Unsungs who would have become famous

[Marcus]

Here is a list of composers whose early deaths robbed the music world of unimaginable talent. Each of these people displayed early genius in their compositions, recognised by established composers & critics during their time, who predicted brilliant futures for them. Their early deaths were greatly mourned. My list is a starting point, please add to it.

J.Arriaga 1806-1826, H.Goetz 1840-1876, K.Tausig 1841-1871, H. Rott 1858-1884, G.Lekeu 1870-1894,  S.Coleridge-Taylor 1875-1912, W.Hurlstone 1876-1906, E.Mielck 1877-1899, E.Farrar 1885-1918, L.Boulanger 1893-1918, P.Warlock 1894-1930.

There may not have been any Beethovens amongst them, but I am sure if each had lived, the course of musical history  may have changed. Arriaga had the potential to become a household name, and it would have been interesting to see if the "Beethoven effect" held him back, although I believe his genius would have shone out. As far as I know, he didn't know Beethoven's music.
Hans Rott was also a great loss. Mahler described him as a genius, and Rott's symphony was written long before Mahler's first attempt. The Rott symphony is very evident in some Mahler symphonies, something which wasn't acknowledged until fairly recently, when the manuscript was discovered & the work was recorded.

[edurban]

I would add Jan Hugo Vorisek (1791-1825)  If that symphony of 1823 doesn't point to great things, then I'll eat my woollen hat and scarf.

David

[Hofrat]

Joachim Eggert (1779-1813)

[Mark Thomas]

Norbert Burgmüller (1810–1836), Hugo Staehle (1826-1848) & Antoni Stolpe (1851-1872).

[Peter1953]

Alexander Ernst Fesca (1820-49) +
George Frederick Pinto (1785-1806) ++
Julius Reubke (1834-58) ++
Christian Ludwig Schunke (1810-34) ++

[Gareth Vaughan]

William Baines (1899-1922)
George Butterworth (1885-1916)
Morfydd Owen (1891-1918)
Carl Filtsch (1830-1845

[Jonathan]

I'd certainly agree with Tausig - Liszt's best pupil.  Dies of cholera at the age of 29.  It would have been interesting to see how he progressed compositionally, Liszt described him as from the "mad dog" school when presented with Tausig's (second or third!) Op.1 - Das Geistschiff.  An amazing piece, shame the orchestral version was destroyed along with his piano concerto during WW2.

[Syrelius]

This is really an interesting subject. There are so many promising composers who have died a premature death. However, many promising young composers lived on, turning into rather dull mature composers. This probably would have been the case of many of those who died young too, had they lived longer. And some of them probably woulnd´t have done very much more for other reasons. Swedish composer Eduard Brendler (1800-31), for instance, was an obvious talent, but he also seems to have been a rather lazy fellow who preferred to go out drinking with his pals, rather than composing. Hans Rott, mentioned earlier in this thread, ended up in a mental institution. Would they really have achieved much more had they lived a bit longer? Also, many of the composers mentioned above did live well into ther thirties. Well, Schubert died at 31, Mozart at 35, Mendelsohn at 38 and Chopin at 39, and they managed to achieve quite a lot during their rather short lifes...

Having said that, I would also like to add Cecil Coles (1888-1918), Vassily Kallinikov (1866-1901) and Sigurd Lie (1871-1904) to the list.

[thalbergmad]

My heart starts to beat a little faster when I hear the name Tausig. I am going to sitck my neck out and suggest that the Tausig-Weber - Inivitation to the Dance is the greatest transcription ever, bar none. Strangely, his Bach Toccata in D Minor transcription (which he is more likely to be rembered for) has never appealed to me.

When I was a 2nd rate hack pianist, I used to love playing the Waltz Caprices, especially the Man lebt nur einmal. Rachmaninov's recording of this forgotten gem is one of my favourite recordings. Another of my favourite recordings is Ponti playing the Fantasie on Moniuszko's Halka,  which is a spectacular piece and of the most obscene difficulty. I spent weeks on it and got nowhere, so hats of to Mr Ponti.

Thankfully, there are a reasonable amount of CD's, but they are not all good (my opinion only). The disks by Dennis Hennig left me unmoved, especially the Wagner transcriptions disk. One can only hope there will be more.

The one piece I would really like to hear is the Grand Fantasie Op.7 by Tausig's father Alois. A composition of Thalbergian splendour, as one would expect.

Thal

[chill319]

Nicolai's dates very closely parallel Chopin's, though he died not of consumption but of overwork (like Mendelssohn). That he died, like Bizet, at the peak of his fame and in the immediate aftermath of his best opera's premier suggests a real loss to music.

[JSK]

I don't have too much to add to this thread, but I would definitely agree about Nicolai, Arriaga, and Boulanger (the three mentioned composers I am familiar with). It is quite something to think of what might have happened had people like Mozart, Chopin, Schubert, or Mendelssohn who died young and were famous lived to a ripe old age.

[Gareth Vaughan]

Tausig indeed was a great loss to music. We don't, I think, know for sure that the Piano Concerto and the orchestral version of Das Geisterschiff were destroyed in WW2. They may still turn up somewhere - but nobody's holding their breath! What would Tausig's PC have been like? More finger-twisting than the monumental Halka Fantasy? One can only conjecture.

[Jonathan]

Hi All,
Regarding the Tausig concerto, the only reason I cite it as being destroyed is that I remembered it being mentioned in an old edition of Grove (but I may be wrong).    I sincerely hope one day that it will turn up, along with the other works which were apparently destroyed at the same time.

I've also tried to Halka Fantasy and it is ridiculously difficult.  I believe someone here (probably on the old forum) mentioned that Hyperion would eventually get around to a complete recording of his piano music when they found the pianist who could cope with it!! 

It appears most of his music is now on CD, for example Petronel Malan's Beethoven transfigured contains the Beethoven string quartet transcriptions, Ponti did Halka, Ride of the Valkyries and Geisterschiff (Rian de Waal recorded Geisterschiff as well), Hough's new piano album contains La Contrabandista (after Schumann) and the Hungarian Fantasy and so on.  I did put together an article for another website years ago (it was never published) which had a discography in it - plus some reviews.  It's hopelessly out of date now but I'll try and find it and start a new thread with it.

[edurban]

Glad to see that Marcus' list includes the Belgian Guillaume Lekeu, who died of typhus at 24.  A 2x Prix de Rome winner, he left mostly chamber music including a fine violin sonata that hovers at the fringes of the repertoire.  He has been well-served by Belgian performers and at his centennial a box set was released that included just about all of his instrumental, choral and orchestral works.  I'm pretty sure it's out of print, but may be available on the secondary market...

David 

[jimmosk]

I would have to add Rudi Stephan (1887 - 1915), who left us a handful of impassioned works that evoke Mahler without using the same musical vocabulary. Listen to his 1910 Music for Orchestra sometime, or just sample the clips at: http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=43:131930

--
Jim Moskowitz
The Unknown Composers Page:  http://kith.org/jimmosk/TOC.html
My latest list of unusual classical CDs for auction:  http://tinyurl.com/jimmosk