Unheard Masterpieces
Following on from my Blog on Swansongs, I started thinking about compositions that are now considered masterpieces but which their composers never heard.
The most famous, I suppose, is Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, the Choral Symphony, which was premiered in 1824 in Vienna. By this time, Beethoven was almost completely deaf, and although he was nominally conducting, the orchestra was following the beat of the Kapellmeister. Many of the last compositions of Beethoven were never heard by him, except in his head. Parts of his ‘Missa Solemnis’ were played for the first time during the same concert as the Choral Symphony, although the premiere had been in St Petersburg the month before, without the composer. The full score was not heard until after the composer’s death.
Bach’s Mass in B Minor was not heard for over 100 years after the composer died. Mozart never heard his famous Requiem, and Schubert never heard ‘Winterreise’ in public performance. As we know from my Swansongs Blog, Richard Strauss did not hear his Four Last Songs, and Gustav Mahler did not live to hear ‘Das Lied von der Erde’ or his 9th Symphony. Anton Bruckner never heard even the unfinished parts of his 9th Symphony, and Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony remained unfinished and unheard until 1865, 37 years after his death.
Let’s look at some of the stories surrounding these famous compositions.
Perhaps the most amazing story is that of J S Bach’s wonderful Mass in B Minor. As far as we know, all the music for a full Catholic mass had been composed by 1749, the year before the composer’s death, but with no apparent intention for performance. The Kyrie and Gloria seem to date from 1733, the Sanctus in embryonic form from 1724, and the rest on and off until the composer’s death. It looks like the Et incarnatus est was the last part of the puzzle to be created.
It was not until 1859, in Leipzig, that the whole mass was performed by Karl Riedel and the Riedel Verein, 109 years after Bach’s death. How could it be possible that the most perfect composition of music based on the Catholic mass, a work of such sublime beauty and emotional integrity, a work that seems to flow perfectly from section to section, was cobbled together from various scraps of music from a dour Lutheran organist and choirmaster?
There were many stories about the writing of Mozart’s ‘Requiem’, mostly invented, but the fact remains that he obviously never lived to hear it, not even the incomplete form in which he left it. The completion by Süssmayr, delivered to the nobleman who had commissioned the ‘Requiem’, the year after Mozart’s death, has been unfairly criticised over the years but somehow, the work is magical. It is probably the piece that I have sung most over the 40+ years of my career, and it has never ceased to give me and the audience enormous pleasure.
Schubert, like Mozart, died at a tragically early age, but like his Austrian predecessor, he had written huge amounts of music in that short life. He did hear a private performance of his song cycle, ‘Winterreise’, unlike the poet whose songs he set, Wilhelm Müller. He had died at the age of 32, unaware that his poems, taken from his collection of ‘Songs of an Itinerant Horn Player,’ would be immortalised by Schubert in his two masterpieces, ‘Die Schöne Müllerin’ and ‘Winterreise’. What is certain, in the context of this article, is that Schubert did not hear his String Quintet in C Major, one of the most sublime pieces of chamber music ever written. Completed in 1828, just two months before the composer’s death, it was not heard until 1850 and only published thereafter, but this work, for two violins, a viola and two cellos, has been recognised as a work of genius. The second movement, an Adagio, has moved audiences to tears for generations, and the finest cellists of their day have queued up to join acclaimed string quartets to perform it. Schubert sent it to his publisher, who wasn’t interested, and it lay undiscovered for many years. No one knows what happened to the manuscript, but we are lucky that, at least for a few years, it sat safely in the archive of the Viennese publisher, Diabelli (he for whom Beethoven wrote his famous Variations), as he bought most of Schubert’s posthumous oeuvres from the composer’s brother, Ferdinand. Poor Schubert never heard the Quintet, nor indeed any of the songs published later as ‘Schwanengesang’ (Swansong), and of course, the famous Unfinished Symphony only saw the light of day in 1865. He died unaware that he would be seen as one of the greatest composers of all time.
We know that the so-called curse of the 9th symphony haunted Mahler, but there were several other composers who followed Beethoven in failing to reach a 10th. It was only after Dvořák’s death in 1904 that it was discovered that the Czech composer had actually written nine symphonies, as only five were known in his lifetime. This makes the curse of the 9 somewhat bizarre, although ultimately accurate, and gives us four that Dvořák never heard. Vaughan Williams completed his 9th Symphony in 1957, and he heard it performed in April 1958, four months before his death, but there wasn’t to be a 10th.
Anton Bruckner realised that he was never going to complete his 9th Symphony in 1896. He is supposed to have suggested that the fourth movement should be his ‘Te Deum’, written in 1883, as a sort of Choral Symphony ending, but it wouldn’t have sounded right. There were extensive fragments of manuscripts found after his death, some of which have been turned into a finale by various musicologists, but I have always felt that the hushed ending of the extant Adagio Third Movement is as good an ending as we need. Whatever ending was envisaged, Bruckner never heard anything of the 9th, as it was first heard in Vienna in 1903, in a version re-scored and rearranged by the conductor, Ferdinand Löwe, and it was not until 1932 in Munich that the world heard anything even approximating to what Bruckner originally wrote. The history of performances of all his symphonies is a tale of neglect, misapprehension and ill-conceived tampering by people who failed to understand what he was trying to say in his music. In this respect, the treatment of Bruckner shows many similarities to the way Mussorgsky was misunderstood in his lifetime. Sad, weird, shy Bruckner and crazy drunk Mussorgsky suffered from the pity of their friends and total incomprehension of what their music was about.
Gustav Mahler was neither shy nor drunk, but contemporaries failed to grasp much of what his music was expressing around the turn of the century. He was a famous and powerful conductor, admired and respected but not necessarily loved, and his composing was seen as a divertissement in his busy schedule, taking place mostly during the summer holidays when the symphonic concerts and operas in Vienna and the other great cities where he conducted, took a break. We tend to forget nowadays how renowned he was as a conductor, and how many great works he played for the first time. He was particularly noted for his Wagner operas, and one can only imagine how exciting it must have been to see him conduct the works of the great man. His own compositions were met with incomprehension for the most part, and often outright hostility. His prestige as a conductor was in direct contrast to his popularity among singers and orchestral players, and, as a Jew, he was tolerated as a genius but frequently despised. It was ironic that he was most renowned for conducting the works of the famously anti-Semitic Wagner, although to be fair to the composer, he was often happy to have his operas conducted by Jews. Double standards were manifest.
Mahler only heard the triumph of his 8th Symphony, the Symphony of a Thousand, when he conducted the premiere in Munich in 1910, and he was already ill. He was terrified of the curse of the 9, and was adamant that ‘Das Lied von der Erde’ should not be called a symphony. Actually, I don’t think it is anyway, but the fact is that he heard neither that great work, nor his 9th Symphony, nor indeed any of the large parts of his embryonic 10th, before his death in 1911, is a tragic quasi-fulfilment of the so-called curse!
I have always wished that he might have heard ‘Das Lied’, an orchestrated song cycle for Mezzo and Tenor based on poems by Hans Bethge, themselves free translations of classical Chinese poetry. He wrote ‘Das Lied’, which he himself described as a symphony, in 1908, but it was not premiered until 1911 in Munich, posthumously. It’s a work I have heard several times in my life, the most staggering being in the late 1970s with the LSO, with Jessye Norman and Jon Vickers, conducted by Colin Davis. These two singers were at the height of their powers, and indeed Vickers possessed the biggest voice I ever heard, but, because Mahler never had a chance to hear his composition, the balance between orchestra and singers was awry. I am sure if Mahler had had a chance to rehearse and perform the piece, he would have changed the orchestration considerably, to allow the singers to be better heard in the concert hall. The tenor in particular has no chance to ride over the orchestra, and it was only with the invention of modern recording techniques that we could hear this great work as Mahler intended.
I wrote about the problem of Richard Strauss never hearing his Four Last Songs in my article about Swansongs, (check it out on the EMR) and I want to end this one with a look at Puccini’s last opera, ‘Turandot’. The opera with one of the most famous arias of all time, ‘Nessun dorma’, obsessed Puccini in the last years of his life, but he never completed it and never heard it. He had written up to the death of Liu, as the brave servant girl defies torture and refuses to name the mysterious prince, killing herself rather than revealing his secret. Various notes and jottings were made as to how the opera would end, with Calaf and Turandot united in love, despite the murder of thousands of innocents. However, Puccini was diagnosed with throat cancer and then suffered a massive heart attack, dying in November 1924. He had left instructions as to who should complete the opera, but after much discussion and a lot of clandestine jiggery-pokery, Puccini’s publisher, Ricordi, decided that Franco Alfano should finish the opera. His first attempt was vetoed but finally the version which we now know was agreed on. It doesn’t sound much like Puccini to me, but it’s passable, and gives us a dramatic conclusion, but it’s certainly not how it would have sounded if the composer had lived. I was lucky enough to meet the soprano who was to become forever associated with the role of Turandot, Dame Eva Turner, and I would encourage you to try to find her recording of ‘In questa Reggia.’ It is truly stunning! Interesting fact no 27: the pronunciation of both the opera and its main character has been a source of controversy ever since 1926. Apparently, Puccini and Toscanini (the first conductor) were adamant that the final T of Turandot was silent. Eva Turner was also of this opinion, and we hear Franco Corelli omit it on his recording. However, Pavarotti sounds the T and Puccini’s granddaughter, Simonetta, was insistent that it was pronounced. I like the T – it somehow seems more oriental.
I hope this short survey of composers who never heard their final music has been interesting. I’m sure there are several other fascinating stories which I have missed, so feel free to suggest any in the Comment section at the end.
