Quote:
Originally Posted by Prestidigitweeze
Brahms burned about half of his compositions, believing they didn't deserve to be seen, let alone performed or published. The pieces that survived in other copies have led musicologists to conclude that the work he burned was probably as good as that which he allowed to survive.
Eugene O'Neill specified he wanted Long Day's Journey into Night to be published twenty-five years after his death, but his widow thought better and I'm glad she did. Think of the great productions we'd have missed -- and think of the catharsis which that play has afforded so many audiences. In one way, it's terribly depressing; in another, it offers intensities of honesty and compassion that can assuage people's pain like medicine. He tore that play out of himself in pieces and that's exactly why it can help despairing people.
The artist isn't always the best judge of what should and shouldn't survive. Negative vanity -- that distorted mirror -- can make objectivity impossible for anyone.
|
Reminds me of my grandmother who was the best baker in the town we lived in. When I was 3 or 4 I stumbled on a big box wonderful cookies, cakes and pastries that she was going to throw away. Nothing wrong with them except for being less than perfect appearance wise. Of course I volunteered to help her eat them.
A person has a right to destroy their own creations, but if they don't destroy them it seems that somewhere deep down they wanted them to be used. condemning their heirs for using them is small minded envy IMO.
Helen