7 Great Composers Who Died Young but Changed Music Forever

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I'm Robert Estrin. Today's such a fascinating subject that you're going to be really surprised at some of these composers who you know, all of them, but I bet you didn't know how many of these composers didn't live very long. You're going to hear about seven great composers who just had short lives, yet their contribution to the whole history and trajectory of music is unbelievable. Of course, everybody knows about Mozart, who lived from 1756 to 1791, only 35 years, and yet he wrote hundreds of works, somewhere over 600 operas, symphonies, concertos, chamber music, you know, just in piano alone, 28 sonatas, 27 full -on piano concertos, who were fantasies, variations. His output was unbelievable with operas and symphonies, chamber music, violin, sonatas, on and on. We all know Mozart lived a very short time and had such a profound effect upon the whole trajectory of music.

Many of you may also know that Schubert, Franz Schubert, who lived from 1797 to only 1828, he only lived 31 years, yet he composed over 1500 works. Can you believe this? 600 songs for voice and piano, you know, leader, which are absolutely stupendously beautiful little gems, as well as a large body of symphonic chamber, solo piano music, you know, he wrote 21 sonatas, and by the way, his sonatas are monumental works, they're really extended works, beautiful themes, Schubert was the master of melody. Anyway, his sonatas, only 11 of them are really complete, but still, there's a lot of music there.

Felix Mendelssohn, did you know that he only lived to the age of 38? He lived from 1809 to 1847, he wrote hundreds of works, somewhere over 750 works, symphonies, concertos, chamber music, piano concertos, solo pieces, and his famous oratorio, so he wrote for, for choral, for instruments, just on and on symphonies, what a fantastic composer, such a short life, and look what he accomplished. And of course, you're all waiting for Chopin, Friedrich Chopin, lived from 1810 to 1849, he only lived 39 years, perhaps the most famous and instrumental piano composer of all time, the vast majority of his 230 works were for piano, etudes, nocturnes, waltzes, polymeses, on and on, he wrote two piano concertos, only a handful of works for other instruments like cello and piano, as well as some beautiful songs.

But you know what, even though he only wrote for piano primarily, what he left his legacy changed the whole trajectory of piano writing, to this day, he's the most beloved piano composer, probably, along with the greats, Beethoven and Mozart and the rest of them, but Chopin, what would piano be without Chopin? Such a short life and so much great music.

A great composer, Georges Bizet, you all know him from Carmen, but he actually wrote a lot of other pieces, not a huge output, but great music, he only lived 36 years of age, from 1838 to 1875, you know, of course, he wrote many operas, a lot of them unfinished operas, the Grisélidis and Suite for Orchestra, as well as his Symphony in C Major, which he wrote as a teenager, a great piece, I love his Symphony in C Major, it's worth a listen, he wrote some solo piano music and four -hand piano music, but not a whole ton of stuff, but the quality of his output was really something.

Now the oldest living composer in this list, who I still consider to be short-lived, was Alexander Skraabin, he lived to 43, but I thought he deserved to be in this list, because what an amazing composer, he lived from 1872 to 1915 with 200 works of piano pieces, can you imagine that, and orchestral works, he composed 10 sonatas for the piano along with numerous preludes and other pieces, incidentally, he was an amazing innovator, he was really ahead of his time, because he really was the first multimedia composer, not just with music, but with also a light show, he even had ideas for a smell organ, it was very difficult for him to achieve his vision, he also was one of the great innovators in music history, venturing into what bordered on atonal music, he wrote etudes in all different intervals including ninths, can you imagine etudes in ninths, his early music was evocative of Chopin with a Russian flair, but later on he got really pretty far out, even though he didn't live long, he had a big impact on music history and composers who followed him.

Then we come to George Gershwin, we all love his Rhapsody in Blue, he also wrote a beautiful piano concerto, he was born in 1898 and died in 1937 at the age of 38, writing 500 works, I mean including a lot of songs, you know, American in Paris, Porgy and Bess in the opera, and solo piano music, the preludes are just little gems, so those are seven composers who didn't live long and what an impact these men had on the whole body of work of music that we not only enjoy, but their music had profound effect on the whole evolution of the genre because they were great innovators and craftspeople, just imagine if they'd lived longer, Mozart by the way towards the end of his life was writing really sophisticated music that ushered in a whole new type of writing that we can only guess as to where it might have gone, because of course Beethoven took what Mozart and Haydn did before him and went much further. Imagine if Mozart had lived another few decades, what would he have come up with, and that goes for all these composers in the list, if you can think of any other composers worthy of mentioning, some of the earlier composers like Purcell and Pergolesi, they also had short lives, but I concentrate on the ones that are really popular composers and I wonder how many of you didn't know that some of these composers I mentioned had such short lives even though the impact is so tremendous.

I hope this was enjoyable for you again, Robert Estrin, LivingPianos.com, we are your online piano resource, see you next time.

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