Symphonies of Mozart.’’ Perhaps the early works were included for reasons of
completeness rather than excellence. When recordings included in complete
collections are omitted from the calculations, the percentage of recordings in
this early period drops to 2.4. These observations suggest that Mozart’s early
works are not of the same high quality as his later ones. The music critic,
Harold Schonberg(1970),is ofthe same opinion.He says:
It is strange to say of a composer who started writing at six, and lived
only thirty-six years, that he developed late, but that is the truth. Few of
Mozart’s early works, elegant as they are, have the personality, concen-
tration,andrichness thatentered his musicafter1781.(pp.82–84)In1782,Mozartwas inthe21styearofhis career.
Someworksarerecordedtwoorthreetimesindifferentcompletecollections.
Therefore,toweedoutworksrecordedforreasonsotherthanmusicalquality,I
defined a masterwork (for the purposes of this study) as one for which five
different recordings are currently listed in Schwann’s guide. By this definition,
Mozart’s first masterworkwas written in the 12th year of his career.
To explore the question about creativity and preparation more generally, I
searched for biographical material about all the composers discussed in Schon-
berg’sTheLivesoftheGreatComposers(1970). For 76 of these composers, I was
able to determine when they started intensive study of music. Incidentally, all
these composers had at least one work listed in Schwann’s guide, and 64 had
one ormore works availableon five differentrecords.
Infigure23.3allofthecareersofthecomposersareshownonthesamescale,
thatis,the10thyearofHandel’scareerisgraphedinthesameplaceasthe10th
Figure23.3
A graph ofthe careers of all composers in Hayes’ study.
554 John R.Hayes