# If you could lengthen the lifespan of any composer by five productive years



## Gallus (Feb 8, 2018)

Who would you choose? 

I was listening to I Puritani the other day and thinking how much of a tragedy it is that we didn't get a few more operas out of Bellini.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

I'm really torn. There are more than a few that one would like to hear more of - Mozart, Lully, Purcell spring to mind. And if only William Lawes hadn't been shot dead by a 'casual shot from a Parliamentarian'.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Schubert is the obvious one here - he was composing one masterpiece after another in the last years of his far too short life.


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## Guest (Oct 27, 2018)

Either Webern or Berg. Probably Webern because it would be fascinating to hear what he would come up with up to the year 1950.


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## Olias (Nov 18, 2010)

Obviously Mozart and Schubert. I'd add Mendelssohn as well.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

shirime said:


> Either Webern or Berg. Probably Webern because it would be fascinating to hear what he would come up with up to the year 1950.


About three works each if either maintained their usual pace. Good choice(s), though.


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## Haydn man (Jan 25, 2014)

Like others I would liked 5 more years of Schubert.
That said 5 more years for Haydn would have let him really develop as a composer of symphonies, a sadly neglected part of his repertoire


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Ravel. He was just getting into a serious piano/orchestral groove with the two piano concertos before getting ill. On top of what he had already composed, another five years' worth of peak Ravel would have been awesome indeed.

And how about 5 more productive years for Sibelius?


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## Kiki (Aug 15, 2018)

Mahler. Five more years and he could have completed the most life affirming symphony of his life.



Strange Magic said:


> And how about 5 more productive years for Sibelius?


Five more _productive _ years could have seen Sibelius produced another masterpiece that would dwarf even Tapiola and the 7th symphony. But it would probably be difficult to convince him to stay productive.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

For sure Bellini but also Mendelssohn.


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## Kollwitz (Jun 10, 2018)

Bruckner, as long as he didn't spend it under the influence of Schalk etc revising his earlier symphonies. I'd love to have a fully completed 9th and to see where he'd have gone next.

More obviously, Mahler clearly had a huge amount of great music to write.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

I'd choose Max Reger - only 43 when he died and it would have been interesting to see if any changes of musical climate in Germany after WWI would have had any affect on his own work. Even if he had carried on in his stolid, serious and singular way at least there might have been a better chance of getting a symphony or two out of him, a form which he had avoided if we don't count the _Sinfonietta_.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Mozart definitely. Who knows what miracles might have had.


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## BenG (Aug 28, 2018)

Bruckner and Mahler. Mahler would have been towering over schoenberg and Berg in those five years and Bruckner definitely needed that extra time to complete his monumental 9th Symphony.

And if Hans Rott had lived 5 years longer, gosh...the potential!


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

Elliott Carter. With an extra five years, I believe that would make him the consensus longest lived classical composer, or at least fairly certainly the oldest active composer.


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

Ingélou said:


> I'm really torn. There are more than a few that one would like to hear more of - Mozart, Lully, Purcell spring to mind. And if only William Lawes hadn't been shot dead *by a 'casual shot from a Parliamentarian'*.


Did he have one hand in his pocket while pulling the trigger? Poor Lawes, wrong place at the wrong time.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

eugeneonagain said:


> Did he have one hand in his pocket while pulling the trigger? Poor Lawes, wrong place at the wrong time.


It's a quote from Wiki - but I think the idea is, that Lawes had been kept by the King's wish in the rear of the Royalist army, which was retreating after a 'rout', so there was no need to fire - the day was won for Parliament.

But hey, thought the Parliamentarian, why not pick off another one, and keep my eye in?

Afterthought: unless it means that the Parliamentarian shot into the mass of fleeing Royalists and happened to hit William Lawes, bull's eye?


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## Bluecrab (Jun 24, 2014)

Blancrocher said:


> Elliott Carter. With an extra five years, I believe that would make him the consensus longest lived classical composer, or at least fairly certainly the oldest active composer.


That's an interesting perspective, given that Carter lived to be almost 104 and was pretty productive until his death (btw, I love his music). I'd go with Bartok. Perhaps we could have had another string quartet or a couple of works for string orchestra. Or another piano concerto.


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

Schubert, Mozart, Mendelssohn or Beethoven for me. All four were composing masterpieces in their final years and I would like to listen to some more of them.


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## jdec (Mar 23, 2013)

Not only for quality but quantity too in only 5 years.... Mozart is my answer. Then Schubert.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Amadeus. For my least interested one, it's Segerstam.


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## jegreenwood (Dec 25, 2015)

Another vote for Schubert - so he could catch up to Mozart (in years).


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## Brahmsian Colors (Sep 16, 2016)

Mozart, Mendelssohn, Schubert, Brahms, Debussy, Ravel


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## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

Mozart
Bruckner
Sibelius
Scriabin


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

I want those symphonies Wagner said he intended to write.


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## derin684 (Feb 14, 2018)

Debussy? I'd surely want to hear the completed "Six Sonatas For Various Instruments". 

Schuebert, Mozart, and Webern seem to be classic choices but what about Bach or... maybe Chopin? 

It's controversial that whether Bach completed The Art of Fugue or he didn't, but let's assume that he couldn't. I'd surely want to listen to the completed version. Who knows, maybe he intended to write 20 contrapunctus.

Another thing that I would like to hear is another set of nocturnes written in Chopin's late style.


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

Strange Magic said:


> And how about 5 more productive years for Sibelius?


So that he could get drunk and destroy more masterpieces? Maybe 12 or so fewer unproductive years for him...


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

Would it not be better if Schubert had 5 years _removed_? Then he could have fallen into complete obscurity and his monstrous _Trite_ Quintet wouldn't be emanating from every Samsung washing machine after the wash finishes.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

eugeneonagain said:


> Would it not be better if Schubert had 5 years _removed_? Then he could have fallen into complete obscurity and his monstrous _Trite_ Quintet wouldn't be emanating from every Samsung washing machine after the wash finishes.


Sounds like Glenn again. "Gould once said that Mozart was a composer who died too late rather than too soon. He even produced a TV program for CBC on 'How Mozart Became a Bad Composer'."


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

I'd like to see that. Surely though, Mozart wrote his better work _later_ in his life?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

eugeneonagain said:


> Would it not be better if Schubert had 5 years _removed_? Then he could have fallen into complete obscurity and his monstrous _Trite_ Quintet wouldn't be emanating from every Samsung washing machine after the wash finishes.


The only front-loader that doubles as an aquarium.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

eugeneonagain said:


> I'd like to see that. Surely though, Mozart wrote his better work _later_ in his life?


Gould thought otherwise, or claimed to. Of course this is from the same guy who wrote, "Beethoven's reputation is based entirely on gossip."


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

KenOC said:


> Gould thought otherwise, or claimed to. Of course this is from the same guy who wrote, "Beethoven's reputation is based entirely on gossip."


I think Gould would have been perfectly happy had the years 1750-1850 been excised from history.


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## jenspen (Apr 25, 2015)

Bleeding obvious answer:

I would time-travel some antibiotics to Franz Peter Schubert.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Woodduck said:


> I think Gould would have been perfectly happy had the years 1750-1850 been excised from history.


Regarding the later part of that period, Gould wrote, "I don't think any of the early Romantic composers knew how to write for the piano... The music of that era is full of empty theatrical gestures, full of exhibitionism, and it has a worldly, hedonistic quality that simply turns me off."


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Mozart and Schubert. Both seemed to be heading incredible places. For whatever reason, both Chopin and Mendelssohn seemed to be slowing down. If 5 years were added, we'd also want some circumstance internal or external to rejuvenate their creative spirits.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

KenOC said:


> Regarding the later part of that period, Gould wrote, "I don't think any of the early Romantic composers knew how to write for the piano... The music of that era is full of empty theatrical gestures, full of exhibitionism, and it has a worldly, hedonistic quality that simply turns me off."


So I guessed right! :cheers:


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## derin684 (Feb 14, 2018)

KenOC said:


> Regarding the later part of that period, Gould wrote, "I don't think any of the early Romantic composers knew how to write for the piano... The music of that era is full of empty theatrical gestures, full of exhibitionism, and it has a worldly, hedonistic quality that simply turns me off."


Surely he didn't consider the Chopin and Liszt piano sonatas, though he did make a good point.


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## Crudblud (Dec 29, 2011)

Well, obviously the guy I have for my avatar would be my first pick, but if we're talking purely classical composers then I would like to see five more years from either Mahler, Ravel, Webern, or Stravinsky.


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## Dimace (Oct 19, 2018)

Franz Schubert, Joseph Martin Kraus & Tschaikowsky to see what comes after his Pathetique.


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## Durendal (Oct 24, 2018)

Mozart. He was rapidly evolving. I think he would have single handedly started the romantic movement early with several masterpieces. What a shame.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

I immediately thought Ravel and Bartok, already mentioned. Ravel because I remember reading how he said that he had so much more music in his head when he died; Bartok because of how his career was interrupted between the two world wars with travel and research into folk music which limited his time for composition. Both of these died prematurely of illness, which of course doesn't discriminate with regards to potential achievements or anything else. In this sense, the worse off where those who didn't even make it into their thirties: Arriaga and Pergolesi.

My answer however is *Gershwin*, who shortly before his death in an interview talked of plans to compose a string quartet and symphony. Although leaving us a wealth of popular songs, still sung and played by musicians of all genres, Gershwin left only a few classical works. Most of his concert hall pieces are indispensable when talking about music of the last century: Rhapsody in Blue, Concerto in F, Cuban Overture, American in Paris. His opera Porgy and Bess is one of the few of the last century to be regularly performed.

He was not only popular but admired by the likes of Schoenberg, Berg, Ravel, Rachmaninov and Stravinsky. Gene Kelly's brilliant choreography of American in Paris made it enter into popular culture. The only classical piece by Gershwin not to enter the performance repertoire is the Second Rhapsody, so I think odds are that if he produced more music of this type, it would be up there with the others in esteem and popularity.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

KenOC said:


> Sounds like Glenn again. "Gould once said that Mozart was a composer who died too late rather than too soon. He even produced a TV program for CBC on 'How Mozart Became a Bad Composer'."


When we look at Gould we have to distinguish between his piano playing which is often revelatory and the absurd things he sometimes said. You get the feeling he was just like an immature teenager wanting to shock. Unfortunately that leaked over into his playing. Listen to early Gould playing Mozart and it can be brilliant. Listen to late Gould's Mozart and it is often awful. So maybe it wasn't Mozart who died too young!


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

jenspen said:


> Bleeding obvious answer:
> 
> I would time-travel some antibiotics to Franz Peter Schubert.


Yes Schubert is the one who, beside Mozart, and early death robbed us of some remarkable music. Oh and just a mention for Purcell.


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## Dimace (Oct 19, 2018)

DavidA said:


> When we look at Gould we have to distinguish between his piano playing which is often revelatory and the absurd things he sometimes said. You get the feeling he was just like an immature teenager wanting to shock. Unfortunately that leaked over into his playing. Listen to early Gould playing Mozart and it can be brilliant.* Listen to late Gould's* Mozart and it is often awful. So maybe it wasn't Mozart who died too young!


The late Gould was such a charismatic speaker. Every time he was speaking about music, composers, ideas etc. was so to the point. He seems perfectly rational, well informed, accurate. On the other side, sometimes, we see this phenomenon you mentioned. Especially with Beethovens works this is obvious to the listener has followed his carrier from the very beginning.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

DavidA said:


> Yes Schubert is the one who, beside Mozart, and early death robbed us of some remarkable music. Oh and just a mention for Purcell.


Schubert's epitaph, by Grillparzer: "The art of music has here interred a precious treasure, but yet far fairer hopes."


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## Andolink (Oct 29, 2012)

*Juan Crisóstomo de Arriaga* died 10 days before his 20th birthday in 1826 having already produced several innovative examples of musical genius in several different genres (e.g. his three string quartets).

To imagine all the musical brilliance that might have been if Arriaga had gone on to live a normal life span is mind blowing.

An extra five years would have been good too.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

Gallus said:


> Who would you choose?
> 
> I was listening to I Puritani the other day and thinking how much of a tragedy it is that we didn't get a few more operas out of Bellini.


Mozart. I only really enjoy some of his late works so I think he would have produced much that would have interested me. I don't think 35 (or rather nearly 36) years is enough for anyone to fully mature.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

Kiki said:


> Five more _productive _ years could have seen Sibelius produced another masterpiece that would dwarf even Tapiola and the 7th symphony. But it would probably be difficult to convince him to stay productive.


I don't believe it's possible to better either work...imho.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

Durendal said:


> Mozart. He was rapidly evolving. I think he would have single handedly started the romantic movement early with several masterpieces. What a shame.


He did didn't he?


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Maybe Sibelius. He lived the years anyway. But they just weren't productive. Other than that I agree with Schubert, Mozart and Mahler as three who went out while they were still getting better. And I would love to hear what Beethoven would have done next.


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## Gordontrek (Jun 22, 2012)

Tchaikovsky. Despite all the brilliance he did manage to achieve in his lifetime, I think he had still yet to reach his full potential as a composer. One or two more symphonies out of him, and he might have reached Beethoven-esque heights. If I could go back in time and save him from drinking that cholera water or whatever the heck it was that killed him, I would then arrange for him to go to France and meet Debussy. Of all the classical music that never was, I love most the idea of Tchaikovsky writing in a French impressionist idiom. Combine the dreamy whole-tone-ness of Impressionism with Tchaikovsky's raw power and emotion, and I think you might have had the most impactful and moving music ever written.


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## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

DeepR said:


> Scriabin


There's no telling what he would have accomplished in 5 more years. If his last pieces, the preludes Op. 74 are any indication, surely it shows that he wasn't losing his mind. There was more music left in him, if he would've been able to keep his highly eccentric and megalomaniacal tendencies somewhat under control. 
I would give up a body part to have more orchestral music, a completed part of the Mysterium, or anything else. It would've been really hard for him to top The Poem of Ecstasy and Prometheus... but just imagine if those pieces were mere appetizers for larger things to come... OK, 5 years is probably not enough.


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

Why do people keep mentioning Sibelius? The man was 92 years old when he kicked the bucket! Is that not enough time to reach one's potential. Adding another 5 years to his last years of inactivity would be pointless.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

eugeneonagain said:


> Why do people keep mentioning Sibelius? The man was 92 years old when he kicked the bucket! Is that not enough time to reach one's potential. Adding another 5 years to his last years of inactivity would be pointless.


When the music was as staggering as his then we get a bit insanely and irrationally hopeful of more. I can't think of many composers that could do what he did with sound.

Just my opinion.


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## Joe B (Aug 10, 2017)

Bela Bartok. He was on a roll the last 10/15 years of his life. With another 5 years, one can only wonder what he may have written.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Joe B said:


> Bela Bartok. He was on a roll the last 10/15 years of his life. With another 5 years, one can only wonder what he may have written.


Stuff for Disney probably.


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## Joe B (Aug 10, 2017)

Mandryka said:


> Stuff for Disney probably.


Surprised you didn't refer to the seven dwarfs again.


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## Gordontrek (Jun 22, 2012)

eugeneonagain said:


> Why do people keep mentioning Sibelius? The man was 92 years old when he kicked the bucket! Is that not enough time to reach one's potential. Adding another 5 years to his last years of inactivity would be pointless.


I think the idea here is not necessarily that the composer _lives_ 5 more years but has 5 more years of productive composing. In Mozart's case he was productive all his life but died young so people wish he lived longer. In Sibelius's case he died an old man, but people wish that _within_ those 92 years he had spent 5 more of them composing productively.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

eugeneonagain said:


> Would it not be better if Schubert had 5 years _removed_? Then he could have fallen into complete obscurity and his monstrous _Trite_ Quintet wouldn't be emanating from every Samsung washing machine after the wash finishes.


Maybe this (or a new) thread should be about who should have years removed and given to a different composer. Could be run like the voting games with minus and plus points. Hey Bulldog? How about it?


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## PlaySalieri (Jun 3, 2012)

6 months or even 2 would have been enough for Mozart to complete his requiem - But yes 5 years could have added to the treasury in a big way. I would love to have heard what he would have done with the symphony - maybe a mature violin concerto, more piano concertos etc.

Schubert is next.

Then who? Many other composers lived into their 40 50s and beyond. I dont quite see the justification for wanting another 5 years of Mendelssohn compared with Mozart and Schubert. 1 great violin concerto - a few fine symphonies - some excellent solo piano and organ - a couple of forgettable piano concertos and some tiresome oratorios. He lived longer than Mozart and Schubert and based on what he did do in his time I think posterity needn't be too concerned that he didnt live longer. I apply these same comments to most other composers but I do acknowledge that people have their favourites and who am I to say that Elliot Carter, for example, would not have produced some great works in his last 5 years and shone yet more of his blazing light on posterity for the good of all mankind.

Bizet - after Carmen - seemed to be entering a great new phase of genius level productivity - his early death is something to lament and 5 more years could have given us some more great operas.


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## R3PL4Y (Jan 21, 2016)

Definitely either Mahler or Wagner. Wagner was planning on writing symphonies when he died, and those would have really been something to see. Mahler to see what music he would have written after the 10th, and how the war would have affected him. Maybe we better give him 10 years to get him through to 1921 and past the end of the war. In fact, if we give him 20 years to live to 71, then we have him writing through both the first world war and the 1920s as well, really prime time for modernism. I wonder what Mahler would have thought of the likes of Prokofiev or Stravinsky.


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## Durendal (Oct 24, 2018)

I also agree that Schubert would have likely produced some additional groundbreaking works.


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## Durendal (Oct 24, 2018)

I agree. He may have been a brilliant pianist, but it ruffles my feathers when someone who did not write music talks crap about arguably the greatest composer who ever lived. Gould isn't even in the same galaxy as Mozart.


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## Alkan (Jun 30, 2018)

Art Rock said:


> Schubert is the obvious one here - he was composing one masterpiece after another in the last years of his far too short life.


Totally agree. Mozart would be second, and not all that close. Chopin deserved more time too, and I'd like old Bach to have at least a few more days to finish that fugue.


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## Bluecrab (Jun 24, 2014)

Durendal said:


> I agree. He may have been a brilliant pianist, but it ruffles my feathers when someone who did not write music talks crap about arguably the greatest composer who ever lived. Gould isn't even in the same galaxy as Mozart.


Glenn Gould did write music.

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


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## jdec (Mar 23, 2013)

Bluecrab said:


> Glenn Gould did write music.
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_compositions_by_Glenn_Gould


But not really good/important music.


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## Bluecrab (Jun 24, 2014)

jdec said:


> But not really good/important music.


That's clearly not the point of my post.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

stomanek said:


> 6 months or even 2 would have been enough for Mozart to complete his requiem - But yes 5 years could have added to the treasury in a big way. I would love to have heard what he would have done with the symphony - maybe a mature violin concerto, more piano concertos etc.
> 
> Schubert is next.
> 
> *Then who?*


Weber is perhaps easy to overlook, since we have relatively few works from him, but he gave German opera a distinct identity and could have made further significant contributions to the genre in the period between _Der Freischutz_ in 1821 and Wagner's _Flying Dutchman_ in 1843.


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## PlaySalieri (Jun 3, 2012)

Bluecrab said:


> Glenn Gould did write music.
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_compositions_by_Glenn_Gould


I think few pianists of any note did not write music.

But the validity of his opinion on Mozart is not contingent on him being a composer - of note or otherwise.


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## BiscuityBoyle (Feb 5, 2018)

Prokofiev. He was palpably in decline as a composer in the last few years imho, BUT he was in the midst of writing a concerto for one of my favorite pianists, Anatoly Vedernikov. Had he finished it, more people today would know about this phenomenal interpreter of Bach and 20th century music.


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## Durendal (Oct 24, 2018)

Beethoven as well? Hard to believe he could top symphony 9, but who knows...


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Bluecrab said:


> Glenn Gould did write music.
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_compositions_by_Glenn_Gould


Glenn left us this deathless ditty!






And for Woodduck, he even quotes from Die Meistersinger.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

KenOC said:


> Glenn left us this deathless ditty!
> 
> 
> 
> ...


And the 2nd Brandenburg. Bach to Gould via Wagner. I think the old Kapellmeister would be delighted at his longevity.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Durendal said:


> Beethoven as well? Hard to believe he could top symphony 9, but who knows...


Beethoven definitely. The late sonatas and quartets are a brave new world. How many light years would he have traveled to the next galaxy?


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## DiesIraeCX (Jul 21, 2014)

I can't give just one composer. There are too many tantalizing scenarios. Wagner and his planned symphonies, Mahler in the 1920s and 1930s would have been something to hear, Beethoven's late period music taken even further as Woodduck already mentioned, Schubert obviously, Mozart composing alongside Beethoven in the 1800's, Debussy finishing the six sonatas for various instruments.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

DiesIraeCX said:


> I can't give just one composer. There are too many tantalizing scenarios. Wagner and his planned symphonies, Mahler in the 1920s and 1930s would have been something to hear, Beethoven's late period music taken even further as Woodduck already mentioned, Schubert obviously, Mozart composing alongside Beethoven in the 1800's, Debussy finishing the six sonatas for various instruments.


When we speculate in this manner and feel a real sense of loss at what might have been, we should recognize that we're questioning the notion that the musical idioms of past eras were "written out" and that there was anything inevitable about the way music developed. Determinism and the imperatives of history as seen in retrospect turn on rolls of the dice that we can always imagine having come up differently, and though the overall progression of music might well have moved in directions familiar to us, the journey could have been still richer and more complex had many of the greatest geniuses of art not been taken before they had finished saying all they could. Unfortunately there is no filling in the blanks after the fact. Great music is never produced out of mere nostalgia.


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## lextune (Nov 25, 2016)

Mozart
Schubert
Chopin
Scriabin


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## PlaySalieri (Jun 3, 2012)

R3PL4Y said:


> Definitely either Mahler or Wagner. Wagner was planning on writing symphonies when he died, and those would have really been something to see. Mahler to see what music he would have written after the 10th, and how the war would have affected him. Maybe we better give him 10 years to get him through to 1921 and past the end of the war. In fact, if we give him 20 years to live to 71, then we have him writing through both the first world war and the 1920s as well, really prime time for modernism. I wonder what Mahler would have thought of the likes of Prokofiev or Stravinsky.


I appreciate that Wagner wrote some magnificent orch music for his operas - but it's speculative to think that he might have made a major contribution to the 19th symphony. He also lived to be 70 y/o and frankly if he hadn't composed a sy by this time of life any ambitions he did have can be safely dismissed. Opera specialists dont seem to have anything significant to say in non vocal genre - Verdi composed 1 quartet of little note. Weber composed some nice clarinet concertos I suppose. Rossini string sonatas.

Mahler I think a shame he did not live to finish his 10th sy - but the completion really does sound like his last word in the form and I dont think Mahler fans should feel to bad that he didnt live another 5 years.


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

Schubert. He was producing fantastic masterpieces towards the end of his too short life. He would have eclipsed Mozart and Beethoven had he lived longer.  
Sibelius is a good choice also, but he became unproductive later in life


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

stomanek said:


> I appreciate that Wagner wrote some magnificent orch music for his operas - but it's speculative to think that he might have made a major contribution to the 19th symphony. He also lived to be 70 y/o and frankly if he hadn't composed a sy by this time of life any ambitions he did have can be safely dismissed. Opera specialists dont seem to have anything significant to say in non vocal genre - Verdi composed 1 quartet of little note. Weber composed some nice clarinet concertos I suppose. Rossini string sonatas.
> 
> Mahler I think a shame he did not live to finish his 10th sy - but the completion really does sound like his last word in the form and I dont think Mahler fans should feel to bad that he didnt live another 5 years.


I think Mahler and Wagner were pretty well written out by the time they died, Mahler's 10th symphony apart. Same probably applies to Beethoven who was concentrating on string quartets. The remarkable case is Verdi who composed his two greatest operas as an old man


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

I'd rather offer more years to those who showed exceptional promise, but never achieved much acclaim while alive. Like Georges Bizet or Alberic Magnard or Erwin Schulhoff.

I suspect that adding more years to the lives of those who already produced a lot of work is more about listeners wanting more of what they already know, but have worn out through heavy listening.


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

eugeneonagain said:


> I'd rather offer more years to those who showed exceptional promise, but never achieved much acclaim while alive. Like Georges Bizet or Alberic Magnard or Erwin Schulhoff.
> 
> I suspect that adding more years to the lives of those who already produced a lot of work is more about listeners wanting more of what they already know, but have worn out through heavy listening.


Julius Reubke died at 24 and he composed a masterful piano sonata and some masterful organ works





Hans Rott might be another example. Died at 25 and composed a masterful symphony





from among Czech composers - Kaprálová


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## CnC Bartok (Jun 5, 2017)

I'd probably, in the final analysis, have gone for Vitezslava Kapralova as well. She produced some glorious music in her short lifespan, and even under so many huge influences had already found her own voice. As much as with Lili Boulanger, for me even more so, this was THE great female composer who just might have been........

There are too many "what ifs" to give this question a definitive answer, though. I found myself agreeing with most of the preceding 83 posts, and yes of course Schubert, and Bartok, but I think Sibelius was spent, and I am afraid the tiny fragments of his 8th don't amount to really tantalising. 7 and Tapiola will do for me.....


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## Andolink (Oct 29, 2012)

I second the suggestion of an additional 5 years for Magnard. That would have been truly fascinating.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

If we're making wishes, my choice is to give myself five productive years.


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## Durendal (Oct 24, 2018)

Didn't Wagner compose a couple of symphonies early in his career?


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## Orfeo (Nov 14, 2013)

Jacck said:


> Julius Reubke died at 24 and he composed a masterful piano sonata and some masterful organ works
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I would agree with that. I would also add both Kalinnikov and Fibich, the latter who is often grouped with Smetana and Dvorak as Czechoslovakia's most important composers before the early modern era represented by Suk, Novak, Ostrčil. Who knows what Fibich would have come up with had he lived longer.

Other cases in point would be people like Toivo Kuula, Butterworth, Stanchinsky, or Latvian Peteris Barisons, truly emerging talents in their own rights, but cut short way too early.


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

Another vote for Schubert from me.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Durendal said:


> Didn't Wagner compose a couple of symphonies early in his career?


Wagner completed only one symphony, the _Symphony in C_, written in 1832 at the age of 19. It had a few performances and then seems to have disappeared until copies of the orchestral parts were found in 1877. It's a decent effort that sounds like an amalgam of Beethoven, Weber and Mendelssohn, pretty much what you'd expect of a composer off to a late start. A more representative orchestral work is the dark and turbulent _Faust Overture_, a fine piece written in 1840 (revised 1855), intended as the first movement of a symphony on the subject.

I'm both amused and irritated by the comments of a couple of people above who sniff at Wagner's thoughts on composing symphonies late in his life. To say confidently that he was probably "written out" and that his ambitions can be "safely dismissed" takes more insight into his abilities and state of mind than I, at least, can claim to possess. He had long stated that _Parsifal_ would be his last opera, and had discussed with Liszt his thoughts on the symphony and a concept of "thematic metamorphosis" which sounds, on paper, somewhat prescient of Sibelius. Had he not had a bad heart, and had his efforts at producing and directing his works at Bayreuth not exhausted him, we might well have had some interesting contributions to the Romantic symphonic repertoire.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

Mozart and Schubert are the obvious choices, Beethoven too. All of them likely would have lived much longer with modern medical care, especially Beethoven, who likely poisoned himself by using a lead wine goblet. Another worth mentioning is Claude Debussy, who wrote some of his greatest music in his final years as he succumbed to cancer.


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

The lead in the wine Beethoven drank was supposedly added to the wine as a cheap (and deadly) flavour-enhancer; and common practise.


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## Machiavel (Apr 12, 2010)

If 5 years is enough to complete it then Scriabin for his mysterium.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

eugeneonagain said:


> The lead in the wine Beethoven drank was supposedly added to the wine as a cheap (and deadly) flavour-enchancer; and common practise.


Complex, full-bodied, slightly astringent, with oaky overtones and a leaden finish. Exquisite.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

eugeneonagain said:


> The lead in the wine Beethoven drank was supposedly added to the wine as a cheap (and deadly) flavour-enchancer; and common practise.


Well, then that's yet another example of something I've read not being exactly right. Not surprising, though. Apparently the supposed problem behind the notorious "Absinthe madness" in 19th century Europe, thujone, a potentially hallucinogenic component of wormwood, an Absinthe ingredient, was not the problem at all. Rather, it was simply a matter of too much alcohol, and possibly also a toxic additive used in the cheaper versions to give it its green color. So even if Beethoven had dodged the lead bullet, other dangers lurked.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Mahler, so he could have finished the Tenth, and written some piano miniatures.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

*"My life has been extended by five years, but...I've already been enbalmed!!! The pain! The pain! Arrrrgh!!"
*







Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1956)


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

I think Schoenberg would be wearing a tie, even when embalmed.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

eugeneonagain said:


> I think Schoenberg would be wearing a tie, even when embalmed.


But...


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

millionrainbows said:


> *"My life has been extended by five years, but...I've already been enbalmed!!! The pain! The pain! Arrrrgh!!"
> *
> 
> 
> ...


Is it a picture _of_ Schoenberg, a picture _by_ Schoenberg, or the result of listening to Schoenberg's music?


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## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

It's a tough choice, but I really would have liked to see what Ludwig Van
would have created with another 5 years.


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

Itullian said:


> It's a tough choice, but I really would have liked to see what Ludwig Van
> would have created with another 5 years.


Symphony no.10 I guess.


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## waldvogel (Jul 10, 2011)

Alexander Borodin would have needed to get a five-year paid sabbatical sometime in the 1870’s, sobered up his colleague Mussorgsky, and between the two of them we would have had some rip-roaring excellent music.


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## Tchaikov6 (Mar 30, 2016)

I would have loved to see what Gershwin could have done with five to ten more years of his life. At the time of his death film scores were just becoming a real feature in movies.


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## Bluecrab (Jun 24, 2014)

Tchaikov6 said:


> I would have loved to see what Gershwin could have done with five to ten more years of his life. At the time of his death film scores were just becoming a real feature in movies.


That's a very fair point. After all, he was only 38 when he died.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Woodduck said:


> Is it a picture _of_ Schoenberg, a picture _by_ Schoenberg, or the result of listening to Schoenberg's music?


Any way you look at it, it's horrific.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Woodduck said:


> When we speculate in this manner and feel a real sense of loss at what might have been, we should recognize that we're questioning the notion that the musical idioms of past eras were "written out" and that there was anything inevitable about the way music developed. Determinism and the imperatives of history as seen in retrospect turn on rolls of the dice that we can always imagine having come up differently, and though the overall progression of music might well have moved in directions familiar to us, the journey could have been still richer and more complex had many of the greatest geniuses of art not been taken before they had finished saying all they could. Unfortunately there is no filling in the blanks after the fact. Great music is never produced out of mere nostalgia.


I think certain ideas are "inevitable," and history has proven this on many occassions. The atomic bomb developed out of ideas in physics which were known to all, and then there was a race to finish it and 'realise' the idea. Are human beings merely actors on the stage in this regard? Does new technology influence ideas in inevitable ways? In the atomic bomb scenario, yes, it did.

"...But music is not technology, it's art..." you might say, but in many ways music is much simpler. Only 12 notes, after all...it's inevitable that music would become more chromatic.


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

KenOC said:


> But...


Tie is around trousers for sports. See, proper gentleman.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

millionrainbows said:


> I think certain ideas are "inevitable," and history has proven this on many occassions. The atomic bomb developed out of ideas in physics which were known to all, and then there was a race to finish it and 'realise' the idea. Are human beings merely actors on the stage in this regard? Does new technology influence ideas in inevitable ways? In the atomic bomb scenario, yes, it did.
> 
> "...But music is not technology, it's art..." you might say, but in many ways music is much simpler. Only 12 notes, after all...it's inevitable that music would become more chromatic.


I agree that certain ideas will inevitably emerge, _given the necessary preliminary groundwork and the minds ready to bring forth those ideas._ But change history slightly, the groundwork changes, the ideas that emerge are different, and the products of those ideas - in this case the music that actually gets written - will be different. Music isn't a simple outgrowth of other music - "12 notes" - but of culture as a whole, and in culture as a whole the variables - not just the musical variables - are limitless. Your fond fetish, chromaticism, was discovered and utilized long before "music became chromatic," and "music" (a particular musical tradition, to be precise) could have focused on it long before it actually did, had there been a need and a desire for it.

The "inevitability" of atonality and the 12-tone method is an old subject for debate. Let's not bog down yet another thread with it. All I meant to suggest was that if some of the great composers had lived longer they might not only have shown that much more was possible in the styles in which they worked, but would have changed the course of music somewhat by thinking of things that no one else could have.


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

I'm less sure. Many of those composers who did live longer lives tended to stall and become somewhat critical of new developments (Saint-Saëns, Sibelius). There are definite shifts in culture which seem, for good or ill, to either stifle or supersede what came before it. Even if they have limited longevity, the change effected is permanent.


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## CnC Bartok (Jun 5, 2017)

Trouble is that hair is not that good as a biomarker for lead, mainly because it is not easy to differentiate between ingested lead and external exposure. Beethoven's bones suggested chronic poisoning, most likely from the wine he was partial to. It probably accounts for his deafness as well.......

....saw this at Heiligenstadt last Saturday!


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## ManuelMozart95 (Sep 29, 2018)

Mozart or Schubert is the right answer I think since they died both young and were still producing masterpieces and were in very productive eras of their lives.

Had Mozart lived longer we can only imagine what would he have done but the last year of his life saw him composing another Piano Concerto after 3 years and he said he had made up his mind that he would compose German Opera.
I think Mozart living until 1796 would leave us lots of masterpieces in Piano Concertos, probably Symphonies maybe even more grandeur than 41 and most important of all a more solid foundation for German Opera, probably he would be considered that founder of German Opera.

As for Schubert I think with 5 more years he would be considered on par with the likes of Beethoven or Mozart. Think that at age 31 Beethoven hadn't even written his 3rd symphony and most of his famous music.


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