# Composers with the most natural talent?



## Guest

Masterpieces are masterpieces, but some composers worked harder than others to create one. So which composers had the most inborn talent?


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## flamencosketches

Schubert and Mozart are often cited as composers with great "inborn" talent. The talents of Beethoven, Ravel, and perhaps Bruckner might be seen as more craftsmanlike, based on a sharp honing of skills and much time spent in revision of ideas, rather than any absurd natural inclination toward beautiful melodies (a la Schubert) or seemingly innate mastery of harmonic development and cadence (Mozart). I don't know how true any of this is, but it sure looks something like that from the outside. I guess the best way to tell would be looking at each composer's early works.


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## infracave

Same as Flamencosketches, I'd go with Mozart and Schubert.

And maybe also Berlioz. I find it really impressive for a guy that never really mastered a polyphonic instrument to write orchestra pieces. But maybe that's just me.


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## flamencosketches

infracave said:


> Same as Flamencosketches, I'd go with Mozart and Schubert.
> 
> And maybe also Berlioz. I find it really impressive for a guy that never really mastered a polyphonic instrument to write orchestra pieces. But maybe that's just me.


He played guitar, didn't he? That's a more polyphonic instrument than people give it credit for. But indeed, his early successes in the symphonic genre are definitely indicative of some extreme gifts.


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## Enthusiast

Talent and the apparent ease with which finished works were achieved are not the same thing at all. Beethoven is said to have worked hard at his works but that was nothing to do with a shortfall in his talent. It was just his cognitive style. Mozart is reputed to have had the facility to write perfect finished works without much apparent effort. This may be only partly true but in any case is nothing to do with his having a greater talent than Beethoven - how _do _you compare such talents? - so much as his having a different creative facility. Did Mozart compose more unconsciously and then come to write it down in a nearly finished form? Possibly.


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## infracave

flamencosketches said:


> He played guitar, didn't he? That's a more polyphonic instrument than people give it credit for. But indeed, his early successes in the symphonic genre are definitely indicative of some extreme gifts.


Oh yeah, you're right. I thought he only knew the flute.


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## Phil loves classical

It may sound strange for a guy who said "I did my work slowly, drop by drop. I tore it out of me by pieces", but I feel Ravel had real natural talent. Everything he did was expertly judged, and doesn't rely on convention and form.

I also think John Cage is a most naturally talented (at marketing his music...)


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## flamencosketches

Phil loves classical said:


> It may sound strange for a guy who said "I did my work slowly, drop by drop. I tore it out of me by pieces", but I feel Ravel had real natural talent. Everything he did was expertly judged, and doesn't rely on convention and form.
> 
> I also think John Cage is a most naturally talented (at marketing his music...)


I think you're right that there are cases to be made for Ravel on both sides of the equation. Still though, discussions of "talent" aside, I would describe his compositional style as belonging to the Beethovenian school of revise, rewrite, revise, rewrite ad nauseam.


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## MarkW

Add Bach and Stravinsky.


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## infracave

MarkW said:


> Add Bach and Stravinsky.


_"What I have achieved by industry and practice, anyone else with tolerable natural gift and ability can also achieve."_
- J.S. Bach

LOL what a joker...


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## Brahmsian Colors

Tchaikovsky and Dvorak


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## mbhaub

I just look at those composers who never attended a conservatory, had little (if any) formal training and that didn't stop them from writing masterworks. They were basically self-taught, by copying others' scores, reading books, and using their natural talent:

Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner, Brahms, Elgar for starters.


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## paulbest

HSW said:


> Masterpieces are masterpieces, but some composers worked harder than others to create one. So which composers had the most inborn talent?


1) Henze
2) Pettersson
3) Elliott Carter
4) Schnittke

Scramble those 4 in any order you like. ,place them as all equal for all I care.
5) Szymanowski
...EDIT those 5 in any,,,well Szymanowski has to stay as 5th, place.


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## paulbest

flamencosketches said:


> Mozart are often cited as composers with great "inborn" talent. , Ravel,


Mozart was composing beginning at FIVE years old,,,
Ravel, definitely was a masterful composer at birth. W/O Ravel there would be no Mussorgsky nor RV Williams. ,


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## infracave

paulbest said:


> W/O Ravel there would be no Mussorgsky


Isn't it the other way around ?


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## infracave

mbhaub said:


> I just look at those composers who never attended a conservatory, had little (if any) formal training and that didn't stop them from writing masterworks. They were basically self-taught, by copying others' scores, reading books, and using their natural talent:
> 
> Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner, Brahms, Elgar for starters.


Beethoven, for sure, had some kind formal training : clavier & alto lessons, sightreading, figured bass. Then composition, counterpoint and opera voice leading.
Probably Mozart too.


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## Enthusiast

paulbest said:


> Mozart was composing beginning at FIVE years old,,,
> *Ravel, definitely was a masterful composer at birth.* W/O Ravel there would be no Mussorgsky nor RV Williams. ,


I have missed Ravel's earlier works it seems. Any recommendations?


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## Strange Magic

Prokofiev combined early innate talent with a formidable work ethic. He was almost never not composing or thinking about composing.


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## Becca

Our lab is currently working on a way of exactly measuring natural talent however the only way to reliably do it is via a brain biopsy. We are at the point now where we need a broad sampling of the population in order to quantify the results therefore we are soliciting volunteers. The biopsy is painless however we are seeing a few side-effects but I am sure that TCers who are so interesting in ranking talent would be happy take part.


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## EdwardBast

Talent is a metric for judging children. For mature and dead composers we have the work. All else is meaningless.


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## Guest

Mozart, Schubert, Mendelssohn.


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## Woodduck

EdwardBast said:


> Talent is a metric for judging children. For mature and dead composers we have the work. All else is meaningless.


Exactly. I have been since birth the composer with the most natural talent, but as I've been too busy with other matters to produce music worthy of my innate gifts, I expect no praise.


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## Jacck

Mussorgsky. Mussorgsky's natural talent was obvious from the start. Initially taught by his mother he became a pianist prodigy, making his debut at just nine-years-old. Mussorgsky composed some wonderful operas and innovated Russian music.
https://www.classicfm.com/composers/mussorgsky/guides/discovering-great-composers-mussorgsky/
he is what I would call a natural genius and the more I listen to his operas, the more I love them.


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## Roger Knox

Mendelssohn and Saint-Saens were phenomenal child prodigies who just kept getting better.


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## Phil loves classical

Roger Knox said:


> Mendelssohn and Saint-Saens were phenomenal child prodigies who just kept getting better.


I read some say they didn't live up to their earlier promise.


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## flamencosketches

Phil loves classical said:


> I read some say they didn't live up to their earlier promise.


I don't know about Saint-Saens, but anyone who says Mendelssohn didn't live up to his earlier promise has some ridiculously high standards. Wasn't it enough to have become one of the top composers of his time, and to have written many of the most beloved works that are still mainstays in the greater music repertoire centuries later?

One thing I will say is that perhaps he wasn't terribly influential on future generations of composers in the way that, say, Schumann was. But he made his mark. The only way he really let down the music world was by dying young.


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## paulbest

Jacck said:


> Mussorgsky. Mussorgsky's natural talent was obvious from the start. Initially taught by his mother he became a pianist prodigy, making his debut at just nine-years-old. Mussorgsky composed some wonderful operas and innovated Russian music.
> https://www.classicfm.com/composers/mussorgsky/guides/discovering-great-composers-mussorgsky/
> he is what I would call a natural genius and the more I listen to his operas, the more I love them.


I guess you did not read my post below...
Quote *w/o Ravel. there would be no Mussorgsky nor RV Williams*.
Mussorgsky had a *stetchy* kind of talent, Ravel had to pick up the pieces and make it all work.
Besides 2nd half of Boris is kind of iffy/dull/boring. 
I would never include Muss in the category as per OP Q.


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## paulbest

Phil loves classical said:


> I read some say they didn't live up to their earlier promise.


I tried Saint Seans, yrs ago,,,nah
Mendelssohn , what did he really leave us with, a VC, and I guess some chamber,,
No I would not include Mendel in the category as per the OP Q.


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## paulbest

Strange Magic said:


> Prokofiev combined early innate talent with a formidable work ethic. He was almost never not composing or thinking about composing.


Prokofiev for sure.

Born with powerful talents. 
5 PC;s, all grade 4/5 out of 5...syms, al grade 4/5 out of 5,,,except his dud the 4th,,,please strike the 4th, trash the thing,,,Prokofiev wrote 6, SIX, count them, syms. 
Not 7.

His chamber is 3,4,5 out of 5. Not bad, not bad at all, Yes please place Prokofiev in this category.


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## paulbest

Enthusiast said:


> I have missed Ravel's earlier works it seems. Any recommendations?


well his only great early work is the trio,,,Remember he had disruptions of the 1st WW,,,with the germans' doing their usual, terrorizing all of Europe. Russians too, terrorists of the world. 
So he had disruptions early on....yet he went on to composer nearly all masterpices til death,,,
Unlike Sibelius, who was worn out late in life and gave up,,,Ravel keep producing stellar masterpieces.


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## Open Book

infracave said:


> Beethoven, for sure, had some kind formal training : clavier & alto lessons, sightreading, figured bass. Then composition, counterpoint and opera voice leading.
> Probably Mozart too.


Beethoven's training started with his dad, who saw the example of Mozart and hoped to cash in on his son's talent in the same way. He was a harsh teacher, physically abusive.


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## Bulldog

paulbest said:


> Mendelssohn , what did he really leave us with, a VC, and I guess some chamber,,


You're so generous. :lol:


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## mbhaub

paulbest said:


> I tried Saint Seans, yrs ago,,,nah
> Mendelssohn , what did he really leave us with, a VC, and some chamber


Child prodigies have rarely lived up to the hope and expectation. Mozart was an exception, but despite their youthful brilliance, you're right - Mendelssohn's legacy isn't what it should have been. But besides the VC, there's three great symphonies (3,4,5), yes some great chamber music (the Octet certainly), the incidental music to Midsummer Nights' Dream, the Hebrides overture and perhaps Elijah. Saint-Saens, same problem. Other than the concertos for violin and cello, Dance Macabre and the Organ Symphony his vast output is largely ignored. Korngold, too. The Last Prodigy lives in the concert hall due to the Violin Concerto.


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## paulbest

mbhaub said:


> Child prodigies have rarely lived up to the hope and expectation. Mozart was an exception, but despite their youthful brilliance, you're right - Mendelssohn's legacy isn't what it should have been. But besides the VC, there's three great symphonies (3,4,5), yes some great chamber music (the Octet certainly), the incidental music to Midsummer Nights' Dream, the Hebrides overture and perhaps Elijah. Saint-Saens, same problem. Other than the concertos for violin and cello, Dance Macabre and the Organ Symphony his vast output is largely ignored. Korngold, too. The Last Prodigy lives in the concert hall due to the Violin Concerto.


I was not aware,,,Or simply forgot , that Mendel passed away early in life,,,so yes I guess if you consider how much he composed of such a quality, Midsummer, VC, Octet, perhaps, his syms? hummm, not sure if I can rate those as 1st rate,,,so all in all, I'd say he just barely edges in this category,,,considetring there have been composers who lived much longer and never really made a good showing = polished gems.

Korgold hasa few hits, Elgar had a few hits,,,but I would not rate either and neither Hindemith in this elite category...But I would like to consider adding SZYMANOWSKI in this illustrious elite ,,I do not know his history,,,so will have to google and research,,,amazing output for sure.
King Roger alone might edge him in this super star class of composers, who had a keen knack since birth. ,,,Did it all their own. 
I will not mention,,or have I, my fav top 5 20thC...as pat of this super star of composers.

I'd say Ravel had more super hits and larger orchestrated compositions, which places Ravel far ahead of Bartok. 
Ravel was a superior composer to Bartok,


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## Guest

I think I was the first to mention Mendelssohn at #21, but I offered no explanation, only listing his name after Mozart and Schubert. I see that there has been follow-up on Mendelsshon, some positive and some negative.

There is a good wiki article on Felix Mendelssohn which is worth reading to see how he fits into the musical scene in the early part of the 19th Century, listing his achievements as a composer, pianist, organist and conductor of the early Romantic period: 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felix_Mendelssohn

He's among my favourite "Romantics", veering on the "conservative" side in terms of departure from the style of the late Classicists. compared with the likes of Liszt and Wagner. In his own day he was highly regarded among his peers, and was Queen Victoria's favourite composer.

Even though Mendelssohn died at the young age of 39, his output was very large with much of it being very high quality work. His very high natural musical talents should be quite obvious.

He wrote an extremely good double String Quartet when he was only 16. Unlike some child prodigies, he didn't fizzle out in later life. He continued to write a good deal of other very high quality chamber music, several tone poems, concertos for violin and piano, some excellent symphonies, and very inspiring choral music of various types including an excellent Oratorio, church music, and some highly memorable music for the theatre. He also travelled widely and led a major orchestra.

At a personal level, some of my overall favourite works across all composers are written by Mendelsshon. I'd happily include in that list his "Reformation Symphony" which I regard as a real masterpiece, and one of the most spiritually uplifting works I know.

Next to Mozart and Schubert who the outstanding top two choices, I'm firmly of the opinion that Mendelssohn is thoroughly deserving of being considered worthy to join the top tier of the most naturally talented composers.


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## KenOC

Partita said:


> ...Next to Mozart and Schubert who the outstanding top two choices, I'm firmly of the opinion that Mendelssohn is thoroughly deserving of being considered worthy to join the top tier of the most naturally talented composers.


Agree on Mendelssohn. But I'll add that IMO he never developed far beyond what he could do at age 16 (which was certainly quite a bit). His Octet is superb, maybe the best ever written. But it had an impressive "over the topness" about it that Felix seemed to lose as his life went on. His later works are still those of a major, first-rank composer; but if he could have kept developing and deepening his art, he might today be ranked with Mozart, Beethoven, and Bach.

Well, he's not far back, but still…


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## Woodduck

Partita said:


> Even though Mendelssohn died at the young age of 39, his output was very large with much of it being very high quality work. His very high natural musical talents should be quite obvious.
> 
> He wrote an extremely good double String Quartet when he was only 16. Unlike some child prodigies, he didn't fizzle out in later life. He continued to write a good deal of other very high quality chamber music, several tone poems, concertos for violin and piano, some excellent symphonies, and very inspiring choral music of various types including an excellent Oratorio, church music, and some highly memorable music for the theatre. He also travelled widely and led a major orchestra.
> 
> Next to Mozart and Schubert who the outstanding top two choices, I'm firmly of the opinion that Mendelssohn is thoroughly deserving of being considered worthy to join the top tier of the most naturally talented composers.


Agree completely. I don't see how anyone can listen to the music Mendelssohn wrote in his teens and not acknowledge him as one of music's greatest natural talents. I don't even agree with those who think he failed to grow: his last two symphonies, at least, are among the best ever written, and his chamber music maintains an extremely high standard. It would have been interesting to see, had he lived longer, how he would have responded to later developments in Romantic music. His final quartet, Op. 80 in f minor, shows qualities of angst, turbulence and intimate personal emotion which he didn't have a chance to follow up on.


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## Larkenfield

There's only one who is head and shoulders above the others and had a 10 to 15-year head start before others were barely getting their feet on the ground as prodigies - a combination of genius and diligent hard work by the time he was eight who was already famous and had played before royalty. Then there's Rossini, Mendelssohn, Saint-Saëns, and perhaps a few others. 

Reputedly written when Rossini was 12:


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## Woodduck

Larkenfield said:


> There's only one who is head and shoulders above the others and had a 10 to 15-year head start before others were barely getting their feet on the ground as prodigies - a combination of genius and diligent hard work by the time he was eight who was already famous and had played before royalty. Then there's Rossini, Mendelssohn, Saint-Saëns, and perhaps a few others.


Huh? What was Mozart doing fifteen years before the age of twelve, by which time Mendelssohn was writing his superb string symphonies (which are surely more interesting than any of Mozart's early symphonies)? Leopold's sperm had not yet even introduced itself to Anna Maria's eggs.


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## Larkenfield

Woodduck said:


> Huh? What was Mozart doing fifteen years before the age of twelve, by which time Mendelssohn was writing his superb string symphonies (which are surely more interesting than any of Mozart's early symphonies)? Leopold's sperm had not yet even introduced itself to Anna Maria's eggs.


He started at age FIVE and was playing publically before royalty by the age of SIX touring Europe. That's head and shoulder above any other prodigy. Beethoven's first three piano sonatas were published when he was 13. Mendelssohn was also a prodigy but didn't start taking lesson until he was six though he composed some wonderful string symphonies by the age of 12 - and that's six years by chronological age after Mozart was already famous in Europe... Saint-Saëns was also one of the most remarkable child prodigies in history, and that includes Mozart, but it was not until he was ten that he made his official public debut. Mozart was years ahead in his creative development and public recognition, but those who are known for being luke-warm on him or known for being equivocal and ambivalent are not likely to appreciate how remarkable he was and in a class by himself in the amount of recognition he achieved at such an early age. Not only that, but his unmistakable Mozart sound was established and instantly recognizable when he was first starting out, such as his 4th Symphony written when he was eight. Now, how many prodigies have written four symphonies of any length by the age of eight? And he went on to write at least 33 more, not to mention, piano concertos, sonatas, operas, etc.,etc., all in the same characteristic style as when he was a youngster, but of course, deeper and far more developed. That's what I meant by being years ahead of others in the development of his natural talent as a composer.


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## Woodduck

Larkenfield said:


> *He started at age FIVE and was playing publically before royalty by the age of SIX touring Europe. That's head and shoulder above any other prodigy.* Mendelssohn was also a prodigy but didn't start taking lesson until he was six though he composed some wonderful string symphonies by the age of 12 - and that's six years by chronological age after Mozart was already famous in Europe... Saint-Saëns was also one of the most remarkable child prodigies in history, and that includes Mozart, but it was not until he was ten that he made his official public debut. *Mozart was years ahead in his creative development and public recognition,* but those who are known for being luke-warm on him or known for being equivocal and ambivalent are not likely to appreciate how remarkable he was and *in a class by himself in the amount of recognition he achieved at such an early age.* Not only that, but his unmistakable Mozart sound was established and instantly recognizable when he was first starting out, such as his 4th Symphony written when he was eight. Now, how many prodigies have written four symphonies of any length by the age of eight?


So we're to judge the natural talent of prodigies by how soon their ambitious parents start them on music lessons and put them on public display?

Mozart's childhood products are charming and technically skillful, but you can't convince me that the 4th symphony you've posted proves that he was substantially more "naturally talented" than Mendelssohn. It certainly doesn't demonstrate that he had anything especially interesting to say at the time. These early efforts are well-tailored 18th-century "easy listening." But why should we expect anything more, and why try so hard to inflate his early achievements at the expense of others? Is he really in need of that level of special pleading?

I would also dare anyone unfamiliar with the identity of Mozart's early symphonies to say why they're by the composer of the "Haffner," the "Prague," or the "Jupiter," and not by, say, this composer:






Maybe they're identifiable as Mozart's and not J. C. Bach's because Bach's are more interesting?


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## hammeredklavier

Woodduck said:


> Huh? What was Mozart doing fifteen years before the age of twelve, by which time Mendelssohn was writing his superb string symphonies (which are surely more interesting than any of Mozart's early symphonies)? Leopold's sperm had not yet even introduced itself to Anna Maria's eggs.


Well at least we can agree, in terms of amount of works and their influence in music history, teenage Mozart beats teenage Mendelssohn. In teenage Mozart, we can at least find stuff like Misericordias Domini in D minor K222 



, a work impressive enough to have caught attention of Beethoven, who studied it in writing his ninth symphony. He was already a mature composer in his teenage, I think mainstream composers in history would have agreed on that. (In 1771, when hearing 15-year-old Mozart's opera Ascanio in Alba, Adolf Hasse is reported to have made the prophetic remark: "This boy will cause us all to be forgotten.")
In comparison, which of Mendelssohn's teenage works were studied by another great composer?
You also have to know there are people like me who don't really sympathize with the kind of hype you have for early Mendelssohn, early Mendelssohn works are indeed impressive for his age, but you find cases of 'good teenage works' in composers such as Scriabin (Op.2 No.1 Etude) as well. He was indeed a child genius, but comparing with Mozart to prove the superiority of Mendelssohn's childhood talent is just absurd.


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## hammeredklavier

Woodduck said:


> These early efforts are well-tailored 18th-century "easy listening."


It's funny when I give you examples of counterpoint in teenage Mozart, (such as fugues in Missa Sanctissimae Trinitatis K167) you say they're just 'counterpoint exercises'. By your logic, Mendelssohn's string symphonies are well-tailored to early 19th century easy listening, aren't they? 
This is Mozart at age 10, give me an "exercise" by 10 year old Mendelssohn that is more impressive.


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## Woodduck

hammeredklavier said:


> Well at least we can agree, in terms of amount of works and their influence in music history, teenage Mozart beats teenage Mendelessohn. In teenage Mozart, we can at least find stuff like Misericordias Domini in D minor K222, a work impressive enough to have caught attention of Beethoven, who studied it in writing his ninth symphony.
> In comparison, which of Mendelssohn's teenage works were studied by another great composer?
> You also have to know there are people like me who don't really sympathize with the kind of hype you have for early Mendelssohn, early Mendelssohn works are indeed impressive for his age, but you find cases of 'good teenage works' in composers such as Scriabin (Op.2 No.1 Etude) as well. He was indeed a child genius, but comparing with Mozart to prove the superiority of Mendelssohn's childhood talent is just absurd.


I had a feeling you'd show up to do your usual Mozart rah-rah-rah thing. Please note: I was responding to a specific statement by Larkenfield, to whit: "There's only one who is head and shoulders above the others and had a *10 to 15-year head start before others were barely getting their feet on the ground as prodigies."* I then had to respond to his assertion that Mozart's early start on music lessons and the aggressive public marketing of his skills were some kind of proof that he was more "naturally talented" than anyone else. News flash: Mozart did NOT demonstrate his natural talent "10 to 15 years" before Mendelssohn, and the age at which his training and touring began proves absolutely nothing except that he was a talented kid with an ambitious father. If you're going to respond to me, please try to figure out what I'm talking about first.

The title of this thread is "Composers with the most natural talent?" Frankly, I don't give a flying fig who had the most natural talent, and I don't know why you or anyone else should care, much less pretend to be qualified to answer the question.

The desperate defenses mounted by Mozart's fans the moment someone suggests that he isn't an avatar from a different and superior universe who came to put the rest of humanity to shame is ridiculous beyond words. Some of us really do think that Mendelssohn's early works are more interesting than Mozart's. GET USED TO IT.


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## hammeredklavier

Woodduck said:


> The desperate defenses mounted by Mozart's fans the moment someone suggests that he isn't an avatar from a different and superior universe who came to put the rest of humanity to shame is ridiculous beyond words. Some of us really do think that Mendelssohn's early works are more interesting than Mozart's. GET USED TO IT.


Some people don't even care for anything Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven produced, but very few of them would go so far as to diminish their 'genius'. I think it's more about taking certain 'objectivity' into consideration rather than 'personal feelings and favoritism' to evaluate things.


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## KenOC

It's interesting that this discussion of "natural talent" seldom mentions Bach or Beethoven, certainly two of the greatest composers who ever lived. So where did their talent come from? Was it "unnatural"?


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## Woodduck

hammeredklavier said:


> Some people don't even care for anything Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven produced, but very few of them would go so far as to diminish their 'genius'. *I think it's more about taking certain 'objectivity' into consideration rather than 'personal feelings and favoritism' to evaluate things.*


The question of "who had the most natural talent" is not even a rational question. How can it have an "objective" answer? These efforts to prove "objectively" that one genius's genius was more geniusical (I just made that up) than another genius's genius are absurd. Assessing a kid's capabilities may be useful in placing him in school, but in evaluating composers what matters is what he achieves, regardless of the age at which he does it. There are early and late bloomers, and "talent" is "natural" regardless of the age at which a composer produces his work.


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## Guest

It seems that there is a difference of opinion regarding the best interpretation of "composers with the most natural talent".

From the various responses thus far, I detect that the following are the main factors that have been uppermost in peoples' minds in making their selections:


the earliest age at which a composer showed very high musical promise 
the earliest age at which they composed a work of high quality and complexity 
the speed at which they wrote their works 
connected with the above, the height of their waste bins before completing a typical work 
the ratio of hits to misses, i.e. the extent to which the composer maintained a consistenly high quality over their lifetimes 
the number of different genres across which they wrote high quality music 
the overall length of their active lifetimes 
each composer's long term legacy in terms of influence on other composers, and their popularity today 

Clearly, some factors seem, prima facie, to be more important than others. The problem is that there is no way that all these factors, in so far that they are relevant, can be combined together with universal assent in order to form a good estimate of the "composers with the most natural talent". Indeed, some factors can't be measured at all, so there's no point even bothering to try.

I would guess that some posters have allowed their sub-conscience to dictate their selections based on their own favourite composers, using some kind of ex post facto justification loosely based on some of the considerations above.

All I can say further regarding my choices of Mozart, Schubert and Mendelssohn is that I believe these three composers are amonst the most deserving of consideration as those with the "most natural talent", based on a reasonable assessment of the most relevant factors.


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## Andolink

The key common denominator of most, if not all, of these composers who end up getting to the top of "most naturally gifted" lists is that they were exposed to music practice and theory from very early ages. Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, etc., all had parents who were professional musicians and were schooled in music at home. 

Interestingly, G. F. Handel is a notable exception. He was actually discouraged by his parents to enter into a musical career.


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## Enthusiast

I must confess that I am not at all sure how to separate natural talent from "greatness". I can see how the age of starting (to produce masterpieces) and the speed and ease of composing can be equated to natural talent but not how their absence can be equated to a lack of it. By these measures Janacek who was very mature when he started composing notable works would be described as lacking in talent - which is clearly wrong. 

The only proof of talent that I know is the result - in our case great music.


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## infracave

Andolink said:


> The key common denominator of most, if not all, of these composers who end up getting to the top of "most naturally gifted" lists is that they were exposed to music practice and theory from very early ages. Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, etc., all had parents who were professional musicians and were schooled in music at home.
> 
> Interestingly, G. F. Handel is a notable exception. He was actually discouraged by his parents to enter into a musical career.


Yes but at a time when trade was passed down in the family, there were tens of thousands of kids born from musician parents throughout europe, thus exposed to music from birth. Only a tiny fraction of them had the intelligence or talent to become renowned composers. And an even tinier fraction of that fraction would have the "genius" and favorable circumstances to become Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, etc.

Interesting observation about Händel, though.


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## MarkW

This is a weird discussion -- even for _this _board. 

Next: Which composer had the biggest shoe size?


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## infracave

KenOC said:


> It's interesting that this discussion of "natural talent" seldom mentions Bach or Beethoven, certainly two of the greatest composers who ever lived. So where did their talent come from? Was it "unnatural"?


I don't think Beethoven's genius was different in essence from Mozart's. I think it really has to do with their personalities and childhood experiences.

Mozart toured Europe as a child prodigy, being congratulated everywhere he went, accompanied by a supportive (although possessive ?) father. One can imagine how this would have been a huge ego boost for a kid.

Beethoven on the other hand, while showing promises as a kid, was abused and disciplined by a drunk father determined to turn him into the next Mozart although dismissing his improvisations as trash. We know that Beethoven did perform in public as a child, but since no record exist of his performance, we can assume that it definitely wasn't this impressive.
Thus Beethoven was a withdrawn and quiet kid, extremely introverted and lonely, using music to escape the world, literally.
"His happiest hours were those when he was free from the company of his parents [...] and he was all alone by himself"
Then he had to take a job as an organist to support his younger brother, and his genius didn't really "explode" until he had left Bonn behind and established himself as Vienna's leading virtuoso pianist.

So maybe that's why we consider Mozart's talent to be natural (because flowing unrestrained) and Beethoven as artificial (because building up internally for a long time then bursting out like a pressure cooker).


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## infracave

MarkW said:


> This is a weird discussion -- even for _this _board.
> 
> Next: Which composer had the biggest shoe size?


That's not even a discussion. Everyone knows it was Rach.


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## Enthusiast

^ Are you sure it wasn't Bachmaninov?


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## Woodduck

infracave said:


> I don't think Beethoven's genius was different in essence from Mozart's. I think it really has to do with their personalities and childhood experiences.
> 
> Mozart toured Europe as a child prodigy, being congratulated everywhere he went, accompanied by a supportive (although possessive ?) father. One can imagine how this would have been a huge ego boost for a kid.
> 
> Beethoven on the other hand, while showing promises as a kid, was abused and disciplined by a drunk father determined to turn him into the next Mozart although dismissing his improvisations as trash. We know that Beethoven did perform in public as a child, but since no record exist of his performance, we can assume that it definitely wasn't this impressive.
> Thus Beethoven was a withdrawn and quiet kid, extremely introverted and lonely, using music to escape the world, literally.
> "His happiest hours were those when he was free from the company of his parents [...] and he was all alone by himself"
> Then he had to take a job as an organist to support his younger brother, and his genius didn't really "explode" until he had left Bonn behind and established himself as Vienna's leading virtuoso pianist.
> 
> *So maybe that's why we consider Mozart's talent to be natural (because flowing unrestrained) and Beethoven as artificial (because building up internally for a long time then bursting out like a pressure cooker).*


In every field of accomplishment, not only in music, we find such examples: people who show little promise at first but, for reasons not always evident, bring forth extraordinary achievements later on. There are brilliant children whose speaking is sufficiently delayed as to make their parents wonder if they are mentally handicapped. A "natural talent" is not necessarily a child prodigy.


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## millionrainbows

I think Schoenberg, and I judge this by what he accomplished in the early works, and his book Harmonielehre. His depth of knowledge of tonality has always impressed me. He played "cello," but it was a put-together rig, not a real one; no piano. I read about him hanging around outside the opera house & concert hall, too poor to get admission. All of these "minuses" make me even more mystified at how he was able to produce works like Pelleas and Verklarte, seemingly out of nowhere.


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## Guest

Woodduck said:


> In every field of accomplishment, not only in music, we find such examples: people who show little promise at first but, for reasons not always evident, bring forth extraordinary achievements later on. There are brilliant children whose speaking is sufficiently delayed as to make their parents wonder if they are mentally handicapped. A "natural talent" is not necessarily a child prodigy.


Agreed. Being a child prodigy in music is neither a necessary condition for someone to have exceptional "natural talent".

Being a child prodigy might be relevant in a more general assessment of a composer's claim to be composer with high natural ability, but the absence of this feature altogether is by no means a fatal weakness. Besides, someone who was a child prodigy in, say, piano playing, might be useless in composition, which is what we're talking about here.

I think what the OP had in mind in asking which composers had "the most natural talent" was which composers among the set who are widely considered to be greatest composers are those who found it easiest to produce a work of high quaiity without investing an excessive amount of labour in the process, and who were able to do so repeatedly.

On that premise, from all of the anecdotal evidence I have read on the greatest composers the ones who spring to mind most readily as best fits are Mozart and Schubert. Mentioning only part of his huge orchestral work, the speed at which Mozart produced his last three symphonies is nothing short of amazing. Schubert's achievements were similarly impressive, e.g his ability to write out several songs on the back of table cloth when out for meal with his associates, and the astonishing achievements of his last 18 months of life when he produced master-piece after master-piece.


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## EdwardBast

Partita said:


> Agreed. Being a child prodigy in music is neither a necessary condition for someone to have exceptional "natural talent".
> 
> Being a child prodigy might be relevant in a more general assessment of a composer's claim to be composer with high natural ability, but the absence of this feature altogether is by no means a fatal weakness. Besides, someone who was a child prodigy in, say, piano playing, might be useless in composition, which is what we're talking about here.
> 
> I think what the OP had in mind in asking which composers had "the most natural talent" was which composers among the set who are widely considered to be greatest composers are *those who found it easiest to produce a work of high quaiity without investing an excessive amount of labour in the process,* and who were able to do so repeatedly.
> 
> On that premise, from all of the anecdotal evidence I have read on the greatest composers the ones who spring to mind most readily as best fits are Mozart and Schubert. Mentioning only part of his huge orchestral work, the speed at which Mozart produced his last three symphonies is nothing short of amazing. Schubert's achievements were similarly impressive, e.g his ability to write out several songs on the back of table cloth when out for meal with his associates, and the astonishing achievements of his last 18 months of life when he produced master-piece after master-piece.


On what basis do you believe Mozart found it easy? On what basis do you assume Mozart's work on the last three symphonies was confined to six weeks? Unlike Beethoven, whose sketchbooks survive, 90% or more of Mozart's sketches were destroyed. Many composers sketch ideas that don't immediately find a home in published work, putting them aside to be used later at need. Mozart's surviving sketches suggest he might have done the same. Prokofiev, who should spring to mind as fast as Schubert or Mozart in this context, worked this way. If one examined just the starting and ending dates for his work on some of his major compositions it would look like they were composed in an amazingly short time frame. Because the sketches survive, however, we know that he put some of his pieces together quickly by drawing on material in old notebooks. If one can't see a composer's sketches, one has no idea how much labor went into any particular work or precisely when the labor was done.


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## KenOC

EdwardBast said:


> On what basis do you believe Mozart found it easy? On what basis do you assume Mozart's work on the last three symphonies was confined to six weeks?


Wiki: "The date of completion of this symphony is known exactly, since Mozart in his mature years kept a full catalog of his completed works; he entered the 40th Symphony into it on 25 July 1788. Work on the symphony occupied an exceptionally productive period of just a few weeks during which time he also completed the 39th and 41st symphonies (26 June and 10 August, respectively)."

So the three symphonies were _completed _in a period of less than six weeks. Of course he might have been working on them for quite a while prior, but it seems to have been his normal practice to write music only when profitable performance opportunities arose. In this case, he seems to have planned a series of "Concerts in the Casino" and even sent tickets to friends. But as it turned out, the concert series may never have materialized.

In any event, I would put my money on the three symphonies being written within a couple of months at most.


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## EdwardBast

KenOC said:


> Wiki: "The date of completion of this symphony is known exactly, since Mozart in his mature years kept a full catalog of his completed works; he entered the 40th Symphony into it on 25 July 1788. Work on the symphony occupied an exceptionally productive period of just a few weeks during which time he also completed the 39th and 41st symphonies (26 June and 10 August, respectively)."
> 
> So the three symphonies were _completed _in a period of less than six weeks. Of course he might have been working on them for quite a while prior, but it seems to have been his normal practice to write music only when profitable performance opportunities arose. In this case, he seems to have planned a series of "Concerts in the Casino" and even sent tickets to friends. But as it turned out, the concert series may never have materialized.
> 
> In any event, *I would put my money on the three symphonies being written within a couple of months at most*.


If one assumes Mozart composed the symphonies one at a time, finishing one before starting the next, two months would be the absolute minimum time for composing the set and your bet might not be a bad one. But is there reason to believe Mozart actually worked that way? What if he was working on all three simultaneously? He might, for example, have worked for several months on all three symphonies, sketching two or three movements of each before finishing any of them, then completed the set in six weeks thereafter. If one had the sketches, one might be able to settle these questions. Without them it's all guesswork. The working time could have been three or four months for all we know. Or even longer?


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## Botschaft

Don’t forget the Linz symphony, supposedly written in the span of four days.


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## Larkenfield

Mozart was in one of the most productive periods of his life: 

“The date of completion of this symphony is known exactly, since Mozart in his mature years kept a full catalog of his completed works; he entered the 40th Symphony into it on 25 July 1788. Work on the symphony occupied an exceptionally productive period of just a few weeks during which time he also completed the 39th and 41st symphonies (26 June and 10 August, respectively). Nikolaus Harnoncourt conjectured that Mozart composed the three symphonies as a unified work, pointing, among other things, to the fact that the Symphony No. 40, as the middle work, has no introduction (unlike No. 39) and does not have a finale of the scale of No. 41's.”

I believe that Harnoncourt may have been right as a whole and that symphonies 39 - 41 suggest the full flowering of Mozart’s genius in that form. And he may have been able to work certain things out in advance in his head, which certainly counts for something in terms of his natural ability, before committing them and working them out on paper. But his ability was so mind-blowingly stunning that his critics try to reduce him to their own level of a more conventional way of composing. They just can’t accept it because they don’t believe it’s possible, though he was an extraordinary composer who could improvise like crazy from the age of five, and he perfected his ability to get things on paper through hard work where he could ultimately work in an extraordinary short amount of time — because there’s no evidence that he started these three symphonies earlier and he noted the exact dates of their completions, and this was quite extraordinary, perhaps unprecedented in the history of music for three symphonies of this consummate quality in such a short time, no matter how it was accomplished.


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## EdwardBast

Larkenfield said:


> Mozart was in one of the most productive periods of his life:
> *there's no evidence that he started these three symphonies earlier *and he noted the exact dates of their completions, and this was quite extraordinary, perhaps unprecedented in the history of music for three symphonies of this consummate quality in such a short time, no matter how it was accomplished.


Obviously he started them earlier than the first completion date!  My point is we don't know how much earlier. What I wonder is why anyone thinks this matters. It's as if the quality of the symphonies isn't enough for some people and the achievement requires some sort of speed record to validate it. This is consummately silly. In the absence of evidence about when Mozart started work on the symphonies it isn't really possible to establish how quickly they were composed. Why do you care? What is behind this bizarre preoccupation?


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## KenOC

EdwardBast said:


> Obviously he started them earlier than the first completion date!  My point is we don't know how much earlier. What I wonder is why anyone thinks this matters. It's as if the quality of the symphonies isn't enough for some people and the achievement requires some sort of speed record to validate it. This is consummately silly. In the absence of evidence about when Mozart started work on the symphonies it isn't really possible to establish how quickly they were composed. Why do you care? What is behind this bizarre preoccupation?


One might as well ask, why do you care to challenge the prevailing view that Mozart wrote these symphonies quite rapidly? :lol:


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## EdwardBast

KenOC said:


> One might as well ask, why do you care to challenge the prevailing view that Mozart wrote these symphonies quite rapidly? :lol:


I challenge myths about all composers when they aren't backed up by good evidence. The examples of my debunking on this forum are legion: Prokofiev didn't orchestrate his own works, Testimony is the words of Shostakovich, Shostakovich and Prokofiev routinely used "Stalin motives," Tchaikovsky committed suicide, Tchaikovsky was hetero, the Tristan Prelude was the gateway to atonality, on and on. The reception of Mozart is exceptionally befogged by myth, so naturally I have given it some attention too. "Mozart wrote his music complete in his head" - wrong, he said he needed a piano. "Mozart didn't need to work at composing and he didn't sketch" - wrong again, etc.

Addressing your question more directly: I haven't challenged the view that Mozart wrote the symphonies rapidly. I believe he did. But it is absolutely certain he didn't compose them in six weeks, we don't have good evidence about exactly how long it took, and we won't have a good idea about it until the questions I raised about his working process are answered.

What bothers me primarily is that people seem to need this kind of mythology to validate their musical tastes. It's like a person of faith needing to see a miracle to confirm their belief. And myths in general are impediments to appreciation. Listening to Shostakovich works like they are political tracts, for example.

So Ken, it's all in a day's work.


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## Botschaft

EdwardBast said:


> Addressing your question more directly: I haven't challenged the view that Mozart wrote the symphonies rapidly. I believe he did. But it is absolutely certain he didn't compose them in six weeks


To quote a certain president: wrong. And you'll remain wrong until you offer some actual evidence.


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## Guest

EdwardBast said:


> I challenge myths about all composers when they aren't backed up by good evidence. The examples of my debunking on this forum are legion: Prokofiev didn't orchestrate his own works, Testimony is the words of Shostakovich, Shostakovich and Prokofiev routinely used "Stalin motives," Tchaikovsky committed suicide, Tchaikovsky was hetero, the Tristan Prelude was the gateway to atonality, on and on. The reception of Mozart is exceptionally befogged by myth, so naturally I have given it some attention too. "Mozart wrote his music complete in his head" - wrong, he said he needed a piano. "Mozart didn't need to work at composing and he didn't sketch" - wrong again, etc.
> 
> Addressing your question more directly: I haven't challenged the view that Mozart wrote the symphonies rapidly. I believe he did. But it is absolutely certain he didn't compose them in six weeks, we don't have good evidence about exactly how long it took, and we won't have a good idea about it until the questions I raised about his working process are answered.
> 
> What bothers me primarily is that people seem to need this kind of mythology to validate their musical tastes. It's like a person of faith needing to see a miracle to confirm their belief. And myths in general are impediments to appreciation. Listening to Shostakovich works like they are political tracts, for example.
> 
> So Ken, it's all in a day's work.


Jeez, what arrogance.

What I wrote in post #58 was: _Mentioning only part of his huge orchestral work, the speed at which Mozart produced his last three symphonies is nothing short of amazing._

In reply to this you asked in post #59: _On what basis do you assume Mozart's work on the last three symphonies__ was confined to six weeks_?

I didn't mention "6 weeks", in which case it would appear that you have mis-read what I actually wrote, wouldn't it?

I would have answered you earlier but for the fact I have only just logged in. I'm grateful to Ken and Larkenfield for the wiki and other references that support what I wrote about the high speed at which it is commomly accepted that Mozart wrote these final symphonies.

I note that haven't made any observations regarding my inclusion of Schubert. If you do so, I'll be happy to answer any misunderstandings you may have in this area too, as it's only in a day's work.


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## KenOC

EdwardBast said:


> I challenge myths about all composers when they aren't backed up by good evidence.


You have offered no evidence of "myths" in this case. Merely a contrary opinion, without evidence.


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## EdwardBast

Waldesnacht said:


> To quote a certain president: wrong. And you'll remain wrong until you offer some actual evidence.


The evidence is the dates Mozart logged for completion! They're posted above. The completion dates span six weeks, which means that unless the 39th was begun and finished in one day, the process took considerably longer than six weeks. If one assumes that the symphonies were composed in order without overlapping work, that would mean about three weeks per symphony, or nine total. But if the works were not composed in strict sequential order, then it is impossible to say how long. It could be three months or more. No way to know without documentation of some kind.



KenOC said:


> You have offered no evidence of "myths" in this case. Merely a contrary opinion, without evidence.


It's a branch of the divine genius myth, speed category. As for evidence: I'm pointing out a lack of evidence and making a statement about what can be assumed based on the state of the evidence and what cannot.


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## EdwardBast

Partita said:


> Jeez, what arrogance.
> 
> What I wrote in post #58 was: _Mentioning only part of his huge orchestral work, the speed at which Mozart produced his last three symphonies is nothing short of amazing._
> 
> In reply to this you asked in post #59: _On what basis do you assume Mozart's work on the last three symphonies__ was confined to six weeks_?
> 
> I didn't mention "6 weeks", in which case it would appear that you have mis-read what I actually wrote, wouldn't it?


I'm sincerely sorry. You didn't mention six weeks. What I said was not fair comment and I undertake to refrain from such behavior in the future.

But addressing the issue at hand, is three weeks for one of those symphonies really beyond amazingly fast? I don't know. But when you think about it and take into account the amount of repetition in every movement, how much music does it really amount to? Sonata form movements are about "half for free" given repeated exposition and recap. Minuets? Jeez everything gets repeated there. Twice. And don't get me started on rondos. How long did Haydn take for his symphonies? I'll bet he could churn them out if he had a mind.


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## Guest

EdwardBast said:


> I'm sincerely sorry. You didn't mention six weeks. What I said was not fair comment and I undertake to refrain from such behavior in the future.
> 
> But addressing the issue at hand, is three weeks for one of those symphonies really beyond amazingly fast? I don't know. But when you think about it and take into account the amount of repetition in every movement, how much music does it really amount to? Sonata form movements are about "half for free" given repeated exposition and recap. Minuets? Jeez everything gets repeated there. Twice. And don't get me started on rondos. How long did Haydn take for his symphonies? I'll bet he could churn them out if he had a mind.


That's fine, no worries. What you nornally say is most interesting and informative, and this forum benefits considerably from your input.

As you may have noticed, I don't normally raise threads at all. I only involve myself selectively in those created by others that interest me. I fully appreciate that many of the questions raised are of questionable value, but I enjoy getting involved nevertheless, if only for a bit a knock-about fun. Sometimes I find myself getting involved rather further than I had originally intended to.

My first involvement in this thread was a very hurried post #21, which simply listed three composers I thought worthy of mention. I elaborated upon my selections in posts #35 and 44. I trust that these earlier posts, if you hadn't seen them, may assist putting my post #58 into context a little better.


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## PlaySalieri

mbhaub said:


> Child prodigies have rarely lived up to the hope and expectation. Mozart was an exception, but despite their youthful brilliance, you're right - Mendelssohn's legacy isn't what it should have been. But besides the VC, there's three great symphonies (3,4,5), yes some great chamber music (the Octet certainly), the incidental music to Midsummer Nights' Dream, the Hebrides overture and perhaps Elijah. Saint-Saens, same problem. Other than the concertos for violin and cello, Dance Macabre and the Organ Symphony his vast output is largely ignored. Korngold, too. The Last Prodigy lives in the concert hall due to the Violin Concerto.


Mendelssohn wrote some nice piano stuff too - songs without words. But I agree otherwise - a disappointing legacy considering the achievements of his early youth.

As a prodigy with promise - I would say Mozart exceeded all expectations.


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## PlaySalieri

EdwardBast said:


> Obviously he started them earlier than the first completion date!  My point is we don't know how much earlier. What I wonder is why anyone thinks this matters. *It's as if the quality of the symphonies isn't enough for some people and the achievement requires some sort of speed record to validate it.* This is consummately silly. In the absence of evidence about when Mozart started work on the symphonies it isn't really possible to establish how quickly they were composed. Why do you care? What is behind this bizarre preoccupation?


I thought this thread was about talent? In which case speed would be a factor. Given two equally great symphonies by composer a and b, one being composed in 100 man hours and the other composed in 1000 man hours - it would be fair to say that the faster of the two is more talented or not? Other factors perhaps?


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## Guest

stomanek said:


> Mendelssohn wrote some nice piano stuff too - songs without words. But I agree otherwise - a disappointing legacy considering the achievements of his early youth.
> 
> As a prodigy with promise - I would say Mozart exceeded all expectations.


I don't agree that Mendelssohn fizzled out in the manner you suggest. I wrote about this earlier in this thread, and there was a very helpful contribution from Woodduck saying the same. From his late compositions, Mendelssohn appeared to have plenty of further composing "life" left in him, if only he hadn't died so young, which was a big shame.


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## hammeredklavier

EdwardBast said:


> Jeez everything gets repeated there. Twice. And don't get me started on rondos. How long did Haydn take for his symphonies? I'll bet he could churn them out if he had a mind.


I get the impression Woodduck and EdwardBast sometimes try to 'mythicize' Beethoven (pretending like he's so special he doesn't belong in any "category", classical or romantic) at the same time attempt to try to diminish Mozart (and sometimes Haydn) and I'm baffled as to why. I remember EdwardBast claiming Mozart's 41th symphony is not an impressive work and Woodduck saying his choral works are just "kyries and credos".
Sure, Mozart and Haydn often "churned out" various works. In the case of choral works for example, Mozart did in his Salzburg period 



 and Haydn produced one mass each year for the Esterhazies in the final decade of his career. But if it's that easy and unimpressive as people like Woodduck and EdwardBast claim, why couldn't Beethoven (who supposedly ranks even higher than both Mozart and Haydn in greatness and genius) do it? Beethoven's first mass wasn't written until late in life and it made Prince Nikolaus II of Esterhazy and JN Hummel laugh. Aside from the final Missa Solemnis Op.123, his choral works consist of stuff like Christ on the Mount of Olives Op.85, Choral Fantasy Op.80.

Another thing I remember these people saying is "Mozart's Fantasy in C minor K475 is really not that impressive a work. Generations of predecessors before him explored the genre for centuries, Mozart just followed the tradition, Mozart's Fantasy in F minor K608 is just a pastiche of the baroque tradition". But then how impressive do you find Beethoven's own Fantasy in G minor Op.77. 
People mythicize him as having composed the "New Testament of Music", frankly if you ask me, he was just good at writing sonatas and variations. He was good at working with themes, but not really flow and structural logic like Bach for example.
The "Great Fugue" is homorhythmic in many parts 



 yet it's believed by some to be the most contrapuntally impressive, complex, innovative piece of string music ever written, belonging in the realm of art-music his predecessors never ventured into, and so we are not supposed to challenge the belief. Was Beethoven more Classical or Romantic? 
Honestly I'm not trying to put down Beethoven, it puzzles me why are these people often so judgmental about Mozart at the same time attempt to encourage and tolerate all kinds of myths about Beethoven. I still remember how uneasy EdwardBast was when I quoted Brahms ( "you couldn't commission great music from Beethoven" ). He says he's out to debunk myths about composers. In my view, he just wants to debunk 'myths' about composers he doesn't like. At the same time they would always go on about how works like Glorious Moment Op.136 and Triple Concerto Op.56 "never belong in any category" because they're written by a great genius who is so holy he is "set apart" from "worldly" categories the mortals belong.
I mean, come on. They're obviously not treating these greats equally.


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## Guest

hammeredklavier said:


> Honestly I'm not trying to put down Beethoven, it puzzles me why are these people often so judgmental about Mozart at the same time attempt to encourage and tolerate all kinds of myths about Beethoven. I still remember how uneasy EdwardBast was when I quoted Brahms ( "you couldn't commission great music from Beethoven" ). He says he's out to debunk myths about composers. In my view, he just wants to debunk 'myths' about composers he doesn't like. At the same time they would always go on about how works like Glorious Moment Op.136 and Triple Concerto Op.56 "never belong in any category" because they're written by a great genius who is so holy he is "set apart" from "worldly" categories the mortals belong.
> I mean, come on. They're obviously not treating these greats equally.


From my observations, I would agree that Mozart has had a rougher time historically on this Forum than Beethoven in being the target of attack by those who have a preference for one over the other. On less frequent occasions, Schubert has also come in for negative comment, as you may recall. Wagner has been a frequent focal point of attack, and for all sorts reasons some of which are quite comical and fanciful.

Only J S Bach hitherto has so far escaped any seriously vitriolic attack on his composing achievements as far as I'm aware, as most people seem to regard Bach as being beyond reproach, although in another thread running currently a question has been raised about how good he really was.

Truth is that many of us have our favourite composers held in a rough order of preference, and don't like to see them criticised unfairly. I admit to being quite "possessive" about the composers I happen to like the most. If I'm in the right frame of mind and have time to spare I'm happy to debate the issues with anyone who make what I regard as incorrect assessments against any of my favourite composers.

Unfortunately, in some instances people can make exaggerated claims in their defence ofa particular composer they admire, or make unduly negative remarks about those they favour less. There's also the possibility on Forums of misunderstandings arising due to infelicities in the way opinions may be expressed.

This sort of problem has happened to me more times than I care to remember at various times in the past, both here and other Forums. I have been guilty at times of not expressing myself clearly enough, and on occasion I have over-reacted to comments that I appreciated afterwards were more innocent than I had initially given credit for. On the whole, I try harder now to be sympathetic to other peoples' views when they don't coincide with mine, and only take exception when faced with extreme rudeness, which fortunately hasn't happened lately.


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## Botschaft

EdwardBast said:


> The evidence is the dates Mozart logged for completion! They're posted above. The completion dates span six weeks, which means that unless the 39th was begun and finished in one day, the process took considerably longer than six weeks. If one assumes that the symphonies were composed in order without overlapping work, that would mean about three weeks per symphony, or nine total. But if the works were not composed in strict sequential order, then it is impossible to say how long. It could be three months or more. No way to know without documentation of some kind.


So much for _absolute certainty_, then. Whether it was exactly 42 (or whatever number) of days is really hairsplitting, isn't it? The Linz symphony, as I mentioned previously, is considered to have been composed in the short span of just four days, i. e. less than a tenth of six weeks, but for each of his last three he needed more than a fortnight? But then I agree that he was more than likely ruminating on his ideas for these works long before he ever put pen to paper. You probably know the story of the overture to Don Giovanni.


----------



## EdwardBast

hammeredklavier said:


> I get the impression Woodduck and EdwardBast sometimes try to 'mythicize' Beethoven (pretending like he's so special he doesn't belong in any "category", classical or romantic) at the same time attempt to try to diminish Mozart (and sometimes Haydn) and I'm baffled as to why. *I remember EdwardBast claiming Mozart's 41th symphony is not an impressive work* and Woodduck saying his choral works are just "kyries and credos".
> Sure, Mozart and Haydn often "churned out" various works. In the case of choral works for example, Mozart did in his Salzburg period
> 
> 
> 
> and Haydn produced one mass each year for the Esterhazies in the final decade of his career. But if it's that easy and unimpressive as people like Woodduck and EdwardBast claim, why couldn't Beethoven (who supposedly ranks even higher than both Mozart and Haydn in greatness and genius) do it? Beethoven's first mass wasn't written until late in life and it made Prince Nikolaus II of Esterhazy and JN Hummel laugh. Aside from the final Missa Solemnis Op.123, his choral works consist of stuff like Christ on the Mount of Olives Op.85, Choral Fantasy Op.80.
> 
> Another thing I remember these people saying is *"Mozart's Fantasy in C minor K475 is really not that impressive a work.* Generations of predecessors before him explored the genre for centuries, Mozart just followed the tradition, Mozart's Fantasy in F minor K608 is just a pastiche of the baroque tradition". *But then how impressive do you find Beethoven's own Fantasy in G minor Op.77. *
> People mythicize him as having composed the "New Testament of Music", frankly if you ask me, he was just good at writing sonatas and variations. He was good at working with themes, but not really flow and structural logic like Bach for example.
> The "Great Fugue" is homorhythmic in many parts
> 
> 
> 
> yet *it's believed by some to be the most contrapuntally impressive, complex, innovative piece of string music ever written*, belonging in the realm of art-music his predecessors never ventured into, and so we are not supposed to challenge the belief. Was Beethoven more Classical or Romantic?
> Honestly I'm not trying to put down Beethoven, it puzzles me why are these people often so judgmental about Mozart at the same time attempt to encourage and tolerate all kinds of myths about Beethoven. I still remember how uneasy EdwardBast was when I quoted Brahms (* "you couldn't commission great music from Beethoven" )*. He says he's out to debunk myths about composers. In my view, he just wants to debunk 'myths' about composers he doesn't like. At the same time they would always go on about how works like Glorious Moment Op.136 and Triple Concerto Op.56 "never belong in any category" because they're written by a great genius who is so holy he is "set apart" from "worldly" categories the mortals belong.
> I mean, come on. They're obviously not treating these greats equally.


The problem is I never said any of these things. I'm sure you sincerely imagined you read them.  I've already corrected your misapprehensions on some of these points when you first imagined them but it seems not to have sunk in. For the record: I think the last three symphonies of Mozart are an amazing achievement and they are among my favorite works of the classical era. On the finale of 41: I opined that the coda is great, but not for the exact reason it is usually praised.

I don't remember ever hearing the Brahms quotation about Beethoven commissions, from you or anyone else.


----------



## EdwardBast

Waldesnacht said:


> So much for _absolute certainty_, then. Whether it was exactly 42 (or whatever number) of days is really hairsplitting, isn't it? The Linz symphony, as I mentioned previously, is considered to have been composed in the short span of just four days, i. e. less than a tenth of six weeks, but for each of his last three he needed more than a fortnight? But then I agree that he was more than likely ruminating on his ideas for these works long before he ever put pen to paper. You probably know the story of the overture to Don Giovanni.


I'm not sure. Is it hairsplitting? Is three weeks of concentrated work on a work like symphony 40 really amazingly fast? I haven't read or evaluated the evidence around the Linz. I do think this emphasis on speed is beside the point and I don't think doing something quickly that one has done hundreds of times before bears on the question of talent, whatever that is supposed to mean.


----------



## Larkenfield

EdwardBast said:


> I challenge myths about all composers when they aren't backed up by good evidence. The examples of my debunking on this forum are legion: Prokofiev didn't orchestrate his own works, Testimony is the words of Shostakovich, Shostakovich and Prokofiev routinely used "Stalin motives," Tchaikovsky committed suicide, Tchaikovsky was hetero, the Tristan Prelude was the gateway to atonality, on and on. The reception of Mozart is exceptionally befogged by myth, so naturally I have given it some attention too. "Mozart wrote his music complete in his head" - wrong, he said he needed a piano. "Mozart didn't need to work at composing and he didn't sketch" - wrong again, etc.
> 
> Addressing your question more directly: I haven't challenged the view that Mozart wrote the symphonies rapidly. I believe he did. But it is absolutely certain he didn't compose them in six weeks, we don't have good evidence about exactly how long it took, and we won't have a good idea about it until the questions I raised about his working process are answered.
> 
> What bothers me primarily is that people seem to need this kind of mythology to validate their musical tastes. It's like a person of faith needing to see a miracle to confirm their belief. And myths in general are impediments to appreciation. Listening to Shostakovich works like they are political tracts, for example.
> 
> So Ken, it's all in a day's work.


I haven't seen you debunk anything. You usually provide nothing in the way of counter-information, seem to have a very skeptical, hardnose, unforgiving and harsh attitude on just about everything for as long as you've been on this forum... You have also been harsh, stern and unforgiving with young composition students as if you've never made a mistake or been unsure in your life... You take a contrary position and guess, and that's what I would say is legion and not the value of your skepticism which is rarely if ever proven and backed up except by your habitually contrary and negative opinion. I do not respect that nor the lack of a more of a diplomatic attitude toward what people say who actually can back up their position with some example or references, such as dates or journal entries or example symphonies written by Mozart at an extremely precocious age... I do not care for the debunkers who need to be debunked, and this goes for the Mozart thread and the Brahms "true dissonance" thread in which you have been unable to substantiate anything with examples or references. Maybe this will give a little bit more breathing room to others who aren't so hardnosed... As far as how Mozart composed, he had remarkable abilities that you've rudely dismissed and say are wrong when there are obvious references to back them:

In a letter Mozart wrote to Leopold, discussing his work in Munich on the opera Idomeneo (30 December 1780), where Mozart distinguishes "composed" from "written":

"I must finish [writing this letter] now, because I've got to write at breakneck speed-everything's composed-but not written yet."

So it was obviously in his head, wasn't it? regardless of whether he used a piano or not to compose it, and you entirely missed the point... What the debunkers try to do is reduce everything down to the known and the ordinary because they can't do it themselves and they don't understand what genius can do that goes beyond conventional logic. Good luck with that.


----------



## fluteman

HSW said:


> Masterpieces are masterpieces, but some composers worked harder than others to create one. So which composers had the most inborn talent?


We should keep in mind that musical talent is not a monolithic thing. Each great musician has his or her unique combination or portfolio of talents and abilities (plural). While I agree with Edward Bast that for the mature composer, the work speaks for itself, it is sometimes possible to pick out certain abilities that certain composers have to an extraordinary extent.
To mention a minor but not entirely trivial example, Shostakovich was once challenged by a friend to orchestrate the then-hit song Tea for Two from the musical No, No Nanette, on the spot from memory in less than an hour. The result, known as Tahiti Trot (his Op. 16) is an absolute masterpiece of orchestration that remains deservedly popular to this day. (I guess not surprisingly, this story has been told before here at TC.)
But even something as specific as the ability to orchestrate is really a composite of many abilities.


----------



## Agamenon

flamencosketches said:


> Schubert and Mozart are often cited as composers with great "inborn" talent. The talents of Beethoven, Ravel, and perhaps Bruckner might be seen as more craftsmanlike, based on a sharp honing of skills and much time spent in revision of ideas, rather than any absurd natural inclination toward beautiful melodies (a la Schubert) or seemingly innate mastery of harmonic development and cadence (Mozart). I don't know how true any of this is, but it sure looks something like that from the outside. I guess the best way to tell would be looking at each composer's early works.


Yes, Mozart, Schubert and maybe Mendelssohn?.


----------



## EdwardBast

Larkenfield said:


> I haven't seen you debunk anything. You usually provide nothing in the way of counter-information, seem to have a very skeptical, hardnose, unforgiving and harsh attitude on just about everything for as long as you've been on this forum... You have also been harsh, stern and unforgiving with young composition students as if you've never made a mistake or been unsure in your life... You take a contrary position and guess, and that's what I would say is legion and not the value of your skepticism which is rarely if ever proven and backed up except by your habitually contrary and negative opinion. I do not respect that nor the lack of a more of a diplomatic attitude toward what people say who actually can back up their position with some example or references, such as dates or journal entries or example symphonies written by Mozart at an extremely precocious age... I do not care for the debunkers who need to be debunked, and this goes for the Mozart thread and the Brahms "true dissonance" thread in which you have been unable to substantiate anything with examples or references. Maybe this will give a little bit more breathing room to others who aren't so hardnosed... As far as how Mozart composed, he had remarkable abilities that you've rudely dismissed and say are wrong when there are obvious references to back them:
> 
> In a letter Mozart wrote to Leopold, discussing his work in Munich on the opera Idomeneo (30 December 1780), where Mozart distinguishes "composed" from "written":
> 
> "I must finish [writing this letter] now, because I've got to write at breakneck speed-everything's composed-but not written yet."
> 
> *So it was obviously in his head, wasn't it?* regardless of whether he used a piano or not to compose it, and you entirely missed the point... What the debunkers try to do is reduce everything down to the known and the ordinary because they can't do it themselves and they don't understand what genius can do that goes beyond conventional logic. Good luck with that.


Everything one composes at the piano ends up in ones head, so, in a sense, yes. That Mozart needed and habitually used a piano to compose is verified in his own words. On 1 August 1781, Mozart wrote to his father Leopold concerning his living arrangements in Vienna, where he had recently moved:

"My room that I'm moving to is being prepared-I'm just off now to hire a keyboard, because I can't live there until that's been delivered, especially as I've got to write just now, and there isn't a minute to be lost.")

This letter was cited some of the prior discussions of Mozart's composing methods and sketching. I didn't think I need to cite these sources again because I had done so in prior threads on the same topic and many of the people involved in this last round were in the prior threads. So, given that he apparently composed at the keyboard, the likely meaning of what you quoted is that he had it under his fingers. This would entail having it in his head too, of course, but certainly not that he composed it there. Numerous composers worked this way, especially those noted for their improv abilities. That's what it means to compose at the piano.

On the Brahms thread I analyzed by ear what dissonances were in play in the specific quartet from Idomeneo that allegedly inspired Brahms's remark. If that was the correct work, that would mean I was the only one who offered direct evidence of what Brahms might have meant.

Your other claims are false, carelessly and apparently maliciously so. Here is the rundown of the sources I cited on the other issues listed in my former post:

On the issue of Tchaikovsky's homosexuality I quoted letters and diary entries written by the composer himself.

On the fraudulence of Testimony, the alleged Shostakovich memoir: I cited the primary sources, Laurel Fay's article from 1980 that first suggested that Volkov committed fraud. I also cited Malcolm Brown's A Shostakovich Casebook, Laurel Fay's follow up article on Testimony, and a conference at the American Musicological Society annual meeting. I also explained in detail how the fraud seems to have been perpetrated with evidence one can see by reading Testimony.

On the allegation that Prokofiev didn't do his own orchestration I cited a biography of Prokofiev, noting that the basis for the false allegation was a minimal reorchestration of The Stone Flower, necessary because of a cut made to the score by others while Prokofiev was in the hospital. I listed the person who did this reorchestration, a timpanist for the ballet orchestra.

On Tchaikovsky's suicide I tracked down who started the rumor (R. A. Mooser), the date it first appeared in print (a couple years after the composer's death), who Mooser claimed to have heard the information from (Glazunov and a ballet conductor Rodgrigo Driga(?). I cited a biography of Tchaikovsky in summarizing the rumors as unsubstantiated and third hand.

Shostakovich and Stalin Motives: I cited an article on Shostakovich's Fifth by Richard Taruskin and the work of Ian MacDonald.

I also have some of my entries on the above issues blogged on TC.

On the issue of how long the last three symphonies of Mozart were under construction I cited the composer's log entries on the works, which had been posted earlier in the thread by Ken.

So your claims that my debunking is not backed up by sources and evidence is false. This can be verified by anyone who wants to look through prior threads. As for composition students, you don't understand the issues involved and you don't know the history of the interaction. Which of course didn't stop you from rendering an opinion.


----------



## jdec

EdwardBast said:


> Everything one composes at the piano ends up in ones head, so, in a sense, yes.


But we are talking Mozart level compositions here, not EdwardBast level compositions. Can you really have something like Idomeneo in your head and then write it down from there ("at breakneck speeds")?


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## EdwardBast

jdec said:


> But we are talking Mozart level compositions here, not EdwardBast level compositions. Can you really have something like Idomeneo in your head and then write it down from there ("at breakneck speeds")?


I added new information to the post above (#84) that demonstrates in Mozart's own words his need of a piano for composing. This, along with a detailed analysis of Mozart's working and sketching methods, is verified by Ulrich Konrad, an expert on the topic, in the following essay. Here only the first page is available as a preview, but a link to the whole text was posted in a prior Mozart thread. I'll try to find it.

https://academic.oup.com/em/article-abstract/XX/1/119/391617?redirectedFrom=PDF

Here is the short form summary: Mozart composed at the piano. He sketched extensively, revising and reworking his material. This article by itself debunks all of the most persistent myths about how Mozart composed.

Edit: Here is a Wikipedia entry that draws extensively on Konrad's essay:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozart's_compositional_method

Here's another listing that offers a free download of Konrad's article on a trial basis, at your own hazard, obviously :

https://www.scribd.com/document/209052151/Konrad-Schaffensweise


----------



## jdec

EdwardBast said:


> I added new information to the post above (#84) that demonstrates in Mozart's own words his need of a piano for composing. This, along with a detailed analysis of Mozart's working and sketching methods, is verified by Ulrich Konrad, an expert on the topic, in the following essay. Here only the first page is available as a preview, but a link to the whole text was posted in a prior Mozart thread. I'll try to find it.
> 
> https://academic.oup.com/em/article-abstract/XX/1/119/391617?redirectedFrom=PDF
> 
> Here is the short form summary: Mozart composed at the piano. He sketched extensively, revising and reworking his material. This article by itself debunks all of the most persistent myths about how Mozart composed.
> 
> Edit: Here is a Wikipedia entry that draws extensively on Konrad's essay:
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozart's_compositional_method
> 
> Here's another listing that offers a free download of Konrad's article on a trial basis, at your own hazard, obviously :
> 
> https://www.scribd.com/document/209052151/Konrad-Schaffensweise


Yes, yes, you have already brought with pleasure all these articles and links in other threads too each time you have the slightest opportunity. But it really doesn't debunk anything significant, as you might believe. Yes, Mozart could have sketched at times (although not even close to the extent of, for example, Beethoven) and composed with the aid of the piano at times too, but that does not diminish one bit his astonishing capacity (extreme natural talent) to for example "store" compositions in his head prior to writing them down. Or are you going to "debunk" Mozart himself on his letter to Leopold that Larkenfield already quoted above:

"I must finish [writing this letter] now, because I've got to write at breakneck speed-everything's composed-but not written yet."

Again, we are talking *Mozart level* compositions here, not EdwarBast level compositions.


----------



## Larkenfield

Mozart's extraordinary compositional abilities:



> During the period of the couple's courtship, Mozart began making visits to Baron Gottfried van Swieten, who let him examine his extensive collection of manuscripts of work by Bach and Handel. Mozart was excited by this material, and he prepared a number of compositions in Baroque style. An important impetus was [his wife] Constanze, who apparently fell in love at this time with Baroque counterpoint. This is known from a letter Mozart wrote to his sister Nannerl on 20 April 1782. The letter was accompanied by a manuscript copy of the composer's Fantasy and Fugue, K. 394:
> 
> _"I composed the fugue first and wrote it down while I was thinking out the prelude. [!] I only hope that you will be able to read it, for it is written so very small; and I hope further that you will like it. Another time I shall send you something better for the clavier. My dear Constanze is really the cause of this fugue's coming into the world. Baron van Swieten, to whom I go every Sunday, gave me all the works of Händel and Sebastian Bach to take home with me (after I had played them to him). When Constanze heard the fugues, she absolutely fell in love with them. Now she will listen to nothing but fugues, and particularly (in this kind of composition) the works of Händel and Bach. Well, as she has often heard me play fugues out of my head, she asked me if I had ever written any down, and when I said I had not, she scolded me roundly for not recording some of my compositions in this most artistically beautiful of all musical forms and never ceased to entreat me until I wrote down a fugue for her." [!] [unquote] _
> _
> He was composing fugues in his head without initially writing them down._ His life was full of extraordinary musical feats such as his transcription of the _Miserere_ when he was 14, his last three symphonies, the five-voice fugato (representing the five major themes) at the end of the fourth movement of his "Jupiter" Symphony (
> 
> 
> 
> ), his extraordinary ability to improve starting at age six:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Mozart evidently had a prodigious ability to "compose on the spot"; that is, to improvise at the keyboard. This ability was apparent even in his childhood, as the Benedictine priest Placidus Scharl recalled:
> 
> _Even in the sixth year of his age he would play the most difficult pieces for the pianoforte, of his own invention. He skimmed the octave which his short little fingers could not span, at fascinating speed and with wonderful accuracy. One had only to give him the first subject which came to mind for a fugue or an invention: he would develop it with strange variations and constantly changing passages as long as one wished; he would improvise fugally on a subject for hours, and this fantasia-playing was his greatest passion.[9]_
> 
> As a teenager visiting Italy, Mozart gave a concert in Venice (5 March 1771). According to a witness, _"An experienced musician gave him a fugue theme, which he worked out for more than an hour with such science, dexterity, harmony, and proper attention to rhythm, that even the greatest connoisseurs were astounded."[10]_
> 
> Mozart continued to improvise in public as an adult. For instance, the highly successful concert of 1787 in Prague that premiered his "Prague Symphony" concluded with a half-hour improvisation by the composer.[11] For other instances, see Mozart's Berlin journey and Dora Stock. [unquote]
> 
> His life was full of extraordinary musical feats as the result of the development through disciple and hard work of his natural talents starting at the very beginning that cannot be explained away by the callous, dismissive, harsh, shortsighted skeptics and academics who have to try and reduce everything down to their own level of mediocrity that can only be explained by Mozart's genius.
> ---
> _"The Mozarts popped into the Wednesday service at the Vatican, at which the Miserere was being performed. A couple of hours later, back at home, the young Wolfgang proceeded to transcribe the entire piece from memory. He went back on Friday to make a couple of corrections - and the Vatican's secret was out._
> 
> Later on in their travels, the Mozarts bumped into British music historian Dr. Charles Burney. They passed on the manuscript to Dr. Burney, who took it to London; and it was published there in 1771."
> 
> https://medium.com/world-of-music/the-story-of-allegris-miserere-b4d21656798
Click to expand...


----------



## Woodduck

hammeredklavier said:


> *I get the impression* Woodduck and EdwardBast sometimes try to 'mythicize' Beethoven (pretending like he's so special he doesn't belong in any "category", classical or romantic) at the same time attempt to try to diminish Mozart (and sometimes Haydn) and I'm baffled as to why. I remember EdwardBast claiming Mozart's 41th symphony is not an impressive work and *Woodduck saying his choral works are just "kyries and credos"*.


You've gotten the wrong impression. It's simply a fact that labeling Beethoven as either "Classical" or "Romantic" fails to do justice to his uniqueness. Acknowledging this is not "mythicizing." I've never said that Mozart's choral works are "just kyries and credos." As I recall, in the post you're referring to I merely said that I preferred some other music (I don't recall what music) to his choral works. I've never denied that they're of fine quality.



> Sure, Mozart and Haydn often "churned out" various works. In the case of choral works for example, Mozart did in his Salzburg period
> 
> 
> 
> and Haydn produced one mass each year for the Esterhazies in the final decade of his career. But *if it's that easy and unimpressive as people like Woodduck and EdwardBast claim**, why couldn't Beethoven (who supposedly ranks even higher than both Mozart and Haydn in greatness and genius) do it?* Beethoven's first mass wasn't written until late in life and it made Prince Nikolaus II of Esterhazy and JN Hummel laugh. Aside from the final Missa Solemnis Op.123, his choral works consist of stuff like Christ on the Mount of Olives Op.85, Choral Fantasy Op.80.


Exactly how easy and unimpressive do you think I and EB think it was for Mozart to compose his masses? How would you know how easy I think it was, since I've never said? And why make assumptions about what Beethoven could have done if he had wanted to do something other than what he did? He seems to have had other interests.



> Another thing I remember *these people* saying is "Mozart's Fantasy in C minor K475 is really *not that impressive* a work. Generations of predecessors before him explored the genre for centuries, Mozart just followed the tradition, Mozart's Fantasy in F minor K608 is just a pastiche of the baroque tradition". But then how impressive do you find Beethoven's own Fantasy in G minor Op.77.


You're not doing well at remembering what "these people" say, so it would be best not to try to convey their thoughts to others. Again, how impressive is "that impressive a work"? What's the unit of measurement? Who's employing it?



> People mythicize Beethoven as having composed the "New Testament of Music", *frankly if you ask me, he was just good at writing sonatas and variations. *


Is that all he was good at?



> He was good at working with themes, but not really flow and structural logic like Bach for example.


Really? Not flow? Not structural logic? (I can't help remarking that if Bernstein, in his silly takedown of Beethoven, hadn't conceded that Beethoven was good at _those_ things, he'd have had to dismiss him as a total loser.)



> The "Great Fugue" is homorhythmic in many parts yet it's believed by some to be the most contrapuntally impressive, complex, innovative piece of string music ever written, belonging in the realm of art-music his predecessors never ventured into, and so we are not supposed to challenge the belief.


You may challenge anything, but starting by challenging imaginary statements by anonymous others isn't a very constructive place to begin. As far as the _Grosse Fuge_ is concerned, most of the praise that's been heaped upon it for its innovativeness and brilliance is fully justified (and there's been a lot of it, in case you haven't noticed).



> Honestly I'm not trying to put down Beethoven,


Honestly? Yet he's only good at "sonatas, variations, and working with themes, but not really flow and structural logic"? You've got me thinking that I ought to take his bust off my piano (I don't really have any busts on my piano, but if I did...)



> At the same time *[these people]* would always go on about how works like Glorious Moment Op.136 and Triple Concerto Op.56 "never belong in any category" because they're written by a great genius who is so holy he is "set apart" from "worldly" categories the mortals belong. I mean, come on. They're obviously not treating these greats equally.


I'm sure that Mozart and Beethoven are heartsick at not being treated equally by "these people." Good thing you're around to right the balance.

Isn't this all pointless horsepucky? Why don't you just talk about music you like (and understand better than you understand Beethoven) and let "these people" speak for themselves?


----------



## KenOC

Woodduck said:


> ...Honestly? Yet he's only good at "sonatas, variations, and working with themes, but not really flow and structural logic"? You've got me thinking that I ought to take his bust off my piano (I don't really have any busts on my piano, but if I did...)


By God, you're right! If I had a piano, there'd be a bust of Ludwig van on it. If I had a bust of Ludwig van anyway. 

BTW I liked the bit about Beethoven being weak in "structural logic." I wonder what Brahms would say about that!


----------



## Woodduck

KenOC said:


> By God, you're right! If I had a piano, there'd be a bust of Ludwig van on it. If I had a bust of Ludwig van anyway.
> 
> BTW I liked the bit about Beethoven being weak in "structural logic." I wonder what Brahms would say about that!


Something unprintable (at least here), accompanied by the shaking of cigar ashes on the carpet.


----------



## Phil loves classical

hammeredklavier said:


> I get the impression Woodduck and EdwardBast sometimes try to 'mythicize' Beethoven (pretending like he's so special he doesn't belong in any "category", classical or romantic) at the same time attempt to try to diminish Mozart (and sometimes Haydn) and I'm baffled as to why. I remember EdwardBast claiming Mozart's 41th symphony is not an impressive work and Woodduck saying his choral works are just "kyries and credos".
> Sure, Mozart and Haydn often "churned out" various works. In the case of choral works for example, Mozart did in his Salzburg period
> 
> 
> 
> and Haydn produced one mass each year for the Esterhazies in the final decade of his career. But if it's that easy and unimpressive as people like Woodduck and EdwardBast claim, why couldn't Beethoven (who supposedly ranks even higher than both Mozart and Haydn in greatness and genius) do it? Beethoven's first mass wasn't written until late in life and it made Prince Nikolaus II of Esterhazy and JN Hummel laugh. Aside from the final Missa Solemnis Op.123, his choral works consist of stuff like Christ on the Mount of Olives Op.85, Choral Fantasy Op.80.
> 
> Another thing I remember these people saying is "Mozart's Fantasy in C minor K475 is really not that impressive a work. Generations of predecessors before him explored the genre for centuries, Mozart just followed the tradition, Mozart's Fantasy in F minor K608 is just a pastiche of the baroque tradition". But then how impressive do you find Beethoven's own Fantasy in G minor Op.77.
> People mythicize him as having composed the "New Testament of Music", frankly if you ask me, he was just good at writing sonatas and variations. He was good at working with themes, but not really flow and structural logic like Bach for example.
> The "Great Fugue" is homorhythmic in many parts
> 
> 
> 
> yet it's believed by some to be the most contrapuntally impressive, complex, innovative piece of string music ever written, belonging in the realm of art-music his predecessors never ventured into, and so we are not supposed to challenge the belief. Was Beethoven more Classical or Romantic?
> Honestly I'm not trying to put down Beethoven, it puzzles me why are these people often so judgmental about Mozart at the same time attempt to encourage and tolerate all kinds of myths about Beethoven. I still remember how uneasy EdwardBast was when I quoted Brahms ( "you couldn't commission great music from Beethoven" ). He says he's out to debunk myths about composers. In my view, he just wants to debunk 'myths' about composers he doesn't like. At the same time they would always go on about how works like Glorious Moment Op.136 and Triple Concerto Op.56 "never belong in any category" because they're written by a great genius who is so holy he is "set apart" from "worldly" categories the mortals belong.
> I mean, come on. They're obviously not treating these greats equally.


I have to come clean and say it was me who said the coda in Mozart's Jupiter isn't as impressive as some may think or as it may seem. It was just due to the notion or suggestion I've heard that he could magically fit 4 or 5 random or unrelated themes (I've heard from other movements even) together. Those motives were already designed to fit together, and were expanded individually prior to the Coda. He basically worked backwards. It is still quite ingenious, and a great piece of music. I have no doubt Mozart had a great analytic mind. He could write Allegri's Miserere from memory as a kid, the Linz symphony in 4 days, etc. There is a rumour he wrote the overture to Don Giovanni on the way to the concert, and the ink was still wet when the players had to sight read for the first time. Some say this is a bit of a myth, but i wouldn't be surprised if it were true.


----------



## KenOC

Phil loves classical said:


> I have to come clean and say it was me who said the coda in Mozart's Jupiter isn't as impressive as some may think...


You? Mrs. Hargraves is going to rap your knuckles with her ruler!


----------



## Phil loves classical

KenOC said:


> You? Mrs. Hargraves is going to rap your knuckles with her ruler!


Maybe I sympathized too much with Salieri.


----------



## hammeredklavier

Phil loves classical said:


> I have to come clean and say it was me who said the coda in Mozart's Jupiter isn't as impressive as some may think or as it may seem. It was just due to the notion or suggestion I've heard that he could magically fit 4 or 5 random or unrelated themes (I've heard from other movements even) together. Those motives were already designed to fit together, and were expanded individually prior to the Coda. He basically worked backwards. It is still quite ingenious, and a great piece of music. I have no doubt Mozart had a great analytic mind. He could write Allegri's Miserere from memory, the Linz symphony in 4 days, etc.


As I said, by that logic fugues and canons are easy to compose cause you can pick random melodies and work backwards. No. It simply doesn't work that way. That's why generations of composers in history have had certain difficulty in 'making convincing music' with counterpoint. ( btw EdwardBast is another member who opined: "of course it makes it less impressive" Late Mozart vs. Late Schubert ) 
It's like the Egg of Columbus: It seems so easy when you watch someone else do it, but you're totally lost when you have to come up with something equally ingenious. I believe this is why Saint-Saens said "What gives Sebastian Bach and Mozart a place apart is that these two great expressive composers never sacrificed form to expression. As high as their expresson may soar, their musical form remains supreme and all-sufficient."

Also about Beethoven's sense for flow, I would say he is very good at handling forms such as sonatas and variations: compositions of alternating materials or continuous tweaking on one material. But when it comes to Fantasia-like compositions, (that is, when logically exploring through ideas in order, A -> B -> C -> D -> E with flow and coherence.) Beethoven doesn't demonstrate good sense for flow and it is apparent in his Fantasy Op.77. Beethoven obviously wrote it with Mozart K475 in mind. (which he drew inspiration to write some of his piano sonatas up to that point including Appassionata Op.57) He wrote out improvisatory ideas that sprang from his mind at the time. About halfway through, Beethoven starts writing variations in attempt to organize the piece better. 
In this regard, the 4th movement of 9th symphony also feels a little 'disjointed': 




One thing I do agree with EdwardBast is that Mozart sometimes wrote out sketches, as in composing the Haydn quartets. What I don't agree is "Mozart was able to compose his works fast cause they were easy to compose". No. This is something even geniuses such as Beethoven couldn't do. Saint-Saens and Schoenberg valued Mozart's sense for logic and flow and Tchaikovsky valued his sense for spontaneous creativity. I suggest people think twice before they comment works like symphony no.41 or fantasy K475 aren't impressive.
Mozart Is My Enemy


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## KenOC

hammeredklavier said:


> ...Also about Beethoven's sense for flow, I would say he is very good at handling forms such as sonatas and variations: compositions of alternating materials or continuous tweaking on one material. But when it comes to Fantasia-like compositions, (that is, when logically exploring through ideas in order, A -> B -> C -> D -> E with flow and coherence.) Beethoven doesn't demonstrate good sense for flow and it is apparent in his Fantasy Op.77.


Some truth in that, I think. But Beethoven had the ability to put his head down and charge, like that bull though a china shop. Example: The Missa Solemnis. No sonata form, no theme and variations, no recognized form at all. But many would say he made it all work anyway!


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## KenOC

KenOC said:


> Some truth in that, I think. But Beethoven had the ability to put his head down and charge, like that bull though a china shop. Example: The Missa Solemnis. No sonata form, no theme and variations, no recognized form at all. But many would say he made it all work anyway!*


*Not to mention that critics ever since ETA Hoffman opined that vocal music wasn't his strong suit.


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## muzik

Excuse my naive question but how could one possibly know if a composer had a natural talent or not? 
Reputation? Stories told about the composer? Or is it simply obvious in the way they compose music?


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## Guest

muzik said:


> Excuse my naive question but how could one possibly know if a composer had a natural talent or not?
> Reputation? Stories told about the composer? Or is it simply obvious in the way they compose music?


Why don't you try reading the thread, where the answers are contained?


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## Phil loves classical

hammeredklavier said:


> As I said, by that logic fugues and canons are easy to compose cause you can pick random melodies and work backwards. No. It simply doesn't work that way. That's why generations of composers in history have had certain difficulty in 'making convincing music' with counterpoint.
> 
> I believe this is why Saint-Saens said "What gives Sebastian Bach and Mozart a place apart is that these two great expressive composers never sacrificed form to expression. As high as their expresson may soar, their musical form remains supreme and all-sufficient."


No, because those forms are clearly understood of what it took to compose, unlike the last movement of Jupiter. I'm not saying it is not impressive, just not in the light that I've heard it being expressed, or exaggerated.

I have something to add to what Saint Saens said, which I'm not sure if some would find offensive. I think in some more minor works by Bach and Mozart, they had little in expression and a lot more in form, some rigidness, which is what the Romantics made certain advancements in. Freer expression can sometimes only be achieved by breaking in old forms.


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## EdwardBast

jdec said:


> Yes, yes, you have already brought with pleasure all these articles and links in other threads too each time you have the slightest opportunity. But it really doesn't debunk anything significant, as you might believe. Yes, Mozart could have sketched at times (although not even close to the extent of, for example, Beethoven) and composed with the aid of the piano at times too, but that does not diminish one bit his astonishing capacity (extreme natural talent) to for example "store" compositions in his head prior to writing them down. Or are you going to "debunk" Mozart himself on his letter to Leopold that Larkenfield already quoted above:
> 
> "I must finish [writing this letter] now, because I've got to write at breakneck speed-everything's composed-but not written yet."
> 
> Again, we are talking *Mozart level* compositions here, not EdwarBast level compositions.


The evidence is that Mozart always sketched his major works. Composing at the piano was his standard, everyday method. Why do these facts bother you?

Neither you nor Larkenfield understands what the Mozart quotation means. It doesn't mean he stored compositions in his head. "Composed" means he had learned them on the keyboard and had already committed the major lines to paper. If you would actually bother to read the sources I posted for once, you would learn that when Mozart entered a completion date into his log of completed works, it didn't mean that the work was actually finished. It meant that the full structure of the work was laid out with the important lines in place. This is what Mozart meant by *composed*. But the inner parts would not have been filled in or assigned to instruments yet. This was part of what Mozart considered writing. Thus "*not written yet*" meant that many details of the composition had not in fact been decided or finalized yet, although all of the major lines had already been committed to paper (composed).

What I don't understand in this discussion is why several people here who claim to be highly enthusiastic about Mozart's music seem so dead set on not understanding the processes by which he created it. It just strikes me as bizarre.


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## EdwardBast

Phil loves classical said:


> *I have to come clean and say it was me who said the coda in Mozart's Jupiter isn't as impressive as some may think or as it may seem*. It was just due to the notion or suggestion I've heard that he could magically fit 4 or 5 random or unrelated themes (I've heard from other movements even) together. Those motives were already designed to fit together, and were expanded individually prior to the Coda. He basically worked backwards. It is still quite ingenious, and a great piece of music. I have no doubt Mozart had a great analytic mind. He could write Allegri's Miserere from memory as a kid, the Linz symphony in 4 days, etc. There is a rumour he wrote the overture to Don Giovanni on the way to the concert, and the ink was still wet when the players had to sight read for the first time. Some say this is a bit of a myth, but i wouldn't be surprised if it were true.


Yeah, it was him! ^ ^ ^. Get him! Tear him limb from limb! 

Seriously, though: After you said that, I agreed that what was most impressive about the coda wasn't the raw contrapuntal feat of combining the "five" lines (it's actually more like four), although that in itself is impressive. I argued that the true genius was in the set-up, the process by which Mozart characterized those simple melodic ideas earlier in the movement, thus making them memorable enough to be recognized and worth weaving into a contrapuntal web. The effectiveness of the coda, I suggested, is as much a tribute to skills Mozart had developed writing operatic ensembles as it was an example of raw contrapuntal prowess.


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## Enthusiast

EdwardBast said:


> The evidence is that Mozart always sketched his major works. Composing at the piano was his standard, everyday method. Why do these facts bother you?
> 
> Neither you nor Larkenfield understands what the Mozart quotation means. It doesn't mean he stored compositions in his head. "Composed" means he had learned them on the keyboard and had already committed the major lines to paper. If you would actually bother to read the sources I posted for once, you would learn that when Mozart entered a completion date into his log of completed works, it didn't mean that the work was actually finished. It meant that the full structure of the work was laid out with the important lines in place. This is what Mozart meant by *composed*. But the inner parts would not have been filled in or assigned to instruments yet. This was part of what Mozart considered writing. Thus "*not written yet*" meant that many details of the composition had not in fact been decided or finalized yet, although all of the major lines had already been committed to paper (composed).
> 
> What I don't understand in this discussion is why several people here who claim to be highly enthusiastic about Mozart's music seem so dead set on not understanding the processes by which he created it. It just strikes me as bizarre.


I'm no scholar but I did once look into Mozart's reputed ability to compose on the spot as part of a psychology degree. There was even a story of him walking with a friend and going silent for 5 minutes and then claiming to have composed a piece that was considerably longer than five minutes! What a shame that such stories are almost certainly not true. But the picture that emerged from my reading was much as you have described above.

As for Mozart's ability to improvise, isn't it true that Beethoven (he who has the reputation for struggling to arrive at a finished work) was also a prodigious improviser?


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## Phil loves classical

Here is some interesting evidence of Mozart's creative process.

Q. Mozart completed most of works by dint of sheer memory?

A. ``A generation ago scholars thought Mozart composed everything in his head and then notated it on paper after the creative process was over. He was most certainly capable of this, as works such as the Linz symphony (composed in four days) attest. But his process of notating in layers, revealed by the different ink tints in his manuscripts, and his surviving sketches (some 90% of which were destroyed by his widow), have revealed a more nuanced sense of his creative process.''

``The fragments-a larger number than by any other major composer (1 in 5 over his lifetime, 1 in 3 during the mature Vienna years)-are extraordinary in what they reveal about the creative process-both how he conceived his works and how he wrote them down. Above all, the fragments frequently contain some of his most interesting, and most experimental ideas, and not infrequently one wonders why he finished some of his works instead of those left in draft stage (and by that I don't mean the Requiem or other works begun in 1791, where clearly it is a question of death staying his hand).''

-Robert Levin, pianist, musicologist, composer, and Mozart scholar. Levin has completed and reconstructed a number of classical works, including unfinished compositions by Mozart and Johann Sebastian Bach.

https://www.newspaperalum.com/2013/11/shattering-the-myths-of-wolfgang-amadeus-mozart.html


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## KenOC

Enthusiast said:


> As for Mozart's ability to improvise, isn't it true that Beethoven (he who has the reputation for struggling to arrive at a finished work) was also a prodigious improviser?


Beethoven was considered in Mozart's class -- or close to it. From a 1799 review of a piano duel: "Beethoven's play is exceedingly brilliant, but less delicate and at times somewhat unclear. He shows himself to best advantage in free improvisation. And here the lightness and at the same time firmness in the sequence of his ideas is really quite extraordinary. B. instantly varies every theme, and not only in its figures. Since the death of Mozart who will always remain the _non plus ultra_ in this, I have never found this kind of pleasure to the degree with which B. provides it."


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## EdwardBast

Enthusiast said:


> I'm no scholar but I did once look into Mozart's reputed ability to compose on the spot as part of a psychology degree. There was even a story of him walking with a friend and going silent for 5 minutes and then claiming to have composed a piece that was considerably longer than five minutes! What a shame that such stories are almost certainly not true. But the picture that emerged from my reading was much as you have described above.
> 
> As for Mozart's ability to improvise, isn't it true that Beethoven (he who has the reputation for struggling to arrive at a finished work) was also a prodigious improviser?


The composing on the spot example you give seems likely to be exaggeration, at least. But if, for example, the piece was a minuet, and by "compose" Mozart meant what Ulrich Konrad believes he generally meant when he used the term,* then the story is perhaps not all that implausible. Making leeway for exaggerated length, that might mean two minutes of music, with the repeat signs doubling the finished length. Perhaps even less if one considers the internal repetitions within periods that are common for that type of piece. But I'd guess Mozart was stretching the truth a bit.

*Melody and harmony without the inner voices figured out.

Yes, Beethoven was a master of improvisation by all accounts. I read (in Swafford's biography) a description of a duel he had with another pianist/composer. His opponent went first. Then Beethoven apparently took a piece of his opponent's music, contemptuously turned it upside down, and then blew the guy off the floor by improvising on the inversion of one of the guy's themes. He could apparently entertain for hours extemporaneously.


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## PlaySalieri

EdwardBast said:


> The evidence is that Mozart always sketched his major works. Composing at the piano was his standard, everyday method. Why do these facts bother you?
> 
> Neither you nor Larkenfield understands what the Mozart quotation means. It doesn't mean he stored compositions in his head. "Composed" means he had learned them on the keyboard and had already committed the major lines to paper. If you would actually bother to read the sources I posted for once, you would learn that when Mozart entered a completion date into his log of completed works, it didn't mean that the work was actually finished. It meant that the full structure of the work was laid out with the important lines in place. This is what Mozart meant by *composed*. But the inner parts would not have been filled in or assigned to instruments yet. This was part of what Mozart considered writing. Thus "*not written yet*" meant that many details of the composition had not in fact been decided or finalized yet, although all of the major lines had already been committed to paper (composed).
> 
> What I don't understand in this discussion is why several people here who claim to be highly enthusiastic about Mozart's music seem so dead set on not understanding the processes by which he created it. *It just strikes me as bizarre.*


Yes me too. Haydn himself stated more or less than technically Mozart's compositional ability was very academic. He must have worked exceptionally hard to get all the details correct.


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## KenOC

Haydn also said that he himself composed very slowly. I was surprised to read that!

But some time back I looked at the hours of music Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven produced during their working years (as well as I could) and divided the hours by the years. IIRC, Haydn and Beethoven produced very similar hours of music per year, while Mozart was about double that.

I'll add: A fair amount of music by both Haydn and Mozart seems to have been lost, but very little Beethoven. I didn't try to adjust for that.


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## Jacck

KenOC said:


> Haydn also said that he himself composed very slowly. I was surprised to read that!
> 
> But some time back I looked at the hours of music Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven produced during their working years (as well as I could) and divided the hours by the years. IIRC, Haydn and Beethoven produced very similar hours of music per year, while Mozart was about double that.
> 
> I'll add: A fair amount of music by both Haydn and Mozart seems to have been lost, but very little Beethoven. I didn't try to adjust for that.


much music by both Haydn and Mozart sounds a little same to me. Mozart composed 40 symphonies, but how many of those are really memorable? 5? And that is twice as truth for Haydn. He composed 100 symphonies. How many really stand out? So speed and productivity are not everything. But maybe it is just the classical period


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## Larkenfield

EdwardBast said:


> The evidence is that Mozart always sketched his major works. Composing at the piano was his standard, everyday method. Why do these facts bother you?
> 
> Neither you nor Larkenfield understands what the Mozart quotation means. It doesn't mean he stored compositions in his head. "Composed" means he had learned them on the keyboard and had already committed the major lines to paper. If you would actually bother to read the sources I posted for once, you would learn that when Mozart entered a completion date into his log of completed works, it didn't mean that the work was actually finished. It meant that the full structure of the work was laid out with the important lines in place. This is what Mozart meant by *composed*. But the inner parts would not have been filled in or assigned to instruments yet. This was part of what Mozart considered writing. Thus "*not written yet*" meant that many details of the composition had not in fact been decided or finalized yet, although all of the major lines had already been committed to paper (composed).
> 
> What I don't understand in this discussion is why several people here who claim to be highly enthusiastic about Mozart's music seem so dead set on not understanding the processes by which he created it. It just strikes me as bizarre.


Because you think most everything's an exaggeration and try to debunk his ability. He had an incredible memory. You are short-changing his ability. You have no idea whether he always made sketches at the piano or not, so he may have not always needed a piano in order to sketch or compose though he may have preferred it. Thinking that his using the piano was his "standard" way of doing it doesn't preclude his ability to compose without it. He simply preferred it.

He couldn't compose anything without the piano, really? How did he transcribe the Miserere that he heard at the Vatican? He memorized it after hearing it once and then went home and wrote it out, later to make a few minor revisions after a second visit, and he didn't have a piano with him at the time to memorize it - though maybe he had one in his pocket? - but may have used it when he got home, though I rather doubt it because I posted an example where he could directly copy something out of his head that had already been composed but had yet not been written down even if he might have used the piano to compose that particular work. He had an incredible musical memory, could also work things out in his head, such as composing a prelude in his head while playing a fugue - reread my last post - and he was capable of incredible musical feats, starting at the age of six, throughout his lifetime, and some of you just do not want to admit anything along those extraordinary lines when there are first-hand accounts that you may not have fully understood nor accept. You have debunked nothing, IMO, and are generally dismissive of his extraordinary abilities. I'm suggesting that most of these accounts are true and that it would behoove the academics, if they actually are one, to be a little more respectful.

https://www.talkclassical.com/61635-composers-most-natural-talent.html#post1647952


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## EdwardBast

stomanek said:


> Yes me too. Haydn himself stated more or less than technically Mozart's compositional ability was very academic. *He must have worked exceptionally hard to get all the details correct*.


I'm not sure what you're driving at, but I think the opposite is true. Filling in the details was so trivial for him after he had the overall idea plotted, that he didn't even consider writing the inner parts to be an element of the composition process. It was just tedious and obvious detail work for him. That's probably why he put the completion date for a work at a point before it was actually finished. For him the composition was done and it was only "writing" from there.


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## PlaySalieri

EdwardBast said:


> I'm not sure what you're driving at, but I think the opposite is true. Filling in the details was so trivial for him after he had the overall idea plotted, that he didn't even consider writing the inner parts to be an element of the composition process. It was just tedious and obvious detail work for him. That's probably why he put the completion date for a work at a point before it was actually finished. For him the composition was done and it was only "writing" from there.


Let me correct that:

He must have worked exceptionally hard.


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## EdwardBast

Larkenfield said:


> Because you think most everything's an exaggeration and try to debunk his ability. He had an incredible memory. You are short-changing his ability. You have no idea whether he always made sketches at the piano or not, so he may have not always needed a piano in order to sketch or compose though he may have preferred it. Thinking that his using the piano was his "standard" way of doing it doesn't preclude his ability to compose without it. He simply preferred it.
> 
> He couldn't compose anything without the piano, really? How did he transcribe the Miserere that he heard at the Vatican? He memorized it after hearing it once and then went home and wrote it out, later to make a few minor revisions after a second visit, and he didn't have a piano with him at the time to memorize it - though maybe he had one in his pocket? - but may have used it when he got home, though I rather doubt it because I posted an example where he could directly copy something out of his head that had already been composed but had yet not been written down even if he might have used the piano to compose that particular work. He had an incredible musical memory, could also work things out in his head, such as composing a prelude in his head while playing a fugue - reread my last post - and he was capable of incredible musical feats, starting at the age of six, throughout his lifetime, and some of you just do not want to admit anything along those extraordinary lines when there are first-hand accounts that you may not have fully understood nor accept. You have debunked nothing, IMO, and are generally dismissive of his extraordinary abilities. I'm suggesting that most of these accounts are true and that it would behoove the academics, if they actually are one, to be a little more respectful.
> 
> https://www.talkclassical.com/61635-composers-most-natural-talent.html#post1647952


Of course Mozart could compose music without a piano. All composers with perfect pitch and many without it did so. But his letter to his father suggests not having one was a severe impediment to his work. It could just be a matter of efficiency. He had to get a lot done fast - probably always  - and he clearly believed he wouldn't get it done without the piano.

The Miserere story is poorly sourced and unsupported by any documentary evidence. We've been through this in previous threads. Anyway, here we go again: The only evidence it ever happened is the testimony of Leopold and an account 20 years after the fact by Mozart's sister, the latter likely based on the former. The score of the piece was owned by the Vatican and not available to anyone in the Mozart family and the alleged transcription does not survive. So, the only evidence we have that Mozart transcribed the Miserere (1) at all, and (2) correctly, is Leopold's testimony. The limiting factor here is Leopold's memory and ability, not Wofie's. Would Leopold, on one hearing, be able to read through what Wolfie allegedly wrote later and know whether or not it was a note for note transcription of a work he might or might not have remembered? Not bloody likely, and the whole story depends on this and this alone. And are you forgetting that Wolfie was the family meal-ticket for his early years and Leopold's job was promotion? In sum: The only evidence is dubious and came from someone with a perennial financial motive. When ones job is managing and promoting a prodigy, ones claims and anecdotes are going to, and should be, greeted with skepticism.

I'm not dismissive of Mozart's abilities in the least. The genius of his music speaks for itself. I don't need silly miracle stories and bogus deification to appreciate his achievements. I'm not looking for deities to worship, I'm looking for composers to listen to.


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## Larkenfield

EdwardBast said:


> Of course Mozart could compose music without a piano. All composers with perfect pitch and many without it did so. But his letter to his father suggests not having one was a severe impediment to his work. It could just be a matter of efficiency. He had to get a lot done fast - probably always  - and he clearly believed he wouldn't get it done without the piano.
> 
> The Miserere story is poorly sourced and unsupported by any documentary evidence. We've been through this in previous threads. Anyway, here we go again: The only evidence it ever happened is the testimony of Leopold and an account 20 years after the fact by Mozart's sister, the latter likely based on the former. The score of the piece was owned by the Vatican and not available to anyone in the Mozart family and the alleged transcription does not survive. So, the only evidence we have that Mozart transcribed the Miserere (1) at all, and (2) correctly, is Leopold's testimony. The limiting factor here is Leopold's memory and ability, not Wofie's. Would Leopold, on one hearing, be able to read through what Wolfie allegedly wrote later and know whether or not it was a note for note transcription of a work he might or might not have remembered? Not bloody likely, and the whole story depends on this and this alone. And are you forgetting that Wolfie was the family meal-ticket for his early years and Leopold's job was promotion? In sum: The only evidence is dubious and came from someone with a perennial financial motive. When ones job is managing and promoting a prodigy, ones claims and anecdotes are going to, and should be, greeted with skepticism.
> 
> I'm not dismissive of Mozart's abilities in the least. The genius of his music speaks for itself. I don't need silly miracle stories and bogus deification to appreciate his achievements. I'm not looking for deities to worship, I'm looking for composers to listen to.


Not having a piano did not suggest a "severe impediment" to composing, only that he preferred having one. Yes, having one suggests that it would be more efficient and expedient for him. Or did he carry a piano around him when he was making notes in his sketchbook or perhaps working out something in his head, which he was obviously capable of doing with an example that I previously posted where he said he was composing a prelude in his head while he was playing a fugue. Maybe you'd like to try that sometime.

The Miserere transcription is documented well enough. But of course you don't believe it because you don't think it's possible, and you've done nothing but try to screw up first-hand accounts. The only accounts are by Mozart's father and sister? How unreliable as if they would forget something like that even after 30 or 40 years after the fact. You don't want to believe him, that's your problem, and modern-day scholars love to try rewriting history because trying to debunk something is a way to build their own reputation at someone else's expense. It would certainly be possible for Leopold to tell whether the transcription of Miserere was accurate. He was a trained musician himself even if he could not transcribe it himself. So you are just speculating from your own limited point of view that discounts first-hand reports and historic accounts. Mozart did not have any access to the three authorized copies that Pope Clement had released previously.

I have posted numerous first-hand accounts of Mozart's ability starting at the age of six when he was capable of improvising like the little master that he was in front of kings and queens and you think he was incapable transcribe the Miserere when there were witnesses, including Mozart himself. I suggest that you consider that Leopold didn't have to lie because of Mozart's obvious genius, none of which you are willing to admit to.

The history of the Miserere and Mozart's visit to Pope Clement:

_"Three authorized copies of the work were distributed prior to 1770: to the Holy Roman Emperor, Leopold I; to the King of Portugal; and to Padre (Giovanni Battista) Martini.[1] However, none of them succeeded in capturing the beauty of the Miserere as performed annually in the Sistine Chapel. According to the popular story (backed up by family letters), fourteen-year-old Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was visiting Rome when he first heard the piece during the Wednesday service. Later that day, he wrote it down entirely from memory, returning to the Chapel that Friday to make minor corrections. Less than three months after hearing the song and transcribing it, Mozart had gained fame for the work and was summoned to Rome by Pope Clement XIV, who showered praise on him for his feat of musical genius and awarded him the Chivalric Order of the Golden Spur on July 4, 1770._

Obviously, the transcription by Mozart had been acknowledged and known at the time or there would have been no acknowledgment by the Pope when Mozart was 14, nor is there any proof that he'd hear the other three copies. There would be no point in trying to transcribe if he had, and there's no proof that he had, but just more speculation and guesswork.

From the National Catholic Register:





How many first-person accounts are required before one takes them into account? Or was Pope Clement lying too, in addition to Mozart's father? Please stop misunderstanding and mischaracterizing a composer with whom you evidently have little appreciation or understanding. Is one of the most naturally talented composers who ever lived and yet no one has ever been obligated to like his music.

Why Pope Clement gave Mozart a knighthood: 
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/the-sweetest-sound-why-the-pope-gave-mozart-a-knighthood/news-story/f4fe3e489b5d9a3c0aa55cceba40a8a8


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## hammeredklavier

Jacck said:


> much music by both Haydn and Mozart sounds a little same to me. Mozart composed 40 symphonies, but how many of those are really memorable? 5? And that is twice as truth for Haydn. He composed 100 symphonies. How many really stand out? So speed and productivity are not everything. But maybe it is just the classical period


Again, it's what _you_ think, people like you with your Romanticism-centric view. It says nothing about the objective quality of Mozart and Haydn's works in comparison with Beethoven's. 
If you aren't a die-hard Beethoven enthusiast you won't care for Beethoven's 1, 2, 4 cause they'll sound samey and not that memorable compared to his later ones.
I find Mozart's symphonies written at 17 and after: 23, 25, 26, 29, 31, 34, 35, 36, 38, 39, 40, 41 individual and different. 
Schumann and Wagner often criticized their contemporaries for being formulaic, but praised Mozart and Haydn for their inventiveness. ("Does it not seem as if Mozart's works become fresher and fresher the oftener we hear them?") 
Isn't it because Classical style composition may sound formulaic on the first glance, but within the boundaries of rules, there are intricacies and subtleties that add to it all kinds of variety?





_"Haydn, more than any other composer, especially Classical period composer, works really well on a number of levels."_

I say this again, if you find stuff like Christ on the Mount of Olives, Choral Fantasy, Ruins of Athens, Glorious Moment works of higher quality and individuality than Mozart's Salzburg choral works (



 // 



) or Haydn's late masses and oratorios, go ahead and keep saying "speed and productivity are not everything" regarding this subject. 
From discussing with other people outside of TC, I get this impression, with Beethoven, sometimes even more than the Romantic composers, there is this myth: "because he wrote less music, he wrote with higher quality".
If you find Beethoven's oeuvre so much higher in quality, why won't you listen to King Stephen?


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## KenOC

Larkenfield said:


> Not having a piano did not suggest a "severe impediment" to composing, only that he preferred having one.


Some composers preferred noodling at the piano (Beethoven certainly, and likely Mozart) while others (Haydn?) perhaps did not. Haydn, like Schubert, was no champion pianist.

Beethoven advised his pupil, Prince Rudolph, to keep a "practice piano" by his bedside for trying out ideas and jotting them down.

JS Bach was said by Forkel to compose easily anywhere, while riding in a coach for instance. Forkel said that Bach derided composers reliant on a keyboard as "finger composers."


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## jdec

EdwardBast said:


> The composing on the spot example you give seems likely to be exaggeration, at least. But if, for example, the piece was a minuet, *and by "compose" Mozart meant what Ulrich Konrad believes* he generally meant when he used the term,* then *the story is perhaps *not all that implausible. Making leeway for exaggerated length, that might mean two minutes of music, with the repeat signs doubling the finished length.* Perhaps even less if *one considers the internal repetitions within periods that are common for that type of piece. *But I'd guess *Mozart was stretching the truth a bit.
> ....
> 
> I'm not sure what you're driving at, but I think the opposite is true. *Filling in the details was so trivial for him after he had the overall idea plotted*, that he didn't even consider writing the inner parts to be an element of the composition process. It was just tedious and obvious detail work for him. *That's probably why he* put the completion date for a work at a point before it was actually finished. For him the composition was done and it was only "writing" from there.
> ....
> 
> Of course Mozart could compose music without a piano. All composers with perfect pitch and many without it did so. But his letter to his father *suggests* not having one was a severe impediment to his work. *It could just be* a matter of efficiency. He had to get a lot done fast - probably always  - and he clearly believed he wouldn't get it done without the piano.
> 
> The Miserere story is poorly sourced and unsupported by any documentary evidence. We've been through this in previous threads. Anyway, here we go again: The only evidence it ever happened is the testimony of Leopold and an account 20 years after the fact by Mozart's sister, the latter likely based on the former. The score of the piece was owned by the Vatican and not available to anyone in the Mozart family and the alleged transcription does not survive. So, the only evidence we have that Mozart transcribed the Miserere (1) at all, and (2) correctly, is Leopold's testimony. The limiting factor here is Leopold's memory and ability, not Wofie's. Would Leopold, on one hearing, be able to read through what Wolfie allegedly wrote later and know whether or not it was a note for note transcription of a work he might or might not have remembered? *Not bloody likely*, and the whole story depends on this and this alone. And are you forgetting that Wolfie was the family meal-ticket for his early years and Leopold's job was promotion? In sum: The only evidence is dubious and came from someone with a perennial financial motive. When ones job is managing and promoting a prodigy, ones claims and anecdotes are going to, and *should be, greeted with skepticism*.
> 
> I'm not dismissive of Mozart's abilities in the least. The genius of his music speaks for itself. I don't need silly miracle stories and bogus deification to appreciate his achievements. I'm not looking for deities to worship, I'm looking for composers to listen to.


Really, you just speculate a bit too much, and don't really debunk anything.


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## Guest

HSW said:


> Masterpieces are masterpieces, but some composers worked harder than others to create one. So which composers had the most inborn talent?


A shame the OP hasn't returned to comment or clarify in respose to people's suggestions.

I'd like to ask the OP whether his reference to working harder is meant to imply that those with "inborn talent" didn't have to work hard, or that they did?

The ability to work hard is presumably as much an inborn talent as the ability to dash off a masterpiece in five minutes.


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## Enthusiast

Jacck said:


> much music by both Haydn and Mozart sounds a little same to me. Mozart composed 40 symphonies, but how many of those are really memorable? 5? And that is twice as truth for Haydn. He composed 100 symphonies. How many really stand out? So speed and productivity are not everything. But maybe it is just the classical period


I also find most of Mozart's symphonies after 21 - and many earlier ones as well - to be very memorable. They are filled with highly imaginative ideas and are unique works of incredible imagination.


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## PlaySalieri

*Mozart composed 40 symphonies, but how many of those are really memorable? 5? *

the bulk are juvenelia.

from the early g minor onwards - I would say 11 are memorable. 25 29 31 32 33 35 36 38 39 40 41

24 and 26 is good too to so 13


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## PlaySalieri

EdwardBast said:


> Of course Mozart could compose music without a piano. All composers with perfect pitch and many without it did so. But his letter to his father suggests not having one was a severe impediment to his work. It could just be a matter of efficiency. He had to get a lot done fast - probably always  - and he clearly believed he wouldn't get it done without the piano.
> 
> The Miserere story is poorly sourced and unsupported by any documentary evidence. We've been through this in previous threads. Anyway, here we go again: The only evidence it ever happened is the testimony of Leopold and an account 20 years after the fact by Mozart's sister, the latter likely based on the former. The score of the piece was owned by the Vatican and not available to anyone in the Mozart family and the alleged transcription does not survive. So, the only evidence we have that Mozart transcribed the Miserere (1) at all, and (2) correctly, is Leopold's testimony. The limiting factor here is Leopold's memory and ability, not Wofie's. Would Leopold, on one hearing, be able to read through what Wolfie allegedly wrote later and know whether or not it was a note for note transcription of a work he might or might not have remembered? Not bloody likely, and the whole story depends on this and this alone. And are you forgetting that Wolfie was the family meal-ticket for his early years and Leopold's job was promotion? In sum: The only evidence is dubious and came from someone with a perennial financial motive. When ones job is managing and promoting a prodigy, ones claims and anecdotes are going to, and should be, greeted with skepticism.
> 
> I'm not dismissive of Mozart's abilities in the least. The genius of his music speaks for itself. I don't need silly miracle stories and bogus deification to appreciate his achievements. I'm not looking for deities to worship, I'm looking for composers to listen to.


Employing the tools of historians - I think what you say is correct.

It amounts to hearsay - but then so do many of the claims made in relation to Mozart's feats.

That does not make the music less remarkable.


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## hammeredklavier

EdwardBast said:


> I'm not looking for deities to worship, I'm looking for composers to listen to.


Neither am I. But I still like to listen to Mozart's own setting of the Miserere text: 'Miserere in A minor K85', which he composed in Bologna months after the incident. That's what's important to me.


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## EdwardBast

stomanek said:


> Employing the tools of historians - I think what you say is correct.
> 
> It amounts to hearsay - but then so do many of the claims made in relation to Mozart's feats.
> 
> *That does not make the music less remarkable.*


Of course not! Requiring the performance of miracles by Mozart - many of which I suspect were indeed within his abilities - and defending them even when they are dubious, undocumented, or contradicted by the evidence, just strikes me as weird, the same way it would if modern Christians pinned their faith on whether or not Jesus actually changed water into wine. It's beside the point and not a healthy thing to obsess about. It doesn't bring one closer to the actual Mozart, which is something I imagine those who love his music might wish to do.

Another practical matter one should consider with respect to the Allegri _Miserere_ story is that had Mozart actually produced a usable transcription of the work, he or Leopold could have sold it to a publisher within a week! The music being widely sought and jealously guarded by the Church, that transcription, I would think, would have brought a pretty penny. Back then pirating new music was a paying gig. Publishers sent agents into performances to transcribe popular arias for immediate profit, just as in our recent past bootleggers with portable recorders infiltrated rock concerts.


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## Guest

KenOC said:


> Haydn also said that he himself composed very slowly. I was surprised to read that!
> 
> But some time back I looked at the hours of music Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven produced during their working years (as well as I could) and divided the hours by the years. IIRC, Haydn and Beethoven produced very similar hours of music per year, while Mozart was about double that.
> 
> I'll add: A fair amount of music by both Haydn and Mozart seems to have been lost, but very little Beethoven. I didn't try to adjust for that.


When you did your calculations, did you allow (even crudely) for quality differences in the music that was produced by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven over their lifetimes?

It's pretty obvious that if no adjustments for quality are made it will very likely produce highly spurious results, since early (juvenile) work was not as good as work that was produced much later. This much is obvious, especially for Mozart and Haydn.

I realise that it's very difficult to assess quality, but as a rough indicator I've had a very quick at the various works of these composers that got into the top 30 of the various TC "recommended" lists across the various main genres. This work was done several years ago, but the results are easily obtainable from the relevant section of this Forum.

The number 30 of works selected was arbitrary. I identified for Mozart there are 33 works, Beethoven 34, Haydn 10. I also included Schubert, 17.

If you then take the number of years over which these works were composed, and work out the ratio of works per year on average then Mozart and Schubert stand well above Beethoven, who is above Haydn.

Admittedly it's very crude, but it seems better than focusing simply on just a few selected works and trying to work exactly over how many days/weeks/months it took a composer to complete the task. As has been pointed out, there's no way of being sure when the process first started for any work, since preliminary ideas and sketches could have been done without any record having been kept.


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## PlaySalieri

EdwardBast said:


> Of course not! Requiring the performance of miracles by Mozart - many of which I suspect were indeed within his abilities - and defending them even when they are dubious, undocumented, or contradicted by the evidence, just strikes me as weird, the same way it would if modern Christians pinned their faith on whether or not Jesus actually changed water into wine. It's beside the point and not a healthy thing to obsess about. It doesn't bring one closer to the actual Mozart, which is something I imagine those who love his music might wish to do.
> 
> Another practical matter one should consider with respect to the Allegri _Miserere_ story is that had Mozart actually produced a usable transcription of the work, he or Leopold could have sold it to a publisher within a week! The music being widely sought and jealously guarded by the Church, that transcription, I would think, would have brought a pretty penny. Back then pirating new music was a paying gig. Publishers sent agents into performances to transcribe popular arias for immediate profit, just as in our recent past bootleggers with portable recorders infiltrated rock concerts.


And yet when you debunk an unlikely story - for some, this diminishes their opinion.

Many Christians do pin their faith on the miracles reported in, but not corroborated anywhere else, the gospels. But let's not get into that.


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## PlaySalieri

KenOC said:


> Haydn also said that he himself composed very slowly. *I was surprised to read that!*
> 
> But some time back I looked at the hours of music Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven produced during their working years (as well as I could) and divided the hours by the years. IIRC, Haydn and Beethoven produced very similar hours of music per year, while Mozart was about double that.
> 
> I'll add: A fair amount of music by both Haydn and Mozart seems to have been lost, but very little Beethoven. I didn't try to adjust for that.


You must be being ironic right?

Haydn lived not far off 104

time for 1 symphony per year, almost


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## PlaySalieri

Partita said:


> When you did your calculations, did you allow (even crudely) for quality differences in the music that was produced by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven over their lifetimes?
> 
> It's pretty obvious that if no adjustments for quality are made it will very likely produce highly spurious results, since early (juvenile) work was not as good as work that was produced much later. This much is obvious, especially for Mozart and Haydn.
> 
> I realise that it's very difficult to assess quality, but as a rough indicator I've had a very quick at the various works of these composers that got into the top 30 of the various TC "recommended" lists across the various main genres. This work was done several years ago, but the results are easily obtainable from the relevant section of this Forum.
> 
> The number 30 of works selected was arbitrary. I identified for Mozart there are 33 works, Beethoven 34, Haydn 10. I also included Schubert, 17.
> 
> If you then take the number of years over which these works were composed, and work out the ratio of works per year on average then Mozart and Schubert stand well above Beethoven, who is above Haydn.
> 
> Admittedly it's very crude, but it seems better than focusing simply on just a few selected works and trying to work exactly over how many days/weeks/months it took a composer to complete the task. As has been pointed out, there's no way of being sure when the process first started for any work, since preliminary ideas and sketches could have been done without any record having been kept.


whichever way you try to calculate great works per year - there is always going to be some bias going to one composer or another.

Beethoven was starting to compose what we might call great works at the age of 30. At 30 Mozart had his first acknowledged masterwork behind him at 18 (K185).

why not total up Mozart's masterworks from age 30 till death 6 years later.

and compare with Beethoven's 6 most productive years.

This method should advantage Beethoven - but I am near certain we will see Mozart is ahead.

Then again - Mozart did not have Beethoven's financial security - so needed to compose many works in X time to support himself and his wife/children.

I give up - there is no satisfactory method.


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## janxharris

EdwardBast said:


> Of course not! Requiring the performance of miracles by Mozart - many of which I suspect were indeed within his abilities - and defending them even when they are dubious, undocumented, or contradicted by the evidence, just strikes me as weird, the same way it would if modern Christians pinned their faith on whether or not Jesus actually changed water into wine. It's beside the point and not a healthy thing to obsess about. It doesn't bring one closer to the actual Mozart, which is something I imagine those who love his music might wish to do.
> 
> Another practical matter one should consider with respect to the Allegri _Miserere_ story is that had Mozart actually produced a usable transcription of the work, he or Leopold could have sold it to a publisher within a week! The music being widely sought and jealously guarded by the Church, that transcription, I would think, would have brought a pretty penny. Back then pirating new music was a paying gig. Publishers sent agents into performances to transcribe popular arias for immediate profit, just as in our recent past bootleggers with portable recorders infiltrated rock concerts.


Since the central tenet of a Christian is belief in the resurrection - (ie returning to life after dying for three days and so considered a miracle), then a true Christian wouldn't consider other stories of the miraculous as worthy of scepticsm.


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## PlaySalieri

janxharris said:


> Since the central tenet of a Christian is belief in the resurrection - (ie returning to life after dying for three days and so considered a miracle), then a true Christian wouldn't consider other stories of the miraculous as worthy of scepticsm.


For once I agree with you.


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## Phil loves classical

janxharris said:


> Since the central tenet of a Christian is belief in the resurrection - (ie returning to life after dying for three days and so considered a miracle), then a true Christian wouldn't consider other stories of the miraculous as worthy of scepticsm.


Probably not the place here, but the oldest manuscripts of the gospel of Mark (probably the most reliable), the first gospel to be written, didn't have the resurrection, and ended with an empty tomb.


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## PlaySalieri

Phil loves classical said:


> *Probably not the place here*, but the oldest manuscripts of the gospel of Mark (probably the most reliable), the first gospel to be written, didn't have the resurrection, and ended with an empty tomb.


quite - isnt there an off topic section on tc?

next to TC - debunking religeon is my favourite online activity


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## Guest

stomanek said:


> whichever way you try to calculate great works per year - there is always going to be some bias going to one composer or another.
> 
> Beethoven was starting to compose what we might call great works at the age of 30. At 30 Mozart had his first acknowledged masterwork behind him at 18 (K185).
> 
> why not total up Mozart's masterworks from age 30 till death 6 years later.
> 
> and compare with Beethoven's 6 most productive years.
> 
> This method should advantage Beethoven - but I am near certain we will see Mozart is ahead.
> 
> Then again - Mozart did not have Beethoven's financial security - so needed to compose many works in X time to support himself and his wife/children.
> 
> I give up - there is no satisfactory method.


For what it may be worth, I'm pretty sure that Mozart would normally come out ahead of Beethoven if the yardstick was productivity in respect of the number of high quality works produced over a sensibly long period of time.

Although I think I may have been the first person in this thread to refer to the speed at which Mozart composed his last three symphonies as a possible indicator of his "natural talent", I wish I hadn't mentioned it now. I can appreciate the force of some of the objections to this measure of ability, as I don't think it provides a sufficiently broad time frame over which to assess any composer's productivity in producing high quality works. I would suggest that it needs to be much longer than a few months.

I'm also sceptical about the suggestion that Mozart's first acknowledged masterpiece was K185. What I think is preferable is to select the top "N" works in each main genre of music, as selected by members here, and then to aggregate the results across all genres. I know that the results of those exercises are also debateable (sample size etc), but at least they're based on opinions of a cross section of opinion here. I had no input in any of those excercises, but looking at the results they do not seem to be unreasonable to me on the whole.

This method of comparison would seem to be fair to all composers, as it doesn't involve any arbitrary selection of start/finish dates. The number "N" I took was 30, but it doesn't seem to be that critical. To repeat what I wrote earlier, it seems quite clear that Mozart and Schubert had by far the largest ratios of top rated works to the number of years over which it took to produce them. Of course, there were many other works that were written by each composer over the same period, but I have discounted these completely.

I fully accept that this is subject to uncertainty, and that no procedure is perfect. But it's better than simply counting the entire number works by a composer and dividing by the total length of their careers. It's also far better than arguing over how many weeks it took any composer to composer a very narrow selection of their works, in the present case Mozart's last 3 symphonies.

But so what, if Mozart and Schubert were more productive than Beethoven? It doesn't mean a thing, since Beethoven might have deliberately preferred a less hectic life, or maybe his finances didn't require him to work as fast as Mozart. There are any number of reasons why productivity rates can vary, even substantially, among composers, and yet tell us nothing definitive about the underlying "naturalness" of their respective abilities.


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## Oldhoosierdude

To the original question I would venture Mozart and Mendelssohn. Leastways, their inborn talent showed at an early age.


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## PlaySalieri

I cited K185 (sy in g ) probably because it is the best known of Mozart's early works - a substantial 4 mvt symphony, ambitious minor key work of exceptional quality. That's my personal assessment. There are works before - and I think K139 is his first great sacred work - but K185 is well known. 
I agree with what you say anyway about the rest.


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## Open Book

EdwardBast said:


> The composing on the spot example you give seems likely to be exaggeration, at least. But if, for example, the piece was a minuet, and by "compose" Mozart meant what Ulrich Konrad believes he generally meant when he used the term,* then the story is perhaps not all that implausible. Making leeway for exaggerated length, that might mean two minutes of music, with the repeat signs doubling the finished length. Perhaps even less if one considers the internal repetitions within periods that are common for that type of piece. But I'd guess Mozart was stretching the truth a bit.
> 
> *Melody and harmony without the inner voices figured out.
> 
> Yes, Beethoven was a master of improvisation by all accounts. I read (in Swafford's biography) a description of a duel he had with another pianist/composer. His opponent went first. Then Beethoven apparently took a piece of his opponent's music, contemptuously turned it upside down, and then blew the guy off the floor by improvising on the inversion of one of the guy's themes. He could apparently entertain for hours extemporaneously.


Who was Beethoven's opponent? It's amazing how many musicians/composers from the classical era are all but forgotten now because the Beethovens and Mozarts blew them all away.


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## 1996D

There is no such thing as natural composing talent. Top composers are creative geniuses that are musically talented.


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## hammeredklavier

EdwardBast said:


> It's beside the point and not a healthy thing to obsess about.


Again, let's not pretend there is no unhealthy obsession with Beethoven. The truth about Beethoven is that he kept composing incidental music works like The Consecration of the House instead of "churning out" (as you put it) sacred or stage works like Haydn and Mozart is because he struggled; he struggled composing works of grand scale. Took him years and years to compose one and if he actually tried to "churned out' works of such genres like Haydn and Mozart he would have spent all his lifetime doing it, he wouldn't have had time for other stuff. Brahms was right. Was Beethoven more Classical or Romantic?
Look at these extreme Beethoven enthusiasts claiming Why does music get so angsty and dark with/after Beethoven? Mozart wrote much music that's not serious. Well, how "serious" is Beethoven's series of incidental music then? Dervish Chorus from Ruins of Athens? Certainly something so weird it doesn't belong in either classicism or romanticism, isn't it.
I see why there is such an obsessive hype to elevate areas he actually did superbly - anything in "late Beethoven" particularly in the genre of string quartets and piano sonatas to divine status using extreme hyperboles such as "New Testament of Music", "pinnacle of humanity" (even when Beethoven piano sonatas as a set don't really match the two books of Bach WTC in terms of consistency of quality)

Some people diminish Mozart's fantasie-type pieces K394, K475, K511, K608, saying that they're mere pastiche of his predecessors'. Then I ask. If it's that unimpressive as they claim, why didn't Beethoven write a proper work of the form for once. What makes Beethoven's string quartets so special from older stuff like the minuet from Mozart Quintet K516 then? In my view, it's the same kind of art-music than the kind his predecessors have been producing, listen to the second movement of A minor Op.132, isn't it the kind of art-music like Mozart's chromatic acrobatics in the minuet of K590 in F major. Whatabout stuff like Cavatina - The slow movements of Haydn Op.76 No.1 in G or Mozart K428 in E flat - Beethoven merely continued of the tradition.

_"Beethoven - the great messiah who brought emotion to music. He changed music forever."_ (as if others didn't)
_"He's so holy he is set apart from all other worldly categories (classical, romantic) the "mortals" belong."_
_"Mozart (and Haydn) just churned out derivative crap without caring for quality, Beethoven was different."_

Give _me_ a break please.


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## KenOC

Unattributed quotes (especially when actually placed in quotation marks) are often hallmarks of a resort to straw men.


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## Larkenfield

1996D said:


> There is no such thing as natural composing talent. Top composers are creative geniuses that are musically talented.


Yes, there is. Some youngsters with musical talent are naturally attracted to composing at a very young age without being prompted or they'd only be interested in performing on an instrument. Composer Alma Deutscher is a contemporary example: She has a natural compunction to compose, including opera, a violin concerto, songs, as well as performing as a soloist on violin and piano. She is amazingly gifted who understands the importance of the dedication and hard work required to develop her talent. It's necessary to understand and appreciate the drive, the inner drive, that some prodigies have to compose when the genius is there, and it's a drive they are born with that ultimately determines their success. It's not hard to spot genius, but in the greatest examples, genius requires a great deal of support by those who can help educate them in order to fully develop. This was true of Mozart, Mendelsohn, and others. They had teachers and mentors.


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## Larkenfield

EdwardBast: “Another practical matter one should consider with respect to the Allegri Miserere story is that had Mozart actually produced a usable transcription of the work, he or Leopold could have sold it to a publisher within a week! The music being widely sought and jealously guarded by the Church, that transcription, I would think, would have brought a pretty penny. Back then pirating new music was a paying gig. Publishers sent agents into performances to transcribe popular arias for immediate profit, just as in our recent past bootleggers with portable recorders infiltrated rock concerts.”
---
More materialistically baseless speculation. More guessing and groundless suppositions. More wild imagination. More skepticism based on nothing. You are basing what he might have done on what you would have done and measuring him from a 21st-century standard. Beautiful.

At the time that Mozart transcribe the Miserere there was a ban against doing so under the risk of being excommunicated by the Catholic Church. Are you aware of that? Have you given that any weight? If you’d read and understood the background of what had happened with his transcription, you would know this… you would know there was a great risk involved. For Mozart, who was a devout Catholic, to have profited under the circumstances of the ban would have been unthinkable and a further reason to be excommunicated. Can you understand that? Can you understand the risks involved that were more than about his fame or money? He was in danger of being excommunicated because of the ban against anyone having an unauthorized copy, and publishing it would been religious suicide. He was already in danger of being excommunicated by transcribing it in the first under the ban by the Catholic Church. Because of that ban, that’s what so remarkable about Pope Clement officially greeting him and awarding him later for this remarkable accomplishment. Perhaps you have to understand something about Mozart and his relationship with the Catholic Church to appreciate the drama that’s going on here rather than trying to discredit first-hand accounts by people who were there, including Mozart himself, his father, and the Pope, because you don’t care to give them any weight. It’s all just exaggeration to you, just fiction, something made up, something distorted, something too remarkable to be possible when there are historical resources that say that the Miserere transcription, and the consequent events related to it, happened.


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## KenOC

I'm a bit confused. In April 1770, Mozart wrote down the Miserere from memory (he actually heard it twice, on two different days). Leopold wrote to his wife: "You have often heard of the famous Miserere in Rome, which is so greatly prized that the performers are forbidden on pain of excommunication to take away a single part of it, to copy it or to give it to anyone. But we have it already. Wolfgang has written it down."

In July, just three months later, evidently in recognition of his accomplishment, the pope awarded Mozart the Chivalric Order of the Golden Spur. That may have been at Leopold's urging. In any event, the award seems to have been not highly prized.*

Wiki says, "Sometime during his travels, he met the British historian Charles Burney, who obtained the piece from him and took it to London, where it was published in 1771." Still, Mozart seems to have escaped excommunication -- maybe because the threat applied to the performers, not listeners.

I didn't realize any part of this account was in serious doubt.

More in this article.

*'Mozart was at first proud of his papal honour, signing a letter to his sister "Chevalier de Mozart". He wore the insignia of the order on his breast, as seen in a 1777 portrait. In a letter to his father on October 17 of that year, however, Mozart recounts how, invited to give a concert, he was mocked by assembled noblemen who claimed the cross was worth no more than a pinch of snuff.'

' "It is not gold, only copper, ha! ha!" one nobleman said. "By no means - it is lead, ha! ha!" Mozart replied, burning with rage. After that he removed the title "Knight" from his signature.'


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## Larkenfield

KenOC said:


> I'm a bit confused. In April 1770, Mozart wrote down the Miserere from memory. Leopold wrote to his wife: "You have often heard of the famous Miserere in Rome, which is so greatly prized that the performers are forbidden on pain of excommunication to take away a single part of it, to copy it or to give it to anyone. But we have it already. Wolfgang has written it down."
> 
> In July, just three months later, the pope awarded Mozart the Chivalric Order of the Golden Spur.
> 
> Wiki says, "Sometime during his travels, he met the British historian Charles Burney, who obtained the piece from him and took it to London, where it was published in 1771." Still, Mozart seems to have escaped excommunication (maybe because the threat applied to the performers, not listeners).
> 
> I didn't realize any part of this account was in serious doubt.
> 
> More in this article.


I mentioned the award being given by the Pope in 1770 in an earlier post, which indicated a total reversal of the Catholic Church's ban and risk of excommunication on having a copy of the Miserere. That the award was given is proof that Mozart did an accurate transcription and his transcription ended the ban on that music and on the risk of excommunication. What greater proof can be provided that his remarkable feat of memory and transcription is true? And the skeptics are just going to have to work it out within their own brains. I believe the short answer is that the ban was lifted and the policy changed because Pope Clement was duly impressed. There are pictures of Mozart wearing that award.


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## KenOC

I agree that the pope's award is a good indicator that Mozart's transcription was accurate! It's an interesting point though that Leopold mentions excommunication for _performers _making copies, etc. Mozart, not being a performer of the work, may never have been in danger at all.


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## MarkW

Going back to the OP's original question, what about Mahler? He had gifts and facility that even people who despised his music wished they had.


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## Larkenfield

It


MarkW said:


> Going back to the OP's original question, what about Mahler? He had gifts and facility that even people who despised his music wished they had.


Good question!

"When he was four years old, Gustav discovered his grandparents' piano and took to it immediately.[9] He developed his performing skills sufficiently to be considered a local _Wunderkind_ and gave his first public performance at the town theatre when he was ten years old.[4][7] Although Gustav loved making music, his school reports from the Iglau Gymnasium portrayed him as absent-minded and unreliableq in academic work."

So here again is evidence of a future great's musical interests and potentials showing at a young age but perhaps with some mental barriers to overcome in his thinking and/or focus.

His good fortune, which all famous composers must have to some degree as part of the ultimate fulfillment of their destiny, is that he had a father who supported his interests and that helped Mahler get into the Vienna Conservatory where he continued to study piano but also started composing around the age of 17. I see him as more of a late bloomer though he knew he wanted to compose starting at a relatively young age.

I think what ultimately happened as a result of his conducting is that he heard everything that was being done of importance in music at the time and also, perhaps more importantly, what was not being done and where there might be room for him. But it took him a while to go through this process until everything had been sorted and he found his groove. But after that, I think he was as focused as any composer who ever lived and never wasted a moment on what he didn't want to do.

His extraordinary genius was that he could compose on an extraordinarily high-level on demand during the summer months when he was not conducting and isolated somewhere. I find that truly remarkable, and that the lives of the great composers are very much worth exploring with rewarding insights into their character and creations. The death of six of Mahler's twelve siblings had a great impact on him at an early age, but how many know that?


----------



## Phil loves classical

hammeredklavier said:


> Again, let's not pretend there is no unhealthy obsession with Beethoven. The truth about Beethoven is that he kept composing incidental music works like The Consecration of the House instead of "churning out" (as you put it) sacred or stage works like Haydn and Mozart is because he struggled; he struggled composing works of grand scale. Took him years and years to compose one and if he actually tried to "churned out' works of such genres like Haydn and Mozart he would have spent all his lifetime doing it, he wouldn't have had time for other stuff. Brahms was right. Was Beethoven more Classical or Romantic?
> Look at these extreme Beethoven enthusiasts claiming Why does music get so angsty and dark with/after Beethoven? Mozart wrote much music that's not serious. Well, how "serious" is Beethoven's series of incidental music then? Dervish Chorus from Ruins of Athens? Certainly something so weird it doesn't belong in either classicism or romanticism, isn't it.
> I see why there is such an obsessive hype to elevate areas he actually did superbly - anything in "late Beethoven" particularly in the genre of string quartets and piano sonatas to divine status using extreme hyperboles such as "New Testament of Music", "pinnacle of humanity" (even when Beethoven piano sonatas as a set don't really match the two books of Bach WTC in terms of consistency of quality)
> 
> Some people diminish Mozart's fantasie-type pieces K394, K475, K511, K608, saying that they're mere pastiche of his predecessors'. Then I ask. If it's that unimpressive as they claim, why didn't Beethoven write a proper work of the form for once. What makes Beethoven's string quartets so special from older stuff like the minuet from Mozart Quintet K516 then? In my view, it's the same kind of art-music than the kind his predecessors have been producing, listen to the second movement of A minor Op.132, isn't it the kind of art-music like Mozart's chromatic acrobatics in the minuet of K590 in F major. Whatabout stuff like Cavatina - The slow movements of Haydn Op.76 No.1 in G or Mozart K428 in E flat - Beethoven merely continued of the tradition.
> 
> _"Beethoven - the great messiah who brought emotion to music. He changed music forever."_ (as if others didn't)
> _"He's so holy he is set apart from all other worldly categories (classical, romantic) the "mortals" belong."_
> _"Mozart (and Haydn) just churned out derivative crap without caring for quality, Beethoven was different."_
> 
> Give _me_ a break please.


Mozart also struggled in works that were off the beaten path. His quartets dedicated to Haydn were full of corrections and changes, and fragments found from the period. He admitted to Haydn he laboured hard on them. While I have no doubt he wrote the Linz symphony in 4 days, and it is perfectly proportioned, etc., how original and challenging is it really? Beethoven had to do more than just match Mozart to be relevant, which is why his earlier period music is not very memorable (besides not really measuring up to Mozart's best). His narratives had to be longer and more elaborate. He didn't want to be another Hummel. He pushed and expanded on the forms boundaries, while Mozart was content to excel within them.


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## PlaySalieri

Phil loves classical said:


> Mozart also struggled in works that were off the beaten path. His quartets dedicated to Haydn were full of corrections and changes, and fragments found from the period. He admitted to Haydn he laboured hard on them. While I have no doubt he wrote the Linz symphony in 4 days, and it is perfectly proportioned, etc., *how original and challenging is it really?* Beethoven had to do more than just match Mozart to be relevant, which is why his earlier period music is not very memorable (besides not really measuring up to Mozart's best). His narratives had to be longer and more elaborate. He didn't want to be another Hummel. He pushed and expanded on the forms boundaries, while Mozart was content to excel within them.


Seems to me and many others it is his best symphony composed up until that time - not that far off the last 4 in terms of quality.


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## Phil loves classical

stomanek said:


> Seems to me and many others it is his best symphony composed up until that time - not that far off the last 4 in terms of quality.


I love his Linz Symphony. Great music doesn't have to be all that original or challenging. Just saying some types of music requires a lot more time to work out. I wouldn't be surprised if he cranked out his Piano Concerto 21 in a very short time, and doesn't diminish its quality.


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## hammeredklavier

Phil loves classical said:


> Mozart also struggled in works that were off the beaten path. His quartets dedicated to Haydn were full of corrections and changes, and fragments found from the period. He admitted to Haydn he laboured hard on them. While I have no doubt he wrote the Linz symphony in 4 days, and it is perfectly proportioned, etc., how original and challenging is it really? *Beethoven had to do more than just match Mozart to be relevant*, which is why his earlier period music is not very memorable (besides not really measuring up to Mozart's best). His narratives had to be longer and more elaborate. He didn't want to be another Hummel. He pushed and expanded on the forms boundaries, while Mozart was content to excel within them.


Originality and challenging-ness, there you go again. 
Hummel wrote piano concertos that foreshadowed Chopin, and Schumann. In comparison, how 'original' is Beethoven's 3rd concerto, by your logic? 
You think there's no _expansion of form_ in Mozart? Are you sure? Double exposition, double solo counterpart in Mozart's 24th concerto? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piano_Concerto_No._24_(Mozart)#Overview
If I ask you to define originality and challenging-ness and give me examples of them, I know you'll give the dotted homorhythmic Grosse Fuge as an example, while keep arguing that Mozart's 41th symphony is unimpressive. I'm a little getting tired of your logic and your criteria for judging music of different periods. You sound like one of those blind enthusiasts who diminish Mozart Adagio and Fugue for strings K546 as a mere fugal exercise at the same time elevate Beethoven Sonata Op.111 first movement to god-like status. New Testament or whatever.
Where in my posts did I say Mozart never made sketches? You people are the ones who make unreasonable argument: "Beethoven could perfectly compose like Mozart and Haydn in quantity if he wanted to, he just didn't cause he cared more for quality."

It's always the late quartets and late sonatas that people like you associate the image of Beethoven with. - The image of a guy who put lots of time and effort into his work. But how many are they in total? 10? How many other works "required more time to compose, because they're sooo original and challenging?"
What about stuff like Triple Concerto? Fantasy Op.77? Christ on the Mount of Olives? Mass in C Op.86? 8th symphony? How long do you think these should have taken to compose?


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## hammeredklavier

Phil loves classical said:


> how original and challenging is it really? Beethoven had to do more than just match Mozart to be relevant,


Creatures of Prometheus, Consecration of the House, Ruins of Athens, King Stephen. Surely Beethoven found choral and stage works of his predecessors too easy and boring, after composing one or two, he chose to be different. Truly a revolutionary who wanted challenge and adventure in all aspects, according to these people. Because it was waaay too easy for a genius like him.

_"what is much weaker in Beethoven compared to Mozart, and especially compared to Sebastian Bach, is the use of dissonance. Dissonance, true dissonance as Mozart used it, is not to be found in Beethoven. Look at Idomeneo. Not only is it a marvel, but as Mozart was still quite young and brash when he wrote it, it was a completely new thing. What marvelous dissonance! What harmony! You couldn't commission great music from Beethoven since he created only lesser works on commission-his more conventional pieces, his variations and the like. When Haydn or Mozart wrote on commission, it was the same as their other works. "_ -Johannes Brahms (1896) https://books.google.ca/books?id=7iwZ-qTuSkUC&pg=PA134
https://books.google.ca/books?id=7iwZ-qTuSkUC&pg=PA135


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## 1996D

Larkenfield said:


> Yes, there is. Some youngsters with musical talent are naturally attracted to composing at a very young age without being prompted or they'd only be interested in performing on an instrument. Composer Alma Deutscher is a contemporary example: She has a natural compunction to compose, including opera, a violin concerto, songs, as well as performing as a soloist on violin and piano. She is amazingly gifted who understands the importance of the dedication and hard work required to develop her talent. It's necessary to understand and appreciate the drive, the inner drive, that some prodigies have to compose when the genius is there, and it's a drive they are born with that ultimately determines their success. It's not hard to spot genius, but in the greatest examples, genius requires a great deal of support by those who can help educate them in order to fully develop. This was true of Mozart, Mendelsohn, and others. They had teachers and mentors.


I said top composers, and no, most composers are self taught after the basics are taught to them. From the very earliest works of Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms etc. you can already hear their originality and flair. Innovation after innovation, no different than da Vinci.


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## PlaySalieri

Phil loves classical said:


> I love his Linz Symphony. Great music doesn't have to be all that original or challenging. Just saying some types of music requires a lot more time to work out. I wouldn't be surprised if he cranked out his Piano Concerto 21 in a very short time, and doesn't diminish its quality.


I think the intro to the Linz is really quite original sounding for those times.


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## Enthusiast

Phil loves classical said:


> Mozart also struggled in works that were off the beaten path. His quartets dedicated to Haydn were full of corrections and changes, and fragments found from the period. He admitted to Haydn he laboured hard on them. While I have no doubt he wrote the Linz symphony in 4 days, and it is perfectly proportioned, etc., how original and challenging is it really? Beethoven had to do more than just match Mozart to be relevant, which is why his earlier period music is not very memorable (besides not really measuring up to Mozart's best). His narratives had to be longer and more elaborate. He didn't want to be another Hummel. He pushed and expanded on the forms boundaries, while Mozart was content to excel within them.


I always find it hard to think of serious composers struggling (against the competition?) to be original. Maybe it is the way the stories get written but it seems to me that composers might struggle to develop a distinctive voice but their struggle is to be true to themselves rather than to find a niche in the market. And then you say early Beethoven is not memorable! From his opus 1 onward I am amazed at how distinctive and inspired his music is! Your memory must be at fault - you may need a brain scan. :lol:


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## infracave

Open Book said:


> Who was Beethoven's opponent? It's amazing how many musicians/composers from the classical era are all but forgotten now because the Beethovens and Mozarts blew them all away.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Steibelt

_he arrived at the end of March 1800 at Vienna, where he is reported to have challenged Beethoven to a trial of skill at the house of Count von Fries. The always quoted account by Ferdinand Ries was written 37 years later; Ries did not attend it and became only later a student and a friend of Beethoven. Ries describes how Beethoven carried the day by improvising at length on a theme taken from the cello part of a new Steibelt piece, placed upside down on the music rack. Reportedly, Steibelt stormed out of the room, never to set foot in Vienna again._


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## fluteman

stomanek said:


> *Mozart composed 40 symphonies, but how many of those are really memorable? 5? *
> 
> the bulk are juvenelia.
> 
> from the early g minor onwards - I would say 11 are memorable. 25 29 31 32 33 35 36 38 39 40 41
> 
> 24 and 26 is good too to so 13


Taking your point at face value (I see nothing to be gained by debating something like this) Mozart wrote 13 'memorable' symphonies before his death at age 35. And, at least 11 memorable piano concertos. And imo, all of his piano sonatas are memorable, even the earliest ones. And his operas. And his sacred music. And his string trios, quartets and quintets. And his violin concertos. And his wind concertos. And so on. All by age 35. Even if you disregard everything he wrote before age 20 or so, his body of work is unequaled in western history.

I'm not sure what difference it makes that he composed at the piano. As an expert player and improviser from earliest childhood, that only seems natural. But he clearly had a good idea of what he was going to write before he sat down at the piano or put pen to paper, as there is no other way to explain his extraordinary output over such a short career.


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## PlaySalieri

fluteman said:


> Taking your point at face value (I see nothing to be gained by debating something like this) Mozart wrote 13 'memorable' symphonies before his death at age 35. And, at least 11 memorable piano concertos. And imo, all of his piano sonatas are memorable, even the earliest ones. And his operas. And his sacred music. And his string trios, quartets and quintets. And his violin concertos. And his wind concertos. And so on. All by age 35. *Even if you disregard everything he wrote before age 20 or so, his body of work is unequaled in western history. *
> 
> I'm not sure what difference it makes that he composed at the piano. As an expert player and improviser from earliest childhood, that only seems natural. But he clearly had a good idea of what he was going to write before he sat down at the piano or put pen to paper, as there is no other way to explain his extraordinary output over such a short career.


No argument from me.

Schubert also did a lot in a short life even if you disregard the lieder.

I certainly would not dismiss Mozart pre age 20 - violin concertos, pc 5 sy 24-26 and some fine masses and early operas that the world would be much poorer without.


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## EdwardBast

Larkenfield said:


> At the time that Mozart transcribe the Miserere there was a ban against doing so under the risk of being excommunicated by the Catholic Church. Are you aware of that? Have you given that any weight? If you'd read and understood the background of what had happened with his transcription, you would know this… you would know there was a great risk involved. For Mozart, who was a devout Catholic, to have profited under the circumstances of the ban would have been unthinkable and a further reason to be excommunicated. Can you understand that? Can you understand the risks involved that were more than about his fame or money? He was in danger of being excommunicated because of the ban against anyone having an unauthorized copy, and publishing it would been religious suicide. He was already in danger of being excommunicated by transcribing it in the first under the ban by the Catholic Church. Because of that ban, that's what so remarkable about Pope Clement officially greeting him and awarding him later for this remarkable accomplishment. Perhaps you have to understand something about Mozart and his relationship with the Catholic Church to appreciate the drama that's going on here rather than trying to discredit first-hand accounts by people who were there, including Mozart himself, his father, and the Pope, because you don't care to give them any weight. It's all just exaggeration to you, just fiction, something made up, something distorted, something too remarkable to be possible when there are historical resources that say that the Miserere transcription, and the consequent events related to it, happened.


There was no threat of excommunication for transcribing the Miserere. Pure myth. According to Robert Gutman's biography, Mozart made his attempt at transcribing the work over two visits to the Sistine Chapel, two hearings of the Miserere. He apparently was heard to play and sing an arrangement he had made of the piece. No copy exists of his efforts, and it is impossible to know how closely it captured the original. His efforts were allegedly praised by various people in Rome.


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## Phil loves classical

hammeredklavier said:


> Originality and challenging-ness, there you go again.
> Hummel wrote piano concertos that foreshadowed Chopin, and Schumann. In comparison, how 'original' is Beethoven's 3rd concerto, by your logic?
> You think there's no _expansion of form_ in Mozart? Are you sure? Double exposition, double solo counterpart in Mozart's 24th concerto? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piano_Concerto_No._24_(Mozart)#Overview
> If I ask you to define originality and challenging-ness and give me examples of them, I know you'll give the dotted homorhythmic Grosse Fuge as an example, while keep arguing that Mozart's 41th symphony is unimpressive. I'm a little getting tired of your logic and your criteria for judging music of different periods. You sound like one of those blind enthusiasts who diminish Mozart Adagio and Fugue for strings K546 as a mere fugal exercise at the same time elevate Beethoven Sonata Op.111 first movement to god-like status. New Testament or whatever.
> Where in my posts did I say Mozart never made sketches? You people are the ones who make unreasonable argument: "Beethoven could perfectly compose like Mozart and Haydn in quantity if he wanted to, he just didn't cause he cared more for quality."
> 
> It's always the late quartets and late sonatas that people like you associate the image of Beethoven with. - The image of a guy who put lots of time and effort into his work. But how many are they in total? 10? How many other works "required more time to compose, because they're sooo original and challenging?"
> What about stuff like Triple Concerto? Fantasy Op.77? Christ on the Mount of Olives? Mass in C Op.86? 8th symphony? How long do you think these should have taken to compose?


My response was in no way putting Mozart down. About scale, there is no symphony by Mozart in the scale of Beethoven's 3rd, or 9th. Mozart had started enlarging the form with his Jupiter symphony (which I never said is unimpressive, and just referring to some obvious exaggerations about the coda in the finale), but it was Beethoven who made more advancement in that department, using Haydn as a starting point. I'm a Mozart enthusiast, and I think you're being quite presumptuous.


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## Phil loves classical

hammeredklavier said:


> Creatures of Prometheus, Consecration of the House, Ruins of Athens, King Stephen. Surely Beethoven found choral and stage works of his predecessors too easy and boring, after composing one or two, he chose to be different. Truly a revolutionary who wanted challenge and adventure in all aspects, according to these people. Because it was waaay too easy for a genius like him.
> 
> _"what is much weaker in Beethoven compared to Mozart, and especially compared to Sebastian Bach, is the use of dissonance. Dissonance, true dissonance as Mozart used it, is not to be found in Beethoven. Look at Idomeneo. Not only is it a marvel, but as Mozart was still quite young and brash when he wrote it, it was a completely new thing. What marvelous dissonance! What harmony! You couldn't commission great music from Beethoven since he created only lesser works on commission-his more conventional pieces, his variations and the like. When Haydn or Mozart wrote on commission, it was the same as their other works. "_ -Johannes Brahms (1896) https://books.google.ca/books?id=7iwZ-qTuSkUC&pg=PA134
> https://books.google.ca/books?id=7iwZ-qTuSkUC&pg=PA135


I posted about that in the thread on that topic here, with examples

What did Brahms mean by "true dissonance"?

Brahms was just commenting on his preference in the use of dissonance. Beethoven used plenty of dissonance evidently, but not in the usage Brahms was after it seems.


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## hammeredklavier

The funny thing is, the same people who defended Beethoven's way to write melodies by saying things like:

_
"Beethoven's melodies are better for the type of music Beethoven was writing than Schubert's, and Schubert's melodies are better for his style. Beethoven wouldn't suddenly be a "better" composer if given Schubert's gifts for writing melodies."

"If a movement by Haydn used only simple triads, would that make it "less harmonic" than one by Brahms that used 7th chords? No, of course not. If a piece pounded out the same rhythm measure after measure would that make it "less rhythmic" than one that uses continually changing rhythms? No, of course not. The same goes for "melodic." You need to figure out what you are really trying to say because more or less "melodic" just doesn't do it. It makes no sense."
_

are now criticizing Haydn and Mozart for churning out 'unoriginal' and 'unchallenging' works, 













I guess now is the time to ask, why does the slow movement from Beethoven's 7th symphony go like dum ~ dum dum ~ dum~ dum~ with no clear melody? Whatabout the first movement of his 6th symphony. Because he wrote so hurriedly they contain melodies like them. Wrote them in 3 days, I suppose?










I'm not trying to put down Beethoven, I too honestly think he's a genius at supreme level. But those people should remember what they said: 'don't judge Beethoven by the standards like Mozart's or Tchaikovsky's. He's merely different.' 
These people always sound like only Beethoven deserves a kind of treatment totally different and special from all other artists. I'm baffled as to why.


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## hammeredklavier

Phil loves classical said:


> About scale, there is no symphony by Mozart in the scale of Beethoven's 3rd, or 9th.


Mahler symphonies are bigger than Beethoven's. By that logic, which of Beethoven's esteemed overtures use counterpoint like Die Zauberflote Overture?



Phil loves classical said:


> Brahms was just commenting on his preference in the use of dissonance.


Certainly that's not the only thing Brahms commented.

_"I realize that Beethoven's new personality and his new vision, which people recognized in his works, made him the greater composer in their minds. But after fifty years, our views need more perspective. One must be able to distinguish between the charm that comes from newness and the value that is intrinsic to a work. I admit that Beethoven's concerto is more modern, but not more significant!
I also realize that Beethoven's First Symphony made a strong impression on people. That's the nature of a new vision. But the last three Mozart symphonies are far more significant. "_

But anyway,

I'm being presumptuous? On the contrary, I think you frustrate me by replying without reading my posts carefully. Sure, stuff like Appassionata, Hammerklavier, 3rd symphony, 9th symphony, some late string quartets, required hard work, I understand. 
Let's hear what else in his output required him years of labor to compose because they're not the kind of 'derivative crap' Mozart and Haydn 'churned out'. Choral Fantasy?


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## KenOC

hammeredklavier said:


> Mahler symphonies are bigger than Beethoven's. By that logic, which of Beethoven's esteemed overtures use counterpoint like Die Zauberflote Overture?


I think you'll find plenty of counterpoint, well-used, in B's _Consecration of the House_ overture.


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## Phil loves classical

hammeredklavier said:


> Mahler symphonies are bigger than Beethoven's. By that logic, which of Beethoven's esteemed overtures use counterpoint like Die Zauberflote Overture?
> 
> Certainly that's not the only thing Brahms commented.
> 
> _"I realize that Beethoven's new personality and his new vision, which people recognized in his works, made him the greater composer in their minds. But after fifty years, our views need more perspective. One must be able to distinguish between the charm that comes from newness and the value that is intrinsic to a work. I admit that Beethoven's concerto is more modern, but not more significant!
> I also realize that Beethoven's First Symphony made a strong impression on people. That's the nature of a new vision. But the last three Mozart symphonies are far more significant. "_
> 
> But anyway,
> 
> I'm being presumptuous? On the contrary, I think you frustrate me by replying without reading my carefully. Sure, stuff like Appassionata, Hammerklavier, 3rd symphony, 9th symphony, some late string quartets, required hard work, I understand.
> Let's hear what else in his output required him years of labor to compose because they're not the kind of 'derivative crap' Mozart and Haydn 'churned out'. Choral Fantasy?


I'm saying you were presumptuous in what you expect I would prefer or praise between Beethoven and Mozart in that previous post. I don't think anyone in our day and age would doubt Beethoven's First is not more significant than Mozart's last 3 symphonies (I'd throw in the last 6 for good measure). I don't even like Beethoven's Grosse Fuge, or that much of his later output, nor would I ever call the music of Mozart or Haydn derivative crap. But how are those Divertimenti and Serenades you posted above very original and challenging? They were not intended to be. I thought I made the concessions in my statements clear.


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## EdwardBast

hammeredklavier said:


> The funny thing is, the same people who defended Beethoven's way to write melodies by saying things like:
> 
> _
> "If a movement by Haydn used only simple triads, would that make it "less harmonic" than one by Brahms that used 7th chords? No, of course not. If a piece pounded out the same rhythm measure after measure would that make it "less rhythmic" than one that uses continually changing rhythms? No, of course not. The same goes for "melodic." You need to figure out what you are really trying to say because more or less "melodic" just doesn't do it. It makes no sense."
> _


I wrote the bit you quoted above. You didn't understand what I wrote then and you still don't. It has nothing to do with defending Beethoven's or anyone's melodic style. You had been stating that one composer's music was "more melodic" than another's. I was suggesting that this statement makes no sense and you should clarify your thinking. You haven't.


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## KenOC

Both Schubert and Beethoven could generally come uyp with precisely the themes they needed.


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## hammeredklavier

Phil loves classical said:


> But how are those Divertimenti and Serenades you posted above very original and challenging? They were not intended to be. I thought I made the concessions in my statements clear.


See? One could find the 7th symphony's 'dum dum dum dum dum ~ dum dum dum dum dum~' unoriginal and not challenging compared to the melodies of the Mozart works I posted. Now, stop trying to assert "Beethoven could churn out stuff like Mozart, Haydn if he wanted to but he didn't because he found them boring" as objective fact. I don't get why you would nitnick Mozart's Linz but not Beethoven's 8th symphony, for example.


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## KenOC

hammeredklavier said:


> Now, stop trying to assert "Beethoven could churn out stuff like Mozart, Haydn if he wanted to but he didn't because he found them boring" as objective fact.


Did some body actually say that? Give is the number of the post. Otherwise, it may be as I suspect: You're simply trying to unleash a plague of straw men on us.

​


hammeredklavier said:


> One could find the 7th symphony's 'dum dum dum dum dum ~ dum dum dum dum dum~' unoriginal and not challenging compared to the melodies of the Mozart works I posted.​


​
One could also find the Grand Canyon trivial, the Mona Lisa ugly, and the universe in general to be a real drag. Of course that would say a lot more about the "one" than any of the objects of the one's contempt.​​


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## hammeredklavier

KenOC said:


> Did some body actually say that? Give is the number of the post. Otherwise, it may be as I suspect: You're simply trying to unleash a plague of straw men on us.


"While I have no doubt he wrote the Linz symphony in 4 days, and it is perfectly proportioned, etc., how original and challenging is it really? Beethoven had to do more than just match Mozart to be relevant" -Phil loves classical


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## KenOC

hammeredklavier said:


> "While I have no doubt he wrote the Linz symphony in 4 days, and it is perfectly proportioned, etc., how original and challenging is it really? Beethoven had to do more than just match Mozart to be relevant" -Phil loves classical


You might try to read what Phil actually wrote. It's curiously unrelated to your 'Now, stop trying to assert "Beethoven could churn out stuff like Mozart, Haydn if he wanted to but he didn't because he found them boring" as objective fact.'

Another straw man. (sigh) I suggest you actually read up a bit on the subject. It's quite easy to find out Beethoven's opinion of Mozart's music. But not as easy as making stuff up, of course. ​​​​


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## Woodduck

hammeredklavier said:


> See? One could find the 7th symphony's 'dum dum dum dum dum ~ dum dum dum dum dum~' unoriginal and not challenging compared to the melodies of the Mozart works I posted.


One _could_ - but one would be revealing one's limited understanding of what Beethoven has done. May I quote from myself elsewhere (here: https://www.talkclassical.com/5051-question-melodists-schubert-really-28.html#post1649606 )?

'Probably no composer was better than Beethoven in fitting the separate elements of a work to its overall purpose and effect. That's why the "minimalist" melody of the second movement of the 7th Symphony, simple not only by Beethoven's standards but by anyone's, is a great melody: it's great because of the way it partakes of the other elements of music (harmony, rhythm, orchestration), because of its setting in the structure of the whole movement, and because of the emotional content of the piece which governs and results from all of these factors. The terse note of foreboding in the opening chord of the movement, the implacable tread of the rhythm, the poignant shifts in the harmony, the passionate counterpoints (those are melodies too!), the sensitive and varied instrumentation, the cumulative effect of the buildup of tension, the brief benediction of the new melody which provides momentary relief, the troubled agitation which continually invades, the use of the main melody in a fugue, the halting, haunted reminiscence of the opening cortege and its collapse and termination in a gesture both decisive and anxious...

Beethoven isn't writing pretty tunes here. He's devising a striking, original melody [dare I even say a "challenging" melody, as in: how do I make something extraordinary out of repeated notes over a repeated rhythmic pattern?] that allows him to create just the mood and the drama he wants.'

Two observations: 1. The likelihood that a melody will be sung in the shower is not a criterion of quality. 2. Some of the greatest ideas in art are simple in concept. But the simplicity of this melody is deceptive. Great forces roil under its surface. You hear them, don't you?


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## Larkenfield

Woodduck said:


> One _could_ - but one would be revealing one's limited understanding of what Beethoven has done. May I quote from myself elsewhere (here: https://www.talkclassical.com/5051-question-melodists-schubert-really-28.html#post1649606 )?
> 
> 'Probably no composer was better than Beethoven in fitting the separate elements of a work to its overall purpose and effect. That's why the "minimalist" melody of the second movement of the 7th Symphony, simple not only by Beethoven's standards but by anyone's, is a great melody: it's great because of the way it partakes of the other elements of music (harmony, rhythm, orchestration), because of its setting in the structure of the whole movement, and because of the emotional content of the piece which governs and results from all of these factors. The terse note of foreboding in the opening chord of the movement, the implacable tread of the rhythm, the poignant shifts in the harmony, the passionate counterpoints (those are melodies too!), the sensitive and varied instrumentation, the cumulative effect of the buildup of tension, the brief benediction of the new melody which provides momentary relief, the troubled agitation which continually invades, the use of the main melody in a fugue, the halting, haunted reminiscence of the opening cortege and its collapse and termination in a gesture both decisive and anxious...
> 
> Beethoven isn't writing pretty tunes here. He's devising a striking, original melody [dare I even say a "challenging" melody, as in: how do I make something extraordinary out of repeated notes over a repeated rhythmic pattern?] that allows him to create just the mood and the drama he wants.'
> 
> Two observations: 1. The likelihood that a melody will be sung in the shower is not a criterion of quality. 2. Some of the greatest ideas in art are simple in concept. But the simplicity of this melody is deceptive. Great forces roil under its surface. You hear them, don't you?


Well said. Not to mention that his minimalistic melody firmly establishes the intensity of the rhythmic pace of the beat and the movement. It's basic but perfect.

'The work was premiered with Beethoven himself conducting in Vienna on 8 December 1813 at a charity concert for soldiers wounded in the Battle of Hanau. In Beethoven's address to the participants, the motives are openly named: "We are moved by nothing but pure patriotism and the joyful sacrifice of our powers for those who have sacrificed so much for us."'

Whether what he said was directly related to the Symphony or not, the beat is reminiscent of some kind of a _solemn_ _procession_ which could somehow be related to what Beethoven said about it at its premiere. The way he could structure, build and develop certain movements was seemingly basic and simple, but it was brilliant.


----------



## Woodduck

Larkenfield said:


> Not to mention that his minimalistic melody firmly establishes the intensity of the rhythmic pace of the beat. It's basic but perfect.
> 
> "The work was premiered with Beethoven himself conducting in Vienna on 8 December 1813 at a charity concert for soldiers wounded in the Battle of Hanau. In Beethoven's address to the participants, the motives are openly named: "We are moved by nothing but pure patriotism and the joyful sacrifice of our powers for those who have sacrificed so much for us."
> 
> The beat is reminiscent of some kind of a _procession_ which could somehow be related to what Beethoven said about it at its premier


It bears out the idea that the power of melody is inseparable from the rhythmic and harmonic elements that constitute it. Dozens of composers have turned out hundreds of "good melodies" but never come up with anything like this. There's good reason for the audience at the premiere demanding an immediate encore before the symphony could proceed.


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## Phil loves classical

hammeredklavier said:


> See? One could find the 7th symphony's 'dum dum dum dum dum ~ dum dum dum dum dum~' unoriginal and not challenging compared to the melodies of the Mozart works I posted. Now, stop trying to assert "Beethoven could churn out stuff like Mozart, Haydn if he wanted to but he didn't because he found them boring" as objective fact. I don't get why you would nitnick Mozart's Linz but not Beethoven's 8th symphony, for example.


Maybe I wasn't clear, but generally my position is both Mozart and Beethoven are immensely talented, but Beethoven came after Mozart, so he had somewhat different goals in his music. I'll even throw in that Mozart's mind had a higher processing speed. But both struggled more when writing music that was more progressive (it's just that Beethoven did more of that, since he had to step out of Mozart's shadow). Also the music scene at least towards the end of Beethoven's life was less conservative than in Mozart's time (I heard people were virtually fighting for his time to commission his late works or maybe he just became a legend I dunno)


----------



## EdwardBast

hammeredklavier said:


> "While I have no doubt he wrote the Linz symphony in 4 days, and it is perfectly proportioned, etc., how original and challenging is it really? Beethoven had to do more than just match Mozart to be relevant" -Phil loves classical


Remember that quotation where Mozart tells his dad that a work in progress was composed but not written yet? It's quoted earlier in the thread. "Composed" in that context meant finalizing the structure and making a short score with all of the important lines, whereas "written" meant filling in the accompanying parts, making orchestration decisions, and completing a full score. In that light I have three questions: (1) When Mozart claimed the Linz was written in four days, do you know what definition of "write" was in play? (2) Had it already been composed before he began the four days of writing? (3) And are you sure he didn't say compose rather than write? What German verb did he use? (komponieren vs. schreiben)

Edit: I've checked in a collection of his letters. The translation (by Robert Spaethling) of the one about the new symphony for Linz uses the word write. See above for what this likely meant. In his biography, Gutman assumes Mozart had already composed one and had to write down the parts. No doubt his host would have hired help for the copying work.


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## vtpoet

So I read through about half of the comment thread. I'm really surprised that no one has mentioned Telemann. No, the quality of his musical production is not on a par with Händel, Bach, Mozart or Beethoven, but if "natural talent" doesn't necessarily mean producing works of genius, I'd put in a strong vote for Telemann as the most naturally talented composer who ever lived. This was a man who could play, at a professional level, more instruments than any other composer that I'm aware of. He was a child prodigy, who, as far as we know, wrote his first opera when he was 10 years old. God knows what he was writing before that and at what age. He could produce serviceable music at the drop of a hat, music that many of us still listen to and enjoy, and wrote more music than any other composer. If Mozart had lived long enough, he might have exceeded Telemann's output (though output isn't the only measure). My vote is actually for Telemann. Vivaldi is also a strong runner up. It was said of Vivaldi that he could compose concerti faster than the copyists could copy them. But I think the same was true of Telemann; and Telemann was a master at absorbing and transforming styles. However, if you think genius/quality of music is the gold standard insofar as natural talent goes, then Mozart.


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## mikeh375

Britten could write 12 pages of full score a day according to Imogen Holst, only rarely did he go to the piano to check something - natural talent on a par with all the favourites.


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## Orfeo

*Glazunov*: who required little training, had composed music from a very young age and achieved success unimaginable by many.
*Korngold*: a child prodigy who was thought of highly by no less a figure than Mahler himself.
*Enescu*: much like Korngold.


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## MatthewWeflen

I must confess, I find concepts like "natural talent" to be almost unbearably vague.

What does it mean to possess a natural talent? Mozart was composing symphonies as a young boy, many of which were pretty good. Did he have natural talent? Well, He had a father who was a composer and a teacher, and a klavier in his house. If he had been born to a ditch digger and a scullery maid, would he still possess that "natural talent," but in some nascent, non-actualized form? Mozart went on to write some of the most immortal pieces of music ever written. But was it "natural talent," or hard work? Beethoven grew up in similar circumstances, except with an alcoholic father who beat him when he would not perform at the piano. Did he have "natural talent?" Did his childhood circumstances contribute to the differences in his music, or was it simply the time and place into which he was born?

Michael Jordan was 6'6". That's "natural," I suppose. But there are millions of people of a similar stature who did not put tens of thousands of hours into practice.

I think people can be born with attributes and capabilities that help them achieve distinction in arts, sciences, or sports. But these attributes must be combined in an alchemy of circumstance, parental guidance, world history, and luck. As such, "natural talent" sinks almost to meaninglessness.


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## PlaySalieri

MatthewWeflen said:


> I must confess, I find concepts like "natural talent" to be almost unbearably vague.
> 
> What does it mean to possess a natural talent? Mozart was composing symphonies as a young boy, many of which were pretty good. Did he have natural talent? Well, He had a father who was a composer and a teacher, and a klavier in his house. If he had been born to a ditch digger and a scullery maid, would he still possess that "natural talent," but in some nascent, non-actualized form? Mozart went on to write some of the most immortal pieces of music ever written. But was it "natural talent," or hard work? Beethoven grew up in similar circumstances, except with an alcoholic father who beat him when he would not perform at the piano. Did he have "natural talent?" Did his childhood circumstances contribute to the differences in his music, or was it simply the time and place into which he was born?
> 
> Michael Jordan was 6'6". That's "natural," I suppose. But there are millions of people of a similar stature who did not put tens of thousands of hours into practice.
> 
> I think people can be born with attributes and capabilities that help them achieve distinction in arts, sciences, or sports. But these attributes must be combined in an alchemy of circumstance, parental guidance, world history, and luck. As such, "natural talent" sinks almost to meaninglessness.


There have for centuries been children brought up by musician parents and taught from a young age - we dont hear about any of the others from Mozart's time because they just became orchestral players of no great distinction. If you take the thousands who went through this - its not that remarkable given the law of averages that one of them was significantly better at his craft than all the others. That person was of course, Mozart. Haydn seemed to think think that he was just very well trained - though he does mention taste in his famous quote to Leopold.


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## MatthewWeflen

stomanek said:


> There have for centuries been children brought up by musician parents and taught from a young age - we dont hear about any of the others from Mozart's time because they just became orchestral players of no great distinction. If you take the thousands who went through this - its not that remarkable given the law of averages that one of them was significantly better at his craft than all the others. That person was of course, Mozart. Haydn seemed to think think that he was just very well trained - though he does mention taste in his famous quote to Leopold.


I am willing to believe that there was something in Mozart's brain, that, coupled with his fortunate set of circumstances, allowed him to create music that surpassed his contemporaries. I just think that chalking it up to "natural talent" is pointlessly reductive, and comparing the "natural talents" of different composers is an exercise that obscures more than it reveals.

We have the music. The music is great, or it isn't. We can judge it and weigh it against other music. But "natural talent?" Who knows. It's like trying to argue which Pope was more pious than another.


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## PlaySalieri

MatthewWeflen said:


> I am willing to believe that there was something in Mozart's brain, that, coupled with his fortunate set of circumstances, allowed him to create music that surpassed his contemporaries. I just think that chalking it up to "natural talent" is pointlessly reductive, and comparing the "natural talents" of different composers is an exercise that obscures more than it reveals.
> 
> We have the music. The music is great, or it isn't. We can judge it and weigh it against other music. But "natural talent?" Who knows. It's like trying to argue which Pope was more pious than another.


I suppose when people don't understand something - they put a label on it - which tends to shut down the debate. The idea of natural talent is appealing to many people because it sounds like a convenient explanation for something which defies out understanding. Some - like Solti for example - cite divine reasons for Mozart's music. Is that any more or less valid than chalking it up to talent?


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## DavidA

People have defined the formula for success:

1. Talent
2. Hard work
3. Circumstances

All three certainly came together in spades for Mozart. At least as far as music was concerned.


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## MatthewWeflen

stomanek said:


> I suppose when people don't understand something - they put a label on it - which tends to shut down the debate. The idea of natural talent is appealing to many people because it sounds like a convenient explanation for something which defies out understanding. Some - like Solti for example - cite divine reasons for Mozart's music. Is that any more or less valid than chalking it up to talent?


I would say "equally valid."


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## vtpoet

Just for the sake of discussion, I'm not sure what else you would call "natural talent"? Genius? I personally don't think of it as a label that shuts down debate but simply as shorthand for an inscrutably complex trait and ability that most everyone recognizes in others---a unique combination of intelligences (in Mozart's case, emotional, musical, intellectual). As has already been quoted here, Bach essentially said that anyone who worked as diligently as he did could accomplish the same, and yet we all know that's not true. Right? The man possessed a musical intelligence unlike any before or since, of the kind that one is born with or forget it. No amount of diligence is going to change that. Every Fux would have been a Bach if this were not the case, and every Salieri a Mozart. In that regard, Mozart's father was convinced that there was no such thing as talent, that one merely needed to begin a child's musical education early enough and voila! Mozart! As it happened, Leopold adopted a child at a very young age and forthwith began his musical education (offending Wolfgang apparently). The boy eventually made a splendid soldier.


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## PlaySalieri

MatthewWeflen said:


> I would say "equally valid."


If you believe in the divine - yes I suppose so.


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## Guest

vtpoet said:


> As has already been quoted here,* Bach* essentially said that anyone who worked as diligently as he did could accomplish the same, and yet we all know that's not true. Right? The man possessed a musical intelligence *unlike any before or sinc*e, of the kind that one is born with or forget it.


That's a moot point. As you may have observed, there are conflicting opinions about this, with many other names having been put forward as possibilities.



> In that regard, *Mozart's father* was convinced that there was no such thing as talent, that one merely needed to begin a child's musical education early enough and voila! Mozart!


The above possibly contradicted by the fact that Leopold Mozart once wrote that he considered Wolfgang's musical talents were a "miracle" of God, but the Church refused to acknowledge it.


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## MatthewWeflen

stomanek said:


> If you believe in the divine - yes I suppose so.


Or disbelieve, as the case may be.


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## vtpoet

Partita said:


> That's a moot point. As you may have observed, there are conflicting opinions about this, with many other names having been put forward as possibilities.


I̶ ̶h̶a̶v̶e̶n̶'̶t̶ ̶a̶c̶t̶u̶a̶l̶l̶y̶ ̶o̶b̶s̶e̶r̶v̶e̶d̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶,̶ ̶o̶n̶l̶y̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶r̶e̶'̶s̶ ̶o̶n̶l̶y̶ ̶o̶n̶e̶ ̶B̶a̶c̶h̶,̶ ̶n̶o̶t̶ ̶a̶ ̶d̶o̶z̶e̶n̶.̶

*Edit:* I shouldn't sound so diffident. I guess it puzzles me that there are so many who believe that the accomplishments of a Mozart, Bach, Shakespeare, Keats, or Einstein are merely one of effort and practice. And yet life demonstrates a thousand times over that this isn't the case. The whole movie of Amadeus (fictional though it may be) is predicated on this idea-and there is much truth to it. I'll never have perfect pitch, for example. One is born with that. We're all born with "gifts"-certain kinds of intelligences that often exceed those of our peers. I don't think they're mysterious, or perhaps such "gifts" are mysterious inasmuch as consciousness itself eludes explanation. There is always someone who effortlessly picks up coding, a musical instrument, the skateboard, etc... while the rest of us make messes of the same.



Partita said:


> The above possibly contradicted by the fact that Leopold Mozart once wrote that he considered Wolfgang's musical talents were a "miracle" of God, but the Church refused to acknowledge it.


Yes, but the point is that Leopold undertook the same regimen with the adopted boy as with Mozart. Had Leopold lived long enough, and if "natural talent" weren't the issue, then one would expect that he would have produced another Mozart. But, for the extent of time that he instructed the boy, no such abilities emerged. But there are many examples, like this, to be found elsewhere.


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## Open Book

I never knew that Leopold Mozart adopted a child and tried to nurture musical abilities in him. Was Wolfgang grown and on his own at this time? Wikipedia says Leopold raised his daughter Nannerl's child for a while, wonder if Leopold tried the same thing with his grandson.

Training alone is not sufficient, there must be talent. But were Leopold Mozart and Beethoven's father somehow more effective teachers than most? I doubt it. They were lucky, they hit the jackpot.

Most of us believe natural talent is necessary and that a very few people have a very high degree of natural talent. But is natural talent sufficient? Would the great composers have achieved what they did without the early training they received? Were any of them deficient in access to early training, disadvantaged?

Brahms knew from a very young age, I think 6, that he wanted to compose. His father was a musician though not an exceptionally talented one. If Brahms didn't have a piano in the house, would the desire to compose have taken root?


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## vtpoet

Open Book said:


> I never knew that Leopold Mozart adopted a child and tried to nurture musical abilities in him. Was Wolfgang grown and on his own at this time?


Wolfgang was grown and, though it's been a while since I've read a biography, he was emphatically *not* pleased that his father had adopted a child to raise like WA. I think WA may have taken that personally, as if his father had "given up" on WA and decided to start over. It's also possible that WA's memories of his own upbringing (and struggles with his father) played a part in his disgust (I think that's the word a biographer used to describe WA's reaction). There was some history between them.


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## Larkenfield

Partita said:


> That's a moot point. As you may have observed, there are conflicting opinions about this, with many other names having been put forward as possibilities.
> 
> The above possibly contradicted by the fact that Leopold Mozart once wrote that he considered Wolfgang's musical talents were a "miracle" of God, but the Church refused to acknowledge it.


'Less than three months after hearing the Miserere and transcribing it, Mozart had gained fame for the work and was summoned to Rome by Pope Clement XIV, who showered praise on him for his feat of musical genius and awarded him the Chivalric Order of the Golden Spur on July 4, 1770.' Mozart was 14 years old and was painted wearing the award which he was very proud of. He was acknowledged by the church even if not in terms of being a "miracle". (But I personally consider his ability incredibly miraculous and the product of forces that are not understood in ordinary reality. He sounded like Mozart at the age of five and his unmistakable style could be recognized even then.)


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## chu42

Mendelssohn, Saint-Saens, and Mozart are commonly held to be the biggest of the "child prodigies". Their music is technically perfect most of the time (Mozart liked joking around, for example). Ives was also prodigious as a child, although his environment prevented him from fully exploiting his talent. This is all relative, of course. Most composers show extraordinary talent while young.

I think the more interesting music will sometimes comes from those who struggled to compose, namely Schumann.


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## flamencosketches

chu42 said:


> I think the more interesting music sometimes comes from those who struggled to compose, namely Schumann.


Maybe his younger friend Brahms as well might be counted as a composer to whom composing did not come so easily. Both fascinating composers.


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## Mandryka

scn sackszbckszbc,kszbvcnzs


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist

This might've already been said in this thread, but IMO the premise of the OP is inherently flawed. The fact that some great (first-rate) composers seemingly "struggled" more than others in their creative process (e.g. Beethoven or Brahms) does not really indicate that those composers were less talented or gifted than those to whom composition seemingly came "easier" (say, Schubert or Mozart). Rather, they simply had a different type of talent (or at least a different way of expressing their talent), causing (and thus coupled with) a fundamentally different approach to music composition (which often give birth to different types of results, but neither method is inherently inferior to the other).


This is not to say that all composers are equally talented, of course. I think it's fair to say Mozart was more talented than Salieri. But it's not fair to say (IMO) that Mozart was more talented than Beethoven, unless you specify exactly what you mean by "talent" in the context of that statement.

I also think that as a society we have a very distorted (or at least limited) notion of what "talents" are and where they comes from, to be perfectly honest, which renders this discussion even more inconvenient than it already has to be.


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## AeolianStrains

flamencosketches said:


> I don't know about Saint-Saens, but anyone who says Mendelssohn didn't live up to his earlier promise has some ridiculously high standards. Wasn't it enough to have become one of the top composers of his time, and to have written many of the most beloved works that are still mainstays in the greater music repertoire centuries later?
> 
> One thing I will say is that perhaps he wasn't terribly influential on future generations of composers in the way that, say, Schumann was. But he made his mark. The only way he really let down the music world was by dying young.


Yeah, Saint-Saens might be no Mendelssohn, but he definitely lived up to the promise of a child prodigy and then some.

Not all child prodigies even make it to the top composers list, in which Saint-Saens is most assured his place.


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## AeolianStrains

mbhaub said:


> Child prodigies have rarely lived up to the hope and expectation. Mozart was an exception, but despite their youthful brilliance, you're right - Mendelssohn's legacy isn't what it should have been. But besides the VC, there's three great symphonies (3,4,5), yes some great chamber music (the Octet certainly), the incidental music to Midsummer Nights' Dream, the Hebrides overture and perhaps Elijah. Saint-Saens, same problem. Other than the concertos for violin and cello, Dance Macabre and the Organ Symphony his vast output is largely ignored. Korngold, too. The Last Prodigy lives in the concert hall due to the Violin Concerto.


The majority of child prodigies don't even come close to Saint-Saens, let alone Mendelssohn's, stature. I say they both did just fine.


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## chu42

AeolianStrains said:


> The majority of child prodigies don't even come close to Saint-Saens, let alone Mendelssohn's, stature. I say they both did just fine.


Exactly, the idea that Mendelssohn/Saint-Saëns undershot is complete nonsense. There are many exceptional child prodigy composers that don't approach either of their popularity today:

-Ignaz Moscheles, whom Beethoven was so impressed with as a teenager that he commissioned him for the piano transcription of Fidelio

-Charles-Valentin Alkan, who entered the Paris Conservatory at 5 and was a professor at 15

-Fredrich Kalkbrenner, who performed in front of the Queen of Prussia at age 6

-Leo Ornstein, who played for Josef Hofmann at 6 and entered the St. Petersburg academy at 10

-Erich Korngold, who composed a ballet at 11.

I'm not saying that any of the above didn't live up to their promise. I'm trying to say that if anybody did live up to their promise it has to be Mendelssohn and Saint-Saëns, who were giants in so many categories.


----------



## Guest

chu42 said:


> I think the more interesting music will sometimes comes from those who struggled to compose, namely Schumann.


As someone who is very fond of Schumann, I've not come across this before. On the contrary, I had understood that Schumann was not only a prolific composer but one capable of composing quickly with much natural ability.

His composing career was no that long compared with some, but he managed to produce a great deal across all main genres. This was despite the fact that he had times when he had to lay off composing altogether for a while due to downturns in his mental state, but that's a different matter altogether as it was of a medical nature.

He was also a brilliant writer of music (running a music journal) which took up his time, and of course a father of several children. He often ran musical parties, inviting other composers along to perform. At one point he took up conducting. He sometimes accompanied his wife, Clara, on some of her concert tours. As is well known, he went on music hunting expeditions and tracked down some very splendid works by Schubert that had been put aside in a trunk. All of these activities added to the demands on his available time for composing.

If you look at his main body of piano output, most of it was achieved over the first 9 years. This was followed by quite stupendous bursts of composing activity in subsequent years, each one devoted to a particular area, such as chamber, song cycles, orchestral etc. His range of work and interest in the subject of music generally was most impressive.

Nah, I'd be very surprised if there is any evidence that Schumann struggled to compose. Even near the end of his life, when the gremlins were at work affecting his mental condition, he was still composing, and some of his output was very good, e.g. the VC. We'll never know how good/bad a lot of this late stuff was as it got chucked out by Clara with the aid of Brahms.


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## larold

Mozart, who was composing complete masses when 8 that are still played today.


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## chu42

Partita said:


> As someone who is very fond of Schumann, I've not come across this before. On the contrary, I had understood that Schumann was not only a prolific composer but one capable of composing quickly with much natural ability.
> 
> His composing career was no that long compared with some, but he managed to produce a great deal across all main genres. This was despite the fact that he had times when he had to lay off composing altogether for a while due to downturns in his mental state, but that's a different matter altogether as it was of a medical nature.
> 
> He was also a brilliant writer of music (running a music journal) which took up his time, and of course a father of several children. He often ran musical parties, inviting other composers along to perform. At one point he took up conducting. He sometimes accompanied his wife, Clara, on some of her concert tours. As is well known, he went on music hunting expeditions and tracked down some very splendid works by Schubert that had been put aside in a trunk. All of these activities added to the demands on his available time for composing.
> 
> If you look at his main body of piano output, most of it was achieved over the first 9 years. This was followed by quite stupendous bursts of composing activity in subsequent years, each one devoted to a particular area, such as chamber, song cycles, orchestral etc. His range of work and interest in the subject of music generally was most impressive.
> 
> Nah, I'd be very surprised if there is any evidence that Schumann struggled to compose. Even near the end of his life, when the gremlins were at work affecting his mental condition, he was still composing, and some of his output was very good, e.g. the VC. We'll never know how good/bad a lot of this late stuff was as it got chucked out by Clara with the aid of Brahms.


It's not that he "struggled to compose", per se, but that he struggled to compose "perfectly". His style was not refined and he often composed not for others, but for his own innermost feelings. He wasn't industrious, if you know what I mean. Even in piano music you can see his odd decisions that make the music a lot more awkward to play than it had to be, and this was the result of writing what he felt, not writing what was technically "correct". Of course, he was also very technically learned but this doesn't always show in his music. It just feels like he doesn't have the facilities for perfection that Mendelssohn, Schubert, and Saint-Saens had.

Not that art needs to be "perfect" anyhow. Schumann is my third favorite composer of all time, partially because I admire that his music has quirks that other major composers of the era didn't have.


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## Guest

chu42 said:


> It's not that he "struggled to compose", per se, but that he struggled to compose "perfectly". His style was not refined and he often composed not for others, but for his own innermost feelings. He wasn't industrious, if you know what I mean. Even in piano music you can see his odd decisions that make the music a lot more awkward to play than it had to be, and this was the result of writing what he felt, not writing what was technically "correct". Of course, he was also very technically learned but this doesn't always show in his music. It just feels like he doesn't have the facilities for perfection that Mendelssohn, Schubert, and Saint-Saens had.
> 
> Not that art needs to be "perfect" anyhow. Schumann is my third favorite composer of all time, partially because I admire that his music has quirks that other major composers of the era didn't have.


At No 3 in your list of favourite composers you obviously rate Schumann highly. As I said, I do too. Although he is among the greatest composers, I'm a little surprised that his reputation isn't even higher than it appears to be. I detect that he seems to one of those composers who divides opinion more than is typical for those in that general area of the rank tables. I must admit that he wasn't an instant favourite with me. It took quite a while for me to get my preferences sorted out in fairly stable way to include Schumann in a strong position.

I've seen various types of criticism of Schumann's musical skills, but not one that he struggled to write music. Now that you have explained what you meant further, I think I see what you mean about his style causing possible problems. I'm glad that he went down the path he did because it's the fact that he wrote what he felt that is one of the most endearing features of his music as far as I'm concerned. You may find the thread on Schumann in the composer "guestbook "section of the Forum possibly to be of interest, if you haven't already seen it. I recall scribbling a few notes in there quite recently.


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## PlaySalieri

chu42 said:


> Exactly, the idea that Mendelssohn/Saint-Saëns undershot is complete nonsense. There are many exceptional child prodigy composers that don't approach either of their popularity today:
> 
> -Ignaz Moscheles, whom Beethoven was so impressed with as a teenager that he commissioned him for the piano transcription of Fidelio
> 
> -Charles-Valentin Alkan, who entered the Paris Conservatory at 5 and was a professor at 15
> 
> -Fredrich Kalkbrenner, who performed in front of the Queen of Prussia at age 6
> 
> -Leo Ornstein, who played for Josef Hofmann at 6 and entered the St. Petersburg academy at 10
> 
> -Erich Korngold, who composed a ballet at 11.
> 
> I'm not saying that any of the above didn't live up to their promise. I'm trying to say that if anybody did live up to their promise it has to be Mendelssohn and Saint-Saëns, who were giants in so many categories.


Mozart obviously surpassed his promise and probably set the bar far to high to the extent that any future prodigy would be deemed a relative failure.


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## PlaySalieri

Partita said:


> At No 3 in your list of favourite composers you obviously rate Schumann highly. As I said, I do too. Although he is among the greatest composers, I'm a little surprised that his reputation isn't even higher than it appears to be. I detect that he seems to one of those composers who divides opinion more than is typical for those in that general area of the rank tables. I must admit that he wasn't an instant favourite with me. It took quite a while for me to get my preferences sorted out in fairly stable way to include Schumann in a strong position.
> 
> I've seen various types of criticism of Schumann's musical skills, but not one that he struggled to write music. Now that you have explained what you meant further, I think I see what you mean about his style causing possible problems. I'm glad that he went down the path he did because it's the fact that he wrote what he felt that is one of the most endearing features of his music as far as I'm concerned. You may find the thread on Schumann in the composer "guestbook "section of the Forum possibly to be of interest, if you haven't already seen it. I recall scribbling a few notes in there quite recently.


I would probably rate Schumann higher if I could get into his solo piano. I have the same issue with Brahms - love his symphonies, concerti and chamber music - rate him at 4/5 - but his genius for solo piano misses the mark. Schumann I have at 8/9.


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## chu42

Partita said:


> At No 3 in your list of favourite composers you obviously rate Schumann highly. As I said, I do too. Although he is among the greatest composers, I'm a little surprised that his reputation isn't even higher than it appears to be. I detect that he seems to one of those composers who divides opinion more than is typical for those in that general area of the rank tables. I must admit that he wasn't an instant favourite with me. It took quite a while for me to get my preferences sorted out in fairly stable way to include Schumann in a strong position.
> 
> I've seen various types of criticism of Schumann's musical skills, but not one that he struggled to write music. Now that you have explained what you meant further, I think I see what you mean about his style causing possible problems. I'm glad that he went down the path he did because it's the fact that he wrote what he felt that is one of the most endearing features of his music as far as I'm concerned. You may find the thread on Schumann in the composer "guestbook "section of the Forum possibly to be of interest, if you haven't already seen it. I recall scribbling a few notes in there quite recently.


Interesting thread, you have some good points.

Now another theory for Schumann's lesser appeal compared to Liszt or Chopin is his lack of memorable melody- of course us Schumann fans know that he has dozens of gorgeous melodies but the way he composes piano music does not make them as memorable as composers who compose conventionally. Schumann was one of the first to tear apart sonata form, was he not? For people used to that kind of structure in Romanticism, Schumann's music is harder to absorb. This is why, like you, it took me rather long to get into Schumann. There is a somewhat acquired taste to his music.

Another point: Unlike Liszt and Chopin, there is no showboating in Schumann's piano music. Schumann never wrote a solo piano cadenza in his entire life. Even in his hardest works like the Toccata and the Symphonic Etudes, Schumann only ever hints at virtuosity despite the music itself being more difficult than much of Chopin or Liszt which often sounds much more difficult. His music is the opposite of virtuosic; it is often much more complex to play than it sounds.

While for general audiences this is considered "boring", I find that it reveals Schumann's inner character and his inability to write a meaningless passage just to please the common people. If we look at his only piece composed with difficulty in mind (the Toccata), the melodies are of such simple nature and the register is so narrow that it holds hardly any audience appeal compared to the showpieces of Liszt and Chopin. And yet, it is complex, intricate, beautiful in an introverted way, and of course "the hardest piece ever written" (that is, until Liszt published "Feux Follets"). But these are not things that can be acquired with a simple listen. Schumann's music as a whole is not for "simple listening".

As for difficulty in composition, I would like to add that critics charge Schumann's symphonies with being more awkward and less tightly structured as that of Brahms, Tchaikovsky etc. I wouldn't know about that and knowing this does not affect my enjoyment of his symphonies, so it doesn't matter so much.


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## flamencosketches

PlaySalieri said:


> I would probably rate Schumann higher if I could get into his solo piano. I have the same issue with Brahms - love his symphonies, concerti and chamber music - rate him at 4/5 - but his genius for solo piano misses the mark. Schumann I have at 8/9.


Really, misses the mark?






Some of the most perfect piano music ever written, I think. Definitely up there with Beethoven's last five sonatas.


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## hammeredklavier

chu42 said:


> Another point: Unlike Liszt and Chopin, there is no showboating in Schumann's piano music. Schumann never wrote a solo piano cadenza in his entire life. Even in his hardest works like the Toccata and the Symphonic Etudes, Schumann only ever hints at virtuosity despite the music itself being more difficult than much of Chopin or Liszt which often sounds much more difficult. His music is the opposite of virtuosic; it is often much more complex to play than it sounds.


_"To Schumann it seemed that Chopin had lost his way, and gotten too wrapped up in virtuosity for its own sake."_
https://books.google.ca/books?id=OYo7DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA34

It seems like Schumann wasn't fond of Chopin's brilliant style later in life, like how Brahms disliked the general flamboyant style of Romanticism. I agree about Liszt and especially Chopin having more memorable melodies though, I remember the only thing I found melodically memorable while listening to the symphonic etudes was the finale:




Second piano sonata is memorable. Fantasie in C, not very much


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## Captainnumber36

flamencosketches said:


> Really, misses the mark?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Some of the most perfect piano music ever written, I think. Definitely up there with Beethoven's last five sonatas.


That was really nice, thanks! I also love Kempff.


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## hammeredklavier

larold said:


> Mozart, who was composing complete masses when 8 that are still played today.


12~13, to be exact. But he certainly knew how to write good stuff at that time.

Such as this section at 7:50~8:20


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## chu42

hammeredklavier said:


> _"To Schumann it seemed that Chopin had lost his way, and gotten too wrapped up in virtuosity for its own sake."_
> https://books.google.ca/books?id=OYo7DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA34
> 
> It seems like Schumann wasn't fond of Chopin's brilliant style later in life, like how Brahms disliked the general flamboyant style of Romanticism. I agree about Liszt and especially Chopin having more memorable melodies though, I remember the only thing I found melodically memorable while listening to the symphonic etudes was the finale:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Second piano sonata is memorable. Fantasie in C, not very much


As somebody who plays a lot of Schumann and has all of the pieces you mentioned memorized, I can't say that I can relate, ha ha.

But I can see what you are getting at. I did not find any Schumann to be memorable until I had listened to them for a long time. Again, it's often an acquired taste in music. Liszt himself thought very highly of the Fantasie (and dedicated his Sonata back to Schumann) but he also admitted that it was not a good piece for general public performance. Critics of the time complained that Schumann's music was overly enigmatic.

As for the Symphonic Etudes, do try listening to them more if you do listen to Schumann (although my favorite Schumann piece is the Fantasie). Tchaikovsky orchestrated the last two variations rather well.


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## PlaySalieri

flamencosketches said:


> Really, misses the mark?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Some of the most perfect piano music ever written, I think. Definitely up there with Beethoven's last five sonatas.


There are one or two pieces, but on the whole I cant get into Brahms piano music - and its even worse with Schumann.

I can get into mendelssohns piano music, chopin.


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## Enthusiast

All the talk of child prodigies made me think of Janacek who was over 50 before he really got going. A very major composer, though, and surely as "important" as (or more than) many of the prodigies mentioned.


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## chu42

Ditto with Bruckner and Xenakis, they also took a while to get going.

And then there are the complete opposites of Sibelius and Ives, who simply stopped composing in their later years due to unknown circumstances.


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## Pat Fairlea

A certain Samuel Osborn Barber II was a prodigy too, and fulfilled his early promise.


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## flamencosketches

hammeredklavier said:


> Second piano sonata is memorable. Fantasie in C, not very much


:lol:

A joke, right?


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## chu42

flamencosketches said:


> :lol:
> 
> A joke, right?


I was under the impression that the Fantasie was one of the most accessible works for new listeners. I wonder what hammeredklavier would make of Carnaval, Davidsbündlertänze, or Fantasiestucke...


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## Guest

I'm puzzled as to how in some cases a liking of Schumann's music does not include his piano music. It ought to include his piano works, as this is perhaps one of his main claims to fame. It is so rich in variety and neither too simple nor too complex nor glitzy. I find that it contains some really sublime sections, and (together with Schubert's piano music) generally outshines most other in terms of the features I like the most in piano music. Some of the more "sentimental" sections of certain works are a treat. To take just one of many examples, the central sections of Op 16 Kreisleriana are really gorgeous. 

Whenever I see questioning comments from people about any famous composers' works, it always strikes me that they're probably based on lack of listening experience of the area, whether in terms of coverage of the entirety of the relevant works or the amount of time spent becoming familiar with even a small section of it. I realise that this doesn't apply to all, and that some people have "sticking points" in certain areas, but really in the case of Schumann's piano works it's worth making the effort (if that's the right word) to become familiar with it, as it's so good. Remember too that these works didn't end with Op 28, as some people assume, but there are several later works with higher Opus numbers that are also very well worth while acquiring, e.g. Op 82 Waldszenen, Op 99 Bunte Blatter.


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## Enthusiast

^ I'm possibly the opposite. Certainly, I see his piano music as central to Schumann's output. This can also affect the way I feel the symphonies should (?) be played. Making them "too Wagnerian" can be impressive but it is hard to hear them that way as being from the same composer as all those solo piano masterpieces.


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## Larkenfield

Mozart at nine with lots of horns, written when he was convalescing from an illness in The Hague:






One of the great joys in music is following his development as a prodigy, or any prodigy's development, such as Alma Deutscher's, and yet some will tell you that his early work are not worth hearing - not until K. 120 or some other ridiculously high number - because it's only juvinalia... I suggest that it would be far wiser to avoid the lazy or inattentive critics than avoid so many of Mozart's early works that often show numerous flashes of genius, his evolution and brilliant development as a precocious youngster.


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## Couchie

Shout-out to George Gershwin, who wrote _Rhapsody in Blue_ at age 26, and Pergolesi, who was dead and buried by that age.


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## chu42

Has anybody mentioned Hugo Wolf yet?


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## annaw

Enthusiast said:


> All the talk of child prodigies made me think of Janacek who was over 50 before he really got going. A very major composer, though, and surely as "important" as (or more than) many of the prodigies mentioned.


Reminds me a bit of Wagner who also wasn't extremely prodigious (like Mozart or even Mendelssohn)) when he was younger. In fact, his teacher said that when Wagner was younger "[he would] torture the piano in a most abominable fashion" and (Wikipedia claims that) he struggled to play in a proper key at the keyboard. But when it comes to his late operas, I would say he had a great natural talent. (Maybe the fact that he wrote his first play before his first musical composition and has been said to possess a great gift for verse since young age explains a few things...)


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## PlaySalieri

chu42 said:


> Has anybody mentioned Hugo Wolf yet?


No - but when it happens - I will let you know.


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## chu42

annaw said:


> Reminds me a bit of Wagner who also wasn't extremely prodigious (like Mozart or even Mendelssohn)) when he was younger. In fact, his teacher said that when Wagner was younger "[he would] torture the piano in a most abominable fashion" and (Wikipedia claims that) he struggled to play in a proper key at the keyboard. But when it comes to his late operas, I would say he had a great natural talent. (Maybe the fact that he wrote his first play before his first musical composition and has been said to possess a great gift for verse since young age explains a few things...)


Great talent with opera but not much with anything else. He composed several piano sonatas and I have no doubt that if he had only composed for piano he surely would have faded into obscurity...We are lucky that he did not.

Also, this must certainly rank among Wagner's poorest works:


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## Agamenon

flamencosketches said:


> Schubert and Mozart are often cited as composers with great "inborn" talent. The talents of Beethoven, Ravel, and perhaps Bruckner might be seen as more craftsmanlike, based on a sharp honing of skills and much time spent in revision of ideas, rather than any absurd natural inclination toward beautiful melodies (a la Schubert) or seemingly innate mastery of harmonic development and cadence (Mozart). I don't know how true any of this is, but it sure looks something like that from the outside. I guess the best way to tell would be looking at each composer's early works.


Great reply. I agree with you. Mozart and Schubert are unbeatable!


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## Ethereality

Talent for composition isn't something which just manifests immediately, like in the case of Mozart. Sometimes it takes many experiences and perspectives to finally start manifesting one's talent. I think the most talented composers I can think of were *Pérotin, Machaut, Josquin des Prez, Palestrina*, and *Johann Sebastian Bach*, the former three being French. These masterminds throughout the second millennia never lived with real music as would ever be predicted. They toiled daily with magnificent visions of what music could be, and from the ground up invented the basis of many musical structures we have today. It is impossible to really encapsulate one's understanding around the genius of Pérotin, to really deduce what that would be like in the 12th century, to begin a fad in history that would last to this day and perhaps millennia more. And when I listen to Josquin, Machaut and Pérotin, I hear something so close to the greatest wonders in music we already have accomplished--some way it only started with a thought, but it was one of many stunning revelations in their careers risen about by talents beyond our possible comprehension. If the point is to now simply play with faster instrumentation and develop these contrapuntal ideas more, we have many later composers to thank.


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## Swosh

mbhaub said:


> I just look at those composers who never attended a conservatory, had little (if any) formal training and that didn't stop them from writing masterworks. They were basically self-taught, by copying others' scores, reading books, and using their natural talent:
> 
> Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner, Brahms, Elgar for starters.


Wow... Wagner and Brahms were self taught? I 'm pretty sure Beethoven and Mozart received musical teaching and exposure early on. The seed was planted early for them. I think it's astonishing that Wagner and Brahms were self taught though.


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## KenOC

Swosh said:


> Wow... Wagner and Brahms were self taught? I 'm pretty sure Beethoven and Mozart received musical teaching and exposure early on. The seed was planted early for them. I think it's astonishing that Wagner and Brahms were self taught though.


Brahms studied with Eduard Marxsen. Wagner studied with Christian Gottlieb Müller and later with Theodor Weinlig. Both composers spent several years in their studies.


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