10 Composers Who Were Excellent Performers of Their Own Music

10 Composers Who Were Excellent Performers of Their Own Music
George Lloyd
Witold Lutoslawski
Frederic Rzewski
Sergei Rachmaninoff
William Bolcom
Esa-Pekka Salonen
Morton Gould
Nikolai Kapustin
Benjamin Britten
Leonard Bernstein

[@jackdolphy8965]

I had the thrill of being in Wind Ensemble at Hartt Colllege in the early 1970s when Copland visited and conducted us in his “Emblems”. It was a fine moment in time, he was very gracious and supportive…. but we struggled under his not soo clear conducting.

[@ericprinzing1600]

Not a conductor, but Federico Mompou was an excellent performer of his own piano music.

[@petterw5318]

I was about to say the same. He recorded his complete works when he was in his 80s, but the freedom he shows is astonishing.

[@DavesClassicalGuide]

I agree. Good pick!

[@dizwell]

Cats _and_ Benjamin Britten! You spoil us 😅😊 The two great loves of my life...

[@dariocaporuscio8701]

Looking forward to the list of composers who struggled to play their own music, expecting to have Stravinskij and Ravel in that list

[@marks1417]

Stockhausen sometimes conducted his big orchestral pieces like Inori, Hymnen mit Orchester and couldn't really let go enough. Too much micromanagement. He seriously hurt his back conducting Mixtur - sounded like he was massively tense - and had to give the performance to somebody else

[@dariocaporuscio8701]

@@marks1417 well his composition style shows that, but I guess this approach works better when you are writing scores and cutting tapes than when you are managing real people in real time...

[@craigkowald3055]

I had the privilege to perform band works by Gould under Gould in college. He was wonderful.

[@jdistler2]

To this list I’d add such light music composers as Leroy Anderson, Eric Coates and Billy Mayerl. And of course John Williams conducting John Williams.

[@jackdolphy8965]

Rzewski! Always thrilled when you bring him up, Thanks Dave!

[@TylerEaves]

As soon as I was the title I was like...Rzewski had better be on there! Criminally under-talked about. Possibly the best American piano composer of the past hundred years. \\

[@PM_ME_MESSIAEN_PICS]

i absolutely love messiaen's recording of his Trinity Meditations, top quality stuff

[@curseofmillhaven1057]

I'd add Oliver Knussen - a wonderful conductor of his own music (actually a wonderful conductor full stop - his version of Britten's Prince of the Pagodas is top-notch, for example) Perhaps Michael Tippett (his Nimbus recordings have some great stuff - the Piano and Triple Concertos) and Bernard Hermann.

[@claytonfarmer437]

Can’t forget Bela Bartok! He was as good as they come.

[@mangstadt1]

I've only seen two of the composers listed here performing their music live. Bernstein conducted the overture to Candide at the London Proms back in 1988, and Lutoslawski was at the podium of the Spanish National Orchestra at the National Auditorium in Madrid in 1990. He did a couple of shorter works of his in the first part and his Concerto for Orchestra after the intermission. Very fine stuff. Another composer who I often saw conducting his own work, coupled with that of others, is Cristóbal Halffter. Oh, also Luciano Berio and Karlheinz Stockhausen.

[@mangstadt1]

I forgot Krzysztof Penderecki, a southpaw. I saw him quite a few times.

[@mangstadt1]

And Steve Reich too. It is not often that other conductors do his music, but I expect that with time it will happen more frequently.

[@ericleiter6179]

Great list and topic...I couldn't agree more about Bernstein and Lutoslawski especially. I know you met and saw Penderecki conduct his works...was he a bit like Stravinsky in his interpretations, or did he just not make this list???

[@DavesClassicalGuide]

He just didn't make the list.

[@bbailey7818]

I saw Penderecki conduct his own and other music. I asked a couple of players about it and they said he was excellent except for one thing. He was left handed and it confuses orchestra musicians. Takes some getting used to seeing the baton in the "wrong" hand.

[@vdtv]

I happen to have a fascination for piano roll recordings (as they are the only historic ones my brain allows me to listen to) and this gives us such nuggets as the following composers playing their own stuff: Debussy Ravel Prokofiev Lyapunov Scriabin Strawinsky Saint-saëns Casella Grainger Grünfeld (...who HE?) Ireland Laparra (...who HE?) Liebling (...who HE?) Mahler Milhaud Rachmaninov Reger Salzedo (...who HE?) Scott Strauss I find it fascinitating to hear such things, even if they hardly ever lead to road-to-damascus moments. But the very fact that I can listn to these people performing their own things in glorious modern sound... Great. BTW: Strauss is not as matter-of-fact on the piano as he is on the rostrum.

[@dylanwilkersonable]

I would humbly submit Poulenc as another great performer of his own music, perhaps Milhaud too

[@albertpianist]

Gershwin was pretty good too.

[@Recolation]

Although there are precious few recordings, Enescu was certainly quite good at performing his own music. When he still had the technique to do so, that is.

[@robertparry4331]

R.V.W. CONDUCTED A FIERY ACCOUNT OF HIS 4TH SYMPHONY.BUT SADLY THAT WAS IT EXCEPT FOR A RECORDING OF THE 5th FROM A1952 PROM PERFORMANCE OF THE ON SOMM LABEL.THE COUGHING IS HORRENDOUS.DID EVERYONE SMOKE IN THOSE DAYS?

[@ruramikael]

VW also conducted his Ouverture to the Wasps and Dona Nobis Pacem.

[@robertparry4331]

SORRY.PENSIONER MOMENT AS I HAVE THE CD.

[@iankemp1131]

Actually a majority of people did probably smoke in those days! In the 1960s smoking carriages outnumbered non-smoking ones on British trains. If you went into a pub your clothes stank for days afterwards. Thank goodness those days have gone.

[@JacobSmullyan]

I'd put Mompou high on this list. Few pianists have played his music as well as he did, and he recorded the entire published corpus of his piano music.

[@stepanio_banderas9461]

… and Yevgeniy Svetlanov 😊

[@hamidrezahabibi8111]

Prokofiev, Shostakovich and Bartòk were in that league as well.

[@theforceiswithme8804]

and Shchedrin!

[@commonwombat9171]

Can agree in principle with regards to all three being outstanding pianists whose recordings are worthwhile statements. The one "qualifier" is that the recorded legacies of all three are very limited.

[@hamidrezahabibi8111]

@@theforceiswithme8804 I forgot. Thanks 🙏🏼

[@PM_ME_MESSIAEN_PICS]

shostakovich recorded more than 2 CDs of his own works, so

[@fredericmorris2931]

Britten also had the benefit of that terrific Maltings recording venue. I would have included Howard Hanson.

[@DavesClassicalGuide]

Feel free!

[@Mackeson3]

Is Mildred's favourite composer Kat- chaturian?

[@pierrecarrette4976]

You could gone one step further … Kat-chat-urian (as chat is cat in French)

[@MrYoumitube]

The first composer that comes to mind is Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. I have watched many interviews by renowned concert pianists saying Mozart was an excellent pianist.

[@DavesClassicalGuide]

No one was around to hear him.

[@MrYoumitube]

@@DavesClassicalGuide Mozart performed in Piano competitions before the emperor at the time in Vienna with Muzio Clementi and established himself as the finest keyboard player in Vienna. During that time I think Music was probably more valuable to people's amusement and leisure, so I can imagine from word of mouth people going to concerts to listen to this phenomenon named Mozart.

[@neilford99]

James MacMillan ? Good conductor of his music.

[@anttivirolainen8223]

I don't know if you've already made a video on this topic, but one subject I would like to hear more about is conductors and other performing artists who may not be widely known as composers (and who may not all be very good composers, at least in everyone's opinion). I wouldn't have known, for instance, that Igor Markevitch was also a composer if I hadn't heard it from you. However, thanks to you, I ended up listening to a few orchestral works by Markevitch and liked them a lot. Many may not be aware of Lorin Maazel's composition work, for example. Or that Olli Mustonen, known as a pianist, has composed three symphonies and a lot more. While Oliver Knussen's and André Previn's composition work is probably well-known, Michael Tilson Thomas's compositions might not be. There are quite a few examples from the past few decades

[@DavesClassicalGuide]

Thank you. I will think about it.

[@bbailey7818]

I guess I'm one of the few who really enjoyed and was gripped by Maazel's opera '1984 '

[@anttivirolainen8223]

@@bbailey7818 It could very well be. I haven't heard that opera, but I know it has received very poor reviews. I once heard some piece by Maazel for flute and orchestra, and I wasn't particularly impressed.

[@trevorguy63]

Do you own any records of Kapustin performing Kapustin? I've heard they're hard to come by

[@DavesClassicalGuide]

Yes, at least three of them

[@robertbangkok]

Hi Dave. I wonder if any of your research might reveal how many of the Stravinsky recordings were actually done by Robert Craft. My conducting teacher, an Associate Conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra, revealed to me that those "Stravinsky Conducts Stravinsky" recordings were, in fact, conducted by Robert Craft. (BTW, I just recently found you on KZbin and you are costing me lot of money! I keep buying recordings based on your reviews and comments.)

[@DavesClassicalGuide]

Craft often prepared the orchestra in Stravinsky's later days, but he made plenty of recordings before Craft got involved, so I don't make an issue of this.

[@richfarmer3478]

Gould was not a great melodist but he was a brilliant orchestrater who use someone else's tunes to great effect, eg. The Stephen Foster Gallery. I have Britten's own versions of the Simple Symphony and the Young Persons Guide and I don't think I've ever heard better.😅

[@jerrybrewington158]

I think I read somewhere once that Ravel was such a bad pianist that he had a hard time doing the Concerto for Left Hand with BOTH hands.

[@ugolomb]

Britten was also a wonderful Mozart conductor (among many other things). I did have one personal disappointment from him -- his first recording of the Serenade for horn, tenor and orchestra. I was eager to hear him do it with the original dedicatee (Dennis Brain), and Brain's playing is indeed wonderful, but Britten's conducting struck me as rather dull -- not least when compared to his own later recording with Barry Tuckwell as the horn soloist. I can't help feeling that, at the time, Britten was simply not experienced enough as a conductor to tackle that piece. Perhaps rehearsal and recording conditions also affected the results. Other than that one recording, all his recordings of his own works really move me, and so do many of his performances of other works. I still have a soft spot for his Purcell -- I am more attracted to ostensibly historical performances (not *because* they're historical, I just enjoy them more), but I still find that Britten's approach has its own charm

[@HassoBenSoba]

I was minding my own business on day (1998, I think) when I caught a syndicated panel/review radio show, with three experts...without knowing the performer's identity... reviewing new recordings of piano music. They sampled a couple of Rachmaninoff's solo piano works (Preludes, Etudes) and unanimously, mercilessly PANNED the performance as "unidiomatic, merely adequate technically, no insight, faulty tempi", etc etc. Then the big reveal came: they had just trashed a new restored recording of Ampico piano rolls played by Rachmaninoff himself. I seem to recall they were mildly miffed at themselves, but basically swept aside what should have been a mortifying, on-air embarrassment, and moved on. LR

[@bbailey7818]

To be fair, I take those piano rolls with a silo of salt. As they say, proceed with caution.

[@gavingriffiths2633]

The worst composer who conducted his own works - Richard Strauss! I was surprised Elgar didnt get a look in here.....

[@bbailey7818]

Some Strauss conducting live are superb. Like the live recordings c.1946-47 in London issued on Testament. Elgar is good and capable and knew what he wanted but, as his friend Landon Ronald said, he hadn't the "genius for conducting" of a Toscanini. And not on the level of Britten. There's also Mascagni but he was too much in love with his own music and loved it to death. I would definitely add Carlos Chavez who recorded all of his symphonies superbly, reissued on cd. How about Howard Hanson? Top flight recordings and some live of his 2nd and 3rd symphonies as well as the rest.