Currently listening to: beautifulinstrumentals.com
why do composers get famous after they die?
Is it because dying is the biggest statement someone can make? Does dying signify the completion of a human’s life work? Is it the media attention that brings some people to actually listen to something they never actively sought out themselves?
What is it?
Interesting question. The things you mention must be factors. There’s also probably political factors that may sound far-fetched but probably play a role.
To some degree our culture is passed on by elites and their institutions rather than by all of the people making choices independently, so it’s reasonable to ask what kinds of institutional and elite motives might exist for waiting until a person is dead before allowing them a very wide audience. Suppose you’re a king, for example. You can’t really be totally sure until a person is dead that they aren’t going to use whatever fame they have against you (especially in a field like instrumental music in which declarations of political allegiance may be relatively peripheral to one’s work compared to fields like diplomacy or the military or even literature, where a person might establish more constraining political ties with every completed work). These considerations may also help explain some instances in which people never become famous (as the vast majority of people never do), even after death, in spite of having accomplished things that would be widely appreciated by many people if known.
