Halsey (1976) provided quantitative ratings of the aesthetic significance of classical music masterworks, which have often been used in empirical studies of lifespan creativity. Previous research using the ratings suggests that composers overall show two career peaks, consistent with a recent “finder-seeker” creator typology. Here, ratings for 2533 works by 91 composers were reanalyzed using hierarchical linear modeling, which accounts for the nested structure of the data better than earlier multiple regression methods. In contrast to previous findings, results showed a single-peaked age function for aesthetic significance ratings. Composer-level variance in the slope of the trajectory was accounted for by total amount of masterpiece music composed and by career age at best work, even when those works were themselves removed from the dataset. This implies that composers show strong and consistent individual differences in career trajectories, which are interpreted via the “finder-seeker” typology.
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