# Composers who ran out of music at the end of their lives vs Composers who didn't



## ScipioAfricanus (Jan 7, 2010)

I started thinking upon this and it seems to me that Wagner, Bruckner, Brahms and Richard Strauss all ran out of music at the end of their lives and were stuck in limbo. Wagner knew he wouldn't have written The Victors nor any of those one movement symphonies. Bruckner was struggling with the last movement of his 9th, Brahms was writing organ preludes (smh) and Strauss was waiting for the Nazis time to pass.

Schumann, Mendellsohn, Beethoven, Mozart, on the other hand were composing profusely at the time of their deaths and had a good lot of music left.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Hindemith comes to mind immediately, and it didn't have to wait until old age, but in his middle years.

Sibelius famously just stopped composing.

Rossini, though to say that after cranking out two operas per year for sixteen years might have drained anyone -- and he did come up later with those _Sins of My Old Age_ miniatures....


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## StevenOBrien (Jun 27, 2011)

ScipioAfricanus said:


> Mendellsohn


Really? I thought Mendelssohn would have been a prime example for someone who ran out of steam towards the end of their life.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Somebody wrote that many composers find it more difficult to write after age 35 or so. By then, even Mozart was using sketches extensively. And Rossini just quit. Beethoven pooped out a bit later, at about 42, but staged a Muhammed Ali-type comeback...no stopping the Bonn Bull!

Then there's Janacek, exactly the opposite.


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## waldvogel (Jul 10, 2011)

Wagner finished Parsifal at age 69, about a year before he died. 

Have you heard Strauss' Oboe Concerto, Metamorphosen, or Four Last Songs? Not too shabby for a guy in his eighties...


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

To the OP: Keep in mind that Brahms actually quite consciously made the decision to retire. He came back from retirement to write us some lovely works with a clarinet in them. Not bad for an old geezer who should be sitting in a rocking chair on his porch. 

Um, how old was John Cage when he wrote 4'33"? Talk about running out of notes!

Then there are composers who run out of music but don't realize it and thus keep on writing. Bruckner comes to mind...


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

waldvogel said:


> ...
> 
> Have you heard Strauss' Oboe Concerto, Metamorphosen, or Four Last Songs? Not too shabby for a guy in his eighties...


Yeah well after 1945 was his Indian Summer. But he reached his peak in about 1910 - Elektra, Salome, Der Rosenkavalier & also the tone poems before that. Then until 1945 he did stuff but from what I've read, critical consensus is that he was kind of repeating himself, then of course at the end you had that burst of masterpieces.

But admittedly, when you compare everything to 'the best' things a composer ever did, well that's a high level to reach. So better to look at what they did do, not what they didn't do. They had to put food on the table like everyone else, so if they did some 'note spinning,' so what? A lot of the Baroque and Classical Eras did it, but I don't see it as a big deal. They're still geniuses and even masters. Same can be said of highly prolific composers of 20th century, eg. Hovhaness, Martinu, Milhaud. They where unique even though sometimes injudicious in what they put out. A famous anecdote is that after an editor (or someone checking his score before publication) said to Villa-Lobos that there was a gross structural omission/error and he had to put in some introductory bars to a piece, what Villa did was lazily copy a few bars with slight changes. So there was that, but I still thing on the strength of his finest works, he's a great composer. Same with the others.

But there are some, as mentioned, like Sibelius (and I'd add Elgar) who retired prematurely. Varese hardly did anything after 1945 and he lived until the 1960's.

There where those who weren't prolific, or not so much compared to others, but there's a lot of gems in their output (eg. Holst, Kodaly, Dutilleux, Ravel, Berg). These guys didn't do fodder. Holst actually said his aim was to do as different a work from the last one every time he sat down to compose a new piece. He didn't want to go on autopilot and spin notes. & I can hear it in his music. Rachmaninov was another one like that, he is often not credited with this, but this guy didn't just compose anything willy nilly. He really cared about the quality of the stuff he put out. Neither did Brahms, he destroyed many works, in some genres more works than what he published in that genre. Look at all the works that started out in one genre and went thru a number of permutations ending up as something else. This guy thought deeply about what he published. He was the very definition of a perfectionist.

You got those who peaked early - eg. Mascagni, with his famous like "I was crowned before I became king" (to paraphrase). Some peaked late, eg. Janacek and even Elliott Carter really found his musical voice at about forty. No spring chicken, but he did live over 100 years, so that kinda made up for that.

I don't think Bruckner composed the same symphony over and over again. There is variety there, but within the same template. Again, so what? I listen to his codas and they are all quite different. He manages to astound me with how he does unexpected things in ways like this every time.

So maybe my point is that composers are just all different???


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## mikey (Nov 26, 2013)

Haydn survived a good few years after the Seasons, his last major work.
Mendelssohn's hectic life caught up with him but I don't think he ran out of compositional steam; I think people forget the Violin Concerto is quite a late work.

Bridge's best works came from the end of his life.
Verdi reached a watershed with Otello and Falstaff after coming out of retirement for 10 years.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

brianvds said:


> To the OP: Keep in mind that Brahms actually quite consciously made the decision to retire. He came back from retirement to write us some lovely works with a clarinet in them. Not bad for an old geezer who should be sitting in a rocking chair on his porch.
> 
> Um, how old was John Cage when he wrote 4'33"? Talk about running out of notes!
> 
> Then there are composers who run out of music but don't realize it and thus keep on writing. Bruckner comes to mind...


Plus the late solo piano pieces, containing some of Brahms' most personal and profound music.


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## GGluek (Dec 11, 2011)

I have somewhat flippantly remarked before that I thought that Mendelssohn died tragically old.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

None of the composers you mention as running out of music ran out of music. In fact they were all producing masterpieces up until, or shortly before, their deaths. Wagner's works were always widely spaced and required long gestation; _Parsifal_ had been conceived in 1857 and was finished in 1882, the year before his death, and its music shows a continuing capacity to innovate. Bruckner was working on one of his greatest works right up to the end, and it's too bad he ran out of time to give us its final movement. The final works of Brahms and Strauss may not have broken much new ground, but the quality of the music puts those works among their best.

What I do see in the music of all four is a stylistic refinement and a spiritual maturity possible only to older artists with a lifetime of experience, creative and otherwise, behind them. We would not expect, or want, an old man to express the desperate passion of _Tristan und Isolde_, the wild-eyed _grand guignol_ of _Elektra_, or even the _Sturm und Drang_ of Brahms' first symphony or piano concerto. There is a natural trajectory of energy experienced by the human organism, and creativity for most people does tend to peak in midlife and then decline. But great creative minds can draw on all that they've learned through a lifetime of production and "not go gentle into that good night," however gentle in spirit their final creations may be.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

I believe Aaron Copland more or less stopped composing in his older age. I once read a quote of his saying something along the lines of 'it was like someone just turned off a faucet' in reference to the lack of musical ideas he felt in his older age. 

I've always been impressed by composers like Rachmaninov and Janacek that produced arguably their greatest works at a very old age.


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

tdc said:


> I believe Aaron Copland more or less stopped composing in his older age. I once read a quote of his saying something along the lines of 'it was like someone just turned off a faucet' in reference to the lack of musical ideas he felt in his older age.


Copland died of Alzheimer's, which may well have switched off his creativity years before it finally killed him.

Seems to me though as if it is easier to come up with composers who kept at it right to the end. Bartok comes to mind - wrote some of his greatest works on his deathbed!


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## DonAlfonso (Oct 4, 2014)

*Mozart? Really?*



KenOC said:


> Somebody wrote that many composers find it more difficult to write after age 35 or so. By then, even Mozart was using sketches extensively. And Rossini just quit. Beethoven pooped out a bit later, at about 42, but staged a Muhammed Ali-type comeback...no stopping the Bonn Bull!
> 
> Then there's Janacek, exactly the opposite.


Given that Mozart died aged 35 he did find it difficult to write music thereafter. However in his last year he wrote: the opera The Magic Flute; the final piano concerto (K. 595 in B-flat); the Clarinet Concerto K. 622; the last in his great series of string quintets (K. 614 in E-flat); the motet Ave verum corpus K. 618; and the unfinished Requiem K. 626.

Hardly sketches


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## Varick (Apr 30, 2014)

DonAlfonso said:


> Given that Mozart died aged 35 he did find it difficult to write music thereafter. However in his last year he wrote: the opera The Magic Flute; the final piano concerto (K. 595 in B-flat); the Clarinet Concerto K. 622; the last in his great series of string quintets (K. 614 in E-flat); the motet Ave verum corpus K. 618; and the unfinished Requiem K. 626.
> 
> Hardly sketches


Agree. I have always wondered what that mind would have come up with if he even lived another 5 years, or especially 10. The man hadn't even scratched the surface of the minor keys. To think of what would have come forth from that.

V


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

StevenOBrien said:


> Really? I thought Mendelssohn would have been a prime example for someone who ran out of steam towards the end of their life.


Mendelssohn had steam left; Moscheles described his enthusiasm. That enthusiasm seems to have been spread over multiple activities - which may have led some historians and their disciples astray.


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## JACE (Jul 18, 2014)

For the most part, Charles Ives stopped composing by the early 1920's. He continued to tinker and revise things, but the fertile period of composition was behind him. (Nearly all of his great works were composed during the period of ~1907 to ~1921.)

Ives didn't die until 1954. So there was a long "dry" time. However, for the remainder of his life, much of energies (and his dollars) went to promoting his music.

I think Ives' failing health had a lot to do with his inability to continue composing. Ultimately, though, even Ives himself wasn't sure why he couldn't do it anymore. There's a sad story that his wife related about Ives coming from his study one day and telling her, in effect, "It's gone. I can't seem to compose anymore."

Of course, I wish that Ives could have composed many more works from the 20s to the 50s. That said, I'm grateful that he was able to produce what he did. It's some of the most transcendent, wildly original music the world has ever heard -- _and he composed it in the evenings and the weekends, while simultaneously working a full-time job!_ He must have had an _enormous_ amount of energy and inner drive to accomplish that.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

JACE said:


> For the most part, Charles Ives stopped composing by the early 1920's. He continued to tinker and revise things, but the fertile period of composition was behind him. (Nearly all of his great works were composed during the period of ~1907 to ~1921.)
> 
> Ives didn't die until 1954. So there was a long "dry" time. However, for the remainder of his life, much of energies (and his dollars) went to promoting his music.
> 
> ...


And this was a real shame. Imagine a couple of more piano sonatas like the Concord, but even more kaleidoscopic and sophisticated. Blows my mind just to think what could have been.


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## rrudolph (Sep 15, 2011)

I wish he had finished his "Universe" symphony. The bit that exists is pretty intriguing.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Varick said:


> Agree. I have always wondered what that mind would have come up with if he even lived another 5 years, or especially 10. The man hadn't even scratched the surface of the minor keys. To think of what would have come forth from that.
> 
> V


Agree on Mozart. Finding composition more difficult, or having to make more extensive use of sketches, hardly marks the end of a career! Beethoven, after the age of about 40, certainly slowed down but he didn't stop, and his music only got better. When he died, at a relatively young age even for those days, he had plenty of grand plans that would remain unfulfilled.

Haydn had a good long career, but his rather sudden loss of ability to compose may have had to do with a specific physical condition that was not treatable in those days.


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## JACE (Jul 18, 2014)

rrudolph said:


> I wish he had finished his "Universe" symphony. The bit that exists is pretty intriguing.


With the Universe Symphony, I think Ives came up against something that wasn't finish-able. As if it's so heady that it's not practically realizable, just an inexpressible idea.

In his writings, Ives talked about having orchestras spread across great distances performing his Universe Symphony. He often composed in his "shanty" (as he called it) on top of Pine Mountain in Ridgefield, Connecticut. I wonder if he imagined them spread out across the valley and distant ridges.










Elsewhere Ives wrote about imaginary choirs that become so ecstatic, so transcendentally carried away by the music, that their voices cease -- all _sounds_ stop -- but the _music_ continues to carry them higher and higher.

That's how I like to imagine Ives' Universe Symphony.


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## rrudolph (Sep 15, 2011)

Some interesting reading about it here: http://www.stereosociety.com/ivespitch.shtml.

I haven't heard this "completed" version. No doubt it falls far short of Ives' grandiose conception, but I am curious. I can easily imagine Ives railing against the idea of distilling his huge idea into something that could acually be performed, but on the other hand he did apparently ask for somebody to complete the work for him while he was still living. Maybe he would have accepted a performable version.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

JACE said:


> For the most part, Charles Ives stopped composing by the early 1920's. He continued to tinker and revise things, but the fertile period of composition was behind him. (Nearly all of his great works were composed during the period of ~1907 to ~1921.)
> 
> Ives didn't die until 1954. So there was a long "dry" time. However, for the remainder of his life, much of energies (and his dollars) went to promoting his music.
> 
> ...





hpowders said:


> And this was a real shame. Imagine a couple of more piano sonatas like the Concord, but even more kaleidoscopic and sophisticated. Blows my mind just to think what could have been.





JACE said:


> With the Universe Symphony, I think Ives came up against something that wasn't finish-able. As if it's so heady that it's not practically realizable, just an inexpressible idea.
> 
> In his writings, Ives talked about having orchestras spread across great distances performing his Universe Symphony. He often composed in his "shanty" (as he called it) on top of Pine Mountain in Ridgefield, Connecticut. I wonder if he imagined them spread out across the valley and distant ridges.
> 
> ...


I do wonder how Ives may have turned out had he received some recognition early on? What may have been had riots (like that of the _Le Sacre_!) been a part of his music history? (Can anyone even imagine an orchestra of 1910 or so performing the Second Symphony!?) Ives remains a profound original, and is probably still not appreciated to the fullness he deserves. His Second Symphony may well be the "great American symphony". What rivals does it have? Ives's Fourth, perhaps?

Why Ives stopped composing I don't know, but I would suppose that some recognition and appreciation may have spurred the creative juices.

Of course, such is not always the case, as with Havergal Brian who sought (and got) little recognition yet composed prolifically through his 80s and 90s. He may not have been as profoundly original or inspired as, say, Ives was, but he kept plugging out music, and there remains some intriguing stuff in his oeuvre.

As for a composer who ran out of steam ... er, music, early, I posit Philip Glass. Hey, I know Glass has his fans out there among the posters on this Forum, but I just don't seem to be one. I do appreciate the man; he has one of the more interesting biographies of any composer, and I'm especially impressed by his stint as a school-based composer-in-residence in the public school system in Pittsburgh ... but the music never excited me. I must admit I have not followed his music with great enthusiasm and must claim unfamiliarity with much of it. I still recall my first hearing of_ Glassworks _(which I tried one or two times afterwards, never quite "getting it"), and I still have to get to the final couple of sections of the four-hour-long _Music in Twelve Parts_, which goes back to the 1970s. So ... I'm out of touch. I may be wrong, but for me, Phil Glass, as great a fellow as he is, ran out of music _before _he began composing. Which is a shame. The man has a great deal of energy.


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## JACE (Jul 18, 2014)

rrudolph said:


> Some interesting reading about it here: http://www.stereosociety.com/ivespitch.shtml.
> 
> I haven't heard this "completed" version. No doubt it falls far short of Ives' grandiose conception, but I am curious. I can easily imagine Ives railing against the idea of distilling his huge idea into something that could acually be performed, but on the other hand he did apparently ask for somebody to complete the work for him while he was still living. Maybe he would have accepted a performable version.


I've heard Reinhard's realization. It's interesting and completely valid -- as a _realization_. But it just doesn't sound like Ives to me.

I feel pretty much the same about Larry Austin's realization.










Cincinnati Philharmonia Orchestra, et al / Gerhard Samuel [Austin Realization]; coupled with Orchestral Set No. 2 and "The Unanswered Question" (Centaur)


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## Triplets (Sep 4, 2014)

Did any onemention Verdi, 5 wrote some of his greatest works at the end of a long life?
Ralph Vaughn Williams was innovating right up to o


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## SottoVoce (Jul 29, 2011)

Schubert comes to mind. Tovey has a great work: "Schubert is a composer that only composed middle works". It seems that he was entering a new stage, one that would integrate his supreme lyrical gifts with classical dramatic form, especially in the String Quintet. 

Webern also is a contender, who in his last works was getting thicker and longer. These two obviously were not finished with their music development, but they sure didn't do bad with what they had.


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

I started thinking upon this and it seems to me that Wagner, Bruckner, Brahms and Richard Strauss all ran out of music at the end of their lives and were stuck in limbo.

Strauss later years saw the composition of a handful of operas including:

1935- _Die Schweigsame Frau_
1938- _Daphne_
1942- _Capriccio_

He also composed:

1945- Metamorphosen
1945- Oboe Concerto
1959- Vier letzte Lieder

... as well as a dozen or so other lieder and several choral works. Not bad for someone in his 80s dealing with the realities of working under the conditions of the Third Reich and WWII.

Considering that Wagner completed Parsifal in 1882 and died in 1883 I don't see how anyone could suggest that he ran out of steam.

Brahms?! Didn't the last 7 years of his life... after he vowed to give up composing... actually see the composition of the Clarinet Trio, the Clarinet Quintet, several works for piano and organ, and the "Four Serious Songs"?


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## trazom (Apr 13, 2009)

Varick said:


> Agree. I have always wondered what that mind would have come up with if he even lived another 5 years, or especially 10. The man hadn't even scratched the surface of the minor keys. To think of what would have come forth from that.
> 
> V


What about all of his major key works that modulate to minor keys? I mean, even in his 'brightest' works it seems like he goes into minor keys with relative ease: The 21st piano concerto with that sudden shift to g minor in the first movement, the constant shift between C major and C minor in the 25th piano concerto. Then there are very rarely-used minor keys that Mozart will use in his works with variations: The string trio k.563, and many of the theme and variations for piano. There's a lot of dramatic minor music in his operas, too, by the way.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

SottoVoce said:


> Schubert comes to mind. Tovey has a great work: "Schubert is a composer that only composed middle works". It seems that he was entering a new stage, one that would integrate his supreme lyrical gifts with classical dramatic form, especially in the String Quintet.


That can happen when you get ill and die at age 31... at pretty much the first part of what is usually the middle of a full career.


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

Symphony No. 3- 1842
Cello Sonata No. 2- 1843
Incidental Music to Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream- 1842
Songs without Words Book 5- 1844
Violin Concerto in E minor- 1844
Songs without Words Book 6- 1845
Elijah- 1846
Four Lieder for four male voices- 1844–1846
Three Lieder for voice and piano- 1836–1847
String Quartet No. 6 in F minor- 1847
Songs without Words Book 7- 1845
String Quintet No. 2 in B-flat major- 1845

Mendelssohn died in 1847. It looks to me like his last few years saw some really fine work.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Given Mozart's ability to use any style he turned his hand to, and given the tendency in his late works toward a more personal, Romantic expression (yes, all you academics, _Romantic_: the word had already entered the vocabulary of literature by 1790, the year before Mozart's death), it would have been fascinating to observe how he absorbed the new currents of the 19th century, and especially the work of the other greatest musical genius of the day, Beethoven. Somehow it's hard to imagine them as friends - but rivals? Delicious concept!


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## Musicforawhile (Oct 10, 2014)

Can I just add that as much as I love Handel, his music seems like similar ideas being used over again. Not that I am complaining, and there are some distinct melodies in his arias but maybe it's the accompaniment that seems to always do the same symmetrical patterned thing. So, maybe he didn't have that many musical ideas to start with? I don't want to bash him though, as he is one of my favourites for opera arias.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Musicforawhile said:


> Can I just add that as much as I love Handel, his music seems like similar ideas being used over again.


Hey, somebody counted them up and Haydn uses that "Big Ben" theme over a hundred times in the first movement of his Quinten quartet!


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## Orfeo (Nov 14, 2013)

*Alexander Glazunov (1865-1936)* comes to mind immediately. After he reached his peak with the Violin Concerto and his Eighth Symphony (1904 & 1906 resp.), his composing activity went into a fairly steep decline. Much of it was due to his administrative (as Director) and pedagogical duties at the St. Petersburg Conservatory. The quality of his music remained more or less the same, but the burning inspiration that colors some of his great works (Sixth Symphony, Raymonda, the Sonatas, to name a few) left him and there is some nostalgic feel in some of his late works (Saxophone Concerto and Saxophone Quartet, Two-Prelude Improvisations for piano, his final two String Quartets). For the remaining decade of his life, he wrote very little, traveling as much as he did and battling a combination of diseases that would eventually claim his life. His passing surprised many, who assumed that he was gone years beforehand.

*Sir Arnold Bax (1883-1953) *comes to mind also. Reaching his peak with his Sixth Symphony (arguably), the burning inspiration he had left him by the time his wrote his last symphony. Bax was a busy man, composing many works of various genres in high, often white-heat in quality and passion. And he reached the peak of his fame by the mid-1930s about the time Walton and Vaughan-Williams were to replace him on the map. But by the end of the decade, the guy was clearly tired and worn-out. The best ideas that came quite naturally to him during his heyday really became no more. He wrote a few pieces and film scores for the next decade, and was even honored as the Master of King Music. But the best was clearly behind him.

*Franz Lehar (1870-1948)* is another example. After completing his last operetta "Giuditta" (1933), he went on to establish his own publishing house where he edited (and even re-edited) his scores so as to "set the record straight" sort to speak. It was a necessary move, for his scores were often tangled or messed-with by conductors and producers staging his works (a common practice which in part explains the decline of the genre's popularity by the 1930s).

But composers began writing better (even best) music towards the end of their lives. *Myaskovsky*, for one, wrote some of the most achingly beautiful, sublime music in his last years (the Twenty-Fifth and the Twenty-Seventh Symphonies, the Thirteenth String Quartet, Cello Concerto, Cello Sonata no. II, the last three of the Piano Sonatas). Other mentions include *Hans Gal*, *Franz Schmidt*, *Gershwin* who did not run out of ideas in the end (nor did *Offenbach*, with his wonderful "The Tales of Hoffmann" that he did not get to finish when he passed-on in 1880).


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## Radames (Feb 27, 2013)

dholling said:


> *Alexander Glazunov (1865-1936)* comes to mind immediately.


I was going to mention him. Sibelius didn't compose for the last 30 years of his life except for the 8th Symphony that he destroyed.


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## Rhombic (Oct 28, 2013)

Haydn comes to mind!!


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## Richannes Wrahms (Jan 6, 2014)

Some would argue that Webern never had any music to begin with, that almost all we have from him is the result of pure metamusical analysis which we love merely by sonorous comprehension. :lol:


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## Scopitone (Nov 22, 2015)

So you're saying Brahms was the Ric Flair or KISS of his day? "Retiring" and yet coming back later to do more work? :lol:


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## Scopitone (Nov 22, 2015)

Orfeo said:


> But composers began writing better (even best) music towards the end of their lives. *Myaskovsky*, for one, wrote some of the most achingly beautiful, sublime music in his last years (the Twenty-Fifth and the Twenty-Seventh Symphonies, the Thirteenth String Quartet, Cello Concerto, Cello Sonata no. II, the last three of the Piano Sonatas).


I have only heard of Myaskovsky since joining this forum. The dude must have been a friggin machine -- just based on the number of symphonies alone! Also, isn't going beyond no 9 bad luck?

Not for him, apparently.


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## Orfeo (Nov 14, 2013)

Scopitone said:


> I have only heard of Myaskovsky since joining this forum. The dude must have been a friggin machine -- just based on the number of symphonies alone! Also, isn't going beyond no 9 bad luck?
> 
> Not for him, apparently.


Nope, his spirit never left him. I suspect that part of the reason he wrote his last Symphony (the Twenty-Seventh), was to sort of "stick it to them" (meaning, the establishment) after the disgraceful Zhdanov Affair of 1948. The man of dignity all the way to the end.


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## Simon Moon (Oct 10, 2013)

I think the ultimate example of a composer that did not run out of music, is Elliott Carter! One of my favorite composers.

He died at the age of 104 in November 2012, and finished his last work just months before his death.

He wrote 40 pieces between 90 and 100, and wrote another 20 after the age of 100. And quite a few of these were for orchestra and large ensembles. No easy feat. And most were quite strong pieces, not too much fluff.

I would say his record is hard to beat.


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## Xenakiboy (May 8, 2016)

Simon Moon said:


> I think the ultimate example of a composer that did not run out of music, is Elliott Carter! One of my favorite composers.
> 
> He died at the age of 104 in November 2012, and finished his last work just months before his death.
> 
> ...


I agree, much of what I've heard of his later music is incredible and scary too considering that most people at that age are unable to even do basic human functions (the realities of old age). He still at 100 was creating very strong orchestral and chamber music, wow! :tiphat:


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## Simon Moon (Oct 10, 2013)

Xenakiboy said:


> I agree, much of what I've heard of his later music is incredible and scary too considering that most people at that age are unable to even do basic human functions (the realities of old age). He still at 100 was creating very strong orchestral and chamber music, wow! :tiphat:


Yep.

He won the genetic lottery, for sure.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Englebert Humperdinck pretty much 'shot his wad' by 36-39 when he composed his only well-known work Hansel und Gretel even though he lived to 67. 

For a 'one-hit-wonder', Humperdinck composed some incredible music for this work. Perhaps one of the most simply beautiful duets in all of opera is the 'Evening Prayer' which was particularly popularized by Charlotte Church albeit as the misnamed 'When At Night I Go To Sleep':


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Haydn made his second trip to London when he was 62. A London newspaper, based on continental reports it had received, said that the aging composer was "written out."

After the first concerts were given on that trip, the newspaper published a handsome retraction.

Sibelius, on the other hand, produced little of significance after his 61st year, although he lived another three decades.

Ives at some point (can't remember just when) quit composing rather suddenly. He said it was as if somebody had "flipped a switch."


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## Richannes Wrahms (Jan 6, 2014)

Found that Charlotte Church video incredibly creepy.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Richannes Wrahms said:


> Found that Charlotte Church video incredibly creepy.


Did she sing Messian?


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Richannes Wrahms said:


> Found that Charlotte Church video incredibly creepy.


What's the problem?


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

DaveM said:


> Englebert Humperdinck pretty much 'shot his wad' by 36-39 when he composed his only well-known work Hansel und Gretel even though he lived to 67.
> 
> For a 'one-hit-wonder', Humperdinck composed some incredible music for this work. Perhaps one of the most simply beautiful duets in all of opera is the 'Evening Prayer' which was particularly popularized by Charlotte Church albeit as the misnamed 'When At Night I Go To Sleep':


I think this is the way to really sing it!


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

DavidA said:


> I think this is the way to really sing it!


It's certainly one form, but I question a value judgment as to how it should be sung. Hansel and Gretel is a story of a young brother and sister, in this case lost in the forest, so one could say that the Charlotte Church version is more representative of the story than having two older women sing the parts (though I understand that the latter is accepted in opera).

Btw, I do like the Kathleen Battle, Von Stade version. They are two of my favorite artists.


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

Scopitone said:


> So you're saying Brahms was the Ric Flair or KISS of his day? "Retiring" and yet coming back later to do more work? :lol:


Nice Ric Flair reference. Woooh!


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## Xenakiboy (May 8, 2016)

My idol Iannis Xenakis died in 2001 but the last work published was "O-mega" in 1997, but it was due to health problems. Another unfortunate circumstance that I prefer to not think about but his health problems stopped him composing essentially, makes me depressed thinking about it actually. But its what happens in life


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

This one is to easy


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## Xenakiboy (May 8, 2016)

Pugg said:


> This one is to easy


Everybody is waiting


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