# Highly inventive and prolific composers, and sorting out their highest quality works



## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

I don't know why it is that I'm drawn to some prolific composers, or the notion of finding the gems in their music. I guess as composer, I respect that they had the guts and discipline to just keep putting themselves out there and the imagination to make things always a little fresh and unpredictable, and I believe that this type of composer tended to have a lot of fun composing.

Six early composers like this that I'm most fond of, are J.S. Bach, Telemann, CPE Bach, Haydn, Vivaldi, and Handel. In my view, there are also a lot of "crank out" classical era composers that aren't nearly as interesting as the above mentioned composers, like Pleyel and Dittersdorf for instance who have some good works, but can be pretty dull. Do you think that standards have changed over time, or if people always thought that an intensive listen to the most generic music of Pleyel and Dittersdorf would be kind of dull? There were some later romantic classical transition composers like Czerny who almost cranked out as much as Telemann, but were perhaps more academic and less fun.

The notion of just "cranking it out" and being clever enough to make your material interesting seemed to disappear in the Romantic period. Later composers that seem to be able to do this to my satisfaction are Hindemith and Martinu. Hovhaness is like Pleyel or Dittersdorf, usually kind of dull for me, but sometimes kind of fun and interesting.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

I didn't really finish the OP. What are your views on this type of composition? I know there are some here who can't tolerate this and prefer the more often inspired and painfully wrought works of the Romantic period to the exclusion of this kind of music. I believe that there are gems in what such listeners perceive the rough, in the music of Telemann, Haydn, CPE Bach that they would find enjoyable. And to my ears, most notes written by Telemann, Haydn, and CPE Bach are by no means "the rough." Leave that to the more generic works of Dittersdorf, Czerny, and Pleyel.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Perhaps a factor in the phenomenon you mention is that in the Baroque or Classical period, composers were much more likely to have a steady composition job working as a court composer or a kappelmeister. Basically, they were forced by their job to "crank stuff out." By the time the Romantic Era came into full swing, the job of composing had basically become a freelance one and in general has stayed that way up to our present time.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

violadude said:


> Perhaps a factor in the phenomenon you mention is that in the Baroque or Classical period, composers were much more likely to have a steady composition job working as a court composer or a kappelmeister. Basically, they were forced by their job to "crank stuff out." By the time the Romantic Era came into full swing, the job of composing had basically become a freelance one and in general has stayed that way up to our present time.


But I believe that the greats of the time, Telemann, Bach, Haydn, ect., largely tended to enjoy this process and much of the crank out material is very fun to listen to. I think its a misconception that the Bach cantata's are his dull job music, for example. I think its a misconception that all Telemann is "job music", not to be paid attention to. Some CPE Bach is less compelling to listen to because of his difficult job of trying to please Frederik the Great, who only liked simple music, just enough to make a living wage.

I also think that most composers who could compose like this, when they wanted to, could turn on a switch and churn out masterpieces with greater ease than the likes of Brahms or Wagner, and they were probably in general more practiced at the art of writing music.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

The irony of this is that my good friend WF Bach could barely "crank out" to save his life. He wrote for himself most of the time and was much less popular for it. He would have been better off in the Romantic timeline perhaps, although alcohol was still present in that time.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

All you have to do is look at the later prolific composers to realize there probably just aren't that many more, if any more 'masterpieces' coming out of prolific composers in general. I love a lot of Martinu, a composer who wrote, never looking back to revise or strengthen, and therein is the huge inconsistency in the strength of one work from the next, though the 'craft' is always present. Milhaud is another good example, huge number of pieces, some very fine, the rest, with craft, he 'just wrote.'

It seems no matter who you are, other than a Mozart, or Rameau (my picks, not written in stone), that there are only so many deep masterworks coming from any one composer, regardless of the rate of their production.

Stravinsky was not prolific, yet a very high percent of his scores are 'monumental' masterly masterworks, an outstanding record, though the output is 'small' compared to some other composers. Me, I'd rather have the really strong suite of masterly works than the same number of masterworks and a ton of journeyman pieces of lesser interest.

Even when composers write quickly and produce in much higher numbers. it does not seem to yield a proportionate greater number of 'great pieces.'

It is evidential that those who did write a lot had craft, no matter what, and inspiration often. Sure, Bach cranked out those cantatas, and a movement here or there really shows the old Thuringian got hold of an idea which entertained him while at a grunt-work task, but only here or there. Compare any one cantata to the Goldberg Variations, where he obviously was more than wholly engaged, and had license, without the limitation of some burg's choir and musical forces, to write exactly what interested him most.

A critical factor in an historic change of attitude toward all society needs to be pointed out - parallel with Beethoven, the notion of "individualism" and therefore, 'personal statements' and Individual Personal Statements became part of the consciousness, and there was a major shift in expectations, all round, of what an 'individual' artist made, and why - prior that, everyone was 'owned' by, 'belonged to' a place, or titled lord, etc. That prior ethos was part of why an artisan 'just cranked it out.' like a craftsman servant, on a rapid production basis. What craft work was, and what it made, and by whom, had all been universally re-defined. Along with the new ethos -- wholly salient to your point -- _it began to be expected your next piece was not in exactly the same genre and mode as the previous piece!_ Once dealing with that, your production rate, essentially now being expected to show a 'development' or display a very different aspect of composition from piece to piece, considerably 'slowed down' the output of most composers. _Blame that on the ethos from that time, and perhaps especially, Beethoven._

Hindemith - my God, so much painfully dull music by the yard, as has been said, with a real listenable piece here or there.most of it the earlier works, with his later work being so generically 'Hindemith' that they became indistinct and interchangeable.

Hovhaness just spewed it out, over and over again, and I would guess, even though I despise the idea and aesthetic of it altogether, that once in a while he managed a 'good' piece within that context.

Elliott Carter, partially by dint of having lived so long, has a large body of works - I'm sure, in retrospect after the composer is gone (if he isn't already - 100+ years old) some will be later assessed as well-applied craft, but 'just writing' and others will be assessed as important essays, with 'something to say.'


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Any other thoughts?


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## neoshredder (Nov 7, 2011)

I like early composers. To me, they just had a better understanding of what music was best for them. Yes experimenting can be fun as well. Basically, what I'm saying is I'm glad to have all these eras to choose from. And there does seem to be a lot of great prolific composers. I guess I'm not as interested in hearing an hour long symphony masterpiece as I'm into an hour long with 6 great concertos or galante style symphonies.


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## chee_zee (Aug 16, 2010)

think of it like modern hollywood orchestrators, it was all craft to get a paycheck. you'd occasionally find kick *** passages in the rough, but yea there aren't that much more masterpieces by bach than by stravinksy though the former wrote several times more. that said, bach is my favorite composer and I have nothing but respect for people that have mastered the craft so well (even hollywood orchers) as that would enable you to write any and everything you could possibly imagine and then some with ease. it's like going through the tanayev books.


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## Crudblud (Dec 29, 2011)

I'm inclined to say that some older prolific composers like Schubert wrote a lot that I find at least enjoyable, Haydn too. There are a lot that just seem to repeat the same thing over and over again, like Vivaldi (sorry Vivaldi fans). I would say that Domenico Scarlatti is the pinnacle of this for me; I don't really detect a lot of sameness about his work in anything other than spirit, and the majority of his sonatas are great pieces.

For me what is important is the honesty of the composer with themselves and with their music, I do not find many of the "job" composers mentioned earlier in the thread particularly interesting because they were working only to the specifications of other people. I'm not going to deny that some great music came out of it despite the nature of their work, but I generally prefer the sounds and ideas of freer times.


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