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Your Top 20 Favorite Classical Composers Of All-Time

71K views 332 replies 145 participants last post by  Andante Largo 
#1 · (Edited)
Who are your top 20 favorite classical composers and NOT your top 20 classical composers opinion of who are the most influential. This list is purely subjective and shouldn't be looked at objectively. If you don't have any favorites, then please refrain from posting in this thread.

Now my top 20 favorite composers of all-time and please note this could change in due time:

1. Ravel
2. Berlioz
3. Bruckner
4. Mahler
5. Vaughan Williams
6. Barber
7. Debussy
8. Bartok
9. Stravinsky
10. Brahms
11. Mendelssohn
12. Delius
13. Bax
14. Prokofiev
15. Langgaard
16. Nielsen
17. Dvorak
18. Sibelius
19. Shostakovich
20. Elgar
 
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#106 ·
This is getting off the topic, but I agree what some of the others above have said regarding melody. Good classical music isn't always about melodies, it's also about things like rhythm, colour and texture. There's also the issue about the 'architectural shape' of the music - a piece by Mozart takes up different space than one by, say, Shoenberg. That's why we shouldn't berate people who like post WW2 music in particular. It's just as rich & satisfying to listen to as the earlier composers with melodies.

I suppose my taste sums up this broader view of music. My favourite composer is Varese, who composed some of the most stimulating music out there & knew virtually everything about composing, even though his works are not dominated by melody but by the other things I mentioned (listen to the lush orchestration of Offrandes, it's as good (or better?) than Debussy). My least favourite composer is Saint Saens, who could write a melody, but so what? Most of what he did were what the Germans call earworms, things that get in your head & won't let go. There's little subtlety there. I wish I hadn't known his Organ Symphony, I haven't listened to it for 10 years, but the damned thing is still fixated in my head. Just horrible! So I'll get off my soapbox now...

Here are some composers I have discovered lately, whom I like quite a bit:

Byrd
Szymanowski

Josef Tal - C20th Israeli composer, I've got a cd of his 4 very atonal and colourful symphonies. They definitely stand up to repeated listening. An excellent composer, especially if (like me) your knowledge of Israeli music is almost zero (I know Bloch, but he was Swiss, although he was Jewish & wrote in that style...)
 
#107 ·
This is getting off the topic, but I agree what some of the others above have said regarding melody. Good classical music isn't always about melodies, it's also about things like rhythm, colour and texture. There's also the issue about the 'architectural shape' of the music - a piece by Mozart takes up different space than one by, say, Shoenberg. That's why we shouldn't berate people who like post WW2 music in particular. It's just as rich & satisfying to listen to as the earlier composers with melodies.

I suppose my taste sums up this broader view of music. My favourite composer is Varese, who composed some of the most stimulating music out there & knew virtually everything about composing, even though his works are not dominated by melody but by the other things I mentioned (listen to the lush orchestration of Offrandes, it's as good (or better?) than Debussy). My least favourite composer is Saint Saens, who could write a melody, but so what? Most of what he did were what the Germans call earworms, things that get in your head & won't let go. There's little subtlety there. I wish I hadn't known his Organ Symphony, I haven't listened to it for 10 years, but the damned thing is still fixated in my head. Just horrible! So I'll get off my soapbox now...
Tell how a good melody could hurt a composition and you might have a case, other than that, I strongly disagree with your sentiments regarding Saint-Saens. He was a great composer. Besides "Symphony No. 3" what other pieces have heard?
 
#108 ·
I think that bdelykleon, Efraim, Some Guy & myself have stated the case for post WW2 music quite well. The bottom line is, classical (or any other) music can have melody, that's fine, but it's not integral to the existence of a piece of music because music is made up of many other components as well - eg. rhythm, colour, texture, sonic structure, to name a few.

I strongly agree with what Efraim seemed to suggest, that around 1900 there was a crisis of tonality, which made so many things like melody almost redundant. After WWI in particular, many composers explored new avenues in music, that were sometimes not based on melody, or revived older approaches to melody (eg. Renaissance) that were simpler than the overblown approach of the later Romantics. Some composers who took these directions were, as most people probably know, Bartok, Varese, Schoenberg, Durufle, Stravinsky, Debussy, Ravel and there was much room for more idiosyncratic approaches like Janacek, whose music is more based on the sounds of the human voice during conversation (in Czech, obviously). No matter how conventional or wierd they were, composers from 1900 on had to face up to the crisis of tonality or become irrelevant...
 
#109 ·
I still have yet to read your explanation of how a good melody could hurt a piece of music?

Oh and I'm still waiting on knowing what Saint-Saens compositions you've heard besides "Symphony No. 3."
 
#110 ·
Do you always have to make things into a confrontation? Just like last week? A bunch of the more progressive people have made our points here regarding melody quite well, read them again if necessary. Anyway, this is outside of the scope of this thread.

By the way, have you heard any of Israeli C20th composer Josef Tal?
 
#111 ·
I'm not making anything into a controntation, Andre. All I did was ask you a simple question. I don't care what the other people have said about melody. I asked you this question, by the way, I posted this question earlier and I didn't receive any responses, so I figured I would ask you the question since you brought it back up. Nothing controntational about that.

About the Saint-Saens, I was just curious as to know what pieces you've heard that way I could direct you to something that's more up your alley maybe.

As for Josef Tal, I think you know how I feel about atonality, so I don't need to bring that up again do I? ;)
 
#112 ·
I restate what I said earlier, there's no problem with a piece having melody, but music can have things other than melody - colour, rhythm, texture, structure - to be engaging. Just listen attentively to almost anything by a more reputable post WW2 composer & you'll understand what we are saying.

About Saint Saens, I've heard quite a bit of him on the radio. Eg. chamber music, concertos, Carnival of the Animals, symphonies. I'm afraid he doesn't engage me at all. I find more depth in other composers from around that period like Bizet, Gounod, Franck. For me, substance is mostly more important than style. If I want something virtuostic, I'd rather listen to Liszt's concertos than Saint Saens'. That's just how my taste seem to have developed...
 
#113 ·
Well I like Saint-Saens, Bizet, Gounod, Liszt, and Franck. Their music has definitely enriched my life. I still enjoy Saint-Saens though. His piano concertos are unbelievably good. His ballet "Javotta" is also quite good. The full ballet has only been recorded once and it's on the Marco Polo label. I think it's out-of-print now.

I hate to do this, but you never answered my question. I asked you how a good melody could hurt a piece of music? I didn't ask you anything else. I don't care about post WWII composers. I didn't ask you about color, rhythm, structure, or anything else. That has nothing to do with my question, Andre.
 
#114 ·
Well, I don't like your reductionist, black & white argument, but I suppose melody can impede a composer from saying what he/she wants to say if they have other concerns. I can only point you to something like Varese's Offrandes where melody would be out of place, big time. Varese here is not concerned with melody, that would be superficial & ruin the piece. He's more concerned with painting a nightmare world, what the text sung by the soprano is about. The orchestra is treated as a timbral pool, not a source of melody, from which the composer takes elements like colour, rhythm, texture, at will. So not all music has to rely on melody, and in some cases like this, it has nothing to do with melody at all...

If you heard the Varese or even something more radical, like Cage's Sonatas for Prepared Piano, you would get exactly what we're on about...
 
#115 ·
Well, I don't like your reductionist, black & white argument, but I suppose melody can impede a composer from saying what he/she wants to say if they have other concerns.
I rest my case. There's nothing wrong with a good melody. It only enhances the musical experience.

As far as post-WWII composers, I could careless about them. I have no interest in them. I'm still digging my way through my two favorite periods of classical music: the Romantic and early 20th Century periods and I have a suspicion that I haven't tipped the iceberg yet of these mammoth periods of time.
 
#116 ·
I don't think you read my post properly. What I was trying to say, that in some cases, the use of melody can actually be a hindrance & quite superficial. Like the Varese piece Offrandes I mentioned, which doesn't use melody, because there it is not needed. In any case, you only seem to interested in black & white arguments, so were oblivious to the nuances of what me & others were saying...
 
#117 ·
Andre, I wasn't asking for a short essay, about composers who don't use melody, I was just asking you a simple, direct question, which you were so argumentatively against answering.

Like I said, I don't care about post-WWII composers unless they wrote tonal music and composed with something thoughtful in their mind other than how to rub two seashells together to get an experimental sound. That's not music to me. Never will be.
 
#118 ·
Well maybe that's because you have only started to seriously listen to classical quite recently. Some of us around here have done it for decades, and we're still discovering new things regularly. We don't dismiss anything. I know that the classical music I listen to today is different from 10-20 years ago, and what I listen to in the next decades will also change. So that's why many contributors here have developed a more open view of what is music, I guess...
 
#119 ·
How long you've listened to classical music isn't really the point I was making. I have been a musician for 20 years, so I'm not sure who has the best perspective of music: me or you? What are your credentials for evaluating music?
 
#120 ·
I'm not competing with you or anyone else here. Again a confrontation, which is not necessary. Obviously you being a musician brings a different perspective to music, but so has my listening to a variety of classical for the past 20 years. It's not about competition or so called credentials, but the perception everyone brings to a piece, whether it's Byrd, Mozart or Varese. This is why I'm an eclectic, a jack of all trades (in the listening & appreciation department anyway), and that's probably not so unusual around here. I think it's healthy to want variety, but if you don't, that's fine. I just think that there are many eclectics like me around here & that's good (actually, I'll start a thread about this)...
 
#127 ·
on great/god and bad melodies...

... a couple of words from a philosophical point of view.

Our likes and dislikes are conclusive, positive facts - de gustibus non est disputandum. It means that we cannot justify those subjective facts. If we determine the good melody this way: a melody which seems to somebody good or great, we block the entire discussion. I am not contradicting that subjective factors are playing an important role in the assessment of the melody. However objective factors are equally important and it is just possible to talk about them. Taking objective factors into consideration allows for argumentation which isn't mere repeating that I like this and/or I dislike that. If the melody is written in the major-minor system it must meet different conditions than the pentatonic tune, for instance. Only provided we remember about the objective although not absolute factors it is possible to understand why Stravinsky's opinion on Beethoven isn't only an expression of personal likings of the Russian composer. And Stravinsky claimed that the whole artistic work of Beethoven was a ceaseless fight against the lack of melodic talent. For sure, accepting Stravinsky's view doesn't lead to diminishing Beethoven's genius.
 
#134 ·
My list changes yet again...

1. Ravel
2. Berlioz
3. Bruckner
4. Mahler
5. Vaughan Williams
6. Barber
7. Debussy
8. Bartok
9. Stravinsky
10. Brahms
11. Delius
12. Sibelius
13. Nielsen
14. Langgaard
15. Poulenc
16. Bax
17. Grieg
18. Arnold
19. Liszt
20. De Falla
 
#135 ·
Just for the record, I think that the works of many C20th composers are quite melodic, even though that might not be the sole or even major thing they're concerned with. Some composers I can think of here are my favourite Varese, as well as others like Martin, Henze, Berg. But I disagree with MI that Bartok's Divertimento lacks melody. Just listen to how he locks you in with that big opening theme! That's very melodic, as are the other movements. He simply uses different rhythms to accompany his melodies. In any case, it's not as radical as those composers above. So I think that our perception of what is melody differs greatly, I think I'm more similar to bdelykleon here...
 
#136 ·
20 is quite much for me, of course I like much more than 20 composers but I don't think I can call them my favourites.

So the current list goes like this:

Brahms
Mendelssohn
Beethoven
Mozart
Chopin
Grieg
Tchaikovsky
Berlioz
Paganini
Schumann
Liszt
Vivaldi
Bach
 
#138 ·
20 is quite much for me, of course I like much more than 20 composers but I don't think I can call them my favourites.

So the current list goes like this:

Brahms
Mendelssohn
Beethoven
Mozart
Chopin
Grieg
Tchaikovsky
Berlioz
Paganini
Schumann
Liszt
Vivaldi
Bach
Pretty conservative list with the exceptions of Berlioz and Grieg.
 
#142 ·
con⋅serv⋅a⋅tive  [kuhn-sur-vuh-tiv]
-adjective
1. disposed to preserve existing conditions, institutions, etc., or to restore traditional ones, and to limit change.
2. cautiously moderate or purposefully low: a conservative estimate.
3. traditional in style or manner; avoiding novelty or showiness: conservative suit.
4. (often initial capital letter) of or pertaining to the Conservative party.
5. (initial capital letter) of, pertaining to, or characteristic of Conservative Jews or Conservative Judaism.
6. having the power or tendency to conserve; preservative.
7. Mathematics. (of a vector or vector function) having curl equal to zero; irrotational; lamellar.
-noun
8. a person who is conservative in principles, actions, habits, etc.
9. a supporter of conservative political policies.
10. (initial capital letter) a member of a conservative political party, esp. the Conservative party in Great Britain.
11. a preservative.
 
#145 ·
Some of your choices were conservative. I don't think you've really explored much classical outside of those composers, because none of them are uniquely individual choices. It just seems like you're following popularity trends with your choices. You didn't even pick a late-Romantic or early 20th Century composer. You don't enjoy music from these time periods?
 
#157 ·
My personal top 20 goes something like this.. I'm not a fan of listening to random no-names, I tend to stick with just a few prolific composers, for better or for worse, so every name on here is very well-known.
1. Beethoven
2. Tchaikovsky
3. Wagner
4. Chopin
5. Rachmaninoff
6. Ravel
7. Bach
8. Schubert
9. Mozart
10. Mahler
11. Haydn
12. Liszt
13. Brahms
14. Copland
15. Debussy
16. Prokofiev
17. Shostakovich
18. Stravinsky
19. Mendelssohn
20. Sibelius
 
#158 ·
I'm such a fan of C20th composers, that I think if you compile a list of virtually any major (& some minor) composers of the last 100 years, I'd probably be ok with that. But there's so many that I haven't discovered yet, like Ligeti, Boulez, Kurtag, Berio, Nono, etc. & even many Australian composers (that's were I live) are unfamiliar to me, apart from what I've heard on radio.

My personal top 20 goes something like this.. I'm not a fan of listening to random no-names, I tend to stick with just a few prolific composers...
No need to be ashamed of that. Often, the most popular composer's works are the best, even though I like to explore lesser known ones sometimes, just for interesting comparison's sake, at least...
 
#161 ·
Actually, I wasn't implying anything negative when I said 'no-names,' I was referring to people that are simply lesser-known or very little-known in the classical world. I prefer to explore classical one person at a time, get to know all their works, and move on, which can take time, and since I've only been a serious classical fan for about 3 years, I've only really explored the best-known composers. I'll get around to the others eventually :)
I heard you have a huge Ravel collection Mirror, who are your favorite Ravel performers? Do you have any favorite recordings?
 
#162 ·
Oh, okay I understand. Thanks for clarifying that.

My favorite Ravel conductors are Jean Martinon, Pierre Boulez, Yan Pascal Tortelier, and Charles Dutoit. My favorite Ravel performers are Martha Argerich, Pascal Roge, and Krystian Zimerman. My favorite Ravel recordings? I'll have to get back to you on that one. :D
 
#163 ·
It is hard to come up with a list of my top 20 composers. I think the current list is reflective of my current listening and purchasing patterns, if nothing else. To help myself rank them, I have grouped them into tiers first. It is easier to rank composers within the same tier, though it still feels arbitrary many times.

Tier 1 - The composers I have listened to most thoroughly, and with continued appreciation

1. Bach
2. Beethoven
3. Haydn
4. Mozart

Tier 2 - Composers with many works I enjoy very much

5. Debussy
6. Bax
7. Vivaldi
8. Copland
9. Ravel
10. John Williams (Star Wars composer)
11. Aho

Tier 3 - Composers of some of my favorite pieces

12. Holst for The Planets
13. Stravinsky for The Firebird & The Rite of Spring
14. Mussorgsky for Pictures at an Exhibition and Night on Bald Mountain
15. Rodrigo for Concierto de Aranjuez and a few other pieces I've heard
16. Respighi for his Roman Trilogy
17. Michael Nyman for The Piano soundtrack

Tier 4 - Composers I'm beginning to get into but haven't heard enough from yet

18. Sibelius
19. Rachmaninoff
20. Mahler
 
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