Listen Wider Challenge 2020

14. A composition written when the composer was older than age 80

This week's challenge was a bit tricky-- many composers in history didn't live to be 80, or weren't well enough documented for us to know exact dates for birth, death, and compositions. Others were no longer actively composing at that age. Some composers, though, are known for their long careers and remain(ed) active in later life: Elliott Carter, Michael Tippett, Oscar Straus,and Ralph Vaughan Williams all worked actively well into their 8th decade and beyond, and Sofia Gubaidulina and Thea Musgrave are still active composers in their late 80s. What these composers *don't* share is a single style or approach to composition, so this is a pretty varied list!

This week's list was a challenge since age at time of composition isn't a common filter or way of listing works. But composers are often honored with birthday concerts, so I used ProQuest Historical Newspapers databases to look for reviews and news coverage of major composer birthday concerts.

In some of the articles, they mentioned whether the composer was still creating new works, and even named what they were working on. In other cases, I went to the composer's website, Grove, or Wikipedia to consult works lists and see if they'd written anything in the years after their 80th birthday.