Howard Ferguson?

[monafam]

I just listened to Concerto for piano and string orchestra by Howard Ferguson (Irish composer).  It appears he lived in the 20th Century, but it had a real romantic feel to me.

Does anyone know much about Mr. Ferguson?

[eschiss1]

Not much here, though I've heard a few pieces and there's a brief but informative biography http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Ferguson_(composer) here. Stopped composing after 1959 though continued involvement with music- editing, other forms- until his death in 1999.
Eric

[monafam]

Thanks for the link -- I probably should have checked Wiki first  .   It's interesting that he decided to just stop composing.

Are there many examples like this?  (I guess I just see composing as something you do for your whole life. )

[Kriton]

It's interesting that he decided to just stop composing.

Are there many examples like this?  (I guess I just see composing as something you do for your whole life. )

Brahms, Sibelius...

[JimL]

It's interesting that he decided to just stop composing.

Are there many examples like this?  (I guess I just see composing as something you do for your whole life. )

Brahms, Sibelius...

Elgar, Cliffe, Shapero...

[chill319]

Brahms composed at least until he was diagnosed with cancer in 1896, dying less than a year later. The much younger MacDowell, on the other hand, lived almost seven years after composing his last published piece -- he ended like Nietzsche, apparently from the same cause. (Cf. Schumann's last three years.)

I suppose everyone agrees that Rossini *didn't* stop composing.

[JimL]

Brahms stopped composing after the Double Concerto, and intended to retire.  However, after he met the clarinetist Muhlfield, he returned to composing for the last years of his life.

[eschiss1]

Once I would have said Sibelius, but he was still doing some composing as late as 1948 when he revised his 1927 Masonic works for publication, if I understand, and even some more substantial composition (besides the burnt sketches for the 8th symphony; I mean brief but surviving works) in the earlier 1940s? something like that. But still, yes, does happen... and then still you have composers like Brian who compose well into their late 90s...
Eric

[Delicious Manager]

It's interesting that he decided to just stop composing.

Are there many examples like this?  (I guess I just see composing as something you do for your whole life. )

Brahms, Sibelius...

Ives, Rossini, Duparc.

[monafam]

Ask and ye shall receive!   :-)

It definitely makes more sense now -- maybe it's that I don't have the same creativeness that many called to the various arts, that I see it as something you pretty much have for life.

[Revilod]

...and Gustave Charpentier, composer of one of my favourite operas, "Louise" and its virtually unknown sequel "Julien" and practically nothing else though he had enough time, dying at 96 in 1956. Does anybody know "Julien"? There is a video recording of it around.

As regards, Howard Ferguson, I know the Piano Concerto. It's an excellent piece and has always been very highly regarded....quite deservedly so.

[eschiss1]

Elgar stopped composing large-scale works for a long time after his wife died - he didn't stop composing entirely.  Songs (solo and choral) and piano pieces continued, and of course then he began, in the last years of his life, to work on what might have been several large projects- a third symphony, a last oratorio, a couple of other things. (Only the third symphony of his last works has been completed by other hands, I believe- oh yes, also a 6th Pomp and Circumstance March.  The piano concerto has also been but is not among his late works.) Sibelius also I think continued composing small-scale (but probably rather good pieces, some of which I remember hearing in a Composer of the Week program on the despised BBC Radio 3 not long ago) and sketching larger-scale works for some time during his supposed "silence", until only fairly shortly before his death.  Not quite the same as with Ferguson and I think Duparc who I believe stopped altogether for quite some time... Distinctions!
Eric

[John H White]

Another English composer, Cypriani Potter(1792-1971) stopped composing back in the1840's to concentrate on his pedagogical work; but not before he had written around 15 symphonies and a number of piano concertos.

[albion]

Another English composer, Cypriani Potter(1792-1971) stopped composing back in the1840's to concentrate on his pedagogical work; but not before he had written around 15 symphonies and a number of piano concertos.

Potter didn't enjoy quite such longevity! For a discussion about this seriously under-valued composer see http://www.unsungcomposers.com/forum/index.php/topic,445.msg5193.html#msg5193

Returning to Ferguson, his two substantial choral works The Dream of the Rood and Amore langueo are superb, and luckily both have been recorded in excellent versions:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ferguson-Finzi-Orchestral-Vocal-Works/dp/B000025KA0/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1286818417&sr=1-1

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ferguson-Orchestral-London-Symphony-Orchestra/dp/B000000APZ/ref=sr_1_3?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1286818452&sr=1-3

Both are essential listening.