# Work Titles



## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Would Composers be more in the habbit of giving cute titles to their works such as Eroica, Ode to Joy and Juipter if they were in modern times?


Also, give some cute titles to some of your favorite works!


Beethoven Symphony 1: "The Emperors New Clothes"


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## Tchaikov6 (Mar 30, 2016)

I don't think so... composers like Brahms and Beethoven really abhorred the idea of "programmatic" music so to speak... of course Beethoven wrote the Pastoral Symphony, but I think that was just more of his personal expression of nature, not necessarily depicting it.

And I don't think they would have written any of the things they did in modern times anyways.


Mahler Symphony 9: "The Descent"


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Tchaikov6 said:


> I don't think so... composers like Brahms and Beethoven really abhorred the idea of "programmatic" music so to speak... of course Beethoven wrote the Pastoral Symphony, but I think that was just more of his personal expression of nature, not necessarily depicting it.
> 
> And I don't think they would have written any of the things they did in modern times anyways.
> 
> Mahler Symphony 9: "The Descent"


Let's just assume they wrote they same music, but work titles were all they were influenced by for the sake of this discussion.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Debussy had lots of colorful titles for his works!


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## CnC Bartok (Jun 5, 2017)

Haydn Symphony No.102 in B flat, "Nicknameless"
Bruckner Symphony No.9 "The Unfinishable"
Shostakovich Symphony No.12 "Sinfonia vacua"

Bruckner Symphony No.1 "The Saucy Maid". Unfortunately, that one's actually genuine......


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Leif Segerstam had written 327 symphonies the last time anybody counted. Never one to let a catchy title go to waste, his Symphony No. 318 is named, "Standing up surviving after feeling offended and desauvuored with humiliation and mental bypassings yesterdaylicly and seeking now comfort in formulating just 'a classical symphonic tonechoosery...' (this time)".


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

KenOC said:


> Leif Segerstam had written 327 symphonies the last time anybody counted. Never one to let a catchy title go to waste, his Symphony No. 318 is named, "Standing up surviving after feeling offended and desauvuored with humiliation and mental bypassings yesterdaylicly and seeking now comfort in formulating just 'a classical symphonic tonechoosery...' (this time)".


lol...........that's funny.


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## CnC Bartok (Jun 5, 2017)

KenOC said:


> Leif Segerstam had written 327 symphonies the last time anybody counted. Never one to let a catchy title go to waste, his Symphony No. 318 is named, "Standing up surviving after feeling offended and desauvuored with humiliation and mental bypassings yesterdaylicly and seeking now comfort in formulating just 'a classical symphonic tonechoosery...' (this time)".


Yeah, well, by the time you've done 317 Symphonies, the succinct titles and nicknames do tend to run out. Myself I ran out around 565. I have written something like 834 symphonies so far. Admittedly none lasts longer than a note or two (they are at least notable for their thematic unity though....)


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

OTTOMH- 
Beethoven - Sym #3 "Erotica"
Elgar - "Enema" Variations


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## Vasks (Dec 9, 2013)

Glass - Symphony No. 2 "As repetitious as Symphony 1"
Glass - Symphony No. 3 "As repetitious as Symphonies 1 & 2"
Glass - Symphony No. 4 "As repetitious as Symphonies 1 - 3"
Glass - Symphony No. 5 "As repetitious as Symphonies 1 - 4"


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## Gordontrek (Jun 22, 2012)

Work titles generally reflect the artistic era in which the composer lives, from what I can tell. Thus "Jupiter" in an era when Greco-Roman history and mythology are at the center of art and literature, words like Eroica, Pathetique, Fate and Liebestraum in an era of emotion and individualism. Based on that, if Mozart, Beethoven, Liszt and all the other giants were around today, I think they would title their works like composers do now and give them more abstract titles to reflect the current artistic trends. Mozart might title his Jupiter symphony "Eminent Fluxations" or some such; Liszt might name Liebestraum something like "Crystalline Pulsars." Who knows.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

I believe that many or most of the titles of works in the classical period were not assigned by the composer but by others. The Jupiter symphony is an example.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Gordontrek said:


> Work titles generally reflect the artistic era in which the composer lives, from what I can tell. Thus "Jupiter" in an era when Greco-Roman history and mythology are at the center of art and literature, words like Eroica, Pathetique, Fate and Liebestraum in an era of emotion and individualism. Based on that, if Mozart, Beethoven, Liszt and all the other giants were around today, I think they would title their works like composers do now and give them more abstract titles to reflect the current artistic trends. Mozart might title his Jupiter symphony "Eminent Fluxations" or some such; Liszt might name Liebestraum something like "Crystalline Pulsars." Who knows.


Good post with solid insight!


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Vasks said:


> Glass - Symphony No. 2 "As repetitious as Symphony 1"
> Glass - Symphony No. 3 "As repetitious as Symphonies 1 & 2"
> Glass - Symphony No. 4 "As repetitious as Symphonies 1 - 3"
> Glass - Symphony No. 5 "As repetitious as Symphonies 1 - 4"


I laughed.......


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

I find it to be an interesting area of music to think about. Titles originate and function on numerous levels, such as:

Programmatic, e.g. Liszt's Faust Symphony

A good fit even if not coined by the composer, e.g. Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata or Haydn's named symphonies

Practical if obvious, e.g. Saint-Saens' Symphony No. 3 "Organ"

Distinguish pairs of works, e.g. Schubert's "Little" and "Great" C major symphonies

Named after dedicatee, eg. Beethoven's Razumovsky Quartets

Named (or probably/originally named) but title suppressed (or discouraged) by composer, e.g Brahms' Piano Quartet No. 3 "Werther" and String Sextet No. 2 "Agathe"

I'm quite interested in the last two categories. 

In terms of the dedicatees, I think that they succeeded in having their names exist for posterity through the music they paid for. An example is the Chandos Anthems by Handel, and I mention this because I'm currently reading a book about this composer. I doubt that the Duke of Chandos would still be remembered if not for these pieces named for him. He was what amounted to a shrewd - some might say corrupt - politician, but also a lover of the arts.

Brahms liked to see himself as somewhat divorced from his music, yet the above two works show him ever present. The former started when his mentor Schumann was dying and only finished some 20 years later. It is portrait of a man with a tortured state of mind. The original title page had an image of Werther and unlike most Brahms' works the gloom never fully dispels. In the latter piece Brahms encrypted the name of the woman he came closest to marrying. 

The composer liked to maintain an image of his music being fully formed before being written down. This has been cast into doubt in recent years with the discovery of a rare manuscript in the rough, showing Brahms' working out of ideas. It was one of the late clarinet works, and differs from his otherwise perfectly written scores. He burnt a lot of his music, probably including works in progress and any evidence of him polishing ideas, in order to maintain the image of a composer who though not necessarily a machine is nonetheless wholly divorced from any emotional inspiration behind his music.


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