# How much time did composers need to write symphonies?



## ancore (Jan 11, 2018)

I was wondering how much time it took them to let's say compose a symphony of 30 minutes, does anyone have info regarding this? I think its an interesting question.


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## David Phillips (Jun 26, 2017)

Mozart wrote his last three great symphonies in six weeks.


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## GraemeG (Jun 30, 2009)

And it's not like he was otherwise unoccupied!

Didn't Schumann write the Bb Spring symphony in a week or something?
Graeme


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

Yes, and at the other end of the scale, Brahms spend at least 14 years (he said 21 himself) for composing his 1st symphony.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

In the back of my mind, the time it must take for the actual physical writing out of any involved piece of music always strikes me as something that must be tedious -- although I suppose a writer producing x number of words a day must face the same problem.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

I don't know how this could be quantified - so many variables: length of composition, complexity, size of the orchestra...Some composers write slowly, painstakingly putting every note down only when convinced it's exactly write. Some write fluently, even in ink! Composers like Tchaikovsky could sit and just write away never having to check anything on the piano, while Stravinsky and Elgar tried everything out on piano. It is interesting to look at composer manuscript scores; you can see where they take shortcuts in the notation, and the way they write notes seems odd until you realize it's a time-saving device. 

It's astonishing to me how some composers wrote such an incredible amount of music in what seems like such a short period of time, but then back in the 19th c they didn't have Netflix, Facebook, Internet, TV, radio and CDs to take up their time. Can you imagine the time and effort it took for Wagner to write just one of his long operas?


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## Timothy (Jul 19, 2017)

ancore said:


> I was wondering how much time it took them to let's say compose a symphony of 30 minutes, does anyone have info regarding this? I think its an interesting question.


30 minutes? maybe 2 months


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

mbhaub said:


> I don't know how this could be quantified - so many variables: length of composition, complexity, size of the orchestra...Some composers write slowly, painstakingly putting every note down only when convinced it's exactly write. Some write fluently, even in ink! *Composers like Tchaikovsky could sit and just write away never having to check anything on the piano*, while Stravinsky and Elgar tried everything out on piano. It is interesting to look at composer manuscript scores; you can see where they take shortcuts in the notation, and the way they write notes seems odd until you realize it's a time-saving device.


1. letter to Leo V. Davydov, 05-19-1877

"… The composition of an opera for me means, that I have to be sure nobody can see and hear me during certain hours, because my habit is to sing loudly during composition and the very thought of it, that anybody can hear me bugs me…. In my bedroom I have a piano, *without that, I cannot compose*, anyway not quickly, calmly and with ease."

Time to put that myth to bed?


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

Guess so! "anyway not quickly" - but he could write without it.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

I know when Britten was writing his music he could write it faster than the copyists could copy! Now Mozart was far more phenomenal. The mind boggles how he could compose so much in so short a life.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

David Phillips said:


> Mozart wrote his last three great symphonies in six weeks.


And of course he wrote other music too!


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## spidersrepublic (Dec 12, 2017)

This also depends on how focused they are on the symphony - if they're busy writing other pieces and just have the symphony on the back-burner, it can take much longer. If they focus all their effort on the symphony, it will be done much quicker. Brahms didn't spend 14 - 21 years writing one symphony - he was very busy writing other music in that time. Its just he had the symphony in a drawer somewhere and would work on it every now and then.

I've been working on a symphony since 2014 and while the notes are written, I still have all the scoring / dynamic instructions to do as well as a some small orchestration choices. I have been writing many other pieces in that time though - it wasn't all work on this symphony (in fact I took a break completely for a year or so!)


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## Capeditiea (Feb 23, 2018)

i am nearly 3/5th of the way complete with the first draft of the first movement. which has taken me a couple weeks. 
it really depends on the composer, and the devotion. If i didn't get on this forum... i would have eventually found this through searching to see the average time it takes for writing a symphony... when i would start feeling the self doubts of writing... lol 
but i suspect for the average it would probably be around 8-10 months.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Capeditiea said:


> i am nearly 3/5th of the way complete with the first draft of the first movement. which has taken me a couple weeks.
> it really depends on the composer, and the devotion. If i didn't get on this forum... i would have eventually found this through searching to see the average time it takes for writing a symphony... when i would start feeling the self doubts of writing... lol
> but i suspect for the average it would probably be around 8-10 months.


Some needing only 8 weeks.


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