# if you could.....



## SarahNorthman

If you could for one day meet any composer who would it be? 

I will start! Perhaps it is cliché, but I would love to meet Mozart. Huge fan.


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## mmsbls

Mozart is my favorite composer. I've had this fantasy that Mozart would come back to the present, and I could slowly introduce him to music from the late 1700s through to the present. After he got past the higher tuning, I always wondered how long it would take him to come to terms with the newer sounds. And then he could write some contemporary music. I've always wondered what he would write.


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## SarahNorthman

mmsbls said:


> Mozart is my favorite composer. I've had this fantasy that Mozart would come back to the present, and I could slowly introduce him to music from the late 1700s through to the present. After he got past the higher tuning, I always wondered how long it would take him to come to terms with the newer sounds. And then he could write some contemporary music. I've always wondered what he would write.


Hahaha maybe its because I love the show Sleepy Hollow that I can so vividly imagine this. But man it would be so thrilling to meet him! I honestly have to wonder what his opinion on modern day music would be. Mostly I am unimpressed by a good majority of it to be honest. So much of it is just unoriginal.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde

I've met a couple, one of them are in my top 3 living composers. I would very much like to meet Matthias Pintscher though to learn more about his approach to conducting new music and get some composition lessons from him if he's willing to teach at all...


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## SeptimalTritone

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> I've met a couple, one of them are in my top 3 living composers. I would very much like to meet Matthias Pintscher though to learn more about his approach to conducting new music and get some composition lessons from him if he's willing to teach at all...


What are your top 3 living composers?


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde

SeptimalTritone said:


> What are your top 3 living composers?


Thomas Adès, Brett Dean, Matthias Pintscher.


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## elgar's ghost

Probably Bernstein. He had such a multi-faceted career so it would have been be great to hear him talk about different aspects of the music industry and also his place within it, what drove him, how he got his ideas etc. 

Plus he could pull a few strings and get me tickets for Yankees and Giants games. :lol:


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## ptr

I know exactly, Shostakovich late may 1936 and I'd be convincing him not to change objective but to keep developing his ideas in the fourth symphony and that Stalin is putz not to worry about... 

/ptr


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## elgar's ghost

ptr said:


> I know exactly, Shostakovich late may 1936 and I'd be convincing him not to change objective but to keep developing his ideas in the fourth symphony and that Stalin is putz not to worry about...
> 
> /ptr


I get the feeling you wouldn't be seeing him again - or many other people, come to that!


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## hpowders

I'd have to be nuts not to say Beethoven-what a fascinating character! Great to have a beer with too!

I'd also like to meet Robert Schumann to see what the heck Clara was so nuts about.

Finally, I would enjoy interviewing Charles Ives to have him talk to me about life in rural Connecticut at the turn of the twentieth century. Perhaps he could even sell me a decent home owners insurance policy!


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## ptr

elgars ghost said:


> I get the feeling you wouldn't be seeing him again - or many other people, come to that!


Who knows, I might have, after leaving his flat in Moscow, gone on and to assassinate Stalin, I'm sure that would have been sanctioned by the US government!

/ptr


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## Ingélou

Probably Handel. I'd enjoy asking him about 18th century England and what he liked and disliked about living in London.


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## SarahNorthman

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> Thomas Adès, Brett Dean, Matthias Pintscher.


Hmmm I think I'm going to check out these composers.


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## Figleaf

I would love to chat to Reynaldo Hahn and have him sing for me. Such a witty man and a fine judge of singers, as well as being a wonderful vocalist himself.

Or maybe Jean-Baptiste Faure, composer of 'Les Rameaux'- I'm cheating a little, since he was of course known mostly as a singer. I would love to know whether the two recordings attributed to him are genuine, and hear the great man as he sounded in his prime. Like Hahn, Faure would have to sing for his supper!


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## Mahlerian

I'd like to meet....

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_[Suspense, Drumroll]_
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Mahler.

Surprised?

Anyway, hear the man conduct, see his infamously harsh treatment of orchestral musicians, possibly hear him talk about music and contradict himself at least once!


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## DiesIraeCX

I feel like my pick is just as "surprising" as Mahlerian's. I would meet Beethoven, surprise surprise. However, I'm not sure I'd want to actually sit down and talk with him (for a few reasons). I'd rather just see what he looked like, playing the piano, conducting one of his symphony premieres, composing in his room, chewing someone out, etc.


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## KenOC

I'd love to hear Beethoven improvise. But I'd probably find Haydn a lot more congenial. Certainly not that Mozart fellow with his non-stop potty mouth!


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## SarahNorthman

KenOC said:


> I'd love to hear Beethoven improvise. But I'd probably find Haydn a lot more congenial. Certainly not that Mozart fellow with his non-stop potty mouth!


Ah maybe that's why I feel a want to see what Mozart was like. :3


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## Albert7

Anton Von Webern hands down.


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## SixFootScowl

With my extremely limited knowledge of music theory I don't think I would be able to hold much of a conversation with any famous composer.


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## Kibbles Croquettes

albertfallickwang said:


> Anton Von Webern hands down.


I've somehow gotten the picture that he wasn't the most laidback guy, so I don't know if I would have liked to actually meet him casually. It would have been, on the other, very interesting to hear him talk about his compositions; to hear, if my ideas about them are even close. Based on his own analysis of his string quartet, op. 28, it would seem that he was very excited to talk about his music.

If we think about just sitting down and talking about the world, I think I would have felt comfortable with these gentelemen:










(If the link stops working, the painting was Akseli Gallen-Kallela's Symposion)


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## elgar's ghost

^
^
Is that a young Sibelius on the right?


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## QuietGuy

I'd like to meet Maurice Ravel and get orchestration tips.


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## Kibbles Croquettes

elgars ghost said:


> ^
> ^
> Is that a young Sibelius on the right?


Yes he is. There's also Robert Kajanus and - the passed out guy - Oskar Merikanto. Both of them are also composers. Kajanus' symphonic poem Aino is great. And pretty much the only thing I know by him. The guy who is looking straight at the viewer is, I think, the painter himself.


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## Morimur

I would have loved to have met Christ while he was on earth, even though I am certain he would've rebuked the hell out of me.


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## Kibbles Croquettes

Morimur said:


> When all's said and done, I would have loved to have met Christ while he was on earth, even though I am certain he would've rebuked the hell out of me.


At least if we believe the hypothesis that he was a zealot.


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## Morimur

Kibbles Croquettes said:


> At least if we believe the hypothesis that he was a zealot.


I am sure most people would agree that he was not a pushover.


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## Kibbles Croquettes

Morimur said:


> I am sure most people would agree that he was not a pushover.


That probably is true.


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## JACE

I would like to have met Charles Ives.

I would have liked to tell him that his music would eventually be _understood_ and _loved_ by some, if not by many.

I would have liked to encourage him.


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## BaronAlstromer

I would have wanted to hang out (and listen to) with the string quartet that consisted of Haydn, Mozart, Vanhal and von Dittersdorf.


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## GhenghisKhan

I know little about music theory, so I would have to do a great deal of research before going. 

But on top of my head, probably Wagner, Bach and Tchaikovsky.


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