Composers and their working methods

Mark,

Thank you for starting this most interesting thread! I'm looking forward to reading more stories [Sorry that I don't have anything to contribute at this time].

Best wishes,

Petra

Despite there is an abundance of composing methods, depending on the limitations of the composer in question, the outcome justifies them or not.

Beethoven, either because he was so meticulous or perfectionist, he struggled with numerous sketches of almost every great work he composed, but he managed always to produce his towering masterpieces.

Mozart, Schubert and Bach, as great musicians themselves, could compose at extreme ease and speed, almost with little reflection or different sketches.

The good thing about the composition is the form that, practically, provides you the framework of what you have to write. So, if you choose to compose a Song (Lied, Chanson) in an ABA form, you, virtually have the picture of how many bars might be needed for the section A and how many for B. By all means, when completing the process, you can make the necessary additions, omissions, modifications, etc.

Bruckner, as a master of commanding the form, he should have been able to envisage from the outset how many bars needed for each movement of his Symphonies. For Mahler, things were a bit different, though.

Parla

And an audacious reply by Beethoven (I have stated it before in another thread), when he presented his Rasumovsky Quartets to the violinist Ignaz Schuppanzich (first violin of the homonymous String Quartet, who introduced his String Quartets at the time). As Schuppanzich examined the score, he dared to complain politely to Beethoven that a specific passage was too difficult to perform. Then, the Master responded, in his vehement way: "Do you believe that I had in my mind your wretched fiddle, when the muse strikes me?"!

That's the reply of a great composer to the unsuspected performer.

Parla

You have to love these socialist realism thumbnails of Shostakovitch at work, composing like a maniac with the radio blaring and the kids running round his feet (“Who put that bleedin’ balalaika crap on?”), taking time out only to run around Leningrad with his hose (“Any hotspots need attention there, missus?”) or dig trenches. Then there are the carefully-posed photos on the covers of Petrenko’s current symphony cycle, Shosti at the dacha in Bolshevo doing the 10th, Shosti working on the Eighth in a room without a stick of furniture except for his honky-tonk piano, chair and table, in shirtsleeves, door wide open regardless of  -40 degree temperatures or clouds of mosquitoes. No state-funded flat in the city for him, no sirree.

It’s probably not the pen picture he would have preferred. It does remind us that, whether reading about the lives of artists or the way they created their art, we have to exercise some caution. Biographers, even if they’re not politically motivated, too often fall into the twin traps of hagiography or sensational exposé. Almost any creative artist will say that the creative act is 90% perspiration, 10% inspiration. But that doesn’t make for interesting reading.

I heard an interesting story about Rachmaninoff today whilst listening to a new CD [It was a live recording from the Hollywood Bowl of Rubenstein and Koussevitzky from 1949]. The radio announcer said [this was prefacing a performance of Rachmaninoff's PC No. 2] that Rachmaninoff wrote in his memoirs that he apparently was going through a rather prolonged period of "apathy" and decided to see a doctor about it. The doctor had him sit in a chair and whilst R. was half asleep this is what he repeated to him over and over:

"You will begin to write your concerto. You will work with great facility. The concerto will be of excellent quality."

According to Rachmaninoff's memoirs, this worked quite well and the creative juices started flowing again (Sorry, I didn't have the time to jot down all that the commentator said here); so well, in fact, that he dedicated his PC No. 2 to this doctor!

Best wishes,

Petra