Before embarking on a career in Philosophy, Nietzsche had wanted to be a composer. He wrote several compositions that received bad reviews from critics. The famous conductor, Hans Von Bulow described one such composition, "Manfred", as the "most fantastically extravagant, the most unedifying, the most anti-musical thing I have come across for a long time in the way of notes put on paper." The period between 1871 and 1873 was a period that saw Nietzsche compose several works of varying lengths. However, by 1874 he stopped composing and directed his energies toward his philosophical enterprises. Nietzsche's composition has been commonly described as undistinguished, with commentators noting that his literary and philosophical achievements were grander.