Thread: Your Top 20 Favorite Classical Composers Of All-Time

I used an incredibly unfair system to compile the leaders of the lists so far: assigning 30 to each 1st place finish, 28 to 2nd, 27 to 3rd.... all the way down to 10 for 20th. Life is unfair: so the near-misses were excluded.

Most members favor:

1. Beethoven - 174

This is certainly no surprise.

2. Bruckner - 141

This certainly was though.

3. Stravinsky - 132
4. Prokofiev - 128

I still am amazed how well Prokofiev did. 4th... I had an impression I was the only one who liked him.

5. Mahler - 123
6. Bach - 104

The lone baroque member of this list.

7. Ravel - 101
7. Bartok - 101
9. Brahms - 97
9. Shostakovich - 97
11. Dvorak - 80
12. Debussy - 74
13. Rachmaninov- 71
14. R.Strauss - 69
14. Wagner - 69
16. Berlioz - 62
17. Barber - 56
18. Sibelius - 54
19. Vaughan Williams - 52

For those who are curious, Mozart is currently at 34 points, somewhere in the 20s.

Near-misses for me: Poulenc, Schubert, Barber, Busoni, Hindemith, Webern, Roussel, Khachaturian, Palestrina, Saint-Saens, R.Strauss, Alkan, Ligeti, Faure, Franck, Borodin, Rach, Dvorak, Medtner...

And Chi, I admire your radical stance, but I just cannot agree.

1. Haydn (about 70 to 80 of his works)
2. Brahms (25-30)
3. Beethoven (20-22)
4. Schubert (14-15)
5. Schumann (13-14)
6. Bach (15-20)
7. Bartok (7-8)
8. Mahler (1)
9, Smetana (1)
10. Stravinsky (2-3)
11. Anton Webern (3-4)
12. Schoenberg (3)
13. Ravel (1)
14. Alban Berg (1)
15. Lutoslavski (1)
16. Pergolesi (1)

That's all. No 17, 18, 19 and 20.

Originally Posted by Efraim

1. Haydn (about 70 to 80 of his works)
2. Brahms (25-30)
3. Beethoven (20-22)
4. Schubert (14-15)
5. Schumann (13-14)
6. Bach (15-20)
7. Bartok (7-8)
8. Mahler (1)
9, Smetana (1)
10. Stravinsky (2-3)
11. Anton Webern (3-4)
12. Schoenberg (3)
13. Ravel (1)
14. Alban Berg (1)
15. Lutoslavski (1)
16. Pergolesi (1)

That's all. No 17, 18, 19 and 20.

I don't get this. What are these numbers for? You like only one of Ravel, Berg, Lutoslawski, and Pergolesi's works and yet their in your top 20?

Great top 10 by the way.

Even so I couldn't fill up the required quota. This is not merely a question of quantity. For example, I am fond of that only work of Mahler - Das Lied von der Erde (Song of the Earth) -, am not fond of the Klagendes Lied and Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen but they are not bad, and can properly not stand everything else I heard from him (meanly symphonies). Schoenberg is only boring (I have almost everything he wrote) except for Pierrot Lunaire - which is a fantastic masterpiece, a work of genius -, Verklärte Nacht and Six Pieces for Orchestra Op. 16. Smetana: the String quartet in E Minor; I know only a few other works of Smetana. And so on. As to Pergolesi, this (Stabat Mater) is his only work I ever heard.

Originally Posted by bassClef

(Kilar, Ifukube, Britten, Bantock, Bax, Suk, Vaughan-Williams, Kodaly etc) - though I like them alot they will have to stand the test of time.

They will, will they? Hmmm. (I think it's only fair that Mr. Clef stand some sort of test, too, then.)

Ahem.

Bartok
Berlioz
Bokanowski
Bruemmer
Cage
Dockstader
Dumitrescu
eRikm
Ferrari (Luc)
Gerhard
Gobeil
Goebbels
Groult
Lachenmann
Marclay
Nielsen
Prokofiev
Tudor
Varese
Yoshihide

Cunningly arranged alphabetically.

Yoshihide...a Japanese composer I have not heard of. I don't want to derail the thread, but SomeGuy, what can you tell me about this composer?

The term 'classical music' is a very broad one, but Otomo Yoshihide is arguably very much at the fringes thereof:
http://www.japanimprov.com/yotomo/

Hmm, a list comprising the composers I most enjoy, sorted by year of birth:

1. Byrd
2. Monteverdi
3. Handel
4. Bach
5. Scarlatti
6. Haydn
7. Mozart
8. Beethoven
9. Rossini
10. Schubert
11. Berlioz
12. Mendelssohn
13. Chopin
14. Verdi
15. Mussorgsky
16. Brahms
17. Janacek
18. Stravinsky
19. Bartók
20. Messiaen

Originally Posted by LvB

The term 'classical music' is a very broad one, but Otomo Yoshihide is arguably very much at the fringes thereof.

And just as arguably very much at the center, the center what's being done today. (If there is a center, that is!! Lachenmann would be another center, Bruemmer another, Ferrari another (though he's recently deceased, so eRikm it is!).

Yoshihide does a lot of different things, too. Improv is certainly one. He's done a lot of turntable music (both with and without LPs--his "Turntable Solo" is without). He does electronics, he plays guitar (usually prepared in some way), he has come up with a thing called sampling virus, which works like a computer virus, only on music, so you get new pieces out of the same material.

Like John Zorn, he gets put into different categories, too. On his own website, he's usually referred to as a jazz musician. Just listening to his music, though, I don't think you'd think of jazz any more than LvB thinks of classical. And that's true of many new music composer/performers nowadays. I went to a concert once which included a set by Ornette Coleman, who definitely is considered a jazz musician. He came on stage with a saxophone, supported by piano and double bass. Pretty standard jazz ensemble, right?

Wrong! The music was straight up straight ahead avant garde classical.

Tough task, this, even though it's just about one's personal taste.

What makes a favorite composer? That you tend to like almost every piece they composed? That they wrote a certain number of your favorite pieces? But what about a composer who wrote one or two pieces that you absolutely love, but then you don't like most of their other stuff.

I have problems with Shostakovich, for example. I absolutely love his second piano trio and his piano quintet, but I can't stand his symphonies, and other pieces of his that I've heard doesn't do anything for me. Then, I guess, he shouldn't be on the list.

Is it a percentage thing? If I like 50% of what Bartok wrote, and 70% of what Debussy wrote, should I then put Debussy before Bartok? But maybe Bartok wrote 10 of my Top-100 favorite music pieces, and Debussy wrote only 5, should I then put Bartok before Debussy?

And what about sample size? What if I've only heard 5 pieces by Copland, but I liked them all - is that enough to put him on the list. Maybe the next 25 Copland pieces I hear will be crap?

Well, I'll be back...

Originally Posted by Chi_town/Philly

NO. I do not Top 20 Favorite Classical Composers Of All-Time!

Come on, you're too modest.

Damn, this is hard:

1. Dvorak
2. Liszt
3. Mussorgsky
4. Wagner
5. Miaskovsky
6. Grieg
7. Mahler
8. Kodaly
9. Beethoven
10. Holst
11. Rimsky-Korsakov
12. Vaughan Wiliams
13. Penderecki
14. Mozart
15. SHostakovich
16. Vivaldi
17. Saeverud
18. Lalo
19. Cimarosa
20. Lyapunov

Just go with your heart TresPicos!

Well, a first draft, then.

1. Bartok
2. Alwyn
3. Debussy
4. de Falla
5. Mozart

6. Ravel
7. Bridge
8. Dvorak
9. Grieg
10. Chopin

11. Copland
12. Ireland
13. Honegger
14. Barber
15. Poulenc

16. Schubert
17. Larsson
18. Ibert
19. Delius
20. Haydn

I replaced the traditional B-B-B with a 20th century one.

No surprise about de Falla then!

Originally Posted by TresPicos

Well, a first draft, then.

1. Bartok
2. Alwyn
3. Debussy
4. de Falla
5. Mozart

6. Ravel
7. Bridge
8. Dvorak
9. Grieg
10. Chopin

11. Copland
12. Ireland
13. Honegger
14. Barber
15. Poulenc

16. Schubert
17. Larsson
18. Ibert
19. Delius
20. Haydn

I replaced the traditional B-B-B with a 20th century one.

Some interesting choices you have there. I have not heard Frank Bridge yet. I want to get into his music. Any recommendations?