"Could the inability be an asset?"

If I remember correctly, Berlioz felt it was an asset and could barely play the guitar. I think the lack of a reference instrument can give a special creative freedom. By contrast listen to Stravinsky, who could only seem to slavishly compose at the piano. Perhaps that's why so much of his music had a jeweler's precision, but some of his music seemed almost too well worked out and digested at the piano during his Neo-classical period, and the color of his music seems to shrink accordingly. Schoenberg, though he could play some violin, seemed able to compose away from a reference instrument and was quite proud of it, such as his String Quartet in D Major. While both Mozart and Schubert would compose at the piano, they also seemed capable of composing without it. I believe it requires perfect pitch and consider it a remarkable achievement.

 

The American composers John Mackey is not proficient on any instrument.

Check his bio on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Mackey_(composer)

 

Berlioz, well noted by Larkenfield, is a good example. Apparently Wagner was even less of an instrumentalist. Although both wielded the baton on more than the odd occasion if that be considered an instrument.

 

But both Berlioz and Wagner could actually play instruments to a “reasonable” standard. There are many anecdotes of Wagner playing his operas (admittedly with lots of wrong notes) to demonstrate them before performance. How many people could do that? As far as I know there are NO great classical composers who did not play at least one instrument passably. It seems that the skills of composing and performing are inextricably linked.

 

One hears conflicting stories about Berlioz. According to Wikipedia:

He became proficient at guitar, flageolet and flute.

The article also notes:

He learned harmony from textbooks alone-he was not formally trained.

I wonder how the heck he went about it...

Anyway, history is replete with composers who were said not to be particularly good at playing an instrument, but "not particularly good" is in itself a relative statement. It could be Wagner would make most of our jaws drop if we saw him at the piano, but he was just not quite at concert level. It could also be he was barely above beginner level. He composed a substantial amount of piano music, including, if I recall correctly, a piano sonata. I don't know how difficult any of it is, or whether he himself could play it (apparently Schubert couldn't quite play some of his own piano music, or he could, but not very well).

But I take the notion of this or that composer "not being good at playing an instrument" with a grain of salt, because "good" doesn't really mean anything. Off the top of my head, I cannot think of any who couldn't play any instrument at all.

 

Any great, and even not-so-great, composer had at least some musical ability on some instrument, if only the voice. Some were virtuosos like Paganini, Rachmaninoff, Mozart, Bruckner and Mahler and some were just proficient; Tchaikovsky comes to mind. I have had to play music from "composers" whose only musical ability is that they can put music into a sequencer on a computer. All they know is it sounds "cool", then send it to a typesetting program, print it and expect real musicians to play it - and it's often impossible. Wrong clef, wrong tessitura...then they get angry because they want it to sound just like the computer but they're too musically uneducated to understand the problem.

 

Another factor may be what I call "temporal economy". That is, where the artist invests his/her time (effort).

Too much time with the quill ... and you may end up writing stuff that sounds poor in the real (physical) world of instruments and air and space.

Too much time at the keyboard .... and you get trapped into the world of "been-there-done-that."

 

Albert Roussel comes to my mind.

 

Being a virtuoso served a purpose in the past, which was that the composer could make money by being a soloist and giving recitals. I have a feeling that for most this was less born out of passion and more out of necessity. Think of Liszt who retired from giving public concerts at around forty - he had piled up enough cash and got a comfortable job at Weimar - but others could not afford such a luxury (Rachmaninov and Grainger come to mind).

At some point between the early and mid 20th century, being a soloist and composing became completely separate career paths in music. I can't think of any composer today who is the equivalent of the virtuosos of yesteryear. Thomas Ades and Brett Dean are the closest that come to mind. Philip Glass has done many tours playing his own piano music. On the whole, most prominent composers today are just that, composers.

I suppose related to this are composers who straddled the divide, and orchestral playing and chamber music provided this sort of niche. Dvorak was a violist as part of an orchestra and also in chamber groups, yet he never was a soloist.

 

Being a virtuoso served a purpose in the past, which was that the composer could make money by being a soloist and giving recitals. I have a feeling that for most this was less born out of passion and more out of necessity.

True in the classical period (but not for Haydn). It's easy to forget that when Beethoven had to give up performing, at about the age of 38, that cost him probably half his income. That's no joke!

Rachmaninoff is a more recent example. If he had devoted himself to composing only, how much more music would be have? Shostakovich originally planned to be a professional pianist, but that didn't work out. As a result he had a very generous musical output over a 50-year span, something we're grateful for.

 

I'm a fan of Hindemith's music. At least some of it. But it doesn't rank high on my list of greatest music or music that I listen to quite often with great pleasure. Yet it is said Hindemith could play anything he wrote on any instrument he wrote for. He was a virtuoso violist, by the way. Yet I find his Der Schwanendreher (a concerto for viola and orchestra) one of the least interesting pieces, and I can't recall the last time I listened to it. Decades ago, I'm sure. (I am reminded by this very remark that I am due to re-hear the work -- which might possibly change my opinion, too!)

In contrast, I find Berlioz's instrumentation fascinating (though I am not a big fan of his music overall), and that of Rimsky-Korsakov fascinating, too. Yet I wonder how much of what they wrote they could play themselves? Not much, I suspect.

Of course, pianists like Chopin and Rachmaninov seem to be able to write well for their instruments. And though Chopin may be less skilled at orchestrating, Rachmaninov certainly was not.

I greatly admire several orchestral works by William Walton, especially the First Symphony. And I feel that his Viola Concerto blows away anything Hindemith wrote for the instrument. So, who can say?

Some composers write well for certain instruments or combinations of instruments. Some produce great musical ideas that rise above any single instrument (I'm thinking of Bach's music for undesignated resources). Some music interests me and some doesn't. I prefer to let the music speak rather than worry about the instrumental skills of the composer.

Then there is the issue of Rodrigo's guitar concerto, the Aranjuez. I don't know if Rodrigo played guitar, but I do know he was blind. Yet I can't think of a more visually alive piece of music than the Aranjuez. I can never listen to it without "seeing" images of Rodrigo's homeland.

Such is the wonder of music.

 

I'm a fan of Hindemith's music. At least some of it. But it doesn't rank high on my list of greatest music or music that I listen to quite often with great pleasure. Yet it is said Hindemith could play anything he wrote on any instrument he wrote for. He was a virtuoso violist, by the way. Yet I find his Der Schwanendreher (a concerto for viola and orchestra) one of the least interesting pieces, and I can't recall the last time I listened to it. Decades ago, I'm sure. (I am reminded by this very remark that I am due to re-hear the work -- which might possibly change my opinion, too!)

...

I greatly admire several orchestral works by William Walton, especially the First Symphony. And I feel that his Viola Concerto blows away anything Hindemith wrote for the instrument. So, who can say?.

Hindemith premiered Walton's Viola Concerto after Lionel Tertis rejected it. Walton also admired Hindemith, dedicating a set of orchestral variations to him. I think there are parallels between these two composers, although I too think highly of Walton's concertos - all three of them - Schwanendreher is more a suite of folk-inspired pieces so I would hesitate to make a direct comparison. I don't know Hindemith's Viola Concerto but I think that his Violin Concerto is equal to Walton's effort in the genre.

 

It seems likely that in the 20th/21st century it might be a bit easier to compose without being an at least solid performer on any instrument because of the technical help like recordings, synthesizers etc. It's still an exception, I think.
And Haydn and Shostakovich are not good examples. Shostakovich was a highly proficient pianist, if not on the supervirtuoso level and Haydn was also very competent (if not a soloist/virtuoso) on several instruments, at least violin and keyboard (he usually "conducted" either from the keyboard or first violin and also played string quartet). Unlike Wagner or Berlioz or Schoenberg or some of the later examples Haydn and DSCH would have been able to make a living as a performer on an instrument.

 

Hindemith on the other hand could play (every possible orchestral instrument would be impossible) every common instrument in a orchestra,all the strings ,all the basic woodwinds and all the basic horns.

 

It seems that the skills of composing and performing are inextricably linked.

I think it could affect the composers' style. Like Mozart, Haydn started out as an organist (composing fantasies and fugues at the end of the Baroque period; I can tell that whenever I listen to his things like the Rupert mass, linked below). His opera Andromeda und Perseus is full of counterpoint. His childhood acquaintance Aumann may have a similar trait, but not much of his music has been recorded or performed. All three also seem have certain preference for the viola as composers and performers. Aumann's partitas for the string quintet ensemble of 2 violas being the earliest known works of their kind.

 

^ + there are examples of dramatic use of pedal points in their music (like Bruckner).

 

Composers who didn't play an instrument?
I wonder -- is there an analogue to this for other artforms?:
Writers/poets who don't know a language?
Dancers/choreographers who can't move?
Painters (Graphic artists, photographers) who cannot see?

And, if there is no analogue, does it change our perception of the initial question?

Of course, a composer is a primary artist, whereas the performer (pianist, violinist) is a secondary artist. In my analogue questions above, one could argue that a dancer is a secondary artist -- the designer of the dance, the choreographer, is the primary artist, equivalent to a composer, perhaps. Is being able to move essential for a choreographer?

One could argue that a blind person can paint -- but can such a person render a portrait or a landscape or still-life?

Would I be a valid poet to take a Hungarian word book and put together "word structures" of which I have absolutely no understanding? (I have no Hungarian on my tongue, believe me.)

Can a blind person validly create a photograph, or merely be competent at pressing a camera button?

What are the limitations to creative art, if any?

 

Utter nonsense. You came close to having a point with a choreographer who can't dance, but you reach an utter height of absurdity with a painter who can't see (that would be more like a composer who is tonedeaf or hasn't trained their ear). I find this post quite offensive as an aspiring composer who feels learning to play an instrument is an unecessary hurdle. I see a composer who cannot play an instrument more akin to a director who cannot run a camera. Of course, its not an ideal situation, but really it should have no effect on his ability to make a quality movie if he has a cinematographer (performers) he can dictate ideas to. In fact a lot of directors and especially heads of video game development teams are just idea-guys with no particular additional niche. At least the composer is a musical script-writer if not several other things as well. People who have handicaps are completely irrelevant to this discussion.

 

I recall Berlioz confessing in his memoirs that he could play the piano, just not so well that anyone would wish to listen. He used it primarily to test run material. He did make fun of composers who were tied to "their magic box." As for not being a virtuoso pianist, he never missed it much.

Apparently Wagner would play and sing his operas to groups of friends. I suspect, like Ralph Vaughan Williams: "I'm glad I wasn't there."