The WoO and Hess numbers in Beethoven's works.

[Enrique]

Let's just put on a CD or a vinyl and listen to the MUSIC!

You are right. If I want to buy a CD with a given work I don't have to specify an opus number or any other number. If it is a symphony I say symphony no.5, say. If it is a lied by Beethoven, I have the name. If it is Brahms' piano quartet, I say "give me the piano quartet by Brahms".

I entered youtube and put 'wagner chamber music' to see if I could find a work with an opus number or any other number. No numbers at all. However (wikipedia):

Wagner's musical output is listed by the Wagner-Werk-Verzeichnis (WWV) as comprising 113 works, including fragments and projects.

It seems nobody uses these numb ers. With Prokofiev there are always opus numbers. For Stravinsky only a year is specified. And the same happens with many 20th century composers. However there are at least three catalogues for Stravinsky, as this article shows. Again, nobody seems to use these numbers.

So, for 20th century music, the system is the less complicated of all. Just specify a year (composition or score publication year). For Beethoven this system would be impractical. For he composed many works in a given year. Instead, 20th/21th century composers are much less prolific.

[Michael]

So, for 20th century music, the system is the less complicated of all. Just specify a year (composition or score publication year). For Beethoven this system would be impractical. For he composed many works in a given year. Instead, 20th/21th century composers are much less prolific.

Even Beethoven is much less prolific than Bach, Haydn or Mozart. Whatever about the quality, each of these composers composed at least twice as many works as Beethoven.
And Bach wrote nearly 300 hundred cantatas alone - of which about 90 are lost!
I wouldn't like to be compiling that list!

[Chris]

And none of them approaches Telemann's incredible output of over 3,000 works. Good luck to whatever record company wants to tackle a Complete Telemann Edition!

[Enrique]

I think the rule can always be applied that says big quantity, low quality. Not all of the thousand and something works by Bach are in the same quality level. Well, it's been nice talking with you, Michael.

[Chris]

Offhand I can't really think of any works by Bach I would consider substandard.

[Enrique]

Do the inventions stand in the same level as the mass in B minor?

[Chris]

They are lesser in scope certainly, but I wouldn't consider them less in quality as representatives of their genres.

Do the Op. 126 bagatelles stand in the same level as the Missa Solemnis? We might say no for the same reasons, but that does not make the bagatelles inferior compositions in terms of quality.

[Enrique]

I was trying to explain the following fact. As we go from Bach to say Pendereki the size of a composer's output, in general terms decreases. Here is a second explanation: take two consecutive symphonies by Beethoven. You'll find they are very different. For instance compare the 2nd with the 3rd. They are two different worlds. Or 5 with 6, 7 with 8, or 8 with 9: the same thing. As we go from n to n+1 the rules seem to have suffered a drastic change.

Now consider Stamitz and his 58 symphonies and compare one with the next. The degree of similarity is very high as compared with the case of the nine symphonies. One is tempted to say he composed with a recipe. He first gathered the materials and then applied the recipe. And the symphony came out. Put another way, in Stamitz we find repetition. And the repetition explains the large number of his symphonies .

As we move into the 20th century, the similarity between any two works in a composer's output decreases. As an example consider The Firebird, Petrushka and The Rite. They are three completely different things. The three belong to the same genre: ballet. And the first is separated from the last by only three years. (How is it possible Stravinsky evolved so much in such a short time?)

So the reduction in the size of a composer's output as time goes by is explained by a parallel reduction in the degree of repetition.

[Chris]

Yes, certainly those kinds of changes came with the changing nature of the job of being a composer. Being a composer in Bach's day was a very different job than being a composer in Stravinsky's.

[Enrique]

Yes, certainly those kinds of changes came with the changing nature of the job of being a composer. Being a composer in Bach's day was a very different job than being a composer in Stravinsky's.

You are right. Bach worked first for several courts and had to provide works for the court musicians. Then in Leipzig he had to provide music for four different churches, including the composition of a cantata once a week (this explains the high number of cantatas (300) written by Bach). Haydn had to write works for the Esterhazy court. Bach and Haydn are very special cases for they were great geniuses. But composers in the time of Bach were in a similar case. And this in part explains the degree of repetition we find in their outputs and, hence, the ease with which those works were written and hence, the large output size.

Instead after beethoven a composer wrote a work when somebody asked them (Spanish componer por encargo), as was the case with Bartok and Kousevitzky or with Stravinsky and Diaguilev (Bach wrote a work por encargo once, the Goldberg Variations, but that was an exception I think) or just waited until the inspiration came. But what was the change in the job of being a composer from Beethoven to our days? This is a question. Whatever the change, it has to be able to explain the fact that Brahms, Liszt, Wagner, Chopin and many others each composed many more works than Avro Part, Boulez or Stockhausen.

[Enrique]

One change in a composer job was this: in Beethoven's day and the rest of the 19th century there was a connection between the composer and the general public. People went to the theater to listen to the composer's work. Today this is no longer true. The vast majority of the works executed in concert halls belongs to the past. The connection between the composer and the public is very tenuous. So composers today lack an important stimulus and this may contribute to explain the small size of their outputs. The lower the demand the lower the offer.

In my opinion the most important reason to explain the small output size is just that today composers do not want to repeat themselves.

[Chris]

They also don't have to produce new works to keep making money. They continue to get paid for the sale of recordings, when their music is licensed for use in movies, TV, and commercials, etc.

[Enrique]

True. Beethoven and his bread works is an example of the opposite case. Though he once sold the same work to three different publishers. I once heard or read what was the sum which had to be paid to Stravinsky for the use of his music in TV. It was large.