# Which composers use the most notes in their compositions?



## Cnote11 (Jul 17, 2010)

From time to time I tend to read complaints about "overplaying", or a composer/artist using an exorbitant amount of notes deemed "unnecessary". 

Now now, no jokes about how Wagner uses the most notes in his compositions because they are a billion years long. I mean more in the manner of the "density" of the notes. Which composers do you feel would fall noticeably underneath this category?

You can also express your opinion on how you feel about the philosophies of filling the page up with notes as opposed to giving the composition more space to breathe.


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

Ferneyhough, sorabji and maybe medtner belong to the top, I think ... (medtner in the 1st Concerto, for instance)


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

It's an interesting question. My favorite composers, like Ravel or Ligeti, are pretty dense. I think that it depends on the kind of ideas you are trying to express with your music. If you are trying to express, say, "loneliness", a good and simple melodic line on the violin can do the job. On the other hand, if you want to express "chaos", a good combination of cross rhythms will do the job. Unless the music is badly crafted, I don't think that density has an intrinsic value (like saying dense is superior to simple or viceversa).


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## Cnote11 (Jul 17, 2010)

I would completely agree with that statement, aleazk. I don't think Ravel "overcomposes" whatsoever, personally. I think he does a stellar job of using the continuous notes to make the music flow and take on a "watery/liquid" quality. Never has a note Ravel composed been extraneous.


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

Cnote11 said:


> I would completely agree with that statement, aleazk. I don't think Ravel "overcomposes" whatsoever, personally. I think he does a stellar job of using the continuous notes to make the music flow and take on a "watery/liquid" quality. Never has a note Ravel composed been extraneous.


Of course, I was thinking the concept in the lines about density, extreme intricacy and complexity. The overcomposed falls in the badly crafted category.


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## Cnote11 (Jul 17, 2010)

Yes, well I hope that nobody gets the impression from the first post that I want a list of bad craftsmen! Myself, I happen to enjoy the "dense" sound quite a lot.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

I seem to recall a scene in Hesse's novel _Steppenwolf_, where Brahms is depicted as a specter dragging huge and heavy iron chains. Each link was a note too many in his compositions. He was contrasted, I think, with Mozart -- who was actually accused of the same sin in his lifetime.


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## neoshredder (Nov 7, 2011)

Paganini ftw.


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## techniquest (Aug 3, 2012)

Ives in his later large-scale works where he layers music so that so many different things are all going on at the same time. I'd like to have a pound for every note that's played in the 34 minutes of his 4th symphony...


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

Medtner has been mentioned; his compatriot Rachmaninoff's 4th piano concerto has notey places.


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## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

What about Liszt??
Not that I'd generally agree, although in some cases I would.


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## GreenMamba (Oct 14, 2012)

I don't think Ives' 4th uses _too many_ notes. Personally, I'm OK with a lot of notes being played at the same time, even if it creates a racket. What I often don't like is too many flowery additions or dragged out codas. So maybe this means some of the more virtuosic works for me.


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

I think any composer who wrote extravagant showpieces, particularly for violin or piano, were the most notey.

That Ives Symphony no. 4 is awesome! Some parts were rough to handle but overall it was very impressionable. Thanks for sharing that!


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

I can think of two kinds of "notey" that don't necessarily imply a value judgement and one that does.

There is the vertical aspect where the chords are ceaselessly thick, best described as _dense_. Then there is the aspect of cramming a lot into fast and often chromatic phrases despite the overall tempo of the piece, best described as _elaborate_.

When you call something notey to berate a piece, you are saying that there are far more than necessary and it distracts from the purpose of the music.

I guess notey can also be viewed in relative terms as a proportional thing. Also, if a composer or piece does not have melodies that stand well on their own without the intricate or elaborate note set up, I'd guess more attention will be paid to the noteyness.

In the former category, Medtner is a good mention, and he also fits in the latter category, though less so since he is more strict and uniform about his style. Many will notice this quickly because the phrases and melodies sound very basic without the complex underpinnings. Brahms is often very thick with chords as well, but on the whole there doesn't seem to me to be a lot of notes, though that may be deception.

Richard Strauss is a perfect mention for the latter category, I think. So would be Liszt. Rachmaninov might fall into both categories, both thick and highly elaborate(his melodies often need harmonic support, but the most successful ones are so tightly harmonized so as to be inseparable from their harmonies.). Arnold Bax is so much in both categories that I find him hard to listen to for long, on top of confusing form and extreme chromaticism.

A name that I want to single out that hasn't been mentioned yet: Martinu music sounds "full of notes" to me, but I like his music a lot. Very big chords and textures, sort of a chaotic but optimistic vibe much of the time.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

aleazk said:


> It's an interesting question. My favorite composers, like Ravel or Ligeti, are pretty dense. I think that it depends on the kind of ideas you are trying to express with your music. If you are trying to express, say, "loneliness", a good and simple melodic line on the violin can do the job. On the other hand, if you want to express "chaos", a good combination of cross rhythms will do the job. Unless the music is badly crafted, I don't think that density has an intrinsic value (like saying dense is superior to simple or viceversa).


There is definitely a wide range of density that can occur with the greatest music. A good case for it being a relative thing, whatever I mean by that...I can't remember.


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## Cnote11 (Jul 17, 2010)

Interesting breakdown, Clavi. I was almost tempted to also ask what would be the _thinnest_ composers in that vertical sense, as well as the sparsest composers. I would imagine many minimalists and composers such as Satie being mentioned.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Carl Philip Emanuel Bach is vertically very thin; the sturm und drang style usually is, more so than later classicism, though there are a lot of runs which are full of notes in the other sense. Glass seems vertically thin, but there is the other more chordal side of minimalism, like Adams or maybe some Part.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

Conlon Nancarrow was the first composer that came to mind for me when I thought of compositions with a lot of notes.






I personally feel this is a good composition, it doesn't feel like notes are wasted at all, on the contrary it feels tightly structured. I wonder if Ligeti was influenced by Nancarrow at all when composing his continuum for harpsichord - another well-composed piece with a lot of notes.


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## Cnote11 (Jul 17, 2010)

Interesting! I hadn't heard the Nancarrow.


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

tdc said:


> I personally feel this is a good composition, it doesn't feel like notes are wasted at all, on the contrary it feels tightly structured. I wonder if Ligeti was influenced by Nancarrow at all when composing his continuum for harpsichord - another well-composed piece with a lot of notes.


I doubt about that particular piece, because it's from the 70's and Ligeti discovered Nancarrow's music in the 80's. As Ligeti says, he was working with similar ideas about cross rhythms and fast pulse, like in that piece "Continuum". When he "discovered" Nancarrow's music, that served to reinforce the direction he was starting to take, and which was fully developed in the 80's and 90's.


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

Complementing the pieces suggested by tdc, which are dense in a "horizontal sense", this piece is dense in a "vertical sense", but very slow in the horizontal sense:


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## neoshredder (Nov 7, 2011)

I love how Ligeti uses the harpsichord.


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## BurningDesire (Jul 15, 2012)

neoshredder said:


> I love how Ligeti uses the harpsichord.


You'd think more Baroque fans would be enamored with the 20th Century. The beautiful harpsichord gets the shaft for over a century, and now its enjoying a great revival. :3


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Speaking of baroque, the derogatory meaning for notey is not usually spared on its composers. Especially poor Vivaldi, lol.


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## etkearne (Sep 28, 2012)

Strangely, Batók either tends towards the extreme ends of thinness and thickness both in vertical and horizontal note density. But it all has its reasons, and that is why he is great.


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## etkearne (Sep 28, 2012)

BurningDesire said:


> You'd think more Baroque fans would be enamored with the 20th Century. The beautiful harpsichord gets the shaft for over a century, and now its enjoying a great revival. :3


It does seem, however, that many of the 20th century fans like myself, favor the Baroque as their second favorite era. I really have noticed that trend here and originally I thought it was just a quirk of myself, but now I see not so.


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## PhileasFogg (Dec 7, 2012)

Can someone post a pic of a particularly overdense score, for piano for instance? I'm curious to see how dense overdense is


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

PhileasFogg said:


> Can someone post a pic of a particularly overdense score, for piano for instance? I'm curious to see how dense overdense is


Here's a page of the score of _Atmospheres_ :devil::










And here's a page from Ligeti's piano etude _Automne à Varsovie_:









Maybe it doesn't look that dense, but it is. There are at least four different crossed speeds in that section.


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## techniquest (Aug 3, 2012)

> I don't think Ives' 4th uses too many notes. Personally, I'm OK with a lot of notes being played at the same time, even if it creates a racket. What I often don't like is too many flowery additions or dragged out codas. So maybe this means some of the more virtuosic works for me.


I'd agree completely that Ives doesn't use _too many_ notes, but that's not the question being posed; it is about _the most_ notes.


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## Renaissance (Jul 10, 2012)

Bach's music has no silence.


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## DrKilroy (Sep 29, 2012)

aleazk said:


> Here's a page of the score of _Atmospheres_ :devil::


Wow, nice. 

Here's some Ferneyhough...










It is a good example of dense score with not so many notes, but rather many playing directions. 

Best regards, Dr


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## presto (Jun 17, 2011)

For the most notes written by a composer in their lifetime, its got to be Telemann, one of the most, if not the most prolific composer of all time. 
Most of his music is extremely busy with plenty of counterpoint, and every note is totally necessary.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Huilunsoittaja said:


> I think any composer who wrote extravagant showpieces, particularly for violin or piano, were the most notey.
> 
> *That Ives Symphony no. 4 is awesome!* Some parts were rough to handle but overall it was very impressionable. Thanks for sharing that!


A masterpiece  Gorgeous, moving, and worth repeat listening until you are more familiar with the lay of the land - the polytonal layers becoming more evident upon repetition, too, still making 'a glorious noise,' but gaining a clarity many first do not perceive. Great and rewarding piece which does not disappoint after many hearings.


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## Orfeo (Nov 14, 2013)

Glazunov's scores tend to be dense. Reger likewise comes to mind (and some of Myaskovsky's earlier compositions lean towards turgidity).


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Hummel can sometimes be thought of as like a Mozart spin off with twice as many notes.


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## QuietGuy (Mar 1, 2014)

An interesting question indeed. The "Lever du jour" section of _Daphnis et Chloe_ uses 66,000+ notes in the first 80 seconds to describe "rivulets of morning dew trickling off the rocks". Talk about dense! But my God, the detail! The effort! No wonder Stravinsky called him a "Swiss watchmaker". What exquisite effect!

Contrast that with the simplicity of Ma Mere l'Oye. It's the total opposite effect, yet, just as effective.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Charles Ives in his Concord Piano Sonata and also in his Fourth Symphony.

Emperor Joseph 2nd complained to Mozart that the Abduction from the Seraglio contained too many notes, but what the heck did he know?


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

I can't believe nobody has mentioned Sorabji.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

norman bates said:


> I can't believe nobody has mentioned Sorabji.


Too bad Dodecaplex is no longer with us.


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## Svelte Silhouette (Nov 7, 2013)

Too many notes


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

Also, I won't give a definitive answer (if your question is literal, Sorabji is definitely up there), but here's a quote:

"It is not hard to compose, but what is fabulously hard is to leave the superfluous notes under the table." - Brahms


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

-R. Strauss - can be very thick, but voices come thru due to Strauss's flashy orchestration, and use of extreme range and variety of the instruments
-Rachmaninoff - thick,muddy, impenetrable, tons of octave, unison 2bling....
-Carter - very thick, intricate.....


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

My first reaction was Conlon Nancarrow, as tdc has already posted. See? I do my thread homework.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Rachmaninov, for all that I enjoy him, seems to have his pianists playing far too many notes.


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

Enthusiast said:


> Rachmaninov, for all that I enjoy him, seems to have his pianists playing far too many notes.


same with his orchestra....I've often wondered what his music would sound like re-orchestrated by one of the real experts - Stravinsky, Shostakovich,etc....


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## Bourdon (Jan 4, 2019)

Deleted.....too many notes ,posted already ( movie)


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

I always used to joke that Mendelssohn sounded like he was afraid that his chamber compositions were going to inexplicably grind to a stop for no reason, so he loaded in extra notes to make sure that didn't happen.


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