# Composers personality reflected in their music



## Wilhelm Theophilus (Aug 8, 2020)

I was listening to Brahms and thought this is so different to other composers, so it made me wonder if each composer produced the kind of music they did because of their personality, for example...

Mozart - fun and energetic person so he makes fun and energetic music.
Brahms - serious and intense person so makes this kind of music.
Beethoven - Troubled person, deep music?
Chopin - romantic person, romantic music.
Bach - spiritual person, spiritual music?

I cant think of one for Wagner, crazy person makes amazing music :lol:

Anyway, what do you think? Is this true and if so how would you describe a composer and the music that came from them?

Also, I was thinking this may be true for listeners. So certain types of personalities prefer certain types of music or composers.


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## Coach G (Apr 22, 2020)

I think your assessments of composers and their personalities are probably more-or-less on point. I'm intrigued by Shostakovich and Prokofiev. While Shostakovich's music seems to reflect a very sad person, an angry person, a sarcastic person, and an ironic and somewhat sardonic sense of humor; Prokofiev who lived and worked in the same totalitarian environment seems to be free of emotional baggage. If the Soviet system wore Prokofiev down at all, he hardly reflected those feelings in his music. While Shostakovich even reflects the spirit of Soviet propaganda in his 2nd, 3rd, 7th, 11th and 12th symphonies; Prokofiev doesn't even do very much of that. I read that Prokofiev was a very good chess player and to me it seems that Prokofiev's approach to music is very cerebral and almost detached, as if he has a problem to solve whether it's creating the dream sequence in _Cinderella_, the pyrotechnics in the _Violin Concerto #1_, or recreating the happy spirit of Haydn in the _Classical Symphony_; I say to myself "Isn't that neat how he did that", but there's no sense that that the composer is sharing his soul with us as with Shostakovich or Tchaikovsky whose sense of sad, Russian soul is always comes through.

Another one along the lines of Prokofiev is Richard Strauss. During my teens I was totally caught up in the tome poems of Richard Strauss, _Heldenlieben_, and especially _Zarathustra_. I'd blast the music on my stereo the way that other boys in the 1980s would blast their Heavy Metal music, but Strauss was _my_ Heavy Metal music. Without taking a thing away from Strauss and his wonderful way with creating a colorful sound spectacular, Strauss, like Prokofiev has an element of being contrived. Pictures of Strauss reveal an image of a businessman more than an artist, and from what I read, Strauss was a really successful business man whose music was as much a business as it was his art and craft. And like Prokofiev, I come away from Strauss, saying, "Oh clever, how he did that", but there's very little heart and soul, until we get the beautiful _Four Last Songs_ which stands as the final remnant of high Romantic music which touch upon the legacy of Schubert and Schuman in a post-atomic age.


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## Eclectic Al (Apr 23, 2020)

Coach G said:


> , until we get the beautiful _Four Last Songs_ which stands as the final remnant of high Romantic music which touch upon the legacy of Schubert and Schuman in a post-atomic age.


Also Metamorphosen. Heart-breaking stuff.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

When you read biographies of composers and then listen to their music it becomes obvious: every great composer's personality comes through in the their music. Swedish composer Allan Pettersson's music is tortured, angry, and reeks of despair. His personal life was, too. A very troubled man. Rossini lived life to the fullest; a man of great spirit and humor which is evident in his music. I've never read bios of Laangard or Koechlin, but judging from their music they must have been wacky, strange, undisciplined men.

Then there are the composers who may have had troubled lives but were capable of hiding it and writing music that would give no indication of their struggles. Raff, Glazunov, Kalinnikov, and yes Prokofieff are in this group.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Wilhelm Theophilus said:


> Mozart - fun and energetic person so he makes fun and energetic music.


Umm, you must be thinking of a different Mozart to the one I know. The one I know is given to continually spouting ecstatic sublime music. Is it the work of a human being? I wonder.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Beethoven: bombastic, agressive: bombastic and agressive music, argument music. Yuck.
Brahms: fat: turgid and swollen music. Yuck. 
Ravel: neat and tidy: neat and tidy music. 
Stockhausen: nutty as a fruit cake: mad music. 
Britten: cantankerous gay pedophile: lots of boys in his music


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## Wilhelm Theophilus (Aug 8, 2020)

Enthusiast said:


> Umm, you must be thinking of a different Mozart to the one I know. The one I know is given to continually spouting ecstatic sublime music. Is it the work of a human being? I wonder.


Sorry, yes I was referring to Bobby Mozart, lives down the road from me.

So what do you think the more famous Mozart's personalty was if he was "continually spouting ecstatic sublime music"?


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

J.S. Bach - Powerful, zen, balanced. Stays relaxed and composed, measured. Places his notes with power, precision and accuracy.

If Bach was a martial artist I think his style would be similar to Tawanchai here:


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## Wilhelm Theophilus (Aug 8, 2020)

tdc said:


> J.S. Bach - Powerful, zen, balanced. Stays relaxed and composed, measured. Places his notes with power, precision and accuracy.
> 
> If Bach was a martial artist I think his style would be similar to Tawanchai here:


But I've heard/read he was a quick tempered person, not "zen" or "relaxed".


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## Pat Fairlea (Dec 9, 2015)

Eric Satie: amiable, uncomplicated, observant. A musical flaneur.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Wilhelm Theophilus said:


> I cant think of one for Wagner, crazy person makes amazing music :lol:
> 
> Anyway, what do you think? Is this true and if so how would you describe a composer and the music that came from them?


I would substitute complicated for crazy in regards to Wagner. And I think it holds true for most human beings. We don't fit neatly into little boxes.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Wilhelm Theophilus said:


> Sorry, yes I was referring to Bobby Mozart, lives down the road from me.
> 
> So what do you think the more famous Mozart's personalty was if he was "continually spouting ecstatic sublime music"?


I know nothing of his personality and have always found it hard to pigeonhole his music. However he was as a person, much of his music suggests that his inner ears had access to heaven.


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

Wilhelm Theophilus said:


> I cant think of one for Wagner, crazy person makes amazing music :lol:


Egomaniac defies all odds and delivers works even grander than his own ego.


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## Wilhelm Theophilus (Aug 8, 2020)

Couchie said:


> Egomaniac defies all odds and delivers works even grander than his own ego.


Bach was said to be so ill tempered, but if you were a genius you'd find it difficult to be patient with us average folk too, maybe its similar for Wagner. We know that Beethoven was fiery too, interestingly I've not read that about Mozart.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

Bach must have been more patient than given credit for, otherwise he would have become insane with his huge family and many duties (including Latin class, although I think he hired a substitute for this). The short temper is, I believe, connected with a few anecdotes concerning the young Bach in his early 20s.

Overall, I think that although the personality will often show in some way in the music, this approach unfortunately tends to invite the worst kind of biographical, romantic, vulgar Freudian clichées, so I'd mostly stay away from it.


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

Kreisler jr said:


> Bach must have been more patient than given credit for, otherwise he would have become insane with his huge family


Side issue, but the idea that Bach's family was "huge" is a bit of a myth. Yes, he had 20 children, but it was over the space of 34 years, and 10 never made it past their 5th birthday. So there were never even 10 children in the house at the same time, let alone 20. By the time the last one, Regina, was born, she only had 8 surviving siblings, which included the 34-year-old Catharina as well as WF in Dresden and CPE in Berlin.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

Fair enough, but ~7 children at the same time is still a large family (although not huge by 18th century standards, Telemann apparently had around 10 children and it is rarely even mentioned, unlike in Bach's case). And there were pupils/students in the household as well, IIRC, probably especially when the two eldest gone had left the house.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Kreisler jr said:


> Bach must have been more patient than given credit for, otherwise he would have become insane with his huge family and many duties (including Latin class, although I think he hired a substitute for this). The short temper is, I believe, connected with a few anecdotes concerning the young Bach in his early 20s.
> 
> Overall, I think that although the personality will often show in some way in the music, this approach unfortunately tends to invite the worst kind of biographical, romantic, vulgar Freudian clichées, so I'd mostly stay away from it.


Emphatically agree. As a creative artist myself (music, painting and writing) I know that the ways in which my personal qualities manifest in my work are significant but not necessarily obvious or comprehensible to others. It certainly is not my intention to put them on display, contrary to the cliche of the romantic artist "expressing himself." I'm concerned to create works that are convincingly about something of interest or value, not about me.


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## MrNobody (Jun 9, 2021)

Sibelius. I just listened to his violin concerto (Ferras / Karajan). Not the best version but those Berlin Philharmonics violinists play so silky. 
A troubled person for sure, a drinker, a smoker, a lover of nature (e.g. cranes), a hater of totaliarism.


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## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

MrNobody said:


> Sibelius. I just listened to his violin concerto (Ferras / Karajan). Not the best version but those Berlin Philharmonics violinists play so silky.
> A troubled person for sure, a drinker, a smoker, a lover of nature (e.g. cranes), a hater of totaliarism.


I get no such troubled traits from the music though and nor is absolute music able to express them adequately or decisively anyway imv.


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## pianozach (May 21, 2018)

*Mussorgsky* was a drunkard. I don't really hear *that* in his music.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

pianozach said:


> *Mussorgsky* was a drunkard. I don't really hear *that* in his music.


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## Pat Fairlea (Dec 9, 2015)

pianozach said:


> *Mussorgsky* was a drunkard. I don't really hear *that* in his music.


Hmmm...I wonder if his music would have been less interesting, less individual, if he had been reliably sober?


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

MrNobody said:


> Sibelius. I just listened to his violin concerto (Ferras / Karajan). Not the best version but those Berlin Philharmonics violinists play so silky.
> A troubled person for sure, a drinker, a smoker, a lover of nature (e.g. cranes), a hater of totaliarism.


I can hear his love of the bottle in some of his music. The trombone part that dominates the 7th symphony always sounds to me like a happy drunk singing.


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## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

One composer who's personality is clearly reflected in his music is the mercurial Malcom Arnold. A man debilitated by severe schizophrenia which took his personality to the heights of affable generosity and all the way down to madness, foolishness and utter despair. The mercurial aspect in particular is evident in his work, as is an anguished despair and occasional tomfoolery.


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