Opus 1

It said here a few months ago that Ethel Smyth arrived fully formed with her op. 1 String Quintet. It's been the Beethoven Piano Trios on my turntable for much of the summer, the first of which are op. 1, no. 1 and no. 2. Written in 1793, that makes him 22 when he wrote them. He arrives in mature condition, too. However forbidding he might sometimes appear in portraits or his more strident music, the slow movements in all these trios are anything but and he effortlessly takes on Mozart's legacy throughout.

Mozart's own opus, or Kochel, 1 is a formal exercise for Piano Minuet and if it lacks some of the depth of the Smyth and the Beethoven we might bear in mind he wrote it when he was 5.

So, the question of opus 1 brings with it a few different 'types' of artist. Some know what they are doing from the beginning, or wait until they do before publishing anything- which is a good idea; others develop from a starting point and improve markedly, yet others - perhaps more in pop music or literature than 'classical' music - have a good idea but fail to follow it up with anything as convincing, either trying to repeat the trick with diminishing returns or not finding anything else to compare with their one brilliant idea.

I've seen it suggested that some very successful pop acts can stretch the success of a debut album into a second, the point being that the first contained all their best stuff and the second is the next best plus whatever they've written since. Oasis fell apart when the third album was only half any good and that's what they were ever after. Charles Shaar Murray was wheeled out by a tabloid newspaper to review Be Here Now, heralded as a major cultural event, but he was in the minority in believing the hype and, basically, got it wrong. 

It might not be entirely correct to make The Catcher in the Rye Salinger's op. 1 but it might as well be for all that his other work is read by any beyond his devotees. Such early success so readily achieved can be a burden and the apprenticeships served by the Beatles in Hamburg, Handel in Italy, Bach in Lubeck and perhaps T.S. Eliot with Ezra Pound look like sound investments.

But, however impressive it is to arrive with a mature opus 1, one can't remain at square one without it soon becoming 'samey'. One possible way of differentiating the genuine artist from the box office provider is the capacity to move on and do the next things equally well. Beethoven did that and I might have found a reason to put him above Handel who delivered awesome opera and oratorios and a grand style but some might say without having Beethoven's range and depth. Once we are at that level, though, fault finding starts to look a bit over fussy.

Arvo Part could be said to have had two, or maybe three, careers or phases moving with fashion, up to a point, until finding the music that he is now famous for. Shakespeare did not turn up with his best work first, whether we think that was Titus Andronicus or Henry VI, and that ought to be Quod Erat Demonstrandum. If Beethoven had his Mozart, Bach his Buxtehude, Handel his Corelli, where would Shakespeare have been without Kit Marlowe.

Nobody just turns up and does it. Everything comes from something else.