoven - Octet for winds in Eb major, Symphonies No. 1-8, The Creatures of Prometheus, Fidelio
Luigi Cherubini - Médée
Gioachino Rossini - Il Barbiere di Siviglia

How much would Mozart have been influenced by these works, and how much would Mozart have influenced the music world?


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Flutter said:


> Not realistic but "What if Beethoven composed a piece inspired by Cov-19?"


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## Pat Fairlea (Dec 9, 2015)

What if Debussy had been a nicer, kinder man?
Just a thought.


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## Allegro Con Brio (Jan 3, 2020)

Pat Fairlea said:


> What if Debussy had been a nicer, kinder man?
> Just a thought.


Same with Brahms, Beethoven, Wagner, Prokofiev, etc. etc. Unfortunately, the world of artists is not consistently populated with bastions of character and morality.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Music Snob said:


> The biggest "what if" IMO is easy... What if Mozart lives past 35 years old and dies at, lets say 60 years old.


Actually I had a disquieting dream about this some time ago. Warning: Adult content!

In 1790 Mozart was apprehended while engaged, naked, in mutual flagellation with an underage boy. Even in liberal Vienna this sort of thing was frowned on. Mozart served almost two years in prison before he was released to continue his career.

Shortly after his arrival in Vienna, Beethoven (probably resenting Mozart as a rival) wrote a short and humorous opera, almost an operetta, titled _Wolfgangus Flagellatus_. The 1794 work turned out to be quite popular and had a long run.

Mozart licked his wounds and waited. His chance for revenge came in 1812, when Beethoven was riding one of Vienna's new trains. He decided to go out onto a flatcar with a young student in order to teach him to "beat the bass drum loudly." This may sound strange but seems to have been quite exactly the case.

In any event, the student fell off the flatcar and died instantly. Mozart gleefully wrote his own singspiel, _Ludwig and the Trainboy_, hinting at all sorts of deviance and perversions on Beethoven's part. Needless to say, relations between the two composers were not improved.

That's really the end of the story. Beethoven died in 1827 and was outlived by the older Mozart, who passed away in 1836 at the age of 80.

You heard it here first.


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## Totenfeier (Mar 11, 2016)

I've always said I want the War Symphonies of Gustav Mahler, and you want later Mahler? Early Webern.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

What if ... Beethoven had *not *written any string quartets? Would the genre be as important as it is today?


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## Sad Al (Feb 27, 2020)

Friedemann Bach's career. What a loss


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Enthusiast said:


> What if ... Beethoven had *not *written any string quartets? Would the genre be as important as it is today?


Well, with Mozart and Haydn having created so many gems in the genre, I'm sure subsequent composers would have continued the tradition.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

One of my fantasies -- *Brahms Concerto for French Horn and Piano*. His disciple Ethyl Smyth wrote a double concerto for horn and violin using his style and temperament. Brahms Horn Trio could, I suppose, be expanded by some intrepid composer.

I also wish there was another *bassoon concerto* in the world as good as Mozart's. I've come to grips that those by Vivaldi, Rossini, Weber and others, while quite good, don't match his mastery of the instrument.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

_What if ... Beethoven had not written any string quartets? Would the genre be as important as it is today?_

Of course, Shostakovich wrote many and modernists such as Elliott Carter are known for them. The format will never be uncapitalized for a simple reason: it only takes four players.


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## Allegro Con Brio (Jan 3, 2020)

larold said:


> One of my fantasies -- *Brahms Concerto for French Horn and Piano*. His disciple Ethyl Smyth wrote a double concerto for horn and violin using his style and temperament. Brahms Horn Trio could, I suppose, be expanded by some intrepid composer.


Van Cliburn reportedly refused to play the Brahms 2nd Piano Concerto because the horn player got a larger standing ovation than him during one performance! Surely one of the most magical, spellbinding moments in any concerto - the first 1 1/2 minutes of this work.


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## Durendal (Oct 24, 2018)

Totenfeier said:


> I've always said I want the War Symphonies of Gustav Mahler, and you want later Mahler? Early Webern.


Imagine if Mahler had just lived several more years how much inspiration he could have drawn from WWI...


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## BachIsBest (Feb 17, 2018)

Allegro Con Brio said:


> Same with Brahms, Beethoven, Wagner, Prokofiev, etc. etc. Unfortunately, the world of artists is not consistently populated with bastions of character and morality.


Although not perfect, I've always read that Brahms was a fairly nice guy. No? It's also hardly fair to put Beethoven, a complicated character, with the likes of Wagner and Prokofiev who were total jerks.


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## Allegro Con Brio (Jan 3, 2020)

BachIsBest said:


> Although not perfect, I've always read that Brahms was a fairly nice guy. No? It's also hardly fair to put Beethoven, a complicated character, with the likes of Wagner and Prokofiev who were total jerks.


Fair. I just thought of Brahms's savage and possibly career-ruining criticism of the young Hans Rott. I guess overall he was more morose than truly mean. But of course, classical music will always have Gesauldo to serve as its most deplorable figure


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

Forget the composers - had that a-hole Eduard Hanslick died young then none of the late romantics need to have worried about anything.

Hanslick's tomb is now covered in ivy rather than flowers - appropriate, what?


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

larold said:


> _What if ... Beethoven had not written any string quartets? Would the genre be as important as it is today?_
> 
> Of course, Shostakovich wrote many and modernists such as Elliott Carter are known for them. The format will never be uncapitalized for a simple reason: it only takes four players.


But would Bartok, Shostakovich, Carter and many others have given the genre such attention if Beethoven had not done so first? I suspect not. The quartet could have come to be seen as a distinctively Classical form.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

_Although not perfect, I've always read that Brahms was a fairly nice guy. No?_

His legend is romantic, that he loved both Robert Schumann's daughter and later, after Schumann died, his wife. However ...

I heard an interview with conductor Simone Young who was about to lead the Symphony No. 1 in his hometown, Hamburg. She said Brahms was a prick, had no friends, had famous run-ins with and criticized the music of Tchaikovsky and Bruckner, and went out of his way to not make friends.

"He once went to a party and left," she said. "And then came back and apologized for not offending anyone."


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

_But would Bartok, Shostakovich, Carter and many others have given the genre such attention if Beethoven had not done so first? I suspect not. The quartet could have come to be seen as a distinctively Classical form._

Beethoven was perhaps the most influential force in classical music history but still I doubt your premise. Haydn was the father of the string quartet and wrote many great ones. So did Mozart, each before Beethoven. The form was already well-established when Beethoven exploited it.

The symphony came of age in the same period by the same composers. Do you think it would have continued to be thought of as a classical form?

There is no discounting Beethoven but I don't believe the string quartet form would have been interrupted had he not written his. It only takes four players, after all, thus making it easy for composers to create...and expand to other things like the piano quartet, the barbershop quartet, etc.

Beethoven was the first romantic but, had he never lived, there was Schubert who lived at exactly the same time. The forces of romanticism in art and literature would have carried over to music even without Beethoven or Schubert.

However, had Beethoven not written the choral Ninth symphony I think it possible there'd not have been a Mendelssohn Lobgesang or Mahler Resurrection.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Enthusiast said:


> But would Bartok, Shostakovich, Carter and many others have given the genre such attention if Beethoven had not done so first? I suspect not. The quartet could have come to be seen as a distinctively Classical form.


I don't know if this will answer your question, it's an interesting article nonetheless.

"... Although Haydn's works are close to the start of the genre, so much so that he is sometimes even called its 'father', composers today are still writing them, often regarding them as compositions of great seriousness. Why has this particular combination of instruments lasted for so long?...
...By the end of the eighteenth century, the string quartet's prestige had become considerable, in large part because two of the most famous composers of the period, first Haydn and then Mozart, had dedicated some of their most complex music to the genre. Beethoven simply added to this prestige, and after him there was no looking back. Although the comparatively restricted and uniform sound of four solo strings might have seemed thin indeed for musicians of the nineteenth century, let along for those of the twentieth, composers kept measuring themselves against the accumulation of masterpieces of the past. ..."

Mozart - Quartet in C major, K465 (Dissonance)
Professor Roger Parker


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## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

BachIsBest said:


> Although not perfect, I've always read that Brahms was a fairly nice guy. No? It's also hardly fair to put Beethoven, a complicated character, with the likes of Wagner and Prokofiev who were total jerks.


Prokofiev in the same breath as Wagner? Forgive my ignorance, but what did he do that was so bad?


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

larold said:


> _But would Bartok, Shostakovich, Carter and many others have given the genre such attention if Beethoven had not done so first? I suspect not. The quartet could have come to be seen as a distinctively Classical form._
> 
> Beethoven was perhaps the most influential force in classical music history but still I doubt your premise. Haydn was the father of the string quartet and wrote many great ones. So did Mozart, each before Beethoven. The form was already well-established when Beethoven exploited it.
> 
> ...


I am not sure you are getting my argument, are you. You are not really answering it apart from saying you are not convinced (which may be all that can be said).


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

_I am not sure you are getting my argument, are you. _

Yes, you're saying the string quartet form would have died without Beethoven. I don't believe that mostly because it was just getting started and everyone was doing it.

Aside from Haydn and Mozart other influential composes of the time including Dussek, Rosetti, Viotti, Hoffmeister, Cherubini, Sammartini, Gossec and Pleyel had written string quartets before Ludwig wrote his first in 1798.

All composers wrote them, it was a new form used in conservatories and through teaching, and this would not have stopped had there been no Beethoven.

What you are doing is applying 21st century standards to 18th and early 19th century practices. In the 21st century anyone can have their music heard through recordings. There is no need for an audience, clientele, students or anyone or anything else including old forms of expression. This is one reason various sound worlds and forms of noise displaced traditional melody in the 20th century.

In the 18th and 19th centuries the only way to hear music, or to have it heard, was through live music-making. Liszt later in the romantic era began to convert symphonies and operas to piano transcriptions but this wasn't done earlier.

Composers wrote music including string quartets to make their names and be heard and the string quartet, which grew out of the trio, was one of the easier forms to exploit.

Turning the argument in another direction had J.S. Bach, Handel and Vivaldi had the form available to them don't you think they'd have written string quartets? The enterprising Bach certainly would have turned the trio sonata in some form of quartet.

The string quartet is still one of the easier forms to invent new and people still write them.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

OK ... but I think I would go for "would not have flourished as it did". Probably, I am thinking of the 20th Century - a time when a great many composers wanted to write many of their most profound utterances in the form.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

Do you mean Shostakovich? He was most influenced by his teacher Glazunov who was hardly a revolutionary. He was conservative, used accepted forms, and was thought of as a romantic classicist in the vein of Brahms.

Shostakovich's greatest extra-musical influence was Stalin and the terrible times in which he lived. Most of his friends were killed and he was constantly in fear he was going to meet that fate. His strong emotions came from that.

The loud sections of the 4th symphony are his belief he would be plucked from his home anytime by the secret police. He wrote that music in the stairway to save his family the drama of seeing him taken away. 

I have never directly seen Beethoven's influence on Shostakovich's music; his string quartets mimic his symphonies in the despair and rancor exhibited in their pages.


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## Pat Fairlea (Dec 9, 2015)

Allegro Con Brio said:


> Same with Brahms, Beethoven, Wagner, Prokofiev, etc. etc. Unfortunately, the world of artists is not consistently populated with bastions of character and morality.


Sad but true, which makes it all the more welcome to find out that, for example, Borodin and Tippett were really quite decent human beings. Debussy seems to have spent his life alienating and/or grievously maltreating just about anyone who was close to him.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

larold said:


> Aside from Haydn and Mozart other influential composes of the time including Dussek, Rosetti, Viotti, Hoffmeister, Cherubini, Sammartini, Gossec and Pleyel had written string quartets before Ludwig wrote his first in 1798.
> All composers wrote them, it was a new form used in conservatories and through teaching, and this would not have stopped had there been no Beethoven.
> The string quartet is still one of the easier forms to invent new and people still write them.


Although I agree with your point that the string quartet form was very much established in the late 18th century, ("if one studies, for instance the way in which I write for string quartet, then one cannot deny that I have learned this directly from Mozart." -Arnold Schönberg, 1949)
I also want to stress that there were different traditions within the form. Boccherini, for example, also wrote string quartets and quintets, but his kind was not quite in vogue with the "Viennese classicism" represented by Haydn and Mozart. Beethoven seems to have understood and inherited the practice of "Thematische Arbeit" to a significant degree ("No single instrument accompanies for very long: each of them plays an essential part in both the melodic development and its accompaniment. People near the time gave this new, more complex texture a severe-sounding German name; they called it thematische Arbeit, thematic working - all elements of the ensemble are independent (and individual), but each works with the others to produce the total effect."), whereas Schubert did considerably less (perhaps due to his shortcomings in voice-leading and thematic working). 
The string quartet can be a difficult piece to write depending on what kind of music it is. Mozart admitted his 'Haydn quartets' took him a lot of time and effort. Schumann's _Traumerei_ has been transcribed for a quartet, but you wouldn't call the piece a "string quartet" per se. while I do acknowledge all these great composers including Schubert, Bartok, Shostakovich, Carter, etc wrote "works of art" named "string quartets", I still think that few composers in history actually wrote "real" string quartets in the strict sense; music that must be actually played by a quartet ensemble to convey its full expression. Theirs can't be transcribed easily for other instruments such as solo keyboard without sounding awkward.



hammeredklavier said:


> "after all, the quartet is one of the most difficult musical genres." -Shostakovich
> My impression of Shostakovich regarding the genre of string quartets is that he heavily struggled with it. For example, in the most esteemed of his bunch, the 8th -- maybe I'm judging with a classicist mindset, but look how many bars he fills with those ghastly long sustained tones [0:52] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGo... few by Mendelssohn, Brahms, Ravel.
> [/QUOTE]


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

larold said:


> Do you mean Shostakovich? He was most influenced by his teacher Glazunov who was hardly a revolutionary. He was conservative, used accepted forms, and was thought of as a romantic classicist in the vein of Brahms.
> 
> Shostakovich's greatest extra-musical influence was Stalin and the terrible times in which he lived. Most of his friends were killed and he was constantly in fear he was going to meet that fate. His strong emotions came from that.
> 
> ...


Again you are no longer responding to my (rather unimportant point). I know quite a lot about Shostakovich (nothing you say is news to me!) and I think you may be looking for influence in the wrong way as I was not talking about the music so much as the decision (vision?) to express profound utterances through the quartet medium. But it was not really Shostakovich that I was thinking of. Bartok was the century's first master of the form. And so many followed him.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

Yes, you know a lot. Most people know Bartok was greatly influenced by folk forms.

Or as Greg Cahill wrote in "Strings" magazine, "His compositions, including the six string quartets he composed between 1909 and 1939, are rife with innovations inspired by the rustic folk music he collected in the Eastern European countryside with his close friend and colleague, the composer and pedagogue Zoltán Kodály."

Cahill went on to say, "In 1942, Bartók told an audience at Harvard University that he'd had an epiphany about the compression of diatonic melodies into chromatic melodies, a realization that composition is more about evolution than revolution.

"When I first used the device of extending chromatic melodies into diatonic form, or vice-versa, I thought I invented something absolutely new, which never yet existed," he said. "And now I see that an absolutely identical principle exists in Dalmatia [in modern-day Croatia] since heaven knows how long a time, maybe for many centuries."

Furthermore, he wrote, "Another characteristic of Bartók's style is his use of the aksak rhythm, with its 'limping' 2:3 pattern. Even the Fourth Quartet-Bartók at his most modern-owes the shape of its rhythmic architecture to more traditional models, such as the hora lunga of Maramures [Romania], in the third movement," Roe Cowan wrote in the liner notes of the Belcea String Quartet's 2008 recording of the Bartók cycle."

David Ewen knew a lot about music too having written more than 20 books on various topics. He called Bartok the head of a nationalist school saying, "folk material, as Bartok himself once said, was 'destined to serve as the foundation for a renaissance of Hungarian art music."

"One day in 1905 he overheard a servant girl singing a song with strange progressions and a most unusual melody," Ewen wrote in "David Ewen Introduces Modern Music" from 1962. "A key to Bartok's modern style in general and his nationalist style in particular is provided by ... Mikrokosmos -- a word that can be translated as 'little world."

Other than your thesis, I have never read Beethoven being an influence on Bartok, his string quartets or anything else. Do you know of one? What might it be?


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

larold said:


> Other than your thesis, I have never read Beethoven being an influence on Bartok, his string quartets or anything else. Do you know of one? What might it be?


Have a look at this: 
"Béla Bartók shared many of Ludwig van Beethoven's aesthetic goals and integrated many "Beethovenian features" into his compositional practice..."
https://books.google.ca/books?id=EYw6AwAAQBAJ&pg=PA41


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

Based on the text I agree with the "integrated many 'Beethovenian features' into his compositional practice" but I see no evidence of any temperamental or emotional influence. 

It should also be noted this discussion is about two pieces, one from each composer, that being the third string quartet of Bartok.

The greater oddity is the comparison piece is the Beethoven piano sonata op. 101, not a string quartet.

There are parallels between Beethoven's late quartets and piano sonatas but, in terms of composition extremity, a piano sonata with two parts can't compare with a string quartet with twice as many moving parts, can it?


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## PlaySalieri (Jun 3, 2012)

Mozart had had a great friend who was a violinist and composed a VC for him in the last year of his life.

then we would have a mature Mozart VC to compete with the romantic iconic VCs.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

larold said:


> Other than your thesis, I have never read Beethoven being an influence on Bartok, his string quartets or anything else. Do you know of one? What might it be?


I don't think anything I have said has talked about musical influence. I have been talking about how it was the the string quartet became such an important form/genre for so many composers. This is a very different question which is why I have kept pushing the question back to you. It doesn't really matter now as my original post was just as "throw away" as the others in this thread.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

_I don't think anything I have said has talked about musical influence. I have been talking about how it was the the string quartet became such an important form/genre for so many composers. This is a very different question which is why I have kept pushing the question back to you._

What you said was, had not Beethoven done his string quartets, "OK ... but I think I would go for 'would not have flourished as it did'. Probably, I am thinking of the 20th Century - a time when a great many composers wanted to write many of their most profound utterances in the form."

To me that means no Beethoven string quartets, no most profound utterances in the 20th century.

To me that means Beethoven influenced the profundity of utterance in the 20th century to such extent that, had he not been there, perhaps the profound utterance wouldn't have been there.

I'm not on board with that idea either. Plenty of things affected 20th century artists -- inventions of the automobile and aircraft, the two world wars with their 100 million dead, and atomic bombs among them.

Totalitarianism, another 20 century invention first under Mussolini then soon under Stalin, Hitler and Mao, also influenced composers.

I think these things did more to change music in the 20th century than Beethoven.

Bartok, whose third quartet was in the case you used, was described by Herbert Russcol as a "quiet loner" whose "early studies in folk music ... became a passion for him. He knew as did the other greats of his time -- Stravinsky, Schoenberg and others -- that the old forms and conceptions of music had been played out."

Yet even those composers wrote string quartets. Nothing would have stopped musicians from writing string quartets.

For one reason, as a pal of mine just told me this weekend, "The quartet is the essence of orchestral music: one first violin instead of 12 or 14.

"One of the reasons I like Haydn's symphonies so much," he said, "is they're closer to string quartets than Beethoven's or Brahms's symphonies. I don't view a string quartet as a reduction of a symphony; they're separate genres offering different pleasures, like drawing and painting."


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## BachIsBest (Feb 17, 2018)

flamencosketches said:


> Prokofiev in the same breath as Wagner? Forgive my ignorance, but what did he do that was so bad?


Perhaps not entirely fair but he (Prokofiev) was probably a jerk. In compositional school, he kept a chart listing his classmates' errors to employ for derisive effect.


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## Allegro Con Brio (Jan 3, 2020)

^And didn't he abuse his wife and didn't care when she was sent to a gulag?


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## Bwv 1080 (Dec 31, 2018)

And what if Mozart had lived another 200 years and had access to electric guitars and synths?


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## pianozach (May 21, 2018)

Bwv 1080 said:


> And what if Mozart had lived another 200 years and had access to electric guitars and synths?


That would mean he'd have heard Beethoven's 9th, The Rite of Spring, and Rhapsody in Blue.

He'd have heard Al Jolson, Bing Crosby, the rags of Scott Joplin, the big bands of Artie Shaw and Tommy Dorsey, and the rise of Elvis Presley.

He'd have witnessed World Wars and the atomic bomb.

Unless that by living so long he'd have continued to produced the greatest Classical Pop of all time, and those artists and styles would have been supplanted and overshadowed by Mozart.


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## Totenfeier (Mar 11, 2016)

For some reason, pianozach, you're making me want to be a fly on the wall for a conversation between Mozart and Prince!:lol:


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## pianozach (May 21, 2018)

Totenfeier said:


> For some reason, pianozach, you're making me want to be a fly on the wall for a conversation between Mozart and Prince!:lol:


Interesting idea for a short.

The doorbell rings.

It's Brian Wilson.


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## Andrew Kenneth (Feb 17, 2018)

Then there's Mahler's violin concerto.









review =>
http://www.flyinginkpot.com/1999/04/mahler-violin-concerto-schmidt-violin-concerto-vengerovchicago-soboulez-dg-inkpot/


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## chu42 (Aug 14, 2018)

Beethoven Cello Concerto


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

_Then there's Mahler's violin concerto._

Biggest "what if's"-mahvncon-jpg

I assume this was some kind of put-on? This album doesn't exist anywhere in the world and the three places listed where it could be ordered ... two are gone and one is a restaurant.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

_Then there's Mahler's violin concerto._









I assume this was some kind of put-on? This album doesn't exist anywhere in the world and the three places listed where it could be ordered ... two are gone and one is a restaurant.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Yes, it was an April Fools' post some years ago.


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## pianozach (May 21, 2018)

larold said:


> _Then there's Mahler's violin concerto._
> 
> View attachment 132396
> 
> ...





Art Rock said:


> Yes, it was an April Fools' post some years ago.


Jeez, what an inside joke for Classical Music dweebs. Absolutely over the heads of non-classicals.

Like the Stravinsky Saxophone Concerto No. 1 in Eb


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## christomacin (Oct 21, 2017)

Art Rock said:


> Brahms - Clarinet concerto.


How about a Brahms Horn Concerto or a Brahms Cello Concerto?


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## Ethereality (Apr 6, 2019)

What if Franklin Flabbergasted Fart (1900-2012) lived another 30 years?


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

christomacin said:


> How about a Brahms Horn Concerto or a Brahms Cello Concerto?


Oh, I'd love that as well, but in his later years he composed some of his best (chamber) music for clarinet. I'd love to have heard what he could with the instrument and an orchestra (Berio orchestrated one of the clarinet sonatas by the way).


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## Chi_townPhilly (Apr 21, 2007)

I'll add my voice to the oft-cited "if Wagner had composed a Symphony in his creative prime."

That scarcely exhausts speculation re: Wagner, though. Another "what-if" is if Wagner followed through on his half-threat to decamp to America. It's likely that Wagner's creative legacy would have been lessened [he wouldn't have had access to King Ludwig II's considerable largesse, for one thing], but it would have been interesting to see how the U.S. would have responded to the detonation of a Wagner-device deep in the American heartland.

What if Mussorgsky could have gotten on-the-wagon and stayed there?! Deryck Cooke, too...


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## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

Chi_townPhilly said:


> I'll add my voice to the oft-cited "if Wagner had composed a Symphony in his creative prime."
> 
> That scarcely exhausts speculation re: Wagner, though. Another "what-if" is if Wagner followed through on his half-threat to decamp to America. It's likely that Wagner's creative legacy would have been lessened [he wouldn't have had access to King Ludwig II's considerable largesse, for one thing], but it would have been interesting to see how the U.S. would have responded to the detonation of a Wagner-device deep in the American heartland.
> 
> What if Mussorgsky could have gotten on-the-wagon and stayed there?! Deryck Cooke, too...


Cooke was an alcoholic? I would say he got an amazing amount of work done despite that.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

It's too bad Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms didn't write any twelve-tone or serial music.


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## nncortes (Oct 5, 2014)

1) A completed eighth symphony from Sibelius (there is a slight possibility it could be out there, they did find fragments)
2) More writing for saxophone from the late romantic composers (a la Glazunov), including concertos, quartets, and as a member of the orchestra
3) Mozart's Requiem finished by the composer himself
4) What Gershwin would have done if he lived longer (I would imagine he would branch out more in combining Jazz and Classical in the way Bartok did with folk music, maybe refine it more)


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## Fabulin (Jun 10, 2019)

If Shostakovich and his family managed to flee to USA in the mid-1930s.


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## Flamme (Dec 30, 2012)

If Vivaldi didnt become a Priest???


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## gregorx (Jan 25, 2020)

What if Alma Mahler and Walter Gropius daughter had not tragically died and their good friend Alban Berg hadn't put down _Lulu_ to write his Violin Concerto that he dedicated to her?


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Chi_townPhilly said:


> I'll add my voice to the oft-cited "if Wagner had composed a Symphony in his creative prime."
> That scarcely exhausts speculation re: Wagner, though. Another "what-if" is if Wagner followed through on his half-threat to decamp to America. It's likely that Wagner's creative legacy would have been lessened [he wouldn't have had access to King Ludwig II's considerable largesse, for one thing], but it would have been interesting to see how the U.S. would have responded to the detonation of a Wagner-device deep in the American heartland.
> What if Mussorgsky could have gotten on-the-wagon and stayed there?! Deryck Cooke, too...


Wagner actually did compose a symphony in the American way though




it's titled "March", but it was the Weimar Way of doing things. They would compose a symphony and name it differently, ie. "Poem".

Being a genius in so many areas, 
he also started a pizza franchise in America,




and Sieg-Fried Chicken, a.k.a. SFC

But his opponent wasn't going to let him achieve easy victory: 




And so this is how the WotR spread to America, and eventually became a world war. (WW0)
Many innocent lost their lives, while Rott rotted in his grave.

WARmoNGER


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## Fabulin (Jun 10, 2019)

If Rossini had his behind spanked, as Beethoven suggested


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Fabulin said:


> If Rossini had his behind spanked, as Beethoven suggested


I think Rossini would have stopped composing and began decomposing, from the shock received.


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## Fabulin (Jun 10, 2019)

hammeredklavier said:


> I think Rossini would have stopped composing and began decomposing, from the shock received.


He stopped composing quite early anyway.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

_If Vivaldi didnt become a Priest???_

that happened; he never was a priest. he was more of a teacher.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Fabulin said:


> He stopped composing quite early anyway.


He should have perished and rotted early like Pergolesi and Rott.


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## Rach Man (Aug 2, 2016)

Andrew Kenneth said:


> Then there's Mahler's violin concerto.
> 
> View attachment 132381
> 
> ...


I want this CD. I really want this CD. After reading the review, this sounds like a powerful and interesting piece of music.

Now before you start jumping on me to tell me it's a hoax, I do know that. But this is my favorite fake piece of music that I ever "heard". :lol:


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## Joachim Raff (Jan 31, 2020)

If Mieczysław Karłowicz had taken up curling instead of skiing


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## geralmar (Feb 15, 2013)

After the war, EMI producer Walter Legge wanted to contract with Jascha Horenstein; but the conductor was committed to Vox. So Legge signed his second choice, Otto Klemperer.


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## annaw (May 4, 2019)

......................


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