New Complete Edition

[Chris]

Busiest meaning wrote the most pieces? It certainly isn't Beethoven.

[EternaLisa]

Busiest meaning wrote the most pieces? It certainly isn't Beethoven.

Yeah-so who is it?

[Chris]

Hard to say, since we don't have all the pieces or reliable information about all the pieces from every composer throughout history. Among the major composers, perhaps Telemann, who wrote over 3,000 pieces. Simon Sechter (the teacher of Bruckner) is the most prolific I can think of, having written over 5,000 fugues alone (he tried to write a fugue every day), and many other pieces too, writing more than 8,000 pieces altogether. God help the record company that tries to release a complete set of all his music!

[EternaLisa]

*Telemann, who wrote over 3,000 pieces. Simon Sechter (the teacher of Bruckner) is the most prolific I can think of, having written over 5,000 fugues alone

**God help the record company that tries to release a complete set of all his music!

*and the life-span in years of these fellas? (I honestly don't know-why I'm asking)
**They would need God's help, for sure!

xoxox
PHX

[Chris]

*and the life-span in years of these fellas? (I honestly don't know-why I'm asking)

Telemann: 14 March 1681 – 25 June 1767, so 86 years
Sechter: 11 October 1788 – 10 September 1867, so 79 years

[Michael]

Of the Big Three, Beethoven was the least prolific. Bach and Mozart wrote about twice as much music as B. The easiest way to figure this out is to check the number of CDs in the complete works.
Mozart and Bach run to about 160-180 discs (and I think Haydn would be up there too) while Beethoven would barely run to a hundred. (Hardly worth listening to!)

[Sorrano]

Of the Big Three, Beethoven was the least prolific. Bach and Mozart wrote about twice as much music as B. The easiest way to figure this out is to check the number of CDs in the complete works.
Mozart and Bach run to about 160-180 discs (and I think Haydn would be up there too) while Beethoven would barely run to a hundred. (Hardly worth listening to!)

(And keep in mind that Mozart did not live as long as the others.) Schubert is probably worth mentioning, as well, as his works number in the 800-900 range, I believe. And he lived a very short life, as well.

[Michael]

(And keep in mind that Mozart did not live as long as the others.) Schubert is probably worth mentioning, as well, as his works number in the 800-900 range, I believe. And he lived a very short life, as well.

I sometimes wonder if Schubert could have been the darkest horse of the lot!

[Sorrano]

I sometimes wonder if Schubert could have been the darkest horse of the lot!

It's so tempting to ask that question, what might have been?

[Roehre]

http://www.lvbeethoven.com/Oeuvres/ListBiamonti01.html

In attempting to keep within the lines of this discussion and not create a new thread on the subject, does anyone know if the above list has been superseded or updated?

Not trying to be lazy myself (I just don't have the energy/time I'd love to devote to researching stuff like this-but at the same time I know that there are others who do and can), so, mind if I pick your brains?

thanks!

E

In 1978 a kind of appendix/ interim revision of the Kinsky-Halm was published.
By then it was thought a fully revised K-H would see the light of day by the mid 1980s. I discussed the progress of the in 2002 still not published new K-H with the then director of the Beethovenhaus, and he told me there were severe problems to solved and a new Catalogue was not to appear before 2010. It's nearly 2012, and a new K-H is not even in sight.
Problems to be solved:
-what exactly is a "work"? If we take every note dotted down, the Biamonti catalogue only needs to be copied. A discussion around this theme appeared in Barry Cooper's Beethoven Compendium from some 20 years ago.
-where to find, and how to keep updated, the present locations of manuscripts and first editions
-keeping or not keeping the WoO numbering as used since 1955?
-If so, how to insert works which have emerged since 1955, like the little string quintet movement in b minor, the completed study works, e.g. the preludes and fugues for string quartet, or the first version of opus 18/1 . A relation with a revised Hess catalogue?

I must point out that these questions, especially the numbering (more especially those of fragments), are delaying a new edition of the Köchel Verzeichnis too. At the moment a proposal has been made -and partly already published and used- to identify fragments by year and a letter, e.g.
the Horn concerto fragment KV370b as Fr1781a and ditto KV371 as Fr1781b, or KV494a as Fr1785k.

[EternaLisa]

Thanks everyone (for all that)