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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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#3 ·
In no particular order, subject to change, and restricted to composers whose work I know in enough detail to justify adding them tout court to such a list:

1. Anton Rubinstein
2. Anton Bruckner
3. Richard Strauss
4. Gustav Mahler
5. Leos Janacek
6. Bohuslav Martinu
7. Richard Wagner
8. Dmitri Shostakovich
9. Paul Creston
10. Abbie Betinis
11. Ludwig Van Beethoven
12. Franz Joseph Haydn
13. Luigi Boccherini
14. Bernard Herrmann
15. Lou Harrison
16. Kalevi Aho
17. Johannes Brahms
18. Alban Berg
19. Ferruccio Busoni
20. John Adams
 
#5 ·
1. Sergei Prokofiev

Whoooh! That was a surpise, now that's over...

2. Johann Sebastian Bach
3. Ludwig Van Beethoven
4. Maurice Ravel
5. Gustav Mahler
6. Heitor Villa-Lobos
7. Igor Stravinsky
8. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
9. Sergei Taneyev
10. William Byrd
11. Michael Tippett
12. Robert Schumann
13. Dmitri Shostakovich
14. Anton Bruckner
15. Jean Sibelius
16. Bela Bartok
17. Jean-Phillipe Rameau
18. Lowell Liebermann
19. Alexander Scriabin
20. Sofia Gubaidulina

I am still happily exploring.

Mirror Image, I've never seen you talk about Mendelssohn. I jumped up about three inches out of my seat when his name appeared. :confused:
 
#6 ·
Mirror Image, I've never seen you talk about Mendelssohn. I jumped up about three inches out of my seat when his name appeared. :confused:
Oh, I absolutely adore Mendelssohn since the first time I heard him. Beautiful, sunny, uplifting music that I just enjoy immensely. I never talk about him that much, because I guess his name just never had been brought up. Well now you know that I love Mendelssohn. Pieces that made me a Mendelssohn fan: "Symphony No. 3 - Scottish," "Symphony No. 2 - Hymn of Praise," "A Midsummer's Night Dream," all concerti, and overtures.
 
#7 ·
Not in any particular order after then top 10..

1. Stravinsky
2. Brahms
3. Beethoven
4. Fauré
5. Debussy
6. Chopin
7. Dvorák
8. Glass (sorry!)
9. Janácek
10. Barber
11. Prokofiev
12. Bach
13. Tallis
14. Ibert
15. Mozart
16. Nielsen
17. Bartók
18. Smetana
19. Rachmaninoff
20. Schubert
 
#8 ·
These are the classical composers I enjoy listening to the most - not exactly in order.

1. Beethoven
2. J. S. Bach
3. Vaughan-Williams
4. Handel
5. Shostakovich

really begins to loose any order from here on

6. John Dowland
7. Brahms
8. Bruckner
9. Bernard Hermann
10. Holst
11. Herbert Howells
12. Liszt
13. Monteverdi
14. Rachmaninov
15. Ravel
16. Respighi
17. Joaquín Rodrigo
18. D. Scarlatti
19. Schumann
20. Telemann (often overlooked

I suppose I should have worked Mozart in somewhere as I am warming to his music, but still maybe not one of my favorites. I am also upset to leave out Sibelius, but I just don't listen that often. Same with Debussy, Stravinsky, Haydn, and many others.
 
#9 ·
if early music may be included then my top 20 are :

1. Heinrich Ingaz Franz Biber von Bibern
2. Jean-Féry Rebel
3. Johann Heinrich Schmelzer von Ehrenruef
4. Nicola Matteis
5. Dietrich Buxtehude
6. Arcangelo Corelli
7. Marin Marais
8. Henry Purcell
9. de Sainte-Colombe
10. Walther
11. Schaffrath
12. Venturini
13. Tartini
14. Galuppi
15. Corrette
16. Locatelli
17. Veracini
18. Pergolesi
19. Telemann
20. Vivaldi
 
#10 ·
You Top 20 Favorite Classical Composers Of All-Time
NO. I do not Top 20 Favorite Classical Composers Of All-Time!

(But seriously, folks) I can work with this number more easily than 30, so I thought I'd give it a try!:)

1. Wagner
2. Beethoven
3. Tchaikovsky
4. Mahler
5. Bruckner
6. R. Strauss
7. Dvořák
8. Shostakovich
9. Puccini
10. Rachmaninoff
11. Ravel
12. Mozart
13. Berlioz
14. Gershwin
15. Debussy
16. Prokofiev
17. Verdi
18. Schubert
19. Bizet
20. Rimsky-Korsakov

I'll forward a by-now common disclaimer and state that everything past the opening Bakers Dozen is subject to change depending upon mood. (In alphabetical order) Borodin, Grieg, Haydn, Sibelius, J. Strauss & Stravinsky were near-misses.
 
#12 ·
(In alphabetical order) Borodin, Grieg, Haydn, Sibelius, J. Strauss & Stravinsky were near-misses.
The J. Strauss is a surprise. The Blue Danube I loved so much in 2001: a space odyssey notwithstanding, I always considered the waltz craze similar to the disco phase of popular music about 100 years later. A bit cringe worthy. Ragtime has a similar effect on me. I cannot deny the Strauss's were highly skilled composers though.
 
#13 ·
For me, near misses were Liszt, Rachmaninov, Saint-Saens, Bliss, Copland, Hindemith, Poulenc, R. Strauss, Tchaikovsky, Britten, Scriabin, Rimsky-Korsakov, and Borodin.
 
#14 · (Edited)
I'll give this a shot, In approximate order, based on how much of their output I have and how much it's been played over the years, I can't include composers I only have a couple of pieces from no matter how much I may love them :

1) Stravinsky
2) Prokofiev
3) Sibelius
4) Bartok
5) Orff (NEW ENTRY! Now I know much more than the ubiquitous CB)
6) Beethoven
7) Rachmaninov
8) Bruckner
9) Dvorak
10) Mussorgsky
11) Balakirev
12) Rimsky-Korsakov
13) Berlioz
14) Rossini
15) Borodin
16) Holst
17) Mendelssohn
18) Respighi
19) Ravel
20) Adams

No place for Mahler since I can't seem to get into ALL his symphonies. No places for composers I've only started getting into in the last few months either (Kilar, Ifukube, Britten, Bantock, Bax, Suk, Vaughan-Williams, Kodaly etc) - though I like them alot they will have to stand the test of time.
 
G
#20 ·
(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.
 
#16 · (Edited)
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.
 
#17 ·
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.
 
#19 ·
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.
 
G
#24 ·
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.
 
#26 ·
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
 
#28 ·
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. :)
 
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#30 ·
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?
 
#33 · (Edited)
In no particular order, although the composers at the top came to mind immediately:

1. Varese
2. Bartok
3. Janacek
4. Prokofiev
5. Berg
6. Berlioz
7. Haydn
8. Hovhaness
9. Piazzolla *
10. Henze *
11. Sculthorpe *
12. Myaskovsky *
13. Conyngham *
14. Rubbra *
15. Walton
16. Britten
17. Ifukube*
18. Villa-Lobos
19. Gounod *
20. Bizet

Asterisk (*) indicates that I haven't heard say more than a cd's worth for these composers, but their music is such that I would be interested in hearing more from them. I think that I would be comfortable collecting some more cd's of these composers, whereas I may know others better (Beethoven, Sibelius, Rachmaninov, etc) I don't like them as much, even though I may know them better...

Some who just didn't quite make it to the list (I don't find most of their output as highly engaging as those above, even though I like them) were Cowell, Messiaen, Gubaidulina, Honegger, Martinu, Takemitsu, Schoenberg, Carter, Vaughan Williams, Brahms, Shostakovich, Poulenc, Kodaly, Debussy, Ravel, Sibelius, Rachmaninov, Tchaikovsky...)
 
#37 ·
Yeah: Sibelius, Bruckner, R. Strauss, Zemlinsky, Donizetti, Vaughan Williams, Borodin, Rimsky Korsakov, Shostakovich, Pärt, and I could keep updating this list. I wouldn't say dislike, and I wouldn't say I dislike everything they composed, but I got very frustrated when trying to enjoy the works of the mentioned composers, not that it iscarved on stone, I can change my taste and have already experienced it. As it can be obvious from this list, late-romanticism is definately not my most liked epoch.
 
#38 ·
- 1 Mozart
- 2 Strauss
- 3 Beethoven
- 4 Puccini
- 5 Handel
- 6 Haydn
- 7 Bach
- 8 Verdi
- 9 Wagner
10 Tchaikovsky
11 Bellini
12 Chopin
13 Prokofiev
14 Rameau
15 Dvorak
16 Mendelssohn
17 Lully
18 Bartok
19 Stravinsky
20 Schubert
 
#40 ·
Hi everyone. Please be kind; it's my first post. :)

1. Prokofiev
2. Dvořák
3. Martinů
4. Bruckner
5. Holst
6. Chopin
7. Ravel
8. Mozart
9. Wagner
10. Grieg
11. Beethoven
12. Walton
13. Gershwin
14. Debussy
15. Bach
16. Schubert
17. Saint-Saëns
18. Casella
19. Rachmaninoff
20. Sibelius

Honorable mentions: Aho, Magnard, Novák, Roussel, Smetana
 
#41 ·
In addition to my top 20, I will try to answer other issues that have been raised in various posts along the way such as near misses, and the most disliked composers etc.

TOP 20

First of all my Top 20. I have taken "all-time" top 20 to mean long term average, and not necessarily one's current list of favourites. For the most part it's a fairly traditional list. I tend to prefer composers who wrote across the entire range of classical music, although I do have a slight current preference for smaller scale works (solo piano, chamber, lieder). With regard to the top 6 on this list, my collection is virtually complete. Beyond the top 6, my collection is not missing any work of significance:

1 Mozart
2 Beethoven
3 Schubert
4 Haydn
5 Schumann
6 Brahms
7 Handel
8 Bach
9 Mendelssohn
10 Chopin
11 Liszt
12 Purcell
13 Vivaldi
13 Elgar
14 Dvorak
15 Monteverdi
16 Sibelius
17 Vaughan Williams
18 Delius
19 Berlioz
20 Janacek

..........

NEAR MISSES

These are the main ones:

21 Debussy
22 Smetana
23 Saint-Saens
24 Weber
25 Telemann

..........

Still liked but am not so keen these days

The following were among my first loves in classical music, but the novelty wore off after a few years, when I developed a greater preference, and longer-lasting interest in, the music of Baroque/Classical/Early-Mid Romatic music.

Ravel
Prokofiev
Rachmaninoff
Tchaikovsky

........

Used to like but now gone off them

Wagner
Puccini
Verdi
Rossini

It's quite amazing because I used to love much of their output. I acquired all or most of their works, but opera these days is well down my list of preferences. The only exception remains some of Mozart operas and a new-found interest in some of Handel's opera/oratorios, wherein lies a treasure trove of sheer delights.

......

I hate to admit it but I really don't care much for this bunch

I confine myself only to the big names in classical music. I am not saying I strongly dislike them.

Mahler
Bruckner
Bartok
Shostakovich

I find Mahler long-winded and tedious. Some of his music contains very high quality melody and orchestration, but overall his works tend to get swamped by too great a length. His concentration on orchestral music is a big negative factor too. With only minor exception, I find that Bruckner's music is mainly a rumbustious noise with little subtlety or sense of proportion on when to stop composing. I have tried and tried to come terms with those SQs by Bartok but I find them quite crude and generally awful, no matter which version I listen to. Yes, I know that The Concerto for Orchestra (Reiner/CSO) is a classic, and it's not a bad work, but it doesn't really grab me all that much. Shostakovich wrote some quite nice stuff (his PCs and some SQs, for example) but I struggle to appreciate much else, and again I have tons of it. A lot of it I find dull and uninteresting e.g. most of his symphonies, and much of his violin output.
 
#42 · (Edited)
This (Mr or Mrs Toccata's) is a pretty exhaustive and interesting account. I feel exactly like this chat-friend with respect to Mahler and Bruckner but not concerning Bartók: I like very much his 4th and 5th SQ, Sonata for 2 pianos and percussion, Music for string, perc. and celesta, Bluebeard's castle (even though I strongly dislike operas), Cantata Profana and, though to a lesser extent, his Concerto. As to Shostakovitch, I never listened to a whole work of his, I only "overheard" sometimes a few broadcasted minutes of something. Surprisingly it was always less bad than I expected with my notoriously biased taste; the same thing happened with a few works of Tchaïkovski, Dvořák, Mendelssohn, even with a piano trio of Chopin, whose works are possibly somewhat more than merely catchy with their mawkish sentimentality and their flashy brilliance but not for me: I strongly dislike them. But unlike Mr or Mrs Toccata, I am a bad guy: I don't even try and struggle to appreciate composers I am biased against.

On the other hand, I am sympathetic to some kind of composers and so I am not unable to listen even to those of their works that smell of the lamp, for instance to Schumann's dull symphonies and chamber music. César Franck is also for me such an honest and mildly boring composer, without anything great to boot, like that handful of sparklingly inventive piano compositions that make Schumann a very great composer. Janáček: same kind as Franck but better.

Frankly unbearable are for me: Honegger (on the top of the list), Hindemith, Richard Strauss. Once a fanatic of Honegger managed to expel me from my own living room with an execrable rumble which was supposed to celebrate a locomotive; some other music-friends followed me into the kitchen. Two other works of H., which pursued us through the wall, were not less of a torture even without any reference to mechanical devices. Fauré, Sibelius: sheer boredom. Not so Mozart: he makes me only nervous except for two violin sonatas, in e and G (K 379), which I find excellent, intimate and both carefully and inventively elaborated, and the Flute Quartet in C, a little ambitious cute entertainment piece. Otherwise he usually starts up bumptiously (far less, of course, than Berlioz, Liszt or Bruckner) with good melodies but after he rarely lives up to his promises. I admit being more antipathetic to him than he really deserves. (By the way, Berlioz' Fantastic symphony is bumptious but even so I like it with Stokowski, as well as his Harold in Italy with Josef Suk on the viola and Dietrich Fischer Dieskau - yes, no mistake! - conducting.) I don't like Vivaldi either: I am certainly wrong but I can't help finding his music only pleasing but superficial.
 
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