# If composers teamed up…



## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

...would we have interesting new works? For instance, if Tchaikovsky and Grofé teamed up, they might produce a _Grand Cannon Suite_.

Three composers, maybe?


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## Clouds Weep Snowflakes (Feb 24, 2019)

Interesting thought...if Tchaikovsky teamed up with Rimsky-Korsakov, we would have the best Russian ballet ever!


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## Olias (Nov 18, 2010)

What if Beethoven teamed up with.....well maybe that's not such a good idea.....never mind.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

If Vivaldi, when he was writing the Four Seasons, teamed up with Aaron Copland, we'd have Appalachian Spring. Oh, wait, we already do.


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## Olias (Nov 18, 2010)

I'd love to hear what Dvorak and Brahms could have done together.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Olias said:


> What if Beethoven teamed up with.....well maybe that's not such a good idea.....never mind.


If Beethoven had teamed up with Von Suppe, we might have a _Consecration of the Horse_ overture.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

And if he'd hired Vivaldi to write the overture to his opera, we might have 450 _Leonore Overtures_ instead of just a lousy three. Pity they'd all sound the same...


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Beethoven and Bach could have created The Grosse Art of the Fugue.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

If Bartok, when he was writing his _Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta_, had teamed with Mozart to write the _Eine Kleine Nachtmusik_, that would have been a truly scary thing!


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Heavyweight boxing: Richard “Sir Parsifal” Wagner vs. Friedrich “The Mad” Nietzsche in the Thrilla in Manila. :tiphat:


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## Schoenberg (Oct 15, 2018)

In a manga I have read there was actually an interesting scenario where many of the composers had to team up for a festival. I don't remember all of the combinations but one interesting one was where Wagner and Beethoven teamed up, and Wagner wrote the libretto and the story while Beethoven wrote the actual music, as Wagner didn't believe his music could ever become as great as Beethoven's.

(The manga is Classi9 if anyone is interested. It's actually not too bad if you can look past the innuendos and other things typical of manga.)


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

Purcell and Tippett could have co-written The Knot Garden Untied


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Richard Wagner and Howard Shore (film composer) could have collaborated on the music for The Lord of Der Rings des Nibelungen.


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## paulbest (Apr 18, 2019)

If Mussorgsky had teamed up with Maurice Ravel in reworking the 2nd half of Boris Godunov ,,,we would have trulya masterpiece...but as it is,,,Ravel could only work so much magic,,,= w/o Ravel, we might not even remember the name Mussorgsky


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

If Debussy teamed up with Schoenberg, they could have written Clair de Lunaire.


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## Rubens (Nov 5, 2017)

Schubert + Tchaikovsky = Pathetic Trout.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Rubens said:


> Schubert + Tchaikovsky = Pathetic Trout.


La truite pathétique sounds a lot more interesting (and of course T's 6th is not called the pathetic).


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

If Gustav Mahler teamed up with Anton Webern, they'd produce symphonies of normal length.


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## Malx (Jun 18, 2017)

paulbest said:


> If Mussorgsky had teamed up with Maurice Ravel in reworking the 2nd half of Boris Godunov ,,,we would have trulya masterpiece...but as it is,,,Ravel could only work so much magic,,,= w/o Ravel, we might not even remember the name Mussorgsky


................


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## Open Book (Aug 14, 2018)

This is a non-punny answer because I'm not clever in that way. Brahms should have teamed up with operatically prolific Wagner so that he could write the opera he had been planning on his entire life.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

If Mussorgsky had teamed up with wealth guru Dale Carnegie, he could have written the opera "Boris Goodenough: How to Win Comrades and Influence the Lumpenproletariat."


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## Open Book (Aug 14, 2018)

Rubens said:


> Schubert + Tchaikovsky = Pathetic Trout.


Maybe the two of them should team up with Debussy and Captain Beefheart.

"Pathetic Trout Bergamasque Replica"


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

DaveM said:


> Richard Wagner and Howard Shore (film composer) could have collaborated on the music for The Lord of Der Rings des Nibelungen.


At times they did, though Richard was unconscious at the time.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Chopin and Mendelssohn often talked of working together on A Midsummer’s Night Nocturne.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Leo Delibes and Tchaikovsky conferred on a ballet: Swan Lakmé


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

If Milton Babbitt had collaborated with Mozart, we could listen to the results upside-down and backwards.


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## Totenfeier (Mar 11, 2016)

If Mozart teamed up with Mahler, we could have had Eine Kleine Nachtmusiks I & II.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

paulbest said:


> If Mussorgsky had teamed up with Maurice Ravel in reworking the 2nd half of Boris Godunov ,,,we would have trulya masterpiece...but as it is,,,Ravel could only work so much magic,,,= w/o Ravel, *we might not even remember the name Mussorgsky*


No, you wouldn't remember it. Those who actually know Mussorgsky's music tend to find it memorable.


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## paulbest (Apr 18, 2019)

WEll if anyone here knows how Ravel's arrangements of Mussorgsky's works, , Boris, and Pictures,,,made up any shortcommings in the original work,,,please chime in..
Leets say Ravel did no arrangements of either. 
And we had no access to Shostakovich's rendering of Boris,,,would Boris be as well loved today ,,,that in its original state?


The 2nd half of Boris is a bit dull, and if not,,,boring. 
This is my Q,,,I don't know,,I am only asking.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

First of, unless I'm very much mistaken, Ravel did not touch up Boris Godunov (I think you may confuse him with Rimsky-Korsakov).

The original piano version of PaaE is to my taste just as brilliant as the famous Ravel orchestration.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

If Händel had teamed with Bach, they could have written the Messiah in B-flat Minor

If Gershwin had teamed with Prokofiev, they could have done An American in Minsk

If Bizet had teamed with Debussy, they could have written
The Pearl Fishermen: The Afternoon of a Prawn


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## Open Book (Aug 14, 2018)

Olias said:


> What if Beethoven teamed up with.....well maybe that's not such a good idea.....never mind.


Seems like everybody except me gets this. Was Beethoven not a team player?


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## Open Book (Aug 14, 2018)

Mozart, Debussy, Mussorgsky: "Night Mer on Bald Mountain"


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

If Bach had teamed with Mozart and Beethoven, they could have written Nah Nah-Nah Nah Nah: We Are The Three Greatest Composers Who Ever Lived


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## Olias (Nov 18, 2010)

Open Book said:


> Seems like everybody except me gets this. Was Beethoven not a team player?


Yeah, that was the idea. He was rather reclusive and bad-tempered. He respected some composers like Bach and Mozart but he very much carved his own path and I honestly don't think anyone could have effectively collaborated with him.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

paulbest said:


> WEll if anyone here knows how Ravel's arrangements of Mussorgsky's works, , Boris, and Pictures,,,made up any shortcommings in the original work,,,please chime in..
> Leets say Ravel did no arrangements of either.
> And we had no access to Shostakovich's rendering of Boris,,,would Boris be as well loved today ,,,that in its original state?
> 
> ...


Art is correct. Rimsky-Korsakoff mucked around with Boris, not Ravel, and managed to screw up some of the good parts. There are about 30 orchestral arrangements of Pictures. Ravel's isn't the best.


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## Open Book (Aug 14, 2018)

Ravel could have teamed up with Couperin on "Le Tombeau de Couperin", to what result I don't know. Maybe it would have been written for harpsichord but that would diminish it greatly.


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## paulbest (Apr 18, 2019)

Olias said:


> Yeah, that was the idea. He was rather reclusive and bad-tempered. He respected some composers like Bach and Mozart but he very much carved his own path and I honestly don't think anyone could have effectively collaborated with him.


True
But look at how many great composers went on to team up with Beethoven, posthumously. 
Beethoven had many *Sons* = collaboration. I've even seen a comment such as *Beethoven lived on in Brahms music*. Could we also say that next in line , as Brahms is his 1st born,,,Dvorak is his 2nd greatest son? 
When I hear Dvorak,,I feel that Beethoven's spirit is still alive in those works.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Olias said:


> Yeah, that was the idea. He was rather reclusive and bad-tempered. He respected some composers like Bach and Mozart but he very much carved his own path and I honestly don't think anyone could have effectively collaborated with him.


Actually Beethoven joined several collaborative projects, the last that I know of being his _Es ist vollbracht_, the finale of the singspiel _Die Ehrenpforten_ in 1815. There were some earlier multi-composer song projects and, depending on definition, the _Diabelli Variations_.


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## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

Are there any pieces that are the result of a true collaborative effort between two (or more) well known composers? And by that I mean a piece or a movement that was actually co-composed. So not music that was rewritten, arranged, edited, transcribed, reconstructed, completed etc. by another composer afterwards, but music born from real collaboration. Does that even work?


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

DeepR said:


> Are there any pieces that are the result of a true collaborative effort between two (or more) well known composers? And by that I mean a piece or a movement that was actually co-composed. So not music that was rewritten, arranged, edited, transcribed, reconstructed, completed etc. by another composer afterwards, but music born from real collaboration. Does that even work?


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

Here are some of the most famous examples:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-A-E_Sonata
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexameron_(musical_composition)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaterländischer_Künstlerverein (mentioned earlier by KenOC)

However, in each of these cases, separate movements of the piece were written by individual composers.

Here is one where the same music was conceived collaboratively by the joint efforts of multiple composers:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Duo_concertant_(Chopin_and_Franchomme)

I'm not sure about music that was conceived by 2 people literally working together at the same time in the same room (if that's what you mean). There might be some examples on the first link.


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## Olias (Nov 18, 2010)

paulbest said:


> True
> But look at how many great composers went on to team up with Beethoven, posthumously.
> Beethoven had many *Sons* = collaboration. I've even seen a comment such as *Beethoven lived on in Brahms music*. Could we also say that next in line , as Brahms is his 1st born,,,Dvorak is his 2nd greatest son?
> When I hear Dvorak,,I feel that Beethoven's spirit is still alive in those works.


Agreed. I think that connection is one reason why my two favorite composers are Beethoven and Dvorak.


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## Olias (Nov 18, 2010)

KenOC said:


> Actually Beethoven joined several collaborative projects, the last that I know of being his _Es ist vollbracht_, the finale of the singspiel _Die Ehrenpforten_ in 1815. There were some earlier multi-composer song projects and, depending on definition, the _Diabelli Variations_.


All true, it just didn't go with the original punch line.


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