year of Brahms’ career. The figure shows that very few composers produced
masterworks with less than 10 years of preparation. There are just three excep-
tions: Satie’s ‘‘Trois Gynope ́dies,’’ written in year 8; Shostakovich’s Symphony
a1, and Paganini’s Caprices, both written in year 9. Between year 10 and year
25, there is a rapid and essentially linear increase in productivity from almost
zeroto slightlymorethanhalfawork percomposerperyear.
Ihavenotcontinuedfigure23.3beyondyear25becausetodosowouldhave
given a misleading impression of changes in productivity with age. All the
composers in our sample had careers of 25 years or more. However, some
composersdiedquiteyoung.Schubert,forexample,diedinthe25thyearofhis
career and Mozart died in the 31st year of his. Famous composers who die
young tend to be unusually productive. This observation does not imply that
especially creative musicians compose themselves to death. Rather, we believe
that it is a statistical artifact captured by Hayes’ maxim, ‘‘Late bloomers who
wantto be famous shouldn’t die young.’’
IfHandelandVerdihaddiedasyoungasSchubert,theywouldprobablynot
be considered major composers. All their major works were written after they
had been in music for 25 years. Averaging together short and long careers
would make it appear that composers get less productive after 25 or 30. Actu-
Figure23.4
Graphshowing thatcomposers maintain theirproductivity through the 40th yearoftheircareer.
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