I wonder which piece of romantic and incomplete music in the 'Unsung' category members would most like to see completed. On my list is the piano concerto of John Barnett.
Could you elaborate, please, Giles? Who and why would be a good start for the ignorant such as myself!
The last, unfinished tone poem (with chorus) by Richard Strauss: "Donau". The composer himself suggested that someone else should complete this, since he himself felt unable to do so. With Strauss being in the public domain since January 2020 there may be a chance? Wolfgang Rihm produced a very plausible orchestration of ("the fifth last song") "Malven", maybe he would be interested also in "Donau"?
As requested; There have been numerous unfinished works such as; Mahler's 10th symphony, Elgar's 3rd symphony, Mozart's requiem which we would not have heard if other hands had not completed them. There have also been some travesties. I have seen the piano score for the John Barnet piano concerto and it looked promising. It will never be heard or judged unless someone orchestrates it. Some while ago Ian Hobson orchestrated Moscheles 8th piano concerto, the parts having been lost. It is not a masterpiece but I am pleased to have it in my cd collection. Herbert Howels' first piano concerto had the last few pages missing and one of his former pupils completed it. The point of asking members for suggestions is there are surely other pieces waiting to be discovered and enjoyed.
I'm a bit of a sucker for this sort of a thing. I'm not enough of a musician to be able to meaningfully read a score so the only way for me to get any kind of impression of an unfinished work is if someone puts it into a performable version. And yes I know something like, say, Beethoven's "tenth symphony" or Elgar's piano concerto, is probably only a faint suggestion of what the composer would have done given the chance, but that doesn't necessarily detract from the pleasure the music gives me. Having said that, my current nominee for a piece incomplete and unsung would be Zemlinsky's early symphony in e minor. I know nothing of it's state of (in)completion except that supposedly only two movements survive.
Oops! Does Zemlinsky fit in this forum any longer? :D
Brian
Yes he does.
I would certainly second Giles on the PC by John Barnett. I would also add that I would love to have someone orchestrate SENSITIVELY the second PC of Stavenhagen. It has been done but very badly with no attempt to reproduce the orchestral sounds of Stavenhagen's period (e.g. use of the vibraphone, an instrument not invented when Stavenhagen was alive!). The "Dance Symphony" by Josef Holbrooke, for piano and orchestra is another interesting work that exists only in a 2-piano score. Sensitive orchestration of this work would be very welcome.
There are lots of unfinished works I really would love to hear completed. But I often wonder myself, if completions of other composers would fit the original piece ...
There are dozens of works by Grieg that I would like to hear: Amongst all the Second Piano Concerto (well, there is a reconstruction by Helge Evju, that is really strong, but I doubt that it get's Griegs intention), the F major string quartet - and of course the pieces, that never got aboth the planing phase like a violin- and a cello-concerto, then the lost first string quartet etc.
Also I would love to hear some destroyed works like the Third Symphony of Sinding, the complete Janacek piano sonata, the last symphony of Sibelius.
"Dozens"? What do you know that Wikipedia/IMSLP doesn't?
My list of stuff that has some existence includes:
-Symphony No. 2 'In Spring'
-Andante in c#, EG 180 [orchestra]
-Piano Concerto in b, EG 120 [as noted above]
-Violin Concerto
-Piano Quintet in Bb, EG 118 [which has a recording with completion out there]
-Halling, EG 178 [solo Hardanger Fiddle]
-O Ola, My Own Dear Boy [Orch. of a song called The Princess, EG 133]
-Dyre from Vaa, EG 143
-A few songs from EG 152
Nothing about a cello concerto or an F minor String Quartet (though a lost in in D minor).
I was trying to think of some unsung Finnish composers with incomplete works. The story of Madetoja's 4th Symphony is famous – according to the composer its near-complete manuscript was stolen in a briefcase at a railway station in Paris. Later his failing health and memory discouraged him from attempting to recompose the work, so he never did. Likewise, Ernest Pingoud has said to have composed a Violin Concerto whose manuscript went missing with a stolen or misplaced luggage at the train station in Helsinki. Pingoud, by time of his suicide in 1942 had been working on a major symphonic poem Ajan askel and a fourth Symphony.
The young prodigy Ernst Mielck's incomplete Piano Concerto is puzzling as it is not completely certain whether he finished it or not (only partial score of that work has been preserved). One of Väinö Raitio's miniature operas – Väinämöisen kosinta – only exists in piano score. Its music is attractive and not at all too modern in style. Armas Launis left atleast three lengthy unfinished operas by his death.
"Also I would love to hear some destroyed works like the Third Symphony of Sinding"
Er... wait, what?
Sorry, this doesn't look destroyed. (https://imslp.org/wiki/Symphony_No.3%2C_Op.121_(Sinding%2C_Christian)) (Do you mean Svendsen? They're very different composers. For all I know you could mean some other S-composer. Maybe you do. I'm sonfused.)
TerraEpon: You can find the full list of works that Grieg never finished in the PhD of Klaus Henning Oelmann "Edvard Grieg. Versuch einer Orientierung". A full chapter is dedicated to his unfinished pieces.
Interesting thread. I would love to hear:
Vaughan Williams's opera Thomas the Rhymer (rumoured to have been completed in short score); his cello concerto was on my list before the completion on Dutton
Elgar's The Last Judgement
Parry's Guenever
Probably not Walton's Third Symphony, as there only seems to be one page, but suppose for argument someone found more
Mackenzie's symphony
A number of works that would have been on my list have actually had their completions done, such as the Elgar 3rd Symphony, Sullivan's Emerald Isle, Stanford's late piano and violin concertos and Moeran's second symphony.
Of course none of these works can ever be "completed" because we cannot know what may have been in the mind of the composer. In fact I'd like to have at least one famous "completion" safely buried where it can do no more harm to the composer's reputation!
Don't be coy Matesic! Which work/composer? ;D
OK if you insist. Elgar's express "death bed" instructions to Billy Reed were that he should burn the disconnected heap of manuscript papers that comprised Elgar's third symphony. Instead, Reed used them to embellish his own memoirs and whet the appetite of scavengers. It wasn't until shortly before the manuscript was due to enter the public domain that the family decided to limit the fallout damage by authorising someone (Anthony Payne) to complete the piece "officially".
Whether or not the results are convincing, they certainly aren't Elgar's conception, if indeed he ever had a coherent one. I may be wrong but I get the impression that, after the initial enthusiasm, orchestras and conductors have come to conclusion that the piece as we hear it actually isn't very good. Anyone who's played much of Elgar knows that his part-writing is very distinctive, meticulously annotated with articulation and expression marks which are notably sparse in Payne's completion. However it sounds, the symphony simply doesn't look or feel like Elgar to play.
I'm hoping the public really has lost interest by now so we can forget Elgar 3 ever existed and its temporary place in the concert hall can be taken by more deserving symphonies, for example Moeran's. Or even Gordon Jacob's orchestration of the Organ Sonata which I find thrilling.
I don't know which work matesic is thinking of, but my vote would be for Robert Walker's dire "realisation" of Elgar's Piano Concerto.
Hear, hear to that, Mark.
My candidate for oblivion would also be the so-called Elgar Piano Concerto. Absolutely unnecessary. The '3rd Symphony' is one 'completion' I rather enjoy, as long as one realises that it's by 'Elgar-Payne'.
I am really pleased to have Anthony Payne's realization of Elgar's 3rd symphony. It works at every level. It wouldn't matter who the composer was, it is good. As for the so called Elgar piano concerto, it is really by Robert Walker with bits of Elgar thrown in. It is quite frankly dire.
There is the moral question of whether composers works should be completed or tampered with. On the whole I think it is useful if done responsibly, otherwise people like me would never hear all the symphonies of Schubert. I am happy that they are available for me to make my own mind up about them. (Schubert was right to abandon them and move on).
Lyapunov completed Balakirov's 2nd piano concerto, I am pleased to have heard it. The list is endless.
Quite so, Giles.
I think the question is how a 'completion' is advertised. 'Elgar-Payne' seems to me appropriate for Symphony No.3.
I'm know I'm swimming against the stream, but I do worry about "authenticity" in music. When a contemporary composer makes a conscious attempt to imitate the style of a long-dead master or a bygone era I feel in an obscure way that I'm being cheated. Whether or not it's passed off as the real thing, I can only regard a brand new painting in the style of Turner or Picasso as ersatz, pastiche or (to use the closest English word I can think of) fake. Nobody would dream of completing an unfinished canvas by Monet, and any attempt to imitate the style, no matter how convincing, would be regarded as mere wallpaper. The real thing should feel like it contains something of the man himself and his times (sorry about the sexist language...). Remembering Beecham's epithet about the shallow love of the British for music, just the noise of it isn't enough.
The analogy with paintings doesn't hold, to complete a Monet would mean that it can't be undone, whereas a completion of any music still leaves the original intact. 'Pictures at an Exhibition' is an example, though this wasn't a completion as such. I believe that completions of music particularly from the classical and romantic periods are as much because the public who like classical music crave anything that is not post 1950.
OK, to improve my analogy how about literature? Say JD Salinger left behind a drawer full of disconnected drafts for an incomplete novel but no overall scheme. Or architecture; Christopher Wren leaves a stack of partial drawings but no complete sketch to show the shape of the church he had in mind. I know I'm shifting my ground somewhat, but I've been trying to analyse what makes me feel so strongly about this. All Elgar's major works have schemata that make you think they're about something, not necessarily something tangible but an integral experience of some kind. If he left no structure there can be no "Elgar" symphony. You're quite right about public craving but I think we owe it to Elgar not to completely traduce his wishes.
There's certainly an argument (I'd put it no stronger than that) in cases of a composer's death preventing completion, or where he expressed a wish that surviving sketches weren't to be turned into "completed" works, although in that case why not do what Brahms did and just destroy them? I don't really see the moral argument otherwise, although I do take matesic's point about such completions lacking the spirit of the original composer.
I guess Elgar didn't get enough advance warning of his death to tidy up! I'd be happier if Payne had spliced the fragments into a tribute piece in his own style. Could have been rather poignant.
He asked for the sketches of his symphony to be burned. (Ironically, I prefer parts of what Payne did with it to Elgar's 2 symphonies :( - but that does show how little I understand Elgar's spirit musically!)
Quotebut that does show how little I understand Elgar's spirit musically!
You're too modest. It may simply be a question of personal taste, to which you are perfectly entitled.
I think Matesic has opened a can or worms but let me try to address some of the points made. It was said that Brahms destroyed his incomplete works but that didn't stop someone bringing out 'Brahms 3rd piano concerto, which was really his violin concerto with piano substitute.
There are many works which have been completed by others and thinking about the most successful completions, they have been done by composers who had known the original composer. A very few examples:
Debussy- Petite Suite, Rhapsodie, Khamma, and La Chante de la maison Usher. Albeniz- Rhapsodia Espanola, Navarra. Puccini,-Turandot. Borodin,-Prince Igor. Mussorsky,-Khovanchina. Satie- Gymnopedies orchestrated.
Other completions are Stanford's piano concerto No.3. Scriabin's Mysterium.
There is also the question of arranger/composers using other composers works. The ballet Les Sylphides springs to mind as does La Boutique Fantastique. Britten based his ballets Matinee Musicales and Soiree Musicales on music by Rossini.
There is also the question of blatantly re arranging a composers works. Robinson Crusoe is an example.
If people are concerned about the integrity of what is done with a composers score then how was an old German allowed to conduct Beethoven symphonies at half speed or Hamilton Harty performing Handel's Messiah with a chorus of a thousand.
Book references: Dickens, Edwin Drood would be a frustrating read if some one hadn't had a go at finishing it.
And now when was the last time anyone listened to The Polovtsian Dances or Dohnanyi's Variations on a Nursery Theme.
I'd make a distinction between the adaptation of completed works (among which I'd also include Stravinsky's appropriations of Pergolesi and Tchaikovsky) and those in which large tracts of music have been invented in a conscious attempt to emulate the existing fragments or torso. In the former case the result can be regarded as a composite work of art and we always have the original to compare. Giles cites a number of unfinished works which have been completed by close associates of the composer and this, too, I think is justified if the composer left sufficient evidence of the overall structure he had in mind. And no express prohibition!
When I listen to major pieces by the great and even many not-so-great composers I feel like I've been taken inside their unique world. Probably I was prejudiced from the outset, but I've never had that feeling with Elgar/Payne. Similarly contentious, I'd say, is his completion of the Pomp and Circumstance March No.6 in which he admits to having composed almost half the music. In order to do this he says he tried to "become" Elgar in the way an actor would assume a stage role. For a man as complex as EWE, this really won't wash.
But it's a free(-ish) world and people like me have no right to dictate to others what they should and shouldn't do. Fortunately we don't have to apply to a judicial committee in order to have our musical works, interpretations and opinions validated.
Finally Giles, I'm not sure where the Dohnanyi Variations come in but I think they're hilarious! And does the world really need a "complete" Edwin Drood?
Quote from: giles.enders on Thursday 20 February 2020, 10:09
Debussy- Petite Suite, Rhapsodie, Khamma....Satie- Gymnopedies orchestrated.
Not sure why you mention any of these here. Petite Suite, Rhapsody (I assume you mean the saxophone one) and Gymnopedies are simple orchestrations of pieces no different than thousands upon thousands of others. Though in at least the case of the Petite Suite, it was sactioned by the compose himself so it's even less relevant to the topic. Khamma even LESS so since it (and La Boite a Jeux Jeux as well as La Metyr de St Sebastien) for I guess reasons of time had his colleges orchestrate them but had some input....not really any different than the job of an orchestrator for a film score or musical. Certainly not at all related to a 'completion after death'/
Quote from: giles.enders on Thursday 20 February 2020, 10:09
There is also the question of arranger/composers using other composers works. The ballet Les Sylphides springs to mind as does La Boutique Fantastique. Britten based his ballets Matinee Musicales and Soiree Musicales on music by Rossini.
While obviously this is different than the above, none of them claim to be anything they aren't. How could they diminish the 'integrity' of the works?
... actually, I am also confused what the Dohnanyi variations set was doing in that list, as I thought it was composed and orchestrated by the composer (Dohnányi).
I included the Dohnanyi piece as a bit of a joke as the theme most people will know comes from'Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star'.
Ah. Had placed it in the Incomplete category because I missed "There is also the question of arranger/composers using other composers works". Ok, joke aside... in Dohnanyi's case, name the "other composer". And anyway, that means that now we're including every set of variations not "on an original theme"/"eigenes tema"/... - surely too large a discussion to be interesting.
Totally agree. Perhaps we could get back to genuinely unfinished works. It would also be helpful to know where the unfinished parts are.
I am not sure anyone genuinely knows who the original composer of TTLS was. But that is for another thread.
It would be before our remit, anyway, wouldn't it? After all Mozart used the same theme...
-Some- other incomplete works - these available on IMSLP so far as they exist-
* Sjogren's lyric drama "Gallionsbilden" (ca.1903) (only a brief aria seems to exist)
* Józef Brzowski's septet in A-flat (mid-19thc. ms) (instruments missing from score, needs reconstruction?)
* Continuing - IMSLP has a few Donizetti religious works (eg!) our copies of which, at least, are incomplete, but which might exist more completely elsewhere... looking into..)
Liszt pupil Arthur Friedheim's surviving manuscripts showcase several of his unfinished or incomplete works, such as two unfinished operas (barely more than 70 pages total). There's also his partially orchestrated Hammerklavier – about 3/4 done thru the first movement. It might be interesting to compare his orchestration with Weintgartner's.
Friedheim's works have been digitized by the Friedheim Library http://musiclibrary.peabody.jhu.edu/home (http://musiclibrary.peabody.jhu.edu/home). (They could use some help sorting through the inventory though, if the digitized files are any indication... several pages from his operas appear erroneously mixed in the other scores for example. The Hammerklavier orchestration is listed as an "unknown work"... etc..)
I've gotten interlibrary loans from that library, but did not know he was the Friedheim in q...
Symphony No.11 Der Winter - Joachim Raff. 8). My favourite Symphony
I'm not sure how Raff's 11th qualifies. It's not incomplete in any way, it was just left unpublished and unperformed by Raff when he died. Erdmannsdörfer's "editing" prior to posthumous publication was just the usual proof-reading. It's certainly unsung, but that's not the point of this thread.
has Hugo Wolf's symphony been mentioned?
Do tell us more, Eric...
I gather he began 2 or 3 of which 1 or 2 survive, neither complete, plus a torso lost in 1879 (while traveling).
I heard one in B-flat- a torso in two movements- in a broadcast concert decades ago. (Here (https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2535&context=gradschool_dissertations) is a digitized dissertation focusing more in detail on his early piano music but listing also his other instrumental music known and little-known.
Thank you.
Fascinating.
The manuscript collections at the libraries in Germany and elsewhere have of course tons of incomplete manuscripts (some of works that exist in complete form but not always.) That includes the collections of Franz Lachner's, CG Reissigers, and Kalliwoda's works among others. Some are little bitty things, some are incomplete chamber/concertante/orchestral/big liturgical works sometimes...
(IMSLP has what there is of Bruckner's incomplete symphony of 1869, in B-flat, eg...)