For some of us, the leftovers are just as an important a part of Thanksgiving as the gravy. That’s why we've made you a playlist of classical music’s great leftovers — because nothing goes better with a turkey sandwich than your favorite composers’ unfinished works. And tune into WQXR on Black Friday to hear leftovers by Bach, Mozart, Schubert and others!
J.S. Bach: “The Art of Fugue”
Based on the title alone, The Art of Fugue sounds like what you’d read in order to unlock the secrets of counterpoint. And it’s quite possible that that’s exactly what Bach intended. The 14 fugues and four canons in D Minor read like an intellectual exercise in musical form: they start with a single, simple theme and grow in complexity. Although Bach left the work in an unfinished state, The Art of Fugue is seen as one of the composer’s most important contributions to music.
Schubert: “Unfinished” Symphony
Schubert’s Symphony No. 8 was left in an incomplete enough state to earn the nickname “Unfinished.” Some musicologists believe that the composer might have actually finished it — but the music was lost. Others contend that its finale was woven into Schubert’s incidental music for Helmina von Chézy’s play, Rosamunde, Fürstin von Zypern — but if that’s the case, where’s movement three? Whether or not Schubert managed to finish the symphony, one thing's certain: we got a great ditty out of it. Every kid in orchestra knows to sing along in the first movement, “This is / the sym-pho-ny / that Schubert wrote but / never fin-ished.”
Mozart: Requiem in D Minor
Toward the end of his life, Mozart was tapped to write a Requiem Mass for the wife of Count Franz von Walsegg, but he died before he had the chance to finish the piece. That didn’t stop his widow, Constanze, from working to finish the piece so she could collect the commission money. She secretly enlisted another composer, Franz Süssmayr, to tack on an ending and pass it off as Wolfgang’s work. Süssmayr used some sketches that Mozart left behind, filling in gaps and adding a few necessary movements. Constanze forged Wolfgang’s signature on the completed score, sent it to the count, and got paid.
Mussorgsky: “Sorochinsky Fair” and “Khovanshchina”
The last few years of Modest Mussorgsky’s life were spent on the lonelier side — not in the least because his roommates, including Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, and good friends kept moving out or getting married. But he produced some of his best-known works during that time, including Pictures at an Exhibition. But he didn’t quite finish some of the others before he died — including the operas Sorochinsky Fair and Khovanshchina. Happily, Rimsky-Korsakov gave his friend’s Khovanshchina an ending, and a few decades after that, another influential Russian composer named Dmitri Shostakovich took a stab at it. Talk about passing through great hands.
Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No. 3
Tchaikovsky’s unfinished piano concerto was born out of a desire to write a symphony that, as Hyperion’s notes indicate, “would cover human life and death.” How romantic. However, he abandoned it after the first movement and wrote the Pathétique Symphony instead. Tchaikovsky eventually reworked the former into the first movement of a piano concerto only a few months before his death. He left behind sketches for two other movements, also using materials from that unfinished symphony, but scholars aren’t sure if Tchaikovsky intended the concerto to be one or three movements.
Borodin: “Prince Igor”
Like many of us, Borodin’s day job could sometimes get in the way of his creative passion projects. A talented chemist, it’s not difficult to imagine his research probably got in the way of some of his musical projects … like Prince Igor. Borodin worked on the opera for an astounding 18 years, but could never finish it. But thanks to a team effort from Nikolai Rimsky-Korakov, Anatoly Liadov and Alexander Glazunov, a completed version was premiered in 1890.
Wagner: Symphony in E Major
The opera master Wagner isn’t particularly known for his symphonies — after all, he only completed one. His Symphony in E Major, it can be argued, was abandoned because he was a very in love with the actress Minna Planer during the time he was trying to write it. Infatuation can do a number on your ability to focus, and Wagner was no exception. The two eventually married, but by that time Wagner had left this symphony behind.
Saint-Saens: Sonata No. 3 for Cello and Piano
There's not much known about Saint-Saens’s leftover sonata. For all we know, the composer did complete it … history just gobbled up the second half, like a conniving coworker sliding into the office fridge and laying waste to your miraculously-constructed Thanksgiving leftover sandwich.
Chausson: String Quartet
Chausson wrote to this quartet’s dedicatee, Mathieu Crickboom, “I fear that it takes wing a bit from Beethoven. In the end, it is really not such a bad thing to take wing from him a bit.” Not a bad comparison. However, the quartet lacked a complete final movement — Chausson was killed in a cycling accident before he could finish it, so his friend and fellow composer Vincent d’Indy completed it for him.
Puccini: Turandot
Puccini came this close to finishing the opera before his death — all that was needed was a final scene to wrap it up. With several candidates to choose from, Puccini’s publishers left the project to Franco Alfano. Despite the existence of several musical sketches from Puccini, Alfano’s first draft strayed from both the music and the libretto. When conductor Arturo Toscanini sent it back, Alfano tried again, but it still wasn’t to Toscanini’s liking. Instead of requesting more revisions, the conductor made some hefty cuts, producing the most frequently performed version we know today.
Mahler: Symphony No. 10
Was it a curse? Mahler may have thought so. The talented but superstitious composer was terrified at the thought of falling victim to the “Curse of the Ninth” — the belief that death comes for the composer who dares begin a 10th symphony. To avoid trouble, Mahler titled his ninth symphonic work Das Lied von der Erde, and followed that up with a Symphony No. 9 — so, technically, Mahler produced 10 symphonies. But it turns out death cares a lot about semantics … Mahler died while he worked on Symphony No. 10.
Bruckner: Symphony No. 9
Bruckner also suffered from a Curse of the Ninth, of sorts — he began his Symphony No. 9, but never finished it. It’s not because he suddenly died while working on it, but rather, it was because of his urge to constantly edit and revise his previous eight symphonies … which distracted him for nine straight years.
Elgar: Symphony No. 3
The English composer began his final symphony in the later years of his life. In 1933, Elgar’s good friend George Bernard Shaw secured a commission on his behalf from the BBC Symphony Orchestra, and Elgar worked through several sketches with violinist Billy Reed. But the aging composer piled his plate a bit too high, starting work on an opera at the same time — and both projects were ultimately left unfinished. In the 1970s, musicologist Anthony Payne began a long process of constructing a finished piece based on the material Elgar left behind, and that “Elaboration on the Sketches” was finally premiered by the BBC Symphony Orchestra in 1998.