Contemporary composers blossom late

I usually think of musical composition as a field for prodigies, so I was surprised to read this...

Among the 20- to 25-year olds, the ones who initially produce the most professional-sounding music will often be the least original - their technical polish may be evidence more of a mimetic ability than an original vision. The more “out there” a composer’s personal vision is, the more awkward his or her early works will probably sound, and the longer it will take his or her compositional language to crystallize into something eloquent and communicative.

The early idioms of many composers testify to this. For instance, Nancarrow didn’t discover his instrument until age 36, and took another 8 or 10 years to master it. Partch, having an even wider range of unconventional elements to integrate, was nearly 50 when his style started to feel compelling. Varése wrote romantic music that he later abandoned, and struggled to bring his style into focus at just shy of 40. Feldman’s music seemed like a cute adjunct to Cage’s philosophy until his ambitions suddenly blossomed at age 44. Elliott Carter wrote an undistinguished neoclassicism into his 40s, and didn’t find what we recognize as a Carterian idiom until age 43. Rzewski wrote some charming minimalist works in his early 30s, but didn’t create his own style until he was 37, with The People United. Robert Ashley was involved in the avant-garde all along, but didn’t begin to stand out until he wrote Perfect Lives at 48. Giacinto Scelsi was 54 when he found what he had been looking for in his 4 pezzi su una nota sola.

Here are my previous posts on age and achievement.