# Who are the great what-ifs?



## Johnhanks (Feb 21, 2016)

In another thread I commended Jan Voříšek's Symphony in D; for KenOC this brought to mind Arriaga's string quartets, presumably because both were composers who died cruelly young, before fulfilling their youthful promise (absurdly youthful in Arriaga's case). Who, for you, are music's other great "if-onlys"? I'm not thinking here of cases like Mozart, Schubert or Mendelssohn, who could hardly be more highly regarded today had they lived to be 100 - rather, people like Voříšek and Arriaga who are now little more than footnotes in musical history but who you consider might have gone on to real greatness if only they'd been granted the years.

A quick trawl through my own increasingly rickety memory brings to mind Lili Boulanger, George Butterworth, Hans Rott and Mieczysław Karlowicz. I was going to add Ivor Gurney, but he made it to 47 (in body if not in sound mind): I've set myself an arbitrary cut-off point of those who didn't reach 40 (anyone responding may of course choose not to observe this).

So, who have I missed?


----------



## Kieran (Aug 24, 2010)

Pergolesi comes to mind, died aged only 26. His Stabat Mater is the work I'm most familiar with...


----------



## GioCar (Oct 30, 2013)

Julian Scriabin (Alexander's son). Died at the age of eleven, drowned in the river Dnieper.

He wrote four preludes for piano.

Taken from his wiki page: 'Musicologists have described Julian Scriabin both as a successor of his father and as an early representative of the early Russian and Soviet avant-garde of the 1920s'


----------



## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

*Lekeu*, a top candidate. We would have a major series of large-scale, late-romantic/20th century orchestral, vocal and chamber music.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guillaume_Lekeu

*William Baines* probably too
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Baines


----------



## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Samuel Wesley was known as this English Mozart for his promising work up till his early 20s, and then had a traumatic head injury and composed sporadically from then on. An E flat Symphony from when he was a teenager showed considerable promise.


----------



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

Nikolai Roslavets, had he been in a position to compose how he wanted.


----------



## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

GioCar said:


> Julian Scriabin (Alexander's son). Died at the age of eleven, drowned in the river Dnieper.
> 
> He wrote four preludes for piano.
> 
> Taken from his wiki page: 'Musicologists have described Julian Scriabin both as a successor of his father and as an early representative of the early Russian and Soviet avant-garde of the 1920s'


This hurts my heart.


----------



## Guest (Feb 25, 2016)

Claude Vivier, had he not been murdered by a male prostitute at the ripe age of 35.


----------



## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Spare a thought, at least, for Charles Tomlinson Griffes, who died in New York at 35 in the great influenza epidemic following WWI. He composed several evocative, impressionistic, and quite strong pieces still often heard; for instance: The Pleasure Dome of Kubla Khan, The White Peacock, Poem, and Three Tone-Pictures.

Would he have gone on to be greater than he was? I don't know.


----------



## QuietGuy (Mar 1, 2014)

Alexei Stanchinsky, Russian, 1888 - 1914 (26)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexei_Stanchinsky
Sonata in Eb minor


----------



## dgee (Sep 26, 2013)

Rudi Stephan - killed in WW1 aged 28. Seems to me like the real deal - not just good, but interesting and ambitious


----------



## Gordontrek (Jun 22, 2012)

The obvious ones:
Mozart- who knows what he could have written given 40 more years.
Tchaikovsky- died in his fifties, but in my opinion he had yet to come into his own as a composer (if the Pathetique is any indication).
George Gershwin- a career which was cut way too short.


----------



## Antiquarian (Apr 29, 2014)

A mention of Butterworth in a previous post put me in mind of Frederick Septimus Kelly (1881 -1916) who died at the Battle of the Somme in 1916. He wrote a wonderful _Elegy In Memoriam Rupert Brooke_ just months before his own death. I don't often think of musicians dying violent deaths, but when I do I regret the bloodshed and loss of life and talent.


----------



## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

elgars ghost said:


> Nikolai Roslavets, had he been in a position to compose how he wanted.


What do you mean? I thought composing the way he did got him into trouble in the first place. He already composed some great music if you ask me.


----------



## science (Oct 14, 2010)

What if Berlioz was German?


----------



## Wandering (Feb 27, 2012)

What if Mussorgsky was German?


----------



## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

What if Schönberg and Stravinsky had gotten into a fight?


----------



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

DeepR said:


> What do you mean? I thought composing the way he did got him into trouble in the first place. He already composed some great music if you ask me.


Oh, I don't disagree with that. My point is that Roslavets was prohibited from composing in that unique style of his far too prematurely - when in 1928 his career was stopped dead in its tracks his adventurous instincts were still in full swing and he may well have pushed his own particular envelope further still had he been at liberty to do so. Even though he was already in his late 40s when his career was curtailed I still say he had so much more astonishing music left in him to match or even exceed those brilliantly individual works of the 1920s.


----------



## Wandering (Feb 27, 2012)

Morimur said:


> What if Schönberg and Stravinsky had gotten into a fight?


Where's Handel when you need him, he'd have broken that tussle up quick. Wasn't he a sword fighter?


----------



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

Oh, come on - brawling while wearing *flip-flops*? :lol:


----------



## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

What if Bizet was German


----------



## Guest (Feb 27, 2016)

Pugg said:


> What if Bizet was German


What if Andre Rieu was born in Rttrdm !:tiphat:


----------



## TurnaboutVox (Sep 22, 2013)

What if Mahler (1860 - 1911) and Debussy (1862 - 1918) had lived as long as Richard Strauss (1864 - 1949) or Sibelius (1865 - 1957)?

It's interesting to speculate whether they would have continued to compose (like Strauss), and if so whether their compositional style would have continued to develop; or whether their inspiration would have 'dried up', as Sibelius's seemed to. 

I'm inclined to think that such fertile creative imaginations as those of Debussy and Mahler would have gone on, changing and developing, but of course we will never know.


----------



## Guest (Feb 27, 2016)

What if Beethoven was not become deaf.


----------



## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

traverso said:


> What if Beethoven was not become deaf.


Now, that's a good one!:tiphat:


----------



## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

What if Talk Classical didn't exist? 

Lots of important discoveries lost, lots of time searching.


----------



## Gordontrek (Jun 22, 2012)

Morimur said:


> What if Schönberg and Stravinsky had gotten into a fight?


You know who those guys look like? KARAJAN and BERNSTEIN! I mean really, the old guy who strips down looks uncannily like Lenny, and the dude in the green could pass for HvK. I would put my money on Bernstein btw. 
This is a good topic. What if you had a cage fight between Toscanini and Szell, who wins?


----------



## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

Gordontrek said:


> KARAJAN and BERNSTEIN! I would put my money on Bernstein btw.


No way, Karajan had way faster motorcycles and way bigger yachts, plus he had his own private jet, plus he made it in the Guinness Book of World Records.


----------



## Gordontrek (Jun 22, 2012)

Klassic said:


> No way, Karajan had way faster motorcycles and way bigger yachts, plus he had his own private jet, plus he made it in the Guinness Book of World Records.


Is that going to help him in a brawl?


----------



## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

Chuck Norris, had he gone into composing.


----------



## Antiquarian (Apr 29, 2014)

Got to admit this is the one of the fastest derailments of a thread I have seen on TC. And you wonder (or perhaps not ) about my disenchantment here.


----------



## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

Antiquarian said:


> Got to admit this is the one of the fastest derailments of a thread I have seen on TC. And you wonder (or perhaps not ) about my disenchantment here.


Then what I have to say here should be important. The way forward is simply to ignore the stupidity and stick to the topic. If 4 more people posted on this thread (all of them on topic and serious) the thread would be recovered. Just like Haydn's symphonies, this formula applies to any thread.


----------

