# Finishing the Unfinished



## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

Here's an interesting question. The recent BBC adaptation of Dickens' The _Mystery of Edwin Drood_ has given an ending to a work previously unfinished. But should writers (or musicians, I'd add) leave such works untouched?

The majority of responses to the BBC article (at least on Google+, though I imagine it will be similar elsewhere) express that the original creator is unmatchable, unbeatable, unrivalled, and so their work should be left untainted. Even in the body of the article, it says:



BBC said:


> Critic Mark Lawson believes that completing the work of others only serves to muddy our understanding of the arc of their work. In the case of Ernest Hemingway, he resents the publishing of cobbled together scraps and notebooks masquerading as previously unpublished new work.
> 
> "This is a form of literary necrophilia which completely alters the shape of an artist's life," Lawson suggests.


My own approach is directly opposed to Lawson's and, it seems, most people's, as I believe it is misguided to treat original artists as infallible geniuses, and as the only ones who could possibly complete their works. This attitude is a manifestation of the cult of personality which sets artists on a pedestal, almost valuing their lives more than their works, and so separates them from an audience who should instead be fully apart of the artistic process. The BBC's question "do we have the _right_ [my emphasis] to finish the work of others?" is an example of this elitism.

Instead then, I think art of all kinds ought to be seen as entirely collaborative endeavours. If a writer thinks that they have something to offer by providing an ending to an unfinished piece, then I think it's right - and, more importantly, _interesting_ - that they do. It can only foster more engagement with a work.

At the same time, there are still some small questions of intention. Professor John Mullan rightly points out that "what we expect when we read the work of Austen, or Dickens, or Laurence Sterne, is a particular voice, and that's terribly difficult to bring off." However, so long as the additions are clearly marked, and the writer's aim is to interpret through a reworking, rather than to imitate, I think there is no real problem. My only reservation is that we mustn't later become too attached to these alternatives through repetition - we shouldn't _always_ be listening to Süssmayr when we hear the Mozart _Requiem_, for example.


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## Dodecaplex (Oct 14, 2011)

I absolutely agree with everything you wrote here. Currently, I'm trying to compose nice completions of Mozart's Lacrimosa and Bach's Contrapunctus XIV. Any schmuck telling me that I somehow don't have the right to complete these works will be gladly shown the four forces that interact in this universe, which will hopefully convince them that the "never-finishing-a-dead-artist's-work force" doesn't actually exist.


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

Try putting yourself in the position of the composer/writer/whatever - if I thought that 100 or 200 years later people would not just care about my completed works but actually attempt, with genuine respect and affection, to complete any unfinished ones then I'd feel kind of pleased with myself.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

I agree, if done in a sensitive and appropriate way, it is okay to complete an unfinished artwork.

But it depends on what you have to go by, eg. what fragments are left to do the completion. Eg. with Berg's _Lulu_, there was enough material for educated guesses to be made and the gaps filled in. But Schoenberg's working method was different. He virtually left nothing giving clues as to how to complete the third act of _Moses und Aron_. So it is "as is" and most likely will remain, in it's truncated 2 act form.

In any case, in many of these cases, the matter is academic. If it's out of copyright (which can be 50 - 70 years after the death of the original creator, depending which country you're in), then it enters into the public domain. Everything's up for grabs then. This is why the estate of Edward Elgar got the scholar Anthony Payne to reconstruct his 3rd symphony. They gave him permission just before the time would be up for the work to pass out of copyright. They figured it would be better to do that, give it to a reputable scholar, than let it pass into the public domain, then anybody could do with it was they wished, without any control/guidance from the Elgar Estate.

As for literature, there is this issue of "ghost writing" eg. using a dead author's name on the cover of books. One of my favourite authors, the late Robert Ludlum, passed away ages ago but he is still publishing new thrillers!!! Aparently he left sketches and outlines of plots which others now are fleshing out. Of course the books have to have both Ludlum's name and the "real" or living author (or "realising" author of the completion, etc.) on the cover.

Here is one such book -


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Polednice said:


> ...Professor John Mullan rightly points out that "what we expect when we read the work of Austen, or Dickens, or Laurence Sterne, is a particular voice, and that's terribly difficult to bring off." ...


& with regards to the above quote, agreed. These voices from past authors are hard (impossible?) to replicate. I have read one of the Ludlum new "ghost written" novels - but not the one above, a different one from the same series - and it did have a different _feel_ from the novels that Ludlum wrote fully himself. But then again, I wasn't expecting a 100 per cent Ludlum novel when I read that "ghosted" book...


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## peeyaj (Nov 17, 2010)

Schubert's Unfinished Symphony is probably the most famous unfinished musical composition in classical music. Musicologists, for hundred of years, are still debating why Schubert did not finish the symphony. In my part, I think Schubert decided to leave the work because he'd grown tired of it and he can't sustain the lofty emotional flight of the wondrous movements. (The sketch of the Scherzo was torn out.)

There are many completions of the Unfinished. Probably, the most well known is the realization of Brian Newbould performed by Neville Marriner. But these completions, admirable as they maybe, never did reach the nobility of the first two movements. They are not Schubert's!

So, I'll stick to the original.


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

I know Schubert had a habit of leaving many incomplete works/fragments/ideas hanging in the air but as he lived for about another five to six years after completing two movements of the 8th surely he'd have gone back to it at some point if he had anything else to say - no-one took THAT long to write a symphony back then (did they???)


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

^^Well in the 20th century, a number of composers deliberately left woks incomplete. They were seen as perpetual works in progress. Eg. Charles Ives' _Universe Symphony_.

& Pierre Boulez has a number of works like this as well. He sometimes recycles aspects of them and makes them into "new" works. His _Piano Sonata #3 _has remained incomplete since the late 1950's - yes, half a century now - but it's still a substantial work, about half an hour I think, and the nature of it (eg. drawing from John Cage's experiments with chance) kind of suits the "open-ended" aspect vis a vis it being forever incomplete...


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## Conor71 (Feb 19, 2009)

I enjoy having the option of listening to "completions" and think they can be quite enlightening!


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

As an extension to some points in my OP, I think another feeling many people will have regardless of actual musical quality is that any completion will _necessarily_ be inferior to the famous unfinished work. This comes from the association of names - in the same way that a crap bottle of wine labelled as an expensive one will taste great, and an expensive one labelled as crap will taste cheap, the label of a composer's name affects the quality we perceive.


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

One slightly contentious work seems to be Koopman's recording of Bach's St. Mark's Passion which isn't even a completion at all due to the absence of any original music - more like a Frankenstein reconstruction job of other Bach material with new bits added but at least Koopman himself seems to make no bones about it. I haven't heard it - does it work? Have there been any other attempts to recreate it?


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## Crudblud (Dec 29, 2011)

I can see why someone wouldn't like completions, I personally have no problem with them.


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## Eviticus (Dec 8, 2011)

I'm not fan of people completing others works personally. Especially completing movements or even whole works based on half a movement. Those of us that like to compose our own little bits and bobs in particular understand that spontaneity is pivotal to most compositions. Idea's come to people day and night and sometimes at the most awkward of moments and they develop based on ideas and influences going through your mind at that time. This is what makes compositions so personal in a way because they are projections of your own mind. You then take the compositions in the direction you want them to go based on your own planning, spontaneity, emotions and influences. Even the people that know you best cannot have a clue as to where you are going to go with a piece so it's a just for fun exercise.

Besides, people sketch idea's down sometimes just to keep them and then re-use them in a completely different form.


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

This attitude is a manifestation of the cult of personality which sets artists on a pedestal, almost valuing their lives more than their works, and so separates them from an audience who should instead be fully apart of the artistic process. The BBC's question "do we have the right [my emphasis] to finish the work of others?" is an example of this elitism.

I am equally wary of the "cult of personality"... where it results in placing a false or undeserved sense of value upon a work based solely upon the name of the artist... as if the artist's name were but a name brand that assured us of quality. On the other hand, I don't buy into the notion of the elimination of the artist (Barthe's "death of the author"?). The greatest artists are indeed unique and special... while remaining wholly human. They offer a model of the heights to which. humanity can aspire to or achieve. Again, I suspect you are once more confusing politics with art when you suggest that the very notion that we should question who has the right to mutilate another's artistic efforts amounts to "elitism". Art, after all, is a wholly "elitist" endeavor. It involves the artist's struggle to create something worthy of recognition... something worthy of being placed among the other artistic achievements that remain relevant and resonant across time.

Instead then, I think art of all kinds ought to be seen as entirely collaborative endeavours. If a writer thinks that they have something to offer by providing an ending to an unfinished piece, then I think it's right - and, more importantly, interesting - that they do. It can only foster more engagement with a work.

You really ought to read Hesse's Glassbead Game which posits the notion of art as some great collaborative game. Going hand in hand with this Brave New World of reconstructing the art of the past is the recognition that no longer is their any new art. Why should the painter spend endless hours painting a canvas only to have another artist come along and add to this, change it, edit it as he or she sees fit? The cult of personality assumes that the artist's signature is enough to ensure "value". Going to the opposite extreme and eliminating the individual creator, you only succeed in eliminating the individual voice of vision that is so central to our experience of a work of art. Just as a Wikipedia entry cobbled together by multiple hands has little chance of achieving either a recognized level of scholarly veracity or literary merit, so the same would undoubtedly hold true to the cobbled-together work of art.


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

StlukesguildOhio said:


> On the other hand, I don't buy into the notion of the elimination of the artist (Barthe's "death of the author"?). The greatest artists are indeed unique and special... while remaining wholly human. They offer a model of the heights to which humanity can aspire to or achieve.


But is it the works or the people that offer this model?



StlukesguildOhio said:


> Again, I suspect you are once more confusing politics with art when you suggest that the very notion that we should question who has the right to mutilate another's artistic efforts amounts to "elitism".


I don't think there was any mixture of politics in my comment. I think for someone to say "who has the _right_ to add to an artwork" is a fundamentally warped, elitist question. It erects a barrier around an artwork where there should be no barriers - don't touch this; you're not worthy. That's different to the recognition of an artist's unique contribution to a medium.



StlukesguildOhio said:


> You really ought to read Hesse's Glassbead Game which posits the notion of art as some great collaborative game. Going hand in hand with this Brave New World of reconstructing the art of the past is the recognition that no longer is their any new art. Why should the painter spend endless hours painting a canvas only to have another artist come along and add to this, change it, edit it as he or she sees fit? The cult of personality assumes that the artist's signature is enough to ensure "value". Going to the opposite extreme and eliminating the individual creator, you only succeed in eliminating the individual voice of vision that is so central to our experience of a work of art. Just as a Wikipedia entry cobbled together by multiple hands has little chance of achieving either a recognized level of scholarly veracity or literary merit, so the same would undoubtedly hold true to the cobbled-together work of art.


This takes the question to another extreme. Whereas I was considering an otherwise untouched work that simply lacked an ending, here you are suggesting tampering even with the parts that stand completed - editing, rearranging, altering in all manner of ways. Even with this, though, I think it all rests on intention. If someone hopes to provide an alternative by doing such a thing, I think it's pointless, even egotistical. But as a reflection or an interpretation, I think it has value. That's partly what theme and variations are when the theme is a quotation from another composer's piece; and there are all kinds of other reworkings and homages that are created all the time. The point is that these never seek to usurp the original.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Polednice said:


> ...
> 
> I don't think there was any mixture of politics in my comment. I think for someone to say "who has the _right_ to add to an artwork" is a fundamentally warped, elitist question. It erects a barrier around an artwork where there should be no barriers - don't touch this; you're not worthy. That's different to the recognition of an artist's unique contribution to a medium.
> ...


Maybe these people who are against completions may be part of the group(s) wanting to extend copyright.

In the USA, it was put into law in the Copyright Term Extension Act.

This part of the wikipedia entry on the act sound absurd. It seems that they want to lock out people for almost 100 years!!! -

"Under this Act, additional works made in 1923 or afterwards that were still protected by copyright in 1998 will not enter the public domain until 2019 or afterward (depending on the date of the product) unless the owner of the copyright releases them into the public domain prior to that or if the copyright gets extended again."

So if there were found an incomplete work by a composer done after 1923, then without permission from him or his estate, it could not be completed by scholars. Is this necessarily a good thing?...


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

What are the good arguments for keeping works in copyright after their original creator has died? I've always found some kinds of inheritance dubious, but inheritance of intellectual property rights seems stupid to me.


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## graaf (Dec 12, 2009)

I think you stretched it a bit - I'm not interested in somebody finishing someone else's work, and at the same time I don't think it's due to some personality cult. There are a few good reasons why I say I'm not interested in personality cult:
* I don't mind if composer had early works (or even late ones for that matter) that are far below his standards. I could not care less about Wagner's early works and it certainly does not change my (positive) view on the whole Gesamtkunstwerk thing.
* I think that the authorship of some very famous composers is spurious (I dare not say names, it is apparently heresy) although I like the music itself all the same, whoever wrote it.
* I like jazz variations on some of my favourite pieces of music, like "Jacques Loussier: Theme and Variations on Beethoven's Allegretto from Symphony No. 7"

And at the same time, when I want to hear Beethoven, that precisely what I will go for - Beethoven. Of course someone can spend his life studying Beethoven and think he knows how LvB wanted to finish his 10th (although LvB didn't know it himself most of the time and strugled with pretty much all his works), and he can also obviously write his ending of Beethoven's 10th - all I'm saying is that I would not be one bit interested in it.

Jazz variations can be great, mashups of all kinds can be more or less successful, and I listen to some of them now and then. But trying to finish someone's work begs the question - why? Why would one do that? And why would that be of any interest to me? Want to meddle with someone's work? - fine, do any kind of variation, mashup or a transcription of, lets say, symphony to piano, but why should I listen to someone's ending - presumably what one thinks composer would write? What is the difference between ending LvB's 10th and writing Brahms' 5th anew?

On a more broader note: I also like publishing unpublished material, and it would not diminish my view of someone, because I would regard it as precisely that - unfinished material, maybe even not meant for publishing. And if I like the author/composer/etc I would be interested in some more insight, however fragmented it might be.


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