Mark Shanks, motivated by Strauss' four last songs, muses about final
works:

>Brahms: 12 Chorale Preludes - (dark gems, unjustly neglected)

Well, he has his own "four last songs", the four serious songs op.121.

>I hope that other list members have some favorites they'd like to
>recommend.

Interesting thing about final works is that few of them were felt to be
final by the composer at the time of composition.  Eg, Brahms thought his
final work was the string quintet Op.111 (he thought of retiring after that
one), and then went on to write a lot more music in various genres.  It's
unlikely that he was thninking of either the chorale preludes or the ernste
gesange as his last work.

Often you find that the composer had a number of works in progress and
a number of ambitious projects planned at the time of death, even though
we are tempted to think of their last surviving works as a kind of "last
words." Fundamentally, I think, composition is a life-affirming activity,
and it's unlikely that someone contemplating his imminent physical demise
will be in much of a mood to compose.  Conversely, it's conceivable that
in many cases late compositions actually help extend the lives of their
creators, and to spur them on into new projects, which is why you find
so many incomplete or barely-begun works so often at the conclusion of
a composer's life.

Ulvi
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