# Were the great composers "sincere"?



## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Beethoven: "An artist must be able to assume many humors."

What do you think?


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Acting, or seeming to be an actor, whether comping or performing, is a good part of the part and parcel of the gig, and a convincing actor is best convincing if they believe their stuff when they are strutting it -- so yeah, they were "sincere," at least while they were being sincere.

I can not imagine why -- if any composer you have in mind wrote works which "work for you" -- the question would arise, or why it is worth wondering about.

Whatever they may have been, if you're talking about the past greats, they were sincerely composers... all we need to know, I think.

(This is perhaps your oddest Q, if there is a tally of that sort of thing being kept somewhere


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

PetrB said:


> ...if you're talking about the past greats, they were sincerely composers... all we need to know, I think.


Glad you find the question simple and obvious. I can't claim the same clarity of vision.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

I should imagine that just as a good writer 'puts himself' in the position of the character he's* writing about, so a good composer puts himself into the character of the music or the instrument that he is composing for.

So Shakespeare, when writing the character of the countryman who gives Cleopatra the asps, puts himself into the mind-frame of a talkative flirt who is endlessly fascinated with himself. Shakespeare one presumes was not like that himself, but there is a truth and sincerity in the creative process.

But as we can only judge by results, it's a vexed question to say how 'sincere' a composer was as regards his own motives. It's like the old proverb 'murder will out'. The only murders we know about are the ones that *are* 'out'. It is surely impossible to tell the difference between a beautiful tongue-in-cheek piece of music cynically composed for the money, and a beautiful piece composed for someone you love?

* 'he' & 'his' used simply for convenience...


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## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)

Schubert wasn't sincere - when you look at his output, every other composition is lied.


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## Guest (Oct 25, 2013)

KenOC said:


> Glad you find the question simple and obvious.


:lol:

"Odd" does not translate into "simple and obvious," at least not ordinarily.

Or unless one wants to sidestep what's actually been said. One does so want to sidestep, doesn't one?



KenOC said:


> I can't claim the same clarity of vision.


:lol:

Still, there is some humor in this thread about humors.:tiphat:

[Edit: After Aramis post appeared]--and some of it is even intentional humor!! (Great joke, Aramis. Hat's off to you, too. (Post limit had already been reached on the smiley's.))


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## starry (Jun 2, 2009)

Ingenue said:


> I should imagine that just as a good writer 'puts himself' in the position of the character he's* writing about, so a good composer puts himself into the character of the music or instrument that he is composing for.


Not only that, there are likely many different and even contradictory aspects to someone's character. So it's possible even widely different roles can be sincere. Though obviously it still requires an openness and then an imagination to propogate it.


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## Couac Addict (Oct 16, 2013)

KenOC said:


> Beethoven: "An artist must be able to assume many humors."
> 
> What do you think?


Was this before or after the time when he jumped up on the piano, strutted a manly pose; crying _Haydn! You've been served!_


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## Eschbeg (Jul 25, 2012)

I think most composers adhered to the philosophy most succinctly and immortally summarized by Flanders and Swann: "Always be sincere, whether you mean it or not."


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## deggial (Jan 20, 2013)

of course they were. They really meant for the notes to go in that particular sequence.


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## Alydon (May 16, 2012)

I think a good sense of humour is the best one to have.


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## Alydon (May 16, 2012)

KenOC said:


> Beethoven: "An artist must be able to assume many humors."
> 
> What do you think?


I think a good sense of humour is the best one to have.


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## mstar (Aug 14, 2013)

KenOC said:


> Beethoven: "An artist must be able to assume many humors."
> 
> What do you think?


This is not true. Rachmaninov is distinctly Rachmaninov, and had never written like Bach. Bach never did write like Tchaikovsky, who in turn never really did write like Ligeti, etc.

Those mentioned are all greats. I would especially note Rach for having his own distinct Romantic/Modern "mesh" style, which yes was influenced by late Romantic composers, though was mostly in this style....


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

There is that lingering less than subtle hint of "Are all artists con men?"

In a way, the answer is yes. .The good at it Con Men are successful because, for the moment they are making the project, hustling the deal, they actually believe it and believe in it themselves. .The huge difference between the Artist and The Con Artist is that the Artist actually intends on delivering after having been invested in, i.e. commissioned.

Most creatives will tell you their most favored or beloved piece or work is the one they are working on or have just finished -- too, then also wholly believing in what they are doing at the moment.

I recall Stravinsky speaking of the commission for the Concerto in Eb; Dumbarton Oaks. .Stravinsky did not care for what seemed a rather odd or imbalanced group of instruments (flute, clarinet, bassoon, 2 horns, and a small handful of strings.) .He said in order to be able to get started -- the available ensemble being a bit of a real block for him -- he decided to approach the problem _as if the registration was completely of his choosing, and desired._.Well, we got a lovely work by Igor's way of a little bit of acting


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

"All bad poetry is sincere."- Oscar Wilde

I tend to agree with Wilde. All one needs to do is consider the embarrassingly bad... yet sincere and emotion-laden stuff that fills diaries and journals of angst-filled teens everywhere.


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

StlukesguildOhio said:


> "All bad poetry is sincere."- Oscar Wilde
> 
> I tend to agree with Wilde. All one needs to do is consider the embarrassingly bad... yet sincere and emotion-laden stuff that fills diaries and journals of angst-filled teens everywhere.


Yup - art that isn't a con wouldn't be much fun. It would be too much like real life.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

some guy said:


> :lol:
> 
> "Odd" does not translate into "simple and obvious," at least not ordinarily.
> 
> ...


Hey member some guy - was John Cage sincere? You met him / knew him, right?


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## BurningDesire (Jul 15, 2012)

Nope. All us great composers are totally facetious in our composing.


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## ethanjamesescano (Aug 29, 2012)

I think not all the time. Beethoven wrote a symphony to Bonaparte, but later he dedicated it to Lobkowitz to prevent him for paying the fee, and because he hated Napoleon at that time. In Mozart's case, in his Requiem, in my opinion, he's not 100% sincere, he was just commissioned by Walsegg to write a Requiem.


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## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)

ethanjamesescano said:


> I think not all the time. Beethoven wrote a symphony to Bonaparte, but later he dedicated it to Lobkowitz to prevent him for paying the fee, and because he hated Napoleon at that time.


So what's so insincere about following his true feelings towards the original dedicatee? If you mean dedication made after he was displeased by the news from French Empire, there's nothing insincere about it, he didn't want the symphony to remain dedicated to the person who inspired him, but changing the dedication for Lobkowitz was just a change from meaningful dedication to conventional one, which doesn't mean that he had done anything like "let Lobkowitz think the symphony is about him, even when I did it for the first consul". I see no insincerity here. And it seems he didn't really "hate" Napoleon, though he was displeased with the way he had choosen by becoming a monarch.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Aramis said:


> So what's so insincere about following his true feelings towards the original dedicatee?


Changing the dedication without changing one note in the score has nothing to do with "sincerity."


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## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)

PetrB said:


> Changing the dedication without changing one note in the score has nothing to do with "sincerity."


As far as ARISTIC sincerity is considered, the whole issue has little to do with it.

Still, I don't see how you can claim it was insincere in general to do such thing, especially considering that Eroica was never published with dedication to Napoleon. Not willing to hold it by the time it was finished, he did the conventional, barely meaningful gesture towards his patron instead.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

brianvds said:


> Yup - art that isn't a con wouldn't be much fun. It would be too much like real life.


This brings around that point that artists intentionally manipulate the materials to manipulate their audience 

Yup, artists are all calculating insincere demons: like magicians, their works are all misdirection, smoke 'n' mirrors. Oh, and tons of training, practice, and hard work


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## starry (Jun 2, 2009)

StlukesguildOhio said:


> "All bad poetry is sincere."- Oscar Wilde
> 
> I tend to agree with Wilde. All one needs to do is consider the embarrassingly bad... yet sincere and emotion-laden stuff that fills diaries and journals of angst-filled teens everywhere.


And really this is probably just another 'emotion' in classical music thread. Composers obviously don't just write with emotion otherwise it woud be a mess.


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## Guest (Oct 26, 2013)

ArtMusic said:


> Hey member some guy - was John Cage sincere? You met him / knew him, right?


I guess. The topic never came up, so I'm guessing he was. (There was never any question about it.)

He was a really really nice person. Very unassuming. Very intelligent.

I personally don't know how "sincere" gets even gets to be a topic.


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

some guy said:


> He was a really really nice person. Very unassuming. Very intelligent.


There is a lot of testimony to the fact, from people from many walks of life. With respect to the sincerity topic, he seems to have withheld 4'33'' from the public for years because he worried people would take it as a joke.

Not long enough for some of us here on the forum, of course! :lol:


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

*So What.*

Oh no. Beethoven's _Third_ is insincere. What are we to do?

So what. It is still one of the greatest pieces of music ever composed irregardless of Beethoven's intent.

Tonight the City of Fairfax will be performing Morton Gould's _Jericho_. It is the first band work that Gould composed and it is a classic in the band world. The circumstances of its' creation is a legend with band junkies. Gould was paid to compose a work for concert band by the Pennsylvania School Music Association in about 1938. They paid Gould in advance. He kept putting off completing the piece. The Association hit Gould with an ultimatum. Complete the work or give back the money. He then completed the work in one evening. I guess we should not perform this work since Gould was an insincere money grubber when he composed it. He was only twenty-five. See: http://www.theinstrumentalist.com/pages/The-Instrumentalist/January-1995-Gabriel/

Got to run. Busy day.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Aramis said:


> As far as ARISTIC sincerity is considered, the whole issue has little to do with it.
> 
> Still, I don't see how you can claim it was insincere in general to do such thing, especially considering that Eroica was never published with dedication to Napoleon. Not willing to hold it by the time it was finished, he did the conventional, barely meaningful gesture towards his patron instead.


"without changing a note" I thought more than implied was about the musical sincerity -- the dedication not being the issue. I had forgotten, it seems, how literal some TC readers may be... always a bit of a surprise for me when you are talking the arts with a number of other art lovers


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

starry said:


> And really this is probably just another 'emotion' in classical music thread. Composers obviously don't just write with emotion otherwise it woud be a mess.


I think the "personal expression" schtick (and very high current fashion it is) is a typical non-musician's sort of concept of what composers and performers as interpreters do... and it is so far removed from the actuality as to be nearly another universe.

I think it is very difficult for anyone who does not compose or play that it is through all the "clinical" disciplines where anything thought to be emotive / expressive comes out and is communicated to anyone at all.

Instead, we get -- fed by Hollywood cliche scripts -- the composer needing some catalytic event in their personal life (preferably lost love, etc.) in order to become "inspired" ... such nonsense. If the cliche were true, the bulk amount of what those composers produce would be cut by about 90%, or their lives would have been such a constant emotional upheaval that they would have been unable to produce / perform.

Yet, there is something very personal -- an emotional connection, in about all and anything artists make -- leaving all the discipline in the picture, if not an actual dichotomy, an unsolvable enigma for most people.


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## Guest (Oct 26, 2013)

Nailed it!

(Not sure about that other universe thing, though. That gives it more cachet than it deserves, I think. It's not another universe, it's just false is all. But point well taken. Indeed.)


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

StlukesguildOhio said:


> "All bad poetry is sincere."- Oscar Wilde
> 
> I tend to agree with Wilde. All one needs to do is consider the embarrassingly bad... yet sincere and emotion-laden stuff that fills diaries and journals of angst-filled teens everywhere.


Of course, Oscar Wilde was sincere in everything he wrote. He simply disguised his sincerity with humor to protect himself, which is a common tactic:

http://www.theonion.com/articles/report-79-of-sincere-thoughts-played-off-as-jokes,33026/

This may be because many people seem sincerely annoyed by the topic of sincerity!


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

some guy said:


> I personally don't know how "sincere" gets even gets to be a topic.


KenOC needs to start a new thread every day. I don't know about anyone else, but I can smell a phony a mile away. John Cage was wonderful. I have an old film about sound that he narrated, which also features Roland Kirk.


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## Guest (Oct 26, 2013)

That's a sweet film.

It's on youtube, courtesy of TheWelleszOpus, of course.

Let's all watch that film right now, shall we?


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Will have to pull out the DVD. It's a 2-fer that also includes a documentary film on the Ornette Coleman trio of the mid 60s.


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## Borodin (Apr 8, 2013)

KenOC said:


> Were the great composers "sincere"?


That entirely depends on the composer:

Sincere
Chopin
Schubert
Tchaikovsky
Mendelssohn
Schumann
Prokofiev
Shostakovich
Ravel
Saint-Saens
Holst
Borodin

Insincere
Bach
Mozart
Beethoven
Brahms
Debussy
Wagner
Mahler
Rachmaninoff
Sibelius
R. Strauss
Mussorgsky


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

As any fule kno, Lully was sincerely insincere.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Borodin said:


> That entirely depends on the composer:
> 
> Sincere
> *Shostakovich
> Ravel*


Two of the most proudly dissembling composers of all time, right there. Ravel was fond of assuming various guises (taking up archaic styles, having a piece of his played anonymously). Shostakovich did various hackwork pieces that his heart wasn't in, but gave them an opus number in spite of that.


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## Eschbeg (Jul 25, 2012)

It's amusing to see Schubert and Chaikovsky on the sincere list too. Both composers' personal lives, as attested to in their personal correspondences as well as the recollections of their friends, were very much at odds with the gloomy and introspective works they tend to be represented by in the repertoire.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

some guy said:


> Nailed it!
> 
> (Not sure about that other universe thing, though. That gives it more cachet than it deserves, I think. It's not another universe, it's just false is all. But point well taken. Indeed.)


Garwsh, Thanls. I did say _nearly_ another universe.

The phrase "alien to _____'s sensibilities" had come to mind, and I imagine that's where nearly another universe came into it: alien, fully, can be as mere as the neighboring culture next door to yours, or your immediate neighbor's taste in music


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## Borodin (Apr 8, 2013)

Mahlerian said:


> Two of the most proudly dissembling composers of all time, right there. Ravel was fond of assuming various guises (taking up archaic styles, having a piece of his played anonymously). Shostakovich did various hackwork pieces that his heart wasn't in, but gave them an opus number in spite of that.





Eschbeg said:


> It's amusing to see Schubert and Chaikovsky on the sincere list too. Both composers' personal lives, as attested to in their personal correspondences as well as the recollections of their friends, were very much at odds with the gloomy and introspective works they tend to be represented by in the repertoire.


I don't think such differences can really prove insincerity in the composers themselves. If they're doing works their hearts aren't truly in, this doesn't go to say anything about their feelings about doing them. Likewise the motive and attitude behind doing something off from what's expected of them could be completely sincere, especially if the need for doing so had been weighing on their minds. I'm just pointing out the conceivable difference between being accessible to the content akin to their complex nature, and sincerity; they're not mutually exclusive.

The list I have is really based on reading vibes of the composers against the underlying motives and attitudes I'm used to with people, not pinning any evidence or correlations for reasoning, aside from correlating their underlying personalities with each other.


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## trazom (Apr 13, 2009)

I think Schubert might've been the greatest of the 'sincere' composers. In fact, one poster here stated quite beautifully, that they didn't like Schubert's lack of dissembling because they always felt they could "Hear his heart beating just behind the music."


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

I can't find the quote, but it's something like "Art is passion recalled in repose." In other words, artists (or composers) for the most part don't create their works wide-eyed and wild-haired, with manuscript papers flying everywhere "like some mad poet." They work at it, probably in a different state of mind that the one they're communicating. Well, except maybe for Berlioz!


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

KenOC said:


> I can't find the quote, but it's something like "Art is passion recalled in repose." In other words, artists (or composers) for the most part don't create their works wide-eyed and wild-haired, with manuscript papers flying everywhere "like some mad poet." They work at it, probably in a different state of mind that the one they're communicating. Well, except maybe for Berlioz!


Interesting, and much like Wordsworth's dictum on poetry, 'Emotion recollected in tranquillity.'


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## Guest (Oct 28, 2013)

Pretty sure that Wordsworth's comment IS the quote Ken was searching for.

(Not so sure that Ken knows anything about Berlioz. I.e., was that a terrible joke or was it simply a dreadful jest.)*

Here's the entire clause about poetry from which the phrase comes: "It takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity."

*That might make an interesting thread: Composers who are known for something almost exactly the opposite of what they really were.

Berlioz and Cage would be right up there. Berlioz, the wild, unrestrained Romantic, and Cage, the mad originator of "anything goes" were both all about discipline. Discipline and restraint. What it is to have a reputation, eh?


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## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)

> Composers who are known for something almost exactly the opposite of what they really were.


Perhaps you have some mysterious source that lets you know what the long-dead composer really was, but after reading less insightful people writing about Berlioz, "discipline and restraint" don't come as first choices to describe him. Of course there is the overgrown myth, there is the self-creation element but taking that into consideration, I still don't think the truth is opposite.


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## Eschbeg (Jul 25, 2012)

some guy said:


> *That might make an interesting thread: Composers who are known for something almost exactly the opposite of what they really were.


Apropos of that, here is what the _Oxford History of Western Music_ has to say about Schubert:
_
The memoirs of his friends show Schubert to have been far from reclusive... Musicological research has revealed him not to have been without worldly ambition, nor was he devoid of social recognition. Medical history assures us that his life span was neither as short nor his illnesses as egregious within the conditions and expectations of his time as they would be in ours. But nothing will prevent those affected by the music from creating its composer in its image. That is an integral part of the romantic experience: the beautiful lie (or higher truth) of a supreme fiction._


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## Guest (Oct 28, 2013)

Aramis said:


> Perhaps you have some mysterious source....


I have three mysterious sources. (Ooooooh, spooky!!)

Jacques Barzun.

Hector Berlioz, both his writings about himself and his writings about other composers.

A more than nodding familiarity with all of Berlioz' compositions. (And a more than nodding familiarity with other composers, too. Beethoven and Gluck, particularly. And some desultory reading in 19th century aesthetics, which gives me a less reductionist view of "Romanticism" than is currently popular.)

Yep. Pretty mysterious stuff.

Cool little tidbit about Schubert, Eschbeg. Doesn't surprise me in the least.


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

Eschbeg said:


> Medical history assures us that his life span was neither as short ...


I could be wrong, but this seems to be stretching a point. I think that most people who reached adolescence could have expected a lot longer than around 30 years, barring some unfortunate accident or illness (as befell Schubert). There are many records from around the time of people lamenting the tragic early deaths of 30-year-olds.

Biographers of musicians are always trying to tell us that we're wrong about everything, because they think it'll make us read their books. And they're right! :lol:


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## Eschbeg (Jul 25, 2012)

Blancrocher said:


> I think that most people who reached adolescence could have expected a lot longer than around 30 years, barring some unfortunate accident or illness (as befell Schubert).


I think that's what the Oxford History is getting at: Schubert's life span was within normal expectancy for people afflicted by syphilis and/or alcoholism (there are conflicting reports about what exactly Schubert succumbed to) at the age that Schubert did. The book is not saying Schubert had a normal life span. It's saying his life wasn't any shorter than anyone else with those ailments could be expected to live. It's not a particularly profound observation, but that's the point: Schubert's status as a romantic artist has given this very unprofound (if still tragic) circumstance an aura of special significance that is in some way key to understanding his music.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

some guy said:


> *That might make an interesting thread: Composers who are known for something almost exactly the opposite of what they really were.


Mahler was a hard taskmaster and somewhat neurotic, but far from unstable emotionally. Someone who was fundamentally unstable would not be able to hold a demanding position like head of the Vienna State Opera for a whole decade, or bounce back from devastating emotional trauma enough to continue working within a matter of two months. He also vastly preferred Mozart's music to Bruckner, Strauss, and Liszt (not Wagner, though!).


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## ScipioAfricanus (Jan 7, 2010)

Artists can't be sincere until they have achieved significant success so as to be able to compose only what they will. Wagner in my opinion was the only one who composed truly, every other artist had to bow to the crowd.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

J. S. Bach was most likely sincere as far as his dedication of music to his religion was concerned. He wrote so on his scores.


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