Thread: Over Rated Top 50 Composers: Your Humble Opinion

The purpose of this thread is for you to express your humble opinion on which composer(s) you think are over rated in Talk Classical's Top 50 Composers list recently compiled. I have created a separate thread to encourage all members, irrespective of whether you participated at all in the voting of the list, to express your opinion.

Note:-
(1) This thread is not about attacking the merits of the list overall; its point system, its statistical credibility or any of that nature.
(2) This thread is not about attacking the merits of the individual composer(s) who you feel might be over rated in the list. Indeed, you might well enjoy the composer's oeuvre very much but feel the ranking has elevated him or not to point where you feel you might like to express your opinion about it.

Here is the top 50, in fact the top 54, as of today:-

1. Bach
2. Mozart
3. Beethoven
4. Schubert
5. Brahms
6. Wagner
7. Haydn
8. Schumann
9. Handel
10. Mahler
11. Mendelssohn
12. Debussy
13. Dvořák
14. Chopin
15. Tchaikovsky
16. Stravinsky
17. Ravel
18. Prokofiev
19. Shostakovich
20. Strauss, Richard
21. Liszt
22. Bartók
23. Verdi
24. Monteverdi
25. Sibelius
26. Vivaldi
27. Berlioz
28. Bruckner
29. Saint-Saëns
30. Elgar
31. Fauré
32. Vaughan Williams
33. Rachmaninoff
34. Puccini
35. Purcell
36. Scarlatti, Domenico
37. Mussorgsky
38. Schoenberg
39. Grieg
40. Palestrina
41. Messiaen
42. Janáček
43. Britten
44. Rossini
45. Rimsky-Korsakov
46. Josquin
47. Berg
48. Bach, C.P.E.
49. Barber
50. Bach, J.C.
51. Gluck
52. Rameau
53. Scriabin
54. Ligeti

I'll start with one. I think Messiaen is too high. I think at #41 is over rated. I have several of his pieces, including his famous SQ which I suspect is probably the single piece that motivated many votes. I might well be wrong. But that's my opinion about Messiaen at #41.

Saint-Saens is about 10 places too high in my opinion.

Chopin: everything he did had a piano in it. How about a little more variety?

Mozart is too damn high!

I personally think Dvorak is a little high, but that seems to be a matter of taste. He's a good composer, even though I've never personally found much to gain from his symphonies or chamber music, but higher than the likes of Chopin? Stravinsky? Ravel? Prokofiev? Shostakovich? Strauss? I don't really understand it.

Same with Faure and Vaughan Williams, but to a much lesser extent, and I don't know their music as well.

Then as HarpsichordConcerto said, Messiaen, for the same reasons. Janacek too.

J.C. Bach is a difficult one, as he's unfortunately not as well known as some of his contemporaries, so he won't appear on most Top 100 lists, but does he deserve his place here? In my opinion, he was the most important influences on Mozart's style, and he wrote some absolutely beautiful music that I have no doubt will see a revival in the near future. But even though I was one of the first to vote for him, I think he might be too high at this stage, but again, it's difficult to gauge.

So many are too high. Most of the 19th century stuff is too high.

Elgar is too damn high! He doesn't deserve to be on the list at all!

Won't comment on whether Messiaen is 'too high,' but fact is he's one of the composers that got me into post-1945 music big time. So I see no problem with him at where he is in the list.

Overall I don't really care for these lists, I won't spoil the party, but the fact is that go out in the real world and Wagner would not get within the top ten of a 'general' list like this. He definitely would in opera, but that's a different realm, more specialised. Same as Chopin being in the top ten of a general list, he wouldn't make that (and he hasn't here), but he would make it easily in a piano-only list.

I can't comment further or I'll break the rules the OP has set up, which isn't my intention to do. But people who've been on this forum long enough know my opinion of Wagner, so no need to repeat it ad nauseum.

Beethoven is too low he should be number ONE, Sibelius is too low, Chopin should be lower.

Originally Posted by ComposerOfAvantGarde

Mozart is too damn high!

Oh yes. You're such a hipster, COAG. Please tell us more about your apparent difficulty with tonal music, how great your compositions are, and of course, your love for everything Ligeti.

So why do you think he's too high, and who do you think would be better suited for the upper positions?

Originally Posted by StevenOBrien

Oh yes. You're such a hipster, COAG. Please tell us more about your apparent difficulty with tonal music, how great your compositions are, and of course, your love for everything Ligeti.

So why do you think he's too high, and who do you think would be better suited for the upper positions?

He is jealous for Mozart, just like Salieri was ( Yeah, i know that the movie Amadeus has lots of fiction in it)

I am curious if your 'top 54' is derived from a popular poll, stats on how many recordings of those composer's works are consumed and played on programs, etc.

From your list, I would delete:
11. Mendelssohn (and then that is a 'maybe')
15. Tchaikovsky
19. Shostakovich
20. Strauss, Richard
28. Bruckner
29. Saint-Saëns
30. Elgar
31. Fauré
32. Vaughan Williams
33. Rachmaninoff
34. Puccini
39. Grieg
45. Rimsky-Korsakov
49. Barber (another maybe, a meticulous craftsman Some of whose music I think quite fine, but not much of it.)
50. Bach, J.C.
51. Gluck
53. Scriabin
54. Ligeti - (my verdict is not yet in on this one, but I think far too much is made of this one, at least currently)

I'm not going to add more names to what, in a way, I think is a pointless exercise / amusement.

Originally Posted by StevenOBrien

Oh yes. You're such a hipster, COAG. Please tell us more about your apparent difficulty with tonal music, how great your compositions are, and of course, your love for everything Ligeti.

So why do you think he's too high, and who do you think would be better suited for the upper positions?

Ligeti is better for the higher positions. No. 1 in particular. A lot of Mozart's work I think is quite predictable and not very interesting. His divertimenti quickly get boring, his early and middle concerti sound too similar and too typical of the classical era. A lot of his early works are poorly written and uninventive, his music is only good after the mid 1780s. It is also disappointing that he has not written very many good Sturm und Drang symphonies like Haydn. I don't see why his music is so special when there are so many more composers out there who have written so music that is so much better.

ComposerOfAvantGarde, after those comments about Wolfie, I guarantee (well, almost!) you will be 'youtubed.' In other words, you will have at least half a dozen examples of 'The Great Wig's' music thrown in your face very shortly, in order to contradict what you say. Another opinion against your opinion backed up the THE SHEER FORCE OF YOUTUBE.

Mark my words, it's gonna happen, sooner or later...always happens when a sacred cow is felled...it's as if we're in India or something...but I don't see wigs on the streets here as there are Brahman cows in Mumbai or wherever...