# If you could go back in time and show any classical work to a previous composer?



## Gallus (Feb 8, 2018)

Has anyone else daydreamed about doing this, or just me? I wonder what Bach would have made of Fauré's Requiem.


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## KevinJS (Sep 24, 2021)

Showing JS Bach some of the treatments to which his own compositions have been subjected might be quite entertaining. 

An example would be anyone who has performed Toccata and Fugue 565 within the last 50 years or so. Guitars and drums, Hammond organs, Moog synthesizers were probably not what he had in mind when he wrote it.


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## John Zito (Sep 11, 2021)

I think it would fun to see what Haydn or Mozart would make of the Ravel Piano Trio.


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## GraemeG (Jun 30, 2009)

Letting Mozart see _Eroica_ would be fun. And I'd like to know what Brahms thought of Sibelius' symphonies (about the only symphonist after Brahms that he _might_ tolerate? Not Mahler, I doubt Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Nielsen...)


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

Brahms lived long enough to have known Mahler's first 2 symphonies. I don't know if he saw the scores or heard performances and commented on the music.


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## GraemeG (Jun 30, 2009)

I recall reading he was distinctly unimpressed by the First, but thought the 2nd movement of II was 'genius'. Not sure if these opinions were score-based, but I suspect so. I rather think that Brahms only needed the score to judge something!


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

I'd like to show Erik Satie what kind of influence he had on composers, particularly American composers, in the second half of the 20th Century, like John Cage and Ned Rorem. I think he'd get a kick out of Cage's Cheap Imitation.


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## ORigel (May 7, 2020)

I would show Beethoven Bach's Mass in B Minor (since Beethoven wasn't familiar with it).

I would give Bach modern-style recordings of his own works (e.g. Klemperer's St. Matthew Passion and Gould's BWV 1056).

In 1912, I would give Stravinsky Carmina Burana, so he can steal from it to compose Les Noces rather than the other way around.


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## ansfelden (Jan 11, 2022)

i´d travel back to Vivaldi and bring him a Stratocaster.


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## Ludwig Schon (10 mo ago)

I’d bring Marin Alsop, Marlow and Dissident back to 1824 to show LvB how the former was going to try and sully the name of one tripartite part of the holy trinity of musical composition…


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

ORigel said:


> I would show Beethoven Bach's Mass in B Minor (since Beethoven wasn't familiar with it).


[ Haydn's copy of the b-minor mass and mozart's mass in c minor: Viennese traditions of the b-minor mass ] : "From the early 1800s Bach's B-minor Mass was easily accessible to connoisseurs in Vienna. ...


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## ORigel (May 7, 2020)

I read somehere that Beethoven wasn't familiar with Bach's choral works. Maybe I'm wrong, if the score was availiable for perusal.


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## Pat Fairlea (Dec 9, 2015)

A bit off the wall, maybe, but I wonder what brilliant songsmith Schubert would have made of Grieg's Lyric Pieces?


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## pianozach (May 21, 2018)

I think that both Bach and Mozart would have enjoyed Beethoven's Gross Fuge.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

"What kind of face would Bach, Handel, Haydn, and Mozart make after hearing an opera by Wagner? asks an English writer. I shall not attempt to answer for the first three, but it is safe to say that Mozart, the universal genius whose mind was free from Philistinism and one-sidedness, would not only open his eyes wide, but would be as delighted as a child with all the new acquisitions in the departments of drama and orchestra." -Edvard Grieg


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## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

I'd play Debussy some Takemitsu.


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## Merl (Jul 28, 2016)

I wonder what Beethoven would think of 4'33?


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

Merl said:


> I wonder what Beethoven would think of 4'33?


Finally something where it doesn't matter I am deaf!


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## Ludwig Schon (10 mo ago)

I do wonder what Ol’ Pachelbel would make of this… methinks he would weep in disapproval…


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## Pyotr (Feb 26, 2013)

Fun subject. I think Wolfgang would light up if he saw Tchaikovsky's three great ballets.


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## premont (May 7, 2015)

Merl said:


> I wonder what Beethoven would think of 4'33?


I thought the point of 4'33'' was the unavoidable extraneous noises. Beethoven was unable to hear those and therefore 4'33'' would do nothing for him.


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## classicalmusicfinder (9 mo ago)

Gallus said:


> Has anyone else daydreamed about doing this, or just me? I wonder what Bach would have made of Fauré's Requiem.


I may be shot for saying this, but I don't care. I would play my recently discovered music by Mark Iter, and the four seasons recomposed by Max Richter. I'm also curious how some of the greats would react to Barber's adagio for strings.


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## classicalmusicfinder (9 mo ago)

premont said:


> I thought the point of 4'33'' was the unavoidable extraneous noises. Beethoven was unable to hear those and therefore 4'33'' would do nothing for him.


Vibrations?


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