No, I haven't made a major musical discovery, but the subject line is
relevant - please bear with me.

Recently, I mentioned an Arte Nova release of some symphonies by Gernsheim,
a C19 German composer.  I ordered them and my CD store confirmed that they
had ordered Symphonies 1-4 by Gershwin.  This gave me an idea for a thread,
ie for compositions that we would like to have been written but which, for
whatever reason, weren't.  I'm thinking particularly of works in a form a
composer never used, but you might like to consider what, say, Sibelius's
8th would have been like.  I apologise if the idea has been explored before
I joined the List.

I wondered about Mahler's Piano Concerto.  It would be very long,
probably with more than three movements, possibly with a choir and an
apocalyptically difficult solo part which would require a Marc-Andre
Hamelin to play.  I realised that this description might fit Busoni's
Piano Concerto, which was premiered in Berlin in 1904.  Without checking
what Mahler was doing at the time, it's possible that he heard the Busoni
concerto.  It may have decided him not to write one himself.  He may never
have considered the idea, he may never have heard the Busoni, I don't know.

I'm also attracted to the idea of a cello concerto by Mozart.  I'm not
sure whether I'd like the slow movement to be like the ethereal one from
the 3rd violin concerto, or the darkness of the one from the Sinfonia
Concertante for violin and viola, or even the autumnal quality of the
one from the Clarinet Concerto.  I can almost hear the cello playing the
clarinet part.  I have a distant memory of seeing a listing in an ancient
Schwann for a cello concerto someone cobbled together - does anyone know
of it?

Anyway, make of all this what you will.  Where I live, midwinter is a time
for fantasy.

Richard Pennycuick
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