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Who you got?

1808-1812

7K views 64 replies 19 participants last post by  Ramako 
#1 · (Edited)
I thought this could be an interesting poll. Who's your favourite/greatest composer born between 1808 and 1812? Why?

The poll is asking who you think is the greatest - and if you can't decide that, pick your favourite out of whichever ones were equal at the top for you.
 
#4 ·
Very close. I absolutely love Mendelssohn, but my vote went to Schumann. Schumann composed great works in a wide number of genres. All 4 symphonies are strong (I particularly like the 3rd and 4th). He wrote wonderful concertos for piano(!!), cello, and violin (not everyone thinks highly of the violin concerto, but I adore it). His piano chamber works are spectacular (quintet is one of the greatest). And of course his piano works and songs hold their own against just about anyone.
 
#5 · (Edited)
My second choice would most definitely have to go to Liszt. Though Schumann speaks more to my heart and was more consistently the greater "poet"(as was Chopin, though note how I saw "consistently," Liszt has some real moments...), Liszt seems to me to be the more versatile and fluid composer. And he was easily one of the most revolutionary figures in the history of music.

Curious though how Chopin is losing, though it is at an early stage in the voting. Take a random internet sampling and Chopin is almost guaranteed to win.
 
#8 ·
For me, it was a close call between Mendelssohn and Schumann - I eventually went with Mendelssohn. Although both great composers, Schumann is very much a hit and miss kind of composer for me. I find Mendelssohn more consistently enjoyable, and the way his structural perfection shines through is a big bonus. I'm also more emotionally attached to works like A Midsummer Night's Dream, the 3rd Symphony and the Songs Without Words.
 
#9 ·
I just consulted wikipedia to see what "other" would possibly be and discovered a few. Ferdinand Hiller is the only one whose music I've actually listened to and I can vouch for it. It seems like a more early romantic version of Hummel. Apparently very prolific, and possibly had a large solo piano output, something I'd like to know more about.

Fiery piano concerto:
 
#15 ·
How all these polls and voting are going to destroy or at least distract our perception from the actual contribution of each one of these great composers. Music is not sports. We cannot actually count the "higher", the "stronger" or the "faster". We should consider ourselves fortunate enough to identify, by exploring and indulging in their immense Opus, their contribution to the development of Classical Music. That's enough!
All of these four mentioned in the poll had their strong and weak points, but we cannot really measure them and compare. A common feature of all of them is that they were all uneven in their production. Perhaps, Chopin was the least uneven, because he composed exclusively for his instrument (even his Piano Concertos and his meagre Chamber Music is utterly pianistic). However, he was very narrow in his scope by composing only for piano.
For the other three, despite their great achievements in some of his works, there is a good amount of uneven and less interesting works. So, none was that great, but all were so significant to be listened to and be considered as some of the most important figures in Classical Music History.

Principe
 
#18 ·
I think it is... silly is the least insulting adjective that comes to mind, to view the concept of voting for one of these composers. Mostly, you are voting for yourself. Schumann's music connects with me a little more than do the others, so I vote for myself, and parenthetically Schumann?

Sheez.

:cool:
 
#31 ·
Why are Schumann supporters so fanatical...maybe they think he needs extra boosting?
We have been here before and although he is next to only Schubert in lieder his orchestral stuff is so-so and his piano compositions are secondary to Liszt. Be warned,I am not getting into a big thing about this!
It is all a matter of opinion, isn't it?
 
#32 · (Edited)
I think Schumann's piano works are probably the best on offer in this poll, but if we do a point-by-point comparison, I think Mendelssohn's symphonies are more interesting, his orchestral music is generally better (with the overtures and the incidental music), and his chamber music is divine, particularly with works like the piano trios and string octet!
 
#42 ·
You don't know Liszt very well do you?I can hardly imagine a more mixed variety of feelings and styles whether for the keyboard the orchestra or the voice. His style has far more variety than any of the other composers in this poll.
 
#57 · (Edited)
Re the two comments above me, I disagree, but I can sympathize with both. Liszt is a somewhat controversial orchestrator. Posterity has deemed him to be not the most colourful orchestrator in the world, and his orchestration isn't going to win universal admiration like Wagner's or Berlioz.' Michael Saffle said it best about his orchestration. To paraphrase: he wasn't a notable orchestrator of novelty (with some exceptions) or complexity, but what he was, was an orchestrator of great transparency. He almost never created muddy sounding or poorly balanced passages like Schumann or even Brahms sometimes did, unless it was for programmatic purposes. He later goes on to say that in his orchestration, Liszt "erected a skeletal tradition upon which later Romantic masters like Richard Strauss heaped mounds of sonic flesh."

Some people won't take to this kind of orchestration, but i've found the more i've gotten used to his orchestration the more beautiful i've found it. It's all very clear, very chamber like at times, and the way he delicately entwines the different instruments (like in the tone poem Orpheus, the second movement of the Faust Symphony, the lovely shepards song in his oratorio Christus or the Francesca da Rimini episode in his Dante Symphony) is masterful.

But i've found that when it was required he could also be startingly appropriate, colourful, and certainly very innovative for his time. Here are some examples:

First of all, his first tone poem, Ce qu'on entend sur la montagne begins with a muffled bass drum roll that was truly novel effect that was very radical for the time. It might seem somewhat commonplace now, but it was new back then and was appropriate for depicting what Liszt intended. The whole work was quite novel in its use of instruments, actually.



Or the colourful and evocative orchestration in Der Nächtliche Zug



Hungaria, with its delightful percussion effects. Also, the 'whip cracking' sound effects that he also used in Mazeppa were used almost 20 years later by Tchaikovsky in Francesca da Rimini. I think this was a new effect, correct me if i'm wrong, and I don't know Wagner's music well enough to know if he used it before Tchaikovsky did.



And, of course, done well certain parts in the Dante Symphony show remarkably novel orchestration - consider the wind effects right at the start (and occuring frequently throughout the movement) which can sound startling and frightening even today. (Unfortunately the recording i'm about to put down, that is otherwise good, is almost unbearably vulgar in its use of cymbals in the opening movement).



And also his tremendously vivid depiction of Jesus calming the waves in Christus (at 24:34).



Overall, I find that Liszt was not only a very important orchestrator, but also a good one - even though he was inconsistent at times and not a great one like Berlioz. It also, to me, often depends on the performance. Sometimes he has sounded dull to me also, sometimes vulgar, but then I hear another performance of the same work and I think he's a master orchestrator.
 
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