Recent mention of the later symphonies of Roy Harris in the thread on "Deservedly Unsung..." led me to start thinking about those composers whose later years were in different ways and for varying reasons blighted or undistinguished.
Composers may retire from teaching or administrative positions but there is no conventional imperative to cease composing. The inspiration or muse which impels a composer often lasts for his lifetime. He goes on composing and many composers not only 'die in harness', so to speak, but produce some of their greatest works towards the end of their lives. Many of the greatest composers fall into this category: Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Wagner, Brahms, Dvorak, Tchaikovsky, Bruckner, Mahler etc etc. It is, of course, perfectly true that composers in previous centuries, with some very obvious exceptions, tended to die at a younger age.
There are however others for whom this is not true. In some caes serious ill-health affected their capacity to compose. In others it seems that their inspiration began to wane.
It would be folly to generalise. Each composer's case is different. But we know that Rossini wrote virtually nothing (apart from the Petite Messe Solennelle) for the last twenty years of his life. Sibelius is the obvious example of a 20th century composer whose famous silence for the last quarter of a century of his life and whose destruction of those works he appears to have been working on in the 1930s is equally well-known.
Aaron Copland wrote nothing after the mid 1970s as he succumbed to Alzheimer's Disease. The same sad illness curtailed the compositional career of Sir Lennox Berkeley. No doubt there are other instances.
I reckon however that there are other cases which demonstrate that, for differing reasons, a composer had simply run out of inspiration or creative energy.
Would that be true of Sir Edward Elgar, for example ??? After the Cello Concerto of 1919 did Elgar produce anything further before his death in 1934 to match the earlier masterpieces ???
Does the same apply to Sir Arnold Bax after around 1939(the 7th Symphony); Bax died in 1953. Or what about Sir William Walton after he reached the age of 65 in 1967; Walton died in 1983. Are these composers later works not pale shadows of the genius they had demonstrated in youth and middle-age ???
In mentioning Elgar, Bax and walton I am simply picking three British composers as examples of what I am trying to get at. If one looks to other countries then there are, naturally, other such composers one could discuss-in the USA, Roy Harris and Samuel Barber spring to mind.
To live with and love the music of certain composers is one of the greatest pleasures in life. And to reflect on what they might have done had they lived longer-as with Mozart, or Schubert, or Tchaikovsky, or Mahler-is always interesting as an exercise in total speculative day-dreaming ;D.
But it is also rather sad, sometimes, to think about a composer whose later works evidence an appreciable decline in quality-as has been my recent experience in listening to the later works of Roy Harris. It is so very sad when one is almost forced to think that the composer in question would have been better to have stopped composition altogether.
(I hope this rather stream-of-consciousness, very late-at-night post is not the most dreadful ramble and that someone else at least understands the issue I am trying to identify ;D)
Hrm. The Muse seems to drop in for enough visits (Bax in his B-flat piano trio?) that it's hard to generalize...
Christian Sinding might be a good case in point: up to the Second Symphony his writing is lively, original and exciting. After that, it becomes just a bland tick-the-boxes-affair. The turning point seems to be a near-endless-string of piano solo pieces that he wrote in an attempt to imitate Grieg (and to find similar recognition). After that, it seems to me, he never recovered his creative footing.
Edward German made a very definite decision to stop composing, largely because his style was so out of kilter with the times, not because of any evident decline in ability. Tippett might be argued to have rather lost touch with things after about the time of the 4th Symphony. Elgar must be the most controversial: it used to be received wisdom that his genius departed in 1920 and that everything he wrote after that was derived from earlier works. The Third Symphony was dismissed as uninspired rubbish that he could never have finished. I think the Payne completion of that work completely changed that perception. Personally, I believe Elgar remained as inspired as ever, that he was lazy in the 1920s, let off the marital leash, but that he would have produced some fun works in the 1930s, had he lived. The "nursery suite" was a move in that direction, I think.
Elgar -did- continue to produce brief works in his last years, far as I know- partsongs, piano pieces- some of which have been recorded but which I have not heard. (I have heard some of his partsongs from earlier years- particularly, the lovely opus 53 set (with There is Sweet Music and with Owls - but other sets also) and am extremely impressed by them. Sibelius' output in his last years was irregular but I gather he only actually entirely stopped after revising and adding a new movement to an earlier organ work (the Masonic Ritual Music, op.113 of 1927/1948.)
Couldn't it be that a comparison with other arts would show a relatively high age for the creative peak of many composers? That famous novels and famous paintings were, comparatively speaking, made by younger artists than tthe most famous musical compositions? Could it be that creativity is often a relatively 'young' phenomenon and that composers are no exception to that rule, and even more often of a mature age than there counterparts in other arts?
I'm just questioning, but i've always been of the impression that much remarkable music is written by "old" composers - and that it's harder to find examples of the same level of creativity among other arts. Does anyone know about comparative studies in this field? ::)
Quote from: Christo on Saturday 04 February 2012, 10:45
Couldn't it be that a comparison with other arts would show a relatively high age for the creative peak of many composers? That famous novels and famous paintings were, comparatively speaking, made by younger artists than tthe most famous musical compositions? Could it be that creativity is often a relatively 'young' phenomenon and that composers are no exception to that rule, and even more often of a mature age than there counterparts in other arts?
I'm just questioning, but i've always been of the impression that much remarkable music is written by "old" composers - and that it's harder to find examples of the same level of creativity among other arts. Does anyone know about comparative studies in this field? ::)
On the other hand, 'old' composers were usually in a much better position to 'market' their works than when they were young: because they could make better use of their network and official position, because they had proved themselves to their audiences, etc. Those works would be played more often and thus gain quicker acceptance into the collective consciousness.
As an example, take Dvorak: his earliest works have often been dismissed casually, but I find they contain as much inspiration as the later ones, and a 'nimbleness' that his more mature output sometimes lacks.
Quote from: Dundonnell on Saturday 04 February 2012, 02:28
I reckon however that there are other cases which demonstrate that, for differing reasons, a composer had simply run out of inspiration or creative energy.
Would that be true of Sir Edward Elgar, for example ??? After the Cello Concerto of 1919 did Elgar produce anything further before his death in 1934 to match the earlier masterpieces ???
Well, of course, what constitutes a "masterpiece" is a matter of dispute in itself, and even if we could find agreement on that point, deciding which works of Elgar are actually masterpieces would lead to further dispute - which indeed it has always done among the experts. Personally, I think the
Nursery Suite, The Sanguine Fan, Polonia, and the
Fantasia & Fugue in C Minor are all masterpieces, and had Elgar composed only these they would be treasured as such. It's only when compared to some of his large scale earlier works that they may seem to be less obviously inspired. I would also contend that there are a number of reasons (other than any reduction in visits from that rare "spirit of delight") for Elgar's reduced output post Cello Concerto.
But this is not really the stuff of the Unsung Composer....... :)
No indeed: Elgar is pretty 'sung', but he is very relevant to this debate. I would contend that practically everything he wrote is a masterpiece of its kind, but his later partsongs are perhaps less inspired than the really good ones of the 1900s. But the 'Nursery Suite', the 5th Pomp and Circumstance march and the sketches for the 3rd Symphony are to me evidence that the muse remained, although a lack of the discipline of his wife, the temptation of the racetrack and the income from recording (which must have brought in a lot more per hour of work than composition), sufficed to put him off working as hard as before.
Quote from: Dundonnell on Saturday 04 February 2012, 02:28we know that Rossini wrote virtually nothing (apart from the Petite Messe Solennelle) for the last twenty years of his life.
Apart from other works, there are the fourteen volumes of Péchés de vieillesse, containing some 150 works.
Isn't there also a Stabat Mater from this period?
Quote from: Hovite on Saturday 04 February 2012, 15:24
Quote from: Dundonnell on Saturday 04 February 2012, 02:28we know that Rossini wrote virtually nothing (apart from the Petite Messe Solennelle) for the last twenty years of his life.
Apart from other works, there are the fourteen volumes of Péchés de vieillesse, containing some 150 works.
Yes, I should have been more explicit in defining the nature of Rossini's retirement as a composer of operas to an entirely different and much more private musical life. My understanding is that these pieces were not intended for either public performance or publication.
Quote from: JimL on Saturday 04 February 2012, 15:40
Isn't there also a Stabat Mater from this period?
Yes, completed in 1841, 27 years before his death.
Quote from: Dundonnell on Saturday 04 February 2012, 15:43
Quote from: Hovite on Saturday 04 February 2012, 15:24
Quote from: Dundonnell on Saturday 04 February 2012, 02:28we know that Rossini wrote virtually nothing (apart from the Petite Messe Solennelle) for the last twenty years of his life.
Apart from other works, there are the fourteen volumes of Péchés de vieillesse, containing some 150 works.
Yes, I should have been more explicit in defining the nature of Rossini's retirement as a composer of operas to an entirely different and much more private musical life. My understanding is that these pieces were not intended for either public performance or publication.
Well, quite a few of them have been performed and recorded, and some of them are quite lovely. Some of them are quite a hoot as well.
Quote from: eschiss1 on Saturday 04 February 2012, 10:21
Sibelius' output in his last years was irregular but I gather he only actually entirely stopped after revising and adding a new movement to an earlier organ work (the Masonic Ritual Music, op.113 of 1927/1948.)
Actually his last 'work' was the orchestration of the song Come Sweet Death, done only a few months before he died.
Quote from: JimL on Saturday 04 February 2012, 15:54Well, quite a few of them have been performed and recorded, and some of them are quite lovely. Some of them are quite a hoot as well.
Not to mention Respighi's orchestration of some in La Boutique Fantasque and Rossiniana (and other composers as well)
Among the other composers (orchestrating Rossini "late" pieces) mention at least to Britten (Matinées Musicales and Soirées Musicales).
What a great, great pity that the very talentful composer Frederic Cliffe so soon stopped writing wonderful music. I can hardly believe that he suddenly lost his creativeness. Did other, modern composers criticize his musical output by stating that his music was too old-fashioned?
I quite agree about Cliffe: from the little I've heard (the Violin Concerto, the Symphony no. 1 and 'Cloud and Sunshine') I am blown away by him. Goodness knows why he stopped
One of the refreshing aspects of this forum is the evidence of close listening that informs so many of the comments. In contrast, much discussion of classical music in some online forums smacks of little more than received opinion. In this spirit, I'd like to encourage friends to try to ignore biography when listening to late music, reading late writings, viewing late paintings, and so on.
One needn't be aged to have one's late works dismissed as evidence of decline. Criticism during the first third of the 20th century often repeated the truism that Chopin's late nocturnes and mazurkas are products of enervation, and his cello sonata was almost entirely ignored. More recently, an echo chamber consigned Schumann's late chamber works, concertos, and choral works to the realm of the uninteresting, even though the composer was vigorously reinventing his compositional technique in them.
For longer lived composers, particularly those 'romantics' who wanted their music to be 'about something' more than sonic surfaces, received opinions have been no less misleading. In the case of Bax, he brought it upon himself with his own comments, perhaps. But while no orchestral work after Symphony 7 matches the earlier ones in invention and imagination, his cello sonata, piano trio, and a handful of other works from the 1940s display unflagging musical powers.
Many members of this forum surely recall the disdain in which all Rachmaninov's works after the Great War -- save the Rhapsody -- were long held.
The case of Roy Harris, where decades of writers echoed the scurrilous claim that his wife Johanna composed the later works, is particularly unfortunate. Symphonies 11 and 12 stand in relationship to the earlier ones much as Vaughan Williams's Symphonies 8 and 9 stand to his earlier works. VW is the greater composer, to be sure, but Harris stands tall as well and is clearly pursuing different ends in the late works.
Few composers reinvent themselves as thoroughly as did Stravinsky and Janacek. That does not mean, however, that other late composers are attempting to repeat their earlier successes. Unfortunately, listeners confronted with a still recognizable style are all too often disappointed when the works do not go where earlier ones went. Thus begin all too many stories of decline.
There is no question that as their bodies decline, so, generally, do many composers' powers of concentration. Yet there's also no question that age brings new perspectives that require a different, perhaps subtler means of expression. If it will help us follow music that proceeds cogently to unfamiliar places, I suggest we err on the side of biographical ignorance when listening to late works by composers.
(For example) (Robert) Schumann's first violin sonata affects me too much for me to consign ''it'' to a dustbin; in a good performance it always seems to come across as a most personal as well as well-done work... apologies for having nothing better to say on the subject just now; chill319's reply/post seems worth further thought in my opinion...
It used to be received wisdom that Walton's works went into decline after the war, but I think it is fair to say that most people would question that assumption these days. Personally I think that Walton is yet to be appreciated for his full worth (though one could hardly call him 'unsung')
Quote from: Jimfin on Tuesday 07 February 2012, 06:15
It used to be received wisdom that Walton's works went into decline after the war, but I think it is fair to say that most people would question that assumption these days. Personally I think that Walton is yet to be appreciated for his full worth (though one could hardly call him 'unsung')
What went into decline waw Walton himself, though not as early as the immediate aftermath of WWII - the Second Symphony has a whole lot going for it, for example, and that dates from the 1960s - but this thread is about the Muse departing and I rather think that this is sadly what happened with him; he tried to start a Third Symphony (on the encouragement of Previn) but it came to nothing. Whether he is sufficiently appreciated I cannot be sure, but he's undoubtedly not as often performed even as Tippett is these days.
And yet (unlike Tippett) he is well served by the record companies, Chandos having recorded every last bar he composed (well, I'm sure someone will unearth something more, but...), and the concertos in particular are available in all kinds of versions.
Quote from: Dundonnell on Saturday 04 February 2012, 02:28. . . those composers whose later years were in different ways and for varying reasons blighted or undistinguished.
Weinberger after 1938.
And - well - Schönberg after 1908. (This will no doubt lead to cries of protest, but I really do think he went off the rails at a certain point and lost a certain melodic and harmonic genius.)
Well, it can b a bit subjective: Wagner's first wife disliked everything he wrote after 'Rienzi', and Stanford thought VW had gone too far with the Sea Symphony. If only he had lived to hear the 4th!
There must surely be a difference between a composer losing his creative edge (or urge) and one who simply veers off in a direction we don't happen to like.
I am delighted that my initial post starting this thread has led to some thoughtful and well-informed discussion :) I confess-as I said at the end of that post-that it was very much a late night 'stream of consciousness' posting and I lay in bed later thinking about whether I should have worded it better ;D
It was intended, I suppose, to be somewhat provocative. I knew that others could and would pick holes in the examples I gave of composers like Elgar, Bax and Walton...even, perhaps, Harris.
There are, of course, countless cases of composers whose muse most certainly did not depart when they entered old age and who composed some of their greatest masterpieces at the very end of their lives. No one would doubt, for example, that Vaughan Williams 9th Symphony does not demonstrate a very old composer still at the height of his creative powers.
And, again naturally, there are composers whose physical or mental decline inhibited their capacity to go one composing rather than any more specific failure of continued inspiration. It is impossible to do other than consider each composer separately and often invidious and sometimes painful to highlight particular causes of apparent decline. There are very sad cases where alcohol abuse or distressing domestic circumstances, for example, certainly damaged the compositional careers of composers(both Malcolm Arnold and Malcolm Williamson have been well-documented) but I am not particularly keen to identify other such cases where they are not already widely known.
It is also perfectly true that a composer may change/develop his musical style in ways which are unexpected and, to the listener, perhaps surprisingly strange.
This may occasion a perception that the composer is "in decline" when in fact it is nothing of the sort.
No simple and staightforward answers ;D
Quote from: Jimfin on Tuesday 07 February 2012, 11:21
Well, it can b a bit subjective: Wagner's first wife disliked everything he wrote after 'Rienzi', and Stanford thought VW had gone too far with the Sea Symphony. If only he had lived to hear the 4th!
I'm not surprised poor Minna disliked everything after
Rienzi! He was already dissatisfied with her and probably eyeing Cosima von Bülow!
He left it to others to write Minnelieder?
And Glanville-Hicks did hear VW's 4th and was displeased for quite another reason not relevant to this thread :^)
Quote from: Jimfin on Tuesday 07 February 2012, 07:29
And yet (unlike Tippett) he is well served by the record companies, Chandos having recorded every last bar he composed
Er, not even close. His film scores were in concert arrangements or suites, and there's all sorts of small pieces missing. Peek through http://web.archive.org/web/20110525202655/http://www.williamwalton.net/ (sadly not online any more :-( ) and check out many which show unrecorded, or only recorded in someone else's orchestration/arrangement (or only a later version, etc)