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My definitive ranking of the major composers

11K views 117 replies 25 participants last post by  hammeredklavier 
#1 · (Edited)
#65 ·
I would have to dispute your ranking for concertos. Let's consider Beethoven: 5 PC, 1 V, 1 Triple concerto. Mozart: 27 PC (Of which say 10 may be considered great - though some would say 15), Violin - 5 (of which 3 are in the repertoire), plus horn concertos, Clarinet Concerto - probably rated as the best wind concerto ever composed, Flute x 2, Sinfonia Concertante.

I don't contest your logic and agree in some ways with your position. I thought going into this Mozart would win this.

However I would say this -- I considered the ratio of quantity and quality. All 5 of Beethoven's piano concertos are in the standard repertory (100 percent) and the Emporer is considered the greatest of them all. For Mozart, as you say, there may be 10 (about 40 percent.)

Many players believe Beethoven's violin concerto the most difficult and greatest; I don't think anyone thinks that of any Mozart.

Beethoven's triple concerto is probably the second-greatest to Bach's from Brandenburg No. 5 if you think the Brandenburgs are concertos and not chamber music. There is a growing belief today they were composed as chamber music one player to a part.

Any way you cut it every concerto Beethoven wrote is at or near the top of them all. You can say that for Mozart's clarinet and bassoon concertos and possibly flute No. 1 and stretch it to the piano concerto No. 21 as I do but no more.

If quantity is the issue then Vivaldi, who is said to have written 500 concertos, is probably the greatest. But I don't think anyone believes that.
 
#66 · (Edited)
Vivaldi is known for the 4 seasons and not much else so its a poor example.

I agree that Beethoven's VC is probably the greatest VC ever composed - but then the Clarinet concerto is its equal. So that is evens.

Mozart's piano concertos do beat Beethoven's - if you look at the TC top recommended works - K466 is the first PC of any piano concerto and the other greats Mozart concertos are not far behind. I dont rate Beethoven's first 2 piano concertos - and the third - is inferior to K491. That leaves two really great concertos to Mozart's ten or so.

You cant then say that the triple concerto is equal in value to Mozart's misc concerti - the flute, horn etc.

Going on % of hits to misses does not seem like a good way to rank composers. We judge by the best quality work. If we are talking purely on numbers of hits - Mozart wins. Even on symphonies he is close - if like me - you start counting great Beethoven symphonies from no 3 onwards. You would also have to rate Beethoven a better opera composer as he had 1 opera and 1 hit. Mozart wrote 20 operas or so with 6 hits.

if you are evaluating on the basis that Mozart PC 21 is the only great PC - you are in ludicrous territory and just then arguing utterly from personal taste. Which i am to an extent - but even if I accept your premise that all the Beethoven concerti are great works I still think Mozart has significant advantage.

To back up my point - from a 2011 TC poll on best piano concertos

1. Mozart - Piano Concerto No. 20
2. Brahms - Piano Concerto No. 2
3. Rachmaninoff - Piano Concerto No. 2
4. Grieg - Piano Concerto
5. Schumann - Piano Concerto
6. Beethoven - Piano Concerto No. 5 "Emperor"
7. Prokofiev - Piano Concerto No. 3
8. Ravel - Piano Concerto (in G major)
9. Beethoven - Piano Concerto No. 4
10. Mozart - Piano Concerto No. 23
11. Bach - Harpsichord Concerto No. 3 (BWV 1054)
12. Mozart - Piano Concerto No. 21
13. Rachmaninoff - Piano Concerto No. 3
14. Tchaikovsky - Piano Concerto No. 1
15. Mozart - Piano Concerto No. 27
16. Beethoven - Piano Concerto No. 3
17. Prokofiev - Piano Concerto No. 2
18. Ravel - Piano Concerto for the Left Hand
19. Brahms - Piano Concerto No. 1
20. Mozart - Piano Concerto No. 24

So 5 from Mozart in the top 20 and 3 from Beethoven.

Your greatest of them all Emperor concerto is no 7 and K466 is no 1.
 
#87 ·
Solo Instrumental:
Bach - 4
Beethoven - 2
Mozart - 1

Chamber:
Beethoven - 3
Mozart - 3
Bach - 2

Orchestral (includes concertos):
Beethoven - 3
Mozart - 3
Bach - 2

Vocal:
Bach - 4
Mozart - 2
Beethoven - 0

-----
Final:
Bach - 12
Mozart - 9
Beethoven - 8

This corresponds rather well with my overall composer ranking, where Bach is #1, Mozart around #10 and Beethoven around #20.
 
#88 · (Edited)
Simply being part of the main, popular repertoire doesn't make a work great.
On the contrary, if there is disproportionately extreme love for certain works in the general community, you can make an argument about them being overrated.
As a casual piano player I feel that Beethoven, Chopin are revered like gods of piano by many piano students today (while Mozart is criticized for not having met their standard) mainly because Beethoven and Chopin's style of piano writing greatly benefited from the advancement of the piano technology starting around 1800, which suits the general piano fans' taste better. (Elements like reliance on "banging" in both Beethoven and Chopin and "sentimentality with the pedal" in Chopin, I think)
Also Schubert's piano sonatas just base around the technique of writing good "songs". I think they're considered greatest of their kind just cause of "good melodies", Schubert's forte. Just look how D960 is rated on this forum. Is it really fair?
Likewise, I feel that some of Beethoven's 32 piano sonatas and much of Chopin's output consisting of miniatures are not up to the quality, but are revered just because they're core of the curriculum and the fandom keeps using expressions like "New Testament of Piano Music" to describe them and don't take time themselves to look carefully if the works are truly that great.
Also it is documented that Beethoven himself and 19th century composers studied Mozart Fantasies K608, K594. In terms of historical significance, there are no grounds to call Beethoven and Chopin "Bibles of music" whereas Mozart's solo keyboard works are considered trivial stuff like they are today by many. As I explained in https://www.talkclassical.com/63010-mozart-chopin-piano-works-2.html#post1697500
I hate to say this again but, I find the second movement of Beethoven's Op.111, for example, a little weak and disappointing (in terms of sense of direction) for something I would expect from Beethoven, (I already explained, it's not something you would expect from the same composer of Apassionata and Tempest Sonatas) https://www.talkclassical.com/62178-your-favorite-best-greatest-4.html#post1667948
As I said there are lots of people who criticize Mozart sonatas for not being as good as Beethoven, but won't see that both composers simply had their own individuality:
By their logic, one can also make an argument about Beethoven's Fantasie Op.77 not being as good as Mozart's K475, K511, K394, K397
 
#90 · (Edited)
As a casual piano player I feel that Beethoven, Chopin are revered like gods of piano by many piano students today (while Mozart is criticized for not having met their standard) mainly because Beethoven and Chopin's style of piano writing greatly benefited from the advancement of the piano technology starting around 1800, which suits the general piano fans' taste better.
I don't think that this is the case, as J.S. Bach's could also be seem as a god of the keyboard and his music is even older than Mozart's. I've seem a good deal of people favouring Haydn's piano music over Mozart's aswell.

Likewise, I feel that some of Beethoven's 32 piano sonatas and much of Chopin's output consisting of miniatures are not up to the quality, but are revered just because they're core of the curriculum and the fandom keeps using expressions like "New Testament of Piano Music" to describe them and don't take time themselves to look carefully if the works are truly that great.
Their works in this medium are much more drammatic and intense than those of Mozart in my opinion. I listen to Wolfgang's sonatas almost everyday, and think that they are light and fun, but would never think of them as being the core of Mozart's repertoire alone. I favour Beethoven's Pathetique and Moonlight sonatas over any solo keyboard work I know by Mozart, as in my opinion they're more emotionally profound and at least as good in form, and these are far from being my favorite Beethoven sonatas.

I hate to say this again but, I find the second movement of Beethoven's Op.111, for example, a little weak and disappointing (in terms of sense of direction) for something I would expect from Beethoven, (I already explained, it's not something you would expect from the same composer of Apassionata and Tempest sonatas
I think of Beethoven's last three piano sonatas as the epitome of his work in that genre, and Op. 111's second movement sounds as the work of a visionary dreamer for me. It's so lyric, profound, complex, daring. I would take it anyday against any Mozart piano composition, including here the piano concertos such as K466.

As I said there are lots of people who criticize Mozart sonatas for not being as good as Beethoven, but won't see that both composers simply had their own individuality:
By their logic, one can also make an argument about Beethoven's Fantasie Op.77 not being as good as Mozart's K475, K511, K394, K397
One could also argue that K475, K511, K394 and K397 look conservative and almost unoriginal when compared to Beethoven's Choral Fantasia, Op. 80. It could be argued also that the true master of the Classical fantasy of the eighteenth century was C.P.E. Bach, not Mozart.
 
#89 · (Edited)
The best objective ranking system must follow the exact law that led mankind to realize that Classical music is superior.

(A) Must be a poll where each individual can only vote for their favorite musician, overall. This is so that the objective convergence of how we arrived at Classical being superior, can be measured. If you have other tiers being measured, like ratings, they don't measure Classical being superior as they don't lead to objective convergence (see Rateyourmusic's top albums for that example. A bad approach.) This is because with ratings or tiers, 10 people thinking something is acceptable is considered equal to 5 people loving and 5 people disliking something. But the truth of how Classical is determined as superior is that when 5/10 people love something, there is much more objective convergence (alike-thinking). Bach, Beethoven and Mozart are by a large minority of people considered the best, instead of the wrong alternative, where an artist is considered by tons of people as "good." Not many people think Classical is "good." So we can only mathematically poll whom people think is the best, we can't poll a top tier because that still implies inequality between composers that is unspecified.

(B) A trickier criterion to follow, but important to try to implement: Every individual gets to participate, there is no "critic only," as there is no objective measure of what a critic is. The difference is, each individual's answer to the question of 'who the best is' gets a different weighting on how much it impacts the final answer, based on how much music they've listened to. Diversity doesn't matter because there's no objective way to measure diversity, so we would just stick to how much music. Thus criterion B can only be technically implemented if done what Rateyourmusic does--weighs every user based on how many musical things they've rated. This is why criterion B is difficult to implement and shouldn't be given as much weight as A.

Rateyourmusic fails because it neglects criterion A and only follows B. Follow both these criterion for all musicians and individuals, and what you will arrive at is (A) musicians that a large minority of people all think are the best (Classical), and (B) musicians that more experienced listeners like (oftentimes Classical.) These multiplied together in an equation give the exact true mathematical ranking for each composer. If done with enough people, the Bach vs Beethoven vs Mozart question gets settled, at least for this era.
 
#93 ·
Solo Instrumental:
Bach - 4
Beethoven - 4
Mozart - 1

Chamber:
Beethoven - 4
Mozart - 3
Bach - 1

Orchestral (including concertos):
Beethoven - 4
Mozart - 4
Bach - 2

Vocal:
Bach - 4
Mozart - 3
Beethoven - 1

Final:
Beethoven - 13
Bach - 11
Mozart - 11

Almost the same totals as Allerius. However, personally I rank Bach and Beethoven tied for #1 and Mozart at #3 (maybe tied with Brahms).
 
#94 · (Edited)
Greatest Composer is

New data I've found, particularly on this forum, would suggest that the answer of the greatest composer is objectively settled for this forum, but I need some feedback to know if I'm right on this. Usually Bach and Beethoven are tied for greatest on our standard polls. However, I've noticed a trend on this forum that Bach-lovers are more critical of Beethoven, while Beethoven lovers are more accepting of Bach. That's basically the inverse question superimposed on the first, which would add up to the total poll, add the two polls together and Bach wins the overall vote (having the most positive response and least negative response). However, my question is has anyone seen this trend, or am I the only one noticing these individuals?

See these threads in particular:
Why do so many people think J. S. Bach is the best composer?
Why do I like Bach, but not Mozart or Beethoven?
 
#95 ·
However, I've noticed a trend on this forum that Bach-lovers are more critical of Beethoven, while Beethoven lovers are more accepting of Bach.
I haven't noticed this trend. What I have noticed is that there are certain members who can't see straight when it comes to their favorite composer, and I might be one of them.
 
#104 · (Edited)
To hammeredklavier:

I love Mozart. I revised my post #99 because I felt bad for having criticised him and his music. He is one of my most favorite composers, and I enjoy your enthusiasm for his wonderful music. I think that it would be great to know your ideas about his great musical accomplishments, if only you would stop your crusade against Beethoven and the romantic composers.
 
#107 · (Edited)
I think that it would be great to know your ideas about his great musical accomplishments, if only you would stop your crusade against Beethoven and the romantic composers.
But other people are also guilty of doing the opposite, People like BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist almost 'ridicule' (for lack of a better term) Mozart by giving him '1' in solo instrumental. I object by giving reasons why I think Mozart is more underrated than Beethoven, Chopin, Schubert in solo keyboard genres. The only difference between my behavior and theirs is that I write more stuff.
I've been always interested finding out why people think a composer is great (or not great) so happened to come across a lot of old threads on this topic and I have noticed there's a lot of ridiculous stuff written all over this forum. And I often come across a lot of ridiculous stuff on other places outside of TC as well.

Even if you're just stating your own personal opinions. There are always people who actually buy into your opinions: let's say, if you say things like "Mozart is fluff, Beethoven is emotive" based on your own opinions, you're essentially driving people away from Mozart who would be potentionally interested to delve deeper into Mozart. It's much like politics where there's constant conflict between conservatism vs. liberalism and each side doing their own propaganda against one another.
And from my experience (of visiting various sites over the net), I feel there's far more "attempt" to describe Mozart negatively than Beethoven. And like 60~70% of them are worshippers of Beethoven, Chopin, etc. I'm so sick and tired of those Romanticism-enthusiasts who nitpick Mozart about "not having written much minor-key music", and many other things.
You see me as a radical, but my experiences have convinced me being a radical is the best way to go about the situation.
 
#105 · (Edited)
Nice conversation, with an interesting comparison between B, B and M. For me, no one can compare with Beethoven, despite the fact, that Beethoven and every other great composer are existing because of Bach. Bach is the oxygen and the water without them no western music exists. Beethoven is the eternal Gardner, who uses the oxygen and the water to make a paradise musical garden, suitable for both gods and humans. In this creation I see no place for a third composer.
 
#109 · (Edited)
@hammeredklavier, I'm sorry but I'm not going to respond, at least in this thread. I will say, though, I don't think I ever "ridiculed" or discredited Mozart, and I actually do like his solo piano music is and have enjoyed playing a few of his sonatas myself. If you want to send me a private message with a specific question or argument regarding Mozart vs Beethoven, I'd be more inclined to respond and share my thoughts. No offense bro, but you're being a bit annoying rn.
 
#111 · (Edited)
No. I'm curious why you would put Beethoven at 4 with Bach, but Mozart at 1. At least Bulldog didn't do that. To me that's a strong way of saying "Mozart just doesn't deserve a place beside the two" in that department. If that counts as "expression of personal opinions" and "freedom of speech", so do all my utterances regarding Mozart vs Beethoven.
I don't feel the need to message you privately. This is not something to be done privately between just two of us.
 
#114 ·
"Harmony and Counterpoint constrain each other," so it becomes self-evident that Beethoven would travel into more adventurous territory than Mozart. Mozart, although a harmonic thinker like Beethoven, was still under the influence of the old-style counterpoint. This becomes a disadvantage to Beethoven, as he is forced to use more arbitrary methods of keeping interest in texture, which were mechanically-devised rather than a result of real counterpoint. This can also bee seen as a problem of the instrument itself, initially optimized for counterpoint, but later much more capable of harmonic coloration. Imagine Debussy on a clavichord.
 
#115 · (Edited)
I once heard someone saying that the aesthetics of Beethoven's contrapuntal writing in Hammerklavier is that it's essentially a 'mental breakdown'. The artistry lies not in the contrapuntal writing itself, but the way it 'breaks down'.
I sort of understood to a point, I guess you could call that unique and interesting, but in a different way I find Mozart's clever use of dissonance intriguing as well.






And Mozart has an unique sense of combining counterpoint with classical forms in keyboard works.
I consider it great for the same reason I consider his symphonies great, for example.
I can say I'm more consistent with my view than other people who for some reason think that they are two different, separate things (his contrapuntal/harmonic thinking in keyboard works VS symphonies)

 
#117 · (Edited)
There are absolutely no grounds to claim Mozart was less influential in history of keyboard music than say, Chopin...
Both were geniuses but Chopin had a distinct advantage by writing almost exclusively for the piano and wrote in a way that was distinctly idiomatic in its fingering and natural to the instrument that Mozart never did because they represented different eras. Nevertheless, Mozart's piano sonatas and concertos are great music though not necessary advancing the technical development of the instrument. I think of Mozart's operas and symphonies first rather than his great works for the piano. With Chopin, his works are specifically tailored to take full advantage of the entire range of the keyboard technically, harmonically, and in the piano's textures and sonorities. He did things that could NOT done in a symphony orchestra. This is why most pianists particularly value his creative works as being at the summit of piano literature. By for gawd's sake, must they always be pitted against each other like race horses at the Kentucky Derby?
 
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