The opus thread

Thanks everyone for the reply..funny, I'm still the one of the only ones who voted yes for the poll, thanks a billion for your extensive reply nikolas and you to enigmus

Originally Posted by EnigmusJ4

Currently my list of finished works looks like this: ...

In my signature there is a link to my profile and if you follow that you will come across a complete listing of all my works, finished and unfinished, and you can see all the works that I did NOT include in the list above, since they were either cruddy, or unfinished. My current opus list just shows the order I started writing pieces...

See now? Say I just finished Op.29. Today, I just started something. I called it Op.30 because it came after the last one I did. Say I get an idea tomorrow, and start something else and call it Op.31 since it is entirely new. In the meantime I've completely run into a compositional roadblock with Op.30 and left it unfinished - yet it is still in order as no.30. That is how my main list is. The one I typed out in my above post was a list I made up that ONLY included finished works - my FULL list includes unfinished works as well. See now?

I suppose I could say I have my full list as an incentive to make something out of all the unfinished works I have in there that are hogging up opus numbers.

Originally Posted by EnigmusJ4

What *I* think an opus should be, is a work that the composer is proud of. Something he (she!) is willing to put in a list of works that will be put out into the public, listened to, and PLAYED. If you're embarrassed to include a work, you don't have to designate an opus, as simple as that.

I can empathize with this sentiment... my 'Symphony #2' is actually like Symphony #6. I have plenty of works that I wrote in college (or after) that I simply don't wish to include, many of them written as theory projects, experiments, or to fulfill some other purpose.

I use programmatic titles to tell everything apart instead of opus numbers, for the most part. I don't think I'll ever indicate 'Op. 1' until a piece has been really commercially published.

I never give my pieces opus numbers either. I just write the year(s) and months when I wrote it on top of it, so I can still keep some order for myself.

I do make a certain distinction between "fun pieces"/exercises and "serious pieces", but it isn't very strict and there are many pieces which fall somewhere inbetween, or change into another "category" after some time. It has nothing to do with the length of the piece however, but rather with how serious my effort behind it was (note: not how -big- the effort was or how long it took me) and to some degree also whether I can accept the piece in the long term. There are pieces that, in retrospect, just don't seem independant and personal enough for me to consider them "major pieces", but as I said, the distinction isn't very clear.

The opus number is a publication number that bears no relation to order in which works are written or the date of publication. That is why there is confusion over the opus number and symphony number of someone like Dvorak. The opus number is created by the publisher. Dvorak's publisher assigned numbers to his symphonies and opus numbers according to what he published. When he wanted to make an early work look like a new one he gave it a later opus number. Consequently Dvorak has opus numbers with nothing in them (no work assigned), early juvenile works with late numbers and mature works with early numbers.
Beethoven also has WoO - works without opus number presumably which were published but after his death when the publisher could not determine what an appropriate number would be.
Assigning an opus number today, given that little actually gets printed for sale anymore, is really just a convention left over from the 19th century. In a time when little was printed for sale, (such as Bach) the term was not widely used. Bach's total number of opi would have been about 5 (I am guessing) but the convention wasn't used probably because I think he self-published. Handel's opi go up to about 10-12?

"Opi"? I'm sorry, but I have to chuckle a little.

Originally Posted by EnigmusJ4

... 29 opera (I hope everybody here knows that is the plural of opus, you'd be surprised at the amount of people in our field of music that forget or never knew that)

I personally have never heard "opi" ... is that a real word? The wonders of Google are failing to answer that question for me right now.

"technically", a work gets an opus number when it is published only.

however, it IS a handy way to catalogue works, even unpublished ones.

Originally Posted by EnigmusJ4

I personally have never heard "opi" ... is that a real word? The wonders of Google are failing to answer that question for me right now.

The plural of 'opus' is 'opera'.

Originally Posted by flint-wwrr

The plural of 'opus' is 'opera'.

...I just call them pieces.
I don't like the word 'opus'. It's always rubbed me the wrong way.