Saving the Best For Last
Here's a provocative thesis: authors tend to burn out after early success, but composers just keep getting better. Anyone care to defend this idea? Anyone got a list of counter-examples?
The music seems to drag on and on, confusing us and testing the limits of our attention span: pop songs are boring.
I can get Mixolydian Mode to link to me just by linking thus! He is in my power! Bwa-ha-ha-ha!
My co-conspirator in singing, Alan, is a furniture maker by night. These days he's influenced by the second empire stylings of some old homes I've pointed out to him. In the woodworkers' subculture, he's starting to become slightly famous.
Attention, music theory geeks: George Pepper has a blog for you. Lots of examples sprinkled among the text; but I'm shocked to see no mention of nested counterpoint anywhere. George, dude -- haven't you heard? It's the latest thing.
Umie the Umlaut says, "ask your doctor about the Fredösphere!"
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Examples from music and literature: Dukas (one big work), Walter Miller (one big work - Canticle for Liebowitz).
It does seem to be the case that conductors work a very long time.
Hi Fred,
As a woodworking subculture vulture, partner in singing crime and one time composing student...ie jack of all trade and ... oh well I think compopsers might last longer than writers-at least composers of vocal/choral works, because they can choose the best that the authors have left as fodder for musical ideas. Who knows what Shakespeare and Kind David through in the round file?
Nice try, but nope.
Some counterexamples: Hindemith, Milhaud, Kurt Weill, Berlioz (despite Troyens), Sam Barber, Roy Harris. Rossini and Sibelius burned out, Copland tapered off, Stravinsky very arguably had hit his peak by age 30.
But they are probably outweighed by the examples: Bach, Beethoven, Verdi, Wagner, Shostakovich, Britten, Berg, Messiaen, Mahler, Strauss, Bartok, and others all wrote some of their greatest work right at the end. And Stravinsky pulled out "Requiem Canticles."
I'm excluding Mozart, Schubert, Chopin, and others who died very young. They seemed to be on the right track, to say the least.
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