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In Reply to: RE: What do I care? posted by Ivan303 on July 17, 2016 at 09:26:37
Great artists are almost never about the money. Why do you think that Mozart was broke? And notice that even the greatest composers, once they start focusing on making money, don't write much more great music.
See, e.g., Rachmaninoff, who was born rich, lost it all in the revolution, and then for the sake of his family built another fortune through a heavy performing schedule and careful investing. Most of his music comes from his earlier years.
The words/lyrics matter.
Follow Ups:
You mention Mozart, and I seem to recall reading that in one of his early (Salzburg) masses, he saved himself some effort by setting the Gloria and the Credo to be sung to the same music simultaneously - perhaps at Archbishop Colloredo's request (who didn't have the time for, or the interest in, elaborate musical settings). ;-)
Also, I'm not so sure that there's any sort of correlation between a composer's financial well being (or their focus on making money) and the quality of their work. Wagner got a little short of cash? Time to write a new opera - so he composed "Parsifal", considered by many (myself included) to be his masterpiece.
As for Rachmaninoff - that is indeed a tragic case that the financial necessity for his performance career took so much time away from his composing in his later years. But certainly, there were some truly great works that emerged from those later years, such as the Paganini Rhapsody and the Symphonic Dances.
certainly for his supremely clever and witty, and often surprisingly profound, operas. He couldn't just choose his own arbitrary lyrics for the Roman Catholic Mass, could he? The greatest operas are great drama, not just great music, including Wagner's, and for me the greatest 19th century opera of all, Carmen, is also a great drama.
More to the point, composing music has seldom been a high-paying job in our culture. If there is any real money to be made in the music biz, it's usually in the performing. There have been exceptions -- Rossini scored big with William Tell, and happily took early retirement.
That doesn't mean famous composers didn't (often very badly) need the money they were paid for writing their most famous works.
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