These classical composers had plenty of creative steam well into their old age, providing generations with music that’s still popular today.
Composing is sometimes thought to be a young person’s game, requiring dynamic energy and endless commitment. Contributing to this perception is a long list of artists who died too young: Wolfgang Mozart, Franz Schubert, Henry Purcell, and George Gershwin being just a few. Because of the romance surrounding an untimely death and the loss of great works never to be written, these figures sometimes overshadow examples of the opposite tendency.
Some composers had a different destiny than these tragic cases. Here are five who continued to be productive into advanced old age.
Claudio Monteverdi
The Father of Opera, Claudio Monteverdi (1567–1643) was in his 70s when he wrote his last work, “The Coronation of Poppea.” It wasn’t as famous as “L'Orfeo,” his first work and the world’s first complete surviving opera. But in some ways “Poppea” is greater, as the product of a mature mind at the pinnacle of its powers. “L’Orfeo” had emphasized splendor and elaborate staging to impress the nobles of Mantua. But at this point in Monteverdi’s career, as the music director of St. Mark’s Basilica in Venice, he was more interested in character and moral complexity. 
