Scriabin - Died quite young at 44 while working on his "Mysterium", by this time he was batsh*t insane, and this piece was supposed to be be performed in the Himalayas by thousands of participants for a full week before ushering in the end of the world. Would have been interesting to say the least.

Wagner - Died at a decent age of 70, but by today's standards he could've expected to get a good 10-15 more years of solid writing done. Supposedly he was to take a break from opera writing, and was beginning work on a symphony; I very much would've liked to hear what a mature Wagnerian symphony sounds like.

 

The composers in the OP are the ones that came to my mind at first, but I would predictably add Brahms as well. He lived to a respectable 64, and while I wouldn't necessarily claim that he would offer the kind of repeated innovations that a longer-lived Beethoven might have created, Brahms would have remained a bottomless well of sublime beauty until his dying day - at 64 or 164 - and I'd take just one more shred of Brahmsian beauty over any great Beethovenian revelation.

 

There's always Mahler, of course, sitting at the edge of atonality in his 10th symphony. Makes one wonder what he'd have done had he lived another 20 years.

I'm rather interested in what Schubert would have done had he lived longer as well. He wasn't even really at the peak of his powers when he died; based on his later instrumental works, I'd bet that if he lived much longer he would be much more highly-regarded/well-known today. And that's saying rather a lot.

 

Schubert and Mozart would have made everyone else look pathetic if they'd lived any longer, they were such bright lights in their short careers, its just a shame. Also Georges Bizet fits into that category, perhaps similar things could be said for Chopin. I agree with Scriabin very much as well, and perhaps Debussy would have written something really fantastic as well.

I also wish Balakirev had not gotten weirded out and into christianity, and had composed consistently throughout his life, he had so much potential.

 

There was also an english composer named Samuel Wesley in the classical period, known as the english Mozart, but he had a head injury in his early 20s/late teens after having shown himself to be a very promising composer and was never the same again.

Also, I think Henry Purcell died pretty young.

 

I believe Purcell was only about 36 when he died in 1695.
It was a shame he never made it into the 18th century and composed a few sets of concertos.
They would undoubtedly have been masterpieces.

 

I agree with the choice of Schubert and Mozart. Mozart, one might argue, was just beginning to hit his stride. His final piano concertos, symphonies, operas, the Requiem, etc... all rank among the greatest things he had yet produced. At age 35 it is mind-boggling to imagine what another 35 years might have achieved. One might fantasize about a trip to London with Haydn where he might begin to truly expand upon his choral writing after close examination of Handel and the English choral tradition. One suspects he might have pushed further within the realm of the Magic Flute toward a native German opera... or even (had he stayed in Britain taking advantage of the English theaters and orchestras) an English opera. One also wonders what he might have made of the symphony and the piano concerto following Beethoven's lead... and developments of the piano.

But Schubert seems even more promising. In spite of his age at his death... as well as the fact that he lacked the formal musical education that Beethoven, Mozart, Bach, Haydn, etc... as well as their virtuosity as performers... he still achieved an oeuvre that stands among the greatest ever achieved... not far beneath Beethoven, Mozart, Haydn, etc... One imagines Schubert taking the symphony to places well beyond what Beethoven had achieved. With time and experience one can only imagine what he might have achieved as far as opera goes... perhaps something more along the lines of Mozart's Singspiel? How many more magnificent songs and string quartets might he have produced?

 

I also wonder what could have become of Chausson had he not been so wealthy that he didn't have to work. That symphony in B flat is so jaw dropping. Certain composers had intense raw talent but were in the wrong circumstances to develop it.

 

Definitely Schubert and Mozart.

 

Yes, just having listened to his Deutsche Messe (German Mass) this week, had he lived longer Schubert would have been an ABSOLUTE BEAST of a composer! I don't put him "beneath" anyone at the time, not even the great Beethoven. Schubert was just different, his music speaks of his ability to write great melodies & develop them in a very unique way.

All of the others mentioned above I agree with, & yes it is true a "mature symphony" from Wagner would have been great (esp. for people like myself who are not huge opera fans, even though the famous orch./choral bits from his operas offer quite a bit of "meat" to chew on in themselves).

Some that I know/like that haven't been mentioned -

Alban Berg - died aged only 50 - One of the "trio" of the c20th Viennese School, a major composer of his day.

George Gershwin - died only aged 39 - One of the few composers who could do both Broadway musicals & "serious" music with panache and imagination. Said he was thinking of composing things like a string quartet & symphony, but these never happened. Like Schubert, one of the most able of melodists of all time.

Kurt Weill - died only aged 50 - Similar to Gershwin in his facility with the "light" & "serious" genres, he did "one better" - after his successful partnership with Brecht in Europe, he crossed the Atlantic into the USA & it was not long before he conquered Broadway. Many of his songs - eg. The Ballad of Mack the Knife from The Threepenny Opera - are among the most "covered" in recording history.

& isn't if "funny" that on the converse side, there were guys like Elgar & Sibelius who lived quite a long time (30 years in the latter's case) between virtually retiring from music and their death, yet didn't produce any major works during that time. Well, Sibelius did write his 8th symphony, but he burnt it & told his publisher to destroy any copies. But even Rossini, who retired at about 35, still kept his hand "in the trade," writing some works that are considered among his finest, what he called "the sins of my old age"...

 

Any of the great composers that died at birth.

 

Abortion debate in 4, 3, 2

Edit: Schoenberg, not that he wasn't at a fairly ripe age. Maybe he would have made some pretty terrifying music in his 100s.

 

Mozart
John Foulds
Juan Crisóstomo Arriaga (his string quartets are wonderful and he died when he was only 20 years old)
Schubert
Pergolesi
Purcell
Lili Boulanger (only 24)
George Gershwin
Peter Warlock (36)
Webern
and of course, Leo Ornstein

 

...and of course, Leo Ornstein

:lol: + Elliott Carter...

 

Scriabin's son, Julian - died aged 11, a budding composer & pianist, anyone heard any of his pieces?...

 

Sounds quite a bit like his old man, I would say.

 

It's useless to say "Mozart/Schubert would have been the greatest had they lived longer" as if it were fact. It's possible, but then it's also possible that they peaked early a la Mendelssohn. I mean, it's no different from assuming that Beethoven would have pulled a Haydn and created his greatest works in his 60's...

 

It's useless to say "Mozart/Schubert would have been the greatest had they lived longer" as if it were fact. It's possible, but then it's also possible that they peaked early a la Mendelssohn.

I have to challenge you on that one. Although some of his greatest works were written early in his life, to my eyes and ears, his last major work is probably his best one overall (i.e 6th SQ Op. 80).

I agree with the members about Chopin, now when Im listening to his etudes (the revolutionary was played not so long ) Im pretty curious what else he could have composed.

And I have to agree with member polednice about Brahms. I think his late works, especially chamber, are among the best exist (e.g Clarinet works, 2nd SQuintet), but Brahms was beautiful in all of his eras in his life.

 

Chopin - I would like to hear his Violin Sonata which he started to draft just before his death, then perhaps 3rd piano concerto to be "the" 3rd, despite Rachmaninoff.

Juliusz Zarębski - died at age of 31 with couple of finished works that make promise he could go shoulder to shoulder with Debussy. He was Liszt's student and friend and grown on experiments of his teacher as well as on Chopin (actually he was one of few composers that could draw inspiration from him instead of aping). In one of his letters he claimed he dreams of writing an opera (he admired Wagner). When I was reading fragment from his letter in which he reveals such will it brought me to tears.

Mieczysław Karłowicz - died at 33 under mountain avalanche after reaching opus number of 14 (unfinished at the time of his death). Eight-nine mature works of his are enough to call him great but if he had lived longer? There are some evidences that he wanted to engage in other genres (including opera).

Vincenzo Bellini - two or three operas more from him wouldn't be harmful, would they?

 

I'll have to say SCHUBERT. It's as if he was only opening the doors to some otherworldly greatness that would have made him the greatest composer ever, had he lived a bit longer. I mean, I hear that he was considering taking more lessons in counterpoint during his final years! Think about it: his innate sense of beauty and harmony and his newfound compositional bravery in breadth and structure (the 9th symphony) and style (the unfinished symphony, string quintet) combined with some hypothetically badass counterpoint bombardment... maybe he would have had Mozart, Beethoven AND Bruckner running for the hills!

Of course it's just speculation. But it's his early death, of all composers, that saddens me the most. He's ALREADY one of the best, and his late works point to a frighteningly awesome direction. He had been such a shy and timid person all his life, and his late compositions hint of a newfound bravery and resolve.

 

I'd take 10 more years of Beethoven over 40 more years of Schubert, easy.

 

I think it has something to do with my lack of imagination: I can sort of imagine, what Schubert could have made. He could have wed Mozartian light to Beethovenian darkness, he might have created Brucknerian pathos and Mahlerian tragicomedy all by himself, perhaps mixing minor keys with major... But with Beethoven... it's the end! He had achieved everything, sort of "ended" classical music all by himself. The late string quartets, grosse fugue, missa solemnis, 9th symphony... what more can be said? I'm sure he WOULD have had something more to say, but my mind explodes when I try to think of it.

 

Definitely agree with Sid about Alban Berg - gone far too soon. Pity he couldn't have got Lulu finished a bit quicker so he could have left us with one or two things more but it was the nature of the man to work at a painstakingly slow pace. Perhaps we should be grateful he at least managed to get his violin concerto done in time.

Apart from him, Mahler and Schubert are probably the ones that hurt most with the 'what if...' question.

 

I would have liked a few more years of Benjamin Britten. He was writing major works like Phaedra and the third string quartet right at the end of his life

 

There's no doubt in my mind that had Mozart, Mendelssohn and Schubert lived longer I would bum them even harder than I do now.
And let's not forget what Chopin could have done.

 

Lots of great names so far, particularly Mahler amd Arriaga. In Mahler's case, it's a double whammy, as conductors traditionally live very long lives!

I wanted to add two names to the list, both from my native province of Quebec, and probably wanted to suggest a "twist" to the thread:

1 - Claude VIVIER, who was murderd in Paris in 1983 a month shy of his 35th birthday. He is a fairly "accessible" contemporary composer, and would recommend sampling his Orion which was commissioned by the Montreal Symphony a few years before his death.

2 - Andre MATHIEU: in his case, we have the double tragedy of a death before age 40 but also the added tragedy of having been a child prodigy (both as a composer and a pianist), exploited by his Father, driven to an alcoholic downward-spiral which precipitated his death. Quebec pianist Alain Lefevre has championed and recorded many of his piano pieces, including three concerti.

The "twist": as in Mathieu's case, death is not the only thing that can "stunt" or otherwise curtail a career. Maybe we could also consider composers who never fulfilled their full potential? Would someone like Mendelssohn fit that mould?

 

Maybe we could also consider composers who never fulfilled their full potential? Would someone like Mendelssohn fit that mould?

I've often felt this way about Shostakovich. I often wonder what he would have composed had he been free to follow his own creative urges without the fear of government censorship. The same could be said of pretty much all of the great Soviet era composers as well. Not to mention those whose careers' never took off and are therefore relatively unknown today because they refused to compromise and were sidelined as a result.

 

Actually I have mixed feeling about getting Arriaga in that list. I think his SQ are nice, not more. Mendelssohn worte in that age and earlier his SQs Opp. 12, 13 and the Octet that are far more impressive by a kid (and beautiful if I may). I dont know his symphony, but I think that other composers were bigger losses than Arriaga. Only my opinion.

It is possible he could have written magnificent things, but I dont see the genius mind in his existing material.

 

I own a recording of his Symphony in D minor as well as his SQ's, and I generally have a good impression. The entire (very limited) body of work can't allow us to judge "genius" (and I would argue "genius" wasn't a requirement here, just "what if he had more time").

 

That's probably what makes him interesting (Beethoven). He achieved so much, so we cant even imagine what else he could have written unlike Schubert or Mozart.

As much as I love Beethoven, the notion that he achieved so much that one cannot even begin to imagine more ignores the oeuvres of Bach and Handel that absolutely dwarf anyone for the sheer volume of masterpieces. It's quite likely that given another 10 years Bach may have produced far more works of genius than any other composer given the same chance. The reason one looks to Schubert and Mozart most of all is for the simple reason that they died so young: Schubert at 31, Mozart at 35. In spite of their relative youth, they had both produced a phenomenal body of masterful music and were both at the peak of their game... rapidly turning out new and ever greater works in these final years. In the last ten years of Mozart's life he churned out 7 major operas, 4 of which rank consistently among the greatest ever composed (Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni, Die Zauberflote, Cosi fan tutte). He also composed almost all of his greatest symphonies (35-41), all of the piano concertos from no. 11 onward, the marvelous concert arias, the clarinet quintet and clarinet concerto, his late quartets, a slew of masterful quintets, the Gran Partita, Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, the serenade for winds, the Requiem... as well as literally hundreds of other works (sonatas, chamber works, songs, choral pieces, etc...)

 

Although I would have liked to see them all live longer, I think I'll go with Wolfie...626 could be 1500 or more

 

Ya know, I wonder if Mozart and Schubert churned out so many great works before their deaths because they knew they were dying and somehow that made their brain unleash their "hidden potential" early.

 

I find the angle many oif you have pursued (looking ath the Great Masters and wondering "What if") kind of intriguing. in this regard:

I sometimes wonder "what if [Name your Great Master]" could attend any concert today, and listen to the works of composers who came after him, what would be their reaction or opinion.

Would, say, Mozart have a high opinion of Stravinsky, say?

Getting back to Mozart, and looking at his later symphonies,(for example) we see him moving out of the "box" drawn by clacissism. Would an older Mozart have ushered in early romanticism decades before it came to being? Could Beethoven have discoivered the Tone Poem?

 

Dude, I have always always ALWAYS wanted to bring Beethoven or Mozart back from the dead and explain to them what happened with music after they died and let them listen to everything and then have them tell me what they think. If that happened my life would be complete.