# Composers that didn't study composition?



## Gustav Mahler (Dec 3, 2014)

Hello,
Do you know any great composers that didn't take private composition lessons or composers that composition wasn't their main focus, But learned conducting and general music theory for example?
I also remember a composer (I think Bartok) saying that composition can't be taught or something of that sort.
Being a conductor gives you an insight into the great composers works and you have to learn them well-To play them on the piano, Analyze there form and conduct them-
Maybe it is a very good way to become a composer?
I ask it because I had to choose between composition and conducting, And I chose conducting, Even though my greatest passion may be composing-
Because you can learn both from conducting.
Also, About Mahler-
Do you know what he focused on the most as a student? Did he really study composition very seriously, Or maybe his experience with music and conducting taught him the most?
Of course we can't know for sure, But any opinion would be appreciated.
Also, a strict composition teacher might make you sound more like him, rather than yourself.

What do you think?


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

I think history shows there are more composers who taught themselves enough conducting to get through their works (plus exceptions, like Schumann), than there are good conductors who were any more than mediocre composers. Mahler was the exception.


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## Ariasexta (Jul 3, 2010)

Mozart was a wunderkind, obvious he never took much time doing desk-jobs before composing seriously, some composers were even born blind too. Still we have a lot of composers eating a lot of seafood and drink a lot of good wine, using brand instruments and compose nonsense.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Gustav Mahler said:


> Also, About Mahler-
> Do you know what he focused on the most as a student? Did he really study composition very seriously, Or maybe his experience with music and conducting taught him the most?


Mahler was a student at the Vienna Conservatory during his teenage years. He had already been composing for some years on his own, and he studied harmony, counterpoint, and composition while at conservatory. Judging by the Piano Quartet movement in A minor from when he was 16, the works he produced there (the rest of which have all been lost forever) were solid but mostly unadventurous.

His next major work was Das Klagende Lied, which he finished at age 20 and submitted to a competition where the jury included Brahms and Liszt. A work by Fuchs won instead.

Mahler proceeded to get jobs in conducting, but I don't think he was ever specifically instructed in this, or if he had been, it certainly was not his focus in conservatory, which was composition. In his own mind, he was a composer first and foremost, and a conductor second.


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## Gustav Mahler (Dec 3, 2014)

The thing that intrigues me is if he really studied composition, Or just counterpoint and harmony?
And if he did, Who was his teacher?
Also, I really doubt that he was a self taught conductor. Conducting is also technique.
I know that in his mind he was first a composer, But he must have focused on studying conducting at one point or another, Don't you think?


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Gustav Mahler said:


> The thing that intrigues me is if he really studied composition, Or just counterpoint and harmony?
> And if he did, Who was his teacher?


Robert Fuchs, I believe. Hugo Wolf and Hans Rott were among his classmates.


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## Gustav Mahler (Dec 3, 2014)

Thank you. It interests me since I had to choose between studying composition or conducting, And I decided to choose conducting (Even though I am more of a composer)-And those are the reasons:
*Conducting is a technique that you must be taught. Of course that you must know how to compose-To know about forms, harmony and counterpoint. Those things I already learn while I study conducting (Conducting and composition students have the same courses, Except for the private lesson with the conducting/composition teacher.)

*A composition teacher may alter your inherited style by influencing you with his own taste. He may also encourage you to abandon tonality, And I am against it (I like modern music, But tonality can't be replaced. It's different)

*You pay the same amount of money for both, And with conducting you get a lesson with two pianos and a conducting teacher, So if I decide to study composition privately it won't cost as much as paying for two pianists+teacher.

*My conducting teacher was the conductor at the finals of the Arthur Rubinstein piano competition, So you can guess he is quite a good conductor.

What do you think about my choice?
Also, Do you think it is necessary to study composition when you already know about form, harmony and counterpoint?


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## Gustav Mahler (Dec 3, 2014)

I've opened a new thread discussing the latest post, Since it is a rather important subject (For me) on its own.


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## Dr Johnson (Jun 26, 2015)

When you say "didn't study composition", do you mean "did not study composition formally (in a college or with a tutor in a structured way) or "did not study composition at all", i.e. never looked at a score and tried to work out what was happening etc?


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## Simon Moon (Oct 10, 2013)

Toru Takemitsu, was almost entirely self taught.

Edward Elgar, Arnold Schoenberg, Georg Philipp Telemann, Gunther Schuller are others that are listed as self taught.


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## Dr Johnson (Jun 26, 2015)

Simon Moon said:


> Toru Takemitsu, was almost entirely self taught.
> 
> *Edward Elgar*, Arnold Schoenberg, Georg Philipp Telemann, Gunther Schuller are others that are listed as self taught.


Pipped me to the post!


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## Vaneyes (May 11, 2010)

The Ms still have it! Mozart & Mahler were exceptional observers of "everyday" life. Mahler, of course, went beyond that (And why shouldn't he, a hundred years later) with his own brand of spirituality. Mozart's was a more direct approach in communicating, but Mahler did correctly say, "My time will come," though 50 years later, he wasn't around to enjoy it.

Conducting, to me, without any personal knowledge, is mini-composing. There's only so much in the score to "play with". The rest can be creation in the right hands. :tiphat:


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

If Haydn studied composition, outside of reading the _Gradus ad Parnassum_, I'm not aware of it. But I'm too lazy to Wiki it.


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

A good number of the Golden Age Russian composers were self-taught in composition. Balakirev had a little bit of training from Western Europe, but the other 4 in the Mighty Handful were basically taught by him by reading scores, and not going to Europe to train with real teachers. Rimsky-Korsakov especially taught himself after he got fed up with Balakirev, and part of his own capstone in researching was to write his own books. In some ways, RK gained an "honorary" degree in composition, and so no one questioned his authority on his own personal education. Anyone after RK doesn't count as a "self-taught" Russian, because even Tchaikovsky got a real degree at the St. Petersburg Conservatory. The 2 Russian Conservatories of St. Petersburg and Moscow were finally established in the 1860s. Glazunov never went to Conservatory and never got a degree (oh my! ) but he does not count. He had very clear, strict guidance when he was young, private study which was as good as a "formal" education. Bootstrap Kolya RK and his gang made Russia legitimate as an educational institution for music.

It's funny how that all happened...


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## Gustav Mahler (Dec 3, 2014)

KenOC said:


> If Haydn studied composition, outside of reading the _Gradus ad Parnassum_, I'm not aware of it. But I'm too lazy to Wiki it.


That's exactly my question-Maybe the great composers didn't have (and need) a private composition teacher, Maybe they just learned counterpoint and such.
Because if so, I don't see any point in learning composition, And studying conducting (with counterpoint courses etc.) may be the ultimate choice


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## rrudolph (Sep 15, 2011)

Gustav Mahler said:


> Also, a strict composition teacher might make you sound more like him, rather than yourself.
> 
> What do you think?


Milton Babbitt was one of Stephen Sondheim's main teachers. I don't think there's much danger of confusing the music of one with the other.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Gustav Mahler said:


> -Maybe the great composers didn't have (and need) a private composition teacher, Maybe they just learned counterpoint and such.


Certainly not most of them. Beethoven studied with multiple teachers for many years, even after he began to get famous. Schubert felt that he hadn't had enough formal study and had signed up for counterpoint lessons when he died. Etc.


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