# Composers' appreciation of their own music?



## neofite (Feb 19, 2017)

It has long been true that many highly skilled craftspeople enjoy repeatedly looking at their completed work. In fact, along with creation, it is one of the great joys of their lives. On the other hand, I have read about some cinema actors who claim that they never bother to see the movies in which they have performed.

What about composers? Do some or most living composers of art music likewise enjoy listening to their completed works over and over again, such as perhaps monthly, weekly, or even more often?

Did the great masters of previous centuries frequently attend performances of their own music?

In a similar vein, did or do composers continue to polish their works prior to publication until they are just "good enough" _or_ until they like them so well that they would want to listen to them frequently and long into the future? Would they refrain from submitting them for publication if they did not like them sufficiently to truly enjoy listening to them repeatedly?


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## ORigel (May 7, 2020)

Depends on the composer.

For example, Brahms was a perfectionist who probably burnt more music than he published-- Biographer Jan Swafford said Brahms composed 20 string quartets; only three survive.

Other composers, like Telemann, were working on deadlines.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Composers in the earlier periods, including Baroque and Classical at least where very often performers: they sang, they played instruments, they copied/published their own music and they directed performances (or lead the performance). This is another aspect that made many of them great composers, because they were very hands on in making sure that the music they wrote were correctly performed. They were not like modern day music-philosophers busy thinking about what is music, but they go on with writing great music and also performed their own great music.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

ArtMusic said:


> Composers in the earlier periods, including Baroque and Classical at least where very often performers: they sang, they played instruments, they copied/published their own music and they directed performances (or lead the performance). This is another aspect that made many of them great composers, because they were very hands on in making sure that the music they wrote were correctly performed. They were not like modern day music-philosophers busy thinking about what is music, but they go on with writing great music and also performed their own great music.


You are creating a false dichotomy.

Composers today are very hands on, are often performers, singers and/or direct the performances of their music. They have to be hands on, since their work often calls for extended techniques on the instrument(s). Even if they are not present during the rehearsals (often they are, or in communication via email/phone), they always include extensive performance notes with the score.

Very few are "music-philosophers busy thinking about what is music." In fact I can only think of one composer who comes close to fitting that description in the last 100 years.


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## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

ArtMusic said:


> ...............This is another aspect that made many of them great composers, because they were very hands on in making sure that the music they wrote were correctly performed. They were not like modern day music-philosophers busy thinking about what is music, but they go on with writing great music and also performed their own great music.


nonsense............................


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

SanAntone said:


> You are creating a false dichotomy.
> 
> Composers today are very hands on, are often performers, singers and/or direct the performances of their music. They have to be hands on, since their work often calls for extended techniques on the instrument(s). Even if they are not present during the rehearsals (often they are, or in communication via email/phone), they always include extensive performance notes with the score.
> 
> Very few are "music-philosophers busy thinking about what is music." In fact I can only think of one composer who comes close to fitting that description in the last 100 years.


I disagree. It is a historical fact that say Bach, did all of those activities that I wrote whereas I can think of many composers living today (and those who past away in the last several decades) who only composed and perhaps supervised aspects of performances .


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

Ades, Penderecki, Lutoslawski, Nørgård, Knussen, Messiaen, Kapustin, Salonen, Boulez, Cage, Shostakovitch, Prokofieff, Bartok, Copland, Britten, Tippett, Henze, Peter Maxwell Davies, Koppel, Hovhaness, Cowell, Partch, Perle, Frank Martin, Holliger, Eøtvøs, McCabe, Stockhausen, Stravinsky, N.V.Bentzon, Wuorinen, Lloyd, Bernstein, Hindemith, Kabalevsky, Webern, Say, Honegger, Chavez, Villa-Lobos etc. were/are just a few among more contemporary composers, who have been very directly engaged in performances of their own music, also as musicians and conductors.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

ArtMusic said:


> I disagree. It is a historical fact that say Bach, did all of those activities that I wrote whereas I can think of many composers living today (and those who past away in the last several decades) who only composed and perhaps supervised aspects of performances .


What you can think of and what actually is reality are two different things.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

A. Artists like to eat, and usually have an eye on potential box office (or at least on needs/wants of the patron).

B. Artists (the good ones) have aesthetic and craftsmanship standards, which most will only deviate from if the payoff is big enough (i..e. Wellington's Victory).

C. The standards are only as good as the artist. (i.e. R..Strauss: "I may not be a First Class composer, but I'm a first rate Second Class composer.")

Personal note: I will often pick up something I wrote years ago and say "Yeah, that was pretty good."


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

"The Requiem is most likely Bruckner's "first truly large-scale composition and probably his first significant work." "[It] is amazing what he achieved, especially if we look at the great double fugue of the Quam olim Abrahae, written at least six years before he even commenced his thorough contrapuntal studies with Simon Sechter!" "The Requiem was Bruckner's first larger-scale composition and also his first work with orchestra. [When reviewing it in 1892,] as a highly self-critical seventy-year-old, Bruckner passed judgement on the work as follows: Es is' net schlecht! ('It is not bad!').
There is clear influence of Mozart throughout the work.
[There] are many passages reminiscent of what was even then, in 1848/49, a past age (the very opening points irresistibly to Mozart's Requiem in the same key), and though the very inclusion of a figured bass for organ continuo strikes one as backward looking, there are already several flashes of the later, great Bruckner to come.
[Despite it] is by no means a perfect masterpiece... [it] can be said to be the first full demonstration that the young man was a composer of inestimable promise. ... [The] expressively reticent opening of the opening of the Requiem, with his softly shifting syncopations in the strings ... already faintly anticipates one or two of his own symphonic passages in the two earlier D minor symphonies, for instance Nos. '0' and 3... [We] cannot escape the solemn beauty of this music, which already has the authentic atmosphere of natural genius." <wiki/Requiem_(Bruckner)>










"We know that Mozart held his Vespers in high regard since he once asked his father, in a letter dated 12 March 1783, to send the two works to him in Vienna so that he could show them to Baron Gottfried van Swieten." <baerenreiter>
"Mozart wrote the Vesperae de Dominica in Salzburg in 1779, the same year as the Coronation Mass - a work, which the composer himself held in high esteem. It was no doubt this work that Mozart presented to Baron van Swieten when he later sought to introduce himself to the Viennese musical world as a composer of church music in the serious stile antico." <stretta-music>


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

A few from the 20th Century:
- Vaughan Williams had a self-deprecatory attitude somewhat similar to Richard Strauss. He didn't seek to promote his music, just wanted it to speak for itself. His self-criticism wasn't always accurate, he thought little of even what now are considered his most significant works (e.g. Tallis Fantasia).
- When Bartok heard Yehudi Menuhin play one of his violin sonatas, he said "I did not think music could be played like that until long after the composer was dead." It sounds strange but Bartok meant that as a compliment, Menuhin reflected that the composer was not a man of idle words.
- Stravinsky visited Cambridge university in England, and was invited to a special performance of his own music. Early that day he attended the rehearsals but was none too pleased about what he heard. That same night he skipped the concert and went to someone's party in the university.
- John Cage didn't particularly like to go to concerts, and he owned no sound system or recordings. He wasn't particularly supportive of commercial recordings being made of his own music.


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## level82rat (Jun 20, 2019)

Similar question: did the composers ever praise themselves? Did Mozart ever write in his letters, "Wow, I really outdid myself with this one?"

Edit: I guess hammeredklavier beat me to the punch. Looks like Mozart did, at least for his Cm mass


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

Sid James said:


> - John Cage didn't particularly like to go to concerts, and he owned no sound system or recordings. He wasn't particularly supportive of commercial recordings being made of his own music.


Clearly, like most of the listening public, he didn't like what he was hearing!


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## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

> - Stravinsky visited Cambridge university in England, and was invited to a special performance of his own music. Early that day he attended the rehearsals but was none too pleased about what he heard. That same night he skipped the concert and went to someone's party in the university.


Stravinsky does sometimes sound better on paper.


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## Coach G (Apr 22, 2020)

consuono said:


> Stravinsky does sometimes sound better on paper.


And some composers and their compositions are better discussed than enjoyed.


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## Coach G (Apr 22, 2020)

Sid James said:


> ...
> - John Cage didn't particularly like to go to concerts, and he owned no sound system or recordings. He wasn't particularly supportive of commercial recordings being made of his own music.


I read in a book on "American composers" that in house where Samuel Barber and Gian-Carlo Menotti lived (_Capricorn_), the record and tape player was always broken.

Perhaps all this is understandable. If music is your work then having to listen to music in your free time might be like working overtime. So for some musicians, maybe silence is very appealing. I knew a lady who taught music in a high school, band, chorus, and music appreciation, Once I asked here what kind of music she listens to at home. She said none; that when she gets home she enjoys the quiet.


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## Coach G (Apr 22, 2020)

I read that Tchaikovsky was very critical of his own works, that he saw his symphonies as not seamless enough, not crafted as well as his idol, Mozart, who could weave various melodies together in a way where the music practically seemed to compose itself. So Tchaikovsky was quite unhappy with a good portion of his work. Of course, how can you not be self-critical if you're going set Mozart as your benchmark?


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## Coach G (Apr 22, 2020)

Sid James said:


> A few from the 20th Century:...
> - Stravinsky visited Cambridge university in England, and was invited to a special performance of his own music. Early that day he attended the rehearsals but was none too pleased about what he heard. That same night he skipped the concert and went to someone's party in the university.


Was Stravinsky not happy with the interpretations? Did they edit his works in a way that upset him (like they did with _Rite_ in the movie _Fantasia_)? Did someone dismiss a suggestion he made at the rehearsal? I'd like to know the details because on the face of it it sounds like Stravinsky was being a real jerk, and imagine how the musicians felt going through all the trouble of learning the music and then this jackass who we're honoring doesn't even show up?

I don't want to be quick to judge but I gather from having read some of Stravinsky's writings that he had a tendency to be pompous and tart.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Coach G said:


> I read in a book on "American composers" that in house where Samuel Barber and Gian-Carlo Menotti lived (_Capricorn_), the record and tape player was always broken.
> 
> Perhaps all this is understandable. If music is your work then having to listen to music in your free time might be like working overtime. So for some musicians, maybe silence is very appealing. I knew a lady who taught music in a high school, band, chorus, and music appreciation, Once I asked here what kind of music she listens to at home. She said none; that when she gets home she enjoys the quiet.


There was an element of that for Cage, in one interview he expressed the view that while he went along to concerts, he more or less viewed it as a chore. Cage was a complex character, so there would be many reasons for this. While his famous quote about preferring traffic noise to Beethoven displays a certain anarchic streak, he grew up playing Beethoven's music (the piano part to the violin sonatas, to be precise). While he said that the Western canon in general was "ego music" which could shut off people from perceiving their own surroundings, he also had respect for that tradition. Overall, he was about being in the moment to experience sounds everywhere, so to him concerts and recordings where merely replications of this and not the real thing.



Coach G said:


> Was Stravinsky not happy with the interpretations? Did they edit his works in a way that upset him (like they did with _Rite_ in the movie _Fantasia_)? Did someone dismiss a suggestion he made at the rehearsal? I'd like to know the details because on the face of it it sounds like Stravinsky was being a real jerk, and imagine how the musicians felt going through all the trouble of learning the music and then this jackass who we're honoring doesn't even show up?
> 
> I don't want to be quick to judge but I gather from having read some of Stravinsky's writings that he had a tendency to be pompous and tart.


Stravinsky simply didn't like the way his music was being played. I can't recall if it was the manner of interpretation, lack of technical skill or both. This was at the time of his eightieth birthday world tour. He was definitely a strong personality and a very direct person. Like many people who reach such an old age, he didn't really feel the need to please anyone, he was comfortable simply being himself. This anecdote was recalled by Peter Sculthorpe in his autobiography. He was studying at Cambridge during that time and met Stravinsky at the party that night.


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## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

Vaughn Williams sometimes lacked confidence in his work. He once had a couple of pianists around to 4hand one of his symphonies and when they had finished, he turned to his invited guests and said, "well, is it any good?" Sorry, I can't remember which symphony it was.

I know of some composers, me included, who when listening to older work think some or all could be improved. It took a while to realise that on one level, it's probably a good thing.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

There was a short recording of Vaughan Williams speaking while present at a recording session. Adrian Boult had just recorded the Symphony No. 6. The speech was commercially available, added as a bonus track, and would probably be somewhere on youtube.

The composer complemented the musicians on their playing of the final movement, saying that even though technically difficult (all of it is pianissimo) it was so sensitive and full of tension that it exposed all his faults. He added that he hoped it showed some virtues as well. I also like how when he called the orchestra gentlemen he added that he also included "the lady harpist." This was during the 1950's when the composer was in his eighties.

I've come across a number of situations like this which show how he was a humble person. The fact that he turned down a knighthood speaks to this too. He didn't want to be marked as special, he believed that the composer was a member of the community like anyone else.


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## chu42 (Aug 14, 2018)

Sorabji banned performances of his music after a disappointing concert. He also denied ever having gone to the concert.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

_When Handel was blind, and attending a performance of the Oratorio of Jephthe, Mr [William] Savage, my master, who sat next to him, said,

Savage : "This movement, sir, reminds me of some of old Purcell's music."
Handel : "O got ter teffel. If Purcell had lived, he would have composed better music than this."_


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