They died too late - a list of those who could have quitted much earlier (or not begun at all).
Posted by: Massimo Bertola on 03 September 2017
In a way, Gioachino Rossini: wrote his last opera at 37 and died at 70. The Petite messe solennelle and one Stabat Mater in 33 years do not justify his former genius. Much better are the four Sonata a quattro, in fact he wrote them twice, for strings and for winds.
J.S. Bach. A monstrous gift for music understanding, he anticipated the evolution of tonal harmony much more than Schoenberg did with the atonal one, yet he's remembered as the genius of counterpoint. Although he wrote his best few things in his very late years, he dedicated himself to the most outdated, unpopular genres, and is responsible for many of the most exacting and tiring hours at the piano of poor, not guilty students. The fact that 79 passed between his death and the beginning of his fame tells something to those who claim he was acclaimed when still alive. I think he only got the respect that's due to all those who are extraordinarily proficient in an art practiced also by mediocre people.
Gustav Mahler. I am currently listening (for the 100th time) to most of his symphonies, and the fact is that he was not a symphonist, but a great songwriter (what do you think, Kuma?). Some of his symphonies are structurally absurd, he recycles material from a symphony into another, he never knows how to finish properly, and there are parts, namely in the 3rd and 7th, who are interminable exercises in long, dense, contrapuntal torments. Only his 4th is a complete, organic work, where nothing totally extraneous and incongruous appears. Yet, his melodies – like in Adagios and in Lieder – are often prodigiously fine. What to say about a Symphony called Resurrection, 'talking' of life and death, with a text by Nietzsche, in which the 3/4 time necessary Scherzo movement is fully recycled from a light, joking Lied about Sant'Antonio preaching to the fishes? The last two movements, though, are sublime.
Antonin Dvorak. Like Cherubini, the Director of a Conservatory, and it's heard. His most famous, last Symphony isn't worth a tenth of his first two, and he needed emigrate to the other half of the world to write it. So, the modest Aus Der Neue Welt is written as a testimony of his nostalgia for his country but is conceived for the taste of the place he's now (much like poor Bartok was forced to do not to starve. Yet, what was the need to mock Šostakovič's 7th in his Concerto for Orchestra?)
Leos Janacek. His best things are two, and the really great one is the final movement from Taraś Bulba. An overrated string quartet (I heard it soon before Šostakovič's 15th, and poor Janacek, his sounded like the work of a good music student who wants to shock his professor, which is probably how he felt for all his life), a couple of nice operas but a too eclectic man to deserve his fame.
So, in a light mood and not being taken too seriously, who feels brave enough to continue?
M